The sun., 1919-10-26
BRITAIN FACES
BLACK WINTER
OF SOCIAL WAR
Spectre of Red Revolution
Rises From Bed of Hun
ger, Says Desmond.
GOVERNMENT Is SLIPPING
Nobody Trusts Anybody
Economizing Is Merely In
creasing Discomfort.
BY SHAW DESMOND.

LONDON, Oct. II.
The war after the war. No. I'm
not speaking of the fight for trade.
I'm speaking of the social war. That
England is faced with her blackest
winter and that the spectre of red
revolution is rearing itself from its
bed Of hunger and despair is as certain
as death. This may profoundly affect
the fight for the markets with the
United States and, in view OF the
financial Internationally of England
and America, may give birth to an en-
tirely new set Of economic problems
and throw pre-war economics to the
dogs.
1 am no Job. II what here say
bears the mark of a rending Of gar
ments and casting Of ashes, 1t is be
cause, dope your intelligence as you
like, the two outstanding things in
Britain. as In Europe. to-day are the
twins of Hunger and Revolution. 1t
ID
see this. The gods. using that mind
10 mask their terrestrial purposes.
first maze 1t, and so. through 1t, maze
the peoples.
There Is not one outstanding figure
in Britain to-day who will get up and
say: First things first! Fill hungry
bellies and starve revolution. Fill
hungry bellies and starve. Bolshevism.
Fill hungry bellies and forget military
adventure. Fill the belly before you
talk about the fight for trade. First
things first!"
Government without Policy.
What are the facts? Masses of the
British people are hungry while food
has been rotting at the docks. Masses
are workless while the nation clamors
lor clothes and houses. Profiteering
ftourishes. There are $50 900 railway
men about TO strike, with 100000
miners and 100000 transport workers
on their heels. The Government is
without policy. Parliament is losing
its position in the national conscious
ness. Nobody trusts anybody. And
IN and out Of all this chaos there limp
and drag unemployable thousands of
armless. legless. and sightless soldiers.
The Government has been fast los
ing ground. Its defeats at Glasgow
and Widnes tell the tale. But the
outstanding fact is the deterioration
Of Mr.. Lloyd George. From the little
virile idealist who galvanized a people
and won a war to the political oppor-
tunist who, in the growing opinion of
the British people. in order to hold on
to office has camouf1aged about labor.
camOufaged about Ireland, and, IL
Bullitt is to be believed, and he is be-
lieved, camouiaged about Russia.
there is a progressive degeneration
paraLeling the national decline.
Nobody believes Mr.. Lloyd George
to-day. Nobody believes Mr.. Winston
Churchill to-day. Labor has no faith
in Eric Geddes, Minister of Transport.
To the mass mind, Parliament Is rap
lily becoming a sepulchre of words.
The one time faith in its promises Is
passing into a grinnins scepticsm.
which, in these days Of International
lzing, is a menace to parliamentary in.
sItutions throughout the world.
Eject OF 'Economy."
To apay all this suspicion and dis
content, the Government Is "econo-
mizing." But the Times laughs. It
says that the Government has not
been able to show a smaller deficit
tnan f2,O00,000 a day. 1t has been
olsoanding the air service, 1t has been
firing its clerks, 1t has been disman-
Ting munition factories like that al
Gretna, which cost nearly 1000, 900
ana covers twenty-five square miles
nuI II mas been throwing out Of EN-
ployment armies of people, who go ia
swell the discomfort.
And all this discomfort is being
helped by a growing feeling that the
war has not abolished war. Arma-
ments are increasing, not decreasing.
Men like Cardinal Mercier and Albert
Thomas, the French Socialist leader,
are being quoted to show that Ger
many is nursing revenge, and an ap-
prehension that Europe will one day
again be plunged into blood bath is
tast becoming conviction.
To still further swell the discomfort
come the women. In disbanding its
war factories the Government is let
uhg loose armies of disconnected
women, whom it bids go back to the
nome as domestic servants and pro-
specuYe mothers of the race. But war
mas taught the women to hate the
uaInmels of domesticity; its freedom
u give many OF them distaste for that
marriage which, perhaps not alto
sether unnaturally. they confuse with
domestic service" The war in fact
mas raised the devil-in this case a fe-
male devil which can neither be ca
Joled nor coerced.
All that may be economy, but it may
prove economy dearly bought. The
ulscontent is such that some of the
most cautious judges of labor are pre-
ulcung a Labor Government at the
next election. But II revolution comes
"here is the election?
Direct Action VS.. ParIis ment.
II Is a sinister. pitiful confession. but
sIect action, in the definite sense of
oeihg opposed to Parliament, has made
sreat strides in England during the
last rev months. Direct action feeds
On munger and discontent The Gov
ernmsnt has I'D II We have reached