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Outlines of Industrial History…
Outlines of Industrial History I 10.-THE CREATION OF THE PROLETARIAT I The reader will recall that in Outline 9 it was ,shown how the merchants gathered together that accumulation which is the starting <:> point of capital; and how they, owing to their methods of accumulation, were under the illusion that value was created in exchange. If he lias carefully read the chapters men- tioned at the Outline's end—and he should have done so—he will have gained some knowledge of the horrors which accompanied this primitive ac- cumulation. He will have found that the Congo atrocities are not without precedents in this terrible story of meanness, of treachery, of bri- bery, of massacre, of the artificial creation of famines, and of wars for slaves and plunder. It is indeed a tale which harrows up the soul." He will have an insight into things which no or- thodox history-book will supply. He will know* how the much admired Elizabethan mariners were busy trading captured slaves for rum and how Hawkins in particular, as a mark of royal recognition of his gallant exploits in this trade, received from good Queen Bess a ship called Jesus" to encourage him in his Christian en- terprises., The Knights of the road never sur- passed the Knights of commerce at this romantic process of loot and murder." Yet in spite of this it is often maintained that the capitalist class owns its capital because of its practice of thrift and abstinence. THE NECESSITY OF A PROLETARIAT. Why does capitalism need a class which has no other way of living than by the sale of its labour-po\Ver ? To answer this question we must clearly understand what capital is. Capital is that part of wealth used to create more wealth, ,and, as we have tried to show, only emerges upon the stage when certain historical developments have occurred. Preceding forms of capital—merchants' and usurers' —did not create more value. (The word "value" is a more definite economic term than "wealth," because the latter may include na- tural wealth in the making of which no human labour was expended, though the given defini- tion of capital still holds good, as no person can use the wealth, for example, of a beautiful sun- set to make more sunsets or wealth.) The mer- chant and userer only transferred values from their different owners if no commodities or ex- change-values were produced then they (the trader and the money-lender) would be idle. That the merchant, by at first dealing in the surplus products of the community, initiated, increased and encouraged commodity-production is not de- nied. But we witnessed in the last lesson that the cheating and looting of the merchants and the extortion of the usurers, in former Empires, through causin~ internal divisions and corrup- tien and external pressure, became outplayed and created their own nemesis in the disappear- ance of their tree-men customers and in foreign invasions. This impossibility of making more value with- out the expenditure of labour confirms the La- bour Theory of Value. Labour," declared Petty, is the father and active principle of Wealth. lands are the mother." The accumula- tion of values was only potential capital until the serf and gild relations had been destroyed, and a class ef people, free from, all the old regula- tions and owning only one particular commodity, Was forced to sell this commodity—thus supply- ing the labour-power without which capital can- Rot function. We will now turn from the theoretical to the practical aspect and attempt to notice the facts in English history which helped to produce this necessary proletariat and follow how the Fif- teenth Century Golden Age of the labourer was swept away. Remembering the relativity of all beginnings, no attempt will be made at chrono- logical exactness; and it should be clearly urJr derstood that the factors hereafter noted did not operate separately but were in constant inter- play aiding each other. THE BREAK-UP OF THE FEUDAL BANDS. As this point has already been dealt with in "The Fall of Feudalism," we need not stop to describe how the policy of would-be absolute Anarchs, the effects of war and new methods of war, and the growth of luxtit-y and towns com- bined to make the barons disband their retainers. Hitherto the number of his retainers was a cri- terion of the baron's wealth, but this standard Was displaced in later years by another—the size of his rent-roll. The fighting retainers became hee-booters or sturdy beggars or flocked to the towns to find work. THE CONFISCATION OF THE MONAS- TERIES. With the decline of feuctallsm the Church, the chief upholder of it traditions, was attacked as a stiner of inquiry. The curious, enterprising, daring spirit of the age flouted the Church with its blind reverence for the pa.st and its obstinate retention of beliefs concerning the world which voyagQs nd thinkers had proved untrue. Our fiext Outline uiil contain further particulars of how lier prestige was destroyed, new methods of adopted, and of how the coming of Printing and education broke down her monopoly ,of learning which was the source of her power in a dark, superstitious age. Her insolence and -%?cl at- k l Steed for revenue, her clamming up of wealth '\tttich otherwise might have financed new under- takings, her crowds of idle monks, and her many sacred holidays and indiscriminate charity which Prevented the poor from acquiring industrious habits—these were the causes of the Reforma- lon. In 1534 England separate dfrom Rome and 1l 1536 and 1539 the hugh rental and lands of one thousand religious-houses were confiscated. The nlOnk, the Church's dependents, and the workers dpoll the Church's lands followed the way of the 13banded feudal retainers. This confiscation of religious property was also Used to weaken the Guilds by taking from them that part of their funds left and used for reli- gions purposes. HIGH PRICES. J-'hese, too, played a, part in reducing the la- bourer from his former comparatively indepen- dent state. The discovery of new supplies, and the resulting cheapening of the precious metals, in obedience to the law of value, caused prices to I-ife '?llid ? the Sixteenth Century prices rose a.n 16? Per cent., while wages rose only 30 per  Another factor which raised prices and helped to worsen the workers' conditions, from those of the Golden Age, was the depreciation of the coinage both in size and quality, indulged in y the early Tudor monarchs. Wages, then, as Qaw, only slowly following the rising prices, for It IS always easier to get the workers to act upon he defensive than upon the offensive, the la- t 'Hirer lost in the rising market which these Actors created. THE ENCLOSURES. ? ?hltie dilemma of the landlord, caused by the Portage of labour following the Black Death, ??d a. solution in the increase of wool-growing. A't'flrst the trouble was that no labour could be ?t; howen-or as wool-growing developed, the tak bourers and their holdings were in the way and ?r labour was no longer required. I In the years 1540-1600, owing to the high prices obtainable for wool the tendency to evict men for sheep was especially hastened. Begin- ning in a small way in the Thirteenth Century the enclosure of land, in what had been prac- tically an hedgeless country, was widely and ra- pidly adopted. The following figures will convey some idea of its extent and rate of increase in the 18th and the first half of the 19th Centuries: In the years 11101 to 1760, 334,974 acres enclosed. In the years 1760 to 1843, 7,000,000 acres en- closed. The process was something like this: The lord would first of all introduce sheep upon his demesne in order to escape paying high wages. Then he would enclose the waste and restrict the tenants' arable. Next the com- mon lands with all their privileges would be enclosed, and the labourer would find his very existence threatened with the disappearance of his common rights and the demand for his la- bour, as few men were required to tend the sheep. The lord would no longer occmpy the manor house; the peasants were evicted from their holdings, and as they tilled their land in co-operation, when two or three of them were shifted it often meant the breaking up of the whole village. Thus the demolition of the feudal manor was accomplished. Preventive legislation, in 1489, 1514, and 1534, seeking to prevent the turning of arable into pasture land, and to stop this wholesale de- struction of villages, was ineffective because the magistrates' intehrests—themselves being land- lords—were contrary to the laws they were sup- posed to administer. Kett's Norfolk Revolt in 1549 was an uprising of the peasants against the system of enclosures. The prosperity of the large landowners was the poverty of the peasants. The Golden Age be- came a memory. VAGRANCY AND PAUPERISM. These were two of the immediate results iol- lowing upon the factors above enumerated Dis- banded from the little feudal armies, robbed of the shelter, charity, and protection of the mon- asteries, evicted from their holdings, and de- prived of the use of the common lands, these vagrants and robbers became a danger to society through their homelessness and desperation. This danger was at first-met by making appeals through the parish clergymen to private charity, but in 1601 it was found necessary to make the first Poor Law. Pauperism became a recognised institution in society. This Poor Law, however, was the outcome of fear rather than of sympathy with the expropriated, for one of the Elizabethan statutes lays it down that "Lusty and valiant beggars" were to bd "grievously whipped .and burned through the gristle of the right ear with an iron of the compass of an inch about as a i Be f ore Elizabeth, lasting sign of punishment. Before Elizabeth, in Henry VII. 's reign, we read that 72,000 great and petty thieves were hanged. In the time of the Stuarts the Law of Parochial Settlement was necessary because no person likely to be- come chargeable upon the poor rate was allowed to settle in any parish but the one of his birth. The flocking to the towns of the dispossessed villagers helped to break down the guild exclu- siveness. The passing of the Statute of Appren- tices reveals that trade was unregulated, and that apprenticeship was sometimes being evaded. Under this Act wages were often fixed so low by the magistrates that they had to be supple- mented by grants under the Poor Law pro- visions. So with the coming of this free" class, free" from all its former security of subsist- ence, comes the problem of poverty and the freedom to starve. The sad and bitter story of 'the creation of his own class merits the atten- tion of every thoughtful worker. THE RISE OF THE MANUFACTORY. The divorce frcsn the means of production is now complete. Like the two very necessary polies of a magnet, accumulated values now face labour-power. The guilds and their regulations are undermined, and the vagrants are ready to be disciplined in the army of production by the rise of the manufactory, which first took place in the woollen industry. Long before the In- dustrial Revolution, while many industries were still in the guild and domestic stages of produc- tion, in the textile industry men were assembled under the single roof of the factory, where, un- der careful supervision, the division of laoour inside the workshop was introduced. From this came a simplifying and a division of operations paving the way for an applIcation, of machinery and increasing the productiveness of labour. In dosing this Outline, which has endeavoured to show the harsh circumstances which accom- panied the birth of our class, we would make it clear that it has been written with no desire to provoke useless regrets or crocodile tears. To sentimentally rhapsodise over the sufferings of the early members of our class, to wish things had been otherwise or to imagine what might have been otherwise, or to imagine what might have been, is a waste of thought. The moving finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy tears wash out a. word of it." The enclosures improved agriculture by elim- inating waste, they also broke down the narrow outlook of the peasant proprietor and so made for progress. Again though capitalism found it necesgary to divorce the labourer from the means of pro- duction by ways more vigorous than kind before it could emerge and play its part upon the stage of history, we shall see in future lessons how in its progress it developed immense natural re- sources solved the problem of production; brought the whole world into kinship; tended, and is still tending, to break down all barriers of craft, sex, colour and nationality between the workers; and it is gradually drilling and edu- cating us up to the point of control of industry. By strenuous agitation, education in the social' sciences in order to solve the problem of distri- bution, and by efficient organisation, that time can be hastened when the separation traced above will be annulled, and the labourer will be again the ovpier and costroiler of the now highly im- proved means of production. READING.—Capital, Vol. I., chaps. 27 and 28. These contaisa description of the expropria- tion of the peasants and the succeeding legislation. Gibbins Period 3, chap. 1; Period 4, chaps. 1—4.. Warner Chaps. 8 and 10. MARK STARR. I
South Wales Steelworkers.…
South Wales Steelworkers. I JOINT AUDIT RESULT. I A report was placed before the Wages Board of the South Wales and Monmouthshire Iron and Steel Workers Association at Abergavenny showing that during the three months ending November 30th the selling price of tin-bars and steel-rails had increased by 4t per cent. An offer of 2i per cent. advance in wages was made by the employers to the workmen. The men's representatives were not in a position to accept the offer without first consulting the workmen, before whom the terms will be placed in due course.
Scotland's Reply to Cardiff…
Scotland's Reply to Cardiff Jingoes. UNRELENTING OPPOSITION TO CONSCRIP- TION. Under the auspices of the National Council for Civil Liberties a conference representative of Trade Unions, Labour Socialist, and Kindred Or- ganisations was held in the Christian Institute, Bothwell-street, Glasgow, on December 23rd, to consider questions arising out of the Military Service Acts and the administration of the De- fence of the Realm Act and Regulations. The delegates present numbered 274 and represented over 100 organisations with an aggregate mem- bership of over 200,000. Councillor Wheatley, who presided, in the un- avoidable absence, through illness, of Mr. Robert Smillie in moving that: — "This conference, holding that military com- pulsion cannot be separated from industrial com- pulsion, and that this form of compulsion in the workshops endangers the whole standard of in- dustrial conditions and places the men in the mines, factories, railways, docks, etc., practically under military or semi-military law, and that this puts a weapon of great power in the hands of private employers working for their own pro- fits and dividends, pledges itself to offer unre- lenting opposition to all forms of Militarism and Conscription." devoted some time to the question of the Clyde Deportations and was of opinion that the Bel- gian Deportations, much as they regretted, did not shock the principles on which the social. order was established as much as the deportation of the Clyde Trade Unionists. The men had been taken from their beds in the early hours of the morning, deported to another part of the coun- try, refused a trial and could not get back to their homes until they signed an undertaking that in future1 they would be of good behaviour. Mr. Smith (Ironmoulders) seconded. Mr. W. C. Anderson, M.P., on rising to sup- port the resolution received a great ovation. He emphasised very strongly the danger of reaction during the war. We were protesting to-day against the suppression of many ef these civil liberties that have come down to us after more struggling on the part of our forefathers than we knew of. In time of war, especially, there is al- ways the danger of reaction at home. We have reactionary people in this country and, in fact, in all the belligerent countries, who use the pre- text and excuse of the war to stifle and suppress the freedom and the men they so much hated in times of peace. He believed the Labour Move- .ment in this country existed to guard the great rights they had won by so much fighting and so much toiL If the Labour Movement was going to guard these rights, however, it must retain its independence. The reason why the Irish political prisoners had been set free was because there was an Irish Party not tied up to any Coalition, and perhaps the reason why the Glasgow men were not-yet free was because there' did not'exist a Labour Movement sufficienty free to work on the same lines as the Irish Party. Deportation, lie urges, was not only wrong but was absolutely foolish and futile as well. In support of this he referred to the case of David Kirkwood—(cheers) —he had been elected a delegate from Scotland to'the Labour Party conference, and this man who is seised by the Military and Munition Auth- orities received more votes than all the total of the other fifteen candidates. There is the futil-j ity of the. whole thing put in a nutshell. (Cheers.) There was also the case of Mr. Bertrand Russell —(cheers and hear, hear)—who was a great scholar and a great teacher, and he is treated as if he were an alien, and yet he is the son of Lord John Russell. HQ is forbidden to enter certain prohibited areas in which to-deliver lectures. It was pure futility and absurdity. Why could a. lecture which is quite harmless for Manchester be harmful for Glasgow and yet the lecture Mr. Russell should have delivered in Glasgow was delivered by Mr. Robert Smillie —(cheers)—and they have not yet proceeded against Smillie. "I hate, as we-all' hate, what is called Prus- sianism," proceeded Mr. Anderson, but if we hate t in other countries, we are not going to have it in our own country; and I do not be- lieve we are going to defeat Prussianism by more and more accepting the ideas of PrusSianism here both in regard to Military and Industrial affairs. I saw the other day a circular issued by the Mili tary Advisory (lommittep in London. It contained about 50 questions (1) How many meals do you have at home each day ? How much money do I you pay your wife each week? Is your rent paid out of that allowance? and fifty other personal and impertinent questions. There have been three big acts passed. First of all the Defence of the Realm Act, then the Munitions of War Act, then the Military Service Acts, and the cumulative force of that legislation is very serious indeed, in faet, many workpeople to-day are afraid to speak to you. For instance, under the Military Service Acts it is perfectly legal to speak against Conscription, but under the De- fence of the Realm Act is is not legal. If you say any critical word against the Government, you are charged with sedition and other such vague words. INDUSTRIAL CONSCRIPTION. Take the case of the pledge under Military and Industrial Conscription. I have said all the way through, I said when I moved the rejection of the Military Service Act in the House of Com- mons—(hear, hear)—that you could not divorce Military Compulsion from Industrial. (Cheers.) The two things go together, and if you admit the principle of Military Compulsion I do not see how on principle you can refuse Industrial Com- pulsion. You have got the master and employer with 50 men of military age in his works. The mili- tary authorities say they must have 15 of them and let him keep the rest at his work. The men have no option to say who shall go and who shall stay, but it is the boss and the foreman, and a good many of the men who are dispe-nsed with are those who have taken an active part in the Trade Union movement—(hear, hear)-and there is hardly a week passes without some change in the arrangement about badges and certificates, new regulations, the desire to "comb on; as if men were so many vermin, as indeed some of them are, in the eyes of the military people and of the employer, who has the right'to dismiss a man or when he has the right to debadge a man. Don't you see the enormous power that this Mili- tary Compulsion gives. Whereby it proves to be a weapon of enormous importance in the hands of the employers. You have to-day respectible soldiers dressed in their khaki working inside the workshops. These soldiers have been marched to the workshops, marched away at night and sergeants were sent to look after the men when at their work. Many unfit men were being passed into the Army. I have no hesitation in saying that tens "Of thousands of men unfit for any real military work have been enlisted. It was possible that many of these men enrolled for the Army are really going to be used for industrial pur- poses. As this goes on a greater fear of dis- missal is placed before the workers, and there is no workman who does not ostensibly feel that, and especially the workman of military age who dares to protest against some wrong thing done by his employer. I say also that the whole road upon which we were travelling very fastly has been strewn with broken pledges given from time to time. (Hear, hear.) You remember the rfa- tional Registration Act. Assurances were given on the pledged work of these statesmen that it would not be used for the purposes of intro- ducing Conscription. We had the Derby Scheme to herald on Conscription and the excuse was that it was to stave off Conscription. At least oat of the Derby Scheme there came the first Military Service, Act. It was not a Military Ser- vice Act for everybody, the dear married men were not under it. We get the dividing line between the two and you believed that it was only a limited measure of Conscription. The House of Commons and your Mr. Arthur Hender- son-(hisses)-,said that the measure contained nothing to which he had ever been opposed. We have therefore seen that the first instalment of Conscription paved the way for the second. We now. get Conscription for all males between 18 and 41, and how many pledges and promises were given. How kind the tribunals were going to be to the widow's only son. They were going to be nice to the small business man and the man who held deep conscientiout views and convic- tions was to be exempt. Both pledges and pro- mises were given in respect of the unfit. There were even men of 41 years taken to the Army. We have now read of where they were speaking of introducing Black Labour into the country, this scheme has been dropped, and I believe you have got to thank the Trade Union People out- side and not Labour members inside for that. (Hear, hear.) Now the latest proposal was one for the complete mobilisation of everybody. They seem to have discovered it during the war that there is in this country, and in every country, luxurious work tat the nation could well do without. Many price lists were sent to Mem- bers of Parliament. At the present time there is a shortage of sugar, some poor people can hardly get a pound of sugar. I got a price list containing 49 different varieties of chocolates and bon-bons. The first box was a large one and the price of the box was 50s., or if you wished a special red silk ribbon round it, it cost 52s. 6d. I got a Christmas price list sent to me the other day in regard to dolls at £ 8 and JE9, and I have here an advertisement of strings of pearls in this time of war economy, and the price of these strings of pearls is from £ 2,000 to ;£4,00.0, and as high as £ 10,000. These firms would not ad- vertise if they did not get the customers. I see the people conscripted and forced against their will and would never do their best work, there- fore, we, at any rate, should stand by the prin- ciple of liberty and of freedom, and I fear that this latest scheme, if it goes too far, will not only break down, but will involve the downfall of the whole Government. (Hear, hear.) I am quite sure, my friends, thpt the reaction against all thiq will come and we will have been proved to have been in the right. (Cheers.) The resolution was unanimously adopted. MALADMINISTRATION AND APPEAL. The next resolution on the agenda whicj'i was |that:— This conference, viewing the maladministra- tion of the Military Service Acts, 1.916, and the failure of tfoe provisions of those Acts to meet the cases of conscientious objectors, domestic hardship, etc. and, further, holding the adop- tion of Conscription to be a national disaster, demands a, full inquiry into the situation created by the Acts with a view to their early repeal." was moved.by Mr. R. C. Wallhead, who said the resolution which he had just moved is to the effect that this conference vrelying the malad- ministration of the Military Service Acts of 1916 and the failure of these Acts to meet the cases of conscientious objectors and domestic hardship, etc. The adoption of Conscription demanded a full enquiry into the situation created by the Acts and with a, view to their early repeal. That resolution cam be divided into two parts, the first is the treatment of the conscientious ob- jector and the second is the question of Conscrip- tion itself, as applied to the life of the nation. Mr. Anderson in the speech he has just delivered touched on one or two points of early adminis- tration of the Acts in regard to the treatment of men and their physical unfitness of men for the Army. Anyone who reads the newspapers know of these cases, and I know of men in the last stage of consumption having been forced into the Army. Mr. Philip Snowden—(cheers)— in the House of Commons spoke about a particu- lar case he knew of. The man had done no work for two years, was forced into the Army, sent to a training camp, and the man died two or three days after. Let me give you another in- stance: a-'firai got a man called up for service, he was sent to Dumbarton and there kept for eight "weeks. He was a cripple, and Major Beattie says: "This man left work. He was an agitator of the worst kind, and without giving up his badge, which is now in my possession at Paisley, and when I spoke to him he was un- pardonably insoleiilt "—that is the military man to perfection. He has now, however, realised the strength of the Trade Unions and of Mr. Anderson and Mr. Snowcleia. (Cheers.) That, of course, proves the importance of independent! men in the House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) The amount of work that has been done by a few men in the House of Commons spetaks worlds for what might have been done had their numbers been eight times stronger. (Hear, hear.) We should carefully tttkø to heart that the reason why we are liable to pay fines for this or that minister or other minister. At this time the people joke over the cotiscientious objector. Our world is full of tribunals, we live in a world of tribunals made up of this man and the ot.her man who proved their incapacity of judging any other man's conscience and from time to time have not in connection with their public work displayed a great amount of conscience of their ,own. At the tables of these tribunals you have got these gentlemen and before them there have appeared thousands of young men, in fact, the tribunals have been overwhelmed. The tribunals realising that the war should be pursued to the bitter end they, believe in the war and think that someone ought to go and fight, but ndt themselves. We have the little business man who is very important. We have exemptions for men in rib- bon businesses, some who travel for stay-laces and are indispensible to the Empire. All these people go to the tribunals for the purpose of getting exemption, and there is no ridicule poured on these, men. They believe in war, they believe that someone else ought to fight and are prepared to spill the last drop of everybody else's blood. (Cheers.) The difference between the men and the conscientious objector is that the conscientious objector says: "I don't .be- lieve in your war, in war at all, I don't believe it is a holy war, I don't want anybody to fight, and I don't want to fight mysself ana I don't intend to. (Hear, hear.) Now, from the point of view of the man who believes in war, well, really, logically, he would regard the conscientious objector as an archangel, but the man who asks to be relieved on trasi- ness grounds is a despicable cur. (Hear, hear.) No matter what the average man may think about the conscientious objector he is putting up a grand fight for a moral principle of inestimable value. (Hear, hear.) When we talk of courage It,t us remember that physical courage was not rare. The world is full of heroes, every man in all the armies is a hero. They have all got cour- age, it is a common lot, but what is rare is moral courage—(hear, hear)—the courage to stand alone is the courage that is needed all the time. (Hear, hear.) The conscientious objector is abominably treated and, after all; is accepting probably a kind of courage that the nation will need tre- mendously in the days to come. (Hear, hear.) This is what I think we have- got to fight. If our young men and young women are to be brought up in the future under the shadow of a militaristic power the sphere of political and civil in which you and I have been brought up will have fallen. (Hear, hear.) My son is a. conscientious objector—(hear, hear)—he was sen- tenced a week ago to six months hard labour. (Shame.) Now the law is that once a man is sentenced he should be handed into the hands of the civil authorities and the military have no more power or control over him. He and three other comrades were put back to the detention room which is infested with rats the size of large cats, kept there and fed on bread and water, then tried by superior officers who have a dirty handkerchief and one stripe, and the Major says: "All this talk of conscience is sheer damned hum bug. After that you serve the rest of your sentence and are told that if you disobey you will be sent to France. That is the kind of j thing that all this leads to and therefore, friends, that is why we should fight for the repeal of the Acts, and we shall have good reason to fight against this power that is now strongly en- trenching itself. (Cheers.) CIVIL LIBERTY. j The following resolution was moved by Mr. jj Robert Williams (Transport Workers) and se- condcd by Councillor Thomas Johnston (Editor, I' "Forward ") :— This conference views with apprehenSioR the administration of the Defence of the Realm Act. :tT!? especially the abr.e of power conferred on Mi itary and Police Authorities by the regula- j ticnx issued under that Act, by which the ex- pression of ordinary political opinion is being suppressed and punished contrary to the pledges given by members of the Government and in vio- lation of British traditions, and demands the im- mediate and complete restoration of Civil Liberty in regard to freedom of speech and freedom of the Press."
Winstcne and Allowances ;…
Winstcne and Allowances and Pensions. FINE SPEECH AT MOUNTAIN ASH. THE S.W.M.F. AND TRADE UNIONISM. Speaking at the Workmen's Hall, Mountain Ash on Friday evening last to the Lower Duffryn Colliery* workmen, presided over by Mr. Noah Tromans, Councillor J.. Wins tone, J.P., said it gave him very great pleasure to be allowed to address workmen of Mountain Ash. He was among some of his nearest and dearest friends, men with whom he had been privileged to do some of his best work for the Industrial Move- ment and the wider Labour and Democratic Movements in South Wales. On no occasion could it be said of him that when the interests of the workers were in jeopardy or the liberties of the people in danger that he had ever faltered or been afraid to speak for those first principles of democracy which were rooted and grounded in and had become an inseparable part of the best life of the Welsh people. Those principles were inseparable because they are the very foundations of liberty and the true progress of the human race. He said his length of service and long experience in the British La- bour Movement gave him the right to speak with some authority. Since the outbreak of war he had been at the head of one of the largest sec- tional industrial organisations in this country. The South Wales Miners' Federation had passed through many storms and had by its in- dustrial activity saved the soul of the Trades 'Union Movement in this country. It had not only improved the status of the workers but had maintained their Civil Liberties. It had in- creased the miners' wages and had thereby in- fluenced in the right direction the wages of other classes of workmen, and he hoped that the in- crease in the family income had increased their home comforts and brought sweetness and light as far as was possible under existing conditions fcito the lives of the mothers and children of the district, for, after all, increased income was of little use unless it made the homes brighter and the burdens of life easier to bear. First and foremost the South Wales Miners' Federation was an industrial fighting organisation. Its chief function was to obtain economic justice for the wealth producers, but its members must make up their minds to take a wider sphere with the same ardency as they entered the industrial sphere. Industrial and political organisations are only means to an end, which is the elevation of the human race with nobility of character, higher ideals and broader visions and a real brother- hood. Dealing with the position of disabled soldiers lie said he had always been whole-heartedly in sympathy with the soldiers who had sacrificed so much for their country and during the period of the war had done a good deal to promote the interest of the rrten and women who had suffered as a result of this war. The Miners' Federation had been asked to suggest a scale of payments for the wounded soldiers and their dependents, and he had taken part in drawing up the fol- lowing scale: In all cases of total disablement the soldier should receive a minimum pension of 30s. per week, to be graded up proportionately to the weekly amount earned by him previous to the war with allowances for each child as follows — One child, 5s. weekly, Second child, 3s. 6. weekly, For each child above two, 2s. 6d. each weekly. In all cases of partial disablement, the man should receive a minimum pension of £ 1 per week to be graded up proportionately to the amount earned by him previous to the war, with allowances for each child as follows: — One child, 3s. weekly, All children over one, 2s. 6d. each weekly. The Miners' Federation suggest that a soldier should be guaranteed a pension for disease con- tracted or developed on active service. He had not been unmindful of the wounded soldier of industry, and had been abvocating that those workmen who had received injuries by accidents in the course of their employment and were in receipt of compensation should have an increase adequate to meet the increased cost of living, and hoped, despite the difficulties, that he would be successful in this proposal of natural justice. Referring to the control of the mines, it seems to him to be very far from his Idea of NationaJi- sation, and was control of the minerals only. The Civil Liberties of the miners were fully pro- tected, but he thought they would miss a glorious opportunity if they did not agree to fixing the present rate of wages as a minimum, with the right to follow by further increases any in- creased cost of living.