MR WELLS AS POLITICIAN.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17631, 7 December 1922, Page 9

MR WELLS AS POLITICIAN.

ADOPTED AS LABOUR CANDIDATE.

(PROM OUR OWX COHRESPONDEKT.) f LONDON, October 13. Mr H. U. 'Wells has been adopted as the London University Labour candidate for the next election. Mr Wells naturally began his political career by inventing a. new kind of Labour Party. Ho understood Labour to mean, he said, every sort of creative effort and service that went to the making of civilisation; everything that made for acute civilisation as distinct from everything thac merely took advantage of civilisation. They wore particularly opposed to tho ideal of competition for possession and tor precedence, and to every sort of j manipulation lor private advantage of | complicated and not always very perfect niai-tunery of civilisation*. Theirs was not in any sense a. ciass j movement; it was a movement against ! class movement and class privilege, a ! movement to release civilisation trom I the dominance of the acquisitive class- I es. A representative of tne University of London would have a particular duty ! towartis education, and by education J he meant not the cheap training of the serf for his toil, not the training of young gentlemen in class dominance and esprit de corps, but the training of all men and women for free cooperation and happy servico in the common life of the State. In face of the blind clamour for economy such a representative would have to insist tnat education to-day was underpaid, understaffed, under-equipped, and dangerously cheap, and that at any cost it must be maintained and bettered. There were a thousand ways in which we could- retrench before we touched one halfpenny of the skimpy payments which went to maintain such education as we had. Ho never saw a Guardsman dressed up in his finery in Whitehall without thinking he was dressed in the stolen pens and stationery and the mental health of the poor kiddies of this country. They must build up a great body of authoritative knowledge, so that presently the financial and monetary affairs of the world would be managed, not by whisperings in the banker's parlour, but by plain speaking in the professorial, chair. Speaking of international relationships, Mr "Wells said the system of running human affairs as a patchwork of independent sovereign States and Empires, competing against each other, became more wasteful and more dangerous to civilisation and human happiness every year. Ho very much doubted the utility of the League of Nations. The sooner that League went into the melting pot before it got too fixed and set, and the sooner Russia and Germany and Turkey came into permanent conference with the Western Powers in the world's affairs, the better it would be for mankind- Look at the black outlook in the Balkans to-day! How could the poor little League of _ Nations, which neglected its opportunity to test itself with the Greets and Turks, expect to receive any sort of confidence and support from Russia and Turkey and Germany P

The "Acquisitive" Classes. "In what relation," the "Morning I Post" facetiously asks, "will Mr Wells stand towards his follows 1 in the Labour Party? How will he agree with those staunch exponents of ideas at least a hundred years out of date, Mr Arthur Henderson, Mr Clynes, Mr J. 11. Thomas? Thero is nothing so catholic about these leaders, if we are to believe their political declarations. They are for the working classes, and down with the others, all the time, or so they say. So far, it is true, they have only succeeded in depressing the lot of the 'workers,' but they persevere. How can a movement be not a class _ movement when it is directed' against other classes And here, greatly daring, v/e would invite Mr Wells to explain what are the 'inquieitive classes,'which exercise this terrible 'dominance?' Many quite intelligent and respectable people have hitherto believed that acquisitiveness is nob a quality whose possession is limited to a particular class, but that it is found in all classes. As for dominance, if any class be more dominant than the Labour Party to-day—as its members boast—we shall be glad" to hear of it. • • .But why does he talk thus, especially when he might be writing cheery stories?" [Mr Wells was defeated at the general elections last month.]