WORKLESS IN LONDON

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 240, 7 July 1931, Page 9

WORKLESS IN LONDON

Ramsay MacDonald’s Dark Days ' 12/6 A WEEK CLERKSHIP. Visions of himself as a friendless Scottish boy of 18, without a job, tramping the streets of London and not. knowing where his next meal was coming from, must have been in Mr. Ramsay MaeDonald’s mind when he recently toldla West Bromwich audience: I k “bw unemployment is. I have trodden the streets J London, envying the very newspaper boys, knowing that, however little they might,be making, I, at least, was by the offer of job in London, says the ‘ Sunday Disj natch," the future Prime Minister turned his back, as he believed, on the extreme poverty which had been his lot as boy and pupil teacher in Lossiemouth, his birthplace in Scotland. But there was n work for him- when he reached the capital. With only a few shilling m his pocket, the young man was stranded; but he refused to accept failure and return to Lossiemouth, or even to let his friends there know of kin plight. He wanted to study and obtain a science scholarship. Instead he read and answered advertisements, and walked miles daily on the ehance of finding work. . Day after day went by, and young MaeDonald was penniless when, on the verge of desperation, he obtained work addressing envelopes at the offices of the new yformed Cyclists’ Touring Club. The tasit was I poorly-paid, and, having never ridden T bicycle, he was not interested in the Ob H^ tS addr^ed and more than 40 years later he. was the guest of honour at the dub s jubilee dinn Mr. MacDonald’s next job was an invoice derk in’ a city warehouse, at a wage M 12/6 a week. That left no money for mid-day meals, and he spent the luncheon hours reading in the Guildhall LibraryIn the evening he studied at Birkdeck College, and the interest of an analytical chemist led to his exchanging the warehouse for more congenial work m a la l Adream of a scholarship at South Kensington, with a scientific career to follow, was shattered, however, by a seveie breakdown in health. Insufficient sleep and scanty meals had undermined a eonstitution never over strong. Mr* MacDonald could not take the examination. At this time the coming ste , ttst ? a " A ad his political baptism of fire in risking arrest in order to hold with other ’»>“« Though* then Liberal candidate Islington. “Now I have atta tune,” he wrote. His career was beginning to shape itself.