Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-02-21
All Glasses of Workers, Whose
War Wages Gave New Ideas
OF Living, Now CIamor for
Better Conditions.
LLOYD GEORGE CABINET
MAY LOSE CONTROL
Conservative Leaders Losing
Influence With Growing EIe-
mentS Of RadiCaIiSm; De-
mandS Not Co-ordinated.
(By Joseph w. Grigg.l


(Staff Correspondent of the Albuquer-
que Journal and New York World)
London, Feb. 20.-Great Britain
finds herself confronted with an in
dustrial convulsion just as she begins
to make some progress in the turn
over from a war to a peace basis. The
peacemakers are busy at Paris, but
the instigators of industrial discord
at home are even buster.
Hardest Modern Problem.
Only the future holds the key to
the solution of the biggest industrial
problem which has faced the country
in modern times. but It is an indus
trial disturbance which needs to be
wisely handled both from govern
ment standpoint and from the stand
point of the labor leaders themselves
In the big Belfast and Clyde strikes
those leaders We're ignored by the men
under the direction of a committee
which favors direct action rather than
prolonged discussion; or. to use a mil
itary terms frequently adopted to diff
ferentiate the present methods OF
striking as compared with the old
''shock methods"
Hardly had the sober minded Briton
emerged from war into a twilight
armistice atmosphere and duly cele-
brated the daWning of a new day than
he was treated to a general election
at the instigaton of Premier Lloyd
George, with the resultant huge ma
jorlty for the premier, majority OF
tories and approved" liberals The
election fulminations had hardly sub
sided before the same sober minded
Briton, anxious to get on with the
Il ne ,,i, af IA
he was involved in the peace confer
ence turmoil. But he had heard the
rumblings in the election, more audi
BILE than ever before of industrial un-
rest, which was not assuagea by
promises of great plans for recon-
struction and of further promises of
making his country a fit place for the
heroes to return to.
Ex-soldiers Needing Jobs.
The promises of early demobiliza-
tion seemed to have paled into a
sickly state, and then came the troop
demonstrations with consequent ac-
celeration of the return home of vast
numbers of men---a million as | write.
There were more rumblings from the
industrial world about the means of
absorbing this great body of workers,
yet leaving enough all round for those
who kept the home fires burning.
Lord George left for France with
his retinue of ministers The rumb-
lings of discomfort grew louder. About
the time one of those peace-time in
stitution (the newspaper bilD ap-
peared on the streets. Mr. Taxpayer
found that the threatened strikes had
started strikes that developed puz-
zling problems. The government
har ! h., Mi In
the labor leaders. But the men, the
radical wing of labor on the Clyde,
were out for national strike, sparks
from which set abla2e the inflam-
mable situation in Belfast. Today
there is a sliding scale of demand for
better hours and more pay which
more or less finds basis in a 44-hour
or 47-hour week. with the pay of a
54-hour week.
John Hodge. the labor minister of
pensions in 191y-who some labor
men say is more entitled to speak
about labor than for it--diagnoses
the present unrest as a natural corol-
larry to the keyed up feelings of the
war and that it is a blowing off of
steam" episode that will prevent the
industrial boilers from breaking,
Suspicious on Both Sides.
Sir Eric Geddes, who has charge of
rehabilitation, thinks there is room
for a great deal of spade work in the
matter of capital and labor under
standing each other and eradicating
the present suspicious on both sides.
But, reasons or no reasons, what
concerns the sober .Briton is that the
body polite seems to have acquired
germ during the war that battles
diagnosis at the present time. 1t is q
germ which he believes to have fat
tened on grievances of former times.
1t thrives on the irritability of
Tommy Atkins at having to stand
guard in Germany when there is a
family and a job at home, and thrives
still more on the assumption that
somebody is being done in the eye"
by favored part of the nation.
When reminded by an American
friend that when the British have no
outside foe to tackle they Immediately
start a scrap at home this sober
Briton smiles and is willing to take
a glass of port and aphorize that in
the little old United States they seem
to be having some trouble with the
prohibtionists.
Nevertheless he has to come back
to his own serious grievances-if he
lives in London--to the added ones
of being a straphanger in the tubes
and underground or in Buses still liv-
ing couponed life if he lives any
where in Great Britain; eating salt
IConfinued on PAGE Two1