Evening star., 1938-12-27

but numerous police force by wire
less. This plane and two little fleets
OF police, vans were recent and
provocative innovation by the new
police commissioner, but this after
noon 1t hummed above a stormless,
quaking marsh of people. No need
to move them on. They kept NOV
ing on.
The B. M. G.s converged. Rud
made his way, silent, but deter
mined, among the platforms, to-
ward his particular objective.
The air was full of voices; the
nearer ones patchily audible, say
ing stereotyped things, the further
ones a felt of raucous sounds. All
the speakers seemed bored. Every
body seemed bored and dissatisfied.
1t was all politics and no reality.
There was a big Labor party demon
stration, to show once again and
for all time that no considerations
OF human welfare could shake for
one moment the stern resolve of the
established British trade union lead
ers to have no truck with Liberal
politicians, men of science, men of
ideas, Communists, Americans or
any one who might attempt to share
the honors and emoluments that
come at last to the implacably OBJ
structive in political life. There
was a dissentient Labor platform
concerning itself with defining the
fine differences in organization that
justified its dissent. There was a
Liberal platform trying to steal labor
votes by its insistence upon the
trouble in the Ukraine and the
Mysore prison scandal. There was
a free India group and a platform
OF miscellaneous people pinning
their faith to the South Welsh prison
scandals as a means of raising
useful indignation. General OBJ
jectives had long since vanished in
the intricacies of party strategy.
Warned and Excited.
AT every Socialist and Liberal
platform, the common man was be-
ing warned and melted against
every other Socialist or Liberal
group-probably with justice. One
gathering charged the government
with responsibility for the recent
outbreak of measles. The Ministry
OF Health had done or not done this,
that and the other thing, and at
another point the Ministry of Agri-
culture was being challenged very
manfully about some intricate ma
nurial technicality. Isolationist
platforms clashed with demands
OF intervention in Spain, China,
Siam, the West Indies and Lithu-
ania. Amidst the confusion religion
reared its head to reply to infidel-
ity, and anti-vivisection called on
all mankind to end the greatest
horror in the world. Communists
in alliance with Catholics, Com
munists of the Trotsky heresy, Pro-
Mexican Communists, New Com
munists and True Blue Communists,
beat upon the air and warned the
common man against deleterious
limitations 1t was less of q forum
than a fair with every platform
trying to sell some monopoly Of
its own.
The recent happenings in South
Carolina played minor role in that
crowds confusion of thought and
feeling. The press had tempered
the facts Of the American social
war to the mentality of the British
public, and the general ignorance
of American geography in England
had prevented any realization of the
steady extension of the conflict from
State to State. The loss Of conf
dence in the remedial powers Of
Congress and the lapse of the whole
South and Middle West first toward
sporadic lawlessness and then to-
ward an organized insurrectionary
movement, had been masked by
the fragmentary nature of the news
and oyershadowed by the de facto
war in the Ukraine and the Balkans
No one had yet drawn a working
analogy between the transatlantic
and the European situations.
Things were rather larger, more
obvious and rougher on the Amer
ican side, but the issues were es-
sentially the same. The general
public voted and demonstrated, but
its voting seemed to lead to moth
ing. 1t felt that things were done
behind its back and over its head,
but it could never understand
n1nn r.1yr hnur r. aa1a
to get sound news out Of its news
papers nor good faith out of its
politicians. 1t resisted, it fumbled,
it was becoming more and more
suspicious and skeptical, but it was
profoundly confused and ill-in-
formed.
Ahead of the Others.
Rud's quick realization that some
thing profoundly significant was
happening across the Atlantic, or
at least something that could be
presented as being profoundly sig
nificant, was we'll ahead of the pop
ular intelligence, but not so much
ahead of it as to be out of touch
with its latent possibilities.
Spectators far outnumbered DEM
onstrators in the park that Sunday,
and never had they found the flow
of eloquence so trite. They drifted
from platform to platform. For
anything fresh they heard they
might as we'll have been at mathis
or evensong. The Popular Socialist
platform had, as usual, contrived to
get itself within irritation length
of the main Communist gathering.
That was now its established place.
1t was within irritation length, but
it had long since ceased to irritate.
Its normal function in the past had
been to provoke violence and be
rescued by the police in a scrim-
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