Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1925. THE SHIPPING STRIKE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 62, 10 September 1925, Page 4

Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1925. THE SHIPPING STRIKE

Lenin did not live to see the World Revolution for which he regarded Russia's little affair of November, 1917, as merely a cur-tain-raiser. Discouraged by the stubborn opposition of the British Empire, by the hopeless lack of principle displayed by the British Labour Party in failing to wreck it when they had the chance, and by the violent reaction which followed their brief lease of power, some of Lenin's successors have recently fallen so - far from grace as to postpone for a full ten years the dawning of the great day which will witness the destruction of the Empire and the salvation of the world. But even if the V(Pravda" gives them no more, highly-coloured picture of the Empire's troubles than that which has been presented to us from day to day during the past fortnight, the least •sanguine of the disciples of Lenin must surely be revising their estimate. The very breath and life-blood, in peace no less than in war, of the Empire which they detest is in sea-power. It was by keeping the seas open for her transports and her merchantmen, and those of her Allies and Dominions, that Britain survived the Great War and enabled freedom, and perhaps civilisation itself, "to survive. Even in peace the^ paralysis of the Empire's * sea-borne commerce would bring Britain to starvation and her Dominions to bankruptcy in the: course of a. very few months. Have not the ■ enemies of the Empire who had granted it a ten years' reprieve been supplied by the events of the past fortnight with a. very good ground for revising their judgment?

A strike which originated in the repudiation by a small minority of British seamen df an arrangement made after very careful consideration by their own Union is threatening a hold-up of British shipping in every port of Britain and in every port of the Empire. London, Liverpool, Southampton, and Cardiff, Capetown and Durban, Melbourne and Sydney; Wellington and Auckland are all in it. The Far East and the Far West seem to be exempt so far from serious trouble, and the handful of Communists; who greeted the Majestic with a "scab banner.on her arrival in. Few York confirms the lesson of previous experience that'the-cli-mate of North America is not suited for these Russian,doctrines; Otherwise the maritime strike is for the present achieving a greater success in the; oversea ports than in Great Britain, where it originated and where alone it can be settled. "Every British steamship sailed punctually with a full crew" is, at the time of writing, tho latest bulletin to hand from the Sailors and Firemen's Union. We are also told that . the Trades Union Congress has received a report that the efforts to amalgamate this Union and the Marine Workers' Union have broken down. Mr. Shinwell, the Hebrew clothes-dealer from the East End who organised the Marine Workers' Union, denounces the report as "a shameful anti-Trade Union document." It would be more to the point if he could describe it aB an anti-fact document. Something of that kind ; may be expected wtieii on behalf of the Marine Nonworkers his indignation is given formal expression on paper. ' :

But, thoiigh Britain is still getting her ships away with but little derangement o£ the time-table, the Government is not making the mistake of treating the matter Hghtry.' Agreeing with Mr. Shinwell's statement that the trouble is only just beginning 7 it is making provision accordingly. An exceptionally well-organised, sanely governed aiid powerful untou uitty tsßisfe tho •CJohimuDiHt.-itifeu*-.fciMß *ud setuse .t« iggrAYate

Britain's trade depression and unemployment by paralysing her.carrying trade or cruelly . handicapping it in favour of foreign shipping. But the strength of the Communists is on shore, as the occupation of Mr. Shinwell before .he became a marine non-worker aptly' indicates, and the same influences which have sought through the seamen's strike to aim a blow at the heart of the British Empire have other methods, of attack which have been tolerated too long. A month ago the reopening of the Communists' campaign for the Sovietising of the "soldiers, sailors, airmen, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone" was reported, and it is good news that the Baldwin Government will not imitate the Mac Donald Government in taking it lying down. There is to be no truckling to the traitors. In Britain as in Australia the pioneers of the World Revolution are to be shown that the resources of civilisation are not yet exhausted.