But the last month of that fateful year was further darkened by the most dangerous and ominous event recorded in the United Kingdom since the war began. Over 200,000 coal miners of South Wales deliberately, obstinately and criminally withheld their labour from their own nation, whose existence at that moment was dependent on its bestowal. The coal pits of South Wales remained idle for over a week. The miners crossed their arms and turned deaf ears to the voice of reason and interest calling on them not to sacrifice the lives of their kith and kin who were fighting for them. This act of black treason to the country had been foreseen and foretold months before, but out of consideration for the rights of individuals was allowed to take place. The Germans and Austrians were exultant, for another couple of weeks’ strike would have given them the victory. Already the collapse of our defence was become a definite eventuality. The tact and statesmanship of Mr. Lloyd George exorcised the redoubtable spectre, but the spirit which that piece of treason revealed filled the most sanguine with dread and set those of little faith asking themselves whether this lamentable phenomenon was not one of certain ill-boding symptoms which seemed to reveal the smoothly moving current that bears doomed nations onward to their fate.
Certainly nothing could put in a clearer light than that strike has done the peremptory necessity of national discipline, at any rate in war-time. The State that is unable to command the service of all its citizens when beset by ruthless foreign enemies has lost its lease of life and its right to live. It must be recognized that patriotism is still an unknown sentiment among millions of those who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Patriotism has never been systematically inculcated among us as in Germany, France and Russia. Parochial or at most party interests still mark the loftiest heights to which certain sections of the population can soar above the dead level of individual egotism. In Germany and Austria strikes during war are unthinkable. Every railway official, every tram-conductor, every artisan there is a soldier subject to military discipline and is expected to give the fullest measure of his productive powers to the nation. And it is fair to add that they all regard this duty as a signal honour and a source of pleasure. For to them patriotism is a religion and their country a divinity.
The depth and fervour of this self-denying spirit among them as contrasted with the “healthy individual egotism” of the Allies constitutes one of the most disquieting phenomena of the struggle. Austria has been scoffed at for her abject submissiveness to Germany. But there is another way of looking at her attitude. She has courageously effaced her individuality more completely even than Turkey for the sake of the common cause. And she has lost nothing by the painful effort. Her various peoples who were expected to be tearing each other to pieces have given us a splendid example of discipline and self-abnegation. In the Skoda works at Pilsen, where machine guns are made, fifteen thousand workmen are cheerfully toiling and moiling every day of the week, Sundays and holidays not excepted. Since the war began Germany has accomplished as great things at home as on foreign battlefields. She built and launched a Dreadnought of 25,600 tons, a line-of-battle ship of 26,200 tons. And while the latter vessel was on the stocks, the reports published in the British press of the splendid results obtained by the 15-inch guns of the Queen Elizabeth moved the German Admiralty to substitute these for the 12-inch guns already adopted. Two swift cruisers, 12 small submarines and 24 larger ones of 1200 tons displacement, with a speed of 16 knots under water, 20 on the surface and a radius of action of 3000 miles—were among the results of a single year’s activity.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] Giornale d’Italia, June 19, 1915. Corriere della Sera, June 20, 1915.
[101] La Roumanie, July 26, 1915.
[102] Gazette de Lausanne, July 6, 1915, and Corriere della Sera, July 8, 1915.
[103] July 22, 1915.
[104] Cf. Daily Telegraph, March 14, 1916, in telegram from Athens.
[105] Novoye Vremya, July 22, 1915.