CAUSES BEHIND THE TROUBLE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 42, 4 October 1911, Page 8

CAUSES BEHIND THE TROUBLE.

THE STRIKES IN BRITAIN

Probably the papers have never before given so much space as. they have recently done to the discussion of the elementary problems of labour, its remuneration, its hours, and its conditions, and to the whole problem of the. relation of the many classes which make up the State. From the enormous number of articles on these topics wo select the following:— Long Honrs and Work.

“The dominant factor of this revolt,” says the Anglican “Church Times,” “ —the most widespread revolt of our times—has been the prolonged hours. “Who can deny that the Christian sense is offended by tlie thought that men work eighty hours a week for about a sovereign ?”. asks the “Church Times.” “It pictures the struggles of the borne. It thinks of the sorrowing woman in the background. It thinks of the one sleeping-room for man and wife and children. It remembers the lack of nine for thought, or worship, or recreation. Be the laws of economics ne vi so rigid, at realisation of this one fact tire Christian conscience is aroused. To say that the strikers have too much power, that peaceful picketing has been allowed to go much too far, that violence has stained the process of the workers’ protest is probably quite just: yet it is tho second black, and white is still to seek. No philosophic protest against the contempt for authority—whether tlre employers’ authority or tiic authority of the labour leaders—can case the Christian conscience in respect of (ho exploiting of human labour in such a way as to deaden the souls of .men and women and to condemn children to degradation. The Contempt for Labour.

“We have to got away from the widely prevailing contempt for labour. It is one of the results of the long industrial epoch. England ,owos much to that epoch ,hut it has to ho remembered that in the apparently lowliest task there is its own worth and dignity in tho eyes of tho Christian. There is an uprising spirit of protest abroad. It can he handled with consideration and with insight. Wo cannot ride by in our motor cars without raising some pangs of envy in tho breast of him who, on a torrid day, sweeps tho dust of the road. At host wo can strive to see h : s point of view and to give him, of the world’s abundant wealth, some greater recognition than the more keeping of body and soul together. These classes are in close touch with wealth and luxury. Think of the .carmen delivering box after box of the world’s rich store, or of the goods porter lifting bundles and hales, hour in and hour out, when to him (or to his) comes so very little. A Day of Wealth. “It is a day ; of enormous wealth; production has shot beyond all the hopes of tho economists. Tho lowly servants of wealth know this, possibly better than we do whoso knowledge is rather of books than of tilings. This year the manifestation of prosperity lias been on a stupendous scale, and wo need hardly he surprised to find a reactive influence on the minds of tho wage-earners. A little less hauteur and rigidity; a little more recognition of tho rautuar dependence which has boon made so strikingly evident; a little more of the tender Christian spirit which would act ‘to tho least of these’ as to Him whose Name it hears—these would do more than legislation or economics. The “Church Times’ ” Warning.

“Indeed, in all deliberation we would utter a warning,” adds the “Church Times.” “Unless these protects are faced in a spirit which holds mutual goodwill in the foreground, we may fan an uprising which would strike at the very roots of social order. History lias its lessons loins to-day. ‘The amazing folly of Versailles,’ says Dean KAt hen, ‘showed itself in a great banquet given to the soldiers, in which royalist songs, white cocades, ladies’ smiles, and plenty of food goaded the hungry “patriots” of Paris to madness.’ Only in a Christian and a lowly, and withal a generous, spirit can we rightly handle such stupendous forces.” The Decker’s Evening Walk. In the same vein writes tho Anglican “Record” ; “It is impossible for anyone who has given the least attention to the conditions under which society lives not to bo saddened by the amazing contrast between tho very rich and the very poor. What, we ask, must lie the feelings of the dock labourer who takes an evening walk through the leading thoroughfares of Central or West London and sees flaunting before his eyes tho luxurious living and extravagant pleasures of the rich, whilst lie remembers that lie and the family he has left helium him in the East End have scarcely enough to keep body and soul together? Tho growing luxury and extravagance of tho age is a grave menace to our national well-being. “Tho sumptuously, furnished hotels and restaurants, with their tables ladon with costly meats, delicacies, and wines, the palatial theatres and music halls ministering to tho inordinate love of pleasure—those are outward signs of tho modern and—must wo not add?—tho decadent, spirit of the age. Within a mile radius of Leices-

ter Square the money spent nightly jin tho gratification of luxurious ap- ! potitos and the pursuit of self-indul-jgont pleasures must represent many I thousands of pounds. It is a new I development in social life, and our j forefathers would have stood aghast lat it,” concludes the “Record.”

Oett?r Concfi lions Wanted. | “We must rcMiieiiiijer Unit no inn

chit-cry whatever will allay this discontent, unless it leads to improved conditions,” says the “Westminster.” “Tho men may lie irritated by the refusal of ‘recognition,’ hut tho formal concessions of it will not solve the question unless it leads to better conditions. The North-Eastern men have recognition, and have struck in spite of it, and struck more obstinately than the others because their claim is for higher wages and shorter hours, and tho present settlement does not concede these at the present stage. The country must realise that an immense quantity of unskilled labour ;s in a condition of poverty and discontent, from which it can only he rescued by a substantial improvement in its material condition. No machinery of conciliation which fails to produce this result is going to help i:s in the long run. Underpaid Labour a Danger. “We have to realise,” adds the “Westminster,” “that vast, masses of underpaid, ill-organised casual labour, heaped up recklessly by employers or middlemen, who want surpluses to meet occasional exceptional demands, arc a public danger and a reproach co the community. Wc have evidence in the settlements accomplished during the last fortnight, that they are still under the control of responsible .non who have the national instinct for order and discipline. That gives us time to reorganise, hut we must

use the time and not flatter ourselves that nothing serious has happened or nothing which could not lie disposed sf by troops and police. If tho public is at least roused to the condition if those who are on or below the poverty, line,, good will have come out. of evil, and wo shall at length he on the road to a practical treatment of the problem of poverty.” What Mr Mann Says.

Mr W. ‘J’. Stead records in tiro “Weekly Budget” that Mr Tom Mann, tho loader of tho Liverpool Dockers, said to him: — “Wo don’t Caro for your public ipinion ;wo do not ask for your sympathy. You have failed—failed utterly—to abolish poverty. “All your churches, all your governuents, all your institutions,, all your laws, have failed. You are an admit;ed failure, all of you. But, by Heaven, wo are not going to fail. Wc arc going to abolish poverty, and to Jo it ourselves, without asking the iclp of any hut ourselves.” “Yes,” said Mr Stead, “wc have .'ailed an abolishing poverty. lam 3.0 glad to hear that you are going to succeed. Only Ido not quite see aow society is to hold together during ;,ho operations necessary for establishing the millennium!” “That’s your look-out, not ours,” laid Mr Sexton, secretary of the Dockers’ Union. “We did not make L.ho social system. If the bottom .'alls out of it that is iio concern of ours.” . c .'