Evening Post. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1921. MODERATION & COMMONSENSE

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 48, 25 February 1921, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1921. MODERATION & COMMONSENSE

Yesterday's strike news as cabled catered for the optimist and the pessimist in almost equal shares. From Melbourne came the report that the All Unions" Conference in session there had ■formed a Commonwealth Council of Action "with power to order a cessation of work," and that the avowed object of the Council was a general strike. The news, from London was of the exactly opposite character. . The Direct Action-, ists were reported to have received another set-back, the Labour Conference on Unemployment having decided by an overwhelming majority to support tho demands of Labour by constitutional action. As there were much bigger interests at stake in London than in Melbourne, and there was a possibility that the decision of the Melbourne Conference waa mostly " bluff," the optimist had decidedly the better of the deal. Standing alone, the cryptic remark attributed to Mr. Clynes, the Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Commons, might have been considered to encourage the pessimist. '' If Parliament was unable to solve the problem," Mr. Clynes is reported to have isaidj "Conference would be justified in calling on the industrial forces to deal ■with the situation." Seeing that no solution of the problem is possible' which does not. provide Britain with customers able and willing to buy her goods, the task is plainly beyond':the competence of her Parliament, and the Conference would have been justified in " oalling on the industrial forces to deal with the situation!" whatever that may mean. But in the mouth of Mr. Clynes the words had a different meaning from what they would have had in Melbourne. No Labour leader has recognised more, clea-rly than he the folly and the wickedness of resorting to strikes or threats ■ of strikes at 'every turn, and the '.supreme necessity for increased production is the only permanent- guarantee of high wages and a reduced cost of living.

Mr. J. H. Thomas, the secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, who speaks with special weight because, . though always striving for peace, he has not shrank from the responsibilities of leadership in war when he has been overborne, contributed a speech which was ■evidently » model of moderation and common-sense.. He contended that Parliament Was the only, body capable of dealing with the question. After the 'rejection of the/Labour amendment to •the Address-in-Beply by 262 votes to 84 Mr. Thomas can have had no more Sanguine hopes than Mr. Clynes as to the help to' be expected from Parliament, but even so he Wai> not prepared to take the responsibility of suggesting even contingently a declaration of 'War against the decision of Parliament, i.e., against the law of the land. There is certainly a wide gap between the 18s; proposed by the Government for the unemployment benefit and the 42s advocated by the Labour Party, but we are indebted to Sir Montague Barlow for pointing out that the difference between what the Government proposes and what the Labour organisations actually pay is in favour of the firmer. The trade unions 'have, it appears, never paid more than 15s, a week for members out of work, and usually have paid from 10s to 12s. An offer which is from 20 to 80 per cent, better than the standard fixed by the unions is Surely not quite such an "affront " as Mr. ClyneE would have us believe. •Mr. Clynes actually argued that the benefit proposed by the Government could be doubled by means of a State' -loan. That could certainly be. done, but it is surprising to- find so desperate a proposal supported by so level-headed a man. Nobody knows better than' Mr. Clynes the perils into which all the nations have run' by living upon their capital, and the extent to which the cost of living and all the other troubles of Labour have been aggravated by the extravagance aiid the inflation resulting from the perpetual feast of borrowed money. There is, according to a resolution which was unanimously adopted by the financial experts in their conference at Brussels, a "close connection between Budget deficits and tho cost of living which is far from being grasped. . . ..

Nearly every Government is being pressed to incur fresh expenditure, largely on palliative*, which aggravate the evils against which they are directed." The expenditure in question is an excellent example of this kind of palliative, but it carries & -moral as well as a financial danger. It is a kind of expenditure

which may defeat its own ends by removing the ma|n incentive to industry, and a Government is much leas able to guard against abuses than a- Labour organisation. Mr. Clynes has of course frankly recognised the danger, but hedoes not regard cither this or the immense capital expenditure as a fatal objection to the proposals of his party. Speaking generally, he has no confidence in the economy or the efficiency of -the Government's administration, but he is quite willing to-trust them here.

Industry, according to one of the findings of the Brussels Conference which no one will have the hardihood to dispute, is suffering from a scarcity of capital. The more capital used by Governments the less is available for industry. The higher the Government expenditure on unemployment benefits the smaller therefore the capacity, of industry to provide labour with the permanent employment on productive work upon which labour, capital, and the nation are equally dependent for stable prosperity. It follows that Labour is hit at least as hard as any other class by a public expenditure which reduces the capital of the nation and therefore its productive power. Looking at the industrial problem from .another ajigle, Mr. Clynes has emphasised as strongly as any of the experts at the Brussels Conference the need of increased production in the worker's interest, and he has done so in circumstances which demand much greater courage• than they were called upon to exercise. Addressing a meeting organised by the Higher Production Council, Mr.. Clynes said :

There are workmen who think that if they do ..lees thero will bo moro for someone else to do. I 'submit . agaimt that view the results of experience, which are tho rc?l teat, From oho'cause or another this yeur of 1920 has" been ono of low production, and it is towards the ond of this your of low production that we see tho highest figure of unemployment that workmen have had to suffer in i-cccnt years. . .

It is, I think,-proper for the workers to secure safeguards against unemployment and against additional output being of greater benefit to employers thin to anyone else, but oven if theso safeguards cannot bo secured, it ;WOuld, I believe, still bo desirable to increase" the output of commodities, for that increase would confer more benefit on tho working classes than on any other class in the country.

It is premature to despair of, the British Labour Party while such men as Mr. Clynes and Mr. Thomas are „in charge of°it.