FEMINIST FORUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

FEMINIST FORUM.

A SOCIALIST COUNTESS* CREED. GORST ON NEW ZEALAND. (By a Feminist Correspondent.) It is almost commonplace nowadays to find an aristocrat publicly supporting Labour, but in the 'nineties it was something to make a song about. So when, in 1895, the Countess of Warwick, who had long reigned as a society beauty— she was one of the Marlborough House set— declared herself a socialist, the World —with a capital W—gaped. It was no nine days' wonder, for the Countess, now a great grandmother and still a beautiful woman, has remained to this day firmly in the faith. Hers was the most arresting personality at the Labour party's eve of Parliament reunion held to celebrate accession to office this year. "Life's Ebb and Flow" (Hutchinson), is the title under which this Socialist Countess publishes her memoirs, and nothing in them is more interesting than her account of her conversion, which was achieved by Robert Blatchford of the "Clarion," which she then spoke of as "an obscure sheet." Lady Warwick had been giving a magnificent fancy dress ball. She was happy in her belief that her ball would give work to many unemployed—and unemployment was rife. She read in the' "Clarion" —"this impertinent rag"—that hers was a sham benevolence. She rushed off from Warwick Castle indignant with the "Clarion" and bearded Blatchford in his Fleet Street den. "How could you be so unfair, so unjust?" I said. "Our ball has given work to half the country, and to dozens of dressmakers in London besides." "Will you sit down," he replied, "while I explain to you how mistaken you are about the real effect of luxury ?" Socialist and Democrat. "And then Robert Blatchford told me, as a socialist and a democrat", what he thought of charity bazaars and ladies bountiful.' He made plain to me the difference between productive and unproductive labour. One phrase still lingers. He said that labour used to produce finery was as much wasted as if it were used to dig holes in the ground and fill them up again. "By this new standard I found that nine-tenths of the money spent on the Warwick ball had been wasted. Such elementary economics as that, the only useful labour was labour that produced useful articles, which in turn helped labour to produce again, was all new to me. Although I had had a vague idea that money spent on champagne and delicacies was wasted, I found that the Blatchford doctrine included cobwebby lace and similar useless and beautiful things in the 6ame category. "My old .ideas and ideals were all brought to naught, and it was late afternoon before this plain man with the big ideas had ceased speaking. We had both forgotten the lunch hour and the passing of time. "Of course I did not grasp all that was poured into my hungry soul, but before the end of the talk I did realise humbly that setting the poor, who themselves needed food and coal and decent housing, to build unnecessary rooms for an evening's enjoyment to cook dainties for people already overfed, and to make clothes for the rich dancers, was idle work. The great ball, and all its preparations, I found, had not added one iota to the national wealth." Study of a Science. She is a forthright lady, and at once got £10 worth of books on Socialism — doubtless Blatchford's "Merrie England" among them —engaged a professor to explain the hard bits to her. Here is her credo: — "Socialism early taught me that charity and kind giving from above are no substitute for the right of each individual to have an independent selfgoverned life. I soon saw that class privilege must give place to individual freedom of opportunity. Distinctions between persons may continue, necessary variations of types there must be; but my eyes were opened to the fact that the present basis of classification is neither reasonable nor just. Not only is it unjust that in present conditions some people work hard from morn till night without a fair recompense, while others without labouring for it have more than they can use, but the present method is also foolishly wasteful of good human material. I had a deep desire to help to mend this injustice, to help to stem this waste. Henceforth, through good and evil reports, I decided that Socialism was to be my creed."

Lady Warwick is a practical Socialist. She sent her daughter to the local Girls' High School, and Lady Marjorie Greville travelled there by tram just as did other high school girls. She has taken her share of local administration, encouraged experiment in education and care of the young and presented Easton Lodge, one of her houses, to the Labour party to be used as a social and educational centre. Her work for children is specially notable, and in this she was associated with the late Sir John Gorst. She quotes a letter she had from him after his visit to New Zealand in 1908. He wrote: —

"You should see the school children there, bursting with health and the finest young human animals you ever set eyes on. It was almost impossible to pick out a sickly-looking child. There is not a hungry child from North Cape to the Bluff, at the southern end. When we meet I will tell you about the New Zealand labour laws. There has been no strike since they were enacted 12 years ago, and neither employers nor employed wish to see them abrogated." For a woman who, as she herself puts it, is a descendant on the one hand of Nell Gwynn, and on the other from Oliver Cromwell, the record in these pages is a characteristic one. As she herself aptly puts it, "The Nell in me is all discretion. The Noll would fain be heard." There is much of both in the book, but undoubtedly her political and social reform activities will live long after her triumphs as one of a bevy of beautiful sisters —Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Algernon Gordon Lennox, and Sybil, Countess of Westmoreland, her step-eisters —who reigned in the social world. One of the illustrations shows the gathering of the Dominion premiers—Mr. Seddon —among them, and Indian princes at Warwick Castle in the year of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee.