Mint Self Suck Tube
During the war many of us had come to look on the Labour party as a sortof fairy godmother. Labour was the only party that had included in itsprogramme a ruthless avoidance of war. And, as the man who is hungry canthink only of food, so in 1917 it had seemed to us that the avoidance ofwar was the one thing that mattered. We expected great things of theDaily Herald. But long before the end of 1919 we had realised that nomore bellicose production had been ever presented in large quantities tothe public. It had substituted one form of war for another. Nations werenot to fight each other, but classes were. The proletariat of the world,with the possible exception of the French, was to ride triumphantly overthe mangled remains of the idle and blood-sucking rich. It was to be warto the death. Prizes were offered for the best slogan. The people whohad clamoured in 1916 for arbitration and compromise between the demandsof Germany and those of the Allies, would not listen to arbitration andcompromise when the Tynesider demanded another shilling a day from hisemployer. The Herald became the champion of every trade dispute, andsome of us began to wonder. Was this international peace, we askedourselves, worth the purchase at such a price? If it came to a fight,would we rather fight beside English navvies and English ploughmenagainst the navvies and ploughmen of Germany and Russia; or would werather fight160 beside English, Russian, French, Belgian, German, andSwedish ploughmen against Russian, English, French, German and Swedisharistocrats, or vice versa? Of two wars, which was the lesspernicious? And we began to think that class is a habit that can bechanged in half a generation; a man who is a newsboy at seventeen may bea baronet at fifty and a viscount at seventy; but race is a tree planteddeeply in firm soil. We can change our class as easily as we can changeour clothes; but English blood is English blood in the pit, in Mayfair,in the shires; and we should have no sympathy with that party thatstrove to divide a people against itself.
mint self suck tube
041b061a72