A Labour M.P.

The most romantic figure in the whole group of Labour M.'sP. in the House of Commons is Mr John Thomas Macpherson, M.P. for Preston. His strenuous life-storv may be summed up as follows:—At 12, cabin boy in a sailing ship ; at 18, a Middlesborough steel smelter; at 21, founder of the Steel Smelters' Society; at 32, an Oxford graduate and a member of Parliament. Mr McPherson is tho youngest of the Labour M's.P. From the foundation of the Steel Smelters' Society iu 1892, Mr McPherson went rapidly up "the ladder. By his activity lie soon became a leader of men, and, securing their support, he was made assistantsecretary of the union. He refused to be tied to office, however, and went out as an organiser, achieving conspicuous success. Still ne was not satisfied. He wished to be better equipped for the l battle of life. And so his society decided to send him to tho Ruskin College at Oxford. Mr McPberson's society paid JSS2 per annum, which covered board, lodging, and tuition, and he began a course of training which included constitutional, industrial, and social history, logic, questions of local government, and political economy. He emerged from Oxford a different man—with a wider and broader outlook on social and labour" problems. The Ruskin College is destined to become a tremendous educational force. It is the training ground of the future M's.P., trade union organisers and secretaries, and those who are to be the leaders of the reform movement of the future, and this young Labour M.P. is the first of the, students to enter' Parliament.