Page:George Henry Soule - Recent Developments in Trade Unionism (1921).pdf/12

 cause the employers were likely to pick a time and a place of attack very unfavorable to labor, provoke a conflict with some separate union, and then draw all the rest into the battle, only to defeat them. The only way to guard against this danger was to create a labor general staff, like the general staff of an army.

The general staff of an army does not consist of a few men who issue orders. It is like a brain: it gathers useful information of all kinds, studying the latest weapons and methods of warfare, the plans and equipment of the enemy, the country in which fighting is to be done. It regulates the various branches of the army so that the artillery and the infantry shall not be working at cross purposes, but shall help each other. In fact, it performs for the army most of the purposes that a brain and nervous system perform for the body. Upon the basis of the information it gathers, the commands are issued.

British labor is now engaged, therefore, in building up a general staff to furnish the various unions with the information and counsel which they need if they are to help each other properly, and are not to be caught napping by the employers. It will try to enable the whole labor movement to plan its campaigns intelligently, instead of fighting as a lot of separate units. Of course it is a long and difficult task to build up such a general staff, and we shall not see it in full operation for some time.