MR. KEIR HARDIE, M. P.

North Otago Times, 6 September 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

MR. KEIR HARDIE, M. P.

Mr James Kcir Hardic, the founder and natural leader of the new Labour . Party in the House of Commons, ; was bom in a Lanarkshire mining' village in 1856. His mother taught him to read, but he never went to school for even a single day, and ho was a man growii ere he learned to sign .his name. At seven' he was put to work, first as an errand boy, then as a rivetbeater, and finally, just as he had turned his ninth year, he wont down into the coal pit. Here, incredible as it may seem, he.taught himself to write longhand and then shorthand. His method was simplicity. itself. As everybody knows, there are many enforced in-' , torvals of idleness in a collier's work below ground. Young Hardic, during these interval?, would take his pit lamp, blacken with its smoke a, piece of smooth white stone; and scratch with a pin upon the prepared surface the letters of the alphabet and shorthand characters. For fourteen years ho toiled beneath the surface of the earth at what is perhaps 'the most arduous occupation a man can be engaged in, educating himself in the manner above described all the while; then, at the age of twenty-three, he dropped pick and shovel and became secretary to the Lanarkshire Miners' Union.

At twenty-five he blossomed forth as a journalist, acting as sub-editor of a provincial paper, a post which he retained for four years. But his one ambition always was to voice tho claims of his class in Parliament and in 1888, at the age of thirtytwo, ho stood for Mid-Lanark, Of course, he was defeated; that was a foregone conclusion. Bht the failure sufficed to make his name known far and wide throughout the world of labour, and in 1895 he was invited to contest South West Ham. He was elected by a majority, of 1,232, His parliamentary debut was perhaps the most talked about, albeit probably the least important episode In his whole career. •He drove up to the palace of Westminister in a hired brake with a number of his supporters, who Were, as was perhaps only natural under the circumstances, hilariously jubilant. Mr. Hardic presented himself at the bar of the House, to take the oath, wearing a blue serge, double-breasted jacket and waistcoat, fawn-coloured trousers, a striped flannel shirt, with a red .woollen scarf tied round the collar in a sailor knot. In his hand ho carried a blue cloth workman's cap.

: Never before or since, perhaps, did one man's attire create such a sensation. "It was," to quote Mr. Stead, "as if the avant courier of the social revolution had knocked at the portals of Parliament." Next day every newspaper in the land commented on the incident, and "Punch" promptly christened the new member. ■"Mr. 'Don't-Keir Hardie." His career since then nas been public property. What the future holds in store, for him it is impossible to say. But. many think that he is destined to be. the Parnell of• the Labour Party .-"T.A.T."