FAREWELLS
In the first week of December 1895, at the request of the Cromer
District Liberal Association, I invited Mr. Arch to come to Cromer and
address a meeting there. This invitation he accepted. Mr. Ketton
presided. I was anxious to give the old man a good reception, and I
obtained the services of the Cromer and Southrepps Brass Bands to play
Arch from the house at which he was staying to the Lecture Hall. I met
him at the station in the afternoon, and as soon as I took his hand I
found he was broken-hearted and bitterly disappointed. Big tears ran
down his face. I took him to the house of his host and we had tea
together. Later we adjourned to another room by ourselves. Arch gripped
me by the hand and said: "My boy, you are younger than I, therefore you
will be able to return to work, but take my advice. When you do, never
trust our class again. I am getting old, I have given all the best years
of my life in their interest, and now in my old age they have forsaken
me."
We had a splendid meeting, but he was not the same Arch he was in the
days of the past. The bitter disappointment had affected him even on a
political platform. I stayed with him that night and saw him off in the
morning, feeling sure we should never meet again in a public capacity.
We did not. At the General Election Arch retired, and his friends in the
House of Commons, irrespective of politics, subscribed and bought him a
life annuity.
Early in the new year (1896) the directors of the _Weekly Leader_
decided to wind up the company, as no advertisements could be obtained,
and on February 8, 1896, the last issue of the paper was published. In
it appeared my parting words to the labourers, and I did not fail to
speak out plainly.
A PARTING WORD TO THE LABOURERS
FELLOW WORKERS,
It is with deep regret that I write these comments this week, as
this is the last issue of the _Weekly Leader_, the only organ in
Norfolk that has for some time fearlessly advocated your rights.
With its disappearance I shall have to vanish from public life too,
and in order to make my position clear before the public I propose
to give a brief outline of my connection with public movements,
especially the Labour movement.
In 1884 and 1885, when the labourer became enfranchised, I was in a
good situation as brick-burner. My employer was a Tory, but I held
contrary opinions. Being a working man and Nonconformist, I had the
courage to do what little I could for the party which I thought
would best serve the working men and the country at large, hence I
spoke at several of the Liberal meetings in Norfolk. For this I
lost my work, and was turned out of my house, and was only able to
get another by a man sub-letting to me. I was never able to get
another place as brick-burner, and I turned to that of agricultural
labourer, which I understood as well as the other work. But I was
only able to do this by walking twelve miles a day, as no farmer in
my neighbourhood would employ me. This I did for eighteen months.
Then Mr. Ketton of Felbrigg Hall, my employer at that time, found
me a cottage where I am now living. No sooner had I got settled in
my new home than the working men, getting dissatisfied with their
lot in life and having no labourers' Union, turned to me to help
them to reorganize themselves. For some weeks I refused to take any
part. Having been once boycotted and being now only just settled
down under a liberal employer, I felt I had no further wish to bear
the turmoils of public life; but at last through the men's constant
appealing I yielded to their pressure. Eleven labourers formed a
committee and waited upon me at my house on November 5, 1889, and
after they had decided among themselves what kind of Union they
wished to start, I consented to act as secretary. I at once threw
myself into the work, and in nine months enrolled in the Union
upwards of 1,000 members, keeping at my work all the same time,
holding meetings after I had done my day's work, many a time
travelling twelve and fourteen miles to do so, and often not seeing
my bed at all. At the end of nine months the committee decided that
my whole time should be given to the work. I cautioned them and
begged the men not to take me from my work, and for a time I
refused to give it up. But at last, feeling that I must either give
the movement up or give up my work, as my constitution was being
seriously impaired, I yielded to the wishes of the men, and a
general meeting was called to decide upon my salary. One pound a
week was fixed, but I refused to take a pound whilst the men were
being paid so low, and took 15s. per week only. About this time we
became amalgamated with a Norwich Union, which was started about
the same time as our Cromer Union, and in due time I became General
Secretary, my salary being raised to 18s. per week. This amount I
had for about eighteen months, when the men began to leave the
Union, and now for several months I have had no salary at all.
Now for a short account of the work done. We found the labourers
working for 10s. per week, which was soon raised to 12s., and in a
number of villages to 13s. Their harvest wages were raised from L6
to L6 10s. to L7 and L7 5s. We also assisted a large number of the
men to migrate and emigrate to other fields of labour. In 1892 I
fought a spirited contest in a County Council Election at the
express wish of the labourers themselves. At the passing of the
District and Parish Councils Act I did my best to enable you to put
it into operation. I have given this outline of my work and
connection with working men's movements so that when my voice is
silent, and my pen is still, and I go into obscurity, the public
may be able to rightly judge of my work. One thing I can honestly
say--in advocating the rights of the working men I have never
studied my own personal interests or comfort. I have fearlessly
championed your cause and have said and done for your interest what
I have honestly believed to be right, and in doing so I have
alienated those from me who would otherwise have been my friends,
because in fighting your cause I have fought against their
interests. I have in your interests made myself a bore to almost
everyone, and have been a target for everyone to shoot at, while
all through the work I have been grossly misrepresented. But none
of these things have moved me, as I felt that I was fighting a
noble and just cause. But alas! you the working men soon grew weary
in well-doing, you allowed a spirit of apathy to grow up amongst
you, and what is still worse, you have allowed a spirit of mistrust
and wicked prejudice to grow up amongst you. You have believed the
vilest calumnies that have been uttered against the leaders of the
movement by your enemies, hence your failure to emancipate
yourselves. Leader after leader has fallen because when victory was
within sight you refused to hold up their hands, and now you find
yourselves to-day in a helpless state.
In taking my final farewell of you, let it never be said that
George Edwards has left you. It is you that have left him. I was
prepared at all costs to voice your interests, for I have as strong
a faith as ever in the justness of your cause and the justness of
your claims to live by your labour. But I have lost all faith that
you will ever manifest manliness and independence enough to claim
your rights. But should you ever again be prepared to assert your
rights, I hope you will be able to find someone to lead you
successfully on till the harvest of your rights is fully
accomplished. In my parting words I will say to you as did Ernest
Jones in one of his beautiful poems, because, although you cannot
realize it, your cause will one day triumph. Fellow workers,
farewell! It is not for me to get the work accomplished. I would
have helped you, but ye would not. I will say to you:--
Sharpen the sickle; how full the ears
Our children are crying for bread;
And the field has been watered with orphans' tears
And enriched with their fathers' dead.
And hopes that are buried, and hearts that broke,
Lie deep in the treasuring sod:
Then sweep down the grain with a thunder-stroke,
In the name of humanity's God.
A week before this I had received an offer from the Executive of the
English Land Restoration League to undertake a tour with one of their
vans in Wiltshire in the coming season, commencing May 1st. This I
accepted. As there were several weeks before the engagement commenced, a
friend living at Sheringham, Mr. B. Johnson, offered to find me a few
weeks' work. On Monday February 10th I went to work for him a
disappointed man, having lost all faith that my class would ever be
manly enough to emancipate themselves.
To add to this disappointment I lost my seat on the District Council,
the Rev. Mills leading by four votes. This exhibition of ingratitude on
the part of the working men in my own village after all I had done for
them during my term of office was enough to crush the spirit of any man,
for I had brought to the old people in receipt of relief living in that
parish alone over L20 in increased relief. I had also obtained some few
acres of allotments. In any case I felt I could never take any more
interest in the business so long as I lived there. At the election of
the Parish Council I refused to serve again, and the Council fell into
the hands of the farmers; and there it has remained ever since.
In May I commenced my lecturing tour. I travelled by road into the
county, holding meetings every night on the way. During my tour I ran
against the law. On September 30th I was summoned by the police before
the Trowbridge bench of magistrates for an alleged obstruction of the
highway by holding a public meeting on Vickers Hill, Trowbridge, on
September 18th.
The ground on which the van stood was vacant and belonged to the
Council. The amusing part of the business was that at the time I was
supposed to be speaking and causing an obstruction I was more than half
a mile from the van. The man I left in charge of the van had got
impatient and commenced the meeting before the chairman and myself could
return. It was a most amusing case. Superintendent Tyler was
prosecuting, and when I stepped into the box he ordered me out again, as
he thought I was one of the public and was going into the wrong seat. He
did not know I was the defendant.
The campaign was most successful and pleasant, and I gained an
experience that has stood me in good stead since. Several amusing
incidents occurred during the campaign. At a place near Devizes I was
addressing a large meeting, and a Tory continually interrupted with the
remark: "You would not do it if you were not paid for it." Subsequently
a man came on to the van and informed me of my interrupter's mode of
living. This he did without anyone else's knowledge, and it prepared me
for the next interruption. I had not long to wait for the same remark,
and I retorted: "And when I am paid I cannot afford to keep two wives as
some people do." A shout went up--"That is what he does." Needless to
say I had no more interruptions from that quarter. I was in the county
twenty-six weeks, and although the work was successful from a propaganda
point of view, it did not save the Union in the interests of which I was
working, namely the Wiltshire Union, financed by Mr. Louis Anstie, for
it died out within a few weeks.
In October of the same year I returned home and again settled down to
work. I went to work for a few weeks with the late Mr. Benjamin Johnson
as a general labourer, and in January 1897 I accepted a situation as a
brick-burner with the late Mr. J. N. Neale of Baconsthorpe, who opened a
brickyard at Beeston. I kept with him some years. In the same month I
was elected unopposed to the Erpingham District Council, and for years I
lost a day a fortnight from my work to attend the meetings without fee
or reward. My wife also kept her seat for the parishes of East and West
Beckham. I was soon put on to all the committees again. In March of that
year I was sent by the Board as their representative to a Poor Law
conference at Colchester and again to one at Norwich in 1898, and in
1899 I was sent by the Board to a conference at Ipswich and was deputed
by them to read a paper on Old Age Pensions. After a lengthy discussion
the Board passed a resolution in favour of these. Strange to say, same
few years later, when the Government brought in its scheme, it adopted
in the main the principles I had advocated in my paper, with the
exception of the age and income limit. I did not recommend any income
and I advocated sixty-five as the qualifying age.
In the same week I attended a Primitive Methodist conference at Ipswich
and read a paper on Sunday-schools in the villages. In 1900 I was
elected chairman of the Erpingham Sanitary Committee, a position which I
held for ten years until I left the district. In 1902 my health failed.
I had a serious illness and was obliged to give up the brick work. I
moved to Gresham and went to work for a Mrs. Sharpen as an agricultural
labourer. I intended to settle down as a labourer for the rest of my
life, but fate ruled otherwise, and I seemed to be marked out for a
different sphere. Against my own personal wish, in the spring of 1903 I
received another pressing invitation from the Liberal Party to accept a
position as a speaker. This I refused at first, but eventually accepted,
with the understanding that I should return home once a fortnight to
attend the Guardians' meetings. In the autumn of that year, after Mr.
Chamberlain started his Tariff Reform campaign, I went with the newly
formed Free Trade Union and kept with them until the General Election of
1906. During my work with this organization I helped in almost every
bye-election, worked in almost every county and had many exciting
experiences. But even in this capacity, although all Agricultural
Labourers Unions had been defunct for some time, the Tory Party still
continued their gross libellous attacks upon me. They printed the last
balance sheets of the Unions, manipulated the figures in a scandalous
manner and endeavoured to show that I had had all the money paid by the
members, though they knew I had not received a penny. Hundreds of
thousands of these leaflets were printed and spread broadcast. My
opponents would get to know where I was addressing meetings and send men
to distribute these leaflets at the meetings. In many counties men
became so enraged at this treatment of me that when the man whose name
was on the leaflets appeared on the scene he had on several occasions to
beat a hasty retreat. In no case did this move have its desired effect,
as the great political upheaval of 1906 proved.
After the General Election of 1906 the Free Trade Union had no further
employment for the speakers and they paid them no retaining fee. I
returned home and again settled down to work as an agricultural
labourer.