[28] ``World of Labour,'' pp. 212, 213.


Industrial unionism is a product of America,
and from America it has to some extent spread to
Great Britain. It is the natural form of fighting
organization when the union is regarded as the means
of carrying on the class war with a view, not to
obtaining this or that minor amelioration, but to a
radical revolution in the economic system. This is
the point of view adopted by the ``Industrial Workers
of the World,'' commonly known as the I. W. W.
This organization more or less corresponds in America
to what the C. G. T. was in France before the
war. The differences between the two are those due
to the different economic circumstances of the two
countries, but their spirit is closely analogous. The
I. W. W. is not united as to the ultimate form which
it wishes society to take. There are Socialists,
Anarchists and Syndicalists among its members. But it
is clear on the immediate practical issue, that the
class war is the fundamental reality in the present
relations of labor and capital, and that it is by
industrial action, especially by the strike, that
emancipation must be sought. The I. W. W., like the
C. G. T., is not nearly so strong numerically as it is
supposed to be by those who fear it. Its influence
is based, not upon its numbers, but upon its power
of enlisting the sympathies of the workers in moments