and peace offensive, just as they occurred again at the meeting of the British Trades Union Congress at Derby, in September, 1918, when they met and routed a determined effort to undermine that offensive by antagonistic forces in British public life-forces which sought to split the Trades Union Congress on the international issue through such spokesmen for the policy of non-intercourse as Gompers of America and Hughes of Australia, and which sought to split the political labor movement by starting a purely trade union party (with the socialist elements left out) in opposition to the British Labour Party. At Derby1 we find Havelock Wilson holding a great mass meeting for the sailors and their wrongs, designed to play into both moves, but when it came to the Congress itself, we find it standing again shoulder to shoulder with the British Labour Party; find Thomas and Thorne mover and seconder of a resolution which reaffirmed the policies set going at Blackpool the year before.

But Derby takes the chronicle beyond the period dealt with in this chapter-up to the close of 1917-which, between Birmingham and Blackpool, saw the shift in labor sentiment from right to left in the great British Trades Union Congress.

'See Chapter XVII.

CHAPTER IV

BRITISH LABOR UNITED ON WAR AIMS

LATE in the session at Blackpool, Henderson, speaking as fraternal delegate from the Labour Party, personified the issues of foreign policy before the Trades Union Congress; and the official report records that he was welcomed there (September, 1917), less than a month after his enforced retirement from the War Cabinet, "with a warmth of demonstration almost without precedent in the history of those gatherings."

He said in part:

The Labour Party welcome most enthusiastically the recommendations set out in the resolution relating to the development of the work of the Parliamentary Committee. The possibility of the mother of congresses taking her proper place in the ever-increasingly important work in the international field of politics is one that must be viewed with keen satisfaction by all true friends of the labor movement. If I may be permitted to say so, I join with the delegate who spoke earlier in the week, and say emphatically that it has been to the impoverishment of international politics that this congress has not taken a larger share in the work in days gone by.

...

I believe, sir, that, so far as the future is concerned, a properly organized and thoroughly representative working-class international movement will not only make military wars, but economic wars, well-nigh an impossibility. And who would dispute the essential need of such a force, especially when we remember the bitter experience through which we have gone in the past three years? If we had such a force, it would be the finest expression of a League of Nations that could be imagined, because it would be a League of the Common Peoples throughout the whole civilized world. I do not mind confessing-though possibly some advantage will be taken of the confession-that the indispensable necessity to this desirable state of affairs is the destruction, the complete destruction, of absolute government, with its Kaisers and its Czars, to be replaced by a free democracy. Is it too much to say that this great world conflict, which has entailed such tremendous sacrifices in blood, treasure, and effort, could only be finally successful-and I emphasize that word "finally," for I am afraid that some people mistake the military victory for the final and complete success-could only be finally successful when autocratic government has been com

pletely and forever destroyed? May I say-though the position may not commend itself to all of you that this is the great reason why I would rather consult with the German minority before peace than I would with the representatives of a discredited autocratic government when a military victory has been secured?

I do not challenge one word of the magnificent speech made by the leader of the American delegation this morning in what he said in regard to some of the German socialists;' but I think we should be fair to our comrades, and we ought to be especially fair to a minority, and more particularly to a minority that has had to labor, because of its conscience, under the peculiar difficulties which the German socialist minority has had to contend with-and has nobly contended during the past three years. Take the position of Liebknecht-Liebknecht, Bernstein, Haase, and others of the small group that stood together in spite of militarism of their own nation. They have stood aloof from their own government, and have done what little they could to thwart the base designs of their government. Therefore, much as we may deplore the attitude of the majority, let us give honor where honor is due. . . .

The promoters of the Stockholm conference in Great Britain were prepared to leave the settlement of the peace conditions to the governments, who alone are responsible to the entire nation; but we of all classes have suffered so much-and which amongst us at these tables has not got lying beneath the sod a son or some one else who was near and dear to us?-we belong to the class which has given the most and suffered most, and we shall not allow this matter to rest in the hands of diplomatists, secret plenipotentiaries, or politicians of the official stamp, unless they are prepared to have some regard for the opinion of the common people.

Delegates wielding in all 3,400,000 votes attended the special conference at Central Hall, Westminster, December 23, 1917, at

'Two fraternal delegates of the American Federation spoke. James Lord of the United Mine Workers of America, and John Golden, of the Textile Workers, both of the old school of labor leadership in the States. A paragraph from the latter's address will put the point of their remarks: "I question whether there is any country in the whole wide world where the voice of labor would not have been raised in protest if the government participated in the cruelties which the German government have participated in. And there is only one of two things. The German labor movement is either in sympathy with those cruelties, or they are moral cowards in not expressing their disapproval. There must be a reckoning; and we believe, in our American way, that there is only one thing to do, and that is to defeat the German first and then try to talk to him afterwards."

A different message was brought by David Rees in behalf of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, who complimented the gathering for being "big enough to accept the truce of the Parliamentary Committee," and expressed himself as favoring an international conference "as speedily as possible."

which as a result of the initiation at Blackpool, the war aims memorandum framed jointly by the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress and the Executive Committee of the Labour Party was submitted.' There was a letter from the Premier, assuring the delegates that:

A statement in regard to the war aims of the Allies can, of course, only be made in agreement with the other nations who are fighting in alliance together in the war.

The question of issuing a fresh joint declaration on this subject is one which is constantly kept in view by the Allied governments, but it is not one about which it is possible for the British government to speak by itself. We had looked forward to an interchange of views on this subject with the delegates appointed by the Russian government to attend the conference held in Paris last month, but to our regret the absence of any representatives of Russia at that conference made any such consultation impossible. . . .

To my mind, the ideals for which we are fighting to-day are precisely the same as those for which the British Empire entered the

war.

We accepted the challenge thrown down by Prussia in order to free the world once and for all from the intolerable menace of a militaristic civilization, and to make possible a lasting peace by restoring the liberty of the oppressed nationalities, and by enforcing respect of those laws and treaties which are the protection of all nations, whether great or small.

Within a few days following this conference, Lloyd George had reversed himself in the matter of a distinctly British formulation of aims; at a meeting with labor he came across, without waiting for the Allies, in a document far more explicit than any hitherto put out. But up to the period of the armistice, ten months later, no joint statement was forthcoming. Henderson countered at the time, in moving the adoption of the memorandum, by saying (the quotations are in the indirect wording of the news report of the London Times):

Faith in brute force as an ideal instrument for attaining national ambitions, whether right or wrong, must be destroyed. In order to make the world safe for democracy the peace settlement must contain all the conditions and safeguards essential to the future life and national development of free peoples, be they large or small. Secret diplomacy, compulsory military service, profit from the manufacture of the instruments of destruction, should be rendered unnecessary in a society of free nations. This is the great spiritual change which working-class organizations are especially concerned 1 Appendix I.

to secure by any peace settlement. The bond of a nation must be given to the settlement by the people, for that is the only way in which the civilization of the future can be provided with the safeguards and guarantees that will be adequate and effective. . . .

May I remind the conference that in July last, on my return from Russia, I said that until there had been a definite restatement of war aims and some prospect of an international conference it was doubtful whether the Russian army and the majority of the moderate socialists, on whom so much depended, would give of their best for the successful prosecution of the war? Can it be doubted that the ignoring of the warning thus given contributed to the present awful Russian disaster?

Take the question of the League of Nations. President Wilson and the American people are very much interested in this proposal; in fact it would be no exaggeration to say that America is fighting for little if anything else. Yet this is the very moment chosen by Sir Edward Carson (some hissing) and a section of the press to treat that proposal with scorn and contempt.

And of the general situation:

It is scarcely necessary to remind this conference that the war is running far into the fourth year. Each day makes its further demands of sacrifice, destruction and death. The impoverishment of the world in the unprecedented losses of life, property and material continues. The engines of destruction are multiplied and science is applied for the purposes of death and not for promoting the creative and constructive functions of life. The world is stunned and appalled by these grievous losses, and a crushed and bleeding humanity desires to know if the continuance of this tragedy is essential to a just and lasting peace. We all of us recognize that the evil effects of Germany's policy of aggressive militarism and world domination must be destroyed, that Germany's autocracy must give place to a German democracy, that militarism not only in Germany, but universally (loud cheers) must be forever discredited, and that adequate provision must be made to maintain peace among the free democracies of the world by the establishment of a complete league of democratic nations. We all recognize that all dishonorable and unjust ambitions or world domination, whether they be military, political, or commercial, must be renounced by every nation.

There was an effort from the extreme right, by Havelock Wilson of the Sailors and Firemen (55,000 members) to have the memorandum rejected. Wilson recounted again the deliberate murders at sea; denounced the procedure as a covert effort to drive those "men out of the government who were representing labor, to suit their own selfish purposes and policy;" and said that his answer to the question, "What are our war aims?" was "Get on with the