onversion was
thought to be all the more easy because, to quote Ben Tillett, "The
whole of the trades union movement has been tinged with Socialism;
unconsciously the guides of the working classes have always marched
towards the goal of Socialism."[397]

With this object in view the trade unionists were urged to reform
their tactics, to abandon the economic struggle in the form of
strikes, and to enter upon the more efficacious political struggle
with the employers of labour in the House of Commons. "To go on
following the old beaten paths of trade unionism is simply to go on
exhausting the possibilities of error for an indefinite period. If the
new unions are simply to play the part of regulators of wages, as
trade and prices rise and fall, they will be of very slight advantage
to the workers compared with what they might accomplish if they took a
broader view of their opportunities and their duties. What they have
to do, and that now, is to use the power which organisation gives them
to get control of the political machinery of the country and use it
for the advancement of their class. By this means they could, if they
chose, achieve as much in a year or two as would be gained in a
century by the old methods of trade agitation and strikes."[398] "If
the Labour party had a tithe of the money that the unions have spent
upon getting thrashed and starved and defrauded, it would be a party
to wonder at and be proud of. The miners of Yorkshire have spent
_212,000l._ on six strikes--all of which have been lost. Do you call
this industrial warfare? Insanity and suicide--that is what it is. The
engineers spent three-quarters of a million on the great lock-out.
That is a sum in itself, the ransom of all the workers from the bonds
of wage-slavery. What can the engineers show for their money to-day?
Ask them! We could capture the British Parliament with that sum _plus_
a little brains and courage."[399] The Fabian Society has issued
numerous pamphlets in which it has shown how the position of the
workers might be improved, and in these it has at every opportunity
urged upon every worker to join a union, and has urged upon the trade
unions to better the position of the workers by relying upon political
action.[400]

In pursuance of this policy the railway employees were told by the
Socialists, when the difference between the British railway companies
and their workers had been arranged: "You men must cling tight to the
union an