"I believe we put new life into the municipal politics of the whole country in those days," he tells you. "The London County Council showed the people of England what great powers for good lay in the hands of municipalities. We became a terror to all the monopolists who had fattened on London for generations. We struck at slum-owners, ground landlords, the music-hall offenders, food adulterators, and those who robbed the poor by unjust weights. We swept the tramway and water companies out of London, and by substituting public control gave the people better and cheaper services. We broke down the contractors' ring and started our own Works Department, the worst abused but the most successful and the most daring municipal undertaking of the last quarter of a century.
"They were glorious days. That ten years' struggle between the people and the monopolists was a strife of giants. The victory we gained in London was a victory for progressive municipal government all over the country.
"We on the Labour Bench were in the front of the battle all the time. While the big campaigns were going on we were not neglecting the smaller duties. We carried the County Council right into the working-man's home. We not only protected poor tenants from house-spoilers and extortionate water companies, we gave a helping hand to the housewife. We saw that the coal sacks were of proper size, that the lamp oil was good, the dustbin emptied regularly, that the bakers' bread was of proper weight, that the milk came from wholesome dairies and healthy cows, that the coster in the street and the tradesman in the shop gave good weight in everything they sold."
For several years Crooks was a member and at one time chairman of the Public Control Committee of the London County Council. It was this committee that looked after these numerous small duties bearing so important a relation to the working-man's home. Crooks kept a keen eye on the coal sack. It was found that all over London coal was being delivered in sacks too small to hold the prescribed weight. There was consternation among the offending dealers when the County Council began to pounce down upon them.
In reference to this matter Crooks tells a quaint story. During one of the L.C.C. elections he heard a couple of lads in heated altercation.
"The County Council! Don't you talk to me about them people," one of them cried. "They oughter be all at the bottom of the sea. They nearly ruined my pore ole dad."
"That's bad. How was it?"
"Afore the County Council was heard of a two-hundredweight sack didn't have to be no bigger 'n that"—holding his hand on a level with his chest—"but now they have to be this size"—and his hand went above his head. "Nearly ruined the pore ole man," he added. "He ain't got over it yet."
The Public Control Committee did more than ensure proper weight; it saw to it that dealers did not deliver coal inferior in quality to that described on the ticket. It recovered damages from a merchant who misrepresented the quality of his coals. When the case was reported to the L.C.C. one of the older members, to whom this kind of thing was wholly a new exercise of public duty, declared that he supposed the Council would next be insisting that the workman's Sunday joint consisted of nothing but good meat.
"And why not?" asked Crooks, who followed him in the debate. "If the man pays for fresh meat and receives bad meat, and is too poor to take action himself, it is the duty of the public authority to see that he gets justice."