KEIR HARDIE'S LEGACY

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 91, 20 April 1914, Page 6

KEIR HARDIES LEGACY

REFUSAL OF £300 A YEAR. ! LONDON, Feb". 13. I By the deaths of the Misses Eliza- ' beth and Jane Kippen, of Edinburgh, Mr Keir Hardie and Mr John Redmond benefited to the extent of £10,000, which money was divided between the Independent Labor party and the Irish party. The story of the legacy is told in this week's Labor Leader by Mr Keir Hardie:— \ "Elizabeth and Jane Kippen were ' sisters who never married. They inherited a good bit of money from their father, who was, I j^.ink, an .feast Indian trader, and tfiey added to the amount by judicious investments in this country and the United States of America. They travelled a great- deal, and for the last twenty' years of their lives had no set/tied home of their own. I was elected in V\ i ' 1 1 892 ' anc* on Setting home was told that two quaintly-dressed old ladies had spent a week in the village making" very exhaustive inquiries about my life and character. Later ■ ■in the year we were spending a, few days wijfch my wife's mother at Hamilton, and learned that they had been there also, and had visited my wife's mother. "They told her frankly their | errand. They knew that as a working man I would be none top flush of j money, and they were anxious to help jin this respect, provided they were satisfied ithat I was dependable. I 1 heir inquiries into my publicl record | were assuring, but—was I a good ) husband? A mother-in-law was the i oest authority oh that." ■ I __The upshot .was that Mr Keir 4 r^ was invited ;to ..Edinburgh. r -liio ; two ladfes said they had' been j helping to finance ithe Parnellite sec- ? tion of the Irish party, and also ■■ wanted to help Socialism, believing -; that Nationalism and Socialism would j one day be working together. They therefore proposed by written agree- ■ ment to pay him £300 a year so long ;as ho remained in Parliament, and to make provision for i/t being con- ; tinned after they had gone. ', Mr Keir Hardie says that to a man without, a shilling, and the pros- , pect of having to earn his living for some time, the offer had its practical advantages. But, after thinking it over, he declined the proposal, and suggested that the money should bo

given to the Scottish LahoV pnf'ty, l but this gave _ tlie Jadies "mighty '«| ■offence.^ Continuing hi? narrative, | Mr Keir. Hardie says t-—"Years ' passed, ere I heard from ffchem again, iMid_then it took the form of a; small Christmas gift,' In the autamii of < 1897 they sent me £100 as 'a gift' to- j be disposed of as 1 pleased. I sent j part of it to the Engineers' Lock-out I Fund, part to the Washington i Miners' Strike Fund, and the bai- ■ ance to the 1.L.P.: The next dona- : tion was £1000 sent through the il leader of the Irish party, and which j I passed on to the LL t P. Then they ' , made me the channeT" of sending a j very large sum to the funds of the ] Irish parity. It was their-way of j doing things. This was followed by i I another gift of £2000 to the I.L.P. i funds." i Finally came the bequests under i the will. "The Misses Kippen," i adds the Labor leader, "belonged to ] a generation which has passed away. I Quaint in dress, and full of an oldworld courtesy, they must have felt strangely cut off from ithe modern whirlpool of life. But instinctively ' they loved the common people and the cause of human freedom." j