The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-07-27

ward; vast amount Of unemploy-
ment which includes 400, 900 ex-service
men, and a soldiery disconnected with
the creaking rehabilitation wheels.
The Labor Dimculty.
1t has to face a labor movement
which by a million majority has de
cided upon direct action. and It has to
face the men who carry commercial
England on their shoulders-the
miners, who demand that the Govern
ment go the whole hog and accept ma
tionalization Of mines which the miners
claim they swallowed when they swal-
lowed the Sankey report.
In the meantime all this demission
and transformation Is being helped by
that prime factor in the British politics
OF the past decade, a factor enor-
mously helped by the Wharf.-The fading
out of party and the coming of econ
omic demarkation. Every day sees
Economic, the taskmaster, the re-
morseless. herding all parties into two
camps-the nationalizers and the anti
nationalizers-or, If you prefer 1t, the
Halves" and the "Have-nots." Before
another-decade we shall have no polit-
| ical parties in England.
This factor is carried one step
| further by the crystallizing OF organ
lied labor about the miners. while the
| noble lords who are the coal owners
! and who at the recent mines national
| ization inquiry displayed unexpected
powers of brain and repartee, are the
| nucleus for the ants. 1t means a po-
htical Donnybrook, but I anticipate
that the Government will ultimately
give way. Only mines naturalization
will be the key to unlock the flood
gates Of State ownership, and the
miners know 1t.
People are talking OF Bolshevism
and Of revolution. But they are apt to
forget two things-first that although
we are sure to have labour troubles,
some OF them violent, the Bolshevik
wave will only be q wave-it will pass
because Bolshevism and the British
worker are two things; the other that
John Bull is resourceful old gentle
man with the solidity that comes Of
tho centuries, who can weather storms
that no other country can face. In
England 1t is always the expected and
always the unexpected that happensl
Both labour and capital will discover
this in the months to come.
Here are the facts about the Direct
Action resolution passed by a million
majority at the Labour Congress. The
millions OF British trade unionists are
swayed, as millions always are swayed,
by a handful Of conscious men and
women (the woman plays an ever-in-
creasing part in the tail that wags the
labour dog). These millions have a
clear consciousness Of high prices and
vague consciousness of injustice.
They feel those epidemic waves OF un-
rest with the psychotherapeutist of
the future will diagnose as readily as
the physician Of the physical world Of
to-day diagnoses smallpox, and he will
find they are as infectious. And so
they strike.
Now the day has gone by when the
statesman could talk vaguely about
'labour unrest" and trust to luck and
time. The best politicians in England
to-day see in this unrest something
that needs not the poultce of q wage
raise. not even the knife of armed
force. but a general building up Of the
body polite. And they know that time
Is the essence OF the contract. \
For behind all this unrest and quite
apart from the moral side there lies
the nightmare Of Englands captains
Of industry-the dght for the world
markets which is coming with Amer
lea II the British proletariat Is I'M
harnessed and over the traces there
will be no national pull to meet the
pull of the hundred millions across
the Atlantic. Within the last few
months have met some of the men
who have their fingers on the pulse Of
world trade. and they all say the same:
We've got to be right II we're to
light" But of that will write later.
England to-day sees two giant fig-
ures, hand clasped-one sleuthy. the
other four square-straddling the rim
of the world, with the dawn of peace
behind them that heralds the war az
ter the war. They are Uncle Sam and
John Bull. The hand clasp Is the grip
before the fight-friendly. but a hght-