J. KEIR HARDIE Copyright J. KEIR HARDIE, 1914 J. KEIR HARDIE A Biography By WILLIAM STEWART With an Introduction by J. RAMSAY MACDONALD CASSELL & COMPANY, LTD. LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO, AND MELBOURNE FIRST PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1921. Printed at the London Works of THE NATIONAL LABOUR PRESS. LIMITED, 8, 9, 10 Johnson'3 Court, Fleet Street, EC, 4. AUTHOR'S PREFACE THE one man of all Keir Hardie's associates most fitted to write an account of his life and work was the late /. Bruce Glasier. His know- ledge of the Labour and Socialist movement in all its phases and aspects, his long and close intimacy with Hardie both in public and private life, his sympathetic perception of the motives and environment and heredity which went to the formation of Hardie' s character, and influenced his actions, and his own fine gift of literary expression, qualified him above all others to be Keir Hardie' s biographer. The Fates ruled otherwise. Before Mr. Glasier had begun to collect and assort the material for the work, he was himself stricken with the illness, which, heroically borne through two years of pain, ended in his death. It was at Mr. Glasier' s request while on his bed of sickness that I , not very confidently, undertook the work. 7'he Memorial Committee adopted Mr. Glasief s suggestion that I should be appointed to take his place. The work therefore came to me both as a request and as a com- mand. I have performed it to the best of my ability ; whether well or ill, must be left to the judgment of others. To those friends who were most familiar with Keir Hardie' s habits of life it will be unnecessary to explain that the task has not been quite easy. Thoiigh he had the intention of some day writing a book of reminiscences, the daily call of the Labour and Socialist movement left him without any leisiire to sit down to it systematically, vii 45S648 AUTHOR'S PREFACE and when he died he had not even made that provision for posthumous fame which seems customary with per- sons who have figured in public life. He kept no diary, and he preserved few letters, though he must have received many from important people. If it be true, as has been said, that letters are the raw material of biography, this particular biography has been produced at a disadvantage. That is not entirely true, however. Mzich of the material for a life of Hardie is to be found not in his private but in his public writings which were voluminous, and, to a considerable extent, self -revealing. But the very wealth and abundance of this kind of material have rendered the work difficult if interesting. I found it necessary to go through with some selective care the two volumes of "The Miner" twenty-one volumes of the "Labour Leader" several volumes of the "Merthyr Pioneer" and also to refer to other Socialist papers, to the columns of the contemporary daily press, and to the pages of "Hansard" There will be differences of opinion as to whether this material has always been used in the best way, and also as to whether certain events and episodes have been over or under emphasised. These differences cannot be helped. I had to use my own judgment and have done so, and the result must stand. For information concerning the early period of Keir Hardie' s life I am indebted to several members of the family, especially to his brothers, George, David and William. Mrs. Keir Hardie also was most helpful in supplying those domestic details which seemed necessary, while for some of the early Ayrshire experiences I have to thank Councillor James Neil of Ciimnock, and viii AUTHOR'S PREFACE several quite obscure but sterling men of the pits who were associated with Hardie in his scantily recorded pioneering days. For an account of the historic Mid-Lanark election there was a fair amount of information available, though it had to be dug out. Not so, however, with regard to the West Ham election, and I have specially to thank Councillor Ben Gardner for his valuable help in this connection. There is a probability that he, and also the many Merthyr friends, notably Llewellyn Francis, John Ban, Councillor Stonelake and Emrys Hughes, may think I have not made the fullest use of the very valuable information which they placed at my disposal. They will, however, I have no doubt, realise that I had to be governed by a sense of proportion, and had to consider each phase of Hardie' s life in its relation to his whole career. I do sincerely believe, however, that the book as it stands contains nearly all that is essential to a trite understanding of ^the character of Keir Hardie and of his life work; and thereby makes it possible for readers to form a just estimate of the great service which he rendered to the working people, not of his own country only, but of the world, and therefore to Humanity. WILLIAM STEWART. September yth, 1921 . IX CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION by J. RAMSAY MACDONALD xv Chapter 1 . THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR i 2. JOURNALIST AND LABOUR ORGANISER "THE MINER" 17 3. MID-LANARK THE SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 35 4. THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL WEST HAM THE I.L.P. PARLIAMENT 58 5. STANDING ALONE THE MEMBER FOR THE UNEMPLOYED 85 6. A GENERAL ELECTION AMERICA INDUSTRIAL STRIFE 105 7. SOUTH AFRICAN WAR THE L.R.C. MERTHYR TYDVIL 143 8. PARLIAMENT ONCE MORE "THE WHITE HERALD" SERIOUS ILLNESS 173 9. THE CLASS WAR IN THEORY AND PRACTICE . . . 208 10. THE PARLIAMENTARY LABOUR PARTY PHYSICAL BREAK- DOWN ROUND THE WORLD . . . . .221 1 1. FOREIGN POLICY THE KING'S GARDEN PARTY ATTACKS FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT 260 12. Two GENERAL ELECTIONS INDUSTRIAL TURMOIL THE BRINK OF WAR 290 13. SOUTH AFRICA AND IRELAND COMING-OF-AGE CONFER- ENCE ARMAGEDDON 326 14. THE LAST YEAR 350 CHRONOLOGY . . . . . . . .376 INDEX 379 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS J. KEIR HARDIE, 1914, from a photograph 'by Walter Scott Frontispiece To face page. J. KEIR HARDIE, 1893 100 J. KEIR HARDIE IN HIS ROOM AT NEVILL'S COURT, LONDON, from a photograph by Alfred Barrett , . . .196 J. KEIR HARDIE, 1910, from a photograph by Annan and Sons ......... 306 INTRODUCTION THE purposes of biography are manifold, but they have this common end : to interpret the subject and show forth what manner of man he was of whom the writer writes. That done faithfully, the biographer can launch his work upon the waters and trust to the winds and the currents for a prosperous voyage. But what is "faithfully"? A patient and accurate accumulation of facts and events strung upon time as boys used to hang rows of birds' eggs upon strings ? A cold, impartial scrutiny of a life made from a judgment seat placed above the baffling conflicts of doubting conscience, groping reason and weak desire? Biographies may be so written. But the life of him who has stood in the market place with a mission to his fellows, who has sought to bring visions of greater dignity and power into the minds of the sleeping and vegetating crowds, who has tried to gather scattered and indifferent men into a mighty movement and to elevate discontented kickings against the pricks into a crusade for the conquest of some Holy Land, cannot be dealt with in that way. He must submit to the rigid scrutiny; the dross that is in him, the mistakes and miscalculations which he made, must be exposed with his virtues, wisdoms and good qualities. But to portray such a man, the biographer has not only to scrutinise him objectively; he must also tell how he appeared to, and was felt by, the people who were influenced by him, and preserve for the future the hero or the saint who received the homage of leadership and the worship of affection. The glamour of the myth gathers round all great popular xv J. KEIR HARDIE leaders and becomes an atmosphere as real to their personality as the colour of cloud and sun is real to a landscape. Were we to separate what is inseparable, we might say that such a man has two beings, that which the critic alone can see, dissecting him as though he lay a lifeless thing upon a table, and that which the artist sees regarding him as one of the living formative forces of his time. In the latter way the biography of Keir Hardie must be treated if it is to be a full interpretation of the man. Mr. Stewart, who has done this book, writes of his hero, frankly and unashamedly, as a worshipper. He is a disciple who for many years has enjoyed the intimacy of his master, and he sees with the eye and writes with the pen which reveal the inspiring leader to us. He has gathered from a great mass of details the outstanding incidents in Hardie's life, and through the deeds has shown the man. He has also preserved for all who may read his book, and especially for those in whose memories those precious days of pioneering have no place, the inspiration that made the work possible and brought forth from chaos the Labour Movement. Everyone who came in contact with Hardie felt his personality right away at the outset. His power never lay in his being at the head of a political organisation which he commanded, for the organisation of the Inde- pendent Labour Party was always weak compared with its influence, and he had ceased to be an official of the miners before their combination became really formid- able; nor did it lie in his ability to sway the crowd by divine gifts of speech and appeal, for his diction though beautifully simple was rarely tempestuous, and his voice had few of the qualities that steal into the hearts of men and stir them in their heights and depths; more certainly still he never secured a follower by flattery nor won the xvi INTRODUCTION ear of a crowd by playing down to it. He set a hard task before his people and gave them great ends to pursue. He left no man in peace in the valley gutter, but winded them on the mountain tracks. What then was the secret of the man ? I who have seen him in all relation- ships, at the height of triumph an3 the depths of humiliation, on the platform and at the fireside, dignified amongst strangers and merry amongst friends, generally fighting by his side but sometimes in conflict with him, regard that secret as first of all his personality and then his proud esteem for the common folk and his utter blindness to all the decorations of humanity. He was a simple man, a strong man, a gritty man. Hardie was of the "old folk." Born in a corner of Scotland where there still lingered a belief in the uncanny and the superhuman, where Pan's pipes were still heard in the woods, the kelpie still seen at the fords and the fairy still met with on the hills, and born in the time of transition when the heart and imagination paid homage whilst the reason was venturing to laugh, he went out into the world with a listening- awe in his soul; brought up in surroundings eloquent with the memory of sturdy men who trusted to the mists to shield them from the murderous eyes of the Claverhouses and their dragoons, and dotted with the graves and the monuments of martyrs to a faith dreary moors "where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying/' and grey farmhouses where in the "killing times" women lamented over their husbands and sons murdered at their doors for loyalty to God and the Covenant- surroundings, moreover, which in later times had seen Burns at the plough dejected, and had heard him singing his songs of love, of pity, of gaiety, he went out a strong man in heart and in backbone, with the spirit of great tradition in him; nurtured by a mother who faced trip B xvii J. KEIR HARDIE hard world like a woman of unconquerable soul, whose tears were followed by defiance and whose sighs ended with challenge, he went out like a knight arme'd with a sword which had the magic of conquest tempering its steel. That was his birthright, and that birthright made him a gentleman, whether running errands for a baker in Glasgow, or facing the "overfed beasts" on the benches of the House of Commons. Such men never fear the face of men and never respect their baubles. From the same sources came his comfort in the common folk. All great human discovery is the discovery of the wisdom that comes from babes and sucklings, as all great artistic achievement depends on the joy that dwells in the simple. It has been said that there is the false ring of peevishness in Burns' "A man's a man for a* that," and it may be that resentment gives a falsetto note to some of the lines. But when the great labour leader comes, whether he be born from the people or not will be of little concern, the decisive thing will be whether he values in his heart, as Burns did, the scenes and the people from which spring not only "Scotia's grandeur," but the power which is to purify society and expose the falseness and the vulgarity of materialist possession and class distinctions. The mind of the labour leader must be too rich to do homage to "tinsel show," too proud of its own lineage to make obeisance to false honour, and too cultured to be misled by vulgar display. A title, Dempster merits it; A gfarter gie to Willie Pitt ; Gie wealth to some be-ledgtr'd cit, In cent, per] cent. But give me real sterling- wit, And I'm content. A working class living in moral and social parasitism on its "betters" will only increase the barrenness and xvin INTRODUCTION the futility of life. In the end, it is perhaps a matter of good taste and self-respect, and these are birthrights and are not taught in the schools. They belong to the influences which life assimilates as plants assimilate a rich or an impoverished air and sap. Perhaps the Scots- man is peculiarly fortunate in this respect. No country has had a meaner aristocracy or a sturdier common people. Partly its education, partly its history, partly its church government and system of worship, partly the frugality which nature imposed upon it for so many generations, laid up a store of independence in the characters of many of its people, and Burns awoke this into activity. I doubt if any man who received the historical birthright of Scotsmen at his birth, ever accepted a tinsel honour without feeling that he was doing wrong and somehow abandoning his country. Be these things as they may, Hardie had those native qualities which never became incompetent to value the honour and the worth of a kitchen fireside, of a woman who, like his mother, toiled in the fields, of a man who earned his living by the sweat of his brow, subduing Heaven the while. He said a life-long Amen to the Words which Scott puts in the mouth of Rob Roy on Glasgow bridge: "He that is without name, without friends, without coin, without country, is still at least a man; and he that has all these is no more" Hardie J s democratic spirit might have added "and is often some- thing less.'* When he became famous, his world widened and he mixed with people in different circum- stances. But he met them as the self-respecting workman, all unconscious of difference and with neither an attempt nor a desire to imitate them. The drawing- rooms of the rich never allured him into a syco- phantic servitude, a chair at a workman's fireside hard to sit upon never robbed that fireside of its xix J. K'EIR HARDIE cheery warmth. The true gentleman is he who acts like a gentleman unconsciously. Therefore, this quality eludes him who would write of it, for an explanation of it suggests consciousness of it. Only when the ruling class habits sought to impose themselves on him by authority did he resent them and become conscious of his own nature as when he went to the House of Commons in a cloth cap, or when, in an out- burst of moral loathing, he replied to the jeers of a band who had returned to the House radiant in the garb and the demeanour of those who had risen from a well replenished table, by the epithet ''well-fed beasts/' and then his native good taste speedily asserted itself and he became natural. Experience in the world strengthened this part of his nature. Whether as a baker's messenger forced to pass moral judgment on the man of substantial respecta- bility, or as a Trade Union official studying the results of the work of directors, managers and such like, or as a politician in touch with the political intelligence and general capacity of "the ruling classes/' he saw no inferiority in his fellow workmen. He found them careless, disorganised, indifferent; but their lives remained real and their common interests were the true interests. They were the robust stem upon which every desirable thing had to be engrafted. Thus it was that the sober people, the people prepared for idealistic effort, the people whose ears detected the ring of a genuine coin and had become tired of the spurious or ill-minted thing, the people who were laying the foundations of their new cities on the rock of human worth, were drawn to him, honoured him, believed in him and loved him. It is very difficult for a man made of that material to do justice to "the classes" in these times to their qualities, their lives, their interests, and xx INTRODUCTION even their worship but Hardie was catholic, and rarely have his friends heard from his lips an unjust con- demnation of those people. Charity lay even in his most emphatic condemnations. Of Hardie's work it is easy to judge even at this early day, so distinctive was it. He will stand out for ever as the Moses who led the children of labour in this country out of bondage out of bondage, not into Canaan, for that is to be a longer job. Others had described that bondage, had explained it, had told what ought to come after it. Hardie found the labour movement on its industrial side narrowed to a conflict with employers, and totally unaware that that conflict, if successful, could only issue in a new economic order; on its political side, he found it thinking only of returning to Parliament men who came from the pits and work- shops to do pretty much the same work that the politicians belonging to the old political parties had done, and totally unaware that Labour in politics must have a new outlook, a new driving force of ideas and a new standard of political effort. When he raised the flag of revolt in Mid-Lanark, he was a rebel proclaiming civil war; when he fought the old Trade Union leaders from the floor of Congress, he was a sectary; when the Independent Labour Party was formed in Bradford, it was almost a forlorn hope attacked by a section of Socialists on the one hand and by the labour leaders in power on the other. What days of fighting, of murmuring, of dreary desert trudging were to follow, only those who went through them know. Through them, a mere handful of men and women sustained the drudgery and the buffetings. Hardie's dogged even dour persistence made faint-heartedness impossible. One has to think of some of those miraculous endurances of the men who defied hardship in the blank wilderness, xxi J. KEIR HARDIE the entangled forest, the endless snowfield, to get an understanding of the exhaustion of soul and mind and body which had to be undergone between 1890 and 1900, in order to create a Labour Movement. For this endurance Hardie had an inexhaustible inner resource. He knew The hills where his life rose, And the sea where it goes. He was one of the sternest champions which his class has ever produced, and yet his was no class mind. His driving and resisting power was not hate nor any of the feelings that belong to that category of impulse. When I used the expression ''communal consciousness," for the first time in a book I had written, as the antithesis to "class consciousness," which some Socialists regarded as the shibboleth test of rectitude, he wrote me saying that that was exactly what he felt. But even that was not comprehensive enough. His life of sense was but the manifestations of the spirit, and to him "the spirit" was something like what it was to the men whose bones lay on the Ayrshire moors under martyrs' monuments. It was the grand crowned authority of life, but an authority that spoke from behind a veil, that revealed itself in mysterious things both to man's heart and eyes. He used to tell us tales and confess to beliefs, in words that seemed to fall from the lips of a child. Had he not found his portion where blows had to be given and to be fended, and where the mind had to be actively wary every moment of the day in advancing and retreating, he would have been one of an old time to whom a belief in mystic signs and warnings would have been reverence and not superstition, and by whom such signs would have been given. Those who knew him have often met him looking as though a part of him were absent in some excursion in lands now barred to most of xxii INTRODUCTION mankind. This, I believe, explains the hospitality he always gave to every new attempt to express the truth, explains his devotion to the cause of women as it was in his lifetime and, above all, explains the mysterious affinity there was between himself and children. His whole being lay under the shadow of the hand of the crowned Authority which told him of its presence now by a lightning flash, now by a whisper, and now by a mere tremor in his soul like what the old folk believed went through the earth when night died and the day was born. The world was life, not things, to him. Thus, his Socialism was not an economic doctrine, not a formula proved and expressed in algebraic signs of x and y. He got more Socialism from Burns than from Marx; "The Twa Dogs," and "A Man's a Man for a' that," were more prolific text books for his politics than "Das Kapital." This being the spirit of his handiwork, the Independent Labour Party, is one reason why it became the greatest political influence of our time and threw into an almost negligible background, both in its enthusiastic propaganda and practical capacity, all other; Socialist bodies in this country. The inconsistencies which are essential attributes of human greatness are the cause of much trouble to the ordinary man, but these inconsistencies do not belong to the same order of things as the unreliabilities of the charlatan or the changefulness of the time-server. Hardie's apparent waywardness often gave his ccj- leagues concern. He was responsive to every move- ment and hospitable to the most childlike thoughts so much so that in a battle he not infrequently seemed to be almost in the opposing ranks, as at that Derby Conference, described by Mr. Stewart, when he sorely tried the loyalty of our own women by going out of his way to greet those who had done everything in their xxiii J. KEIR HARDIE power to harass and insult them. A great man has so many sides to which the various voices of the day make appeal. He is not only one man but several not only man, but woman too. But greatness is inconsistent only in the things that do not matter very much, and in the grand conflict of great issues he stood up as reliable as a mighty boulder in a torrent. The strength of hills was his for exactly the same reason as he had the trustful mind of a child. What appeared to be inconsistency was indeed manysidedness. No man was more generously international in his outlook and spirit, and yet to the very core of his being he was a Scotsman of Scotsmen, and it is not at all inappropriate that I came across him first of all at a meeting to demand Home Rule for Scotland. A man who held in no special esteem the ''book lear" of universities, he, nevertheless, warmed in interest to all kinds of lore, and he read choicely and was ever ready to sit at the feet of whomsoever had knowledge to impart. Always willing to listen, he was never ready to yield; loyal like a man, he was, nevertheless, persistent in his own way sometimes to a fault; humble in the councils of friends, he was proud in the world. Looking back at him now, the memory of his waywardness only adds to affection and admiration. One sees how necessary it was for his work. There is one other inconsistency of greatness which he showed only to friends. He could stand alone, and yet he could not. "No one can ever know," he once said to me, "what suffering a man has to endure by mis- representation." He required a corner in the hearts of his people where he could rest and be soothed by regard. He therefore felt keenly every attack that was crudely cruel. For instance he was sorely struck by the brutally vile cartoon which "Punch" published of him when he was in India. (I knew of the letters which Lord Minto xxiv INTRODUCTION was sending home expressing pleasure at his conduct in India, and I cheered him by telling him of them.) But sorest of all was the wound which the war made upon him. Like every intelligent man who kept his head, he saw that the most worthless elements in the country would ride the whirlwind, that the people would be worked up into a state of mind that would not only defy every appeal to reason, but would prolong the agony and settle it, as all wars have hitherto been settled, by crushing debts, ruined ideals and a peace which would only be a truce to give time for the sowing of new seeds of war. He knew that when the clash came it could not be ended until the conditions of a settlement arose, and he joined heartily with the small group in the country who took the view that those conditions were political and not military, and that, therefore, whilst the soldier was holding the trenches, the politician should be as busy as the munition worker creating the political weapons which were to bring peace. He also knew that, when the war comes, the safety of every country is endangered by its enemy and that adequate steps must be taken to protect it. But he saw that problem in its fulness and not with military blinkers limiting his vision to recruitment, guns and poison gas. He was quite well aware that the sky would speedily be darkened by black clouds of lies and misrepresentations, innocent and deliberate. That was in the day's work, and he knew that in time the attitude of his colleagues and himself would first of all be understood and that, later on, people would wonder why it took them so long to see the same things. He saw the Treaty of Versailles before 1915 was very far spent, and he was content to endure and wait. That is not how he was wounded. The deadly blow was given by the attitude of old colleagues. When he returned from his first meeting in his xxv J. KEIR HARDIE constituency on the outbreak of war, described by Mr. Stewart, he was a crushed man, and, sitting in the sun on the terrace of the House of Commons where I came across him, he seemed to be looking out on blank desolation. From that he never recovered. Then followed the complete mergence of the Labour Party in the war-lusty crowd. The Independent Labour Party kept as trusty as ever, but he felt that his work was over, that all he could do in his lifetime was to amount to no more than picking up some of the broken spars of the wreckage. As Bunyan puts it, "a post had come from the celestial city for him/ 5 And so he died. The outlook has already changed. The floods are subsiding and his work stands. We are still too near to that work to see it in its detailed historical relations; the day and its events are too pressingly close and urgent to enable us to view the results of it in a lasting setting. Of this we are assured, however : in its great purposes and general achievements it is permanent. It is well with him and his memory. "I shall be satisfied when I awake." J. RAMSAY MACDONALD. xxvi J. KEIR HARDIE J. KEIR HARDIE CHAPTER ONE THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR JAMES KEIR HARDIE was born on August 1856, in a one-roomed house at Legbrannock, near Holytown in Lanarkshire, amongst the miners, of whom he was to become one, and with whose interests he was to be closely identified all through life. His father, David Hardie, was not, however, a miner, nor of miner stock. He was a ship carpenter by trade, drawn into this district by the attractions of Mary Keir, a domestic servant, who became his wife and the mother of the future labour agitator. Both parents were endowed with strong individuality of character, of a kind not calculated to make life smooth for themselves or their offspring; but it was undoubtedly from the mother that the boy inherited that resourcefulness and power of endurance which enabled him, through a full half- century of unceasing strife, to develop and, in some measure, realise those ideals of working-class inde- pendence and organisation with which his name is associated. Not much is known of Keir Hardie's years of infancy, but that they were not overflowing with joy may be surmised from the fact that in his eighth year we find the J. KEIR HARDIE family increased in numbers living in the ship- building district of Glasgow in very straightened circumstances even for working folk. Latterly, the father had been following his trade at sea, but was now trying to settle down to work in the shipyards, not an easy thing to do at a time when trade was dull and employment scarce. This may account for the fact that the home was, now on the Govan side, now on the Partick side, and never got itself really established as a steady going working-class household. A brief period of regular employment was broken by an accident which incapacitated the breadwinner for many weeks, during which there were no wages nor income of any kind, and as a consequence there was an accruing burden of debt. Those were not the days of Compensa- tion Acts and Workmen's Insurance. At this period we get our first real glimpse of the boy Keir Hardie and of the conditions under which his character developed. Hardly had the father recovered from his illness and started to work when a strike took place in the shipbuilding trade. One of Hardie's earliest recollections was of attending a trade union meeting with his father who advised against the strike on the ground of lack of funds and slackness of trade. During this dispute the family were compelled to sell most of their household goods, and what was worse, to enlist the boy of seven as one of the breadwinners. His first job was as a message boy to the Anchor Line Steam- ship Company, and as school attendance was now im- possible, the father and mother devoted much of their time in the evenings to his education, and were at least able to teach him to read, and to love reading, which is the basis of all education. After a short time spent as a message boy, he was sent into a brass-finishing shop, the intention being to THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR apprentice him to that trade, but when it was learned that the first year must be without wages, brass finishing was abandoned, and his next place was in a lithographer's in the Trongate at half-a-crown a week. That did not last long and we find him serving as a baker's message boy at three shillings a week. From this he went to heating rivets in Thompson's shipyard on a fifty per cent, rise in wages, four shillings and sixpence a week. He would probably have continued at this employment and Clyde- side would have had the nurturing of a great agitator, but a fatal accident to two boys in the shipyard frightened the mother, and once more he became a baker's message boy. All this experience was crowded within the space of two years and while he was still but a child. Many other working-class children have had similar experiences. Several generations of them in fact, have been denied all knowledge of the natural joys of childhood in order that the present industrial system might be founded and run. Whether that tremendous historical fact finds any reflection in the mentality of the present day British working class need not be discussed here, but it is undoubted that these child-time experiences left an indelible mark on the character of Keir Hardie. It was a period of his life to which in after years he seldom referred, but always with bitterness. The manner of its ending forms the theme of one of the few autobiographical notes which he has left us, and for that reason, if for no other, his own description of it may be given. There had been a great lock-out of Clyde shipworkers lasting six weary months. The Union funds were soon exhausted. In the Hardie household everything that could be turned into food had been sold. The boy's four shillings and sixpence a week was the only income. One child, next in age to Keir, took fever and died, and J. KEIR HARDIE another child was about to be born. "The outlook was black/' says Hardie, looking back upon it, "but there was worse to come, and the form it took made it not only a turning point in my life, but also in my outlook upon men and things. I had reached an age at which I under- stood the tragedy of poverty, and had a sense of responsi- bility to those at home far beyond my years. I knew that, despite the brave way in which my mother was facing the situation, she was feeling the burden almost too great for her to bear, and on more than one occasion I had caught her crying by herself. One winter morning I turned up late at the baker's shop where I was employed and was told I had to, go upstairs to see the master. I was kept waiting outside the door of the dining-room while he said grace he was noted for religious Zeal- and, on being admitted, found the master and his family seated round a large table. He was serving out bacon and eggs while his wife was pouring coffee from a glass in- f user which at once shamefaced and terrified as I was - attracted my attention. I had never before seen such a beautiful room, nor such a table, loaded as it was with food and beautiful things. The master read me a lecture before the assembled family on the sin of slothfulness, and added that though he would forgive me for that once, if I sinned again by being late I should be instantly dismissed, and so sent me to begin work. "But the injustice of the thing was burning hot within me, all the more that I could not explain why I was late. The fact was that I had not yet tasted food. I had been up most of the night tending my ailing brother, and had risen betimes in the morning but had been made late by assisting my mother in various ways before starting. The work itself was heavy and lasted from seven in the morning till closing time. "Two mornings afterwards, a Friday, I was again a THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR few minutes late, from the same source, and was informed on arriving at the shop that I was discharged and my fort- night's wages forfeited by way of punishment. The news stupefied me, and finally I burst out crying and begged the shopwoman to intercede with the master for me. The morning was wet and I had been drenched in getting to the shop and must have presented a pitiable sight as I stood at the counter in my wet patched clothes. She spoke with the master through a speaking tube, presumably to the breakfast room I remembered so well, but he was obdurate, and finally she, out of the goodness of her heart, gave me a piece of bread and advised me to look for another place. For a time I wandered about the streets in the rain, ashamed to go home where there was neither food nor fire, and actually discussing whether the best thing was not to go and throw myself in the Clyde and be done with a life that had so little attractions. In the end I went to the shop and saw the master and explained why I had been late. But it was all in vain. The wages were never paid. But the master continued to be a pillar of the Church and a leading light in the religious life of the city !" A poignant reminiscence for any human being to carry through life, and explanatory of the ready sympathy for desolate children characteristic of the man in after years; and also of his contempt for that kind of hypocrisy which covers up injustice under the cloak of religion. The upshot of it all was that the father in sheer despair went off again to sea, and the mother with her children, removed to Newarthill, where her own mother still lived, and quite close to the place where Keir was born. Thus there had arrived, as he himself has said, a turning point in his life, deciding that his lot should be cast with that of the mining community and determining some other things which, taken altogether, constituted a J. KEIR HARDIE somewhat complex environment and impulse for a receptive minded lad growing from boyhood to adolescence. Both parents had what is called in Scotland a strictly religious upbringing, and had encouraged the boy to attend regularly at Sunday School. The Glasgow experience had changed all that. They were persons of strong individuality. The mother especially had a downright way of looking at life, and had no use for the forms of a religion which sanctioned the kind of treat- ment which she and those she loved had passed through. Henceforward the Hardie household was a free-thinking household, uninfluenced by "kirk-gaun" conventionali- ties or mere traditional beliefs. Priest and Presbyter were not kept outside the door, but there was free entrance also for books critical of orthodoxy or secular in interest, and on the same shelf with the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress might be found Paine's "Age of Reason" and works by Ingersoll, together with Wilson's "Tales of the Borders' ' and the poems of Burns. All the members of the family grew up with the healthy habit of thinking for themselves and not along lines prescribed by custom. Almost immediately on coming to Newarthill the boy, now ten years of age, went down the pit as trapper to a kindly old miner, who before leaving him for the first time at his lonely post, wrapped his jacket round him to keep him warm. The work of a trapper was to open and close a door which kept the air supply for the men in a given direction. It was an eerie job, all alone for ten long hours, with the underground silence only disturbed by the sighing and whistling of the air as it sought to escape through the joints of the door. A child's mind is full of vision under ordinary surroundings, but with the dancing flame of the lamps giving life to the shadows, THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR only a vivid imagination can conceive what the vision must have been to this lad. At this time he began to attend Eraser's night school at Holy town. The teacher was genuinely interested in his pupils and did all he could for them with his limita- tions of time and equipment. There was no light provided in the school and the pupils had to bring their own candles. Learning had now a kind of fascination for the boy. He was very fond of reading, and a book, "The Races of the World," presented to him by his parents, doubtless awakened in his mind an interest in things far beyond the coal mines of Lanarkshire. His mother gave him every encouragement. She had a wonderful memory. "Chevy Chase' ' and all the well- known ballads and folk-lore tales were recited and rehearsed round the winter fire. In this manner and under these diverse influences did the future Labour leader pass his boyhood, absorbing ideas and impressions which remained with him ever afterwards. The father returned from sea and found work on the railway then being made between Edinburgh and Glasgow. When this was finished, the family removed to the village of Quarter in the Hamilton district, where Keir started as pit pony driver, passing from that through other grades to coal hewing, and by the time he was twenty had become a skilled practical miner, and had also gained two years' experience above ground working in the quarries. He was in the way however of becoming something more than a miner. At the instigation of his mother he had studied and become proficient in shorthand writing, and through the same guidance had joined the Good Templar movement which was then establishing itself in most of the Scottish villages. He became an enthusiastic propagandist in the Temperance cause, and it was in J. KEIR HARDIE tnis sphere that he really began to take a part in public work. His habit of independent thinking too, had led him, not to reject religion but only its forms and shams and doctrinal accretions, and he was associating himself with what seemed to him the simplest organised expression of Christianity, namely the Evangelical Union. He was, in fact, like many another earnest soul at his time of life seeking outlets for his spiritual vitality. Because of the part he was now playing in local public affairs his brother miners pushed him into the chair at meetings for the ventilating of their grievances, and appointed him on deputations to the colliery managers, posts which he accepted, not without warning from some of his friends in the Temperance movement as to the dangers of taking part in the agitations going on in the district warnings which, to a youth of his temperament, were more likely to stimulate forward than to hold back. Without knowing it, almost involuntarily, he had become a labour agitator, a man obnoxious to authority, and regarded as dangerous by colliery managers and gaffers. The crisis came for him one morning when descending No. 4 Quarter pit. Half-way down the shaft, the cage stopped and then ascended. On reaching the surface he was met by the stormy-faced manager who told him to get off the Company's grounds and that his tools would be sent home. "We'll hae nae damned Hardies in this pit," he said, and he was as good as his word, for the two younger brothers were also excommunicated. The Hardie family was having its first taste of the boycott. Keir now realised that he was evidently a person of some importance in the struggle between masters and men, and a comprehension of that fact was perhaps the one thing needed to give settled direction to his propagandist energies, hitherto spent somewhat diffusely in move- 8 THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR ments which afforded no opportunity of getting at close quarters with an enemy. By depriving him of his means of livelihood, the enemy itself had come to close quarters with him. He had been labelled an agitator and he accepted the label. The mining industry was at this time in a deplorable condition from the men's point of view. The few years of prosperity and comparatively high wages during the Franco-Prussian War had been followed by severe depression, which, as usual, pressed more acutely upon wages than upon dividends. The West of Scotland miners, perhaps through lack of the right kind of leader- ship, had not taken advantage of the prosperous years to perfect their organisation, and when the slump camo were completely at the mercy of the employers. In the attempt to resist reductions the Lanarkshire County Union, after some desultory and disastrous strikes, had collapsed. A chaotic state of matters existed through- out Lanarkshire. There was no cohesion or co-ordina- tion, each district fighting for its own hand. During these black years the miners were crushed down to 2s. per day in the Quarter district where Hardie was now boycotted, and to is. 8d. and is. gd. in the Airdrie district. Here then was Hardie in the reawakening of the need amongst the miners to reorganise for self-preservation. A large-scale strike was impossible. Limitation of out- put was the only alternative, and that meant a still further reduction of the weekly wage already at starvation point. Yet men and women, disorganised as they were, made the sacrifice all over Lanarkshire. The miners, always good fighters, were beginning to lift their heads again. What was wanted was leadership. By driving Hardie from one district to another the employers themselves made him a leader of the men. The family moved to Low Waters, near the Cadzow collieries; and here J. KEIR HARDIE Hardie began to show that resourcefulness which in future years was to carry him through many a difficult situation. He opened a tobacconist's and stationer's shop, while his mother set up a small grocery business. His painfully acquired shorthand proficiency now also came into play, and he became correspondent to the " Glasgow Weekly Mail," for the Coatbridge and Airdrie district, thus modestly making his first entrance into the world of journalism, a sphere in which he might easily have made great progress but for the insistent call of the labour movement. The appointment at least gave him greater freedom to carry on his work among the miners. In the month of May, 1879, the masters had intimated another reduction of wages. This had the effect of quickening the agitation. Huge meetings were held every week in the Old Quarry at Hamilton, and at one of these meetings on July 3rd, 1879, Hardie was appointed Corresponding Secretary. This gave him a new outlet and enabled him to get in touch with representative miners all over Lanarkshire. On July 24th, three weeks after his appointment, he submitted to a mass meeting rules for the guidance of the organisation. These were adopted, and at the same meeting he was chosen as| 'delegate to attend a National Conference of Miners to be held in Glasgow the week following. Speaking at a meeting of miners at Shieldmuir in August of this year, he declared that over-production had been the ruin of the miners, and said that he held in his hand a letter from Alexander Macdonald, M.P., reminding the Lanark- shire miners that they were in the same position as in 1844 when, by united action, wages were raised from 35. to 52. per day. The following week, at a mass meeting, he was appointed Miners' Agent, with a majority of 875 over the highest vote cast for other candidates. He was 10 THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR now twenty-three years of age and he had found his vocation. He was to be a labour agitator. Probably he himself did not realise how uphill and thorny was the path he had entered upon, nor how far it would lead him. Almost immediately a curious and well-nigh unbelievable incident brought home to him some of the difficulties of his task.- On September 4th, a huge demonstration was held at Low Waters at which Alexander Macdonald was the chief speaker. Hardie moved the resolution of welcome to the veteran agitator, and in a somewhat rhetorical passage, excusable in an immature platform orator, he spoke of Macdonald as an "unparalleled benefactor of the mining community," and compared his work for the miners to that of "Luther at the rise of Protestantism." He had said just exactly the wrong thing to an audience, two-thirds of whom were Irish Roman Catholics, to whom the name of Luther was anathema, and Protestantism more obnoxious than low wages. There were loud murmurs of disapproba- tion, and Hardie had actually to be protected from assault. How often has this tale to be told in the struggle of labour for justice and liberty! These sectarian quarrels have now partially died out in Lanarkshire, but for many years they w,ere of the greatest service to the employing class. At another National Conference held at Dunfermline, on October i6th of the same year, Hardie was made National Secretary, an appointment which denoted, not the existence of a national organisation, but the need for it. The Scottish Miners' Federation was not formed till some years later. Hardie's selection at least indicates how far he had already advanced in the confidence of his fellow workers. As a result of all this agitation, sporadic strikes took place early in 1880 at several collieries in Lanarkshire, II J. KEIR HARDIE the most memorable of these being at Eddlewood, where there were conflicts with the police and subsequent trials of pickets for alleged intimidation. In connection with this strike Hardie made his first visit into Ayrshire to warn the miners there against coming to Lanarkshire. The hunger of the women and children drove the men back to work, but deepened the discontent, and in August, against the advice of Hardie, another strike, general over the whole of Lanarkshire, took place and lasted for six weeks. How it was carried through with- out Union funds it is difficult to imagine. Public sub- scriptions were raised. The colliery village bands went far afield throughout Scotland and even across the border, appealing for help. No strike money was paid out but only food was given. Hardie with the other agents got local merchants to supply goods, themselves becoming responsible for payment. At his home a soup kitchen was kept running, and all had a share of what was going until further credit became impossible. In the end there was a sum unpaid, but the merchants, some of themselves originally from the miner class, did not press their claims too hard and freed the agents from their bond. The strike was lost, but the Union, though shaken, remained, and Hardie, having fought his first big labour battle, emerged from what seemed defeat and disaster, stronger and more determined than ever to stand by his class. He accepted a call from Ayrshire to organise the miners there, and, as will be shown, made good use of the experience gained in Lanarkshire. At this time, he also added to his responsibilities in another direction. He became a married man. His agitation activities had not prevented him from taking part in the social life of the countryside, nor from forming the associations which come naturally to all healthy human beings in the springtime of life. He was not 12 THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR then, nor at any time, the austere Puritanical person he has sometimes been represented to be. A Puritan he was in all matters of absolute right or wrong, and could not be made to budge from what seemed to him to be the straight path. But with that limitation he was one of the most companionable of men. He could sing a good song, and dance and be merry with great abandon. He had his youthful friendships and love affairs, more than one, culminating as usual, in a supreme affection for one lass above all the others; and so it came about that, just before migrating into Ayrshire, he was married to Miss Lillie Wilson, whose acquaintance he had made during his work in the Temperance movement. The two young folk settled down in Cumnock to make a home for them- selves, neither of them probably having any idea that in days to come the male partner would have to spend so much of his life outside of that home, returning to it periodically as a sailor from his voyaging or a warrior from his campaigning to find rest and quiet ( and renewal of strength for the storms and battles of a political career. The labour movement owes much to its fighting men, and to the women also, who have stepped into the furies of the fray, but not less does it owe to the home-keeping women folk whose devotion has made it possible for the others to do this work. Such was the service rendered by Mrs. Keir Hardie in the quietude of Old Cumnock. The home was at first an ordinary room and kitchen house, and later a six roomed cottage and garden known to all members of the I. L. P. as "Lochnorris." Hardie had come to Cumnock nominally as the Ayr- shire Miners' Secretary, but there was really no Ayrshire Miners' Union. To get that into being was his task. The conditions were similar to those in Lanarkshire. At most of the collieries there were a few rebel spirits, keeping the flame of discontent alive and ready to form J. KEIR HARDIE themselves into Union committees if given the right stimulus and support. It was from these the invitation to Hardie had come, and it was through co-ordinating these that a move could be made for general organisation. The first skirmishes are always won by the few pioneers who have the stout hearts and the burning vision. It took nearly a year to get the organisation together, and by the beginning of August, 1881, a demand was formulated, on behalf of the whole of the miners of Ayr- shire, for a ten per cent, increase of wages. The demand was refused. There was no alternative but to strike or go on working at the masters' terms. In the latter case, the Union would be destroyed before it had begun to exist. The question was, could the men all over the county be got to strike? Would they risk a stoppage, knowing that there could be no strike pay? Mass meetings were summoned in various parts of the county to be addressed by Hardie and other speakers to decide the question: "Strike or no strike"? but the question settled itself almost intuitively. The present writer has heard old miners, who were young men then, describe what happened. It is interesting as a comparison with present day methods of calling a strike. On the Saturday, at the end of the rows and on the quoiting grounds, the talk was : " Would there be a strike?" Nobody knew. On the Sunday coming home from the kirk the crack was the same : "Would there be a strike ?" On Sunday night they laid out their pit clothes as usual, ready for work next morning, but for ten long weeks they had no use for pit clothes. On Monday, long before dawn, there was a stir on the Ayrshire roads. At two in the morning the Annbank brass band came playing through Trabboch village and every miner, young and old, jumped out of bed and fell in behind. THE MAKING OF AN AGITATOR Away up towards Auchinleck they went marching, their numbers increasing with every mile of the road. On through Darnconner, and Cronberry and Lugar and Muirkirk, right on to Glenbuck by Aird's Moss where the Covenanter Martyrs sleep, then down into Cumnock, at least five thousand strong. Never did magic muster such an army of the morning. It was as though the fairies had come down amongst men to summon them to a tryst. Over in the Kilmarnock district similar scenes were being enacted. The bands went marching from colliery to colliery and "The rising- sun ower Galston Muir, Wi' glorious light was glintin" upon processions of colliers on all the roads round about Galston village and Hurlford and Crookedholm and Riccarton, making, as by one common impulse, towards Craigie Hill which had not witnessed such a mustering of determined men since the days of William Wallace. -Ere nightfall a miracle had been accomplished. For the first time in its history, there was a stoppage nearly complete in the Ayrshire mining industry. At last the Ayrshire miners were united and, win or lose, they would stand or fall together. The fields were ripening to harvest when the men "lifted their graith." Ere they went back to work the Cumnock hills were white with snow, and by that time Keir Hardie was at once the most hated and the best respected man in Ayrshire. It was the Lanarkshire experience over again an experience of sacrifice and endurance. The bands went out collecting money. The women folk and the children went "tattie howkin' " and harvesting. Thrifty miners' families who had saved a little during the prosperous years of the early 'seventies, threw their all into the common stock. The farmers, many of them, gave meal and potatoes to keep the children from starving. Here and there was an 15 J. KEIR HARDIE occasional break away, and the pickets were out, and the police and the military, and there were skirmishes and arrests and imprisonments. Hardie toiled night and day directing- the relief committees, restraining the wild spirits from violence, advocating the men's claims temperately and persuasively in the local press, addressing mass meetings all over the county and keeping the men in good heart. " God's on our side, men," he declared. "Look at the weather He's giein' us !" And it seemed true. It was the finest fall of the year in Ayrshire within the memory of man, and, but for the pinch of hunger, was like a glimpse of Heaven to men accustomed to sweat ten hours a day in underground darkness. Whoever wants to know why it is so easy to get the miners to take an idle day, let him try a few hours "howkin' coal" and he will understand. So the fight went on from week to week, till at last the winter came as the ally of the coalowners. Boots and clothes and food were needed for the bairns, and for the sake of the bairns the men went back to work. But they went back as they came out, altogether, maintaining their solidarity even in defeat. Nor were they wholly defeated. Within a month the coalowners discovered that trade had improved, and, without being asked, they advanced wages, a thing unprecedented in the coal trade. That ten weeks' stoppage had put a wholesome fear into the hearts of the coalowners, and they had also learned that a leader of men had come into Ayrshire. Here ended the second lesson for Keir Hardie the agitator. In the impoverished condition of the miners, the formation of the Union was for the present impractic- able, and, recognising this, he settled himself down quietly as a citizen of Cumnock, and bided his time. 16 CHAPTER TWO JOURNALIST AND LABOUR ORGANISER "THE MINER* ' IT is not clear what Hardie's sources of income were in those early days in Ayrshire. He had determined to work no more underground for any employer. No colliery manager would have the chance a second time to drive him out. There was no miners' organisation to pay him a wage, though he ceased not from doing organising work. The likelihood is that he had kept up his press connections formed while in Lan- arkshire, and that there was some little income from that quarter. He wrote occasional verses, amateurish, but of the kind acceptable in the "Poet's Corner" of provincial papers, and there would be an odd seven and sixpence for these. He was never a spendthrift, and probably both he and his lass had a small "nest egg" laid by before they joined partnership, and with this were prepared to go on for a month or two until the man could make good. He had great faith in himself, and she had great faith in him, and what more could any newly-married couple want for starting out in life ? Before long the financial question was solved. The pastor of the Evangelical Union church which Hardie joined had eked out a somewhat scanty stipend by writ- ing notes for the local "Cumnock News." The pastor, in bad health, went off for a holiday, and asked Hardie to write his notes while he was away. He never returned, and Hardie found himself writing the notes practically as a member of the staff, and as he, with his m J. KEIR HARDIE knowledge of the miners' conditions and a decidedly literary turn of the pen, was just the kind of man wanted for such a paper, he was, by and by to all intents and purposes, acting as editor. The "Cumnock News/' it should be said, was an off- shoot of the "Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald/' which then was, and still is, one of the most ably conducted of Scottish provincial papers. Its editor and proprietor, Mr. Arthur Guthrie, was a man with literary and artistic tastes, and in politics a staunch Liberal, a fact which, however we may regard Liberalism now, was of some democratic value in those days, in a shire largely dominated by the county families. It required some fortitude to stand up against the Bute, the Eglinton and the Dundonald interests, not to speak of the coal-owning magnates of whom the Baird family was the most powerful. It will thus be seen that Hardie's first editorial experi- ence was on the side of the Liberal Party. There is no evidence that he took much interest in politics before he came into Ayrshire, but he could not help doing so now, nor could any active-minded working man. The political question of the hour was the extension of house- hold franchise to the counties, and as it was to the Liberal Party that the workers looked for that boon, it was natural that the earnest and thoughtful sections of them should be Liberals. Hardie became a member of the Liberal Association, and, naturally, being the kind of man he was, was an active and prominent member. He was, however, a very complex personality, this new- comer into the social and political life of Ayrshire, and neither the Liberal Association nor the ' Cumnock News "could absorb more than a small part of his energies. He was still active in temperance work, and, as a matter of course, became Grand Worthy Chief of 18 JOURNALIST the local Good Templars' Lodge. He took his share of the church work and rilled the pulpit on occasions when the absence of the appointed minister made that neces- sary, and frequently his voice was to be heard at the street corners in Cumnock and in some of the neigh- bouring villages, preaching the Gospel of Christ as he understood it. He formed an evening class two nights a week for the teaching of shorthand writing, himself acting as teacher without fee or reward, and he gathered round him a group of students, who, we may be sure, learnt more things than shorthand. At this time his reading of books became more com- prehensive if not more systematic. That latter could hardly be with his mode of life. He then read Carlyle's ' Sartor Resartus ' for the first time and became acquainted with some of the writings of Ruskin and of Emerson. Fiction does not seem to have attracted him much, except in the form of ballads and folk-lore, though, strange to say, he himself wrote one or two stones when later he had control of a paper of his own. With Robert Burns he had of course been familiar since childhood. " I owe more to Robert Burns than to any man, alive or dead," he once wrote. As a boy it was the tender humanitarianism of the Scottish peasant poet to which his nature responded, and he has told how the "Lines on Seeing a wounded Hare" thrilled him with pity and anger. He was gaining in rnqntal power and self reliance during these years, though with no settled purpose as to the use he would make of the knowledge and strength he was acquiring, except that all the time he had one fixed immediate object in view : the forma- tion of an Ayrshire Miners' Union. This event took place in August, 1886. The exact date is not known nor the place of nativity, early records having apparently been lost. James Neil, of Cumnock, 19 J. KEIR HARDIE who took an active part in the early work of the Union, has recollections of a delegate meeting in Mauchline, at which Andrew Fisher, of Crosshouse, (afterwards Prime Minister of Australia) was present, and he thinks this may have been the initial meeting, which is not unlikely, Fisher, like Neil himself, being one of the original delegates. Whether that was so or not, one thing is certain. The Union was formed in 1886, and Hardie was appointed its Organising Secretary. Henceforth, the coal magnates of Ayrshire had a new force to reckon with. Hardie's allowance it could hardly be called a salary was 75 a year, but as he was earning his living in other ways, he devoted the money to the starting of a monthly paper, and in the beginning of the following year produced "The Miner/' of which we shall have something to say in due course. This same year the Scottish Miners' Federation was formed, and to this also Hardie was appointed Secre- tary, perhaps on the principle that the willing horse gets the heaviest burden. That he was willing there can be no doubt. Since the days of the Lanarkshire strike, seven years before, he had realised the need for the Scottish miners being united in one organisation, and he was ready to take his share in the work. There was also being borne in upon him and others a belief that the time had come for organised Labour to consider what use could be made of the new political opportunities which had been presented to it. The passing of the 1884 Franchise Act, which extended household franchise to the counties, brought great hopes to the workers, though it found them, for the moment, unable to take advantage of it. It gave political power to practically all the adult miners in the country, and the leaders of the miners began to take thought as to how it could be utilised. 20 LABOUR ORGANISER For the most part they held to the belief that in the Liberal Party organisation lay the medium by which the representatives of Labour could reach Parliament. Liberalism, simply because it was traditionally opposed to Toryism, was accepted as embodying the progressive spirit of the nation. The leader of the Liberal Party was W. E. Gladstone, then in the heyday of his popularity. The workers generally were willing to trust Gladstone, but amongst them were a considerable number who, having begun to imbibe Socialist ideas, had doubts as to the genuineness of the Liberal Party's professions of goodwill to labour. They knew that although it might be true that the Tory Party was dominated by the landed interests, there were not a few territorial magnates in the councils of Liberalism. They also knew that the Liberal Party policy was directed largely on behoof of the manufacturing and commercial interests, and they felt that, as in the very nature of things these interests must collide with those of the workers, to strengthen the Liberal Party might be like making a stick for labour's back. Yet, on the whole, they were willing to give it a trial, induced by the knowledge that there were in the Liberal Party a few honest, sincere and able men, friendly to labour men such as Cun- ninghame Graham, the Radical Member for North- West Lanark, Conybeare, Stephen Mason, Dr. G. B. Clark, and a few others, who, with Burt and Fenwick and Abraham already representing the miners, were expected to force the pace inside the Liberal Party. In Cunninghame Graham especially, great hopes were cen- tred. He had won North-West Lanarkshire as a Glad- stonian Liberal in the 1886 election. In his election campaign Graham had thoroughly familiarised himself with the needs and aspirations of the miners, had whole- heartedly adopted their programme of reforms, and had P 21 J. KEIR HARDIE advocated the passing of an Eight Hours' Bill, the estab- lishment of a wage court, and the nationalisation of minerals; he had, moreover, made it quite clear that he supported such measures only as necessary transitional steps towards Socialism. Two years later he was to prove his sincerity by introducing the Miners' Eight Hours' Day Bill into Parliament, and by going to prison in defence of free speech. He had already, by his originality of utterance, caught the attention of the House of Commons, and the fact that he came of aristo- cratic lineage added piquancy to his sometimes savage sarcasms against the ruling classes. Altogether, he was a picturesque and dashing Parliamentary figure; and that this man, holding views that were little short of revolutionary, should still be a recognised member of the Liberal Party, helped to sustain working-class faith in Liberalism and probably helped to delay, until the psychological moment was past, the formation of a clear- cut, working-class party. The right moment was at the passing of the Franchise Act. Keir Hardie, though himself a member of the Liberal Party, was amongst the doubters, and he, for one, resolved to put the matter to the test at the earliest opportunity, and in his capacity as Secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Union, made preparations accordingly. In May, 1887, at demonstrations of the Ayrshire miners held on Irvine Moor and on Cragie Hill, the following resolution was adopted: "That in the opinion of this meeting, the time has come for the formation of a Labour Party in the House of Commons, and we hereby agree to assist in returning one or more members to represent the miners of Scotland at the first available opportunity." Shortly afterwards Hardie was adopted as the miners' candidate for North Ayrshire, and immediately there developed a situation which has been repeated hundreds 22 LABOUR ORGANISER of times since all over the country, and which can best be shown by quotations from a speech delivered by Hardie at Irvine in October of that same year. It is his first recorded political utterance, and defines very clearly his attitude at that stage of his development. It shows that he was not yet prepared to fight on a full Socialist programme, and also that he was not unwilling to work through the Liberal Party, provided its methods were honestly democratic. He was, in fact, putting Liberalism to the test of allegiance to its own avowed principles. He said, "The Liberals and Conservatives have, through their organisations, selected candidates. They are both, as far as I know, good men. The point I wish to emphasise, however, is this : that these men have been selected without the mass of the people being consulted. Your betters have chosen the men, TancH they now send them down to you to have them returned. What would you think if the Miners' Executive Council were to meet in Kilmarnock and appoint a secretary to the miners of Ayrshire in that way? Your candidate ought to be selected by the voice and vote of the mass of the people. We are told that Sir William Wedderburn is a good Radical and that he is sound on the Liberal programme. It may be all true, but we do not know whether it is or not. Will he, for example, support an Eight Hour Bill? Nobody has asked him, and nobody cares except ourselves. Will he support the abolition of private property in royalties? Well, he is a landlord and not likely to be too extreme in that respect. Is he prepared to establish a wage court that would secure to the workman a just reward for his labour? Nobody knows whether he is or not. Is he prepared to support the extension of the Employers' Liability Act, which presently limits the compensation for loss of life, how- ever culpable the employers may be, to three years' 23 J. KEIR HARDIE wages? Nobody knows. I am not surprised at the action of the Liberal Association in opposing me. This is what has been done in nearly every case where a Labour candidate has been brought forward. I have been asked what course I intend to take, and my reply is, the same as formerly. I will endeavour to have a Labour Electoral Association formed in every town and village in the constituency. When the time comes for an elec- tion I will judge how far circumstances justify me in going forward. If the working men are true to them- selves, I will insist on a plebiscite being taken between myself and the Liberal candidate, and then let the man who gets most support go to the poll. If the Liberal Association refuses to take this course, working men will then see how much their professions of friendship are worth. I am not specially anxious to go to Parlia- ment, but I am anxious and determined that the wants and wishes of the working classes shall be made known and attended to there. Meantime, I recommend my friends not to pledge themselves to either of the candi- dates now before them till they see what the future may bring forth." There was nothing revolutionary in all this; Social- ism was not even hinted at; Liberalism was not con- demned; it was to be put upon its trial, and the test of its sincerity was to be its willingness within its own organisation to provide a fair field for labour. The one thing that does emerge from this utterance and others during this period is Hardie's class feeling, inherent in his very nature, derived from and intensified by his own life experience, and avowed at a time when he had pro- bably made no acquaintance with Marxian philosophy. "I am anxious and determined that the wants and wishes of the working classes shall be made known and attended to in Parliament." From that fundamental 24 LABOUR ORGANISER political creed he never deviated during the whole of his life. It was his basic article of faith, the impregnable rock upon which he stood immovable and incorruptible : Loyalty to the working class. The party politicians never could understand this, and therefore they never understood Keir Hardie. The simple straightforward- ness and steadfastness' of the man were baffling to them, and afterwards, in the House of Commons, when he kept at arm's length all Parliamentary intriguers and even held aloof from some who may have desired from quite friendly motives to be on terms of social fellowship with him, it was ascribed to boorishness on his part. It was nothing of the sort, as those who were on terms of intimacy with him well knew. It was the expression at once of his own individuality and of his class loyalty. He was a man who could not be patronised, and he was jealous for the independence of the working people, of whom he believed himself to be representative. When, many years afterwards, George Bernard Shaw charac- terised him as "the damndest natural aristocrat in the House of Commons/ 5 there was more truth in the description than Shaw himself realised. If to be an aristocrat is to have pride of caste, Keir Hardie was an aristocrat. He possessed pride of class in the superla- tive degree, in a much greater degree than the average working man himself has ever possessed it. Hardie was willing at all times to associate with members of the other classes for the furtherance of the objects he had in view with Fabian middle class people, with clergy- men, and artists, and litterateurs, but always on terms of equality. At the* first hint of patronage, either on the ground of class or cultural superiority, he drew back and went his own way, alone if need be. Unforeseen events decided that his first parliamentary contest should be elsewhere than in North Ayrshire, but 25 J. KEIR HARDIE it was here, in the year 1887, that he first threw down his challenge to Liberalism to prove its sincerity, and called upon his fellow workers to prepare to make use of their political opportunities self-reliantly and with a sense of the dignity of their class. ' ' So long as men are content to believe that Providence has sent into the world one class of men saddled and bridled, and another class booted and spurred to ride them, so long will they be ridden; but the moment the masses come to feel and act as if they were men, that moment the inequality ceases." Thus he wrote in "The Miner" at this time. He himself had reached that stage very early in life and in his owni personality he typified his conception of what the working class ought to be. The year 1887 was a very busy one for Keir Hardie. He had already acquired that capacity for work which in future years frequently astonished his colleagues of the Independent Labour Party. As already recorded, the Scottish Miners' Federation had been formed in the autumn of 1886 and he had accepted the position of Secretary. A personal paragraph in the first Annual Report gives only a partial indication of his activities. "Conscious," he says, "of many defects in the per- formance of my duties, I have yet tried to do my best. It has been hard sometimes to bear the blame of unreason- able men, though this has been more than compensated for by the tolerance of the great mass. There is scarcely a district in Scotland where my voice has not been heard, with what effect it is for others to say. I find, leaving out the deputations to London and the big conferences, that I have attended on behalf of the Federation 77 meetings, 37 of which have been public, and 40 Executive and conference meetings, involving 6,000 miles of railway travelling. I have sent out over 1,500 letters and circu- lars, and over 60,000 printed leaflets. This has involved 26 LABOUR ORGANISER a very considerable amount of work, but I am persuaded it has not been labour in vain.' ' A reference to the balance sheet shows under the heading of "Salaries" : "J. K. Hardie, 3 155." a remuneration certainly not commensurate to the work done, but probably bearing some proportion to the earnings of the miners themselves, for in this same report it is recorded that "wages still continue very low, ranging from 2s. 6d. to 45. per day, the average being about 35. 3d. Work is, however, very unsteady, and thus the earnings of the men cannot be more than I2s. per week. 1 ' Those were hard times for underground workers, and not unduly prosperous ones for their leaders. Another interesting item in the financial statement runs : "Donation from meeting in Edinburgh (Socialist), 11 8s. 6d." probably some public gather- ing under the auspices of the newly-formed Socialist League, willing thus early to help forward the work of industrial organisation. The concluding exordium is in the genuine Keir Hardie vein familiar to all who ever had the good fortune to work along with him. * ' May the experience of the past not be lost on us in the future. There are a number of young and ardent spirits in our ranks who, if they can be laid hold of, will ensure the success of our movement in years to come. Ours is no old-fashioned sixpence-a-day agitation. We aim at the complete emancipation of the worker from the thraldom of wagedom. Co-operative production, under State \/ management, should be our goal, as, never till this has been obtained, can we hope for better times for working people." Thus spake the optimist. He was himself prevented from being present at this first annual meeting of the Federation. The death of his second-born child, Sarah, two years of age, had naturally affected him very keenly, and made it impos- sible for him at the time to be interested in anything else 27 J. KEIR HARDIE than this first domestic affliction which came upon him. Two other children were left, James, born in 1881, and Agnes, born in 1885, but as usually happens, the one that was taken had no peer in the minds of the bereaved parents. Another boy, Duncan, born this same year, 1887, helped to fill the gap thus made in the little family circle. The visits to London mentioned in the report were to interview the Home Secretary in favour of improve- ments in the Government's Mines Bill, and of Donald Crawford's Bill to abolish the truck system, introduced and passed during the Parliamentary session of that year. The miners sought to have an eight-hours clause for boys, together with one making it penal for an employer to keep men in the pit when they desired to get out. Hardie's deputation colleagues were R. Chis- holm Robertson of Stirlingshire, John Weir of Fife- shire, and Robert Brown of the Lothians, all at that time active in promoting organisation in their various districts. They also, on this occasion, did some lobby- ing of Members to support their proposals, and in the course of this Keir Hardie doubtless got ample confirma- tion of the need for direct Labour representation, and was strengthened in his growing belief that such repre- sentation should be independent of existing political parties. We can also see the effect which the subse- quent result, when the Eight Hours Amendment was defeated actually owing to the action of the Liberal- Labour members from mining districts, Burt, Fenwick and Abraham, had upon his attitude to certain of the older Trade Union leaders and both their industrial and political policy. One notable amendment of the Bill, secured very largely through pressure by Hardie and other outside agitators, was the prohibition of the employment of boys 28 "THE MINER" under twelve. "What a difference," he commented in "The Miner," "from the time when children were taken into the pit almost as soon as they were out of the cradle. ' ' What a difference, he might have said, from the time when he himself went down the pit at ten years of age ! What a difference, we might say, from the present time, when fourteen is the minimum school-leaving age. Verily, the agitators have not laboured in vain. Reference is made above to "The Miner," a monthly journal of which he was the founder and editor, and to which, as a matter of fact, he contributed about one-third of the letterpress. Its first number appeared in January, 1887, and it was published for two years, being discon- tinued at the end of 1888, partly because of the usual lack of support from which all purely Labour journals have suffered, but chiefly because by that time Hardie himself was becoming too deeply involved in political propagandist agitation to be able to give the necessary time to the work of supervision. It was a very remarkable paper, and to those Who are fortunate enough to possess the two volumes, it mirrors in a very realistic way the social conditions of the collier folk of that time, and also throws considerable light on the many phases and aspects of the general Labour movement in the days when it was gropingly feeling its way through many experiments and experiences towards political self- reliance and self-knowledge. The journal is peculiarly valuable to us in that it reveals Hardie himself as a man growing and develop- ing, and becoming more and more self-assertive. It began as "The Miner: a Journal for Underground Workers." When it had reached the second year it had become "The Miner: an Advanced Political Journal. Edited by J. K. Hardie," thus definitely proclaiming the aim of its controller if not yet of the workers whose 29 J. KEIR HARDIE interests it advocated. It was at once the germ and the precursor of the "Labour Leader/' which was to be for many years almost the personal organ of Keir Hardie, and is now the firmly established and influential exponent of the Independent Labour Party, of which he was the founder. In its pages you can discern him, tentatively, but ever more boldly, finding expression for his Socialist convictions, and from being a miners' leader, steadily aspiring towards becoming a people's leader. He was quite sure of himself, and of his pur- pose, but not quite sure of the approval of his readers. "The miners of Britain," he said in his first leading article, "stand sorely in need of an organ to ventilate their grievances, and teach them the duty they owe to themselves. The paper, while dealing primarily with purely mining affairs, will advocate reform in every direction which promises to bring relief to the toiling millions," and throughout the career of the paper he is found giving a platform to the pioneers and protagonists of schemes of working-class betterment, no matter what their label might be. Land Nationalisers, Socialists, Anarchists, Trade Unionists, are all given room to state and argue their case, and ever and anon he lets it be known where he himself stands and where he is going. "The capitalist has done good service in the past by developing trade and commerce. His day is now nearly past. He has played his part in the economy of the industrial system, and must now give way for a more perfect order of things wherein the labourer shall be rewarded in proportion to his work." That is not exactly Socialism, but the idea of evolution in industry towards Socialism has seldom been more tersely stated; nor, indeed, has the general purpose of Socialism been more accurately defined. And again, "The world to- day is sick and weary at heart. Even our clergy are for 30 'THE MINER" the most part dumb dogs who dare not bark. So it was in the days of Christ. They who proclaimed a God- given gospel to the world were the poor and the com- paratively unlettered. We need to-day a return to the principles of that Gospel which, by proclaiming all men sons of God and brethren one with another, makes it impossible for one, Shylock-like, to insist on his rights at the expense of another/' There was no lack of idealism in the journalistic fare served up to the working miners who turned to their trade journal for news of the daily conflicts with em- ployers and managers, and found that in plenty, along with the idealism. We have here the manifestations of what I might call the spiritual consistency which formed the fibre of Hardie's character, and was in large measure the secret of his power to win the allegiance even of those whose belief in Socialism had a more materialistic foundation. His energy at this time seems to have been inex- haustible. Besides this editorial and journalistic work, he was a member of Auchinleck School Board, and, in addition to his secretarial duties for the Scottish Miners' Federation, he was still acting as secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Union, and in that capacity displaying an amount of vigour surprising to his associates and disconcerting to colliery managers and officials with whom he was perforce in continual conflict. Con- ducting what are known as "partial" strikes, bringing the men out, now in one corner of Ayrshire, now in another, on questions of wages, on questions of illegal deductions of weight, on questions of victimisation; holding mass meetings, and calling idle days here, there, and everywhere, with a view to enforcing the policy of restriction of output which at this time was the only alternative policy to a general strike in resistance to J. KEIR HARDIE wage reductions; and in one way and another keeping the whole Ayrshire area in that condition of unrest which was the only possible means of giving active expression to the discontent seething throughout the entire mining community of Scotland. There was indeed very ample justification for this agitation. "With coal selling in Glasgow at is. per cwt, and public works stopped for want of fuel; with mounted policemen riding down inoffensive children nearly to death, and felling quiet old men with a blow from a baton; with the wives and children of thirty thousand men not on the verge but in the very throes of starva- tion; with all this, and much more that might be named, a condition of things is being fostered which can only end in riot, as unhappily has been in Lanarkshire/' This is his picture of the condition of the miners at that time, a picture the truth of which can easily be verified from the columns of the contemporary newspapers. He was in favour of a general strike throughout England, Scotland and Wales, but the unity of organisation which could bring that to pass was yet far away, and guerilla fighting was the only possible tactics. "If the miners were Highland crofters/' he said, "or African slaves, or Bulgarians, people would be found on every hand getting up indignation meetings to protest against the wrongs inflicted upon them by the capit- alists, but because they are only miners nobody heeds them." The miners have now found means of making every- body heed them, and Hardie and his colleagues had already begun the forging of the weapons for that achievement. It was on a motion from Scotland that, at a Conference in Manchester in April, 1887, it was agreed that "The Federations be admitted to the Miners' National Union on payment of one farthing per member 32 "THE MINER" quarterly, this money to be spent in furthering legislative work and in holding conferences for the consideration of the state of trade and wages, such conferences to have power to issue such recommendations as may seem necessary for the improvement of the same/' Thus was laid the basis of the now powerful Miners' Federa- tion of Great Britain. Any account of this period of Hardie's life would be incomplete without a reference to the colliery disaster at Udston, in Lanarkshire, which took place on the 28th May, 1887, and by which eighty-five lives were lost. He, immediately on getting the news, hurried through from Ayrshire and joined with the other agents in the relief work and in comforting the bereaved relatives. Many of the men who had been killed were his own personal friends, lads he had worked with under- ground or companioned in play and sport and sociality when he and they were growing into manhood. He was able to visualise the conditions under which they had met their death in the fiery mine with never a chance to escape, and he believed that it was only the parsimony of the mineowners that prevented the methods being used which would make such accidents impossible. This belief deepened his conviction that there would never be proper protection for the miners except through compulsory legislation in the framing of which the miners themselves should have a voice. Yet in after years one of his chief difficulties was to convince the miners themselves of that fact, and that they should trust only in themselves for the passing of protective laws. On this occasion, in "The Miner/' he im- peached both the colliery management and the Govern- ment inspectors for gross neglect of their duties. But of course "The Miner" was read only by miners, and only by a small number of them. 33 J. KEIR HARDIE The end of 1887 brought his severance voluntarily on his part from the two Ayrshire papers, the "Ardros- san Herald" and "Cumnock News," with which he had been connected since 1882. During that time in addition to supplying the news of the district, he had contributed under the nom de plume of "The Trapper," a weekly article, headed "Black Diamonds, or Mining Notes Worth Minding." His farewell words to the readers were indicative alike of the character of his work on these local papers and of his aspirations for the future in the wider field upon which he was now entering : "I have tried to practice what I preached by showing, so far as I knew how, that manhood was preferable to money. Nor have I the least intention of changing. Cir- cumstances have for the time being directed my course a certain way; for how long I cannot tell, but these make it all but impossible for me to continue writing 'Black Diamonds/ ... I feel like giving up an old friend in thus taking leave, but that the great tide of human progress may keep flowing steadily shoreward till it washes away all the wrong and the sin and the shame and the misery which now exist, is now, and for ever will be, the sincere prayer of your friend 'The Trapper. 5 Good Bye." 34 CHAPTER THREE MID-LANARK THE SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY IN the spring of 1888 came the opportunity for which he had been waiting and preparing, but it arose, not, as he had hoped, in Ayrshire, but in Lanarkshire. The resignation of Mr. Stephen Mason from the representation of Mid-Lanark made a by-election necessary. The constituency was pre-eminently mining and there was a natural expectation that the Liberal Party would give preference to a miner as candidate. Almost as a matter of course Hardie's name was suggested and a requisition numerously signed by electors in the Division was presented to him, requesting him to stand as Labour candidate. In "The Miner" he made known his attitude. "For the first time, so far as Scotland is concerned, a serious attempt is to be made to run a genuine Labour candidate for the constituency, and my own name has been put forward in that connection. I desire to define my position clearly. I earnestly desire to see Labour represented in Parliament by working men. Should the choice of the electors fall on me, I am prepared to fight their battle. Should another be selected by them, I will give that other as hearty and ungrudging support as one man can give another. The constituency is essentially one for returning a Labour candidate. Much depends on the position taken up by the Liberal Association. It may or may not select a Labour candidate. In either case my advice would be 35 J. KEIR HARDIE that the Labour candidate should be put forward. Better split the party now, if there is to be a split, than at a general election, and if the Labour Party only make their power felt now, terms will not be wanting when the general election comes." The prospect of the contest aroused widespread interest. It was recognised that, not only the Liberal professions in favour of Labour representation, but the workers themselves, were to be tested, and that, in the result, it would be shown whether in a typical working-class constituency the workers were yet ready to use their newly-acquired political power in the interest of their own class and irrespective of old party traditions. The press immediately got busy. The Scottish Liberal papers, "The Glasgow Daily Mail" and the "Scottish Leader," began to confuse the issues, to put forward the names of various middle-class candidates, to besmirch and misrepresent Hardie, and to talk about "Tory gold." On the other hand the London "Star" wrote as follows: "Mr. Hardie is certainly the best man for the constituency. One or two of his stamp are greatly needed to look after Scottish Labour interests in Parliament, especially as those interests are about to lose the advocacy of Mr. Stephen Mason." The Tory "Ayrshire Post" said: "Among the candidates brought forward for the expected vacancy in Mid-Lanark, through the retirement of Mr. Stephen Mason, is Mr. J. Keir Hardie, Cumnock. A corre- spondent interested in the election asks us whether there is any truth in the rumour that Mr. Hardie was a Unionist in 1886. The rumour is an absurd one. Mr. Hardie has been a consistent and pronounced Home Ruler since the beginning of the controversy. What- ever faults he may have, sitting on the hedge is not one 36 MID-LANARK of them. Right or wrong, you know what he means." So began the campaign of lies and innuendo of which he was to have a plentiful experience in future years, and the very fact that the Tory press was inclined to speak of him respectfully was adduced as proof that he was in league with the Tories. Hardie pursued his way steadily, unmoved by any calumny. On the I5th March he offered himself as a candidate for selection by the Mid-Lanark Liberal Association. On the 2ist of the same month he with- drew his name from the official list for the following reasons. 'The Executive of the Association, without giving the electors a chance of deciding on the merits of the respective candidates, have already, at the instance of outsiders, and without regard to fitness, decided who the candidate is to be." The Liberal candidate finally adopted was Mr. J. W. Phillips, a young Welsh lawyer, who ultimately made his way to the House of Lords as Lord St. Davids. The Tory candidate was Mr. W. R. Bousfield. Hardie stood therefore as an Independent Labour candidate, the first of the kind in British politics; and for that reason, if for no other, this Mid-Lanark election is historical. As a Labour candidate but, be it noted, not yet as a Socialist, did he stand. In his letter to the Liberal Association, he claimed that he had all his life been a Radical of a somewhat advanced type, and from the first had supported Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule proposals. In his election address he said, "I adopt in its entirety the Liberal programme agreed to at Nottingham, which includes Adult Suffrage; Reform of Registration Laws; Allotments for Labourers; County Government; London Municipal Government; Free Education; Disestablishment. On questions of general politics I would vote with the Liberal Party, to which I E 37 J. KEIR HARDIE have all my life belonged." His proposals for Labour and Land legislation, though going far beyond the Liberal programme, were not at all comprehensively Socialistic. An Eight Hours' Day for Miners, an Insurance and Superannuation Fund supported from Royalties, Arbitration Courts, and the creation of a Ministry of Mines were his mining proposals; the reimposition of the four shillings in the pound Land Rent, payable by the landlord to the State, the estab- lishment of a Land Court, compulsory cultivation of waste lands, taxation of land values and nationalisation of royalties were his land programme. On the question of Home Rule he said, "I will support the Irish Party in winning justice for Ireland, and in the event of a difference between them and the Liberal Party, would vote with the Irish' J ; and to this he added, "I am also strongly in favour of Home Rule for Scot- land, being convinced that until we have a Parliament of our own, we cannot obtain the many and great reforms on which I believe the people of Scotland have set their hearts." ; His chief appeal however for differentiation as between himself and the other candidates was on the ground of class representation. He submitted an analysis of all the interests represented in Parliament, showing that out of the 72 members sent from Scotland, not one represented the working people. "Why is it," he asked, "that in the richest nation in the world those who produce the wealth should alone be poor? What help can you expect from those who believe they can only be kept rich in proportion as you are kept poor? 'Few save the poor feel for the poor, the rich know not how hard, It is to be of needful food and needful rest debarred. ' 38 MID-LANARK "I ask you therefore to return to Parliament a man of yourselves, who being poor, can feel for the poor, and whose whole interest lies in the direction of securing for you a better and a happier lot?" Encouragement came from many quarters. The recently formed Labour Electoral Association, which during this election assumed the title of National Labour Party, sent through its treasurer, Edward Harford, 400 with the assurance : "You can have more if needed. . -This body subsequently proved itself unable to stand the strain of divided allegiance to Liberalism and Labour. The secretary, T. R. Threlfall, wrote declaring the election to be "particularly a test question as to how far the professed love of the Liberal Party for Labour representation is a reality." The Scottish Home Rule Association, both through its Edinburgh and its London Committees, adopted him as its candidate, the Metropolitan section passing the following resolution, "That this meeting hails with gratitude the appearance of Mr. J. K. Hardie, the tried and trusted champion of the rights of the Scottish Miners, as a Labour candidate for Mid-Lanark, and trusts that the working men in that constituency will rally round him and do themselves the honour of returning the first genuine Labour representative for Scotland." In transmitting the resolution, the Sec- retary, J. Ramsay MacDonald, sent the follow- ing letter, the terms of which he himself has probably long ago forgotten. As this was the first correspondence between two men who were later to be in close comradeship, it is set down here for preserva- tion. It shows, amongst other things, that Mac- Donald, like Hardie, had not yet lost hope in the Liberal Party. 39 J. KEIR BARDIE "Scottish Home Rule Association. "23 Kelly Street, Kentish Town, London. "Mr. J. Keir Hardie, "Dear Mr. Hanfie, I cannot refrain from wishing you God-speed in your election contest. Had I been able to have gone to Mid-Lanark to help you to do so both by Srord and deed* would have given very great pleasure indeed. The powers of darkness Scottish newspapers with English editors (as the 'Leader'), partisan wire-pullers, and the other etceteras of political squabbles are leagued against us. "But let the consequences be what they may, do not withdraw. The cause of Labour and of Scottish Nationality will suffer much thereby. Your defeat will awaken Scotland, and your victory will re-construct Scottish Liberalism. All success be yours, and the National cause yon champion. There is no miner and no other erne for that matter who is a Scotsman and not ashamed of it, who will vote against you in favour of an obscure English barrister, absolutely ignorant of Scotland and of Scottish affairs, and who only wants to get to Parliament in order that he may have the tail of M.P. to his name in the law courts. I am, Dear Sir, Yours very truly, "J. RAMSAY MAcDoKALO, "Hon. Secretary, S.H.R.A." The Parliamentary Committee of the Highland Land League, through its Chairman, J. Galloway Weir, also endorsed the candidature. The Glasgow Trades Council did likewise, and the Executive Council of the British Steel Smelters' Association. Lady Florence Dixie wrote : "If the miners put you in they will know 40 MID-LANARK that, at least, they have a representative who will be the slave of no Party, but who will speak fearlessly for Scot- land and her people's interests." Cunninghame Graham sent a characteristic epistle in which he expressed the hope that all Scotsmen would see the importance of not returning an Englishman, and concluded, "a good coat is useful enough against the weather, but why poor men should bow down and worship one, knowing that it will not warm their backs passes my comprehension." Hardie resisted all inducements to retire, including an offer from the Liberal Party, the nature of which had best be disclosed in his own words many years after- wards. "In 1888 I came out as the Labour candidate for the Mid-Division of Lanarkshire. The whole story of that campaign will be told some day Bob Smillie could tell it but for the moment I confine myself to one little incident. Mr. T. R. Threlfall, Secretary to the Labour Electoral Association, came North to take part in the contest. One evening Threlfall did not turn up at the meeting for which he was advertised, and shortly after I got back from my round he turned up at the hotel bubbling over with excitement. 'I've settled it,' he cried excitedly. 'I've been in conference with them all the evening, and it's all fixed up.* 'In conference with whom, and settled what?' I asked. 'In con- ference with the Liberals,' he replied, 'at the George Hotel, and you've to retire.' I don't quite know what happened then, but I remember rising to my feet and Threlfall ceased speaking. Next morning he returned home to Southport. On the day of his departure Mr. Schnadhorst, the then chief Caucusmonger of the Liberals, invited me to meet him at the George Hotel. I replied that I was quite prepared to receive in writing anything he had to say. The following day, Mr. 41 J. KEIR HARDIE C. A. V. Conybeare, then M.P. for the Camborne Division of Cornwall, induced me to pay a visit to Sir George Trevelyan, also at the George Hotel. Sir George was very polite, and explained the unwisdom of Liberals and Labour fighing each other. They wanted more working men in Parliament, and if only I would stand down in Mid-Lanark he would give me an assurance that at the General Election I would be adopted somewhere, the party paying my expenses, and guaranteeing me a yearly salary three hundred pounds was the sum hinted at as they were doing for others (he gave me names). I explained as well as I could why his proposal was offensive, and though he was obviously surprised, he was too much of a gentleman to be anything but courteous. And so the fight went on." The contest was fought with great bitterness, especially on the part of the Liberals, who did not scruple to introduce sectarian and religious animosities, and who were able to make great play with the Irish Home Rule question in a constituency where the Irish electorate bulked largely. The United Irish League seems to have believed implicitly at that time in the willingness and ability of Mr. Gladstone to carry the Liberal Party with him in establishing Home Rule, and although Hardie had the support of Mr. John Ferguson, the leading champion of the Irish cause in the West of Scotland, and himself on the Council of the Liberal Party, the official mandate went against Hardie. He had thus to fight both the Liberal machine and the Nationalist machine, and had only an impromptu organisation wherewith to counter them. When the end came, he got 617 votes, and the Liberal went to the House of Commons and in due course higher up. Looking back over the years and the events which 42 SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY separate us from this historical contest, how tragic is "the might-have-been. " But the election had cleared the air, and had settled one thing for ever, the impossibility of a Labour Party within the Liberal Party. That gives it its permanent place in the history of the Labour movement. From that day onward, the coming of the Independent Labour Party was a certainty, and that it should be a Socialist Party was equally certain from the very nature of the political developments arising out of the competitive commercialist system and the growing demands of the workers for a higher standard of life, which it was quite evident could not be realised merely through the indus- trial organisations then existing. The capitalist and the landowning classes both relied upon political force for the maintenance of their privi- leges. To combat these, Labour political force was necessary. Only a minority of the working class leaders were able to diagnose the disease and apply the remedy. Amongst that minority was the defeated Labour candidate for Mid-Lanark. Henceforth there was to be no temporising so far as he was concerned no accommodating other interests. The issues and the policy were to be alike clear. A new chapter in Labour politics was opened. The next step was quickly taken. On May iQth, twenty-seven men met in Glasgow. Mr. John Mur- doch, a man well known in connection with the High- land Crofters' agitation, sturdy in frame as in opinions, presided, and Hardie explained the object for which the meeting had been called, viz., the formation of a bona fide Labour Party for Scotland. A Committee was formed to arrange for a conference to be held with- out delay to form such a Party. The members of the Committee were Duncan Macpherson, Keir Hardie, 43 J. KEIR HARDIE Charles Kennedy, George Mitchell and Robert Hutchison. Two of these at least, Mitchell and Hutchison, were avowed Socialists, the latter an exceedingly able open-air speaker, who, with Bruce Glasier, carried the Socialist message into many far distant corners of Scotland. These two were, in fact, the voices in the wilderness heralding the coming of the great army of propagandists that was to follow. Three months later, on August 25th, the Conference was held in the Waterloo Rooms, Glasgow, and the Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party was duly formed and office-bearers elected. The Hon. President was R. B. Cunninghame Graham; Hon. Vice-Presidents, Dr. Clark, M.P., and John Ferguson. The Chair- man of Executive was J. Shaw Maxwell, who after- wards became first secretary of the national Independent Labour Party. Keir Hardie was Secretary, and George Mitchell, Treasurer. Thus one more office of responsi- bility was added to Hardie's already numerous duties. He was now Secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Union, of the Scottish Miners' Federation, of the Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party, and editor of "The Miner." In the creation of all these enterprises on behalf of labour his was the active mind, and it cannot be said that he shirked in any way his share of the toil which their promotion involved. Amongst those who took part in this memorable meet- ing was a delegate from Larkhall named Robert Smillie, who has been heard of in the world since then. Hardie and he were already fairly close friends and fellow workers in the common cause, and remained so till death broke the bond of comradeship. Smillie, though still working in the pits, was, at the period of this meeting, al- ready busy organising the Lanarkshire miners and serving them in a representative capacity on the Larkhall School 44 SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY Board. In such probationary ways and through such manifold experiences do working class leaders evolve. This is the kind of service for which the qualifying degrees do not emanate from any university, though the university might be helpful if it were available. The newly formed party discussed and adopted a lengthy and detailed programme which need not be reproduced here. The most far-reaching of the pro- posals, such as the "State acquisition of railways, and all other means of transit," "A National Banking Sys- tem and the Issue of State Money only," remain yet unfulfilled, though now well within the range of practical politics. The formulation of these demands thirty years ago indicates how far these men were in advance of their time, and in what manner they were feeling their way towards a statement of Socalist aims which, by its very practicality, would be acceptable to their fellow workmen. They were not dreamers by any means. They were out for realities. They related the hard road at their feet with the justice they saw on the horizon. Following close upon this memorable meeting at Glasgow, came the annual Trades Union Congress * ./ held that year at Bradford. Hardie was a delegate and much in evidence in the debates, being practically lead- ing spokesman for the advanced section, who made use of the Congress as a propaganda platform in favour of Parliamentary Labour Representation and the Legal Eight Hours' Day. He also presided at an outside) fraternising meeting of French and British delegates for the purpose of mutual enlightenment on the progress of the working-class movement in both countries. Already he was beginning to be recognised by Euro- pean working-class leaders as representative of the most progressive and the most fearless elements in the British 45 J. KEIR HARDIE Labour movement, and for his part, he was eager to know and understand the conditions under which they had to carry on the struggle against the forces of capital- ism; he was also, perhaps, desirous of, to some extent, taking the measure of the personalities who were in the forefront of that battle. He had an opportunity of extending his knowledge at an International Confer- ence which took place in London the following Novem- Ker. This was Hardie's first International, and for that ^/reason it is of importance for this memoir, but also for other reasons. It was not a fully representative Confer- ence, the German Social Democrats having decided not to take part through some misunderstanding, which need not be discussed now after all these years, but which called for an explanatory circular from the "Socialist members of the German Reichstag" addressed to "Our Socialist comrades, and the workers of all countries," and including amongst its signatures the names of two men who take rank amongst the great ones of the wide-world Socialist movement, William Liebknecht and August Bebel. The Conference was called by the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Con- gress, and was really a Trade Union, rather than a Socialist, International. Naturally, the British dele- gates were largely in the majority, being seventy-nine in number as compared with eighteen from France which sent the next largest number. Holland sent thirteen, Belgium ten, Denmark two, Italy one. There does not appear to have been any representa- tion from Austria, or Hungary, or Switzerland, or any of the Balkan countries. Hardie's observations, compar- ing the British with the foreigners may be quoted, if for no other purpose than to illustrate his opinions con- cerning the British Trade Union movement of that V time. Describing the reception in Westminster Palace 46 SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY Hotel, he says: "How different we are after all from our neighbours. They are gay, light, volatile, ever ready to flare up into a passion at a moment's notice; we, stolid (stupid, someone called it), heavy, dullish, slow to anger (the chairman excepted), and not at all like men in earnest. Certainly these foreigners know what they are about. They have made up their minds as to what they want, and mean to have it. They are Socialists to a man, and have the fiery zeal which always characterises earnest men who are fighting for a princi- ple. Probably some of the earlier trade unionists of this country exhibited the same characteristics, but now that the leader of a Trade Union is the holder of a fat, snug office, concerned only in maintaining the respecta- bility of the cause, all is changed. Theirs (the foreigners) may be a madness without method, ours is a method without life. A fusion of the two would be beneficial all round." Then he goes on to characterise the notables present at the Congress, his reference to some of the home-made ones being rather more caustic than was necessary, but interesting, nevertheless; in view of their subsequent careers. "The Chairman, Mr. George Shipton, of the London Trades Council, has much to do to keep things in order; next him Mr. Broadhurst, Secretary. On the floor, Mr. Burt, philosophic and gentle-looking as ever, taking no part in the proceedings, but, like the sailor's parrot, thinking a lot; Mr. Fenwick, too, growing visibly larger, much to his regret; Mr. Abraham, 5ft. by 4ft., correct measurement, so that he is not so broad as he is long, though I should say he soon will be; his voice is scarcely so clear as it once was, but he himself is bright, cheerful and full of bonhomie as ever. There too, was Miss Edith Simcox, with her strong, sympathetic face. 47 J. KEIR HARDIE ('Done more for the unskilled workers than all the Par- liamentary Committee put together/ is the remark of one who knows.) Mrs. Besant attends as frequently as she can. She is not tall, and has a slight stoop, probably the result of a too close application at her desk; wears her hair short, and has on a red Tam-o'-Shanter; silver streaks are not wanting among her tresses. Miss Chap- man sits wearily through several sittings, wondering what it is all about. She is president of the Match Girls' Union, and is a tall, good-looking lassie, with dark and clear-cut features, despite Bryant & May and their twenty-two per cent. John Burns keeps running about and appears to know everybody. He is an Ayrshire Scotchman of the third generation. A thick-set, black tyke he is, with a voice of slightly modulated thunder and a nature as buoyant as a schoolboy's. Among the foreigners is Anseele of Belgium, probably their best man. He has 'done' his six months in jail for siding with the workers, but that has not daunted him any. His power of speech is amazing, and, as he closes his lips with a snap at the end of each sentence, he seems to say, 'There ! I have spoken and I mean it. J He is young, vigorous, and talented, and destined to make his mark. Next in importance is Hoppenheimer of Paris. Tall and good- looking, with a head of hair like a divot. He has seen much life and is greatly trusted by his fellows. Christi- son is a typical Dane with a bullet head and more given to action than talking. Mr. Adolph Smith made a capital interpreter. Lazzari the Italian is easily known. He wears leather leggings, a black cloak thrown over his shoulders and a slouch hat. He has only recently come out of prison, and is quite prepared to be sent back on his return home. His face is long and sallow; his eyes dark and bright, and as he stalks about with a swinging gait, or lounges against a pillar smoking a SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY cigarette, I call to mind the stories of long ago in which just such a picture figured in my mind's eye as the cruel brigand. Many others might be mentioned, but space is limited." The foregoing appeared in "The Miner," and it justifies the belief that if Hardie had not been so absorbed in the cause of Labour, he might have been a prince of journalists. Hardie was very much to the front at this Conference, which for a whole day discussed "the best means for removing the obstacles to free combination amongst the workers in continental countries," and the following morning on Hardie's recommendation carried the fol- lowing resolution : "The Labour parties in the different countries are requested to put on their programme, and work for, by agitation, the abolition of all laws pro- hibiting or hampering the free right of association and combination, national and international, of the workers." On the question of methods he put forward the follow- ing proposals, a perusal of which by our modern indus- trial unionists may indicate to them that the idea under- lying their policy is not so very novel after all. "First. That all unions of one trade in one country combine in electing an Executive Central body for that trade in that country. "Second. That the Central bodies of the various trades in the different countries elect a General Council for all trades. ".Third. That the Central bodies of the various trades in the different countries shall meet in Confer- ence annually and an International Conference shall be held at intervals of not less than three years." 49 J. KEIR HARDIE There was here the conception of an international industrial power capable of being called into action at any given moment of great crisis, which, if it could have materialised in the form, say, of a general strike, might long ago have completely shattered militarism and made impossible the 1914 European calamity, while it would also have undermined the very foundations of capital- ism. That it did not materialise is no fault of Keir Hardie. That he was capable of formulating it is proof of his greatness of vision, even if it implied a faith in organised mass intelligence for which working-class environment and tradition gave little justification. To have dreamed the dream was worth while, even if the realisation thereof may be for other generations. Hardie's resolutions were not carried, but in their stead a long resolution from the foreigners, to which Hardie had no objections and which, according to his summary of it, "provided for the organisation of all workers, the appointment of National Committees, the formation of a distinct political Labour Party, and the holding, if possible, of a yearly International Congress, the next one to meet in Paris the following year." The Conference also decided in favour of a maximum eight hours' day, and, on the motion of Mr. Burt, it resolved : 'That arbitration should be substituted for war in the settlement of disputes between nations." Hardie's con- cluding comments are noteworthy. "The Conference is over. We know each other better. Socialism is in the ascendant and everybody knows it. The marching order has been given, and it is 'Forward !' Henceforth there can be no alienation between British and Con- tinental workers. The Broadhurst school have now Hob- son's choice facing them accept the new gospel or go down before those who will." 50 SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY Thus ended the activities of the year 1888 with a declaration of Socialism. It had been a tremendous year for Hardie. Packed full of striving from beginning to end, and marking the beginnings of new endeavours which were to engross him henceforth all the days of his life. He had fought his first parliamentary contest. He had thrown down the gauntlet to the existing political parties, and to those working-class leaders who adhered to them. He had joined hands with the overseas fighters for freedom. He had become international. He had embraced Socialism. He had raised up against him in his own country hosts of enemies, but he had also secured troops of friends. The battle was drawn and he took joy in it. Let us have a square look at him, as he appeared at this time to one who was fairly closely associated with him in some of these public events. Mr. Cunninghame Graham, shortly after Keir Hardie's death, and for the purpose of this memoir, supplied the following vivid impression : "I first met Keir Hardie about the year 1887 or 1888. He was at that time, in conjunction with Chisholm Robertson, one of the chief miners' leaders in the West of Scotland. I first saw him at his home in Cumnock. I spoke to him for the first time in the office of a paper he was connected with, I think The Miner' or 'Cum- nock News. 5 He was then about thirty years of age, [ should judge, but old for his age. His hair was al- ready becoming thin at the top of the head, and receding from the temples. His eyes were not very strong. At first sight he struck you as a remarkable man. There was an air of great benevolence about him, but his face showed the kind of appearance of one who has worked hard and suffered, possibly from inadequate nourishment in his youth. He was active and alert, though not athletic. Still, he appeared to be full of energy, and Si -J. KEIR HARDIE - as subsequent events proved, he had an enormous power of resistance against long, hard an3 continual work. I should judge him to have been of a very nervous and high-strung temperament. At that time, and I believe up to the end of his life, he was an almost ceaseless smoker, what is called in the United States 'a chain smoker.' He was a very strict teetotaller and remained so to the end, but he was not a bigot on the subject and was tolerant of faults in the weaker brethren. Nothing in his address or speech showed his want of education in his youth. His accent was of Ayrshire. I think he took pride in it in his ordinary conversation. He could, however, to a great extent throw this accent aside, but not entirely. When roused or excited in public or private speech it was always perceptible. His voice was high-pitched but sonorous and very far-carrying at that time. He never used notes at that time, and I think never prepared a speech, leaving all to the inspiration of the moment. This suited his natural, unforced method of speaking admirably. He had all the charm and some of the defects of his system. Thus, though he rose higher than I think it is possible to rise when a speech is prepared or committed to memory, he was also subject to very flat passages when he was not, so to speak, inspired. His chief merits as a speaker were, in my opinion, his homeliness, directness and sincerity; and his demerits were a tendency to redundancy and length, and a total lack of humour, very rare in an Ayr- shire Scot. This was to me curious, as he had a con- siderable vein of pathos. He always opened his speeches in those days with 'Men,' and finished with 'Now, men. J This habit, which he also followed in his private speech when two or three were gathered together- used to give great offence to numbers of paternal capital- ists, baillies, councillors, and other worthy men who 52 SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY had not much mental culture and failed to detect Hardie's sincerity, and took the familiar 'men' as something too familiar for their conversing. Hardie's dress at this time was almost always a navy blue serge suit with a hard bowler hat. His hair was never worn long and his beard was well-trimmed and curly. Later on, to the regret of the 'judicious,' he affected a different style of dressing entirely foreign to his custom when a little-known man. He was then, and I believe always, an extremely abstemious eater, and in the long peregrin- ations about the mining villages of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, when I was a young, unknown M.P. and he an equally unknown miners' leader, in rain and wind, and now and then in snow, an oatcake, a scone, a bit of a kebbuck of cheese always contented him. He would then sit down by the fireside in the cottage in the mining row, and light up his corn-cob pipe and talk of the future of the Labour Party, which in those days seemed to the miners a mere fairy tale. Now and then I have seen him take the baby from the miner's wife, and dandle it on his knee whilst she prepared tea. ' 'He had the faculty of attracting children to him, and most certainly he 'forbade them not.' They would come round him in the miners' cottages and lean against him for the first few minutes. One felt he was a 'family man' and so, I suppose, did the children." Allowing for one or two inaccuracies such as that he was an Ayrshire Scot and "totally lacking in humour," the foregoing may be taken as a tolerably faithful pen-portrait of Keir Hardie in his prime, and presents characteristic features recognisable by his later associates, though deepened and strengthened by the stress of conflict in the wider field upon which he was now entering. It is the portrait of a very earnest, sincere man; resolute and strong, yet tender and kindly, and F 53 J. KEIR HARDIE making the most of his opportunities and his gifts in the interest of his "ain folk," the working class. It would be helpful if some graphic pen could re-envisage for us the wider environment, beyond Lanarkshire and Ayr- shire, which together with these local conditions and these local struggles, was moulding the character and determining the purpose of Hardie and many other rdent spirits at that time. It is curious to note how unobservant of the potential significance of these Labour movements were the con- temporary publicists and historians. Justin McCarthy's 4 'History of Our Own Times," for example, though it comes down to 1897, makes only the most casual five- word reference in recording the death of Cardinal Manning to the London Dock Strike, and makes no mention of the sympathetic strikes all over the country which followed it. It does not record the imprisonment of Cunninghame Graham and John Burns in mainten- ance of the right of free speech. It says nothing about the "new Unionism" movement which signalised the entrance into organised industrialism, and thereby into the political field, of the great mass of unskilled workers. It does not chronicle the formation of the Social Democratic Federation, or of the Fabian Society, or of the I.L.P. It passes all these events by unnoticed as if they had nothing whatever to do with the history of our own times, and fails to perceive that they were the beginners of the new social and political forces which were bound, in the very nature of things, to challenge the permanency of the existing order, and become the source of whatever has to be told in the history of the times after our own. It was a time of turmoil and strife, but also of hope for labouring people, whose most thoughtful representa- tives were testing and experimenting with new mediums 54 SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY for giving expression and effect to the aspirations of their class. New organisations were born and lived a little while and then died, but always left behind them some foundations and corner stones for future builders. Labour Electoral Associations, National Labour Parties, Sons of Labour modelled on the American Knights of Labour Hardie was willing to try them all, and also ready to associate with the pioneers and pro- pagandists whom these organisations called into activity. Very remarkable personalities some of them indeed were, though not all with horny hands or toil- furrowed faces. Keen, intellectual, purposeful, they carried their message alike to the street corners of the great cities and the village greens of remote country districts. They brought Socialism into the market place. They elbowed their way into Radical Associa- tions and into Tory Clubs, nor disdained the rostrum of the Y.M.C.A. or the Mutual Improvement Society. Their purpose was to break through the old habits of thought, to undermine stereotyped party formulas, to prepare the way for the new times. Greatly varied in origin, in temperament, in charac- ter, in talents, were these men of the advanced guard of the modern British Socialist movement H. H. Cham- pion, ex-army officer, in appearance, patrician to the finger tips, cool as an iceberg, yet emitting red-hot revolution in the placid accents of clubland; Tom Mann, a working engineer, fresh from the Left London 7.15 a.m.; opened bazaar at Halifax at 2.30; spoke at Honley at 8 p.m. 20. Halifax Labour Church, two meetings. 21. Opened bazaar at 3; addressed meeting at Yeadon at 8. 22. Addressed meeting Mexboro'; 3 hours in train. 23. Mexboro' to Kettering in train 3^ hours. Feet wet trudging through snow. Meeting at 8. 24. Kettering to London. Meeting in Canning Town. 25. London to Pendlebury, 5 hours. Two committees. ,, 26. National Administrative Council, 10 to 5. Conference Social 5 to n. 27. 10.30 meeting at Eccles; 3 p.m. ditto at Pendlebury; 6 p.m. ditto, ditto. 28. Meeting at Walkden. ,, 29. Committee in Manchester at 4. Conference with Oldham branches at 8. ,, 30. 12.45 midnight, started home. Number of letters received and answered, 75. In addition he had his " Labour Leader'' articles to write, varying from four to a dozen columns weekly. How he managed to accomplish this work it is difficult to say. He had long ago acquired the faculty of being able to think and write under almost any circumstances, and much of his journalistic work was done in third-class railway compartments, amongst all kinds of travelling companions; but even so, the mental and physical wear and tear must have been most exhausting, not to speak 135 J. KEIR HARDIE of the irregularity of meals, and the constant change of sleeping accommodation. Yet he had never a grumble, and every new host or hostess found him cheerful and smiling and ready to adapt himself to every circumstance. During June of this year he spent several weeks in South Wales. The great strike of the Welsh miners had already lasted thirteen weeks and there were no signs of a termination. The miners' demands were for a twenty per cent, increase, the establishment of a mini- mum wage, and the abolition of the sliding scale by which in the past their wages had been regulated. Though discouraged by their own official leader, "Mabon," they had come out on strike to the number of ninety thousand in support of their demands, and there was privation all over South Wales. By a coincidence, the I.L.P. associated itself with the miners' revolt. The South Wales I.L.P. Federation had resolved upon a special organising campaign, and had engaged Mr. Willie Wright, a well-known propagandist, to carry through the work. As it happened, his arrival on the scene synchronised with the outbreak, and as most of the local I.L.P. men were involved in the strike, there was nothing for him to do but throw himself into the struggle. If he could not form I.L.P. branches, he could form relief committees, help the women and children, stimu- late the men, and through the columns of the "Labour Leader" make known to the Socialist movement through- out the country the real nature and consequences of the South Wales dispute. This he did most effectually. A "Labour Leader" relief fund was raised, committees formed to administer it, and many miners' children were thereby saved from absolute starvation. One fact in connection with this relief fund ought to be mentioned. In response to a letter from Hardie, 136 INDUSTRIAL STRIFE Mr. Thomas Lipton now Sir Thomas sent a sub- stantial quantity of provisions. Hardie had refused to make use of Mr. Andrew Carnegie's money to advance his own political campaign in West Ham, but when it came to feeding hungry children, no rich man's money was barred, and he was even willing to become a sup- pliant on their behalf. Nor did he consider his free- dom of action restricted thereby. Shortly afterwards he was exposing Lipton as a sweating employer in a series of "White Slaves" articles in the "Leader." On the question at issue he had given his opinion at the beginning of the dispute. His advice was that the men should stand firm for the discarding of the sliding scale, and that they should as quickly as possible join up with the British Miners' Federation, and he spoke scathingly of the Welsh and North of England leaders whose policy kept these districts isolated from each other and also from the main body, thus making a national policy for miners impossible. When he visited the strike area in June, he found the military there before him, though there had not been the slightest indication of violence or law-breaking on the part of the strikers. At some of his meetings the sol- diers were visibly in evidence, while at others they were known to be in reserve and within call at short notice, a state of matters which had an irritating effect upon the workers, especially upon the women folk, and on several occasions very nearly produced the result which the presence of the military was supposed to avert. The absence of rioting during this dispute was certainly not due to any lack of incentive on the part of the authorities. In his public utterances Hardie did not hide his contempt for what he considered to be the timid and temporising attitude of the miners' representatives in Parliament, who had made no protest against the 137 J. KEIR HARDIE presence of the soldiers in Wales, and who, in his opinion, had utterly failed to make use of their parlia- mentary opportunities on behalf of the men on strike. Probably never more than at this time did he regret his enforced absence from the House of Commons. And, certainly, looking back on his activities during the Hull strike, we can easily imagine how, from the floor of St. Stephen's, he would have turned the eyes of the whole country towards South Wales, especially as in this case he would have been fighting for his own craft and speaking of conditions concerning which he had practical knowledge. The Welshmen, for their part, did not regard him as a stranger or outsider. They knew him to be a miner. If they had any doubt, his homely talk soon dispelled it. They had not forgotten his outspoken championship in connection with the Albion colliery disaster a few years previously, while the touch of religious fervour with which most of his speeches were warmed was very much to their liking. He addressed some fourteen or fifteen meetings, mostly in the Rhondda and Merthyr districts, and he has recorded the fact that there was rain at all these meetings, and that nearly every day he got wet through. In the Merthyr district the campaign was organised by the active spirits of the I.L.P., one of the most enthusiastic of these being Llewellyn Francis, of Penydarren, whose barber's shop became the rendezvous for all the most advanced men, whose assembling together provided the nucleus of that organisation which, two years later, sent Hardie once more to Parliament under circumstances which made that achievement seem almost miraculous. That this ulterior result had no place in Hardie's mind will be seen when we come to describe the electoral activities of that time. ^ The strike ended early in September in the defeat of 138 INDUSTRIAL STRIFE the men, who had held out for full six months. But it was not unfruitful politically. When it started there were no more than half-a-dozen branches of the I. L. P. in all South Wales. When it finished there were thirty- one, some of them with upwards of two hundred members. In the second week of September a Conference of all the I.L.P. branches in the Merthyr, Dowlais, and Troedyrhiew Parliamentary Division was held in the Welcome Coffee Tavern, Merthyr, with David Davies, railway signalman, in the chair. Willie Wright was there also, as witness to the outcome of his labours; also Mr. Robert Williams, F.R.I.B.A., an architect of some distinction, resident in London, but always actively interested in the welfare of his native Wales. Mr. Williams was a member of the I.L.P., contributing occasionally to the pages of the ''Labour Leader," and had long been on terms of personal friendship with Hardie. During the strike he had rendered assistance, especially in the organising of concerts in London by a Welsh choir on behalf of the relief funds, and his co- operation in the project for the return of a Socialist representative had therefore considerable weight with the miners. At this Conference the resolve was taken that, come the General Election when it might, the Division would be fought for Socialism. From that day onward the preparations for a contest proceeded apace. That the dissolution of Parliament could not be very far away was the general opinion in political circles, and the question as to what should be the I.L.P. plan of cam- paign was giving the leaders and the rank and file much concern. There were two possible policies. Either to encourage the branches to contest seats in a large num- ber of constituencies and make the General Election a national propaganda campaign for Socialism, or to 139 J. KEIR HARDIE contest a small number of carefully-chosen constitu- encies with the definite purpose of getting a few I.L.P. members into Parliament. The N.A.C. favoured the latter policy and recommended to the Annual Confer- ence at Leeds, in 1899, that twenty-five seats should be fought and all the finance and electoral machinery of the Party be directed towards winning these seats. This was the plan agreed upon, but of course the advocates of neither the one policy nor the other could foresee the very exceptional conditions under which the election actually did take place. Hardie himself had not at this time been selected for any constituency. He had been asked to allow himself to be nominated again for West Ham, where there was every reason to believe he would be successful, but Will T^torne having signified his inten- tion of fighting the seat, Hardie abandoned it to him, much to his regret. Thorne was subsequently elected. This year took place what was known as the "Over- toun Exposure." This, though in perspective occupying a very minor place in Hardie's life-work, must be referred to here because of the sensation which it caused at the time, the heart-searchings which it stimulated amongst large sections of sincerely religious people, and the striking illustration which it afforded of the evils inseparable from modern commercialism. In the month of April, a strike occurred amongst the labourers in Shawfield Chemical Works, at Rutherglen, near Glas- gow. Had the demands of the men, which were absurdly moderate, been granted, there would probably have been no Overtoun exposure. They were refused, and the workers, who were totally unorganised, solicited the help of the "Labour Leader" to give publicity to their grievances. Inquiries were made and revealed very grievous conditions. It was found that the men had to work twelve hours a day for seven days a week, 140 INDUSTRIAL STRIFE and that without any meal time; that the wages paid were 3d. and 4d. an hour; that the nature of the work in the manufacture of chrome potash was exceedingly injurious to the health of the workers, producing virulent and incurable skin diseases, and affecting devastatingly the respiratory and digestive organs ; that there was no attempt by the management to provide adequate protection against these physical evils; and that the sanitary arrangements in some parts of the works were nil, and in other parts limited to the bare minimum enjoined by law. The head of the firm and virtual owner was Lord Overtoun, a gentleman held in the highest esteem in religious and philanthropic circles for his good works. He had been made a peer in recognition of his "great worth as a moral and religious reformer." His esti- mated spendings on charity amounted to 10,000 a year. He was a leading light in the councils of the Free Church of Scotland, and was himself a frequent preacher of the "Gospel of Christ," He was a noted temperance reformer. He was opposed to Sabbath desecration, and had headed deputations in opposition to the running of Sunday trams in Glasgow. In politics he was a Liberal and contributed substantially to the party funds. The "Labour Leader," in a series of articles which, because of the controversy created, continued for several months, depicted these two contrasting sets of facts. The cir- culation of the "Leader" went up by leaps and bounds. The articles were reproduced in pamphlet form and the sale was enormous. Then there came a day when the printer of the "Labour Leader" refused to print any more references to Lord Overtoun, and the paper appeared with a blank page, save for an explanatory note by David Lowe, the managing editor. Another printer was got, and the paper came out the following 141 J. KEIR HARDIE week with the Overtoun article included. An inter- dict was obtained against one of the pamphlets because of a personal reference to a certain clergyman who had tried to defend Lord Overtoun. The offending passage was deleted, and the pamphlet went out to meet a demand which had only been increased by the attempt to prevent its publication. And so the interest kept on growing likewise the number of Har die's friends and enemies, the latter, of course, attributing to him the worst of motives, and in some cases actually construing his action as an attack on religion. There was no possible answer to the exposure except that which placed religion and business in two separate compartments an answer which of necessity proved the contention of the Socialists that religion and capitalism were incompatible. The vindication of the exposure was found in the fact that as the controversy went on the conditions in- side Shawfield Works kept improving. Sunday labour was reduced to the absolute minimum necessitated by the nature of the trade, better sanitary arrangements were introduced and wages in some degree increased. By the time this local agitation had come to an end, something had happened which absorbed the attention of the whole nation, and made it necessary for the British Socialist movement to define its attitude towards British imperialist policy. Great Britain was at war with the two South African Republics. 142 CHAPTER SEVEN THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR MERTHYR TYDVIL THE history of the South African War has been written officially from the standpoint of the British Government and also unofficially by various writers who do not all agree in their ascriptions of causes and motives. What we are concerned about here is the attitude of the I. L. P. towards the war and the part played by Keir Hardie during that time. Happily it is possible to set forth the I.L.P. attitude quite clearly without much traversing of ground which is covered by the historians. On September gth, 1899, five weeks before the out- break of war, the National Administrative Council of the I.L.P. met at Blackburn and adopted the following resolution, equivalent to a manifesto, for circulation amongst its branches and for general publication : "The National Administrative Council of the I.L.P. protests against the manner in which the Government, by the tenor of their dispatches and their warlike pre- parations', have made a peaceful settlement difficult with the Transvaal Republic. "The policy of the Government can be explained only on the supposition that their intention has been to pro- voke a war of conquest to secure complete control in the interests of unscrupulous exploiters. "A war of aggression is, under any circumstances, an outrage on the moral sense of a civilised community and in the present instance particularly so, considering the sordid character of the real objects aimed at. 143 J. KEIR HARDIE "It is especially humiliating to the democratic instincts of this country that an ulterior and unworthy motive should be hidden under pretence of broadening the political liberties of the Uitlanders. Even if the admitted grievances of the Uitlanders were the real reason of the threatened hostilities, war would be an extreme course quite uncalled for. "We also protest against the action of the press and the bulk of the leading politicians in strengthening the criminal conduct of the Government by misleading the public and rousing the passion for war, and we express the hope that it may not yet be too late for the manhood of the nation to prevent this outrage upon the conscience of our common humanity/' This, let it be repeated, was five weeks before the outbreak of war. The members present were J. Keir Hardie (in the chair), France Littlewood, J. Bruce Glasier, Philip Snowden, H. Russell Smart, J. Ramsay MacDonald, James Parker, Joseph Burgess and John Penny (Secretary). In thus definitely and uncompro- misingly setting forth the I.L.P. conception of the causes of the war and the Party's policy towards ft, the N.A.C. took a step which decided, amongst other things, that for several years to come the I.L.P. would be the most unpopular Party and its adherents and leaders the most bitterly abused persons in the country. The Liberal Party escaped this odium by reason of the fact that having no alternative policy, it virtually acquiesced in the war, while criticising the diplomacy which had brought it about. Some few men there were in both of the orthodox parties who rose above party and even above class interests. Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., one of the ablest of Tories, and destined in the ordinary course of events to reach the Woolsack, openly opposed the Government policy and sacrificed the remainder of his political life 144 SOUTH AFRICAN WAR rather than be a consenting party to what he described as an absolutely unnecessary war caused by diplomatic blundering, the real responsibility for which, he declared, "rested upon Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Alfred Milner." On the Liberal side, Sir Robert Reid (now Lord Lore- burn), Mr. James Bryce, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. John Burns spoke out strongly, but their utterances were more than counterbalanced by the Imperialistic declarations of Lord Rosebery, Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith, the real mouthpieces of official Liberalism. Sir William Harcourt and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman at the beginning blew neither hot nor cold. Inside the House of Commons, the only defin- ite opposition came from the Irish Party. Outside in the country, the only British political parties opposing the war policy were the I . L . P . and the S . D . F . , parties with- out a single representative in Parliament. The press, with the exception of the "Morning Leader/ 5 the "Man- chester Guardian," the "Edinburgh Evening News/' and Mr. Stead's monthly, "Review of Reviews," was wholly with the Government, and soon succeeded making the war thoroughly popular with the masses and in creat- ing an environment of intolerance in which free speech was well-nigh impossible. To Hardie and the other I.L.P. leaders it was a source of satisfaction to find that they had the support of the rank and file membership. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the membership of the I.L.P. constituted the only section of the community that was well informed concerning the questions at issue. South African affairs had received special atten- tion in the "Labour Leader," and latterly, a series of articles signed "Kopje," which was the nom de plume of an exceedingly capable South African journalist, pro- vided the readers of Hardie's paper with an account of the doings of the Chartered Company's agents and 145 J. KEIR HARDIE officials as viewed through other glasses than those of the Imperialist or the gold seeker, and described the develop- ment of the Cecil Rhodes' policy as it affected the natives, the Boer farmers and the Chartered Company's white employees, otherwise known as Uitlanders. Other writers in the same paper had turned a somewhat piercing searchlight upon the share lists of the Chartered Company and De Beers Ltd., and upon the manner in which influential members of these companies with high social status in this country were in a position to influence the colonial policy, of the Government, itself well impregnated with Imperialist tendencies. I.L.P. members were therefore quite able to distinguish between the ostensible and the real causes of the war. They did not believe that it was a war to right the wrongs of the Uitlanders. They did not believe that the military power of Great Britain was being used merely to estab- lish franchise rights in the Transvaal which had been refused to the people at home for half a century and were still withheld from womenfolk in this country. They did believe that already the process of fusion between the Dutch settlers and the British incomers had begun, and would, in course of time quite measurable, complete itself through intermarriage, social intercourse and mutual interest. They knew something about the diamond mines and the gold mines, the De Beers' com- pounds and the forced native labour, and they believed with their National Executive that the war was a "war of conquest to secure complete control of the Transvaal in the interests of unscrupulous exploiters." When Hardie, Glasier, MacDonald, Snowden and the other leaders declared wholeheartedly against the war, it was with the knowledge that they had their people behind them, few in numbers comparatively, but dependable and stout of heart. SOUTH AFRICAN WAR To the I.L.P., however, the struggle raised a question much greater than whether Boer or Briton would rule in South Africa. It involved matters materially affecting the process of world development towards Socialism. Hardie expressed this view with much clearness. "In the transition stage," he said, "from commercialism to Socialism, there must needs be much suffering. All new births are the outcome of pain and sorrow. It was so when England passed from the pastoral into the commercial stage. So, too, when the machines began to displace the hand, and the factory the cottage forms of industry. For two generations there were want and woe in the land. So, too, must it be when the change from production for profit to pro- duction for use is made. A great and extended Empire lengthens the period required for the change and thus prolongs the misery, and it follows that the loss of Empire would hasten the advent of Socialism. The greater the Empire the greater the military expenditure and the harder the lot of the workers. Modern imperialism is, in fact, to the Socialist, simply capital- ism in its most predatory and militant phase." Such reasoning was incomprehensible to a populace whose mentality seemed to be well expressed by Lord Carrington, when he said : "We must all stop thinking till the war is over," a condition of mind certainly very essential to the maintenance of the war spirit. The British nation, however, was not allowed to stop thinking for long. This war, like all other wars, did not go according to plan. It began in October. By Christmas Day Methuen had been defeated at Modderfontein. An entire British regiment had laid down its arms. General White was besieged in Ladysmith. Cecil Rhodes, in whom was personified the capitalist interests at stake, was in danger of capture at Kimberley, and General J. KEIR HARDIE Roberts was on order for the seat of war (with Kitchener soon to follow), and ever more troops were being drafted out. In face of these realities the jingo fever temporarily cooled down, and in the slightly saner atmosphere other people than the Socialists began to consider whether a movement for peace could not now be started. On Christmas Eve, Silas Hocking, the novelist, writing from the National Liberal Club, sent out the following letter to the press : "Sir, There are many people who think, with my- self, that the time has come when some organised attempt should be made by those who believe in the New Testament to put a stop to the inhuman slaughter that is going on in South Africa a slaughter that is not only a disgrace to civilisation, but which brings our Christianity into utter contempt. Surely sufficient blood has been shed. No one can any longer doubt the courage or the skill of either of the combatants, but why prolong the strife? Cannot we in the name of the Prince of Peace cry 'Halt !' and seek some peaceful settlement of the questions in dispute ? As the greater, and as we think the more Christian, nation we should cover ourselves with honour in asking for an armistice and seeking a settlement by peaceful means. We can win no honour by fighting, whatever the issues may be. In order to test the extent of the feeling to which I have given , expression and with a view to holding a confer- ence in London at an early date, I shall be willing to receive the names of any who may be willing to co- operate." Canon Scott Holland, preaching in St. Paul's Cathe- dral, sounded an even higher note. "We should humiliate ourselves for the blundering recklessness with which we entered on the war, and the insolence and 148 SOUTH AFRICAN WAR arrogance which blinded us so utterly. Let there be no more vain-glory, no more braggart tongues, and let us at the beginning of the New Year find our true under- standing." As an immediate result of these appeals and the conference which followed, the "National Stop- the-War Committee" was brought into existence. This, with its auxiliary committees throughout the country, organised huge peace demonstrations in most of the big centres of industry during the winter. In nearly every case these demonstrations had to fight against organised hooliganism stimulated by the jingo press and the jingo music halls, and inflamed to delirious passion as the tide of war began to turn and the news of British victories came across the wires. The I.L.P. naturally associated itself prominently with this Stop-the-War movement, and its leaders, especially Hardie as the recognised "head and front of the offending," had directed against them, not only the virulence of the war press, but frequently the unre- strained violence of the mob unrestrained, at least, by the official maintainers of Law and Order, though voluntary bodyguards were soon forthcoming, and the physical force patriots learned, some of them to their cost as they were taught again some years later that the advocates of peace were, on occasion, capable of meeting force with force. In spite of all the brawling intimidation of the war party, many successful demon- strations were held. At Leeds, Manchester, York, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh and various other places, the advocates for a peaceful settlement on honourable terms were able to get a hearing, and the very violence of the opposition secured for them some press attention, which, though mostly derisive, adver- tised the purposes of the movement. The Glasgow meeting was probably typical of the others. It was L 149 J. KEIR HARDIE organised by a local committee of which David Lowe, of the "Labour Leader," was secretary. The chairman was Baillie John Ferguson, of the Liberal Association. The speakers were Mr. Cronwright Schreiner, of the Cape Parliament, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. K. J. Wilson. Keir Hardie, Robert Smillie, Joseph Burgess, W. M. Haddow and prominent local I.L.P. men were present, not as speakers, but as directors of the defending forces. The preparations were as for a pitched battle. Before the doors were opened to the public, the hall was nearly filled with assured supporters. Outside there was an expectant mob of many thousands, conspicuous amongst them being University students and habitues of Glasgow Clubland, and when at last the doors were opened there was a mad rush as of stampeded wild cattle. Only a limited number got through the defences, and many heads were broken in the attempt. Inside the hall, the meeting went on. In the stairways and corridors, and at the back of the area, the battle raged. The police, whose headquarters were next door, held aloof with a serene impartiality equivalent to an encour- agement to riot, until towards the end, by orders of the Sheriff, and to save the hall property from being wrecked, they were compelled to come into action. The meetifag, however, was held. Lloyd George escaped unscathed, thanks to Socialist protection, and, as history tells, lived to become the War Spirit's most blind and excellent instrument. The following week at Dundee and Edinburgh similar scenes were enacted, and Hardie, who was the principal speaker, was only saved from maltreatment by a Glasgow bodyguard that attended him at these places. It was a fine, exhilarating fighting time. But Hardie at this time was doing better work than 150 SOUTH AFRICAN WAR at peace demonstrations. He was wielding his pen with a skill and prowess such as he had never exhibited before, and with the possession of which he has not even yet been credited, so much has it been the habit to regard him either as a mob orator or as a parliamentary extremist. A perusal of the files of the "Labour Leader" for this period will reveal Hardie as a writer, the reverse of declamatory and devoid of those florid superficialities common to controversial journalism. An article under the heading of "A Capitalist War," which he contributed to "L'Humanite Nouvelle," and which was reproduced in the "Leader," is perhaps as fine an example of compressed but accurate historical writing as is to be found anywhere. It traces, step by step, the development of South Africa from the first Dutch settlement down through the successive treks, the founding of the Dutch Republics, the discovery of the gold fields, and the consequent incursion of the speculators and exploiters, involving the British Govern- ment in their adventures, and steadily as fate driving the Boers into a corner in which they must either fight, or surrender their national existence. He verifies all his statements, produces his facts and authorities, draws comparisons between ancient and modern imperialism, and sums up his argument with a literary skill all the more effective because it is unaffected and does not pretend to be literary. This was his con- clusion : "The war is a capitalist war. The British merchant hopes to secure markets for his goods, the investor an outlet for his capital, the speculator more fools out of whom to make money, and the mining com- panies cheaper labour and increased dividends. We are told it is to spread freedom and to extend the rights and liberties of the common people. When we find a Conservative Government expending the blood and J. KEIR HARDIE treasure of the nation to extend the rights and liberties of the common people, we may well pause and begin to think." The latent unforced sarcasm of that last sentence is characteristic of a literary style which is not dependent upon expletives or invective for its strength. At this high level he kept writing all through the war, reviewing Bryce's "Impressions of South Africa" or J. A. Hobson's "The War in South Africa," criticising the supineness of the Liberal Party, examining the .Government's defence of its policy and exposing its evasions, and commenting upon the incidents of the war with a wealth of argument, illustration and appeal, directed always to the one conclusion, that the war must be stopped. The pity of it was, that all this fine work was limited in its effect, and never reached the people who could have most profited by it. The "Labour Leader," of course, shared in the unpopularity of its editor and its party, and the circula- tion declined^ thereby circumscribing the scope of its .^nfluence. The lack of a newspaper press capable of competing with the lavishly financed journalism of the vested interests has always been the chief handicap of the Socialist movement. Had Hardie been possessed of a publicity organisation such as has always been at the service of the leaders of other political parties, his worth would have been recognised much earlier, his influence in his lifetime would have been greater, and some more important person than the present writer would be at work on his biography. It was the same lack of a publicity medium that made it necessary for the I.L.P. to have its anti-war manifesto placarded on walls throughout the country. There was no other method of proclaiming its views on a national scale, and even this was not very effective, as in many places the bills wert torn down almost as soon as they were posted. 152 LABOUR PARTY Amid all this war controversy and tumult, the politi- cal education and organisation of labour moved quietly * forward. This year was formed the Labour Representa- tion Committee, which became the Labour Party of the present day, and now challenges the other political parties for control of the government of the nation. The first step was taken in Scotland. On Saturday, January 6th, 1900, what was described as "the most important Labour Conference ever held in Scotland," met in the Free Gardeners' Hall, Picardy Place, Edinburgh, when two hundred and twenty-six delegates came together for the purpose of agreeing upon a common ground of political action and of formulating a programme of social measures upon which all sections of the workers might unite. Robert Smillie was in the chair, and amongst those on the platform were Keir Hardie of Cumnock, Joseph Burgess and Martin Haddow of Glasgow, Robert Allan of Edinburgh, John Carnegie of Dundee, John Keir of Aberdeen, with John Penny, Bruce Glasier and Russell Smart holding a watching brief for the I. L. P. National Council. As this meeting is, in a sense, historical, it may be well to place on record its composition. Trade Unions sent one hundred and sixteen delegates. Trades Councils twenty-nine, Co- operative organisations twenty-eight, Independent Labour Party branches thirty-four, Social Democratic Federation branches nineteen. The acting Secretary was George Carson of Glasgow, whose activities in the formation of the Scottish Trades Union Con- gress, in 1897, na d brought him in close touch with every section of organised labour in Scotland, and this connection he now utilised in getting the present Con- ference together. Smillie, in his brief remarks as Chairman, went as usual straight to the root of the matter. :< They had had enough of party trimming and 153 J. KEIR HARDIE sham fighting, and were determined to be done with that once for all and have Independent Labour representa- tion." The following resolution was adopted : "Recog- nising that no real progress has been made with those important measures of social and industrial reform that are necessary for the comfort and well-being of the work- ing classes, and further recognising that neither of the two parties can or will effect these reforms, this Confer- ence is of the opinion that the only means by which such reforms can be obtained is by having direct independent working-class representation in the House of Commons and on local administrative bodies, and hereby pledges itself to secure that end as a logical sequence to the possession of political power by the working classes." An amendment to strike out the word "independent" was defeated by a large majority, as was also another amendment to define the object of the Conference as being "to secure the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange." The Confer- ence, it will thus be seen, while breaking completely with the political traditions of the past, refrained from identi- fying itself with Socialism. It was a Labour Representa- tion Conference, that, and nothing more. There is no need to detail the other proceedings of the Conference, as its decisions and the organising machinery which it outlined were, for the most part, incorporated in the programme and constitution of the larger national Con- ference which was held in London in the following month, but it will be agreed that an account of the Labour Party movement would be incomplete, if it failed to take note of this rather notable Scottish gathering. The date of the British Conference was February 27th, 1900, the place of meeting the Memorial Hall, London. It was the outcome of a resolution passed by the Trades 154 LABOUR PARTY Congress the previous year, which itself was the culmin- ating sequel to the many debates initiated by Hardie on the floor of the Congress in bygone years. On this occasion, however, the Congress, instead of remitting the matter to the Parliamentary Committee, had instructed that Committee to co-operate with the Inde- pendent Labour Party and other Socialist bodies. This joint Committee was duly appointed, and requested J. Ramsay MacDonald to draft a constitution for the new Party a wise proceeding which enabled the Conference, with the minimum amount of friction, to achieve the purpose for which it had been called. The proceedings of this memorable meeting are chroni- cled in the official report and also in A. W. Humphrey's admirable "History of Labour Representation." What we are concerned with here is the part which Hardie played in the Conference. He was perhaps more deeply interested in its success than any delegate present. It was for this, the political consolidation of organised labour, that he had given the greater part of his life, and although he knew well that this was not the end, but only the essential means to the end, namely, labour's conquest of political power, for that very reason he was keenly alive to the possibility of failure at this particular juncture. Against any such mischance he was watchfully on guard. The danger of a breakdown lay in the different, almost antagonistic, conceptions of what should be the composition and function of a Parliamentary Labour Party* held by certain Trade Union sections and by certain Socialist sections. The question of the forma- tion of a Labour group in Parliament was the danger point. Against a proposal by James Macdonald of the S.D.F. that Socialism be adopted as a test for Labour candidates, an amendment by Wilkie of the Shipwrights making a selected programme the basis and leaving the 155 J. KEIR HARDIE members free outside the items which it contained, had been carried after a somewhat acrimonious debate. This was altogther too loose and indefinite, and Hardie J intervened with a resolution in favour of establishing a distinct Labour group in Parliament, which should have its own whips and agree upon a policy embracing a readiness to co-operate with any party which, for the time being, might be engaged in promoting legislation in the distinct interest of Labour, and, conversely, to associate itself with any party in opposing measures having an opposite tendency; and further, no member of the Labour group should oppose a candidate whose candidature was promoted by any organisation coming within the scope of Resolution No. i . Wilkie withdrew his proposal and Hardie's resolu- tion became the finding of the Conference. Its virtue lay in the fact that it committed the delegates, Socialist and Trade Unionist alike, to the formation of an Inde- pendent Parliamentary Labour group, and also provided that temporary alliances with other parties should be determined, not by the individual members, but by the group itself acting as a unit. Probably these disciplinary implications were not fully grasped by some of the Trade Unionists, but that was not Hardie's fault. He never at any time wilfully left his meaning in doubt, either to the one section or the other. He was a Socialist, but this was not a Socialist Conference, and even if it had been possible by a majority vote to make it so, that would have been an unfair departure from the purpose for which it was called. The one thing to do at diat moment was to make Labour Representation a fact. ' "The object of the Conference," he said, referring to "the S.D.F. resolution, "was not to discuss first principles, but to ascertain whether organisations representing different ideals could find an immediate and common ground of 156 LABOUR PARTY action, leaving each organisation free to maintain and propagate its own theory in its own way; the object of the Conference was to secure a united Labour vote in support of Labour candidates and co-operation amongst them on Labour questions when returned." In this way, and on that basis, the L.R.C., as it was familiarly called, came into being. ""7 The first Chairman was F. W. Rogers, of the Vellum Binders' Union, who will be chiefly remembered for his persistent pioneering of the Old Age Pension move- ment. The first Treasurer was Richard Bell, of the Railway Servants. The I.L.P. delegates on the first Executive were Keir Hardie and James Parker. The S.D.F. were represented by Harry Quelch and James Macdonald, and the Fabian Society by E. R. Pease. Thus all the Socialist sections had a place in the councils of the new Party, though the S.D.F. seceded later. The Secretaryship was placed in the capable hands of J. R. MacDonald, to whose appointment was undoubtedly due the immediate recognition of the L.R.C. as a new vital force in British political life. Easter week brought the Eighth Annual Conference of the Independent Labour Party (held this year in Glasgow), an event which has its chief biographical interest in that it marked Hardie's retirement from the Chairmanship which he had held uninterruptedly since the formation of the Party. The delegates seized the opportunity to mark their high esteem and deep affec- tion for the man whom all recognised as their leader. During the session the business was suspended in order to present him with an address wherein it was sought to express "with gratitude and pride our recognition of the great services he has rendered the Independent Labour Party and the national cause of Labour and Socialism/* J. Bruce Glasier, his successor in the 157 J. KEIR HARDIE Chairmanship, in moving the resolution, made a speech which is here reproduced because in some measure it reflects characteristics common to both men, and also because it indicates, in a manner which no amount of biographical detail can equal, the character of the work which had gained for Hardie so abiding a place in the hearts of the rank and file of the Party. ' * I have claimed of my comrades of the N.A.C.," said Glasier, "the privilege of moving this address as one of Keir Hardie's oldest personal friends and colleagues in the Socialist movement, and also as a fellow-Scotsman. It is with some emotion that I look back on the early days of my association with him, and consider how much has hap- pened since then to forward the Socialist cause in our country. In those early days many of us doubted the wisdom of his political policy as we have not infrequently since had occasion to differ from him, but in most instances events have shown that his wisdom was greater than any of ours. In connection with the political issues before our Party and the country, Keir Hardie has dis- played a truly marvellous insight, I would almost venture to say second-sight, for indeed I do not doubt that Keir Hardie is gifted with at least a touch of that miraculous and peculiarly Scottish endowment. In the House of Com- mons and in the country he has established a tradition of leadership which is one of the greatest possessions of the Socialist and Labour movement in Britain. His rocklike steadfastness, his unceasing toil, his persisting and absolute faith in the policy of his party, are qualities in which he is unexcelled by any political leader of our time. He has never failed us. Many have come and gone, but he is with us to-day as certainly as in the day when the I.L.P. was formed. By day and by night, often weary an3 often wet, he has trudged from town to city in every corner of the land bearing witness to the 158 LABOUR PARTY cause of Socialism and sturdily vindicating the cause of Independent Labour Representation. He has not stood aloof from his comrades, but has constantly been in touch with the working men and women of our movement as an every-day friend and fellow-worker. He has dwelt in their houses and chatted by their firesides, and has warmed many a heart by the glow of his sympathy and companionship. The wear and tear of these many years of propaganda have told somewhat on the strength of our comrade, but he has never complained of his task nor has he grown fretful with the people or their cause. On the N.A.C. his colleagues are deeply attached to him. He is always most amenable to discussion with them. They do not always agree with his views, but they have been taught by experience to doubt their own judgment not once, but twice and thrice, when it came into conflict with his. But I must not detain you with this ineffectual effort to express what I feel. I shall venture only one word more. Hardly in modern times has a man arisen from the people, who, unattracted by the enticements of wealth or pleasure and unbent either by praise or abuse, has remained so faithful to the class to which he belongs. His career is a promise and a sign of the uprising of an intensely earnest, capable and self- reliant democracy. He is a man of the people and a leader of the people." These words, be it remembered, were spoken when the I.L.P. was passing through its darkest hours, when its teachings were unpopular and its adherents marked down as political Ishmaelites, and when militarism was rampant in the country; and their utterance at such a time indicates that not only Keir Hardie, but his col- leagues and followers, were endowed with great faith and great courage, and explains how it is that the I.L.P. has survived through all the succeeding years. Hardie, 159 J. KEIR HARDIE of course, remained on the National Council, and his personality continued to reflect itself in every phase and aspect of the movement. This Conference, which was the first since the out- break of war, confirmed and reaffirmed absolutely the anti-Imperialist policy of the National Council, already spontaneously approved and supported by the branches. The Conference also issued a strong protest against all forms of conscription, and expressed "deep sorrow at the terrible famine that had fallen upon the toiling people of India," which, it declared, was to a great extent the result of the heavy taxation placed upon the people and the expropriation of their slender resources by the existing Government and capitalistic occupation of India. To focus public attention upon this latter question was indeed impossible. The people of this country were so preoccupied by affairs in South Africa as to be incapable of realising the calamitious condition of India. The I.L.P. protest was like a very still small voice, yet some people heard it in that far away oppressed land, and appeals came to Hardie and MacDonald asking them to come and see for themselves how India was governed appeals which, though they could not be responded to then, did not go unheeded. A general election was now near at hand. The finish of the war, though still distant, was thought to be within sight. The trained British forces, two hundred and fifty thousand strong, were gradually overmastering the small volunteer armies of the Republics, and the tactical question for the Government was whether it would wait for, or anticipate, the final victory before going to the country. For the opponents of the war policy it did not matter which. They had little hope of coming out on top in existing circumstances, whilst the 160 MERTHYRTYDVIL Liberal Party, as Laodicean in its attitude on the terms of settlement as it had been towards the war itself, had no lead to give the people. Whether the election came soon or late the return of the Salisbury-Chamberlain Government was a foregone conclusion. In an open letter to John Morley, Hardie made a strong appeal to that statesman to cut himself adrift from the Rosebery-Grey-Asquith section of Liberalism and give a lead to democracy. "A section of very earnest Liberals are thoroughly ashamed of modern Liberalism and anxious to put themselves right with their own consciences. Working-class movements are coming together in a manner, for a parallel to which we require to go back to the early days of the Radical movement. Already, two hundred and twelve thousand have paid affiliation fees to the Labour Representa- tion Committee. What is wanted to fuse these elements is a man with the brain to dare, the hand to do, and the heart to inspire. Will you be that man?" Mr. Morley did not respond. Probably Hardie did not expect him to do so. But the nature of the appeal indicates the existence of possibilities which might have considerably changed the course of parliamentary history in this country, and of Britain's international policy. Hardie was specially desirous that in the forthcoming election all the anti-Imperialist forces should work in unison with each other, and, in the "Labour Leader," he invited opinions as to whether or not the I.L.P. should issue a white list of candidates other than Labour Party nominees, who, because of their consistent opposi- tion to the war policy, should receive the support of I.L.P. electors. He declared himself strongly in favour of such a course, and specially mentioned such "unbend- ing individualists as John Morley and Leonard Court- ney," together with some Socialists like Dr. Clark and 161 J. KEIR HARDIE Lloyd George. The latter name classified as Socialist, sounds strange to-day, but was certainly justified by some of the Welsh politician's utterances, publicly and privately, on social questions at that time. The election came before the Party had made any decision regarding the suggestion, but there can be no doubt that it was acted upon, and that the anti-war candidates got the Labour vote. The Special Election Conference held at Bradford on September 29th, decided : "That the full political support of the Party be given to the candidates of the S.D.F. now in the field, also to the Labour and Socialist candidates promoted by local branches of the I.L.P. in conjunction with other bodies, and to all candidates approved by the Labour Representation Committee; and that in all other constituencies, each branch be left to decide for itself what action to take, if any, so as best to promote the interests of Labour and Socialism." Hardie was not present at this Conference, having already entered upon a fight in two separate consti- tuencies, Preston and Merthyr. John Penny, the General Secretary, was also absent, acting as election agent at Preston. So rapidly did events move that the same issue of the "Labour Leader" which reported the Conference gave the result of the Preston election, Hardie being at the bottom of the poll with 4,834 votes as against nearly 9,000 given for each of the two Tory candidates. It was a tremendous task Hardie had undertaken in contesting simultaneously these two seats, so far apart from each other, not only geographically, but indus- trially and politically. Yet the double contest somehow typified Hardie's personal attitude towards both politi- cal parties. Preston was a double constituency repre- sented by two Tories. Merthyr was a similar constituency 162 MERTHYRTYDVIL represented by two Liberals. It was as if they had been specially selected to exemplify his hostility to both parties, yet, when the dissolution of Parliament came, he had been selected for neither, and his course of action was undecided. For months previously his colleagues on the N.A.C., desirous that, whatever happened to the other candi- dates, he should get back to Parliament, were on the look-out for a seat which would give him a reasonable chance of success a seemingly hopeless quest in the feverishly patriotic state of the public mind. Merthyr, in view of his work amongst the miners, seemed the most promising. As early as March 2ist, we find John Penny writing to Francis, who has been mentioned already, and who was now secretary of the Penydarren I. L. P., asking for an accurate and exhaustive report upon the advisability of running an I.L.P. candidate for Merthyr. The answer seems to have been indecisive yet encouraging, and, on July 25th, Bruce Glasier wrote the following letter, which is illustrative alike of the N.A.C.'s anxieties in the matter and of Hardie's personal disinterestedness where the welfare of the movement was concerned : "Chapel-en-le-Frith, "via Stockport. "Dear Francis, Kind remembrance and hearty greetings to you. The N.A.C. meets on Monday at Derby, when we shall have to take the Parliamentary situation into most careful consideration. Among the most important things that we shall have to come to some conclusions upon, is the constituency which Keir Hardie ought to be advised to contest. We all feel that Hardie has a claim to the best constituency that we can offer him, and we also feel that it is of the utmost 163 J. KEIR HARDIE importance to the Party that he should be returned. Hardie himself does not view his being returned to Parliament as a matter of much moment, and he is only anxious that at least he should fight where a worthy vote could be obtained. But I am sure you will agree with us that if any single man is to be returned, that man should be Hardie. I am therefore going to ask you to kindly inform me as frankly as possible what you think would be Hardie's chances were he to contest Merthyr, and especially what you think would be the attitude of the Trade Unionists and miners' leaders. Hardie has himself a warm heart towards a South Wales seat or rather, if you will, contest but I am anxious that there should be at least a reasonable hope of a very large vote, if not actual success, before we consent to his standing. I am -sure, therefore, you will give me your sincere opinion upon the matter. You might let me have a reply c/o Tom Taylor, 104 Slack Lane, Derby, not later than Monday morning." Francis, upon whose judgment much reliance was placed, must have replied favourably, so far as the I.L.P. was concerned, but doubtfully with regard to the official Trade Union attitude, and raising questions as to financing the candidate, for the following week, on August 2nd, Glasier again wrote, explaining that "a strong election fund committee had been nominated, but that in most cases the local branches held themselves responsible for the expenses." In the case of Merthyr, if Hardie were adopted by the Trades Council, and the N.A.C. finally approved the candidature, the N.A.C. would, he was sure, contribute towards his expenses. If the Trades Council declined to be responsible for his candidature, and the I.L.P. agreed to run him with the approval of the Trades Council, the N.A.C. might con- 164 MERTHYR TYDVIL stitutionally take the entire responsibility (with, of course, the utmost local help) of running him. "Hardie, if returned, would support himself by his pen and by lecturing, as he did when formerly in the House. There would be no difficulties on that score." The following passage is noteworthy for various reasons : "The elec- tion fund will be an entirely above-board affair. The money will be collected publicly, and we expect that many well-known advanced Radicals will subscribe. A. E. Fletcher, Ed. Cadbury, A. M. Thomson ("Dangle"), Arthur Priestman, etc., will probably be on the committee." Still the negotiations proceeded leisurely and inde- cisively, due doubtless to the difficulty of bringing the official Trade Unionists into line, and probably also to the belief that the election could not come till the spring of next year. As late as September igth, we find C. B. Stanton, miners' agent whose strong support of Hardie at this time stands out in strange contrast to his violent jingoism fourteen years later urging Francis, Lawrence, Davies and others, to attend a conference at Abernant on the following Saturday, to deal with the question of a Labour candidature; and on September 2ist, John Penny wrote from Cardiff to Francis as follows : "This morning's London 'Standard' reports that at the conclusion of the meeting at Preston, Hardie promised to give his final decision on Monday next. Let me know if you expect him in Merthyr, and if he comes through Cardiff, you might let me know the time of his arrival so that I could meet him at the station and have a talk. I see that he is booked up to be at the Paris Conference next week. So, if he goes, there will not be much time for fighting. It is now honestly, Preston or Merthyr. My advice is go in and win. Saturday's conference must invite Hardie and so M 165 J. KEIR HARDIE leave the onus of decision with him." And, finally, on the same date, Hardie himself wrote this note, also to Francis : "Dear Comrade, Many thanks for your letter. / have decided to accept Preston. It is not likely now that Merthyr will succeed in putting forward a Labour candidate. Your wisest policy would be to defeat Pritchard Morgan, and thus leave the way open for a good Labour man at the next election. He is one of the most dangerous types the House of Commons contains. Yours faithfully, "J. KEIR HARDIE." Merthyr seemed now completely out of the running, but the following day, September 22nd, the Abernant Conference adopted him and decided to go on, no matter what happened at Preston. Hardie, of course, did net go to the Paris International Congress. He addressed huge meetings at Preston, and immediately after the vote counting (the result of which has already been given) passed into Wales just one day before the polling, to emerge triumphantly as the junior Member for Merthyr, to the great bewilderment of the newspaper- reading British public, who had already seen his name in the lists of the vanquished. The victory was practically won before he arrived on the scene, so enthusiastically did the local men throw themselves into the contest. The N.A.C. despatched Joseph Burgess to act asi election agent, with S. D. Shallard as his assistant. Both of these worked with a will in systematizing and co-ordinating the committees in the various districts and in addressing public meet- ings, but it was the people on the spot who had been looking forward to and preparing for this day during many months, and who by the most Herculean efforts 1 66 MERTHYRTYDVIL brought every available Labour voter to the polling booths. It was they who won the victory. Their ener- gies were directed wholly against Pritchard Morgan, characterised by Hardie as a "dangerous type." They did not expect, and, indeed, did not desire, to defeat D. A. Thomas, the senior member (known in later years as Lord Rhondda), who was one of the few Liberals definitely opposed to the war, and had thereby preserved the pacifist tradition of the constituency whose greatest glory was that it had sent to Parliament Henry Richard of fragrant memory, known as the Apostle of Peace and pioneer of arbitration in international disputes. Of Pritchard Morgan nothing need be said here, except that he was by profession a company promoter, and doubtless regarded a seat in Parliament as a valuable aid to his speculative activities. Hardie only spoke three times in the constituency; once in the open-air at Mountain Ash, once at Aberdare, and once in Merthyr (indoors), and all on the same day. If there were any doubts as to the result, his appearance in the constituency at once dispelled them. Yet, coming on the back of his Preston exertions, the one day's labour amongst the Welsh hills in an atmosphere of intense excitement must have strained his powers of endurance to the utmost. Writing reminiscently when it was all over, he says : "I have dim notions of weary hours in a train, great enthusiastic open-air crowds in the streets of Preston, and thereafter, oblivion. Jack Penny tells me that my opening performance in one after- noon included almost continuous speaking from three o'clock till eight, with a break of an hour for tea." Yet he was defeated at Preston and victorious at Merthyr, though he only spent eleven waking hours in the latter constituency previous to the opening of the poll eleven hours of