Paris, May 23.
The great general strike is slowly subsiding in an atmosphere of irritation. Though it is admitted-Jy a failure, the position has not Become normal. In refusing to talk and in arresting labour leaders on charges of conspiring against the safety of the State, the Government has administered a strong remedy to the body politic, but strong medicines though answering an immediate purpose, are often followed by coctions, The men are going back to work because they feel that their affairs have been badly managed and that they have no chance of success, and not because they think they' were in the wrong. They are not returning en masse but "in small batches. The result is that business and transports are still disorganized in patches. On two railways, the Northern and the Eastern, the service is normal again, but. the State line is in such a condition that it has been found necessary to limit the Whitsuntide trains, and people who want to travel on this line during the holidays have to apply beforehand for seats. In the south, the passenger train service remains below normal, and there is much delay in the conveyance of goods. Dockers are working at some ports and idle at others. The temper of labour is that of aman who finds himself worsted in a fight and, instead of shaking hands and frankly admitting himself beaten, goes away muttering and promising himself that he will have his revenge at some other opportunity. This is the temper of, at any rate, the labour "activists," and one must assume that they will remain the dominant factor in the situation so long as the more moderate elements fail to use their votes and allow themselves to be represented in their executive councils by men who think that the only way of improving the condition of their class is to begin by upsetting everything.
Tue Insouest Parvenv.
The Labour point of view, as set forth by M. Marcel Cochin in the course of heated debates in the Chamber, is that the prevailing discontent, not only in France but in other countries, is due first and foremost to a sense of injustice and disappointment. In France, when the new taxes were discussed, said M. Cochin, the bourgeois sie would not agree to a tax on capital, which would have got at the pockets of the "insolent parvenus" whose prosperity _has aroused general disgust. This strike of capital is a partial explanation of the strike of labour. Men who depend on their daily earnings are more uncertain and more insecure than they were be-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.