demand for anything that is not simply the embodiment of fair play and equality.

It is reproached against Labour that its demands are materialistic. So they are. So, as long as one section is debarred from those material conditions which allow of personal freedom, personal fitness, personal self-respect, they ought to be. But material things, it must again be insisted, have no meaning except as the embodiment of ideas. When one considers how much Labour does, how much it could do, and how little it asks, one can only wonder at its moderation.

If one wonders at the moderation of Labour's demands, one wonders still more at their unselfishness: at the fact, that is (and it is a fact, the recognition of which involves no idealisation of any class), that Labour concerns itself so frequently with idealistic ends. Most big strikes, and almost all small strikes, have in the past been directly or indirectly connected with wages or material conditions of life but that is not true of the great strike-movements which have of late years loomed so large and threatened and promised so much. Advocates of 'direct action,' of the use of the general industrial strike to enforce political demands, have concentrated their attention on two main points-peace abroad, and the nationalisation of industry at home.

Even if all industrial disputes were mere wagedisputes, there would still be a two-fold answer to the charge of materialism. In the first place, it is very easy for the man with five hundred a year to call another man a materialist for wanting an income of three hundred and in the second place, a man on strike for better wages is not necessarily demanding anything material for himself-in nine cases out of

ten he is, even though not always consciously, demanding an easier life for his wife, wider opportunities for his children, or, for himself, more leisure, with its implication of better chances of access to the higher pleasures of life. And none of these things is materialistic.

Nor again is the demand for nationalisation purely materialistic. It has two aspects, both of which it will be our business to examine. All that can be done provisionally here is to insist that those who advocate nationalisation do actually put forward two chief arguments for it, and that neither of those arguments has much to do with materialism. On the purely economic side, it is argued, nationalisation would mean that the community as a whole would reap the product of its own labours, instead of seeing it diverted into the pockets of private shareholders. This argument may be right or may be wrong. It may be bad morality-that is not at the moment under discussion. My present point is simply that it is morality, good or bad: it is an appeal, correct or erroneous, to abstract justice, as well as an economic plea for a method of wealth distribution. And when we consider nationalisation in the form in which it is now generally put forward, we find that under its second aspect it is more specifically still a moral issue. For here it is a matter of personal status, of spiritual dignity. The worker (once more I leave open the rightness or wrongness of the argument and confine myself to its nature) demands a share in the control of his work, because he believes that that harmonises with his new conception of himself as a free man, freely co-operating with others. In essence, this argument is the same as Kant's identification of the individual spirit's free, right choice with the moral law.

Of course, nationalisation is advocated and supported, just as it is countered and frustrated, by innumerable people who have never thought out its moral or even its economic meaning. Of course, there is an admixture of petty personal motives, and of honest human muddle-headedness as well, in the advocacy and support of any political movement. Nevertheless, the main arguments, as put forward by Labour leaders and welcomed by the Labour rank-and-file, are those that I have roughly outlined.

When we turn to Labour's action on foreign policy, and specially its active steps towards peace with Socialist Russia, we find again an undoubtedly idealistic and unselfish element preponderating. Why should the dockers have refused to load munitions to assist Poland against Russia, except for the purely moral reason that they thought it wrong to assist Poland against Russia? Obviously, they, as individuals, had nothing to gain quite the contrary. But what is sometimes called Labour's 'interference' with foreign policy is, in essence, the same as its economic demand at home. A large part of its motive for insistence on the cessation of direct or indirect war against Russia is purely humanitarian; but a large part also-and a not less unselfish part-is 'class-conscious' and economic. It is economic, that is, in the sense of being born of those fundamental facts and beliefs in which political, moral, and economic motives merge. Mr Ernest Bevin, as the spokesman of the Labour Council of Action set up to deal with the crisis over the Russo-Polish War in August (a Council of Action constituted by, and representative of, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, the Executive of the Labour Party, and the

Parliamentary Labour Party), said to Mr Lloyd George on August 10th :

'We are of the opinion that hidden forces have been at work in Europe, especially in Paris, and have been responsible for the prolongation of the terrible conflict with Russia. . . . We also feel very strongly that these reactionary forces have been endeavouring to manœuvre the diplomatic position to make Russia appear in the wrong the whole time, so as to find an excuse to declare war with all the forces of the Allies against her. . . . Therefore, Labour's fight will not be merely against Governments, but it will be a contest, in our opinion, against the forces of reaction.

We feel we cannot admit the right in the event of a revolution in a country, of every other nation using immediately the whole of their armed forces to crush out or stem a change that is being made.' 1

And to the national conference of the executives of all bodies affiliated to the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party-a conference of over a thousand, and representative of roughly seven millions-Mr Bevin said similarly, amid the endorsement of prolonged and impassioned applause :—

'Europe is not going to be kept in a welter of war to satisfy the financial interests.' 2

That, rightly or wrongly, then, is obviously Labour's view. Its home policy and its foreign policy hang together. Its wages demands, its nationalisation demands, and its peace demands are interdependent. It envisages the great forces of capitalist finance as arrayed, not merely against its desires for a richer 1 Daily Herald, August 11th, 1920. 2 Daily Herald, August 14th, 1920.

and freer life at home, but equally against anything in the nature of a revolution abroad. It envisages the ‘haves' as arrayed, nationally and internationally, against the 'have-nots.' Its action over the RussoPolish crisis will need further examination. But, at a glance, it can be seen to have been revolutionary. It was so proclaimed by both its advocates and its opponents. It was part of a general revolutionary movement. It confuted once and for all those who had maintained that there was no question of Labour's taking revolutionary action in this country. And it was of a piece with a general attitude towards the economic essentials of our present civilisation.

The plan of this book is simple. Į first analyse the obvious facts of economic inequality and industrial unrest, in their relation to each other. I point out the revolutionary hopes and dangers implicit in the economic and industrial situation. Then, taking the facts more in detail, I show how, twice within twelve months, wages disputes have brought us to the verge of fundamental changes. I trace the history of the movement towards direct action on political issues (which, like the rise in prices, is illustrated more fully by documentary evidence in the Appendices), and the development towards a central organisation whereby Labour's will, whether on political issues or industrial, may ultimately be enforced, in view of the admitted failure of our present so-called 'democracy' to represent the general will. I then rapidly survey the Socialist theory implicit in Labour's activities, and show, by a discussion of the production and distribution of the nation's income, how the iron logic of facts enforces that theory and impels those activities. After discussing the two main forms (i.e., with or