Dynamite
At a sitting, before Mr. Registrar Brougham, for the public examination of E. W. Mockler, of Hungerford Road, Holloway, works manager, it appeared that he had interested himself in politics, and that about June, 1907, he became treasurer of the Constitutional Speakers’ League, which was to send vans round the country and supply speakers at meetings to be held on the subject of tariff reform. In respect of that league the debtor stated that he had personally incurred sundry liabilities, and he estimated that, including money advansed to the chairman (about £300 now appearing as a bad debt) and other expenses, he had lost about £750 in connection therewith. The horses and vans were eventually seized and sold for the payment of keep and storage. To his losses and liabilities on behalf of the league the debtor attributed his failure,—”Morning Advertiser,” 7.11.08.
Sir,—I beg to assure you that there is nothing of revolt against the Government in my letter stating I would not again contest Walworth. I wish to give the Prime Minister, Mr. Burns, and Mr. Haldane every support. What I do revolt against is any pandering to Socialism by less experienced and less wise Ministers, and entirely because their doing so helps reaction and blocks the way of the urgent reforms to which I am pledged. REFORM AND SOCIALISM ARE LIKE WATER AND FIRE—MUTUALLY DESTRUCTIVE.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
C. J. O’DONNELL.
House of Commons, Oct. 26.
—” Standard.”
When you go back to the early years of the nineteenth century, and read the accounts of children’s sufferings due to the cruelty of slave-drivers, your hearts are apt to cry out in anguish. Just think of today. Think of today in these great United States, children five and six years old, working from six in the morning until six in the evening, and at the hardest and most trying kind of labour. These children are being ruined by thousands by the manufacturers. It is killing the whole white race of the South.
It may be surprising, but it is the absolute truth, that things just as bad are going on right here in New York City. Child slavery thrives here in greater proportion than in the South.
There are parts of this city where little children are driven to work early in the morning for two hours and then sent to our American schools, and after school are forced into sweatshops, where they are obliged to work from three in the afternoon until eleven o’clock at night.—William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools of New York City.
—”St. Louis Labour,” Oct. 17, 1908.
Who said ” Tariff Reform” ?
Asked at a mass meeting last January, “What do you advise a conscientious working man to do who is out of a job and whose family is starving because he can’t get work ?” Mr. Taft, who weighs over twenty stone, flung his hands above his head in a gesture of despair as he answered, “God knows, I don’t.”
That pregnant ejaculation has travelled from New York to San Fransisco and its echo has been heard from New Orleans to Minnesoto. It is characteristic of its author—as honest an American as the United States ever produced.
“Star,” 8.11.08.
For the first time a mountain in travail has brought forth something that may pass for the truth. Taft may know God knows what a starving man should do, but certainly Taft, the capitalist doesn’t.
Much amusement was caused in the Lobby of the House of Commons last night by the circulation of a portrait in a New York newspaper. The words underneath were “England’s Bulwark Against Socialism—Mr. John Burns,” but the portrait, by some mischance, was that of Mr. Keir Hardie.
—” Daily Mail,” Guy Fawkes Day.
No one, surely, can be so unkind to John Burns as his friends.
“Mr. Burns has seen one relevant fact of great importance. He has realised that if municipalities distribute their work with more regularity over the year and give out as much of it as possible during the winter months a good deal of unemployment can be prevented, and for some of it a resource will always be available.” “Daily News,” 26.10.08.
How can unemployment be affected by starving men in summer to feed them in winter ?
We do get the truth, sometimes.
“The pretence that the existing distress is merely a transient phase due to financial disturbance in the United States and so forth is absurd.”—”Standard,” 26.10.08.
This is interesting.
“One remedy for unemployment would be to double the wages of every working man. If that could be done to-morrow the spending power of the people would be doubled, and work would be provided, for every man and woman in Great Britain in providing for their needs.”-(Keir Hardie at Merthyr, 24,10.08.)
It is as difficult to mitigate unemployment by doubling wages as it would be to remove unemployment by abolishing wages.
What d’ye say, Henderson ? What’s the good of it if it don’t find work for every child as well ?
Oh ! these “Socialists.” Here is another specimen. Author, Philip Snowden.
“He wanted to assure all temperance workers of his sympathy and of the sympathy of his colleagues, who were working in other fields of reform—reforms which were no less temperance reforms … As one who deeply appreciates the very great injury and the very great obstacle which the drinking habits of the people present to the progress of every movement of a social reform character, I want to assure you that we are heart and soul with you, and we wish you God-speed. … In connection with the Trade Unions Congress there was always held a temperance fellowship meeting. Mr. Steadman, M.P., the secretary, had told him that he could remember the time when a temperance resolution was struck out of the agenda on the ground that temperance had nothing to do with labour.
“There was at the present moment another question besides that of temperance touching the hearts of the people—the wide-spread suffering and privation from want of employment.”—(“Manchester Guardian,” 10.10.08.)
The quotations are quite in their proper order. Observe the great question of “temperance reform” comes first, then the secondairy matter of “unemployment,” while as for Socialism, that seems to have been “struck out of the agenda on the ground that it has nothing to do with labour.”