THE WAR AGAINST WAR

who is a leader of the insurrectional socialists, as they are commonly called in opposition to the purely parliamentary socialists led by Jaurès,—though the insurrectional socialists also use parliamentary methods,—may be regarded as the most conspicuous champion of anti-militarism, and many of his followers have suffered imprisonment as the penalty of their convictions. In France the peasant proprietors in the country and the organized workers in the town are alike sympathetic to anti-militarism. The syndicalists, or labour unionists with the Confédération Générale du Travail as their central organization, are not usually anxious to imitate what they consider the unduly timid methods of English trade unionists;⁹ they tend to be revolutionary and anti-military. The Congress of delegates of French Trade Unions, held at Toulouse in 1910, passed the significant resolution that "a declaration of war should be followed by the declaration of a general revolutionary strike." The same tendency, though in a less radical form, is becoming international, and the great International Socialist Congress at Copenhagen has passed a resolution instructing the International Bureau to "take the opinion of the organized workers of the world on the utility of a general strike in preventing war."¹⁰ Even the English working classes are slowly coming into line. At a Conference of Labour Delegates, held at Leicester in 1911, to consider the Copenhagen resolution, the policy of the anti-military general strike was defeated by only a narrow majority, on the ground that it required further consideration, and might be detrimental to political action; but as most of the leaders are in favour of the strike policy there can be no doubt that this method of combating war will shortly be the accepted policy of the English Labour movement. In carrying out such a policy the Labour Party expects much help from the growing social and political power of women. The most influential literary advocate of the