LABOUR CHURCH, THE, an organization intended to give expression to the religion of the labour movement. This religion is not theological—it leaves theological questions to private individual conviction—but “seeks the realization of universal well-being by the establishment of Socialism—a commonwealth founded upon justice and love.” It asserts that “improvement of social conditions and the development of personal character are both essential to emancipation from social and moral bondage, and to that end insists upon the duty of studying the economic and moral forces of society.” The first Labour Church was founded at Manchester (England) in October 1891 by a Unitarian minister, John Trevor. This has disappeared, but vigorous successors have been established not only in the neighbourhood, but in Bradford, Birmingham, Nottingham, London, Wolverhampton and other centres of industry, about 30 in all, with a membership of 3000. Many branches of the Independent Labour Party and the Social Democratic Federation also hold Sunday gatherings for adults and children, using the Labour Church hymn-book and a similar form of service, the reading being chosen from Dr Stanton Coit’s Message of Man. There are special forms for child-naming, marriages and burials. The separate churches are federated in a Labour Church Union, which holds an annual conference and business meeting in March. At the conference of 1909, held in Ashton-under-Lyne, the name “Labour Church” was changed to “Socialist Church.”
LA BOURDONNAIS, BERTRAND FRANÇOIS, Count Mahé de (1699-1753), French naval commander, was born at Saint Malo on the 11th of February 1699. He went to sea when a boy, and in 1718 entered the service of the French India Company as a lieutenant. In 1724 he was promoted captain, and displayed such bravery in the capture of Mahé of the Malabar coast that the name of the town was added to his own. For two years he was in the service of the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, but in 1735 he returned to French service as governor of the Île de France and the Île de Bourbon. His five years’ administration of the islands was vigorous and successful. A visit to France in 1740 was interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain, and La Bourdonnais was put at the head of a fleet in Indian waters. He saved Mahé, relieved General Dupleix at Pondicherry, defeated Lord Peyton, and in 1746 participated in the siege of Madras. He quarrelled with Dupleix over the conduct of affairs in India, and his anger was increased on his return to the Île de France at finding a successor to himself installed there by his rival. He set sail on a Dutch vessel to present his case at court, and was captured by the British, but allowed to return to France on parole. Instead of securing a settlement of his quarrel with Dupleix, he was arrested (1748) on a charge of gubernatorial peculation and maladministration, and secretly imprisoned for over two years in the Bastille. He was tried in 1751 and acquitted, but his health was broken by the imprisonment and by chagrin at the loss of his property. To the last he made unjust accusations against Dupleix. He died at Paris on the 10th of November 1753. The French government gave his widow a pension of 2400 livres.
La Bourdonnais wrote Traité de la mâture des vaisseaux (Paris 1723), and left valuable memoirs which were published by his grandson, a celebrated chess player, Count L. C. Mahé de la Bourdonnais (1795-1840) (latest edition, Paris, 1890). His quarrel with Dupleix has given rise to much debate; for a long while the fault was generally laid to the arrogance and jealousy of Dupleix, but W. Cartwright and Colonel Malleson have pointed out that La Bourdonnais was proud, suspicious and over-ambitious.
See P. de Gennes, Mémoire pour le sieur de la Bourdonnais, avec les pièces justificatives (Paris, 1750); The Case of Mde la Bourdonnais, in a Letter to a Friend (London, 1748); Fantin des Odoards, Révolutions de l’Inde (Paris, 1796); Collin de Bar, Histoire de l’Inde ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1814); Barchou de Penhoën, Histoire de la conquête et de la fondation de l’empire anglais dans l’Inde (Paris, 1840); Margry, “Les Isles de France et de Bourbon sous le gouvernement de La Bourdonnais,” in La Revue maritime et coloniale (1862); W. Cartwright, “Dupleix et l’Inde française,” in La Revue britannique (1882); G. B. Malleson, Dupleix (Oxford, 1895); Anandaranga Pillai, Les Français dans l’Inde, Dupleix et Labourdonnais, extraits du journal d’Anandaran-gappoullé 1736-1748, trans. in French by Vinsor in École spéciale des langues orientales vivantes, séries 3, vol. xv. (Paris, 1894).
LABOUR EXCHANGE, a term very frequently applied to registries having for their principal object the better distribution of labour (see [Unemployment]). Historically the term is applied to the system of equitable labour exchanges established in England between 1832 and 1834 by Robert Owen and his followers. The idea is said to have originated with Josiah Warren, who communicated it to Owen. Warren tried an experiment in 1828 at Cincinnati, opening an exchange under the title of a “time store.” He joined in starting another at Tuscarawas, Ohio, and a third at Mount Vernon, Indiana, but none were quite on the same line as the English exchanges. The fundamental idea of the English exchanges was to establish a currency based upon labour; Owen in The Crisis for June 1832 laid down that all wealth proceeded from labour and knowledge; that labour and knowledge were generally remunerated according to the time employed, and that in the new exchanges it was proposed to make time the standard or measure of wealth. This new currency was represented by “labour notes,” the notes being measured in hours, and the hour reckoned as being worth sixpence, this figure being taken as the mean between the wage of the best and the worst paid labour. Goods were then to be exchanged for the new currency. The exchange was opened in extensive premises in the Gray’s Inn Road, near King’s Cross, London, on the 3rd of September 1832. For some months the establishment met with considerable success, and a considerable number of tradesmen agreed to take labour notes in payment for their goods. At first, an enormous number of deposits was made, amounting in seventeen weeks to 445,501 hours. But difficulties soon arose from the lack of sound practical valuators, and from the inability of the promoters to distinguish between the labour of the highly skilled and that of the unskilled. Tradesmen, too, were quick to see that the exchange might be worked to their advantage; they brought unsaleable stock from their shops, exchanged it for labour notes, and then picked out the best of the saleable articles. Consequently the labour notes began to depreciate; trouble also arose with the proprietors of the premises, and the experiment came to an untimely end early in 1834.
See F. Podmore’s Robert Owen, ii. c. xvii. (1906); B. Jones, Co-operative Production, c. viii. (1894); G. J. Holyoake, History of Co-operation, c. viii. (1906).