Mr. Keir Hardie, who followed, violently attacked the Government for
their partisanship. "The Home Secretary and his colleagues had violated and overridden the law and had suspended the civil government of this country without the consent or sanction of Parliament, and had substituted military rule, . . . the law of England had been broken in the interest of the railway companies." As there might be a fresh outbreak, he moved the adjournment of the House till August 29th instead of October 24th, and was seconded by Mr. Josiah Wedgwood. Mr. Lloyd George, stung by the "extraordinary, serious, and very dangerous misstatements" of Messrs. Ramsay MacDonald and Keir Hardie, retorted in a vehement speech. There was not an atom of truth in the statement that the Government had sided with the capitalists and used the troops to shoot down the men who were fighting for their legitimate rights by legal means. As for Mr. Keir Hardie's public assertion that the Prime Minister bad declared they would keep the railways open, even if they had to shoot down every striker—we quote from the
Daily News report—" there is no adjective in the English vocabulary, Parliamentary or un-Parliamentary, that I do not here apply to the man who uttered that calumny." Mr. Keir Hardie's explanation was even worse than his original statement; it was " contemptible."
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