ment on terms which would have sacrificed no essential British interest. He retailed the occasions on which the Government had failed to seize an opportunity of making an advance in the direction of security, arbitration, and disarmament-the refusal to accept the Treaty of Mutual Assistance, the unconditional rejection of the Protocol, the Ministerial declaration against compulsory arbitration, the partial failure of the Preparatory Commission, and now the breakdown of the Three Power Conference. In each case the policy he had advocated had been more or less overruled. As it had been in the past, so it would be in the future; the same causes would produce similar effects, for, however unwilling he was to recognise it, the truth was that in these matters his colleagues did not agree with him.

Later in the evening of the same day (August 29) the Prime Minister issued a reply to Lord Robert Cecil's charges, maintaining that he had exaggerated the differences between himself and the rest of the Government. He recalled the speech made by the Foreign Secretary at Geneva on the subject of the Protocol soon after the Government came into office, in the course of which he had stated that on the subjects of arbitration, disarmament, and security the British Empire had shown by deeds as well as by words that it was in the fullest accord with the ideals which had animated the Fifth Assembly of the League. Britain, he held, had since that time pursued the policy then laid down with results on the peace of the world and on disarmament which were not inconsiderable. He instanced the progress which had been made in the direction of disarmament as a result of the Washington Conference, the Locarno Treaty, and the settlement with Turkey. He refused to share Lord Cecil's pessimism, and expressed the hope that even the Three Powers Conference, in spite of its apparent failure, might result both in a reduction of armaments and in a better understanding by the nations concerned of each other's problems and difficulties.

Lord Cecil's resignation was a severe moral blow to the Government, but it produced no immediate reactions in the political world. Its chief effect was to call public attention forcibly to the dangers of the international situation and to give a great impetus to the movement for general disarmament and the prevention of war.

Early in August an agreement was reached between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister of the Serb-Croat-Slovenian State for funding the War Debt of that country, amounting to approximately 25.5 million pounds. Repayment was to be made in sixty-two yearly instalments rising from 150,000l. in 1927 to 600,000l. in 1942 and onwards to 1988. At the same time an agreement was also made for the settlement of the Serbo-CroatSlovene Relief Debt to Great Britain amounting to a little over 2 million pounds. Payment was to be made in full with interest

at 5 per cent. by annual instalments extending over fifteen years. The annuities in respect of the War Debt were purposely scaled down during the years to 1942 to facilitate the payment of the Relief Debt.

In England, as in most other countries, popular feeling was deeply stirred by the announcement early in August that the death penalty was to be actually inflicted on the two prisoners, Sacco and Vanzetti, who six years before had been condemned by a Court in the State of Massachusetts. Prior to the date fixed for the execution a number of public protests were made, culminating in a great demonstration held on the night of August 10 in Hyde Park and the neighbourhood, in which over 10,000 persons took part. Owing to the threatening attitude of the crowd, large forces of police were employed to keep it in order, and the approaches to the American Embassy were strongly guarded. Other demonstrations almost on a similar scale took place before the prisoners were finally executed.

In August the British Government was reminded by the German Government of the undertaking given at Locarno to bring about the evacuation of the Rhineland by the occupying forces. Britain was willing to withdraw her troops provided France and Belgium made proportionate withdrawals. France at first was averse to withdrawing any of her troops. The Foreign Secretary accordingly addressed to the French Government a couple of stiff notes, as a result of which the latter at the end of August consented to withdraw 8,000 French troops while Belgium and Britain withdrew 1,000 each.

Mr. Baldwin had returned from Canada on August 25 full of admiration for that country but as proud as ever of his own. In a speech which he gave in Scotland on August 27 he described Canada as a land of good wages and unlimited possibilities, built up primarily by British capital, by private enterprise, British brains and British skill, the secret of its success being British character. Dealing with the economic situation in England, he said that he regarded it as considerably better than two years ago, and he saw no cause for pessimism, provided that there were no widespread stoppages of work. He concluded his speech by appealing to the trade union leaders to use their influence to promote industrial peace, and urged them to give a lead in that direction to their followers at the Congress to be held in the coming week-an uncalled-for piece of advice which, as the sequel showed, was bitterly resented by those to whom it was addressed.

The Trade Union Congress of 1927, which was opened at Edinburgh on September 5 revealed a distinctly pacific temper in the British working class, contrasting strongly with the militant spirit which had been displayed at the Congress preceding the general strike.

At a demonstration preliminary to the Congress itself (Sep

tember 3), Mr. Citrine, the Secretary of the T.U.C., reproved those in the movement-chiefly the younger people-who talked of the unions as if they were simply fighting machines, and preached a programme of industrial action, which meant using the power of the unions recklessly and destructively. Mr. Hicks, the chairman of the Congress, declared at the same meeting in the name of the trade union movement that they would do anything to achieve and maintain industrial peace, provided it was not a peace which made it impossible for the workers to live decent lives. In his opening address to the Congress two days later, Mr. Hicks spoke with restraint of the grievances of the workers, and threw out a suggestion that the General Council of the Trade Union Congress should confer directly on economic problems with the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations, the largest body of organised employers. The idea had been considered for some time by the Trade Union Council, and was received with favour by the Congress.

The chief work of the Congress was to complete the breach with Moscow which had been opened at the preceding Congress, and had gradually widened in the course of the year. The General Council of the T.U.C. had already, on July 27, sent to Moscow a carefully worded statement declaring that co-operation between the British and the Russian Trade Unions was impossible unless the latter changed their methods and their language. This, however, did not prevent it from issuing an invitation to Mr. Tomsky to attend the Congress as a fraternal delegate. As in the previous year, the Home Secretary refused Mr. Tomsky permission to land in England, and that gentleman again despatched by cable a message which, under the cover of fraternal greetings to the British workers, heaped abuse and insult on the British trade union leaders, and dictated to the Congress the policy it ought to pursue.

Mr. Tomsky's screed was already in the hands of the delegates when they came to consider the recommendation of the General Council that negotiations with the Russian trade unions should be broken off. The reasons for this step were explained by Mr. Citrine. Two years of earnest striving to bring about an understanding between the British and Russian trade union movements had, he said, convinced the Trade Union Council that it was impossible to go on under present conditions. When the negotiations began, some of them had believed that the differences which separated them from the Russians were superficial, and that contact between them would remove their difficulties; but experience had made them realise that the differences went much deeper than they imagined. There were three main differences. One was that the Russians desired their revolutionary principles to be adopted by all trade unions, whereas the British movement was built up on the principle of autonomy for its units to decide their

own line of progress. The second difference was in the conception of what the Anglo-Russian Council was designed to do. The British had sought to restrict it to its primary function, which was to establish a close link between the British and Russian workers, whereas the Russians had regarded it as the nucleus of a new International. The third difference was in the method of conducting discussions. The Russians believed more in declamation than in calm statement and argument. He had been told that terms like "traitor," renegade," and so on were so common in the Russian movement that no one took any notice of them, but their effect on an English audience was deplorable. So long, therefore, as the Russians maintained their present attitude, they would have to go on separately.

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The behaviour of the Russian trade unions since the Arcos raid, and their obvious intention to force a breach with the British unions, placed those who still desired to maintain the Anglo-Russian Council in a quandary. Nevertheless a number of speakers urged the rejection of the Council's recommendation on the ground that to dissolve the Committee at the present juncture would encourage the Government in its hostile attitude towards Russia and would remove a check on the possibility of war with that country. The British unions, it was urged, should suffer any indignity rather than take such a step. This view was expressed not only by extremists, but even by a man of such moderate views as Mr. Cramp, the railwaymen's leader. The other moderates, however, would have none of it. Mr. Bevin clinched Mr. Citrine's description of the differences between the British and Russian trade unions by declaring that they had two distinct moral standards; the British standard was to hammer out their differences and when a decision was arrived at honourably to abide by it, but the Russian was apparently that the end justified the means. Mr. Clynes expressed his surprise that the decision of the Council had not come long before, and Mr. Thomas explained that they had actually been on the verge of breaking with Russia six months before, but on that occasion rather than play the Tory game they had agreed to eat their own words. The motion for referring the recommendation back was ultimately defeated by 2,550,000 votes to 620,000.

Lest this vote might be interpreted as a sign that the trade unions had come round to the Government view of the proper way to deal with Russia, the Congress immediately afterwards passed without discussion a resolution deploring the diplomatic breach with that country as likely to increase unemployment, injure trade, and imperil peace. The fact remained, however, that in its own sphere the Congress had followed the example of the Government, and supporters of the Government did not fail to draw the moral.

As a corollary to the dissolution of the Anglo-Russian committee, the Congress accepted a recommendation of the Council that the

latter should have power to review the whole question of the international relationships of Congress in the light of the events that had taken place since the Hull Congress of two years previously. The Congress had chiefly in mind a meeting of the International Federation of Trade Unions (the Second International) held in Paris at the beginning of August, at which Mr. Purcell, who presided, had scandalised the delegates by making a frankly Communistic speech, and had charged the secretary with carrying on underhand intrigues against the Russian trade unions. By a two to one majority the Congress refused to commit itself to a declaration in favour of a single International and of a world conference of the two Internationals and unaffiliated movements.

The pacific spirit of the Congress was further illustrated by the emphatic manner in which the majority dissociated itself from the "Minority Movement" which stood for a policy of militant trade unionism. A decision of the Council that trades councils connected with the Minority Movement should not be accorded recognition by the T.U.C. was challenged by certain speakers who tried to represent the Minority Movement as the representative of progress and new ideas within the trade unions, comparing its work to that of Keir Hardie in a previous generation. This view was not accepted by the supporters of the Council, who charged the Minority Movement with seeking directly to wreck the trade unions and with taking its orders from Moscow.

The attitude of the trade union world to the question of industrial peace was defined with some precision in a long resolution moved on the second day by Mr. Bevin on behalf of the General Council. The Congress, it said, had noted the repeated appeals of the Prime Minister to the leaders of Labour on the subject of collaboration for industrial peace, and could assure him that no section of the community was more desirous of industrial peace than the workers. It was compelled, however, to inform Mr. Baldwin that the greatest hindrance to a response to those appeals was the legislative and industrial policy pursued by him and his Government, especially their attacks on the wage standards and liberties of the workers such as those contained in the Miners' Eight-Hours Act and the Trade Disputes Act. The immediate repeal of such repressive legislation would be the best evidence of the sincerity and honesty of Mr. Baldwin and his Government, failing which the country should be given an immediate opportunity of pronouncing a verdict upon the present Government's policy. Mr. Bevin, in introducing the resolution, underlined the charges of insincerity which it brought against Mr. Baldwin, and accused the Premier of having, as Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, been responsible for much of the industrial trouble of the past three or four years. Mr. Thomas also declared that all talk of industrial peace was idle until the most crying wrongs of the working population were remedied. The resolution was then carried unanimously.