IC-NRLF 
 
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WHEN LABOUR RULES 
 
MR. BALFOTTR: A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 E. T. RAYMOND 
 
 Author of ' Uncensored Celebrities,' etc., 
 Demy 8vo. 12/6 net 
 
 THE PRESS AND THE GENERAL, STAFF 
 
 The Hon. NEVILLE LYTTON 
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 THE COMING REVOLUTION 
 
 GERALD GOULD 
 Cr. 8vo. 5/- net. 
 
 A HISTORY OF AERONAUTICS 
 E. C. VIVIAN and Lt.-Col. W. I,OCKWOOD ^TAE?H 
 
 (Secretary of the Royal Aeronautical Society) 
 Demy 8vo. With numerous illustrations. SO/- net. 
 
WHEN LABOUR 
 RULES 
 
 by 
 THE RT. HON. J. H. THOMAS, M.P. 
 
 LONDON: 48 PALL MALL 
 
 W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD, 
 
 GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND 
 
Copyright 1920 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 FOREWORD 7 
 
 I. THE ENGLAND OF TO-MORROW IO 
 
 II. THE RIGHT TO WORK AND THE RIGHT 
 
 TO REST 21 
 
 III. TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY 31 
 
 IV. THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT AND THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION 45 
 
 V. NATIONALISATION 5 1 
 
 VI. LABOUR GOVERNMENT AND THE MIDDLE 
 
 CLASSES 59 
 
 VII. HOUSING AND HEALTH: HEALTH AND 
 
 HOUSING 67 
 
 VIII. EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY AND 
 
 THE HOME 84 
 
 IX. THE ' TRADE ' 98 
 
 X. CUR FOREIGN RELATIONSHIPS 114 
 
 XI. OUR COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES 124 
 
 XII. INDIA 136 
 
 XIII. IRELAND 140 
 
 XIV. FINANCE 149 
 
 XV. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MUNI- 
 CIPALITIES 167 
 
 XVI. WOMEN 182 
 
 XVII. THE LEAGUE OF PEOPLES 190 
 
 447063 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 IN the days preceding August, 1914, the vast 
 majority of the people of this country took so 
 limited a view of life that they failed entirely to 
 realise the existence of forces which they had not 
 actually experienced; whatever label they were 
 pleased to attach to themselves they were, beneath 
 the skin, as conservative as their insularity could 
 possibly make them. It is true that they knew 
 there were ever-growing forces in the land, but 
 they did not recognise them as forces. They 
 knew, for instance, that there were Socialists, but 
 they identified them merely as people who wore 
 red neckties and waved red flags and sometimes 
 made rude remarks about the monarchy. Suffra- 
 gettes were notoriety hunters. Trade Unionism 
 was a movement promoted with the object of 
 getting the lazy working man as much more than 
 his pound of flesh as could be wrested from the 
 employer. 
 
 That the Labour movement or the suffrage 
 movement could in any way affect the economic 
 life of the nation, let alone fundamentally affect 
 the constitution of the country, was too preposterous 
 to be thought of. These people saw the govern- 
 ment of the land going on until Doomsday as it 
 was going on then Tory and Liberal, Liberal 
 and Tory, change and change about with the 
 swing of the pendulum and they gave the subject 
 as much interest and nearly as much enthusiasm 
 as they accorded the University boat race. 
 
 7 
 
Foreword 
 
 The past six years have opened people's eyes 
 to things as they are. Nevertheless, there is still 
 a very large number of people who have not yet 
 gained the ability to understand what they see, 
 and of those who can see, there are some who 
 make it their business to use every means within 
 their power to distort the vision of the remainder. 
 
 I do not think that there is any one to-day who 
 fails to realise that the old order of things can 
 never be re-established. But there undoubtedly 
 is an enormous number of people who utterly fail 
 to comprehend the possibilities of the future and 
 who, as a consequence, are filled with misgivings 
 and forebodings. It is to these people I address 
 this book : the people who, persuaded at last 
 of the seriousness and strength of the Labour 
 Movement, realise that before long Labour will 
 rule, but fail to understand what it portends. 
 
 The capitalists and the people whose means 
 are derived from securities are wondering what 
 will happen to them when the workers take charge 
 of the ship of State. 
 
 The black-coated workers of the cities the 
 middle classes the people who have always had 
 a tight squeeze to make ends meet and have long 
 since given up hope of ever expecting anything 
 else are wondering what will happen to them 
 when Labour rules, and are questioning whether 
 they will be robbed of the little they have; whether 
 it will be worth while struggling any more. 
 
 Then there is the working man who has always 
 voted Tory; who mistrusts his ' hot-headed fellow- 
 workers/ and has always been content to leave 
 his destiny in the hands of his ' betters/ as his 
 father did before him he also is perturbed at the 
 prospect. 
 8 
 
. Foreword. 
 
 In the following chapters I seek to remove 
 these anxieties by the plain statement of what I 
 firmly believe will be the effect of Labour govern- 
 ment. These views are my own ; I am not 
 professing to speak for the Labour Party or for 
 any one whatever beyond myself. I do not for a 
 moment expect that everything I write will be 
 endorsed by my colleagues in the Labour Move- 
 ment. I do not doubt that some will think my 
 optimism too great; that others will consider it 
 too small. But however true or false future events 
 may prove my vision to be I do assert, with all 
 the vehemence at my command, that Labour Rule 
 will be entirely beneficent, and that its dealings 
 with high and low, rich and poor, will be marked 
 with broad-minded toleration and equity. 
 
 September, 1920. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ENGLAND OF TO-MORROW 
 
 THERE is nothing Utopian in my vision of the 
 England of to-morrow; I am not one of those 
 confident and optimistic people who imagine that 
 once Labour comes into power all will be well 
 with the world; nevertheless, I do foresee a far 
 happier England than any historian has yet been 
 in a position to describe. 
 
 Utopia, as I understand it, is a place which 
 cannot be improved upon; a State in which the 
 social and political conditions have reached a 
 standard which cannot be excelled; a State of 
 ideal perfection. I cannot conceive England or 
 any other country reaching the summit of such an 
 ambition in a thousand to-morrows, but I can and 
 do conceive an England which by to-morrow will 
 have made greater strides towards perfection than 
 our grandfathers would have believed to be possible 
 within hundreds of years. 
 
 It may safely be assumed, however, that what- 
 ever progress to-morrow may be able to look back 
 upon it will find human nature still very much what 
 it is to-day; there will still be jealousies and 
 bickerings and disputes and discontent above 
 all, there will be discontent, and were this not to 
 be I, for one, would have but little hope of the 
 future; but the discontent of to-morrow will differ 
 fundamentally from the discontent of the past, 
 inasmuch as it will not be based upon a sense of 
 10 
 
The England of To-morrow 
 
 injustice and will not be received in a spirit of 
 hostility. 
 
 Furthermore, the grounds for discontent will 
 be considerably fewer. The holiday-maker will 
 still have the weather to grumble about; the 
 dyspeptic will continue to complain of his breakfast, 
 and the farmer will still find a grievance in the 
 state of his crops, but no man will have occasion 
 to protest against the conditions under which he 
 is expected to live; no man will be able to state 
 that some one else is living on his sweated labour; 
 and no man will be able to proclaim that he lacks 
 the opportunity to improve his lot if he wishes to 
 do so. 
 
 There will be no profiteers, no unemployment, 
 no slums, no hungry children. No man will be 
 expected to work an excessive number of hours, 
 and no man who is fit for work will be permitted 
 to shirk it; the right to live upon the accumulated 
 wealth of another will no longer exist; the right to 
 the best and highest education the country can 
 afford will no longer be the exclusive privilege of 
 a favoured class, but will be open to all whose 
 talents show that they will benefit by receiving it; 
 the only qualifications for the higher civil service 
 will be character and ability. 
 
 These are only some of the outstanding differences 
 in the life of to-morrow from the life of to-day, but 
 I have no doubt there are many people who feel 
 thoroughly convinced that not one half of them 
 will be realised for generations to come, if, indeed, 
 they are ever realised. 
 
 These people will say that nothing but a revolution 
 could bring about such startling and far-reaching 
 changes, and that no revolution could have such 
 beneficent effects. 
 
 II 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 But what is a revolution ? I maintain that it is 
 not necessarily a violent and bloody revolt; an orgy 
 of outrage and assassination; an affair of red caps 
 and barricades. A revolution may be perfectly 
 bloodless and peaceful, and I maintain that we 
 are in the midst of such a revolution at the present 
 moment. 
 
 One of the many evidences of this peaceful 
 revolution which would have created a storm forty, 
 twenty, even ten years ago, is to be found in one of 
 the paragraphs of the report of the Court of Enquiry 
 concerning the conditions of employment of dock 
 labour. This report was published last March, 
 and the paragraph to which I refer is so remarkable 
 that I reproduce it here in full : 
 
 ' The true and substantial case presented by the 
 dockers was based upon a broad appeal for a better 
 standard of living. What is a better standard of 
 living ? By this is not meant a right to have merely 
 r. subsistence allowance, in the sense of keeping the 
 so-* 1 and body of the worker together, but a right 
 to have life ordered upon a higher standard, with 
 full regard to those comforts and decencies which 
 are promotive of better habits, which give a chance 
 for the development of a greater sense of self- 
 respect, and which betoken a higher regard for 
 the place occupied by these workers in the scheme 
 of citizenship. The Court did not discourage 
 this view; on the contrary, it approved of it; and 
 it is fair to the Port Authorities and employers to 
 say that its soundness was not questioned. In the 
 opinion of the Court the time has gone past for 
 assessingthe value of human labourat the poverty line. 
 
 It is findings of this nature which are paving 
 
 12 
 
The England of To-morrow 
 
 the road to the England of to-morrow, but time 
 was and not so long since, when such a statement 
 as that given above would have been found only 
 in a minority report and would have been viewed 
 by the majority of people as a very estimable but 
 highly unpractical expression of opinion. 
 
 Day by day it is becoming more and more widely 
 recognised that Labour is not a menial task. It 
 is an indispensable contribution to the welfare of 
 the State, and in the interests of the State, no less 
 than in its own interests, it is essential that it should 
 be clothed in a proper dignity and invested in a 
 fitting independence. The position and condition 
 of Labour must not only be immeasurably improved, 
 but it must be given every possible aid and oppor- 
 tunity to improve itself. 
 
 In the creation of the new England one of the 
 first essentials is the clear recognition that Labour 
 must have a share in all those things which govern 
 the daily life; thirty years ago the appearance of 
 a working man on the benches of the House of 
 Commons was looked upon as an amusing but 
 rather ridiculous anomaly; it was considered by 
 many people to be the result of a freakish and 
 unaccountable twist of the electoral mind a 
 matter of no importance which would be righted 
 at the next election. 
 
 What serious help could a horny-handed son of 
 toil give in the making of laws ? All the evidence 
 was against any such ability. To begin with, there 
 was no precedent; furthermore, the son of toil 
 lacked the niceness of apparel which in those days 
 was so important a thing at Westminster; and 
 how on earth could a man who had spent his days 
 at the loom or in the coal mine possess that experi- 
 enced knowledge of affairs which was so essential 
 
 13 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 an asset of the Member of Parliament ? The 
 worker was the human machine and his value was 
 greater or less according to the intelligence of the 
 employer who directed his labour. 
 
 We have progressed far since those days and 
 now the public body which did not contain its 
 Labour representative would be hard to find. But 
 whereas it has come to be fully recognised that 
 the workers, by their knowledge and ability, can 
 be of invaluable assistance in the Flouse of Commons, 
 on County, Town, and District Councils, on Royal 
 Commissions, on Conciliation Boards and Boards 
 of Inquiry, it has still to be realised that, with a 
 very few exceptions, the worker has no voice 
 whatever in the control of the industry by which 
 he gains his livelihood and which, therefore, is 
 the primary concern of his daily life. 
 
 The workers must be taken more into the 
 confidence of the employers and it must be more 
 generally recognised that the men, by virtue of 
 their close and daily contact with the details of 
 their work, must often be able to suggest improve- 
 ments which would be invaluable to the concern 
 by which they are employed. 
 
 Tentative steps have already been taken in this 
 direction. At Bourneville, for instance, there is 
 in existence a Suggestion Scheme under which 
 the workers are invited to recommend new or 
 improved goods; improved methods of manufacture; 
 new suggestions for advertising, and so forth. In 
 the first half-year after the inception of this scheme 
 two hundred and seventy-nine suggestions were 
 made and fifty-one per cent, of them were accepted; 
 in the half-year ending April joth, 1912, just over 
 thirteen hundred suggestions were received, of 
 which four hundred and twenty-eight were accepted. 
 
The England of To-morrow 
 
 Prizes are awarded to the employees whose 
 suggestions are accepted; in April, 1912, these 
 amounted to -141 i2s. 6d. This is the men's 
 scheme to which I have referred; there is also a 
 scheme run on similar lines for girl employees. 
 
 ' It has been found/ says Mr Cadbury, * that 
 the good accomplished is not only in the pecuniary 
 value to the firm or to the suggestor, but also in 
 the development of the mental and creative power 
 which makes both men and girls more efficient 
 and valuable workers and fosters an intelligent 
 independence.' 
 
 This is exceedingly interesting as an experiment 
 and gives ample proof of the belief that industry 
 would tremendously benefit by the workers having 
 a share in the management, but, of course, this 
 Bourneville experiment is not business; the award 
 of honour and a small prize can hardly be con- 
 sidered an equitable arrangement. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction 
 and nothing but the hedge of hostility, mistrust, 
 and suspicion, which from time immemorial has 
 separated the employers and workers, prevents 
 the country from sharing the indisputable benefit 
 which would accrue to individual employers and 
 workers under the logic*! development of the 
 experiment a universal scheme of real partner- 
 ship. This hedge must and will be broken down 
 and then the nation will be filled with astonishment 
 that partnership was not an accomplished fact 
 years ago. 
 
 Another feature of the England of to-morrow 
 will be the National ownership of Railways, Mines, 
 Canals, Harbours, and Roads. Also, there is no 
 reason against, but plenty of reasons in favour of 
 the public ownership of the great lines of steamers. 
 
 '5 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Another very important industry which calls 
 for public ownership is the generation of electricity, 
 and, when this industry is taken over by the nation, 
 instead of having a host of small and inadequate 
 sources of supply, we shall see the erection of a 
 score of huge super-power stations which will 
 generate, at incredibly cheap rates, sufficient 
 electricity for the use of every industrial establish- 
 ment and every private household in the country. 
 With proper arrangements for municipal co- 
 operation in distribution, the whole country will 
 be able to obtain the cheapest possible power, 
 light, and heat. 
 
 It will be seen that by the nationalisation of 
 these things alone Coal, Transport, Heat, Light, 
 and Power not only will there be a very consider- 
 able impetus given to industry, but the individual 
 as well as the public purse will feel a remarkable 
 benefit. The cost of living will more closely 
 approximate its pre-war scale, wages will tend to 
 increase and the hours of labour to decrease within, 
 of course, reasonable limits. 
 
 By the success of its commercial enterprises, 
 by adequate taxation of unearned increment and 
 by drastic death duties, the Government will be 
 in a position to develop a really satisfactory Ministry 
 of Health, and will be able to put Education, 
 Insurance, Pensions, and other matters closely 
 touching the social life of the nation upon a proper 
 footing. 
 
 Profit-making Industrial Insurance Companies 
 which now deal with the poor by a system of 
 wasteful house-to-house collection of weekly 
 pence will also have to be expropriated, and the 
 great army of insurance agents will find their 
 place in life as Civil Servants with equitable 
 16 
 
The England of To-morrow 
 
 conditions of employment; with the steadily 
 increasing functions of the Government in Vital 
 Statistics and Social Insurance, there will be plenty 
 of work for them to do. 
 
 Another thing which will do much towards 
 altering the appearance of the England of to- 
 morrow from the England of to-day will be the 
 change in the ownership of the liquor traffic. 
 Any one who can read the signs of the times cannot 
 fail to perceive the fact that the days of Mr Bung's 
 bloated opulence are numbered. 
 
 To-morrow there will be no Mr Bung; the 
 nation will control the manufacture and distribution 
 of intoxicating liquor, and its consumption will in 
 all probability be controlled under a scheme of 
 local option by the various districts of the country. 
 
 This is but an indication of some of the more 
 sweeping reforms which it may reasonably be 
 assumed will be carried out to-morrow and which 
 will be dealt with in more detail in the succeeding 
 chapters. Let it now suffice for me to give a 
 general and rough survey of what life under these 
 new and improved conditions may be expected 
 to be like. 
 
 In the first place, the lives of the people will 
 without question be far happier than they have 
 ever been before, and by ' the people ' I do not 
 merely mean those whom to-day we are accustomed 
 to distinguish as the workers. To-morrow all 
 who are bodily and mentally fit will be workers, 
 and those to whom the experience is new will 
 find considerably more happiness in it than they 
 have hitherto found in their lives of unproductive 
 idleness. 
 
 The people, or the workers, call them which 
 you please, will all, without exception, live under 
 
 W.L.R. B i 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 decent conditions; their homes will be decently 
 built, will be sanitary, and will be so constructed 
 that they will involve a minimum rather than a 
 maximum amount of labour for those who have 
 to live in them. 
 
 So far as the character of employment permits, 
 the people who go to work will also perform their 
 labour under the best possible conditions of health 
 and comfort; there is no reason why a man should 
 not be comfortable at his work if the circumstances 
 of his task permit. 
 
 Hours of labour will be shorter than they are 
 in general to-day, and there will be a greater 
 tendency in those industries which lend themselves 
 to it for the employment of two or more shifts. 
 
 Having a decent home, and having decent 
 wages to spend upon it, and decent leisure in 
 which to enjoy the home he is able to create, the 
 worker will naturally be more disposed than he 
 has been in the past to go to it instead of to the 
 public-house, but when he goes to the latter, 
 instead of finding a comfortless place of which the 
 sole inducement to enter is the liquor which is 
 handed over the counter, he will discover a bright 
 and comfortable place in which to rest or amuse 
 himself a well-ordered place into which he will 
 not be ashamed to take his wife, and in which he 
 will be able to obtain whatever non-alcoholic drink 
 he pleases without his choice being looked upon 
 as in any way remarkable. Indeed, there is no 
 reason why he should not, if he chooses, use these 
 houses as places in which to meet and chat with 
 his friends without being under any obligation 
 whatever to spend his money a sort of national 
 club. 
 
 Everything that is possible will be done to foster 
 18 
 
The England of To-morrow 
 
 the desire for self-improvement; a great army of 
 University Extension lecturers will be employed 
 to give popular instruction, which will be available 
 to all during the winter months, and there will be 
 a National Theatre and a National Opera. 
 
 Those people who think they have a bent for 
 arts and crafts will be given every opportunity of 
 proving whether such is the case or not, and where 
 latent talent in a sufficiently striking degree is 
 discovered means will be provided for its proper 
 and complete development. 
 
 The physical welfare of the people will not be 
 forgotten, and there will be ample facilities for 
 gymnastic exercises, while steps will be taken to 
 foster a greater desire to take part in sports rather 
 than to play the role of a mere onlooker. The 
 open-air life will be encouraged, and there is no 
 reason why it should not be made possible, by 
 the granting of cheap fares, to create summer 
 colonies in the country and at the seaside. 
 
 The tremendous importance of children will 
 be recognised in the new England, and there will 
 be State endowment of motherhood. 
 
 All children will receive a thorough education, 
 and the school-leaving age will be raised; special 
 attention will be paid to the aptitude of a child, 
 and his education will be fitted to the trade or 
 profession he shows most promise of succeeding 
 in in after life. 
 
 Those who show themselves sufficiently gifted 
 to benefit by it will be given the opportunity to 
 continue their education at one of the Universities, 
 and at the same time regard will be paid to the 
 financial position of the family from which the 
 child comes. It would not encourage a desire for 
 education, nor would it foster ambition; indeed, 
 
 19 
 
 \ 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 it would not be right from any point of view to 
 penalise a family for the cleverness of its children, 
 and if the family is proved to be in need of the 
 money which the child would earn by going to 
 work instead of continuing his education, that 
 money, or some reasonable percentage of it, would 
 have to be provided by the State. 
 
 This is my outline, sketched in the rough, of 
 the England of to-morrow as I see it, but it must 
 clearly be understood that I do not for a moment 
 pretend that this will be the immediate outcome 
 of Labour's accession to office. 
 
 Labour is possessed of no supernatural powers; 
 its ranks are not rilled with supermen. 
 
 On taking charge, its first duty will be to clear 
 up the accumulation of errors made by its pre- 
 decessors. This would be a giant's task in any 
 circumstances, but in the face of the opposition 
 of those people who by heredity, upbringing, and 
 custom are so saturated in the present order of 
 things that they cannot imagine any change which 
 would not be for the worse, the work will be as 
 formidable as can well be conceived. Nevertheless, 
 I have confidence in Labour's power to perform it. 
 
 The old England stands condemned, and the 
 foundations of the new England are already laid 
 for years past the progressive forces, with 
 ever-increasing strength and efficiency, have been 
 engaged in digging them out, and with the 
 formation of ^ Labour Government the keystone 
 will be placed in position, and slowly, but firmly 
 and surely, a new, more healthy, more beautiful, 
 and more enduring structure will be erected. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RIGHT TO WORK AND THE RIGHT TO REST 
 
 THE right to work and the right to rest should be 
 the common heritage of humanity. 
 
 It is a preposterous thing that under any system 
 of civilisation there should be men who are fit and 
 able to work but unable to enforce their right to / 
 do so; it is a preposterous thing that there should 
 be any men who are unfit for work and unable to 
 enforce their right to rest; it is a still more pre- 
 posterous thing that there should be men fit and 
 able to work yet permitted to live in idle luxury. 
 
 In England to-day there are thousands of men 
 fit, able, and anxious to work who are living in 
 enforced idleness; there are thousands of men 
 who are unfit to perform efficient work, but whom 
 the economic conditions of the country compel to 
 carry on as best they can or go under; there are 
 thousands of other men, fit and able but unwilling 
 to work, who are permitted by the accident of 
 birth to live in complete and useless idleness. 
 
 That the right to live is only earned by a 
 recognition of the duty to work is to-day almost 
 universally recognised as a principle. Every 
 individual of the nation has got to realise that any 
 one who contributes nothing to the well-being of 
 the country is essentially a parasite. 
 
 There are people men, for the most part, who 
 have lived upon the labours of others who view 
 the possibility of compulsory work with alarm and 
 
 21 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 indignation; they proclaim such a proposition to 
 be full of injustice, and maintain that their duty 
 is done and their share of the tasks of the world 
 performed by the investment of their wealth in the 
 country's industry. 
 
 This is a fallacy for the universal recognition 
 of which we need but to recall the period of the 
 war. 
 
 During the war the one person who was looked 
 / upon as an enemy to the country was he who did 
 nothing. The man who invested his money in 
 the war to his own very great advantage was 
 recognised to have done a very excellent and 
 praiseworthy thing, but he was by no means 
 absolved from the duty to w r ork either in France 
 or at home, according to his strength and abilities. 
 
 What tribunal would have granted exemption 
 to a man on the grounds that he had invested his 
 inherited wealth, or even his self-earned riches, 
 in the war ? Certainly there was no man so foolish 
 as to lodge any such claim. 
 
 If, then, it' is admitted that it is the duty of 
 every man to work in time of war, what logical 
 argument can be found against the same duty in 
 time of peace ? 
 
 During the war the nation was fighting for its 
 life; our every effort was directed solely and 
 entirely to saving the life of the nation and with 
 the end of the war that object was attained; but 
 it would be a useless achievement were it succeeded 
 by no effort to maintain the life which had been 
 saved at such appalling cost. 
 
 Clearly the possession and investment of capital 
 does not absolve one from the duty to work in 
 peace-time any more than it does in time of war. 
 
 Some people there are who persist in maintaining 
 
 22 
 
The Right to Work and the Right to Rest 
 
 the contrary view on the ground that without 
 their wealth labour would be brought to a standstill. 
 
 * But for my wealth/ they say, * the workers 
 would be without the necessary tools and machinery 
 for their labour.' 
 
 On the other hand, it may be pointed out that 
 but for the workers the tools and machinery would 
 be of precious little value. 
 
 Argue round and about it as you please, we 
 come back to the basic fact that wealth can only 
 be provided by labour, and that being so, it surely 
 must be self-evident that the more labour there is 
 the more wealth there will be. 
 
 No one will deny for a moment that Capital is 
 an excellent and a useful thing, but all the same, 
 to-day no less than in the past, its excellence and 
 usefulness are prone to be very much exaggerated. 
 
 Capital has no creative power; it cannot build 
 a steam engine; it cannot assemble the parts of a 
 motor-car; it can invent absolutely nothing. It 
 brings its owner affluence by feeding upon the 
 brain power and the muscular power of other 
 people. As, therefore, it has decided limitations, 
 surely it is only reasonable to claim that its returns 
 should be limited accordingly. 
 
 The man who invests his brains in the invention 
 of a new machine should have an equitable return 
 for his investment, and the workers who invest 
 their health and strength and industry in the 
 building of the machine should also have an equit- 
 able return. 
 
 No one can suggest that the returns made at 
 the present time to brain, muscle, and Capital are 
 in the least equitable. Look back upon the last 
 fifty years and you will find that whereas wealth 
 has increased enormously, the conditions under 
 
 23 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 which the workers live have improved comparatively 
 slightly and very haltingly, and that inventors 
 have as often as not died in poverty. 
 
 When Labour rules, this state of things will be 
 altered. 
 
 That Capital will be entitled to some return 
 will be recognised, but its interest will most 
 assuredly be limited, and the workers by hand 
 and brain will receive a more equitable share of 
 the wealth which they create. Such a readjustment 
 will not have the effect of displacing the capitalists 
 in favour of the workers as the privileged class 
 it will be a big step towards eliminating privilege 
 altogether and placing every man upon the level 
 which his ability and industry entitles him to 
 occupy; furthermore, the nation will benefit 
 immeasurably in the process. 
 
 I am not, of course, suggesting that the possession 
 of wealth is a proof of idleness some of the richest 
 men are the hardest workers and are rich largely 
 because of that, but there is also a very considerable 
 class the members of which have never lifted a 
 finger nor exercised a speck of gray matter in the 
 creation of their wealth. 
 
 Those people will have to work and a proper 
 limitation of their unearned wealth will provide 
 the necessary incentive. What form their work 
 will take will, of course, be a matter entirely for 
 themselves; that is obvious, despite the grotesque 
 pictures drawn by the enemies of Labour of the 
 despotic form of government they would have you 
 believe Labour intends to set up; of the tyrannical 
 interferences they suggest it would make in the 
 life of the individual and in the sanctity of the 
 home. 
 
 Now let us turn to the question of those who 
 24 
 
The Right to Work and the Right to Rest 
 
 are unfit to perform efficient work but who to-day 
 are compelled, by reason of their handicap, to 
 accept a starvation wage in employments where 
 efficiency is ignored so long as labour is cheap 
 and there are plenty of employers who can find a 
 market, and a good market, for the fruits of such 
 labour. 
 
 The analogy of the war still holds good. If men 
 are totally incapacitated by fighting to save the life 
 of their country, it is recognised to be the country's 
 duty to provide for them; if they are incapacitated 
 only for the particular work in which they are 
 skilled, it is recognised to be the country's duty 
 to train them for such work as they can best 
 perform. 
 
 Surely, then, if men are incapacitated by working 
 to maintain the life of the country, the State is 
 under an obligation to care for them also. 
 
 If by losing a limb a man can no longer follow 
 his calling the State must train him for another 
 calling which he can follow; if a man's health is 
 threatened, say, by unsuitable indoor work, and he 
 has not the ability to perform any other work, the 
 State must help him to get the necessary ability. 
 
 Not only fairness to the worker but the good 
 of the State demands this. It is to the good of the 
 State, not only that every man should work well, 
 but for him to work well it is necessary that he 
 should be well in health. Every man should do 
 the work for which he is best fitted, and every man 
 should be properly recompensed for his work. 
 
 To-day the man who lives upon the investments 
 of Capital created by the hard work of his forbears 
 has an altogether better existence than the man 
 who sweeps the streets and clears away the refuse; 
 but the latter is more deserving of a good time, 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 for he earns his living by his own labour and by 
 the performance of a highly essential service; 
 surely it is a wrong and scandalous thing that 
 this man's standard of life should be poorer than 
 that of a man who has never done a day's work in 
 his life ? 
 
 You may say that the road sweeper would not 
 appreciate a higher standard than that which he 
 has at present; probably not, immediately. But 
 given the means and the leisure and the opportunity 
 to acquire a finer standard he would, in the natural 
 course of things, grow to appreciate and demand it. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest of the tragedies which have 
 existed under the governments of the past is the 
 tragedy of the men who, though fit and anxious 
 to work, can get no employment. From the 
 outcry which has arisen on this subject since the 
 armistice one would almost be led to believe that 
 this evil is one which has existed only since the 
 war, but if you sought to track down its history 
 you would be taken back a very long way indeed. 
 
 To-day the capitalists of the land are very eloquent 
 about the right to work, and because certain Trade 
 Unions refuse permission for discharged soldiers 
 to enter particular trades, with all the indignation 
 of a new-found virtue they accuse Labour of 
 refusing the right to work to the men who have 
 fought for their country. 
 
 Every one who has taken the trouble to look at 
 the facts knows the injustice of this assertion. The 
 Industrial history of the country provides plenty 
 of evidence to justify the workers going warily in 
 the matter of absorbing unskilled adults into their 
 industries. Unemployment in the past has been 
 the joy of the employer's heart, for it has meant 
 cheap labour, and but for the strength of Trade 
 26 
 
The Right to Work and the Right to Rest 
 
 Unionism it would mean exactly the same to-day 
 in every industry in the land. 
 
 The Amalgamated Society of Engineers is 
 roundly abused for not supporting the training 
 of disabled men for the engineering and metal 
 trades, and at the same time the Labour Gazette, 
 an official publication, shows that the number of 
 ex-service men receiving the unemployment pay 
 as engineering and foundry workers is between 
 thirty-two and thirty-three thousand. 
 
 What, then, is the explanation of this demand 
 for the acceptance of new and untrained labour in 
 this particular trade ? The answer is provided 
 by no less an authority than the Minister of Labour : 
 ' A substantial number of women and girl substi- 
 tutes who replaced men joining H.M. Forces were 
 being retained, mainly on account of the lower wages '' 
 required? 9 
 
 It is not the right to work which is exercising 
 the minds of the capitalists it is the right to get 
 cheap labour, and this is one of the great ' rights ' 
 of the past which will be brought to a very un- 
 ceremonious end when Labour comes into power. 
 
 The right to rest, no less than the right to work, 
 is of the greatest importance to a country whose 
 high place among the nations of the world is largely 
 dependent upon the individuality and independence 
 of its people. The Government that passed the 
 Old Age Pensions Act was mightily proud of its 
 achievement, but if you consider what that achieve- 
 ment really was you will find that it amounted to ^ 
 very little indeed. The Old Age Pensions Act 
 was an act of mercy and was on much the same 
 level as would be the foundation by a benevolent 
 old lady of a fund for worn-out cab horses. 
 
 Labour supported this measure in the House of 
 
 27 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Commons, not because it viewed the Bill as the 
 last word in progressive legislation, but because 
 it was the best that could be looked for at the 
 moment. 
 
 Labour takes a rather larger view of the right to 
 rest than can be encompassed in the grant of 
 an Old Age Pension of a few shillings a week at 
 the age of seventy. 
 
 Rest is something more than vegetation; there 
 is no rest about lying in bed when one is too worn 
 out to get up; there is but little rest to be gained 
 by sitting in the sun when one is so eaten up with 
 old age and rheumatism that one has not the 
 strength to stir from the doorstep. 
 
 The right to rest, as Labour views it, means the 
 right to a few years freedom from toil while the 
 brain and body are still young enough to take an 
 interest in life. 
 
 Most people at the age of seventy are close 
 upon decrepitude even at sixty they are keenly 
 conscious of the burden of their years. But if 
 their labour had been rightly adjusted, as it will 
 be in the future; if throughout their lives their 
 working hours had been reasonably short and 
 their hours of leisure reasonably long; if their 
 wages had been more than sufficient for the bare 
 means of subsistence; if their homes and workshops 
 had been constructed more with a view to 
 maintaining life at its highest level than of merely 
 housing life, the average man of seventy would be 
 at least as young as the man of sixty. Let him 
 begin to draw his pension at sixty, and he would 
 be able to look forward, with as much certainty 
 as one can anticipate anything in this life, to fifteen 
 years or so of happy activity. 
 
 What pension a man should be given at the age 
 28 
 
The Right to Work and the Right to Rest 
 
 of sixty is dependent on the economic conditions / 
 of the country. If every one works, the wealth 
 of the nation individually and collectively will 
 be greater and living will be cheaper. Proper 
 wages and work for all will relieve the country of 
 the burden of pauperism, and the limitation of 
 interest on capital will save the country from the 
 burden of millionaires. Therefore, even if the 
 pensions granted by a Labour Government were 
 no greater than those given to-day, it may be 
 assumed that their value would be considerably 
 more. 
 
 When the Old Age Pensions Bill was first 
 brought before Parliament, there were many people 
 who decried it on the grounds that it would 
 encourage thriftlessness. It was pointed out that, 
 with the assurance of a pension in their old age, 
 people would no longer scheme and scrape for 
 the days when they would be able to work no more. 
 
 This horror of people spending, instead of 
 saving, the little money which they earn is one of 
 the pet themes of many self-styled reformers. 
 Saving, in so far as it teaches self-restraint and 
 encourages unselfishness, is undoubtedly a good 
 thing, but there is also much to be said for teaching 
 people to spend wisely, and greater benefits are 
 to be won by wise spending than have ever been 
 gained by the careful hoarding of every penny 
 not needed for actual subsistence. 
 
 It is an altogether good thing that people should 
 be enabled to spend without the fear of suffering 
 penurious old age as a consequence, and it is 
 within the power of the State to make wise spending 
 a more enjoyable and profitable thing than unwise 
 spending. 
 
 When Labour rules, the right to rest will no 
 
 29 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 longer be an empty and ironic phrase; it will no 
 longer mean merely. the privilege to sit a moment 
 in the sun before descending into the grave it 
 will be a right well worth the having, and it will 
 be attained while there is still sufficient life and 
 energy left to enjoy it to the full. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY 
 
 IN considering the coming establishment of a 
 Labour Government it is of the greatest importance 
 to bear in mind the growth and vicissitudes of the 
 Labour Movement and the social and industrial 
 conditions under which it originated and grew. 
 
 Trade Unionism and it is upon Trade 
 Unionism that the Labour Movement has its 
 basis can look back upon a long history and' 
 from its early days of a couple of centuries ago 
 its story is one of bitter struggle; it has had to 
 fight tyrannical oppression, intimidation, ignorance, 
 selfishness, greed, apathy, the coward fear of 
 vested interests, the suspicions of plutocracy 
 all these things have been ranged against it and 
 it is in the face of these that it has gradually 
 grown to be the power that it is to-day. Naturally, 
 the latter years of its growth have been the speediest, 
 and the last twenty years have proved the efficacy 
 of the solid spade-work performed by the pioneers. 
 
 To-day the Trade Union Movement is composed 
 of six and a half million organised men and w r omen 
 and their number is daily growing its ranks are 
 being swelled by the black-coated community, 
 who are coming to realise that the task of wielding 
 the pen is no less one of the tasks of labour than 
 wielding the pick-axe; who have learnt that, 
 whatever delusions their fathers may have suffered 
 from, they are less kin to the lord of the manor 
 
 31 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 than to the toiler who builds the houses and makes 
 the roads. 
 
 In addition to this movement of six and a half 
 million workers a movement which is both 
 industrial and political there is a co-operative 
 movement definitely allied to Labour, having a 
 membership of three and a half million men and 
 women, and a revenue of about one hundred 
 million pounds a year. 
 
 There are people who seem to imagine that the 
 Labour Movement is a growth that has sprung 
 up in the night ; an unsophisticated, inexperienced 
 body full of youthful ambitions with nothing to 
 support them; a body which shows a certain 
 amount of presumption in even so much as thinking 
 of the day when it will be called upon to take 
 charge of the affairs of the country. Others, 
 people who have not the excuse of ignorance to 
 support them, people who by virtue of heredity 
 rule the country, and who have but little faith in 
 anything but heredity, anxiously proclaim that 
 Labour is not fit to rule and they draw a picture 
 of it as a rapacious monster which threatens to 
 bring the country to ruin. One statesman, whose 
 sense of responsibility should have saved him 
 from such an exhibition of insincere foolishness, 
 insulted the intelligence of a Cambridge University 
 audience by declaring that the policy of the Labour 
 Party was not merely to make people equal but 
 to keep them equal. This same gentleman, 
 whose rash exploits and wild statements have on 
 more than one occasion been a source of embarrass- 
 ment to the Government of which he is a member, 
 declared to another audience that the Labour 
 Party would shatter the reviving prosperity of 
 the country and cast away the Empire which 
 
To-Day and Yesterday 
 
 British genius had built up; furthermore, he has 
 made the absurd and ignorant assertion that the 
 Labour Party does not represent one-fifth part of 
 labour. 
 
 Despite all these wild and alarming statements, 
 the fact remains that Labour forms the second I/' 
 largest party in the State; its history proves that 
 it is not the inexperienced stripling some people 
 would have us believe, and demonstrates that it 
 possesses as great a sense of responsibility as any 
 body of men which has ever claimed the right and 
 ability to administer the affairs of the nation. 
 
 Let us take a brief survey of the history of this 
 movement which will to-morrow be at the helm 
 of the country's affairs. The common lot of the 
 vast majority of the workers in the early days of 
 Trade Unionism was one of persecution and 
 repression; the workers were completely under 
 the heels of the employing classes, and their efforts 
 towards emancipation were met by petitions to 
 Parliament in ever-increasing numbers from 
 the employers complaining of the existence of 
 combinations amongst the workers; the workers, 
 on the other hand, sought the sympathies of 
 Parliament by petitioning against the employer's 
 habit of beating down wages. The Government, 
 after a good deal of wavering over the matter, 
 came down upon the employers' side of the fence, 
 and the workers, their patience exhausted by 
 useless petitioning, adopted, with ever-increasing 
 frequency, the only method of defence which was 
 left to them the strike weapon. A strike is always 
 a last resort a desperate measure for the gaining 
 of justice, and these strikes were often accompanied 
 by still more desperate acts of violence which 
 frequently culminated in riots, incendiarism, and 
 W.L.R. c 33 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 machine breaking. Lancashire magistrates of this 
 period declared that the sole cause of the riots 
 was the new machines employed in cotton manu- 
 facture an excellent example of the shortsighted- 
 ness of the employers. The introduction of new 
 machinery was undoubtedly an aggravation of 
 the existing state of affairs and was undoubtedly 
 looked upon by many of the workers as an evidence 
 of worse times to come, but to describe it as being 
 the sole cause of the troubles was utterly absurd. 
 
 The law forbidding the combination of workers 
 was repealed in 1824, but the employers found it 
 easy to circumvent the benefits which this greater 
 freedom should have brought, and, furthermore, 
 so prosperous had become the manufacturers, 
 and so plentiful had become the stocks produced 
 by the workers, that industry came almost to a 
 standstill, and all efforts to stem the general fall 
 of wages, low enough in all conscience already, 
 proved ineffectual. 
 
 The condition of the lives of the people at this 
 period was indeed appalling, and the power of the 
 employers, despite the relief gained by the repeal 
 of the Combination Laws, viewed in the light of 
 to-day, was incredible. 
 
 Piece workers and day workers were so con- 
 tinually subjected to reduced prices and wages 
 that they were never certain how much or how 
 little they would receive at the end of each week; 
 and George Jacob Holyoake, that ardent advocate 
 of co-operation and social reform, has recorded 
 how a Birmingham mill owner was one day 
 astonished by the appearance of a * new ' hand 
 who turned up at his work in a well-fitting and 
 handsome suit of clothes. This employer was 
 very much shocked by the spectacle and at once 
 34 
 
To-Day and Yesterday 
 
 concluded that he had offered the man too high 
 a wage, and he forthwith proposed that it should 
 be reduced. The only remarkable thing about 
 such an occurrence in those days was that the 
 worker should have a decent suit of clothes. If 
 a workman by some miraculous means succeeded 
 in saving a little money he was lacking in wisdom 
 if he allowed it to become known; if he could 
 afford to dress in clean and decent clothes he was 
 afraid to do so lest, as in the case I have quoted, 
 the wages should be lowered but there were 
 not many in danger of a decreased income from 
 this cause. Capital held unrestricted sway during 
 this period, and as a result the greater part of the 
 country was reduced to an appalling state; not 
 only were wages bad, and housing conditions 
 worse, but the women and children of the industrial 
 centres were living under conditions as bad as 
 any suffered by slaves in the whole of recorded 
 history. The wages of the men reduced to the 
 lowest conceivable rate, it became necessary that 
 if any life were to be retained by their families, 
 the women and children would have to work. 
 If you refer to the history of this time you will 
 find recorded how children of both sexes worked 
 together in the mines, often for sixteen hours a 
 day, and how women, even when pregnant, 
 laboured for long hours underground, and how 
 these women were back again at work within a 
 week of their children's birth. Some of these 
 women stood knee-deep in water throughout the 
 day, whilst other women, and children of tender 
 age, with a girdle round their waist and a chain 
 between their legs, crawling on all fours, drew 
 carts of coal along the passages of the mines. 
 The cotton mills have an equally bad record; 
 
 35 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 there also women and young children were 
 employed under disgraceful conditions. The 
 children were * apprenticed * that was the polite 
 formula employed in this great anti-slavery country. 
 The workhouses of the land were found to be a 
 valuable source of supply, and the mill-owners 
 found it a highly advantageous thing to keep in 
 close touch with the overseers of the poor. These 
 poor little defenceless children were worked for 
 as many as sixteen hours a day sometimes doing 
 day shifts, sometimes night shifts. They lived, 
 or were housed to say they were stabled would 
 suggest a state of well-being they did not possess 
 in wretched enclosed buildings adjoining the 
 factories in which they slaved, and the beds in 
 which they slept were said never to become cold, 
 for as one batch rested the other batch went to 
 the loom, only half the requisite number of beds 
 were used a fine piece of economy this. The 
 cheapest and coarsest of foods were given to these 
 children, and often there was no discrimination 
 of the sexes, with the result that disease, misery, 
 and vice were rampant, as can well be imagined. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury, speaking in the House of 
 Lords in 1873, gave a picture of the conditions 
 which prevailed at the time of which I am writing; 
 he described how he waited at the factory gates 
 to see the children come out a set of sad, dejected, 
 cadaverous creatures. In Bradford, he said, the 
 proofs of long and cruel toil were most remarkable. 
 4 The crippled and distorted forms might be 
 numbered by hundreds, perhaps thousands. 
 They seemed to me, such was their crooked shapes, 
 like a mass of crooked alphabets.' 
 
 Had the Lancashire magistrates been correct 
 in their inference that the sole cause of riots was 
 
 36 
 
To-Day and Yesterday 
 
 the new machines there would not, I think, have 
 been much to wonder at. 
 
 In 1819 the Cotton Mills Act was passed, 
 limiting the age at which children might work 
 in factories, and also reducing the time of their 
 labours to seventy-two hours a week; and it was 
 not until some years later that these hours were 
 further reduced to sixty~nine per week. Legislation 
 was passed in 1833 making forty-eight hours the 
 maximum for children and sixty-nine for young 
 persons, whilst night work for children under 
 eighteen was altogether prohibited. Furthermore, 
 provision was made for daily school attendance. 
 It was not until 1840 that the first mining act 
 prohibiting underground work by women and boys 
 under ten years of age was passed, and a further 
 four years elapsed before child labour was reduced 
 to six and a half hours a day. 
 
 Throughout this dreadful period drunkenness 
 was general, and the men were said to die off like 
 rotten sheep. Each generation, it was stated, 
 was commonly extinct by the age of fifty. 
 
 Following the repeal of the Combination Laws, 
 Robert Owen started the Grand National 
 Consolidated Trades' Union, which in a few months 
 gained a membership of half a million, but this had 
 to be disbanded, for not only private employers but 
 even the Government itself in its workshops com- 
 pelled the workers to resign all connection with the 
 Unions and to sign the * Document ' to that effect. 
 Trades Unionists were prosecuted in great numbers 
 under the Master and Servants Act, and were 
 often summarily arrested and condemned upon 
 a mere complaint of misbehaviour lodged by 
 the employer. The military were employed in 
 suppressing strike riots, and punishment was 
 
 37 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 meted out to men whose sole offence lay in 
 announcing a strike or acting as a delegate to it. 
 Even up to 1869 the agreement to strike and the 
 announcement by placards of a strike was frequently 
 punished as intimidation, and it was not until 1875, 
 when the Master and Servant Act was repealed, 
 that peaceful picketing was permitted and ' violence 
 and intimidation ' became a matter of common 
 law. 
 
 All these efforts to kill Trades Unionism 
 lamentably failed and the Movement steadily 
 grew, so that by 1902 it had a membership of 
 about one million five hundred thousand workers. 
 Three years before this the Trades Union Congress 
 resolved upon the establishment upon a Joint 
 Committee of Trade Union and Socialist bodies, 
 with the purpose of promoting direct representation 
 in Parliament. 
 
 Fifteen candidates went to the polls in 1901, 
 but only two of them Keir Hardie and Richard 
 Bell were elected. In this same year, however, 
 the Labour Movement received great impetus 
 from a decision given by the House of Lords in 
 relation to the Taff Vale strike. In this judgment 
 the Lords threw down the belief that the Act 
 of 1871 afforded absolute protection to Trade 
 Unionists in their collective capacity, and ruled 
 that a Union could be sued in its collective capacity 
 for a tortuous act committed by any one of its 
 officials or members, and this aroused so much 
 indignation that in the election of 1906 no fewer 
 than twenty-nine candidates of the Labour 
 / Representation Committee were returned to 
 Parliament, and in 1910 the accession of the miners 
 increased the number of the Labour members to 
 forty. 
 
 38 
 
To-Day and Yesterday 
 
 If we examine the legislation of the past fourteen 
 or fifteen years we shall find that the laws passed 
 for the betterment of the social and industrial 
 conditions of the people synchronise in a remark- 
 able manner with the growing political strength 
 of the people. In 1906 the Workmen's Compensa- 
 tion Act was passed an Act which in many 
 respects marked a considerable improvement 
 upon earlier legislation of this character. Hitherto 
 accidents which did not happen on or near the 
 employer's premises were ruled out, and illness 
 and death due exclusively to certain trade diseases 
 were untouched; furthermore, the Act of 1906 
 made compensation payable in the case of death 
 or serious and permanent disablement, even when 
 the accident could not be attributed to the wilful 
 and serious misconduct of the workman con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Next, in 1908, came the Old Age Pensions Act, 
 the provisions of which every one is acquainted 
 with. Good as this measure was, it by no means 
 represented the high-water mark of Labour's 
 aims in this respect. At the time this Act was 
 passed efforts were made by the Labour Party 
 to reduce the age of pensioners to sixty-five and 
 to make the income limit higher. Labour members 
 of the House of Commons also made a very great 
 attempt to obtain the removal of a particularly 
 uncalled for clause disqualifying any person who 
 had, even if only on one occasion, been in receipt 
 of Poor Law relief; this unhappy blemish was 
 removed three years later, but it is a very notable 
 fact that before the Government's measure became 
 law nearly one million veterans of the Labour 
 movement were enjoying free pensions to the 
 amount of 11,000,000 per year, and more than 
 
 39 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 nine in ten were in receipt of the full pension of 
 five shillings a week. 
 
 One of the most important movements towards 
 the creation of a better state of affairs in Industrial 
 v England was the formation of a Royal Commission 
 on Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, and as 
 another evidence of the progress of the Labour 
 Movement, it may be recalled that Labour was 
 well represented on the Commission. Poverty 
 is such an enormous evil, and is the source of so 
 many other great social evils, that it is astounding 
 it should have been allowed to drift so long under 
 a relief administration which experience has proved 
 to have nothing to recommend it, and which utterly 
 failed to solve the problem of the poor. For over 
 eighty years the only important change made 
 in the organisation of Poor Law Relief was the 
 absorption of the Poor Law Commissioners, in 
 1871, by the Local Government Board, thus 
 bringing the system under the responsibility of 
 the Government. The faults of our Poor Law 
 administration were many, and some of them were 
 disgraceful, but the greatest criticism which can 
 be made of it is that it failed and failed very 
 miserably to put an end to pauperism. Twenty 
 years ago there were 735,388 paupers in England 
 and Wales; ten years ago their number had 
 grown to 916,377. In England and Wales, in 
 1911, the deaths registered as having taken place 
 in Poor Law institutions, workhouses, infirmaries, 
 schools, hospitals, and asylums, numbered 
 106,642, or 20.11 per cent, of the total deaths; 
 the proportion during the ten years immediately 
 preceding averaged 17.88 per cent., and of these 
 55,570 occurred in workhouses, 38,899 in hospitals, 
 and 10,636 in lunatic asylums. In London, in 
 40 
 
To-Day and Yesterday 
 
 1911, four persons in every ten died in the work- 
 house, hospital, or lunatic asylum. 
 
 The Commission to consider the Poor Law 
 emphatically condemned the methods hitherto 
 adopted of dealing with the poor, and in particular 
 condemned the system of relief work which 
 was employed. The Commission's investigations 
 clearly showed the uselessness and folly of treating 
 unemployment as an unforeseen emergency instead 
 of a normal and recurring incident in undustrial 
 life. 
 
 One of the recommendations of this Commission 
 was the establishment since achieved of Labour v/ 
 Exchanges. Labour Bureaux have existed in 
 this country for upwards of twenty years, but for 
 the most part their work has been in connection 
 with the relief of distress. The Unemployed / 
 Workman Act of 1905 gave the power to establish \J 
 Labour Exchanges, but only one body in England, 
 the Central (Unemployed) Body for London, 
 made any great use of it. This body established 
 a system of Metropolitan Employment Exchanges, 
 and when the Labour Exchanges Act came into 
 force it had a list of twenty offices, and during 
 the preceding twelve months had filled 30,580 
 vacancies for employment. The Unemployed 
 Workman Act expressly required that wherever 
 a Distress Committee was not established the 
 Council of every County and County Borough 
 should appoint a special Committee to investigate 
 the conditions of the Labour market by means of 
 Labour Exchanges, and to establish or assist such 
 Exchanges within its own area. As was pointed 
 out in the Minority Report of the Poor Law 
 Commission, such a network of Labour Exchanges, 
 covering the whole kingdom, would have afforded, 
 
 41 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 as the experience of the Metropolitan Exchanges 
 demonstrated, valuable information both to 
 unemployed workmen and to local authorities 
 dealing with the problem. Unfortunately, this 
 provision of the Act was ignored by the Local 
 Government Boards, and was, with the exception 
 of London and three places in Scotland, not put 
 into operation. 
 
 Other legislation, such as Health Insurance and 
 Unemployment Insurance, are so much within the 
 round of our daily life that to record its achievement 
 is unnecessary, but it would be well to observe 
 where Labour stands to-day when the legislation 
 in its interest has come to occupy so important a 
 part of parliamentary time. 
 
 Twenty-one years ago a General Federation of 
 Trade Unions was established with the object of 
 combining the various separate Unions into one 
 army capable of concerted action, and possessing 
 a gigantic central fund which would be at the 
 service of any individual Union fighting to maintain 
 its existence or to improve its condition. There 
 are now over one hundred and thirteen different 
 Unions. Amongst the largest of these Federations 
 are the General Federation of Trade Unions, the 
 Miner's Federation of Great Britain, Railwaymen's 
 Societies, the Transport Workers' Federation, 
 and the Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding 
 Trades. The strength which Labour gains by 
 uniting its forces in federations is obvious, but a 
 still further advance in securing the solidarity of 
 the workers has been made by the formation of 
 what is known as The Triple Alliance, composed 
 of Miners', Railwaymen's, and Transport Workers' 
 confederations. The existence of such a colossal 
 organisation as this makes possible a national strike 
 42 
 
To-Day and Yesterday 
 
 by which the whole life of the country could be 
 brought to a standstill. This is not a weapon 
 which Labour would lightly use as was demon- 
 strated by the Trades Union Congress which 
 negatived a proposal for direct action but the 
 power to use it as a last resource is an invaluable 
 lever in compelling every effort being made towards 
 the settlement of disputes. 
 
 As an outcome of the great railway dispute of 
 1919, a special board, on which railway workers 
 have equal representation with railway managers, 
 was set up to deal with conditions of service. This 
 arrangement made between the Government and 
 the Railwaymen's Unions marked the first step 
 towards Labour's control of industry. Another 
 recognition of Labour's strength to enforce its 
 just claims was the establishment a few years ago 
 of the Joint Industrial Councils the outcome of 
 the recommendations of a Committee which was 
 appointed to consider the question of securing a 
 permanent improvement in the relations between 
 employers and workmen. The excellence of the 
 work performed by these Councils is evidenced 
 by the steady growth of their number. 
 
 This is intentionally but a brief and scanty 
 outline of the progress which has been made by 
 the Labour Movement, but it is sufficient, I think, 
 to serve its purpose, which is to indicate how very 
 clear the evidence is that Labour has reached that 
 stage in its development which justifies it in the 
 belief that it is fit to rule; its history shows the 
 hard-earned experience it has had; its attitude 
 towards the world problems with which the country 
 is faced, and which are crying out for solution, 
 shows how it has profited by that experience, and 
 its conduct of its private affairs gives ample proof 
 
 43 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 of its possession of a well balanced and statesman- 
 like mind. 
 
 Not only is Labour fit to govern, but the needs 
 of the country demand that it shall govern. The 
 country stands to-day at the entrance-gate of a 
 new era; the old panaceas are generally recognised 
 as being out-of-date and useless; the old political 
 parties show themselves to be eaten up by the 
 moth of precedence; they are empty of ideas 
 yet they still try to trumpet forth resounding 
 phrases, though timid in their actions, and fearful 
 to follow the lead of their own words. If ever in 
 the country's history opportunity knocked at the 
 door, it is doing so to-day. The Labour Party is 
 ready, and willing and able to open the door, and 
 the Labour Party is the only party which is prepared 
 to throw the door wide and lead the way into an 
 Era of progress and sanity. 
 
 44 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT AND THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 MANY people when they face the prospect of 
 a Labour Government coming into power, 
 immediately become possessed of all manner of 
 fearful forebodings about the Constitution; they 
 see the King sharing the fate of the Czar of Russia; 
 they see a sort of South American Republic set up 
 with a bewildering succession of Opportunists as 
 its Presidents; they see a Cabinet under the thumb 
 of a powerful coterie of Trade Unionists outside the 
 House; and they see the country speedily going to 
 wrack and ruin, as it undoubtedly would do under 
 such impossible conditions. 
 
 Happily, none of these forebodings is justified. 
 
 Take, first, the question of the Monarchy a 
 question of the highest importance not only to 
 Great Britain, but _tp_ the whole of the British^ 
 Empire./ There can be no questionlmong thought- 
 ful people that the monarchy plays a large part in 
 holding the British Empire together; loyalty to 
 the King both at home and in the Dominions is 
 more a religious than a political attitude, and it 
 would require a very unwise monarch to change 
 this faith in the hearts of the people. 
 
 Our present King has proved himself during 
 many political crises, to be an essentially consti- 
 tutional monarch, and I have no hesitation in saying 
 that while such an attitude is adopted by the King, 
 
 45 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 the question of Republic versus Monarchy will 
 not arise. 
 
 If any evidence of this were required, it could 
 be found in the unique position occupied by the 
 heir to the Throne the Prince of Wales during 
 his tour of the Empire. It would be true to say 
 that there has been no factor which has contributed 
 more to the unity of the Empire than the Prince 
 of Wales's visit to the Dominions, and this, let it 
 be noted, immediately following the great war, 
 which very naturally left considerable suffering 
 and disappointment in many lands. 
 
 I have met many people who were present at 
 some of the colonial receptions to the Prince, and 
 the universal opinion is that he has, by his clean 
 bearing and unassuming manner, won the hearts of 
 all. Not only has the Prince been a unifying factor 
 to the Empire as a whole, but he has made himself 
 more popular than ever at home. 
 
 In many respects the workers are even more 
 conservative than the Conservatives, and in none 
 are their views more steadfastly established than 
 on this question of the head of the State; and, 
 notwithstanding heated controversies on almost 
 every subject under the sun, no question of 
 Republicanism as a serious proposition ever finds 
 a place in Labour discussions. 
 
 I would say, therefore, that while the King 
 recognises, as he does, that the navvy of to-day 
 may be the Prime Minister of to-morrow, and 
 that no question either of birth or social power 
 is involved in the occupancy of high offices of 
 , State, the least of all the difficulties facing a Labour 
 Government would be that of the Crown. 
 
 It is very easy to be misled by definitions, and 
 nothing could be more false than an assertion that 
 
 
The Labour Government and the Constitution 
 
 Republicanism is necessarily synonymous with 
 democracy. Take, for example, America. All 
 the evidence goes to show that the American 
 Republic can be, and, indeed, has been, more 
 autocratic than our own monarchical Government 
 would dare to be, and in time of war the power of 
 the American Republic has amounted almost to a 
 danger to its people. 
 
 Whilst, however, Labour recognises the wisdom 
 of having an hereditary monarch, it is not prepared 
 for a moment to countenance an hereditary upper 
 Chamber, and there is obviously nothing contradic- 
 tory in this attitude. 
 
 A king, whilst possessing hereditary privileges, 
 also has hereditary duties, and if he fails to perform 
 them he can be brought to book. The responsibili- 
 ties of a king cannot be burked without serious 
 consequences, but a peer may be as irresponsible 
 as he pleases, and whilst he himself may not suffer, 
 the chances are that every one else will. 
 
 A king of England to-day holds a skilled and 
 responsible position, and what he may lack in the 
 way of personal endowments is largely compensated 
 for by a strict and severe training; furthermore, 
 a king is surrounded by skilled and well-qualified 
 advisers. & 
 
 A peer, on the other hand, may be entirely 
 lacking in all training and may be remarkable for 
 his lack of natural endowments; he may be 
 dissipated and utterly selfish and irresponsible. 
 Clearly, then, it is the height of unwisdom that he 
 should be permitted to have any hand in the 
 framing of the laws of the country or in the vetoing 
 of measures which he has not the wisdom to 
 understand. 
 
 There are, I know, some people who imagine 
 
 47 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 that the House of Lords represents aristocracy of 
 brains as well as aristocracy of birth, but up to the 
 present I have failed to discover any evidence of 
 the truth of this. 
 
 The futility of the House of Lords, however, 
 is recognised even by the people who from time 
 to time find it expedient to add to its membership, 
 and the question of the reform of the Lords has 
 long been before the country. 
 
 There can be no doubt whatever that many of 
 the troubles that have arisen in the House of Lords 
 have been of the Peers' own seeking. The con- 
 troversies which arose during the first Lloyd George 
 Budget and during the discussions of the Home 
 Rule Bill gave rise in a very definite form to the 
 whole question of the Second Chamber; it is, 
 however, a curious and ironic fact that during 
 many stages of the war the real guardians of the 
 people's liberties were to be found in the Upper 
 House. 
 
 I am frankly prepared to admit that there are 
 very natural differences of opinion in the Labour 
 movement regarding the value of a Second 
 Chamber, but there is complete unanimity in 
 Labour's assertion that all hereditary influence 
 must be wiped out; and this objection to heredity, 
 it may be pointed out," is not solely confined to 
 the Labour Party. Lord Astor felt so keenly on 
 the subject that a Bill was promoted to relieve him 
 of the necessity of being compelled to take a title 
 and exercise an hereditary right which he himself 
 felt he was not fitted for. 
 
 I, personally, favour a Second Chamber, but I 
 am firmly convinced that it should be elected by 
 the people. There are two methods by which it 
 could be formed ; it could be a small body elected 
 
The Labour Government and the Constitution 
 
 on a large geographical basis, or it could be a body 
 chosen from the House of Commons, and containing 
 proportionate representation of the political parties 
 returned to the Lower Chamber. 
 
 By this means we should get over the absurd 
 position of having, during the same period, an 
 Upper House of one political complexion and a 
 Lower House of another. As is the case at present, 
 the Second Chamber's powers would be limited, 
 and any measure passed by the Commons three 
 successive times would become law. 
 
 I do not think an Upper Chamber should have 
 more than three hundred members, and, unquestion- 
 ably, it should be dissolved concurrently with the 
 Lower House, thus ensuring that Parliament in 
 its entirety is as representative as possible of the 
 wishes of the country. 
 
 With the disbandment of the Peers the spiritual 
 lords would also go, but the abolition of the spiritual 
 and hereditary right to govern should not, of 
 necessity, in any way rob the country of ability, 
 for I see no reason why peers and bishops (not to 
 mention priests, who are now excluded from 
 Parliament) should not be permitted to submit 
 themselves for election. 
 
 The possible relationship between a Labour 
 Cabinet and Trade Unionism is a source of great 
 perturbation to many people, who frequently urge 
 that the Cabinet Ministers would be mere delegates 
 from their Unions. Nothing could be more 
 grotesque than this theory, and no Cabinet which 
 put it into practice could exist a session; indeed, 
 the position would be so Gilbertian that it is difficult 
 to conceive any one seriously picturing a Minister 
 holding high office and making important decisions 
 affecting the welfare of the whole nation, with one 
 W.L.R. D 49 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 eye on the particular interests of a particular union 
 all the time. It is a fundamental law that the 
 Government is responsible to the country as a 
 whole, and not to one particular section of it; that 
 \\ no section of the people is so important as the 
 people as a whole. Labour recognises this law 
 and, I am persuaded, will be more disposed to 
 live up to it than some of the Governments of the 
 past which have devoted most of their time and 
 energy to the safeguarding of vested interests, 
 altogether ignoring the rights of the great mass of 
 the people. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 NATIONALISATION 
 
 AN economist of repute has asserted that the whole 
 of the necessary work of the world could be accom- 
 plished if every one worked for four hours each 
 day. 
 
 That may or may not be true, but I fear in the 
 present state of affairs it is not practical politics. 
 For one thing, there are so many drones, men and 
 women who are, that is, non-productive, persons 
 who live on invested capital which is made lucrative, 
 not by any of their own endeavours, but because 
 labour makes it show a return. 
 
 It may very well be that when capital as well as 
 labour is all under the control of the community 
 four hours will suffice for the complete carrying 
 out of the world's work, but at present we must 
 look to fewer hours of leisure, desirable as the 
 utmost in this respect is. Leisure means improve- 
 ment both in education and in health. I, for one, 
 am convinced from long and intimate association 
 with the working classes, that if they had more 
 spare time they would be the most ready to seek 
 self-improvement. And that must be for the 
 general uplift of life as a whole. 
 
 If you doubt that assertion and one knows 
 that a proportion of the employing class does not 
 believe that the average worker wants fewer hours 
 of work for any reason other than personal laziness 
 and casual enjoyment you have only to go to 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 some of the big centres of industry and ask the 
 librarian or the ordinary bookseller, and he will 
 tell you the sort of book the artisan of to-day is 
 reading. 
 
 He is not reading the latest novel by the popular 
 writers these are being consumed by the flapper 
 and the young boys, the idle well-to-do, and the 
 lesser intellects of Suburbia. The working man, 
 more than at any other time in the history of the 
 country, is reading that type of book which brings 
 him knowledge and improvement; the works of 
 the scientist, the philosopher, the historian, the 
 publicist, the technical expert. 
 
 Publishers, with their fingers on the pulse of 
 the reading public, are realising this, and several 
 of the big houses, to my own knowledge, are 
 making special efforts to set before the worker 
 libraries of books on economics and social develop- 
 ment. This is a sign of the times, and redounds 
 to the credit of the artisan more than anything I 
 can write in eulogy of him. 
 
 He must have leisure. We of the Labour Party, 
 who expect in the course of time to rule this England 
 of ours, mean that he shall have it, that leisure 
 shall no longer be the privilege of the rich, who 
 often know how to use it but poorly. It must 
 belong to the worker too. 
 
 A forty-hour week is in the realm of practical 
 politics. This will be accomplished as soon as 
 Labour comes into its own, as soon as the profits 
 of industry do not accumulate in the pockets of 
 the few, but are spread out into the possession of 
 the whole. 
 
 It may not come immediately. The times are 
 far from normal. We have to make special efforts 
 just now to produce. But we shall reach a new 
 
Nationalisation 
 
 normality in the end, and in the meantime we shall 
 demand what consideration can be made with 
 justice. 
 
 It is objected that if the labour movement 
 promotes higher wages much or any further we 
 shall not be able as a nation to hold our own in 
 the race with the other nations of the world. * See,' 
 these people say, ' how Belgium is working, 
 regardless of times, and they are coming back 
 faster than any other country in Europe. And 
 see, too, how the United States are capturing the 
 markets. It is their immense production. What 
 is the British working man doing ? ' And they 
 answer with a disgusted wave of the hand, * Putting 
 up wages, striking for fewer hours of work.' 
 
 It is not that the worker works too little, it is 
 that the proceeds of his work go into the hands of 
 the capitalists, and not into his own. On the face 
 of it how can such a state of things be fair ? Why 
 should a man who, by the accident of birth, owns 
 half a county derive vast sums of money from the 
 labour that works the land or the mines that happen 
 to be found on that land ? 
 
 What has he done to deserve this freedom from 
 toil and this immense luxury and comfort of 
 existence ? 
 
 The land, of course, should belong to the whole 
 community. 
 
 And that brings us to nationalisation. 
 
 This is one of the chief planks in the Labour 
 platform. 
 
 When Labour rules, land, the mines, the rail- 
 ways, canals, shipping, probably also, through the 
 municipalities, the supply of milk and bread 
 these essentials must all be under the absolute 
 direction of the State. 
 
 53 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Curiously enough the Labour Party has recently 
 been engaged in fighting control. But there is a 
 world of difference in the principles underlying 
 that sort of control the war gave us, also as it exists 
 to-day in certain forms, and national ownership. 
 The war control has often enough only kept up 
 prices, and instead of serving the customer, which 
 means the public, has merely put unnecessarily 
 large profits into the pockets of a number of 
 individual traders. 
 
 You will remember the problem of the mines. 
 It was not merely that the miner had a little more 
 adequate payment for the dangerous and valuable 
 work he does for the country, that sent the price 
 of coal up to its alarming heights. It was the 
 diverse and often wasteful management making 
 certain pits show small returns that provoked the 
 authorities to raise the price. This made the 
 balance sheets of the bad mines respectable, and 
 it made the profits of the successful mines look 
 the finest example of profiteering that the world 
 could show. That is not the type of control we 
 want. 
 
 And protection will not do not for us. We 
 have seen some results of this during the war. 
 You cannot prosper by building brick walls round 
 factories, or seeking to prevent other competitors 
 building factories. Let us have all the world can 
 show of energy and production. That is at the 
 moment the only way to wipe out shortages that 
 exist, and in the normal times it is the royal road 
 to the minimum of both hours of work and low 
 prices. 
 
 The very meaning of Protection is higher 
 charges to the purchaser. Bring it down to a 
 simple illustration. Messrs A, make boots. They 
 54 
 
Nationalisation 
 
 buy enough leather to make a pair of boots for 
 half a crown. The finished article has cost them, 
 shall we say, ten shillings. If such were the facts 
 and my figures are purposely fictitious those 
 boots would cost twelve-and-six in a shop. 
 
 Messrs B. make boots. The leather to them 
 for a pair costs five shillings. That means the 
 pair in the shop must cost half a crown more. 
 Unless, that is, the saving is made on labour and 
 that we are not disposed to tolerate. 
 
 But does the pair of boots Messrs A. produce 
 sell at twelve-and-six ? No, nothing under fourteen 
 shillings, because even at that they are just under 
 the fifteen shillings of Messrs B. 
 
 That's the result of Protection enlarged profits 
 to the protected, higher prices to the purchaser. 
 Free-trade, free competition, the law of supply 
 and demand, with a just wage and a fair profit 
 these are the incidents of our policy. 
 
 Nationalisation will not put vast profits into 
 private individuals' pockets. It will do just the 
 opposite. It will decrease the cost of the com- 
 modity to every one, it will leave allowance for a 
 system of wages in advance of those appertaining 
 to-day, and even then a margin which will go into 
 the national exchequer and thus relieve taxation. 
 
 There are two forms of objection to the change. 
 
 The one, of course, comes from the interested 
 capitalists. It is, I suppose, human nature that 
 the man who inherits a mine doesn't want to hand 
 it over to any one, even though it be for the good 
 of the community. ^He wants to do no work, but 
 go on drawing his royalties until the end of his 
 days and even then he'll object to the idea that 
 his estate should be mulcted in heavy death duties ! 
 The man whose money has been put into the mine 
 
 55 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 will have similar objections, and even though he 
 be bought out, he knows very well that he will, 
 under Labour government at all events, find himself 
 heavily taxed, possibly by a capital levy. 
 
 The second objection is the cynical one that 
 the moment you put anything under the civil 
 services you get uninterested work, and laxity of 
 endeavour. Initiative dies, a man does little more 
 than sufficient to hold down his job. 
 
 I call this cynical because it is an easily spoken 
 libel on the average Englishman. That it should 
 so generally be believed in to-day passes one's 
 understanding. Have these men forgotten the 
 straining patriotism that set every muscle and 
 brain in this country working at its best the moment 
 the war came ? I don't want to write heroics upon 
 a subject that really is one of economics, in order 
 to refute the libel that there are not men and 
 women in England who will work for the common 
 good, not with the mere hope of great rewards 
 (though these will be sufficient and good) but to 
 service their fellows. 
 
 I hold a brief here for all classes. Not only the 
 manual workers. In the new civil services that 
 will be set up to run these industries, we shall find 
 the middle classes, the able and industrious among 
 them, doing their best and not their least, in those 
 positions of control that will inevitably arise. 
 
 For the Labour Government will by no means 
 stand for the manual labourer only. It will not 
 legislate for only one section of the population, 
 and so set up a .new class warfare, and while I 
 intend to have something to say about the middle 
 classes later, it is fitting here to say that I have 
 every faith that men will readily be found who 
 will act on behalf of the Government owners in 
 
 56 
 
Nationalisation 
 
 successfully and skilfully carrying out those duties 
 which fall outside the actual manual labour. 
 
 The Labour Party to-day embraces both those 
 who work by hand and brain. And the brain 
 worker will have the same sympathy shown to 
 him in the matter of salary, of leisure, and of 
 advancement, as we are fighting for on behalf of 
 the manual worker. There must be an ultimate 
 minimum for all, the level of subsistence, and 
 over that every one should have time and oppor- 
 tunity to progress. And in this connection it 
 may well be that Labour will, in fixing hours of 
 toil, see to it that the man whose job is unpleasant 
 or particularly dangerous shall work shorter hours 
 than he whose ways are cast in happier circumstances. 
 That would give, say, the man who cleans the 
 sewers, all the more time for self-improvement, 
 and the opportunity to raise himself a rung or 
 two on the social ladder. 
 
 If we can create these conditions we shall 
 obliterate the strike. 
 
 Transport must, of course, be nationally con- ' 
 trolled. It is as obvious as that private enterprise 
 should not run the roads of the country. The 
 community, and not private companies, ought to 
 own the canals and the railways, and the shipping 
 upon which this country depends so largely. The 
 Government would then have its hand upon all 
 freights, and the public would gain enormously 
 in cheaper commodities of all kinds. 
 
 Private commercial undertakings would benefit 
 in the same ratio. Let the nation get its own coal, 
 carry it upon its own railways, barges, motor- 
 lorries, and distribute it through the municipalities. 
 Let the Government ships convey it to the markets 
 of the world every exporter, of course, being in 
 
 57 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 the Government service. Let the electric light, 
 power and heat be communal, and enormous 
 savings will be realised. Prices will not fluctuate, 
 and supplies will be less likely to be held up, as 
 they have been on occasion when the private 
 companies have been pleased to resort to this 
 method of enforcing their own terms on the public. 
 
 And what of those trades outside the essentials 
 which the Government under Labour will control ? 
 
 In the first place we shall fix the profits that 
 can be earned at the factory, and at all the other 
 stages before the goods get to the purchaser. 
 There will be no profiteering. We shall be the 
 purchasers of raw material and shall ration it to 
 the trades concerned. Of those trades the workers 
 will share with the present ownership the work of 
 management. This should make for the lowest 
 possible prices to the householder, and here women 
 voters must look to the Labour movement to bring 
 relief to the many items in her difficult exchequer 
 which n6w cause it a struggle to make ends meet. 
 Subsidies will not be necessary to keep the break- 
 fast-table fixed permanently at a reasonable cost; 
 all that is necessary is wise control and no excess 
 profits. 
 
 This is not a class measure, aimed solely to 
 benefit working men's households. All sections 
 of the population will reap the same advantage 
 and I know it will be as acceptable to the clerk 
 and the small-salaried professional man as to the 
 artisan. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LABOUR GOVERNMENT AND THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 IT is a fact that the idea of Labour being ever in 
 control of the country is looked upon with suspicion 
 by that vast body known as the middle classes. 
 
 These are the people who have thought little 
 through many generations of the struggle of the 
 labourer for a decent hire. They have been 
 obsessed with their own occupations, and have 
 had but a vague idea of the workers as the * lower 
 classes ' to be used and, more or less, kept in their 
 place. The * upper classes ' have fostered this 
 notion, and in the main have sympathised with 
 either the lower or the middle masses as such only 
 in so far as passing charity carried them. 
 
 Others have seldom gone deeply into the con- 
 ditions of life as lived by the workman, have known 
 nothing of the slums, or of pit work, save what 
 they have casually read in their daily papers. To 
 the majority of them the struggle of the worker 
 even in recent times has been evidenced chiefly 
 by an occasional strike. And then, naturally 
 enough, these people have been ready to criticise, 
 because a strike of any size invariably means 
 discomfort to them and often worse. 
 
 They see some commodity cut off, prices mount, 
 or (it has been known!) some such public service 
 as the railways have closed down, and in that last 
 case, where the rich man can stay at home or motor, 
 the middle class man, having to get to his business, 
 
 59 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 is put to the height of inconvenience. And he 
 swears. 
 
 To-day he is being largely left in the race. He 
 is ground between the upper and the nether mill- 
 stones. He is even learning to organise and follow 
 in the very steps the manual labourer has shown 
 him. 
 
 We must remember that the middle class man 
 of to-day is entirely different from what he was a 
 generation or two ago. When the governing class 
 was the land-owning class the middle man was as 
 much bottom dog in their eyes as any one. Those 
 that grew above that level really might have been 
 included among the capitalists. 
 
 To-day you have a much larger membership 
 of that class which falls between the millstones of 
 the capitalist and the organised manual labourer. 
 This class has no trades union, no organisation, 
 is invariably the victim of industrial disputes. 
 Whoever is responsible for such upheavals, the 
 middle class man is always the victim, the man 
 with a fixed income, who has to maintain a certain 
 standard of respectability because of his avocation 
 or profession, who has to clothe himself well, who 
 spends more than the worker on the education of 
 his children. Between the capitalist and the trades 
 union he is crushed. This man's position is a real 
 hardship. 
 
 In the same category you have the middle class 
 man who has retired on a fixed income, who, in 
 the pre-war days with pre-war prices (largely made 
 possible because then the work of the world was 
 done too cheaply), lived in genuine comfort, if not 
 in any particular excess of luxury. He had no 
 cause to stint himself, could buy his own house, 
 play tennis, golf, often run his own car. 
 60 
 
Labour Government and the Middle Classes 
 
 This man has been most adversely affected by 
 increases in the cost of living and taxation that have 
 followed in the wake of war. He is having a bad 
 time because he is the man above all others who 
 has not shared in the inflation of values. His old 
 two hundred and fifty a year is still two hundred 
 and fifty in figures, but that, of course, means that 
 it is only a little over the hundred now, so far as 
 purchasing power goes. Everything he wants 
 costs him more, and now, on the top of increases 
 in food and clothes, his club subscriptions, his 
 rates and taxes, is to be added a large increase in 
 his rent, if by chance he is not the owner, but the 
 tenant, of his house. He sees his little capital 
 threatened, and, too old probably to return to 
 work, the future is ominous. 
 
 These classes are the folk I am talking about 
 now both the middle class at work, whose incomes 
 have not risen nearly in proportion to the cost of 
 living, and the retired, but not rich, man whose 
 income has, in effect, been halved. 
 
 To a very large extent in the past this man has 
 been quite contented to let the old world 
 jog on past his garden gate without worrying much 
 about social problems. He has desired no change. 
 He could be relied upon to vote solidly Tory 
 because he was prone to look upon what he called 
 law and order as being entirely safe in the Tory 
 Party's hands. 
 
 The War has changed his condition, and it 
 is changing his views. He is waking up. Just 
 at first, true enough, and, I suppose, naturally 
 enough, his early stirrings are evidenced often in a 
 blind disapproval of strikes that hit him; of the 
 departmental ' fools ' who let things * go to the 
 dogs '; and of * these Bolshevist workers ' who 
 
 61 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 are, in his words, * overreaching all demands, and 
 ought to be shot.' 
 
 These are the extremists, I know. Moderate 
 middle class men have seen the increase in wages 
 coming, and, realising the strength of organisation 
 and how they are being left behind in the race, 
 they are proving how hard they have been hit by 
 themselves tending towards organisation and 
 concerted action. 
 
 Let these men look into the future and ask 
 themselves under what regime they will benefit 
 most. 
 
 The Tory control ? 
 
 That is the power and autocracy of government 
 by privilege, and ownership by the chance of 
 birth. Under that regime fine as some of its 
 elements and personalities have been in the past 
 (it would be very surprising if it were otherwise, 
 seeing the chances these fortunate members of 
 the community have had ; the lavish education, 
 the lack of all anxiety concerning the wherewithal 
 to exist) the individual will contine to be crippled, 
 not to get the reward of his toil, and the middle 
 class man will more than ever be the victim of the 
 struggle between capital and labour; for, should 
 the old standard of government be maintained, 
 you may be sure this struggle against oppression 
 will be continuous and more bitter than ever before. 
 The men are so much stronger. 
 
 The Liberal regime is a possible alternative, but 
 that is better than the Tory only in so far as it is 
 a stepping stone on the way to the fulfilment of 
 the Labour programme. 
 
 I want to assert that the only future for the 
 middle class man is under the Labour rule. We 
 welcome him into our ranks. We do not propose 
 62 
 
Labour Government and the Middle Classes 
 
 to solicit his support without giving him ours. 
 The Labour Party is not merely brawn under 
 organisation. The brain worker is already in our 
 ranks. Thousands and thousands of our members 
 are not manual workers. Slaves of the pen and 
 the office stool these are among us, and the lot 
 of these workers will be better under our administra- 
 tion than under any other. 
 
 I know very well that many of the middle man's 
 present hardships are the direct result of the War. 
 If Labour rules in Britain and in other countries ** 
 too, there will be no wars. Internationalism, which 
 means arbitration in council instead of the arbitra- 
 ment of arms, will displace that sort of 
 * patriotism ' which means : * We are better than 
 you, and if you don't believe it, take this and this.' 
 We shall hope to talk in consultation and not with 
 howitzers, and in saying this I am not criticising 
 our part in the late War. It was an honourable 
 part, a great part. Any administration that had 
 acted differently from Mr Asquith's in August, 
 1914, would have stained our name as a people. 
 But we, as a party representing the workers, mean 
 to use all our might against wars, against the mad 
 race in armament which preceded the last upheaval, 
 and which must inevitably sooner or later bring 
 about conflict. 
 
 And I want to tell the middle class man that, 
 if we can largely obliterate strikes which hit so 
 disastrously at production and prices, and if we 
 can reduce to absurdity the possibility of great 
 wars, we are, in those two things alone, giving him 
 security and limiting the cost of all commodities. 
 
 But more, as I explained in the last chapter, by 
 nationalisation we shall have efficiency in the supply 
 of all essentials; his coal, gas, electric-light, bread, 
 
 63 
 
I/ 
 
 When Labour Rules 
 
 milk, the charges for transport, will all be under 
 control, and the prices of things will be materially 
 reduced by limiting profits. 
 
 There is something beyond all these general 
 considerations. His demands will receive the same 
 support as the worker's demands. It will be 
 realised that there are grades of service, and that 
 the man who works with his brain is entitled to 
 his minimum wage and opportunity for advance- 
 ment and for leisure just as much as the man who 
 toils with his hands. The middle class union need 
 not be in antagonism with the labour movement; 
 it can be part and parcel of it. Every one who, 
 whether with muscle or with brain, renders any 
 service to the State has interests in common against 
 the selfishness of large private fortune-making. 
 
 What has the middle man to fear from us ? 
 
 Take as an instance the question of income-tax. 
 
 The Labour Party's policy is based on the 
 principle of ability to pay. That must appeal to 
 the middle class man, because ability to pay must 
 not be determined alone upon income as income, 
 but the liability which that income carries. 
 
 Take the 500 to 1000 a year man. In the 
 first place the limit below which no tax is charged 
 will be far higher than at present. Possibly the 
 500 a year man will pay only on 100, and then 
 at a small rate. Above this figure there must 
 be a margin when taxation will be small. The 
 man with a family to clothe and educate the 
 number of children will of course be taken into 
 consideration hasn't much left over for extravagant 
 luxuries, even on ^1000 a year. Greater taxes 
 on the greater incomes will suffice to cover the 
 allowances made to this man and hL type. Later 
 on v/e must discuss national finance, but for the 
 
Labour Government and the Middle Classes 
 
 moment our assurance is that the middle class man 
 will benefit considerably in the matter of income- 
 tax. Could it be otherwise in any Labour pro- 
 gramme ? That programme demands that a higher 
 value be paid upon the workers' commodity 
 that is, their labour and how shall it, then, deny 
 to other workers that justice which itself is so 
 earnestly fighting for ? 
 
 Here's another case that affects him coal; 
 when such commodities as this are no longer made 
 the medium of a Stock Exchange gamble, the 
 basis of trusts and combines, this voter clearly 
 ought to go for the better course of national service 
 for the public good than for the system which 
 considers the payment of large profits and high 
 dividends. 
 
 Ability to pay means more than enough to pay. 
 
 For instance, the railwaymen demand a certain 
 scale of wages. These wages must come from 
 somewhere which means they must be earned 
 and it may inevitably mean the transferring to 
 the consumer in this case the user of railways 
 a burden which he is entitled to say he himself 
 cannot bear. By that means the railwayman may 
 be making a demand by the strength of his organ- 
 isation that inflicts punishment upon the middle 
 class. 
 
 The chief answer to this is that no industry 
 ought to continue to exist that cannot provide a 
 decent standard of existence for all those engaged 
 in it. Labour must^ of necessity be the first charge 
 on industry, and we have no right to say that a 
 concern shall be run which only provides cheap 
 facilities to the user at the expense of sweated 
 conditions for the producers. 
 
 There is a reverse side. It may be conceived 
 
 W.L.R, E 65 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 that a business cannot pay, not because it is badly 
 managed, but because demands are made upon it 
 by the workers which make it impossible to carry 
 on successfully. 
 
 Many undertakings are saying that to-day, and 
 in the present order of things we have the workers 
 making their demands on the one hand and the 
 employers bartering on the other, and maybe even 
 losing money in carrying on. There is no one to 
 say with authority either to the employers, ' you 
 can pay more/ or to the workers, * you must not 
 expect more, the business does not justify it.' 
 
 A Labour Cabinet, taking the place of the slip- 
 shod compromising departments of the present 
 regime, would be invested with power in this 
 respect, and could arbitrate with fairness. It would 
 have the whole weight of the country's workers 
 behind it and possess their confidence, whereas 
 now the Government of to-day has succeeded 
 only in acquiring their suspicions. 
 
 There is, of course, to every impartial mind 
 vast room for improvements in the wages and con- 
 ditions of practically every grade of worker without 
 in any way crippling industry, and only by 
 limiting individual profit-making. 
 
 66 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 HOUSING AND HEALTH : HEALTH AND HOUSING 
 
 THE question of housing has been obscured by a 
 lot of uninformed gossip. At the moment we 
 have to recognise that the conditions are entirely 
 abnormal, but we have also to recognise that there 
 was a considerable shortage of houses before the 
 War. We are all inclined to forget that. Yet it 
 was so. 
 
 The census of 1911 showed that one-tenth of 
 the population was living in over-crowded habita- 
 tions, and in stating that, let me remind my readers 
 that the authorities regard people to be living in 
 overcrowded conditions only when there are more 
 than two persons to a room and that including 
 living rooms. Which, of course, means three or 
 more to a bedroom. If a cottage or tenement 
 consist of two bedrooms and a living room it is 
 regarded as overcrowded only if there are more 
 than six persons occupying that accommodation, 
 and be it added, children under fourteen arc 
 counted as halves. This is bringing things down 
 to the minimum, so that when I use the word 
 * overcrowding * it means really definite unhealthi- 
 ness and irritating discomfort. 
 
 Now this state of affairs was not confined to 
 the towns. It applied equally to the rural parts 
 of the country, and it should be stated that it was 
 not entirely the result of house shortage ; it was 
 
 6? 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 very often the result of the fact that workers had 
 not sufficient to pay for the rent of houses that 
 they needed. 
 
 Even then, mark you, the number of rooms I 
 have quoted did not properly represent the position 
 in its true perspective, because thousands of these 
 houses occupied by the working classes were 
 really unfit for human habitation. They were 
 insanitary, dilapidated, dark, damp. 
 
 I should like in this connection to quote the 
 reports of the medical officers of two towns and 
 two rural authorities, taken quite at random. 
 They are not examples picked out carefully in 
 order to emphasise my point by taking the worst 
 cases. I will not mention the places, but they are, 
 in my opinion, representative of the majority of 
 localities; one report says : 
 
 ' In this town there are probably 40,000 to 
 50,000 houses built on the back to back principle 
 (and you must know what that means in lack of 
 air and light), most of them in courtyards or in 
 short terraces shut in behind houses facing the 
 street. During 1911, 926 of these houses were 
 condemned as " unfit for human habitation." 
 And how many of the others ought to be classed 
 as unfit ? All of them. They are a disgrace to a 
 civilised community. Have you ever visited these 
 courts and alleys in the slums of cities such as 
 Birmingham ? There is no light in them, no 
 draught of air. They are stagnant. They are 
 breeding grounds of disease. Put the healthiest 
 of men in them, confined, and in a few years he 
 will weaken. Consumption is rife in these parts, 
 and on the top of this liability to disease there is 
 or has been no opportunity to cure such 
 troubles. If by luck a man or child has been 
 68 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 snatched from such surroundings the victim has 
 perforce been sent back again and thus lost all 
 chance of a permanent cure. So disease spreads/ 
 
 Now consider the report from a country 
 district : 
 
 * There is in many villages a clamant need for 
 new and better houses, and after these have been 
 erected for the closure of the old insanitary ones * 
 (this, mind you, in 1911, before there was anything 
 heard of a housing shortage), ' certain villages 
 have suffered evident demoralisation as a result of 
 the slow deterioration of the housing conditions 
 of the people. 
 
 ' In one district a small one there were 
 forty-nine cottages inspected last year in which 
 nothing short of pulling down and entirely re- 
 building could make them habitable. And besides 
 these things, were discovered forty-four cases of 
 overcrowding in which cases it was impossible 
 to abate the trouble as there were no other houses 
 available, even if the occupants could have afforded 
 to occupy them. Also a much larger number of 
 houses would have been condemned save that 
 there was an entire lack of other accommodation 
 in the neighbourhood.* 
 
 Taking the census figures of 1911 for Scotland, 
 and assuming a house to be overcrowded only if 
 there were more than three persons to a room (as 
 against the standard of two to a room in England 
 and Wales), in 1911 nearly a quarter of the 
 population were living in overcrowded conditions. 
 Taking the English standard, the figure would be 
 nearly one half; and that figure has largely increased 
 since then. 
 
 The following extract is quoted from a memor- 
 andum submitted to the Scottish Local Government 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Board by a deputation from the Middle Ward 
 District of Lanarkshire : 
 
 * In some houses there are three families resident; 
 as many as twelve persons have been found in one- 
 apartment houses; houses closed as uninhabitable 
 have been reoccupied; in Cambuslang two families 
 are living in the ruins of a property with a tarpaulin 
 sheet as their only roof.' In Coatbridge, as 
 a typical example, ' some one-apartment houses 
 contained two married families, and in such houses 
 sometimes three male lodgers are housed ... for 
 one that fell vacant 57 applications were received.' 
 
 Miners and their families form nearly a tenth 
 of the total population of Scotland. Their houses 
 are usually single story houses of two rooms built 
 in long parallel straight rows, occasionally varied 
 by * the square.' They have usually been erected 
 by the colliery companies, and because of the 
 uncertainty of the mines the cheapest available 
 form of construction and material has been adopted. 
 The sanitary arrangements often outrage all 
 decency.' 
 
 As the report says : 
 
 ' The Miners' Row of inferior class is often a 
 dreary and featureless place, with houses, dismal 
 in themselves, arranged in monotonous lines or 
 in squares. The open spaces are encumbered 
 with wash-houses, privies, etc., often out of repair, 
 and in wet weather get churned up into a morass 
 of semi-liquid mud. . . . Many houses show the 
 faults of their class leaky roofs, damp walls, and 
 uneven and broken floors.' 
 
 What is the state of things to-day now that 
 five years have passed with stagnation in the 
 building and repairing of houses! It is unthink- 
 able. Thousands of our fellow-subjects must be 
 70 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 living in houses which will not bear thinking 
 about. They are cramped, they are unhealthy. 
 Thousands of these houses ought to be condemned. 
 They would be condemned even on pre-war 
 standards, but where are the unfortunate residents 
 to go ? Even a pigsty is better than the gutter, 
 and so many a dwelling has been allowed to stay, 
 whereas it otherwise would have been scrapped. 
 
 I have heard and you have heard of the airy 
 way some shallow critics answer these facts: these 
 folk assert that it is useless supplying decent 
 houses to the poor. The poor get drunk, they 
 quarrel, they take no care of their homes. They 
 have no consideration for the owner of the house. 
 They pull down the banisters for firewood. 
 Clean paint is anathema to them. They exercise 
 no control over their children, and let them do 
 what damage they please, knocking nails into 
 woodwork, and glass out of windows. 
 
 This is an easy bypath to follow. It is the act 
 of the moral coward who sees an enemy ahead 
 and turns aside, as a thief darts down the nearest 
 alley-way at the approach of a policeman. There 
 are drunkards, alas, in every sphere of life, but, 
 mark you, just as much in Mayfair as in Shadwell. 
 And even for the poor of this class there is the 
 excuse of the sordid surroundings from which 
 the mind, however small, instinctively longs to 
 escape. 
 
 But in the main the assertion is a libel. The 
 majority of decent citizens among the working 
 classes to the inebriated irresponsible must be 
 thousands to one, and to point a finger of cynical 
 contempt at the one as a reason for ignoring the 
 just needs of the thousands is the meanest of false 
 arguments. 
 
 71 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Educate, educate, educate, by all means, until 
 you have wiped out this miserable minority and 
 given the entire community a sense of responsibility. 
 And let me say that, in my opinion, one of the 
 most powerful forms of education in this direction 
 would be to improve the very conditions of the 
 habitations in which these ignorant men and 
 women live. It is so largely the environment which 
 creates the character. 
 
 There is nothing as bad as overcrowding, both 
 from the point of view of health and morals. The 
 moral side is self-apparent. To think of numerous 
 male and female members of a family, often of 
 two families, crowded into one or two rooms by 
 day and night, leaving no sort of privacy at any 
 time, is at once to picture a state of things which 
 must lessen the moral tone down to the vanishing 
 point. We, as a State, are ready enough to judge 
 these people when they commit some act which 
 is against the public good, and is entirely the result 
 of these conditions, yet we have gone on for 
 generations ignoring those very circumstances 
 which not only render these acts likely but almost 
 inevitable. 
 
 From the purely health point of view though, 
 to be sure, it is impossible to divorce the morals 
 of a people from that people's health, the two are 
 so interdependent Dr Mair, who made a special 
 investigation, found that the number of deaths 
 from pulmonary tuberculosis and the diseases of 
 the young were half as many again in back-to- 
 back houses as in ordinary dwelling houses. An 
 examination of the reports of the London Tubercu- 
 losis Dispensaries (1913) shows that one half of 
 the patients under the care of these institutions 
 live in dwellings with one and two rooms. * Only 
 72 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 134 out of 766 patients suffering from definite 
 signs of pulmonary tuberculosis occupied separate 
 rooms at night. The others were sleeping in 
 rooms shared by one or more persons, and of 
 these only 179 slept in separate beds, the remainder 
 occupying the same bed as one or more members 
 of the family.' 
 
 The War has made it infinitely worse. 
 
 The very definite shortage has become a famine. 
 For four years the building of houses stopped. The 
 carpenters, mechanics, plasterers, masons, plumbers, 
 and labourers were all conscripted into the army. 
 Large numbers were skilled, others, who in the 
 ordinary way during that time would have been 
 apprenticed, were not apprenticed, and that alone 
 must hold things back. 
 
 In passing, I must refer to the talk there has 
 been to the effect that the bricklayers have refused 
 to do their best. It seems to be entirely lost sight 
 of that, before the War, the amount of under- 
 employment, non-employment, and casual labour 
 in the building trade was simply enormous. Men 
 dreaded the approach of winter. There were 
 weeks of actual want, just at a time when the pinch 
 of cold was felt the worst. We must remember 
 the days when these men, anxious to work, called 
 day after day upon their employers, only to find there V 
 was nothing to do. Remembering this it will be 
 more difficult to blame them when, for the first 
 time, there is a huge demand for their labour; 
 they are sceptical and fear the return of the old state 
 of affairs. 
 
 There was no security then, and they fear there 
 will one day be no security again, no guarantee 
 against the long weeks of unemployment. Give 
 the men as they should be given, as every worker 
 
 73 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 should be given some guarantee against these 
 weeks of slackness or actual want, and they will 
 work. There will be no Ca'-canny movements 
 to make the jobs there are last out over the lean 
 times they fear may develop. 
 
 But to return to the subject of housing proper. 
 Of all reflections on civilisation the worst is to be 
 found in some of the streets and slums, the courts 
 and alleys of our cities and towns. None is free. 
 The houses are an insanitary mass, a jumble of 
 mean bricks, foul and unrefreshed by draughts 
 of clean air. No thought, no decency, no art, no 
 beauty. 
 
 The policy of Labour would be the extension 
 of the garden suburb idea, which, however, must 
 always be accompanied by improvements in our 
 transport. It is useless to expect a man to go and 
 live miles from his work and afford him no reason- 
 able facility of getting from home to workshop 
 and back again quickly and comfortably, and 
 cheaply. Much in this connection could be 
 done and would be done to encourage the build- 
 ing of factories out of cities and not in them. 
 
 But changes cannot be made rapidly. We 
 must face the fact that, for a long time to come, 
 the housing problem will be aggravated by what 
 has been called the economic rent question. When 
 one talks of economic rents it always must include 
 the liability to pay them. The nation to-day is so 
 involved by the effects of the W r ar that clearly it 
 should as yet bear some of the burden, but after 
 ^"hat has passed, the houses must be let at an 
 economic rental. I cannot conceive it to be a good 
 thing that the working classes should be subsidised 
 in any way. It savours too much of charity, and, 
 in the end, is demoralising and leads to corruption. 
 74 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 It will not be the policy of the Labour Govern- 
 ment to nationalise houses. I believe, however, 
 that the municipalities ought to be encouraged to 
 find accommodation. They should, in fact, be 
 held responsible for the housing accommodation 
 in their districts. It means not only a direct 
 control in the sort of houses that shall be erected, 
 with the voter directly able to express his opinion 
 on any branch of the subject whether there are 
 too few or too many being provided, whether the 
 right type are going up, whether the gardens are 
 extravagant or mean, and so on but it would 
 greatly foster local pride. 
 
 At the same time, the matter cannot be left 
 there, for if a municipality happened to be in- 
 different or reluctant to provide for the needs of 
 its people, it is clear some one else must provide 
 for them. I would not cut out private building, 
 but I would make conditions that would largely 
 curtail the power of the speculative builder, 
 which is, obviously, a very different thing. The 
 gentleman I refer to has made as a contribution 
 to housing nothing of value, and has too often 
 merely hoodwinked the working man to struggle 
 to obtain from him a bad bargain. 
 
 Something must be said here of the benefit of 
 a working man owning his home. There is nothing 
 that gives so great a feeling of security, and pride, 
 and stability, as the owning of even a small cottage, 
 and could there be universal ownership you would 
 never have to fear that the occupier was tearing 
 down banisters to make fires. That is the result 
 of direct and personal experience among the men 
 of our Unions. There are many thousands who 
 have bought their houses through the Union, and 
 let it be said that the Unions find it possible to 
 
 75 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 advance money to these members on better terms 
 than they could get by any ordinary method of 
 borrowing. 
 
 I am not entering here into question 
 of detail. We are out for principles, for 
 sweeping alterations. Very often it is not too 
 wise to say until the occasion arises just in what 
 manner the details should be worked out. I 
 should never be stereotyped in the matter of 
 accommodation. One thing we are at length 
 realising is that the pokey small box of a room 
 that invariably goes under the name of parlour 
 in working men's cottages, and which really takes 
 its space out of the living room, should be entirely 
 obliterated. It is not in the parlour that the 
 family sit in the evenings, and certainly it is not 
 there that the housewife spends her life. Take 
 away this fusty, unused room, and put some room 
 and light and air into the parts of the house which 
 are in use every day. 
 
 This subject takes us immediately to that of 
 Health, and it is amazing to think that, prior to 
 the Insurance Act of 1912, there was an entire 
 absence of provision of any sort officially to look 
 after the health of the public. When the Goverment 
 set out for the first time to recognise that there 
 were people whose income and position as workers 
 and through many causes, did not enable them to 
 make provision for times of sickness, the fact of this 
 disability had a far more serious effect than is 
 generally understood. 
 
 There were large numbers of men and women 
 going to work when they ought to have been in 
 bed. They spread the germs of disease among 
 their fellow- workers, and, so far as they themselves 
 were concerned, gave themselves no chance to 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 make a complete recovery. They returned too 
 soon after an illness, and there was the inevitable 
 set-back, and, of course, in thousands and thousands 
 of cases, diseases and physical troubles developed 
 seriously because they were not taken in hand in 
 time. All this was solely due to the fact that no 
 provision was made for them. There was no 
 Inspector to look after their health; there was, 
 unfortunately, not the knowledge to realise 
 their trouble, and, when it was pressed home to 
 them, there was not the means to obtain that 
 remedy which every human being is entitled to. 
 The Insurance Act did something, but not nearly 
 enough. The amount of money it allowed, which 
 has since been increased, is even now totally 
 inadequate, and, in addition, the measure leaves 
 some of the most fundamental needs of health 
 untouched. It enabled the father to receive medical 
 benefits, but no provision was made for the mother 
 or the children, unless the mother herself happened 
 to be an insured worker under the Act. It even 
 resulted in a man going from a Sanatorium after 
 treatment to conditions which rendered any per- 
 manent recovery impossible. 
 
 And mixed up with these deficiencies is the 
 position of our hospitals. You have only to take 
 up a daily paper any day, and you will see appeal 
 after appeal made by public-spirited men to enable 
 them to carry on hospital work. Have you thought 
 that these pathetic appeals are often an intima- 
 tion that hundreds of patients are waiting to be 
 treated should ever the funds render it possible ? 
 Thousands of people ill, perhaps in a state dangerous 
 not only to themselves, but to the community, 
 simply because these national institutions, being 
 entirely dependent upon charity, cannot use even 
 
 77 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 the accommodation that they have because of lack 
 of money. 
 
 The only way out is a State Medical Service. 
 Hitherto there was a feeling that a doctor would 
 not work with the State. Well, we saw the best 
 answer to that in the magnificent service they 
 rendered during the War. That alone justifies 
 us in the assumption that they will be equally 
 available again, under proper safeguards and 
 conditions, to serve the people in peace as they 
 did when in khaki. And more attention would 
 be paid to the question of medical research. It is 
 a scandal that a man to-day whose work is research, 
 and ought to be research, has to worry over diffi- 
 culties about domestic balance sheets. If you 
 read history you will find that a vast amount of 
 discovery in every branch of life, particularly in 
 medical affairs, has been at the expense of some 
 great human suffering and sacrifice, merely because 
 the discoverer had not proper means to work 
 regardless of income. All this should be looked 
 after by the State, and, just as the Universities 
 would give primary education to the medical 
 student, the hospitals, governed by the State, 
 would provide the training. W r hat better return 
 could a young doctor make than to work in the 
 service and for the institution that gave him his 
 profession ? 
 
 With this question of health, too, must be 
 definitely associated the question of the children. 
 We must remember among all this talk of indem- 
 nities and wealth and shortage, that the real and 
 lasting wealth of any country is not the amount 
 of capital within it, not the number of capitalists 
 it possesses, but the number of happy and contented 
 homes with children enjoying a free, full and 
 
 78 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 healthy existence. It is upon this that the future 
 of a nation depends. Encourage the people to 
 have children, and give every child a welcome and 
 a reasonable start in life, and the nation will be 
 laying a proper foundation for future greatness. 
 At the moment, the birth-rate is improving 
 enormously. What sort of welcome are we pre- 
 paring for these citizens-to-be ? They come, 
 remember, mostly to lower middle classes of working 
 men's homes, yet there are magistrates, and 
 coroners, too, who are sometimes prompted by 
 an unfortunate sense of duty to bully poor people 
 for having large families. Of course, it is quite 
 right to view with apprehension the entry into 
 the world of a large number of children for whom 
 no adequate provision has been made; but as 
 children are essential, beyond everything else, to 
 the continued existence of a nation, it is clearly 
 the Government, in whose hands lie the means 
 for improving social conditions, rather than the 
 parents of the children, that should be censured. 
 
 Undoubtedly there are large numbers of sensible 
 men and women who, faced by the problem of 
 maintaining a family, have come to the conclusion 
 that it is a greater crime to bring children into 
 the world to starve than deliberately to connive 
 at preventing their advent. 
 
 This, I readily admit, is a most undesirable 
 state of affairs, but it is essential that we should 
 do more than this. We have not yet reached that 
 desirable stage wherein to admit an evil is to remedy 
 it. To burke the facts does not in any way help 
 to solve th~e~ problem ; it is, indeed, an imperative 
 necessity that we should boldly apply ourselves 
 to the finding of a remedy, and this is especially 
 necessary when we remember the terrible losses 
 
 79 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 of the manhood of this country that the War 
 occasioned. 
 
 It is true that the Government have recognised, 
 though very tardily, one side of this question in 
 the provision of school feeding; but encourage- 
 ment and help must be given at a much earlier 
 stage than this, and I would boldly declare for a 
 State scheme for the endowment of Motherhood. 
 It could take many forms, and might vary in 
 details, but, if it contained the assurance that 
 every child born should have a fair chance without 
 impoverishing its brothers and sisters and making 
 the life of the parents, and especially the mother, 
 one long misery, much would be done towards 
 solving this delicate but very urgent problem. 
 
 Is it not obvious that child life cannot thrive 
 in the stifling atmosphere of an over-crowded 
 slum, where even a plant would find it difficult to 
 grow ? Is it not obvious that, when a child does 
 survive this unhealthy environment, it is likely to 
 profit little more than a warped and stunted 
 manhood ? 
 
 Think for a moment what it would mean if a 
 scheme were found by which the mortality of 
 children under five years of age was reduced by 
 fifty per cent. Such an achievement would be a 
 revolution in social reform, and surely there is 
 none to-day who, in the face of all our boasted 
 progress and broadened vision, would say it is 
 not possible ? In that lies the greatest tragedy. 
 Through all the long years of peace the nation, 
 often with complacency, has been suffering terrible 
 losses which could have been averted. 
 
 Quite naturally and properly we deplore our 
 losses in sturdy manhood on the battlefields 
 losses suffered in a good and righteous cause; 
 80 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 but year in and year out we have supinely permitted 
 this life blood of the nation to be shamefully 
 wasted. The little children who would be the 
 men and women of to-morrow are lost to the 
 nation, because our legislature has never found 
 time to evolve a sufficiently drastic reform in our 
 social conditions to remedy this evil. 
 
 The revelation which resulted from the Statement 
 of Inspection of Teeth has clearly demonstrated 
 the value, to the future citizens of the country, 
 of official observation, and no department in the 
 Government has a greater opportunity in this 
 direction than the new Ministry of Health. So 
 long have the activities touching health even 
 such as they are been diversely controlled, very 
 often pulling against each other. Mothers, workers 
 in factories, infants, school children, disabled 
 soldiers and sailors, destitute persons all these 
 and other classes have come under different 
 handling. Sometimes the authority has been the 
 Local Government Board, sometimes the Insurance 
 Department, the Privy Council come in here, the 
 Board of Education there. The Pensions Ministry 
 the Board of Agriculture have their spheres, 
 too. How could any general improvement on 
 broad lines be effected with such a conglomeration 
 of direction ? The Health Ministry may and 
 should associate these efforts into one big 
 channel, but it is doubtful if, until Labour governs, 
 the matter will be freed from the Red Tape 
 of Officialdom and assume a vast national 
 campaign. 
 
 Consider, for example, the mothers; what has 
 
 been done for them ? Nothing. It is almost 
 
 unbelievable, and would appear so to any one 
 
 who could come with fresh ideas from the remote 
 
 W.L.R. F 8 1 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 top of some other world upon this our so-called 
 civilisation. That they should go ignored by the 
 authority that is called a government! 
 
 One can imagine almost a worship given to 
 these women of our race at the time when new 
 lives are born. One can imagine a State full of 
 carefulness and gentleness towards them, helping 
 with every possible effort of science and comfort 
 to bring to fruition the promised life, and after- 
 wards to tend it until the plant, so to speak, is 
 hardy and able to meet the storms and frosts. 
 
 Instead well, we are beginning to realise that 
 perhaps the mother ought not to go to work right 
 up to the moment of confinement, or yet to return 
 immediately afterwards. Some of my readers 
 may believe I am exaggerating in indicating that 
 such a state of things ever obtained in England. 
 But it did, and even the belated effort made under 
 the Insurance Act is not nearly sufficient. The 
 public conscience has been aroused a trifle over 
 the matter. If nothing further can be done before, 
 then when Labour holds the reins there will be a 
 drastic change in this matter. 
 
 Our conception of a free and happy people 
 does not, for one thing, include such a possibility 
 as the mother being compelled to do part of the 
 bread winning. All the talk of healthy and happy 
 homes, of a fair chance for the children, is mere 
 playing with words if it means that the mother 
 must take her share in the factory toil. Too much 
 mischief has already been caused in a thousand 
 ways through this system, and in any state of 
 society we are boasting of, it ought not to require 
 the joint incomes of husband and wife to keep 
 the house going. 
 
 There you have the essence of the present 
 82 
 
Housing and Health: Health and Housing 
 
 trouble and the heart of future reform. Improve- 
 ment will never come, save in small instalments, 
 until Government has lifted the general status of 
 labour. The fight for mere existence, which has 
 been the normal condition for generations of the 
 man who worked with his hands, shall cease. 
 He shall get adequate pay for necessities and for 
 comfort. We insist on his development. Work 
 shall not be the all and end all of his life. Under 
 more liberality and sympathy his ego will expand, 
 education will open his eyes to the wealth of 
 existence, and with the beginnings of aspiration 
 towards higher living and general uplift in his 
 home will come, in the end, the great justification 
 for that social regeneration for which Labour 
 step by step is fighting. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY AND THE HOME 
 
 IT is as unfortunate as it is unfair to suggest that 
 there can be no relationship between Labour and 
 the direction of education. * How can Labour 
 control our big universities ? ' ask the unthinking, 
 and they add, with a sneer, * It would be a bad day 
 for the universities and for learning if such control 
 ever happened/ 
 
 These critics, of course, think that a navvy 
 typifies Labour, and, just as it always takes the 
 process of years to work any evolution, I suppose it 
 will be long before certain branches of the public 
 grow to appreciate that there is an intelligence 
 in the Labour Party, that there are men in it 
 thoroughly capable of large-minded governing, 
 and of universal statesmanship; that this party 
 has a thorough programme which includes all the 
 activities of all grades, and does not exist for the 
 exploitation of the toiler at the expense of every 
 one else. We shall not legislate only for the 
 navvy, or the miner, or the railway worker, or the 
 bricklayer. For none of these to the exclusion of 
 others. Our government will be for the community 
 as a whole, whereas we claim that, in the past, 
 government has been for the privileged few. 
 
 It is true that, during recent years, we have 
 fought for the lower classes almost exclusively, 
 but that is only because other governments have 
 allowed them to get into a state that in many 
 
Education in the University and the Home 
 
 ways was slavery. Their claims were so obvious, 
 their needs so crying, that in setting out on the 
 great scheme of social reform, which makes up 
 our programme for the entire community, these 
 grievances had first to be tackled. 
 
 We are only on the fringe of even that improve- 
 ment. It is granted that much has been done 
 towards bettering the lot of the mass of workers, 
 but we shall see no fundamental alteration until 
 Labour holds the reins. 
 
 There are many who still shrug their shoulders 
 at the notion. They can see nothing but strikes 
 and can say nothing but that one word, * Bolshevism.' 
 Labour does not want strikes. Strikes are the 
 necessary evil in the campaign of education 
 the education of the majority of electors towards 
 what is just to the worker. It is transitory; the 
 froth on the stream. We are at the confluence. 
 Labour has been only a tributary, but now it has 
 gathered force, and has mixed its power with 
 that river of capitalism which for generations was 
 entirely dominant. Before the tributary increases 
 into the main stream there will inevitably be bubbles. 
 
 But there will be no Bolshevism. We who 
 knew all along that the ideals and material changes 
 for which we were fighting were those that must 
 set right the world and make it a better and happier 
 and more just place for the majority, never feared 
 that anarchy would result. At all events only in 
 the passing phase. Had it come to that we should 
 have had to face it just as we had to face the 
 Germans when their system of domination grew 
 too great and threatened peaceful progress. But 
 there was never any chance of that sort of riotous 
 breaking from old ways, which has just been 
 seen in Russia, coming into operation in England. 
 
 85 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 The British working man is too sane a fellow for 
 that, and let me add as the War proved too 
 patriotic, and too proud of his own country. 
 
 There was no anarchy in Australia when, 
 fifteen years ago, Labour took over office there. 
 I know that we can make no general comparisons 
 between this country and Australia, but there is 
 this: No one would assert that the Empire is any 
 say less secure because in Australia and New Zealand 
 Labour is in charge. They have had differences, 
 we know, as every political party has, but all I 
 want to say here is that they have not failed in the 
 art of government. And neither will the same 
 party fail in Britain, though I am well aware that 
 the problems here are a hundred times more acute 
 and more complicated, built up slowly through 
 the generations, whereas out in the colonies the 
 ground has been fresh and the population scant. 
 
 Those who were natural enemies of Labour 
 looked to see their predictions fulfilled at the 
 memorable conference at Scarborough, and I 
 suppose these prophets were never more confounded 
 than by the vote which was given there against 
 the Moscow International. We are not out for 
 anarchy, we are out for peace, far more so than 
 those who, having vast personal possessions and, 
 therefore, vast interests in their properties, are 
 prepared to risk all to keep them. 
 
 Whilst considering Labour conferences and 
 education it is a striking fact that, whenever 
 education comes up for discussion, there is always 
 a strong vote in favour of a bold and generous 
 policy of improvement. We realise that, in any 
 community such as we are aiming at, and boast 
 one day to get, the worst of all possible handicaps 
 will be an ignorant democracy. Of all public 
 86 
 
Education in the University and the Home 
 
 expenditure there can be none so important as 
 that which ensures true citizenship for the future. 
 Labour, when it rules, does not mean to be but 
 another autocracy. We will wipe out selfish interests 
 if we can, and legislate for the good of the majority. 
 And in education th.it means the throwing open 
 of all possibilities of instruction to every child in 
 the land. I know we are supposed to have such 
 a situation to-day, but it does not work out in 
 practice. Some will say that the universities are 
 open to the brilliant boy. So they are. But what 
 do you say to the fact that there are lads who, 
 despite handicaps in their upbringing, have won 
 scholarships and then have been unable to take 
 advantage of them because they have had to go 
 to work for the sake of their brothers and sisters 
 or their own parents ? Isn't this a scandal ? Is 
 this throwing open all avenues to every one ? To 
 give an ambitious boy the key to a door, and then 
 to say he may not use it could there be any greater 
 tragedy ? especially when he sees countless others 
 with the key pushed into their hands without 
 effort and quite often without its being likely to 
 be of any benefit to themselves and, therefore, to 
 the community and posterity ? What do we lose 
 when we thus debar boys (who have, in fact, 
 proved themselves above all others of their age) 
 from achieving whatever their genius might lead 
 to ? The world must be poorer by such blind- 
 worm policies. Surely any student who has proved 
 himself worthy should not be lost to advancement 
 because of the lack of the mere wherewithal of his 
 daily bread, or that of his parents! Education 
 should not depend on a domestic balance sheet. 
 We are all proud of our public schools. Every 
 one senses the tone of the public school boy. Why 
 
 8? 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 is there not a similar tone in the elementary schools 
 of the land ? Why are not the same results 
 obtainable ? 
 
 It is possible to make every boy a public school- 
 boy by making every public school public. The 
 snobbish will smile, and smile they may, but in 
 the end it will come. 
 
 At present in our elementary schools you have 
 a thousand wrongs, each constituting a brake on 
 proper education. For one thing, this wise govern- 
 ment allows a teacher to be paid less than a navvy. 
 Think of that little fact and, at the same time, 
 remember that the real test of a teacher is not 
 merely the conveying of a certain knowledge, but 
 the impressing upon the pupil the traits of high 
 character. 
 
 The teachers are falling off. We have been 
 threatened with something of a famine of men 
 teachers in our elementary schools. No wonder. 
 We do not at present encourage them not the 
 right type of teacher at all events. Those who 
 have any ambition at all have certainly no ambition 
 to spend their days in hardship while they seek, 
 in sacrifice, to impress young Britain with that 
 which is best in manhood. No, they go out into 
 the world of business or into other of the professions 
 where the reward comes for work done. Blame 
 them if you like, but I blame the system that makes 
 such a situation possible. 
 
 There are other reasons against the present 
 schools. The classes are too large, instruction 
 becomes hopeless for the teacher and useless for 
 the student. There is not the right opportunity 
 given for the development of sport. Compare 
 the slum school playground with the fields of 
 Eton. And, of course, there are the general 
 88 
 
Education in the University and the Home 
 
 surroundings of the schools, drab and uninspiring. 
 There is no atmosphere, and no pride in the schools 
 is created. 
 
 Let us also be rid of the sectarian and religious 
 bickerings. This is a clearly established policy 
 of the Labour Party. Home and the Sunday 
 School are the right environment for religious 
 education. 
 
 Make your elementary schools right, and you 
 will have the beginnings of the right product of 
 man. Let those who are worthy go on to the 
 universities, all free and open, no class differences, 
 every one with the same chance, and you will 
 have done something to put education on the right 
 lines. Education should be under the control of X 
 the nation from start to finish. The present system 
 of local and municipal management is absurd. 
 Why, for instance, should the rates in West Ham 
 be higher than in any other of the better-class 
 suburbs ? Do they get better treatment these 
 little fellows of West Ham ? And, anyhow, the 
 man trained in one place is very likely to spend 
 his life, and, therefore, his abilities, in a far different 
 place. The system must be made national, it 
 must go on the national budget, and all should be 
 treated alike, all alike having the same chances 
 to go on as far as their abilities will carry them. 
 
 There is another side of education, which 
 demands the earnest consideration of everybody 
 of thought who seeks to lead the country. That 
 is the education of adults. 
 
 It is one of the good signs of the times that 
 there is a demand among adults to improve them- 
 selves and so fit themselves for better things. 
 The working classes at least the more intelligent 
 members of them are desirous of improvement 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 not only for their own advancement, but with the 
 object of social development and good citizenship. 
 The feeling was so apparent that the Ministry of 
 Reconstruction, before the end of the War, set up 
 a committee to look into the matter. 
 
 Describing the nature of the demand among 
 adults for education of a non-vocational character, 
 the Committee says : 
 
 * The motive which impels men and women to 
 seek education is partly the wish for fuller personal 
 development. It arises from the desire for know- 
 ledge, for self-expression, for the satisfaction of 
 intellectual, aesthetic and spiritual needs, and for a 
 fuller life. It is based upon a claim for the recog- 
 nition of human personality. This desire is not 
 confined to any class of society, but is to be found 
 amongst people of every social grade.' 
 
 ' The motive is also plainly social. Indeed, so 
 far as the workers are concerned, it is, we think, 
 this social purpose which principally inspires the 
 desire for education. They demand opportunities 
 for education in the hope that the power which it 
 brings will enable them to understand and help 
 in the solution of the common problems of human 
 society. In many cases, therefore, their efforts 
 to obtain education are specifically directed towards 
 rendering themselves better fitted for the responsi- 
 bilities of membership in political, social, and 
 industrial organisations/ 
 
 This movement had set in before the War. 
 Naturally it had a set-back when hostilities started, 
 but it is a striking tribute to the workers that, 
 since the armistice, the volume of educational 
 activity is larger than ever. The working man is 
 no longer a lethargic individual just indolently doing 
 what he finds necessary in order to get his daily 
 90 
 
Education in the University and the Home 
 
 bread. He wants to know. He wants to learn, 
 to improve, and not only does he wish to learn 
 those things which will help him in the particular 
 job he may be engaged in, he wants general know- 
 ledge and general culture so that he may be a more 
 useful member of the community. 
 
 We shall make it easier for men and women to 
 acquire knowledge. At present excessive hours 
 of work, and many other causes, make it difficult 
 for them to obtain education, and I think one may 
 fairly state, judging by what has been done, that 
 the more you reduce working hours the more will 
 the average working man take advantage of his , 
 spare time to obtain knowledge. 
 
 How can many men and women to-day satisfy 
 any ambition that they may have for education ? 
 Their hours are long, and they very often have to 
 work overtime. In seasonal trades, where the 
 period of pressure happens to be in the winter 
 time when educational facilities are most avail- 
 able there is a further hindrance. And, of course, 
 there are many grades of workers who, though 
 their total number of working hours may not be 
 excessive, have those hours so spread out over 
 the day that they have no regular evenings to them- 
 selves. The tramway worker, for instance, has 
 his periods of inaction several times during the 
 day, but from beginning to end his work is spread 
 out over the best part of twelve hours. The shift 
 system has the same effect. One week a man 
 may work in the mornings, the next in the after- 
 noons, and the next at night-time. For a man to 
 be engaged upon night-work means that he cannot 
 use any educational facilities there may be in his 
 neighbourhood; he cannot even take part in 
 civic or social activities. 
 
 91 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 I would like further to quote the considered 
 findings of the Committee set up by the Ministry 
 of Reconstruction : 
 
 ' From the point of view of education and of 
 participation in public activities (a most valuable 
 means of education) one of the greatest needs is 
 the provision of a greater amount of leisure time; 
 this is the more necessary because of the increasing 
 strain of modern life. The view sometimes held 
 that the community must necessarily suffer economic 
 loss as a result of shortening of working hours is 
 not one to which modern economic science lends 
 any confirmation, and has, indeed, received an 
 impressive practical refutation from the inquiries 
 into the relation between output and working hours 
 conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Munitions 
 during the War. The unduly long hours which 
 still obtain in many industries are, in fact, but a 
 legacy from the traditions of half a century and 
 more ago, and persist in the face of scientific proof 
 of their uneconomical results/ 
 
 We have done much since the War ended to 
 reduce the hours of work, but not enough. In 
 the England that lives under Labour's rule the 
 day's work will be got into shorter time, and this 
 while it will give greater chances for leisure and 
 improvement, will not, in the end, reduce production. 
 The experience of the War in munition factories 
 is convincing to any one that leisure, more leisure, 
 does not mean less work, but on the contrary, a 
 man who has leisure does more during his working 
 hours than the man who works longer and who 
 gets stale because of much overtime. 
 
 We are making steps towards the right 
 end, and can we not to-day agree with this 
 opinion of the Committee's report though it 
 92 
 
Education in the University and the Home 
 
 was written just before the end of the War ? It 
 says : 
 
 ' The revulsion against long hours, exhausting 
 forms of labour and monotonous employment is 
 fully justified by the results of scientific research. 
 The fear of unemployment which hangs like a 
 heavy cloud over so many breadwinners brings a 
 sense of insecurity into their life and deprives 
 them of all incentive to take a whole-hearted 
 interest in the various activities which are a 
 necessary accompaniment of a complete life. In 
 such circumstances it is surprising that they make 
 as much response as they do to the appeals of 
 science, literature, music, art, and the drama, and 
 exert so much effort to equip themselves for 
 the responsibilities of citizenship. The workman 
 demands (a) security of tenure, () adequate wages, 
 (c) freeing from the limitations which our present 
 specialism imposes upon him. To hand out doses 
 of education while these things are ungranted 
 will be to play with the problem. You cannot 
 * educate ' a man whose uppermost thought is 
 the economic * Struggle for Existence.* Nor can 
 a spirit of intelligent and responsible citizenship 
 be readily developed in those whose mainspring 
 to activity is a continual struggle for the bare 
 necessities of physical existence/ 
 
 No man is going to worry about improvement 
 when he is concerned too much about the bare 
 necessities of existence; that worry obsesses him 
 to the exclusion of all else. But I think he is never 
 going to get that freedom which security of tenure 
 gives him until we have lapsed from the individual 
 to the communistic system of business. We must 
 have a democratic control of industry before we 
 get any real emancipation. Now the democratic 
 
 93 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 control of industry does not mean that the worker 
 shall purloin the factories and run them for his 
 own advantage. It merely means that he should 
 come into the government and management of 
 those factories. There should be no board of 
 directors that has not some representative of the 
 workers upon it. And in this connection I wonder 
 if opponents blind opponents of the claim have 
 given any thought to the advantages that might 
 accrue to the management itself by such a practice. 
 
 I have heard it said often that the workers in 
 a works do not understand the conditions, that, 
 if they did, they would never dream of pressing 
 this or that claim. They have been charged with 
 making unreasonable demands, such as would, 
 if granted, make business unprofitable and end 
 in shutting down the works. We all remember 
 that, in one or two cases, this has actually happened. 
 Firms the members having made their fortunes 
 have declared that they would rather close 
 down than pay increased wages, that the business 
 would not stand increased wages, and that the 
 owners would rather quietly go away for a holiday. 
 
 This argument may be true, the directors being 
 well off haven't to worry, as the workman has, 
 about the next week's victuals. But has it never 
 struck these firms that the best way to let the 
 worker understand the position is to permit him 
 to have a representative or representatives upon 
 the board of management ? After all, it is as much 
 their lives as those of the members of the directorate. 
 They, as human beings, have as much right to 
 see they get their deserts as have the owners of 
 the business, and it seems to me if a certain claim 
 is going legitimately to close down a business 
 the men themselves, if they were represented on 
 
 94 
 
Education in the University and the Home 
 
 the board, would be able to appreciate it as well 
 as the directors. It would exercise a restraining 
 influence upon excess just as surely as it would 
 exercise an influence to see that justice was done 
 to the worker, and that vast profits did not go 
 to the fortunate employer, while the worker 
 who made them possible was left in the cold 
 unconsidered and in poverty as has been the 
 case so regularly for so many generations. 
 
 What the worker objects to is the feeling of 
 inferiority that has been pressed upon him for so 
 long. He holds, and to my mind holds with 
 justice, that the subordination of the worker to an 
 industrial policy and to regulations for which he 
 is in no way responsible, is unjustifiable because 
 it is not consistent with the rights and obligations 
 which ought to be inherent in membership of any 
 organised group in society. We want, and mean 
 to grant, industrial democracy. 
 
 There is too much of the spirit of acquisition 
 on the part of the few. Industry does not exist 
 to make the few wealthy, it exists for the benefit 
 of all. And those who declare that the worker 
 will assume, should he get the power, the arrogance 
 the employer assumes, do not realise the worker's 
 claim nor his ambition. He wants only fair play, 
 a fair reward for his labour, which means, to bring 
 the matter back to the subject of education, a 
 reasonable time of leisure in which he can improve 
 himself, and take his rightful place in the duties of 
 citizenship. 
 
 Before I leave the question of education I should 
 like to say a word on the subject of foreign languages. 
 The classical regime is dead, so far as the masses 
 are concerned. There will always be the student 
 who will take the dead languages, and, of course, 
 
 95 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 it is well that the glories of those tongues and the 
 lost civilisation of the peoples who spoke them 
 should not pass from our ken and our studies. 
 
 But apart from these few, we must modernise 
 our teaching. It must no longer be felt that those 
 who take the modern side are merely escaping 
 the classics because of any mental deficiencies. 
 It must be admitted that our insularity in this 
 respect has meant a great loss to us even in the 
 business world. We are inclined to think that 
 any one who does not speak English is a fool and 
 deserves not to have our custom. But the thing 
 acts both ways, and every one knows that we, as 
 a nation, have lost because we have not been 
 conversant with the language of peoples with 
 whom we have wished to do business. The dis- 
 tributing trade of South America passed from 
 British into German hands, even where British 
 goods were concerned, just because our people 
 would not take the trouble to learn Spanish, 
 whereas the Germans did take that trouble. The 
 Germans, our rivals, take the trouble to learn any 
 language, and we must do the same. The inclusion 
 of languages in every school curriculum ought to 
 be made compulsory. And a knowledge oi 
 languages should also be accompanied by a know- 
 ledge of the history and the movements of thel 
 countries to which the languages belong. We 
 must understand the thoughts of the people and 
 the movements which control them. Education 
 needs vast widening in this respect. 
 
 There is a story, I believe a true one, of an 
 embassy out east, where no single member could 
 talk the language of the natives among whom it 
 was established. That is typically British and 
 typically stupid. How could the members of that 
 
Education in the University and the Home 
 
 embassy understand the psychology of the people 
 when none of its members were able to speak the 
 language ? And in other ways the same argument 
 applies in the business world. It applies, too, 
 more abundantly in regard to scientific discoveries. 
 The ethnologist, the economist, and every expert 
 is, to a degree, dependent upon ideas that are 
 born among other peoples. Unless these students 
 are able at first hand to read and understand the 
 thoughts that are animating foreign students, how 
 can they keep abreast of new discoveries, and how 
 much do we, as a nation, and the world in general, 
 lose by the handicap ? 
 
 The ideal of education is to enable men to live / 
 better. To carry out this ideal we must know the 
 mind of the world. Yet there are few schools 
 to-day properly equipped to teach modern languages. 
 No we rely upon foreigners themselves who 
 come to this country and work for us, we being 
 too lazy to learn. And this not only handicaps us, 
 and loses to our people a big scope for utility, but 
 it provides a means for the foreigner, our business 
 rival possibly, to learn our ways of life and of 
 business, and, therefore, gives him a very real 
 start in the race of the nations for success and 
 prosperity. 
 
 W.L.R. G 97 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ' TRADE ' 
 
 I DO not believe Prohibition is practicable at present. 
 
 The prohibitionist campaign is a propagandist 
 activity. As a method of dealing with the drink 
 question it is outside the range of practical politics. 
 I am not concerned with the pros and cons of 
 prohibition. I am looking at the drink problem 
 from a practical point of view. At the present 
 time three quarters of the male population of 
 the country take alcoholic drink. In face of this, 
 it is obvious that, whether prohibition is a desirable 
 policy or not, it is not one which would command 
 public support. As practical men we must look 
 to some policy which will be acceptable to the 
 people as a whole. 
 
 But national control of the liquor trade yes! 
 That will be part of our legislation, undoubtedly. 
 
 Out in the States to-day, where extreme Sahara- 
 like dryness is supposed to be applied, it is the 
 fashion for the wealthy no longer to display their 
 art treasures and their curio collections, but to 
 beckon the visitor below stairs, and, undoing the 
 padlocks, to exhibit their wine cellars. 
 
 Moreover, in some quarters the laws are 
 cheerily evaded. I was reading in the papers not 
 so long ago of a petition that had been got up and 
 signed by the women of one rather remote locality 
 which threatened those who make the whisky, 
 those who were selling it, and those who drank 
 
The ' Trade ' 
 
 it that, all the names being thoroughly known to 
 them, they would one and all be reported to the 
 authorities unless the illicit practice were at once 
 stopped a form of direct action which, apart 
 altogether from the merits or demerits of it, clearly 
 proved that behind-the-scenes drinking goes 
 on. 
 
 There is no sort of reason in the methods of 
 licence that have obtained so long in this country. 
 We must have the * Trade ' in the hands, not of 
 the profiteer, but of the government. 
 
 If you know anything of the history of this 
 business and as a member of the Liquor Control 
 Board I may claim some first-hand knowledge 
 you will know that the publican has had a very 
 good innings. 
 
 For generations he had the power to dictate 
 to the legislature what laws should govern him. 
 He practically controlled a certain political party, 
 and, of course, propaganda had it been necessary 
 then was simple, since his house was the talking 
 shop of every locality. 
 
 Houses went from father to son; the profits 
 came easily and were assured, unless by some 
 excess the licence was placed in jeopardy. 
 
 It was only when elementary education began 
 to be general and free that the * Trade ' took 
 alarm. There began to grow up powerful move- 
 ments which not only were tilted against the 
 unsanitary public-house, but led away from its 
 influence and into the country by cycle, or on to 
 the local cricket fields. 
 
 The outlook was darkening for the publican, 
 and, though he instantly sought to save his own 
 skin by becoming a limited liability company, or 
 selling out to the big brewery firms which began 
 
 99 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 to form large capital concerns, he, nevertheless, 
 saw the time near when his large profits were not 
 to be easily scooped in; when, indeed, there 
 looked like being no profits at all. 
 
 The shareholders, who had been persuaded to 
 put their money into the * Trade ' were none too 
 jubilant. They began to realise that they were 
 not being allowed magnanimously to share the 
 wonderful success of the brewer; having made 
 the brewer safe by investing their money they 
 were now reaping the tares. Shares fell right and 
 left, dividends were small. 
 
 The * Trade ' called its henchmen in Parliament 
 together, and the scheme of making the licences 
 into freeholds was conceived and passed. Think 
 how this improved the value of the properties. 
 It made them financially sound again. 
 
 And now, when the Labour Party come into 
 power and want to buy out the present holders, 
 a vast sum must be paid, seeing these licences are 
 all freeholds instead of being held from year to 
 year upon the sufferance of the magistrate. It was 
 a gift of millions. 
 
 But that is only half the story. 
 
 The War contributes the other half and 
 pretty bad reading it makes. No one will forget 
 the sort of stuff that the brewers put out during 
 those years of war. It was appalling. The quality 
 went down and down. The price went up. It 
 was a sudden era to the brewer. Before the War 
 the amount taken by the purveyors of drink in 
 the nation was 166,700,000, and in 1918 it had 
 jumped to 259,300,000. And yet only about 
 half the pre-war quantity was being drunk in the 
 1918 year. And, of course, with the curtailment 
 of the quality came also the curtailment of the 
 loo 
 
The '# 
 
 hours of work to the publican. A very -rigHt thing 
 from two points of view. 
 
 (1) The hours those engaged in public-houses 
 
 had been forced to work before the War 
 were terrible. The houses opened at six 
 in the morning, and closed at eleven in 
 the country and half-past twelve in 
 London. It was not right to keep bar- 
 maids standing behind counters until such 
 times. How much ill-health and lowered 
 moral tone the business was responsible 
 for can never be computed. 
 
 (2) It enforced a restriction on the consumption 
 
 in a period of national strain. That it 
 did so is proved by the fact that in 1918, 
 despite the enormous revenue from drink 
 only one-half the amount of liquor was 
 consumed, and that of an infinitely lower 
 gravity. 
 
 But why on earth should these restrictions 
 have resulted in such swollen profits to the trade ? 
 They should have made no single penny extra. 
 They worked less. They sold poorer stuff. But 
 one knows of public-house after public-house 
 which reaped a rich harvest, and one reads of 
 brewery after brewery whose profits have skied 
 like a shell. Whether they will return to earth, 
 which means reasonableness, or not, remains to 
 be seen. I have an idea that we shall never get 
 to the rights of this matter until Labour takes 
 hold, for this is all part and parcel of larger schemes 
 for the workers of all monopolies and public 
 services for the good of the entire community. 
 Only then, upon this point, will the consumer 
 get a fair article for a fair price, because the vast 
 profits now being made by individual companies 
 
 101 
 
W,bea : . Labour Rules 
 
 under licence from the State will be wiped 
 out. 
 
 Think what that means. Do you know of the 
 enormous profits made by the publican and the 
 brewer during the War ? They are almost un- 
 believable. I will take half a dozen companies' 
 profits : 
 
 1915-16 1917-18 
 
 A .. 14,427 40,576 
 
 2,484 . . 26,953 
 
 295,628 437>i2o 
 
 D . . 36,81 1 . . 181,062 
 
 E .. 80,885 2 39>686 
 
 F 206,009 47 2 >974 
 
 It's pretty serious, isn't it ? Don't you think it 
 time all these profits ceased to go into private 
 pockets ? A Labour government would insist on 
 the country buying out the liquor business from 
 start to finish, and running it for the good of the 
 community. There would be no vast profits 
 then, and what profits there were would go into 
 the national purse and thus help to lower 
 taxation. 
 
 Private ownership failed during the War. It 
 failed to play the game. It is not right that taking 
 fifteen firms the profits during two years expanded 
 from 2,591,060 to 4,164,048 over a million 
 and a half. Dividends rose gaily from nil to 33^-, 
 from 9 to 30, from 2 to 7, from nil to 7^- to take 
 four specific cases. 
 
 But these dividends are deceptive and unrevealing. 
 One firm made over 262,000, but only a paltry 
 20,000 was distributed in dividends. Huge 
 102 
 
The ' Trade * 
 
 sums were placed to reserve. Now it is a proper 
 business precaution in a year such as the last of 
 the War to lay up a reserve against a time ahead 
 which might conceivably hold all manner of 
 difficulties and trouble. But to place such a huge 
 sum as I have indicated to reserve was doing far 
 more than take reasonable precautions. Moreover, 
 in many cases new shares were issued, this being 
 but another way of hiding the dividends. Here 
 is an actual case, being a newspaper paragraph 
 appearing in 1918 : 
 
 * Messrs , the well-known brewers, to-day 
 
 decided to make a further distribution of nearly 
 500,000 undivided profits in the form of additional 
 share capital to existing holders. About 300,000 
 was so capitalised in 1916, and the chairman said 
 there had been evidence of an increasing tendency 
 to State control and ultimately to State purchase 
 after the War. The State, therefore, should have 
 some indication of the capital values with which 
 it was dealing/ 
 
 You observe what lies behind this gentle threat. 
 If there is going to be any notion of buying out 
 the * Trade,' the * Trade ' is going to bump up 
 the price as high as it can so that the purchase 
 price may be inflated to the skies. It is the same 
 sort of smart business as that carried out by the 
 man who happens to know that, for some public 
 need, a certain piece of land will be necessary in 
 the common interest. He secretly purchases it, 
 and, when the State or the municipality comes 
 along, this interesting gentleman quietly doubles 
 or trebles the price. Oh, yes, Mr Bung did very 
 well out of the War. Glance at the values of his 
 
 103 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 shares. Here are actual quotations on the stock 
 
 exchange: 
 
 1915 1917 1919 
 
 A .. 2 .. 25! .. 86 
 
 B . . 1 2 J . . 91 . . 185 
 
 C .. 2I 3 | .. 307f .. 391! 
 
 D .. 10 .. 85 .. 169 
 
 Those simple figures spell fortunes to the investor, 
 and one might think the * Trade ' would be content 
 with its career of profiting. But no, it is striving, 
 as is clearly indicated by the speech I have quoted, 
 to convert this astonishing windfall into the basis 
 for purchase if purchase comes. 
 
 But we will have none of it. Labour agrees, 
 and has agreed all along, that the drink traffic 
 must be controlled, must, indeed, become the 
 property of the State, but we shall not buy out the 
 brewers at twice the normal value of their industry. 
 When Labour is in power the * Trade * will not 
 have the authority in the House of Parliament to 
 override what is fair and just from the point of 
 view of the public. It will pull its strings, no 
 doubt, it will fight through its representatives, 
 but those representatives will be in opposition 
 and not in power, and a Labour Government 
 will legislate for the good, not of the vested interests, 
 but for the benefit of the community. 
 
 The ' Trade * will go, and the liquor business 
 will become government owned. And purchase 
 will, of course, be based upon the pre-war value, 
 which has been declared to be 350 millions 
 quite enough to put into Mr Bung's pocket, seeing 
 the enormous profits he has made during the War 
 just when he was beginning to think his concerns, 
 greatly over-capitalised, were going to the bad. 
 104 
 
The ' Trade ' 
 
 And if the argument that money is worth only 
 half its pre-war value, and, therefore, the purchase 
 price now ought to be at least 700 millions is 
 maintained, we shall point to these enormous 
 profits and shall say a decided * No.' 
 
 The War did one good thing while it was filling 
 up the emptying coffers of the * Trade/ It proved 
 the wisdom of control. 
 
 The effects of that were indeed amazing and 
 encouraging to the highest degree. As Lord 
 d'Abernon said in 1918: 
 
 4 The most vital and interesting claim for the 
 work of the first three years (the period during 
 which control had been in operation) is not that 
 it effectually prevented alcoholic excess from 
 interfering with national efficiency in the prosecution 
 of the War that, I hope, is common ground 
 but that by practical experiment and trial it has 
 thrown so much new light upon the problem that 
 the whole position has to be considered anew. 
 Reform can now be entered upon with a firmer 
 hope and a more confident assurance. New and 
 easier avenues of approach have been discovered, 
 large vistas of attainment to conditions far above 
 previous contemplations are now open. Those 
 who have striven in the cause of improvement 
 may now, without undue optimism, assert that a 
 permanent solution upon lines of general consent 
 is more nearly within reach than at any previous 
 period, without the sacrifice of any reasonable 
 objective, and without injustice or injury to any 
 legitimate interest.* 
 
 We must glance at the actual results of this 
 control through the latter period of the War, and, 
 indeed, the control that to-day exists. It is doubtful 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 if the public are cognisant of what was accomplished. 
 Let us first take the figures of actual convictions 
 for drunkenness. In 1913, throughout England 
 and Wales, the weekly average of convictions 
 was 3482. During the first six months of 1918 
 that appalling average had fallen to 615. Truly 
 a tremendous reform. Eighty per cent.! Cases 
 of delirium tremens dropped from 511 in 1913 
 to 99 in 1917. Death from alcoholism from 
 18,831 to 580. In the matter of attempted suicides, 
 of the suffocation of infants, and in other respects 
 where trouble could be definitely traced to the 
 effects of drink, there were similar improvements. 
 The effects can be traced all through our public 
 health. It is not only that drunkenness fell by 
 over eighty per cent., but a similar fall was registered 
 in crime, and there is on all sides, from those who 
 had opportunities for observation, the same testi- 
 mony as to the improvement in home conditions. 
 
 For figures of actual cases of drunkenness do 
 not reveal the full extent of the reform. A man's 
 work is impaired long before his state could justify 
 police interference with his freedom. Look beyond 
 statistics of this sort and inquire what was the 
 amount of increased efficiency in the world of 
 labour. 
 
 The immediate object of the control was for 
 the efficiency of the army, navy, and munition 
 workers, and, in order to understand just how far 
 that control was successful in these departments 
 of public service during the War, you have only 
 to read of the way the authorities constantly were 
 asking for this and that area to be placed under 
 the provisions of the order. This was not merely 
 for the purpose of maintaining sobriety in the 
 services, it was to make for efficiency. ' We want 
 106 
 
The ' Trade ' 
 
 the order which is working so well in to be 
 
 applied to .' This was the constant request 
 
 that came to the Liquor Control Board. 
 
 Now the authorities were not out to restrict 
 the reasonable freedom of those men and women 
 who were fighting our battles either in the army, 
 navy, or in the making of the necessary munitions. 
 They were out for the greatest possible output of 
 effort, and they found that, putting restrictions 
 upon the sale of alcohol was one of the sure means 
 of getting the best. As a matter of fact, if the 
 army authorities could have had their way they 
 would have increased the restrictions rather than 
 diminished them. 
 
 If you read the second report of the Board you 
 will have seen that the judgment of the Admiralty 
 based upon reports from admirals and other officers 
 in important commands was to the effect that 
 * the general result of the restrictions has been 
 decidedly beneficial/ that transport officers were 
 unanimously of the opinion that the restrictions 
 had been of great benefit to the transport service, 
 and in especial that the principal officer at 
 Southampton had ' commended on the increased 
 efficiency and good health of all the labour at the 
 docks/ These statements were made in 1916, 
 and all later reports substantiated the statements 
 and enlarged upon them. 
 
 So much for the navy. The army said exactly 
 the same. Thus: In 1916 the military put it 
 upon record that * reports had been received 
 from the various commands, the general effect of 
 which shows that the orders of the Board have 
 had a beneficial effect on the discipline, training, 
 and efficiency of soldiers, and have helped in the 
 recovery of the sick and wounded/ 
 
 107 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 At the same time Sir Edward Henry, the then 
 commissioner of police for the metropolis, was 
 saying concerning the reduction in the convictions 
 for drunkenness: * The figures are remarkable. 
 They confirm police observation that many fewer 
 drunken persons are to be seen in the streets of 
 London, and they indicate that the measures 
 taken by the Central Control Board have had a 
 very marked effect/ 
 
 And one could go on endlessly quoting authorities 
 to prove the efficacy of the new regulations. It 
 was an experiment; it was novel when it was 
 introduced, but seldom has an experiment so highly 
 justified itself. 
 
 But in considering the future of the * Trade ' 
 it is not too wise to rely on these statements con- 
 cerning the fighting service. Times were abnormal, 
 and it may be claimed that men were living under 
 such stress of excitement that their conduct is not 
 a reflex of what one might expect under normal 
 peace conditions. Let us then turn to the industrial 
 side of the community. Here there was, if any- 
 thing, more temptation for the drinker than 
 normally. Work was heavy, trade union restric- 
 tions had lapsed temporarily, men were working 
 overtime, straining every effort to pile up the 
 munitions for the men at the front. We all are 
 aware of the strain of these times, and it would be 
 reasonable to suppose that, after the day's tasks 
 were over, the workers would be only too ready 
 to turn to the refreshment of the public-house. 
 
 We have already seen, however, how the number 
 of cases of drunkenness among the general public 
 fell with a bump, and it may be added that the 
 testimony of all employers went to show that 
 work in factories had vastly benefited by the orders 
 108 
 
The c Trade ' 
 
 of the Board. Bad timekeeping stopped, output 
 increased, quality, too, and the general health of the 
 workers. There were those among the employers 
 who, when first the restrictions were suggested, 
 looked upon them with doubt and even disfavour. 
 They thought, I imagine, that it would lead not 
 to better work but to unrest as a result of criticism 
 among the men. The testimony of these employers 
 is, therefore, particularly valuable. They had to 
 eat their own words, had to admit one and all 
 that the restrictions had meant in every case gains 
 to efficiency. I have read a hundred reports from 
 overseers of work during that period, and they 
 are unanimous. In many parts the new scheme 
 was ' almost unexpectedly successful.* Even in 
 such places as steel smelting works, where the 
 temperature of 138 Fahr. would justify, if anything 
 did, the resort to liquid refreshment. This is 
 what an overseer at one of these works reported 
 in writing: 
 
 1 For an onlooker unaccustomed to conditions 
 of labour such as these the greatest sympathy for 
 the workers is excited, because the effort called 
 for is tremendous, and the way these men perspire 
 as a result of their heavy work and exposure to 
 the furnace is astonishing. Beer is the usual 
 refreshment. A few of the workers are abstainers, 
 and these are the most reliable. When the supply 
 of drink was restricted, owing to the closing of 
 the public-houses in the district, a great improve- 
 ment in the health and time-keeping of the workmen 
 was noticed, and was admitted by the men.' 
 
 But it is not only work which matters pro- 
 duction. It is much in the national welfare, of 
 
 109 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 course, but not everything. The home life is 
 just as important, and the health and care of the 
 children. Those who watched the results with 
 the keen eyes of the expert agreed that, when the 
 sale of drink went down, the sale of essentials to 
 the good of the home went up. Groceries, other 
 food, clothing, furniture all those things which 
 make for a decent and comfortable home. Mean- 
 while pawnbrokers were losing their trade. The 
 money was not going in drink. Children gained 
 enormously. The number of cases of cruelty, 
 for instance, from 1914 to 1917 went down 10 
 per cent., and an even greater effect could be 
 traced in that sort of cruelty which is not sufficiently 
 marked to merit police court proceedings. The 
 women sanitary inspectors, who know better than 
 any one else, because their work takes them into 
 the homes of the poor, all reported improvement. 
 The women were more in their homes in the 
 morning, and, consequently, the children were 
 better looked after; less drinking during the day 
 meant more baking of bread, and families got 
 into the habit of going to bed earlier and, therefore, 
 getting more rest. 
 
 All over the country the hospitals felt the result. 
 Cases of accident in the streets, very often the 
 result of inebriety, became fewer, and that this 
 really was the result of the closing is shown by 
 the simple fact that these cases which used to 
 come in late in the country after eleven o'clock, 
 and in London after midnight now came earlier, 
 synchronising with the earlier closing of the public- 
 houses. Street brawls lessened impressively. 
 
 That is just a hurried glance at the record of 
 restricted selling of drink. It may be only part 
 of the tale, but it suffices to justify up to the hilt, 
 
 I 10 
 
The ' Trade ' 
 
 to any unprejudiced mind, what was done. The 
 position now is : Are we going to allow the country 
 to slide back into the old ways when already so 
 much has been done ? Lord d'Abernon put it 
 concisely when he said : ' To restore drink conditions 
 to the position before the War would be deliberately 
 to re-create drunkenness at the rate of nearly 
 200,000 convictions a year, with its terrible 
 accompaniment of crime, disease, and death/ 
 
 We must never go back. I have gone into 
 the experience of the past because of the lessons 
 they hold for us in the future. It is a fact that 
 the restrictions were for the period of the W r ar 
 only and a little time afterwards, and, in some 
 respects, there has since been a slight easing up. 
 Whatever is done by the present rulers of the 
 country in this important matter, the Labour 
 Government which is to be will never permit the 
 old conditions to return, and if by then they have 
 returned, as they might because of the vested 
 interests there are in Parliament, we shall change 
 them again. 
 
 Not back merely to what things are to-day, 
 infinitely better though these are than what 
 they were. We must go further. It is understand- 
 able that men engaged in monotonous labour turn 
 to the public-house for recreation, just for the 
 mere forgetting of the day's routine which deadens 
 the mind and kills aspiration. It is not suggested 
 that we close the public-houses. The right thing 
 to do is to improve them as well as restrict the 
 hours they are open. 
 
 Some one has said that, with the old opportunities 
 of drinking, it was surprising not that people got 
 drunk but that any who drank at all remained 
 sober. Let us then have a reasonable service in 
 
 in 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 this respect, but also a reasonable restriction. 
 And more than that, let us have the houses decent 
 places, with light and air, and none of that secrecy 
 which seems to lie behind the closed doors of the 
 bars to-day. Drink is encouraged because, very 
 often, eating facilities are poor. The canteens, 
 which were set up all over the munition areas 
 during the War, were of incalculable benefit to 
 the workers. And in the State public-house of 
 the future there will be facilities for more than 
 standing room at a bar where one can buy beer. 
 The public-house should be a place where a man 
 can take his family, where they can sit together and 
 talk and eat as well as drink, where there is light 
 and not stuffiness and unhealthy conditions, where 
 the place may be open to the world on the lines of 
 the cafes in France. 
 
 But beyond all, the great barrier which private 
 interest raises to big reform in the sale of drink 
 must be torn down firmly and finally. Mr Bung 
 must go. We come back inevitably to the position 
 with which we set out. The State must own the 
 * Trade/ Brewers, distillers, publicans are like 
 the rest of human beings. The moment they see 
 their own particular interest threatened, they 
 resist. They get every ounce of influence they 
 can pull to help in the fight. This has gone on 
 until it is proverbial. They have established 
 themselves in a system which is unbelievably bad 
 for the community, and now that we have had 
 the lessons of control so successfully demonstrated, 
 there is nothing to justify the nation in holding 
 back from complete control and reform. 
 
 The whole business should and will be taken 
 over, run for the public good, and, incidentally, 
 whatever profit there is, run too for the sake of 
 112 
 
The ' Trade ' 
 
 the public purse. For there will be profit, naturally ! 
 but not the amazing profits the publican has been 
 recently putting in his pocket. 
 
 But Labour stands for decentralisation and 
 local control of the drink trade. It is of the utmost 
 importance that the * Trade ' should be governed 
 in accordance with local needs and local opinion. 
 There is no reason why State ownership should 
 not be combined with local control. It is, in fact, 
 only in this way that the public can be sure of 
 bringing its will to bear upon the drink trade. 
 
 The local management must reflect the real 
 opinion of the people in any district. It should 
 be for the locality to determine, subject to general 
 national regulations, the distribution of licensed 
 houses, the provision made in them for public 
 needs, and the number of public-houses. This 
 last point brings us to the question of the power of 
 localities to extinguish all the licences within its 
 area. 
 
 Localities would be empowered by the State, 
 where there is a dominant opinion in favour of 
 abolishing the ' Trade ' entirely, to convert the 
 public-houses to other social uses. But such a 
 policy of local option would be effective only if 
 the ' Trade ' were in the hands of the State. Local 
 option, when it is adopted, must rest on a basis of 
 public ownership. The two methods in conjunction 
 would ensure that the drink question was being 
 dealt with nationally on a comprehensive scale, 
 whilst allowing local autonomy. In this way, and 
 in this way only, can this traffic be subordinated 
 to the will of the people, and made to reflect public 
 opinion. 
 
 W.L.R. H 113 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 OUR FOREIGN RELATIONSHIPS 
 
 WHATEVER may be said of the merits of the late 
 War there is one thing which cannot be dissociated 
 from it. That is our foreign policy, and, in this 
 respect, one has more especially to remember 
 our commitments in the way of secret agreements. 
 
 The most notorious illustration that happened 
 after the War, and which lead to all the trouble 
 in the Peace Treaty in regard to Italy, was the 
 secret arrangement with that Power, known as 
 the Pact of London. One appreciates how far 
 that pact helped this country in the time of its 
 trial, and, when the defeat of a nation is 
 threatened, it is human to suppose the politician 
 becomes an opportunist, and will be ready even 
 to bribe an outsider to come to his help. When 
 War has its grip upon the world the harassed men 
 who are behind the scenes are not apt to be exactly 
 punctilious about arrangements between themselves, 
 nor to realise too readily that the promises they 
 make to gain immediate ends may bring a harvest 
 of trouble as an aftermath. 
 
 The great thing is to plan the progress of 
 mankind towards the elimination of wars, and one 
 of the greatest helps to this end would be the 
 abolition of the very thing we are talking about 
 secret diplomacy. If there is one thing the 
 working classes, I believe not only of this land 
 but of every land, are keen about, and united 
 114 
 
Our Foreign Relationships 
 
 upon, it is the ending of secret diplomacy. That 
 must inevitably form the basis of any Labour policy. 
 
 And that must mean a vastly different attitude 
 towards the Peace Treaty from that which has 
 been adopted during the creation of it. If Labour 
 had been in power on the two continents when 
 that treaty was drawn up, it would have been a 
 very different document, for you must realise 
 that, if ever decisions were taken leaving the world 
 in the dark, they were taken by that inner com- 
 mittee, first of four, then of three, who sat and 
 re-made the map of the world. They laid down 
 rule after rule which none knew of; they came 
 to decision after decision entirely upon their own 
 individual authority, and in doing these things 
 they built brick upon brick, not of a new foundation 
 for world peace, but of a barrier against the hope 
 that the end of all war had come. In the peace 
 there are such seeds of war as it will be difficult 
 for even a united international Labour Government 
 to eradicate. 
 
 The world's hope lies in Labour in this matter. 
 The politicians and the capitalists and the military 
 fanatics have had their try, and failed. We are 
 no farther along the road under their narrow 
 guidance than we were in 1914. All that has 
 happened is that they have invented a few new 
 machines and turned the eyes of the sane and 
 peaceful to a possible community of peoples, which 
 the peoples themselves, and only the peoples, 
 will ever be able to carry out. 
 
 It must be changed from a League of Nations. 
 It must be the League of Peoples. The professional 
 diplomat with his secrets and pigeon-holed agree- 
 ments must go. There can never be any accom- 
 modation with them on the part of a Labour 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Government with these men who broke through 
 all the promises of a new world and resorted in 
 the end to the old, old tricks. 
 
 Since the War has finished we have made again 
 private agreement with other nations. We have 
 a new triple alliance. W^e are under contract to 
 help France if France is attacked by Germany. 
 On the face of the matter that is a perfectly friendly 
 and just thing to do. We stick by our friend, 
 good. We help him to defend himself. Oh, yes, 
 it is entirely a defensive undertaking. 
 
 British labour certainly desires the protection 
 of republican France from the horrors of invasion, 
 But alas! we know what these ' defensive ' wars 
 may be. Has not Germany declared she fought 
 only to defend herself? And, again, how often 
 do we hear that the best method of defence is 
 attack! Rightly so. If a man is going to knock 
 you down, you get your blow in first, if you can. 
 The trouble is afterwards to prove he meant to 
 attack you. 
 
 Very well, we are under contract to help France 
 in case of emergency. What are the possibilities 
 of that emergency ? It is only natural that we 
 should consider that. 
 
 Assume for the moment that Germany recovers, 
 and re-creates her military strength, what is she 
 going to do ? She is not going to attack France. 
 She will develop on the eastern side. She will 
 seek to undermine the ledge that separates her 
 from Russia, with the idea eventually of forming 
 a new German-Russian alliance. Poland stands 
 between. It is to the interest of France that she 
 supports Poland, for the very purpose of stopping 
 a German-Russian compact. Imagine then a 
 fight between these warring interests, where are 
 116 
 
Our Foreign Relationships 
 
 we? France supports Poland, we support France 
 Here are the bases of a first-class war, and Russia, 
 our late allies, may complicate the whole situation 
 by boldly accepting the attention of Germany. 
 
 The Labour Movement all over the world is 
 alive to this danger mine created by secret pacts, 
 that the peace of the world will again be subject 
 to the casual flare of a match. The French General 
 Confederation of Labour has passed resolutions 
 stating that, in their opinion the Peace Treaty 
 * carries on the transactions born of secret diplomacy, 
 which is now indefensible/ and that * far from 
 establishing a new world regime which would 
 render impossible any recurrence of war, it is 
 permitting the continuance of germs of conflict 
 similar to those which brought the late catastrophe 
 upon humanity.' The Italian Socialists have 
 said much the same formally, and, as a matter of 
 fact, the diplomacy of Versailles was more secret 
 than that of the Conference of Vienna. We can 
 recall what M. Clemenceau said when he went to 
 the Conference table. It was a direct assertion 
 that the * system of alliances would be his guiding 
 thought ' throughout the negotiations. 
 
 It is all wrong. We, surely, might have used 
 this tremendous upheaval to break from those 
 fusty ways, and set out on a new road which would 
 have been an open road. W T e must have publicity 
 in order to get honesty and justice in these matters. 
 I don't for a moment suggest that there shall be 
 no relations between powers without it is done 
 at a mass meeting with the press of the world 
 invited to attend. But the nation should never 
 be committed on any vital foreign policy without 
 the sanction and ratification of the people's 
 parliament. That is our aim, and, as far as Britain 
 
 117 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 is concerned, that will be the immediate policy to 
 be adopted as soon as Labour is in power. 
 
 And have you thought that such a lead will 
 have a tremendous effect on the other nations ? 
 You may say that one side only would have difficulty 
 in exercising open diplomacy. We might be 
 discussing some question with Timbuctoo. 
 Timbuctoo may say to us: * This matter must not 
 be mentioned or So-and-So will not like it.' What 
 is our course ? Well, in the first place, they would 
 know that we should not agree to secrecy. Then, 
 you may think, the matter will go undiscussed. 
 Perhaps at first, and in a few isolated instances. 
 But is it not more probable that the other side 
 will think, as the matter is to be open for the world 
 to examine in the light of day, that they must talk 
 straighter, not bringing into the argument things 
 that will not bear the light of day. Surely with 
 such a power as Britain concerned that is the more 
 likely, and that will make for the good of all 
 international relationships. Every country will 
 be provoked to put their cards down on the table, 
 and, consequently, we shall be rid of those hole-in- 
 the-corner proceedings which, depending upon the 
 astuteness of individuals, lead to the spirit of 
 revenge on the part of the bested party, and brings, 
 in the end, some such conflict as that we have 
 been through. 
 
 I may be asked, would we, if others would not 
 treat with us thus openly, refuse to deal with such 
 a Power ? My reply is that our responsibility 
 would be first to our own people, the people who 
 had elected us on the platform of open negotiations. 
 We should keep to our policy in face of anything 
 of that sort, even if we could convince ourselves 
 that to treat secretly would ultimately, upon some 
 118 
 
Our Foreign Relationships 
 
 given point, render a service not against but to 
 our own nation. 
 
 We should probably be able to cut down the 
 staffs considerably. For one thing, this open 
 method would see the end of a great deal of 
 espionage espionage, that is, upon opinions, not 
 entirely upon facts. What I mean is, that we 
 should have to keep staffs for the purpose of 
 necessary inspections and reports upon happenings. 
 We should have our ambassadors and our consulates. 
 These are necessary, both as a connecting link 
 between governments, providing an obvious and 
 easy vehicle of discussion, but also to assist the 
 business relations between the nations. They 
 might also be the means of encouraging good 
 feeling internationally, but the spy as a spy seeking 
 to weave intrigue and sway opinions would be no more. 
 
 We should also change the method by which 
 the staffs associated with our Foreign Office are 
 recruited. At the moment this office is the preserve 
 of the wealthy. The diplomats who are trained 
 there must have a private income of their own, 
 which at once rules out merit. This service will, 
 one day, be open to any member of the community 
 who, by his attainments, proves worthy to fulfil 
 the tasks, whether he is a person of wealth and 
 * good connections ' or not. This is especially 
 apparent when we think that the future diplomacy 
 will keep in mind the good of the masses, and not 
 of the classes. It will be from the ranks of the 
 workers, more likely than not, that we shall obtain 
 the right men to discuss with other powers the 
 rights and wrongs of questions, since a Labour 
 Government in Britain will be acting not for the 
 vested interests but for the interests of the majority, 
 of the community as a whole. 
 
 119 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 I think I ought to add this: We realise that 
 this matter of Foreign Policy is closely bound up 
 with our commitments on the army and navy. 
 The two matters are inseparable. Some, no doubt, 
 think that Labour would let the fighting forces 
 be dissolved. That we should * let the country 
 go to the dogs.* But we understand, of course, 
 that we shall have to have an army and a navy 
 capable of backing our decisions. We should 
 never countenance any expenditure on these 
 services that would permit of the charge that we 
 were aiming at military strength for offence. We, 
 as a party, have finished with militarism, and 
 especially in the present position of finances in 
 this country we should not be lavish in our ex- 
 penditure for a fighting machine. But there would 
 have to be an army and especially a navy, and 
 these would be maintained. But wars are going 
 to have poor ground to grow upon when once we 
 have persuaded the world to stop their secret 
 intrigues and talk things over in the open. 
 
 And another thing also of great importance in 
 considering our relations with foreigners: There 
 must be no more private trading in armaments. 
 That this has been allowed has merely created a 
 vested interest in war, and it is appalling to think 
 that we have reached this stage in our civilisation, 
 and still permit private people to make money 
 out of methods of human destruction. To put it 
 as mildly as possible : The man who makes military 
 equipment, who manufactures shot and shell, is 
 not the most troubled man on the day a war is 
 declared and an army mobilised. It would be 
 interesting to know just how much British money 
 or German money was made by the international 
 armament people. 
 
 120 
 
Our Foreign Relationships 
 
 Make it illegal for any one but the State itself 
 to make munitions; make it impossible to supply 
 foreign powers with munitions, and you have done 
 as much as anything ever could to bring about 
 disarmament. 
 
 These things, I believe, are the definite wish 
 of the vast majority of the people of this country. 
 Why then should we have fallen back to the old 
 tricks of diplomacy ? It is perhaps the greatest 
 and gravest sign of the times, and will inevitably 
 lead to another disaster on a huge scale unless the 
 people themselves insist on things being altered. 
 Labour will alter them as soon as it gets the chance. 
 Labour, indeed, is more and more committed to 
 revision of the Peace Treaty. This is not a view 
 belonging merely to us. Here is a criticism taken 
 from an American organ of repute The New 
 Republic : 
 
 * Examine the plan of the arrangement between 
 France, Britain, and America in the European 
 setting, and what does it mean ? As a result of 
 the War France is left as the one great military 
 power on the Continent of Europe. Her army 
 has a glorious tradition, the staff is the finest in 
 Europe, her greatest rival is completely and 
 permanently disarmed. Against this rival she is 
 to be reinsured by a covenant which is supposed 
 to apply the force of all its members against any 
 kind of sudden aggression. Then a military 
 frontier is given her, which means that at first 
 hint of aggression by the disarmed Germans the 
 whole left bank of the Rhine can be occupied 
 without resistance by a completely armed France. 
 
 ' To the French people, terrorised for forty 
 years and invaded for four, this may at the moment 
 
 121 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 seem merely defensive caution. But not to the 
 very astute politicians who manage French foreign 
 policy. They know better. They know that the 
 real meaning of this alliance is to give France a 
 free hand in the mastery of the Continent. By 
 making France absolutely immune to the conse- 
 quences of any policy she may pursue, she is free 
 to pursue any policy. On the Continent of Europe 
 a nation which is in a privileged position of security 
 is fatally tempted to pursue a policy of intrigue 
 and aggression. That privileged position may be 
 the military power of France absolutely reinsured 
 by special alliance with sea power. Where that 
 privileged position exists, the temptation to assert 
 mastery is so intoxicating as to be beyond the 
 power of control. . . . 
 
 ' The result will be what it has always been. 
 The other nations, far more insecure than France, 
 will infer that if the authors of the Covenant do 
 not trust the League, why in heaven's name should 
 they ? If France needs a special protection, the 
 weaker States certainly do, and the next step is 
 to find allies. Now, in the choice of allies as a 
 means of protection, no nation has the slightest 
 scruple. Republican France and Czarist Russia, 
 England and Japan, Germany and Turkey; it is 
 not principles, but battalions that count. 
 
 ' The number of possible combinations is con- 
 siderable. All of them, of course, will be purely 
 " defensive." The only thing to remember is 
 that these defensive groups will be extraordinarily 
 interested in being loyal to one another. And 
 being loyal to a defensive alliance means doing 
 just about what the most determined member of the 
 group insists upon. The result is a set of rival 
 diplomatic groups, each arming for its own 
 122 
 
Our Foreign Relationships 
 
 defensive purposes, and each intriguing for a good 
 start in the next war.' 
 
 I do not wish necessarily to agree with all that 
 this commentator says, but there is surety in the 
 fear that, unless some one puts right the errors of 
 the Peace Treaty trouble will spring from it in the 
 end. But perhaps we can consider this matter 
 further when we glance more closely at the subject 
 of the League of Nations. 
 
 123 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 OUR COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES 
 
 PERHAPS even more important than our relations 
 with foreign countries is our management of our 
 own Colonies and Dependencies. In this chapter 
 I do not propose to speak of those Colonies which 
 have their own Parliaments. Each is an entity 
 unto itself, and, while it would be the ambition 
 of a Labour Government to foster the friendship 
 of all the children of the mother country, we should 
 never interfere in their domestic government. 
 
 But there are, as we all know, vast tracts of this 
 world's land which fall under the jurisdiction of 
 Great Britain, the peoples of which have no voice 
 in their own management. Of these countries I 
 should like to set out the policy that Labour would 
 adopt in regard to their government. At the 
 outset let me say that, in bidding for the right to 
 rule, we make no ephemeral appeal. These problems 
 of National and Colonial Government, and, indeed, 
 all relationships that affect the country and the 
 Empire, have been carefully weighed by many 
 experts who have given much thought, on behalf 
 of Labour, to these problems. And when I set 
 down here the statement that we should change 
 radically many of the institutions which have 
 grown up during the years, I would like my readers 
 to understand that the effects of such changes 
 have been carefully gone into and weighed by 
 124 
 
Our Colonies and Dependencies 
 
 minds amply able to adjudicate upon the effect of 
 such changes. 
 
 It is a fact which we do not always recognise, 
 that practically a quarter of the earth, and over a 
 quarter of the earth's inhabitants are included 
 within the British Empire, and that of the four 
 hundred and thirty-five millions who inhabit these 
 domains only sixty-five millions (and these include 
 those in the United Kingdom and the Dominions) 
 enjoy a responsible government. And this leaves 
 a vast conglomerate mass of varying races, with 
 diverse religions and in different stages of civilisa- 
 tion, numbering in all three hundred and seventy 
 millions, who have no control over the way they 
 are governed, and whose destinies are really guided 
 by gentlemen who sit in little offices in Whitehall, 
 London. In view of this it is obvious that Labour 
 must have an imperial policy based upon its 
 eternal principles of mutual goodwill, of govern- 
 ment for the good of the majorities, of services, 
 not to private or vested interests of the capitalists, 
 but to the common will of the common citizen, 
 which form the basis of our own home policy. 
 
 I know of no better example which it might 
 profit us to study than that of Africa that part of 
 Africa which is governed either as crowned 
 colonies, or protectorates. That rules out the 
 Union of South Africa, which is a self-governing 
 dominion, and leaves though you may not think 
 it a million and a half square miles of territory, 
 and twenty-eight million Africans who are without 
 the power of raising a voice, subject to our rule. 
 The little gentlemen in Whitehall are the autocrats 
 who dictate to this vast community of people. 
 We ought to remember that this community in 
 its numbers almost equals the entire population 
 
 125 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 of Great Britain. There are over twenty millions 
 in West Central Africa, which includes Nigeria, 
 the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia; nearly 
 eight millions in East Central Africa; over half 
 a million in South Africa (exclusive of the dominion 
 governed from the Cape); a million and a half 
 in Rhodesia, and three millions in the Sudan. 
 
 Now Labour says that it is not right that these 
 human beings should have their lives directed by 
 strings pulled in Whitehall. We have acquired 
 practically the whole of this African Empire 
 between 1880 and 1900. It was the outcome of 
 that virulent attack of economic imperialism which 
 has, unfortunately, affected most of the great 
 powers of Europe during the past thirty years or 
 so. Chamberlain the greater was, of course, the 
 outstanding exponent of this imperialism, and he 
 quite frankly admitted that the acquisitions were 
 mainly of an economic value, in order to provide 
 the markets with the products of British industry, 
 to provide sources of raw materials, and a profitable 
 field of investments for British capital. In other 
 words, we were out to exploit these tropical 
 posssssions for the benefit of British capital. 
 
 The Empire in Africa offers, perhaps, the best 
 possible ground-work for the study of the principles 
 of retrogression in Government, and the principles 
 of Labour in Government, that we could find in 
 the whole of our Empire. There are two distinct 
 policies in Africa which, for the purpose of con- 
 venience, may be described as the African policy 
 and the European policy. In broad terms, the 
 former favours the preservation of native rights 
 in the land, and the development of native 
 possessions. The European policy favours the 
 economic development of the country by European 
 126 
 
Our Colonies and Dependencies 
 
 syndicates and European money, these govern- 
 ments * hiring ' forced native labour to do their 
 work. 
 
 Let us, for a moment, glance at the latter system. 
 In the first place, it confines the native population 
 into 'reserves,' and gives to that population no sort 
 of opening even within those reserves. Outside 
 these barriers it permits European companies or 
 individuals to come in and take leases upon 
 immense areas of land. It permits these syndicates 
 to make the natives work for them on practically 
 no wage. It closes its eyes entirely to any effort 
 to encourage the native population either in the 
 direction of acquiring education, or in the way of 
 developing the land which through many generations 
 has belonged to them. It ignores any hope of 
 creating self-respecting races of African producers 
 with a security of tenure of the land, and, instead, 
 looks upon the native as a likely gate through 
 which to recruit servile labourers who will work 
 to create interest upon European capital. 
 
 Labour can have nothing to do with this policy. 
 It is entirely retrograde, it is arrogant, it is 
 the rough-shod selfish method of autocracy, and 
 obviously is antagonistic to Labour's policy of 
 service for the majority. 
 
 Now the African policy aims at the development 
 of the native's interests. It applies practically all 
 over West Central Africa, with its four hundred 
 and forty-five thousand square miles of territory. 
 It assists the native population to develop the 
 resources of the land by growing crops and 
 gathering products for export. Where European 
 capital is introduced there is a laudable effort to 
 confine its operations within limits which do not 
 infringe the opportunities and the progress of 
 
 127 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 the native people. It is true that it permits licences 
 to be issued to the European merchant for the 
 collection of forest products (but these are definitely 
 fixed for a term of years not exceeding ten), and 
 that the native communities are consulted as to 
 the issue of these licences and are granted a portion 
 of the fees. 
 
 In regard to actual cultivation there is a limit 
 of one square mile per applicant put upon the 
 amount of land which can be leased to Europeans, 
 with the very wise proviso that no group of persons 
 is enabled to hold more than three square miles. 
 The idea behind all this is quite obvious. It is 
 that the land belongs to the natives who have so 
 long inhabited it, and that the coming of the white 
 man should have the effect not of stealing the 
 benefits of that land, but of seeking to uplift the 
 native and make his own possessions worth 
 more. 
 
 Before considering what Labour's idea of dealing 
 with these problems would be, let us, for a moment, 
 glance at the results of the two policies upon 
 labour and the social conditions of the population, 
 and as to the economic developments of the terri- 
 tories. Those who support the European policy 
 say that, if the natives are left alone, they have 
 not the experience, nor the capital, nor the initiative 
 properly to develop their possessions to the general 
 good of the world. The natives, they say, are 
 indolent, and, unless outside influence and capital 
 is introduced, much product, for which the world 
 is in need, will lie fallow. You would be amazed 
 at the number of intelligent Britishers who un- 
 hesitatingly swallow this argument, and unblushingly 
 repeat it. But the facts are entirely against them. 
 The Labour Party has collected, and has issued, 
 
 T28 
 
Our Colonies and Dependencies 
 
 reports which throw a strange and striking light 
 upon the subject. 
 
 It is beyond question that the native can beat 
 the white man, that is if the native receives reason- 
 able encouragement from the administration. In 
 Nigeria, in West Africa, we have the African 
 policy in operation. The native communities 
 work their own land as free men. They cultivate, 
 gather, and sell to European markets, palm-kernels, 
 cocoa, cotton, rubber, ground-nuts, and other 
 things. In British East Africa, and Nyassaland, 
 the most fertile land has been alienated to European 
 companies who employ the natives to produce 
 cotton, hides, skins, coffee, oil, copra, ground- 
 nuts, etc., and a comparison between the exports 
 of these territories shows that the results of the 
 African policy compare quite favourably with the 
 other. 
 
 AFRICAN POLICY 
 
 Nigeria, 
 Gold Coast 
 Gambia 
 Sierra Leone 
 
 Area, 
 q: miles 
 
 336,OOO 
 80,OOO 
 4,500 
 24^95 
 
 Population 
 in 1,000's. 
 
 16,500 
 1,500 
 20O 
 1,403 
 
 Exports Exports per head 
 1913, in *s. of population. 
 
 7,352,377 o 8 10 
 5,427,106* 3 12 o 
 
 867,187* 450 
 1,731,252 130 
 
 EUROPEAN POLICY 
 
 B. East Africa 246,322 2,800 1,039,252* 071 
 Nyassaland 39,573 1,200 234,317 020 
 
 *Excluding bullion and specie. 
 
 It is, of course, true that the natural wealth of 
 British tropical Western Africa is far greater than 
 that of East Africa. But when due weight has 
 been given to this fact it is clear from these figures 
 
 W.L.R. I 129 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 that the economic exploitation of African territory 
 under the African Policy is more successful than 
 under the European Policy. 
 
 But, of course, there is an obviously more 
 important side to this problem than the mere 
 export figures. These may, or should indicate a 
 certain prosperity among the natives, but Labour 
 would be far more concerned with the result of 
 Government upon the social conditions of the 
 people. The immediate result of the European 
 policy has been to reproduce in a certain form, 
 on African soil, the same labour problems that 
 we have at home. The Europeans have come in, 
 taken vast tracts of land, and pushed the natives 
 into confined areas. Even in these areas the 
 natives have no title, and may be pushed on like 
 so many sheep. 
 
 One gets examples of white men who have 
 suddenly come into possession, through their 
 capital, of tracts of land upon which the homesteads 
 of hundreds of natives have hitherto been located. 
 The natives have to go, Capital wins. This, of 
 course, creates discontent, which is only added 
 to by the fact that the white man immediately 
 imposes taxes upon the natives, which taxes can 
 only be paid by the native undertaking to work 
 for the white man and so earning money. The 
 interested will at once answer that all labour in 
 British East Africa is free; there is no slavery. 
 But these people conveniently forget the taxes 
 which the native is forced to pay, and which he 
 can only pay by what really amounts to slavery 
 in the white man's interest. How else could he 
 pay them ? He has no other means of earning 
 money, unless it could be by the sale of commodities. 
 But the white man has taken his land. How, 
 130 
 
Our Colonies and Dependencies 
 
 therefore, can he grow things which are marketable ? 
 So he has to sell his labour. For what little land 
 is left to the native is overcrowded to the point of 
 overflowing. 
 
 There is another subtle law in Nyassaland, which 
 is that the native who stays at home pays double 
 the tax that the employee is called upon to pay. 
 If this is not forcing the native to work for the 
 white man I don't know what is. I should say 
 that increased tax acts as a veritable recruiting 
 sergeant for the army of labourers under the white 
 man. 
 
 There is also what is known as moral suasion. 
 One finds the police going with the tax collector, 
 and one knows of appeals to the chiefs who, for 
 the favour of the white man and so that they shall 
 not undermine their own authority, put a form of 
 compulsion upon their subjects. 
 
 The European, you see, in tropical Africa, is not 
 built to work the land himself, but must get native 
 labour, and the moment the native is not looked 
 upon as the rightful owner he is a predestined 
 labourer in the interests of Europeans. It is easy 
 to understand that compulsion in various forms 
 is sooner or later applied. 
 
 And so you get a sullen and unresponsive 
 community. Punishments in the shape of fines 
 and floggings constantly occur. These things 
 naturally lead to uprisings, with the inevitable 
 loss of life and calling in of the military. 
 
 It has also, unfortunately, to be admitted that 
 sanitary and moral conditions are not so good 
 under the white man's rule as they are in the native 
 settlements, where the chiefs of the community 
 are the rulers of the community. The physical 
 conditions of the labourers deteriorate. The 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 natives do not get as good food as they did in 
 their own villages. Disease is very prevalent, 
 and it is to be feared that the Government consider 
 their responsibilities ended when they send an 
 inspector to see that the contract rates of pay are 
 observed. Do you blame the native that he idles ? 
 Can you blame him that he talks in corners of 
 sedition ? and that his love for the British is not 
 fostered ? It is difficult to blame him if he deserts, 
 which, in some parts of Africa, is a criminal offence. 
 Can you not readily understand there is a grave 
 danger to-day of insurrection ? 
 
 As against this it is good to admit that, where 
 the African policy has been allowed to exist, one 
 sees the native communities working their own 
 land as free men, living in comfort and in harmony 
 under their chiefs, and themselves governing 
 themselves in their own country. 
 
 Now, both in regard to Africa and other 
 dependencies, Labour has its principles, and the 
 first one is that there should be no economic 
 exploitation of the natives by the white man. 
 We shall look upon the native as a free man; we 
 shall endeavour to acquire for him the opportunity 
 of development, and to retain for him the economic 
 resources of his own land. The land will, under 
 us, be treated as the property of the native com- 
 munity or communities. We shall bring in Acts 
 of Parliament to make their tenure secure. We 
 shall legislate definitely against alienation of land 
 to Europeans. Where expensive machinery, 
 expert advice, etc., are required we, as the 
 Government, will supply the necessary capital 
 and necessary instruction, so that the best may be 
 obtained in the way of products. 
 
 If any concessions of land are made to Europeans 
 
 132 
 
Our Colonies and Dependencies 
 
 they must be in the shape of short time leases, 
 and granted with the consent of the native com- 
 munity, and then only in restricted areas. 
 
 Mines, railways, and any monopolies should be 
 run by the State for the community as a whole. 
 We shall have no slave-trading. We shall have 
 no pawning of persons, as is permitted at present, 
 for this is slavery. The prohibition of compulsory 
 labour will be absolute, and all voluntary labour 
 must be paid by a wage in cash to the labourer 
 himself, and not to any tribal chief, who shall be 
 stripped of all power to call out those under him 
 in order to provide, under pressure, an army of 
 workers for any white man. 
 
 Taxation should be the same for all, whether 
 they work for themselves or for Europeans. It 
 may be said that, in the beginning, this will 
 make labour scarce and no doubt it will. It will put 
 up the price of it, perhaps, but not unreasonably, 
 and, if the attractions offered are sufficient, free 
 labour will, in the end, be as sufficient as forced 
 labour is now. 
 
 The whole system of Government will have to 
 be altered. At the present time a Governor is 
 appointed by the Crown. There is then appointed 
 an Executive Council, composed of officials, and a 
 Legislative Council, nominated by the Government, 
 and composed mostly of officials. Those that do 
 not fall under that heading are representatives of 
 European commerce, as a rule. Laws are made 
 by the Government, though, on occasions, natives 
 are allowed a certain number of nominees. These 
 responsibilities all the time rest with the Colonial 
 Office, and the native's voice goes unheard, and 
 the native's quite legitimate aspirations are 
 unvoiced. 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Labour would aim at the establishment of a 
 genuine representative of the natives upon the 
 Councils and, as education progressed, a deepening 
 of the responsibilities of government. This might 
 first operate through local government in small 
 areas, and apply to the supervision of sanitation, 
 roads, and education, and would ultimately lead up 
 to the development of a responsible Government 
 for the whole country. Eventually the general 
 interests of such dependencies as these would 
 come under the eye of the League of Nations. 
 
 In the African colonies, of all needs the one 
 most paramount is that of education. We have 
 nowhere in Africa made a serious attempt to give 
 the African knowledge which would make him 
 capable of understanding and controlling the 
 circumstances that the Government imposes upon 
 him. It is to be feared that the natives have been 
 deliberately kept uneducated and ignorant, in the 
 hope that they may more easily be used for the 
 benefit of the white man. 
 
 In Nigeria the revenue was two million eight 
 hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling 
 the expenditure on education was forty-six 
 thousand. In British East Africa the revenue 
 was three hundred and twenty-six thousand 
 the cost of education one thousand two hundred 
 and fifty the wage of a good many middle-class 
 men. It is our principle that Government under 
 Labour rule shall aim at conditions in which the 
 native will take his place as a free man in the 
 economic system, utilising for himself the riches 
 of his own country, and taking his place as a free 
 citizen. To this end education is the first essential 
 among our many duties to these fellow-subjects 
 of ours. Primary education must be established; 
 
 134 
 
Our Colonies and Dependencies 
 
 training colleges must be provided; an African 
 university should be an immediate object. Let 
 us not seek what we can make out of these millions 
 of fellow human beings, but let us rather ask 
 ourselves what we can do to make their life fuller 
 and more independent, and more worth living. 
 Let us not extract all we can, but let us give them 
 the results of our own education. For one thing, 
 let us provide doctors, giving them a sanitary service 
 adequate to fight the musquito, the tsetse fly, and 
 so breaking down the great barrier of native 
 ignorance and superstition, and so irrigate this 
 breeding-ground of plague and disease. 
 
 Labour's aim will be to civilise, not to exploit 
 the African. 
 
 135 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 INDIA 
 
 IT is doubtful if any international question presents 
 so many difficulties as that of the government of 
 India. Here again we have strings running all 
 the way from Whitehall to the far east, and pulling 
 the reins of control. 
 
 The Indian people themselves have practically 
 no voice in the matter of their own destinies. We 
 know recently that they have tried to impress 
 their will upon the officials hence the terrible 
 events of Amritsar. But the fact that a British 
 general was convinced it was right to fire upon a 
 body of natives in a meeting, shows whatever 
 the rights or wrongs of that particular episode 
 may be that there is a very big dissatisfaction 
 on the part of the natives as to the way they are 
 governed, and a very genuine failure on the part 
 of the governors, seeing that it needs such show of 
 force in order to impress their judgments upon the 
 people whom they rule. 
 
 India is a very complicated problem. It contains, 
 for instance, roughly one-fifth of the human 
 population of the earth, and it is easy to understand 
 that a few gentlemen sitting in Whitehall cannot, 
 with any degree of success, rule 315,000,000 
 souls. It is not as though these people were all of 
 one religion, or even all of one tongue. They are 
 themselves divided into many races. There are 
 no fewer than 180 distinct languages spoken in 
 136 
 
India 
 
 India, some of which are as diverse as Russian 
 and English. They have nine quite dominating 
 religions, ranging from Hinduism to Christianity. 
 There are 2000 castes, none of whom may inter- 
 marry with the other. Probably 70,000,000 of 
 these people are under the rule of Indian princes 
 who owe their religions to the British Empire. 
 The remainder are governed by officials who 
 have their impetus and origins in Whitehall. 
 
 The task for the future is, how can all these 
 different and varying people be brought together 
 in unity, and carry on their own government ? 
 
 The Parliamentary control of India does not 
 date back a very long way. If we go back far enough 
 we find the East India Company seeking to create 
 trade connections among numerous tribes busily 
 engaged in fighting each other. The Company 
 employed force to combat this, and thus a great 
 part of the country was conquered and placed 
 under some sort of discipline. Then in 1858 
 the Company was abolished, and Parliament 
 assumed direct control in India. That is how India 
 came under our rule, and though with the best 
 intentions, no doubt, in the world, we set out to 
 govern the country for the good of the Indians, 
 it certainly did happen that, through officers being 
 appointed, and through the Company being 
 disbanded, committees that used to keep a watchful 
 eye on the administration of the country ceased 
 to exist also, and Parliament began to lose track 
 of Indian affairs, and ceased to understand them. 
 
 I am not seeking to criticise these officers who 
 ruled on behalf of this country. There have been 
 many able and upright men who dispensed justice, 
 kept the peace, made almost interminable railways 
 and roads, carried out great irrigation schemes 
 
 137 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 over millions of acres, and indeed acquitted the 
 country in a thoroughly modern manner. The 
 great fault that crept in, however, was that these 
 officials never made any effort to train the native 
 himself to do this work for himself. With perhaps 
 a touch of arrogant superiority, the white man, 
 who did these things, very likely, at the back of 
 his mind, had the notion that he was helping the 
 natives, but he never looked upon his dark-skinned 
 brother as his kin, and never sought to teach him 
 those principles of government, of citizenship, 
 and of service to the State which might have made 
 him, in the end, able to dispense with outside 
 administration and, incidentally, with outside 
 capital. 
 
 India ought to become a self-governing dominion 
 within a British Commonwealth, and under Labour 
 it would be given every opportunity of develop- 
 ment to this end. I know it could not happen 
 quickly. I am not suggesting that, if a Labour 
 Government be elected to-morrow, the government 
 of India in London would cease the next day. 
 One has to educate. But what I do say is that 
 we have not shaped any policy at all to this end. 
 We have, I know, established a system of education 
 on Western lines up to a degree, and I think five 
 or six per cent of the people can now read and 
 write their own language. Two persons out of 
 every 300 can speak English, and let me under- 
 line this you must understand that English is 
 the only language in 'which the government of India 
 can be conducted. It is not as though among the 
 educated classes of natives there are not sufficient 
 Indians to take over some sort of control. There 
 are. And, of course, Lord Morley, in 1909, 
 recognised this when he allowed members to be 
 
 138 
 
India 
 
 elected to the Legislative Councils. They were 
 only given a voice, and no power, because Govern- 
 ment retained always the majority of members, 
 which means the voting power. And even he, 
 when he carried out this reform, refused to acknow- 
 ledge that he had as a goal the establishment of 
 self-government. Truly we have got one stage 
 beyond that now, because as a result of the Hindus 
 and the Mohammedans joining forces in 1916, 
 Mr Montague definitely asserted that responsible 
 government was now the goal of British policy 
 in India. His report, however, did not carry this 
 out. 
 
 It is a fact that, at the moment, there would be 
 very few people in India among the natives who 
 would understand the significance of the power to 
 vote. This means that responsible government, 
 as in Canada and in the other colonies, could not 
 be arranged just now. But what we would do 
 and this is the essence of the problem would be 
 to create real electorates, and, in order to do this, 
 we would gradually develop the limited powers 
 of local government in the provinces, increasing 
 these powers as the natives became experienced 
 and efficient in the arts of government. This is 
 an integral part of the Labour policy with regard to 
 all Colonies and Dependencies. We wish to 
 secure to the natives in all parts of our dominions 
 effective protection against the excess of capitalist 
 colonisation, and we wish to create, in all these 
 dependencies, a system of Home Rule, so soon as 
 the degree of civilisation can be attained which 
 will make it possible. 
 
 139 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 AND if we can see our way to give freedom to the 
 African and Indian native, what of Ireland ? 
 
 The history of Ireland is a tragedy of errors. 
 If we go back far enough the trouble lies, perhaps, 
 in the fact that, when the Normans conquered 
 England, they divided up the country and left 
 Ireland. If only they had finished the job we 
 might have seen some sort of unity among the 
 race who occupies both Great Britain and Ireland, 
 but the Irish were, at that time, left alone, and then 
 began the separation which the succeeding genera- 
 tions have made more and more definite. 
 
 But to come to more recent times, if this country 
 had only kept faith with such Nationalists as Parnell 
 and Redmond, the present terrible, indeed tragic 
 situation could never have arisen. For how long 
 did the Liberals in Parliament get the support 
 of the Irish Nationalists ? And why ? Because 
 through constitutional methods the Irish hoped, 
 at the instigation of the Liberals, to obtain Home 
 Rule. The cry for that is as old as my memory 
 of politics. It takes us back to Gladstone, and, if 
 we think in a detached way of the matter, it is 
 inconceivable to think that we have, to-day, an 
 army in Ireland whose chief duty it is to keep the 
 Irish from realising their very natural ambition 
 of attaining self-government. 
 
 The Irish have a genuine complaint. They 
 140 
 
Ireland 
 
 have been made, for many years, the hub of a 
 political controversy, of mere political intrigue; 
 the battleground of party politics. 
 
 When one talks of the settling of the Irish 
 question, the first difficulty always to be mentioned 
 is, of course, the Ulster Orangemen. It would 
 be a very foolish man who attempted to solve that 
 Irish problem and ignored that there was also an 
 Ulster problem. But before considering it, do 
 not let us forget that the very strong feeling 
 almost amounting to bitterness and hatred that 
 exists to-day in many parts of the north-east of 
 Ulster is due to the machinations of responsible 
 politicians. 
 
 It would be a very simple matter for me to give 
 extracts from the speeches of these responsible 
 statesmen, occupying the highest positions in 
 the land, which show them to be guilty of nothing 
 short of treason. And, if one connects these 
 speeches with an already inflamed people, it is 
 easy to understand the antagonism and suspicion 
 that exists. 
 
 One does instinctively condemn the outrages and 
 murders that have taken place of late in Ireland, 
 and there is no man worthy of the name of Labour 
 Leader who would not condemn them because of 
 their brutality and wickedness, and I would like 
 to point out to these Sinn Feiners that, while one 
 understands how far these responsible statesmen 
 of England have almost justified the inflamed 
 feelings which they express, the malcontents must 
 remember that murder and outrage is a method 
 that never has succeeded, and never will succeed in 
 all this world's history. 
 
 The Curragh episode, which resulted in im- 
 portant generals refusing to obey the King's 
 
 141 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 regulations, struck almost a fatal blow to discipline 
 and constitutional government, and from that, 
 and other incidents prior and subsequent, the 
 present state of Ireland can be traced. But, even 
 allowing for this, I am firmly convinced that the 
 feeling of apprehension of the Ulster people must 
 be considered. 
 
 Writing at a moment when things are in a state 
 of flux, when it is difficult to see just which way 
 the road is bending, I do not hesitate to say that, 
 if the provocation is sufficiently severe, the Ulster 
 men unquestionably will fight, not constitutionally 
 through the ballot boxes, but literally with the 
 bayonet. Whether this suddenly flares up, or 
 whether it is a danger that will come to a head in 
 the future, it must not be taken that I mean any 
 Government should allow themselves to be bullied 
 or browbeaten into taking action with what they 
 do not feel is legitimate policy, because of a threat. 
 In fact, it must be obvious to any impartial observer 
 that, if it is right of the Government not to submit 
 to a threat from, the Sinn Feiners, it is not right 
 that they should submit to a threat from the Ulster 
 men. That logic is unanswerable. 
 
 We have got to get a much more detached view 
 of the whole question. We have got to forget 
 Carson, indeed to sink all personalities, and see 
 if we cannot apply to Ireland the general principles 
 we would apply to other dependencies. Our 
 signatures are on the Peace Treaty, are they not ? 
 And there we have made a fine gesture before the 
 world in favour of the small peoples. The little 
 fellows are to have the same independence as the 
 big ones. A man shall run his small garden as 
 much in accordance with his own desires as the 
 owner of the mansion and the hundred acres. 
 142 
 
Ireland 
 
 Then how can we browbeat Ireland into submission 
 to our views, while, at the same time we trample 
 in jackboots across his flower beds ? 
 
 Ireland is a nation, and the Irish should decide 
 their own destiny, and choose and get up in peace 
 their own government. If they have to wait until 
 Labour comes into power, they will have to wait 
 only that long before they get their freedom. 
 
 I do not think a republic would be right. I 
 believe that is not a necessary part of the granting 
 of freedom to that country. I am against it, and 
 I believe the great masses of people are against it, 
 both in this country and in Ireland. Why could 
 not a plebiscite be taken on the question. This 
 has been done in other countries, and it seems to 
 me we might accord to our neighbours the liberty 
 we grant to far away Silicia. 
 
 I shall, no doubt, be answered with the assertion 
 that the Irish are split themselves and so they 
 are. But the political opportunists in Parliament 
 have done their best to exaggerate and perpetuate 
 this division of opinion. No really honest and 
 generous effort has been made to unite the Irish, 
 yet I have reason for the hope that unity, to a 
 certain and sufficient degree, could be obtained. 
 
 The railwaymen in Ireland are united. Here 
 you have men of both the north and south joining 
 together in one industrial organisation. There 
 are no differences between them, and, in this matter 
 of their daily jobs, the religious note, so prominent 
 in politics, does not intrude. 
 
 I know the Irish are a peculiar race. They are 
 very lovable and very charming. One will find in 
 their houses a Sinn Feiner, a Unionist, a Catholic, 
 and a Protestant mixing in perfect amity, dining 
 together and being in agreement on most things, 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 on as many things as you would find the average 
 dinner party in the average English house. Yet, 
 to-morrow, the Sinn Feiner and the Unionist will 
 be firing at each other from behind barricades ! 
 It would be comic if it did not happen to be tragic. 
 
 Still, my hope is that, if we withdraw the irritation 
 provided by the jackboot, Ireland will work out 
 its salvation through industrial association rather 
 than through political propaganda. In business 
 all shades of political and religious thought mix 
 at ease, and that is the reason I think the Trades 
 Union and the Labour Party will be able to do 
 what the heated and more biased political parties 
 have failed in. The majority should decide, and, 
 of course, there must be safeguards for the liberty 
 of minorities. 
 
 As a start I would grant dominion Home Rule. 
 Ulster ? Ulster, too, should make her own choice. 
 Why not ? But one thing I would insist upon. 
 If Ulster voted not to accept an all-Irish Parliament, 
 they would remain under the British Parliament, 
 that's all, until such time as they cared to change. 
 
 I would never recognise Ireland as two nations 
 with two Parliaments. How could you ? Look 
 at the map. Its interests must be the same; it is 
 so compact, so complete a country. It would be 
 wrong to permit its partition. There would be 
 only four counties who would vote to remain under 
 British rule, even to-day, and one would have a 
 reasonable hope that, when a beneficial system of 
 government by an Irish Parliament had been 
 running for a little time, unity of the race would 
 result. Ireland must be a nation, and then her 
 people will prosper. 
 
 It has been argued that, if Ireland does become 
 a nation, with her own Parliament and power, 
 144 
 
Ireland 
 
 therefore, to make her own laws, she would set up 
 a tariff wall against us, and the danger of her near- 
 ness has been pointed at in case she made any 
 association with other and possible enemy countries. 
 
 People who make this assertion have not studied 
 the actual conditions of our business relations with 
 Ireland. If we look at the normal returns of her 
 imports and exports to us and from us, we shall 
 discover that the figures practically balance. This 
 rather seems to make an end of any reasonable 
 move on Ireland's part, should she be a power 
 under herself, to fight us in the way of protections. 
 
 There is another point, too, perhaps even more 
 important, that would keep her in the straight 
 path-of-free-trade that is. It is the fact that 
 Ireland is dependent on us for her coal, and you 
 must remember that at present coal is easily the 
 most important element in manufactures. Some 
 might say that America can supply Ireland with 
 coal. To-day she might, but, in anything like 
 normal conditions, Ireland would have only one 
 economic source of supplies, and that would be 
 England. 
 
 One more factor there is a social one, perhaps 
 the most important of all which makes me 
 believe in a possibility of better understanding 
 between the divergent minds in Ireland. I refer 
 to the inter-marrying between North and South, 
 and the many Irishmen there are in England with 
 their families. If there were no possibility of 
 peace among the factions in Ireland, we should 
 have to believe that there is no domestic felicity 
 in Ireland, for the opposing groups inter-marry 
 freely, and, presumably, are able to sink their 
 political differences in the larger effort of household 
 management. 
 
 W.L.R. K 145 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Again, the suggestion that the Irish people in 
 England are all filled with bitter hatred towards 
 the English is mere moonshine. All that they have 
 is a pride in nationality and I grant you this 
 a hatred for what has been misgovernment, and 
 for the arrogant gesture that comes from Dublin 
 Castle, a gesture both in London and in Dublin 
 which has stifled every legitimate aspiration of the 
 Irish people. 
 
 I may be told that the results of the 1920 elections 
 disprove my view concerning an Irish republic. 
 If I could believe that was the considered judgment 
 of the Irish people, it would indeed be conclusive 
 evidence, but it must be clearly kept in mind 
 that the past eighteen months has created a very 
 effective appeal to the Irish people to vote on 
 the broad national plane ' Ireland, A Nation ' 
 and I assert, with knowledge, that there are not 
 only large masses of moderate people who are not 
 in favour of a republic, but who, by the blundering 
 of the Government, and the mishandling of the 
 Irish situation, have found themselves crushed. 
 Many responsible persons, with influence and 
 power, have in effect said to me: ' If we could 
 only be satisfied that we were not being further 
 humbugged and tricked, and if we could only 
 believe that a real attempt was to be made to do 
 justice to Ireland, we would have some basis of 
 appeal in the country, of using what influence and 
 power we have, and you would find the extremists 
 would be greatly in the minority/ 
 
 Since, so far, all efforts made by any political 
 party have failed, it might, with justice, be asked 
 of the Labour Party what steps it would take in 
 order to settle Ireland, to give it peace and prosperity. 
 My first endeavour would be to establish what 
 146 
 
Ireland 
 
 really is the first essential to the solution a better 
 atmosphere. I would invite both the Sinn Feiners 
 and Ulstermen to join the organised workers of 
 Ireland in a frank and open discussion of the 
 situation. I can see the bigoted gentlemen smiling 
 at the suggestion, and thinking they would not 
 come, these varying factions. But I know they 
 would come. And it is because we have proved 
 in our trade union meetings that these apparently 
 hostile forces will meet around the conference 
 table in perfect amity, and not each for his own 
 narrow interests, I am confident that, with the 
 right atmosphere, they would foregather to settle 
 this more national problem. It is because so 
 many of them do not believe in the promises that 
 have been made to them, and that, therefore, 
 they are so suspicious of any overture from any- 
 where, that hesitation might be expected in this 
 suggested discussion. But I do want to say that 
 no one is at heart more anxious for a solution than 
 those who are at the head of the Sein Fein movement. 
 They are not fools. They are men who love their 
 country, and are prepared to make great sacrifices 
 for it. But they also know that the present state 
 of affairs cannot continue. They know that nothing 
 would be so foolish as a rising against the military, 
 and, whilst retaining their claim and wielding 
 the power and influence they do, they would 
 certainly welcome a real effort to end this long, 
 bitter, and tragic chapter in our own as well as 
 Ireland's history. 
 
 It is unquestionable that the British people, or, 
 at least the large majority of them, not having any 
 personal knowledge of Ireland or the Irish, look 
 upon them as hopeless and violent imbeciles. 
 They have not worried to understand how the 
 
 H7 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 present position has grown up, and they certainly 
 do not give the Sein Fein any credit for moderation 
 or any sense of justice. These people would be 
 amazed if they had the opportunity of examining 
 the system which is being adopted by the heads, 
 of trying their own cases in their own courts. The 
 way these cases have been handled proves beyond 
 all shadow of doubt the fact that those responsible 
 for the Sein Fein direction are utterly and completely 
 opposed to crime. They punish their own members 
 severely, and with impartiality if they have outraged 
 what the courts consider justice. When, moreover, 
 the officials have considered it part of their plans 
 to seize the mails, I am told that no one has suffered 
 pecuniary loss. After the mails have been searched 
 postal orders and cheques are never interfered 
 with, but are sent on to their proper recipients, 
 and this, at least, is evidence that they are not a 
 set of brigands, as most people in England seem 
 to imagine. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 FINANCE 
 
 THE first and most important thing to remember 
 when dealing with the finances of the country, 
 especially in regard to the individual, is the ability 
 to pay. You must not over-tax a man; you must 
 not over-tax an industry; or it will rebound against 
 the community to every one's hurt. We have a 
 most enormous debt, as we all know. Eight 
 thousand millions won't bear thinking about; 
 and we need not think about it. What we have 
 got to meet is the immediate bill, and that is the 
 Budget. 
 
 Well, our Budget for some time may be over 
 a thousand millions sterling more than five times 
 what it was before the War. How are we going 
 to obtain this money ? No Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer has ever had such a serious problem 
 put before him. We must admit that, even though 
 we are, some of us, thoroughly convinced that 
 most of the taxation is fundamentally wrong. 
 
 Personally, I can see no permanent justification 
 for the excess profits tax. When it was originally 
 put on it was bad. But it had to be done in order 
 to meet a terrible emergency. Ultimately, it must, 
 of course, disappear, because it puts a handicap 
 upon all business, and is, in fact, an anchor on the 
 ship of State. It is also a direct incentive to l ca'- 
 canny,' and destroys initiative. Still, the money 
 must be found, and the only alternative I can see 
 is a capital levy. 
 
 149 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 There is tremendous opposition to this, I know, 
 but then one would not anticipate that people 
 with capital would submit without a word to a 
 levy being made upon it. They say, with some 
 truth, why should they have their money taken 
 from them because they have been sufficiently 
 industrious and thrifty to make and to save it, 
 whereas the spendthrift, who is not of equal value 
 to the community, goes practically, if not entirely, 
 free ? It is true that the drones are no good in 
 the hives, and it is true that the thrifty man is of 
 more value to the country than the spendthrift, 
 because he lends out his money and so develops 
 business. 
 
 You can never get equality of sacrifice. For the 
 moment, and from a national point of view, it is 
 a matter of business, and let us view it entirely as 
 a business proposition. Suppose a man is left an 
 estate heavily mortgaged. He has two alternatives 
 as to what to do with that estate. He can go on 
 year after year paying interest on the mortgage, 
 and, perhaps, being able to reduce the original 
 amount slightly as well. It is a stone round his 
 neck probably for his lifetime, and he, no doubt, 
 would consider himself fortunate if he could clear 
 the debt in time for his sons, or his next of kin, 
 to inherit the estate free. 
 
 But the other thing he can do is to say: * I am 
 going to cut off a corner of this estate and sell it 
 to Mr Smith. Half if necessary. Mr Smith will 
 give me so much for it that is its proper value. 
 With that money I can pay off the mortgage on 
 the remainder of the ground, and so I shall be 
 free.' Well, as a commercial proposition, there 
 is no doubt it is the better course to pursue. Sell 
 what is necessary, and clear yourself. 
 150 
 
Finance 
 
 It is the same way with a capital tax. We have 
 a tremendous debt to clear. A capital levy, on 
 a reasonable percentage, would probably realise a 
 thousand millions sterling. No other interest to 
 pay upon that thousand millions any longer, and 
 every tax-payer in the country would feel the 
 immediate benefit of that. How would it be done ? 
 Suppose there are no more Mr Smiths to buy your 
 plot of ground! It is all very well, people say, to 
 tell us we have diamonds, or other valuables, and 
 we must sell them. Who is going to buy ? You 
 cannot have sellers without buyers. 
 
 That is perfectly true, but what the argument 
 omits, in this particular case, is that the vast pro- 
 portion of this huge debt is owned by the State 
 itself, and to raise a levy would, in a large measure, 
 merely mean cancelling the State's debt to the 
 individual. Wliat I mean is this: Suppose I own 
 one hundred thousand pounds, and am told that 
 out of that I must pay twenty-five thousand pounds 
 as a levy from my fortune. What the State does 
 is to take twenty-five thousand pounds' of War 
 stock that I hold and cancel it. It is only tearing 
 up a few scraps of paper after all, because, of 
 course, the whole debt is one of paper. When 
 the next dividend day comes round, I get no interest 
 on that twenty-five thousand pounds of holding, 
 and the Exchequer has so much less revenue to 
 find. 
 
 Apart from this exceptional emergency there 
 will, when Labour comes into power, I hope be 
 only one tax income-tax. We stand absolutely 
 for the entire abolition of all indirect taxation. 
 You will not help the exchequer of the country 
 by paying more for your wine, or your cigars, or 
 your sugar, or anything. You will know exactly 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 what you are paying, because you pay it direct, 
 and in no roundabout way. It is far better for the 
 people to know what they have to pay, and while, 
 of course, they will make an equivalent saving on 
 the goods they buy, because prices will at once 
 fall tremendously, they would have increased that 
 sense of responsibility towards the State which a 
 genuine realisation of their contribution towards 
 the State must inevitably bring. 
 
 I have been asked what the amount of the income- 
 tax is likely to be. Of course it cannot be answered. 
 Conditions change, and the upheaval of the War 
 has made costly difficulties which will disappear 
 in due course. But I do think by this one simple, 
 straightforward method of taxation a lot of un- 
 necessary overlapping in the work of various 
 departments will be saved, and this will affect, 
 in the end, the amount that has to be paid. It is 
 doubtful if it will go any higher than it is to-day 
 to the average man, though, of course, we should 
 insist upon the extremely wealthy man paying a 
 much greater proportion than he does now. 
 
 I should apply this direct taxation even to houses, 
 and make the tenant pay direct rather than through 
 the landlord. It develops citizenship, and brings 
 home to every one a consciousness of their necessary 
 contribution and their liability to the State. 
 
 Death duties would remain very much so! 
 There is no more justifiable source of income 
 than these, and we should considerably increase 
 those at present ruling. I want to justify death 
 duties on the strongest possible grounds, and one 
 of these grounds, which is not always thought of, 
 is the curtailment and limitation of brain ability 
 which follows the easy position of inherited wealth. 
 
 Whatever may be said for the man who has 
 
Finance 
 
 acquired wealth by his own individual effort and 
 brain, there is nothing to be said for that wealth 
 being made the medium of preventing his son or 
 sons giving the nation the benefit of their brains. 
 Dozens of instances could be collected supporting 
 the fact that this does happen. How could it be 
 otherwise ? A young man of twenty finds himself 
 in possession of an enormous fortune. The chances 
 are that he slacks and lazes, and the certainty is 
 that he does not develop and expand his abilities 
 as he very likely would if he had the prod of having 
 to earn his own livelihood. It is that that makes 
 a man strive for development, and improvement, 
 and advancement, and it is that striving which 
 makes the world go round. 
 
 So we shall increase the death duties enormously, 
 and one effect, no doubt, will be to make men 
 hoard their money less and use it more, though 
 everything, of course, is gradully shaping towards 
 a more equal distribution of money, so that we 
 shall not have so many very wealthy men, but, 
 instead, very many more men comfortably off. 
 
 If we take the principle I set out with in this 
 chapter the ability to pay and apply it here, 
 who has a greater ability to pay a tax, however 
 high, than the man who hasn't yet but will come 
 by chance into possession of the very money that 
 is to be taxed ? 
 
 It would have the inevitable effect of breaking 
 up some of the big estates, but that would not 
 matter very much except to a very few individuals. 
 Experience, to sum the matter up, has proved 
 that, despite the very considerable opposition 
 that was originally put up when the death duties 
 were first introduced, they have proved in their 
 working a really satisfactory tax. 
 
 I 53 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 When we think of finance, it is rather interesting 
 to speculate on the chances of one day establishing 
 a world-wide currency. It is a possibility that, 
 perhaps, is not so far off as some people suspect. 
 With the League of Nations possible, with it very 
 much further developed than it is to-day, and with 
 a complete representation from other nations upon 
 it, I don't see any real difficulty, or any insurmount- 
 able difficulty, in establishing the same coinage 
 all over the world at all events, shall we say, for 
 the moment, all over Europe, where in the main 
 the coinage is a gold one. This would obliterate 
 the exchanges on foreign countries, which have 
 caused such havoc since the armistice. Incidentally, 
 too, they have caused a good deal of gambling, 
 and that is not a good thing. Our money has 
 gone abroad to buy German marks, and that is 
 much worse than ordinary stock-exchange specu- 
 lation, because, even though the gambling element 
 is there, the money is, as a rule, being used in the 
 development of business. 
 
 To cut out the exchanges would be a very big 
 thing, and would vastly simplify international 
 business relationships. There would be the British 
 sovereign, which would be of the same value in 
 every country in Europe, that is if they took the 
 English coinage as the one that would be adopted. 
 I should think probably a new coinage would be 
 created, working on the metric system. But still, 
 that is a detail. 
 
 The League of Nations would become bankers. 
 They would hold the gold as the Bank of England 
 does to-day, and would issue to each country 
 notes against their holding. These notes would 
 be used, of course, for business. It would be 
 possible to arrange credits for countries on a 
 
 154 
 
Finance 
 
 percentage system of their holding. Whatever 
 the banks can do now, that bank could do, either 
 through the existing banking organisation, or 
 through some other system which could be created. 
 It would certainly simplify business relations 
 between one country and another, and to simplify 
 things means to improve them, to cut out waste 
 and to make for efficiency. 
 
 But, you might object, you must have exchanges, 
 because a pound will buy more labour in, shall 
 we say, Belgium, than it will in, shall we say, 
 Birmingham. That is perfectly true, and, until 
 that is changed, you could not have an international 
 currency. 
 
 It ought to be changed. Why should we not 
 have a more equal standard of wages all over 
 Europe ? When Labour is in power, not only 
 here but in other countries, it seems to me quite 
 feasible that the railwayman, or the bricklayer, 
 or the miner, should be able to demand the same 
 standard of wages and of living, whether he works 
 in England, or whether he works in France, or 
 in Rumania. These reforms, if they could be 
 accomplished and I am only throwing it out 
 here in quite a speculative way would help to 
 stabilise the world in general, as well as to balance 
 up the benefits of life among all human beings. 
 
 There is another side of the nation's finances 
 I would like to touch upon. It is the instinctive 
 antagonism of the average business man to the 
 notion of Labour being in power. 
 
 That great and useful community, comprised of 
 business men as apart from wage earners or the 
 profesbional classes, seems to think that we should 
 at once cheerily seize their money and their 
 connections and divert all the proceeds to some 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 sort of sharing out scheme among the manual 
 labourers. That, of course, is the result of ignorance. 
 I wish business men would drop their instinctive 
 hostility to our principles, and spend a little time 
 in studying our aims. There is, of course, a 
 sphere for the business man in every state of 
 society. There is a very real raison d'etre for 
 the financier. True it is that what is generally 
 called high finance has been the medium for abuses, 
 especially in America before Roosevelt made his 
 great attack upon * big business/ But because 
 on occasions alas ! too often the public has 
 been badly gulled and fleeced by the business 
 financier, it does not follow that genuine financial 
 operations are not of benefit to the general com- 
 munity. They are. 
 
 Money must come from somewhere to make 
 work possible, and it is only the extremist, who 
 is a man with warped enthusiasm and narrow 
 inspiration, who wants to seize the nation's works 
 and money and valuables and distribute them 
 among those of his own kind. That is not a 
 Labour programme. It is anarchy. And we 
 will have nothing to do with anarchy. That is 
 where critics like the Duke of Northumberland 
 go astray. He has asserted that determined effort 
 was being made to ensure unity of action with 
 the railwaymen and transport workers in Ireland 
 and those in England, and the miners were to 
 co-operate by a fresh agitation for an increase of 
 wages. All this was to be supported by the Russian 
 Bolsheviks. In Ireland, too, parties which were 
 working, the one for national independence, and 
 the other for a world-wide revolution, were in 
 alliance. They were also in alliance with national 
 socialism. They were working in England with 
 
 156 
 
Finance 
 
 various Labour organisations, who again were in 
 close touch with the Soviet Government. He 
 knew also that * there was the closest intimacy 
 between all these parties and the Nationalist 
 movement in India and in Egypt. It was a world- 
 wide conspiracy aimed at the destruction of the 
 British Empire/ 
 
 We do not aim to destroy the British Empire. 
 We aim to change its Government, so that there 
 shall be no chance of uprising, and so that peace 
 and justice, and not autocracy, shall govern us. 
 Such loose talk as I have quoted does a lot of 
 harm. That the Duke of Northumberland was 
 erroneous is shown by the fact that his remarks, 
 connecting us with the Bolshevik rulers of Russia, 
 were made only a little after the Trade Union 
 Congress had given a decided vote against the 
 attendance at the Moscow International. I am 
 afraid he is, like many others, merely striving to 
 create a panic against Labour by making assertions 
 which have no foundation in fact. 
 
 The only revolution we aim at is already here. 
 It has nothing to do with machine guns. It has 
 to do with the control of affairs. We want to 
 control them we mean to control them because 
 for too long Labour has been exploited for the 
 good of the few. 
 
 That does not mean that Labour wishes to 
 exploit capital. Let us look at this question of 
 the financier. Who and what is he ? You can 
 divide him under two headings. 
 
 Let us take the man who provides capital for 
 the development of the business. No one could 
 suggest for a moment that he was anything other 
 than a desirable and useful citizen, rendering a 
 great service to the community. To suggest that 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 a man occupying that position is a parasite is, of 
 course, playing with the subject. 
 
 But, on the other hand, let us take the other 
 man, not a financier, but a mere speculator, whose 
 service is limited to Stock Exchange booming, 
 to the rigging of the financial market, and who 
 gives nothing to, but who invariably draws very 
 largely from, the community, often creating both 
 misery and suffering. Here is a very clear dis- 
 tinction between the two definitions of a financier. 
 
 Now I suppose that for a very long time to 
 come, even under a Labour Government, it will 
 be necessary to retain the Stock Exchange. But 
 I certainly hope that there would not be such a 
 feeling for exploiting people as now exists. The 
 mere rigging of the market, with the artificial 
 inflation of prices which inevitably follows, does 
 an incalculable amount of harm. 
 
 The recent operations in Lancashire in cotton 
 are the best evidence as to the danger whereby a 
 quite artificial and abnormal price was paid for 
 shares, clearly the result of manipulation, and, 
 remember, from these inflated prices dividends 
 must be earned, or a break must come with its 
 concomitant unemployment and financial losses. 
 
 It is reasonable to ask how one could regulate 
 these things. It could be and should be the 
 duty of a State Department to satisfy itself as to 
 operations in this land. Neither watered stock, 
 nor financial jugglery, should be allowed to exist, 
 and a Government Department should check 
 what was a legitimate exchange of the transfer of 
 business and what was mere unhealthy speculation, 
 unwise and dangerous, because in these matters 
 it is not the people who know most who suffer 
 they invariably get out before the crash comes. 
 
 158 
 
Finance 
 
 It is only too often the innocent victims who are 
 left. 
 
 This raises, too, the very interesting question 
 of what is a reasonable return for capital. Here, 
 no fixed rule or principle can be applied for many 
 obvious reasons. There are many more risks in 
 some businesses than in others. If one man invests 
 jioo in a business which is risky say, the obtaining 
 of Spanish gold from somewhere in South Seas 
 he is taking a much greater risk on his money than 
 the man who puts 100 into a grocery store. It is 
 right that, if the greater risk comes off, there would 
 be a greater return. It is necessary, before any 
 regulations could be drawn up on this line, that 
 the whole subject should be much further explored, 
 but it can be stated that any legislation which 
 Labour might be called upon to frame would be 
 based upon the policy that the first charge upon 
 any business would be in the interests of labour. 
 That has the first claim. After that a reasonable 
 return should be allowed for capital. 
 
 And then ? Well, then, we come to the many 
 schemes of co-partnership and profit-sharing. 
 
 I can think of nothing at this moment that for so 
 long has been so strongly opposed by the working 
 classes as profit-sharing. It is only fair, however, 
 that whatever may be said of the principles which 
 underlie the scheme, it is the manner in which it 
 was introduced which rendered it anathema to 
 the working classes. There is no doubt, and 
 indeed it has never been denied, that the in- 
 tention by the particular company which did 
 introduce it, was to smash trade unionism. It 
 was brought in in the midst of a strike, and it was 
 the panacea put forward to defeat trade unionism. 
 
 Is it, therefore, surprising that every suggestion 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 along these lines is at once suspect from Labour's 
 point of view ? It is perfectly true that there are 
 places, like the Lever Bros, works and others, 
 where profit-sharing schemes have been introduced, 
 and which have had none of the tainted elements 
 attached to them. Indeed, they run side by side 
 with collective bargaining. It is not any good 
 considering these where we are discussing matters 
 of principle. They are isolated cases, successful, 
 very beneficial, maybe, to the work-people who 
 are affected by them, but, quite frankly, they 
 could not be followed on universal lines, and 
 attached to all businesses, large and small. 
 
 For every reason it is obvious that, if you have 
 a profit-sharing scheme, it entails, by the ordinary 
 laws of fair play, a loss-sharing scheme that is, 
 if the worker agrees with the employer or the 
 capitalist to take a share of the profit, he, surely, 
 must be ready to share in the risk of loss should 
 the business not go well. So you would get a man 
 in a humble walk of life, whose bill at each week- 
 end and he is not of the class v/ho would get 
 large credits from trades people for his coal, his 
 food, and his very necessities of life would be 
 contingent upon the success of some business 
 which, by very reason of his job, he could not in 
 any way direct or control. The capitalist risks his 
 money. But that is what he gets his return for, 
 and he must have money and, therefore, be able to 
 take the risk, or he could not be a capitalist, and 
 would be a member of the working classes. 
 
 The real solution is fair and equitable conditions, 
 and a frank and full recognition of the principles 
 of collective bargaining collective bargaining not 
 only by the officials of the big trade unions, 
 but by the local members in their own business 
 160 
 
Finance 
 
 houses consulting with the management on all 
 sorts of conditions in the works, the neglect of 
 which really create more industrial unrest than 
 the big mass questions of wages. 
 
 Intimately associated with any question of 
 national finance is the problem of Free Trade. 
 On the surface it ought not to be a problem. Even 
 the supporters of the late Mr Joseph Chamberlain, 
 in his Tariff Reform campaign, would be the first, 
 probably, to admit that universal Free Trade is 
 the right thing, the best thing, the most economic 
 policy we as a race could pursue. The trouble, 
 of course, is complicated, because other countries 
 set up their tariffs. Otherwise, there would never 
 have been one word to be said in favour of any 
 Tariff Reform within our own legislation. 
 
 Despite this, I, of course, stand entirely and all 
 the time for absolute Free Trade. The Labour 
 Party will have nothing to do with Protection in 
 any shape or form. And this is not only an 
 economic matter. It is probably the greatest 
 cause of international friction, resulting in strained 
 relations with other countries, and very often in 
 wars. It is only natural that this should be so. 
 If we put a protective duty against the goods of 
 one country, or against the goods that one country 
 produces, and not against the goods that chiefly 
 come from another country, it is natural that the 
 first country should not like us for it. It also 
 provokes that country to seek the friendship of 
 other nations, and so, easily based upon these 
 economic associations, you can make a stepping- 
 stone for political alliances among nations and 
 thus get back to the old stupid position of the 
 balance of power, the narrowness and meanness 
 of which caused the last war. 
 
 W.L.R. L 161 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 But, primarily, of course, the question of tariffs 
 is an economic rather than a political factor. The 
 Protectionist says glibly to the working man: * If 
 we charge a duty upon the importation of certain 
 goods from foreign countries, you will get less 
 competition from abroad, therefore the price of 
 the commodity you make will be higher in conse- 
 quence of that, so wages will be bigger/ Before 
 the War it was one of the first ideas of the Protec- 
 tionist platform that their system of tariff wars 
 against the foreigner would solve the unemployment 
 problem. As a matter of fact the expedient has 
 been tried in almost every country under the sun, 
 including our own, at one time or another, and it 
 has never succeeded in curing the trouble of 
 unemployment. At this moment it is particularly 
 opportune to point out this fallacy, because it is 
 likely, during the next phase of the industrial 
 position of the country, that unemployment will 
 prevail. There are so many forces working both 
 from the sides of Capital and Labour, overlapping 
 each other, and affecting the position of employ- 
 ment, that no one can with certainty say what will 
 result, nor how it is possible to obviate the troubles 
 that certainly are threatening. But, if there is 
 unemployment to any extent, of one thing I am 
 certain Protection will never cure it. 
 
 Protection means, in the end, more money in 
 the pockets of the manufacturers of whatever 
 goods are protected. It may certainly be that 
 the unions of the workers in these trades will be 
 able to force a more or less decent wage from the 
 employer, but, if large profits are made in any 
 particular trade behind a tariff barrier, you may 
 be sure that the majority of those profits will go 
 into the hands of the capitalists. 
 162 
 
Finance 
 
 But, of course, this subject is very much larger 
 than that. To wipe out Protection, to establish 
 complete Free Trade eventually, must mean the 
 lowering of the price of goods. To have healthy 
 competition from abroad in our own markets, 
 must, of necessity, mean that the home producer 
 cannot exploit the purchasing public and charge 
 unreasonable prices. The more goods come into 
 the country, the more goods there are to buy, 
 and the cheaper, therefore, they become. For 
 instance, if a man with i in his pocket goes to 
 buy a hat, and finds that, because there are so 
 many hats from all sources, the price of a hat has 
 gone down to 1 53, he has got 55 over with which to 
 buy a pair of socks, or perhaps a tie. It is obvious 
 that, by doing this, he is creating a greater demand 
 for goods in general. That means more work 
 less unemployment. But, if you put a tax upon 
 goods coming into this country, that hat, instead 
 of being 155 will be iys 6d, because of the tax; 
 and if imported goods can only be sold at iys 6d, the 
 English maker, who really can afford to sell them 
 at 153, is not going to do anything of the sort 
 he is going to sell them either at 175 6d or some- 
 thing more nearly approaching that figure. And 
 so prices are kept up, and demands for goods are 
 kept down. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the bogey of unemployment 
 being affected by Protection is easily tracked 
 down. It is really a very thin stream of foreign 
 manufactured goods that comes into this country. 
 It is not more than 5 per cent of the total products 
 used in the country. The other 95 per cent are 
 products of our own effort. And you have got 
 to remember that, even if the manufactured goods 
 do come in, quite a large proportion of them is 
 
 163 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 merely used for the creation of our own 
 goods. 
 
 Let us bring the matter down to an individual 
 company. This company may turn out, shall we 
 say, motor-cars. It may be quite a sound business 
 proposition if they produce everything that is 
 required to make that motor-car. But it is very 
 doubtful if they would find it profitable to set up 
 a glass factory, shall we say, in order to make their 
 wind-screens, simply because it would not pay 
 them to produce the small quantity that they 
 would use. They can buy their glass from outside, 
 just as they can buy the electric-light globes, which 
 light their works, from outside they don't want 
 to make them. A very good proportion of the 
 goods imported into this country are in the same 
 category as these accessories very necessary, in 
 fact, entirely essential, but not necessarily hitting 
 in any way our own employment question. It is 
 a fact, you cannot increase the total volume of 
 unemployment by any tariff jugglery, and it is 
 opportune to point out here that the wage-earner 
 should disabuse his mind of any idea that the 
 Protectionist has as his motive the desire to find 
 more work or better wages for him. 
 
 The working classes realise or, if they don't, 
 they should that if tariffs are not proposed 
 with the object of bringing highel prices and 
 larger profits to capitalists and landlords, the 
 movement would have been still-born, and even 
 the agitation such as it is is only engineered 
 by a few who would benefit, because it would be 
 only the particular trades that were protected who 
 would get anything out of them even if they did. 
 Unquestionably, Protection cuts right across the 
 path of Labour. By a careful scrutiny of the 
 164 
 
Finance 
 
 figures of unemployment during the last twenty 
 years, you will find that in every country where 
 there is any sort of Protection, unemployment is 
 infinitely greater than it is in those countries 
 where Free Trade, or something near to Free 
 Trade, operates. 
 
 If any system of Protection is to be the result 
 of this War, then all the fine professions of ideals 
 for which we fought lie in the dust and are but 
 mockeries. It was a war to end war, and it must 
 not leave behind it a war of peoples in trade, and 
 a competition among diplomats for the obtaining 
 of particular privileges and spheres of influence 
 in this, that, or the other end of the world, which 
 would carry no benefit to workers, but would 
 only be a means of increasing the dividends upon 
 capital. This sort of thing only speeds another 
 war, because, in order to combat these trade 
 interests in various parts of the world, it is necessary 
 to maintain a high standard of efficiency in 
 armaments, so that opposition can be withstood 
 and privileges enforced. 
 
 You can take it from me that Free Trade as a 
 principle means greater employment, and would 
 be one of the chief mediums for peace among the 
 nations. Let us lead in this, and the others will 
 follow. k 4^rVV_A~ w <yK-*-X_ l$~tl/\ 
 
 Perhaps I ought to add a postscript, as it were, 
 to the subject of Protection, by saying that imperial 
 preference is just as incompatible with any notion 
 of vast increase as a tariff wall. For myself, I 
 think if the British Empire had not been a Free 
 Trade Empire, the War of 1914 might have come 
 a decade earlier than it did. The great powers 
 began to realise that preferential treatment within 
 their own communities was likely to be attempted 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 generally, and, in order to obtain all the raw 
 material they could, the scramble for territory in 
 Africa and Asia commenced. This too was definite 
 pan-Germanism, and that was the soil upon which 
 the seeds of war were planted. Britain, owning 
 the largest Empire, refused to adopt the scheme 
 of imperial preference, happily for the world's 
 sake. But short-sighted politicians persisted all 
 the time in exploiting the policy, and lecturing 
 up and down the country in favour of it, using the 
 shallow argument that it must increase employ- 
 ment to the British workman, and appealing, on 
 jingoistic principles, to a self-efficient and water- 
 tight British Empire. 
 
 We must try now, with all the influence we have, 
 to maintain all the world over the open door, and, 
 when Labour comes into power, it will unquestion- 
 ably break down any beginnings that have been 
 made towards Protection by the present rulers. 
 The way the so-called * key industries ' are being 
 sheltered behind tariffs and duties is wrong. We 
 don't want to plan and plot to preserve some 
 special industry in view of some possible war; 
 we don't want war; but we do want Free Trade 
 for the sake of the workman and the sake of peace. 
 
 I do hope that the League of Nations, when 
 it gets to any sort of force in the world, will 
 definitely declare for Free Trade and the open 
 door. What we want, in Mr Wilson's words, is 
 'the removal of all economic barriers and the 
 establishment of an equality of trade conditions/ 
 
 ,0; -M 
 
 166 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MUNICIPALITIES 
 
 A LABOUR Government will work on a system of 
 devolution. It will not arrogate to itself the 
 management of all the activities of the national 
 machinery. There are some things, such as 
 insurance, education, health, which it will under- 
 take for the good of the entire community. These 
 things, in its view, are matters of interest to the 
 entire public, and are not concerned with any 
 locality in particular. The responsibility of these 
 things should be a general responsibility, and not 
 a local one. Why should a person living in one 
 place pay infinitely more for education than a person 
 living in the next street but under a different 
 authority ? And why should a student get an 
 inferior chance of education for the same reason ? 
 There is no logic in it. There is no justice in it. 
 
 But there are many things which are local in 
 their interest. And we would very largely increase 
 the powers of local government. Why, for 
 instance, should a big authority such as, say, the 
 Manchester City Council have to come to Parlia- 
 ment to get powers to draw water for the inhabitants 
 of their town from Wales or somewhere ? It is 
 a costly and entirely unnecessary procedure. They 
 ought to have power to do such a thing upon their 
 own authority. But, to-day, they must come to 
 Parliament, taking up the time of Parliament and 
 paying large fees to local as well as London lawyers 
 
 167 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 to bring the matter forward and get the necessary 
 formal consent to borrow whatever money they 
 require to carry out the operation which they have 
 decided upon. 
 
 If their decision to do a certain thing is wrong, 
 the residents in their city who are primarily con- 
 cerned have the power, through the ballot-box, 
 to say so, and put into power those men who will 
 do what their community require. This, by the 
 way, makes considerably for local pride, and the 
 sense of local responsibility. It is all to the good 
 that this local patriotism should be fostered, and 
 this would be one and not a small result of increased 
 powers placed in their hands. 
 
 But you say they have come to the central 
 authority to borrow the necessary money to carry 
 out any really large scheme. Birmingham, for 
 instance, wanted half a million to lay their pipes 
 from the Elian Valley and bring their water to 
 the Midland capital. To get that they had to 
 borrow from the then Local Government Board 
 at a certain rate of interest, giving an under- 
 taking to repay in a certain number of years, and, 
 on the surface, it may seem a reasonable thing 
 to do- to have this control upon municipalities. 
 
 But, as I have said, if a local authority loses its 
 sense of responsibility in the matter of spending 
 money, it can be deposed at the elections, and 
 there is this to remember, that if the money has 
 to be raised within its own borders there is the 
 more likely to be a careful scrutiny of expenditure 
 than if the sum comes out of official pockets in 
 London, and if the decision is entirely in the 
 hands of that outside authority. With the latter 
 it is largely a business deal. They are there to 
 lend the money at a rate of interest which shows 
 168 
 
The Responsibilities of the Municipalities 
 
 a right and proper return for the loan. They are 
 not concerned with the rates, and are not affected 
 by their rise or fall. The man who has a house 
 in the suburbs of that city is much more likely to 
 be a careful critic of such expenditure, and we 
 can safely leave the matter in his hands. He will 
 kick, and kick effectively, if he is being overcharged 
 for what he gets. And it need never be the responsi- 
 bility of the imperial parliament. It is entirely 
 a matter of local politics and local expediency. 
 
 * Where is the money coming from, then ? ' 
 you ask. * Where is Birmingham to get its half 
 million from ? ' 
 
 The answer is very simple. Every city, every 
 town, should have its own municipal bank. Imagine 
 the position of a great municipality going to a 
 firm of underwriters to back them for a loan. It 
 is almost unbelievable, yet it is done to-day. Why 
 should not the local authority be given powers to 
 take the savings of its inhabitants those whose 
 interests it has been elected to look after and 
 use them, paying, of course, a right and proper 
 percentage, for such purposes as I have indicated ? 
 How better could the money of the people of 
 Birmingham be invested than in the improvement 
 of its water supply ? And what better security 
 could the saving residents have for the interest 
 on their money than their own corporation, which 
 after all means their very existence ? 
 
 Under Labour the privileges of these corpora- 
 tions would be generously enlarged, and they 
 would be able to become bankers, and, with the 
 invested capital of their own inhabitants, have a 
 balance for them which could be utilised for the 
 improvements which would make for the well- 
 being of all the inhabitants of the town. 
 
 169 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 But this, of course, is only a small part of the 
 work a municipality might and ought to perform. 
 Already, as we know, many of them provide such 
 things as gas and electricity, though why any 
 such undertakings should be left in the hands of 
 private enterprise I cannot imagine. It only spells 
 lethargy on the part of these authorities. Obviously 
 it is right and proper, and for the good of all, that 
 the local authority should be in charge of such 
 things as gas and electricity. Why allow large 
 profits to go into the pockets of private companies ? 
 Those profits should, if they are earned at all, 
 go into the local exchequer and so help to relieve 
 the rates. But it is not only the profit that muni- 
 cipalities should trade. It is entirely true that 
 corporations and town councils can make money 
 out of selling electricity and gas to their inhabitants. 
 But the test of the wisdom of those local authorities 
 running those businesses is, do the inhabitants 
 thereby get better gas, better electricity, and at a 
 cheaper rate ? 
 
 It is not profit alone that justifies municipal 
 trading. I think that, in addition to gas and 
 electricity, milk should be in the hands of the 
 municipalities also bread. Think for a moment 
 of the stupidity of perhaps twenty, or perhaps 
 two hundred different milk businesses distributing 
 milk in a town every morning. One, two, three, 
 four, perhaps even six milk carts go up the same 
 road. Think of the enormous waste of effort this 
 entails. All this would be saved by a proper 
 central organisation run under the municipal 
 council. Unquestionably, the price could be 
 much less than it is. The municipality could buy 
 just as well from the farmer as the milk dealer 
 could. Indeed, I am not sure if it would not be 
 170 
 
The Responsibilities of the Municipalities 
 
 good for large towns to run their own farms, and 
 so get their own milk. But whether this is practi- 
 cable or not, I want to make this point, that, by 
 the necessary system of inspection which muni- 
 cipalisation would set up, you would not only get 
 cheaper milk, but get purer milk. There would 
 not be the same, shall we say, margin of possibility 
 of dilution as there is to-day. There would probably 
 be more milk, because it would be simple, when 
 supplies were scarce, to ration this commodity, 
 so that the po.or, having many children to feed, 
 would get what was necessary for health, even if 
 it meant that the rich, with probably fewer children 
 to feed, would not get more than they really needed, 
 because they happened to have more money. 
 
 Bread, too, might come under the local control, 
 and if you have municipal bakeries, and a municipal 
 milk supply, you are going to cut out a good deal 
 of the possibility of hardship among people with 
 trivial incomes. 
 
 Now, what are the objections to municipal 
 trading ? You will find they mostly come from 
 interested parties I mean by that, investors in 
 private undertakings. They say that municipal 
 trading increases the rates. That is one of their 
 points. Let us examine it. A corporation decide 
 to run trams. They go to the Local Government 
 Board, and obtain the loan of 100,000, interest 
 upon which has to be paid, and the total has to be 
 paid back to the centre of authority, say, within 
 twenty-one years. This loan comes out of the 
 rates at present. There is no other source from 
 which it can be obtained. * Oh, 1 say the objectors 
 to municipal trading, ' look at the debt on the town 
 because these foolish councillors want to run their 
 own trams.' 
 
 171 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Now what happens when the private enterprise 
 company comes along and just in order to keep 
 the example in harmony obtains permission to 
 run trams in a town ? Can they lay down miles 
 of track through the streets, and can they build 
 their tramcars, and can they erect their electric 
 generating station without money ? It is going 
 to cost them just as much as it cost the corporation 
 to lay down its tramway system. Where do they 
 get their money from ? They float a company. 
 They get subscribers who invest in the company, 
 thinking to obtain profits upon their investments. 
 They call this their capital. 
 
 Now the true economic position is that this 
 capital is exactly equivalent to the loan which 
 the corporation for the same purpose borrow 
 from the Local Government Board. The private 
 company has to pay dividends if it can; the 
 corporation has to pay interest upon its borrowing. 
 The thing is absolutely identical, except that in 
 the past, as a rule, the corporation loan has been 
 obtained on very advantageous terms much 
 better terms than investors in industrial concerns 
 expect to pay by way of dividend upon their money, 
 and, if we establish, as I have suggested, municipal 
 banks, these corporations would be in a still far 
 better position, because they would be investing 
 their own money in their own undertakings, 
 and paying themselves interest upon their 
 borrowings. 
 
 Some very interesting figures were published 
 by the Board of Trade, which, despite the usual 
 belief to the contrary, show how much better 
 tramways, and gas undertakings, too, are worked 
 under local authorities than they are under private 
 companies. They lay their track cheaper, they 
 172 
 
The Responsibilities of the Municipalities 
 
 show a better return upon their money, their 
 working expenses are less, and which is the 
 most important of all the fare charged to the 
 passenger is less. These figures seem to me to 
 prove conclusively that municipal trading does 
 pay, that it is not extravagantly conducted, and 
 that it does provide a better commodity than that 
 offered by private capital. There is, incidentally, 
 this also to be remembered that, whereas the 
 track of private enterprise, in the matter of trams 
 and gas and electricity, is strewn with bankruptcies 
 and failures, with their inevitable results of disaster 
 to the private investor, the corporation cannot go 
 bankrupt. So that if you, as a ratepayer, look 
 upon yourself as investor in local trams, you are 
 sure of not losing your money even though you 
 are compulsorily anticipating in the scheme. 
 
 Also these municipal undertakings are year by 
 year repaying the capital invested in them, so 
 that in time they become the town's property, 
 and the town free of debt. If they are then in 
 good condition they should provide a greatly 
 increased reduction to the rates, and a cheaper 
 and more efficient service. 
 
 Another great objection is that, as a rule, the 
 local councillors are looked upon as being unable to 
 conduct such an undertaking as a tramway scheme. 
 Of course, the point here is that a collection of the 
 veriest fools can obtain the right experience to do 
 these jobs. They do not run the trams. They 
 merely obtain officers of experience and knowledge 
 to do it for them. And it is a fact that a municipality 
 can always get an efficient manager more cheaply 
 than a company can. He says to himself that the 
 job is safe so long as he carries out his duties 
 satisfactorily. The municipality will never go 
 
 173 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 bankrupt. He is not likely to be dismissed through 
 any personal spite, because he can always have his 
 case discussed in public for all to hear or read. 
 
 People also allege that it is unfair for a muni- 
 cipality to trade. You might also say that it is 
 unfair to expect a small shop to compete with big 
 stores. But no one would suggest that we should 
 not have stores. That is the only analogy I can 
 see. I find municipal trading is better, and, to 
 my mind, it would not be right to the community 
 if its municipalities did not make use of its obvious 
 advantages. 
 
 The whole trouble here is that the private investor 
 is inclined to be annoyed if a certain field of 
 commercial operation is undertaken by the local 
 authority, not for the purpose of making money 
 so much as to serve the general community. This, 
 thinks the speculator, cuts out the chance for 
 him to exploit the public, and make money for 
 himself. 
 
 There is a side to municipal undertakings 
 which cannot be judged upon the basis of com- 
 petition of private enterprise. While certain of 
 its operations show a direct revenue, there is a 
 branch of municipal work which no private 
 capitalist would undertake, because it shows no 
 profit. Unless the work is done by the local 
 authority it is not done at all. Yet it is to the 
 advantage of the community. Suppose, for 
 instance, there is a congested slum, and the 
 municipality knocks down many of the houses 
 there, and creates a fine, open space where children 
 can play, and fresh air can penetrate. That is to 
 the good of the community as a whole, because 
 it affects the health of the population. In the end, 
 to be sure, it may also improve the rents of the 
 
The Responsibilities of the Municipalities 
 
 other houses that remain in the neighbourhood, 
 and, therefore, the landlords may grow rich. 
 But you never find a private speculator make that 
 open space as a private speculation, trusting to 
 some slight charge he might be able to make for 
 admission. 
 
 Labour in general would develop the municipal 
 life as far as it could, but there are some things 
 which essentially fall under the heading of 
 nationalisation: coal, railways, etc. 
 
 There is one other thing which the municipality 
 at present carries on and by municipality I mean 
 all urban and county authorities as well rnd 
 that is education. This authority would be taken 
 from them and placed under the State at head- 
 quarters, its upkeep coming out of the national 
 exchequer. But in every other respect we should 
 endeavour to leave it to the choice of the local 
 authorities, and give them greater freedom and 
 infinitely more powers than they have now to 
 carry on municipal trading and various branches 
 of reform. Housing, for instance; and drink, 
 for instance. We should permit local option in 
 all these things. I do not think there would be 
 any necessity for compulsory legislation in regard 
 to them. By centring power in their hands, we 
 should foster local pride in townships, and give 
 a fillip to the sense of citizenship. 
 
 But there is one duty that I should make com- 
 pulsory, and that is the feeding and clothing of 
 children. This should go upon the Statute Book 
 as a thing municipalities were compelled to do. 
 No child should go to school in a starving condition, 
 or with badly shod feet, and the municipality 
 should have power to obtain the money through 
 the rates for this purpose. It must not be left to 
 
 175 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 charity which, with all its virtues, is apt to miss 
 the individual cases. 
 
 One other thing while we are upon this 
 subject I would wipe out the present Poor Law 
 system. We should set out for the abolition of 
 the Board of Guardians. The words ' pauper ' 
 and * Poor Law ' would be swept from the Statute 
 Book. More especially as we have abolished the 
 old Local Government Board, and established a 
 Ministry of Health, I want to see the last of the 
 Board of Guardians, and I want to see their work, 
 just as the Education Act is, administered to-day 
 by a committee of the local authority. I would 
 abolish the name of * workhouse,' and have instead 
 an institution, or institutions, for the disabled and 
 the needy. But not as the present system has it, 
 which separates the needy, and labels all those 
 who are compelled to seek relief. The system of 
 the casual ward is very bad, and a man, if he can 
 work, should always be able to demand existence. 
 He should not, because he needs a bed, be kept 
 breaking stones, thus curtailing his opportunity 
 of finding reasonable work. 
 
 All this, however, is part of a larger industrial 
 question of wages and work. It is a fact that, 
 during the war, there were practically no tramps. 
 That was because their work was needed, and, if 
 we can ensure by private organisation that there 
 will be security of tenure to the worker and, 
 consequently, little or no unemployment, if we 
 can make it certain that the man who is willing to 
 work shall have work found for him, we shall 
 find that our casual wards will be pretty well 
 empty, and the problems of the tramp will disappear 
 in the general prosperity of the nation. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Labour would 
 176 
 
The Responsibilities of the Municipalities 
 
 nationalise, or municipalise, everything. There 
 will always be left scope for private endeavour, 
 and it would be a pity if that were ever entirely 
 wiped out. I do not mean because I have not 
 faith in the effort and initiative of the man who 
 works for the State. I believe honestly that, in 
 the end, there would be an added stimulus to the 
 man who was serving his fellows in addition to 
 rinding a living for himself. It would not sterilise 
 industry personal industry, I mean to think 
 he was more or less secure in his position. He 
 would still do his best perhaps better than if he 
 worked for himself. I think that, as the idea of 
 the State grew the idea of all working for all, 
 with, of course, the security of his own position 
 we should get a higher idea of work. It would 
 spell service rather than mere income. Do not 
 be put off with the common unthoughtful argument 
 that, because a man works for the government, 
 he gives up all sense of responsibility, and loses 
 all ambition to succeed in his job. It is an old 
 cry that. And so often these critics illustrate 
 their argument with comment upon such organisa- 
 tions as the telephone and the post office. The 
 trouble here is that it is not easy to graft on to the 
 ordinary industrial system a national or municipal 
 undertaking. To test the matter properly, you 
 must place in the hands of the community not a 
 stray operation here and there, but all those things 
 that go towards the service of the community. 
 All monopolies. Then we shall cause to grow 
 up amongst us a large army of civil servants who 
 will not shelter behind bundles of red tape and 
 indulge in laziness, but who will be fired by a 
 common ambition to succeed every bit as much 
 as a man may be who works for some private 
 W.L.R. M 177 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 concern and does his best not only in order to get 
 on, but because he is all the time in fear of dismissal. 
 That fear of unemployment is at the root of more 
 than half the industrial unrest in the world. To 
 wipe it out in government service will contribute 
 enormously to settled conditions, and that means 
 efficiency. 
 
 Let us glance at the alternative to nationalisation 
 and municipal control of essentials. 
 
 That alternative more often than not is trusts. 
 
 Trusts are the industrial equivalent to secret 
 treaties and international alliances. They aim to 
 corner a commodity and then to exploit the public 
 in order to maintain high prices and big dividends. 
 If you can have free competition in the busi- 
 ness world all right. But free competition the 
 very word ' competition ' means a diversity of 
 endeavour, and many competitors striving to 
 obtain public support by means of producing the 
 best article at the lowest profitable price. But 
 where you have a trust you do not have competition, 
 or practically none. Only a small percentage of 
 those who deal in a given article are outside or 
 it would not be anything approaching a corner 
 or trust and these have but little power because 
 by their very limited output their appeal of 
 necessity must be trivial. 
 
 What we want to reach is a position where all 
 those commodities which are not run by the State, 
 either nationally or locally, such as coal, milk, 
 bread (and why not boots ?), are purchased at 
 only a reasonable percentage over the cost of 
 production. Instead, to-day, we find capitalist 
 combinations operate in some form at almost every 
 stage of production from the raw material up to 
 the point when the article is handed over the 
 
The Responsibilities of the Municipalities 
 
 counter to the purchaser. Even distribution is 
 implied in this. 
 
 In what can the ordinary purchaser be sure he 
 is being charged no more than is required to 
 defray the necessary costs of manufacture and 
 distribution plus a reasonable profit to those who 
 necessarily must handle the goods ? Even if new 
 labour-saving machinery is introduced, there is 
 no guarantee that the saving in cost of producing 
 an article means any reduction in the cost to the 
 producer. The manufacturer pockets it he and 
 his shareholders. And if the government place 
 any new tax upon a commodity, it is never adequately 
 shared by producer and purchaser. On the contrary, 
 it is almost invariably made the excuse for an added 
 profit. The salesman or the manufacturer puts 
 not only the whole of the tax on to the article, but 
 adds to it, to compensate himself for possible 
 reduction in demand. 
 
 As a digression, it would be our policy not only 
 to nationalise coal mines, but to municipalise the 
 distribution of coal in the towns and urban districts. 
 
 When you get a ring in business you may be 
 very sure these facts apply in double force. The 
 very object of the ring is admittedly to increase 
 prices. As against this, it is opportune here to 
 mention, the chief object of municipal trading is 
 to reduce prices. A local authority is not provoked 
 to charge what the trade and the public will 
 stand. It aims at charging as little as the cost of 
 production will bear. 
 
 Another name for the working of trusts is 
 profiteering. Now a profiteer cannot exist if 
 there is no secret treaty between the various 
 manufacturers of a given commodity. The 
 co-operative movement has been one means to 
 
 179 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 checking prices. They return their profits to 
 their members, and they do not endeavour to 
 make much more than their working expenses. 
 The national factories during the War were also 
 valuable in this respect, and it would be a good 
 thing to perpetuate them in the production of 
 essentials. 
 
 In this connection an additional emphasis is 
 found in favour of no tariffs. These capitalistic 
 combines are only too anxious to see an import 
 duty put upon foreign goods similar to those 
 they are making. The free ingress of goods from 
 abroad Germany or anywhere else will always 
 help to keep down prices, and that is why you 
 find it is the capitalistic class who are keenest 
 upon preferential treatment and protection. They 
 do not make these proposals for the good of the 
 working classes. They want to keep out the 
 foreigner in order to keep up prices and in order 
 to increase their own profits. 
 
 Since Labour organises, it is only reasonable 
 for employers to federate also. It is desirable, 
 indeed, that organised Labour should have an 
 amalgamated interest to deal with. If there is any 
 question of working conditions, houses and wages 
 to be discussed, Labour could not discuss it with 
 employers unless the employers had some represen- 
 tative organisation. But just as all discussions 
 of this sort always are made public, so ought all 
 agreements between employers to be published. 
 They should be filed where inspection is possible 
 and simple. This is the local industrial application 
 of the principle we have outlived in regard to 
 international affairs. We will not have secret 
 diplomacy in business, secret trusts organised 
 not to discuss questions with Labour, but entirely 
 180 
 
The Responsibilities of the Municipalities 
 
 aiming at exploiting the purchasing public by 
 unnecessarily high prices. And just as eventually 
 all international relationships will need to be 
 ratified by Parliament, and so become subject to 
 open discussion, so ought a government department 
 be empowered to examine, approve or disapprove, 
 and report upon, all trustification of British 
 industries. The best of all methods of defeating 
 unfair control of commodities is publicity, and 
 with the press free and unfettered as it is to-day 
 public opinion need never go uninformed where 
 abuses exist in this direction, provided such 
 arrangements were compulsorily filed for public 
 inspection. To open to government inspection 
 the accounts of these trusts would be a wise safe- 
 guard. 
 
 Labour in power will certainly break what 
 trusts may exist for unfair private gains, and will 
 tend, wherever possible, to place under either 
 the national or local authorities the control not 
 necessarily the actual management, but certainly 
 the control of the production and distribution 
 of all essentials. 
 
 181 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WOMEN 
 
 WHEN I remind my readers that when the woman 
 adult suffrage comes in as it unquestionably 
 will, especially when Labour is in power, for we 
 are all in favour of it women will hold the majority 
 of votes in the country, I do not wish them to 
 assume that we, as a party, intend to pander in 
 any way to that voting power. Whatever we may 
 suggest by way of legislation in favour of women 
 will be strictly in accordance with our general 
 principles of government. We shall merely place 
 women on an equality with men in all political 
 and economical considerations. 
 
 W T hy we should assume that a boy of 1 8, because 
 he has been a soldier, is more intelligent (and, 
 therefore, entitled to a vote) than a woman of 29, 
 is beyond my comprehension. We have passed 
 the age when woman is looked upon as the inferior 
 or the weaker sex. She is coming more and more 
 out into business and, in certain branches, is 
 making a big success of her venture. 
 
 I should like to state quite definitely that I, 
 personally, have no objection to the competition 
 of women, as women, in the workshops. There 
 have been natural feelings of jealousy on the part 
 of men when they, coming back from the War, have 
 found the jobs they left in order to fight being 
 held by women. There was, I know, a reaction 
 from this which caused the arguments to be brought 
 182 
 
Women 
 
 forward in Trade Union circles objecting to 
 women being employed in their particular trades. 
 Though this may have been so in certain restricted 
 areas of industry, our policy for the future will 
 exclude no woman from any occupation, as long 
 as she is prepared to come in on the same terms 
 as a man, and expects no special considerations 
 other than the reasonable provisions of rest and 
 healthy surroundings which we hope one day 
 to obtain for all workers of whatever sex. 
 
 The woman worker will have the same pay as 
 the man. You cannot make any differences. 
 Equal pay for equal work, to my mind, is un- 
 assailable. There will, however, be certain classes 
 of work from which women will be excluded 
 not because of any question of competition, but 
 purely out of consideration for womanhood, because 
 these particular trades I refer to are either dangerous 
 or necessitate night work. Labour will bring 
 in legislation compelling the abolition of all night 
 work for women in industry. It is altogether 
 unnatural and wrong that a woman should be 
 engaged during the night in the factory or in the 
 office. I think very soon that this law will apply 
 the world over. The only exceptions to it to be 
 made, of course, are in connection with maternity 
 and the nursing profession. 
 
 Women, too, must be excluded from dangerous 
 occupations. There are facts and figures to prove 
 that women, on becoming mothers, have suffered 
 because of their previous employment in certain 
 industries such as those that include the handling 
 of lead. Furthermore, mortality among infants is 
 always greater where the mother has been engaged 
 in work of this description. 
 
 It is true in this country that women are excluded 
 
 183 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 from many processes involving the contact with 
 lead, but we might go much further and extend 
 the list of dangerous trades. In Japan, for instance, 
 the prohibition covers work in places in which 
 dust or gas are generated from arsenic, mercury, 
 yellow (white), phosphorus, prussic acid, fluorine, 
 aniline, chrome, chlorine, or other chemical 
 compounds, or from other similar poisonous 
 substances. I do not like to think that we should 
 be behind Japan in protecting our own from any 
 danger of this kind, and I am glad to feel that 
 we are already considering regulations dealing 
 with processes in which mercury is used. 
 
 In this matter one does not want to work in any 
 restricted area. We want to make these advantages 
 world-wide. 
 
 As you know, there has been established an 
 international Labour Office, which is the industrial 
 side of the League of Nations. Anything that is 
 done in any country would have a direct influence 
 upon this office, and, therefore, the medium by 
 which every government in the civilised world, 
 who is a signator to the League of Nations, would 
 be affected. 
 
 Here is a great task for Labour, and one of the 
 biggest branches of it, not only from the point of 
 view of women, but also from the point of view of 
 man workers, is the constant effort of scientists to 
 discover any improvement in conditions which 
 are producing the poisonous results of work with 
 lead and mercury, etc. Labour will spare no effort 
 or money on research work. We shall spare no 
 effort or money on experiments in wiping out 
 such things as plumbism, and it can be done 
 by finding harmless substitutes for dangerous 
 ingredients in manufacture. We have already 
 184 
 
Women 
 
 discovered a leadless glaze. During the War 
 there was a substitute found for tetrachlorethane 
 in dopes used for aeroplane wings, which was so 
 fruitful in producing cases of poisoning, and, no 
 doubt, by the cultivation of research work, many 
 other evils of labour could be eliminated. 
 
 Meantime, women should be kept out of all 
 such processes. But it is Labour's object as far 
 as possible to wipe out the necessity of married 
 women working at all. When we read of the 
 number of miscarriages that women suffer, entirely 
 because of their occupation in certain dangerous 
 processes, one realises the appalling crime it is 
 that conditions should be such as to have to make 
 them work in order to maintain their households. 
 Woman's sphere of influence is the home, and 
 we must endeavour to see to it that, first, every 
 willing worker in the country should have sufficient 
 income to keep a wife and family, and sufficient 
 security of tenure in his work as not to fear unem- 
 ployment for any long periods, and, secondly, that, 
 while unmarried women should be allowed to 
 enter into all branches of healthy occupation, 
 there should be the most stringent regulations 
 against them being engaged in any of the poisonous 
 trades I have mentioned, because it has been 
 demonstrated by statistics that miscarriages follow 
 the marriage of those women who have been 
 engaged in such trades as the lead industry. 
 
 I do not think that women will ever dominate 
 the politics in this country. The basic motives of 
 her existence, her dreams, aims, her instincts, all 
 call her away from the political arena, and into 
 the home. But still it is a fact that she will have 
 a tremendous voting power, and should ever any 
 big question arise, there is no doubt that we must be 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 ready for the women of the country to come forward, 
 almost in one, and say, * You shall not do 
 this/ 
 
 There are one or two problems in which mere man 
 has cheerily gone on and got himself into a hole; 
 woman would be much more determined in her 
 efforts. It is that same instinctive dislike of a man 
 to put up with the inconvenience of a crowd in 
 order to get a bargain, whereas women will fight 
 to get in, if her interest is sufficiently roused. 
 
 And it is a good thing for the country. The 
 indifference of men has permitted such disastrous 
 things as secret diplomacy to exist for generations. 
 His lack of political enthusiasm has permitted 
 a few men, who happened to be in power, to make 
 agreements and arrangements which have resulted 
 in war, and the average male has rather come to 
 look upon such a catastrophe as war as being 
 unavoidable, and, on the whole, rather a sporting 
 event. If there is never to be another war you 
 will have to thank the women for it. They will 
 come forward practically as one and turn out any 
 government who are complacently anticipating 
 any participation in any war. And it is only right 
 that they should have this veto, since it is the 
 woman who suffers all the time. Her part in war 
 is infinitely the greatest. It is her agony far rather 
 than the soldier's, and it is only right that she, who 
 brought the soldiers into the world, should prohibit 
 war. Now that she has the vote she will be able to 
 do this, especially if we can really establish a system 
 of open diplomacy. And it is only if we can do 
 that that any body of public influence will 
 impress itself effectively. If a government makes 
 treaties with other governments, and if those 
 governments are threatened and attacked, their 
 186 
 
Women 
 
 friends must, under their contract, come to their 
 aid. No one can then say, * Stand off! ' 
 
 The time to discuss the possibility of war is not 
 the week before it breaks out, but is when these 
 arrangements among the nations are being made, 
 if ever they are to be made. It is then the voice 
 of women should be heard, and it is then that I 
 think you will hear it. In the industrial world, too, 
 her voice will be very big. 
 
 I do not anticipate any large majority among 
 women taking any particularly enthusiastic part 
 in local government. Although they have the 
 vote, and everything is now open to them, it is 
 interesting to notice that there is at the moment of 
 writing only one woman member of Parliament. 
 When Labour comes into power, however, women 
 will be greatly encouraged and helped in every 
 way to enter Parliament, to join Cabinets, even 
 to the extent of a woman becoming Prime Minister 
 of England, if she should be eminently suited to, 
 and the right person for, that position. 
 
 There is one thing, I think, that women will 
 always do when the big emergency arises, they 
 will always vote in favour of industrial peace, and 
 never of strikes or upheaval. For here again the 
 woman at home is the one who stands the racket 
 when her husband and sons are out of work, and 
 there is only the small strike pay allowance upon 
 which to eke out a hazardous existence. 
 
 It is certain that the day when women workers 
 approached the sphere of slavery is past. We all 
 know quite well that it has been the custom for many 
 long years, wherever and whenever women have 
 been brought into the industrial arena, to employ 
 them on sweated wages and with a view to the 
 general lowering of the standard of labour. 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 Consider the long hours at which shirtmakers 
 had to work to gain even the most miserable 
 pittance; the appalling conditions under which 
 the Cradley Heath chain workers were employed; 
 think of the great army of sweated home-workers 
 the matchbox makers and the artificial flower 
 makers, who by working unceasingly from dawn 
 until the small hours of the night succeeded, and 
 than only with help from other members of the 
 family, in gaining a few miserable shillings a week 
 with which to keep body and soul together. The 
 general acquiescence in this deplorable state of 
 affairs shows the inhuman views that so long 
 prevailed on the subject of women's work. 
 
 Then came the great world conflict, and women 
 were called upon to mobilise themselves for war 
 work. Happily the trades union movement had 
 become sufficiently strong by then and, indeed, 
 the public mind had so happily altered for the 
 good that the conditions were altogether different 
 from those which had previously existed. 
 
 As a consequence of this we find to-day not 
 only that women are working in a more congenial 
 atmosphere than they ever dreamt of in the past; 
 not only that they are treated with the consideration 
 that is their due; but that in the main they are 
 enjoying the same rates as those paid to men 
 and what is still more important to remember, 
 they are being organised; and this means that 
 they will have the full benefits and advantages 
 of combination to protect their labour in the 
 future. 
 
 It would, however, be foolish to assume that 
 the present abnormal demand for labour of any 
 kind will continue, and it is necessary, therefore, 
 to keep clearly in mind that we must sooner or 
 It8 
 
Women 
 
 later, in the very nature of things, revert to a more 
 or less normal period when, instead of employers 
 begging for labour, labour may, unfortunately, 
 find itself begging for employment. 
 
 It is when we reach the realisation of that possi- 
 bility that we have to consider whether or not 
 women will be unfair competitors in the labour 
 movement, and whether the nation will continue 
 to benefit from their labour. 
 
 Now, with regard to the first point, judging by 
 the keen interest which the women are showing 
 in the work they have undertaken, notwithstanding 
 the fact that they are learning and becoming 
 proficient in what hitherto has been exclusively 
 men's labour, there is growing up a very strong 
 and welcome bond of comradeship. 
 
 Labour in power, however, will not rely on a 
 sense of comradeship merely. It will legislate 
 directly in favour of equal pay, and that will wipe 
 out any possibility of ill feeling on the part of the 
 male worker. It will be straight competition, a 
 fair field and no favour. Who desires or should 
 expect anything better than that ? 
 
 It may be that, as a rule, the man will win in 
 work against the woman. There are some branches 
 of employment where she will always lead. But, 
 even supposing she is not largely employed in the 
 factory, will it not have the effect of making her 
 think more of home-keeping. That is for the good 
 of the State. And if we can provide that at the age 
 of twenty-one our capable workman is earning a 
 wage sufficient to keep a wife, and maybe a small 
 family, this tendency of the woman towards her 
 natural functions of the home will bring back the 
 average marriage age to the old time level which 
 is far nearer twenty than thirty^ 
 
 189 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE LEAGUE OF PEOPLES 
 
 IN principle, of course, the Labour Party supports 
 the League of Nations. It did, indeed, hold out 
 some hope that the end of international friction 
 was in sight, and that, if the leaders of the peoples 
 in every country honestly sought to push forward 
 the great scheme, the world at length might find 
 peace. We saw some hope of doing away for 
 ever with the secret intrigues between nations, 
 and a return to a state of creating a universal desire 
 to promote not the narrow interests of this or that 
 country, but the good of the world. 
 
 It was a dream, and, like most dreams, has 
 suffered a fading process. How far we are after 
 Spa and Geneva from those ideals which Wilson 
 put before the world and upon which peace was 
 arranged ! 
 
 It has been growing steadily in the minds of 
 those who think for the large mass of the workers 
 in every country that the need for revision of the 
 Versailles Treaty is a fundamental necessity before 
 we can progress far along the lines of world reform. 
 We see clearly that, in the terms of that treaty, 
 are set the seeds which must, of necessity, poison 
 the future and bring back war, which is unthink- 
 able, knowing as we do what lengths of horror 
 any further outbreak of fighting would entail. 
 
 It is only fair that Germany should pay. She 
 must make reparation for the wrongs she inflicted 
 190 
 
The League of Peoples 
 
 upon Europe. If that were not done we should be 
 losing an opportunity to leave posterity a lesson 
 that the criminal aggressor shall be rewarded 
 by punishment and not by profit. But the Peace 
 Treaty has gone further than that. For instance, 
 it should have permitted France only to obtain 
 the coal from the Saar valley mines, and not to 
 have handed over the district itself into the hands 
 of the French for them to govern. France had 
 her great coal mines destroyed in her northern 
 provinces, and that German mines should supply 
 the coal France thus cannot mine for herself is 
 perfectly just. But the occupation by the French 
 must cause irritation for years to come, and recreate 
 the old Alsace-Lorraine trouble, only from the 
 opposite angle. 
 
 There is in the treaty far too much that can be 
 put down to vindictiveness. It will not pay in 
 the long run. It does not spell peace. Even the 
 Alsace-Lorraine matter was not handled in accord- 
 ance with our own assertions as to the right of 
 peoples to determine their own destinies. The 
 population of these provinces was not consulted 
 when they were handed back, though in the Allied 
 Memorandum of War Aims in 1918 it was laid 
 down : * France can properly agree to a fresh 
 consultation of the population of Alsace and 
 Lorraine as to their own desires/ 
 
 Then again, if there is anything meant by the 
 authority of a League of Nations, surely this 
 authority should have supervised the plebiscites 
 in Silesia and East Prussia. Instead they have 
 been carried out under the auspices of an Allied 
 Commission. And all the limitations that have 
 been placed upon the several districts that are 
 largely German determining their own allegiance 
 
 191 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 should be removed. These people should freely 
 say under what Government they wish to live. 
 It should be the wishes of the inhabitants that 
 should be thought of, and not the interests of 
 capital and the acquiring of economic rights by 
 the victors. 
 
 Self-determination should have been respected 
 most rigidly. We made so much of it, talked so 
 glibly of * no annexations/ Yet the right ' freely 
 to choose their allegiance ' has been violated in 
 the case of the Germans in Czecho-Slovakia, of 
 the Tyrolese Highlands, important districts of 
 West Prussia (which have been added to Poland 
 for strategic and economic reasons) the district of 
 Menel, and, during a generation, the Saar Valley, 
 while, in a more limited sense, there is the refusal 
 to allow German Austria to unite with the main 
 German body. The point I want to make is this, 
 that here we have a vast population all embittered 
 by the Peace, and which, in the aggregate, consti- 
 tutes a larger population than Alsace and Lorraine. 
 And we all know how those provinces, torn from 
 France, poisoned the relations of the European 
 countries for half a century. 
 
 Certainly it serves Germany right. On that 
 ground we could have gone infinitely farther than 
 we have done. There is hardly any end to what 
 could have been done and yet have overshot the 
 position in which we could have said it served 
 them right. There was no justification for the 
 W^ar at all; the whole of the tragedy of it lies 
 largely at Germany's door. But two considerations 
 enter here. The first is that it makes no distinction 
 between these few arrogant Junkers who really 
 caused the War, planned for it, hoped for it, and 
 the great mass of German people who, granted, 
 192 
 
The League of Peoples 
 
 were foolish enough to allow themselves to be 
 governed by these people, but who had as little 
 to do with declaring war as the working men of 
 this country have had in manipulating the war 
 in Russia. 
 
 The second and more important point is, of 
 course, that it is of the peace of the future of which 
 we are thinking, or of which we ought to be 
 thinking; the happiness and comfort and security 
 of the generations to come. That it serves Germany 
 right is not the basis of a durable peace. It is the 
 basis of the next war, the impulse which will lend 
 help to those who wish to return to the old Junker 
 rule. The old alliances. The old balance of 
 power. It discredits the League of Nations. 
 
 But there are causes of war hidden in the 
 economic side of the treaty even more abundantly 
 than in the more political and territorial side. 
 
 What we are proposing to do is to say to Germany 
 the prisoner: ' You are fined so much for your 
 misdeeds, also you will have to go to prison for so 
 many years/ The thing is impossible. 
 
 Our best way of getting the money for reparation 
 from Germany is not to cripple her trade. We 
 must encourage her to be productive, or we shall 
 get nothing. We shall get promises, under threats 
 of ultimatums, but that will not pay for the rebuild- 
 ing of France. We shall not get money unless 
 Germany can make money by produce. Yet, as 
 an American writer has pointed out, the Treaty 
 gives the Entente dictatorship over the industrial 
 system out of which Germany has to pay. This 
 was never stipulated for under the armistice. The 
 unconditional surrender of German militarism 
 is accompanied by the unconditional surrender 
 of German commerce. 
 
 W.L.R. N 193 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 What really has happened is that decisions 
 were made on political grounds without any full 
 consideration as to the economic possibilities of 
 carrying them into effect. They were impossible 
 of realisation, and the sooner we grasp this the 
 better. When Labour comes into power the 
 Treaty will be revised, and I fear a thorough 
 revision will never be effected until Labour is the 
 controlling influence in British Government. 
 
 We shall not be lenient towards Germany 
 we are as conscious as any one else of her wrongs 
 as a nation, seeing it was from the ranks of Labour 
 that the majority of our soldiers came, with all 
 the concomitant agony and personal loss that fact 
 means. But we are out for larger ends. We 
 want to see the world at peace, we want to see 
 labour all over the world get justice, and since we 
 wish to get full reparation from Germany we 
 understand that we must not trample her down 
 and prevent her industrial development. We 
 have no election cries to urge us to do that which 
 is not expedient and for the general good of the 
 peace. 
 
 The League of Nations is the right medium 
 for keeping the industrial balance as well as the 
 political peace of the world. This authority, if 
 properly handled, would control, for instance, 
 the supply of raw material without which production 
 cannot go on. We shall never foster economic 
 wars. There must be economic equality, no 
 tariff walls, no protection and imperialist preference. 
 
 Look at the position for one moment. If we 
 grant a preference on tea to India, or to Egypt on 
 cotton, or to Canada on wheat, we expect a prefer- 
 ence to be given to our goods in those markets. 
 The immediate result of that is to penalise the 
 194 
 
The League of Peoples 
 
 goods of other nations in those markets. We 
 therefore become hostile to those other countries. 
 The larger grows our trade in these preferential 
 countries the greater grows the antagonisms of 
 other rivals. What is the result ? 
 
 These rivals, cut out from these special markets, 
 look around to do the same thing to us. France 
 expands her empire in Africa, Japan hers in China, 
 America hers in Mexico. It is all bound to lead 
 to greater and greater rivalry. 
 
 This in turn is backed up by armaments. We 
 get back to that stupid race for naval and military 
 power which preceded the Great War. The 
 burden of creating these huge armies and navies 
 on the top of the terrible taxation we are at present 
 bearing will make life impossible. That way 
 ruin lies. And there is no need for it. There is 
 no reason for this small spirit of exclusion and of 
 preference. The open door is the only policy 
 which will lead to universal development, and 
 Labour will lead the world in this whenever it 
 has the right to decide what the policy of this 
 country shall be. The League of Nations, under 
 our scheme, would control all this raw material, 
 and see that every country had its share, so that it 
 might develop its trade as far as the general supply 
 of material the world over permitted. This, not 
 in the interest merely of that country as a nationality, 
 but because whenever you create an economic 
 war you must, in the end, hit at the workers. 
 
 This point is not a new one that has been brought 
 out since the War ended. It was part of our 
 considered view as expressed in the Labour War 
 Aims in February, 1918, wherein it was declared: 
 
 4 All attempts at economic aggression, whether 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 by Protective Tariffs or Capitalist Trusts or 
 Monopolies, inevitably result in the spoliation of 
 the working classes of the several countries for the 
 profit of the capitalists; and the working class 
 see in the alliance between Military Imperialists 
 and the Fiscal Protectionists in any country what- 
 soever not only a serious danger to the prosperity 
 of the masses of the people, but also a grave menace 
 to Peace.' 
 
 The Treaty will have to be revised in this 
 respect. 
 
 I must now pass on to the larger view of the 
 League of Nations as I see it for the future. 
 
 It is one of the saddest facts connected with 
 the peace that this great movement has fallen 
 into inconsequence. It should have aroused an 
 inspiration that should enliven humanity all over 
 the world. A great vision to realise which would 
 have changed the whole course of history. Instead 
 it has become a shadowy, shrine at which lip service 
 only is offered by the majority. 
 
 There are, to be sure, a few enthusiasts who 
 have said that this movement for the world's 
 peace is the only thing in politics worth while for 
 them. They throw over intrigue, secret treaties, 
 the arts and little ways of the mere diplomatists. 
 This is profoundly to their credit. But what the 
 League needs is for the workers of the world to 
 back it, and that will never be until the workers of 
 the world have the power to say what shall be 
 done, having at their backs the necessary voting 
 strength to support their actions. This will come, 
 we feel sure, and there is nothing more likely to 
 bring it about than the total failure of the professional 
 politicians to realise what the League might become. 
 196 
 
The League of Peoples 
 
 Every woman voter especially ought to look at 
 this matter for herself, and with all seriousness. 
 I should like to say to her: * This is your great 
 opportunity to save any future wars with all their 
 horrors and agonies and loss of son and husband. 
 Support it with all the power you have, help us 
 to make it vital, real, the greatest power there is 
 in the world.' 
 
 Which, of course, means an essential change 
 in its constitution. And here I want to emphasise 
 that the very name of it should be altered. It 
 should not be the League of Nations, but the 
 League of Peoples, and I will explain what the 
 difference means. 
 
 It is true that there is a Labour side to the 
 League. There was established, when the terms 
 of the Treaty were drawn up, an International 
 Labour charter. That is a very big step forward 
 along the path which, one day, will lead to justice 
 being done to the worker on the same generous 
 principles in one country as another. Already a 
 great deal has been done by this organisation, 
 and the Industrial Committee of the League, 
 which has met in Washington, has collected most 
 valuable information on vital labour subjects, and 
 issued important recommendations. In such cases 
 as employment of women and children the various 
 governments have definitely promised to bring 
 in legislation to put these recommendations into 
 effect. 
 
 Also, one of the great points about the Inter- 
 national Labour Committee is that, having been set 
 up, it cannot now be discharged. It is separate from 
 the League itself, and so, even in the grave 
 eventuality of the League failing, the Labour 
 organisation it has set up would go on and 
 
 197 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 perhaps with increasing power restart a League 
 that would succeed and demand respect of the 
 civilised world. 
 
 Because it would be a League of Peoples. 
 
 At present minorities within a nation have no 
 power of expression, are given no opportunity to 
 give effect to the thoughts of what may be quite 
 an important portion of the community. England 
 has a vote. That vote is cast on behalf of 
 whom ? The people ? No, it is cast in accordance 
 with the instructions of the Cabinet at the moment 
 in power. You cannot compress the considered 
 opinions of 40,000,000 people into a vote. 
 
 But, it may be argued, the majority must be 
 allowed to rule. Is there any asurance that the 
 vote would represent the views of the majority ? 
 It is often an open question whether the Govern- 
 ment really represents the majority of the voters 
 of the country. 
 
 But this is beside the point, because there is a 
 far better scheme which, if carried out and 
 Labour would do its best to promote it would 
 ensure the varying opinions of all the world being 
 represented on the League in the strength according 
 to their degree of acceptance in the world. 
 
 There should be a world Parliament. 
 
 In the first place this League, whatever its 
 name, must have representatives of all free peoples 
 upon it. As long as it is only composed of the 
 victorious nations it is little better than an alliance. 
 Every one must be represented, since in all inter- 
 national matters every one is affected. Germany 
 should have been admitted immediately the Peace 
 Treaty was signed, and every month's delay only 
 gave cause for increased suspicions on their part. 
 We want to be rid of suspicions. If Germany 
 198 
 
The League of Peoples 
 
 had come in at the start, many of the troubles, 
 territorial and economic, which followed Peace, 
 and were the occasions of ultimatums on our part, 
 would never have been necessary. Crises would 
 have become subjects of discussion, and would 
 have found easier solution. Meanwhile, it would 
 not have been necessary to reduce by one iota all 
 reasonable claims for reparation, or our demands 
 for the full and sufficient punishment of all war 
 criminals. 
 
 But even that would not be sufficient. 
 
 So a League of Peoples' Parliament must be 
 something more than a mere debating club or an 
 advisory committee. It must have power to 
 legislate. This is the road along which we may 
 eventually reach complete free trade, which, if it 
 could be complete, would be objected to by none, 
 which would lower prices to every consumer, 
 increase general production, and make the world 
 in the end wealthier. Law is more likely to succeed 
 than arms, and arbitration than oppression. We 
 shall, in the end, get international laws, not un- 
 written, but on a world Statute book, and those 
 who break them will have to know the rest of the 
 peoples will combine to enforce them. That fear 
 will be sufficient to keep the wilful to the right 
 path. The international law-breaker is not likely 
 to have a very pleasant time. And a nation will 
 become an outlaw just as soon as it disobeys the 
 ruling of the League. It can come there and 
 make out its case; if it succeeds well and good, 
 if the concensus of the world's opinion is against 
 it, then it must fall into line, and it is not probable 
 that it will wish to do anything other. 
 
 It might be tempted to try this with the constitution 
 as it has been originally drawn up. At present 
 
 199 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 on this assembly of delegates you might very well 
 have a conservative landlord representing this 
 country, voting for the entire forty-five millions 
 of residents in the land. On the face if it that is 
 wrong, and it would perhaps lead a socialistic 
 government to say to itself, * Yes, we know the 
 League vetoed us, but we are convinced that if 
 we do as we meant to we shall have the support 
 of the labouring classes all over the world. We'll 
 risk it; we don't think our colleagues among the 
 workers in other countries will take up arms 
 against us.' 
 
 It's a pretty serious possibility, and constitutes 
 a weakness of the League. But if those workers 
 were fully represented on the body which made 
 the decision against the supposed government 
 over their dispute they would not be able to 
 persuade themselves that some influence, some 
 faction, would support them in breaking the law 
 laid down by the League. 
 
 You don't give the power to legislate to your 
 home Cabinet, they have to come to Parliament 
 for sanction in practically every move they take 
 for every new law that is made. Why then should 
 you give power to make decisions to an international 
 committee ? You must have the same parliamentary 
 control there that you insist on and quite rightly 
 insist on at home. 
 
 We in power would send to such a Parliament 
 as I have outlined a number of representatives 
 reflecting the opinions in the House at home in 
 exactly the same way as we propose to create a 
 Second Chamber at home instead of the House 
 of Lords, though, of course, if it were wished the 
 country could elect their representatives for the 
 League at the polls just as they now elect their 
 200 
 
The League of Peoples 
 
 Members of Parliament. Either way guarantees 
 that public opinion is directly recorded. It is 
 necessary to break away from the idea that the 
 representatives should be members of the executives 
 of the nation. The way Labour will seek to make 
 the League a real thing is to invest it with far 
 more power than at present, and then to enlarge 
 its number of representatives. We should seek 
 to create a Parliament of all peoples, a permanent 
 body who would discuss those things which had 
 to do with the peace of the world, with all manner 
 of relations between nations, whether concerning 
 politics pure and simple, or matters of employment 
 of the workers. 
 
 This Parliament would have in proportion the 
 same party representation as was in existence in 
 the home Parliament. This could easily be 
 arranged on a system of proportional representation, 
 a system which we should certainly introduce into 
 our own domestic elections. Thus all branches 
 of thought at home would be reflected at this world 
 Parliament, and the same would apply to all 
 other countries. 
 
 It is not, of course, suggested that the work of 
 the League could be done with this large body 
 acting as an executive. It would appoint its own 
 Cabinet, so to speak, but all decisions would have 
 to be ratified by the Parliament, and then brought 
 before the attention of the home Parliaments. 
 The whole business would be open to the world's 
 criticism at all stages. There would no longer 
 be the possibility of secret understandings between 
 nations, everything would be open and above 
 board. 
 
 If such a body had been in existence in 1914 
 there would have been no explosion such as followed 
 
 201 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 the murders at Serajevo, there would have been 
 no war. But as it took the War to make the world 
 see this it will be a million pities if the lesson is 
 not taken to heart to the fullest possible extent, 
 and the possibility of such an occurrence breaking 
 out again made out of the question. 
 
 Supposing, however, the League, had there 
 been one, had settled the difference between 
 Austria and Serbia, it would have wanted powers 
 far greater than the League at present pretends to. 
 Austria, or any other State which happens to be 
 in the geographical position, can without any 
 interference place such duties upon transit through 
 its domain, that a landlocked country could be 
 crippled. Suppose the countries that lie round 
 Switzerland decided to strangle that country's 
 trade, it would be the easiest thing in the world. 
 Tariffs could make it impossible for her to do 
 any trade at all save within her own borders, and 
 everything going into the country could be made 
 so dear to bring in that the price of everything 
 would be prohibitive, and throw the country out 
 of competition with the rest of the world. 
 
 The whole of the ground needs further explora- 
 tion, but it is sufficiently clear to me that a League 
 of Peoples will go far to prevent the wars that the 
 generals tell us are sure to come. The causes 
 which might lead to war are sure to arise, that we 
 must all recognise. But it is not thinkable that, 
 with women soon to have the power to vote the 
 world over upon reaching twenty-one years of age, 
 a Parliament of Peoples will not find a way to 
 avoid disaster, to adjust the differences between 
 nations, and so bring in the real reign of peace. 
 
 Just what powers it would be necessary to give 
 to this central authority it is not the moment to 
 202 
 
The League of Peoples 
 
 dogmatise about, but again there are some things 
 clear. It must be in a position to regulate the 
 supply of raw materials. It must assist in the main- 
 tenance of credit, that is purchasing power in the 
 various countries, so that each may obtain a fair 
 allocation of materials. It would be able to 
 encourage the supply of important things by 
 stimulating production in various countries, and 
 so there would not be a world shortage of things 
 really needed. It would have its fingers upon any 
 trusts of an international character, whose operations 
 might be likely to aim at exploiting the public by 
 making undue profits and holding back supplies. 
 And not the least of their aims should be flinging 
 wide the door for the produce of all nations to 
 enter all nations, and so sweep away the restricting 
 tariff walls which can never benefit the workers 
 nor the community as a whole. 
 
 That last is the acid test to which all our laws 
 will be submitted. Labour policy will benefit 
 the community. Labour ignores vested interests; 
 it prohibits a few privileged persons battening 
 on the work of the masses; but, let me add as a 
 final word, it never will seek other than justice for 
 every branch of the population. 
 
 It might be thought that, just as to-day the 
 workers are suspicious of the Government, because 
 Government even yet comes from the class who 
 own, who employ, so when the workers govern, 
 employers will return the compliment, and be 
 suspicious of them. 
 
 I believe we shall defeat this threat. I think 
 they will find that our demands are reasonable. 
 They will see that all we claim is a first charge on 
 industry to the point of a reasonable share in the 
 decencies and comforts not luxuries, note of 
 
 203 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 life. And I am optimistic enough to hope that, 
 when they see our objects are fair play all round, 
 when they have it proved to them that our adminis- 
 tration will mean industrial peace, with all the 
 stupendous saving that means, they will be ready, 
 not only to give us the credit for having the good 
 of the community at heart, but will come forward 
 and associate themselves with our ideals both in 
 home and international affairs. 
 
 GLASGOW: w. COLLINS SONS AND co. LTD. 
 
Some New Publications 
 
 from MESSRS COLLINS' 1920 
 AUTUMN LIST 
 
 Published from their London Offices, 48 PALL MALL, S.W. 
 
 NOTE. ^Messrs Collins will always be pleased 
 to send lists of their forthcoming books to 
 any one who will send their name and address. 
 
 Why : Sixteen Songs for the Children 
 
 usic by SIR ALFRED SCOTT-GATTY, K.C.V.O. 
 
 Author and Composer of Plantation Songs, Little Songs for Little Voices, etc. 
 Words by THE HON. MRS STUART PLEYDELL-BOUVERIE 
 
 Pictures by W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON 
 
 Author of Pinkie and the Fairies, etc. 
 
 Large 4to. Boards. Sixteen Songs and 16 plates in colour. 125. 6d. net. 
 
 Also an Edition de Luxe on hand-made paper, numbered and signed. 
 
 Limited to 100 copies. Price, 2 2s. net. 
 
 Prospectus on Application. 
 
 The many thousands of people who remember the Plantation Songs : 
 'Playin' on de ole Banjo,' 'Good-night/ 'Who Did?' and the rest, will 
 welcome this delightful song book by the same celebrated composer. 
 It is, in fact, rather more than a song book, for the charming plates that 
 Mr Graham Robertson has drawn for each song make it in addition an 
 almost perfect picture book for young folk. Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty, late 
 Garter King at Arms, was known throughout the length and breadth of 
 England in the days when he and Lady Catty used to sing the Plantation 
 Songs together. The present volume is published posthumously and 
 contains songs that were written for his great nephews and nieces, full 
 of melodv and full of fun. 
 
From the Unconscious to the Conscious 
 
 DR. GUSTAVE GELEY 
 
 Translated from the French by S. DE BRATH, M.I.C.E. 
 
 Demy 8vo., with 23 Illustrations from photographs by the author. 
 Price, 15s. net. 
 
 Dr Geley has those gifts of scholarship and imagination which are 
 so rarely found in the same individual; and in this volume he has under- 
 taken a work that places him not only among the great thinkers but 
 also among the great pioneers. The scientists of the nineteenth century 
 devoted all their best energies to unravelling the mysteries of matter. 
 The twentieth century seems more likely to undertake the greater investi- 
 gation of spirit. And Dr Geley, working from the basis of the masses 
 of knowledge stored up for us by the older scientists, has built up a theory 
 of the Being of Mankind that represents the first important synthesis 
 in this kind. He draws upon nearly every department of learning for 
 his argument, and with the typical French genius for lucid statement 
 and the arrangement of material, has endeavoured to indicate the road 
 of man's past and future development. Philosophically, he may be 
 called an idealist in so far as he believes that spirit is an ' absolute ' and 
 matter only a representative complex; but the bulk of his argument is 
 drawn from science rather than from philosophy. In one sense this work 
 may be taken as a counterblast against Darwin's Descent of Man, and like 
 it will probably be regarded by posterity as marking the change of an 
 epoch in our beliefs concerning the fundamental problems of existence. 
 
 History of English Furniture 
 
 PERCY MACQUOID, R.I. 
 
 With plates in colour after Shirley Slocombe, and numerous illustrations 
 selected and arranged by the^author; in four volumes : I. The Age 
 of Oak; II. The Age of Walnut; III. The Age of Mahogany; 
 IV. The Age of Satinwood. 21 per set, or 5 5s. per volume. 
 Size, 15 in. x 11 in.; bound in red buckram, gilt. 
 
 A NEW INDEX 
 
 The subject has been divided into four periods, the first dating from 
 1500 to 1660, comprising furniture that can be attributed to the Renais- 
 sance, and its evolution from the Gothic. The second from 1660 to 1720, 
 when the change is varied by the Restoration and Dutch influence, 
 followed by a distinctly assertive English spirit. The third period covers 
 the introduction from France of fresh ideas in design, clearly marking 
 another change, lasting from 1720 to 1770. The fourth, 1770-1820, 
 which was inspired by an affectation for all things classical. While the 
 book only purports to deal with English furniture, it is obvious that 
 reference is freely made to foreign styles in order to keep the matter in 
 perspective. 
 
 Illustrated Prospectus will be sent on Application. 
 
When Labour Rules 
 
 THE RT. HON. J. H. THOMAS, M.P. 
 
 General Secretary National Union of Railwaymen. 
 Large Crown 8vo. Price 10s. net, 
 
 This book is written to answer the question that is on the lips of 
 almost every adult in the United Kingdom what will labour do? In 
 the welter of speechmaking, wages claims, arbitration, leading articles, 
 Royal Commissions, and the like, most of us have formed but a hazy 
 idea of the England of the future, coloured according as our sympathies 
 may be drawn at the moment, either as 'the new world fit for heroes 
 (and others) to live in/ or as the wild turmoil of bloodshed and starvation 
 that is revolutionary Russia. Who knows precisely what a Labour 
 Government will do in finance, property, constitution, or foreign policy? 
 
 Mr Thomas sets out to clear away the fog by stating succintly, without 
 the use of long words or catch-phrases, just what the Labour Party are 
 aiming to do and what they hope to make of England. Some of the 
 points covered are: 'The Labour Government and the Constitution,' 
 'The Second Chamber,' 'Nationalisation,' 'Foreign and Home Trade,' 
 'Housing, Health, Drink, and Education,' 'National Finance,' 'Foreign 
 and Colonial Policies,' 'The Rights of Democracies.' It is a direct and 
 honest statement, and a book that should, without in any way desiring 
 to overstate the case, be read by every single intelligent citizen of the 
 British Empire. 
 
 The Coming Revolution 
 
 GERALD GOULD 
 
 Author of The Helping Hand, Monogamy, etc. 
 Crown Svo. 5s. net. 
 
 It may be taken as certain that the whole structure of social life in 
 this country will undergo complete change in the near future. The word 
 'Revolution' is an ugly one, but, if not on every lip, it is in every mind. 
 It need not be assumed that revolution necessarily brings the horrors 
 and bloodshed of the French or Russian upheavals in its train. But whether 
 bloody or bloodless, the change is imminent, and in this book Mr Gould, 
 who combines his labours as a poet and essayist with a peculiarly active 
 life as sub-editor of The Daily Herald, endeavours to foreshadow the 
 economic future of this empire under the coming conditions. As an 
 Oxford scholar he is fully qualified to treat the subject academically, 
 while his constant contact with the leading political thinkers and practical 
 men in the most advanced camp, his interest and sympathy with the 
 movement as a whole, give him the power to speak with authority and 
 intimate knowledge of the probable trend of coming events. 
 
Do^ioevsky 2nd His Citation 
 
 A Psycho-Critical Study JANKO LAVRIN 
 
 Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. net. 
 
 Mr Janko Lavrin is probably the first Serbian author whose critical 
 literary work has been produced in England. His study of Dostoevsky 
 is an extremely able book, and Mr Lavrin attacks his subject from a 
 different point of view to that which we are accustomed to in this 
 country. He was educated partly in Russia and while still a University 
 student was for two years editor of a Russian literary and political 
 monthly, Slavansky Mir (Slavonic World). He was subsequently on the 
 staff of the biggest Russian newspaper, Novoe Vremya. His contributions 
 to that paper written from Albania and Serbia during the first two years 
 of war were published in book form in Petrograd. He is now Lecturer 
 in Russian and Russian literature at the University of Nottingham. 
 Apart, however, from the interest of the origin of this highly modern 
 study, his criticism is admirably done and his scholarship on this particular 
 subject unimpeachable. 
 
 Modern Drama in Europe 
 
 STORM JAMESON 
 
 Crown 8vo. 10s. Qd. net. 
 
 The very low ebb to which the drama has fallen in recent years in 
 England is found also to be the mark in most European countries. An 
 amount of criticism has been levelled at the productions offered that is 
 surprising both in its virulence and in its ineffectiveness. This failure 
 to be constructive is probably due to the fact that modern criticism is 
 mostly ephemeral in nature, appearing in the daily press and obliterated 
 like the grass of the field, written out of many different minds, from 
 different standards and points of view. Here is a more permanent, 
 comprehensive work that passes all contemporary drama beneath the 
 same spear, measuring its quality by the same measure. Some of the 
 dramatists reviewed are Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Barrie, Shaw, 
 Galsworthy, Pinero, Drinkwater, Donnay, Rostand, Guitry, etc. It is 
 an able and searching study, constructive in idea. 
 
 LONDON: 48 PALL MALL 
 
 W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD. 
 
 GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND 
 

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