From Workhouse to Westminster Part 25

It was a great delight to Crooks to learn that even the regular tipplers were saying among themselves that "although that chap Crooks don't spare us blokes, he's the man for our money."

One conversation reported to him from a public-house a few days after the election was certainly quaint and amusing. The narrator was the best of mimics. He told how the subject of the election was introduced by "a long thin man with a sheeny nose," who had just come in.

"Well," began the new-comer, without any preliminary, "I've read 'The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,' but I tell you Woolwich licks the lot."

"What about Napoleon Bonaparty?" ventured one of the company.

"Bonaparty? What did Bony do? Why, ten years after Wellington won Waterloo things was back worse than they was before."

"I thought Bill Adams won the battle of Waterloo," called out a voice from the corner bench.

"You shouldn't think; it might hurt yer head."

"D'yer reckon as Crooks is bigger nor Bony was?" inquired the first questioner.

"Certainly I do," said the long thin one, severely. "What did Bony do?

Why, he made men fight for him. But what did Crooks do? Why, he taught men to fight for themselves and their families. See? Bony built his house on the sands, and the tide of humanity has washed it away. Now Crooks taught us men to build our own house, and nothing can destroy it while we stick together."

To the new Member there came in due time congratulatory messages from Europe, America, South Africa, and Australia. Children also sent him their well-wishes--children are always writing to Crooks--one letter being signed by a whole family of them in Plumstead with their ages set out like stepping-stones after each signature. This "little household,"

as they called themselves, told him how eagerly they had "watched the papers," and how glad they were he had won.

One only of the many letters that poured in sounded a despondent note.

It was signed by two desolate old women who lived together in Poplar.

"We have just heard," they wrote, "you have been elected Member for Woolwich. Does this mean you are going to leave Poplar? If so, please give up Parliament, for who have we to look to for help if you go away?"

Some of his supporters were anxious to serve him in a practical way.

The workers at a tailoring establishment in Woolwich asked him to allow them to make him a suit of clothes "as a thank-offering for the splendid victory." When a fortnight later they sent the suit it was with an expression of "regret that it is not like our esteem--warranted not to wear out."

The Press all over the country was profoundly impressed by the result.

The Liberal papers for the most part were too eager to hail it as a blow at the Conservative Government to see its true significance. The Conservative papers, in attempting to lessen its effect on their own party, got nearer to the real meaning that lay behind the victory.

As the _Times_ put it:--

The result ... means that the questions bound up with the existence of an organised Labour Party which have been hitherto regarded as chimerical are coming to the front in practical politics.

The _Pall Mall Gazette_ also got near the mark:--

Mr. Crooks's return is first and most obviously an indication of the growing strength of the idea of an organised Labour Party, such as under the name of Socialism is so potent a force in Continental politics.

For Woolwich was the first manifestation to the public of the birth of the political Labour Party.

The election came within a few weeks of the famous Newcastle conference of the Labour Representation Committee, whose delegates represented over a million organised workmen in the country. That was the conference which decided on the absolute independence of the Labour Party. Almost the first duty of its secretary, Mr. J. R. Macdonald, on his return from Newcastle was to issue an appeal "to everyone in London interested in the formation of a Labour Party in the House of Commons to go to Woolwich to help Mr. Crooks."

The best explanation of the striking Labour triumph was given by Crooks himself in the _Daily News_:--

"The workman is learning after years of unfulfilled pledges and broken promises of the usual party stamp that before he can get anything like justice he must transfer his faith from 'gentlemen' candidates to Labour candidates. The workman has seen how the 'gentlemen' of England have treated him in the last few years--taxed his bread, his sugar, his tea; tampered with his children's education, attacked his trade unions, made light of the unemployed problem, and shirked old-age pensions.

"What the workman has done in Woolwich, you will find he will do in other towns."

His prophecy was fulfilled within three years. The General Election of 1906 saw Labour men for the first time returned for two or three dozen const.i.tuencies, some with the greatest majorities known to political history. As the amazing results poured in from day to day, with their three and five and even six thousand majorities, a prominent public man declared at the time:--"This is the Party that was born at Woolwich."

One significant phase of the Woolwich by-election was emphasised by the _Speaker_. Here, in a district where the majority of workers earn their daily bread in the Government a.r.s.enal, a man was elected who had bitterly opposed the South African war, which from the material standpoint had brought a period of prosperity to Woolwich without parallel. The _Speaker_ went on to say:--

Mr. Crooks was among the st.u.r.diest and most outspoken opponents of the war and its objects, and a man who survived that ordeal may be trusted to stand to his colours in the next emergency. He was a conspicuous member of what was called the "Pro-Boer" party. He was one of the orators at the famous Trafalgar Square meeting that the jingoes broke up.

In the pages of the same weekly journal the new member for Woolwich wrote an article on the Labour Party. "The Labour Party," he said, "is quite a natural result of the failure of rich people legislating for the poor. The one hope of the workman is a strong Labour Party.... The Labour Member has nothing but his service to give in return for support.

Perhaps he is dependent on his fellows for his maintenance until Payment of Members is secured. The continued selection of rich men for working-cla.s.s const.i.tuencies is a perversion of representation, and quite as absurd as it would be to attempt to run a Labour candidate for the aristocratic West-End division of St. George's, Hanover Square."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LIVING WAGE FOR MEN AND WOMEN

Crooks's Maiden Speech--A Welcome from the Treasury Bench--Demand for a Fair Wage in Government Workshops--Advocating the Payment of Members and the Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of Women--Crooks's Hold upon the House.

A fortnight after his election to Parliament, Crooks made his maiden speech. He called attention to the fact that the Government was allowing portions of the national workshops at Woolwich a.r.s.enal to remain idle while it was giving work that could be done in them to outside contractors.

"I do not know how it appears to other hon. members," he told the House, "but it seems to me that every department of a Government which claims to be a business Government ought to have the right to make the first use of all the resources which the nation has placed at its disposal before considering outside contractors.... The contractors have fairly good representation in this House, and many things are to be said in their favour; but the Government has no right to use the money of the nation in building machinery and then to allow it to stand idle in the interests of outside firms, no matter who they are or what influence they may have."

In the opening words of his reply, the Minister for War (Mr. Brodrick) said he was sure that whatever their opinion as to the views of the hon.

member (Mr. Crooks), all sections of the House would welcome his appearance in debate on a subject on which he was so fully informed.

The same day Crooks called the attention of the House to the low wages paid to labourers in the national workshops.

"I maintain that it is not cheap for the Government to pay men 21s. per week, although other employers may be able to get them for that amount.

If the men had more money they would be able to get better house accommodation, and the ratepayers would be saved the substantial sums now paid under the Poor Law for medical orders for people brought up in over-crowded homes. The President of the Local Government Board knows that in consequence of over-crowding in London, hundreds of such medical orders go to people living under unhealthy conditions, impossible to avoid when the family depends on this weekly wage of 21s. paid to Government employees. Such earnings are barely sufficient for food, let alone shelter. An order has been issued by the Local Government Board instructing Guardians to feed the inmates of workhouses properly. The minimum scale laid down for persons in workhouses is of a character that no man with a family can approach if he is only earning 21s. a week.

What I urge is that the men in the employment of the State should have a Local Government Board existence, if nothing else--that the men in the national workshops should no longer have to live on a lower food scale than that prescribed for workhouses."

Before he had been in Parliament a month, he got an opportunity to introduce a proposal in favour of the payment of members. The House was well filled when he rose to move the following motion:--

That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable and expedient that, in order to give const.i.tuencies a full and free choice in the selection of Parliamentary candidates, the charges now made by the returning officer to the candidates should be chargeable to public funds, and that all members of the House of Commons should receive from the State a reasonable stipend during their Parliamentary life.

He addressed the House at some length on this motion. Here is a summary of his speech:--

There was a good deal of talk about there being absolute equality in this country, but there was, as every member knew, only one way of getting into the House, and that was by spending substantial sums of money. A considerable sum of money was spent in securing his election, but he did not have to find a farthing of it. The cash was subscribed openly and freely. But he had often heard it asked when a poor man was standing: "Who is finding your money?"