WE PRINT this week a letter from Mr. R. H. Tawney and Mr. George Lansbury, defending the general strike and urging that if the breaking of agreements was a sin, the “inhumanity and oppression by which it was provoked” was a greater sin. It is easy to reply that two blacks do not make a white. It is possible to suggest that “the inhumanity and oppression ” are greatly exaggerated. But it is the last paragraph of the letter with which we are most concerned. Appeals for good will, we are told, must be futile. Our correspondents are convinced that not only is there a class war, but that there must be a class war until “the wage-earners have gained some measure of real control over the industry by which they live.” In other words, we are to have strikes and rumours of strikes persistently until Socialism is obtained. To us these contentions are futile and unchristian. We do not believe that class war is any more inevitable than international war. We entirely agree that the workers are justified in many of their demands. We are convinced that if the atmosphere of good will, for which we pleaded, is secured, then the better homes, the better wages, the greater share of the things of sweetness and light will also be secured. On the other hand, we are convinced that the waging of a class war will be so destructive that its one certain result will be a heavy fall in the standard of comfort throughout the community. Furthermore, we are by no means convinced that the workers must necessarily win the class war. If they are decisively beaten, they will lose most of what they have gained during the past century.

The class war

Sir, — During the recent strike it was evident that a considerable body of Churchpeople were uneasy in their conscience with regard to the conditions prevailing in the coal industry, and were anxious to understand the opinion and policy of the Trade Union movement which had, through its representatives, put the Trade Union Council into a position to call a general strike in support of the miners if it became necessary to do so.

The action of the T.U.C. and of the three and a-half million of wage-earners who followed their lead cannot be fairly judged without taking into consideration the history of the coal industry since 1918. The object of the strike was simple. It was to secure the postponement of the lock-out notices tendered to the miners and to prevent the third general stoppage in the coal industry which has occurred in the last six years. As the mine-owners had refused to state their terms in any detail till 1.15 on the day on which notices expired, and as the Government had intervened in the negotiations so late as to make it highly improbable that agreement could be secured by April 30, such postponement was clearly desirable.

It is true, of course, that in withdrawing their labour without the notice required by law, the railwaymen and certain other workers, committed an actionable wrong for which their employers can recover damages. But the fact that such action occurs in industrial disputes is an indication less of any perversity on the part of the individuals concerned than of the permanent state of war which exists in modern industry.

In acting as they did, in defence of the standard of life of the miners, they held that they were postponing a lesser obligation to a greater; and to describe such action as “a sin” without referring to the far graver sin of inhumanity and oppression by which it was provoked, is to mislead readers unacquainted with the tragic realities of industrial life. It is unfortunate that the wage-earners have no means of defending their interests in the face of the gigantic combination and interlocking of modern industry except by withdrawing their labour: but it is their misfortune and not their fault.
The appeals which are being made for peace and good will are likely, it is to be feared, to be futile. There can be no peace until the wage-earners have gained some measure of real control over the industry by which they live. Men living at the mercy of other men will only remain quiet through despair or while they gather up their resources for a fresh struggle.

R. H. TAWNEY.
GEORGE LANSBURY.
London.