ADVENT OF THE POLITICAL LABOUR PARTY
Congratulations--A Letter from Bishop Talbot--Bar-parlour
Opinion--The Press on the Victory--The Birth of a Party--An
Opponent of the South African War.
Before Crooks went down to the House of Commons on the following day, he
had a busy morning opening telegrams to the number of two or three
hundred.
Mr. John Burns, Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. David Shackleton, wired their
congratulations from the House of Commons. Other messages came from
trade unions and groups of working-men and working-women in various
parts of the country. Among them were telegrams from dockers at
Middlesbrough, coopers at Birmingham, postmen in London, engineers at
Newcastle, and cycle-makers at Coventry.
These well-wishes from the ranks of Labour poured in simultaneously with
congratulations from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Hon. Maud
Stanley, Lord Tweedmouth, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, and many ministers of
religion.
The late Sir Wilfrid Lawson, as was his wont dropped into verse. He
wired from Carlisle:--
Hurrah! The future brighter looks;
We worry on by hooks and Crooks.
Oh, what a heavy, heavy blow
Last night you struck on Jingo Joe!
From the Bishop's House, Kennington, S.E., Dr. Talbot wrote:--
I wish, as one to whom, as its Bishop, the affairs of Woolwich are
of great interest, to offer you my sincere good wishes for your
Parliamentary course.
I am aware that by so writing at this moment I may risk
misunderstanding and seem to "worship the rising sun," and that you
may not care for words when there were not deeds in support.
But I venture to risk this: and to trust you to take as genuine
what is genuinely said. I think you are the man to do this.
I cannot but feel and I desire to express great satisfaction that
the needs and interests of Labour should have their representative
in one who has given such proof of desire to work and suffer for
the welfare of his fellow-men as you have done.
All that I have heard of you commands my admiration and respect. It
will be a great pleasure to find there are occasions when we may
co-operate for the public welfare in Woolwich.
Had the Bishop of Bloemfontein--Chandler--been in England, I might
have asked him for an introduction to you; as it is, may our common
friendship for him serve the purpose.
You will come into Parliament with great power from your character
and experience, and as the representative by such a majority of
such a place. May you seek, and may God Almighty give you, the
wisdom and strength to use rightly this great position.
To turn from the Bishop to the bar-parlour will help us to preserve the
balance of things human. While Dr. Talbot was sending his blessing from
the Bishop's House, there came a chorus of good-wishes from nearly every
public-house in Woolwich. This was all the more remarkable because
Crooks had made the constituency hold its sides with laughter over the
innumerable stories he told during the campaign against beer-drinkers.
Those who laughed the loudest were the drinkers themselves, admitting
while so doing they had never heard a teetotaler put the case against
them so well before.
It was a great delight to Crooks to learn that even the regular tipplers
were saying among themselves that "although that chap Crooks don't spare
us blokes, he's the man for our money."
One conversation reported to him from a public-house a few days after
the election was certainly quaint and amusing. The narrator was the best
of mimics. He told how the subject of the election was introduced by "a
long thin man with a sheeny nose," who had just come in.
"Well," began the new-comer, without any preliminary, "I've read 'The
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,' but I tell you Woolwich licks
the lot."
"What about Napoleon Bonaparty?" ventured one of the company.
"Bonaparty? What did Bony do? Why, ten years after Wellington won
Waterloo things was back worse than they was before."
"I thought Bill Adams won the battle of Waterloo," called out a voice
from the corner bench.
"You shouldn't think; it might hurt yer head."
"D'yer reckon as Crooks is bigger nor Bony was?" inquired the first
questioner.
"Certainly I do," said the long thin one, severely. "What did Bony do?
Why, he made men fight for him. But what did Crooks do? Why, he taught
men to fight for themselves and their families. See? Bony built his
house on the sands, and the tide of humanity has washed it away. Now
Crooks taught us men to build our own house, and nothing can destroy it
while we stick together."
To the new Member there came in due time congratulatory messages from
Europe, America, South Africa, and Australia. Children also sent him
their well-wishes--children are always writing to Crooks--one letter
being signed by a whole family of them in Plumstead with their ages set
out like stepping-stones after each signature. This "little household,"
as they called themselves, told him how eagerly they had "watched the
papers," and how glad they were he had won.
One only of the many letters that poured in sounded a despondent note.
It was signed by two desolate old women who lived together in Poplar.
"We have just heard," they wrote, "you have been elected Member for
Woolwich. Does this mean you are going to leave Poplar? If so, please
give up Parliament, for who have we to look to for help if you go away?"
Some of his supporters were anxious to serve him in a practical way.
The workers at a tailoring establishment in Woolwich asked him to allow
them to make him a suit of clothes "as a thank-offering for the splendid
victory." When a fortnight later they sent the suit it was with an
expression of "regret that it is not like our esteem--warranted not to
wear out."
The Press all over the country was profoundly impressed by the result.
The Liberal papers for the most part were too eager to hail it as a blow
at the Conservative Government to see its true significance. The
Conservative papers, in attempting to lessen its effect on their own
party, got nearer to the real meaning that lay behind the victory.
As the _Times_ put it:--
The result ... means that the questions bound up with the existence
of an organised Labour Party which have been hitherto regarded as
chimerical are coming to the front in practical politics.
The _Pall Mall Gazette_ also got near the mark:--
Mr. Crooks's return is first and most obviously an indication of
the growing strength of the idea of an organised Labour Party, such
as under the name of Socialism is so potent a force in Continental
politics.
For Woolwich was the first manifestation to the public of the birth of
the political Labour Party.
The election came within a few weeks of the famous Newcastle conference
of the Labour Representation Committee, whose delegates represented over
a million organised workmen in the country. That was the conference
which decided on the absolute independence of the Labour Party. Almost
the first duty of its secretary, Mr. J. R. Macdonald, on his return from
Newcastle was to issue an appeal "to everyone in London interested in
the formation of a Labour Party in the House of Commons to go to
Woolwich to help Mr. Crooks."
The best explanation of the striking Labour triumph was given by Crooks
himself in the _Daily News_:--
"The workman is learning after years of unfulfilled pledges and broken
promises of the usual party stamp that before he can get anything like
justice he must transfer his faith from 'gentlemen' candidates to Labour
candidates. The workman has seen how the 'gentlemen' of England have
treated him in the last few years--taxed his bread, his sugar, his tea;
tampered with his children's education, attacked his trade unions, made
light of the unemployed problem, and shirked old-age pensions.
"What the workman has done in Woolwich, you will find he will do in
other towns."
His prophecy was fulfilled within three years. The General Election of
1906 saw Labour men for the first time returned for two or three dozen
constituencies, some with the greatest majorities known to political
history. As the amazing results poured in from day to day, with their
three and five and even six thousand majorities, a prominent public man
declared at the time:--"This is the Party that was born at Woolwich."
One significant phase of the Woolwich by-election was emphasised by the
_Speaker_. Here, in a district where the majority of workers earn their
daily bread in the Government Arsenal, a man was elected who had
bitterly opposed the South African war, which from the material
standpoint had brought a period of prosperity to Woolwich without
parallel. The _Speaker_ went on to say:--
Mr. Crooks was among the sturdiest and most outspoken opponents of
the war and its objects, and a man who survived that ordeal may be
trusted to stand to his colours in the next emergency. He was a
conspicuous member of what was called the "Pro-Boer" party. He was
one of the orators at the famous Trafalgar Square meeting that the
jingoes broke up.
In the pages of the same weekly journal the new member for Woolwich
wrote an article on the Labour Party. "The Labour Party," he said, "is
quite a natural result of the failure of rich people legislating for the
poor. The one hope of the workman is a strong Labour Party.... The
Labour Member has nothing but his service to give in return for support.
Perhaps he is dependent on his fellows for his maintenance until Payment
of Members is secured. The continued selection of rich men for
working-class constituencies is a perversion of representation, and
quite as absurd as it would be to attempt to run a Labour candidate for
the aristocratic West-End division of St. George's, Hanover Square."