narchism in a new form. Syndicalism, which
is the French word for Trade Unionism, proposes that the future State
should be organised on the basis of Trade Unions; it regards a man's
occupation as more vitally important to him than his place of residence,
and therefore advocates representation by trades in place of localities:
it lays stress on his desire, his right, to control his own working life
directly through his own elected representatives of his trade: it
criticises the "servile state" proposed by collectivists, wherein the
workman, it is said, would be a wage-slave to officials of the State, as
he is now to officials of the capitalists. Thus it proposes that the
control of industry should be in the hands of the producers, and not, as
at present, in the hands of consumers through capitalists catering for
their custom, or through co-operative societies of consumers, or through
the State acting on behalf of citizens who are consumers.

A quite extraordinary diversity of streams of opinion converged to give
volume to this new trend of thought. There was the literary criticism of
Mr. Hilaire Belloc, whose ideal is the peasant proprietor of France,
freed from governmental control, a self-sufficient producer of all his
requirements. His attack was directed against the Servile State,
supposed to be foreshadowed by the Minority Report, which proposed
drastic collective control over the derelicts of our present social
anarchy. Then Mr. Tom Mann came back from Australia as the prophet of
the new proletarian gospel, and for a few months attracted working-class
attention by his energy and eloquence. The South Wales miners, after
many years of acquiescence in the rule of successful and highly
respected but somewhat old-fashioned leaders, were awakening to a sense
of power, and demanding from their Unions a more aggressive policy. The
parliamentary Labour Party since 1910 had resolved to support the
Liberal Government in its contest with the House of Lords and in its
demand for Irish Home Rule, and as Labour support was essential to the
continuance of the Liberals in power, they were debarred from pushing
their own proposals regardless of consequences. Although therefore the
party was pledged to the demand for Women's Franchise, they refused to
wreck the Government on its behalf. Hence impatient Socialists and
extreme Suffragists united in proclaiming that the Labour Party was no
longer of any use, and that "direct action" by S