This address was listened to with marked attention by a large congregation. The fact that a layman and a prominent Nonconformist had been invited to give an address in a cathedral had created widespread interest. Many of the daily papers gave a long report of my address. Since then I have spoken in two churches in London on "National Righteousness." This I think is a sign that there is a great awakening in the social consciousness of the people and that a spirit of fellowship and goodwill is abroad such as has never been manifested before. I consider that I have never been connected with a movement that was calculated to bring our industrial and social life on to a higher platform and I wish it God-speed in its good work.

In February 1921 I was invited by His Majesty the King to an afternoon garden party at Buckingham Palace, and on my being introduced to the King and His Majesty ascertaining that I came from Norfolk, he expressed a wish to have a few minutes' talk with me. His Majesty asked me concerning my early life, also the condition of the people in Norfolk. The matter was given publicity through the press and the following appeared in one paper:—

By invitation of their Majesties the King and Queen, Mr. George Edwards, M.P., attended the afternoon party at Buckingham Palace last Thursday. Mr. Edwards had the honour of being presented to their Majesties, and during the afternoon the King expressed a wish to have some further conversation with the member for South Norfolk, to whom His Majesty directed inquiries respecting his early days. The King evinced deep interest in the story Mr. Edwards told, and later the Queen also invited the member to relate to her the story of his early struggles.

After cordially greeting Mr. Edwards, the King said he was interested to know that he came from Norfolk, and inquired if the member was a native of this county. His Majesty also inquired what occupation Mr. Edwards' father followed.

The remarkable story of the member's progress from workhouse to Westminster greatly interested the King, who plied Mr. Edwards with questions relative to his early life.

Mr. Edwards told His Majesty that he was a native of Norfolk, and that his father, like himself, was an agricultural labourer. "At the time of my birth," said Mr. Edwards, "the wages of the agricultural labourer were 8s. a week, and at the time of the Crimean War in 1854 the cost of living rose to its highest, but the wages of the labourer remained stationary."

"And how did you fare?" inquired the King.

"My father and mother had to undergo the greatest privations," Mr. Edwards replied. "We never had bread enough and the family were fed largely on turnips which my father brought from his master's field. At five years of age I was a workhouse boy."

"And this was really the way you lived?" exclaimed the King.

His Majesty was obviously touched by the account given him and expressed the deepest sympathy.

"One of my own labourers," said the King, "brought up a family on 13s. a week, but this is much worse. How were you educated?"

"I never went to school in my life," said the member. "My wife first taught me to read, and I put myself in a position to purchase books by giving up the luxury of tobacco."

His Majesty asked as to the welfare of the labourers to-day and inquired if they were better off?

"Yes, decidedly," replied Mr. Edwards, "but there is a good deal of privation now."

The conversation then turned to the position of affairs on His Majesty's Norfolk estate at Sandringham, the King suggesting that working conditions there were satisfactory.

Mr. Edwards agreed, and said he desired to express the greatest appreciation of the efforts of the King in regard to working conditions at Sandringham. "If all other landlords followed along the same lines," added Mr. Edwards, "there would be little trouble."

The King expressed his best wishes for Mr. Edwards' future.

Mr. Edwards had several minutes' conversation with the Queen, who gave further proof of her interest in the housing of the people. Her Majesty referred to housing conditions at Sandringham, and Mr. Edwards expressed appreciation of what had been done for the labourers on the estate with regard to housing, and remarked that everything had been done that it was possible to do for the home comforts of the tenants.

This brings my story almost to a close.

During my time I have seen what amounts almost to a revolution in the lives of the people. There is no comparison between the life of the village worker when I was a lad and now. I have seen one Trade Union spring up and fall. But during its short life, under the leadership of Joseph Arch, George Rix, Z. Walker and others, it did some wonderful work for the agricultural workers. Through its influence the labourers were enfranchised. The District and Parish Council Act was put in force, and I look back with pleasure at the humble part I was able to take in this matter. Many years after that, as stated above, I founded the present Union, and I have lived to see it spread from Norfolk into every county in England and Wales. It has gone from a little back-room of mine in a little cottage in which I lived at Gresham to a fine block of buildings at 72, Acton Street, London. It has accomplished much for the agricultural labourers. It has entirely altered and brightened up the monotonous life of the labourer. It has given him a broader outlook on life and I hope he will let nothing separate him from the Union that has in so short a time done so much for him, his wife and children.

As in the days of Arch there is again another attempt to divide our forces by introducing what they call a New Union. This is being done by those who ought to have known better. Are the labourers going to let history repeat itself? If so, then all the sacrifice I have made and the years of labour I have given on their behalf will be thrown away. No, I cannot believe they will. I have too strong a faith in their good common sense and in their devotion and gratitude towards those who laboured so hard for them to be led away by the platitudes of some new-born friends.

In presenting my readers with my life-story let me ask them, especially the young readers, as they read it to watch carefully my limitations and failings (and they will detect many), to study them attentively, and in starting out in life to try and avoid them. Also, whatever they may see in the story that is worthy to be followed, let them try to follow it. They are starting life now, thank God, under much better circumstances than I did.

As they read the facts here related they will notice a touch of sadness running through it all. They will also notice the many bitter struggles I have had coming along this somewhat rugged road of life; how I have battled to lift myself above my environment; how I have laboured to educate myself and to inform myself on all public questions, and I hope they will also detect a burning desire from the first to use the knowledge I had obtained for the benefit of my own class, as I hope, with some amount of success. They will, I trust, gather from the early pages of this story that the sufferings of my parents and the privations that they underwent for their children had branded themselves on my soul like a hot iron and that from my very early days I became determined to do all I could to make the life of my own class much brighter and better than it was in those dark days.

As I look back on the years of the past and the events in my life I am mystified. I cannot understand what has been the overruling power in my life. As the reader will see, disappointments have been my lot over and over again. Many times in the hour of disappointment, smarting under what I felt to be the ingratitude of the class for whom I made so much sacrifice, I have said I could never again make any attempt to help them. Yet as often as I have said that some overpowering force compelled me to re-enter the field.