In Shakespeare's time it was the people _versus_ king storm that was
brewing. Majesty was about to have its head off. Come what might,
Hamlet and Macbeth and Goneril and Regan had to see the business
through.

Now a new wind is getting up. We call it Labour _versus_ Capitalism.
We say it is a mere material struggle, a money-grabbing affair. But
this is only one aspect of it. In so far as men are merely mechanical,
the struggle is one which, though it may bring disaster and death to
millions, is no more than accident, an accidental collision of forces.
But in so far as men are men, the situation is tragic. It is not
really the bone we are fighting for. We are fighting to have
somebody's head off. The conflict is in pure, passional antagonism,
turning upon the poles of belief. Majesty was only _hors d'oevres_
to this tragic repast.

So, the strike situation has this dual aspect. First it is a
mechanico-material struggle, two mechanical forces pulling asunder
from the central object, the bone. All it can result in is the
pulling asunder of the fabric of civilisation, and even of life,
without any creative issue. It is no more than a frog under a cart-
wheel. The mechanical forces, rolling on, roll over the body of life
and squash it.

The second is the tragic aspect. According to this view, we see
more than two dogs fighting for a bone, and life hopping under the
Juggernaut wheel. The two dogs are making the bone a pretext for a
fight with each other. That old bull-dog, the British capitalist,
has got the bone in his teeth. That unsatisfied mongrel, Plebs, the
proletariat, shivers with rage not so much at the sight of the bone,