THE BRITISH ELECTIONS. A Bloodless Revolution.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 290, 20 January 1906, Page 6

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS. A Bloodless Revolution.

JOHN Bull, the worker, is revolting a good deal more effectively than Ivan the peasant. Anyhow, the tremendous victory of Liberalism at the Home general elections, and particularly of the Labour party, forecasts a revolution—a bloodless, peaceful revolution — very beneficial to- all at Home. It is a splendid thing far any aristocracy, for any great body of rulers in any country, to receive a check at the hands of the people who* are responsible for their whole wealth, their whole position, even their titular distinctions. Humble pie is good discipline for the aristocrat, whose sole right to rule m the past has been thatr-his father ruled m the past. * * +■ * The growing power of labour at Home is no> menace. It is a salvation. The great labour leaders in the Old Land are more level-headed than the labour leaders (who* are not great) m the colonies. The labour leaders in Great Britain are, as a rule, men who are capable of filling any position with dignity now held by an aristocrat, and who* have won upwards by force of character, and not force of tongue. • • • Conceive the bright prospects that may be ahead of Britain in the weakening of the rule of the aristocrat and the rule of the capitalist. Think for a moment of the brightness a Government by the people for the people could bring into the lives of the millions of Britain When capital is not strong enough to keep itself in power, when the grand dukes of Russia with all their millions avail not, when the Rand robbers are powerless to- keep the supply of Chinese up in South Africa, when the territorial lords of Britain are unable to buy an election — this is the time when the advance of thought has given the British worker the courage to exercise his own opinion. * • • Britain, essentially a country of workers, has awakened but slowly,

and she is not veiy wide-awake yet a» to the power of the people. But, it is better to awaken slowly than to start from sleep as France did, and as Russia is now doing. It is withm the bounds of possibility that the Old Country, with a Liberal Government m which Labour is strongly represented, will become increasingly democratic, although the moss-grown conventions cannot be swept away by any new broom m half-a-century If the new Government recognises that a man has an equal right to walk the earth, whether he be a scavenger or a belted earl, a,nd that if the two were panned off the scavenger might go more real gold to the ton than the earl, it will do much good.

Let us also hope that the poor of Britain shall not always have to turn their faces away from Home to be at home. In short, the new Groverament ought to begin to people Britain with Britons. Scatter them. "Smaller cities, bigger villages" is John Burns's way, and maybe John Burns' way is a good way for th& Old Country.