A few days later Crooks was making his first speech at the County Hall. He took part in the debate on the Fair Wages Clause, the final form of which was settled on the principle he laid down. Up to the birth of the London County Council, which was only three years old when Crooks joined it, municipal bodies knew nothing of Fair Wages Clauses in contracts. The London County Council set an example which has since been followed by public authorities all over the kingdom.
This triumph for Labour was not won without a keen struggle. All kinds of proposals were discussed with a view to defining a fair wage. It looked as though the Labour Bench were in danger of losing the day, when the situation was saved by what John Burns afterwards told Crooks was a happy inspiration.
The County Council was about to adopt what the Labour Bench regarded as an unsatisfactory resolution. Crooks hastily wrote out an amendment which ultimately formed the basis of a settlement. He showed it to Burns, as leader of the Labour Party, and the latter immediately got up and moved it. The words are worth repeating, since they supplied the foundation for a Fair Wages Clause destined to become famous:—
That all contractors be compelled to sign a declaration that they pay the trade union rate of wages and observe the hours of labour and conditions recognised by the London Trade Unions, and that the hours of labour be inserted in and form part of the contract by way of schedule, and that penalties be enforced for any breach of agreement.
Before long this was the only proposal before the Council. The original motion was withdrawn, while amendment after amendment directed against the proposal Crooks had prepared was thrown out. Moderate and Progressive members got up to say that to enforce trade union wages was to fly in the face of political economy. It was this remark that drew from Crooks his maiden speech. How little he was known then may be judged from the fact that the Daily Chronicle's report the next day referred to him as Mr. Brooks. Thus:—
Mr. Brooks said that political economy never took humanity into account, but unless humanity was considered there could be no justice to the worker. No contractor had ever been ruined by paying trade union rates of wages. The best wages had always meant the best workmen. Trade unions were anxious that the surplus labour of the country should be employed, and they only asked the Council to fix a minimum rate of wages. The sooner the Council employed men direct the better. In the name of humanity and Christianity he appealed to the Council to adopt trade union rates of wages.
The day this report appeared Crooks received the following letter from "Marxian," of the Labour Leader, his friend George Samuel:—
My dear Crooks,—Are you the Mr. Brooks of to-day's Chronicle report? If so, permit me to congratulate you on your speech. It struck the one true note in all the weary debate. The awakened consciousness of man has already interfered pretty considerably with the economic "law of population" and must interfere even more drastically with the economic "law of supply and demand." Both laws are for semi-brutes and not for men. To say that supply and demand shall settle wages is brutal. You may not be a very learned man, friend Crooks, but at any rate you are not weighted with that false learning which slays the heart to feed the head.
The fair wages debate went on from week to week at the County Hall, not wearily, as Crooks's correspondent suggests, but with much spirit and party feeling. Finally Lord Rosebery, as chairman, advised the Council to hold a special meeting to settle the question. Before that meeting took place the chairman invited Crooks to discuss the matter with him with a view to arriving at a compromise likely to commend itself to the majority. Crooks refused to withdraw his claim for trade union wages, and after the two had had a long informal talk on the question, Lord Rosebery accepted the Labour member's view.