PUBLIC MEN ATTACKED

Evening Star, Issue 19663, 16 September 1927, Page 8

PUBLIC MEN ATTACKED

WELLS’S “ HEW KOVEL ” THEORY OF GENERAL STRIKE Mi - H. G. Wells continues his pamphleteering under the guise of writing novels. ‘Meanwhile’ is nearer to being a novel than was ‘ Tho World of William Clissold,’ but (says the ‘ Argus’), though it begins a story of a sort, and has a variety of characters, its kernel is in tho chapters dealing with the general strike of last year. The sub-titlo of tho volume, which is described as' Rook the First, is ‘The Picture of a Lady,’ and there is much in tho early chapters about tho life in Italy of Mrs Hylands, her husband, and their guests. The lady of the “picture” has married Philip, the heir to the Hylands millions. The wealthy Philip begins to luvve doubts about tho way in which the millions have been or are being acquired, and though at first ho is “amazingly inexnressivo and inarticulate, when he goes to London at tho time of the strike he develops an almost Wellsian flow of opinion and language. Nominally it is Philip Hylands, not Mr Wells, who says such things as these about the members of tlxe Baldwin Ministry:—

“ They didn’t want to prevent a Tenoral strike. They wanted it to happen. They wanted it to happen so ss to distract attention from the plain justice of the case as between miners and coal owners, and between workers generally and employers and business speculators generally, in a world of relative shrinkage. They wanted the chance of a false issue, to readjust with labor nearer the poverty line. “You may say that it a serious charge to make against any Government. Bat consider tho facts. Consider what happened last Sunday night. It’s tho ugliest, most inexplicable night in the record of our quiet little Baldwin. If, after all, there does happen to be a Last Judgment. Master Stanley ' will bo put through it hard aud good about Sunday, May 3. Or to be more exact, Monday, May 3. ‘ Put that pipe down, sir,’ the great flaming Angel will say, ‘wo want to seo your face.* Wc shall all want to see his face.”

“ THE COUP WAS PREPARED.” It is then stated that the trade union loaders, on the Sunday, had “ hammered out some sort of reply to certain Cabinet proposals; but when tlicy returned they found the conference room at Downing street dark, "and wore told that the members of the Ministry had gone homo. _ A refusal of ‘Daily Mail’ compositors_ to set up an anti-Labor leading article had been snatched at as an excuse for breaking off the negotiations. “The coup was prepared. It was too clumsy, too out of proportion, to bo a genuine thing. Forthwith tho Cabinet hear of tho ‘ Daily Mail’ hitch. Remarkably quick. _ ‘lt’s come off, I guess someone said. Get on with the break,’ Like a shot the Cabinet responded. Like an actor answering bis cue. The Government snatched at the excuse of the little 1 Daily Mail ’ printing-office strike to throw down the whole elaborate sham of negotiating for peace. They called tho bluff of tho poor old vacillating T.U.C. ‘Tills is tho general strike and we are ready,’ said they. Off flew Winston and the heroic set to get busy, and Mr Baldwin went to bed. . . . “And since then tho Government hasn’t been a Government. It’s been like a party trying to win an election. By fair means or foul. It’s stifled all discussion. It’s made broadcasting its call boy. . . “WORLD CHANGE, NOT BRITISH.”

These opinions are supposed to be addressed by Hylands to his wife, whom ho is “educating” step by step as ho finds education for himself. One of the main theories is that the people in authority arc endeavoring _to force the world back into the nineteenth century, though it has gone far beyond that time. “This is a world change being treated as a British political and social row. Its roots are away in world finance, gold and the exchanges, and all sorts of abstruse things. It isn’t London or Yorkshire or New York or Moscow; it’s everywhere. Part of everywhere. Where we all live nowadays. No. 1, The Universe, Time. I sympathise with the strikers, but I don’t really boo what good this general strike is going to do, even if it docs all it proposes to do. Throw everything out of gear, but what then? Who would come in if the Government went out? Unheard-of Labor men? Snobs and spouters. Miscellaneous Liberal leaders. What difference is there—except for the smell of tobacco—between Asquith and Baldwin? Lloyd George saving the country? Half the Liberals and all the Labor leaders would see the country in boiling pitch before they lot it, be saved by Lloyd George. Communism and start again? There aren’t three thousand Communists in England, and half of them aren’t English. On the other hand, I won’t do a hand’s turn to break the strike.” MR CHURCHILL AND MR BALDWIN.

Whether Hylands is or is piob a mouthpiece for Wells, ho loses few opportunities of belittling public men. “As might be expected,” writes Hylands, “ Winston has gone clean off his head. He hasn’t been as happy since ho crawled on his belly and helped snipe in Sidney street. Whatever anyoue else may think, Winston believes he is fighting a tremendous revolution and holding it down, fist and jaw. He careers about staring, inactive, gaping, crowded London, looking for barricades. I wish I could throw one to him. The Government has taken over the ‘Morning Post’ office and machinery, and made Winston edit a sort of emergency Government rag called the ‘ British Gazette.’ Baldwin’s idea seems to ho to get the little devil as far away from machine guns as possible and keep him busy. Considerable task.” ■ On another page wo find: — All London agape. And over it all tins for a Prime Minister .’’ ‘‘ Thus ”is a crude caricature labelled ‘ trusty old Baldwin keeps on doing miffin.” BENEVOLENCE OF AUTHOR’S PUPPET. As a benevolent mine owner Bylands writesßaldwin and Co. just wont from ono party to the other wringing their hands or pretending to wring their hands . . • and repeating, ‘Do please be reasonable,’ instead of taking us coal owners by the scruff of the neck as they should have done and saying ‘ Share the loss like decent men.’ If the coal owners won’t give way, said Baldwin and Co in effect, then the miners must.” Again:—“The Government isn’t playing straight. . . .1 don’t think Baldwin and his Government have played a straight game. I don’t think the miners and the rank and file of the workers are getting a square deal, I think that Baldwin and Co. are consciously or subconsciously on the side of the coal owner and tho profit extractor, and that they moan to lot the workers down ” In addition to attacks on opinions and deeds, there are a few sneers at personal appearance. Of one man we read, “ I doubt if Mr Ramsay MacDonald has finer moustaches ”; and of another that he is “ even more ungainly than Robert Cecil.” Such are the views of good taste held by Mr Wells.