Britain For The British Part 33

I wonder how many Labour seats have been lost through Home Rule. Time after time good Labour candidates have been defeated because Liberal working men feared to lose a Home Rule vote in the House.

And what has Labour got from the Home Rule Liberals it has elected?

And where is Home Rule to-day?

Let me give you a typical case. A Liberal Unionist lost his seat. He at once became a Home Ruler, and was adopted as Liberal candidate to stand against a Labour candidate and against a Tory. The Labour candidate was a Home Ruler, and had been a Home Ruler when the Liberal candidate was a Unionist.

But the Liberal working men would not vote for the Labour man. Why?

Because they were afraid he would not get in. If he did not get in the Tory would get in, and the Home Rule vote would be one less in the House.

They voted for the Liberal, and he was returned. That is ten years ago.

What good has that M.P. done for Home Rule, and what has he done for Labour?

The Labour man could have done no more for Home Rule, but he would have worked hard for Labour, and no Party Whip would have checked him.

Well, during those ten years it is not too much to say that fifty Labour candidates have been sacrificed in the same way to Home Rule.

In ten years those men would have done good service. _And they were all Home Rulers._

Such is the wisdom of the working men who cling to the tails of the Liberal Party.

Return a hundred Labour men to the House of Commons, and the Liberal Party will be stronger than if a hundred Liberals were sent in their place, for there is not a sound plank in the Liberal programme which the Labour M.P. would wish removed.

But do you doubt for a moment that the presence in the House of a hundred Labour members would do no more for Labour than the presence in their stead of a hundred Liberals? A working man must be very dull if he believes that.

That is my case against the old parties. I could say no more if I tried.

If you want to benefit your own cla.s.s, if you want to hasten reform, if you want to frighten the Tories and wake up the Liberals, put your hands in your pockets, find a _farthing a week_ for election and for parliamentary expenses, send a hundred Labour men to the House, and watch the effects. I think you will be more than satisfied. And _that_ is what _I_ call "practical politics."

Finally, to end as I began, if self-interest is the strongest motive in human nature, the man who wants his own advantage secured will be wise to attend to it himself.

The Liberal Party may be a better party than the Tory Party, but the _best_ party for Labour is a _Labour_ Party.

CHAPTER XIX

TO-DAY'S WORK

Self-interest being the strongest motive in human nature, he who wishes his interests to be served will be wise to attend to them himself.

If you, Mr. Smith, as a working man, wish to have better wages, shorter hours, more holidays, and cheaper living, you had better take a hand in the cla.s.s war by becoming a recruit in the army of Labour.

The first line of the Labour army is the Trade Unions.

The second line is the Munic.i.p.ality.

The third line is Parliament.

If working men desire to improve their conditions they will be wise to serve their own interests by using the Trade Unions, the Munic.i.p.alities, and the House of Commons for all they are worth; and they are worth a lot.

Votes you have in plenty, for all practical purposes, and of money you can yourselves raise more than you need, without either hurting yourselves or incurring obligations to men of other cla.s.ses.

One penny a week from 4,000,000 of working men would mean a yearly income of 866,000.

We are always hearing that the working cla.s.ses cannot find enough money to pay the election expenses of their own parliamentary candidates nor to keep their own Labour members if elected.

If 4,000,000 workers paid one penny a week (the price of a Sunday paper, or of one gla.s.s of cheap beer) they would have 866,000 at the end of a year.

Election expenses of 200 Labour candidates at 500 each would be 100,000.

Pay of 200 Labour members at 200 a year would be 40,000.

Total, 140,000: leaving a balance in hand of 726,000.

Election expenses of 2000 candidates for School Board, Munic.i.p.al Councils, and Boards of Guardians at 50 per man would be 100,000.

Leaving a balance of 626,000.

Now the cause of Labour has very few friends amongst the newspapers. As I have said before, at times of strikes and other industrial crises, the Press goes almost wholly against the workers.

The 4,000,000 men I have supposed to wake up to their own interest could establish weekly and daily papers of _their own_ at a cost of 50,000 for each paper. Say one weekly paper at a penny, one daily paper at a penny, or one morning and one evening paper at a halfpenny each.

These papers would have a ready-made circulation amongst the men who owned them. They could be managed, edited, and written by trained journalists engaged for the work, and could contain all the best features of the political papers now bought by working men.

Say, then, that the weekly paper cost 50,000 to start, and that the morning and evening papers cost the same. That would be 150,000, and the papers would pay in less than a year.

You see, then, that 4,000,000 of men could finance 3 newspapers, 200 parliamentary and 2000 local elections, and pay one year's salary to 200 Members of Parliament for 390,000, or less than _one halfpenny_ a week for one year.

If you paid the full penny a week for one year you could do all I have said and have a balance in hand of 476,000.

Surely, then, it is nonsense to talk about the difficulty of finding money for election expenses.

But you might not be able to get 4,000,000 of men to pay even one penny.

Then you could produce the same result if _one_ million (half your present Trade Union membership) pay twopence a week.

And even at a cost of twopence a week do you not think the result would be worth the cost? Imagine the effect on the Press, and on Parliament, and on the employers, and on public opinion of your fighting 200 parliamentary and 2000 munic.i.p.al elections, and founding three newspapers. Then the moral effect of the work the newspapers would do would be sure to result in an increase of the Trade Union membership.

A penny looks such a poor, contemptible coin, and even the poor labourer often wastes one. But remember that union is strength, and pennies make pounds. 1000 pennies make more than 4; 100,000 pennies come to more than 400; 1,000,000 pennies come to 4000; 1,000,000 pennies a week for a year give you the enormous sum of 210,000.

We _Clarion_ men founded a paper called the _Clarion_ with less than 400 capital, and with no friends or backers, and although we have never given gambling news, nor general news, and had no Trade Unions behind us, we have carried our paper on for ten years, and it is stronger now than ever.

Why, then, should the working cla.s.ses, and especially the Trade Unions, submit to the insults and misrepresentations of newspapers run by capitalists, when they can have better papers of their own to plead their own cause?

Suppose it cost 100,000 to start a first-cla.s.s daily Trade Union organ.

How much would that mean to 2,000,000 of Unionists? If it cost 100,000 to start the paper, and if it lost 100,000 a year, it would only mean one halfpenny a week for the first year, and one farthing a week for the next. But I am quite confident that if the Unions did the thing in earnest they could start a paper for 50,000, and run it at a profit after the first six months.

Do not forget the power of the penny. If 10,000,000 of working men and women gave _one penny a year_ it would reach a yearly income of _forty thousand pounds_. A good deal may be done with 40,000, Mr. Smith.