The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1918-01-14
The Mind of The British Worker

I the British radical movement is
amazing to say. in the Y. NJ. 9. "A.
huts. There the British Tommy
speaks hts mind, and 1t is a new
mind, different by far from the stolid
stubborn middle of the-way mind of
the traditional formula. The most
popular lectures in the British Red
Triangle huts have been those on the
social and industrial reconstruction
after the war. The Tommy is eager
to listen. and then full Of questions,
and woe to the speaker who has a
set speech and no elasticity of mar
gin for ready response to rapid-fire
criticism. So keen has the interest
been in discussing the remaking of
England that the authorities have
shut down on reconstruction talks.
Radicalism is perilous yeast these
days. once the people rose in France.
And lately they rose in Russia. Per-
haps a third time nearer home? 1t
is safer to talk history, and reel off
films and sing of the Home Fires.
Let no one think that the British
workers are carrying through
these changes with clean intelligence
and high self conscious purpose.
They are merely obedient to the
push of necessity, and a little reason
and conscious win are mixed with a
lot of blind impulse,
John BulI'' is still the most pop
ular periodical in the British army,
and its editor, Horatio Bottomley, is
as little interested in studying the
causes of economic injustice as our
own eminent exhorter, William Sun
day.
Love Personal Liberty.
How to square the popularity of
reconstruction talks and the popular
ity Of "John Bull'? ! believe the
answer is found in the individualism
of the British nature. The love of
personal liberty, the individuals in
sistence on doing what he pleases,
is, I think. the explanation OF much
that is puzzling in British radical
ism. It is here that is created his
distaste for state Socialism. He
doesn't want the state to give him
something. He wants to take 1t for
himself in the place nearest at hand.
And the place nearest at hand is the
place where he works-his factory.
So we have the victorious drive to-
ward workers control. Shop COM
made up half OF manage
ment" and half OF workers, are in ex-
istence in the government factories,
are spreading through the "controN-
ed" factories, and will be established
in the privately owned factories OF
the organized trades. I asked a mil
lionaire manufacturer Of Yorkshire
how he liked his factory committees.
'Tt now takes twelve persons to do
what we used to do with one.s But 1t
results in a different attitude toward
the factory and the work. The twelve
persons are doing for themselves
what the one used to do for them"
The same reply could be made
about an absolute monarch versus
universal suffrage. One man used to
rule us politically, and now it takes
several millions.
Too bad, says the old Anvil Chorus
Of The Morning Post, The Saturday |
Review and The National Review.
What NorthoIiff will say remains to
be heard. He is enormously power
full, and very clever II he swings |
against democratic control of indus
try, he will make trouble. In the |
end, he will have to join the workers
movement, because in the soul Of him
he loves a master class.