"THE RIGHT TO WORK."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 102, 29 April 1908, Page 6

"THE RIGHT TO WORK."

SOCIALISTIC MEASURE CONSIDERED BY BRITISH COMMONS.

(From Our Special Correspondents

LONDON, March 20.

The most interesting feature of the debate on Mr. P. W. Wilson's "Right to Work" Bill in the House of Commons was the absence of no fewer than 2SO Liberals from the voting lists. This is the more significant in view of the urgent summons issued to each member of the Liberal party by the Whips, "very earnestly requesting" his attendance and support of the Government. The fact is that a great number of the Liberals found themselves in a quandary. They did not want to vote against the Government, and they did not want to vote against Mr. Wilson's bill for fear of alienating their working class constituents. They chose the timid man's alternative —they stayed away. The Government and the Unionists voted against the bill, which was defeated by 265 votes to 116 on the second reading.. These who supported the bill were the Independent Labour party, the Nationalists, a number of "Left Wing" Liberals, and two Unionists, Sir Arthur Bignold and Mr. Watson Rutherford. The absention of so many Liberals from voting seems to indicate that .he voting power of the working class is beginning to be realised. As the workers are finding their strength, so are the nation's representatives in Parliament beginning to treat that strength with a very wholesome respect- If the workers were fully alive to the possibilities of co-operation they could be the dominant force in Par_U__ent, for they are overwhelmingly the most numerous party in the country. They are gradually waking up to the fact, and politicians are beginning to respect their strength more in consequence. Such seems to be the moral of the Unemployment Bill.

Mr. Wilson, who is a young journalist, returned to Parliament as a Radical member for St. Pahcras at the last general election, pointed out in introducing his bill that the solution of the problem of unemployment was long overdue. He agreed with Mr. Burns" that charity had failed; soup-kitchens were absolutely useless as a solution of the problem. The root principle of his bill was that the problem of unemployment- should be regarded as a national matter. The bill established regular unemployment committees" for all authorities, and thus a uniform policy was applied to the whole of the country. The' first duty of the committees was to register the unemployed, and that register would be in itself almost a ready-made universal system of lahour exchanges. The work clauses dealt with two fairly distinct clases of work—work done by the national authority and work done by the local authority. He admitted that if they cut the work done by the local authority out of the bill altogether they would have made a valuable advance in respect of this problem. There would be an opportunity for the Local Government Board itself to establish national schemes lof afforestation, farm colonies, or works dealing with coast erosion. The bill contemplated going to the assistance of a man before he lost his self-respect and before he got right down into the gutter. Over and over again the House had been asked to pity the agricultural labourei and grant him security of tenure. What was security of tenure but the right tc work? and the bill asked that that se-eurity-.should be extended to the people who lived in tenements. The problem of the unemployed would never be solved until the loafers were segregated from the class above them, upon whom they lived as parasites. The: Independent Labour party's point of view was voiced by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, who. seconded the bill. He declared - that Parliament could not now refuse So endorse the principle that work must be found by hook or crook for honest men aid women, who, on the faith of the expectations raised by the bill of 1905, were registering their names for work. Some members of the Liberal paTty fancied they heard the rumble of the tumbril of They imagined, fateful results from this labour demand. Their fears were, of course, exaggerated, but if the "sans culottes" had been led tc the bombardment of the Bastille, it was Mr. Walter Long who was primarily responsible, tinder present conditions, society had to assist the poverty-stricken after they had entered the sombre portals of the workhouse. Why, he asked, should society not do this earlier? The cost involved - would not exceed that of one Dreadnought annually, and the result achieved would be infinitely more useful to the nation, for if we permitted the evil of unemployment to fester in our mids: we should have to pay the heavy price oi a. lowered national vitality. A man in need of work might be-assisted pemianently by training him oh the land or temporarily in other ways. Liberal-Labour members like Mr. Mid ! disOn and Mr. "Vivian denounced the Mil. and Mr. John Burns in a forcible spj>se ; condemned proposals which he declare}, to be unworkable and calculated to dis.ftfu age . prudence and self-reliance in fjhe working-classes. The Chancellor of fin. Exchequer also condemned the bill "on the ground that it would aggravate inemployment instead of curing it. He Jefused to recognise this principle of the right to work and the duty of the to provide work. f . The bill was thrown out, but it 'Jjad served 'to demonstrate the groirfng strength of the feeling that it is the §_ty of the State to grapple with this h-ftpou. problem of unemployment, and guanjttec. in return for services rendered, a dj_-ht minimum of subsistence to each miijpber j of the community.' - '%