THE STRONG MAN IS STRONGEST WHEN ALONE THE average citizen is pleased and reassured when he hears that labour groups, by joining together into a Trades Union, have discovered the element which unites them in one body and rejected that which divides them. Everyone is convinced that such union is an immense gain in strength and that the once weak little groups are thereby converted sud¬ denly into a power. And yet this is for the most part quite incorrect !
Some one man proclaims some true thing, appeals for solution of some definite problem, marks out an objective, and creates a Movement having as its aim the realization of his intentions.
This is how a union or a Party is founded whose programme is aimed either at removing existing evils or at attaining a definite condition of things at some future period.
Once such a Movement has come into life it can thereby claim, in a way, a right of priority. The natural course should be that all those who desire to struggle for the same objective as that Movement should identify themselves with it and thus add to its strength, in order to be better able to serve the joint aspiration.
There are two reasons why this is not how things come to pass. The first reason may almost be described as tragic ; the second is pitiable, and has its foundation in human weakness.
i. Every great action in this world is, in general, *03 the fulfilment of a desire long present in millions of human hearts, of a universal longing.
It is an essential characteristic of great questions of any period that thousands are at work on solving them, and many imagine themselves