If the German trades unions had defended the interests of the working-classes uncompromisingly during the War; if even during the War they had used the weapon of the strike to force the industrialists--who were greedy for higher dividends--to grant the demands of the workers for whom the unions acted; if at the same time they had stood up as good Germans for the defence of the nation as stoutly as for their own claims, and if they had given to their country what was their country's due--then the War would never have been lost. How ludicrously insignificant would all, and even the greatest, economic concession have been in face of the tremendous importance of such a victory.