THE LIVING WAGE FOR MEN AND WOMEN
Crooks's Maiden Speech--A Welcome from the Treasury Bench--Demand
for a Fair Wage in Government Workshops--Advocating the Payment of
Members and the Enfranchisement of Women--Crooks's Hold upon the
House.
A fortnight after his election to Parliament, Crooks made his maiden
speech. He called attention to the fact that the Government was allowing
portions of the national workshops at Woolwich Arsenal to remain idle
while it was giving work that could be done in them to outside
contractors.
"I do not know how it appears to other hon. members," he told the House,
"but it seems to me that every department of a Government which claims
to be a business Government ought to have the right to make the first
use of all the resources which the nation has placed at its disposal
before considering outside contractors.... The contractors have fairly
good representation in this House, and many things are to be said in
their favour; but the Government has no right to use the money of the
nation in building machinery and then to allow it to stand idle in the
interests of outside firms, no matter who they are or what influence
they may have."
In the opening words of his reply, the Minister for War (Mr. Brodrick)
said he was sure that whatever their opinion as to the views of the hon.
member (Mr. Crooks), all sections of the House would welcome his
appearance in debate on a subject on which he was so fully informed.
The same day Crooks called the attention of the House to the low wages
paid to labourers in the national workshops.
"I maintain that it is not cheap for the Government to pay men 21s. per
week, although other employers may be able to get them for that amount.
If the men had more money they would be able to get better house
accommodation, and the ratepayers would be saved the substantial sums
now paid under the Poor Law for medical orders for people brought up in
over-crowded homes. The President of the Local Government Board knows
that in consequence of over-crowding in London, hundreds of such medical
orders go to people living under unhealthy conditions, impossible to
avoid when the family depends on this weekly wage of 21s. paid to
Government employees. Such earnings are barely sufficient for food, let
alone shelter. An order has been issued by the Local Government Board
instructing Guardians to feed the inmates of workhouses properly. The
minimum scale laid down for persons in workhouses is of a character that
no man with a family can approach if he is only earning 21s. a week.
What I urge is that the men in the employment of the State should have
a Local Government Board existence, if nothing else--that the men in the
national workshops should no longer have to live on a lower food scale
than that prescribed for workhouses."
Before he had been in Parliament a month, he got an opportunity to
introduce a proposal in favour of the payment of members. The House was
well filled when he rose to move the following motion:--
That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable and expedient
that, in order to give constituencies a full and free choice in the
selection of Parliamentary candidates, the charges now made by the
returning officer to the candidates should be chargeable to public
funds, and that all members of the House of Commons should receive
from the State a reasonable stipend during their Parliamentary
life.
He addressed the House at some length on this motion. Here is a summary
of his speech:--
There was a good deal of talk about there being absolute equality
in this country, but there was, as every member knew, only one way
of getting into the House, and that was by spending substantial
sums of money. A considerable sum of money was spent in securing
his election, but he did not have to find a farthing of it. The
cash was subscribed openly and freely. But he had often heard it
asked when a poor man was standing: "Who is finding your money?"
Only the other day he saw the following advertisement in the
_Yorkshire Post_:--
M.P.--A gentleman, thirty, holding a responsible
position in London, desirous of entering Parliament,
wishes to meet with an affectionate and wealthy lady,
view matrimony. Genuine. Highest credentials.
It might be suggested that men would go into the House of Commons
simply to make a living out of it. But was there not in the present
House more than one member who made a pretty good thing out of the
privilege of being able to attach the magic letters "M.P." to their
names? However that might be, he ventured to assert that the
administrative capacity of this country had never yet been properly
tapped.
It was said a man needed to be trained for political life. Yes, but
where? Was it at the University? Was it by taking a double first at
Oxford or Cambridge that he would turn out a great law-maker, or
was it by constant contact with humanity? He had seen in the Press
an observation to the effect that it was all very well for Labour
to have its representatives in Parliament, but what did they know
of those great historic and important questions which so vitally
affected the interests and welfare of the nation? His answer to
that was that it was infinitely more important to the average
industrial worker of this country that the conditions of life
should be bettered, and that an opportunity should be given for men
to enter the House who knew what he wanted.
He was one of those who believed that practical knowledge of
working men would prove exceedingly helpful in the deliberations of
the House. There were too many academically-trained men and too few
practical men engaged in the government of the country. He had been
in touch with working-men for years and years; he had sat with them
on administrative bodies, and his experience was that one touch of
nature was worth infinitely more than all the academic training
Oxford or Cambridge could give.
The speech was listened to with sympathetic interest, frequently
producing laughter and cheers. The motion, however, was talked out by
the Government's supporters.
In his election address Crooks had shown that he wanted women to have
the vote. It was with much satisfaction, therefore, that he introduced
the Women's Enfranchisement Bill prepared by the Independent Labour
Party. The second reading not having been reached when the Session
closed, the Bill fell through. Similar measures which have his support
have been introduced since. He hopes they will be brought forward
regularly until a woman's right to the franchise is recognised.
He gave in the _Review of Reviews_ his reasons for introducing the Bill
that bore his name:--
"It is because in all my public work I aim at making the people
self-reliant, able to think and act for themselves, that I want women to
have the power and the responsibility that the possession of the vote
gives. It is by this rather than by any consideration of how their votes
would be used that I ask for woman's suffrage. At the same time I
believe that the cause of progress has nothing to fear from this reform.
We entrust to women as teachers and as mothers the all-important work of
educating the future citizens. How absurd, then, to hesitate to give to
women the rights of a citizen. As regards the women of the
working-class, I point out constantly that all the many social questions
that are pressing for settlement affect these women as much as, if not
more than, they affect their husbands. We must give women a share in
settling such questions."
He went on, in the course of further remarks in the same magazine, to
lay great stress on the importance of organisation and of agitation in
order to secure the vote for women. There should be local workers in
every constituency. Every member of the House of Commons should have
strong pressure brought to bear upon him. No woman, he urged, should
work for any candidate who is not a supporter of women's franchise. If
the candidate put forward by her own political party cannot support
this, she should work for the candidate who can, no matter to what party
he belonged.
"If women are in earnest on this question," he added, "they must prove
it by putting principle before party, and making the enfranchisement of
their sex the first object of all their political work."
On political platforms he often mentioned an incident that arose in
connection with a protest he made against the low wages paid to women in
the Government's Victualling Yard at Deptford.
"It's starvation," he told one of the responsible officials, "to pay
widows with families 14s. a week."
"But it's constant," said the amazed official.
"So, you see," Crooks adds in telling the incident, "that Government
officials think starvation's all right so long as it's constant. Do you
think this system of constant starvation would be tolerated for a day if
women had the vote?"
Before Mr. Balfour's Government came to an end, Crooks had become one of
the popular speakers of the House. He brought into Parliament a lively
conversational style rarely found in that assembly. His quaint
witticisms, his telling illustrations from the every-day life of the
people, together with his downright sincerity, his tolerance and
restraint, won him the good-will of both sides of the House. Whether
pleading for underfed school children, for the unemployed, or speaking
against the taxation of the people's food, he was generally admitted to
be bright and forceful. He never spoke without bringing a new point of
view to the debate. "Jehu Junior," writing in _Vanity Fair_, said of
him:--
His tact and common-sense served him as well in the House as they
had done in settling Labour disputes at Poplar. By never debating
any subject but those on which he has special knowledge, and by his
perfect good temper and modesty, he became one of the men whose
politics arouse no personal animosity on the "other side."
Of him and the other Labour men in that Parliament--the small band of
stalwarts who were reinforced so strongly at the General Election of
1906--Mr. John Morley, addressing his own constituents at Montrose,
said:--
Will anybody, who has watched the life of the House of Commons, say
that in moderation of demeanour, in decency of manners, in
self-respect, in freedom from swagger and assumption, these men
have shown themselves inferior to men sitting by their side who
have had all the opportunities of wealth, education, and culture?
If I were leaving the House of Commons to-morrow, and were called
upon to adjudicate a prize, I would impartially give the prize for
good manners, for self-respect, for moderation of statement, for
respect for the audience they addressed in the House of Commons, to
the dozen Labour men whom we have had the pleasure of having among
us rather than to a dozen gentlemen I could name if I liked.
From the other side of the House came the testimony of Sir John Gorst.
The ex-Conservative Minister brought out his book, "The Children of the
Nation"--wherein he argues that it is the duty of the State to see that
the nation's children are well fed, well housed, and well clothed--with
the following dedication:--"To the Labour Members of the House of
Commons in token of my belief that they are animated by a genuine desire
to ameliorate the condition of the people."