Tom Mann, 1895
Source: Clarion pamphlet, 71 Fleet Street, London
First published: June 1895
Transcription and markup: Steve Painter
The necessity for the socialist agitator still exists to arouse the apathetic from their dangerous sleep, to arrest the attention of the indifferent ones who glide with the stream into the dangerous whirlpools, to stimulate the faint-hearted, and to point the way to the promised land of industrial and social harmony. Not yet can there be any slackening of effort in the rigorous denunciation of the terrible evils arising from individual monopoly of nature’s provisions for all, and of fierce competition for trade with its development of greed and its burden of toil.
Converts to socialism have been made by the tens of thousands during the past few years, but there is yet a dead weight of gross materialistic opinion still in the old ruts; men bowing down to the god of commercialism, worrying, groaning, sweating, scheming, tricking, lying, fighting to get life’s necessaries, as though nature was so unkind or incapable as not to have supplied us with a sufficiency. Children still pine and die for lack of food and other health-giving conditions. Mothers still moan and sigh because they know not how to provide for the children’s requirements. Workless husbands and fathers still tramp sullenly and curse silently, seeking work as the means to life for themselves and dependents, but finding none.
While these conditions remain the order is and must be, agitate, agitate, agitate otherwise despair will overtake the community. Forward then, you agitators, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression.” Upon the agitators rests the stupendous task of awaking the nation to a sense of our present- day degradation and to inspire with yearnings for a worthier life. For all effective agitators, whether by voice or pen, we have cause to be devoutly thankful. It is only after the agitatory and some of the educational work is done that properly constructive work can be engaged in. The ploughing must be done before the sowing, the foundation must be laid before the superstructure can be built; and so with our social conditions — the desire for a change must be felt, and the possibility of the change made clear before much can be done to actually bring about the changed conditions.
True as this is, the time has arrived for the work of social reconstruction to commence in this country, and therefore concurrently with the work of the agitator must go on the work of the reconstructor of the new industrial and social system; and to enable this to be done it is necessary we should be clear as to the kind of work in which we are to engage. At present Great Britain lives chiefly by her manufactures; she has sought and obtained a very large share of the world’s trade, and the orthodox view is that our national well-being depends upon our capacity to maintain our position in the world’s markets.
Socialists condemn the competitive system and therefore are unwilling to maintain British trade by driving out or underselling the traders of other countries in the world’s markets; but many who see the evils of competition do not feel safe in looking forward to a loss of international trade, and therefore hesitate to join the socialists. To clear the mind of such a person let it be understood that we need not as a people be concerned as to whether our energies are to be called upon in a manufacturing or food-producing direction, further than to understand how we can best supply our own requirements as a nation.
Without entering into the question as to how and why Britain became chiefly a manufacturing nation, we know that at the present time the British Isles produce foodstuffs for about one-third of our population only, the other two-thirds being obtained in exchange for manufactures exported. And now the disturbing influence is that the countries that have been our chief customers are, to an ever increasing extent, manufacturing for themselves, and also competing against us in other markets of the world, and thus rapidly intensifying the baneful effects of international competition.
The orthodox mind sees nothing in front of us but intensified international industrial strife, but the socialist says: “Let us not add to this strife, but now that other nations prefer to manufacture commodities they formerly purchased from us in exchange for foodstuffs, let us now divert our energy to food production to the same extent that our manufactures are not called for.” The ordinary trader usually declares that it is impossible for Britain to produce foodstuffs in sufficient quantity to feed the British people. The socialist knows different. “Nunquam” has dealt so exhaustively with the question in that splendid book of his, Merrie England, that I cannot do better than refer an inquirer to chapter IV of the same and the other writers referred to therein. Nunquam’s denunciation of the factory system and the dirtiness that accompanies it represents the attitude of most socialists to this system; but no one need expect a very sudden departure from manufacturing to food-producing pursuits. In some departments of industry — chiefly perhaps in shipbuilding, machine making and engineering — this country is likely to be called upon by the world at large for a long time to come, though to a decreasing extent.
What is now imperatively demanded is, a national scientific supervision of the nation’s work in the nation’s interest, not seeking to force one single article upon any nation, colony, or people of any clime or colour, nor seeking to sell unless they wish to buy, and therefore scientifically adjusting our own energy so as to harmoniously balance the food-producing workers with the industrial workers of the nation, ever remembering that there will always be work for our people so long as we have raw material and human energy, neither of which are we likely to be deprived of for a few generations.
It was with this object in view that the Independent Labour Party carefully revised the whole of its program at the annual conference at Newcastle, classifying the program under the headings: agricultural, industrial, educational and social, and fiscal; agriculture purposely being given first place because it was recognised that the future well-being of this country depends chiefly upon scientific agriculture and therefore it was declared “That the land being the storehouse of all the essentials of life, ought to be declared and treated as public property, and be so cultivated as to provide the food supply of the people.” Of course, this covers land nationalisation, but it is not proposed to wait for nationalisation before the reconstructive work is begun. As will be seen on reference to the program, the delegates had in mind the providing of the best knowledge and the machinery to enable this to be applied. Item three under agriculture asks: “That parish, district, borough, and county councils be invested with compulsory powers to acquire land which they shall cultivate or let within their respective areas.”
Some of our friends refuse to entertain the question of food production save under a large farm system of State agriculture. Large farms are undoubtedly superior to small ones for purposes of general agriculture, when capital and skill and labour in abundance are forthcoming, as we may reasonably suppose they will be under a proper system of state cultivation; but we want to get the best grip possible now, and if by any reasonable means the position of the present-day farm labourer can be changed from that of a farmer’s labourer at 13 shillings a week to a cultivator, either directly for the local authority at 26 shillings a week, or on his own account with the local authority as the landowner and fair rent receiver, why should this not be encouraged pending the more complete change, especially when by the same means that raises the status of the food producer we obtain the increased supply of those commodities we are at present compelled against our will to get from other countries, and even while the demand for manufactured commodities is falling off.
Even under the absurdly inadequate provision for obtaining land under the existing allotments acts, with the excessive rents generally charged to the labourer — often twice the amount charged to the farmer for same quality and situation — the labourers in various counties, but especially in Lincolnshire, have obtained an improvement in their position from being labourers under the farmer at 13 shillings and sixpence a week, and losing time in bad weather, to steady receivers of value equal to at least 20 shillings a week with tolerable security, by cultivating on their own account. It is often argued that an improvement of this kind is likely to make a labourer more content with his position, or at any rate to give him a desire to become a small owner, and some are ignorant enough to speak deploringly of any attempt to get the farm labourer’s position improved by such means; and yet the same people do not hesitate to endorse trade union and co-operative action for men in towns to obtain exactly analogous advantages.
Indeed, the farm labourer is showing signs of a capacity to appreciate and apply co-operative principles, and to be ready to use any additional powers he may get through the local authority quite as readily as the town worker. Already there are places where the allotment holders get the land turned by a ploughman with horse and plough at a given sum per acre, and arrangements are being made for co-operative collection of produce and despatch to market, but they are so badly handicapped by the system of preferential rates, high rents and no fixity of tenure, that there is but little encouragement for them to make a real effort to produce best results. All these things were considered when the ILP program was fixed upon, none of the clauses therein being decided upon by caprice. Clauses five and six, dealing with reafforestation, waste lands and sewage, are not included with a view to making work, but because the well-being of the country demands that these matters receive scientific attention.
Think of the fact that the London County Council employs a fleet of steamers to carry the manurial refuse of the people of London forty miles down the Thames to discharge the same in the sea at the mouth of the river, the boats passing along the banks of the county of Essex — the land of which is lying uncultivated, a marshy bog, a disgrace to civilisation. Yet if only this manure was placed upon this land, not only would it raise it the necessary height above water level, but give to it a fertility, making it as productive as any laud in the world. Who, having had &b>a run down the Clyde has not blushed with shame, in part because of the shocking stench, and in part at the dirty incompetence of those responsible for making of the Clyde a main sewer for Glasgow and other towns. Take the Irwell, running through Manchester, reeking with the filth belched into it from the factories on its banks, until it has become a veritable death stream, with every abominable smell arising therefrom that the commercialism of the place can pour into and save drainage by decent means. A death-trap to all fish life for a generation past, Manchesterism still tolerates its deadly effluvia for human beings.
Of course, we are not in agreement with those who single out the land as the one and only subject worthy of attention. To us, the receivers of interest and profits, which are the result of other people’s labour, stand in exactly the same position as the landlords, and we know that if we had common ownership of land, and retained the present profit-making system of industry, the whole of the advantages derived by the abolition of landlordism would go not to the workers, but to the controllers of the workers — ie, to the enrichment of the class of capitalist plutocrats, as distinct from the class of landed aristocrats.
The reason for this would be that the workers would still have to compete with each other for employment in industrial life, and apart from the probability that a larger number of persons would be employed in cultivation, there would be no material gain to the workers. What is necessary is not merely an absorption of some or all of the existing unemployed at any particular date, but the scientific control of all industrial activities, that the total work to be done should be duly apportioned in such a way that it would be impossible to ever again have any unemployed.
Always remembering this, one can see that upon reducing the working hours even to the point when all should be absorbed on any given date, but still leaving the competitive system of industry for profit-making purposes as the basis of industrial operations, there would be at once a recurrence of existing evils. Whilst temporarily absorbed in the industrial army, the workers would have so great a power that they could claim any conditions up to the point of taking the full value of their labour, leaving neither interest for shareholders or rent for landlords; but, of course, the capitalist controllers of industrial forces would refuse to undertake the conduct of trade on such terms, and therefore they would lock out the operatives until such time as these would return to work on employers’ terms; and this is the central fact in connection with the profit-making system. We must, therefore, take from the capitalist the power to decide when and on what conditions trade shall be conducted, otherwise the capitalist will still remain the dominant factor in the country; and we cannot take away this power unless work for all who want it can be obtained without the permission of the capitalist employer. The ILP program is as follows:
Name: The Independent Labour Party.
Object: An industrial commonwealth founded upon the socialisation of land and capital.
Methods: The education of the community in the principles of socialism.
The industrial and political organisation of the workers.
The independent representation of socialist principles on all elective bodies.
Program: The Independent Labour Party is in favour of every proposal for extending electoral rights to both men and women, and democratising the system of government.
Agricultural: That the land being the storehouse of all the essentials of life, ought to be declared and treated as public property and be so cultivated as to provide the food supply of the people; and as steps towards this we recommend for immediate adoption the following program:
1. The establishment of a state land department of agriculture.
2. The establishment of free agricultural colleges and model farms at which the requisite training in every department of food production may be obtained.
3. That parish, district, borough and county councils be invested with compulsory powers to acquire land which they shall themselves cultivate or let within their respective areas.
4. Fixity of tenure, with compensation for improvements in case of disturbance.
5. The reafforestation of land unsuited for cultivation, and the reclamation of waste lands and foreshores.
6. The proper utilisation on the land of the sewage which now pollutes the rivers and lakes. Local authorities to be invested with full powers to give effect to this.
7 An agricultural produce post for the systematic collection and transmission to markets of the produce of the farm, the orchard and the dairy.
8. Land values, urban and rural, to be treated as public property.
9. In cases where it is necessary to acquire land by purchase, such purchase shall take the form of terminable annuities.
Industrial: The true object of industry being the production of the requirements of life, the responsibility for this production should rest with the community collectively; work and the wealth resulting therefrom should be equitably distributed over the population, and as a means to this end, we demand the immediate enactment of the following program:
1. A maximum eight-hour working day, with the retention of all existing holidays and Labour Day, May 1, secured by law.
2. No child to commence wage work under fifteen years of age.
3. State pensions for every person at fifty years of age and adequate provision for all widows, orphans, sick and disabled workers.
4. The provision of work which shall be remunerative to the unemployed.
5. The nationalisation of railways and waterways; pending which, the equalisation of railway rates.
Educational and social:
1. Free primary, secondary, and university education.
2. Free maintenance for school children.
3. Municipalisation and popular control of the liquor traffic.
4. The substitution of arbitration for war and the consequent disarmament of the nations.
Fiscal.
1. Abolition of indirect taxation.
2. A direct cumulative tax on all incomes exceeding £300 a year.
3. Taxation to extinction of all unearned incomes.
Membership: Is open to all adults who sign the following declaration: “I hereby declare myself a socialist, pledge myself to sever all connection with any other political party and to vote in the case of local elections as my branch of the ILP may determine, and in the case of general parliamentary elections as the conference specially convened for that purpose may decide.”
The industrial and other clauses of this program need neither defence nor explanation. It will be observed that clause two (industrial) fixes fifteen as the age limit for children commencing work; this will he a difficult pill to swallow for some of those in the factory districts, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire, but it is really a question of purchasing power of the income of the parent, and this purchasing power is at present dependent upon the unemployed. In a properly organised community there can be no able-bodied unemployed. The existence of an unemployed section is evidence of the faultiness of the system in vogue.
To solve the unemployed problem will really be to solve the labour problem, and although all the various points previously emphasised are important in their place, to the socialist the chief of all questions is this of the unemployed; therefore upon our capacity to deal with clause four in the industrial program depends our capacity to raise the standard of life to the realisation of the democratic ideal.
Neither political nor trade union power is of any material service save in proportion as it enables us to solve the unemployed question, and it may be definitely stated that the very existence of the unemployed is proof positive of the helplessness of the democracy in any and every nation where the unemployed exist. It is difficult to conceive of any limit to the mental and social progress of a people whose industrial system affords opportunities of development for all alike; and it is difficult to see what real progress can be made by the workers of any nation whose industrial system is dependent entirely upon the awful fact that a percentage of its citizens must be in enforced idleness and therefore competing for work.
The control of industry today is left to the care of individuals whose sole concern is to make profit for themselves, and although life and death depend upon industry, never yet has there been any organised attempt by the nation to regulate the industry of the nation in the nation’s interest.
Raw material and tools having been monopolised by a few individuals, and the custom of society and the law of the land approving of the profit-making basis of industry, that which decides whether or not trade shall be conducted, and to what extent, is not the public necessity, but the capacity of the controllers of industry to make a satisfactory profit for themselves. Thus in the case of the general lockout of miners in 1893, although 300,000 miners’ homes were directly affected and a large number of other workers indirectly, it was considered that the mine owners were quite within their right to exercise the power they possessed of closing the mines, if in their judgment they were not making a satisfactory profit, and that was purely the reason why the mines were closed, nor were they opened again until higher profits could be made. It was exactly the same on the occasion of the lockout of the Lancashire cotton operatives, and precisely the same a few months ago, when the employers in the boot and shoe trade locked out all the operatives connected with that industry.
The basis of modern trade, then, is profit-making for individuals, and satisfactory profit-making depends upon the power of the employer to decide what wages shall be paid, and the power of the employer to decide this item depends upon a proportion of operatives being in enforced idleness, and forcing the hands of their mates in work; and if by trade union or other action the workers get a power which when applied, entrenches upon what the employers consider their legitimate profit, then employers can close works and refuse to take part in trade, although by so doing hundreds or thousands of persons are reduced to starvation and death; nay, it is because it so brings the workers to starvation and therefore makes them powerless that this conduct is indulged in.
The workers have no real means of escape from this humiliating position short of providing the means of constant employment for themselves.[1]
Now, what is especially called for from socialists is that they shall have to fight for this all-important question of the unemployed, thus affording the means of a livelihood for all, entirely irrespective of what effect it may have upon the profit-making system. All other questions are of secondary importance to this, not only because of the suffering endured by those who are out of work, but also from the fact that the making of profits is dependent upon the existence of the unemployed who make the employed relatively powerless; and the present system leaves it in the power of the capitalist employers to create any number of unemployed by their power to stop work by lockouts. The way for us to proceed is to saddle the responsibility for providing work for all who want it upon the government. The way for the government to proceed is to forthwith take over all lands not cultivated, and begin at once to cultivate them in the most effective way, providing foodstuffs and sending them to market to compete with those supplies sent in by private enterprise profit-makers, and to do the same with all mines, mills and factories, etc, not in use, to produce commodities therein, and supply the market, and, if need be, underselling the profit-makers, giving to them a dose of the competition they have so liberally indulged in. If private enterprise men complain, as they certainly would, the reply would be: “If they did not like trade under such conditions they could give it up,” and if they gave it up the government would take it in hand forthwith; no prolonged strike or lockout would be possible, as the government would take over and conduct all establishments where the private enterprise people failed to cater for the well-being of the community.
What are the objections to such a course? It may be said the government don’t know how to undertake such work. To that may be replied, no action of this kind can be taken until there is a volume of public opinion favourable to the same, and when that stage is reached, the government will have to learn how to do that which the electorate calls for, and being unable or unwilling must make room for those who will be willing and able, and the ILP program will indicate the agencies through which much can be done.
If it be said the land and the mines, mills and machinery are now the property of private individuals, the reply is that all that is now proposed is that the government shall take over that land not under cultivation, or not being properly cultivated, so as to provide proper incomes for those engaged thereon; and public opinion is even now equal to the defence of so simple a proposition: viz, that when a landowner is unable or unwilling to use the land or have it used, then the government, in the interest of the community, should itself undertake this duty. This simply calls for the government to step in where private enterprise proves incapable of supplying the public requirements. To apply the same principle to industrial establishments would, of course, follow as a matter of logical sequence.
It may be argued that it will never do to compete with private enterprise, as to do so will mean the dislodgment of a similar number to those employed by the government. This does not by any means follow. To suppose such a result includes the idea that there is no demand for commodities and therefore a lack of employment under private enterprise. But trade does not fall off solely because there is no demand; trade declines because employers refuse to sell commodities below a price that will yield them a satisfactory profit. We have not yet reached the stage when overproduction is a serious trouble, nor are we likely to; it is not inability to consume, it is inability “to get hold of” that the workers are troubled with. And as for displacing any workers, the principle proposed is that anyone wanting work under the government should be able to get it, and if some were thrown out by governmental competition, they would at once be absorbed into the governmental establishment, and any persons preferring to work under the government with the conditions they could offer should be at perfect liberty to leave private employers.
The day has gone by when making up a few streets or digging some waste heap over will quieten the unemployed, and the extension of municipal control, so far as we have as yet experienced it, has had about as perceptible an influence upon unemployment and its evils as does the lifting of a pail of water out of the Thames. Our plucky comrade, Keir Hardie, MP, has manfully stuck to the question of the unemployed in and out of the House of Commons, and has thereby earned the gratitude of all socialists. It is the question that must eclipse all others in the immediate future, and I would urge upon every branch of the Independent Labour Party the necessity for severely heckling every person who comes before any constituency for any public position as to his or her attitude upon this question, whilst the central fact in connection with every ILP candidate should be his championship of adequate provision for the unemployed. What will it profit the workers to return socialists to parliament and elsewhere unless the most serious difficulty of their lives receives attention — that of intermittent employment, upon which depend low wages?
London, with its immense population, has also an enormous number of unemployed. Unless something be done altogether different to that which has yet been attempted, there will be no material reduction of the unemployed. Are we to dare to cope with it or not? If so, the government must raise a considerable sum of money and advance the same in conjunction with the local authority.
The state must have regard for every district and every section, supervising and blending as far as possible agricultural with industrial pursuits, and although it will strike the ordinary mind as far-fetched, the agricultural question is one that must vitally affect Londoners. London is still increasing, but other tendencies are beginning to assert themselves which will checkmate its further development to any material extent in point of numbers, and this should be encouraged by all means in our power. The London governing body ought to get thousands of acres under its control forthwith with the aid of the state. There would be a demand for millions of tons of market garden produce if only it could be grown and placed within reach of London’s working population at little more than cost price.
The bitter cry for decent house room in London, provincial towns and rural districts is as urgent now as ever. Tens of thousands of homes are wanted in London alone; the building of these would necessitate a considerable extension of the works committee of the London City Council, and would absorb many of the unemployed. There are many miles of foreshore on both sides of the Thames that ought to receive adequate attention to make decent and tolerable much that is now dilapidated and ugly. In these directions the start could be made in the matter of municipal organisation of industry.
The most congested districts of London are south and east, and the riverside population are among the chief sufferers, not only because of the congestion, but because of the intermittent nature of the employment at the docks and wharves and on the river. This question of control of the Port of London ought also to be forced home on the government and the local authority. The irregularities at the docks and wharves are still of so serious a nature that one-half of the 50,000 persons that get some kind of livelihood there do not average more than 12 shillings a week, and this might be altered immensely for the better if the whole work of the port were controlled by a capable port authority in the common interest, instead of, as at present, there being many hundreds of different interests, many of them conflicting with each other. The London and India Docks Joint Committee has done some little towards the better regulation of work under their immediate control; but this does not favourably affect more than one-sixth of the port workers. Exactly how and why the difficulties exist I explained at length before the Labour Commission, and also submitted definite proposals for a rectification of most of the evils existent there.[2] We cannot expect any effective diminution of poverty in the neighbourhood of the docks unless the government, national and local, be made to take the matter up. Fixing upon the local authority the task of providing work for all would soon force attention to this port and all similar questions, as men who could get proper work at proper wages under the local authorities would not stay to be made conveniences of by dock superintendents and wharfingers. These people would then have to provide conditions at least as attractive as those provided by the government elsewhere, and if they objected to this, the work would naturally fall into the hands of the government. Branches of the ILP in London should familiarise themselves with this problem of the ports, as it is certain to come up for solution at no distant date.
Our comrades in rural districts should take especial pains to enable farm labourers and others to understand the principles of socialism, and the objects and methods of the ILP. At one time it looked as though we should never be able to reach more than a few villages in agricultural districts, but times are changing rapidly, and supplementing the good work done by those in charge of the Yellow Vans of the Land Nationalisation Society, and the Red Vans of the Land Restoration League, we have now the Clarion Scouts and Field Clubs with their spicy little monthly, The Scout. All honour to the young men who belong to the numerous CCCs, and who combine serious propaganda work with recreation, carrying the ILP gospel to all and sundry, blending town and country, and inspiring with hope those workers on the soil who could not be reached by any other means. I believe the good now being done by this means is incalculable, and may well give heart to all in the movement. The number of women, too, now actively at work in the ILP tells plainly the cause is to be triumphant in the immediate future.
In case this pamphlet should be read by those who have no knowledge of the movement on the continent, it may be well to state that France, Germany, Belgium and Italy are all better organised than we, and have done more work in returning socialists to the governing bodies than we have; each of these countries has returned a strong contingent of socialists to their respective parliaments, and we ought to prove our capacity to do equally well at the general election to take place next month. In each continental country, and in America and Australia the socialists are busy making converts, and organising their political forces for the overthrow of capitalism. Let us remember that through and by socialism alone have we any escape from the curse of modern army and navy tyranny. These armaments, kept up with the same jingoist bounce both by Tory and Liberal governments, are so kept not for democracy’s welfare, for the workers’ interests are one the world over. The only ray of sunshine to be seen through the smoke of the “Woolwich infants” and machineguns is that coming from the sun of socialism, with its gospel of brotherhood and sisterhood for all nations.
No longer is it a dream we are indulging in: the day is drawing nigh when the actual application of socialist principles will be called for, not to be passed on to our children, but actually realised in our own time. The young men and women of today have opportunities of observing and judging which were not permitted to young men of even a dozen years ago. The soul revolts at the meanness of life; the spirit of man seeks to triumph over the sordidness of the commercialism of the time and to live in a purer and freer atmosphere than that which is possible yet. Do we want a stimulus to nerve us in the fight? Then think of the children of the slums for whom you and I are partly responsible; make yourselves look at their gaunt faces, their dull eyes, their ragged clothes; think of the single women without father or brother, with none to caress or care for them, left to battle with a cruel competitive world, thousands of them falling in the terrible struggle. Young man or young woman whose eye rests on this, will you not join in this glorious crusade against poverty and the evils arising therefrom? Don’t put it off for somebody else; manfully tackle your share, and ere long you shall be rewarded, not with positions of place and power, for these you will not want, but rewarded by the knowledge that you did your part in the work that made the change possible.
Think not you are alone; you may not often hear of men by name, but they are at work. Hyndman, of the Social Democratic Federation, William Morris, Robert Blatchford, Keir Hardie, Herbert Burrows, Harry Quelch, Ben Tillett, Percy Dearmer, Edward Carpenter, Enid Stacy, Carrie Martyn and Mrs Bruce Glasier are specimens, but there are thousands of others, honest, earnest, sterling workers, working hard for the better time. As Gerald Massey puts it:
Through all the long dark night of years,
The people’s cry ascendeth,
And earth is wet with blood and tears,
But our meek sufferance endeth.
The few shall not for ever sway,
The many moil in sorrow;
The powers of Hell are strong today,
The Christ shall rise tomorrow.
1. Two most interesting pamphlets bearing upon this subject have been written by Percy Wallis (ILP) of Kettering, one entitled A New Theory of Surplus Value, and another, called Practical Socialism, which I would advise all to read. In the last-named an act of parliament is proposed, similar in many respects to that proposed by Russell Smart in his pamphlet, The Right to Work, though not for exactly the same reasons.
2. See minutes of evidence taken before the Royal Commission on Labour (sitting as a whole), Eyre and Spottiswoode, London.
3. The Liberal government was defeated by an adverse vote, reducing the salary of Mr Campbell Bannerman, the secretary for war, by £100, on Friday, June 21. On Saturday, June 22, the government resigned, and Lord Salisbury was invited by Queen Victoria to form a cabinet. The dissolution is announced for July, so that an excellent opportunity is thus afforded to press home this vital question of work for all.