THE NEED OF THE HOUR.
[To TIM EDITOil OP TEl " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,-4 have read your two articles, "The Need of the Hour" and "An Immortal Speech" (Spectator, October 22nd), with special interest and pleasure. There is too much sound logic running through every paragraph to make your opinions acceptable to extreme Radicals like Mr. Lloyd George, and I am not surprised to see that the retort which he made on Saturday last marked a return to his more demagogie manner.
I have been connected with Lancashire industry for thirty years, and I have read a great many Radical and Socialist speeches intended to demonstrate to working men that the party which is at present in power is the only political body with the interests of Labour at heart. Therefore I am not surprised to learn what was said at Crediton. I hold, with Mr. Lloyd George, that there are too many idle rich who believe in a false and wicked half-guinea-dinner standard and by it rule their lives—wealthy and lazy people who have neither ideals, desires, nor aims beyond those which administer to their own coarse pleasures—and I think that such drones rare unusually numerous with us ; but I stoutly maintain that amongst our working people of to-day are far too many feckless and brainless creatures who believe that in time all their wants will be provided by a Radical Government, and that they have no need to exert themselves, even in their own personal interests, much less in the affairs of the nation. These effete persons form a rapidly growing class, whose mentality is disorganised by speeches made by men of Mr. Lloyd George's political creed. For never do we find in their wild outpourings any exhortation to workers to be thrifty, to be temperate, to be industrious, to be patriotic, or to seek after learning. By implication artisans and operatives perceive that they may now be as dissolute, idle, thoughtless, and prodigal as they choose, because when their useless yearn- have reached a certain number they will be promoted to the position of "paying guests "; in other words, they will become "ladies and gentlemen."
It is distressing to see men in honourable positions endeavouring to buy votes in this shameless way and at this excessive price, thus gambling with one of the greatest assets of the nation. If Mr. Lloyd George will come with me to Lancashire, I will undertake to open his eyes. Let him visit our cheap music-halls two or three times a week, and there see what a twopenny or threepenny admission fee is doing for the country, coupled with Radical assurances that there is no need now to be thrifty because old age is provided for. Let him also look at our Poor-rates, for they are no less despite his old-age pensions.
It can easily be proved that never before in the history of Great Britain were the health and moral of our working classes in the great industrial districts in such a deplorable condition. A vast army of decrepit and useless young men is wandering about Lancashire and Yorkshire with nothing to do, and their ranks are being augmented daily. Technical schools and free libraries are not used by operatives in the way they were intended to be used, and men who will and can work are less reliable than they formerly were. Radicalism is sapping the self-respect, the strength, and the honour of the country. What is the object of all our work—all our ceaseless industrial activity—if it be not to give the diligent and brainy a chance to place themselves in a stronger financial position so as to enjoy the beauties and the amenities of life in a sensible manner ? Let him ask the factory people to use their brains so that when they have once chosen their career they may see the necessity of working in such a way as to raise themselves higher in the social scale and give themselves more opportunities for the acquirement of knowledge, which, after all, is the only thing that really matters.
If Mr. Lloyd George were fully conversant with industrial matters. he would see that it is stupid to ask a threatened country to reduce its armaments whilst another great industrial Empire is adding battleship to battleship. What he ought seriously to do (for he is right in what he says about the great national waste involved in these huge naval and military expenditures) is to urge upon the Labour leaders of the moment, and all those who aspire to lead our operatives and artisans hereafter, the paramount necessity of learning foreign languages, so that may be able to confer with the Socialists abroad, and thus try to make all movements for the reduction of armaments simultaneous in each industrial country. But at present it is too much trouble for Socialists to learn French and German. It is fat pleasanter and easier to sit in a club and talk. Talk is usually cheap, but Mr. Lloyd George may soon discover that sometimes it is exceptionally
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