The Unsettled Condition of Labor — Opposition to the Large Naval Expenditures — Leaders Are Powerless Before the War Craze — Strenuous Discussions Among the Churchmen
By W. T. BARTLETT
THIS is an interesting period in human history. Apart entirely from the light thrown upon it by the "sure word of prophecy," to tell us that we are passing through the final stages, the movements of the present day have an interest of their own. Tennyson felt,
"Better fifty years of Europe
than a cycle of Cathay";
and Europe since his time has certainly not ceased to spin with increasing velocity "down the ringing grooves of change."
IN FACE OF THE VESTED INTERESTS
The next session of Parliament promises to be one of special importance. It will show whether or not the Parliament Act, carried by Mr. Asquith's government three years ago, has indeed introduced a new era in English political life, and whether verily there is now possibility that the Radical party may pass its measures into law in the face of the determined opposition, of the House of Lords, representing the great vested interests of the country.
True, the passage of the Parliament Act was supposed to have settled this question, but it now remains to be seen whether the Conservative party and the House of Lords in combination will be able to reduce the act to a nullity. The issue will be fought out over the Home Rule Bill. This, as required by the Parliament Act, has been submitted to the House of Lords in two consecutive years by the Liberal majority, being each time rejected. Now, under the Parliament Act, it is only necessary for the House of Commons once more to pass the Home Rule Bill unchanged, for it to become law without further reference to the House of Lords.
Judging by the language used by prominent Conservative leaders, they will leave no stone unturned to prevent the third passage of the Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. Some of them are counseling a policy of disorder that will make impossible the transaction of the necessary financial business, thus compelling the government to dissolve Parliament and appeal once more to the electorate.
SWORN NOT TO SUBMIT
Even though the bill become law, the Unionists of Ulster are sworn not to submit to an Irish parliament in Dublin, and to fight to the death for their cause if need be. Appeals have been addressed to officers of the British army to resign their commissions if they are called upon to put down a Unionist revolt in Ulster, and not a few officers have expressed their sympathy with the Ulster movement.
A few months will show how formidable is this opposition to the Home Rule Bill, and whether or not the pushing through of the bill under the Parliament Act will mean the inauguration of a civil war.
DISESTABLISHING THE CHURCH OF WALES
Another bill that is also to become law during next session under the Parliament Act is the one disestablishing the Church of Wales. The clergy of England have tried hard to organize public opinion against this measure; but either because the public is not greatly interested, or because the question has been overshadowed by the home rule controversy, it has not attracted a great deal of notice. The only possible escape for the Church of Wales from disestablishment is that the government may be overthrown before the Welsh bill is brought forward for the third time.
THE LABOR PARTY AND NAVAL EXPENDITURE
If the Irish party can keep the present government in office until the Home Rule Bill is passed, they will do so; but the government is now threatened with the defection of the Labor party, and also with a split in its own ranks, over the very heavy naval expenditure.
The Labor party is also indignant at the policy pursued in South Africa, where a general strike has been crushed by the application of martial law. They blame the home government for permitting this without protest. If the Labor party should vote with the Conservatives, this would mean a turnover of eighty votes on a division, which would practically wipe out the present majority.
GENERAL BOTHA AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN STRIKE
In a large portion of the English press, General Botha, premier of the South African Union, has been the hero of the hour for his prompt and vigorous action in putting down the general strike. He has taught England, say some, how she should deal with the agitators who organize strikes. Such newspapers recount with exulting admiration the speedy and resolute action taken in calling out the Boer commandoes, arresting the leaders of the men, and deporting those who were most prominent in the movement.
On the other hand, the Labor party in England is burning with indignation that, in a part of the British Empire, white men should be denied the right of free speech and liberty to strike for higher wages. Says the Daily Citizen:
"Martial law is a monstrous weapon, and we have yet to learn that it can be used in British territory for the purpose of crushing an orderly strike of white men. The matter can not rest where it now is, either in South Africa or in this country. We must punish the offenders, and we must make military despotism impossible for the future in any part of the British dominions. Organized labor must see to that."
It is planned to give the deported strike leaders from South Africa a rousing welcome when the ship bearing them arrives at an English port. The resignation by Lord Gladstone, of his office in South Africa, adds significance to the situation.162
It may easily be that this movement will constitute a notable epoch in the war between capital and labor, and that both sides will henceforth harden themselves for a sterner battle than has hitherto been fought.
HAD HER SHARE OF STRIKES
England has had her share of strikes during recent months. The coal carters of London came out during the severe winter weather, but soon went back with only a partial victory. Unfortunately for them, the weather turned milder at once, and thus robbed them of their main dependence for victory. The post-office employees have been on the verge of striking, but decided not to take this step for the present. There is now going on a conflict in the building industries in London, and another among the schoolteachers in the County of Hereford. Some five thousand children are unable to attend school, because teachers can not be found to instruct them. After a long and dreary struggle, the strike in Dublin finally collapsed. Mr. Larkin, its famous leader, is now a discredited man. The people who were led by him suffered severely and gained nothing.
MR. KEIR HARDIE
LABOR LEADERS NOT JUBILANT
The labor leaders in this country are by no means jubilant over the prospect confronting them. Last year was one of abounding prosperity for trade. The volume of the national business arose to $3,845,000,000 imports, and $2,625,000,000 exports. During the last thirteen years, the exports have almost doubled. Yet during the year, the number of trade disputes was the highest recorded for the last twenty-four years. Commenting on this fact, Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P., wrote:
"There are, in truth, very few things to encourage a hopeful feeling. When we consider how very little labor has been able to do for itself, during the quite exceptionally favorable times of the last two and a half years, by industrial action, and when we bear in mind the unwillingness of the employers generally to make concessions to labor when they can very well afford to do so, we can not reasonably expect that things are likely to be better under less prosperous trade conditions."
Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., perhaps the most prominent of all the labor leaders, shares this pessimism. He questions whether any of them are accomplishing real good. A few weeks ago, at a public meeting, he said:
"I often feel sick at heart with politics and all that pertains thereto. If I were a thirty years younger man, with the experience I have gained during the past thirty-five years, I would, methinks, abandon house and home, and wife and child if need be, to go forth among the people to proclaim afresh and anew the full message of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. We are all of us, somehow or another, off the track."
MILITARISM STANDS IN THE WAY
The Labor party can see, from the defeat sustained in South Africa, that militarism everywhere stands between them and the goal for which they are striving. For this reason they are strongly opposed to the heavy increase in expenditure on the navy which is called for in England. While naval bills go up by several millions each year, the government will always find itself unable to respond to the demands for social improvements.
The advocates of retrenchment in shipbuilding point to the many desirable objects that could be realized if only the money now spent on battle-ships were available for improving social conditions. Mr. John Burns has stated that the money spent on the British army and navy in the last ten years is equivalent to what has been spent upon the relief of the poor during the past eighty years.
FOOLISH PANIC AND POLITICAL INSANITY
The members of the government, notwithstanding their request for ever larger sums of money for the navy, freely acknowledge that the expenditure is necessitated only by foolish panic and political insanity. Mr. Asquith said at Leeds, November 27, 1913, "We — and when I say 'we,' I mean my colleagues in the government and myself, every one without exception — lament this huge diversion, all over the world, of national wealth into non-productive channels." At the Guildhall, on the ninth of the same month, he said that the growth in armaments "will more and more impose a severe and even dangerous strain upon the taxable capacity and credit of the nation, which in turn must react upon the springs of industry and upon the general progress of material well-being."
Mr. Winston Churchill also spoke, during the same month, of the nations of Europe as "held and gripped in the thralldom of armaments on a scale unexampled since the beginning of time, on a scale which far surpasses the most ferocious and barbarous ages of the world."
ON DOWNWARD PATH LIKE GADARENE SWINE
Lord Rosebery has also lamented the situation in striking terms. To his view, "all the great countries are hurrying down a steep and downward path, like the Gadarene swine."
At the beginning of the year, Mr. Lloyd-George used language, in a public speech, that seemed to give official promise of better things. He said, "The common sense of the industrial classes, be they capitalist or labor, has risen against this organized insanity." He believed that the present was the most propitious moment in twenty years to call a halt and reconsider the position. He said,
"Unless Liberalism seizes the opportunity, it will be false to its noblest traditions, and those who have the conscience of Liberalism in their charge will be written down for all time as having grossly betrayed their trust."
EXCESSIVE NAVAL DEMANDS
As, however, the time draws nigh when the naval budget must be presented, the fact transpires that not only will the next demand for naval purposes be raised by several millions, but the expenditure for 1913 exceeded the naval estimates by some fifteen million dollars.
Mr. Asquith himself has said that he sees no hope of a halt in the headlong rush unless the people themselves, the business men, are able to assert themselves and demand that the folly be brought to an end. This is a striking confession of the helplessness of the ministers who are supposed to be in power and controlling the destinies of the country.
VISCOUNT GLADSTONE
Lord Courtney, speaking at a peace meeting the other day, said:
"What is the use of appealing to the government to reduce the naval expenditure? The government is appealing to us in conscious helplessness."
THE CENTRAL POINT OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION
In the religious world, the discussion over the Kikuyu conference in British East Africa still occupies the central place. There is a growing feeling, however, that the Church of England will manage to avoid taking a definite stand on either the evangelical or the Romanizing side. The bishop of Zanzibar has just arrived in England to lay his case before the archbishop and urge his demand for a definite decision as to where the Church of England stands.
It is perhaps partly with a view to side-tracking this question, that the archbishop of Canterbury has just appointed a commission consisting of ten of the principal clergy and sixteen well-known laymen, with the earl of Selborne as chairman, to inquire "what changes are desirable in order to se3cure, in the relations of church and state, a fuller expression of the spiritual independence of the church, as well as the national recognition of religion." The design is to secure greater freedom for the church from state control, without at the same time relinquishing any of the material advantages of the state establishment.
The delegates who are here from America to prepare the way for the World Conference on Faith and Order, have met a cordial reception, but thus far the churches seem more impressed with the difficulties of the undertaking than with the idea that it will bring about any real approach to union.
CHURCHES DECLINING IN MEMBERSHIP
For several years past, the Free Churches in this country have shown a steady decline in membership. The publication of the annual statistics reveals the fact that this decline continues in the case of the Baptist Church, which has sustained a further loss of about 200 in membership, and over 6,000 in Sunday-school scholars. The Congregationalists, however, have ceased to fall back, and report this year an increase of 541 members. On their total membership of 491,263, this represents a gain of .001 per cent — not a heavy showing for the labors of 3,135 ministers and 5,293 lay preachers.
THE TURKISH PROBLEM STILL DIFFICULT
Although the powers of Europe were able to go through the troubles of 1913 without coming to blows over their conflicting interests in the East, the Turkish problem still remains for them a difficult one. Germany, which, to the annoyance of Russia, has succeeded in getting control of the Turkish army, will doubtless use this great advantage for the furtherance of her schemes in the near East. The Frankfurter Zeitung speaks thus freely of German designs in Asia Minor:
"The Triple Alliance countries, which are compelled to have recourse to large armies, can not hope to compete successfully with the fleets of England and France on the high seas. In the event of a struggle, therefore, our oversea imports would, in a short time, be done away with, and our industries would languish for want of raw material.
"As things stand to-day, it is not merely the lack of wheat and meat that would drive the country to destruction. Coal and iron, and Heaven knows what else, have also become essential to us. Where, then, shall the Triple Alliance countries look for their raw material if the sea routes are cut off? There is only one means of land communication, and it leads through Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, into Asia Minor. It follows that the Triple Alliance can never see this route barricaded by hostile states; the Triplice must keep this route open at all costs.
"The German military mission in Constantinople is not merely helping to reorganize the Turkish army out of pure joy; it must, at the same time, serve both Turkey and the German Empire."
An English paper, the New Age, commenting on the above, says:
"Germany has now the concessions for a network of railway lines throughout Asia Minor, of which the Bagdad railway is only the main line. All the Asia Minor trade in the neighborhood of the railway, so far as it is now in operation, is being rapidly developed; forests are being cut down, the Euphrates shipping service is being improved, the cultivation of fruit and wheat is being carefully inquired into, experiments are in progress with a view to discovering petroleum wells, attempts are being made to open up the mineral wealth of the country."
France also has her mind set upon a portion of the Turkish dominions in Asia. Sir Harry Johnston wrote a few weeks ago in the Westminster Gazette:
"France obtained years ago the first concessions for carriage roads, and later for railways, in Syria and Palestine. Twelve months back, when the first great victories of the Balkan confederation seemed likely to lead to the dissolution of the Turkish Empire in Asia as well as in Europe, the French government made clearly known its intentions with regard to Syria becoming a French sphere of influence.
"The region of Syria over which, as delimited by other ambitions, France may aspire to exercise some kind of control, would have an area of about 100,000 square miles and a present population scarcely reaching to 3,500,000; but it will probably include the important towns or sites — important sentimentally and historically to-day, and still more by their population to-morrow — of Damascus, Beirut, Tripolis, Latakia, Antioch, Hamar, Tadmor, and Homs; and a desert area between Syria and the middle Euphrates inhabited by about 200,000 Arabs. But the area of 'French' Syria, though it has been shockingly devastated and depopulated since it came under the Turkish rule at the beginning of the sixteenth century, contains the wherewithal to become one of the wealthiest and most densely populated countries in the world. It has mines of hematite iron, petroleum oil springs, deposits of copper, silver, and lead, strata of coal and lignite, and quarries of pink marble. The climate, all things considered, is one of the best in the world."
So we may confidently expect that Turkey will enjoy no very great or prolonged opportunities to consolidate her empire in Asia Minor.
