II. THE DEMOCRATISING OF PARLIAMENT. IN N proportion to the spread of intelligence among workmen apathy and indifference disappear; a corresponding restlessness characterises the democracy with regard to their social and industrial surroundings; and every available institution is being used to alter for the better these conditions. Every year finds a larger proportion of the workers calling for increased attention from Parliament, and, as they are capable of wielding great influence at election times, this results in their getting more attention. But progress is painfully slow, and the energy of the average member of Parliament in the House of Commons appears to be chiefly directed to furthering the commercial interests of capitalists and landlords. Such a statement as this ought not to be made without adequate grounds. I would not make it if I did not honestly believe it; and, whilst I freely admit that my own powers of close observation are not great or comprehensive, I am assured by those who have the opportunity and, I believe, the capacity for judging, that such really is the case, even with the present House of Commons. This means that members of Parliament as a body do not honestly try to work for the national welfare, but for the welfare of mere sections, and generally upon such lines that the well-being of the entire community cannot possibly be secured. Indeed, a large proportion of the members, as is well known, deliberately seek positions as members for the express purpose of wielding greater commercial influence, which is equivalent to saying, for the purpose of entrenching aristocracy and plutocracy the more securely. Of real, inspiriting national sentiment these men are utterly devoid; still less are they possessors of the qualities that impel men to noble deeds on cosmopolitan lines. Trade and commerce fill the House; and the mere money-making and money-keeping spirit pervades every committee-room. I am far from condemning the House as an idle assembly. I know the vast majority are very active. Railway directors work hard and well for their shareholders; landowners are most watchful in the interests of class privilege and monopoly; shipowners are always alert in the interests of shipowners; colliery proprietors are busy indeed at checking any action on the part of workmen for obtaining better conditions of toil. Every man capable of realising an ideal, and of working for humanity, groans within himself at the knowledge of these things; and every one who believes that however slow may be the march of events, yet this march is that of democracy, must ask himself: Is it possible to use this institution of Parliament to help on the social betterment of the community? And the reply, according to my judgment, is: It is next to impossible to use Parliament for such an object, unless Parliament itself can be democratised. Now the one thing abundantly clear in connection with Parliament is this, that aristocrats and plutocrats boss the show, that democracy rarely gets a look in, and that when it does it is on the same conditions as when the contestants in a tug-of-war by sheer force compel the opposing party to move their heels nearer to the centre they wish. to avoid in order to get a firmer resistance. The nauseating talk of what the one or the other party has given to democracy is so loathsome that, for decency's sake, it is high time politicians dropped it; such bunkum is seen through by all but the veriest blockheads, and when these same politicians offer their great services to the various constituencies "free, gratis, and for nothing," as the quacks put itwell, the workmen of to-day know what it means; and whilst some put their tongue in cheek and close one eye, others feel disposed to treat so magnanimous a candidate with rotten eggs, &c., and, fortunately for the welfare of the British Empire, inside of five years wealthy men will be at a great discount as candidates for Parliament. Instead of being qualified by their wealth such men will be avoided, left severely alone, and that because it is the determined intention of the workmen electors of the British Isles to democratise the British Parliament. This cannot be done unless members are paid for services rendered; and workmen who get wages for work done know of no sufficient reason why members of Parliament should not be remunerated. "What, pay men who behave as you have stated!" may be asked, and we workmen say "Yes, pay all; we need not mince matters; we would pay all, in order that democracy may exercise its rightful influence in Parliament, that the supporters of class privilege and monopoly may be removed; the miserable pretences now made at election times by rich politicians of either side are so glaringly unreal that many of the more intelligent section of voters deliberately refuse to vote for either." } But if the State payment of members becomes a fact, what is likely to happen to the two great political parties? That is their look-out; in any case the workers' duty is to see to it that plutocracy is dislodged. I emphasise plutocracy here, because, in the workers' opinion, the modern plutocratic friend is frequently a worse enemy than the aristocratic foe, and it is an intimate knowledge of this fact that has caused the advanced section of workers to demonstrate their contempt for both political parties. It is the exhibition of a dense ignorance on the part of rich capitalists of all matters concerning industrial economics-exactly analogous to that [of the landed aristocrat, without the redeeming qualification commonly exhibited by the aristocrat of a kind of patriarchal sympathy and care for the toilerthat has caused labour-men occasionally to express a preference for the aristocratic landlord as against the plutocratic capitalist. But both must go the workers of England will make headway without the patronage of the plutocrat or the fatherly (but despotic) care of the aristocrat. Men who have been forbidden the opportunity to exercise a moderate amount of influence through legislative institutions until they have literally forced their way to the front against adverse conditions, are likely to prove capable of carrying on the work when they get inside Parliament and the governing departments ; and just as a person is paid, and ought to be paid, for services rendered in a department of the State, so must a worker in our future Parliaments be paid for services rendered in Parliament. As workmen view it, to do this would be right and proper if we had no complaint of monopoly by the wealthy; it is right and vitally necessary now that that monopoly is a fact, and the sooner it ceases to be a fact the better for the entire community. In view of the definite reply given by Mr. Gladstone respecting the attitude of the Government towards this question, we find that in influential quarters of the Cabinet there is a determined opposition to this payment of members. Some of the most capable lawyers declare that there would be no violation of anything in the British Constitution if this matter were covered at Budget time; but there is the drawback that if disposed of in this way another session might find a Budget which did not provide for such payment; and it is perhaps quite as well for all concerned that the question should be fought out and finally settled by legislation; and that when it is dealt with there should be payment for all members, and not the miserable emphasising of class distinctions by payment for poor men only. It should not be necessary to point out that there are one or two matters more pressing than payment of members, such as the second ballot and payment of returning officers' fees; but some workmen are in the habit of treating this payment-of-members question as the one subject of vital importance. Unless the second ballot becomes law, at least as soon as the payment of members, even worse anomalies in the way of misrepresentation of constituencies may be exhibited than those we have to-day. Indeed to have payment of members without the guarantee of a majority vote for the successful candidate would play into the hands of the faddists; nor can one feel sanguine of much democratic advantage accruing until plural voting is abolished. This shameful use of multifarious votes by the privileged sections is surely to be wiped out this session; if not, a bitter hostility will exhibit itself towards those who are responsible. The objection is sure to be raised that in those countries where members of Parliament are already paid, it has not resulted in bringing those advantages to the democracies of those countries which I have dwelt upon. The answer to that is that in many cases where members are paid, the workers have not the opportunity of effectively using that machinery of Government, for various reasons; whilst in other cases, where the franchise is broad, and the opportunity for election to the governing institution comparatively easy, the stage of economic development so far reached is insufficient to warrant a wise and effective use of this machinery by the workers. Fortunately for this country the workers know well that the mere possession of the machinery of government is not in itself of any value unless accompanied by the possession of the requisite qualities to know how to use it. A nation in which the vast majority are content to plod along upon lines that secure them nothing more than the mere food and clothing necessary to sustain life is unlikely to use a Parliament to much purpose; there must be the desire for better things, the determination to try to get them, and a correct economic knowledge as to how to proceed. Ignorance occupies a far too important position in this country as yet; but capable observers admit that no other country on earth can show the same record of success for its industrial population in their battles against adverse forces—in spite of many mistakes—in having learned how to progress, how to organise, to control, to administer, and to legislate. For Parliament is not by any means the only institution that legislates for the welfare of the community in this country. The trade and labour organisations are legislative and administrative institutions in a very real and important sense, as are also the co-operative societies and kindred democratic institutions. The workers of Britain are not strangers to self-government; they know much of the responsibilities of important office, and they know something of the risks and advantages of a daring policy. Not that all have been able as yet to avail themselves of the advantages of trade unionism-this is far from being the case; but a sufficiently large proportion have done so to warrant them in undertaking to supplement the work done by themselves in these voluntary institutions by other work for and by themselves in the Imperial Parliament and in our local governing institutions. That democracy is advancing all may see who will observe what goes on at elections to our Town and County Councils. These institutions, like Parliament, have been monopolised for the most part by the classes; but the democracy is now rising to a sense of its duties; its rights we need not dwell upon; they will be secured by a proper discharge of duties-duties to itself and to humanity. No longer can we rely upon what Matthew Arnold called our upper class— Barbarians, or our middle class-Philistines; the populace will now make a greater proportionate progress than that of either the Barbarians or the Philistines. Speaking of the former, Matthew Arnold says: "One has often wondered whether upon the whole earth there is anything so unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class." "" * Of the middle class he observes: "Philistine gives the notion of something particularly stiff-necked and perverse in the resistance to light and its children; and therein it specially suits our middle class." It is from such sources that our legislators and administrators, local and imperial, have been drawn. Now the common people are to exercise due control in all matters social, industrial, and moral; and they will do this with proper regard to the uses that may be made of the various institutions. It is not a case of falling back despairingly upon Parliament, and asking that it shall in its mercy take pity upon a feeble folk; it is this folk themselves that intend to legitimately use Parliament and the lesser bodies to reconstruct our social and industrial fabric. The men who, whilst enjoying conditions made possible largely by Parliamentary action, dissuade other sections from using Parliament, need not receive attention here. There is, however, one other phase of this question that merits attention, and that is, that those workmen who have not yet done anything towards thinking out or working out the social and industrial problem should not be encouraged to suppose that Parliament can help them in any wonderful way. Some men there are who deliberately and persistently act the part of blacklegs, from the trade-union standpoint, getting all they can at the expense of the effort of the Trade Unionists, and who fall back upon Parliamentary methods to secure them something more. This meanness of spirit and general behaviour fortunately is not general; but labour-men should not hesitate to make it clear tó all that the educational work necessary to rightly qualify men for effective action in or through Parliamentary agencies has been done in the past, and is done to a greater extent now, in and through the trade and labour organisations; and those who refuse to be identified with such organisations are endeavouring to take a short and cheap excursion to better conditions, * "Culture and Anarchy," p. 45. † Ibid. p. 62. VOL. LXIII, 2 K |