LABOUR AND THE MILLENNIUM.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The Labour Party, if Mr. Philip Snowden may be' taken as a fair representative of its policy, entertains a strong confidence that, when it comes into power, it wilt without confiscation or other injustice succeed in remedying the evil of unemployment, and, apparently- , some other evils to which humanity has long been heir. The Party may be right ; and if so, nobody Will say "God speed it ! " more heartily than I. But is there not an histerical, instance which would prescribe a spirit of caution or moderation in the hopes of possible social reform ? The late Mr. J. G. Holyoake, in his History of Co-operation (Vol. I., page 305), relates that in the early days of the Co-operative Movement Robert Owen "had had Tytherly. Hall made to bear con- spicuously outside of it the mystic letters C M, which meant Commencement of the Millennium." "The obstinate Mil-
lennium, however," he adds, "declined to begin its career there."
The sequel of events at Tytherly Hall and under Robert Owen's auspices in the Co-operative Movement generally is well known. Social reforms are, I am afraid, sadly apt to disappoint the expectations of reformers. The cure of them, no less- than the cause, not infrequently lies beyond the range of political action. Perhaps Sir Arthur Helps was not altogether wrong when he advised the " reformers 7 of his time to forgo so presumptuous a name, and to content themselves with being known as " improvers."—I remain, • The Deanery, Durham.
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