women's share in it, and the mechanical invention and adaptation going on
everywhere, with which only a technical expert could deal, it is of course
monotonous, and I might weary you. I will only--before asking you to
cross the Channel with me to France--put down a few notes and impressions
on the Clyde district, where, as our newspapers will have told you, there
is at the present moment (March 29th) some serious labour trouble, with
which the Government is dealing. Until further light is thrown upon its
causes, comment is better postponed. But I have spoken quite frankly in
these letters of "danger spots," where a type of international Socialism
is to be found--affecting a small number of men, over whom the ideas of
"country" and "national honour" seem to have no hold. Every country
possesses such men and must guard itself against them. A nucleus of them
exists in this populous and important district. How far their influence
is helped among those who care nothing for their ideas, by any real or
supposed grievances against the employers, by misunderstandings and
misconceptions, by the sheer nervous fatigue and irritation of the men's
long effort, or by those natural fears for the future of their Unions,
to which I have once or twice referred, only one long familiar with the
district could say, I can only point out here one or two interesting
facts. In the first place, in this crowded countryside, where a small
minority of dangerous extremists appear to have no care for their
comrades in the trenches, the recruiting for the new Armies--so I learn
from one of the leading authorities--has been--"taken on any basis
whatever--substantially higher than in any other district. The men came
up magnificently." That means that among those left behind, whatever
disturbing and disintegrating forces exist in a great Labour centre have
freer play than would normally be the case. A certain amount of patriotic
cream has been skimmed, and in some places the milk that remains must be
thin. In the second place--(you will remember the employer I quoted to you
in a former letter)--the work done here by thousands and thousands of