upon to perform the delicate operation of drawing off a colleague from a position to which he had advanced with rather more zeal than discretion. Mr. Arthur Henderson, the Home Secretary, who was at this time a candidate in a by-election at Burnley (having been defeated at the General Election) in the course of his campaign made a speech on foreign affairs in which he called emphatically for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. Mr. MacDonald was immediately asked in the House of Commons from the Conservative benches and also by Mr. Lloyd George whether this was an official statement of the policy of the Government. He answered that the Government was responsible only for the policy outlined in his speech of February 12, and refused to commit it further either for or against the Treaty of Versailles. A couple of days later Mr. Ronald McNeill, who had been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the previous Ministry, again raised the question, and drew upon himself a stinging rebuke from the Premier for seeking to compromise the Government in order to influence. the result of a by-election. The truth was that not only the Labour Party, but the great mass of the people regarded a drastic revision of at least the economic clauses of the Treaty as urgently necessary, but it was generally recognised that, in view of French susceptibilities, the word "revision" should be studiously avoided.

On February 26 the Government's Indian policy was announced by Lord Olivier, the Secretary for India. Unusual interest attached to his statement, owing to the situation which had recently arisen in India. The elections held there a few weeks earlier had given a great majority in favour of the "Swaraj" or Home Rule movement, which counted a number of warm sympathisers among the Labour Party in England. These would have been glad to see the Government throw over the Montagu-Chelmsford system of Indian administration which had been instituted a few years earlier, and make India more or less self-governing. The Government, however, here as in the matter of defence, showed itself averse from making any violent innovations. Lord Olivier condemned in strong terms the manifesto of the Swaraj Party which claimed Home Rule for India and opposed co-operation with the British authorities. He asserted roundly that India was not yet ripe for democratic self-government, and rejected uncompromisingly the suggestion of a round-table conference which might conceivably recommend such a step. What the Government would like, he said, was practical proposals for establishing closer contact and better understanding with those elements in India which were willing and even anxious to help the Indian Administration to work the reformed system initiated three years previously. Lord Olivier's warning to the Swarajists was warmly endorsed by Lord Balfour, but his speech did not give satisfaction to the more advanced sections of the Labour Party.

Mr. MacDonald was not so pre-occupied with saving the Government in the House of Commons that he allowed his attention to be diverted for a moment from the vital problem of Anglo-French relations. His correspondence with M. Poincaré at the end of January had established an equilibrium which had every prospect of enduring till the Committees which were investigating German finances should have issued their reports. But the course of events in France presented him with new opportunities of which he did not fail to take advantage. During February the franc fell persistently in value till it stood at over 100 to the pound sterling. This phenomenon profoundly shook the faith of the French public in M. Poincaré and his Ruhr policy, and impressed on that statesman the necessity for a change of tone if not of policy. Mr. MacDonald adroitly utilised the weakness of the French Premier to make him listen to some very candid criticism of his whole line of action. On February 21 he addressed to him a letter in which, under pretext of "carrying a stage further the exploration of the points that had in the past raised difficulties between the two countries," he set forth with remarkable frankness the suspicions which were raised in the mind of the British public by M. Poincaré's persistence in his Ruhr policy. "It is widely felt in England," it said, "that, contrary to the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, France is endeavouring to create a situation which gains for it what it failed to get during the Allied peace negotiations. . . . The people in this country regard with anxiety what appears to them to be the determination of France to ruin Germany and to dominate the Continent without consideration of our reasonable interests and future con

sequences to European settlement. They feel themselves apprehensive of the large military and aerial establishments maintained not only in Eastern but also in Western France. They are perturbed by the interest shown by your Government in the military organisation of the new states of Central Europe. Finally, they question why all these activities should be financed by the French Government, in disregard of the fact that the British taxpayer has to find upwards of 30,000,000l. a year in interest on loans raised in America, and that our taxpayers have also to find large sums to pay interest on the debt of France to us, to meet which France has herself as yet neither made nor propounded, so far as they can see, any sacrifice equivalent to their own."

Mr. MacDonald's letter opened and closed with expressions of the warmest personal regard, and M. Poincaré, as also the French Press in general, accepted in excellent part the unpalatable home truths which it contained. As was to be expected, it did not cause M. Poincaré to deviate a hair's-breadth from his settled policy. In his reply, he warmly defended France against Mr. MacDonald's charges, and reiterated France's intention not to evacuate the Ruhr till she had received her due,

nor the Rhineland till the terms of the Treaty had been carried out. But Mr. MacDonald's letter contained the strongest official intimation which had yet been given to France of the dangers of the Poincaré policy, and so may have contributed not a little to the condemnation of it pronounced a few weeks later by the French electorate at the polls.

On March 4 the Opposition succeeded in extracting from the Government a statement on air defence somewhat more satisfactory from their point of view than that given by Mr. Leach in the House of Commons a couple of weeks earlier. The Marquess of Londonderry moved in the House of Lords a resolution almost identical with that brought forward by Sir S. Hoare in the other House on February 19, urging that Great Britain must maintain a Home Defence Air Force of sufficient strength to give adequate protection against air attack by the strongest Air Force within striking distance of her shores. He declared himself profoundly dissatisfied with the statement made in the House of Commons by Mr. Leach, with its intimation that there would be no change in the country's air policy "for the time being," and called on the Secretary for Air, Lord Thomson, to reassure the public by stating that the policy of the late Government would be carried out in full. Lord Thomson, while paying lip service to idealism and expressing a hope that international agreement would obviate all necessity for a race in air armaments, made it clear that he meant to adhere strictly to the lines laid down by his predecessor and to spare no effort to make the Air Force an effective line of defence for the country. The Lord Chancellor confirmed his colleague's remarks by stating that the policy of the Government was to keep armaments in a state of efficiency until other nations were ready to co-operate in the policy which the Prime Minister was pressing at that very time of getting rid as quickly as possible of the tremendous burden which was weighing nations down.

It was perhaps no mere coincidence that the very day which followed this surrender on the part of the Government witnessed a serious revolt among its followers. The occasion was the second reading of the Trade Facilities Bill. Mr. Maxton, a Labour member for Glasgow, took strong exception to the proposal to guarantee a further 3,000,000l. to the Sudan Cotton Plantation Syndicate, on the ground that this private enterprise was not sufficiently under public control. In the course of his remarks he taunted the Financial Secretary to the Treasury with being the "new apologist for Capitalism." He was supported by other Labour speakers, and in the division no fewer than 43 Labour members voted against the Bill, which, however found abundant support on the Conservative and Liberal benches.

While Labour's advent to power coincided with a propitious turn in Anglo-French relations, at home it was accompanied by a series of Labour troubles due to causes equally independent

of the change of Government. The end of January happened to be the time when a number of long-drawn disputes between employers and employed in certain vital industries were coming to a head, and failure to settle them by discussion led to a succession of strikes and stoppages of national importance. The first of these was a strike of railwaymen, due to an attempt to reduce wages. Towards the end of 1923 the Railway Wage Board, after due consideration of an appeal from the railway companies, had issued an award recommending considerable reductions of wages. Two of the railwaymen's unions-the National Union of Railwaymen and the Railway Clerks' Association-accepted the reductions without demur, but the third, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, instituted a ballot. The members of this society were the most skilled and highly paid among the railway workers, and stood to lose most by the award. The ballot went against acceptance, and as the employers refused to enter into negotiations for revising the award and insisted on bringing its terms into force on the date fixed, namely, midnight January 20, as though its terms had been compulsory, the society resolved to strike. A strongly-worded appeal was addressed to it by Mr. Thomas and Mr. Cramp on behalf of the N.U.R. not to deal a blow at the principle of collective bargaining, but it produced only an acrimonious rejoinder from the secretary of the A.S.L.E.F., Mr. Bromley, and the strike threat was duly carried out.

Fortunately for the public, the enginemen in the N.U.R., of whom there were a considerable number, remained loyal to their agreement, so that the railway companies were enabled to maintain skeleton passenger services and to secure the food supplies of the large towns. Thus there was no general “holdup," as in the strike of 1911, nor was the inconvenience even so great as during the strike of 1919. But the transport of goods was seriously impeded, and in a few days industry, particularly in the coal-fields, began to feel the effects. The two railway unions indulged in an exchange of recriminations which threw a somewhat lurid light on the jealousy existing between different branches of labour. After eight days the companies, in deference to the representations of an emergency committee appointed by the Trade Union General Council, made a declaration that they had never contended that the decisions of the National Wage Board were obligatory. With this, and certain concessions in the matter of wages, the men declared themselves satisfied, and work was immediately resumed.

No sooner had one dark cloud rolled away from the Labour sky than another even more threatening appeared on the horizon. On the same day that the railwaymen returned to work, the Transport and General Workers' Union, representing most of the dock labourers at British ports, sent a letter to the employers making certain claims, and giving notice of a strike on February 16 unless in the meantime a satisfactory settlement

were arrived at. The chief claims were that the dockers' wages should be raised by two shillings a day, and that dockworkers should have as far as possible a guaranteed week, as under existing conditions they often found work for two or three days a week only. The men complained that while their wages had been reduced concurrently with the fall in the index figure of the cost of living, the employers' profits had not diminished, and they asserted that money enough was available to increase the wage fund considerably. The employers on their side, while recognising the hardship to which the men were subjected by the casual nature of their employment, considered that the cost. of guaranteeing them a weekly wage should be made a charge on all branches of transport which were fed by the docks, and not on them alone. After a fortnight's negotiation the employers offered the men a shilling a day increase in wages and an inquiry into the question of a guaranteed week. This offer the men summarily rejected, and negotiations were broken off.

The Minister of Labour then intervened, and brought the parties together again, but without result; and the strike came into operation on the date fixed, when about 100,000 men ceased work, and the shipping trade of the country was brought practically to a standstill.

In order to protect the public from the profiteering for which the hold-up of imports offered so favourable an opportunity, the Government immediately issued a communiqué stating that there was no reason for the raising of food prices owing to the strike, and at the same time asked the Law Officers to draft emergency preventive measures. It also showed its concern by appointing, under the Industrial Courts Act of 1919, a Court of Inquiry to inquire into the causes and circumstances of the dispute and report thereon. The Court began its proceedings forthwith, and on February 20, the third day of the strike, the two parties gave evidence before it. This afforded an opportunity of bringing their representatives together once more, with the result that an agreement was reached in the small hours of February 21. Contrary to general expectation, however, this did not yet mean the end of the strike. The men's delegates, on hearing the terms obtained for them by their representative, Mr. Bevin, hesitated to accept them till they should have consulted their Trade Unions, and for a few anxious days the prospects of peace hung in the balance. The men, however, finally agreed to the terms offered, and resumed work on February 26, fortunately before the stoppage had exercised any serious effect on the food supply.

The trouble which had been brewing for a long time in the coal industry came to a head in the middle of March. The National Wage Agreement was due to expire on April 17, and the miners had indicated clearly that they would not renew it without substantial alterations. The owners took steps betimes to deal with the situation, and on March 12 made an offer to