The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-02-06

with the labor question.
 Meanwhile our government had also played the fool, not only over labor, but over the Russian revolu- tion. From the moment that revolu- tfon broke out there was an inevitable diversion in the energies of our For eign office, which at once classed the war with Germany as an affair of sec ondary importance, and set itself, as a matter of good form, to ignore the Petrograd rabble, and convince the relics of the Benckendorff circle of our unalterable devotion to the Tsar- dom. It could hardly do less with out losing it's position in West End society. Meanwhile the distrust of la Dor, by our own government led to the Henderson incident. MT. Tender son, who had been all but disarmed by appeals to his patriotism and loy- alty, and by the pretence of admit ting him to the Cabinet, had his eyes opened by a gross personal discour- tesy; and in that moment labor found a leader, and MT. Henderson saved his s1ul alive. ''Very good, gentlemen" he said, you refuse to admit that this war concerns the working class. The working class, will not state the aims of England in this war, not from PetroErad or Stockholm, but from London; and you shall take your turn on the mat outside the door whilst labor is deciding what you shall do." It was a big bounce; but MT. Hen derson pulled it off. He delivered the war programme of labor. The Prime Minister had to take it from his hand like a lamb. The French and Italian papers complimented him on his sensible submission. President Wilson .,atted him on the head and said, Good boy" making it clear that he, too, has not an item to add to the trying to pretend that we said so all along.
 LabOr's Gauge of Battle.
 But the missed point to be illumi- mated now is that most of this has been accomplished under an illusion. That illusion is that the war aims of the Labor party are not war aims but peace terms. When it was known that MT. Henderson was going simply to shove the cabinet aside and take the war question into his own hands, the patriots changed their shriek of defeat into an even wilder one of inn mediate peace, which they always seem to believe can be made by MT. Ramsay Macdonald, or any other member of the Independent Labor party, by lifting a finger. Now, if l they wanted to defeat MT. Henderson, 1 there was one way of doing it (if it could have been done at all after the way he had been insulted in his rep rcsentative capacity); and that way was to insist on what was the simple fact; namely, that his war aims meaSt
 from two to 30 years more fighting,
 as they involved not only an old fash toned victory of British over German
 Inilitarisrn but a European victory of
 Democracy over oligarchy and autoc-
 racy and of Socialism over competiti- tive capitalism. But when your pat
 riots neck got into a moose, he can
 always be depended on to draw it
 tighter by his terrified struggle. All the patriots bawled at the top off their voices that the Labor war aims
 meant peace by negotiations, a Ger
 man peace an inconclusive peace, a
 dishonorable peace, all sorts of adjec-
 tives but ever the same substantive; {;
 peace, peace, peace, peace. And
 thereby they got MT. Henderson out
 of his great difficulty, which was, how
 to pass a statement of war aims through the Labor conference which
 was longing for peace. The effect of their misjudged but effective help was
 one of the funniest political farces of
 the time. When MT. Stephen Walsh
 very formidable opponent, with a
 heavy vote in his pocket, moved that
 the question he adjourned for a
 month, he was smashed by a single
 phrase from MT. Robert Smillie:
 You want another month of slaugh- ter" After that, MT. Walsh had not
 a dogs chance. MT. Ben Turner rose and said that he did not like the war aims because there was too lit
 tie of the Bible in them; but
 they made for peace, and he was for
 peace now, this instant, Almost his
 next sentenece began "Our German
 friends MT. Turner came down on
 him with a trenchant repetition of his
 chivalrous Christian phrase, and
 steamroIlered him amid thunderous
 plaudits. The war aims went through triunphantly. as peace terms.
 , The Challenge.
 am sorry to have to break the ' spell, but they are not peace terms They are the fate of battle thrown at . the feet of every government in Flu rope not excepting our own Foreign Office
 In spite of the climb down that has occurred. they do not approach any terms that we could dictate to the Germans except as victors. The Labor party itself climbed down from it's po- 7 sition of August last by substituting U a plebiscite for French conquest in