This may have been no more than a sop to the social Democrats, of whom upwards of two millions have been called to the colours, but even if this be so, the sop is a significant one, and could not have been lightly given.
In stricken Belgium, the man who comes next to King Albert in sheer patriotic endeavour and in the gift of inspiring the nation to hold up its head under conditions hard for any of us to realise, is the famous Socialist leader, Emile Vandervelde. He is not only at the head of the Belgian Ministry of War, but is King Albert's most trusted adviser; his gifts overshadow those of his equally devoted and patriotic colleagues. The thrill of horror and shame that ran through France when Jean Jaurés fell to the assassin's bullet in the opening days of war, was felt far beyond the French borders. Even in the tense excitement of that unhappy season, the French Government, after voting the murdered patriot a public funeral, posted in every Commune throughout the country its expression of horror and regret. To-day, a Socialist Prime Minister directs with rare skill and courage the fortunes of the Republic; the French National Council has not hesitated to summon to its ranks such an uncompromising foe of Individualism in whatever form as Jules Guesde. None, having eyes to see, ears to hear with, and even a modest gift of comprehension, can fail to gather from this the tendency of the great Power with which we are now so closely allied. Of all the European nations there is none in which the gift of political sagacity is so strongly marked as it is in France, none to which the gifts of political foresight and courage have been granted in equal measure. What Paris thinks to-day, London must be at least prepared to discuss in the very near future.
There is no secret about the cause of the action that France and Belgium have taken of set purpose. The whole essence of a successful struggle is unity--unity of purpose, of feeling and of thought. The working classes, now as ever, are bearing in every country the bulk of the burden of war. Sane Governments must needs endeavour to secure for labour an adequate representation in their midst. Knowing that their proper interests are being subordinated, if at all, to the national cause, and not for private profit or exploitation, labour feels that it is secure, and will give all it has to give with a generosity that may be rivalled, but can never be excelled. The white flame of patriotism is only kept glowing if it is fed by the efforts of a whole community. This result will never be quite realised here in England until all interests are united in a Cabinet that stands just now for very little more than the propertied classes. I admit, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Brace, and Mr. Wardle, have all been given some office to placate the great Trade Unions from which so much is demanded to-day. But this is not enough. Our Cabinet of aged ostriches still hides its head in the bushes of precedent and prejudice, content to believe that what it does not wish to see can have no existence, and fortified in this strange method, that would be comic if it were not tragic, by all sections of the capitalistic Press. International Socialism is gathering its forces throughout Europe, and in the United States as well, to impose permanent peace on kings and other anachronisms. Thinking people in all the centres of civilisation agree that this war is sounding the knell of privilege. But England remains content to be ruled by lawyers, professional politicians, mid-Victorian relics, and doctrinaires. Socialism, the master force of the immediate future, is deliberately ignored. Well might Father Adderley (Canon the Honourable James Adderley, so beloved in the slums of Plaistow and Birmingham) deplore in his recently published memoirs, the absence from Parliament or from the Government itself, of H. M. Hyndman, the Nestor of English Socialism. The astonishing part of our national attitude towards this crisis is that the men who really guide and influence our public opinion, the live men of letters, are for the most part Socialists, and make no secret of their principles, nor have they ever hesitated to voice their suspicion of what Matthew Arnold called "the unelastic pedantry of theorising Liberalism." Does this Government think that all this teaching has fallen or is falling on deaf ears? Does it forget that it was the French Encyclopædists who made the French Revolution? They taught a discontented and unhappy people to think and the people did the rest. Our rulers have always moved respectfully behind the times, but, to do them what justice we may, be it remembered that they never expected to live through seasons that impel the times to move with giant and sudden strides.