CHAPTER XXIII ADVENT OF THE POLITICAL LABOUR PARTY
Congratulations—A Letter from Bishop Talbot—Bar-parlour Opinion—The Press on the Victory—The Birth of a Party—An Opponent of the South African War.
Before Crooks went down to the House of Commons on the following day, he had a busy morning opening telegrams to the number of two or three hundred.
Mr. John Burns, Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. David Shackleton, wired their congratulations from the House of Commons. Other messages came from trade unions and groups of working-men and working-women in various parts of the country. Among them were telegrams from dockers at Middlesbrough, coopers at Birmingham, postmen in London, engineers at Newcastle, and cycle-makers at Coventry.
These well-wishes from the ranks of Labour poured in simultaneously with congratulations from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Hon. Maud Stanley, Lord Tweedmouth, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, and many ministers of religion.
The late Sir Wilfrid Lawson, as was his wont dropped into verse. He wired from Carlisle:—
Hurrah! The future brighter looks;
We worry on by hooks and Crooks.