stifle the scruples of powerful classes and interests in the country. But good opportunism was nothing more than a recognition of the fact that they might do harm if they rushed at a thing which was momentarily impossible, and that they ought to watch for the proper time and the proper method, lest they should do more harm than good to the cause which they sought to serve. It was the kind of opportunism by which most of the good had been done in the world.

The Government only a few days later afforded a painful object lesson in opportunism. In face of the opposition raised by the railway interest in Parliament, Mr. Ritchie announced the intention of the Government to withdraw the Railways Regulation Bill which had been introduced with the object of protecting the lives of railway servants, especially shunters. The bill aimed at making the adoption of automatic couplings compulsory within five years from the passing of the bill. That there was urgent need of some such protection as proposed was borne out by the ghastly return of men killed or injured annually on our railways. Unfortunately railway directors could rely on the support of railway shareholders, if an expenditure likely to reduce dividends was suggested; and although every statement of this kind was was traversed by those more interested in the lives of railway men than in the interests of shareholders, the Government decided to bend before the storm, and to withdraw the bill without venturing a challenge of strength upon the second reading.

CHAPTER III.

The Socialists at Leeds-Mr. Courtney in Cornwall-Harrow Election-The Budget Small Houses Acquisition Bill-Decoration of St. Paul's-Board of Education Bill-The London Government Bill in Committee-The Finance Bill-The Primrose League at the Albert Hall and the Salvation Army at the Mansion House-The Education Estimates-The Vice-President's ProtestThe Church Discipline Bill-Technical Education Bill for Ireland-China and the Transvaal-The Licensing Commission-Lord Rosebery and the State of the Liberal Party-The Queen's Eightieth Birthday.

THE Easter recess, although marked by several stirring events abroad, in which Great Britain was more or less closely interested, was singularly devoid even of political speeches. The disputes between the representatives of the three Powers concerned in the administration of the Samoan Islands, each jealously asserting the claims of their respective Governments, had culminated in the appointment of three commissioners with nearly absolute powers to revise the Constitution. In the recent disturbances the cooperation of the British and American representatives against the German officials had been the most marked feature.

A Socialist gathering at Leeds (March 31) was noteworthy as being one of the first public conferences of a body which for some time had been steadily increasing in numbers, although

their weight in political life was but vaguely recognised. Mr. Sidney Webb, who presided, said the conference included members of bodies of every size, from the London County Council and the London School Board to Boards of Guardians, District Councils, Borough Corporations, and even Parish Councils. The object of it was educational, and to give them an opportunity of exchanging experiences, in order that they might be enabled better to discharge their duties as representatives of the electors and ratepayers. The 30,000 local governing bodies, which had all been created within the last seventy years, now administered directly at least 400,000,000l. of capital, and directly employed about 400,000 persons, representing 4 per cent. of the total population. But all the mighty accomplishments of municipal government during the last seventy years were insignificant compared with what they wanted to see accomplished in the next seventy years. In some quarters a commencement was being made in the problem of better housing as well as the relative question of locomotion. He was not in favour of Socialists on public bodies using their representative positions for promoting general schemes of propagandism, or wide, impracticable proposals. Mr. F. Brocklehurst (Manchester) agreed that many Socialists too often regarded themselves merely as propagandists. He urged that our great municipalities should have an increase of local powers, with less interference by central authorities. Councillor Godbold (West Ham) represented a Socialist majority of a Town Council which had now realised almost the whole of their aims, and was getting somewhat hard up for a programme. Mr. W. Crookes, L.C.C., believed in drawing together into one representative body all the various public functions and public work now spread amongst various bodies. There should be more generous treatment of labour representatives on public bodies. He was now acting as chairman of a Board of Guardians which had sent him into the workhouse in 1861. Mr. Shepherd (Bristol) contended that it was the duty of a labour representative to look first after the interests of his own class. Mr. Day (Norwich) maintained that no enterprise or undertaking of a corporation such as a tramway should be carried on with a view to earning profits. The chairman said much depended upon whether any profits so earned went into a common fund in which all the ratepayers shared. After a short adjournment the representatives met in three separate sections, which dealt respectively with educational, poor-law, and municipal questions. Councillor A. Priestman (Bradford), in the Municipal Section, read a paper on "The Unemployed," and advocated the appointment of a committee in each Town Council, whose duty it should be to press forward this subject. The case of the unemployed was more urgent, and might be dealt with more productively than a solution of the problem of old-age pensions. Old-age pensioners would be apt to become a constant menace to the labour market, whereas the

more that was done for the unemployed the less urgent would be the necessity of old-age pensions. Dr. Martin (Chorlton) was disposed to think that the reform of the abuses of our land system lay at the root of the settlement of the question of the unemployed. Mr. Day (Norwich) believed this difficulty of the unemployed was the outcome of our competitive system. A question of such far-reaching responsibilities was eminently suitable for a body of social reformers, and the various suggestions put forward were evidence more of the interest aroused than of the remedies proposed for the complex problem of the unemployed.

On the following day (April 1), Mr. Sidney Webb read a paper upon "Technical Education." Many people, he said, were apt to make the great mistake of thinking that technical education meant trade teaching. As a matter of fact, it meant legally all instruction above the level of the elementary school, with the exception of Greek and literature. Hitherto it had been necessary to pick up our captains of industry, our administrators, our lawyers, doctors and poets almost entirely from a small section-10 or 20 per cent. of the population-who had enjoyed the advantage of something better than elementary education. If it were possible to carry forward the education of the clever children belonging to the other 80 or 90 per cent., a vast amount of ability would be utilised which at present was going to waste. This was what technical education was trying to do. What was wanted was an adequate number of scholarships, which must in all cases be accompanied by a full allowance for the scholars' maintenance as they rose from the elementary school to the university. In London they spent 40,000l. a year on this education, and he himself would urge that 11. per 100 inhabitants should be devoted to this purpose. In addition to scholarships, however, it was necessary to have efficient secondary schools and genuinely accessible universities. The whisky money was rapidly transforming the whole of English education, and it was the special duty of Socialist and Labour members to resist strenuously any attempt to confine its use to a narrow middle class. The chairman (Mr. F. Brocklehurst), explained that in Manchester they had remedied the overlapping of educational authorities by agreeing what work should be undertaken by the School Board and what by the City Council. Mr. Brookhouse (West Bromwich), remarked that personal culture and personal advantage to working-class students were of more importance than merely to give them technical education to qualify them the better as servants who could be more effectively used by employers in the system of competition for increased profits. Mr. W. Crookes was not particularly keen on sending on all the little boys and girls of the artisan class up to colleges and universities. A skilled artisan or a thoroughly domesticated woman was as much use to the whole community as the most highly cultured people at Oxford,

or Newnham or Cambridge. If a working man with technical and secondary education was incidentally for a time a better profit-making machine, he was also more valuable to himself, could command higher wages, and was less likely to be imposed upon. The chairman said it was evident, from both paper and discussion, that the range of the work of the technical education committees was only limited practically by the amount of money at their disposal, and that they could if they liked branch outwards and upwards into the higher fields of secondary education.

Municipal hospitals, municipalisation of the drink traffic, out-door relief, tramp children, art teaching in board schools and light railways, were among the other subjects which attracted attention, and invited discussion. On the question of outdoor relief, Mr. W. Crookes suggested "as a simple proposition and as a stepping stone to universal pensions," that every person above the age of sixty-five years or permanently disabled, whose income from all sources did not exceed 10s. per week, should receive 9d. a day, payable out of national funds. His aim was to utilise the existing poor law system as a steppingstone towards old-age pensions, by adopting the regulations and restrictions under which out-door relief was actually afforded.

It was unlikely that the London County Council would allow Parliament to go into committee upon the London Government Bill without being informed as to the feelings and views of that board. A number of the Progressives were, as a body, hostile to the measure in any form; but by a majority of two-thirds the recommendations of a committee especially selected to report on the bill had been adopted. These included suggestions that the word "borough" should be used in preference to "division of London"; that considerations of local feeling and historical association should be weighed in conjunction with those of administrative convenience; that the proposed borough of Wandsworth should be divided, and that the formation of a Greater Westminster was inexpedient; that the Privy Council should have not so great freedom of action as was contemplated by the bill; that the council of each district should consist of elected councillors only; that it was undesirable that women should be elected as mayors or aldermen; that elections should be triennial in May; that the auditors for the new councils should be appointed by the Local Government Board in the same manner as the auditors of the Council; that the Privy Council should not have power to revise the London Building Act, 1894, and to transfer duties from the Council to the new local councils; that the local councils representing merely divisions of London should not have the power of promoting and opposing bills in Parliament; that the proposals for optional transfer of power were inadvisable; that the provisions of the bill dealing with rating were objectionable; that the proposals with reference to the making of by-laws by the local authorities could only result in great complications and in

serious lack of uniformity; that the bill should contain provision for the reform of the corporation of the city; that greater equality in the burden of rates as between the different districts of the metropolis should be provided; that the new councils should not have the power of appointing upon all their committees persons not elected by the ratepayers.

In the critical state of foreign affairs, and in view of the small interest taken in London government by other centres, both Mr. L. Courtney, Unionist, and Sir Henry Fowler, Liberal, in addressing their respective constitutents devoted their remarks mainly to the subject of finance. The former speaking at Liskeard (April 5), reminded his hearers that in 1868 Mr. Bright said a Government deserved a vote of censure which could suggest an expenditure of seventy millions a year, whereas now the Budget showed an expenditure of more than a hundred and ten millions. He held it was an advantage to get money by taxation from few instead of many articles, because nearly every new article taxed required new machinery for its collectoin. To the suggested taxes on sugar and corn Mr. Courtney offered an uncompromising hostility, declaring they must fight most severely against any suggestions of change which were class suggestions. After admitting in the main the justice of the present system, Mr. Courtney wound up with a characteristic proposal that the deficit should be met by a fractional rise in the income-taxsay one-third per cent., which would make a considerable addition "as well as provide a good exercise in arithmetic."

In another speech Mr. Courtney dealt more especially with the old-age pension problem, suggesting that the system of deferred pay as existing in the Army and elsewhere might be developed. Under some such arrangement employers would deduct, not compulsorily as in Germany, but in agreement with their workmen, the fixed weekly levy upon their wages to be paid into the Post Office with the object of giving them a State guaranteed pension at sixty-five.

Sir Henry Fowler at Wolverhampton (April 6) was even more at a loss for materials for an exciting party speech, and therefore contented himself and presumably his hearers with an academic lecture upon the history of modern taxation, of which the tendency due exclusively to the Liberal party had been to reduce indirect taxation enormously to the relief of the working classes. The result was that now the "manual labour class paid about 45,000,000l. a year, while "the other classes" contributed about 55,000,000l. Anticipating a deficit on the coming Budget he denounced the idea of meeting it by suspending the Sinking Fund or by a loan.

A bye-election for the Harrow division of Middlesex consequent upon the retirement of Mr. Ambrose, Q.C., caused no change in the state of parties, although it showed a stronger Liberal feeling in the constituency than had been anticipated.

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