AN UNEMPLOYED DEMONSTRATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1204, 29 March 1895, Page 32

AN UNEMPLOYED DEMONSTRATION.

From Our Oivn Correspondent. London, February 8. I Lave become so familiar with the hollowness and insincerity of labour and unemployed " demonstrations "as a general thing, that I fear I am unable to look upon them in any other light than that 'of mere commonplace occurrences, coming round every winter with the unfailing regularity of the frost and snow. Therefore, when I saw a grand demonstration of the unemployed in Trafalgar square announced in Saturday's papers, I was glad when a wellknown New Zealand journalist, now in London, volunteered to give me his impressions of the affair, hoping- that in the freshness of a novel experience he might discern some new features or draw some moral which had hitherto escaped my observation. lam afraid, however, that the following description of the demonstration contains very little that distinguishes it from its predecessors in years past, though it may possibly interest colonial readers. One million of unemployed and two million dependents, three million starving and desperate men, women and children! I had seen these figures so frequently reiterated at labour meetings and in the newspapers that when I saw that there was to be a demonstration of the unemployed in Trafalgar square I expected to find every avenue leading to the place thronged with a dense mass of emaciated, woebegone, hungry people. The hour appointed for the demonstration was half-past 2 o'clock, but long after that time there was nothing in the appearance of Trafalgar square to distinguish it from its everyday aspect. A few little groups of decently-dressed men, mostly smoking pipes and cigars, had gathered under the shadow of Nelson's monument, around the statue of General G-ordo - smothered in a bower of laurel wreath and ribbons and flowers, or strolled abou amongst the piles of snow. But about 3 o'clock there was a cry of " There they come!" and in the distance I caught a glimpse of a very thin array of banners and a procession which could not at the outside have exceeded one hundred men. They marched into the Square cheering rather feebly, while the rearward party, belonging to the Social-Democratic Federation, made a dismal effort to sing the " Marsellaise" in a quavering wailing voice that sounded like a funeral dirge. The banners, bearing some strange devices, were arranged in the form of a square at the back of the column, while the leaders climbed up to the plinth of the monument, from which coign of vantage they were to address the crowd. In the meantime I studied the mottoes on the banners, which bore such inscriptions as the following : —" We claim the right to work;" "Let us work that we may eat;" "In this England, which should be ours, a full-formed horse is valued more than a full-formed man "; " A starving man has a natural right to his neighbour's bread." Among the labour unions represented were the Amalgamated Society of General Toelmakers and Machinists, the Warehousemen and Cutters, Labourers' Union, the Marylebone branch of the Independent Labour Party, the Kingsland branch of the Social-Democratic Federation, and one or two others. But as regards numbers the demonstration was a melancholy fiasco. There were not 500 persons present altogether, and only a sprinkling of these belonged to the labour class. The great majority were clerks and shopmen, and ordinary citizens attracted by mere curiosity to the scene- There were not half a dozen ragged or ill-fed men in the crowd. The very poorest man among them had his *' baccy " and could " blow a cloud " whilst waiting for the speeches. In the intervals of studying the people and the banners, I found myself wondering why the foot of Nelson's monument should. Ibe chosen above all places for a meeting of the unemployed. Certainly the hero of the Nile and Trafalgar was not one of the unemployed. On the contrary, he •was a very hard-working man. But there was something of the fitness of things in the fact that Nelson's gaze was turned away from the handful of agitators and firebrands who composed this so-called demonstration, who uttered violent and revolutionary language, and a small knot of whom had the execrable bad taste to liiss tne name of tlae Queen at a subsequent stag-e of the meeting. On these things Nelson had turned his back. He was looking over from his eyrie towards the Houses of Parliament in the hope, perhaps, that some relief might come from that quarter, There was a movement in the crowd when Mr Kavanagh, a painter, came forward to open the proceedings, regretting the absence of Mr John Burns and other members of Parliament, the mention of whose names was received with hisses. *The chief point in the chairman's introductory remarks was the statement that

three million unemployed workers are in danger of " starving like rats in a corner." Mr Will Thorne, another working man then moved a resolution calling upon the Government and the local bodies to find work for the 1,000,000 unemployed in a way which would not entail loss of citizenship, or carry any other form of degradation, the remuneration bo be at trades union rates of wages. It was noticeable, however, that the mover did not attempt to suggest the source from which this vast army of men are to be paid, or even the work that may be found for them. A docker's wife, who was very respectably attired in black, and had a round, happy-looking face, seconded the resolution.

/ Mr Tom Mann, who next supported the I resolution, was received with cheers. He is a man above the middle height, l with the appearance of a mechanic. The type of his face, the full black moustache, and something in his tone and manner, give one the impression of an American. He wore a very conspicuous red scarf, which is probably one of the badges of the new social revolutionists. He speaks fairly well, though an occasional solecism betrays his lack of education. He made a severe onslaught on the Post Office authorities, whom he accused of overworking and underpaying their employees, and it was, he declared, because the Cabinet supported this state of things that he was " a rebel in the fullest sense of the

word." He was glad they had assembled peaceably, but if their appeals were ignored he would tell them "to play the very devil." If he were an unemployed man and saw his wife and children starving for bread "then, by God, he would take up any weapon he could lay hands on and fight for existence." Mrs Mary Gray, one of the new guardians, made a speech from the advanced woman's point of view, vigorously denouncing the men for having brought things to " such a state of muddle," and declaring that only the interference-of the women could put matters right. Mrs Gray is a brisk, voluble, masterful sort of woman, but not exactly the kind of wife that would be selected by a man who desired a quiet home. Alderman Ben Tillett, in a long overcoat and capacious black " billycock " hat, came forward with his hands carelessly thrust

into his coat pockets, and delivered a highly amusing and ironical speech. He said they ought to hear no more about "the right to work/" but about "the right to live." If they were to tell the aristocracy that they had a right to work, they would be insulted. But their way of living would suit him right down to the ground. The working classes should form a society, and take an oath not to do another bit of work until the Prince of Wales did his share, and until all Piccadilly was emptied, and the residents set to breaking stones. The Biblical saying that the man who will not work neither shall he eat had been reversed in modern times. The remedy for the unemployed was not sweeping snow from the streets, but the abolition of rent, interest and parasites. The working classes should pack up their traps and go into the workhouses until there was a redistribution of wealth. And much more of the same kind of fustian, which excited merely laughter from the crowd.

Of course the resolution was carried, a certain Dr Taylor, who climbed up to the plinth and wanted to move an amendment, being ruled out of order. Mr Jack Williams, a restless little man, who denounced Lord Rosebery as "the gambling Premier," and declared that Mr Morley was chiefly employed in providing soothing syrup for Mr Redmond, made a bellicose speech, concluding with a resolution calling upon certain members of Parliament to take action in the House of Commons to relieve the unemployed, which was seconded by a Mr Warren, who announced himself as a "parson," though his appearance belied that description. He wore a large bow of red ribbon pinned- to the breast of his coat, and his language was of the same combustible character as that of the other speakers. Amongst others things he spoke slightingly of the Queen, whose name was received with hisses from a small knot of Socialists, and declared that the Prince of Wales ought to be compelled to do some useful work other than that of playing baccarat with the earnings of the people. When the second resolution had been hastily passed the strains of a military band* drowned the voice of the next speaker, and the crowd began to melt away. But for some minutes a man in the plinth struggled in -u- a in to make himself heard, and at length retired with the remark that as he was one of the starving employed, he was going home to dinner, which provoked a laugh from the few persons who were near enough to distinguish his remarks from the dumb show of his energetic gesticulations.

On the whole, as a demonstration the affaii was a hollow mockery and sham. It was nothing more than a miserable attempt on the part of the Social Democrats and Anarchists to make a stalking horse of the unemployed question in order to air their peculiar views. In fact, to use an Americanism, they showed that they cannot demonstrate worth a* red cent. I have sees? more than once f&r more earnest and much more numerous labour demonstrations in second rate towns in Australia and New Zealand. If there are a round million of unemployed in England, of whom a considerable proportion are in London, they did not come to Trafalgar square, and

I think they showed by their absence the amount of confidence they have in the efficacy of such demonstrations and leaders as were in evidence on Saturday.

SIR JOHN GORST ON THE UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM.

London, February 9. A brand new suggestion for solving the unemployed problem is put forward by the editor of the Daily Chronicle. The round million of idle men are to be employed in planting trees on the waste lands! Eureka ! The philosopher of Fleet street, who probably cannot distinguish a forest tree from a shrub, solves the problem of the ages in a little leading article. There are upwards of 10,000 persons out of work in • West Ham, including 700 women, who are besieging the vestries with appeals for food. In Croydon, 33 per cent, of the people are out of work. And the remedy for this state of things, in the infinite wisdom of a Fleet street editor, complacently delivering oracles beside a warm fire, is to set them to planting trees, with the thermometer below zero, and the snow lying thick on the ground. The number of persons who could find employment to the acre at this kind of work, the utility of the work itself when done by men whose only knowledge of arboriculture has been gathered by looking at the trees on Hampstead Heath or in the public parks, or the number of years that must elapse before the " afforestment" would yield any return on the outlay, are points of vulgar detail as to which the editor, in the pride of his soaring genius, is contemptuously silent. As a practical, immediate and reproductive remedy, there would be just about as much sense in setting the un- ! employed to extract sunbeams f rom cucum- j bers.

The remedy suggested by Sir John Gorst is far more effectual and far - reaching. The plan is to set the unemployed to the production of additional food, and to displacing imported food which affords work for foreigners. Sir John has been living during the recess in the East End, and has been studying the problem from the inside. He has seen the magnitude of the evil, and he knows that it can only be dealt with on a comprehensive scale. Tory though he is, he seems to have caught the Radical tone of his temporary environment. He has no faith in commissions. They are simply " devices for hanging up a question." In his opinion "an unemployed man—whether he is a duke or a docker—is living on the community." But if he is set to grow food, "he is enriching the community by what he produces/' The men who will not work he would place under " penal discipline/' As examples of the success of his proposal, he points to the beggar colonies of Holland, the labour colonies of Germany, and the Labour Bureau of New Zealand, which distributes labour to meet local wants. But how are you to distribute an army of a million, with two millions of dependents ? It is all very well to theorise, but there seems to be great danger of England being strangled and dragged down by a drowning mass. Another of Sir John Gorst's suggested remedies is the constitution of labour tribunals by the local bodies, " and clothed with the authority of the State," an improved Employers' Liability Act, without the option of contracting out, which means "the shifting of the responsibility from the employers to the ratepayers," and old age pensions. All this I gather from an interview between Sir John and a representative of The Realm. But to a coloniat it affords much food for reflection. Sir John admits that the Tory Party are no more agreed upon the methods of dealing with the unemployed difficulty than are the Radicals. But to one who is not thoroughly cognisant of the modifying influences that are moulding the policy of both parties it would seem that the Tories are stealing the clothes of the Radicals and Socialists and are going to go them " one better." j