at least to meet their committee, it acknowledged
itself either unable or unwilling to take any effective action unless to
renew the offer to appoint another royal commission, essentially of the
same character as that of 1907 except that it should be smaller and
should act more speedily. This still meant that the third member of the
board was to be appointed by a government, in which experience had
taught the workers they could have no confidence--_at least in its
dealings with the powerful railways_.

In view of this inherent weakness of the government, or its hostility to
the new and aggressive unionism, or perhaps a combination of both, the
unions had no recourse other than a direct agreement or a strike. But
the refusal of the railways to meet the men left no alternative other
than the strike, and at the same time showed that they did not much fear
that the unions could strike with success. It was no longer a question
of the justice or injustice, truth or untruth, of the unions' claims.
The railways, in a perfectly practical and businesslike spirit,
questioned the power of the unions, by means of a strike, to cause them
sufficient damage to make it profitable even to meet their
representatives--without the presence of a government representative,
who, they had learned by experience, would in all probability take a
position with which they would be satisfied. Mr. Asquith's offer, then,
to submit the "correctness" of the unions' statements and the
"soundness" of their contentions to a tribunal, was entirely beside the
point. The representatives of the railways were sure to give such a
tribunal to understand, however diplomatically and insidiously, that the
unions were without that power, which alone, in the minds of "practical"
men, can justify any considerable demand, such as the settlement of all
questions through the representatives of the men (the recognition of the
union).

Doubtless the railways had refused to meet the union representatives
until they felt assured that the government's position would on the
whole be satisfactory to them. The government's real attitude was made
plain when, after the refusal of the unions practically to leave their
whole livelihood and future in its hands, as in 1907, it used this as a
pretext for taking sides against them--not by prohibiting the strike,
but by limiting more and more narrowly the scope it was to be allowed to
take.

The government loudly protested its impartial