it could be put to a real test. By the
settlement of the threatened railway strike of 1907 the employees had
gained very little, and had _voluntarily_ left the final power to decide
disputes in the hands of government arbitrators. A conservative
Labourite, Mr. J. R. MacDonald, writing late in 1910, said:--

"We held at the time that the agreement which Mr. Bell accepted on
behalf of the Railway Servants would not work. It was a surrender.
The railway directors were consulted for days; they were allowed to
alter the terms of agreement at their own sweet will, and when they
agreed, the men's representatives were asked to go to the Board of
Trade and were told that they could not alter a comma, could not
sleep over the proposal, could not confer with any one about it,
had to accept it there and then. In a moment of weakness they
accepted. An agreement come to in such a way was not likely to be
of any use to the men."[255]

Nevertheless, this extremely important settlement was accepted by the
union. Mr. Churchill did not know how to restrain his enthusiasm for
unions that were so good as to fall in so obediently with his political
plans. "They are not mere visionaries or dreamers," says Churchill,
"weaving airy Utopias out of tobacco smoke. They are not political
adventurers who are eager to remodel the world by rule of thumb, who are
proposing to make the infinite complexities of scientific civilization
and the multitudinous phenomena of great cities conform to a few
barbarous formulas which any moderately intelligent parrot could repeat
in a fortnight. The fortunes of trade unions are interwoven with the
industries they serve. The more highly organized trade unions are, the
more clearly they recognize their responsibilities."[256]

By 1911 the whole situation was completely reversed. Over less important
bodies of capitalists and employers than the railways, the government
had power and a will to exercise its power. The railways, however, are
practically a function of government--absolutely indispensable if it is
to retain its other powers _undiminished_. It was for this reason that
little if any governmental force was used against them, and the
agreement of 1907 came to be of even less value to the men than
agreements made in other industries. When the chorus of union complaints
continued to swell, and the men asked the government to bring pressure
on the railways,