GRAVE WARNING TO DISCONTENTS.

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 60, 8 September 1917, Page 8

GRAVE WARNING TO DISCONTENTS.

The Attorney-General (Sir F. E. Smith), in withdrawing the charges against eight men arrested in connection with the engineers' strike: — "There never has been any mistake in the minds of the Government of this country that the overwhelming majority of the men hay been doing a great national work during the war, and doing it as loyally as the soldiers in the field. I do not wish to say a single word that might breed bitterness in the future. There are men who have been forward in promoting the recent strike, whose motives in the judgment of tho executive were not primarily motives of calling- the attention of the authorities to grievances or hardships. I tell them, and I tell them plainly, that their comings and goings, the ramifications of their society,- the terms in which they have communicated with one another, the objects which they have expounded in their correspondence, I tell them they are well known to authority as they are known to themselves. This Government cannot, if this issue be raised again, avoid the issue, however dark and perilous it may be, if ihat issue be again, challenged during the conduct of this war. I wish to make it as plain as any words of mine can make it, that if there be a recurrence of a deliberate attempt to incite strikes with the object of impeding the supply of monitions, there will be no line drawn. If there be any who leave these proceedings with their hearts unpurged of bitterness, I most solemnly warn them that the next breach of the law will be dealt with at the sessions by a jury of their countrymen. The decision upon that will be taken by no Government, but by that jury, and I have no doubt that those to whom these words are addressed will ask their own consciences what the result of such a trial will be. I will tell them this,'that they can ask for no mercy if a verdict is given against them." REALITIES, NOT CATCH-WORDS. Sir Edward Carson, at the Savoy Hotel: — "There is one result from., the war that nothing but our own action and energies can keep for us, and nothing but our own inaction and carelessness can deprive us of, and that is the utilisation* and organisation of tho vast resources of the Empire in the manner most advantageous to the interests of every part of the Empire. You must get rid, above all things, of catch-words. They will die very hard. . I read occasional speeches of Ministers or ex-Minis-ters, and I find that there is still 'a remnant of the feeling that we must, as soon as we can, get back to what they are pleased to call the old ideals of our party. The Lord help us if we do! Take a few of the catch-words: 'Imperial preference. Looking back at it now, it seems to me that Imperial preference was a preference for the Imperial Empire of Germany. 'Most favoured nation clause..' How -well it sounds. It meant a combination of our enemies to make treaties which pleased them, but left us at a disadvantage. The war has brought about many changes, vast revolutions. In Russia you have had a revolution, because war has brought home to the people that real power must be in the people who have to fight the war. It ended in bloodshed and abdication, and what may replace it is still in the lap of the gods; but in some aspects we may regard it as a necessary revolution for freedom by men who are day by day face to face with the horrible devastating terrors of > war. Do not imagine that there is no revolution going on in this country or in this Empire. The Franchise Bill is a great revolution. You are going to enfranchise millions of people. What led to it? The war, conscription. You cannot ask men to fight without giving them a share and a voice in the future government of the country. Labour never again will be satisfied, nor ought to be satisfied, to be in the condition it was in before the war. Labour, in the numbers it has sent out, is laying the foundations of our future progress, 1 and maintaining our present liberties. And Labour must have, I will not call it its reward, but its fair share in body politic. It is our duty to try to prove to Labour that if its interests are to expand and progress, it can only be done on a sound and solid and solvent basis by the expansion and organisation of hitherto unexplored resources of the Empire."