The Washington herald., 1919-11-09

tnouEn not In public, men have
argued that a great struggle with
labor over wages Is inevitable, and
that now is the best time to have it
out.
Will Exact Pledges.
Labor on the other hand mas
shown clearly that II means to ex.
act from the Cabinet the fulfilment
OF pledges made during the war as
to the higher status of the working
man in the new peace time Eng
land. Lloyd George has been prodi-
gal with these promises; by giving
the railwaymen three-fourths of
what they asked he has. at least In
great part. redeemed them. All
British labor assumes, and probably
rightly, that what was granted to
the railroad strikers will not be de-
MED to others, who have not struck.
The good temper with which the
public accepted the result of the
strike shows clearly that the point
of view of the employers and the
Tory party has to be considerably
modified. The British nation seems
to have made up its mind that the
level of wages is going to be much
higher in the future than 1t was in
the past. The standard of living is
to go up; there is to be no attempt
to reduce the masses to the grinding
poverty that was their lot before
1914.
Manufacturers, it is evident, are
already discarding dreams OF cheap
labor. and are trying to improve
their efficiency. looking to America
in most cases for inspiration and
help. To lower the cost of produce
ton by other methods than cut
ting wages Is now seen to be neces-
sary. and what he knows has to be
done the British business man finds
a way to do. An authority on the
labor situation not himself a labor
leader thus summed up the position
after the great strike:
Reasonable Demands.
AT present the first wage de-
mands Of the trade unions is. in
almost every case. that all advances
granted during the war shall be rec
ognized henceforth a forming part
of the permanent rate of wages. and
that the existing wages, including
war advances, shall be treated as
new postwar basic rates. This is an
essentially reasonable demand, not
only until the cost OF living falls.
but as a permanent measure. Even
the present wages are. in most
trades. so inadequate that no con-
ceivable fall in the cost of living
could justify their reduction. Justice
is on the side Of those who demand
their permanent retention in full as
basic minima.
Moreover. the railway settlement
and the evident determination OF
labor to resist with all its force every
attempt to reduce wages virtually
settles the practical question. The
most that further attempts to reduce
wages will lead to will be further
struggles. perhaps even more serious
than the railroad strike; they certain
ly will not attain their aim. Common
sense and common prudence. to say
nothing of bigger motives, ought to
lead us at once to acknowledge that
existing wages must be treated as
permanent, and that the only Ques-
tions worth discussing are the ques-
tion of standardizing existing rates
so as to remove anomalies in their
working. and the question OF adding to
some of them to bring them more
into harmony with the promises that
were so lavishly made to the work
ers during the war
Labor on Defensive.
Already one striking difference be-
tween the situation here and that in
America will have occurred to the
reader In England. labor is on the
defensive. 1t is struggling to hold
what it has gained. not primarily to
get more. The extremists. the Wat
sons and MacManuses against whom
the authorities secretly prepared mill
tary plans last winter. whose revolu-
tiOnary Vaccinations once brought
Lloyd George scurrying home from
the Paris conference. no longer count.
The innate conservatism of the la
boring man, his common sense,
triumphed over foreign indictments
just as soon as he was convinced
that what he already had won of in
creased comforts was not to be TAX
en- from him.
In the United States, on the other
hand. present industrial troubles are
almost all due to endeavors to get
higher wages, not to retain the pres
ent rates. No American employers.
that 1 learned Of, have been trying.
since the armistice. to get wages
down. 1t is probably this conserva-