Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/227

 Rh were laid up in all the Scottish ports for want of cargo due by rail, and for want of steam coal. Some business was no doubt deferred, much was altogether lost.

The strike was in the making for a long time. Discontent with the conditious of employment had existed on at least two of the lines for years, amd had month by month become more acute; representations had repeatedly been made to the companies, both through the ordinary departmental channels and through the secretary of the Railway Servants' Association without substantial result, and a feeling had been growing among the men and among those interested in railway administration that a strike had become inevitable. Fatalism, to which masses of people are often prone, prepared the way for a contagion by which the strike-fever spread from centre to centre.

Preliminary Statememt of Cause.—In one sense the cause of the strike was very simple, yet exhaustive examination of it must involve discussion of a complex series of causes. The cause may perhaps be most simply and briefly put in this form: the men were, justifiably or unjustifiably, thoroughly discontented with the conditions of their employment; they felt that their representations were being treated with disdain, and they made up their minds to revolt.

The Breach of Contract—The manner in which they did revolt, in striking without giving legal notice, laid them open to actions for damages at the instance of their employers, if not even also, in some cases, probably to prosecution under the Conspiracy Act. Viewed as a possible precedent, the action was a bad one. Were breach of contract to become universal, society could not hold together. To regard, however, the sacredness of contract as being the only question at issue in the strike would be to take a superficial and wholly barren view. Men do not incur such risks save for some very potent reason. The persistence with which the directors kept the breach of contract aspect of the case before the public—a persistence due to the exclusively class view which they took of the situation—tended to produce misconception of the real significance, to obscure the fundamental causes, and even to prolong the struggle. On the other hand, while the men consistently exhibited willingness to come to terms, and to submit their claims to arbitration, their attitude and their utterances were no doubt also characterized by class prejudices. Each side obstinately fought for its own assumed interests, and each appealed for sympathy and support to a different public. One appealed to the traders and the other to the trades. The men could not have held out for six weeks without substantial help from the trades unions. The directors would have collapsed in a few days but for the support and forbearance of the trading community. The hypothesis, frequently stated during the course of the strike, that had the men given in their notices in proper form, and than engaged in a strike, the sympathy of the commercial public would have been with them, is probably groundless. The working-class public was in sympathy with the men in spite of the breach of contract. The sympathy of the commercial public would probably have been with the companies under any circumstances. The view of the commercial class was that the spirit of the men must be broken, and that whatever concessions might have to be made afterwards, the men must be driven to surrender in order that the concessions might not appear to be the outcome of the strike. It was