* * * * * A LESSON FOR "LABOUR." ["The overwhelming vote of the Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Lancashire miners against accepting any reduction, or even submitting the wages question to arbitration, does not encourage any very sanguine hopes of the Nottingham Conference."--_Westminster Gazette._] "_My sentence is for open war!_" Thus spake Fierce Moloch, when within the marly lake "The Stygian Council" in dark conference met! "The scepter'd king's" advice prevaileth yet, And Mammon's self, who in his pristine might Stooped to the avowal that "all things invite To peaceful counsels," now in stubborn mood Urges resistance--at the cost of blood! Yes, Mammon, musing on "the settled state Of order," at that dim chaotic date, Speaks, in the mighty-voiced Miltonic way, "Of Peace," and "how in safety best we may Compose our present evils, with regard Of what we are and were." Mammon's award Is now more martial: Mammon, swoln and proud With domination o'er the moiling crowd, Lifts a most arrogant head, and coldly curls An insolent lip against the clod-soul'd churls Whose destiny and duty 'tis to slave 'Twixt cradle comfortless and cheerless grave, To glut his maw insatiate! Proud is Pelf; But might not Legend lesson Labour's self? "Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms!" Comes not the echo loud of wild alarms To Labour's Conference? Violence and wreck, Incendiary hate that sense should check, Mad mob-intimidation, brutal wrath,-- These are strange warders for the pleasant path Of human progress! While they crowd and clash In headlong stubbornness and anger rash, Whilst factories burn, and workmen fall in blood, And women mourn, and children moan for food, Unnumbered multitudes the misery feel Who share not in its making! Mars' red steel Is sheathed to-day at Arbitration's nod; Hath this no lesson for the milder god? Vulcan, the smithy-toiler, and his crowd Of sooty Cyclops, raging fierce and loud, Impetuous, implacable, whilst Mars, That savage god of sanguinary wars, Awaits the award of Arbiters of Peace! Strange contrast! "Cease, great hammer-wielder, cease!" Says the Sword-bearer. "Cease this frenzied fray. Try Arbitration--'tis the gentler way, And wiser. I have tried it--shall not you? Call back your Cyclops, let not _them_ imbrue Swart hands in Battle's sanguinary hue. Shall War, now partly driven from the field, Find refuge in the factory, nor there yield To the sage suasion of mild Equity, At whose just Arbitration even I Suspend or drop the sword?"