lected by motor lorries. Hyde Park was converted into a calling station. Wholesalers drew their supplies there and passed them on to retailers. These plans worked so smoothly that the effect of the strike on the food supplies of the big towns was almost unnoticeable.

The Ministry of Transports set up an organization of volunteers to replace the strikers in running the railways, some of whom needed a short course of training. Owing to some disorder an appeal was issued to all loyal citizens to enroll themselves in citizen guards for the protection of life and property. It is a recognized fact that it was the public, by its willingness and efficiency in its co-operation with the government, and the energy and promptness of the government itself, which showed the strikers that they could not control the country and coerce the government.

REVOLUTIONARY INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM AND THE TRIPLE

ALLIANCE

We read in the "National Labor Digest," as far back as September, 1919, page 13, a warning against the plans of the famous Triple Alliance:

"For months England has been on the verge of the greatest strike in her history of industrial troubles. Three of the largest British labor unions, the Miners' Federation, consisting of over 800,000 members; the National Union of Railwaymen, comprised of over 450,000 members, and the Transport Workers' Union, made up of over 500,000 members, form the Triple Alliance. This association presented a program of demands on the British government unequalled in the history of that nation. A general strike was threatened if these demands were refused. The program of the Triple Alliance was far-reaching, dealing, not merely with matters of higher wages, shorter hours, and improved working conditions, but demanding also the immediate nationalization of all the coal mines, iron mines, railways, and canals of Great Britain. . .

"A special commission set up by Parliament to investigate points at issue have been trying to find some way out of the dilemma. The situation is so critical that England is applying itself assiduously to the task of staying the tide of Bolshevism and preventing, so far as possible, further inroads upon the commerce and industry of the nation.

"All parties now realize that the situation has become a

menace to the established government. The 'Morning Post' (London) announced, 'The real cause of the strike by the Triple Alliance of miners, railwaymen and transport workers is a long and carefully concocted plan to overthrow the existing order of things and place the whole nation at the mercy of one section - the Bolsheviki.' The Daily Express' (London) declared, 'Extremist leaders of the striking miners in the Yorkshire fields are in constant communication with the Bolsheviki of Russia, the Spartacans of Germany, and the Industrial Workers of the World in America.'"

A letter printed in the London "Times," written by one British Soviet worker to another, shows that the famous Clyde strike was connected fundamentally with the Soviet movement. This letter

says:

"Dear Comrade:

Enclosed is a copy of a program arranged by our comrades of the Clyde workers' Soviet committee and drafted from the articles arranged by the German Spartacists' Union. The original draft of the above was

translated direct from the German. Our own ideas are not in agreement with the Clyde and no responsibility is accepted by the sub-committee."

The program enclosed with the foregoing letter, as published by the London "Times," follows:

"1. Disarming of all non-proletarian soldiers.

"2. Seizure of arms and ammunition by the workers and soldiers' councils.

"3. Arming of the entire labor population as a Red army. "4. Voluntary discipline of all soldiers in place of the present brutal and degrading slavery, all superiors to be nominated by the rank and file, with abolition of courtsmartial.

"5. Nomination of authorized representatives of the soldiers' and workers' councils for all political organs.

"6. Creation of a revolution tribunal, chiefly responsible for the harsh treatment accorded our comrades now in prison and of political prisoners.

"7. Immediate seizure of all means of subsistence to secure success to the revolution.

"8. Removal of parliament and municipal councils to be taken over by the revolutionary council.

"9. Abolition of all class distinctions, titles and orders; social equality of the sexes.

"10. Reduction of working hours to avoid unemployment and to conform to the limitation of the working day to six hours and a minimum wage of $35, seven pounds, per week. "11. Confiscation of all Crown estates and revenues, which will become common property.

"12. Annulment of State debts and other debts.

"13. Appropriation of all lands and properties, funds, and other securities now in the possession of the ruling and non-proletariat classes.

"14. Expropriation of all banks, mines, industrial and commercial establishments by the revolutionary committee. "15. A Republican Committee to take over all means of communication, and means of transport."

Of course, the above program is not one that is accepted by the entire rank and file, but the actual official program of the triple union is sufficiently revolutionary to have led to the speech by Lloyd George, sounding the alarm, a part of which is published elsewhere.

The Triple Alliance is merely one of the combinations which is forming the rank and file of labor into a unified combination. under the banner of industrial unionism, as Kellogg and Gleason, the authors of "British Labor and the War," say, p. 176:

"The labor movement is not weakening toward a split. It is amalgamating. In twenty-two organizations are found three-quarters of all trade union membership. The cohesive force of the trade union movement is clearly revealed in these terms, and there are eight effective industrial combinations, each with at least 100,000 members, and a total membership of 2,500,000. The eight combinations are: The miners (800,000), the railway men (400,000), the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (270,000), Workers' Union (350,000), National Union of General Workers (250,000), Amalgamated Weavers' Association (200,000), Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, Cabinet Makers and Joiners (110,000), and the National Amalgamated Union of Labor (117,000).

"This is the striking blow behind the bargaining power of the industrial movement. And not only that, but when coal, cotton, transport and metal workers decide on a program of action, Great Britain will listen, and, more simple

yet, if the Triple Alliance wills it, the industrial life in Great Britain will stop short."

THE NATIONALIZATION OF RAILROADS IN GREAT BRITAIN

Under the stress of railway strikes, the House of Commons passed a bill on July 11, 1919, by which the British government created a system of unified control and operation in England, involving railways, roads, canals, docks and coastwise traffic, under Sir Eric Geddes, now popularly known as the government's right hand man. ("National Labor Digest," August, 1919, p. 29.)

It is considered by many as the first step toward the nationalization of the entire transportation system of Great Britain. The advantages of the bill, as outlined by Sir Eric Geddes, before the Commons, were as follows:

Elimination of wasteful competitive services, common use by all roads of passenger and freight cars; elimination of privately owned cars, increased capacity of railroads and decreased cost of traction by extension of electrification; increased carrying capacity by increased size of cars; reduction of idle time of cars; standardization of materials.

Another object is the more efficient use of canals and docks and the reviving of the coastwise trade which has suffered thus far from what has amounted to government subsidizing of railroads. Another new feature is the development of road transport by motor trucks. It will be remembered that the wholesale use of motor trucks at the time of the railroad strike was one of the principal means for breaking the strike. The new scheme is supposed to be temporary, to tide over a period of crisis and prepare for a fundamental plan.

The Britism Labor Party in January, 1918, at its annual conference, had submitted to it, by its executive committee a report on reconstruction entitled "Labor and the New Social Order." This program was submitted for consideration with a view to its being adopted somewhat later at the summer conference in June. The draft submitted in January was actually the basis for "Resolutions on Reconstruction," adopted by the British Labor Party in June, but the text of these resolutions naturally eliminated a great deal of the reasoning and basic general considerations of the original draft. Therefore, it is the original draft which we will here reproduce, because it is an eloquent and fundamental document which was of great value as a piece of propaganda, and, which being widely circulated, not only in Great Britain, but all

over the world, created a tremendous sensation, and was the basis for a great deal of reconstructive program-making, during 1918 and 1919. It is therefore here given in full. Both this document and the final resolutions have been published by the Labor Party with an introductory article by the Party leader, Arthur Henderson.

To our own country the effect of this pronouncement of the British Labour Party is evident in some of the documents studied in this Report, especially the "Social Reconstruction" pamphlet issued by the National Catholic War Council, and the Triennial Report of the Social Service Commission of the Episcopal Church presented to the Detroit Convention in October, 1919. It affected not merely the Socialistically inclined members of the clergy of the various Christian denominations, but also to a great extent the intellectuals of various radical and sentimental groups. It helped to popularize in the best circles the name and theory of the New Social Order and to minimize the dangers of revolutionary change.

What are the cardinal points of this document:

(1) It pledges the Labor Party not to help to reconstruct our present shaken civilization but to help to complete its destruction.

(2) After this destruction of the Capitalist System and all its works the new order must secure for all people the proper 'minimum conditions of healthy existence,' through the elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist,' through the common ownership of the means of production, and the equitable sharing of the proceeds.' This involves common ownership of land, nationalization of basic industries, of means of transportation, and of raw material, both national and imported. This means a revolution in national finance, based on a very heavy direct taxing of incomes above the necessary cost of family maintenance, on the limiting of inheritances and on the heavy assessment of capital. All the national surplus is to be applied to the common good.

It might be objected that the document appears to be based on the assumption of the co-existence of two irreconcilable systems— the old Capitalist and the new Communistic Society. The system of national finance presupposes the large fortunes of capitalism, while the National Minimum of comfortable living is based on the elimination of private ownership and control, which would quite preclude the creation of any such fortunes as would make the above financial scheme practicable.