LABOUR'S NEW WORLD

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 103, 3 May 1919, Page 13

LABOUR'S NEW WORLD

"POLICY OP AUDACITY"

FALLACIES OF HIGH WAGES,

In o. speech made within three months of becoming Premier in the second Coalition Ministry* Mr. Lloyd in the role of counsellor, advised Labour to adopt an after-war policy of audacity (writes the Labour correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph). The speech was to a deputation from ■ the Labour Party which waited upon the Prime Minister at 10/ .Downing-street, on 6th March, 1917, for the purpose of discussing Labour problems after'the war. With the assent of the Prime Minister the speech was afterwards published, and, to state it mildly, created some surprise. I will quote the passage from the official published record of the speech: —

I am not afraid of the audacity of these proposals. I believe the settlement after the war will succeed in proportion to its audacity. The readier wo are to cut from the past the better are we likely to succeed, and I recommend this even to Mr. Hntchinson. I hope that every class will not be hankering back to pre-war conditions. I just drop that s as a hint, and I hope the working classes will not be the class that will set such an example, because if every class insists on getting back to pre-war conditions, then God help this country. I say so in all solemnity. Therefore, what I should be looking forward to, I am certain, if I could have presumed to have been the adviser of the working-classes, would be this: I should say to them, "Audacity is the thing for you. Think out new ways j think out new methods ; think out even new ways of dealing with old problems. Don't always be thinking of getting back to where you were before the war; get a really new world."

I can quite believe that when Mr. Lloyd George advised Labour to embark upon a policy of audacity he had in his mind something entirely different from what is happening at this moment. . I shauld say that the new ways and the now methods which were in his mind were new ways and methods better than the old ; but it is perhaps unfortunate, in the light of all that has since happened, that the Prime Minister was not more specific, and did not set out in clear terms what he really meant by a policy of audacity. It is certain that we are having a sufficiency of audacity—of the wrong kind. The whole Labour world is in a tumult of excitement, which finds outlet in unauthorised strikes for the sake not always of securing improved conditions, but on occasion with the mischievous intent of causing disturbances and dislocation of industry. The great majority of the workers are not in sympathy with tile Bolshevik type of agitation which is running riot through our industrial system, but the claims for higher wages and shorter hours or improved conditions are put in an attractive form, which captures the imagination of the more unthinking men. And there can be no denying this fact, that in the recent stoppages on the Clyde a,nd elsewhere, there has been an ugly manifestation of terrorism to prevent men in . other industries working so as to enforce the concession of demands by the holding up of services essential to the ordered industrial life of the community. Mr Appleton, secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions, in the February issue of the Federationist, writes: "Seventy-five per -cent, of the men who come out on strike would prefer to remain at. work, but they have not thought clearly enough to be able to voice their objection to unofficial strikes. Nor have they acquired the moral courage which would lead them .to resist the strike that is undertaken unofficially and for political purposes rather than trade union purposes." These are strong, brave words coming from an official of the trade union movement. That they are true is known to every observer of recent happenings. I would place the percentage of men who are not in full sympathy with a good deal of the present industrial unrest even higher than Mr. Appleton. A DANGEROUS MOVEMENT. The problem which the Government and tho country has to solve is how effectively to meet and defeat the sinister political agitation which is exploiting the transition period of the switch-over from war to peace production to foment'indusnnal unrest by harassing trade, and thus seeking to delay, if not altogether to prevent, a return to settled labour conditions and regular production. It is a real danger which has to be dealt with, and it can only be dealt with by plain speaking, by a frank explanation of the actual economic position in which the nation stands.. The interests of the workers in the prosperity of the nation by an honourable meeting of its obligations is as vital as that of. the wealthiest man or woman in tho country. Unhappily, the immutable effect of economic laws is known only to the economic student. It is a, sealed book to the multitude. The article on strikes and wages from the pen of the, city editor in Monday's issue of the Daily Telegraph would cause something approaching consternation among many thousands of workers who . are now heedlessly and thoughtlessly .taking part in unauthorised strikes, if its true meaning could be impressed upon their minds. They have come foolishly to regard the high wages and high prices caused_ by tho inflation of credit for the destructive purposes of war as evidence of illimitable wealth. The fault does not lie entirely with them. There are statements made by men in high places, holding positions of the greatest responsibility in commercial life, which spread the. mischief. I remember, after one of the many . private Government conferences between representatives of-Capital and Labour, a respected trade union, leader tailing mo that "one of the great bankers had stated that during the war period the deposits in British banks had increased by £1,200,000,000. I have no doubt that since that time they have still further' increased by many more millions. What was the meaning attributed to this increase of deposits during the war by trade unionists ? It was this : That the-workers had not been given their fair share of the prosperity of the war, and that they were at least entitled to another £300,000,000 in increases of wages. ■ And I have no doubtj in putting the workers' additional share at onefourth of the whole, the trade union leader was really amazed at the modesty of the claim. I pointed out to him that 4 this increase of £1,200,000,000 was not new and additional wealth, created as a profit on commercial output, but was simply an inflation of credit for the destructive purposes of war, a necessary expenditure, made as an insurance of the future of the British Empire and the liberty of its people from German domination, and that in reality it was a national liability to be met and liquidated by the energy and the productive capacity of the nation in the coming years. But my trade union friend was sceptical of my explanation. Certainly the great mass of our people never realise the true position in which the nation stands as a result of tho vast expenditure which has been forced upon us by the •war, and much of which remains as a 'burden upon the. present and futuro ■■gensEatioiM.- -The-sooner; ihe.ttutli,..an<i

I the whole truth, is brought home to the mind and conscience of all the people the better. ■ PROFOUND MISUNDERSTANDING. I have a sufficiently robust faith in the commonsense and honesty of my fel-low-countrymen to believe that much of the trouble has its origin in a profound misunderstanding of the economic position. I will again quote Mr. Appleton', who deserves all possible credit for his. endeavour to drive the truth into the minds of the workers, when so many other men, holding positions of responsibility in our public life, are silent, or prefer to put off the inexorable day of reckoning with mere platitudes or palliatives, or even quack . remedies. Mr. Appleton writes : The men who did not go to the war, who stayed at home and insisted on £1 a day, are doing their best to wreck the country and nullify the efforts that the soldiers made in France, and in other parts of the world. The unthinking are first incited to strike because of high food prices, and the belief that high food prices can be remedied by the attempt to obtain correspondingly high wages. When this fallacy begins to be'obvious, even to the. unlearned, mcii are induced to strike for shorter hours. Their best nature is appealed to*, and they are advised to come out in order that they may absorb.the unemployed. Few of them realise that their action is more provocative of unemployment than anything the profiteer has done during the past ten, or fifteen years. Here is the truth. But is it not "audacity" on the part of a trade union leader to put the truth clearly and vividly before the workers in competitive rivalry with such attractive but illuaory proposals as higher wages as a remedy for high prices, and shorter hours as a remedy for unemployment? What the country needs most at this moment of crisis is Mr. Lloyd George's formula of audacity. It should! be audacity to tell the truth, and the whole truth, as to the economic position in which we stand as a nation. Let. us have the facte. Do let us win the war abroad, and lose it at home by industrial Bolshevism. And if we are to succeed in doing that, there must be audacity to stand firm in resistance to the danger of Bolshevism, which is a menace to our position in the world.