From Crow-Scaring to Westminster: An Autobiography

by Sir George Edwards

A peculiar incident happened when I signed the book. In my nervousness I had one of my feet lifted up, and the Premier, Mr. Lloyd George, unconsciously put his foot underneath mine, and when I placed my foot down I put it on to his. I have since joked him concerning the incident several times.

After a few minutes my friends and I went down on to the terrace and had tea, and the first to come and congratulate me was my first opponent, Lord Cozens-Hardy.

I stayed in London until the Friday when I returned to Wymondham. On the Saturday I went to Norwich and attended to my County Council Committee work, where I received most hearty congratulations from my colleagues on the Council. But a greater surprise was awaiting me on my return to Fakenham in the evening. Arriving at the Great Eastern Station by the quarter to eight train I found waiting for me a large number of my fellow townsmen of all shades of political thought, the Fakenham Town Band and a conveyance to take me to the Market Square. This was drawn by hand. I was practically lifted into the conveyance and by my side was my little adopted child. The band headed the procession and played "See the Conquering Hero Comes." The streets were lined with spectators and when the Market Square was reached there were crowds waiting to give me a reception. It was considered that there were over two thousand people present. The conveyance was drawn into the square and a congratulation speech was made by my friend Mr. Robert Watson. Mr. Walker of the Printers' Union presided and addresses were also given by Mr. H. Allen and others. I thanked the people for the kind reception they had given me, which was the greatest joy of my life, to receive such a welcome by my neighbours in my own native town. A full report of the affair was given in the Eastern Daily Press on the Monday with some very nice comments. The report was headed "The Warrior's Return."

The House adjourned on Monday August 16th and I settled down for my well-earned rest, but the request from the Christian Churches to conduct special religious services was greater than I could possibly comply with. As soon as harvest operations were completed and I had had a nice rest I took a tour through my constituency and thanked my supporters for the support they had given to the noble cause of Labour. I was received everywhere with the greatest kindness and enthusiasm.

On October 19th the House reassembled for the Autumn Session, and I returned to London to attend to my duties, and on October 21st there was a debate on the unemployment question. I followed the Minister of Labour and made my maiden speech as follows:—

I have listened very attentively to the speech of the right hon. gentleman. I am not so much concerned with the description he gave us of the state of unemployment as I am with the fact that there are unemployed and a lack of provision made for them to find employment—especially among ex-service men. I find that my right hon. friend is very anxious to lay the responsibility for the unemployment and the lack of provision for the unemployed upon everyone except the Government. He dealt with the housing question, and he made a great point of the fact that housing is being delayed in consequence of the conduct of the Trade Unionists in the building industry. But he did not tell the House that the Trade Union workers in the trade offered that if the Government will guarantee there shall be no unemployed in their trade they will remove the restrictions of which he complains. The point I want to come to is this—the delay in erecting houses for ex-service men and for the working class in this country lies at the door of the Government. What are the facts? I speak with some knowledge. The Minister of Health, or the Government through him, pressed on the local authorities the responsibility of providing houses under the Act, and I say without hesitation that the local authorities—and all credit is due to them—undertook that responsibility. It has become notorious how their action has been defeated. Take my own area.

We decided to erect 350 houses. We prepared our plans and put out our contracts. We erected a number of houses for the working classes. We were told by the Government that in deciding on the rents we were to fix such a rent as we deemed reasonable according to wages earned in the district. We fixed the rents, as some of us think, rather too high. We had full local knowledge. We said that for a six-roomed house the rent should be £20 per year, with the rates on top of that, and for a five-roomed house £14 per year, plus rates. What did the Minister of Health do? We sent him a return showing that the earnings of the agricultural labourers in the district averaged £2 6s. per week, and those of other classes of workers £3 10s. per week. The Minister came down on top of us and would not sanction the rents we had fixed. He demanded that the local authority should charge a man earning £3 10s. per week £1 per week as rent, and that for the five-roomed house 16s. 6d. per week should be charged. Do the Government imagine that any local authority, with its knowledge of the condition of things, would be content to erect houses and to ask agricultural labourers with their wives and families to pay a rent of 16s. 6d. per week out of a wage of £2 6s.? Do they imagine that any local authority will erect houses for which they are to charge a man earning £3 10s. per week £1 as rent? Do they imagine that out of the wages they are earning the men could pay such high rents as that? If they do, I can only suggest they should experiment on themselves for one month at least. This bombshell was thrown at the local authorities throughout the length and breadth of the country, with the result that they will not touch housing schemes until the Minister of Health abates his demands in this respect. I maintain that the responsibility for the delay in erecting houses falls directly upon the Government, but for whose action house-building might have been proceeded with, and the present unemployment would not have grown to the extent it has. Then there is the question of raw material. The Government were warned in 1918—in the early part of that year—that there would be a terrible shortage of raw material and especially of bricks. Labour Exchanges sent resolution after resolution urging the Government to take steps to reopen the brickfields which had gone into disuse during the war. We were laughed at for our efforts in pointing out that there must be a terrible shortage unless something in this direction was done. Remember, the unskilled men now waiting for training might have been put on this work, and the necessary raw material could have been provided without difficulty. What happened? Those local authorities which had contracts in hand found that the men had to stand idle for the lack of raw material. I was very much interested in a speech made by the Minister of Health in regard to the agricultural industry. I have a knowledge of this industry. I was engaged in it for many years, and I remember the time when there were 950,000 agricultural labourers and others employed on the land. At the present time there are only 550,000 so employed, and yet we have in my own county to-day 500 agricultural labourers standing by for want of work! I heard a question asked of the Minister of Health why this was so. I think I can give the reply. It is largely due to the gambling which is now going on in land. It is also due, in part, to the bad farming which has been prevalent for many years. That is responsible for the great decrease in the number of men employed on the land. We ask the Government, as far as the land question is concerned, to do what they did during the war, namely to put into force the compulsory clauses of the Defence of the Realm Act. We have to-day, I believe, between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 acres of land out of cultivation. We were told the other day that there were 800,000 acres less under wheat this year, and I believe I am correct in saying that since the Armistice 80,000 acres of land have gone out of cultivation that were brought under cultivation during the war. Why do not the Government put into force the compulsory clauses, and compel those who call the land theirs to keep it in cultivation? Something has been said about afforestation. In my own county we have something like 3,000 acres of land that is useful for that purpose. I do not say, with my knowledge of agriculture, that all the land is suitable for producing food; I know it is not; but it will produce something that the nation wants. That land is now lying derelict. It is only used as rabbit warrens, because it pays the landlord better to keep it for game preserving than it does to produce things that we want. If the Government would step in, and I appeal to them to do so, they could at once set to work most of this unskilled labour—we are told that it would require no skill—if they would insist upon the use of this land for this purpose. I know that it is suitable for the production of wood, which is greatly needed.

The Government were forewarned of these things. They know that this land is there ready to produce something. Indeed, I would venture to state that there is not an acre of land in this country which does not produce something that the nation needs. All that is necessary is that the people should have an opportunity of getting on the land. With regard to the Land Settlement scheme, as a County Councillor I have had something to do with putting this Act into force. What are the facts? We were told that there were £8,000,000 set aside for this purpose. So far as my County Council is concerned—and I think we stand second in the country for putting the Small Holdings and Allotments Act into force—we were told that we were to have this money to purchase land. What does the Land Settlement Act do? It compels us to give inflated prices for the land, and, having given inflated prices—not pre-war value, but war-profit value, the price to which it has been run up in the market by the land gamblers—we are compelled to charge these ex-service men, these heroes who have fought our battles, and who were told by the Prime Minister that they should have a land fit for heroes to live in, where no inhabitants should ever hunger—we have to charge them a rent that we know full well they will never be able to pay and get a living. The Government come along and say: "Yes, we will lend you money, but will charge you 6 per cent. for it," and we have to charge that back to these poor fellows. In my own county we have 500 ex-service men who cannot get on the land, and we have spent all the money the Government will let us have. I would make an appeal to the right hon. gentleman opposite and to the Government to take this question seriously. I have spent fifty years of my life trying to upraise my class. I have endeavoured to exercise a moderating influence, and I think that up to the present I have been successful. No one can charge me with being an extremist. I want, however, to point this out to the Government. Our influence over men and women may be lessened when they know that the barns are full and the cupboard is empty. Therefore I ask them to use all the powers they possess under the Defence of the Realm Act and to deal at once with this land problem. It can be dealt with at once. Set these men to work. We do not plead for doles; we do not plead for charity. What we say is: "In Heaven's name, find them work!"

During the Autumn Session I never left the House nor missed a Division. In the middle of November the Agricultural Bill was brought before the House on its report stage. This received my whole-hearted support in all its stages and I spoke several times when it was before the House. With my friends Mr. Royce and Mr. Smith I tried to improve it by moving new clauses from the point of view of giving the labourer who lived in a tied cottage some security in his home and, after several interviews with Sir Arthur Boscawen, the Minister who had charge of the Bill, we were able to make a little improvement by securing to the labourers compensation in the shape of a year's rent and expenses of removal if compelled to leave his cottage at short notice. We also secured to the tenant farmer some security of tenure or compensation for disturbance and we also secured a minimum price for his corn and the re-establishment of the Wage Board for four years, which alas! was so soon to be abolished by the repeal of the Agricultural Act of 1921.

During the passage of the Agricultural Act we had many late nights. The last days of the sitting, December 20th and 21st, I never left the House for thirty-six hours and went into the Division Lobby nearly thirty times against the Lords Amendments. This concluded my first experience of the House of Commons.

Soon after my entrance into Parliament I was asked to become a member of the Industrial Christian Fellowship, an association established by leaders of the Church of England for the purpose of bringing our industrial system more into harmony with the principles taught by Christ Himself and further of endeavouring to create a higher spiritual life in the great Labour movement and preventing it from becoming too materialistic. As that had been my ideal all through my long public life, it at once appealed to me, and I decided to accept the invitation to become a member of the General Council. The first meeting I attended and addressed was at Hull. Before going, however, I expressed a wish to meet members of the Trades and Labour Council. A meeting was arranged and I found there was a suspicion amongst the Trade Unionists in the city that there was some ulterior motive behind it. I endeavoured to dispel this suspicion. My address was entitled "The High Ideals of the Labour Movement." The large hall was full and the Mayor presided.

In November of the same year (1920) I received an invitation from Canon Newson to give an address in Newcastle-on-Tyne Cathedral on December 5th. I accepted the invitation and at Newcastle was met at the station by Canon Newson with whom I stayed the week-end. During the afternoon I was introduced to the Bishop with whom I had a long talk on the religious aspect of the movement. In the evening I met members of the Trades and Labour Council at the Canon's House. On Sunday afternoon I gave my address on "Religion and Labour" in the cathedral.