RECENT STRIKES AND THE LEADERS THEREOF.* THIS is a work
of somewhat over four hundred pages, with an appendix of a hundred and sixty pages. It is less a dis- cussion of "present-day Labour problems," as stated on the title-page, than an arraignment, pure and simple, of the leaders and supporters of some recent strikes, beginning with the notable one of the London Dock labourers. Published by subscription, and dedicated to the Earl of Wemyss, it goes forth to the public as an expression of the case of Capital and Property in their relation, antagonistic or otherwise, to hand-labour,—of the capitalist as against the workman, the employer as against the employed. Before committing his opinions and contentions to the public—or even, as we take it, to the printer—Mr. Brooks sent out, as a sort of pilot-balloon, a synopsis consisting of twelve clauses, the general character of which may be seen from the Eleventh Clause,—" That an employer, whose interests are bound up with those of his workmen, is, on every principle of reason and common-sense, likely to prove a truer friend to those workmen than a professional agitator who has no interest in common with the workman," &a. In the abstract, this, perhaps, is indisputable, or, at any rate, is not worth disputing. In the concrete, it covers many essential fallacies. If em- ployers always, or generally, viewed their interests as bound up with those of their workmen, and if the Labour leaders were always, or generally, mere professional agitators who had " Industry and Property : a Plea for Truth end honesty in Economics, and for Liberty and Justice in Social Reform. Being a Dismission of Prosent-Day Labour Problems, with Proposals for their Solution, Enamels to EmpMyer, and Em- ployed, and Warnings to Statesmen, Politic aus, and Social Reformers. By George Brooks, Published by the Author, Molls Lodge, IInleaworth, Suffolk, no interests in common with the workmen, then Mr. Brooks might, perhaps, on these grounds, have laid a solid foundation for the edifice he has attempted to erect. But no such admis- sions can be made. To ascribe to employers, as a class, the virtues claimed for them by Mr. Brooks, and to impute to workmen and their leaders, as a class, the depravity laid to their charge by Mr. Brooks, we should have to imagine a new state of human society in which classes of men are separated by unalterable laws. The claim put forward in this Eleventh Clause, and, indeed, throughout this book, is exactly that which was addressed to those terrible professional agitators, Mr. garrison and Mr. Beecher, contending for the freedom of the slave. In dealing, therefore, with the reasoning and conten- tions of Mr. Brooks, we must discard his general classification of men, and remember that while the workman of yesterday may be the employer of to-day, the facts of life which they represent remain. We still are interested in knowing on clear and definite grounds—(1), whether or not strikes are necessary as the workman's final appeal ; and (2), if they are so neces- sary, who shall decide when the necessity has arisen, On these points, Mr. Brooks throws no reliable light. He cleverly imputes evil motives to Labour leaders and their supporters, referring to some of the former, in the offensive sense, as -4' Mann," or " Tillett," or " Champion," or Burns; " apparently forgetting that though that course may gratify varied personal feeling, it is utterly valueless as regards the solution of a momentous problem, which it is the duty and interest of the men of this generation to endeavour to solve. When Mr. Brooks says, " Burns, you're a so-and-so ! " he simply provokes the reply, " Brooks, you're another !" The question in dis- pute is as dark as ever, and as far as ever from a rational settle ment.
These facts are placed in a strong light by certain ex- tracts, which Mr. Brooks boldly publishes, from replies received by him to his Synopsis-circular. One gentleman, "a baronet," wrote :—" I do not believe that landlords and capitalists are the true friends of the working classes ; they have ever acted a selfish part, and have endeavoured to keep them in that state of life to which it hath pleased God to call them.' The working man can only elevate himself by union with his fellows," Sm. The reply of Mr. Brooks was severe and reproachful, and is quoted by him to about four times the length of the space given to " the baronet." Another gentleman, " also a baronet," wrote :—" I do not sympathise with your object. The dangers you are fearing are much .exaggerated I am sorry to see that, sprung from the working classes yourself, you are siding with Lord — and Lord — , " names not given. This baronet Mr. Brooks rated still more soundly than the former one, telling him that he had himself the " reputation of driving his workmen, and having a keen eye to the main chance." That is, Mr. Brooks, on his own showing, asked for the opinion of an alleged "hard" ,employer, and evidently expected a hard reply, as against the :workmen. Then, having received a totally different reply, he assailed, in these rude terms, his certainly not uncourteons correspondent. Surely, when Mr. Brooks again invites opinions as to his literary work, it would be prudent for him -(even in addressing an employer who drives his workmen, and has " a keen eye to the main chance ") to draft out, and send, with his invitation, the exact terms of the expected reply. After that, it would be unseemly in any one, baronet or -otherwise, to say, I do not sympathise with your object."
In the same spirit Mr. Brooks deals with distinguished men who ranged themselves on the side of the Dock labourers -during the strike of 1889. To him, all such men (including 'Cardinal Manning and the Bishop of London) are abettors of that order of Socialism which gave birth to the Irish Land League and the "Plan of Campaign." Need we remind Mr. Brooks that between the ordinary workman who strikes for wages, and the authors and perpetratOrs of a plan to escape the honest payment of debts, there is a wide difference, which all decent people have an interest in recognising, and in not narrowing or suffering to be narrowed P When men in Eng- land and Scotland were told that to disown the Thirty-nine Articles and the ruling order of Episcopacy was to disown their Maker, many such men were compelled, in spirit, and .often in act, to accept the position which selfish politicians and infatuated religionists had only too successfully estab- lished against them. In the same way, the Chartist or Radical stigmatised as a rebel frequently became one,—accepting the stigma as merely another term for a social and political wedge which he hoped to drive home. Bamford's autobiographic, sketch, "Passages in the Life of a Radical," shows how very little of real disloyalty there was in the hearts of many of the so-called rebels of fifty years ago. Men, repelled by injustice, were allured back to loyalty by justice and fair-dealing. The same justice and fair-dealing are still available for the service of statesmen and the leaders of English thought. When a man strikes for a defined object, by his own definition let him be judged, in agreement or otherwise, as the case may be. Nothing can be more baneful, and nothing is more unjust, than to attempt to fasten on him charges which he repudiates.
In some respects we agree with this book, and trust that the plain speech of Mr. Brooks may be accepted as a social tonic. He objects to the over-assumption of work men, We agree with him to the extent of believing that a vain and self-opinionated workman is as obnoxious a person as a vain and self-opinion- ated Judge or Member of Parliament. We heartily agree with him in his denunciation of those candidates for Parliament who trust to specious and unreal "cries" whereby to win votes. Only we claim to extend the denunciation to all candidates who take this course. Mr. Brooks has his mind fixed on but one class of candidates, whom he deems the pioneers, wittingly or unwittingly, of anarchical Socialism. Sometimes he makes a good point, as when he satirises a man who fought for an eight-hours day of labour, and then sulked and famed because he could not also work overtime at the higher rate of wages. Sometimes he makes a very bad point, as when he compares the wages of the dock labourer with those of the farm labourer, admitting, in a hazy way, that the latter has no "broken time," while the former can only reckon on his employment from day to day, or from week to week, or by the " job," out adding,—" The incontestable fact remains that their men [the men of the Dock Company], for the actual time they worked, were twice as well paid as agricultural labourers." That is, according to Mr. Brooks, the man who is engaged for however short a time, and who, after that, may be for a long time unemployed, is, for the purposes of this argument, twice as well paid as the man who may, if he will, be employed from January to December. A more fallacious statement it would be difficult to conceive, or one more unworthy of reasonable discussion. We do not, in saying this, assert that farm labourers are either well or ill paid. That is not now the question. We are pointing to a distinct misrepresentation of a simple fact which it is hardly possible for any one to miss in reasoning on such a question. It is well to remember, also, that we are not dealing with a scholastic thesis, but with realities of everyday life. We may be addressing men who all their lives have had to struggle against poverty,—the iron that enters the soul. Such men are not always amenable to rules of literary warfare. What may be sport or word-fence to others, may mean life or death to them. When one is confronted with such a fact, it is hardly possible to restrain a feeling of indignation in view of any attempt to shift a ground of discussion from broad, solid fact, to a question as to whether or not this or that may mean what it pleases some one to call Socialism. The best cure for Socialism in its bad forms is to cheerfully recognise it in its good ones, and to test, both by the often sturdy common-sense and at times gloomy experience of workmen, as well as by the more pretentious and comprehensive, but not more real, or even more exact, knowledge of the students of history. We freely admit that Mr. Brooks has put before the public a vast amount of information on the vexed questions of " Labour and Capital." It is to the spirit in which this is done that we object.
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