Mr. Havelock Wilson, the well-known Labour leader, will long be
remembered for his fiery energy and his courage. In recent years he was painfully crippled by rheumatism, but almost to the end he worked untiringly for his causes. Starting life as an extremist, and almost as a revolutionary, he founded the Seamen's Union and guided it from most disheartening beginnings to a power- ful position. Bitterness was in his soul in those days, for he had tasted the unnecessary sufferings of life at sea. His great struggle was with the Shipping Federa- tion, but at last the Federation wisely recognized Mr. Wilson's Union, and as victor he became a different man. He had learned from experience that strikes and violence accomplished slowly what other means might accomplish speedily. His new gospel was that there must be peace in industry, that the interests of employer and employed were identical, that what was good for one was good for both and what was bad for one was bad for both. Under the influence of his new creed he became a kind of super- . patriot, and during and after the War he was in constant conflict with other Labour leaders because he thought they were too gentle towards the Germans who had, as he used to say, " murdered nearly 15,000 of my comrades." * *
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