"THE RIGHT TO WORK."

Evening Star, Issue 12943, 5 May 1908, Page 1

"THE RIGHT TO WORK."

The mosfc interesting feature of the dekit© f, n M- r !*• W. Wilsons “Right to Work” Bill in the House of Commons was the absence of no fewer than 280 Liberals from the yoting 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' 1 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 Sir 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, whicli was defeated by 265 votes to 116 on the second reading. Those who supported the Bill were the Independent Labor party, the Nationalists, a number of “ Left Wing ” Liberals, and two Unionists (Sir Arthur Bignold and Mr Watson Rutherford). The abstention of so many Liberals from voting seems to indicate that the voting power of the working class is beginning to bo realised. As the workers are finding their strength, so are the nation’s representatives' in Parliament beginning to treat tliat strength with a very wholesome respect, li the workers were fully alive to'the possibilities of co-operation, they could be the dominant force in Parliament, for they are overwhelmingly the most numerous party in the country. They are gradually waking up to the fact, and politicians aro 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. Pancras at the last General Election, pointed out in introducing his Bill that the solution of the problem was long overdue. He agreed with Mr Burns that charity had failed ; soup kitchens were absolutely useless as a solution of the priThe root principle of his Bill u..s that the problem of unemployment should be regarded as a national matter. The 1! U established regular employment comm dices for all authorities, and thus a unifo; m policy was applied to the whole of the ecu,atry.' The first duty of the committees uas to register the unemploj-ed. and tliat icgislcr would be in itself almost a readymade universal system of labor exchanges. The work clauses dealt with two fairly distinct classes of work—work done by the national authority and work done by the local authority. ‘He admitted that if' they cot the work don© by the local authority out of the Bill altogether they would have made a valuable advance in respect of this problem. There would he an opportunity for the Local Government Board itself to establish national schemes of afforestation, farm colonies, or works dealing with coast erosion. The Bill contemplated going to the assistance of a man before ho lost bis self-respect and before ho got right down into toe gutter. Over and over again the House had boon asked to pity the agricultural laborer and grant him security of tenure. What was security of tenure buttin' right to work, and the Bill asked that that security should be extended to the people who lived in tenements. The problem of tlie unemployed would never be solved until the loafers were segregated from the class above them, upon whom they lived as parasites.

The Independent Labor party's point of view was voiced by Mr Ramsay Macdonald, who seconded the’ Bill. He declared that Parliament could not now refuse to endorse the principle that work must be found by hook or by crook for honest men and women who. on the faith of the expectations raised by the Bill of 1905. were registering their names for work. Some members o' the Liberal party fancied they heard tin rumble of the tumbril of Socialism. They imagined fateful results from tills Libor demand. Their fears were, of course, exaggerated. but if the sms culottes had been led to the bombardment of the Bastille, it was Mr Walter Long who was primarily responsible. Under present conditions society had to assist the poverty-stricken after they had entered the sombre' portals of the workhouse. Why. he asked, s'hordd society not do this earlier? The cost involved would not exceed that of one Dreadnought annually, and the result achieved would Ire infinitely more useful to the nation, for if we permitted the evil of unemployment to foster in our midst we should have to pay the heavy price of a lowered national vitality. A man in need of work might be assisted permanently by trainin'' Inn on the land or temporarily in other'way:.. Liberal-Labor members lake Mr Madd . o i and Mr Vivian denounced the Bill, and Mr John Burns, in a forcible speech, condemned proposals which lie declared to be unworkable and calculated to discourage prudence and self-reliance in the working classes. Mr Asquith also condemned the Bill, on the ground that it would aggravate unemployment instead of curing itHe refused' to recognise this principle of the right to work and the dutv of the State to provide work.

1 lie Bill was thrown out. but it had served to demonstrate the growing strength of the feeling that it is the duty of the State to grapple with this hideous problem of unemployment, and guarantee, in return for services rendered, a docent minimum of subsistence to each member of the community.