New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-13

At the Labor party conference In Man
chester in the irst month of 1917 one Of the
leaders said
"If the soldier was worth two pounds a
week when he was destroying things, was he
not worth two pounds when he was produc-
ing? A country which can find millions OF
'ouids' to feed the cannon's mouth can find
millions to feed the workers mouth
The other day | was sitting at luncheon
with the Mayor of one of the great English
cities. He said to me:
"Never again will there be the cry Of
NO money to spend A thousand million for
war and you haggle over twenty million for
education? Give us education. Continue the
high wages. Don't knock off the war bonuses.
Make them permanent. Pay unsklled labor
minimum of thirty shillings, and later raise
it TO two pounds. We don't need to worry
about the skilled trade unionists Let them
fight for their three and four pounds. There
will be no trouble after the war. Labor Will
obtain it's demands Wages can't be lowered
The workers won't let them
That il one of the new ideas brought into
English life by the war: there must be
of il than in the past This idea will be ap-
piled. for instance, to the care of mother
hood and child welfare. At the maternity
centres one has now the spectacle OF the
state keeping the mother and child alive, but
undernourished. If the state is to intervene
at all it must do so vigorously Otherwise
the cost of Intervention (Which is paid for by
taxation) fails to result in sturdy race,
having back the subsidy by production. There
is a phrase in golf about following through
the stroke. 1t admirably expresses the thor
ouchness that is needed in social reform
Directing Labor Power
Another new idea is that better use must
be made of labor power. Labor must be d.
rected to supplying the central needs OF the
total community. not the luxury wants of a
little group. In this war men and women have
been taken from making chocolate and put to
making shells But the same principle OF
directed labor will be continued after the
war. and the community is lees likely to per-
NIT labor power to drift back into luxury
trades. while the poor remain badly housed
and undernourshed. The forces of prOduc-
ton. which have been organized with deadly
concentration on thanksgiving trades. will
tend to become organized for the creation OF
worthy living conditions
That imperial and foreign policy concerns
the individual, and can make him prosperous
or uncomfortable, is another idea which the
war has brought to the British mind. Impe-
rial policy (Which by its very nature is
democratic) is itself foreign policy. When
YOU shovel together free nations, which are
a belt around the world you have necessarily
established series of contacts with back
ward races" Subject peoples" and imperfect
democraces The domestic policy must be
influenced by the foreign policy As an in
stance one Of the first matters to be taken
I'D by the British Imperial Conference will
be that OF Ireland. The recoil of this on
foreign policy will be powerful 1t will clear
the air for an Anglo-American understanding.
Great Britain. in accepting the idea of a
British Commonwealth, has in reality ex-
tended the principle Of democratic control TO
foreign policy. This means lessening Of
secret diplomacy. II is A coherent, thought
full and determined effort to put into execu-
ton the excellent desires which the Hague