When the General Council of the Trades Union COngreSs forbids men
to work it challenges the existence of the Government. Thus the question before the country necessarily becomes a constitutional one. No.ohe can prevent that...from happening although it is quite true that those who are Constitutionalists in every fibre of their thought are not necessarily entirely at one with the Govornment on the industrial question as such.. The fact remains that if Labour, in order to win, were able to make government impossible the Trades Union Congress would be the only alternative to • the Government. The issue has only to be. stated in this way for it' tobe plain that the Government must be supported in all its efforts to maintain the life, the steadiness and the peace of the nation. The Trades Union Congress could have no authority .
whatever to rule' except the authority which .1. belongs generally to dictators or bureau cr:Aioautocracies,m.mely the right of -% strength or successful usurpation. It is not even certain that the General Council of the Trades Union Congress has not done. violelpe. to its cmn constitution in ordering general Strike 'at this stage. In form the Council may have asked for some kind of sanction from its constituents, but in practice it aimed the heaviest blow at the industrial life of the nation which it. is able to deliver 'without ascertaining the real wishes of those whom it is supposed to represent.
