I am not holding a brief either for the masters or the men. Let ample inquiry be made, by all means, into the subject of the dispute. If the masters raise any objection to either the sitting or the finding of the Government Commission, they deserve all the blame that naturally attaches to the strikers. The inquiry should be loyally accepted by both sides, and its findings as loyally respected. _Prima facie_, men who can earn the wages mentioned in the extract from _Engineering_ which I have already quoted are well off--far better off than their comrades who are doing trench duty in France, and are free from the hourly risk to which the fighting forces are exposed. There may be, however, good and valid reasons why they should be paid even better. If there are, the Government inquiry should find them out. But to stop work now, to hold up the production of the ships, guns, and materials necessary to carry on the war, is criminal, wicked, and unpatriotic in the highest degree. It is setting an evil example only too likely to be followed, and, if it is persisted in, may well be the first step of our beloved nation on the downward road which leads to utter destruction. Mr. Archibald Hurd, a writer always well informed, has summed up the situation in the _Daily Telegraph_ in the following words, which are worth quotation: "The recruiting movement has shown that the great industrial classes are not, as a whole, unconscious of the stake for which we are fighting--the institutions which we cherish and our freedom. Probably if the workers at home were reminded of the importance of their labours, they would speedily fall into line--if not, well, the resources of civilisation are not exhausted, and the Government should be able to ensure that not an unnecessary day, or even hour, shall be lost in pressing forward the work of equipping the new Fleet and the new Army which is essential to our salvation. The Government is exercising authority under martial law over Army and Navy; cannot it get efficient control over the industrial army? "In France and Germany these powers exist, and are employed. We are not less committed to the great struggle than France and Germany." Those are wise and weighty words, and it may be that they point the way to a solution of what may become a very grave problem. CHAPTER III THE PERIL OF NOT DOING ENOUGH The vast issues raised by the war make it a matter of most imperative necessity that Great Britain and her Allies shall put forward, at the earliest possible moment, the greatest and supremest efforts of which they are capable, in order that the military power of the Austro-German alliance should be definitely and completely crushed for ever.