Workers and War (Classic Reprint)
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| Partner: | buecher.de |
| Hersteller: | Forgotten Books (Coulton, Gm; G.) |
| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
Produktbeschreibung
Excerpt from Workers and War An Awakened People. Now is the time to attempt to make the British people understand what the working-class leaders on the Continent think about war and preparation for war. For our wage-earning classes are now roused, and will lace facts which they have too long ignored. It has not been their fault if they have not seen these things long ago; the blame lies mainly at the door of their official leaders. This spring, when the delegates from the Continent came to the Trades Union Congress at Bradford, one of the foreign speakers was Vandervelde, the Belgian Socialist leader, who has now been chosen to present his country´s case before the United States of America. One passage of Vandervelde´s speech at Bradford created a half-scandalized amusement among the audience. He told his British friends, in blunt but friendly words, that it would do them no harm to introduce more intelligence into the Labour Party. A Swiss Socialist, with whom I was conversing only a fortnight before the outbreak of this war, remarked to me that British Trades Unionism was still running almost on the old lines of fifty years ago, and that its worst weakness was its conservatism. British Labour Leaders arc at the present day almost incredibly ignorant of what is being done on the Continent; but they remain perfectly well satisfied in their ignorance, and therefore the rank and file of the Labour Party suffer too often from the blindness of their leaders. The Workers and War. This extreme insularity, this wilful ignorance on the part of the leaders, has very deeply influenced the British Labour attitude towards War. Forty years ago, John Stuart Mill was obliged to protest against the attitude of British Lalwur Leaders, who wanted this country to plunge into the Franco-German war because France had just set up a Republican Government. Our present Labour Leaders have fallen back from this attitude into its extreme opposite; during the last generation they have preached non-intervention at any cost. They have tried to get rid of war by pretending to themselves that war was a mere bogey. Apart from the attempt to organize an international strike against war - a policy which even the International Arbitration League was obliged to condemn as premature and unstatesmanlike - the present Labour Leaders have pursued no definite policy, beyond a vague cry for disarmament. Even here they have not always had the courage to fight for their opinions; many of them have just preached reduction to their constituents, and then voted for the Army and Navy supplies like their brother M.P.´s. Though so good a Liberal as Mr. Chiozza Money offered to debate the question with any M.P. who had the courage of his convictions - with any M.P. who would not only talk about disarmament outside, but also vote for disarmament inside the House - I believe I am right in saying that his challenge was never taken up. So far as any steady principle may be said to underlie the attitude of modern British Labour Leaders towards military questions, it may be summed up very briefly. They have said," Ignore war, and you will not have war. Only avoid speaking about it, only avoid thinking about it, and it will never come. It is a mere bogey." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
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