Strife

John Galsworthy's Strife plunges into the bitter winter showdown at the Trenartha Tin Plate Works, where directors, managers, union men, and workers are locked in a battle that is as personal as it is economic. In the company's boardroom, Chairman John Anthony, his son Edgar, the practical Underwood, and the other directors confront mounting losses, falling shares, and the moral strain of a strike that has already spread into private lives and family homes. When union representative Simon Harness and the workers arrive, the dispute becomes a direct clash over justice, dignity, and power. Harness exposes the gulf between comfort and hardship, while Roberts brings the men's anger, pride, and deprivation into the room with uncompromising force. Against them stands Anthony's rigid refusal to yield, even as Edgar and others struggle with conscience, compromise, and the human cost of industrial conflict. The drama widens beyond the boardroom into the Roberts household, where Mrs. Roberts's frailty, endurance, and quiet clarity reveal the hunger and insecurity behind the strike. Enid Underwood's attempts at sympathy only deepen the divide, and the tensions between loyalty, love, and principle drive the action toward a devastating question: what is justice when both sides are forced into defiance? This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.