Evening Post.

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 16, 19 January 1921, Page 6

Evening Post.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY. 19,1921.

A BAFFLING SITUATION

The articles which Dr. Arthur Shadwell, after a tour of the industrial areas of Great Britain, is.contributing to The Times are sure to throw some muchneeded light on an ominous and baffling situation. Few of the investigators of social and industrial phenomena havo attained a higher reputation than he, or have more richly deserved it. A determination to.get the facts at first hand, patience and industry in their accumulation, a. skill in analysis which is not warped by fear or favour, and a clear and racy style, are among the qualifications which have made the book which Dr. Shadwell published in 1905 on "Industrial Efficiency : A Comparative Study of Industrial Life in England, Germany, and America," a model of its kind. It was facts and not theories with which he concerned himself in the researches for The Times of which that volume was the final fruit. .

For my own part [ho wrote] I find it more thin a sufficient task to ascertain a few facts with approximate accuracy, and to gain a little insight into cause and effect. 1 havo sometimes thought that something of the kind might perhaps bo a useful preliminary to reforms; but that view has never been popular, and I do not press it.

The dislike of social reformers for inconvenient facts and their fondness for " tricking short cuts " to the goal which their theories indicate as desirable have certainly not declined in the fifteen years since Dr. Shadwell thus gently satirised,, their weakness. But we:may be sure that the study in which he is now engaged will be distinguished by the detachment and impartiality which have never failed him in his previous investi-'

gations.

." A maze of activity with little cohesion " ( is Dr. Shadwell's epigrammatic summing up of the revolutionary movement in Great Britain. " Individuall ism," he says, "is 'rampant among the Communistic societies." As individualism appears, to be also rampant at the headquarters of Bolshevism in Russia, there is not much comfort to be derived from this last remark, but the lack of cohesion among the various phases of the revolutionary movement in Britain is a symptom which provides more solid ground for satisfaction. Bolshevism in Britain is as yet. without the Napoleon whose generalship and iron will established a regime which was once supposed to "be democratic upon inequality, injustice, and bloodshed. But Dr. Shadwell does not suggest.; that if such a , Napoleon should arise he would find an army ready to his hand. He finds little of the, most extreme tendency among genuine tradeunionists. Oii the contrary, he declares that "Bolshevist stock" has fallen heavily both in Britain and on the Continent. So far as Russia itself- is concerned, Bolshevism has been slain so often and with such littlo effect that any allegation of a slump of its stock in the Russian market must be received with caution; but that -whatever favour it had previously received from British Labour organisations has been to a large extent withdrawn during the last few months, is beyond question. It is. to the candour of, their representatives who have corfducted investigations on the spot, and have honourably subordinated their theories and prejudices and desires to the facts brought before them, that this happy result is in large measure due.

But Dr. - Shad well forbids us to base any sanguine hopes upon a tendency which may be reversed if other influences are not checked by wise management. Hunger is one of the most potent- of revolutionary agents. Bolshevism would have been powerless in Russia without its aid, and there is no saying how far with its aid Bolshevism might not be carried in Great Britain. The unemployment which is spreading fast, and the misery which must follow in its train, will supply the partisans of revolution with much more effective arguments than any that they have hitherto derived from Russia. " Tho moderates," says Dr. Shadwell—and he is evidently referring to the moderates in the Labour camp— "think that acute unomp-loyment will prove a match to the'powder magazine." That unemployment will reach tho acute' stage unless some more drastic remedies are applied that have yet been devised is rendered probable by the latest reports from London. Tliera waa a great increasa in the number of unemployed at th«

week-end. "The complete or partial closing of more works has," we were told yesterday, "rendered idle 100,000 more workers. The Government has put up ' short-time notices ' at the docks and arsenals, and these have caused turbulent excitement. Mass meetings strongly condemned the Government's action." The special occasion of these protests is not without its element of tragic irony. There is no part of the public expenditure which has met with a more consistent hostility from the Labour Party than that which is concerned with the national defence. The Government has not gone so far as these critics desired ( in cutting down the^ estimates for the army\and the navy, yet the reduction of employment at the docks and . the arsenals, which must have been partly due to the extent to which the Government has met the protests of Labour, is now attacked' from the same quarter with a hostility which is naturally still more ■•severe.

Other critics of the Government agree in their estimate of the gravity of the position, but their criticism is too vague or too negative to afford much immediate help. Mr. Garvin " attributes the position partly to the crushing burden of taxation, which must be lightened by hook or crook." This diagnosis is certainly sound, but the prescription does not touch, the needs of the next few weeks or even of the next few months. Mr. Robert Blatchford denounces the Government's proposals for dealing with unemployment as "equal to political quackery." The charge is not without foundation. One of the most far-reach-ing of the Government's proposals was the scheme of arterial roads which the London County Council was induced to take up at the beginning of the winter; yet the Bill that was afterwards introduced for the purpose rendered immediate action impossible by failing to provide any powers for the compulsory acquisition of land. So vital an omission supplies ,a striking illustration of the hand-to-mouth fashion in which an' overburdened Government does its thinking even in the most important matters. Other critics are said to forecast "an early general election unless the Government evolves a bold policy of reconstruction." It is safe to prophesy that no such pobcy will be forthcoming in time for the present emergency. And how would a general election help?