The Satanist Read Free

increasing our exports, and the Government did a wonderful job a while back in saving the pound.But the country has been deliberately robbed of a big part of the benefit it should have derived from these stupendous efforts.’
    ‘By unofficial strikes,’ hazarded Barney.
    ‘You’ve said it, my lad. In the past ten years they’ve cost the country untold millions, and at times thrown as many as a hundred thousand people, who had no part in the dispute, out of work for several weeks. It’s their repercussions that prove so costly and there seems no way of altering the pattern they follow. A group of Reds get a dispute going on some little point of procedure in a small plant where they have control. The installing of a new machine, or an alteration in schedule to improve efficiency, is all they need to start an argument. They persuade one category of workers that it may lead to their getting smaller pay-packets, or cause redundancy, so they down tools. If it ended there that wouldn’t be a very serious matter. But it doesn’t. The agitators get busy with the cry that a threat to one category of workers is a threat to all, and out come other categories in sympathy. Yet even that is not the worst. After a week or two the stoppage in that factory begins to affect others. Nine times out of ten the thing it is making is not a finished article, but a part or material essential for putting the completed product on the market. That means far bigger plants have to put their hands on short time, or are brought to a standstill.
    ‘It’s time everyone realised that every man who joins a strike that has not the approval of his Union is a Public Enemy; because these wildcat stoppages eat into profits like rats into corn, and profits mean taxes. If it had not been for all this downing of tools without real justification, by now we could have doubled old-age pensions and child allowances, and had a shilling off the income-tax into the bargain.’
    ‘Bejesus, you’re right, Sir!’ The touch of Irish slipped out owing to Barney’s spontaneous agreement. ‘Look at that B.O.A.C. strike. It must have cost the country millions; and largely because the men let themselves be carried awayby the brilliant oratory of Sid Maitland – in spite of the fact that, according to the Press, he openly declared himself to be a Communist. They just wouldn’t listen to Jim Matthews but howled him down, and when he tried to get them to accept the Union’s ruling and rely on its negotiations they called him a traitor. It’s a shocking state of things when they won’t be guided by their own Union officials.’
    That’s what is giving the responsible Labour leaders, such a headache. For the past year or so they have been doing their utmost both to oust the Communists from key positions in the Unions and to get a firmer control over the shop stewards. But it is uphill work, because it lays them open to accusations of attempting to browbeat the workers and of being secretly in league with the Tory government; and it is difficult for them to convince the rank and file that they are not.’
    ‘Yes, I see that. They’re between the devil and the deep blue sea; and owing to the size of the Unions it is impossible for their top men to keep in personal touch with all their tens of thousands of members. That is where the shop stewards have such a pull.’
    The Colonel nodded. ‘True enough. But don’t run away with the idea that all the shop stewards are bad hats. The great majority of them are good chaps doing a very valuable job of work maintaining good relations between the management and their mates. The trouble is that the bad ones are in a position to do an immense amount of damage by formenting these wildcat strikes. Those are the boys we want to get the low-down on; so that we can expose them and help the T.U.C. in its big campaign to purge the British Labour movement of Russian influence.’
    ‘And where do I come in on this, Sir?’ Barney