Pioneer

Swansea labour Association. I COUNCILLOR DAVID WILLIAMS, J.P. TO I FIGHT SEAT. At a special meeting of the Swansea Labour Association held on Thursday last, to discuss the Parliamentary candidature for Swansea Town Division, Councillor David "Williams, J.P: of Swansea, was elected to contest the seat m the interest of Labour at the next election. It is to lioped comrades will rally to the flag, and win the seat for Labour. Councillor Dd. Williams is well known in Swansea and the neighbouring district for his activities in the Labour, Co-operative, and Socialist Movements. Workers rally, nothing is done without hard work. At the same meeting a resolution was passed unanimously protesting against the action of the Government in withdrawing the Education Bill from before the House of Parliament; and call- ing upon the Government to at once introduce the bill again. Sir Alfred Mond (Lib.) is the present M.P. for the town. At the last election Sir Alfred polled 6,500, against Mr. D. V. Meager'a (U.) 4,267.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. MRS. WILLIAMS and family, 9 Fairview Ter- race, desire to express their heartfelt gratitude to a large circle of friends for the innumerable messages of deep sympathy and comfort ex- tended to them in their recent sad trial; also to all the donors of the beautiful floral tributes.

Our Load of Debt. ON Tuesday the British Chancellor of the Ex- chequer introduced a Vote of Credit for £ 400,000,000. This means that during the first six months of the Government financial year, a period of inflated currency, high prices and hotch-potch finance, the Government has spent £ 1,237,000 a day more than Mr. Bonar Law esti- mated for. Despite the fact that Mr. Law en- deavoured to explain away all but the odd million as "recoverable." and likely to come back at some vague indefinite period, an en- deavour in which his predecessor, Mr. McKenna, lent him the valuable support of his weight, our people who have paused to consider the figures are hardly likely to draw consolation, as did the Government, apparently, from tho fact that in Germany the notoriously bad finances are worse. What do the figures signify? They signify a, debt at the moment of over £5,000,000,000, which will rise by the end of the financial year to a sum certainly not less than £ 6,000,000,000, which will carry an annual debt charge of £ 300,000,000 —to be conservative in our estimate. Our pre- war peace expenditure was roughly £ 200,000,000; but our post-war expenditure will alone add to this an annual additional charge of not less than £ 50,000,000 for pensions and other matters. So that if things got no worse than they are at the moment and the war was finished and the mess cleared up on the Budget estimate to the end of the financial year 1917-18 we shall be faced with a normal post-bellum expenditure of £ 550,000,000. With post-war ^Budgets as heavy as our present one, minus tl)epui-elv war excess profit tax, we shall be more tlitii C200,000,000 short of meeting the lowest possible annual charges against us. Everyone is agreed that we cannot go on living for ever by borrowing, and the problem of this huge expenditure and pro- bable deficit has got to be faced. With these figures before us we see how foolish is the man who argues that in the future we .shall not be put off when agitating for our sorely needed reforms with the story that" It cannot be afforded," as we were before. That argument only illustrates how we were "diddled" in the past; for the future it leaves us face to face with a sad reality that we positively shall not be able to afford it. Shall not be able to afford it, that is, if we allow the present system of raising our finance to prevail. There is a way out that has been emphasised by Philip Snowden and our members time and again throughout the past spendthrift two years, and was mentioned in Tuesday's debates in a watered-down fashion by W. Adamson, who represents West Fife at West- minster. That way is the Conscription of Wealth —the wealth that is the product wholly and solely of Labour applied to Nature; the wealth of the labourer that in all non-Socialistic ifnance is mortgaged for ever and ever, just as in the past it has been robbed from him as surplus value. It is true that Mr. Bonar Law has once told us that this way is impossible short of com- plete (socialisation; and it is further true that whilst Mr. Bonar Law on that occasion overshot the mark in that statement, yet there was a great deal of truth in what he said. When the peopl-e have reached the stage of insisting on the Conscription of Wealth in the national interests, it will mean that the economic and psychological effects of the times have disciplined them and brought them to the turning-point in social evo- lution when Socialism will have left its critical, negative state and will be boldly advancing. as the constructive positive system of Government with the immediate future in its possession. Apart from the Conscription of Wealth there seems no way out of the gloom with it as the principal plank in the platform of ,a, solid Demo- cracy determined on its realisation, the future of Socialism is intimately bound up. At the moment it seems to us that the principal task of Socialism is to concentrate its efforts upon the popularisation of the cry for the conscription of wealth by a clear exposition of the facus that Mr. Bonar Law's figures represent, and their visualisation in understandable concrete illus- trations of the reforms the attainment of which is barred by the burden that those figmes repre- sent.

 Bargoed Notes. Food Vigilance Committee. I The Gelligaer Food "V igilance Committee met on Monday evening last in the Workmen's In- stitute, Bargoed, Mr, T. D. Matthews occupied the chair. Objection was taken at some remarks made by one or two members of the Food Con- trol Committee at a recent meeting, relating to the Vigilance C^ ommittee. Such remarks do not constitute healthy criticism. Complaints were received as to prices being charged in the Dis- trict for different articles of food—tea being sold at 5s. per lb., butter 2s. lOd. and 3s., Nestle's milk Is. 2d. per tin, cow's milk 6d. per quart at the farms, coal Is. 6d., Is. 8d. and Is. lOd. per bag. The secretary was asked to send on all parti- culars to the Food Control Coi nmittee, also pro- testing against the remarks nassed.. The pro- test is also to be sent to Gelligaer Urban Dis- trict of the Council: This Committee learns with satisfaction the suggested co-option of morn Labour representatives on the Control Commit- tee. Me.etings of the Vigil-alioe Committee will be held fortnightly in the future. Any complaints which persons may wish- to "bring to the notice of-the Committee should be. forwarded to the Secretary, Fred Lloyd, 71 Greenfield-street, Bar- goed. Women's Peace Crusade. I Last week a, good number of ladies met at the I.L.P. rooms to form a local section of the Women's Peace Crusade. It was there decided that they canvas all women in the district to help in the noble work for peace/ They accepted the offer or Mrs. Snowden to come and speak at a public meeting on December 2nd. ■ It was also decided to send for literature for a house- to-house canvas, and that they also meet the chapel congregations coming out of chapel some Sunday. They also decided to write to Miss Pallister and Miss T. Wilson Wilson for dates, Mrs. Richard Walters was appointed to the chair; Mrs. Horton (5 Woodville-road, Gilfach) was appointed as secretary, and Mrs. R. Arrow- smith as treasurer. A good collection was taken.

Dartmoor." The rain has fallen mercilessly since daybreak. A dense drifting mist obliterates the outer world. fierce Nor'-Eaeter gale sweeps o'er the moor and screams with fiendish glee as it dashes itself against the prison walls. The slates rattle upon the roof. Miserable as are the outside condi- still more miserable are the conditions within. Rain trickles down the dirty white- washed corridor walls, eventually settling down in little pools in the crevices and hollows of time-worn flagstones. Little piles of dust, paper and matches, lie at the door of almosc every cell. Green, bilious-looking blankets, red- striped arrow-bespangled sheets hang dangling iJil. disorderly profusion over the corridor rails as far as the eye can see. This is Dartmoor, friends, at it appears to me, on this the 28th day of September, in the nineteen hundred and seven- teenth year of our Lord. As I gaze round my little cell, its four bleak white-washed walls, its cold grey floor and ceiling, its bolted door and iron-barred window, my heart becomes sick, tor I am reminded of the slothful progress of humanity. A hundred and four years ago to- day and this self-same cell was probably occu- pied by an American prisoner of war. And here it stands to-day, unaltered, even by so much as a nail. Behind these bars a few months ago the wild-spirited Sinn Feinner fought for liberty, and here I suffer for it to-day; and who knows but that some poor soldier who fights for it to-day may pine for it here to-morrow P Strange it is, but true, The road to Liberty lies through the prison gates.•' Sixteen months ago I was ar- rested, and since then I have been in five differ- ent prisons—Kilmarnock, Ayr, Barlinnie, Wake- field ciiid Dai tmoor, and if there be degrees of rottenness, this easily is the most rotten. We are away out on the bleak, lone moor (1,300 feet above sea level) completely isolated from human society. It is the dreariest of dreary places. Nothing but moor, moor, moor, as far as the eye can see. To give you an idea of the place, let me tell you, that only once in the history of the prison has a prisoner made complete escape. Many have tried it, but have either returned half- starved, half-mad and begged to get back, or (I am told) have been found, away down in the deep black gullies, .cold, stiff and dead. This is a terrible place for a man of sensitive, imagina- tive temperament. To peep into a punishment cell, with its three doors, against which a man mad with suffering could kick and scream un- heard till he felt unconscious or dead, or to peep into a store room, with its handcuffs, ankle chains and all the other implements of torture makes my flesh creep and my heart thump. Sometimes when I think of it all my wrath boils and surges through my whole body and threatens me with a white fire and only when I enter the quiet, calm, neglected graveyard do I return to sanity. There they lie, "star-spangled on. the grass," unknown, uncared for'the victims of a cruel age. Man is cruel, but nature is kind. She never forgete. The grass, bright with the dew of morn', shivers and casts its tears upon the parched earth. The robin chirps pensively from her bough. The ivy rustles eerily on the wall. A gaunt granite L cross casts its shadow across their graves, and all is quiet. No more these ears shall hear the tyrant's threat, nor eyes behold the captive bars, for they are free, free, free—free in death! "Beyond this place of wrath and tears" they smile pityingly upon a poor captive world. But, friends, this is the dark side of Dartmoor I have shown you. Dartmoor of to-day has another side,—bright to dazzling point, and the man who does not find humour here would not find salt water in the sea. We have here almost forty different religious sects and poli- tical parties. We have Quakers, P.B. 's, I.B.S.ers, I.L.P.ers, B.S.F.ers, Christian Scientists, Atheists, Salvationists, Anarchists, Deists, and heaven only knows what we, haven't got. On one door you will see a notice, Jesus Saves," on another Please leave no tracts— already saved," another "There • is joy in Heaven, while on the door opposite an Atheist will ask And, where the Hell's Heaven p Just now as I write all are praising God in their various ways. Some are singing, some are pray- ing, some are preaching. A Welshman beneath me sings, with religious fervour "The Land of my Fathei-s." Down in the yard a dozen poor shivering creatures are standi"ng in the ?ain singing "Away over Jordan. Hundreds are wishing they would go over Jordan and sing it. A cornet, two concertinas, two fiddles and clar- ion ette are going full blast, each at a different tune. "engioiis Englishmen and heathen Jews are f i' ?'in,), are frymg sausages, onions and cheese. Others are washing socks, shirts, and other garments, There are over a thousand of us here, and a more unique collection never dwelt under one roof. We are engaged on Work of National Importance!" I have followed many occupa- tions since coming on to this scheme, viz., sack- repairer, rope-maker, mat-maker, drainer, wood- cutter, etc., and after a year's experience I must solemnly declare that in all my experience I never yet witnessed such wilful waste of public money. Fancy farmers making mailbags, try- ing oakum and mat-making when the nation is supposed to be in a state of seige. If this Gov-j ernment does not come out of this war with clean hands, there is no reason why it should come out of it with dirty. feet.- We have door- mats that would stretch from Merthyr to Mel- bourne, mail-bags that would dry up the Atlantic if thrown in, rope enough to tie the' world in knots. The motto of the scheme seems to be All you who can make things of use, make things that are useless." But my fingers are growing cold, so I think I will creep away under my broad arrows. Everything here is tattooed with broad arrows from our bedclothes to our prayer books. I always look to see if they are not breaking out all over my body. I shouldn't be surprised if they did. The Song of the Ropemaker. We're workers of National Importance, To you of failing hopes we whisper hope, Though Rhondda should fail to find you rations; Fear not, dear friends, while we are making rope. What though your crops upon the land should perish, What though your imports sink beneath the wave, This hope within your bosom fondly cherish- We boys at Dartmoor still have power to save. Let croakers croak and prate about starvation, Remember Man lives not by bread alone," We've rope enough to hang the blessed nation, A yard or two will see you safely home. W.D.

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