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LABOUR NOTES FOR LONDON WELSHMEN.

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LABOUR NOTES FOR LONDON WELSHMEN. There is a very characteristic story of Ralph Waldo Emerson that is not inappli- cable to the London Welshman. One day, at his dinner table, mention was made of a certain person well known for his anxiety to be in touch with the lions of his day and in speaking of him, Mrs. Emerson described him as a snob to this Emerson objected. His wife asked how would he then characterise him. Speaking very slowly, Emerson said, "I should say that he was a person having a great sympathy with success." The London Welshman has a good deal of sympathy with success; especially com- mercial success. With the great organising talents, the far-reaching foresight, and the almost mystic knowledge of human nature that our great captains of industry are credited with, ranks the ability of money- getting as the supreme test of exceptional ability, and it manifests itself in our smaller captains in a decreasing ratio down to the vanishing point of merely earning a living. So far, however, is it from being an ex- ceptional ability, that it is the most ordinary and commonplace of them all, as witness the growth of the co-operative movement. Co-operation itself is a great moral ideal that sprang from the brain of Robert Owen, the Welshman, whose character was too great to be brought between the fair corners of the Cyffes ffydd," and was, therefore, unknown to his countrymen, or ignored by them. But the work of carrying out the business side of co-operation has been in the hands of ordinary commonplace men, untrained work- men, uncommercial artizans with nothing to distinguish them but ordinary common- sense, and yet these grey-coated, ordinary individuals, from the time that three of them took down the shutters of a tiny shop in Toad Street, Rochdale, in 1844, with a capital of Y,28, have developed a business that makes the efforts of our biggest captains of industry to appear like the play of children. To-day the capital of the tiny store has developed into the colossal sum of £ 32,055 229. and their turnover last year was £ 105,717,699, and their profits were over 12 millions sterling. Hearing these facts in mind when esti- mating our merchant princes, we can ensure a great saving in our superlatives. WHY TRADE IS BAD. We have, by this time, become so used to the phenomenal figures of the Board of Trade, denoting the great expansion of business during the last four or five years, that the ordinary man can hardly account for, or explain the general cry that is heard, on all sides, that trade is bad. When it is borne in mind that, with some exceptions, the most important factor in distribution is the spending power of the worker, the following facts, taken from official figures, may indicate some reasons why trade is bad. During the last eight years, in spite of our great expansion of trade, there has been a reduction in the aggregate wages received by the workers of this country. During last April there was reported a decrease of £ 10,000. Among trade unionists, not counting those on strike, there are 7.V per cent. out of em- 2 ployment a higher number than we have had, except in December 1904, for 25 years. The number of paupers has increased 16 per cent. since 1900 and since that year the increase in Customs and Excise duties, four-fifths of which are paid by the worker, has been 9-20,000,000. As is customary during all trade booms, there has been an inflation of prices; and during the last boom there has been an estimated rise of 25 per cent. So with prices higher and wages lower, the worker, in spite of our great increase in trade, is poorer than he was seven or eight years ago. And yet, during the last 10 years, the increase in incomes assessed for Income-Tax amounts to no less a sum than C246,000,000 per annum. These are some of the reasons that have influenced the South Wales miners to sever their allegiance to the Liberal Party, and, by a majority of over 30,000, to decide on joining the Labour Party in the House of Commons in order to secure a more equit- able share of this enormous increase of wealth, that is being monopolised more and more by a decreasing number of the nation. MERLIN.

CYFARFODYDD.

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