Denver labor bulletin., 1918-10-05

his impressions gained on mission
to France for the Red Cross. In ad-
dition to vivid description of the
scenes on the battle line and districts
of war-stricken Europe, he tells Of the
great social and economic revolution
going on among the people. We re-
produce the following from one of his
recent articles dealing with labor, and
the amazing fact is that these arti-
cles are being printed in corporation
controlled papers of this country:
"Of course in this war, while some
of the strange things one sees and
hears in Europe may pass with the
dawn of peace-woman, for instance,
may return indoors and come out only
on election day, yet unquestionably
most of the charges in economic ad-
justment have come to stay. They
are the most important salvage that
will come out of the wreck and waste
of this war. In England, for instance,
the new ballot reform laws are fun
damental changes. They provide vir-
tually for universal manhood suffrage
and suffrage for women over thirty
upon something of the same terms as
those provided for men.
Labor Cabinet for England.
$50 revolutionary are the political
changes in England that after the war
it is expected-conceded is hardly too
strong a word-that the first political
cabinet to arise after the coalition
cabinet goes, will be a labor cabinet.
Certainly il labor does not actually
dominate the British government, la
Dor will control il indirectly. And
the labor gains during the war will
not be lost Wages in England, and
for that matter in most of the allied
countries, are now being regulated by
state ordinance and not by competi-
tive rates. The labor market has
passed with the slave market. Wages
are based not upon supply and de-
mand in labor, but upon the cost Of
what seems to be decent standard of
subsistence.
This change, of course. is funda-
mental. 1t marks a new order in the
world. And the labor party of Eng
land recently adopted a program which
provides not merely for the decent
| living wage for workmen independent
of the labor market but also pro-
vides for the democratic control of in
dustry; national railways, national
mines, national electricity, national
housing and national land tenure
And as If that were not enough, the
demands of the labor party include
the permanent control of the prices
of all necessaries of life, without re-
lation to profits and independent of
supply and demand. Such things have
been done during the war, and in a
crisis. Labor demands that they be
done permanently.
Tax Incomes Of the Rich.
And still further to press home its
claims upon society, British labor de-
de nf
conspicuously and frankly at the rich
to bring their incomes and their hold
ings only a moderate rise above the
common level-a rise in some rela-
ton to the actual differences of mind
and heart and soul and service be-
tween men. and not q difference based
on birth and inheritance and graft and
grabbing. 1t is, Of course, revolution.
But labor now has political rights in
England. and has time and again dem
onstrated that it has a majority in
every part of the United Kingdom,
and it is closely organized and rather
determined, and probably will have its
way.
aIn France and in Italy where for
ten years the Socialists have more
or less controlled assemblies and
named cabinets. demands like those of
the English are being made.
Social and Economic Changes.
And when the allies win it will
not be so much a change in geog-
raphy that shall mark off the world
of the nineteenth century from the
world of the twentieth, as the funda-
mental social and economic changes
in society. The hungry guns out
there at the front have eaten away
the whole social order that wasl
"For conditions in this war are new
in the world. In every other war
soldiers have dreamed high dreams
of their rewards. But they have not
taken them-chiefiy because their
dreams were impractical, somewhat
because the dreams that We're prac-
teal were not held by majority;
or to some extent because if they
were held by a majority the majority
had no power. Now we have a new
condition. In Europe for two decades
the labor problem has been carefully
thought out. Labor is in numerical
majority and the majority has politi-
cal power and political purpose. La
Dor has been asking and getting about
the same things in every country. 1t
has been asking and getting broad
er political control in order to assume
firmer economic control.
Place in Directorates.
But one day we read in the Lon
don papers of an incident that indi-
Gated how far the state control of
industry has gone in England. A
strike occurred and an important
industry was threatened-not over
wages, not over hours, not over shop
conditions, but over the recognition
of the union. Pig-headed managing
directors stood firm against recog-
nizing the unions. Then the govern