At the same time the spirit of the manual workers was an example to the rest of us. Mr. Orton tells us that, "despite widespread unemployment and distress among the rank-and-file of labour and the many practical difficulties with which its leaders had as best they could to contend, not these things but the universal tide of active patriotism will remain the dominant impression of this momentous autumn. Volunteers from all trades and classes were enlisting at the rate of nearly 100,000 a week: 174,901 during the first week of September; so that many a regiment would make a favour of it to put your name on a long waiting list, and many a depot had to close its doors on a press of volunteers much as in peace time the dock gates used to close on a press of willing labourers. Outstanding industrial disputes were broken off, compromised, referred to arbitration or waived altogether. Already in the first fortnight of August, employers and trade unionists on Clyde and Tyne had mutually agreed to assist in every possible way the execution of all work essential to the war—in the latter area, had even recommended the removal of "all working restrictions." Other unions were taking up a similar attitude; and the Labour Conference of August 25, before
