But what about those more immediately concerned in that kind of work? Here I am approaching something which is very difficult to talk about—I mean the employers and workmen. I must speak out quite plainly; nothing else is of the slightest use. For one reason or another we are not getting all the assistance we have the right to expect from our workers. Disputes, industrial disputes, are inevitable; and when you have a good deal of stress and strain, men's nerves are not at their best. I think I can say I always preserve my temper in these days—I hope my wife won't give me away—[laughter]—and I have no doubt that the spirit of unrest creeps into the relations between employer and workmen. Some differences of opinion are quite inevitable, but we cannot afford them now; and, above all, we cannot resort to the usual method of settling them.
I suppose I have settled more labor disputes than any man in this hall, and, although those who only know me slightly may be surprised to hear me say it, the thing that you need most is patience. If I were to give a motto to a man who is going to a conference between employers and workmen I would say: "Take your time; don't hurry. It will come around with patience and tact and temper." But you know we cannot afford those leisurely methods now. Time is victory, [cheers,] and while employers and workmen on the Clyde have been spending time in disputing over a fraction, and when a week-end, ten days, and a fortnight of work which is absolutely necessary for the defense of the country has been set aside, I say here solemnly that it is intolerable that the life of Britain should be imperiled for the matter of a farthing an hour.
Who is to blame? That is not the question, but—How it is to be stopped? Employers will say, "Are we always to give way?" Workmen say, "Employers are making their fortunes out of an emergency of the country; why are not we to have a share of the plunder?" ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] There is one gentleman here who holds that view. [Laughter.] I hope he is not an engineer. [Renewed laughter.] "We work harder than ever," say the workmen. All I can say is, if they do they are entitled to their share. But that is not the point—who is right? Who is wrong? They are both right and they are both wrong. The whole point is that these questions ought to be settled without throwing away the chances of humanity in its greatest struggle. [Cheers.] There is a good deal to be said for and there is a vast amount to be said against compulsory arbitration, but during the war the Government ought to have power to settle all these differences, and the work should go on. The workman ought to get more. Very well, let the Government find it out and give it to him. If he ought not, then he ought not to throw up his tools. The country cannot afford it. It is disaster, and I do not believe the moment this comes home to workmen and employers they will refuse to comply with the urgent demand of the Government. There must be no delay.
There is another aspect of the question which it is difficult and dangerous to tackle. There are all sorts of regulations for restricting output. I will say nothing about the merits of this question. There are reasons why they have been built up. The conditions of employment and payment are mostly to blame for those restrictions. The workmen had to fight for them for their own protection, but in a period of war there is a suspension of ordinary law. Output is everything in this war.
This war is not going to be fought mainly on the battlefields of Belgium and Poland. It is going to be fought in the workshops of France and Great Britain; and it must be fought there under war conditions. There must be plenty of safeguards and the workman must get his equivalent, but I do hope he will help us to get as much out of those workshops as he can, for the life of the nation depends on it. Our enemies realize that, and employers and workmen in Germany are straining their utmost. France, fortunately, also realizes it, and in that land of free institutions, with a Socialist Prime Minister, a Socialist Secretary of State for War, and a Socialist Minister of Marine, the employers and workmen are subordinating everything to the protection of their beautiful land.
I have something more to say about this, and it is unpleasant. I would wish that it were not I, but somebody else that should say it. Most of our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this great emergency. I hear of workmen in armaments works who refuse to work a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a minority. The vast majority belong to a class we can depend upon. The others are a minority. But, you must remember, a small minority of workmen can throw a whole works out of gear. What is the reason? Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes it is another, but let us be perfectly candid. It is mostly the lure of the drink. They refuse to work full time, and when they return their strength and efficiency are impaired by the way in which they have spent their leisure. Drink is doing us more damage in the war than all the German submarines put together.
What has Russia done? [Cheers.] Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing how unprepared she was, said, "I must pull myself together. I am not going to be trampled upon, unready as I am. I will use all my resources." What is the first thing she does? She stops the drink. [Cheers.] I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, a singularly able man, and I asked, "What has been the result?" He said, "The productivity of labor, the amount of work which is put out by the workmen, has gone up between 30 and 50 per cent." [Cheers.] I said, "How do they stand it without their liquor?" and he replied, "Stand it? I have lost revenue over it up to £65,000,000 a year, and we certainly cannot afford it, but if I proposed to put it back there would be a revolution in Russia." That is what the Minister of Finance told me. He told me that it is entirely attributable to the act of the Czar himself. It was a bold and courageous step—one of the most heroic things in the war. [Cheers.] One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris, and the French Minister of Finance said, "I have got to go to the Chamber of Deputies, because I am proposing a bill to abolish absinthe." [Cheers.] Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky plays in this country. It is really the worst form of drink used; not only among workmen, but among other classes as well. Its ravages are terrible, and they abolished it by a majority of something like 10 to 1 that afternoon. [Cheers.]
That is how those great countries are facing their responsibilities. We do not propose anything so drastic as that—we are essentially moderate men. [Laughter.] But we are armed with full powers for the defense of the realm. We are approaching it, I do not mind telling you, for the moment, not from the point of view of people who have been considering this as a social problem—we are approaching it purely from the point of view of these works. We have got great powers to deal with drink, and we mean to use them. [Cheers.] We shall use them in a spirit of moderation, we shall use them discreetly, we shall use them wisely, but we shall use them fearlessly, [cheers,] and I have no doubt that, as the country's needs demand it, the country will support our action and will allow no indulgence of that kind to interfere with its prospects in this terrible war which has been thrust upon us.
There are three things I want you to bear in mind. The first is—and I want to get this into the minds of every one—that we are at war; the second, that it is the greatest war that has ever been fought by this or any other country, and the other, that the destinies of your country and the future of the human race for generations to come depend upon the outcome of this war. What does it mean were Germany to win? It means world power for the worst elements in Germany, not for Germany. The Germans are an intelligent race; they are undoubtedly a cultivated race; they are a race of men who have been responsible for great ideas in this world. But this would mean the dominance of the worst elements among them. If you think I am exaggerating just you read for the moment extracts from the articles in the newspapers which are in the ascendency now in Germany about the settlement which they expect after this war. I am sorry to say I am stating nothing but the bare, brutal truth. I do not say that the Kaiser will sit on the throne of England if he should win. I do not say that he will impose his laws and his language on this country as did William the Conqueror. I do not say that you will hear the tramp, the noisy tramp of the goose step in the cities of the Empire. [Laughter.] I do not say that Death's Head Hussars will be patrolling our highways. I do not say that a visitor, let us say, to Aberdaron, will have to ask a Pomeranian policeman the best way to Hell's Mouth. [Loud laughter.] That is not what I mean. What I mean is that if Germany were triumphant in this war it would practically be the dictator of the international policy of the world. Its spirit would be in the ascendant. Its doctrines would be in the ascendant; by the sheer power of its will it would bend the minds of men in its own fashion. Germanism in its later and worst form would be the inspiriting thought and philosophy of the hour.
Do you remember what happened to France after 1870? The German armies left France, but all the same for years after that, and while France was building up her army, she stood in cowering terror of this monster. Even after her great army was built France was oppressed with a constant anxiety as to what might happen. Germany dismissed her Ministers. Had it not been for the intervention of Queen Victoria in 1874 the French Army would never have been allowed to be reconstructed, and France would simply have been the humble slave of Germany to this hour. What a condition for a country! And now France is fighting not so much to recover her lost provinces, she is fighting to recover her self-respect and her national independence; she is fighting to shake off this nightmare that has been on her soul for over a generation, [cheers,] a France with Germany constantly meddling, bullying, and interfering. And that is what would happen if Russia were trampled upon, France broken, Britain disarmed. We should be left without any means to defend ourselves. We might have a navy that would enable us, perhaps, to resent insult from Nicaragua, [laughter,] we might have just enough troops, perhaps, to confront the Mad Mullah—I mean the African specimen. [Loud laughter.]