ECONOMIC PEACE

That is true not only of the reparation question; it is true of our whole economic policy.  We have been preaching to Europe, and quite rightly, that the erection of economic barriers between countries is a treachery to the whole spirit of the League of Nations, and all that it means, and yet with these words scarcely uttered we turn round and pass through Parliament a new departure in our economic system which is the very contradiction of everything we have said in international conference.

The Safeguarding of Industries Act is absolutely opposed to the whole spirit and purpose which the League of Nations has in view.  A reference was made by your chairman to Lord Grey, and I saw in a very distinguished organ of the Coalition an attack on his recent speech.  We are told that he ought not at this crisis to be suggesting that the present Government is not worthy of our confidence, but how can we trust the present Government?  How is it possible to trust them when one finds at Brussels, at Genoa, at the Hague, and elsewhere they preach the necessity of the economic unity of Europe, and then go down to the House of Commons and justify this Act on the strictest, the baldest, the most unvarnished doctrine of economic particularism for this country?  Nor does it stop there.  I told you just now that for me this doctrine on which the League is based goes right through many other problems than those of a strictly international character.  You will never solve Indian or Egyptian difficulties by a reliance on force and force alone.  I believe that the deplorable, the scandalous condition to which the neighbouring island of Ireland has been reduced is largely due to the failure to recognise that by unrestricted unreasoning, and sometimes immoral force, you cannot reach the solution of the difficulties of that country.

And in industry it is the same thing.  If you are really to get a solution of these great problems, depend upon it you will never do it by strikes and lock-outs.  I am an outsider in industrial matters.  I am reproached when I venture to say anything about them with the observation that I am no business man.  I can only hope that in this case lookers-on may sometimes see most of the game.  But to me it is profoundly depressing when I see whichever section of the industrial world happens to have the market with it—­whether employers or wage-earners—­making it its only concern to down the other party as much as it can.  You will never reach a solution that way.  You have to recognise in industrial as in international affairs that the spirit of co-operation, the spirit of partnership, is your only hope of salvation.

THE TWO CAUSES OF UNREST