THE PRODUCT OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 94, 14 January 1918, Page 8

THE PRODUCT OF WAR

A LABOUR LEADER'S VIEW

" NO DARKNESS BUT IGNORANCE"

'J'he war has broken down many of tho barriers which formerly existed between different classes," writes Mr, Harry Gosling, president of the British Transport Workers' Federation, 'Men of various sections oT society who are working together have come to know one another's good qualities, and have learned to understand eneh other's point of view. 1 know what many men of our Transport Workers' Federation say of their officers when they como hack from the front. They are full of their praises. Occasionally, of course, they como across a man they don't like, but in nearly every case they find their officers accessible, sympathetic and helpful. When men fight together —and many of them fall togetherfighting a common foe, it is oertain that those who are left will find .some means of standing together in the days of peace ahead. The nt'empt of Germany to crush tis has led to'tha livawing together of the different classes of our people. "This better understanding of each other is being brought about in another way also. The trades unions of England have given every worker possible to help in the war. Trades union officials, great and small, are all of them largely engaged in voluntary war work. They are members of different, committees. .On these committees they meet, as their fellow-members, people drawn from quite other classes of society. The lighterman finds himself sitting next to, and working in cooperation with, tho titled lady and the high military official. He discover? that they aro people very like himself, and that they are working to the best of their power for the good of the nation. They in turn realise that, the mysterious 'Labour agitator' is riot so terrible an individual as they imagined. It is not necessary to put'away their best silver or fine china when' he comes to their houses. He has a point .of view unknown to them before. They roach a common understanding ovt'r common work for the welfare of their country. That is going on in a thousand districts. It is affecting the leader of the small local branch of tiie union as well as bigger officials. It is breaking down prejudices, creating new friendships, and bringing class in real touch with class.

"It is impossible to imagine that all these things are going to count for nothing, and that the influences of a common purpose and a common sorrow, df common disappointments and united victories, will cease when the war i 8 over. They will not cease. They v. ill help to make England united more than ever before.

"For us there can only be one end. But once that end is attained it is for the world to see that the sacrifice of life at once ceases. When other scourges sweep over the world they take away the old, the feeble, the unfit. This scourge of war is robbing us of our best, of our young men in their prime, of the pick of .the nation. It will leave us with a depleted manhood, and with many of our women condemned to perpetual solitude. We have during the past generation trained our young women to fill their places in life worthily. . To-day, when they are emerging strong, fit'mates and fine comrades, the men who should he their husbands aro being killed in the war. We will have to face the problem of the wounded and those made invalids in the wai and the fatherless children.

"To solve those problems we must stand a united nation. We cannot afford to have any sections of our peopla ignorant, when ignorance spells weakness. We cannot afford to have any section "under-developed, for all our strength will be needed to make up for the losses of the -war. It is to the good of the country that Labour should grow to the full, and that, realising its it should use its strength, and use, it wisely. ' It is that the old artificial barriers of class should disappear. Fresh impulses are sweeping over the world. Fresh causes of unrest are arising; there will be fresh perijs' to face. Knowledge, unity, justice, and the co-operation of all classes willisee us safely through. "Sometimes, when' walking through Leicester Square in London, 1 glance at the statue of Shakespeare, and read the inscription: 'There is no darkness but ignorance.' It is true. In ignorance Res our real danger, in knowledge is found the only sure road to permanent peace."