ABSTRACT
It is certainly premature to attempt to add anything of historical value on the social and industrial reactions of the period 1914-8. The events are so recent and conditions were so abnormal that it would be difficult enough to form a judgment if the facts were available; as they are very largely in the possession of the various Government Departments and, as far as the public knows, unsifted, it is only possible to offer a few generalizations and to suggest tentative conclusions. For some months before August, 1914, there had been ominous signs of "unrest" among the workers. And until the beginning of 1915 their hopes appeared to be justified. The extent to which the ideas which were thrown up by the industrial unrest of the three or four years preceding the war were winning their way was revealed by the reports of the Commissions on Industrial Unrest in 1917.
