after the war it will feel obliged to carry out those parts of the revolutionary programme which demand the realization of those promises; and the trade unionists have the power of extorting the rest. History teaches us to expect that once more, as in previous revolutions, more moderate will be succeeded by more extreme men and measures. But there is something peculiar to this revolution. Former revolutions were disorganized at their outset; this revolution is organized beforehand. For trade unionism is a vast and ramifying organization, sanctioned by the State, and armed with the strike weapon', as it was called at the Conference. Whatever, then, the partnership between the State and the trade unions will not be able to do by pacific means the trade unionists can do for themselves by organized force; and it is impossible to foretell how far the revolution will be managed by legislation, how far by force; or how far its strikes will be local, how far national, how far international. Nor is it possible to predict the end of this industrial war; for revolution soon becomes incalculable.

This nation is in danger of drifting into revolution unprepared, like France in 1789; but it will be a revolution far more dangerous, because it has been organized beforehand by persons accustomed to the use of might against right, and ready at any moment for the overthrow of the existing fabric of society by the combined agency of the State and trade unionism. If therefore this nation waits to finish the war and then begins to think of its future, it will be too late. It must think now. It must think profoundly. It must first ask itself whether it is wise to leave a democracy without any limits, or to condone the use of might against the rights of property and contract, or to incline to approve of revolution. It must then deduce its conclusions from true political principles. The first principle of politics was formu

lated by Aristotle: it is that a good government is one which is in the hands of those who have the ability and the purpose to rule and be ruled for the universal good of all; while any government which aims at the particular good of one, or of the few, or of the many, is defective. The Greeks convinced the Romans, and through them the modern nations of Western Europe, that the end of a good government is the common or public good. But in the nineteenth century this national end was narrowed down, mainly by Bentham, to the greatest happiness to the greatest number, or the particular good of the majority; still more recently, and under the influence of Bentham's hypothesis, the British Constitution has drifted into a democracy directed to that particular good, and more and more guided by the opinions, the will, the passions, and even the force, of the majority; and it is this government which is now entering into partnership with trade unionism. Which is right, the politics of two thousand years or the politics of this generation? Is it not theoretically evident to any serious thinker that the general good of all is to be preferred to the particular good of one, or of the few, or of the many, or of the trade unionists? Is it not practically obvious to any student of the frailty of human nature that any majority, wielding unlimited powers of both taxing and forcing a minority, cannot be trusted to withstand the overpowering temptation of despoiling its victims down to the last shilling? If things are so, and men are such, a democratic trade unionist revolution for the sake of a particular class of society against the common weal ought to be prevented by the nation itself, in order to save itself from imminent misery, and give itself a chance of future happiness.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Y

162

THE REAL POLITICAL ISSUE

PRIVATE OR PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

The Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph West Ridgeway was a former Under-Secretary for Ireland, in the Liberal Government, 1887-93.

A by-election at Spen Valley took place on January 3; Mr. Tom Myers (Labour) was returned by a majority of 1,718 over Sir John Simon (Independent Liberal) and 3,828 over Colonel Fairfax (Coalition Liberal).

On February 25 Mr. Asquith (later Earl of Oxford and Asquith) was returned as an Independent Liberal in a by-election at Paisley, polling 14,746 votes against 11,902 cast for the Labour candidate, and 3,795 for the Coalition-Unionist candidate. Mr. Asquith's Paisley Campaign had gone on for a month, watched with interest, and indeed excitement, by the whole country. Case, who had known Mr. Asquith in College days, although they had long been separated on political grounds, sent him a warm letter of congratulation on his success, and received a cordial reply.

FROM The Times, JANUARY 29, 1920.

In the important letter from Sir West Ridgeway, which you published on the 22nd inst., he asked a number of pertinent questions on the extreme views of the Labour Party, especially with regard to the taxation of capitalists and their capital, and the desirability of a reunion of the Liberal Party. I venture, however, to think that the views of the Labour Party are still more extreme than he says, and so extravagant that a still greater reunion of the other parties is necessary, in order to fight the real political issue, which is between the rights of all persons in the community and the demands of the Labour Party.

Soon after Mr. Lloyd George became Prime Minister, the Labour Party in January 1917 held its annual conference at Manchester, when 742 delegates, representing 2,398,000 votes, trades councils, local Labour parties, Socialist societies, and the Women's Labour League, passed a number of resolutions, of which the most drastic demanded that the State should after the war put into force (1) minimum high wages and the prevention of unem

ployment; (2) high direct taxes on unearned' income up to 15s. in the pound on the higher scales, conscription of accumulated wealth, and land taxation sufficient to make land the property of the nation; (3) nationalization of railways and canals, of mines, of land, and of food-stuffs in towns, together with arrangements for the participation of all grades of employees, both local and central, in the management of all this nationalized property.

What is the nature of these resolutions? They were not mere isolated, academic resolutions, but a comprehensive and systematic series proposed in the name of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, carried with singular unanimity at the conference, and consisting of demands asking the Government to carry them into execution after the war. They were not mere demands for wages, nor even for more taxes, but also and especially for the nationalization of private property. They were not for mere nationalization, but also and especially for the participation of the workpeople in the management of the nationalized property of the State. Moreover, the report of the conference, over and above this systematic series of resolutions, contained references to the International Socialist Bureau, which has its executive and committee and meetings on the Continent, and is divided into different sections-e.g. the British section, the French section, &c. The conference also was attended by two emissaries of the French and two of the Belgian Socialists. The secretary of the French Socialists made a speech in which he stated, that he and his colleagues were the French section of the Labour International, whose creed was always that total liberation was impossible except by the understanding and close union of the proletariat all over the world. Curiously enough, in The Times of this morning Mr. E. Ashmead-Bartlett quotes a very

similar statement which he heard at a dinner of Bolshevists, to the effect that it is against the principles of Bolshevism to fight with its neighbours, as the proletariat of all countries must unite. At any rate, the report of the conference implied a close association of the Labour Party with the International; and its resolutions and associations prove that its programme contained not only nationalization of private property and participation of workpeople in the management of the nationalized property of Great Britain, but also implied a policy of association of the Labour Party with all the proletariats in all the countries in the world.

What sort of government would the Labour Party constitute if it were to get into power? It would be in accordance with their programme, which has remained unaltered for the last three years. As, then, there is no difference except in words between the nationalization of private property and State Socialism, and as the design of the Labour Party is to combine nationalization with the participation of the workpeople in the management of the property to be nationalized, the government which it would establish would be Industrial State Socialism of the kind contemplated in France during the first half of the nineteenth century, and especially in the Revolution of 1848. But it would be far more revolutionary in two respects. In the first place, since 1848 Labour in Great Britain has been developed into larger and larger associations of trade unions, depending partly on legal but not moral rights created by the Trade Union Acts, but mainly on the might called by the trade unionists themselves the weapon of the strike. The very first resolution of the conference of 1917 contemplated a National Trade Union having local branches throughout the kingdom, which would be coextensive with the central and local governments of Indus