Recollections of a Labour Pioneer. By F. W. Soutter. (T.
Fisher Unwiri.) In this autobiography Mr. Soutter, late in a long life, shows himself to have been a man of public spirit and of unquenchable fire. Our fathers would with one ac-ord have called him an " agitator," but we of to-day have learned to use the word more carefully. No doubt he was often more prickly and troublesome to authority than was necessary, yet without any initial advantages in life he made it his business to remedy what he considered to be abuses. His origins were curious. His father might be described as a small capitalist—he had servants ' and was proud of his cellar— but both the father and mother died when Mr. Soutter was very young, and for some reason or other he was left destitute. He became apprenticed at a saw-mill. He gives an excel- lently clear account of the election campaign of the first Labour candidate. Mr. George Odger, in 1869. Mr. Soutter inspired the candidature and he was helped by some of the Christian Socialists, including Tom Hughes. Recent remarks by Labour Members make us think that they have quite forgotten this first effort in the name of Labour. When Mr. Soutter was agitating against private church rates, which remained after the ordinary church rates had been abolished, he damaged the rate-book by throwing an inkpot over it as a protest. On another occasion he carried a Vestry room by assault when the Vestry refused to receive a deputation. The account of the prosecutions which ensued is amusing. We think, however, that Mr. Soutter has formed an unnecessarily low opinion of the law and of the chances of obtaining justice.
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