MIA > Archive > Hyndman > Adventurous Life
I have referred incidentally above to the fact that I was turned out of the New University Club in St. James’s Street for a speech on the Embankment in favour of the unemployed. As I had given up my membership at the Garrick, which I joined in 1874, just before, expenses in connection with the Socialist movement having become so considerable as not to permit of my belonging to two clubs, I found myself clubless in London, which at first was a curious sensation for me. I mention this matter of my expulsion from the New University Club as an example of the furious prejudice stirred up in those days among the educated upper middle class against any one who took the side of the people in earnest.
I was not only an original member of the New University Club, composed exclusively, of course, of Oxford and Cambridge men, but I had rendered, if I may say so, quite unusual service for many years on the Committee, chiefly in conjunction with Mr. Fenton in connection with the kitchens, and Sir Courtenay Ilbert in regard to the library. This was generally known and recognised. Moreover, the club was in no sense a political club, and consequently had no right to consider what took place in the political field. Nevertheless, the members in my absence voted me out by a sufficient majority. This strange incapacity of University men in this country to understand the serious issues of modern life, or to appreciate any work done out of their own particular sphere in politics, in the Church, or in the law, in football, rowing, and cricket, is peculiar to this country.
Elsewhere a much wider view of the situation is taken by men in the same position, and it is the fact also that, from whatever cause, the aristocracy here, however reactionary and even tyrannous they may be in their public life, are much more courteous in private than the educated upper middle class. My own case is a remarkable example of this. Going to a reception at Lady Stanhope’s shortly after my trial at the Old Bailey, when I had thus been unceremoniously and quite illegally turned out from the New University Club, I was naturally a little anxious to see what would happen. I was met with the utmost courtesy, some of my old friends present, who happened to be men of high rank, going out of their way to congratulate me upon my acquittal. That, of course, could not last, or at any rate we felt it could not, so we retired from society of this kind, to paraphrase Disraeli, in order that society should not retire from us, and we were none the less disposed to do this because pecuniary considerations tended in the same direction.
Besides, at this time the conditions in regard to the production and distribution of Justice, as already recorded, became very trying. I had my private business to attend to, and we were engaged, in addition to other work, in an earnest endeavour to bring about a thorough reorganisation of London municipal government. Much agitation in this direction had been carried on by Sir Charles Dilke, and Mr. Firth as members for Chelsea, aided by Samuel Beale and others. But we, of course, wanted a great deal more from a Metropolitan Council than its Radical advocates would be satisfied with, and in my pamphlet entitled A Commune for London I endeavoured to give these wider views of what might be done for our great city. Of course we got no credit for this work, and it is sad to see how more than twenty years later nearly all we did has been turned to the advantage of the well-to-do, the interests of the poor districts being almost entirely neglected. The housing question in particular has been dealt with in a farcical manner. Even the ordinary increase of the population has not been met by the provision of new structures; the buildings erected are wretched affairs quite unsuited to people with children, rents are higher than they were, and the overcrowding is worse than ever it was.
The year 1887 was a very unfortunate year for us. The expenditure of time and money on Socialism, and the prejudice aroused against me on account of my opinions, put us in such a position that we were obliged to sell our house in Devonshire Street, and then and for all the years afterwards our existence has been by no means devoid of care. Socialist work always tends that way. Taking the side of the weak is a very fine thing to read about in a novel, or to see played as a part on the stage, but in actual life it is a very serious and dangerous thing indeed to do. I have found it so, certainly, both in regard to the people of England and the people of India. But trying as the situation has been for us it has too often been worse for others. Two of the most brilliant men I have ever known, in their respective ways, Dr. Geldart the Congregational Minister, and Pickard Cambridge the scientist, having both thrown themselves into the cause of Socialism to such an extent as to cut off their means of living almost entirely, preferred not to struggle on any longer against the petty degradations to which poverty exposed them, and joined the majority before their time. Many stalwart workers have done the same unnoticed, and others have gone under from sheer despair and overwork: the hopeless conditions of to-day telling most seriously upon men of good physique but sensitive dispositions.
Yet there is some interest and excitement and even, in its grim way, amusement in entering a direct personal protest, at whatever cost, against the terrible system which has humanity in its grip. At one of the periods (1897) when things were worse than usual in India it was decided to raise a fund in England of £500,000 in order to help the suffering inhabitants of Hindustan. An influential meeting was to be held in the Mansion House in furtherance of this scheme, at which the then Secretary of State for India, an old acquaintance of mine in the cricket field and elsewhere, Lord George Hamilton, was to be present and the Duke of Connaught would also attend to support the Lord Mayor in the Chair. Now as we drain out of India upwards of £30,000,000 a year without any commercial return whatever, and this terrible extortion of wealth by way of economic tribute is the chief cause of the impoverishment of the 200,000,000 inhabitants of British Territory and the consequent famine and plague which they suffer from, I thought it was a piece of grotesque hypocrisy that we should pretend to send back half-a-million pounds to those who were starving and dying, when all the time we were taking from them sixty-fold that amount just in the way of business. Nay, we should take a large amount, over and above the £30,000,000 and more regularly extracted, by way of bonus to the English railway shareholders for the transportation of the unusual quantity of grain to the afflicted districts.
That we should pretend that this dole back of money in charity could be of any great benefit while the original systematic depletion continued as before and was even enhanced, seemed to me such a preposterous piece of Tartufferie that I determined that I for one would raise my voice against the whole thing. I therefore sent an amendment to the Lord Mayor and was invited to go and see him with reference to it. I went. Whether the amendment was right or wrong was not, it then appeared, of any moment. The meeting also, though called for a public purpose, was not, so I was told, a public meeting at all. Besides, it was to be held in the Mansion House and, this settled it, a Royal Duke was to support the resolution. Obviously, it would be quite out of place for me, though at that time paying rates in the City of London, to disturb the otherwise harmonious proceedings in this rude manner. If I did I should certainly be removed.
This did not alarm me at all. The meeting was held and in due course I moved my amendment, or tried to do so, when two or more stalwart constables appeared and, after a nominal resistance, I was escorted out. The resolution to send £500,000 to India in return for the receipt of £30,000,000 was carried, and nobody was allowed to point out the ghastly irony of the whole proceeding. But a certain amount of discussion followed in the press and some day, probably, when India emancipates herself from our ruinous domination, the English people will look back and understand that those of us who persistently opposed the official view had good reason for doing so, and that the Indians had still better reasons for objecting to being “bled,” as Lord Salisbury phrased it.
Throughout these earlier years we carried on a continuous campaign in favour of free speech in the open air, in the parks and other public places, where no real obstruction or annoyance could be caused. Some of these attempts to uphold what we believed to be our rights led to the prosecution of our speakers, and several of them went to gaol. The most remarkable and exciting of these prohibited meetings, apart from the gathering which was to have been held in Trafalgar Square but was prevented by a great display of police and military, was the great demonstration in Dod Street at the East End of London. I suppose even those who were responsible for attempting to stop those meetings would now admit that there was never any reason why they should not have been allowed free course on Sunday, the only day on which we used the street for this purpose. The street was one of factories and warehouses, and there was literally no traffic of any kind. However, the authorities decided to stop us, and we decided to go on. All the Socialists in London sank their differences on this occasion, and a very serious state of things was brought about. I have always thought we got very well out of it.
At that particular time we had a number of retired officers and old soldiers with us. They took control of the demonstration on our behalf and our people were very much better organised and more accustomed to marching together in military fashion than we are to-day. That was the danger. As the demonstration neared Dod Street a great force of police marched down to cut us off and head us back. But precisely at the same moment a very much greater force of our sympathisers, also in disciplined array and obviously acting under orders, marched from other streets with the clear intention of arguing the matter out with the police forcibly then and there. Of course, even if we had won at the moment, which I believe we should by sheer weight of numbers, there could have been but one end to the matter, in the long run, so far as physical force was concerned; and those of us who would have been held responsible for the conflict, including some of the best-known Socialists and Radicals in London -for the Radicals were with us – must have seen the inside of gaol. Happily at this moment when collision seemed inevitable notification from headquarters came to the Superintendent in charge, and the meeting was allowed to proceed. We regarded this as a great triumph at the time, and such no doubt it was. But if I am asked what came of it in the long run, I can only say, “It was a famous victory.”
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Last updated on 30.7.2006