BRITAIN'S WORKLESS.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 542, 17 October 1908, Page 5

BRITAIN'S WORKLESS.

WAR AGAINST POVERTY,

"NOT A SKIRMISH."

Press Association—Copyright. London, Yesterday. Mr John Burns, speaking at Tynemoutli, said no legislation relating to the right to work of the unemployment problem would be introduced tills session, but by next ranch more would be spent in the distress areas in non-pauper relief than duiing the whole period of the Lancashire cotton famine.

Mr Burns also declared he refused to be a party to panic legislation in regard to unemployment. The war against poverty was rot a skirmish but a long dogged campaign lasting perhaps a century. INCITING TO ROB. LABOUR M.P. SUMMONED. London* Yesterday. The police have summoned Mr Will Thome, Labour member for the West Ham division of London, on a charge that he did, on October 10th incite the unemployed in Trafalgar Square to rush baker's shops to obtain bread.

Mr Thome has had a variegated career. Born in Birmingham in 1857, at six years of age he worked in a baiber's shop, at seven at a ropewalk, at eight in a brick field. He was one of the founders of the Gasworkers' Union in 1889. A member of the West Ham Borough Council in 1890, he was deputy mayor in 1898. The awful conditions prevailing amongst London's starving millions have unnerved many in touch with them aud more well balanced heads than Mr Thome's have been unhinged by the awful suffering that can be witnessed daily in any of the poorer quarters of the Imperial capital. SCENE IN COMMONS. SOCIALIST MEMBER EVICTED. London, Yesterday. In the House of Commons immediately after questions had been disposed of, Mr Victor Grayson, the Socialist M.P. for Colne Valley, appearing to be in a greatly excited state, rose and moved the adjournment of the House in order to discuss the question of unemployment.

The speaker declared that the Licensing Bill was the first business.

Mr Grayson refused to permit a discussion of the Licensing question while people were starving in the streets. Hβ refused to obey the Speaker's ruling either to sit down or to stop speaking.

Ultimately the Sergeant at Arms removed him from the House, and he was suspended for the rest of the sitting.

Mi Victor Giayaon is the first Socialist to sit in the House of Commons on that title alone. He is a man of only 26 years of age, bnt is distinguished by his remarkable appearance, his fluency of speeoh and nib thorough sincerity. Hβ "etudied for the ministry then economics and was a free-lance journalist till his eleotion for Colue Valley in 1907. The sordid conditions and awful desolation of that place are snob, that it would not be surprising if an anarchist were returned as member. Mr Grayson is very bitter when championing the wrongs of the oppreesed British poor, and created a wave of public indignation not long ago by referring to Lord Croiner as a ' social parasite' when protesting against the large sum of money voted the Maker of Egypt by Parliament. Mr Grayson excites considerable sympathy among progressive thinkers of England by reason of his singular earnestness and faith in the power of the people to right their own wrongs.