It is to our mind most reassuring to notice how
time after time, and in one section of the people after another, the faculty for taking a temperate and reasonable course saves us from national disaster. The revolt of the police against their own revolt is only one instance. Last week we recorded the decision of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress to turn down the preposterous pretensions of the miners and transport workers to dictate the policy of the country on Con- scription, the maintenance of troops in Russia, the raising of the German blockade, and the treatment of conscientious objectors. In vain for the autocrats of the Triple Alliance had a General Election been held and a thumping vote been recorded for a particular political programme. Their minute oligarchy wanted another policy, and so it protested that if the democracy did not accept its point of view, it would ride down democracy by " industrial action." The humour of the thing is that this oligarchy labels its own methods "democratic."
