TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. LLOYD GEORGE'S CHALLENGE.
IF we are not greatly mistaken in our judgment, Mr. Lloyd George's publication of a preface to his war speeches is one of the most important events which have happened at home during the war. The preface is a challenge to the imagination and to the conscience. It tells the workmen, first and foremost, that it is theirs to win or to lose the war, and that probably the decisive effects of their resolve, one way or the other, will be seen within the next three months. If the preface is very grave, it is also intensely stimulating. But it is more than a challenge. It is a declaration of faith. If words mean what they seem to mean, Mr. Lloyd George announces in this preface his belief that the war cannot be won without compulsion. He is a convert to National Service, not neces- sarily for the whole future, but at leant for the duration of the war. In making this implicit declaration it is possible that he has his eye less on the effects of National Service on recruitiirst' than on industrial organization ; but, reading between the lines, we have no doubt whatever that he has come to the conclusion that without compulsion the nation will never put forth its full effort. And without that full effort there will be disaster. That is his prediction. The challenging character of the preface is particularly shown in the moment of its publication. It was published in advance of the collection of war speeches, and was no doubt designed to have its influence on Parliament—just about to meet again. Mr. Lloyd George thus threw his startling facts and his conclusions to Parliament for them to found their discussions on.
Rowing men know the value in a race of ten specially bard strokes. Their effect may be more moral than physical. Possibly the crew supposed that they were rowing as strongly as they could already, but the rally of the ten hard strokes sots a new standard of liveliness or recalls a former one. It kills slovenliness. It dissipates a tendency to sluggishness which may have been present, although perfectly unconscious of itself. Thenceforward —if the crew are not so incompetent, of course, as to go to pieces owing to the strain and excitement of the special effort, and here any analogy between a bad crew and British working men may be entirely disavowed—things go much better. The crew have re-formed themselves. Mr. Lloyd George has played the part of the coach or the coxswain who calls for the ten strokes. He chose his moment well—just when the rally would tell most. In taking the responsibility of writing this preface he has, moreover, exercised one of the too rare feats of personal leadership.. That there will be a great response—perhaps even a reshaping of the whole direction of the war from an industrial point of view—we can scarcely doubt. To think otherwise would be to credit the working man, who is a patriot', even though be may be unimaginative, with the intention of preferring workshop conventions to the triumph of the whole cause which ho has expressly approved in his public resolutions. Thanks to Mr. Lloyd George, he now has the facts before him, and is able to make his choice.
A statement of facts was much needed. The truth is that the Government, in their desire to mystify the enemy by keeping every sort of information from him, have in a few respects tilted the scale too far and withheld informa- tion from people at home, who would have worked much better if they had been in possession of it. We imagine that the curious economic bacillus operating in the mind of the working man has been allowed to remain there so long, encouraged to flourish by flattering and complaisant legislation, that the sufferer is almost unaware that he is suffering from any disease at all. It seems perfectly natural to him to do a good deal less than his best, and to make the accomplishment of it square with the appointed hours of work. An observer from another world might hold up his hands in astonishment at the spectacle of men restraining the pride of achievement (the only zest in a man's work, after all) in order that the production of the best workman may equal the production of the worst. Ile would ask whether men were really so inefficient in arranging their affairs that, even on the supposition that a uniform standard of production was necessary for the protection of Labour, it would not have been possible, for instance, to invent a system under which men who would or could work faster could leave their work when they had completed their modicum and listen in the open air to birds singing or walk among growing woods or cultivated flowers. But such questions are rather for peace time. There will be plenty of opportunity for discussing the economics of Trade Unionism in the future, as by pledge of the Government it is to be restored with all its work- shop customs at the end of the war without prejudice from anything that may happen in the meantime. We look at the question now purely from the point of view of winning the war. It is a great thing, as we have said, for the country to learn some facts which it did not know before. We know now—from Mr. Lloyd George's re- markable speech at Bristol—that the hampering of the work of producing munitions is still far too common owing to persistence in the principle of ".ca' canny " and in the relusal of skilled workmen to work with unskilled ; we know that eighty thousand more skilled workmen and two hundred thousand unskilled are immediately needed; and we know (most startling fact of all) that only fifteen per cent. of the machinery which turns out ammunition, guns, and rifles is working night-shifts. In some places the output could be increased by thirty per cent., in others by two hundred per cent. Similar facts to these seemed terrible when they were first stated a few months ago. Are they less terrible now P Have we grown familiar with industrial failure ? Surely they are much more terrible when we reflect that in the intervening time such defects should all have been removed. Nevertheless, there is nothing like knowing the facts for a cool and hard-headed people. They are a challenge in themselves. Will the British Trade Unionist fail where the German Trade Unionist has not failed ? We believe he will not. It is a commonplace of experience that when a man who is making an effort is given a particular standard to reach, or to exceed, he can do it if he is stimulated by the know. ledge that somebody else has done it, or almost done it, In all kinds of athletics this is specially familiar. The "record" in sports is frequently beaten, not because men are stronger than the generation before, but because they have in the previous "record" a particular aim on which all their nerves and their judgment are bent —the aim of going just one better. For intelligible psychological reasons, to go just one better is a much easier task than to reach the limit of human performance with- out the stimulus of contest, and, as it were, in the void. The munition workers now have a " record " to beat. The Trade Unions could undoubtedly whip up of their own accord the extra skilled men required by Mr. Lloyd George, and they could without delay consent to a com- plete sweeping away of all the customs which prevent unskilled workmen from working with skilled men. They would then be in a position to go one better than the German Trade Unionists, who have performed an un- paralleled industrial feat in supplying both fronts with the vast amount of ammunition that has been expended. Is not the British football spirit equal to this ?
We should wrongly state the point of -view of the munition workers, however, if, besides the customs of the workshops, we did not mention the intense suspiciousness which has been excited by the men's belief that large war profits are being earned by the employers. It was of course to answer this very doubt that Mr. Lloyd George went to Bristol. But his answer referred to the workshops controlled by the Government, and the men do not forget that many establishments which produce munitions are not controlled, or are only partly controlled. We do not pretend to know the facts in this matter. but if there is any reasonable misgiving in the men's minds as to undue profits going to individuals instead of to the State it can surely be removed. This is no time to stand on punctilios. Suspicion is a bad enemy of hard work, because it distracts the mind and debilitates purpose. We de not say this by way of excuse. The thought of the men in. the trenches whose lives, to save or to lose, are at the mercy of the makers of munitions ought to have absolutely obliterated every motive of jealousy, every prejudice, and every hampering tradition. At the same time, it should. be possible to toll the victims of suspicion exactly what is being done under the Muni- tions Act, or by schemes of taxation, to limit individual profits in controlled, partly controlled, or uncontrolled workshops. If this course were taken, and defects. were seen to be in a fair way towards remedy, the country, which has more or less made up its mind already, would know without reservation what to think of skilled workers who still refused to leaven the lump of unskilled workers, or intimidated those who were doing their best to produce shells rapidly. There would be no mercy for such men in the judgment of their countrymen. ' Although Mr. Lloyd George is obviously converted to compulsion, we imagine it is quite likely that the Government will try to squeeze something more out of voluntaryism before confessing that the time for compulsion has arrived. If this be so, we can only hope that they will make the most of voluntaryism so long as it lasts. It may seem paradoxical for us, as believers in National Service, to advocate means of giving voluntaryism a longer life, but we have now no principles of such weight that they can compare with the overwhelming principle of getting as many men as possible daily and ending the war at the first possible moment. We hope, therefore, that the Government will immediately allow us to see practical results from their consideration of the best way of using the National Register. We maintain, as we have often said, that the first thing to do is expressly to exempt from military service all those who are more useful as workers than as soldiers, and to give them some distinguishing mark or badge. The idea should be not so much to convey the notion that these men are excused from a duty as to invest them with the kudos of being chosen war- workers. The reservoir of chosen industrial workers should be largo enough to meet all prospective expan- sions of the undertakings of the Minister of Muni- tions. When all these exemptions had been made, a remnant of, say, four million men—we take a number quite arbitrarily—would be available for military service. The Government would say how many of these they required as soldiers, and they would fix a number as- the proper and just contribution of each autonomous area in the country—each city, county borough, and county. This is the system of the quota, which we have long advocated. The quota would be calculated, of course, to be perfectly fair, on the number of non-exempted men of military age in each area, not upon the whole population of that area.. The prescribed number of men would be asked to come forward voluntarily. If they refused to respond, then the need for compulsion would be proved in that area, and could be applied as under the old. Ballot Act. The quota system supplements and fortifies voluntaryism, and gives it, as it were, its last chance. We venture to say that if this plan were tried not a voice could still honestly be raised against compulsion, because compulsion would be applied only when voluntaryism had failed on its own confession.
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