For more than four years the slaying of the hundred heads went on, with ever two heads of evil springing forth from the place whence one was hewn. But at last genius, resolve, faith, brought the end, and on the never-ending road which through all these years had been hammered by hoofs and wheels and tramping feet of war, the old silence fell. For a time it was followed by returning troops, and many a home-coming army retraced the footsteps of those men who had gone down to the little seaport to return no more. For a time the sounds and weapons of war rolled along the ancient road, but less and less was it used, and the armistice winter passed and gave back to the spring a solitary road. The road returned to its thinking, but it was not the same road and never would be again. The new experience had absorbed the old, and though nothing was altered, though the bend of the road and the sky-line of trees and the glimpses of water, of hilly 'copses, of bright green marsh were the same, though the wild geese flew as high and the sparrow hawk called as clear, yet nothing was the same since the spirits that haunted it were changed spirits, and all old things were made new.

In the far, far days before the war the spirits of the road loitered and communed with one another, and reënacted this deed or that deed of interminable centuries. At times their antics were so boisterous that human eyes could see them, but the dreams of the road were not purposeful, they were dreams and nothing more. But now the spirits were changed. They put by their dreaming and fain would live indeed, would play a part in the purpose of the race, since the race in the great quest of the great war had shown that it had a purpose, and not for itself only but for the world. How could they show it, these spirits of dead men and

women who had trodden the road since the days of the Roman or earlier, down even to these latter days of unquenchable hope? So as the first burst of spring ran through the forest and the moor, through the lowlands and the uplands, the bartons where the sheep graze, the meadows where the kine are, the spinny where the fox cubs dwell, the tall firs whence the hawks are calling, the swaying larches where in the feathery first green the linnets are singing, the spirits went forth together, a wonderful legion of them more musical than the lark, to find the Ending of the Road where the purpose of things should be seen. How far, said the Briton to the Roman; how far, said the Roman to the Jute; how far, said the Jute to the Dane; how far, said the Dane to the Norman; how far, said they all to the Briton; how far is the Ending of the Road?

And as they went, a blessed company that had no tears, they saw that a new world was in the making. The countryside grew glad as they swept along it; the sadness of it, the waste of life in hapless villages, the unpreparedness, the unfruitful solitude changed as they winged along. A new joy had touched churches, chapels, schools, and cots. The little children glowed with the health that was their birthright; the youths and maidens walked with knowledge, which is truth and hope, in their happy eyes; the men walked with a new assurance of the dignity of life, the women with a new vision of the holiness of things. Every man's hand was against the things of evil. Every man's hope was fixed on other man's good. The moving scene was no transitory vision, for as villages glided into towns, and the endless road wound its way through great places of production; still the spirits saw hope shining in the eyes of men, and a freshness as of the morning on the foreheads of the

crowd. The hovel and the slum had gone, the demons of disease had been tracked out of their lairs, the angels of thought and poetry had taken up their dwelling place with men. At last the gates of things beautiful had been thrown open not only to the poor but to the rich, and the values of life had become manifest at last to those whose eyes want or wealth had for centuries bound up. So the company of spirits passed on and they were happy, for they knew that this was no dream, no vision of an impossible heaven, but a change that had been wrought by a change of heart, not by any doctrine of revolution, not by any devilish policy of hatred between class and class, but by the joint determination of men under the stress of unexampled things to find out by knowledge, by sympathy, by reason, by love, the way to a better and yet not impossible world.

And the Endless Road ran on through all the glories and the shining places of England, that jewel of the sea, and the spirits of the road winged along it in search of the Ending of the Road. They no longer asked how far, but they wondered whether the end would come by some cathedral mystic in its holy twilight, where the rolling of incommunicable music would touch the soul with the sense of the presence of God; or whether it would come on some mountain top, sun smitten at the close of day, whence they could see the Promised Land. But their astonishment was great when at last they saw, in a little dip of wonderful hills, the road suddenly end. It was a mysterious green spot with patches of woodland shining with the sunlight in the graygreen foliage. The road stopped in the grass and there was an end. Not even a path ran on or a sheep track. And just by the spot where the road ended was a signpost, so like a cross, that at a little distance it seemed that it was

a cross. And it was near this spot that all the roads of all the land had ending. And the spirits from all the roads of all the land rose in the air above the signpost, and winged higher and higher till they were lost to view in the glow of the rising moon and setting sun.

The Bishop of Wiltwater told the parable to his young men of all classes who sat with him in his palace at Wiltchester after supper on a Sunday evening. It is a sort of folk story, is n't it?' said one young man with some compassion in his voice. 'Yes,' said the Bishop; 'I suppose it is. It was told me by a man who thinks that folklore is race memory. Do anyone of you believe in race memory?' They thought, and smoked, and smoked, and thought, and then Jasper said: 'Yes, of course, race memory is real enough, but what is worrying me, and I think all of us, is the complement to race memory. If there is memory of a race as a whole there is looking forward as a whole. Do we look forward as a whole?' The Bishop lit his pipe and sipped his coffee. He had expected the question but hesitated as to the answer. Presently he said, 'Race memory comes up from the period of folk communities. These stories of the road are stories of the movings and wanderings of communities. Race anticipation must look forward to a period of communities. That is right, is n't it, Wilfred?' The boy who had been deep in Maine, said: 'It sounds right, sir.' 'Well, but if it is right it surely means that we are moving towards a period of voluntary association again, an age of mutual help, a time when the State will be merely an instrument of perfecting the imperfect status of the individual, as in the Roman age. Is n't that so?' 'Yes,' said another youth, with an eager manner, 'but if that is so what purpose do we find in it all? It is like a spiral.

We mount but where do we mount to?'

'Yes, that is my difficulty, too,' said the Bishop. Can anyone suggest a solution? Light pipes and think.' So they thought and thought, and while they thought the Bishop watched them. This to him was ideal, this thinking on equal terms with all sorts and conditions of youth, this clashing of minds, this feeble but, therefore, priceless feeling out after truth. At last one young man spoke. He said, 'Can there be purpose that is not personal? Can there be race purpose, or purpose unrelated to any individual? I don't believe there can.' 'Oh! but that's nonsense,' said the Bishop. 'Have you ever seen one mind move a crowd?' 'Yes, but he gives his purpose to the crowd.' 'I know, but the crowd must have some quality of receptivity, some inchoate purpose. He could not give his purpose to a crowd of symbols. Do you see?' 'Yes, I see,' said the youth; 'curious that I never saw it before. I The Contemporary Review

see too now the end of the parable. I suppose Christ shows the purpose and some of us, a few of us, are capable of taking it.' 'All of us,' said the Bishop; 'that is just the difference between us and the symbols.' 'Let me see,' said the boy, rubbing his forehead. 'Tell us again the end of the story,' and the Bishop with a smile stood in front of the fire and said: "The Road stopped in the grass and there was an end. Just by the spot where the Road ended was a great signpost, so like a Cross that at a little distance it seemed that it was a Cross. And near this very spot all the Roads of all the land had ending. And the spirits from all the Roads of all the land rose in the air above the Cross, and winged higher and higher till they were lost in the glow of the setting sun." 'Was there no one left?' 'Oh, I had forgotten,' said the Bishop, 'the whole point of the story. There was a child looking up with beaming eyes under the signpost, laughing and clapping his hands in the warm spring weather.'

VOL. 13-NO, 676

THE BELFAST STRIKE

ON more than one occasion in its history, Belfast has proved a city of surprises. The present strike took the general public unawares, and sent most of the special correspondents who had been expecting trouble in Dublin in connection with the Dail Eireann hotfoot to the North. In its broadest aspect the strike is a virtual declaration of political independence by the workers. Hitherto employers and employed in the northeastern corner have been so closely bound together by religious and political ties that disunion among them seemed impossible. Their unity was cemented by the seeming dangers that assailed them from without, Nationalism and Home Rule. Now all the workers in Belfast have come to realize that commonalty of interest which is likely in the future to insure coöperation between them, at least in all movements designed to benefit their class. Whether the practical unanimity now prevailing among all ranks of Belfast labor will ultimately extend to other spheres, and whether the truce now called to political and religious feuds of long standing will be permanent, are matters for speculation. Complete reconciliation between the warring elements hitherto artificially sundered by a too violent partisanship cannot be effected at once, but the step now taken is in the right direction, and, from a national and Irish standpoint, one of happy augury for the future.

As to the causes of the strike, the position in Belfast has not been properly understood. Though the local employers and employees are attached to associations and unions which have

their headquarters in England, they have always claimed and always exercised a certain amount of local autonomy. As a result of this the Belfast yards during the war were not affected by the periodical strikes in the shipbuilding centres in Great Britain. Awards granted by the Committee of Production applied in Belfast only after separate request had been made for their application. This local autonomy is of importance, as it accounts for the separate demand made in Belfast for a forty-four-hour week, though the Clyde and other British centres were in favor of forty. It also takes away largely from the unofficial character of the strike which has been so much stressed by the employers. It is a matter of history now that a ballot on the forty-seven-hour week was taken in the various unions comprised in the Shipbuilding and Engineering Federation. The Irish branches, confined principally to Belfast, also took a ballot, and the result was a big majority against the acceptance of forty-seven hours. This majority was, however, swamped by the large number of 'ayes' on this side. Such an outcome was disappointing to the Belfast workers, and, as they had raised the question of the forty-four-hour week as early as the beginning of last September, they downed tools. The immediate motive of the strike was thus economic. The men used the traditional weapon of their class simply for the betterment of their conditions. It was, however, the first instance in all the recent history of Belfast labor where Orangemen and Nationalists, Protestants and Catholics, have been called out on a common issue, and where all parties and creeds

of workers have combined to forward a common cause. This combination does not certainly make them irresistible, but it gives a cohesion to their ranks, and adds a dignity and force to their demands, which would be lacking were their house divided against itself. Whatever may be the outcome of the strike, a return to the old hostilities between the two leading religions is almost impossible. Carsonism, which was the triumph of reaction, will flourish no more. The workers who returned so many Unionists at the recent elections will not, indeed, lightly shed their Unionism, but the first and most difficult barrier between them and their Catholic fellow workmen has been broken down. They will no longer be swayed by the political outpourings of a Saunderson, a Carson, or a Craig. If they have taken the present lesson to heart, they are likely to discount the jeremiads of the Die Hards and the croakings of the prophets of evil when the urgent question of settling Ireland's political claims comes up for its long-deferred solution.

Though the Orange drum may not be too speedily silenced, especially if the employers seek to revive its discords, yet the failure of their chosen members of Parliament to come to their assistance in the hour of need has disillusioned many sincere Orangemen. Alone among the nine Belfast members Mr. Joseph Devlin has spoken out for the workers. In addition, the Orangeman sees Catholic workers fighting by his side, while from the south, especially from the all-powerful Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, he has had offers of unstinted support. Truly the moment is an auspicious one in the political history of the country, though the occasion, involving as it does a schism in the ranks of industry, is not too happy. Out of evil at times there cometh good, and we cannot but

regard the result as desirable though flowing from an undesirable source.

The cause of the trouble in Belfast we have diagnosed as economic, but the remedy cannot be so easily prescribed. The dispute is one between employers and employed. The interests of the community have been hurt by interference with municipal utilities. The government have refused to intervene, since the war is over and strikes are no longer strictly illegal, and have failed to come up to the minimum laissez faire requirement of keeping the ring. The masters have shown an unbending front. In the circumstances it would be presumption on our part to advocate a cure. We will only observe that the settlement when come to must be a national one. A uniform working week is necessary in all the yards in the United Kingdom so as to insure equality of competition. It has been a recent practice in the Liverpool yards and engineering shops to work shorter hours than elsewhere, but, generally speaking, up to the time of the present trouble the working week all over the United Kingdom was fifty-four hours. This fifty-four-hour week was worked the year round in Belfast, but on the Clyde it was shortened in the winter months. To standardize the time may be, of course, prejudicial in Belfast, since it is not ideally situated for shipbuilding or repair work. All the materials required, coal, iron, steel, and timber, must be imported, and the Lagan and the Lough do not provide the best of fairways. The Belfast workers, however, maintain that they are entitled to special consideration, since their output exceeds that of other yards. This claim can be substantiated from the shipbuilding records kept during the later period of the war. We will take as a specimen month the month of August, 1918, and as a specimen vessel the B type of standard ship,