The unemployed of London, who doubtless feel the approach- ing
winter cruelly, especially while an extortionate price con- tinues to be demanded for coal, begin to be violent in their lan- guage, and may possibly force Government most unwillingly into prosecutions. On Tuesday, their advocate, Mr. Keir Hardie, the Labour Member for West Ham, moved the adjournment of the House to bring their case before it. Hie speech was not violent, but he declared that more than a hundred deaths, either from starvation or by suicide in fear of it, had occurred in London in 1893, that the unem- ployed formed the soil in which crimes like that of Saturday in Paris were generated, and that Government ought immedi- ately to compel the carrying trades to adopt shorter hours, thereby providing employment for three hundred thousand men ; to adopt the eight-hours law in all Government estab- lishments; to build cruisers so as to provide work on all coasts; to reclaim waste lands and foreshores, and to make workhouses more agreeable. Sir W. Foster, in reply, dis- posed of, Mr. Keir Hardie's statistics, which are only accurate so far as that pauperism has increased, probably owing to the coal strike, but promised nothing except sympathy and pressure on local authorities. Mr. Balfour thereupon, in a speech which drew warm encomiums from his opponents, re- gretted that no Cabinet Minister was present ; quoted figures to show that this was a bad year for work; and dwelt in eloquent language on the congestion of London, which even, he said, the revival of agriculture would hardly relieve. The country-side has but one trade, and that is easily filled up, while the cities have a hundred. His speech charmed Mr. Keir Hardie, we have not an idea why, and perhaps encouraged him to a needless division which ended in a refusal of the adjournment by 175 to 33. Mr. Keir Hardie is doubtless doing his duty according to his lights, but he should get himself coached as to his figures, should keep down his sense that he is the pivot of London, and above all, should abstain from veiled threats. They only cause deafness in those who fain would listen.
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