The Press Monday August 10, 1925. Minority Dictatorships.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18456, 10 August 1925, Page 8

The Press Monday August 10, 1925. Minority Dictatorships.

In asking the House of Commons on Thursday for ten million pounds for the coal industry Mr Baldwin warned Labour that if it became necessary to resist its attempt to dominate the nation the Government would do its doty. Because it was very difficult to decide here how much truth there was in Labour's claim a week ago that it had done th/rt thing precisely which it now wants the nation to suppose it would never do, we did not take the view that in offering State assistance for a short period the Government had surrendered to'the Lnions. The position seemed rather that the Government, with the owners, and the great mass of the people, including most of the miners, had been sensible enough to bow to the force of circumstances, and had agreed that no price was too great to pay for peace if it would really bring peace; and we are supported now both by the result of the debate and by the general tone of the newspapers whose comment was cabled on Saturday. At the same time it was distinctly disturbing to that view to have Labour everywhere raising a shout of triumph after the settlement, and either believing, or trying to believe, that it had given the Government a fright. The position now is that Mr Baldwin lias accepted that shout as representing either what the Unions did or what they tried to do, and has made the only possible reply. A dictatorship by any class is so intolerable in a free community that the Government could not hesitate for a day if the Unions really tried to usurp its powers. And although the Unions may' not have tried in this particular instance to do so, or may not have tried very seriously, it is common knowledge that there are. men in the industrial movement to whom the liberty of our institutions- means nothing more precious than a cloak for conspiracy and anarchy. While it has been the supreme good fortune of Britain for two hundred years that she has never had to settle her troubles by force, it is useless shutting our eyes to the fact that there are people all over the Empire who would, if they could, make peaceful settlements impossible. The position is precisely as Mr Baldwin put it to the Commons: the Governments of the Empire, and that means the people of every State, are confronted by "great alliances of trade "unionists who have the power and " the will to inflict enormous and irre- " parable damaged" Liberty is in fact endangered all over the world. The "deep, fundamental, and widespread " belief of the vast majority " may be that liberty must be preserved; it may be their intention that liberty shall be preserved; but it is as well to remember that majorities are docile, and generally unwatchful and indifferent, and that the minorities 'which threaten; them are organised to the last man. No one seriously believes that Britain, or any British community, is threatened by such a disaster as overtook Russia eight years ago. But there is no British community which i& safe from the danger that has just passed in Australia, and which mil continue to hang; over the Homeland .until the coal-mines are reseued from the direct-actionists. The most thoughtful of American statesmen began an address at Bunker Hill the other day with these words: "We come to this shrine of American '■ liberty to confess an old faith." But the shrine of British liberty is Westminster, and her faith democracy. The "fresh satisfactions" that Mr Hughes said he carried to the Monument Britain feels only when liberty becomes safer and democracy works more naturally and smoothly. Her anxiety is not that she will have to fight for her institutions again, but that destructive forces invoking the name of liberty will bring them into disrepute. Mr Churchill made a very necessary distinction on Thursday when he said that the challenge the Government recognised was not that of the Resisting miners, but of the forces at work stimulating them to resist. Yet the effect is not a smaller danger than the cause if the cause cannot be controlled, and if unionists cann.ot be depended on to remember that they are free Britons the "full strength of "the Government," may have to be used sooner than anybody imagines.