The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1919. AN EMPHATIC WARNING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 262, 1 August 1919, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1919. AN EMPHATIC WARNING

No one has made a more empnatic appeal to the British workers to be wise while there is yet time than Mr. J. H. Thomas, the veteran Labour leader, who has just returneu to his own country from a visit to America. What the result of his plainly-worded warning will be no one can say at the moment, but it is impressive as coming from a man who has been engaged during a long term of years in advancing, the interests of Labour, and cannot wholly disown responsibility for the menacing state of affairs that now exists. If British Labour is given over to-day to rampant sectionalism, in which one organised minority after another endeavours by force to bring the whole country to its knees, part of the explanation must be looked for in the mistakes and shortcomings of those who have led and counselled La-j bour during the last decade or two. j The truth is that over a long period years organised Labour in Britain and elsewhere has been taught and encouraged by its leaders to regard brute force as its best weapon, at .all events in the last resort, and to grasp habitually at what seemed to be immediate advantage without regard to more distant, but inevitable, consequences. Too many leaders of Labour, also, who perceived the folly and inadequacy of such a policy and of tho narrow outlook it connotes,allowed themselves to drift with tho stream. Years that might have been devoted to the education and enlightenment of- the labouring masses and to their organisation in the" interests of constructive reform were largely wasted in strife which by modern standards of comparison. was petty. That affairs took this course' in prewar years goes far to account for the fact that the British nation is now, at a.supreme crisis in its history, torn by internal dissensions which threaten it not merely with the loss of the foreign trado which is vital to' its prosperity, but with consequences infinitely worse. It is the on? hopeftil feature of the situation that some sections of organised Labour have always been wise enough to reject tho doctrine . of brute force, and that even now the militants and direct actionists have not everywhere established undisputed sway.

Mr. Thomas's outspoken utterance is chiefly welcome jncl significant as an assurance that there are moderate Labour forces in the United Kingdom which will resolutely oppose Hip extremists and aim at building a better future instead of substituting anarchy for constitutional government. A section of thn workers, he observes, is dead against brute force, and it hardly needs to 6c. pointed out that the whole future of the :oation depends upon this seclion gaining Mie upper hand. Looking only at the merits of the case, it might seem that the direct actionists noed only be challenged Boldly to be overthrown. To any man or woman capable of calmly weighing facts_ it is self-evident that their activities are wholly destructive, is a rule it is their unconcealed aim to hold the community as a whole to ransom. At times, as in the case of the recent coal strike in Yorkshire, they proceed to the almost incredible folly of destroying their own means of livelihood. But in weighing the industrial outlook in Great Britain, it has to be considered that a_ very considerable part of the working population has been educated in a bad school. In the conditions that exist, it is a much easier matter for some glib-tongued demagogue to induce a body of workers to break'out in an insane upheaval than it is for even the most gifted leaders to induce the ?ame workers to concent:ate upon securing real reforms by methodical effort and rational co-operation. The recklessness uf tho moment is made possible by the fact that the ruling tendency in Labour organisation from the outset has been to develop on narrow sectional lines, without regard to the fact that in a modern State tho interest of one section is inseparably identified with that of all other sections. No doubt {-.he immediate incentive to acts_ of anti-social terrorism and intimidation like the recent coal strike is the hope of sectional, advantage. But action on th.ese lines would _be unthinkable if those by whom it is taken appreciated in any real sense its bearing end consequences. Those sections of the British working population which now lend a ready ear to counsels of direct action will not easily be awakened to the necessity of attaining by industry, economy, and tho, loyalty of one section to another the better conditions they are vainly attempting to attain by violence, but their own future welfare and that of their country is wholly dependent upon such an awakening.