Evening star., 1927-09-04

CORRESPONDENT in America writes
" to suggest an article on the struggle
~ between capital and labor and what 1t
n is coming to. Monday in the United
States is the legal holiday for the celebration of
labor, and it seems an appropriate date for
some general remarks that have been accumu-
lating in my mind about this ndisputable
struggle.
am afraid shall disappoint my correspond
ent. From some phrases in his letter am in
clined to think he expects to be violently
partisan in this issue, to forete the doom of
the capitalist system and the great days when
labor alone shall rule the earth. This shows
lamentable ignorance of my voluminous and
I am told-reiterative works. / cannot hope
for the abolition of the capitalist system, be.
cause do not believe there is capitalist sys
tenn, and my only aspiration for labor is that
it should get right off the earth
/ believe this conflict between capital and
labor is like that great struggle between Arian-
ism and Trinitarianism, which tore the Roman
world to pieces IS or ii centuries ago. That is
to say. l regard it as a struggle about theo-
retical definitions having only the remotest re-
iationship to any fundamental realities in life.
Most Christians nowadays, remark, are Arians
protesting a Trinitarian creed, and much the
same effacement may overtake this false antag
onism of capital and labor. We may come to
a world of capitalists processing to be a labor
community. Or we may follow quite other and
more rational lines of development.
Most of the issues upon which men are an.
tagonized in crowds-because of the uniformity
of intelligences and the eagerness of our
minds-are false issues. Throughout all history
most human conflicts have turned on false
issues. The issue of patriotism. for example,
is so false that it is ndelicate almost to the
reasonable pitch to say So But bravng the
indelicacy, can any intelligent person argue to-
dav natriotiSno NOWADAYS has anvfhinc
whatever to do with race, qualities or thought?
Take g. concrete example to illustrate this
current insanity My distant cousin and name
sake at Chicago Prof H. G. Wells, the emf.
nent psychologist. living under the stresses Of
his local patriotism. is obliged to pay for the
construction of cruisers and arplanes to pro-
tect himself, the American Constitution and
the Standard Oil Co against me, and I am
obliged to pay for the construction of cruisers
and airplanes to protect the House of Windsor,
the Anglo-Dutch oil people and this Wembley
exhibition empire of ours against him, when
as a matter OF the most obvious common sense
we are SO much akin and so much after the
same ends that what we both need is mutual
protection from these monsters of the imagna.
tion that have got hold of and which are
quite likely to gas us or blow us to shreds
before they have done with us.
Clearly, we two are parts of the same bio
logical, intellectual and moral strain; we belong
to the same civilizations we are of one outlook
blood and name, and our chief real political in.
terest is to get rid of these people in uniform.
these diplomatists and the difference of our
flags, which may in the end waste most of the
good of both our lives in famous war.
* X
And it is equally false to ina gine that be-
cause the evil passions of men can be involved
to the pitch Of judicial murder--at least in
such barbaric countries Soviet Russia or
Italy or Observation-Disclosures is any profound
matter involved in this century-old conflict be.
tween capital" and labor that muddles our