Page:War and Other Essays.djvu/271

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DO WE WANT INDUSTRIAL PEACE?
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security of modern society depend. They destroy the social organization which is our reliance nowadays for the supply of our needs. Indeed, this is the real strain upon which a strike relies for its hopes of success; and if there is any justification for legislation to prevent industrial war, it lies in this interest of the public, not in any interest of either of the parties. It is an interesting thing to notice that industrial war has arisen in modern society in proportion as greater State organization has modified the old form of chronic war and brigandage.

There is an interesting and important parallel to this transformation of one kind of social ill into another, attendant upon what we call progress, in another branch of the social organization. A century ago France was so thoroughly policed that violence or breach of public order was scarcely possible. In general, even now, anywhere on the continent of Europe, the man who first strikes a blow is held to be in the wrong, without much regard to provocation, because he violates public peace and order. In Russia any overt act of violence meets with very prompt suppression, without regard to the grievance which caused it. This may be the very worst tyranny and wrong, unless it is attended by a constant and effective redress of all grievances upon proper complaint. Now a modern election, such as we are accustomed to in this country, is a form of riot and disorder which would have set the whole police of France in agitation a century ago. A sarcastic critic might find many amusing analogies by which to sustain the proposition that a modern American election is only a revolution under legal form; that it is a fight of two factions for State power under legal form, but that it works by the same means and toward the same end as a palace revo-