RIGHT HON. J. R. CLYNES

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 258, 31 October 1929, Page 13

RIGHT HON. J. R. CLYNES

HOME SECRETARY'S STRUGGLES.,

TELLS STORY OF HIS EARLY LIFE.

HIS FIRST INTEREST IN POLITICS,

Some years ago the Rt. Hon. J. R. Clynes, M.P., gave the following interview to a journalist who is still actively engaged in Fleet Street. Told in the first person by one of the "Big Five" of the Labour party, the story of the early life and work of Mr. Clynes acquire additional interest from the realisation of what must at that time have seemed almost impossible dreams of his future eminence. My family was just one of the poor working class, and my father was a labourer who never „ earned more than 24/ a week in his life, though he was a devoted workman and would never miss going to hie employment for anything. I was the first son, though the fifth of the family, and I was born in a small four-roomed house which was situated not in the working class district, but in the country on the outskirts of Oldham. .Of my early years I have no recollection of anything of a striking character. Such education as I got I acquired at the elementary school. There is no particular satisfaction in claiming that I was very regular in my attendance or that I was of that disposition which did not incline me to spend much time in playing games. I was reserved and kept a great deal to myself.

. Among my most vivid recollections of this time was the, money that I used to have to take to the school—we termed it school money, that is, payment for my tuition. Sometimes I went without it because my parents did not have it, and I can recollect having to go back for it. If the money was not paid we were, however, not eent back, but were allowed to remain at school, though the few pennies in question were looked upon as arrears and eventually had to be paid up. When I was just turned ten I went to work as a half timer in a cotton factory and began as a "little piecer, that is the junior help to the cotton spinner. My work wae to assist in cleaning the machinery and to make mvself useful in any way I was told. In this way I gradually acquired a knowledge of the work and was m time able to be "big piecer" on my own account. My hours as a half timer were from six o'clock in the morning until half past twelve in the afternoon, and the wages varied from nothing a week, at which I started, to about four and s'ixpence. While I was a half timer I used to go to school in the afternoon. That lasted, however, only until I was thirteen, when I became a full timer. The Urge For Self Culture. Then the conditions of work were so exacting that I had no disposition to concern myself with schooling. I used •to get home dead tired in the evening, for besides working practically eleven hours in the mill I had to walk from I my home and back. For some years my home was two and a half miles away which meant five miles' walk a day The conditions under which I

k worked "were far less favourable than those which prevail at the present time. I frequently had to "work with no morl on that a pair of bathing drawers. The men in the mill used also to work simply in shirts and overalls, even in the "winter. Happily there have been many improvements since my time, and the more modern mills are better conp structed, better lighted and better ventilated than they were when I was a little piecer. When I became a big piecer I could earn from twenty shillings to twenty-one shillings a week, though the average was rather less than that. When I was about seventeen and a big piecer I began to feel a strong desire ; to resume something like education and self culture. I set about achieving this object by spending nearly all my spare time in the local library and news rooms, and taking little books to the mill to read in any spare time I had. I have still one of the most thumbed and used-up copies of a book on grammar I have ever seen. I also went to night school and spent what little sums of money I had in going to lectures and buying books of my own. I read much of Dickens, as well as Ruskin, and developed a taste for Shakespeare and Milton. I also read many of the better new Irish story writers and found myself especially developing a taste for dramatic literature, but I did not, however, go a great deal to the theatre. I made a point, however, of always seeing Shakespeare's plays when" I could, and only went otherwise to the theatre when I could see the best plays. I cannot confess to having gbnelrTfor any particular line of study at this time. I was not reading with a view to any special start in another or better position in life. This was not because I was little attached to my work, but probably because I found a certain satisfaction in the studies for their own sake, without the idea of using the knowledge I acquired merely for material betterment. Later on, however, in other duties I found the advantage of the time spent in these studies which lasted from the time I was seventeen until I was twenty-two. Became An Organiser. My first attachment to any kind of' organisation was to a branch of the Irish National League, as it was called at that time. My reason for belonging to it was that I was interested in Irish politics and literature, and I was a very strong supporter of the Home Rule claim. At that time I began to go to public meetings, to write essays and letters to the newspapers. Also about this time I began to feel a larger interest in public subjects and social problems generally. I was attached to a local literary society, and used frequently go to the debating forums both at Manchester and at Oldham. While I was in the mill I was a member of the Piecers' Union, but the part I took in public work and my attendances at meetings caused me to be invited to i hely a newly-formed organisation, the '. Gas Workers and General Labourers' • Union. j For above a year I served, quite : freely and without any pecuniary recom- ': pense, the branch of the Gas Workers and < General Labourers' Union which had been i established in the district in which I i lived. After some time the post of 1 organiser in that society was offered to i me. I accepted it and left the mill. The 1 terms which were paid to me could < hardly be dignified by the name of ] salary, for they began at thirty shillings s a week, though that was a little more' j

than I was earning at the mill. It was at that time that I began trade union work in an official and responsible way, from the point of view of organiser. The work I had to do was to go into towns, arrange meetings, and get bodies of workmen together to see the advantage of organising themselves; while, at the same time, I explained the advantages offered by our own society. The work was pursued in the normal course incidental to all such organising, and I have no vivid experiences to tell, or indeed, any experiences out of the common. Not very long after this, for I had been doing trade union work for only about two years, I married, and it would be impossible for me to exaggerate the amount of sympathy and help which was thus brought into my life, the conditions of which, in my opinion, are absolutely needed to enable a man to continue his work with his whole heart. —("Star" and Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.)