CHAPTER XXIV THE LIVING WAGE FOR MEN AND WOMEN
Crooks's Maiden Speech—A Welcome from the Treasury Bench—Demand for a Fair Wage in Government Workshops—Advocating the Payment of Members and the Enfranchisement of Women—Crooks's Hold upon the House.
A fortnight after his election to Parliament, Crooks made his maiden speech. He called attention to the fact that the Government was allowing portions of the national workshops at Woolwich Arsenal to remain idle while it was giving work that could be done in them to outside contractors.
"I do not know how it appears to other hon. members," he told the House, "but it seems to me that every department of a Government which claims to be a business Government ought to have the right to make the first use of all the resources which the nation has placed at its disposal before considering outside contractors.... The contractors have fairly good representation in this House, and many things are to be said in their favour; but the Government has no right to use the money of the nation in building machinery and then to allow it to stand idle in the interests of outside firms, no matter who they are or what influence they may have."
In the opening words of his reply, the Minister for War (Mr. Brodrick) said he was sure that whatever their opinion as to the views of the hon. member (Mr. Crooks), all sections of the House would welcome his appearance in debate on a subject on which he was so fully informed.
The same day Crooks called the attention of the House to the low wages paid to labourers in the national workshops.
"I maintain that it is not cheap for the Government to pay men 21s. per week, although other employers may be able to get them for that amount. If the men had more money they would be able to get better house accommodation, and the ratepayers would be saved the substantial sums now paid under the Poor Law for medical orders for people brought up in over-crowded homes. The President of the Local Government Board knows that in consequence of over-crowding in London, hundreds of such medical orders go to people living under unhealthy conditions, impossible to avoid when the family depends on this weekly wage of 21s. paid to Government employees. Such earnings are barely sufficient for food, let alone shelter. An order has been issued by the Local Government Board instructing Guardians to feed the inmates of workhouses properly. The minimum scale laid down for persons in workhouses is of a character that no man with a family can approach if he is only earning 21s. a week. What I urge is that the men in the employment of the State should have a Local Government Board existence, if nothing else—that the men in the national workshops should no longer have to live on a lower food scale than that prescribed for workhouses."
Before he had been in Parliament a month, he got an opportunity to introduce a proposal in favour of the payment of members. The House was well filled when he rose to move the following motion:—
That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable and expedient that, in order to give constituencies a full and free choice in the selection of Parliamentary candidates, the charges now made by the returning officer to the candidates should be chargeable to public funds, and that all members of the House of Commons should receive from the State a reasonable stipend during their Parliamentary life.
He addressed the House at some length on this motion. Here is a summary of his speech:—
There was a good deal of talk about there being absolute equality in this country, but there was, as every member knew, only one way of getting into the House, and that was by spending substantial sums of money. A considerable sum of money was spent in securing his election, but he did not have to find a farthing of it. The cash was subscribed openly and freely. But he had often heard it asked when a poor man was standing: "Who is finding your money?"
Only the other day he saw the following advertisement in the Yorkshire Post:—
M.P.—A gentleman, thirty, holding a responsible position in London, desirous of entering Parliament, wishes to meet with an affectionate and wealthy lady, view matrimony. Genuine. Highest credentials.
It might be suggested that men would go into the House of Commons simply to make a living out of it. But was there not in the present House more than one member who made a pretty good thing out of the privilege of being able to attach the magic letters "M.P." to their names? However that might be, he ventured to assert that the administrative capacity of this country had never yet been properly tapped.
It was said a man needed to be trained for political life. Yes, but where? Was it at the University? Was it by taking a double first at Oxford or Cambridge that he would turn out a great law-maker, or was it by constant contact with humanity? He had seen in the Press an observation to the effect that it was all very well for Labour to have its representatives in Parliament, but what did they know of those great historic and important questions which so vitally affected the interests and welfare of the nation? His answer to that was that it was infinitely more important to the average industrial worker of this country that the conditions of life should be bettered, and that an opportunity should be given for men to enter the House who knew what he wanted.
He was one of those who believed that practical knowledge of working men would prove exceedingly helpful in the deliberations of the House. There were too many academically-trained men and too few practical men engaged in the government of the country. He had been in touch with working-men for years and years; he had sat with them on administrative bodies, and his experience was that one touch of nature was worth infinitely more than all the academic training Oxford or Cambridge could give.
M.P.—A gentleman, thirty, holding a responsible position in London, desirous of entering Parliament, wishes to meet with an affectionate and wealthy lady, view matrimony. Genuine. Highest credentials.
The speech was listened to with sympathetic interest, frequently producing laughter and cheers. The motion, however, was talked out by the Government's supporters.
In his election address Crooks had shown that he wanted women to have the vote. It was with much satisfaction, therefore, that he introduced the Women's Enfranchisement Bill prepared by the Independent Labour Party. The second reading not having been reached when the Session closed, the Bill fell through. Similar measures which have his support have been introduced since. He hopes they will be brought forward regularly until a woman's right to the franchise is recognised.
He gave in the Review of Reviews his reasons for introducing the Bill that bore his name:—
"It is because in all my public work I aim at making the people self-reliant, able to think and act for themselves, that I want women to have the power and the responsibility that the possession of the vote gives. It is by this rather than by any consideration of how their votes would be used that I ask for woman's suffrage. At the same time I believe that the cause of progress has nothing to fear from this reform. We entrust to women as teachers and as mothers the all-important work of educating the future citizens. How absurd, then, to hesitate to give to women the rights of a citizen. As regards the women of the working-class, I point out constantly that all the many social questions that are pressing for settlement affect these women as much as, if not more than, they affect their husbands. We must give women a share in settling such questions."
He went on, in the course of further remarks in the same magazine, to lay great stress on the importance of organisation and of agitation in order to secure the vote for women. There should be local workers in every constituency. Every member of the House of Commons should have strong pressure brought to bear upon him. No woman, he urged, should work for any candidate who is not a supporter of women's franchise. If the candidate put forward by her own political party cannot support this, she should work for the candidate who can, no matter to what party he belonged.
"If women are in earnest on this question," he added, "they must prove it by putting principle before party, and making the enfranchisement of their sex the first object of all their political work."
On political platforms he often mentioned an incident that arose in connection with a protest he made against the low wages paid to women in the Government's Victualling Yard at Deptford.
"It's starvation," he told one of the responsible officials, "to pay widows with families 14s. a week."
"But it's constant," said the amazed official.
"So, you see," Crooks adds in telling the incident, "that Government officials think starvation's all right so long as it's constant. Do you think this system of constant starvation would be tolerated for a day if women had the vote?"
Before Mr. Balfour's Government came to an end, Crooks had become one of the popular speakers of the House. He brought into Parliament a lively conversational style rarely found in that assembly. His quaint witticisms, his telling illustrations from the every-day life of the people, together with his downright sincerity, his tolerance and restraint, won him the good-will of both sides of the House. Whether pleading for underfed school children, for the unemployed, or speaking against the taxation of the people's food, he was generally admitted to be bright and forceful. He never spoke without bringing a new point of view to the debate. "Jehu Junior," writing in Vanity Fair, said of him:—
His tact and common-sense served him as well in the House as they had done in settling Labour disputes at Poplar. By never debating any subject but those on which he has special knowledge, and by his perfect good temper and modesty, he became one of the men whose politics arouse no personal animosity on the "other side."
Of him and the other Labour men in that Parliament—the small band of stalwarts who were reinforced so strongly at the General Election of 1906—Mr. John Morley, addressing his own constituents at Montrose, said:—
Will anybody, who has watched the life of the House of Commons, say that in moderation of demeanour, in decency of manners, in self-respect, in freedom from swagger and assumption, these men have shown themselves inferior to men sitting by their side who have had all the opportunities of wealth, education, and culture? If I were leaving the House of Commons to-morrow, and were called upon to adjudicate a prize, I would impartially give the prize for good manners, for self-respect, for moderation of statement, for respect for the audience they addressed in the House of Commons, to the dozen Labour men whom we have had the pleasure of having among us rather than to a dozen gentlemen I could name if I liked.
From the other side of the House came the testimony of Sir John Gorst. The ex-Conservative Minister brought out his book, "The Children of the Nation"—wherein he argues that it is the duty of the State to see that the nation's children are well fed, well housed, and well clothed—with the following dedication:—"To the Labour Members of the House of Commons in token of my belief that they are animated by a genuine desire to ameliorate the condition of the people."