The sun., 1919-10-26

a stage Nm the most constitutional
country in Europe where the mere fact
that something is promised by Parlia-
ment Is regarded by large numbers as
assurance that 1t will not be carried
out. Before the war the House at
Westminster was still the oracle. To-
day 1t Is just the House that is filed
with the wind Of promises.
Lloyd George has broken out into an
other epidemic of speeches. He speaks
In his rounded, fiorid sentences of a
future world In which hunger and un-
employment shall have no existence:
/ world Of happy children and con-
tented proletarians. Nobody believes
him any more than they believe the
man in the pulpit who sometimes re-
places reason by rhetoric. As the
Times says. THE time for exhortation
is past" He is drawing another check
on the bank of good intentions and it
VIII be returned marked. Account
overdrawn."
The coalition Daily Express sums
up the position in a cartoon which
shows that happy and contented world
of which Mr.. Lloyd George speaks
and which is mapped out into Land of
Milk and Honey" promised Land"
&C., the sole inhabitant of which is
its creator-Mr. Lloyd George himself.
Abnormal Must Come First.
1t Is not that I believe all this is
going to be permanent condition.
Disintegration and analysis can never
be permanent. Even decay itself is
but the mother of life. But we are
lot going to have something of nor
mality before we have passed through
the abnormal. I don't believe that any
craftsmanship to-day can avert what
is coming. Some things, like some
people, bear upon them the sign
manual of fatality. The thing that is
coming in Europe Is fateful. 1t Is as
sure as the fact that death is the
essential to resurrection. We have got
to go through it
But does any one realize what that
"it" means7 The average official, as
perhaps the average man. comforts
himself In this way: We've been
through as bad. What about the wal? ?
People prophesied all sorts of disasters.
But We muddled through. People
prophesy revolution to-day, but we
shall muddle through. We've always
muddled through" Yet there comes a
line in the affairs Of nations as of
men when they cannot ''muddle
through" 1t Is written on the time
portals that have swallowed Babylon
md Greece and Rome. He does not
"ealize what sit" means.
at" means in the first place still
further lowering of an already crippled
production in a world where Produce
,r die!" is the law Of life. at" means
vast strikes assuredly leading to
bloodshed and to a bitterness which
will divide the nation at time when
national unity Is essential to its whole
future. 1t means inevitably the loss
Of the world markets and 1t means
presumably the lowering Of what has
hitherto been the first credit in the
world. It means chaos.
Profound Modfhcations.
Some here admit the coming of
chaos, but they say: I'VE shall one
day return to pre-war conditions u
Now, 1 don't believe that Britain, or
Europe for that matter. is going back
to pre-war conditions. I almost ven
ture to say that We shall see pro-
found notifications in our system of
production as in our society. There
is a feeling of inevitableness about
the things that are happening to-
day. And one feels that they are not
merely transitory. Why?
Because the masses in Britain have
developed a new and strange conscious
ness as the result of the war. Their
conceptual horizon has been enlarged
They have got ideas" Something
has been set moving down there In
that inchoate mass mind-something
that is growing every moment. 1t is
not so much a philosophy, though
there is philosophy behind 1t, as q
feeling. The path OF labor, like the
path of humanity as a whole, is not
the line of the inclined plane-it is
dynamic, not static. 1t is not a straight
line but a series of sharp lifts. as
though the thought forces banking
themselves up found vent at inter-
walls.
It Is not that British labor is So
cialist. It is not that It Is anarchist OF
Bolshevist. But It feels that the stand
ard of life Is too low. 1t feels that II
wants some Of the amenities of exis-
tence. 1t feels that its children don't
get a fair chance. 1t feels many
things-things without form; things
gigantic, impellent; things sometimes
soulless-but yet things. The pity Of II
Is that this natural aspiration under
the drive of what seem indomitable
forces is taking the form of physical
revolution. Its cry was once for
Bread" Now 1t is a cry for Bread
and Roses" But its roses will be
flecked with blood.
Glimpse Into Future.
One of two things will happen
Either this new feeling is about to be
met by smashing ruthless force and
crushed in a civil war which will leave
Britain helpless and devitalized, or It is
going to find its outlet-perhaps in
bizarre and terrible forms. The third
possibility that It may reach its frui-
ton through constitutional forms re-
cedes for every day that goes.
That is why labor men who are evo-
lutionists, not revolutionists. view the
future with such a black vision. That
is why Mr.. Hoover was filled with des-
pairful disgust when he failed to con-
vince the Supreme Council of the Allies
that unless drastic steps are taken, and
notO. the coming winter is about to see
the ruin of a dozen countries, bloody
ilrrisIr,n.s and the han-ira IaiIanr Of TIM