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diff --git a/41023-0.txt b/41023-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56f73df --- /dev/null +++ b/41023-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9319 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41023 *** + +FROM WORKHOUSE TO WESTMINSTER + +[Illustration: WILL CROOKS, M.P. + +_Photo: G. Dendry._] + + + + +FROM WORKHOUSE TO WESTMINSTER + +The Life Story of WILL CROOKS, M.P. + +By +GEORGE HAW + +WITH INTRODUCTION BY G. K. CHESTERTON + +FOUR FULL-PAGE PLATES + +CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED +LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE +MCMIX + + +First Edition _February 1907_. +Reprinted _March, June and August 1908_. +_January and November 1909._ + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + +TO + +MRS. WILL CROOKS + +THIS SLIGHT RECORD OF HER HUSBAND'S CAREER + +IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR + + + + +PREFACE + + +This record of the career of a man whom I have known intimately in his +public and private life for over a dozen years can claim at least one +distinction. It is the first biography of a working man who has +deliberately chosen to remain in the ranks of working men as well as in +their service. From the day in the early 'nineties when he was called +upon to decide between a prospective partnership in a prosperous +business and the hard, joyless life of a Labour representative, with +poverty for his lot and slander for his reward, he has adhered to the +principle he then laid down, consistently refusing ever since the many +invitations received from various quarters to come up higher. There have +been endless biographies of men who have risen from the ranks of Labour +and then deserted those ranks for wealthy circles. Will Crooks, in his +own words, has not risen from the ranks; he is still in the ranks, +standing four-square with the working classes against monopoly and +privilege. + +This book would have been an autobiography rather than a biography could +I have had my way. Nor was I alone in urging Crooks to write the story +of his life, as strenuous in its poverty as it has been in its public +service. He always argued that that was not in his way at all--that, in +fact, he did not believe in men sitting down to write about themselves +any more than he believed in men getting up to talk about themselves. + +So I have done the next best thing. Since the interpretation depends +upon the interpreter, I have tried, in writing this account of his life, +to make him the narrator as often as I could. Most of the incidents in +his career I have given in his own words, mainly from personal talks we +have had together during our years of friendship, sometimes by our own +firesides, sometimes amid the stress of public life, sometimes during +long walks in the streets of London. Nor do any of the incidents lose in +detail or in verity by reason of many of those cherished conversations +having taken place long before either of us ever dreamed they would +afterwards be pieced together in book form. + +Not to Crooks alone am I indebted for help in compiling this book. I owe +much to members of his family, to my wife, and to other friends of his. + +GEORGE HAW. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +INTRODUCTION xiii + +CHAPTER I. +EARLIEST YEARS IN A ONE-ROOMED HOME 1 + +CHAPTER II. +AS A CHILD IN THE WORKHOUSE 8 + +CHAPTER III. +SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS 16 + +CHAPTER IV. +ROUND THE HAUNTS OF HIS BOYHOOD 25 + +CHAPTER V. +IN TRAINING FOR A CRAFTSMAN 33 + +CHAPTER VI. +TRAMPING THE COUNTRY FOR WORK 43 + +CHAPTER VII. +ONE OF LONDON'S UNEMPLOYED 50 + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE COLLEGE AT THE DOCK GATES 57 + +CHAPTER IX. +FROM THE CHEERING MULTITUDE TO A SORROW-LADEN HOME 67 + +CHAPTER X. +A LABOUR MEMBER'S WAGES 75 + +CHAPTER XI. +ON THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 85 + +CHAPTER XII. +TWO OF HIS MONUMENTS 96 + +CHAPTER XIII. +THE TASK OF HIS LIFE BEGINS 105 + +CHAPTER XIV. +THE MAN WHO FED THE POOR 112 + +CHAPTER XV. +TURNING WORKHOUSE CHILDREN INTO USEFUL CITIZENS 119 + +CHAPTER XVI. +ON THE METROPOLITAN ASYLUMS BOARD 128 + +CHAPTER XVII. +A BAD BOYS' ADVOCATE 134 + +CHAPTER XVIII. +PROUD OF THE POOR 144 + +CHAPTER XIX. +THE FIRST WORKING-MAN MAYOR IN LONDON 154 + +CHAPTER XX. +THE KING'S DINNER--AND OTHERS 166 + +CHAPTER XXI. +THE MAN WHO PAID OLD-AGE PENSIONS 175 + +CHAPTER XXII. +ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT 186 + +CHAPTER XXIII. +ADVENT OF THE POLITICAL LABOUR PARTY 195 + +CHAPTER XXIV. +THE LIVING WAGE FOR MEN AND WOMEN 202 + +CHAPTER XXV. +FREE TRADE IN THE NAME OF THE POOR 210 + +CHAPTER XXVI. +PREPARING FOR THE UNEMPLOYED ACT 219 + +CHAPTER XXVII. +AGITATION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 227 + +CHAPTER XXVIII. +THE QUEEN INTERVENES 241 + +CHAPTER XXIX. +HOME LIFE AND SOME ENGAGEMENTS 252 + +CHAPTER XXX. +COLONISING ENGLAND 264 + +CHAPTER XXXI. +THE REVIVAL OF BUMBLEDOM 271 + +CHAPTER XXXII. +APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 280 + +CHAPTER XXXIII. +"THE HAPPY WARRIOR" 296 + +INDEX 303 + + * * * * * + +LIST OF PLATES + + +WILL CROOKS, M.P. _Frontispiece_ + +THE CROOKS FAMILY _Facing p._ 18 + +WILL CROOKS ADDRESSING AN OPEN-AIR +MEETING AT WOOLWICH " 192 + +MR. AND MRS. WILL CROOKS " 248 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Mr. Will Crooks, as I know him in his own house at Poplar and in that +other House at Westminster, always seems to me to be something far +greater than a Labour Member of Parliament. He stands out as the supreme +type of the English working classes, who have chosen him as one of their +representatives. + +Representative government, a mystical institution, is said to have +originated in some of the monastic orders. In any case, it is evident +that the character of it is symbolic, and that it is subject to all the +advantages and all the disadvantages of a symbol. Just exactly as a +religious ritual may for a time represent a real emotion, and then for a +time cease to represent anything, so representative government may for a +time represent the people, and for a time cease to represent anything. +But the peculiar difficulties attaching to the thing called +representative government have not been fully appreciated. The great +difficulty of representative governments is simply this: that the +representative is supposed to discharge two quite definite and distinct +functions. There is in his position the idea of being a picture or copy +of the thing he represents. There is also the idea of being an +instrument of the thing he represents, or a message from the thing he +represents. The first is like the shadow a man throws on the wall; the +second is like the stone that he throws over the wall. In the first +sense, it is supposed that the representative is like the thing he +represents. In the second case it is only supposed that the +representative is useful to the thing he represents. In the first case, +a parliamentary representative is used strictly as a parliamentary +representative. In the second case a parliamentary representative is +used as a weapon. He is used as a missile. He is used as something to be +merely thrown against the enemy; and those who merely throw something +against the enemy do not ask especially that the thing they throw shall +be a particular copy of themselves. To send one's challenge is not to +send one's photograph. When Ajax hurled a stone at his enemy, it was not +a stone carved in the image of Ajax. When a modern general causes a +cannon-ball to be fired, he is not understood to indicate that the +contours of the cannon-ball represent in any exact way the curves of his +own person. In short, we can in modern representative politics use a +politician as a missile without using him, in the fullest sense of the +word, as a symbol. + +In this sense most of our representatives in modern representative +government are merely used as missiles. Mr. Balfour is a missile. Mr. +Balfour is hurled at the heads of his enemies like a boomerang or a +javelin. He is flung by the great mass of mediocre Tory squires. He is +flung, not because he is at all like them, for that he obviously is not. +He is flung because he is a particularly bright and sharp missile; that +is to say, because he is so very unlike the men who fling him. Here, +then, is the primary paradox of representative government. Men elect a +representative half because he is like themselves and half because he is +not like themselves. They elect a representative half because he +represents them and half because he misrepresents them. They choose Mr. +Balfour (let us say) half because he does what they would do and half +because he does what they could never do at all. + +We are told that the Labour movement will be an exception to all +previous rules. The Labour movement has been no exception to this +previous rule. The Labour Members, as a class, are not representatives, +but missiles. Poor men elect them, not because they are like poor men, +but because they are likely to damage rich men: an excellent reason. +Labour Members are the exceptions among Labour men. As I have said, they +are weapons, missiles, things thrown. Working-men are not at all like +Mr. Keir Hardie. If it comes to likeness, working-men are rather more +like the Duke of Devonshire. But they throw Mr. Keir Hardie at the Duke +of Devonshire, knowing that he is so curiously shaped as to hurt +anything at which he is thrown. Unless this is thoroughly understood, +great injustice will necessarily be done to the Labour movement; for it +is obvious on the face of it that Labour Members do not represent the +average of labouring men. A man like Mr. J. R. Macdonald no more +suggests a Battersea workman than he suggests a Bedouin or a Russian +Grand Duke. These men are not the representatives of the democracy, but +the weapons of the democracy. They are intended only to fulfil the +second of those functions in the delegate which I have already defined. +They are the instruments of the people. They are not the images of the +people. They are fanatics for the things about which the people are +good-humouredly convinced. They are philosophers about the things which +are to the people an easy and commonplace religion. In a word, they are +not representatives; they are not even ambassadors. They are +declarations of war. + +Such being the problem, we must reconcile ourselves to finding many of +the Labour Members men of a definite and even pedantic class; men whose +austere and lucid tone, whose elaborate economic explanations smack of +something very different from the actual streets of London. This +economic knowledge may be very necessary. It may remind us of our +duties; but it does not remind us of the Walworth Road. It may enable a +man to speak for the proletarians, but it does not enable a man to speak +with them. + +Now, if a man has a good rough-and-ready knowledge of the mechanics of +Battersea and the labourers of Poplar; if the same man has a good +rough-and-ready knowledge of the men in the House of Commons (a vastly +inferior company); he will come out of both those experiences with one +quite square and solid conviction, a conviction the grounds of which, +though they may be difficult to define verbally, are as unshakable as +the ground. He will come out with the conviction that there is really +only one modern Labour Member who represents, who symbolises, or who +even remotely suggests the real labouring men of London; and that is Mr. +Will Crooks. + +Mr. Crooks alone fulfils both the functions of the representative. He is +a representative who, like Mr. Keir Hardie and the others, fights, +cleaves a way, does something that only a man of talent could do, +expresses the inexpressible, sacrifices himself. But also, unlike Mr. +Keir Hardie, and the rest, he is a representative who represents. He is +a picture as well as a projectile; he is the stone carved in the image +of Ajax. He is really like the people for whom he stands. A man can +realise this fact, merely as a fact, without implying any disrespect, +for instance, to the Scotch ideality of Mr. Keir Hardie, or the Scotch +strenuousness of Mr. John Burns. They are expressive of the English +democracy, but not typical of it. The first characteristic of Mr. +Crooks, which must strike anyone who has ever had to do with him, even +for ten minutes, is this immense fact of the absolute and isolated +genuineness of his connection with the working classes. To all the other +Labour leaders we listen with respect on Labour matters, because they +have been elected by labourers. To him alone we should listen if he had +never been elected at all. Of him alone it can be said that if we did +not accept him as a representative, we should still accept him as a +type. I need not dwell, and indeed I feel no desire to dwell, on those +qualities in Mr. Crooks which express just now the popular qualities of +the populace. I feel more interest in the unpopular qualities of the +populace. + +The greatness of Mr. Crooks lies not in the fact that he expresses the +claims of the populace, which twenty dons at Oxford would be ready to +express; it is that he expresses the populace: its strong tragedy and +its strong farce. He is not a demagogue. He is not even a democrat. He +is a demos; he is the real King. And his chief characteristic, as I have +suggested, is that he represents especially those popular good +qualities which are unpopular in modern discussion. Will Crooks is to +the ordinary London omnibus conductor or cabman exactly what Robert +Burns was to the ordinary puritanical but passionate peasant of the +Scotch Lowlands. He is the journeyman of genius. All that is good in +them is better in him; but it is the same thing. Walt Whitman has +perfectly expressed this attitude of the average towards the fine type. +"They see themselves in him. They hardly know themselves, they are so +grown." + +In numberless points Mr. Crooks thus completes and glorifies the common +character of the poor man. Take, for instance, the deep matter of +humour: humour in which the English poor are certainly pre-eminent among +all classes of the nation and all nations of the world. By all +politicians, including Labour politicians, humour is only introduced +exceptionally and elaborately; by all politicians the comic anecdote is +led up to with dextrous prefaces and deep intonations, as if it were +something altogether unique and separate. All politicians take their own +humour very seriously. Mr. Crooks recalls the real life of the streets +in nothing so much as in the fact that humour is a constant condition. +He and the poor exist in a normal atmosphere of amiable irony. If +anything, they have to make an effort to become verbally serious: +something of the same kind of earnest that it costs an ordinary member +of Parliament to become witty. Anyone who has heard Mr. Crooks talk +knows that his permanent mood is humorous. He is never without a story, +but his face and his mind are humorous before he has even thought of the +story. He lives, so to speak, in a state of expectant reminiscence. The +man who said that "brevity was the soul of wit" told a lie; nobody +minds how long wit goes on so long as it is wit. Mr. Crooks belongs to +that strong old school of English humour in which Dickens was supreme; +that school which some moderns have called dull because it could go on +for a long time being interesting. + +I have merely taken this case of popular humour as one out of a hundred. +A similar case of Mr. Crooks's popular sympathy might be found in his +pathos, which is equally uncompromising and direct. Even his political +faults, if they are faults, against which so much criticism has for a +time been raised, have still this pervading quality, that they are +essentially the popular faults. This instinct for a prompt and practical +and hand-to-mouth benevolence, this instinct for giving a very good time +to those who have had a very bad time, this is the very soul of that +immense and astonishing altruism at which all social reformers have +stood thunderstruck: the kindness of the poor to the poor. This attitude +may or may not be the great vice of the governors; there is no doubt +that it is the great virtue of the people. The charity of poor men to +poor men has always been spontaneous, irregular, individual, liable +therefore in its nature to some faults of confusion or of favouritism. + +It is the misfortune of Mr. Crooks that alone among modern +philanthropists and social reformers he has really been the typical poor +man giving to poor men. This quality which has been seen and condemned +in him is simply the quality which is the common and working morality of +the London streets. You may like it; you may dislike it. But if you +dislike it you are simply disliking the English people. You have seen +English people perhaps for a moment in omnibuses, in streets on Saturday +nights, in third-class carriages, or even in Bank Holiday waggonettes. +You have not yet seen the English people in politics. It has not yet +entered politics. Liberals do not represent it; Tories do not represent +it; Labour Members, on the whole, represent it rather less than Tories +or Liberals. When it enters politics it will bring with it a trail of +all the things that politicians detest; prejudices (as against +hospitals), superstitions (as about funerals), a thirst for +respectability passing that of the middle classes, a faith in the family +which will knock to pieces half the Socialism of Europe. If ever that +people enters politics it will sweep away most of our revolutionists as +mere pedants. It will be able to point only to one figure, powerful, +pathetic, humorous, and very humble, who bore in any way upon his face +the sign and star of its authority. + +G. K. CHESTERTON. + + + + +FROM WORKHOUSE TO WESTMINSTER + + + + +CHAPTER I + +EARLIEST YEARS IN A ONE-ROOMED HOME + + Difference between "Will" and "William"--Early Memories--Crying for + Bread--An Aspersion Resented--A Prophecy that has been + Fulfilled--Will earns his First Half-Sovereign. + + +Will Crooks! + +In the little one-roomed home where he was born at No. 2, Shirbutt +Street, down by the Docks at Poplar, it was the earnest desire of all +whom it concerned that he should be known to the world as William +Crooks. The desire found practical expression in the register of Trinity +Congregational Church in East India Dock Road close by. Thither, within +a few weeks of his birth, in the year 1852, he was carried with modest +ceremony and solemnly christened by a name which everybody ever since +has refused to give to him. + +For somehow "William Crooks" does not sound like the man at all. Looking +at it gives you no suggestion of the good-humoured, hard-headed Labour +man, known as familiarly to his colleagues in the House of Commons as +he is to the great world of wage-earners outside by the shorter and more +expressive name of Will Crooks. + +Born in poverty, the third of seven children, Will Crooks, who is +blessed with keen powers of observation and a good memory, can carry his +mind back to the days before he was put into breeches. + +"I remember before my fourth year was out," I have heard him tell, +"something of the public rejoicings on the declaration of peace after +the Crimean War. The following year was also memorable to me as the time +I witnessed troops of soldiers marching to the East India Docks on the +outbreak of the Mutiny." + +Those were days of want and sorrow, as were many days that followed, in +the little one-roomed home in East London. His father was a ship's +stoker, who lost an arm by the starting of the engines one day when he +was oiling the machinery as his vessel lay in the Thames. + +"My very earliest recollections are associated with mother dressing +father's arm day after day. I was only three years old at the time, but +I know that all our privations dated from the day of this accident to my +father, because he was forced to give up his work. + +"It must have been with the aid of some good friends that at last my +father got an old horse, hoping to earn a little by leading and carting; +but nothing came of this small venture, and in time the horse had to be +sold to pay the rent. Almost the only work of any kind that father, +being thus disabled, could get to do was an odd job as watchman. + +"Those were very lean years indeed, and I don't know what we should have +done but for mother. She used to toil with the needle far into the night +and often all night long, slaving as hard as any poor sweated woman I +have ever known, and I have known hundreds of such poor creatures. Many +a time as a lad have I helped mother to carry the clothes she had made +to Houndsditch. There were no trams running then, and the 'bus fare from +Poplar to Aldgate was fourpence, a sum we never dared think of spending +on a ride. + +"My elder brother was as clever with the needle as many a woman, and +often he would stay up all through the night with mother, helping her to +make oil-skin coats." + +One night, as the mother worked alone, young Will woke up in the little +orange-box bedstead by the wall where he slept with a younger brother. +Silently he watched her plying the needle at the table until he noticed +tears trickling down her cheeks. + +"What are you crying for, mother?" + +"Never mind, Will, my boy. You go to sleep." + +"But you must be crying about something, mother." + +And then, in a doleful tone, she said, "It's through wondering where the +next meal is coming from, my boy." + +The little chap pretended to go to sleep soon after; but now and again +he would peep cautiously over the side of the box at his mother silently +crying over her work at the table. And he puzzled his young head as to +what it all meant. + +"My mother crying because she can't get bread for us! Why can't she get +bread? I saw plenty of bread in the shops yesterday. Do all mothers have +to cry before they can get bread for their children?" + +It was the first incident that made him think. + +There was one morning, the morning after a Christmas Day of all times in +the year, when his mother refused to let him or the others get up, even +when she left the house. It was not until she returned after what seemed +a long time, bringing with her a portion of a loaf, that she allowed +them to get out of bed. + +"It was many years afterwards before I learnt the reason for her strange +conduct that Boxing Day morning. Then I found out that she had made a +vow that her children should never get up unless there was some +breakfast for them. + +"We were so poor that we children never got a drop of tea for months +together. It used to be bread and treacle for breakfast, bread and +treacle for dinner, bread and treacle for tea, washed down with a cup of +cold water. Sometimes there was a little variation in the form of +dripping. At other times the variety was secured by there being neither +treacle nor dripping. The very bread was so scarce that mother could not +afford to allow the three eldest, of whom I was one, more than three +slices apiece at a meal, while the four youngest got two and a half +slices. Whenever we could afford to buy tea or butter, it was only in +ounces. Once my brother and I were sent to buy a whole quarter of a +pound of butter--it turned out that auntie was coming to tea--and on the +way we speculated seriously whether mother was going to open a shop." + +Perhaps the first occasion upon which Crooks as a lad showed something +of that spirited resentment at aspersions on the poor which ultimately +led him into public life was one that arose in a cobbler's shop. He was +about eight years old, when his father sent him back with a pair of +boots that had been repaired to ask that a little more be done to them +for the money. + +"I don't know what he wants for his ninepence," said the cobbler, +referring to the lad's father; "but, there!"--throwing the boots to his +man--"put another patch on. He's only a poor beggar." + +There was an angry cry from the other side, of the counter. "My father's +not a poor beggar!" shouted the boy. "He's as good a man as you, and +only wants what he has paid for." + +If the boy thought much of the father the father thought much of the +boy. It had often been his boast that "Our Will will do things some +day." + +One little fancy of the old man's was brought to my notice the morning +after Crooks was first returned to Parliament for Woolwich. His elder +brother told me then of a little incident that took place over +forty-five years before. + +"We children were playing in the home together when young Will said +something which made the dad look up surprised. And I heard him say to +mother, 'That lad'll live to be either Lord Mayor of London or a Member +of Parliament.'" + +The poverty deepened and darkened in the little one-roomed home during +Will's boyhood. It soon became impossible even to spend an odd ninepence +on boot repairs. The mother met this emergency as she met nearly all the +others. She became the family cobbler, as she had all along been the +family tailor. Often would she go on her knees, hammer in hand, mending +the boots. The children could not remember the time when she did not +make all their clothes. + +"God only knows, God only will know, how my mother worked and wept," +says Crooks. "With it all she brought up seven of us to be decent and +useful men and women. She was everything to us. I owe to her what little +schooling I got, for, though she could neither read nor write herself, +she would often remark that that should never be said of any of her +children. I owe to her wise training that I have been a teetotaller all +my life. I owe it to her that I was saved from becoming a little wastrel +of the streets, for, as a Christian woman, she kept me at the Sunday +School and took me regularly to the Congregational Church where I had +been baptised. + +"I can picture her now as I used to see her when I awoke in the night +making oil-skin coats by candle-light in our single room. Youngster +though I was, I meant it from the very bottom of my heart when I used to +whisper to myself, as I peeped at her from the little box-bedstead by +the wall, 'Wait till I'm a man! Won't I work for my mother when I'm a +man!'" + +He thought he was a man at thirteen, when he could bring home to her +proudly five shillings every week, his wages in the blacksmith's shop. +There came a memorable Saturday night when, having worked overtime all +the week and earned an extra five shillings, he was paid his first +half-sovereign. He threw on his coat and cap excitedly and ran all the +way home from Limehouse Causeway, the half-sovereign clenched tightly in +his hand, until he burst breathlessly into the little room, exclaiming: + +"Mother, mother, I've earned half a sovereign, all of it myself, and +it's yours, all yours, every bit yours!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AS A CHILD IN THE WORKHOUSE + + With an Idiot Boy in the Workhouse--Life in the Poor Law School at + Sutton--At Home Once More--A Fashionable Knock for the Casual + Ward--A Bread Riot. + + +But we must go back a few years--to the evil day when, the father being +a cripple, the family have to enter the workhouse. + +The mother had before this been forced to ask for parish relief. For a +time the Guardians paid her two or three shillings a week and gave her a +little bread. Suddenly these scanty supplies were stopped. The mother +was told to come before the Board and bring her children. + +Six of them, clinging timidly to her skirt, were taken into the terrible +presence. The Chairman singled out Will, then eight years of age, and, +pointing his finger at him, remarked solemnly: + +"It's time that boy was getting his own living." + +"He is at work, sir," was the mother's timid apology. "He gets up at a +quarter to five every morning and goes round with the milkman for +sixpence a week." + +"Can't he earn more than that?" + +"Well, sir, the milkman says he's a very willing boy and always +punctual, but he's so little that he doesn't think he can pay him more +than sixpence yet." + +And the little boy looked furtively at the great man in the great chair, +never dreaming that the time would come when he would occupy that chair +himself, and that almost the first order he would issue from it would be +one putting an end to the bad practice of making mothers drag their +young children before the Board. + +On that unhappy afternoon the Guardians, firm in their resolve not to +renew the out-relief, offered to take the children into the workhouse. +The mother said 'No' at first, marching them all bravely home again. +Stern want forced her to yield at last. The day came when she saw the +five youngest, including Will, taken from home to the big poorhouse down +by the Millwall Docks. The crippled father was admitted into the House +at the same time. + +They were put into a bare room like a vault, the father and two sons, +while the three sisters were taken they knew not where. There the lads +and their dad spent the night and the next day until the doctor saw them +and passed them into the main workhouse building. Then Will lost sight +of his father, though he was permitted to remain with his young brother +and share with him the same bed. + +In the dormitory was an idiot boy, who used to ramble in his talk all +through the night, keeping the others awake. Sometimes Will succeeded in +coaxing his young brother off to sleep, but as for himself, he would +lie awake for hours listening to the strange talk of the idiot boy, and +thinking of his mother. Often in the night the idiot boy would cry out +for his own mother, leaving Will wondering who she was and where she +was, and whether the plaintive cry of her imbecile child ever reached +her ears in the night's stillness. + +The lad was ravenously hungry all the time he spent in the workhouse. He +often felt at times as though he could eat leather; yet every morning, +when the "skilly" was served for breakfast, he could not touch it. +Morning after morning, spurred on by hunger, he forced the spoon into +his mouth, but the stomach revolted, and he always felt as though the +first spoonful would turn him sick. + +Somehow his father, away in the men's ward, got to know that young Will, +who he knew could relish dry crusts at home with the best of them, was +not able to eat the fare provided in the workhouse. The men occasionally +got suet pudding, and one dinner-time the old man secretly smuggled his +portion into his pocket. In the afternoon he made over to the children's +quarters, hoping to hand it to Will. The pudding was produced, the lad's +hungry eyes lighted up, when, behold! it was snatched away, almost from +his very grasp. The burly figure of the labour master interposed between +father and son. This was a breach of discipline not to be tolerated in +the workhouse. + +"But the boy's hungry, and this is what I've saved from my own dinner," +argued the father (all in vain). "You don't know how that boy likes +suet pudding." + +For two or three weeks the Crooks children were kept in the workhouse, +before being taken away in an omnibus with other boys and girls to the +Poor Law School at Sutton. Then came the most agonising experience of +all to Will. They parted him from his young brother. In the great hall +of the school he would strain his eyes, hoping to get a glimpse of the +lone little fellow among the other lads, but he never set eyes on him +again until the afternoon they went home together. + +"Every day I spent in that school is burnt into my soul," he has often +declared since. + +He could not sleep at night nor play with the other boys, haunted as he +was by the strange dread that he must have committed some unknown crime +to be taken from home, torn from his young brother, and made a little +captive in what seemed a fearful prison. The nights seemed endless, and +were always awful. He whispered his fears on the fourth day to another +Poplar boy who was there. + +"Ah! you just wait until Sunday," said the other lad. "Every Sunday's +like a fortnight." + +When Sunday did come it proved to be one lasting agony. He thought time +could not be made more terrible to children anywhere. They had dinner at +twelve and tea at six, confined during the yawning interval in the dull +day-room with nothing to do but to look at the clock, and then out of +the window, and then back at the clock again. + +During the week, after school hours, he hung about in abject misery all +the time. From the day he went in to the day he left he never smiled. +One afternoon he was loitering in the playground as the matron showed +some visitors round. + +"Who is that sad-faced boy?" he heard one of them ask. + +"Oh, he's one of the new-comers," the matron answered. "He'll soon get +over it." + +The new-comer said to himself, "I wonder whether you would soon get over +it if you had been taken from your mother and parted from a young +brother?" + +How long he stayed in the workhouse school he has never been able to +tell. It could not have been very long in point of time, but to the +sensitive lad it seemed an age. An indescribable burden was lifted from +his shoulders when one day at dinner someone called him by his name. + +He sprang to his feet. + +"Go to the tailor's shop after dinner and get your own clothes." + +"What for, sir?" + +"You are going home!" + +His heart leapt up. The boys crowded round him, wishing they were in his +place. Poor miserable lads, he parted from them with feelings of the +deepest pity. + +At the gate he met his young brother and sisters again, and they were +taken back to Poplar, to be welcomed with open arms by their mother. She +had worked harder than ever to add to the family income in order to +justify her in going before the Guardians to ask that her children be +restored to her own keeping. + +Not until thirty-three years later could he command the courage to enter +that same workhouse school again. Many changes for the good had been +made, but the sight of the same hall, with the same peculiar odour, +brought back the same old feeling of utter friendlessness and despair. +And he saw in imagination a sad-faced boy sitting on the form, straining +his eyes in the vain search for his young brother. + +The mother had moved to a cheaper room when the children returned home +from the workhouse school. It was in a small house in the High Street, +next door to the entrance to the casual ward, with the main workhouse +building in the rear. This was Will's home for the rest of his boyhood. + +There, with the workhouse surrounding him as it were, he got daily +glimpses of the misery that hovers round the Poor Law. Men and women +would sit for hours huddled on the pavement in front of his home waiting +for the casual ward to open. Will came bounding out of the house in the +dull dawn to go to work as an errand boy one morning, when he kicked +violently against a bundle of rags on the pavement. + +There was a cry of pain in a woman's voice, and the lad pulled up sharp, +filled with remorse: + +"I'm _so_ sorry, missus; I am really. I didn't see you." + +"All right, kiddie. I saw you couldn't help it. I'm used to being +kicked about the streets." + +But the lad could not forget it. And when he came home at dinner-time, +"Oh, mother," he said, "I kicked a poor woman outside our door this +morning, and I wouldn't have done it for anything, had I known." + +Sometimes a poor wayfarer would knock at the door, mistaking it for the +entrance to the casual ward. In answer to a series of sharp raps one +night Will raced to the door with the mother of another family who +rented the front room. She got there first and opened it, to find a +tramp on the step. + +"Is this the casual ward?" + +"The casual ward!" cried the woman in disgust, turning away and leaving +Will to direct him. "That's a nice fashionable kind of knock to come +with asking for the casual ward!" + +It was from this house that he saw a bread riot in the winter of 1866, +when he got the first of many impressions he was to receive of what a +winter of bad trade means to a district of casual labour like Poplar. +Hundreds of men used to wait outside the workhouse gates for a 2-lb. +loaf each. The baker's waggon drove up with the bread one afternoon +while they waited. The ravenous crowd would not let it pass into the +workhouse yard. They seized the bread, frantically struggling with each +other. Almost as fiercely they tore the bread to pieces when they got it +and devoured it on the spot. + +Sights like these of his childhood, with the shuddering memories of his +own dark days in the workhouse and the workhouse school, made him +register a vow, little chap though he was at the time, that when he grew +up to be a man he would do all he could to make better and brighter the +lot of the inmates, especially that of the boys and girls. + +Some children's dreams come true, and this was one of them. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS + + The School of Life--Borrowed Magazines--Reading Dickens--Crooks's + Humour and Story-Telling Faculty--Discovering Scott--Declaiming + Shakespeare--Books that influenced him. + + +Little education of the ordinary kind came into Will's life as a lad. We +have seen that he turned out before five o'clock every morning at eight +years of age to take milk round for a wage of sixpence a week. Soon +after coming out of the workhouse he got a job as errand boy at a +grocer's at two shillings a week. At eleven he was in a blacksmith's +shop, where he stayed until at fourteen he was apprenticed to the trade +of cooper. + +"In a sense, my training for becoming a servant of the people has been +better than a University training," he tells you. "My University has +been the common people--the common people whom Christ loved, and loved +so well that He needs must make so many of us. The man trained as I have +been amid the poor streets and homes of London, who knows where the shoe +pinches and where there are no shoes at all, has more practical +knowledge of the needs and sufferings of the people than the man who has +been to the recognised Universities. + +"I am the last to despise education. I have felt the need of more +education all my life. But I do protest against the idea that only those +who have been through the Universities or public schools are fit to be +the nation's rulers and servants. Legislation by the intellectuals is +the last thing we want. See to what extremes it sometimes leads. There +was a case under the Workmen's Compensation Act when eight leading +lawyers argued for hours whether a well thirty feet deep was a building +thirty feet high. Finally they decided solemnly that it was not. That +was legislation by the intellectuals being carried out by the +intellectuals." + +He once complained in the House of Commons that Mr. Balfour--then Prime +Minister--was using a dead language in answering a Labour Member's +question. He had asked whether the Aliens Bill would take precedence +over Redistribution. Mr. Balfour replied that the two things were not at +all _in pari materia_. + +"Will the right hon. gentleman please speak in English?" pleaded the +questioner. "It is well known both inside and outside this House that I +do not know Latin." + +Mr. Balfour said that what he meant to convey was that you could not +compare resolutions with a Bill, because a Bill involved a number of +different stages, while the other dealt with the matter as one +substantive question. + +"A very loose translation," remarked a Member, amid the laughter of the +House. + +Crooks was learning life at the time other lads are usually learning +Latin. And his knowledge of life, carrying with it an unbounded +sympathy with suffering, an intense love of truth and justice, has +proved more useful to him and to the class he serves than any knowledge +of a dead language would. + +Yet it was a pleasure to him to go down to Oxford in the early part of +1906 to speak on the need for University men taking up social work. It +was a greater pleasure to receive on his return the following letter +from one in authority at Christ Church College:-- + + + I am writing a line thanking you again for your kindness in coming + and speaking here on Saturday. From all sides I hear nothing but + commendation of your speech. There was a considerable number of our + men present, and as I surveyed them I was glad to see that some who + are really thinking about things were impressed. + + +Crooks always tells you that his best "schoolmaster" was his mother, the +righteous working woman who could not read a line or write a word. + +She and one of her boys spent nearly three hours one evening preparing a +letter to a far-away sister, the mother painfully composing the +sentences, the lad painfully writing them down. The glorious epistle was +at last complete, the first great triumph of a combined intellectual +effort between mother and son. Proudly they held the letter to the +candle-light to dry the ink, when the flame caught it, and behold! the +work of three laborious hours destroyed in three seconds. It was more +than they could bear. Mother and son sat down and cried together. + +[Illustration: THE CROOKS FAMILY. + +(_Will is the second child from the right, looking over his father's +left shoulder._)] + +"I have nothing but praise for my other schoolmaster," says Crooks. "I +mean the schoolmaster at the old George Green schools in East India Dock +Road. They were elementary schools then, and we paid a penny a week, +though even that small sum for all of us meant a sacrifice for mother. +The schoolmaster there was essentially a kind man. He had me under his +teaching in the Sunday school as well as in the day school. During the +few years I was with him prior to my workhouse days I learnt much that +has been of service to me ever since." + +Neither books nor papers found their way into Shirbutt Street. The first +paper he remembers reading was _The British Workman_, brought +occasionally to the little house in High Street just after the workhouse +days. Then came a short spell of penny dreadfuls, from among which +"Alone in a Pirate's Lair" stands out in memory riotous and reeking to +this day. + +Though the mother could not read herself, she encouraged her children by +borrowing occasional magazines and inviting them to read the contents to +her and her neighbours. + +"I was about ten or eleven when _The Leisure Hour_ and _The Sunday at +Home_ were started, and mother and the neighbours used to get these and +ask us boys to read the stories to them. + +"I owe something to an old man who went round the poor people's houses +selling books. From him I got some of Dickens's novels. I suddenly found +myself in a new and delightful world. Having been in the workhouse +myself, how I revelled in Oliver Twist! How I laughed at Bumble and the +gentleman in the white waistcoat! I have seen that white waistcoat, +pompous and truculent, administering the Poor Law many times since. + +"After the unceasing hunger I experienced in the workhouse, you can +guess how I sympathised with Oliver in his demand for more. I thought +that a delightful touch in one of our L.C.C. day schools the other day. +The teacher asked a class what books they liked best. + +"'Oliver Twist,' came one little chap's answer. + +"'Why?' + +"'Because he asked for more.'" + +This early reading of Dickens may have helped to develop his own quaint, +rich humour. Will Crooks often reminds one of Charles Dickens. He knows +the Londoner of to-day, his oddities, whimsicalities, his trials, +humours, and sorrows, as thoroughly as Dickens knew the Londoner of +fifty years ago. Many a time I have journeyed with him down to his home +in East London, after he had finished a hard day's work in Parliament or +on the London County Council, possibly having been defeated on some +public question in a way that would make many men despair; and yet how +easily he has put aside all the worries and work, and made the journey +delightful by his unfailing fund of Cockney anecdotes. He is one of the +rare story-tellers you meet with in a lifetime. The charm, too, of all +his stories is that they never relate to what he has read, but always +to what he has heard or observed himself. + +Some unknown friend at Yarmouth, who doubtless had heard him speak, +seems to have been impressed by this ready way he has of taking his +illustrations from the common things around him. Under the initials +A. H. S. he sent the following "Limerick" to _London Opinion_:-- + + + We smile when he's funny, or witty, + We yawn when he's wise: more's the pity, + For this best of the "Crooks" + Draws from life, not from books, + When he pleads for the people or city. + + +After Dickens the lad discovered Scott. "It was an event in my life +when, in an old Scotch magazine, I read a fascinating criticism of +'Ivanhoe.' Nothing would satisfy me until I had got the book; and then +Scott took a front place among my favourite authors. + +"I was in my teens then, reading everything I could lay hands on. I used +to follow closely public events in the newspapers. Not long ago I met a +man in a car with whom I remonstrated for some rude behaviour to the +passengers. He looked at me in amazement when I called him by his name. + +"'Why,' he said, 'you must be that boy Will Crooks I knew long ago. Do +you know what I remember about you? I can see you now tossing your apron +off in the dinner-hour and squatting down in the workshop with a paper +in your hand.'" + +Crooks was still an apprentice when, as he describes it, the great +literary event of his life occurred. + +"On my way home from work one Saturday afternoon I was lucky enough to +pick up Homer's 'Iliad' for twopence at an old bookstall. After dinner I +took it upstairs--we were able to afford an upstairs room by that +time--and read it lying on the bed. What a revelation it was to me! +Pictures of romance and beauty I had never dreamed of suddenly opened up +before my eyes. I was transported from the East End to an enchanted +land. It was a rare luxury to a working lad like me just home from work +to find myself suddenly among the heroes and nymphs and gods of ancient +Greece." + +The lad's imagination was also fired by "The Pilgrim's Progress." + +"I often think of that splendid passage describing the passing over the +river and the entry into Heaven of Christian and Faithful. I can +sympathise with Arnold of Rugby when he said, 'I never dare trust myself +to read that passage aloud.'" + +While in the blacksmith's shop he learnt many portions of Shakespeare, +with a decided preference for Hamlet. Often in the little forge the men +would say, "Give us a bit of Shakespeare, Will." The lad, nothing loath, +would declaim before them, more often than not in a mock heroic strain +that greatly delighted his grimy workmates. + +Like many other members of the Labour Party, he was greatly influenced +in his youth by the principles of "Unto this Last" and "Alton Locke." +Later in life he was set thinking seriously by a course of University +Lectures on Political Economy delivered in Poplar by Mr. G. Armitage +Smith. + +Quietly he began building up a little library of his own, supplemented +in later years by an occasional autograph copy from authors whose +friendship he had made. Father Dolling, for instance, sent him a copy of +his "Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum," inscribed:-- + + + WILL CROOKS.--The story of a kind of trying to do in a different + way what he is doing.--With the author's best Christmas wishes, + 1898. + + +In the flyleaf of this book Crooks keeps the following letter, received +after his election to Parliament from the author's sister:-- + + + DEAR MR. CROOKS,--I have just seen the papers, and must send you a + word of congratulation on your success. If, as I believe, the + blessed dead are allowed to watch over and help us, I am sure my + dear brother is thinking of you and praying that in your new sphere + of usefulness you may be helped to do God's will.--Truly yours, + + GERALDINE DOLLING. + + +The book that he values most to-day is a pleasant little story for boys +called "Joe the Giant Killer." It was given to him by the author, Dr. +Chandler, Bishop of Bloemfontein, when rector of Poplar. The reason he +values it so is because the printed dedication reads:-- + + + "_To_ WILL CROOKS, L.C.C. + _In memory of many years + Of delightful comradeship in Poplar._" + + +When, after the big victory in Woolwich, Crooks was able to add M.P. as +well as L.C.C. after his name, there came among hundreds of other +congratulations a cabled cheer from South Africa. It was signed +"Chandler." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ROUND THE HAUNTS OF HIS BOYHOOD + + Proud of his Birthplace--Famous Residents at Blackwall--Memories of + Nelson's Flagship--Stealing a Body from a Gibbet--A Waterman who + Remembered Dickens. + + +Of many interesting days spent with Crooks in Poplar, one stands out as +the day on which he showed me some of the haunts of his boyhood. + +Poplar is always picturesque with the glimpses it gives of ships' masts +rising out of the Docks above the roofs of houses. With Crooks as guide, +this rambling district of Dockland, foolishly imagined by many people to +be wholly a centre of squalor, becomes as romantic as a mediæval town. + +It was not always grey and poor, as so many parts of it are to-day, +though even these are not without their quaint and pleasant places. + +We wended through several of its grey streets, making for the river at +Blackwall. Everywhere women and children, as well as men, whom we passed +greeted Crooks cheerily. + +"Can you wonder so many of our people take to drink?" And he pointed to +the shabby little houses, all let out in tenements, in the street where +he was born. "Look at the homes they are forced to live in! The men +can't invite their mates round, so they meet at 'The Spotted Dog' of an +evening. During the day the women often drift to the same place. The +boys and girls cannot do their courting in these overcrowded homes. They +make love in the streets, and soon they too begin to haunt the +public-houses." + +He changed his tone when we entered the famous old High Street that runs +between the West India Docks and Blackwall. He pointed out the house +where he spent many years of his boyhood after his parents moved from +Shirbutt Street. The old home is associated with his errand-boy +experiences. In those days he finished work at midnight on Saturdays, +and knowing that his parents would be in bed, he often lingered in the +High Street into the early hours of Sunday, playing with other lads who, +like himself, had just finished work. + +As we continued our way down the High Street together, he surprised me +by his wonderful knowledge of the neighbourhood. Here was a Poplar man +proud of Poplar. He told me that the now silent High Street was at one +time a sort of sailors' fair-ground, like the old Ratcliff Highway. It +was there, he said, that Poplar had its beginning, according to the +historian Stow. There shipwrights and other marine men built large +houses for themselves, with small ones around for seamen. + +Not for these people alone were the houses built. Worthy citizens of +London lived down there. Sir John de Poultney, four times Lord Mayor, +lived in a quaint old house in Coldharbour, at Blackwall, that stood +until recently. This same house once formed the home of the discoverer, +Sebastian Cabot. It was there that Cabot made friends with Sir Thomas +Spert, Vice-Admiral of England, who also had a house at Poplar, and +promised Cabot a good ship of the Government's for a voyage of +discovery. And, later still, Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have been the +tenant, and of course legend credits him with having smoked one of his +earliest pipes there. + +Gone are the old houses now, with the old traditions, the old gaiety, +the old mad enthusiasm for the sea. In his day the Blackwall seaman was +a dare-devil, efficient man, eagerly coveted by shipowners and captains +alike. Never did a ship sail from Blackwall during Crooks's schooldays +without most of the boys staying away from school, regardless of results +to their skins the next morning, in order to join in the farewell +cheering from the foreshore. The welcome home to the Blackwall ships was +something to remember. It was always a bitter disappointment to the +boys, since it robbed them of an opportunity of playing truant, if a +ship came home and docked during the night, having come up, as the old +tide-master used to say, and brought her own news. + +Little remains to suggest the sea in Poplar High Street to-day. The old +highway has lost its old glory. The old folks have forsaken the old +homesteads. Of the few old buildings that remain, nearly every one has +been cut up into small shops and tenements. One or two general dealers +still pose as ships' outfitters, and an occasional shop remains as a +marine store, as though in a final feeble struggle to preserve the old +traditions. + +Crooks recollected well the period that costermongers thronged this +riverside highway. They came about the time seamen were deserting it, so +that the street for some time lost nothing of its noise or bustle. The +day came when they, too, departed, seeking a more profitable field in +Chrisp Street, on the northern side of East India Dock Road, where to +this day they still hold carnival. That they carried away something of +the seafaring character of their former highway is borne out by the +nautical turn they give to some of their remarks. + +"Here," cried a fish-dealer of their number the other day, holding aloft +a haddock, "wot price this 'ere 'addick?" + +"Tuppence," suggested a woman bystander. + +"Wot! tuppence! 'Ow would you like to get a ship, an' go out to sea an' +fish for 'addicks to sell for tuppence in foggy weather like this?" + +As we passed down that portion of the High Street that skirts the +Recreation Ground, Crooks pointed out the quaint old church of St. +Matthias. He told me it was the oldest church in Poplar, built as a +chapel-of-ease to the mother church of East London, St. Dunstan's. Then +it was that all the parishes that now go to make up the teeming Tower +Hamlets were comprised in Stepney. As the Port of London in those days +was confined to the Pool and lower reaches and to the riverside hamlets +of the East End, that was why people born at sea were often entered as +having been born in the parish of Stepney. + +St. Matthias' Church afterwards became the chapel of the old East India +Company. Poplar people sometimes call it that to this day. The Company's +almshouses were near, and the chapel ministered to the aged almoners +alone. According to tradition, the teak pillars in the church served as +masts in vessels of the Spanish Armada. Upon the ceiling is the +coat-of-arms of the original East India Company. Adjoining the church is +the picturesque vicarage, where Crooks pointed out the coat-of-arms +adopted by the United Company a hundred years later on the amalgamation +with the New East India Company. + +This chapel contains a monument to the memory of George Green, who +stands out as Poplar's worthiest philanthropist. Schools, churches, and +charities in Poplar to-day testify to his generosity. He was one of the +owners of the famous Blackwall Shipbuilding Yard, that turned out some +of the sturdiest of the wooden walls of England. They were proud in the +shipyard of the _Venerable_ and the _Theseus_, the former Lord Duncan's +flagship at the battle of Camperdown, the latter at one time Nelson's +flagship, in the cockpit of which his arm was amputated. + +The people of old Poplar had at times unpleasant things to tolerate. +Sometimes the pirates hung at Execution Dock, higher up the river, would +be brought down, still on their gibbets, and suspended for a long +period at a place near Blackwall Point, as a warning to all seafarers +entering the Port of London. + +One of the old East India Company pensioners used to tell Crooks's +father how one of the bodies hanging on a gibbet was stolen during the +night, under romantic circumstances. An old waterman at the stairs was +startled at a late hour by a young and ladylike girl coming ashore in a +boat and asking him to lend a hand with her father, who, she said, was +dead drunk in the bottom of the skiff. A youth was with her, and the +waterman assisted them to carry the supposed drunken man to a carriage +which was waiting. Not until the pirate's body was missing in the +morning did the old waterman know the truth. + +We reached the river ourselves from the Blackwall end of the High +Street, while Crooks was giving me these entertaining glimpses into the +past of his native Poplar. The sight of Blackwall Causeway and the river +crowded with craft instantly reminded him of the last mutiny in the +Thames, of which he has gruesome recollections, associated with bad +dreams as a lad, caused by the knowledge that dead seamen lay in the +building adjoining his home. It was here at Blackwall Point that the +crew of the Peruvian frigate mutinied in 1861. He relates graphically +how the eleven men who were shot dead on the ship were brought ashore +and laid in the mortuary next his mother's house by the casual ward. + +The old watermen at the head of the Causeway, waiting to row people +across to the Greenwich side, welcomed Crooks with a cheerful word as we +approached. They were soon full of talk. The eldest told how he went to +sea as a boy in the famous wooden ships turned out of Blackwall Yard. +His aged companion remembered the stage coaches coming down from London +to Blackwall. He was proud also of a memory of Queen Victoria's visit to +the neighbourhood to see a Chinese junk. + +The two ancient watermen soon overflowed with reminiscences. One +remembered his grandfather telling how King George the Fourth would come +down to see the ships built at Blackwall, and how on one occasion a +sailor who had come ashore and got drunk took a pint of ale to his +Majesty in a pewter and asked him to drink to the Army and Navy. + +"Ah!" exclaimed the other, fetching a sigh; "but don't you remember that +old Yarmouth fisherman who used to bring his smack round here from the +Roads and sell herrings out of it on this very Causeway?" + +"Remember! What do _you_ think? That was the old man who would never +keep farthings. In the evening, when he'd got a handful in the course of +the day's trade, he would pitch them in the river for the boys to find." + +"Likely enough," interposed Crooks. "I mudlarked about here myself as a +lad." + +The eldest of the ancient watermen would have it that this old boy from +Yarmouth was the original of Mr. Peggotty, and that it was at Blackwall +Dickens first made his acquaintance. He said he had often seen Dickens +himself about those parts. + +We ventured a doubt. + +"Why, bless my life!" he cried; "ain't I talked to him at the Causeway +here many a time?" + +This, of course, was unanswerable, so we asked what Dickens did when +there. + +The ancient waterman thought a moment. + +"What did Dickens do?" he ruminated. "Now, let me see. What _did_ +Dickens do? I know: Dickens used to go afloat!" + +The other declared that Dickens did more than that: he would often go +into the fishing-smack. + +We immediately assumed that it was the fishing-smack of the old Yarmouth +salt that was meant. We were wrong. It was another "Fishing Smack," one +of the quaint old taverns by the river still standing in Coldharbour. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IN TRAINING FOR A CRAFTSMAN + + Three years in a Smithy--Provoking a + Carman--Apprenticeship--Winning a Nickname--Activity of an Idle + Apprentice--"Not Dead, but Drunk"--A Boisterous Celebration--The + Workman's Pride in His Work. + + +The three years in the blacksmith's shop in Limehouse Causeway, that +commenced at the age of eleven after the errand-boy period, were years +of hard work and long hours. The lad's working day began at six in the +morning and often did not close until eight at night. Working overtime +meant ten and twelve midnight before the day's work was done. He was +paid for the overtime at the rate of a penny an hour. + +He was kept hard at it all the time. Once, in the excitement of a +General Election, in the days of the old hustings, he stole away from +the forge for an hour. The smith had returned in his absence, and +inquired angrily where he had been. + +"Only to see the state of the poll." + +"_You'll_ know the state of the poll on Saturday, young fellow." + +He did. A shilling was taken from his week's wages. + +It was a heavy blow. It delayed a promised pair of new trousers. The +need for a new pair was constantly being brought to his notice in a +more or less personal way. The biggest affront came from a tall boy at a +shop he passed on the way home. + +"Hi!" this youth would call after him. "Look at the kid wot's put his +legs too far frew his trowsis!" + +Nevertheless, the little chap in the short trousers was immensely proud +to be at work. He would blacken his face before leaving for home so as +to look like a working man. + +Many a long day's search had he before getting that job. He spent hours +one morning in calling at nearly all the shops in the two miles' length +of Commercial Road between Poplar and the City. But nobody wanted so +small a boy. On his way back, not yet wholly disheartened, he turned +down Limehouse Causeway and peeped in at the smithy. + +"Can you blow the bellows, little 'un?" he was asked. + +Couldn't he; you just try him! + +They tried him for an hour, then told him he was just the boy they +wanted. + +They got a lot of smiths' work in connection with the fitting out of +small vessels in Limehouse Basin and the West India Docks. The first job +at which Will assisted was on board the barque _Violet_. + +The Causeway where the smithy stood was so narrow that carts could not +pass each other. Two carmen driving in opposite directions met just +outside the smithy door one afternoon. Neither would give way, and they +filled the air with lurid fancies. Young Will came out of the smithy and +took the part of the one whom he believed to have the right on his side. + +Seizing the bridle of the other driver's horse, he commenced to back the +cart down the lane. The man's flow of language increased as he tried to +get at the lad with his whip. Will dodged first to one side and then to +the other, then under the horse's nose, eluding the lash every time. At +last he got the cart backed right out of the lane, allowing the other +driver to pass in triumph. + +The enraged carman sprang down and chased the lad back into the smithy. +Will had just time to spring behind the big bellows out of sight before +the other appeared foaming at the door. With many oaths the man swore he +would have vengeance on the boy some day, come what would. + +Some years afterwards Crooks found himself at work in the same yard as +his burly enemy, but time, which had made little difference to the man, +had transformed the boy out of all recognition. Crooks asked him if he +remembered the event. + +"Yes; and if I came across that youngster to-day I'd break every bone in +his body." + +"I don't think you would, Jack," Crooks replied, preparing to take off +his coat. + +Then the carman understood. + +In his third year at the smithy Will was getting six shillings a week, +with something more than a penny an hour for overtime. Small though the +wages were, they were very welcome at home; and it meant a great deal +to his mother when she sacrificed more than half this amount in the +lad's best interest. + +She was as determined that her boys should learn a trade as that they +should learn to read and write. She took Will away from the smithy and +his six shillings a week, when she found he was not to be taught the +business but to be merely a smiths' labourer, and she apprenticed him to +the trade of cooper at a weekly wage of half a crown. + +"The sacrifice of a few shillings a week," says Crooks, "which mother +made in order that I should learn a trade was only one of the many +things she did for me as a boy for which I have blessed her memory in +manhood many times. I really don't know now how she managed to feed us +all, after losing my three-and-six a week. I know that she always put up +a good dinner in a handkerchief for me to take to work. It may have got +smaller towards the end of the week, like many of the men's. I remember +one Monday dinner-time flopping down on a saw-tub and opening my +handkerchief as the foreman passed. + +"'That looks a good meal to begin the week on,' he said. 'I see how it +is;-- + + + It's Monday plenty, + Tuesday some, + Wednesday a little, + Thursday none, + Don't worry about Friday, + You get your money on Saturday.'" + + +Among the workmen was a thinker and reformer far ahead of his times. It +was dangerous in those days for workmen to give expression to advanced +views, and as he was a married man he made no display of his opinions. +He seems to have seen promise in young Will, for he talked to him freely +on social and political matters, encouraging him to read by lending him +books and papers, and inspiring him with an enthusiasm for the teaching +of John Bright. + +So much so, that at home Will was nicknamed Young John Bright. An uncle, +looking in on the eve of the General Election of 1868, said jokingly, +"Now, young John Bright, tell us all about what is going to happen." +Nothing loath, Will delivered a long speech on the political situation, +and foretold, among other things, that the Liberals would sweep the +country, and that one of their first acts would be to disestablish the +Church of Ireland. The prophecy, needless to say, was fulfilled. + +Will was one of half-a-dozen apprentices in the coopering establishment. +While still the youngest among them he made his mark by acting as +spokesman in a sudden emergency. The lads thought they had a grievance +under the piece-rate system. They went in a body to the head of the +firm, the eldest primed with a well-rehearsed speech stating their case. + +If Will saved the situation, he began by nearly bringing disaster upon +it. It happened that the spokesman's father was an undertaker in +Stepney, and that on Sundays the lad, with becoming gravity, frequently +walked as a mute at funerals. + +Just as the solemn procession of aggrieved apprentices was about to +enter the office, the employer's wondering eye upon them through the +window, Will called out in a stage whisper: + +"Now, Joe, put on your best Sunday face!" + +The fearful tension was broken. All the boys burst into laughter. The +lads tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get outside the +passage. When the head of the firm opened his door Will alone remained. + +"What's all this about, Crooks?" + +The youngest apprentice thereupon briefly ran over the lads' grievances, +and on being asked why the deputation fled in laughter, he explained the +meaning of the Sunday face. + +The employer laughed as boisterously as his boys. He told Crooks to go +back to work, promising that the lads should have fair play. That very +day he issued orders placing the apprentices under better conditions. + +One of the lads, with an unconquerable liking for lying in bed, had not +turned up by nine o'clock on a certain morning. The other apprentices +stole out with a barrow and went to his house with the object of +wheeling him to work. + +Half an hour later the lad rushed into the cooperage panting and +dishevelled, his clothes torn, his hat missing. + +"Done 'em!" he gasped, after the manner of Alfred Jingle. "I rushed out +o' the back door, got over the wall, over the next wall, fell on a +flower-bed, man came out (such langwidge!), climbed his wall afore he +could ketch me, landed clean on a dog kennel, dog tore me clothes, got +over another wall--into the street at last--boys caught sight o' me, +howling chase with barrow, woman let me run through her house, over +another wall. Done 'em!" + +Something more than laziness explained the occasional absence of others +from work. Certain of the men would be missing for two or three days. +During an unusually long absence of one of the older coopers, the men +and lads rigged up a dummy figure, dressing it in whatever clothes of +their own they could spare. They placed the dummy in an improvised +coffin by the side of their missing comrade's bench, with an imitation +tombstone at the head, bearing the inscription, "Not dead, but drunk." + +The morning came when the delinquent turned up. A deep silence fell over +the workshop as he entered. Men and apprentices alike suddenly appeared +to be absorbed in work. The late-comer pretended not to see the effigy +by his bench. With quiet deliberation he took off his coat, rolled up +his sleeves, and lighted the furnace-fire. No one spoke. The old man +brought two handfuls of shavings and piled them on the fire until it +roared again. Then suddenly he seized the dummy figure and hurled it on +the flames. + +Everybody sprang forward to snatch his garments from the fire. One +rescued his coat, another his vest, another his cap, another his +muffler, another his pair of boots, the old man belabouring each in +turn. + +"Ah!" he cried with a chuckle, as the singed garments were dragged away. +"I knew that would find you all out." + +Quaint and boisterous customs were observed when an apprentice was out +of his time. The greater part of the day was given up by men and boys +alike to revelry and horse-play. + +The ceremonies began at about eleven o'clock in the morning, to be kept +up for the rest of the day. First, the apprentice was seized and put +into a hot barrel. Round him stood some fifty men and boys checking +every attempt he made to get out, tapping him with hammers on the head +and fingers and shoulders every time he made an effort to escape. When +his clothes--the last he was to wear as an apprentice--had been singed +in the barrel out of all further use, he would be dragged out and tossed +in the air by about a dozen of the strongest men. + +Only once did the employer try to stop these boisterous interludes. He +never tried again. The men laid hold of him, and for about five minutes +treated him to a vigorous tossing. + +It then became the bruised and singed apprentice's privilege to pay for +bread and cheese and drink. In the afternoon the men turned the yard +into an imitation fair. Flags and bunting were put up and side shows +were improvised. One feature was to persuade the fattest men to walk the +tight-rope. + +On the whole, Will had a happy time as an apprentice, working hard and +laughing hard, more than once threatened with dismissal because his +spirit of fun led him into mischief. He became a good craftsman, and to +this day boasts of being as skilful at his own trade as any man. He +attributes this to the old spirit of craftsmanship that held good in his +day. One incident during his apprenticeship helped to make him take a +pride in what he made with his own hands. An old workman in the shop, +after finishing a piece of work, set it in the middle of the floor and +walked round it admiringly several times. + +"'Pon my honour, one would think you'd made a thousand-horse-power +engine," said the apprentice. + +"Never you mind, sonny," replied the old workman. "Whether it's a +thousand-horse-power engine or not, _I made it myself_!" + +"That is the spirit I want to see revived among workmen to-day," Crooks +told the Labour Co-partnership Association in 1905, relating the +incident at their annual exhibition at the Crystal Palace. He went on to +say: + + + I want to see workmen proud of what they make with their own hands. + That is impossible in many workshops to-day because of the soulless + way in which they are conducted. Many workmen have got the idea + they only exist for what other people can get out of them. I blame + employers as much as workmen for this state of things. There are in + the country some excellent employers. Unfortunately, they are + becoming fewer. The individual employer is going out, and the + limited liability company coming in, having as its one object the + making of profit, utterly regardless of the bodies or souls of the + men or women from whom the profit is wrung. The result of running + works and factories for company dividends only has destroyed the + old school of masters and men, both of whom had a pride in their + work, both of whom stamped their work with the mark of their own + individuality. + + To get back to a better state of things workmen must become their + own masters, and the Co-Partnership Association is showing men the + way. It is teaching them to live and work with and for each other. + I want men who groan under the injustice of so much in our + industrial system to understand that they can do much for + themselves. By combination and co-operation they can run businesses + of their own. But they must first take to the water before they can + swim. It means discipline, but trade unionism has meant discipline. + The administrative capacity of workmen can be developed to an + enormous extent yet. + + How are we going to train our men and women workers to take on the + responsibilities of regulating their own lot in a better manner? + Trade unionists are now learning that instead of spending money on + strikes it is better to spend it in starting workshops of their + own. The time has come when Labour leaders and others might well + cease talking to the workers about their power and begin talking to + them about their responsibilities. + + +The day after this speech he received the following letter from George +Jacob Holyoake, a few months before that veteran co-operator passed +away:-- + + + "Against my will I was prevented from being present at the Crystal + Palace, but that does not disqualify me from expressing my thanks + for the wise and practical speech you made--in every way + admirable." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +TRAMPING THE COUNTRY FOR WORK + + Marriage--Dismissed as an Agitator--Home broken up--"On the + Road"--Timely Help at Burton--Finding Work at + Liverpool--Bereavement--Back in London--A Second Tramp to + Liverpool--Feelings of an "Out-of-Work." + + +On a grey morning in the December of 1871 two young people came out of +St. Thomas's Church, Bethnal Green, man and wife. Both were only +nineteen years of age. The husband was Will Crooks; his wife the +daughter of an East London shipwright named South. + +They set up their home in Poplar, near the coopering yard where Will was +employed. At first they had to be content with apartments; then came a +small tenement; soon after a little house of their own. + +It was fair and pleasant sailing for the first two or three years. He +got a journeyman's full wages the first week he was out of his +apprenticeship. It seemed as though he were to have an unbroken run of +good fortune. The bright hopes soon collapsed. + +Good craftsmanship and trade unionism, blended as they were in Crooks, +made him rebel against certain conditions of his work. Finally he +refused to use inferior timber on a job, and objected to excessive +overtime. Although the youngest among them, he addressed the workmen on +the subject. A few days afterwards he was dismissed. + +He took his notice lightly enough, confident that as master of his trade +he could soon secure work again. + +It was not to be. Every shop and yard in London was closed to him. Word +had gone round that he was an agitator. + +Try as he did, he could not break through the barrier that had been +raised against him. Wherever he applied, whether in Rotherhithe, +Battersea, Hackney, or Clerkenwell, he was known as the young fellow who +would not work with shoddy material and talked other men into the same +view. + +The experience was the same at every place of call. + +"What's your name?" + +"Crooks." + +"Of Poplar?" + +"That's me." + +"We don't want anyone." + +From several of these places he heard afterwards that the instant he was +gone other men were taken on. + +Since London was a closed door to him, he turned his back upon it, and +set out tramping the country in search of work. With a fully-paid-up +trade union card, he knew he could count on an occasional half-crown to +help him on the way at those towns where his society had branches. + +His home had to be broken up. His wife with their child went to her +mother's, there to await for weary weeks the result of her husband's +first quest into the country. + +The only piece of good news came from Liverpool. Not until he reached +that city did he get a job. He tramped into Liverpool from +Burton-on-Trent. Never in his life, either before or since, did a silver +coin mean so much to him as the half-crown given by a member of his own +trade to help him on the road as he set out from Burton for Liverpool. + +Twenty-nine years later Crooks was speaking at a meeting of co-operators +in Burton when he recognised his former benefactor on the platform. He +told the audience of his last visit to their town, remarking how on that +occasion no one but this man offered him hospitality, whereas now, if he +lived to be a hundred and fifty years of age, he would not be able to +accept all the invitations he had received from friends and would-be +friends to spend week-ends with them. His regret was, he told the +meeting, that those good people did not begin to ask him earlier and +that they did not think of asking other poor men in a similar plight to +his when he first entered Burton. + +By the time he dragged himself into Liverpool he was without a sole to +his boots. The journey was completed on the uppers of his boots, with +the aid of string, a device he had learnt from friendly tramps on the +road. Having got what looked like a promising job, he invited his wife +to join him with their child, enclosing the fare from his first week's +wages. + +This work in Liverpool had not been obtained without much weary +searching. A good friend to the young fellow in his distress was the +Y.M.C.A. in that city. Nearly thirty years later he addressed a crowded +public meeting in the large hall of the Liverpool Y.M.C.A. He had an +enthusiastic welcome when he rose to speak. + + + I am very grateful to you for your kind welcome of me to-night. + This hall has carried my memory back to 1876 when I first visited + Liverpool. I was then looking for work, knowing what it was to want + a meal many a day. I don't know what I should have done without the + many kindnesses I met with from Liverpool people, and from none + more hearty and truly helpful than I received here in this + building. + + +But Liverpool is associated with one of the saddest memories in his +life. This is how he refers to it:-- + +"My wife joined me, bringing our little girl, a bonny child of whom we +were immensely proud. The little one pined from the day it reached +Liverpool and died within a month. I thought my wife would have followed +the child to the grave within a day or two. I never saw her so much +affected in all my life. She pleaded to be taken away from that place. +'Anywhere,' she said, 'only let's get away.' So we buried our little +girl in Liverpool one rainy Saturday afternoon, and came back to London +to seek work the same night." + +It was the most miserable railway journey of his life. If anything, the +misery was increased when as the dull dawn crept over London he and his +wife stepped out of the train and walked the seven miles of silent +streets between Euston and Poplar. + +No better fortune awaited them in London. The young husband sought work +with no success. News reached him that his trade was thriving again in +Liverpool, so he set out to tramp there a second time. + +"It is a weird experience, this, of wandering through England in search +of a job," he says. "You keep your heart up so long as you have +something in your stomach, but when hunger steals upon you, then you +despair. Footsore and listless at the same time, you simply lose all +interest in the future. + +"I have always been drawn towards Canon Liddon since reading an address +of his in which he said that the roughest tramp upon the road was, in +his eyes, one who might come to be numbered among those favoured by +Christ, and that the most brilliant and distinguished guest he had ever +met had no higher possibility than that. + +"Nothing wearies one more than walking about hunting for employment +which is not to be had. It is far harder than real work. The +uncertainty, the despair, when you reach a place only to discover that +your journey is fruitless, are frightful. I've known a man say, 'Which +way shall I go to-day?' Having no earthly idea which way to take, he +tosses up a button. If the button comes down on one side he treks east; +if on the other, he treks west. + +"You can imagine the feeling when, after walking your boots off, a man +says to you, as he jingles sovereigns in his pocket, 'Why don't you +work?' That is what happened to me as I scoured the country between +London and Liverpool, asking all the way for any kind of work to help me +along." + +I remember Crooks recalling his experience at a dinner-party given by +the Hon. Maud Stanley at her Westminster house. Crooks was then a +fellow-member with Miss Stanley of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and +she invited us on that occasion to meet her friend Professor Wyckoff, +the American author, who wrote "The Workers." In "The Workers" the +author tells the story of how for a time he turned his back upon his +usual well-to-do haunts in order to find out what earning one's own +living by tramping from place to place doing manual work was actually +like. + +Crooks, who, perhaps unconsciously to himself, had become the chief +entertainer at table, showed Mr. Wyckoff in a moment that, realistic +though his experiences had been, he could not possibly enter into the +feelings of the real out-of-work who had nothing but sixpence between +him and starvation. However hard up Mr. Wyckoff might have been at +times, he always had the consolation that if the worst came to the +worst, funds awaited him at home. The ordinary workman tramping the +country, said Crooks, had no such feeling of a sure foundation +somewhere, and it was only when you felt--as he had often felt when +tramping for work--the utter hopelessness and loneliness of things, +made doubly worse by the knowledge that wife and children were suffering +too, that you could enter fully into the feelings of an out-of-work. + +Evidently Mr. Wyckoff had not thought of this view before, but it seemed +to me to mark the all-important difference between the amateur and the +real sufferer. There are some things no man can play at, and the game +Mr. Wyckoff, with the best intentions in the world, and with a good deal +of self-imposed suffering, tried to play was one of them. There are some +experiences of life which no one can ever have for the seeking only. +They come; they can never be commanded. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ONE OF LONDON'S UNEMPLOYED + + A Casual Labourer at the Docks--A Typical Day's Tramping for Work + in London--Demoralising Effects of being Out of a Job--Emptying the + Cupboard for a Starving Family--Work found at last--Doing the + "Railway Tavern" a Bad Turn. + + +In Liverpool again the prospect was not what he had been led to believe. +An odd job here and an odd job there still left him in want. At last, in +response to the earnest entreaties of his wife, whom nothing could +persuade to revisit Liverpool, he returned to take his chance again in +London. + +This time Crooks determined to try to find work outside his own trade. +He went down to the Docks, where, by the aid of a friendly foreman, he +got occasional jobs as a casual labourer. + +The sight of so many other poor fellows struggling at the Dock Gates +proved more than he could bear. He turned away from the eager mass of +men one morning, resolved never to join in the demoralising scrimmage +again. With a trade of his own he felt he had no right to take a job for +which so many men, more helpless than himself, were daily striving. + +The morning he turned away finally from the Docks was the very one on +which his friend the foreman had promised him a job if he turned up at +the gates by noon. The piteous appeals of the hundreds of other men for +the half-dozen places offered so affected him that he hung back and sat +down out of sight. He saw the foreman scan the crowd, looking for him, +and then engage the number of men he wanted and go inside. Crooks went +off to seek work in other quarters. + +One typical day of tramping for work in London he described to me +thus:-- + +"I first went down to the river-side at Shadwell. No work was to be had +there. Then I called at another place in Limehouse. No hands wanted. So +I looked in at home and got two slices of bread in paper and walked +eight miles to a cooper's yard in Tottenham. All in vain. I dragged +myself back to Clerkenwell. Still no luck. Then I turned towards home in +despair. By the time I reached Stepney I was dead beat, so I called at a +friend's in Commercial Road for a little rest. They gave me some Irish +stew and twopence to ride home. I managed to walk home and gave the +twopence to my wife. She needed it badly. + +"That year I know I walked London until my limbs ached again. I remember +returning home once by way of Tidal Basin, and turning into the Victoria +Docks so utterly exhausted that I sank down on a coil of rope and slept +for hours. + +"Another day I tramped as far as Beckton, again to no purpose. I must +have expressed keen disappointment in my face, for the good fellows in +the cooperage there made a collection for me, and I came home that night +with one and sevenpence. + +"There are few things more demoralising to a man than to have a long +spell of unemployment with day after day of fruitless searching for +work. It turns scores of decent men into loafers. Many a confirmed +loafer to-day is simply what he is because our present social system +takes no account of a man being out of work. No one cares whether he +gets a job or goes to the dogs. If he goes to the dogs the nation is the +loser in a double sense. It has lost a worker, and therefore a +wealth-maker. Secondly, it has to spend public money in maintaining him +or his family in some kind of way, whether in workhouse, infirmary, +prison or asylum. + +"A man who is out of work for long nearly always degenerates. For +example, if a decent fellow falls out in October and fails to get a job +say by March, he loses his anxiety to work. The exposure, the +insufficient food, his half-starved condition, have such a deteriorating +effect upon him that he becomes indifferent whether he gets work or not. +He thus passes from the unemployed state to the unemployable state. It +ought to be a duty of the nation to see that a man does not become +degenerate." + +In his own unemployed days, he awoke every morning with the +half-suppressed prayer: "God help me to-day. Where shall I look for work +to-day? Where can I earn a bob?" + +Actual starvation was only kept away by occasional help from his own +and his wife's people and by the few shillings out-of-work pay which his +Trade Union allowed him every week. Even in those days he was never so +hard up as not to be ready to help others in greater privation. He was +out one morning when he met a man whom he knew slightly near his own +house. He could see that he looked ill and that he wanted to speak. So +he went up to him and said: + +"Well, mate, what's amiss?" + +With tears in his eyes the man told his tale--his tale of starvation. He +was afraid or ashamed to ask for relief, and there had been no food in +his house for over twenty-four hours. + +Crooks told the man to go home, promising to come to him presently. He +himself went back to his own home and told his wife. + +"Let's see what we've got," she said. + +All she found was a portion of a packet of cocoa and a loaf of bread. +She made a large jug of cocoa and gave her out-of-work husband that and +the loaf to take round to the other man's family. + +"It's all we have in the house," she said; "but we've had our breakfast, +and they haven't." + +Work came at last in an unexpected way. He was returning home after +another empty day when he hailed a carman and asked for a lift. + +"All right, mate, jump up," was the response. + +As they sat chatting side by side, the carman learnt that his companion +was seeking work. + +"What's yer trade?" he inquired. + +"A cooper." + +"Why, the guv'nor wants a cooper." + +So instead of dropping off at Poplar, Crooks accompanied the carman to +the works, and he who had tramped the country and London so long in +search of a job was at last driven triumphantly to work in a conveyance, +"like a Lord Mayor or a judge," as he afterwards described it. + +On the first pay day, glad at heart, he was about to start for home. The +men stopped him. + +"We always go to 'The Railway Tavern' on Saturdays. A decent chap keeps +the 'Railway.' Come and join us." + +"Not me." + +"Won't the missus let you?" + +"No, she won't." + +Throughout the next week he was mercilessly "chipped" in the workshop +and referred to as the man whose missus was waiting for him at the other +end. At the close of the next week he was asked after pay-time-- + +"Did the missus meet you last week?" + +"Yes, and she'll meet me this week too." + +"Come along, old chap, no kid, have a parting glass." + +"No, I can part without the glass." + +At the end of the third week a fellow-workman whispered: "What time are +you going home, Will?" + +"Same time." + +"Let me leave with you, will you?" + +"Certainly. Your missus been at you?" + +"Yes; the fact is, Will, I stayed drinking down here until I'd blown +eight bob last week. It meant my two little girls had to go without +their promised pairs of new boots." + +"All right, Jim; I'll give you a whistle when it's time to go." + +At the end of six weeks the "Railway" was without a customer from that +shop. + +That work was a stepping-stone to another and a better job at +Wandsworth. His new employer urged him to leave Poplar and take a house +near the works. + +"But suppose you pay me off when the busy time passes?" said Crooks. + +"I shan't do that," was the answer. "I like your work too well." + +The day came when Crooks was offered work nearer Poplar. When he handed +in his notice the Wandsworth employer became wrathful. + +"Never mind, I'll come back here when I'm out of work again," said +Crooks good-naturedly. + +"Will you? I can promise you there'll be no more work for you here. +Leaving me like this!" + +"Oh, yes, there will. You haven't kept me on for love, you know. I like +you, and I'll come here for another job directly I'm out of work again." + +It was not to be. Crooks was never out of work again in his life. + +Years later he found himself sitting next to his old Wandsworth employer +at a public dinner. + +"You never came back to claim that job," said the good-natured old man. + +"I will when I'm out of work--as I promised." + +"Ah! you don't know how often I wished you would come back. You may +have talked to the men a good deal about the rights of Labour, but I +never knew the rights of employers to be observed so honourably. You +seemed to keep the men more sober and the work up to a higher level of +efficiency than I had ever known before. That's why I wanted you to come +and live near, thinking to make sure of you. That's why I was so angry +when you handed in your notice." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE COLLEGE AT THE DOCK GATES + + Commending himself to his Employers--"Crooks's College"--His Style + of Teaching--Specimens of his Humour--Admonitions against Drink and + Betting. + + +With regular work well assured, Crooks was able to give more time and +study to public affairs and to the Labour Movement. For an unbroken +period of ten years he held a good position in a large coopering +establishment in East London, where he was held in high esteem by men +and masters alike, the latter more than once intimating to him they +would make it worth his while to remain in their service all his life. + +Crooks was always proud of the good standing he held in his employers' +eyes. He knew it was due solely to his skill as a workman, for it +certainly did not tell in his favour that he was beginning to be known +more widely than ever as a Labour agitator. This, as a term of derision, +used to be applied to all Labour leaders in the 'eighties and long +afterwards. Certain writers and speakers who wished to be particularly +derisive would refer to them as paid agitators. Even to this day an +occasional echo of the cry reaches the ears. The offenders belong to the +same school as the lady who withdrew her money from the bank after the +General Election of 1906 because so many Labour members had been +returned. + +It was during these years of regular work that Crooks founded his famous +College. He began a series of Sunday morning Labour meetings outside the +East India Dock Gates, which have been continued ever since. The place +in association with these Sunday meetings came to be known among Poplar +workmen as Crooks's College. + +Many a useful lesson has he driven home to his working class audiences +at his College at the Dock Gates. He generally leads off with some +little humorous fancy. + +"If you fellows only have a quid a week, don't despise your share in the +country's government. You needn't go the length of the Cockney taxpayer +who rowed out to a man-o'-war at Portsmouth. + +"'Ship ahoy!' he shouts. 'Ship ahoy!' + +"At last he makes someone hear. + +"'Is the captain aboard?' says he. + +"'What d'yer want with the captain?' asks a bluejacket. + +"'Feller,' says the taxpayer, big-like, 'just tell your captain that one +of the owners of this 'ere ship wants to come aboard, and look slippy +about it.' + +"The captain invites him on the deck, and he goes round the ship +sniffing at this and complaining about that until the ship's carpenter +gets riled. + +"'Don't you know that I have a share in this ship, feller?' says the +taxpayer. + +"'Oh, have yer?' says the carpenter, handing him a chip. 'You just take +your share then, and get over the side double quick, or I shall be under +the necessity of showing you the way.'" + +When the East End was suffering from one of the water famines that used +to be fairly common before the supply was taken over by a public +authority, he never tired of calling the attention of his Dock Gate +meetings to the fact that the company went on charging the same rates, +whether there was water or not. + +"When I got home last night, my wife said, 'Will, the water's come on at +last; but just look at it--it's not fit to drink!' So I went to the tap +and saw a lot of little things swimming about in the water. The wife was +alarmed, and asked what we should do. 'My dear,' I replied, 'for +goodness sake don't say anything about it to anybody. If this gets to +the ears of the company they might charge us for the fish as well as for +the water.'" + +Never was instruction at college imparted with so many human touches and +humorous sallies. He noticed that many of the men slunk away when the +public-houses opened. He made it a practice to commence his own address +a few minutes before the public-houses threw open their doors. In this +way he kept most of the men about him. The waverers among them were +shamed into staying by little thrusts like these:-- + +"Some of you chaps imagine you can only be men by taking the gargle. If +you could see yourselves sometimes after you've been indulging you +would jolly soon change your opinion. Perhaps you've heard of the man +who asked for a ticket at the railway junction. + +"'What station?' asked the booking clerk. + +"'What stations have you got?' he stammered, clinging to the ledge for +support. + +"But even that chap was not so bad as the railway guard who went home a +bit elevated. He saw the cat lying on the hearthrug, and chucked it in +the oven, slamming the door and yelling, 'Take yer seats for +Nottingham.' + +"I've heard men say they only take it because the doctor orders it. One +of these chaps was caught having secret nips of whiskey. 'Bless yer +heart!' he says. 'Don't yer know I has ter take it for me health? I +suffers wiv tape worms.' + +"One of the chief reasons some of you chaps booze is because you are too +sociable-like in standing treat. A rattling boozer was once screwed up +to the point of signing the pledge. He writes his name, puts his hand in +his pocket, and asks how much? + +"'Nothing to pay,' says the young lady, smiling. + +"'What? Nothing to pay?' he repeats in amazement. 'Do I get it for +nothing? Do you mean to say that I, a working man, am offered something +for nothing?' + +"'Nothing to pay,' repeats the young lady. + +"'Well, 'pon my honour, this is the first time I've ever got anything +for nothing. Come and have a drink.'" + +"Some of you fellows who live on the Isle of Dogs have seen the +allotment system started there. I asked one of the publicans of the +neighbourhood why he complained about the allotments. 'Why,' said he, +'the men used to come in and have a gargle on Saturday afternoons, but +now they go and dig clay.' + +"But ask the men's wives what they say about the allotments, and you +will hear a different story. The men now have time not only to cultivate +their plots, but to look after their families. + +"How many of our poor women who give way to drink can trace their +descent to the neglect of the men who married them. It may be hard to be +burdened with a drunken wife, but often enough a good deal of the fault +is on the side of the husband because of his early neglect. He should +have strengthened her. He should have shared her sorrows as well as her +joys. We ought not to leave a woman to bear all her own burdens. Many a +young wife breaks down because of early neglect at a time when she ought +to be built up, when it would be real manliness on the husband's part to +put up with a little trouble for her sake. + +"Some of you giggle when you see a man nursing a baby in long clothes. +What is there to giggle at? I carried a baby in long clothes up the +stairs of Shadwell Station the other day, because I saw it was too much +for the poor mother who was struggling along. + +"'Here,' I said, 'hand it over; I'm used to that sort of job.' + +"My wife heard of it before I got home, and she said to those who told +her, 'Well, if the woman didn't thank him, I shall when he comes home.' + +"Perhaps you thought I looked a fool clambering up the stairs with a +baby in long clothes. I don't think so. I satisfied myself by doing what +evidently wanted doing." + +He hurried away from his college by the Dock Gates one Sunday morning to +keep an appointment to address the Isle of Dogs Progressive Club. He +found less than a dozen men in the lecture hall, while the bar and the +billiard room were crowded. He walked out without a word and sat down in +the club garden. + +"This is all right. I'm enjoying myself perfectly here," he told the +bewildered secretary. "If they prefer to play at billiards and to drink +beer, let them. I am quite content to enjoy this garden." + +In ten minutes time not a man remained in the bar or billiard room. The +lecture hall was filled. + +"We deserve your reproach, Will," shouted someone from the audience when +at last he stepped on to the platform. + +If he was severe on drink he was more severe on betting. + +"Many a man here," he told one of his Sunday morning audiences at the +Dock Gates, "can tell me the pedigree of half-a-dozen race-horses. It +shows you can think if you like. But that kind of thinking is what I +call thinking off-side." + +Crooks had a hundred happy illustrations for urging upon his +working-class hearers the duty of citizenship and co-operation. + +"We chaps are like the old lady's cow that gave a good pail of milk +regular, but often kicked it over. We have built up trade unions and +friendly societies and co-operative societies that stand for the best +working class organisations in the world. But we have a weakness for +kicking the pail over. How? Because we are constantly spoiling our own +good work by allowing other classes to do all the governing of the +country. + +"It reminds me of a group of boys I saw coming home from a football +match. + +"'How did yer get on?' they were asked by other lads in the street. + +"'Won.' + +"'How many?' + +"'Seven to nothing.' + +"'Been playing a blind school?'" + +And then Crooks would go on: "Well, we workers have been the blind +school, and we have been allowing other classes to score goals against +us all the time. If we haven't been blind we've certainly been +blindfold. Tear the bandage off your eyes. Be men." + +Behind all his banter there was a serious message in all his Sunday +morning addresses. + +"Labour may be the new force by which God is going to help forward the +regeneration of the world," he told his hearers. "Heaven knows we need a +little more earnestness in our national life to-day, and if the +best-born cannot give it, the so-called base-born may. We common people +have done it before. Who knows but what it is God's will that we should +do it again? We can all afford to laugh at that dear lady, bless her, +who could not bear the idea that some of the Apostles were fishermen, +and who solemnly asked her minister whether there was not some authority +for believing that they were owners of smacks. + +"We working men are gaining power. Let us see that we also gain +knowledge to use the power, not to abuse it. Parliament is supposed to +protect the weak against the strong. It doesn't pan out like that. After +all these years of popular education, isn't it about time we taught the +dialectical champions in the House of Commons that the people are the +creators of Parliament, and that we demand as its creators that +Parliament should be at the service of the people and all the people, +instead of at the service of the powerful and the wealthy? + +"But don't think that Parliament and municipality can do everything. +They are not going to make the world perfect. What they can do and what +we should insist on their doing is to make it easier to do right and +more difficult to do wrong. They can deal with those 'who turn aside the +needy from judgment and take away the right of the poor of My people,' +but they cannot make good men and good women. That must depend upon +ourselves." + +That College at the Dock Gates can point to some notable achievements. +The Blackwall Tunnel, which has its entrance at the very spot where the +meetings take place, was one of the earliest things the College agitated +for. Between the dock wall and the tunnel is a large municipal gymnasium +and recreation ground, the scheme for which was first unfolded by Crooks +at the College, when the ground was a waste and the children were +without play-places. + +Crooks's College began the campaign for a free library. The +well-equipped public library that now stands in the High Street was its +first achievement. The College founded the Poplar Labour League, which +first introduced Crooks to public life. Crooks's College first created +the demand for a technical institute for Poplar. The institute is now an +accomplished fact, comprising the best municipal school of marine +engineering in the country. Crooks's College started the campaign for +the footway tunnel under the Thames between the Isle of Dogs and +Greenwich, which now serves the daily convenience of thousands of +work-people. Crooks's College began that policy of humane treatment of +workhouse inmates which had a great deal to do with improved +administration of the Poor Law all over the country. Crooks's College +was the originator of the farm colony system in this country. Crooks's +College stood out for the welfare of Poor Law children. Crooks's College +broke down the corrupt practices on three of the old municipal +authorities in Poplar. + +And perhaps the greatest occasion in the history of the College at the +Dock Gates was that Sunday morning in June, 1906, that followed the +opening of the Local Government Board Inquiry into the administration of +the guardians. For the week previously the Press and the local Municipal +Alliance had done their best to poison the mind of Poplar against its +long-trusted Labour man. + +How would the College fare now? The attendance at the Dock Gates that +morning was one of the largest on record. Thousands of ratepayers were +there, and when Crooks walked through their ranks to the little portable +rostrum he had one of the great receptions of his life. He urged them +not to be discouraged because their cause seemed to be under a cloud, +but to strengthen his hands in maintaining the integrity of public life +and to possess themselves in quietness, confident that before long the +accused would become the accusers. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +FROM THE CHEERING MULTITUDE TO A SORROW-LADEN HOME + + The Dock Strike of 1889--"Our Dock Strike Baby"--At the Point of + Death--Discouraging a Missioner--Before a House of Lords + Committee--Entrance upon Public Life--A Widower with Six + Children--Second Marriage. + + +The great Dock Strike of 1889 nearly brought Crooks to his grave. Much +of the brunt and burden of that famous struggle fell upon his shoulders. +Months before, he had prepared the way by his Dock Gate meetings. When +at last the disorganised bands of dock and river-side labourers startled +the industrial world by standing together as one man for better +conditions of work and a minimum wage of sixpence an hour, Will Crooks +was one of the half-dozen Labour Leaders who directed the campaign to +its historic triumph. + +Seldom, while the strike lasted, did he take his clothes off. He worked +at his own trade during the day and gave nearly the whole of the night +to the strikers. The outdoor meetings he addressed kept him going up to +midnight. The early morning hours saw him lending a hand at the +organising offices and relief stations until the dawn called him to his +ordinary daily work again. + +There were times when he gave both day and night to the dockers, +preferring to lose time at his own work rather than miss an opportunity +of lending a hand to his less fortunate fellows. Sometimes he would +accompany the men in their demonstrations through the City and the +West-End. + +Those daily marches of the dock labourers opened London's eyes. The +orderliness of the ragged battalions, headed by "the man in the straw +hat," who was afterwards to take a seat in the Cabinet--John Burns--was +as impressive as their numbers. They were forbidden to use bands of +music in the City streets, so the men conceived the ingenious device of +whistling. It had a curious effect, some fifty thousand men whistling +the "Marseillaise" all the way from Aldgate to Temple Bar. + +When Crooks did get home for an hour or two in the evening it was not to +rest, but to sit by the bedside of his ailing wife and tend the youngest +of his children. Ill though his wife was, little though she saw of him +during the strike, she urged him from her sick bed to keep on helping +the dockers. + +"Don't mind me, Will," she told him, when he would peep in anxiously +after many hours' absence. "I shall be all right if you can only pull +those poor dockers through." + +He came in one night after nearly two days' absence, having arranged to +spend the whole of that evening by her bedside. She had just given birth +to a son--"our Dock Strike baby," as he came to be called for long +afterwards, now a promising apprentice in a Thames shipbuilding yard. +She was very happy at the good news he brought of the progress of the +strike. She was happier still at the prospect of his being spared for +his first evening at home. Presently the sound of hurrying footsteps was +heard in the street. Something important had happened. The men wanted +Will Crooks. Would he come again? + +He looked at his wife. She must decide. + +"Go, Will," she said. "Never let it be said your wife kept you from +helping those in need." + +The reaction came after the victory. When the dockers in their thousands +were back at work rejoicing at having won their sixpence an hour, Crooks +lay at the point of death in the London Hospital in Whitechapel Road. It +was the first time he had been ill in his life. Friends feared this +first illness was to be his last. Not until after a struggle of thirteen +weeks could he be pronounced out of danger. + +He is fond of telling this incident that occurred in the hospital:-- + +"When I was approaching convalescence, and naturally fairly happy at the +thought of soon being able to get out and return home, a missioner, as I +think he was called, came to see me as I lay in bed in the hospital. He +said to me quite bluntly, 'Are you not a miserable sinner?' + +"I said: 'No; I may be a sinner, but I am not a miserable one just now.' + +"The missioner left my side in disgust, and then returned and asked to +be allowed to send me a Testament. I consented, and received in a day +or two one marked in several places with red ink, apparently intended to +impress upon me what a depraved and miserable creature I was. + +"The missioner called again, and questioned me as to whether I had read +the marked passages and what I thought of them. + +"I told him that, as applied to me, they were not true. + +"I shall never forget the look I received, and I expect I was given up +as a lost man. + +"A few minutes after he had left my ward a patient from another ward +came to see me, and said:-- + +"'I say, Twenty-five, that's the way to get rid of them.' + +"I said, 'What have _you_ done to get rid of him?' + +"'Oh,' he answered. 'The missioner said, "Are you not a miserable +sinner?" and I said "Yes"; and then he said, "Thank God for that," and +went away.'" + +Soon after Crooks came out of the hospital he made his first appearance +in a public capacity in Parliament. He was invited on July 11th, 1890, +to give evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords on the +Infant Life Insurance Bill. It was seriously argued at the time that +working class parents deliberately neglected their children for the sake +of the insurance money. The Bill actually proposed that the insurance +money be kept out of the hands of the parents altogether and paid to +the undertaker. The offending clause disappeared after Crooks's +evidence. + +The _Evening News_, which headed its report of the day's proceedings "A +Working Man shows the Weak Points in the New Bill," summarised what +Crooks told the Committee thus:-- + + + A journeyman cooper from Poplar, evidently a thoroughly + straightforward and independent working-man of more than average + intelligence and facility of expression, gave evidence yesterday + before the Committee of the House of Lords, presided over by the + Bishop of Peterborough. + + He said he objected to the provision in the Bill for the payment of + insurance money to the undertaker. It was not merely to cover the + actual expenses of burial that the working man insured his child, + but to provide "black" and to meet other unavoidable expenses. If + insurance were abolished workmen would be obliged to fall back on + the old practice of "Friendly Leads," which generally led to + drinking at public-houses. + + He knew thousands of families of working people, and was perfectly + certain that there was not among them one mother lacking maternal + affection. There was no sacrifice the poor would not make for their + children, and it would be felt as a great reproach to say that a + child had not been properly cared for. In other cases bad mothers + would be bad mothers under any circumstances, and it was for the + criminal law to find them out; but if there was one bad in a + thousand he did not see why nine hundred and ninety-nine + respectable persons should be punished. + + To stop child insurance, witness said in reply to Lord Norton, + would punish honest parents and do no good whatever. + + +It was about this time that the working people of Poplar began to urge +him to go into public life. They elected him a member of the Poplar +Board of Trustees, in regard to which he had recently unearthed a +notorious scandal. Then he was made a Library Commissioner in +recognition of the prominent part he had taken in persuading Poplar to +adopt the Act. Soon afterwards he was returned as one of the two Poplar +representatives to the London County Council. + +The cloud that had hung over his home all through the Dock Strike was to +grow yet darker. He had not been on the County Council many weeks when +his wife died. She had barely recovered from the illness that kept her +bedfast during the exciting days of the strike. Then there came the +three anxious worrying months as her husband lay between life and death +in the hospital. The worry wore her out, and a brave God-fearing woman +of the people went down to her grave commanding her husband to work on. + +Thus, at the commencement of his public career and while still in his +thirties, Crooks found himself a widower with six children on his hands, +the youngest a baby. + +Among the many letters of sympathy that poured in upon him, that which +got nearest to his heart came from one whose acquaintance he had but +recently made, who described himself as "a fellow sufferer under a like +bereavement." The writer was Lord Rosebery, then Chairman of the London +County Council. + +All that first year of Crooks's public life was gone through while he +was bearing heavy burdens at home. His new duties as London County +Councillor, the many urgent calls to help the Labour movement in other +quarters, now that he was beginning to be known far beyond the bounds of +Poplar, kept him away from home often until a late hour. All this added +greatly to his domestic cares, since he had to be both mother and father +to his children. The eldest daughter, fourteen years of age, managed +bravely; but many a night he turned away from addressing the cheering +multitude of a crowded, glittering hall and went to a cheerless home to +find the youngest children crying. He would help to wash them, to mend +their clothes, and to cook for them. + +A year's experience convinced him that neither he nor the children could +go on in that way. His aged mother rendered all the help her growing +infirmities would allow. The old lady, with her married children's aid, +now lived in modest comfort in a little house off the High Street. There +lodged with her a young nurse engaged at a neighbouring institution, +whose maiden name was Elizabeth Lake, a native of Gloucestershire. +Crooks laid his case before her. She consented to become his wife and +bring up his children. They were married in Poplar Parish Church in +1893. + +The union has been a singularly happy one. Mrs. Crooks has done more +than bring up the children. She has guided and inspired her husband in +all his public life. So much so, that when some eight years later he +laid down his robes of office after a successful year as Mayor of +Poplar, he stated publicly in acknowledging a presentation to himself +and the Mayoress:-- + +"Without my wife's aid I would have been of little use in my public +work. Whenever I return home troubled or anxious, or defeated on some +pet scheme, I never have from my wife anything but cheering and +encouraging words. She it is who has made my public life possible. She +it is who deserves your thanks far more than I." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A LABOUR MEMBER'S WAGES + + The Will Crooks Wages Fund formed--The Poplar Labour + League--Crooks's Election to the London County Council--Friends + outside the Labour Movement--Money no Substitute for Personal + Service--Refusing highly-paid Posts--Offer of a House rent-free for + Life declined--Not Risen from the Ranks. + + +How came it that a working man like Crooks was able to give his whole +time to public work? + +It was simply because his fellow workmen wished it. They went to him in +deputation in the early 'nineties, and said to him in effect:-- + +"Look here, Crooks. You can be more useful to us in public life than at +the workman's bench. We want you to stand for the London County Council +and some of the local bodies. Give up your work and we'll raise for you +from among ourselves an amount equal to your present wages." + +To which Crooks replied:-- + +"All right, mates, since you wish it. But understand! as soon as you +tire of me, no grumbling behind my back. Come forward and say so +plainly, and I'll go back to the bench at once." + +So the Will Crooks Wages Fund was formed by the Poplar Labour League. +The first treasurer was the Rev. H. A. Kennedy, of All Hallows', +Blackwall. Afterwards the then Rector of Poplar (Dr. Chandler) was +invited by the working men to become treasurer of the fund, and he held +the office until called away to a Colonial bishopric. + +We have seen how the Poplar Labour League came into being. It was one of +the first achievements of Crooks's College by the Dock Gates. Originally +it was named the Poplar Labour Election Committee. Its first executive +consisted of the Rev. H. A. Kennedy and local representatives of the +London Trades Council, the Engine Drivers' and Firemen's Union, the +Watermen's Society, the Dockers' Union, the Philanthropic Coopers' +Society, the East London Plumbers' Union, the Federated Trade and Labour +Unions, and the Gasworkers' Union. + +The League was one of the pioneers of Labour Representation in this +country. Long before the British Labour Party organised the present +system of paying its Members of Parliament, this little League in Poplar +for an unbroken period of a dozen years had shown how men from the ranks +of Labour could be maintained in public life. The League had a motto: +"The aim of every workman, whatever his task, whether he labours with +axe, chisel, or lathe, loom or last, hammer or pen, hands or head, +should be the ideal, the best, the perfect." + +The League was successful from the start. Its earliest effort was put +forth at the London County Council election of 1892. The result of that +effort can be judged from the following remarks in the League's first +annual report:-- + + + The return of Will Crooks to the London County Council marks an + epoch in the life of industrial Poplar. + + From time immemorial this hive of industry has been represented by + employers of labour and wealthy capitalists. Their record is now + broken. Labour has awakened to a sense of its duty. We hope the + awakening will be permanent, and that worthy representatives may be + found to fill the vacancies on the various administrative and + legislative bodies. + + We suggest to all working men's societies that wherever and + whenever it is possible they should subscribe to the Labour + Member's Wages Fund, for be it remembered that our Member is a + representative of all classes and not of one particular individual + class; and so long as he retains our confidence it is our duty to + support him to our utmost ability. + + +The response of the trade societies and workmen and friends generally +was such that within a few months the League by a unanimous vote decided +to raise the Labour Member's wages from £3 to £3 10s. a week to meet his +travelling expenses. For the first seven or eight years of his public +life that was absolutely the only source of Crooks's income. + +The League remained faithful to its early pledge all the time. Through +good and ill report, through all the changes and dissensions which such +an organisation was bound to cause, the League never once faltered in +its support of Crooks. Regularly at its annual meetings the League +passed a vote of thanks to "our representative on the L.C.C. for his +untiring devotion to Labour's cause and his perseverance in initiating +social reform so beneficial to the working classes. They further desire +to record their perfect confidence in him and congratulate him on the +success of his work." + +Many trade societies other than those on the original list became +subscribers to the Wages Fund through their local branches. Among them +were the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Stevedores' Labour +Protection League, the London Saddle and Harness Makers' Society, the +Postmen's Federation, the London Carmen's Trade Union, the Friendly +Society of Ironfounders, the Municipal Employees' Association, and the +Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. + +Certain admirers of Crooks outside the Labour Movement also sent +subscriptions to the League for the Wages Fund. Canon and Mrs. Barnett +and Dr. Clifford were occasional subscribers; so were Mrs. Bernard Shaw, +Mr. Cyril Jackson, Mrs. Ruth Homan, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, Mr. Sidney +Webb, Sir Melville Beachcroft, Canon Scott Holland, Mr. Fred Butler, the +editors of two or three London newspapers, and both Conservative and +Liberal Members of Parliament. + +Occasionally working men in distant parts of the country who had heard +Crooks speak or watched his public work would send in their mite, +generally anonymously. One such contribution, sent during the Woolwich +by-election, consisted of four penny stamps, stuck on a torn piece of +dirty paper, on which were written the words:-- + + + Will you please except four stamps toward the expens of will + Crooks election and may god bless him in being successful in + winning the seat for Labour + + from a working man. + + +That was all. Crooks keeps the stamps and the note to this day. + +This may be the proper place to make public another fact bearing on his +financial position. Many people have sent cheques to him direct, some of +these marked for his own personal use, some for helping the poor as he +thought best, others containing nothing beyond a brief note without name +or address like the following:-- + + + This is sent by a well-wisher, who believes that you are an honest, + straightforward fellow with a large heart for those less fortunate + than yourself. + + +Every sum received in this way Crooks has given to the poor. He has +neither taken a penny for his own personal use nor allowed a penny to +pass into the coffers of the Labour League. In one distressful winter +over £300 was thus sent to him and his wife. With the co-operation of a +local committee, the whole of this sum was spent in employing +out-of-work women and girls in making garments for their needy +neighbours. By these means dozens of families were saved from the +workhouse. + +Crooks discourages those who give money only. "Give part of yourself +rather than part of your wealth," he tells them. + +He has little sympathy with people who give money and then run away. A +person once called at his house during a bad winter and offered him +£500. + +"I am anxious about the poor people, Mr. Crooks," said the visitor, "so +I've brought down this money for you to help them." + +"Have you?" was the response. "But what are _you_ going to do?" + +"Oh, I'm going to the south of France. I cannot bear England in the +winter." + +"Then I advise you to take the five hundred pounds with you." + +"Do you refuse it?" + +"Absolutely. It is cowardly for a man like you to offer five hundred +pounds and then run away. You ought to do more than give it; you ought +to spend it. Come down and see that the proper people get it. It is not +so hard to raise five hundred pounds for the poor as it is to distribute +it properly among the poor." + +The Labour League did more than send Crooks to the London County +Council. It secured representation on the local Poor Law and municipal +bodies. It promoted social life as well as public life among the working +classes of Poplar. By entertainments, lectures, and excursions it +carried brightness and pleasure into the lives of the workmen, their +wives, and children. At Christmas time it acted as a kind of Santa Claus +to the poorest children of the district. It established a Loan and +Thrift Society, which soon had an annual turnover of £2,000. Throughout +it all the League never for a moment deserted its Labour Member. + +Crooks in his turn remained faithful to the League in face of several +alluring offers. The one that tempted him most came from his own trade. +Before he quitted the workshop for public life a future managership had +been hinted at. He had not been on the County Council more than a few +months when a vacancy in his former workshop occurred. At once he was +approached and urged to give up the L.C.C. + +The post offered him carried with it a salary of £500. He had six +children to bring up. There was the uncertainty as to the Labour League +being able to keep up the Wages Fund. He pondered over the matter +carefully. His decision changed the current of his life. A manager, no +matter how sympathetic, could not have remained long in the Labour +Movement. Besides, in this case there were hints of a future +partnership. Then it was that he decided calmly and deliberately to give +his life not to money-making, but to the service of the people. He +deliberately chose to remain a poor man in the service of poor men. +Having been made to bear so much of the care of this world, he +determined that he would know nothing of the deceitfulness of riches. + +Nothing has ever shaken him from that decision. From various quarters +since then other good offers have come his way. One of them, a +Government post, must be regarded as a singular tribute to his worth, +since the offer came from a Conservative Cabinet Minister. + +The manager of a large firm engaged in carrying out public works to the +value of over a million sterling, gave me at the time a frank opinion of +Crooks from the employers' standpoint. + +"I can't help liking that chap Crooks. But it's a pity he's on what I +call the wrong side. He's been negotiating with our firm until he has +compelled us to pay our men several thousand pounds a year extra in +wages. And a lot of thanks they give him for it! I overhear them +sometimes talking at work. They say he wouldn't have got them more money +if he hadn't been getting something out of it himself. Now if Crooks +would only place his ability on the employers' side he could earn a +thousand a year easily." + +For ten years after he entered public life Crooks was content with the +same five-roomed house in Northumberland Street where the deputation of +working men found him when they came to invite him to stand for the +County Council. When he did move it was into a neighbouring street, +Gough Street, where the upgrown family had the advantage of an +additional room. That remains his home to this day. + +One of his ardent admirers in Poplar, a well-to-do man, on learning he +was moving from Northumberland Street, offered him a house of his own +rent free. It was a large and pleasant house in East India Dock Road, +boasting a garden front and back. The owner implored him to take it for +the rest of his life, "as a small tribute from one who appreciates the +splendid public services you have rendered to Poplar." + +"It would never do for me to live in such a house," was Crooks's reply +in thanking the well-wisher. "My friends among the working people would +fear I was deserting their class, and would not come to me as freely as +they come now. My enemies would say, 'Look at that fellow Crooks; he's +making his pile out of us.' A Labour man like me must leave no opening +for his enemies." + +We have seen, then, that the only source of Crooks's income during the +first years of his public life was the £3 10s. a week paid by the Poplar +Labour League. After six or seven years this salary was increased to £4 +in view of his greatly widened sphere of public service. This payment +was stopped in 1903, when Crooks joined the official Labour Party in the +House of Commons. Then he received the usual payment of £200 a year, +given to each member of that party by the Trade Unionists of the +country. A small additional sum has since been voted to him annually by +the Poplar League and the Woolwich Labour Representation Association to +meet the out-of-pocket expenses inseparable from a Member of +Parliament's life. In addition he has received an occasional fee for a +public address. + +Let these simple facts, then, be the answer to those people who, +surprised at the amount of public work he carries out, keep asking +suspiciously how he does it. Crooks himself never hesitates to speak +out, either in public or private, as to his financial position. + +"How do I do it?" Crooks repeats to his working class audiences. "As a +pioneer of paid Labour representation I have been confronted with this +question through the whole of my public career. All well and good; but +why is the question not put to other politicians and public men? You +working men have been the worst offenders. You never think of asking the +question of such men seeking public positions as monopolists, food +adulterators, scamping contractors, property sweaters, bogus company +promoters, and others who fleece you at every turn. You never dream of +asking it of young untried men fresh from the Universities, who in many +cases are only after the spoils of office. You are inclined to regard +all these people as gentlemen. But let a man from your own ranks offer +to serve you in public life, and always there are a crowd of objectors, +generally thickest at public-house bars, who want to know where the +Labour man gets his money from? Talk about the fierce light that beats +upon a throne, what is it to the fierce light turned upon a Labour +representative? + +"How often, as I go about, do I hear of people saying sneeringly: 'Look +at that fellow Crooks. Who is he? He's only one of us, who has risen +from the ranks.' You just tell these people that Will Crooks has not +risen from the ranks; he is still in the ranks, standing four-square +with the working classes against monopoly and privilege." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ON THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL + + The Labour Bench at the L.C.C.--Its First Party Meeting--The + Programme--Crooks's First Speech in the County Hall--The Trade + Union Wages Principle Adopted--One of the Master-builders of the + New London--Retrospect--Chairman of the Public Control + Committee--Keeping an Eye on the Coal Sack--The End of Baby-farming + in London. + + +When Crooks entered the London County Council in 1892 he was a stranger +to almost all outside the little circle of Labour men sent up from other +divisions. + +As a pioneer in Labour representation in London he had more than the +usual amount of suspicion and opposition to surmount. In those days a +Labour representative was often subjected to fierce personal attacks +both from the class he represented and from the better-off classes whose +domains for the first time working-men were entering. His every word and +act were under a double microscope. He had to be a Spartan in endurance +and a saint in character. + +"Imagine," he once said to me during his early days on the Council, at +the time when one of its members, a peer, was associated with a +notorious case in the High Court, "imagine what an outcry there would +have been up and down the land if that Councillor, instead of belonging +to the House of Lords, had been a Labour representative." + +The Labour bench at the County Council set the standard for sound and +steady municipal administration to the Labour Party of the entire +country. John Burns sat at one end of the bench, Will Crooks at the +other. Between them sat, at different times, men like Will Steadman, +secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress +and M.P. for Stepney and later for Central Finsbury; J. Ramsay +Macdonald, secretary of the Labour Party and M.P. for Leicester; Isaac +Mitchell, then secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions; H. +R. Taylor, of the Bricklayers' Society, at one time Mayor of Camberwell; +C. W. Bowerman, of the London Society of Compositors and M.P. for +Deptford; George Dew, of the Carpenters' and Joiners' Society and +secretary of the Workmen's Cheap Trains Association; Harry Gosling, of +the Watermen's and Lightermen's Society; and W. Sanders, of the Fabian +Society and Independent Labour Party. + +Crooks took the minutes of the first party meeting of the Labour Bench, +and he holds the document to this day. The meeting was held at the +offices of the Dockers' Union in the Mile End Road on April 26th, 1892, +a few weeks after the election which first made a L.C.C. Labour Party +possible. A line of policy was laid down that looks quite modest to-day, +now that it has become an integral part of ordinary L.C.C. +administration. At the time it was regarded by people outside the Labour +Movement as rank revolution. + +In the dull and dingy room in Mile End this little band of Labour men +declared for direct employment of labour and municipal workshops. The +L.C.C. Works Department, the first of its kind in the country, was the +result. They agreed on a minimum wage of sixpence an hour for labourers +and ninepence for artisans, with a maximum working week of fifty-four +hours. In many L.C.C. departments higher wages were afterwards secured, +and in others an eight-hour day was introduced. They demanded a system +of retiring pensions for workmen as for officials. This, too, in certain +departments soon became practical politics on the County Council. + +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. + +When the special meeting assembled the late Lord Farrer (then Sir +Thomas Farrer) carried an amendment to the trade union motion. By this +amendment the word "London" was deleted from the motion, and it was made +to read that contractors should "pay the trade union rate of wages and +observe the hours of labour and conditions recognised by the trade +unions _in the place or places where the contract is executed_." + +It will be seen, then, that the principle of trade union wages as laid +down by Crooks remained intact. On this principle the L.C.C. Fair Wages +Clause was established. It stipulates that the "rates of pay are to be +not less nor the hours of labour more than those recognised by +associations of employers and trade unions and in practice obtained." It +provides further that "where in any trade there is no trade union, the +Council shall fix the rates of wages and the hours of labour." + +The Labour Councillor for Poplar was soon on the warpath again. He +called the Council's attention to the low wages paid to some of the park +attendants. He instanced the man in charge of Red Lion Square, who was +receiving no more than thirteen shillings a week. + +"The man's not worth more," shouted a member. "He's got a wooden leg." + +"Yes, but he hasn't got a wooden stomach," came the retort from the +Labour Bench. + +And the man with the wooden leg, as well as other park attendants, had +their wages brought up to the living standard. + +Crooks soon became a good all-round municipal administrator, as well as +a Labour representative. He had stated in his first election address:-- + + + As a workman I should seek especially to represent the interests of + the working classes who form three-fourths of the ratepayers of + Poplar, while giving every attention to the general work of the + London County Council and to the general interests of Poplar. + + I am heartily in favour of what is known as the London + programme--of Home Rule for London, as enjoyed by other + municipalities; of the relief of the present ratepayers by taxing + the owner as well as the occupier; and of the equalisation of rates + throughout London for the relief of the poorer districts. + + I am in favour of municipal ownership or control of water, + tramways, markets, docks, lighting, parks, and the police. + + I would support all measures which would help to raise the standard + of life for the poor, especially in the way of better housing and a + strict enforcement of the Public Health Acts. + + +Crooks, in fact, became one of the master-builders of the New London +which the L.C.C. created. In face of heavy opposition he was one of that +strenuous band of stalwarts who in the 'nineties raised London out of +the chaos and darkness that reigned before the County Council was called +into being, and gave the capital for the first time a sense of civic +unity. + +In later years the claims of Parliament turned much of his energy into +other useful channels. But to this day he still remains a member of the +London County Council, and though now so much engrossed in national +politics, he is none the less proud of his record in the service of +London. He never looks back to the strenuous 'nineties on the County +Council without being thankful. + +"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." + +There is no more ardent believer than Crooks in Ruskin's dictum that +when a people apologises for its pitiful criminalities and endures its +false weights and its adulterated food, the end is not far off. + +One at least of the pitiful criminalities of our modern +civilisation--baby-farming--was dealt a blow during his chairmanship of +the Public Control Committee from which it is not likely ever to +recover. He represented the L.C.C. before the Committee of the House of +Commons which considered the Infant Life Protection Bill promoted by the +Council. That was before his own Parliamentary career began. Day after +day the Labour man strove with barristers and Members of Parliament in +the Commons Committee Room to safeguard infants of misfortune from +cruelty and neglect. His advocacy prevailed. The Bill was passed. +Baby-farming as then existing in London came to an end. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +TWO OF HIS MONUMENTS + + Testimony from Sir John McDougall and Lord Welby--Declining the + Vice-chairmanship of the L.C.C.--How Crooks Lost His Overcoat--Work + on the Technical Education Board--The Blackwall Tunnel--Chairman of + the Bridges Committee. + + +From the first, Crooks has shared the representation of Poplar on the +London County Council with Sir John McDougall. The retired merchant was +at the top of the poll in 1892, while the Labour man found himself +elected as the second member with a thousand majority over the two +Moderate candidates. At every L.C.C. election since Crooks has headed +the poll. + +Two such men, of course, differ in their public policy widely. This +notwithstanding, Sir John paid his Labour colleague a striking tribute +during the parliamentary by-election in Woolwich. Sir John was Chairman +of the London County Council at the time. This is what he wrote to the +Woolwich electors a few days before the poll:-- + + + Mr. Crooks has been my colleague on the London County Council for + the last twelve years, and during the whole of that time he has + worked with great zeal and ability for the good of London.... His + zeal is great, and his wisdom is as great as his zeal. I doubt + whether anyone in London has done so much as he in all the + measures which tend to the uplifting and the good of the people. + + +Lord Welby, another of his colleagues on the County Council, seized the +same opportunity to tell the electors what he thought of their Labour +candidate. The two opinions, coming from men who had often opposed his +policy, and whose walks of life lay so widely apart from his own, form +no small tribute to the worth of his municipal work. Said Lord Welby:-- + + + Mr. Crooks's knowledge, his experience, his courage, his readiness + of humour, his good temper, and, above all, his devotion to the + work he has undertaken have made him one of the most useful, as + well as one of the most popular, members of the London County + Council. + + +His devotion was shown by his attendance. For thirteen years in +succession he never missed a single Council meeting. Until Parliament +began to claim his time his record of attendance every year, both at +Council and Committee meetings, stood among the half-dozen highest. + +After such a long unbroken service, it was bitter to be kept at home by +an illness one Tuesday, the day the L.C.C. meets. Only one other +councillor--Sir William Collins--had kept pace with him during those +thirteen years. Crooks wrote to his friendly rival from a sick bed:-- + +"To-day you go ahead in this long and pleasant competition between us. I +cannot help thinking that after all it is a case of the survival of the +fittest, for I cannot leave my room." + +"I hate to win under such conditions," said Sir William in his cheering +reply. + +At one time the Progressive party proposed to nominate him as +vice-chairman, a position entitling the holder to the L.C.C. +chairmanship in the year following. The honour was declined. He believed +he could be more useful as an independent member. + +So the sequel proved. As a member of the Parks Committee he never +wearied in working for more open spaces and children's play-places in +the poorer parts of London. It had long been a grievance to the working +classes of London that nearly all the parks lay in the West End and the +suburbs. Since the poor districts were now too thickly covered with +houses ever to permit of spacious parks being provided in their midst, +Crooks was one of the most earnest in pleading that the Council should +make amends by rescuing every vacant plot of land that remained and +converting it into a recreation ground, no matter how small. + +His strenuous plea secured for the East-End alone three splendid open +spaces. These are the Bromley Recreation Ground, the Tunnel Gardens at +Poplar, and the Island Gardens that take their name from the Isle of +Dogs. To visit any one of these, and see therein children playing and +tired people finding rest, is to feel deeply what a benign influence has +fallen over these poor neighbourhoods. + +Crooks obtained this recreation ground for Bromley at the cost of his +overcoat. The open space was formed out of something like a morass by +the banks of the Lea. It lay hidden away in that labyrinth of sterile +streets stretching southwards from Bow Bridge to the spot where the +lesser river loses itself in the Thames. + +He had persuaded a party of his County Council colleagues to go with him +to the neighbourhood. They all left their overcoats in the private +omnibus that took them down from the County Hall, while he showed them +over the unwholesome little waste, as it then was, and pointed out its +possibilities as a recreation ground. When they returned they learnt +that one of the overcoats had been stolen. + +"I see it's not mine," said Lord Monkswell, pointing to his astrachan. + +"Nor mine," added the Hon. Lionel Holland, then M.P. for the division, +as he picked up one lined with fur. + +"No," said Crooks; "people about here daren't wear overcoats like those. +If there's one missing, it's bound to be mine worse luck." + +He laughed at the loss then and many times afterwards, though he had a +private reason for lamenting it; it was a recent gift from half a dozen +working-men admirers. He laughed because he found he was able to make +use of the incident in his long agitation on the L.C.C. to get the waste +reclaimed. + +Whenever his colleagues inquired where was this mysterious outlandish +place he was so anxious to convert into a recreation ground, he would +make reply:-- + +"It's the place where they preferred my coat to Lord Monkswell's." + +It came to be so well known on the County Council as the place where +Crooks lost his overcoat, that when finally he got a definite proposal +to buy the ground brought forward there was nothing but a good-natured +acquiescence from every member. + +On the formation of the L.C.C. Technical Education Board, he pleaded the +cause of good craftsmanship with some effect. He carried a resolution +conferring special facilities for technical instruction upon +working-class districts. + +Long after he retired from the Board he received from a working-man's +son a little proof of the practical results of his efforts. It came in +the following letter:-- + + + You will probably remember how some years ago you pleaded my case + on the L.C.C., and how, through your influence, I was enabled to + complete my studies in naval architecture at Greenwich College. + + I am sure you will be glad to know that I have now passed my final + examination and have just been admitted a member of the Royal Corps + of Naval Constructors. My official appointment is that of Assistant + Constructor in one of the principal Government Dockyards, where I + have been on probation for the last twelve months or more. The + final examinations were held last July in London and occupied more + than three weeks, with an exam, almost daily. + + I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude for pleading my cause at + the time. My father had spent his all on me while I was at the + college, and he being a toolsmith with seven children, you can well + understand that what he had by him he could ill afford on me. + + My father and the others of the family desire to join with me in + this letter of thanks and gratitude to you. + + +Mention has already been made of how Crooks and the Poplar Labour League +originated at the Dock Gate meetings the scheme for a technical +institute for his native borough. So many times was this project delayed +that he often told his Poplar audiences he feared he would go down to +posterity as the man who talked of an institute that never came. It was +not until the early part of 1906 that the institute was opened. There is +a reference to it in the annual report of the Poplar Labour League for +that year:-- + + + Some years ago the League mooted the idea of a technical institute + for Poplar. Mr. Crooks took it up and carried it to official + quarters, never letting the subject drop, until it stands at last + an accomplished fact. A School of Marine Engineering and Nautical + Academy has recently been opened in Poplar. + + A handsome building has been erected in High Street, and in it will + be taught seamanship and navigation, marine engineering and naval + architecture and propulsion, general mechanical engineering, + electrical engineering, pattern making, carpentry and woodwork, and + theoretical and practical chemistry, physics, and mechanics. + Nothing more appropriate could have been built in Poplar. It is + mainly due to the tireless efforts of Mr. Crooks that it exists, + and it will stand as a monument to him. + + +But Poplar boasts a greater monument to its Labour Councillor. He was on +the L.C.C. Bridges Committee during the making of Blackwall Tunnel. In +its day the largest subaqueous tunnel in the world, its construction +involved years of anxious labour. + +The tunnel carries vehicular and passenger traffic under the Thames +between Poplar and Greenwich, five miles below the nearest bridge, that +at the Tower. Before it was made the two million Londoners living east +of the bridges were without any public means of crossing the river. To +build an ordinary bridge was impossible with so many ships passing night +and day to and from the London Pool. It was decided to take the traffic +under the Thames by descending roadways leading to a tunnel some seventy +feet below high-water mark. + +From the time he joined the Council to that day in May, 1897, when the +King as Prince of Wales went down to Poplar to open the tunnel, on +behalf of Queen Victoria, Crooks was among the keenest of the public men +engaged in carrying that great engineering feat through. He made himself +so thoroughly master of the details that he was in great demand all over +London as a lecturer on the tunnel. The chief engineers on the works who +heard the lecture congratulated him on the way he made intelligible and +interesting the complicated system by which the tunnel was bored through +the clay within a foot or two of the river bed. + +So satisfied were his fellow County Councillors with the practical work +he did at Blackwall that on its completion they elected him Chairman of +the Bridges Committee. In that capacity he steered through the Council +and through a Committee of the House of Commons two other schemes for +tunnels under the Thames, one for foot passengers only between Greenwich +and the Isle of Dogs, and the other for general traffic between Shadwell +and Rotherhithe, designed on a larger scale than the tunnel at +Blackwall. Interest in these schemes, however, can never be so great as +it was in the Blackwall experiment, the first of its kind attempted. + +In the special Blackwall Tunnel number issued by the _Municipal +Journal_, Crooks figures among those described as "the men who made the +tunnel." Following sketches and portraits of Sir Alexander Binnie (then +the L.C.C. engineer, who designed the tunnel), of Sir Weetman Pearson, +M.P. (the contractor who executed the work), of Sir William Bull, M.P. +(who was then chairman of the Bridges Committee), is a reference to +other members of the Committee who took a prominent part in the work. +The first place after the chairman is given to Crooks. The _Municipal +Journal_ says:-- + + + Mr. Will Crooks, more than any other man, has made Londoners + acquainted with the tunnel. His popular lecture on Blackwall Tunnel + has been given in all parts of London to all kinds of audiences, + and everywhere the clear, picturesque description Mr. Crooks has + given, aided by the lantern and his own genial wit, has made + intelligible to Londoners, old, young, rich, and poor, what is, + after all, a somewhat dry and difficult subject. + + This only goes to show how closely Mr. Crooks himself has been + identified with the construction of the tunnel. As one of the + representatives of the Poplar district, he has turned his + membership of the Bridges Committee to good account by giving to + the tunnel his special attention. No Councillor has been so + frequent a visitor to the various works, and it is doubtful + whether any outsider went so many times into the compressed air. + + The workmen had just cause to bless the Poplar County Councillor. + It was owing to Mr. Crooks's efforts that a revised schedule of + wages was adopted. The result of this was that the contractors paid + an additional £26,000 in wages. With all his zeal for the workmen, + Mr. Crooks never once came in conflict with either the contractors + or the engineers. Men and masters at Blackwall have all held the + worthy Labour Councillor in the highest regard, and both are sorry + that their long and cheerful connection must now be severed. + + +The same number of the _Municipal Journal_ contained an article by +Crooks himself, entitled, "A Labour View of the Blackwall Tunnel." The +article displayed with what tact and modesty the Labour member had +safeguarded the interests of his own class without neglecting the +interests of the people of London. It bore out the statement made in his +first speech to the Council, that no contractor ever lost by paying the +trade union rate of wages. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE TASK OF HIS LIFE BEGINS + + Elected to the Poplar Board of Guardians--Bumbledom in + Power--Prison preferred to Workhouse--Poverty treated like Crime. + + +Six months after his return to the London County Council, Poplar elected +Crooks to the Board of Guardians. When he took his seat as a member in +the very Board-room where thirty years before he clung timorously to his +mother's skirt he knew that the task of his life had begun. + +He and his friend George Lansbury were elected together--the only Labour +men on a Board of twenty-four. They were the firstfruits of the reduced +qualification for Guardians introduced by Mr. (afterwards Lord) Ritchie, +at that time President of the Local Government Board. + +To Crooks belongs much of the credit for this welcome change. He felt +keenly that working-men and women could never become Guardians of the +Poor so long as the £40 property qualification remained. He persuaded +the Poplar Trustees, of whom he was one, to ask the Local Government +Board to make it possible for workpeople to become Guardians. Mr. +Ritchie, ever sympathetic towards the East-End, a division of which he +was then representing in Parliament, met this request from Poplar by +lowering the qualification to £10. His successor at the Local Government +Board, Sir Henry Fowler, abolished the property qualification +altogether. + +At the time of Crooks's election the dissatisfaction felt by ratepayers +with the old Guardians was deep and bitter. The Local Government Board +has evidence in its possession that poor people of the district were +saying at the time that if you wanted out-relief you must move into such +and such a street, where rents were collected by someone who had +influence with the Board. + +Inside the workhouse Crooks found a state of things that seems +incredible to-day. Bumbledom held sway over paupers and Guardians alike. + +There were Guardians who had never been inside the workhouse once. When +Crooks attempted to enter as a Guardian he found that the Master had +power to shut the gate upon him. Without the Master's permission, except +on the regular House Committee days, Guardians had no legal right inside +the workhouse at all. + +The two Labour men raised such a hubbub over this anomaly that Sir Henry +Fowler issued an order giving a Guardian the right to enter the +workhouse at any reasonable hour. As a result there began, not only in +Poplar but all over the country, a marked improvement in the treatment +of old people in workhouses. + +Here was a distinct score at the first venture. With the right of +admission established, Crooks made full use of it. He found most of the +officers hostile. So much so, that during a fire that broke out in the +workhouse bakery, bringing the brigade engines round, one of the +officers exclaimed, in the presence of the others when the fire was at +its height:-- + +"The only thing wanting now is that Crooks and Lansbury should be put on +the top of it." + +The cheers with which this remark was received were soon to give way to +grave concern. It was clear the two Labour men meant to put an end to +many things. Several of the officers were summarily suspended by Crooks +one morning when he appeared on the scene unexpectedly. + +A woman inmate had contrived to escape from the workhouse. She came +round to his house and knocked him up. In consequence of an alarming +story she told him respecting the conditions under which a fellow inmate +had died in her arms that very night, Crooks hurried round to the +institution and suspended certain of the officers on the spot. + +The officers whom Crooks had suspended were dismissed by the Board. Nor +were they by any means the last to be dismissed or to take their +departure, for other scandals were brought to light. + +"We found the condition of things in the House almost revolting," Crooks +stated in evidence before the Local Government Board Inquiry of 1906. +"The place was dirty. The stores were empty. The inmates had not +sufficient clothes, and many were without boots to their feet. The food +was so bad that the wash-tubs overflowed with what the poor people +could not eat. It was almost heart-breaking to go round the place and +hear the complaints and see the tears of the aged men and women. + +"'Poverty's no crime, but here it's treated like crime,' they used to +say. + +"Many of them defied the regulations on purpose to be charged before a +magistrate, declaring that prison was better than the workhouse. + +"One day I went into the dining-room and found women sitting on the long +forms, some sullen, some crying. In front of each was a basin of what +was alleged to be broth. They called it greasy water, and that was +exactly what it looked and tasted like. They said they had to go out and +wash blankets on that. I appealed to the master to give them something +to eat, as they said they would sooner go to prison than commence work +on that. Those women, like the men, were continually contriving to get +sent to prison in order to escape the workhouse. After a few heated +words between the master and me he gave them some food, and none of them +went to prison that day. + +"A few weeks later I was in the workhouse when these same women were +creating a fearful uproar. + +"'Ah, there you are,' said the master, meeting me. 'Go and look at your +angels now! A nice lot they are to stick up for!' + +"I went to the dining-room. There was a dead silence the moment I +entered. + +"'I am right down ashamed of you,' I said. 'When you were treated like +animals, no wonder you behaved like animals. Now that Mr. Lansbury and I +have got you treated like human beings, we expect you to behave like +human beings.' + +"They said not a word, and later in the day the ringleaders, without any +prompting, came to me and expressed their regret. From that day to this +no such scene among the workhouse women has ever been repeated. + +"The staple diet when I joined the Board was skilly. I have seen the old +people, when this stuff was put before them, picking out black specks +from the oatmeal. These were caused by rats, which had the undisturbed +run of the oatmeal bin. No attempt was made to cleanse the oatmeal +before it was prepared for the old people. + +"Whenever one went into the men's dining-room there were quarrels about +the food. I have had to protect old and weak men against stronger men, +who would steal what was eatable of their dinners. There was no +discipline. The able-bodied men's dining-room on Sundays gave one as +near an approach to hell as anything on this earth. It was everybody for +himself and the devil take the hindmost. If a fellow could fight he got +as much as he wanted. If he could not, he got nothing. Fights, followed +by prosecutions at the police courts, were common. The men boasted that +prison had no worse terrors than that place. They were absolutely beyond +control. They wandered about all over the place, creating all kinds of +discord, and even threatening to murder the officers. Two labour masters +nearly lost their lives in trying to control them. + +"The inmates were badly clothed as well as badly fed. Not one of them +had a change of clothing. Their under-clothes were worn to rags. If they +washed them they had to borrow from each other in the interval. + +"The inmates' clothes were not only scanty, they were filthy. On one +occasion the whole of the workhouse linen was returned by the laundry +people because it was so over-run with vermin that they would not wash +it. + +"One of the inmates--a woman--who was doing hard work at scrubbing every +day, asked me whether she couldn't have a pair of boots. + +"'Surely,' I said, putting her off for the time, 'nobody here goes +without boots?' + +"A second and a third time when I came across her scrubbing the floors +she pleaded for boots. She raised her skirt from the wet stone floor, +and showed two sloppy pieces of canvas on her feet, and that was all she +had in the way of boots." + +Crooks went on to relate that he walked along the corridor and saw a +female officer. "There's a woman over there who has asked me three times +to get her a pair of boots," he said. + +She drew her skirt round her and said, "Oh, why do you worry about +these people; they are not our class." + +"Worry about them!" Crooks rejoined. "What do you mean by our class? We +are here to see these people properly clothed. I do not want to quarrel, +but that woman must have a pair of boots to-day." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MAN WHO FED THE POOR + + Chairman of the Poplar Board of Guardians--Bumbledom + Dethroned--Paupers' Garb Abolished--Two Presidents of the Local + Government Board Approve Crooks's Policy. + + +This, then, was the state of the workhouse when Crooks went on the +Board. It was soon evident that a strong man had arrived. He whom some +of the Guardians at first described as "a ranter from the Labour mob" +soon proved himself the best administrator among them. + +Within five years of his election he was made Chairman. The Board +insisted on his retaining the chair for ten consecutive years. During +that time he wrought out of the shame and degradation he found in the +workhouse a system of order and decency and humane administration that +for a long time made the Poplar Union a model among Poor Law +authorities, and one frequently recommended by the Local Government +Board. + +Of course he made enemies. Some of the old Guardians whom he had turned +out of public life nursed their resentment in secret. Others joined +them, including contractors who had fared lavishly under the old +_régime_. Presently a Municipal Alliance was formed, and though it could +do nothing against Crooks at the poll, since the ratepayers would +persist in placing him at the top, it found other methods of attacking +him, of which more hereafter. + +One of the first things he aimed at was a change in the character both +of officers and of Guardians. He saw no hope for the poor under the old +rulers. At each succeeding election his opposition brought about the +defeat of the worst of them. + +The officers could not be dealt with so publicly. Some of the officers +in the infirmary, addicted to drunkenness, were able to defy the +Guardians for an obvious reason. It was one of their duties to take +whisky and champagne into the infirmary for the delectation of some of +the Guardians, whom a billiard table often detained into the early +hours. Crooks and Lansbury raised such indignation in the district as to +make it impossible for this state of things to continue. + +In 1894 the Master and Matron resigned. Gradually the old school of +workhouse officials who had run the place as they liked were weeded out. +A more intelligent, more sympathetic, better disciplined staff grew up +in their place. Bumbledom was dethroned. The sick were nursed better. +The inmates were clothed better. All, both old and young, were fed +better. + +The tell-tale pauper's garb disappeared altogether. When the old people +walked out they were no longer branded by their dress. They wore simple, +homely garments. They all rejoiced in the change save a few like the old +woman Crooks came across one afternoon on her day out. She was looking +clean and comfortable, and he asked how she liked the new clothes. + +"Not at all, Mr. Crooks. Nobody thinks you come from the workhouse now, +so they don't give you anything." + +His greatest reform had reference to the food. "Skilly" went the way of +"greasy water." Good plain wholesome meals appeared on the tables. + +"And became more expensive," say the critics. + +"Yes," Crooks retorts; "but to economise on the stomachs of the poor is +false economy. If it's only cheapness you want, why don't you set up the +lethal chamber for the old people? That would be the cheapest thing of +all." + +Let us see what he actually gave these people to eat, since for feeding +the poor he was afterwards called to the bar of public opinion. + +First he developed the system of bread-baking in the workhouse, in order +to get better and cheaper bread than was being supplied under contract +from outside. Under the direction of one or two skilled bakers, the work +provided many of the inmates with pleasant and useful occupation. They +made all the bread required in the workhouse for both officers and +inmates, all the bread required in the children's schools, all the +loaves given away as out-relief. + +Instead of being likened to india-rubber, as it used to be in the old +days, the bread now came to be described by the _Daily Mail_ as equal to +what could be obtained in the best restaurants in the West-End. Yet +they were making this bread in the workhouse cheaper than it was +possible to buy ordinary bread outside. + +And then, for the benefit of the infirm old folk, Crooks persuaded the +Guardians to substitute butter for margarine, and fresh meat for the +cheap stale stuff so often supplied. He held out for milk that had not +been skimmed, and for tea and coffee that had not been adulterated. He +even risked his reputation by allowing the aged women to put sugar in +their tea themselves, and the old men to smoke an occasional pipe of +tobacco. + +Rumours of this new way of feeding the workhouse poor reached the +austere Local Government Board. First it sent down its inspectors, and +then the President himself appeared in person. And Mr. Chaplin saw that +it was good, and told other Boards to do likewise. He issued a circular +to the Guardians of the country recommending all that Poplar had +introduced. More, he proposed that for deserving old people over +sixty-four years of age "the supply of tobacco, dry tea, and sugar be +made compulsory." + +This humane order of things, you may be sure, did not commend itself to +all Guardian Boards; and when later there came further instructions from +headquarters that ailing inmates might be allowed "medical comforts," +the revolt materialised. A deputation of Guardians went to Whitehall to +try to argue the President into a harder heart. Crooks and Lansbury were +there to uphold the new system. Mr. Walter Long had succeeded Mr. +Chaplin then. He listened patiently to ingenious speeches in which +honourable gentlemen tried to show that it was from no lack of love for +the poor they had not carried out the new dietary scale, but---- + +"Gentlemen," Mr. Long interrupted at last, "am I to understand you do +not desire to feed your poor people properly?" + +Then all with one accord began to make excuse. It was the difficulty of +book-keeping, they said. It appeared they were prepared to stint the +poor rather than add to the book-keeping. + +From that day an improved dietary scale was introduced into our +workhouses. The man who fed the poor in Poplar saw the workhouse poor of +the kingdom better fed in consequence. + +What kind of food was it that Poplar dared to give to the poor? Those +"luxuries for paupers" down at Poplar, about which the world was to hear +so much, what were they? A working-man had appeared, and after years of +unwearied well-doing had got rid of "skilly" and "greasy water," +substituting, with the approval of two Presidents of the Local +Government Board, the following simple articles of food. + +Observe the list carefully, for the kinds and quantities of food here +set out were precisely those supplied to the able-bodied inmates during +the outcry that arose over "paupers' luxuries" at the time of the Local +Government Board Inquiry in 1906. The list is the official return of the +food supplied in one week to each inmate. + + + A MAN'S DIET FOR A WEEK. + + (COST, 4s. 2d.) + + Breakfasts Bread 3½ lbs. + Butter 3½ ozs. + Coffee 7 pints. + Dinners Mutton 13½ ozs. + Beef 4½ ozs. + Bacon 3 ozs. + Irish stew 1 pint. + Boiled pork 4½ ozs. + Bread 14 ozs. + Potatoes and greens 4½ lbs. + Suppers Bread 3½ lbs. + Butter 3½ ozs. + Tea 7 pints. + + + A WOMAN'S DIET FOR A WEEK. + + (COST, 4s.) + + Breakfasts Bread 2-5/8 lbs. + Butter 3½ ozs. + Coffee 7 pints. + Dinners Mutton 12 ozs. + Beef 4 ozs. + Bacon 3 ozs. + Irish stew 1 pint. + Boiled pork 4 ozs. + Bread 1¾ lbs. + Potatoes and greens 3 lbs. + Suppers Bread 2-5/8 lbs. + Butter 3½ ozs. + Tea 7 pints. + + +When you read down that list and think of the scare headlines that +appeared in London daily papers during the Inquiry--"Splendid Paupers," +"Luxuries for Paupers," "A Pauper's Paradise"--you may well ask, Are we +living in bountiful England? Or have we fallen upon an England of meagre +diet and mean men, an England that whines like a miser when called upon +to feed on homely fare its broken-down veterans of industry? + +Dickens is dead, else would he have shown us Bumble reincarnated in the +editors of certain London newspapers. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +TURNING WORKHOUSE CHILDREN INTO USEFUL CITIZENS + + A Home for Little "Ins-and-Outs"--Technical Education for Workhouse + Children--A Good Report for the Forest Gate Schools--Trophies won + by Scholars--The Children's Pat-a-Cakes. + + +After he had fed the old people and clothed the old people, and in other +ways brought into their darkened lives a little good cheer, Crooks +turned his care upon the workhouse children. + +The Guardians' school at Forest Gate lay four miles from the Union +buildings at Poplar. With five or six hundred children always under +training in the school there still remained varying batches of neglected +little people in the workhouse. The greater number of these belonged to +parents who came into the House for short periods only. + +These little "ins-and-outs" were getting no schooling and no training +save the training that fitted them for pauperism. What to do with them +had long been a perplexing problem. If they were sent to Forest Gate one +day their parents in the workhouse could demand them back the next day +and take their discharge, even though they and their children turned up +at the gates for re-admission within the next twenty-four hours. + +When Crooks proposed the simple expedient of sending these children to +the surrounding day-schools everybody seemed amazed. + +The idea had never been heard of before. The London School Board of the +day did not take kindly to it at all. It poured cold water on the +project at first. The neighbouring schools were nearly all full, and the +Board thought it would hear no more of the matter by suggesting that if +the Guardians could find vacant places they were at liberty of course to +send the children. + +Crooks framed an answering letter that it was the School Board's duty to +find the places, and that, come what would, the Guardians were +determined to send the children to the day schools. + +Soon places were found for all. The little people who, through neglect +and idleness in the workhouse, had been getting steeped in pauperism, +were now dressed in non-institution clothes, and they went to and from +the neighbouring schools, playing on the way like any other children. + +That was the beginning of a system destined to have a far-reaching +effect on Poor Law children all over the country. Other Unions, faced +with the same problem, seeing how well it had been dealt with at Poplar, +went and did likewise. + +The Labour Guardian did not rest there. The children were a great deal +better for coming in daily contact with the outside world, but much of +the good work was undone by their having to spend every night in the +workhouse. He wanted to keep them away altogether from its +contaminating influence. He persuaded the Guardians to purchase a large +dwelling house about a quarter of a mile away from the workhouse. This +became a real home for the children. There they are brought up and +regularly sent to the public day schools outside, entirely free from +workhouse surroundings. + +So long as the mark of the workhouse clings to children, so long, says +Crooks, will children cling to the workhouse. That is what makes him so +keen in getting rid of the institution dress and of everything else +likely to brand a child. + +He helped to banish all that suggested pauperism from the Forest Gate +School. The children were educated and grew up, not like workhouse +children, as before, but like the children of working parents. With what +result? Marked out in their childhood as being "from the workhouse," +they often bore the stamp all their life and ended up as workhouse +inmates in their manhood and womanhood. Under the new system, they were +made to feel like ordinary working-class children. They grew up like +them, becoming ordinary working-men and working-women themselves; so +that the Poor Law knew them no longer. + +"If I can't appeal to your moral sense, let me appeal to your pocket," +Crooks once remarked at a Guildhall Poor Law Conference. "Surely it is +far cheaper to be generous in training Poor Law children to take their +place in life as useful citizens than it is to give the children a +niggardly training and a branded career. This latter way soon lands +them in the workhouse again, to be kept out of the rates for the rest of +their lives." + +How far the principle was carried out at Forest Gate may be judged from +the report made by Mr. Dugard, H.M. Inspector of Schools, after one of +his visits. Thus:-- + + + There is very little (if any) of the institution mark among the + children.... Both boys' and girls' schools are in a highly + satisfactory state, showing increased efficiency, with increased + intelligence on the part of the children.... They compare very + favourably with the best elementary schools. + + +In all that related to games and healthful recreation Crooks agreed in +giving the scholars the fullest facilities. The lads were encouraged to +send their football and cricket teams to play other schools. The girls +developed under drill and gymnastic training, and became proficient +swimmers. + +In fact, the scholars at Forest Gate began to count for something. They +learnt to trust each other and to rely upon themselves. They grew in +hope and courage. They learnt to walk honourably before all men. In +consequence, thousands of them have become merged in the great working +world outside, self-respecting men and women. + +I met Crooks looking elated one evening, and he told me he had just come +from the Poor Law schools' swimming competition at Westminster baths. + +"There were three trophies," he said. "The first, the London Shield, was +for boys. Poplar won that with 85 marks, five more than the next best. +The second, the Portsmouth Shield, was for girls, with a Portsmouth +school competing. Our Poplar girls won that with 65 marks, the two next +schools getting only 35 each. The third trophy, the Whitehall Shield, +for the school as a whole with the highest number of marks, was also won +by Poplar. I feel as pleased as though I'd done it myself." + +The best administration in an out-of-date building is always hampered. +Forest Gate belonged to the old order of Poor Law schools known as +barrack buildings. Although the Guardians made the very best of the +school, there were structural defects that hindered the work seriously. +It was therefore decided to build cottage homes at Shenfield in Essex, +where a special effort is being made to train the girls as well as the +boys in rural pursuits in order to keep them out of the overcrowded +cities. + +The Parliamentary Committee on Poor Law Schools that sat in 1896 invited +Crooks to give evidence. Many of the things he urged were included in +the Committee's recommendations. Among them was the extension of the +full benefit of the Education Act and the Technical Education Acts to +all Poor Law children. + +"The wine and spirit dues that provide the technical education grants," +he told the committee, "might be said to belong to Poor Law children by +right, because it is always being urged that it is owing to drunken +parents that these children get into the workhouse. I don't believe it, +but there is the claim." + +At that time the Poor Law schools received no benefits in the way of +scholarships or technical education grants. It was largely due to his +advocacy that the scholars were at last given the same opportunities as +other children. One of the great moments of his life was when he opened +a letter from the headmaster at the Hunslet Poor Law school, telling him +that "in consequence of what you have done, one of our boys has just +taken a County Scholarship--the first Poor Law child to benefit under +the Technical Education Acts." + +Crooks would like to go much further. Until Poor Law children are taken +entirely away from the control of Guardians he will never be satisfied. +Why should the authority that looks after workhouses for the old and +infirm be entrusted with the task of training the young? The two duties +lie as far apart as East from West. He would place these children wholly +under the education authority. + +No matter where, he is always ready to put in a word for Poor Law +children on the least opportunity. It was news to his colleagues on the +London County Council when, in the course of a debate in the summer of +1894, he told of his own experience in a Poor Law school. He seems to +have made a deep impression by his speech on that occasion, judging by +the following comment made shortly afterwards by the _Municipal +Journal_;-- + + + Those who heard Mr. Crooks's speech in the Council Chamber, when + the subject of the training of Poor Law children came up on a side + issue, will not readily forget it. One of the daily papers, in its + admiration the next day, declared it to be the best speech heard at + the Council. Be that as it may, the speech, coming spontaneously + with the pent-up indignation of a soul that had suffered sorely + from a pernicious system, was a marvellous one, producing a + marvellous effect. Councillors in the front benches turned round + and visitors in the gallery stretched forward to catch a glimpse of + the short dark figure on the Labour bench pleading so powerfully + for the children of the poor. + + +Nor had he been in the House of Commons long before his voice was heard +there on behalf of workhouse children. Speaking in a debate in 1903 on +the various methods of dealing with these children, he said:-- + + + At one time there was no stronger advocate of boarding-out than + myself. It is an ideal system in theory, but its success by + practical application has yet to be proved. Many requests are made + by country people to be allowed to adopt children on charitable + grounds, but when inquiries come to be made into the incomes of + these people the Guardians generally find it is hoped to make a + profit out of the children. I have visited a village where a widow + boarded four children--two more than the law allows. For these + children she was paid sixteen shillings a week. She lived in a + district where the labourer's wages were only eleven shillings. + + In regard to another case I personally investigated, I asked how + the boy was getting on. + + "Oh, all right; but he is growing so big and eats such a lot that I + wish you would take him away and send me a smaller boy." + + The boarded-out children, so far from losing the pauper taint, are + more frequently known by the name of the Union from which they + come than by their own names. In fact, in some villages, I found + "boarding-out" a staple industry. Boarding-out is all right in good + homes; the difficulty is to find good homes. + + +Not long after he made this speech, there was an outcry in a section of +the Press over "an amazing example of extravagance" at Poplar. It +appeared in the form of a letter from a correspondent. The +correspondent--who turned out to be a member of a firm of +contractors--waxed virtuously indignant over the Guardians' tenders +because they included, he alleged, supplies of luxuries for paupers. The +so-called luxuries for the most part proved to be medical comforts +ordered by the doctor for the ailing. Among the other items was 1 cwt. +of pat-a-cake biscuits, and these were singled out specially as a +specimen of how the workhouse inmates were pampered. + +I met Crooks in the Lobby of the House of Commons at the time of the +outcry, and asked what he thought of it all. + +"Perfectly true," he said. "We in Poplar are guilty of the great crime +of inviting tenders for the supply of a few pat-a-cakes; but our +horrified critics are in error in assuming that the pat-a-cakes are for +the workhouse inmates. They are for the children. We order 1 cwt. for +the half-year, which I believe works out at the rate of a cake for each +child about once a week. There's extravagance for you! Isn't it +scandalous? Just imagine our kiddies in the workhouse school getting a +whole pat-a-cake to eat! + +"That's not the worst of it. Those youngsters of ours, not content with +getting an occasional pat-a-cake, have actually been overheard to sing +the nursery rhyme on the subject. We shall be having a Local Government +Board inspector sent down to stop it if it leaks out. You should hear +the little ones holding forth! + + + Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man, + Bake me a cake as fast as you can! + Prick it, and pat it, and mark it with T, + And put it in the oven for Tommy and me. + + +"The youngsters lie awake at nights, wondering when their turn will come +again to have a farthing pat-a-cake. One of the little girls came +running up to me in the playground the other day, exclaiming: 'Oh, Mr. +Crooks, what do you think? I had a pat-a-cake for tea last Sunday. They +promised it to us the day before, and I was so pleased when I went to +bed that night that I nearly forgot to go to sleep.'" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ON THE METROPOLITAN ASYLUMS BOARD + + Mr. Chaplin's Humane Circular to Poor Law Guardians--Crooks + Appointed a Member of the Metropolitan Asylums Board--Chairman of + the Children's Committee--His Knack of Getting His Own + Way--Reorganising the Labour Conditions of the Board's Workmen. + + +We have seen that the policy of Poor Law reform which Crooks was +carrying out at Poplar won the good-will of the Local Government Board. +Soon after Mr. Henry Chaplin took his seat in Lord Salisbury's Cabinet +of 1895 he sent for Crooks, and the two spent a whole morning discussing +the weak points in our Poor Law system. Mr. Chaplin made many notes +during the conversation, and at parting good-naturedly remarked that +Crooks had given him enough work to occupy the next two or three years. + +Shortly afterwards, the Minister and the Labour man made a personal +investigation of Poplar and other East-End workhouses and infirmaries. +The visit to each institution was a surprise one. When the two men +entered the children's ward of the Mile End workhouse, they found the +nurses absent and the children screaming. In about half a minute Crooks +had all the children laughing. + +"What's the secret of your magic?" asked the President of the Local +Government Board. + +"It comes natural when you are used to them," said Crooks. + +As already shown, Mr. Chaplin declared emphatically for the Poplar +policy. His notable circular to Poor Law Guardians, for which as +President of the Local Government Board he will perhaps be best +remembered, gave the support of the Government of the day to that policy +of humane administration of the Poor Law which Crooks had established at +Poplar. It laid down three principles which the Labour man had urged +upon the President at their first meeting:-- + + + 1. Children to be entirely removed from association with the + workhouse and workhouse surroundings. + + 2. Old people of good character who have relatives or friends + outside not to be forced into the workhouse, but to be given + adequate out-relief. + + 3. Old people in the workhouse of good behaviour to be provided + with additional comforts. + + +Mr. Chaplin further showed his confidence in the Labour Chairman of the +Poplar Guardians by inviting him to become one of the Local Government +Board's representatives on the Metropolitan Asylums Board. The work +meant a heavy addition to Crooks's public duties, with the London County +Council and the Poplar Guardians demanding so much of his time. There +was no hesitation, however, in accepting the new office when he found it +afforded further opportunities to serve the afflicted poor and help +neglected children. Mr. Chaplin's successor at the Local Government +Board, Mr. Walter Long, twice re-nominated Crooks to the same position. + +Although the Asylums Board comes but little before public notice, except +in times of epidemic, it has far-reaching powers. It is the largest +hospital authority that any country can show. It has fourteen infectious +disease hospitals with accommodation for nearly seven thousand people. +It maintains six thousand imbecile patients in four asylums. It looks +after the welfare of several hundred boys on a Thames training-ship, and +of some two thousand children in various homes. + +The members, or "managers," as they are called, are all nominated either +by London Boards of Guardians or by the Local Government Board. An +indirectly elected body is the last that expects to see a representative +of Labour. Imagine, therefore, the amazement of this somewhat select +company when, in May, 1898, a Labour man walked into their midst as the +nominee of a Conservative Cabinet Minister. + +He was eyed at first with suspicion. The suspicion soon changed to +curiosity. The Labour man never spoke. The managers expected a torrent +of loud criticism, and here was immovable silence. For the first five +months Crooks never opened his mouth at the Board meetings. + +"What's your game?" asked a friendly member in an aside one afternoon. + +"I'm learning the business," was the quiet reply. "This is an old +established Board with notions of its own, and it's not going to be +dictated to by new-comers. But you wait, my friend, and you'll find +before long I'll be getting my own way in everything here." + +So it proved. During the two or three years that he was Chairman of the +Children's Committee and of a special committee that reorganised the +hours and wages of the Board's large staff, he never lost a single +recommendation he brought before the Board. + +"How is it, Mr. Crooks, that whatever you ask this Board for you always +get?" he was once asked by Sir Edwin Galsworthy, for many years the +Board's Chairman. + +Crooks returned the sally that it was because he was always right. His +real secret was--convert the whole of your committee. A majority vote in +committee never satisfied him. Nothing short of the support of every +single member would suffice. Many times in committee has he adjourned +the discussion rather than snatch a bare majority. + +"Let's take it home with us," he would say jocularly from the chair. +"Perhaps after a week's thought you'll all come back converted to my +view. If not, then you must come better prepared to convince me that I +am wrong than you are now." + +The difficult and delicate work of reorganising the Labour conditions of +the Board's workmen and attendants was at last brought to a triumph. He +came out of the chair with the goodwill of the whole staff and of the +entire Board of Managers. His colleagues included large employers of +labour, eminent medical men, and retired army and navy officers. All +agreed that he had settled for them Labour difficulties which had +created nothing but confusion and perplexity before. + +Working on his invariable rule that it pays best in every department of +work to observe fair conditions, he scored a signal success on the very +body where before his coming Labour members were regarded as +revolutionaries. As at Blackwall Tunnel, he gained his points without +losing the trust or friendship of the employers of labour. + +The task put his administrative ability to a test which only able +statesmen can stand. The rare faculty he has of obtaining the maximum of +reform out of existing agencies carried him safely over every shoal. + +Crooks is every inch an Englishman as well as every inch a Labour +member. He applies his Labour principles on typical English lines; hence +his success among all bodies of Englishmen, no matter what their party +or class. + +Few men have higher ideals or feel more deeply the injustice of much in +our present-day social system, but Crooks recognises that the only way +to get reform is to put your hand to the plough with things as they are, +and not wait for the millennium before getting to work. + +He sees the crooked things of this life as keenly as anyone, but because +the things cannot be put wholly straight in his own day he does not +hold aloof. He does what he can in the living present to put them as +nearly straight as existing machinery makes possible, trusting that the +next or some succeeding generation will continue the work until the +things are put perfectly straight at last. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A BAD BOYS' ADVOCATE + + Efforts on behalf of Diseased and Mentally-deficient + Children--Altering the Law in Six Weeks--Establishing Remand Homes + for First Offenders--London's Vagrant Child-Life--Reformatory and + Industrial Schools--The Boy who Sat on the Fence--Theft of a Donkey + and Barrow--Lads who want Mothering. + + +Soon the call of the children reached his ears again. + +He had barely finished reorganising the labour conditions on the Asylums +Board when he undertook a great task in the interests of the two +thousand children who had just been placed under the Board's care. These +children were all sufferers from some physical or mental trouble, and it +was because they required special treatment that a Parliamentary +Committee had recommended that they be transferred from the London +Guardians to the Asylums Board. + +A comprehensive scheme had to be framed by the Board for looking after +its new charges. Crooks gave three hard years to these children's +well-being. During that time, as Chairman of the Children's Committee, +he wrought some remarkable changes in the lot of the diseased and +mentally-deficient little people handed over to the Board's keeping. + +New homes were set up in the country and at the seaside for the +afflicted and convalescent children. The little people's meals were made +pleasant, their clothes deprived of the institutional taint. They were +free to be merry, and their laughter was better medicine than the +doctor's. + +The sad lot of the mentally-deficient children, some of them little +better than imbeciles, appealed greatly to the strong, clear-brained +Labour man from Poplar. There were three or four hundred of these, all +from London workhouses, the sight of whom so often reminded Crooks of +the idiot boy who slept in his dormitory when he, as a child, was an +inmate at Poplar. + +The Asylums Board was not allowed to keep these mentally-deficient boys +and girls after sixteen years of age. The children had thus to be sent +away only half trained, often direct to the workhouse again, from which +they never emerged unless to be taken to an institution more hopeless +still. + +Crooks conceived the idea that if the Board kept these luckless little +people until they completed their twenty-first year it might be possible +to give them such a training as would enable them to look after +themselves outside, and live useful lives, instead of being a +life-burden to the State and of no use to anyone. The Local Government +Board agreed, and the managers now train these youthful charges till +they reach manhood and womanhood. + +The experiment has already justified itself. Many a youth and maid who +would have been left in mental darkness all their lives have by this +longer period of training gained a glimmering of light. Their limited +intelligence has been sufficiently developed to enable them to assist at +earning their own living and to look after themselves. + +Other children under the Board's care might be said to suffer from an +excess rather than from a lack of intelligence. On the Asylums Board +they are known as remand children. In the police courts they are known +as first offenders. They consist of boys and girls who, having been +charged before a magistrate with offences which render them liable to be +sent to an industrial or a reformatory school, get remanded for +inquiries. + +At one time, pending the inquiries, these youthful offenders used to be +detained in prison. When Crooks joined the Asylums Board they had been +transferred to the workhouse. The influence for evil was little better +in the one place than in the other. The one introduced them to +criminality, the other to pauperism. + +"These children want keeping as far as possible from both prison and +workhouse," argued Crooks with his colleagues. "We ought to put them in +small homes and give them school-time and playtime, like other children, +until their cases come before the magistrate again." + +So two or three dwelling-houses were taken in different quarters of +London and adapted as Remand Homes. Crooks headed a deputation from the +Asylums Board to the London magistrates at Bow Street to urge them in +future to commit all remand children to the Homes. The magistrates were +sympathetic enough, but showed it was their duty to carry out the law, +and that the law clearly laid it down that youthful offenders under +remand must be sent to the workhouse. + +"We'll alter the law, then," was Crooks's reply. "For I'm determined +these youngsters shall no longer be sent to the workhouse." + +In the record time of six weeks the law was altered. It sounds +miraculous to those who know the ways of Whitehall. Crooks's resource +proved more than equal to red-tapeism. + +First the Asylums Board wrote to the Home Office. Then the Home Office +sent the usual evasive reply. The correspondence would have gone on +indefinitely had not Crooks waited on the Home Secretary in person. + +As the Labour man expected, Mr. Ritchie knew nothing about the matter, +the Home Office officials having settled it without consulting the +Secretary of State. Always willing to co-operate in anything that +promised to keep children away from the workhouse, Mr. Ritchie asked +Crooks what he had to suggest. The visitor pointed out that the Juvenile +Offenders' Bill was at that very moment before Parliament, and that the +insertion in that measure of an additional clause of half a dozen lines +only would keep remand children away from the workhouse for all time. +The Home Secretary seized the idea at once, and Crooks's suggestion +became law the following month. + +The first of the Remand Homes was opened at Pentonville Road for the +convenience of children charged at the police courts of North London and +the East-End. Sometimes as many as fifty young offenders, boys and +girls, can be seen there at the same time. + +Instead of loafing about the workhouse, as before, and becoming inured +to pauper surroundings, they are now taught as in a day school. They +have play in the open air and recreation indoors in the way of games and +books. Moreover, the girls are taught to sew and knit, the boys +instructed in manual work. Though seldom there more than a fortnight +before being taken back to the police court, they go away cleaner, +better informed, not without hope. And the magistrates now feel +justified in sending about 80 per cent. of them back to their parents. + +A visit to this Remand Home at Pentonville will teach you disquieting +truths about the vagrant child-life of London. These wayward youngsters +tell their tales with startling frankness. + +That bright-faced lad of twelve--why is he here? + +"Stealing," he answers us. + +"What did you steal?" + +"Some stockings outside a shop." + +"Why?" + +"To get money for sweets." + +"Where did you sell the stockings?" + +"In a pub." + +"Have you ever stolen before?" + +"Yes." + +"How often?" + +"A good many times, but never been caught before." + +Two of the oldest lads approached, and we questioned them. + +"I was took up for begging," said No. 1. "But I weren't begging--on'y +looking for work." + +"Where?" + +"At King's Cross--me and him," pointing to his neighbour. "We was +offering to carry people's bags when the copper come and took us up." + +The teacher explained that boys soliciting passengers around the big +railway stations were becoming such a nuisance that the police sometimes +had to take them into custody. + +"We didn't get hold of a man's arm and say, 'Give us threepence,' as the +copper said," the youthful informant went on. "We was on'y looking for +work." + +"How long have you been looking for this kind of work?" + +"We goes an' looks for it every day," said No. 2 (in shirt sleeves, like +his pal). "And sometimes we makes half a crown, and sometimes three +shillings a day, carrying gentlemen's bags. I've been a-doing of it five +months. It pays better than reg'lar work, where I used to make ten +shillings a week." + +No. 1 could not forget his grievance against the police. + +"Puts us in the cell all night," he interposed, "and gives us coffee and +two thick slices of bread for supper. And takes us in a bumpy ole van +to the police court in the morning along of a lot of others. Then we was +sent here, where we has to write and read--just like going back to +school again." + +Another lad was there for "stopping out all night," according to his own +rendering. When we asked "Why?" the answer came prompt enough, "'Cos I +likes it." + +"How many nights did you stay out?" + +"Me and them," indicating others higher up the room, "we slept behind +the fire station four nights and then went home." + +"What happened then?" + +"Mother said nofink, but she got a stick----" + +He paused sufficiently long for us to take the sequel for granted, then +added quietly:-- + +"So I stopped out the next night." + +"And then?" + +"Then the copper came." + +Yes, they need "homes," indeed, these wayward youngsters, ensnared by +the temptations of London's streets. Some are here for gambling in the +gutter, many for playing truant, some for sleeping out, and others for +felony. Generally they are sent home if it be a first offence, or to a +reformatory if the case be a bad one. + +There are girls here, too. What of them? + +"Me and my sister was taken up by the police for sleeping on a +doorstep," said one sad-eyed little maid in a blue frock. + +"Why on a doorstep?" + +"Father left us, and when mother died the landlord turned us out." + +True enough, and the sisters will be sent to a girls' home shortly. + +That is the best that can be done for the girls, especially the large +number that are brought away from houses of ill-repute. + +The boys who get committed to reformatories still find themselves under +Crooks's eye. While the Asylums Board looks after them when under +remand, the London County Council becomes responsible once the lads are +committed. This dual control Crooks is trying to get rid of, in the hope +that the duty will be given wholly into the hands of one authority. + +For several years he was a member and at one time Chairman of the L.C.C. +Committee that looks after the industrial and reformatory schools. The +committee meets at Feltham, where is the largest of the institutions +under its charge. It was rare for Crooks to be absent during his +membership of the committee. + +He and Colonel Rotton, who was also Chairman for a period, could +generally make the lads on arrival understand them without much +parleying. Every lad, on being committed to the school by a magistrate, +had to appear before the committee. Here are some characteristic +dialogues:-- + +"Well, my boy, what are you here for?" + +"Burglary." The burglar was nine years of age. + +"Well, you can't be a burglar here, but you can be a good lad. Everyone +can be a good lad here if he likes. If he doesn't like we make him. What +will you do?" + +"I fink I'll like, sir." + +Generally the lads do not admit their offence so readily. They are not +always so frank as you find them in the Remand Homes. Most of them, when +before the Committee, find excuses, like the boy who was caught with +others stealing in a railway goods yard. + +"Please, sir, it weren't me at all." + +"We always get the wrong boy. What are you supposed to be here for?" + +"Fieving, sir. But I didn't do it. I were on'y sitting on the fence." + +"Then let this be a lesson to you. Never sit on the fence. Do you know +the Ten Commandments?" + +"No, sir." + +"Can you say the Lord's Prayer?" + +"No; we wasn't taught it at the school wot I used to go to." + +"But you didn't go to school." + +"The boy wot did go told me." + +"Well, we'll see to it that you do go to school now." + +Another new-comer excused himself more ingeniously:--"Me and my mate we +found a donkey and barrer at Covent Garden. We saw a man's name on the +barrer, and fought if we went off wif the donkey we would git a shilling +the next day for taking it back to him. But a copper stopped us as we +was leading the donkey over Waterloo Bridge. So we hadn't a chance to +take it back, as we was going to." + +"Very well, you must stay with us until you learn that donkeys in +barrows are not necessarily lost." + +Crooks believed in giving the boys plenty of play and plenty of work. +Nearly all their offences he believed to be due to excess of vitality. +They had never had a chance of working it off in a proper way before. +Besides, many of the lads needed mothering. It was always his regret +that he could not persuade his colleagues on the Committee to adopt a +system he found in vogue in the Moss Hill industrial school in Glasgow. +When visiting that institution he was agreeably surprised to find about +a dozen "mothers" on the staff. If a lad tore his coat or pulled off a +button, he knew which particular "mother" to run to in order to be +patched up. + +"I have always said, and shall always continue to say," he states, "that +reformatory schools ought to be made a State charge entirely. If there +is any part of the community that can be called a national debt, it is +this class of poor, misguided lads who, if they were properly cared for, +would soon become a valuable national asset." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +PROUD OF THE POOR + + The Handy Man of Poplar--Peacemaker among his Neighbours--Piloting + the Author of "In His Steps" through the Slums--Difference between + a Street Arab and a Prince--Object Lesson for a Professor of + Political Economy--How the Poor help the Poor. + + +During these years the saying grew up among his neighbours that nothing +happens in Poplar without someone running to Will Crooks about it. His +little house at 28, Northumberland Street, to the north of East India +Dock Road, was the gathering ground of all kinds of deputations and of +troubled individuals seeking advice on every subject under the sun. He +was a court of appeal in family troubles as well as on public questions. + +A small girl came to the door one night with the announcement: + +"If you please, father's took to drink again, and mother says will Mr. +Crooks come round and give him a good hiding?" + +Appeals like that of an old labourer who could neither read nor write +became common. The old man stood sobbing on the step without a word when +Crooks's youngest daughter opened the door. Instinct told her it was her +father that was wanted, and she called him. + +"Well, old Charley, what's the matter now?" when Crooks recognised his +caller. + +"She's turned me out again," came the words between sobs. "If you would +on'y go and speak to her, Mr. Crooks, and put in a word for me! She +ain't half a bad wife, you know. It's on'y her temper and me as don't +agree." + +He invited the aggrieved husband inside, going off himself alone, to +return in half an hour with the news that the road was now clear. + +About a month later in the main road he was hailed from over the way. +The old labourer came hobbling towards him. + +"Ah, Mr. Crooks, I don't know what yer said to my ole woman that night, +but she's bin a perfect angel since." + +What Crooks had said was simple enough. On reaching the court he found +the good wife gossiping. + +"Here's Mr. Crooks!" cried the little company of women as he approached. + +He spoke no word, but with a mysterious air beckoned the aggressive wife +aside. + +"Heard the news about your old man?" he asked with a long face. + +Assuming the worst, she immediately began to weep into her apron. + +"It's my fault, Mr. Crooks," she whimpered. "He often threatened to +drown hisself, but I never thought he'd go and do it!" + +And then again, amid broken sobs:--"I've al'ays bin a good wife to him, +Mr. Crooks." + +"Yes, I know you have; and he knows it, too. He's often told me what a +splendid wife you are. But you shouldn't cheek him so. You take my +advice and coax him a little; coax him, and then you'll find you can do +what you like with him afterwards. Why, bless you, if it hadn't been for +some of us he might have drowned himself to-night. Now you just give him +a good supper, like a sensible woman, when we send him home, and begin +coaxing him from this very night. And, mind, not a word about this to +anyone, for fear you excite him again." + +When again he met the old labourer it was evident the good relations +were growing. + +"Give her a treat last Saturday afternoon, Mr. Crooks--a fair knock-out. +Took her for a 'bus ride to Ludgit Circis, and showed her the Thames +Embankmint. Never seen anyfink so fine in all her life. Nearly made her +faint. When she got home she dropped into a chair and said, 'I feel I +could die now, Charlie, after that.'" + +"And you?" + +"I said, 'If you talk like that I'll go for Mr. Crooks again.' That +fetched her round, 'pon me honour." + +The good people of Poplar expect Crooks to meet all their needs. It was +not very inspiring to be knocked up in the middle of the night and find +a carman groaning at the door. + +"Oh, Will, I'm that bad with the spasms!" + +"Why don't you go to the doctor?" + +"I've bin to him and he ain't done me no good. I thought as how if +you'd come along with me he'd be sure to give me the right stuff." + +Later in the same week the man's wife arrived breathless in the early +morning. "Would Mr. Crooks come at once?" + +"What's happened now?" + +"Dick took a drop too much at the 'Ship' last night, and when he come +in, me having gone to bed, he mistook the paraffin oil bottle for his +medicine. Two whole spoonfuls he took, Mr. Crooks, and we've only found +it out this morning. He says he must see you now afore he dies." + +Curious ideas are held as to what Crooks's duties are. One irate citizen +declared to his mates that he was done with Will Crooks for ever. He was +appealed to for the reason. + +"Why," said he, "there's our sink bin stopped up nigh on three weeks, +and he ain't bin round yet!" + +All who labour and are poor in Poplar look upon Crooks as the unfailing +friend. The coal-man crying coals in the street all in vain, one morning +hails him in passing:-- + +"Wot's wrong with people this morning, Mr. Crooks? One would think I was +selling tombstones!" + +Another day it is the chimney-sweep who stops him. + +"Talk about the County Council's schools in Poplar, Mr. Crooks; I calls +it a scandal, I does." + +"What's the matter?" + +"Sending their chimbleys up to Bethnal Green to be swept instead of +employing local labour!" + +The callers at his house were in no sense confined to his neighbours. +One day it would be C. B. Fry, the cricketer, another day G. K. +Chesterton the critic--neither of them for the first time; and again +George R. Sims, Beerbohm Tree, Lord and Lady Denbigh, Miss Gertrude +Tuckwell, Father Adderley, Bernard Shaw, Earl Carrington, and the Rev. +Charles Sheldon from the United States--to mention but a few of the men +and women of widely different walks of life who are pleased to number +him among their friends. + +Mr. Sheldon called soon after the great boom of "In His Steps." On +several occasions Crooks piloted him through the slums of the East End. +While looking round a typical court the American minister asked one of +the women when they had seen a parson there. + +The answer came, "We ain't seen no parson down here since we lived here, +fifteen years." + +"I don't wonder that people are bad," remarked Mr. Sheldon to Crooks. +"The wonder is that people are so good as they are." + +Before returning to America Mr. Sheldon sent Crooks a parting note, +ending, "I shall always remember you as you stand, 'in the thick of it,' +for the rights of little children and brother men." + +Outsiders who visit Crooks find him precisely the same man as his +neighbours find him. He has personal friends in the Peers' House as well +as in the Poor's House, but his manner changes not in the company of +either. + +This characteristic trait in Crooks led Mr. Chesterton, in his book on +"Charles Dickens," into an instructive comparison:-- + + + The English democracy is the most humorous democracy in the world. + The Scotch democracy is the most dignified, while the whole + _abandon_ and satiric genius of the English populace come from its + being quite undignified in every way. A comparison of the two types + might be found, for instance, by putting a Scotch Labour leader + like Mr. Keir Hardie alongside an English Labour leader like Mr. + Will Crooks. Both are good men, honest and responsible and + compassionate, but we can feel that the Scotchman carries himself + seriously and universally, the Englishman personally and with an + obstinate humour. Mr. Keir Hardie wishes to hold up his head as + Man, Mr. Crooks wishes to follow his nose as Crooks. Mr. Keir + Hardie is very like a poor man in Walter Scott. Mr. Crooks is very + like a poor man in Dickens. + + +A little incident bears out Mr. Chesterton to the letter. While Crooks +was showing a party of titled people at their request round some of the +dark corners of Poplar he was greeted as usual by all the children +playing in the streets. Seizing the blackest of them he presented the +youngster to one of the ladies of the party, a well-known peeress. + +"If this little chap," said he, "was as clean as I could wash him and as +well dressed as you could dress him, what difference would there be +between him and a little prince?" + +After the party had finished their round of inspection somebody +suggested tea. + +"It's no use looking for swell tea shops in Poplar," said Crooks. "But +if you care to come with me, my wife will just be getting tea ready for +the children coming home from school, and no doubt we can find a corner +for you at the same table." + +And straightway he led them to Northumberland Street and into his own +house without warning, where they shared with the children at the deal +table in the kitchen. + +Sometimes for whole weeks together in the black days of distress he +could never finish his breakfast without being called to the door to +advise an out-of-work man or some sorrow-laden woman, or to deal with +some case of starvation that brooked no delay. + +Of course he often defied the laws of political economy. That is +sometimes the only way to prevent people dying from want. A learned +professor of political economy, whose name I am not at liberty to +mention, was converted to some part at least of Crooks's view in a +single morning. The Professor called on him during a winter of hard +times, and Crooks showed him how some of his neighbours were living. + +"Hunger we can sometimes stand, 'cos we gets used to it," they heard +from one woman, surrounded in her bare tenement by lean and shivering +babies; "but to be frozen with cold on the top of the hunger--that's the +thing that makes yer squirm, guv'nor--ain't it, Mr. Crooks?" + +Then the Labour man led the Professor to a slum court. On the muddy +ground in the far corner a woman sat weeping. + +"She ain't been living here long, Mr. Crooks," volunteered another woman +from her doorstep. "Her husband's no work, and this morning she were +a-sending her four children to school without a bite, so I calls 'em in +here, and shared out wot we was having for breakfast." + +"And what was that?" asked the Professor. + +The woman seemed to resent the question from a well-dressed stranger. + +"It weren't ham and eggs," she said, curtly. + +"Tell my friend here what you gave them, Mrs. B----" Crooks requested. + +"Well, it's just like this here, Mr. Crooks," she said apologetically. +"My man's out of work hisself, and we on'y had one loaf, so I cuts it up +between her children and mine." + +"Why is she crying now?" + +"She ain't been used to it like some of us, and it's all along of her +wondering where the children's next meal is a-coming from." + +As the two men came away, "I'm proud of the poor," said Crooks. "And I +declare it's a dirty insult for outsiders to say that these people are +degraded by the feeble efforts I make as a Guardian to give bread to the +hungry. It's nothing to what they do for each other. That woman sharing +her last loaf with another woman's children is typical of what you'll +find in every street and corner of Poplar where the pinch of hunger is +felt." + +The Professor walked on silently. + +"What are we to do for them?" resumed the Labour man. "Sometimes people +as badly off as these we have just seen come to my house in the early +morning, begging me as a Guardian to give their children bread before +they send them to school. Sometimes they bring their children with them +as though to prove by their hungry eyes the truth of what they tell me. + +"And I say to them, 'You shouldn't come to me; you should go to the +relieving officer.'" + +"And they reply, 'But what are you Guardians for? We've been to the +Mayor, and he refers us to the Guardians. We go to the Guardians, and +they refer us to the relieving officer. We go to the relieving officer, +and he tells us to attend the relief committee. We inquire about the +relief committee, and find it doesn't meet for two or three days. +Meanwhile, what are our children to do for bread?' + +"Do you think," Crooks went on to ask the Professor, "that I can finish +my own breakfast, or that any other man could with a spark of feeling in +him, after being called to the door to listen to these pleadings morning +after morning? Do you think, after these daily experiences, that I care +how the outside public and the Press attack us because we as Guardians +dare to spend public money in saving these people from starvation? + +"What is a Board of Guardians to do, with its awful responsibilities and +its awful obligations, during such distressful winters as Poplar +sometimes witnesses? Remember, we Guardians live among the poor. We are +not carriage folk who can return to the West End and talk about the poor +over dinners of a dozen courses. What else can we do but try to keep the +bodies and souls of these poor people together in times of trade +depression and cold weather?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE FIRST WORKING-MAN MAYOR IN LONDON + + Elected Mayor of Poplar--"No Better than a Working-man"--Shouted + Down at the Mansion House--The Lord Mayor Defends Him--Refusing a + Salary--Slums and Fair Rent Courts--Fighting the Public-House + Interests--Crying not for the Moon, but for the Sun. + + +In November, 1901, Crooks was chosen to be Mayor of Poplar. In this, as +in all his public offices, he was not the seeker, but the sought-after. +Of the many public positions he has filled, not one has come of his own +seeking. It has always been at the earnest solicitation of others that +he has gone into office. Moreover, the request in every instance but one +has come from working-men. + +The proposal to put him forward for Mayor was made to him before he had +been a member of the Poplar Borough Council many months. The Labour +Party was barely half a dozen strong on the Council, so that even with +the support of the Progressives it was extremely doubtful whether he +could command a majority of votes. This he pointed out in reply to his +party's entreaties. Since his arguments were all unavailing, he agreed +at last to be nominated, making one very emphatic condition. That +condition was, that were he elected there should be no talk of paying +the Mayor a salary. + +Any of the London Borough Councils can vote a salary to the Mayor, and +in some of the boroughs £300 and £500 a year was being paid. Crooks felt +he could better retain the confidence of his neighbours, and better meet +the criticisms of opponents, by refusing a Mayoral grant entirely. +Besides making this the condition of his nomination, he influenced the +Borough Council, some few days before the Mayor was to be elected, to +pass a resolution declining to pay a salary. + +On the night the new Mayor was elected there were some curious scenes +both inside and outside the Municipal Buildings. To be Mayor in +Coronation Year seemed to be the desire of half the public men in the +kingdom. There were several aspirants in Poplar, and when the number was +reduced to two, Crooks's name was one of them. + +Twice amid the greatest tension in the crowded Council Chamber the +voting on the two names resulted in a tie. Twice the retiring Mayor +appealed to the Council to come to a decision without his casting vote. +Since nothing would alter the equality of the votes, the Mayor finally +hit upon the device of writing both names on separate slips of paper and +drawing one at random from a covered bowl. + +Meanwhile, the tension had become too much for some burly working-men in +the public gallery. They could be heard blubbering. When you looked up +you saw them mopping their grimy faces with red-spotted handkerchiefs +or the ends of their scarfs. + +These men, with many of their mates, had crowded into the Council +Chamber on their way home from the engineering yards and railway goods +sidings in Millwall and from all the neighbouring docks. Those who could +not get inside formed a dense crowd in the streets below. As the news +was brought out from time to time, how two ballots had been taken and +the votes were still equal, a silence strange and solemn fell upon the +massed crowds surging round the Municipal Buildings in the lamp-lighted +streets. + +Soon the silence gave way to a roar of working-men's voices. + +"Crooks has got it!" + +"Our Will's made Mayor!" + +"God bless the Mayor!" + +Among that rough-jacketed company could be seen men falling on each +other's necks. And as they streamed homeward in all directions the +streets of Poplar echoed with the cry that lingered far into the night, +"Will Crooks is Mayor!" + +He was the first Labour Mayor in London. As such he did not make the +mistake of trying to fill the office like the ordinary middle-class man. +He faced all the world essentially as a working-man Mayor. He showed how +well a workman can carry out the administrative and ceremonial duties +inseparable from the office. In doing that he dispelled for ever the old +illusion that only men of means can become mayors. + +"What d'yer think?" he overheard a tradesman's wife ask another in +disgust. "They've made that common fellow Crooks Mayor! And he no better +than a working-man." + +"Quite right, madam," he interposed, raising his hat as she turned +round, crimson, and recognised him. "No better than a working-man!" + +It was evident, too, that at first certain of the other metropolitan +mayors thought him a common fellow, far beneath their notice. The first +occasion that saw him in their midst was a conference of mayors at the +Mansion House. It was convened by the Lord Mayor to consider +arrangements for the Coronation Dinner to the Poor. Crooks listened for +an hour to all kinds of suggestions put forward by men who knew little +about the poor before rising at last to make a proposal of his own. + +The instant he rose there was a howl of disapproval. + +"Sit down--sit down!" "Who are you?" "We want none of your opinions." +"Sit down--sit down!" + +The wrath of some of these funny little functionaries at the idea of a +Labour man daring to address them was something he laughed at for a long +time after. Several of them had lost their heads entirely at being +invited to discuss a matter which so closely concerned the King and +Queen. The very presence of a Labour man at such an august gathering was +felt to be an insult. + +They drowned his voice each time he attempted to speak, until it began +to dawn upon them that instead of gaining favour with the Lord Mayor, +who was in the chair, they were incurring his displeasure. + +"Gentlemen," he cried, "I protest against this conduct. I call upon _my +friend_, Mr. Crooks, to speak." + +You should have seen their faces then! They had forgotten that the Lord +Mayor (Sir Joseph Dimsdale) and Crooks had been colleagues together for +years on the County Council. + +Having got a hearing, the Labour man spoke evidently very much to the +point. Sir Thomas Lipton, who represented the King at that and the +subsequent conferences, declared afterwards that the one mayor in London +who seemed to know what was wanted was the working-man Mayor of Poplar. +At any rate, the final arrangements for the King's Dinner were left to a +small sub-committee, of which Crooks was unanimously elected one by the +body that first tried to howl him down. + +The illusion that working-men cannot make mayors died hard. It lingered +last in the columns of the _Times_. Crooks had been in office several +months when that journal called public attention to the fact that the +Mayor of Poplar lived in a house "only rated at £11 a year." From this +circumstance the _Times_ drew the rash conclusion that a man so poor +could not necessarily fill the office of mayor properly. + +After this, nobody could be surprised at the wild mis-statements that +followed. The _Times_ went on to say that before Crooks's election the +Labour Party of Poplar seemed to think his income of £3 10s. a week +insufficient for the mayoralty, and that they started a movement "in +favour of paying future mayors of the borough a salary at the rate of +from £500 to £1,000 a year." + +How completely the facts tell a different story has already appeared. +What movement there was in Poplar for paying a salary originated with +the previous mayor, Mr. R. H. Green, a large employer of labour. Mr. +Green did not wish for a salary himself, being a man of means; he was +only anxious that his colleagues should understand that he favoured the +principle. His successor, the Labour man, was equally anxious his +colleagues should understand that he did not favour payment. + +The real facts were placed before the _Times_, but although its original +mis-statements were copied into several other newspapers and led the +_St. James's Gazette_ to publish a foolish leader on the subject, the +_Times_ offered neither an explanation as to how it fell into its +culpable error nor an apology for its amazing exhibition of bad taste. + +In reality, his position as Mayor was strengthened by his refusal to +take a salary. He stated in an interview in the _Daily Telegraph_ +towards the end of his year of office:-- + + + I have only had to do what I have done in every other position I + have held--let people understand that I have nothing to give away. + Since my position has become generally known people have let me + alone, except when I get an appeal like this one--to support a + football club as a lover of British sports and pastimes. Nobody + seems to think the worse of me for refusing. + + +To the last, however, he was not forgiven by many people for daring to +be poor. A worthy lady at a church sewing-party in a London suburb +became very indignant at the mention of the name of the Labour Mayor of +Poplar. One of the members present--to whom I am indebted for the +incident--happened to make an incidental reference to Crooks. "It's a +shame, I say, to let such people be made important," cried the good lady +with much feeling, stopping for a moment her work of making garments for +the church bazaar. "Look how they interfere with business. My husband +used to get fifteen per cent. from his Poplar property before they made +that man Crooks Mayor. Now, what with being compelled to spend so much +on repairs and new drains, it's as much as he can do to get ten per +cent." + +When Crooks heard of the incident, he said he had little doubt the +husband was an ordinary decent man who invested in poor property, +because, as house investment agencies sometimes state in their +advertisements, it pays better than any other kind. + +"Probably he is one of that large class who leave the collection of the +rents and all control to agents. That is why slum property has paid so +well in the past. It has been neglected. Nothing has been spent on +ordinary repairs. Whatever expense we as a Municipal Council may put the +owners to in order to make their property healthy, is strictly regulated +by law. We cannot go beyond the letter of the law. The reason why +investors in slum property have reaped such a rich harvest in the past +is because neither they nor the local authorities have carried out the +law. + +"No man with ordinary sentiment can own slum property and collect his +own rents. A flint-hearted agent generally has control. I know such a +one well. If the tenant does not pay up by Saturday he waits and watches +round the corner on Sunday morning. As soon as he sees the wife turn out +to buy a piece of meat or a few vegetables from a coster's stall for +Sunday's dinner, he pounces down on her and demands her few pence on +account. + +"It's so easy to run away from responsibility by simply saying, 'This is +a mere investment, and I am not concerned with the tenants.' + +"A very wealthy man who owns a lot of small houses in Poplar had his +attention called to the hardship inflicted by the heavy increase in +rents. He was told that a widow whose rent had just been doubled would +have to seek parish relief if the new demand were enforced. 'My dear +good fellow,' said the owner, 'I leave these matters to my agent. I +don't want the woman's money. Look here,' pulling a handful of +sovereigns out of his pocket. 'Why should I care about the woman's rent? +I leave these trifles to my agent, and never interfere.' + +"Can you wonder that so many of our people are driven to drink and +immorality?" Crooks went on after telling this incident. "Sweated as +they are for rent in this way, they begin to live in an unholy state of +overcrowding. House speculators, Jewish and English, gamble with the +people's homes. Nearly every time a house changes hands the rent is +raised. The overcrowding is thus made worse than ever. The family living +in three rooms takes two. The family in two rooms pushes its furniture +closer together and goes into one. + +"Surely something should be done by the State to prevent this gambling +with poor people's rents. I would like to see Fair Rent Courts, where +the rents could be fixed in fair proportion to the value of the house. +Something of the kind has been done in Ireland; why not in England? + +"One thing is certain: the more crowded the home is, the more convenient +becomes the public-house, with its welcome light and deceptive +cheerfulness tempting the wretched. Of course, in theory it is easy to +argue that the poorer the man the more reason there is that he should +not place in the publican's till the money that ought to be spent on +food. I fear few of us would retain the moral courage to resist if we +had to eat, live, and sleep in the same room, sometimes in the company +of a corpse for several days." + +Property owners were not alone in their opposition to the Labour Mayor. +The publicans almost in a body were ranged against him. Nor was this +only because of his uncompromising attack on the drink interests as +such. It was mainly because he insisted on public-houses being rated on +the same principle as the grocer's shop or the working-man's +dwelling-house. + +For several years before his mayoralty he had been Chairman of the +Poplar Assessment Committee. He found that while small tradesmen and +householders were rated to the full market value of their shops and +dwellings, public-houses were very much under-assessed. He therefore +persuaded the Committee, in face of all that the publicans said and +threatened, to raise their assessments to the proper scale. The +publicans brought the whole strength of their organisation against him, +briefing counsel in appeals and subsidising opposition candidates at the +local elections. This kind of thing had no fears for Crooks. His policy +prevailed. + +Sorely though the problem of housing vexed him, he rarely came away from +a slum visit without some instance of quaint humour. On one occasion he +was called into a tenement when the woman told him to mind the hole in +the floor. + +"Why don't you ask the landlord to repair it?" he asked. + +"I did tell him about it," she answered in despair, "but he only said, +'What! the floor fallen in? Why, you must have been walking on it!'" + +He feels keenly that we are allowing the English working-class home to +be broken up by the gambling of speculators. By the time the gamblers +are finished, it will be found they have broken more than the poor man's +home. It will be found they have broken the English race. + +The cost to the municipality of preventing the existence of slums is +small, he maintains, compared with the cost to the Poor Law authority of +dealing with the human wreckage that slums create. He brought out this +fact in a striking way in a paper he read before the Central Poor Law +Conference at the Guildhall. His subject was "Pauperism and +Overcrowding." He estimated from a study of the official returns that +overcrowding and insanitation in the homes of the poor threw an +additional expenditure on the Poor Law every year in London of about +£134,000. He obtained this figure by estimating the number of people +forced into workhouse infirmaries or requiring the outside attendance of +the parish doctor owing to sickness solely caused by slumdom. + +As regards the inmates of public asylums, he showed that London was +involved in a still heavier yearly outlay. The number of such inmates +per thousand inhabitants of London varied from 1.9 in the healthy +districts to 10.1 in the overcrowded districts. The mean rate was 4.7. +The numbers above this mean rate were all found in the slum quarters. By +adding them up he arrived at a total of 2,700 people who were forced +into asylums as the results of ill-housing. It cost London £70,000 a +year to maintain this number in asylums. He further argued that an +additional sum of half a million sterling must be put down as +representing the cost of providing the necessary asylum accommodation +for these 2,700 inmates, the creation of our slums. + +"So if the public refuse to spend a few hundreds on improving the homes +and conditions of the poor, they are compelled to spend tens of +thousands after the slums have robbed their denizens of health and +reason. I know some of the poor do not live the cleanest and best lives. +They live down to their environment. And if we don't improve the +environment, then, apart from all the higher considerations, we are +penalised for our neglect by having to pay for their care and keep in +asylums and infirmaries. + +"We Labour men are sometimes accused of crying for the moon. No; we are +crying for the sun, and before we are finished we mean to get a little +more sun into the homes and hearts of the people." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE KING'S DINNER--AND OTHERS + + A Dinner to the Labour Mayor--The Mayoress--The King's Twenty-five + Thousand Guests--The Prince and Princess of Wales at + Poplar--Organising a Coronation Treat for Children--A Little Girl's + Thanks--At the Lord Mayor's Banquet in a Blue Serge Suit--The Mayor + of Poplar's Carriage at St. Paul's--A Testimonial on Quitting + Office. + + +Since the Labour Mayor was debarred by what he called his "chronic want +of wealth" from entertaining at his own expense, the Poplar Labour +League decided to entertain him at a dinner on their own part by way of +commemorating his election. Directly the project was talked about, +friends of his of all classes expressed a wish to attend. + +The dinner was given on January 11th, 1902. An old Chartist was in the +chair, Mr. Nathan Robinson, one of the Mayor's colleagues on the London +County Council. Lord Monkswell sat at the same table with stevedores and +gas-workers. Some of the Mayor's fellow-workers on the Asylums Board +fraternised with some of the Mayor's fellow-workers on the Labour +League. Nearly every trade and every church in Poplar were represented. +Dean Lawless of the Roman Catholics, the Rev. Mr. Nairn of the +Presbyterians, and Father Dolling of the Anglicans, sat at meat together +for the first time in their lives, drawn by the engaging personality of +the Labour Mayor. + +"I must just write a word of congratulation on our dinner of Saturday," +wrote Dolling from St. Saviour's Clergy House a couple of days later. "I +think it was just splendid. It is given to few men to gain the respect, +confidence, and esteem--I might say the affection--of friends and foes, +colleagues and opponents. God grant you strength and perseverance." + +The same spirit breathed through a letter from the Roman Catholic +Dean:--"God bless you and God speed you; and also your gentle wife, the +Mayoress." + +Mrs. Crooks, by the way, filled the office of Mayoress with a quiet +dignity and grace that won everyone's regard. As her husband stood +primarily as a working-man Mayor, she too as Mayoress made no pretence +at being other than a working-man's wife. She could be seen cleaning her +own doorstep as housewife in the morning and taking part in some public +function as Mayoress in the afternoon. + +The day the appointment was announced a journalist from an evening paper +went down to Poplar, hoping evidently to find the new Mayoress greatly +elated. He seemed surprised to find her so busy in the kitchen preparing +the children's dinner that she had barely time to grant him the +interview he sought. + +"Why should you think it would make any difference to us?" she asked +him, with natural simplicity. "Dad will just be the same plain and +cheery Will Crooks that he has always been. Of course, we'll do our best +as Mayor and Mayoress, but it will simply be as ordinary +working-people." + +With perfect self-possession and a modest, dignified bearing, which +remained the same when she was receiving the Prince and Princess of +Wales as when attending a conference of working women, Mrs. Crooks +carried out her duties as Mayoress of Poplar and won good opinions on +every hand. + +The unbounded pride of the poor in their Mayor was something to +remember. For the first time they became conscious of a personal tie +between themselves and a public office that previously had always seemed +far removed from them. They followed him admiringly. They hovered about +his door until the Mayoress despaired of keeping the step clean. If they +could obtain a momentary glimpse of him in his robes and chain, or +better still, pass a few words with him, it was something to boast of. +Speculation as to where he kept the mayoral chain reached the length of +one wild suggestion that he put it under his pillow at night. + +On the Sunday morning that the Mayor and Council went in state to the +parish church, nearly all Poplar turned out to honour the occasion. The +streets were lined with spectators as for a royal pageant. Work-people +alone would have filled the spacious church of All Saints four or five +times over could they have obtained admission. + +Even the children at the Poor Law school at Forest Gate, four miles +away, joined in the chorus of congratulations. + +"The boys and girls here have toasted your election as Mayor with cheers +that you might almost have heard at Poplar," wrote the superintendent. +"We all feel that in a way we have some share in your new dignity." + +Coronation year was a busy year for the London mayors. Crooks, who had a +great share in organising the King's Dinner to the Poor of the whole of +London, carried through the local arrangements in Poplar for feeding +twenty-five thousand without a hitch. It is notorious that the +deplorable muddle which marked the dinner arrangements in some of the +West End boroughs brought a Royal request to the mayors for an +explanation. + +The King had made known his intention to visit Poplar during the dinner. +It is known how his illness prevented him from leaving Buckingham Palace +on the memorable Saturday. The Prince and Princess of Wales, on behalf +of the King, attended the two or three centres he had arranged to visit. +Much to the consternation of metropolitan mayors in wealthier districts, +who were competing among themselves to secure the Royal visitors, the +Prince and Princess went to Poplar. + +The King's guests, we have seen, numbered twenty-five thousand in Poplar +alone. Of these, three thousand dined under a great awning in the Tunnel +Gardens, one of the open spaces Crooks had secured for the borough. The +Mayor passed among the motley throng like a benediction, receiving the +good-natured chaff of the men and their wives concerning his gold-laced +hat and scarlet robe. Only one of the three thousand, a steward, was +inclined to be cantankerous, though not in the Mayor's hearing. Pointing +to Crooks with a carving-knife he said to his companion:-- + +"I wonder he ain't ashamed of himself. Why couldn't we have had a +gentleman for mayor like Morton? I've been a sheriff's officer myself, +and I call it a disgrace to Poplar." + +He changed his tone when the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived and +were formally received by the Mayor and Mayoress, before going round the +tables, chatting and joking with Crooks. + +"Well, that takes the cake!" said the ex-sheriff's officer in amazement. +"There's the Prince of Wales talking to that fellow Crooks just as +though he was talking to a gentleman!" + +Later on the mayors of other London boroughs, chiefly out of their own +private purses, gave a special Coronation treat to the children. It +looked as though the children of Poplar, in the absence of a wealthy +mayor, would receive no such favours. + +Crooks met the need by a public appeal. Nearly £300 was subscribed, +chiefly by local employers and residents, enabling the Mayor to +entertain about eight thousand children. Some five thousand were divided +among four garden parties. Infants to the number of three thousand were +entertained at their own schools. All the crippled children in the +borough were taken in brakes to Epping Forest for the day. + +A couple of days later Crooks received through the post an unsigned +letter in a child's large round hand-writing. This is what it said:-- + + + All the little boys and girls in our school want to thank you for + the very nice party we had in honour of the King's Coronation. Some + of us had chocolate and very nice medals, and all the school had + cakes, lemonade, fruit, sweets, and a little medal. We had sports + in the playground and prizes for those who won the races. And we + all enjoyed it very much. + + Please accept the best thanks from the children of the Infants' + School, Wade Street. + + +He tells many amusing stories about the mayoralty. An ardent admirer +chased him over half of Poplar one night, following him from the Town +Hall to a chapel bazaar and from the bazaar to a Labour meeting, +guarding carefully under his arm a brown paper parcel. At last he saw +his chance of getting a private word with the Mayor. + +"Pardon me, Will, but I've just heard as how you've been asked to dine +at the Mansion House with all the other mayors. And I thought I'd like +to offer to lend you my ole dress suit. I couldn't abear the thought of +our Mayor not looking as good as the other blokes. 'Tain't much to speak +of, Will"--unfolding the parcel--"but perhaps your missus can touch it +up a bit." + +Crooks did not go to the City banquet on that occasion. It was not until +three years later that, on the invitation of Lord Mayor Pounds, he +attended the Ninth of November banquet at the Guildhall. Then he turned +up in his blue serge suit, which, in a way, made him one of the most +conspicuous figures present, since all the other guests were in Court +dress, uniform, or ordinary evening dress. A crowded company in the +reception room broke out into rounds of applause when the Labour man in +his plain attire walked down the room after being announced. He was +received in the most cordial way by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. + +He had an amusing experience in connection with a State service at St. +Paul's, to which he was invited as Mayor of Poplar. + +"I took train to the City, and was walking towards the Cathedral when a +cabman from my own district accosted me. + +"'I say, Mr. Crooks, let me give you a lift up to the Cathedral, so that +I can get a chance to see what's going.' + +"'All right,' said I; and I got into his cab, and was driven up with as +much dignity as the cab and horse could command. + +"The cabman then rode away and took up his position in waiting. The +service over, all the titled people crowded out, and there was an eager +demand for carriages. A stout policeman at the door called out the +names. + +"'The Duke of ----'s carriage.' 'The Mayor of Westminster's carriage.' +'Lady ----'s carriage.' And so on, as each swell conveyance rolled up. +Then, when the policeman learnt who I was, he yelled, 'The Mayor of +Poplar's carriage.' + +"Up drove my cabby with his growler. + +"'Take that thing away!' shouted the policeman. 'Make room for the +Mayor of Poplar's carriage.' + +"'Who yer getting at?' said cabby mischievously. 'This _is_ the Mayor of +Poplar's carriage.' + +"'All right, constable,' I said, as I went down the steps; 'that's my +cab.' + +"The policeman immediately began to apologise. Cabby said he wouldn't +have missed the fun for fifty quid." + +At the Coronation ceremony at the Abbey, to which all the London mayors +were invited, Crooks asked to be exempt from wearing Court dress. The +King sent him the exemption he asked for. + +"I attended the Abbey in my mayoral robes, and when the ceremony was +over I escaped from the crowd as quickly as I could, and was going to a +house near by to take off my robes. I found myself in Dean's Yard, which +was quiet and almost deserted, save for a few youngsters. + +"'I say, Tom, here's the King,' I heard one of them remark as I +approached. + +"'That ain't the King,' said a second youngster; 'that's the Dook of +Connort.' + +"'Garn! he ain't no royalty!' said another of the lads. And looking up +into my face, he asked, 'Who is yer, guv'nor?' + +"The question was more than I could stand, and I had to hurry away +laughing heartily." + +His year of office was pronounced by opponents and supporters to be a +triumphant success. From the very first the Labour Mayor proved that he +knew his duties. He had not been in office long before he obtained a +gift of £15,000 for the building of three additional public libraries +for Poplar. As an administrator he brought about many changes in the +Borough Council's methods of doing work, introducing into the municipal +life of Poplar something of the business-like methods of the L.C.C. + +How far his efforts succeeded is shown by the presentation made to him +and Mrs. Crooks at the close of the mayoral year. All parties on the +Borough Council combined in a gift of silver plate to the Mayoress, and +an illuminated address to the Mayor. + +"Had we only known what a good mayor you would have made, Mr. Crooks," +said one of the Conservative members, "we should never have opposed your +election." + +In thanking his colleagues on behalf of himself and his wife, Crooks +closed his speech with these words:--"We are as poor now as when we +began, but money cannot buy the satisfaction we possess. We have had +opportunities of being useful, and we have done the best we could with +our opportunities. As I have lived, so I hope to end my days--a servant +of the people." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE MAN WHO PAID OLD AGE PENSIONS + + Address to the National Committee on Old Age Pensions--Paying + Pensions through the Poor Law--A Walk from West to East--The Living + Pension and the Living Wage--Scientific Starvation under + Bumbledom--Defending the Living Pension at the L.G.B. + Inquiry--Poplar "a Shining Light." + + +With several other Labour leaders, Crooks was invited to join the +National Committee on Old Age Pensions that arose out of Mr. Charles +Booth's Conferences at Browning Hall. Mr. Richard Seddon, on his last +visit to England, described at one of the conferences the New Zealand +experiment. + +It was news to all the members of the Committee to hear Crooks unfold +the details of a scheme differing largely both from Mr. Booth's and Mr. +Seddon's. It was one that had been forced upon him after much reflection +and experience. + +"For two or three generations the working classes of this country have +been asked to vote for Doodle or Foodle and Old Age Pensions. The +elector of to-day, like his father and grandfather before him, is still +waiting for the fulfilment of the promise. It seems a vain hope. He, +too, like those before him, may die of old age still waiting, perhaps +ending his days in the workhouse. + +"Now I for one have got tired of waiting. I've commenced to pay +pensions already. I maintain that it is both lawful, and right to pay +pensions through the Poor Law. And I intend to go on paying them, and to +urge others to pay them, until Liberal and Conservative politicians +cease deluding the people by promises and establish a State system." + +He put forward his scheme before many other assemblies. To the argument +that this is only a system of "glorified out-relief," he makes answer, +"So are most pensions. At the risk of outraging the feelings of +economists, I hold that out-relief to the poor is no more degrading than +out-relief to the rich. We hear no talk of endangering the independence +of Cabinet Ministers or of Civil Servants when they are paid old age +pensions. + +"It is argued the poor have the workhouse provided for them. True; but +was it not Ruskin who pointed out that-- + + + The poor seem to have a prejudice against the workhouse which the + rich have not; for, of course, everyone who takes a pension from + Government goes into the workhouse on a grand scale; only the + workhouses for the rich do not involve the idea of work, and should + be called playhouses. But the poor like to die independently, it + appears. Perhaps, if we make the playhouses pretty and pleasant + enough, or give them their pensions at home, their minds might be + reconciled to the conditions. + + +"Look down as you may on these veterans of almost endless toil, but +don't forget they have made our country what it is. They have fought in +the industrial army for British supremacy in the commercial world and +obtained it. The least their country can do is to honour their old +age." + +The twofold character of Crooks's Poor Law policy has already appeared. +While he wants to make life in the workhouse less like life in prison, +he is also anxious that all worn-out old men and women, who have friends +to look after them, should be kept as far from the workhouse as +possible. + +"To do that means the granting of a pension. Call it outdoor relief if +you like, but at the same time call the Right Honourable Gerald +Balfour's and Lord Eversley's pensions outdoor relief. + +"At any rate, relief must be on a more generous scale than it usually is +if you are going to keep honourable old people out of the workhouse. +Failing that, out-relief has a tendency to perpetuate sweating. Mr. +Chaplin was not alone in deprecating inadequate out-relief. The Aged +Poor Commission, of which the King was a member, reporting in 1895, +called attention to the ill-effects of inadequate out-door grants and +suggested that the amounts be increased." + +In one of our many walks together about the streets of London, I +remember with what animation and depth of feeling he discussed this +subject. We began somewhere in Westminster with the intention of taking +a 'bus at Charing Cross. We found ourselves still walking eastward as we +passed Temple Bar, and then agreed to mount a 'bus at Ludgate Circus. We +were still on our feet as we went through St. Paul's Churchyard, so +decided to walk on to the Bank. But he forgot everything but the poor +again until we stopped our walk for a moment at Aldgate Church. Before a +'bus could arrive he was deep in the subject again, and almost +mechanically resumed walking. And so, on through Whitechapel and Stepney +and Limehouse into Poplar, he discoursed earnestly all the way on the +need for poor people's pensions. + +"Since I prefer to call out-relief a pension," he said, "I'm going to +see that it is a real pension, and not a dole. Inadequate out-relief +gives the sweater his opportunity. A sympathetic half-crown a week to a +worn-out old woman making shirts at ninepence the dozen has the effect +of dragging the struggling young widow with a family of children down to +accepting the same price. It sometimes takes a whole week to earn +one-and-six, so little wonder that the pinch of hunger sends many a +young widow to the devil. We may preach that the wages of sin is death, +but life isn't worth living at all to many people. An unknown hell has +no more terrors to them than an awful earth. + +"How would I stop this? I would stop it by making it impossible for the +old woman to be the unconscious instrument in encompassing the ruin of +the young woman. The old woman cannot live on a half-crown dole from the +Guardians; so to make a shilling or two more she undercuts the young +woman, and the sweater gets them both at reduced wages. Now if the old +woman deserves help at all, the help ought to be sufficient to keep her +without the necessity of falling into the sweater's net and dragging +others with her. The help must be a pension on which she can live. It +ought not to be a dole on which she starves." + +"Then you stand for the Living Pension as well as for the Living Wage?" + +"Precisely. But nearly all pension schemes, like most out-relief +systems, fix the allowance at a starvation figure. Sums of four or five +shillings won't save old people from hardship. For example, we have in +the Poplar workhouse old pensioners who received as much as six +shillings a week. They found they couldn't live outside on that, and so +had no alternative but the House. Only the other day there was another +six-shilling pensioner admitted to the House. He had struggled on +outside in his one room, selling and pawning his few things bit by bit +to eke out a living until he hadn't a stick left. So, although receiving +a pension of six shillings a week, he was forced into the workhouse." + +"Do you find the same thing happening in regard to old people assisted +by a friendly society or a trade union?" + +"Occasionally we do," answered Crooks. "The other day, for instance, a +superannuated trade unionist came before the Board, an old man blunt in +speech and not without independence. + +"'We understand you have a pension of six shillings a week,' says the +Chairman. + +"'That's all right, guv'nor. But how could you pay three shillings a +week out of that for the rent of our one room and then you and the wife +live on the rest?' + +"Take another case," resumed Crooks as we crossed Commercial Road. "A +fine-looking old woman enters the relief committee room, scrupulously +clean but poorly clad--a splendid specimen of a self-respecting +honourable old English woman. + +"'Now, my good woman, what can we do for you?' + +"'Well, sir, we've nothing left in the world, and I've come to see if +you can assist us?' + +"'Where's your husband?' + +"'He's ill in bed to-day. He's turned seventy-three. I'm seventy-five +myself. We've been living on his club money until now. He had six +months' full pay and six months' half-pay. That's as much as the club +allows. Now we've got nothing. He worked up to a little more than a year +ago; At seventy-three he can't work any longer.' + +"'We are very sorry,' says the Chairman, 'but the Poor Law practice is +to ask old people like you to come into the workhouse.' + +"'Anything but that, sir,' pleads the old lady tearfully. 'Both of us +over seventy; we should feel it so much now after working all our lives. +We can look after ourselves outside if you can give us a little help.' + +"Here, then, you have an honest, hard-working old couple still faced +with nothing but the workhouse, although they have been thrifty and done +everything which the political promoters of old-age pensions say ought +to be done. We made full inquiries, and for a time at least we thought +we would meet their wishes and let them live outside. We gave them six +shillings a week, and watched the case carefully. We saw that to eke out +existence, one by one their articles of furniture were going. Struggle +and strive as they did on their six shillings a week, they would have +been compelled to come into the House ultimately after a few further +stages of this system of scientific starvation if we hadn't found +outside help for them from another quarter." + +"You want, then, to base out-relief, like an old-age pension, on the +Living Wage principle?" + +"No other plan will work. No other plan is just," he said in his earnest +way. "The out-relief ought to be the pension. There are a lot of old +people receiving out-relief grants of three or four shillings. What is +the result? They toil and struggle and pine outside on an amount which +barely keeps body and soul together. They reach the workhouse at last, +as a rule, through the infirmary. That means they break down and have to +get medical orders for admission. It has been proved that thirty per +cent. of the people in Poor Law infirmaries are suffering ailments of +some kind or other due to want of proper nourishment. + +"That is what I mean when I say that the present Poor Law, as Bumbledom +would administer it, has nothing better to prescribe than scientific +starvation to old people who refuse the House. If one is foolish enough +to grow old without being artful enough to get rich, this world is the +wrong place to be in. + +"When old age comes to working people, both thrifty and unthrifty have +in most instances to turn to one of two things--precarious charity or +the Poor Law. Charity is a splendid exercise for many people, but no law +or custom exists compelling its practice. Now the Poor Law can be +enforced; only it has been used to terrorise the poor. The State sets up +a system to save old people from starvation, and then allows it to be +used to perpetuate starvation. + +"It won't do. So long as we have this system, I'm going to make not the +worst use of it, but the best use of it. And I believe in paying old-age +pensions through the Poor Law. The Poor Law ought not to degrade any +more than the Rich Law degrades under which Ministers and officers of +the State receive their pensions. Why do I say pay pensions through the +Poor Law? Because it is here. It is something to begin with at once. It +is the thin edge of the wedge of a system of universal old-age pensions, +free and adequate." + +Pending the adoption of some national system, he practises in Poplar the +policy he urges in public, that of paying a living pension through the +Poor Law. + +His policy received unexpected endorsement in a letter sent to him by an +old woman of eighty-three in a provincial town. She wrote to him in the +summer of 1906 at the time others were attacking him for his policy. + + + Your noble efforts on behalf of penniless old people like me I see + are being condemned in some of the papers. They can't know the + facts. I was managing very comfortably until the Liberator crash + took away my income. I started a small school and maintained myself + until I was seventy. After that I was no good for work. What I + should have done I don't know had it not been for a few friends + who, like yourself, believe in out-relief grants of sufficient + amount to keep a person living; and they persuaded the Guardians to + help me. I thank you for the fight you are making on behalf of + hundreds of helpless old people like myself. May the King soon call + you Sir Will Crooks. + + +He was examined at some length on his Living Pension policy at the Local +Government Board Inquiry into the Poplar Guardians' administration. He +admitted that old people over sixty receiving out-relief in Poplar were +costing the borough a sixpenny rate. + +"I say it is wicked to compel us," he stated in evidence, "to maintain +out of our local rates these old people who ought to be a charge--as I +have said hundreds of times, and repeat--for the whole metropolis or for +the nation rather than the locality. These industrial veterans are +thrust upon us in Poplar to maintain, notwithstanding that most of the +wealth they created has been enjoyed by people who live elsewhere, and +thus escape their share of the burden of maintaining their old workers +in old age. But because this unjust state of things exists, are we, with +a full sense of our responsibility, to tell these broken-down old +workers that we refuse to bear the burden ourselves, and that they must +do the best they can?" + +Then followed a rapid fire of questions and answers between himself and +the legal representative of the Poplar Municipal Alliance. + +_Q._--Is not that rather a dangerous doctrine? If local authorities +generally allowed their sympathies to carry them into acts not +contemplated by their constitution and their powers, what do you think +the general result would be? + +_A._--It _is_ contemplated by our constitution. We are here to relieve +distress. We are created for that purpose. + +_Q._--Do you say there is any machinery or power in the Poor Law which +authorises you to give allowances which are, in fact, old age pensions +to these people? + +_A._--It allows us to give out-door relief. You can call it what you +like.... We cannot refuse to give people help and assistance in old age. + +_Q._--I am not quarrelling for a moment with the proposition in the +abstract; I am quarrelling with your method of carrying it out in your +local machinery. + +_A._--Tell me what you would do--leave them to starve on the streets? + +_Q._--I suggest, is it not a dangerous doctrine for local authorities to +exceed their statutory powers? + +_A._--I assure you we have never done anything of the kind, and I +challenge you to prove it. + +_Q._--I ask you to show me any authority for a grant continuously of, +say, ten shillings a week to these old people? + +_A._--The Local Government Board issued an order dealing with the +matter. + +The Inspector:--You rely on Mr. Chaplin's circular? + +_A._--Yes, with regard to the treatment of the aged and deserving poor. +That circular reads:-- + + + It has been felt that persons who have habitually led decent and + deserving lives should, if they require relief in their old age, + receive different treatment from those whose previous habits and + character have been unsatisfactory, and who have failed to exercise + thrift in bringing up their families or otherwise. The Local + Government Board consider that aged and deserving persons should + not be urged to enter the workhouse at all unless there is some + cause which renders such a course necessary, such as infirmity of + mind or body, the absence of house accommodation, or of a suitable + person to care for them, or some similar cause; but think they + should be relieved by giving adequate outdoor relief. The Board are + happy to think it is commonly the practice of Boards of Guardians + to grant outdoor relief in such cases, but they are afraid that too + frequently such relief is not adequate in amount. They are desirous + of pressing upon the Boards of Guardians that such relief should, + when granted, be always adequate. + + +That is our authority for what we are doing.... For once in a way one +can say this Inquiry at least will be an enlightening one. + +_Q._--I hope it will, Mr. Crooks. + +_A._--I am sure it will. + +_Q._--To other places than Poplar? + +_A._--I hope so indeed. Poplar will be a shining light in the days to +come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT + + Labour Candidate for Woolwich--Lord Charles Beresford describes + Crooks as a Fair and Square Opponent--How the Election Fund was + Raised--Crooks recommended by John Burns as "Wise on Poor + Law"--Half-loaf and Whole Loaf--"Greatest By-election Victory of + Modern Times." + + +On the morning of February 19th, 1903, the Press stated that +considerable excitement was created in London on the previous day by the +announcement that Lord Charles Beresford had been offered the command of +the Channel squadron, and that he was about to resign his Parliamentary +seat in Woolwich. + +A few days later the genial admiral, from a public platform, was bidding +good-bye to his constituents and introducing to them the Conservative +candidate in the person of Mr. Geoffrey Drage. He took occasion to throw +out the warning that the opposition candidate was a strong man, whom he +knew to be a fair and square opponent. + +The reference was to Crooks. He had been adopted as Labour candidate +some few weeks previously. The invitation sent to him by the Woolwich +Labour Representation Association was a unanimous one. It surprised him +to receive it, since his association with Woolwich--on the other side +of the Thames two miles below Poplar--was a very slight one. When he +accepted the invitation it was believed there would be at least two +years to prepare for the General Election. The Labour candidate had +barely made his _début_ before the by-election was announced. + +Nobody but the little band of Labour men in the constituency believed in +Crooks's chances. The honours had fallen so easily hitherto to the +Conservatives. Lord Charles Beresford got the seat without a contest. +Sir Edwin Hughes before him was returned unopposed in 1900, while for +sixteen years previously he held the seat by majorities averaging more +than two thousand. The majority at the previous contest (which took +place in 1895) reached 2,805. + +Faced with this formidable figure, Crooks entered upon the contest with +all his usual zeal and good humour. There was first the difficulty of +the election expenses. The Labour Association quickly raised £200 from +among its members. It soon became evident, however, that before the +Labour Party could get in touch with the sixteen thousand voters on the +register and meet the returning officer's fees, a sum four or five times +as large as that would be needed. + +An appeal to the public was sent out by the Association, signed by S. H. +Grinling, M.A. (chairman), W. Barefoot (treasurer), and A. Hall +(secretary). The appeal was taken up by the _Daily News_, which opened a +Woolwich Election Fund. In about a fortnight that paper raised £1,000. +Contributions poured in from all classes, in every part of the kingdom, +accompanied by a chorus of well-wishes of which any public man might +indeed be proud. + +As from day to day the amounts were acknowledged in the _Daily News_, +one saw side by side with the modest two shillings from "Four workers" +£10 from Lord Portsmouth. Among the shillings and sixpences from working +women and girls appeared £5 from Lady Trevelyan, and a list of +subscriptions from Father Adderley, containing one "From a lady in lieu +of a new hat." The day "Two Chalfont lads" sent "a bob each," two sums +of £50 were acknowledged from the Right Hon. Sydney Buxton and Mr. +George Cadbury. The authors of "The Heart of the Empire," with a gift of +£25, shared the same spirit with "A Leominster working-man," who +forwarded three shillings, and "Four working men of Cirencester," who +sent four shillings between them. Dr. Clifford, the Rev. Stopford +Brooke, and Canon Scott Holland swelled the list, together with old +Labour Members of Parliament like Mr. T. Burt and Mr. H. Broadhurst. + +"A fellow worker of Mr. Crooks on the Asylums Board" was responsible for +£10, while colleagues of his on the London County Council contributed +about £100 between them. + +From Porchester Square came a substantial cheque with an unsigned note +written in the third person, to this effect:-- + + + The lady who sends the enclosed is nearly eighty-four, and + therefore cannot offer any help in person, but she most heartily + wishes Mr. Crooks success in his brave fight, as she has for a long + time past desired to see more Labour representatives in the House + of Commons. + + +The campaign went on merrily. The magnetic personality of the Labour +candidate drew to his side every Progressive section in the +constituency. It was not only that working-men threw themselves into the +fight with Herculean energy, but the temperance societies and the +churches of nearly every denomination became enthusiastic in his +support. + +They seemed to share the same estimate of the candidate as Mr. Keir +Hardie, who wrote to the electors describing Crooks as "a first-class +fighting man, and the best of good fellows, who would, if returned, +bring credit and honour to the constituency." + +Mr. John Burns went down to Woolwich to pay his tribute in person. With +the Labour candidate he addressed a mass meeting of over five thousand +electors in the Drill Hall, while crowds surged outside the doors, +delaying the tram traffic in the streets. Mr. Burns fell into glowing +periods in his eulogy of his old colleague:-- + + + Woolwich has in Mr. Crooks a man who not only carries a banner + which typifies a cause, but honours the army for which he works. By + his tolerance and sweet-tempered geniality, he has united the + Progressive forces of Woolwich as they have never been united + before. In securing what is possible to-day, Mr. Crooks never + forgets his ideal, but with a brotherly love and Christian charity + pursues the line of least resistance in a way which Labour has not + always shown. + + +Before sitting down, Mr. Burns took occasion to tell his five thousand +hearers that among other reasons why he was there to commend their +candidate was because Crooks was "wise on Poor Law." + +As the contest developed, Crooks found that much the same kind of thing +was being said against him as he had heard during his mayoralty in +Poplar. He told one of his public meetings:-- + +"Lovely ladies are already going about with lovely stories. As they +canvass for my opponent they tell the elector or his wife that the rates +will go up if a Labour candidate is elected. They say that because he is +a poor man he will have to be paid a salary of £500 a year out of the +rates. You tell these alluring ladies that Will Crooks has been in +public life for fourteen years, and has never had a penny from the rates +all the time. Tell them further that if he remains in public life +another fifty years, he will still never have a penny from the rates." + +Evidently those good ladies had not read his election address. There he +stated:-- + +"I have no desire to enter Parliament unless it be for the opportunities +it may afford me of continuing and extending my life's work. If I can +further the well-being of my country by assisting in the developing of a +nation of self-respecting men and women, whose children shall be +educated and physically and mentally fitted to face their +responsibilities and duties, I shall be content. + +"I therefore ask those of you who believe that the greatness of our +Empire rests on the happiness and prosperity of its people to consider +carefully the importance of the present election. + +"I am of opinion that a strong Labour Party in the House of Commons, +comprised of men who know the sufferings and share the aspirations of +all grades of workmen, is certain to exercise greater influence for good +than the academic student." + +As the day of the poll (March 11th) drew near, confident hopes of +victory began to be entertained by many outside the Labour Party. The +most telling election cry used by his supporters was innocently supplied +by the opposition candidate, Mr. Drage, a gentleman who at one time sat +with Crooks on the Asylums Board. At one of his public meetings early in +the campaign, Mr. Drage attempted to justify certain low wages paid in +the Woolwich Arsenal by remarking that half a loaf was better than no +bread. + +The Labour Party seized upon the words at once. "No half-loaf policy for +us; we want the whole loaf," was their immediate retort. + +From that moment the loaf became the feature of the fight. As Free Trade +and Protection were also to the front, the loaf had a double +significance. Crooks's supporters carried about the streets, on the end +of poles, loaves and half-loaves to represent the rival policies. "F. C. +G.," in one of his _Westminster Gazette_ cartoons, represented Crooks +standing firm and solid on the whole loaf, while his opponent balanced +himself with some temerity on a tottering half-loaf. + +Polling day dawned hopefully. Sunshine illumined the streets, while the +Labour candidate's carriages filled them. For once a Labour man +out-classed a Conservative in the number and style of his conveyances. +Friends of Crooks sent four-in-hands, motor cars, two-horse carriages, +traps, drags, vans, coal-carts, and donkey shays. The bakers of the +district had made thousands of miniature loaves about the size of +walnuts, which were in evidence everywhere. With stalks through them, +these loaves were sold in the streets and shops for a penny. Men wore +them in their buttonholes, boys in their caps, and women on their +dresses as a symbol of the Labour man's policy of the whole loaf. + +Victory had been hoped for, but victory such as that achieved was beyond +the wildest dreams. A Conservative majority of 2805 was turned by Crooks +into a Labour majority of 3229--"the greatest by-election victory of +modern times," as the _Speaker_ described it. The actual poll was:-- + + + Crooks (Labour) 8687 + Drage (Conservative) 5458 + ---- + Majority 3229 + + +[Illustration: WILL CROOKS ADDRESSING AN OPEN-AIR MEETING IN BERESFORD +SQUARE DURING THE WOOLWICH BYE-ELECTION IN 1903.] + +To the little company of supporters of both parties assembled in the +counting room of the Town Hall, Crooks turned after the declaration of +the result, and proposed the usual vote of thanks to the returning +officer. He added:-- + +"May I say, now that I am elected Member for Woolwich, that it will be +my aim and desire to serve all sections of the people of Woolwich, +including, of course, those who voted for Mr. Drage, as well as those +who voted for me. So far as Mr. Drage and myself are concerned, we shall +still retain the same friendship we have had for years." + +In seconding the vote, Mr. Drage congratulated Mr. Crooks on the great +victory he had won, and assured him that their friendship had not been +shaken by the campaign. + +A roar from the streets told that the news had reached the waiting +crowds. The new Member with his wife and a few friends passed out of the +Town Hall into the midst of the multitude. It was only by the aid of the +police, who opened a passage through the serried ranks, that Crooks was +able to reach the market square by the Arsenal gates, where it had been +arranged he should speak. + +It was then nigh on midnight, but when he mounted a cart he looked out +on a sea of faces in the glare of improvised torches and the street +lamps such as had never been witnessed at that hour in Woolwich before. + +Amid the exuberant joy of this multitude, it was in vain he tried to +speak. One sentence only, sharp and clear, broke in between the +cheering:-- + +"To-night Woolwich has sent a message of love and hope to Labour all +over the country." + +Not another word could be heard. Finally he gave up the attempt to +speak. The crowd was content to roll out its cheers. These increased in +volume when someone from the dark mass passed up a large bouquet of +flowers to Mrs. Crooks. + +So the curtain fell on a great fight. Mrs. Crooks, with her presentation +bouquet, the happiest woman in England. The crowd of workers, who felt +that a workers' battle had been won and a new hope arisen. And the new +Member of Parliament, very tired, cheery, undisturbed, desirous only +that the efforts of those who had assisted should be gratefully +acknowledged and no undue credit given to the vigorous and magnetic +personality who had focussed all the enthusiasm and driven it forward +into an unprecedented victory. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +ADVENT OF THE POLITICAL LABOUR PARTY + + Congratulations--A Letter from Bishop Talbot--Bar-parlour + Opinion--The Press on the Victory--The Birth of a Party--An + Opponent of the South African War. + + +Before Crooks went down to the House of Commons on the following day, he +had a busy morning opening telegrams to the number of two or three +hundred. + +Mr. John Burns, Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. David Shackleton, wired their +congratulations from the House of Commons. Other messages came from +trade unions and groups of working-men and working-women in various +parts of the country. Among them were telegrams from dockers at +Middlesbrough, coopers at Birmingham, postmen in London, engineers at +Newcastle, and cycle-makers at Coventry. + +These well-wishes from the ranks of Labour poured in simultaneously with +congratulations from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Hon. Maud +Stanley, Lord Tweedmouth, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, and many ministers of +religion. + +The late Sir Wilfrid Lawson, as was his wont dropped into verse. He +wired from Carlisle:-- + + + Hurrah! The future brighter looks; + We worry on by hooks and Crooks. + Oh, what a heavy, heavy blow + Last night you struck on Jingo Joe! + + +From the Bishop's House, Kennington, S.E., Dr. Talbot wrote:-- + + + I wish, as one to whom, as its Bishop, the affairs of Woolwich are + of great interest, to offer you my sincere good wishes for your + Parliamentary course. + + I am aware that by so writing at this moment I may risk + misunderstanding and seem to "worship the rising sun," and that you + may not care for words when there were not deeds in support. + + But I venture to risk this: and to trust you to take as genuine + what is genuinely said. I think you are the man to do this. + + I cannot but feel and I desire to express great satisfaction that + the needs and interests of Labour should have their representative + in one who has given such proof of desire to work and suffer for + the welfare of his fellow-men as you have done. + + All that I have heard of you commands my admiration and respect. It + will be a great pleasure to find there are occasions when we may + co-operate for the public welfare in Woolwich. + + Had the Bishop of Bloemfontein--Chandler--been in England, I might + have asked him for an introduction to you; as it is, may our common + friendship for him serve the purpose. + + You will come into Parliament with great power from your character + and experience, and as the representative by such a majority of + such a place. May you seek, and may God Almighty give you, the + wisdom and strength to use rightly this great position. + + +To turn from the Bishop to the bar-parlour will help us to preserve the +balance of things human. While Dr. Talbot was sending his blessing from +the Bishop's House, there came a chorus of good-wishes from nearly every +public-house in Woolwich. This was all the more remarkable because +Crooks had made the constituency hold its sides with laughter over the +innumerable stories he told during the campaign against beer-drinkers. +Those who laughed the loudest were the drinkers themselves, admitting +while so doing they had never heard a teetotaler put the case against +them so well before. + +It was a great delight to Crooks to learn that even the regular tipplers +were saying among themselves that "although that chap Crooks don't spare +us blokes, he's the man for our money." + +One conversation reported to him from a public-house a few days after +the election was certainly quaint and amusing. The narrator was the best +of mimics. He told how the subject of the election was introduced by "a +long thin man with a sheeny nose," who had just come in. + +"Well," began the new-comer, without any preliminary, "I've read 'The +Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,' but I tell you Woolwich licks +the lot." + +"What about Napoleon Bonaparty?" ventured one of the company. + +"Bonaparty? What did Bony do? Why, ten years after Wellington won +Waterloo things was back worse than they was before." + +"I thought Bill Adams won the battle of Waterloo," called out a voice +from the corner bench. + +"You shouldn't think; it might hurt yer head." + +"D'yer reckon as Crooks is bigger nor Bony was?" inquired the first +questioner. + +"Certainly I do," said the long thin one, severely. "What did Bony do? +Why, he made men fight for him. But what did Crooks do? Why, he taught +men to fight for themselves and their families. See? Bony built his +house on the sands, and the tide of humanity has washed it away. Now +Crooks taught us men to build our own house, and nothing can destroy it +while we stick together." + +To the new Member there came in due time congratulatory messages from +Europe, America, South Africa, and Australia. Children also sent him +their well-wishes--children are always writing to Crooks--one letter +being signed by a whole family of them in Plumstead with their ages set +out like stepping-stones after each signature. This "little household," +as they called themselves, told him how eagerly they had "watched the +papers," and how glad they were he had won. + +One only of the many letters that poured in sounded a despondent note. +It was signed by two desolate old women who lived together in Poplar. + +"We have just heard," they wrote, "you have been elected Member for +Woolwich. Does this mean you are going to leave Poplar? If so, please +give up Parliament, for who have we to look to for help if you go away?" + +Some of his supporters were anxious to serve him in a practical way. +The workers at a tailoring establishment in Woolwich asked him to allow +them to make him a suit of clothes "as a thank-offering for the splendid +victory." When a fortnight later they sent the suit it was with an +expression of "regret that it is not like our esteem--warranted not to +wear out." + +The Press all over the country was profoundly impressed by the result. +The Liberal papers for the most part were too eager to hail it as a blow +at the Conservative Government to see its true significance. The +Conservative papers, in attempting to lessen its effect on their own +party, got nearer to the real meaning that lay behind the victory. + +As the _Times_ put it:-- + + + The result ... means that the questions bound up with the existence + of an organised Labour Party which have been hitherto regarded as + chimerical are coming to the front in practical politics. + + +The _Pall Mall Gazette_ also got near the mark:-- + + + Mr. Crooks's return is first and most obviously an indication of + the growing strength of the idea of an organised Labour Party, such + as under the name of Socialism is so potent a force in Continental + politics. + + +For Woolwich was the first manifestation to the public of the birth of +the political Labour Party. + +The election came within a few weeks of the famous Newcastle conference +of the Labour Representation Committee, whose delegates represented over +a million organised workmen in the country. That was the conference +which decided on the absolute independence of the Labour Party. Almost +the first duty of its secretary, Mr. J. R. Macdonald, on his return from +Newcastle was to issue an appeal "to everyone in London interested in +the formation of a Labour Party in the House of Commons to go to +Woolwich to help Mr. Crooks." + +The best explanation of the striking Labour triumph was given by Crooks +himself in the _Daily News_:-- + +"The workman is learning after years of unfulfilled pledges and broken +promises of the usual party stamp that before he can get anything like +justice he must transfer his faith from 'gentlemen' candidates to Labour +candidates. The workman has seen how the 'gentlemen' of England have +treated him in the last few years--taxed his bread, his sugar, his tea; +tampered with his children's education, attacked his trade unions, made +light of the unemployed problem, and shirked old-age pensions. + +"What the workman has done in Woolwich, you will find he will do in +other towns." + +His prophecy was fulfilled within three years. The General Election of +1906 saw Labour men for the first time returned for two or three dozen +constituencies, some with the greatest majorities known to political +history. As the amazing results poured in from day to day, with their +three and five and even six thousand majorities, a prominent public man +declared at the time:--"This is the Party that was born at Woolwich." + +One significant phase of the Woolwich by-election was emphasised by the +_Speaker_. Here, in a district where the majority of workers earn their +daily bread in the Government Arsenal, a man was elected who had +bitterly opposed the South African war, which from the material +standpoint had brought a period of prosperity to Woolwich without +parallel. The _Speaker_ went on to say:-- + + + Mr. Crooks was among the sturdiest and most outspoken opponents of + the war and its objects, and a man who survived that ordeal may be + trusted to stand to his colours in the next emergency. He was a + conspicuous member of what was called the "Pro-Boer" party. He was + one of the orators at the famous Trafalgar Square meeting that the + jingoes broke up. + + +In the pages of the same weekly journal the new member for Woolwich +wrote an article on the Labour Party. "The Labour Party," he said, "is +quite a natural result of the failure of rich people legislating for the +poor. The one hope of the workman is a strong Labour Party.... The +Labour Member has nothing but his service to give in return for support. +Perhaps he is dependent on his fellows for his maintenance until Payment +of Members is secured. The continued selection of rich men for +working-class constituencies is a perversion of representation, and +quite as absurd as it would be to attempt to run a Labour candidate for +the aristocratic West-End division of St. George's, Hanover Square." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE LIVING WAGE FOR MEN AND WOMEN + + Crooks's Maiden Speech--A Welcome from the Treasury Bench--Demand + for a Fair Wage in Government Workshops--Advocating the Payment of + Members and the Enfranchisement of Women--Crooks's Hold upon the + House. + + +A fortnight after his election to Parliament, Crooks made his maiden +speech. He called attention to the fact that the Government was allowing +portions of the national workshops at Woolwich Arsenal to remain idle +while it was giving work that could be done in them to outside +contractors. + +"I do not know how it appears to other hon. members," he told the House, +"but it seems to me that every department of a Government which claims +to be a business Government ought to have the right to make the first +use of all the resources which the nation has placed at its disposal +before considering outside contractors.... The contractors have fairly +good representation in this House, and many things are to be said in +their favour; but the Government has no right to use the money of the +nation in building machinery and then to allow it to stand idle in the +interests of outside firms, no matter who they are or what influence +they may have." + +In the opening words of his reply, the Minister for War (Mr. Brodrick) +said he was sure that whatever their opinion as to the views of the hon. +member (Mr. Crooks), all sections of the House would welcome his +appearance in debate on a subject on which he was so fully informed. + +The same day Crooks called the attention of the House to the low wages +paid to labourers in the national workshops. + +"I maintain that it is not cheap for the Government to pay men 21s. per +week, although other employers may be able to get them for that amount. +If the men had more money they would be able to get better house +accommodation, and the ratepayers would be saved the substantial sums +now paid under the Poor Law for medical orders for people brought up in +over-crowded homes. The President of the Local Government Board knows +that in consequence of over-crowding in London, hundreds of such medical +orders go to people living under unhealthy conditions, impossible to +avoid when the family depends on this weekly wage of 21s. paid to +Government employees. Such earnings are barely sufficient for food, let +alone shelter. An order has been issued by the Local Government Board +instructing Guardians to feed the inmates of workhouses properly. The +minimum scale laid down for persons in workhouses is of a character that +no man with a family can approach if he is only earning 21s. a week. +What I urge is that the men in the employment of the State should have +a Local Government Board existence, if nothing else--that the men in the +national workshops should no longer have to live on a lower food scale +than that prescribed for workhouses." + +Before he had been in Parliament a month, he got an opportunity to +introduce a proposal in favour of the payment of members. The House was +well filled when he rose to move the following motion:-- + + + That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable and expedient + that, in order to give constituencies a full and free choice in the + selection of Parliamentary candidates, the charges now made by the + returning officer to the candidates should be chargeable to public + funds, and that all members of the House of Commons should receive + from the State a reasonable stipend during their Parliamentary + life. + + +He addressed the House at some length on this motion. Here is a summary +of his speech:-- + + + There was a good deal of talk about there being absolute equality + in this country, but there was, as every member knew, only one way + of getting into the House, and that was by spending substantial + sums of money. A considerable sum of money was spent in securing + his election, but he did not have to find a farthing of it. The + cash was subscribed openly and freely. But he had often heard it + asked when a poor man was standing: "Who is finding your money?" + + Only the other day he saw the following advertisement in the + _Yorkshire Post_:-- + + M.P.--A gentleman, thirty, holding a responsible + position in London, desirous of entering Parliament, + wishes to meet with an affectionate and wealthy lady, + view matrimony. Genuine. Highest credentials. + + It might be suggested that men would go into the House of Commons + simply to make a living out of it. But was there not in the present + House more than one member who made a pretty good thing out of the + privilege of being able to attach the magic letters "M.P." to their + names? However that might be, he ventured to assert that the + administrative capacity of this country had never yet been properly + tapped. + + It was said a man needed to be trained for political life. Yes, but + where? Was it at the University? Was it by taking a double first at + Oxford or Cambridge that he would turn out a great law-maker, or + was it by constant contact with humanity? He had seen in the Press + an observation to the effect that it was all very well for Labour + to have its representatives in Parliament, but what did they know + of those great historic and important questions which so vitally + affected the interests and welfare of the nation? His answer to + that was that it was infinitely more important to the average + industrial worker of this country that the conditions of life + should be bettered, and that an opportunity should be given for men + to enter the House who knew what he wanted. + + He was one of those who believed that practical knowledge of + working men would prove exceedingly helpful in the deliberations of + the House. There were too many academically-trained men and too few + practical men engaged in the government of the country. He had been + in touch with working-men for years and years; he had sat with them + on administrative bodies, and his experience was that one touch of + nature was worth infinitely more than all the academic training + Oxford or Cambridge could give. + + +The speech was listened to with sympathetic interest, frequently +producing laughter and cheers. The motion, however, was talked out by +the Government's supporters. + +In his election address Crooks had shown that he wanted women to have +the vote. It was with much satisfaction, therefore, that he introduced +the Women's Enfranchisement Bill prepared by the Independent Labour +Party. The second reading not having been reached when the Session +closed, the Bill fell through. Similar measures which have his support +have been introduced since. He hopes they will be brought forward +regularly until a woman's right to the franchise is recognised. + +He gave in the _Review of Reviews_ his reasons for introducing the Bill +that bore his name:-- + +"It is because in all my public work I aim at making the people +self-reliant, able to think and act for themselves, that I want women to +have the power and the responsibility that the possession of the vote +gives. It is by this rather than by any consideration of how their votes +would be used that I ask for woman's suffrage. At the same time I +believe that the cause of progress has nothing to fear from this reform. +We entrust to women as teachers and as mothers the all-important work of +educating the future citizens. How absurd, then, to hesitate to give to +women the rights of a citizen. As regards the women of the +working-class, I point out constantly that all the many social questions +that are pressing for settlement affect these women as much as, if not +more than, they affect their husbands. We must give women a share in +settling such questions." + +He went on, in the course of further remarks in the same magazine, to +lay great stress on the importance of organisation and of agitation in +order to secure the vote for women. There should be local workers in +every constituency. Every member of the House of Commons should have +strong pressure brought to bear upon him. No woman, he urged, should +work for any candidate who is not a supporter of women's franchise. If +the candidate put forward by her own political party cannot support +this, she should work for the candidate who can, no matter to what party +he belonged. + +"If women are in earnest on this question," he added, "they must prove +it by putting principle before party, and making the enfranchisement of +their sex the first object of all their political work." + +On political platforms he often mentioned an incident that arose in +connection with a protest he made against the low wages paid to women in +the Government's Victualling Yard at Deptford. + +"It's starvation," he told one of the responsible officials, "to pay +widows with families 14s. a week." + +"But it's constant," said the amazed official. + +"So, you see," Crooks adds in telling the incident, "that Government +officials think starvation's all right so long as it's constant. Do you +think this system of constant starvation would be tolerated for a day if +women had the vote?" + +Before Mr. Balfour's Government came to an end, Crooks had become one of +the popular speakers of the House. He brought into Parliament a lively +conversational style rarely found in that assembly. His quaint +witticisms, his telling illustrations from the every-day life of the +people, together with his downright sincerity, his tolerance and +restraint, won him the good-will of both sides of the House. Whether +pleading for underfed school children, for the unemployed, or speaking +against the taxation of the people's food, he was generally admitted to +be bright and forceful. He never spoke without bringing a new point of +view to the debate. "Jehu Junior," writing in _Vanity Fair_, said of +him:-- + + + His tact and common-sense served him as well in the House as they + had done in settling Labour disputes at Poplar. By never debating + any subject but those on which he has special knowledge, and by his + perfect good temper and modesty, he became one of the men whose + politics arouse no personal animosity on the "other side." + + +Of him and the other Labour men in that Parliament--the small band of +stalwarts who were reinforced so strongly at the General Election of +1906--Mr. John Morley, addressing his own constituents at Montrose, +said:-- + + + Will anybody, who has watched the life of the House of Commons, say + that in moderation of demeanour, in decency of manners, in + self-respect, in freedom from swagger and assumption, these men + have shown themselves inferior to men sitting by their side who + have had all the opportunities of wealth, education, and culture? + If I were leaving the House of Commons to-morrow, and were called + upon to adjudicate a prize, I would impartially give the prize for + good manners, for self-respect, for moderation of statement, for + respect for the audience they addressed in the House of Commons, to + the dozen Labour men whom we have had the pleasure of having among + us rather than to a dozen gentlemen I could name if I liked. + + +From the other side of the House came the testimony of Sir John Gorst. +The ex-Conservative Minister brought out his book, "The Children of the +Nation"--wherein he argues that it is the duty of the State to see that +the nation's children are well fed, well housed, and well clothed--with +the following dedication:--"To the Labour Members of the House of +Commons in token of my belief that they are animated by a genuine desire +to ameliorate the condition of the people." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +FREE TRADE IN THE NAME OF THE POOR + + M.P.'s Investments and their Votes--A Lecture from a Lady of + Title--Urged to give up some of his Public Work--Defending Free + Trade throughout the Country--Ridiculing Tariff Reform at + Birmingham--A Brush with Mr. Chamberlain--Real "Little Englanders." + + +"Show me where a man has his money invested and I will tell you how he +will vote." + +Such was Crooks's way of summing up the House of Commons before he had +been a Member many months. Someone had expressed surprise to him that +both Liberal and Conservative Members should have combined to support +the proposed Electric Trust for London when the L.C.C. was promoting a +municipal scheme. + +"The first lesson one learns in Parliament," he replied, "is that the +two great parties generally forget their political differences when the +just claims of the people threaten their pockets." + +It amused him to find that many Members preferred the smoking room and +the Terrace to the House. It was on the Terrace he overheard a +Conservative Member ask a Liberal:-- + +"Are you in favour of this Bill?" + +"I think I am," came the halting reply. + +"That's all right, then; I'm against it. We needn't go up to +vote--we'll pair." + +And Crooks left those British legislators smoking on the Terrace, since +it was too much trouble to them to go inside and vote. + +It was on the Terrace one afternoon that a party of titled ladies, +taking tea, sought his acquaintance. They immediately began to lecture +him on his duty to the poor. + +"I think you are supremely stupid to bother about the poor as you do, +Mr. Crooks," said one of the dames from behind her fan. "I am told they +are always coming to your house to consult you about their troubles. If +they came to my house I should order them away." + +"I'm sure you would, madam." + +"And if those dreadful people were only like me they wouldn't listen to +what you tell them." + +"I'm sure they wouldn't, madam." + +"You needn't be sarcastic, Mr. Crooks. I would send them to the Poor Law +officers or the Charity Organisation people." + +And then, as another honourable member joined the party, the good lady +turned to him: + +"I'm just teaching Mr. Crooks his place." + +"Indeed," said the Labour man, "I thought I was teaching you yours." + +It was more agreeable to him when accosted by one of the policemen on +duty in the House. + +"Well, Mr. Crooks, how's Poplar?" + +"You know Poplar?" + +"Yes, I used to be stationed that way. I well remember your Dock Gate +meetings. I liked the Poplar people better than the West Enders. You +take it from me, Mr. Crooks, there's far more respect for law and order +in Poplar than there is in the West End." + +He still kept his College by the Dock Gates going, notwithstanding his +election to Parliament. Indeed, he was still as much the servant of +Poplar as of Woolwich. + +Parliament, of course, added enormously to his work. Friends urged him +to give up several of his public posts. He was advised to retire from +the Asylums Board, and doubtless would have done so but for a powerful +appeal sent to him not to desert the Board's children. He wanted to +resign from the Poplar Board of Guardians, of which he had then been +Chairman for half a dozen successive years; but all parties in the +borough pleaded with him to remain, and the Conservatives and Liberals +withdrew their candidates in his ward in order that he might be returned +unopposed. He was showered with requests to remain for the sake of the +poor. At last he agreed, on the understanding that he should give less +time to the work. This was perhaps an unwise decision, for owing to the +slackening of his personal vigilance the administration was besmirched +by irregularities which of course laid the Chairman's Poor Law policy +open to the attacks of his opponents. + +The only post he gave up was that on the Poplar Borough Council. The +Labour League would not hear of his resigning from the London County +Council, and within a year of his election to Parliament, Poplar +re-elected him to the L.C.C. with a majority of over 1,600. + +The demands made upon him to address public meetings in other parts of +the country became terrific after Woolwich. I found him one afternoon +turning over the pages of his engagement book with a worried look. + +"I'm just wondering whether I can do it," he said. "I find I'm booked to +speak at thirteen different meetings at different places within the next +fortnight, and I've just got a pressing appeal to speak at another +within the same time." + +The appeals came from the churches, from temperance societies, from +Adult Sunday Schools, from P.S.A.'s, as well as from Labour +organisations. + +The Labour Party, which was then organising for its great political +triumph of 1906, had his first consideration always. He addressed Labour +meetings all over the country, nearly always with an audience of three +or four thousand. He was at Glasgow, Birmingham, Leicester, Plymouth, +Liverpool, Exeter, Darlington, Ipswich, Chatham, Newcastle, Blackburn, +Barnard Castle, Huddersfield, Edinburgh, Cardiff, all within a few +months. + +Everywhere he turned Mr. Chamberlain's tariff proposals into ridicule. +He made his great Birmingham audience laugh the loudest. He told that +and other audiences:-- + + + Mr. Chamberlain has shown you two loaves, the Free Trade loaf and + the Protection loaf. + + "There's hardly any difference between them," he tells you. "Why + make all this fuss?" + + Let him take the two loaves down a Birmingham court and ask a poor + woman with children to cut them up. She'll soon tell him the + difference between the solid Free Trade loaf and the spongy + Protectionist loaf. You trust the mother of a family to know the + difference between good bread and blown-out pastry. + + "Ah, but we must make sacrifices in the interest of the Empire," + says Mr. Chamberlain. + + Let him come down our way and talk like that in Poplar. I tried it + the other day. + + "Times is awful bad just now, Mr. Crooks," said one of a party of + women who stopped me on my way to the House of Commons. + + "Yes," I said, "but don't you know the new kind of comfort the + Imperialists have found for you? They say you belong to an Empire + on which the sun never sets. It's so filling, isn't it, when you're + hungry?" + + "An Empire on which the sun never sets!" cried one of the women, + pointing towards her slum tenement. "What's the good of talking to + us like that? Why, the sun never rises on our court!" + + "That may be," I say, "but you've got to pay more for your bread + and your meat, all in the interests of the Empire. You've got to + learn to make sacrifices for the Empire." + + "Look here, Will," says the eldest among them; "I've known you + since you was in petticoats, and you've never deceived me yet. + Wot's the use of talking to us about sacrifices when we can't make + both ends meet as it is?" + + "Both ends meet!" exclaimed one of the women. "We think we are + lucky if we can get one end meat and the other end bread." + + "Wot's it all about, Mr. Crooks?" asked another. "Here's bread + gone up a ha'penny a loaf. And sugar and tea's gone up. And the + children say they don't get so many sweets for a farthing now as + they used to." + + "And," I added, "meat's likely to go up too--all in the interests + of the Empire. Twopence a pound more for Colonial mutton." + + "What!" they cried in a body. "Twopence more for mutton!" + + "Haven't you heard?" I went on. "The Tariff Reformers have a great + scheme to bind the Empire together by letting the Colonies charge + us more for our food. If you don't agree with them they'll call you + little Englanders." + + "That's just it," said one of the women. "If I'm to pay another + twopence a pound for meat my children will soon be Little + Englanders!" + + +Then turning suddenly from his anecdotal style, Crooks would go on to +ask his audience how a worthy Imperial race was to be built up on a lack +of food? + + + The Empire begins in the workman's kitchen. The imposition of new + duties on food imports, though no more than a penny or twopence, + means to many a poor housewife the difference between having and + going without. + + I know one large family where the recent addition of a half-penny + on the loaf robbed the children of a slice of bread a day. Do you + know what that means? Have you ever lived in a family where the + slices have to be counted, and where every child could eat twice as + much as its allowance? I belonged to such a family as a child, and + when a clergyman came round once and found my mother crying over an + empty cupboard, he said: + + "Ah, well; God sends the bread for all the mouths." + + "That's all very fine," my mother said; "but He seems to send the + mouths to our house and the bread to yours." + + +The policy of Preference came in for his banter equally with that of +Protection. Under any scheme of Preference, the relation of this +country, with its large imports, to our Colonies, which take +comparatively few of our exports, he used to say reminded him of a +boxing-match between a thin man and a fat man. After the first round or +two the fat man stops and says: + +"This ain't fair; you've got more to strike at than I have." + +"Very well, then," says the thin man, "let's chalk my size out on your +body, and all blows outside the chalk mark don't count." + +Mr. Chamberlain seems to have heard how Crooks was riddling with +ridicule his Protection and Preference policies up and down the country. +At any rate, the ex-Minister began his favourite policy of Retaliation. +At some of his public meetings he supported his argument by representing +Crooks as having said at Leith that the poor of this country were worse +off than the poor of any other country. + +As soon as Crooks heard of this he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain:-- + + + SIR,--I do not for a moment think you deliberately misquoted the + words I used at Leith, but whoever sent you the information is + absolutely without excuse for the blunder. For what I said I have + said in twenty different parts of the kingdom to tens of thousands + of our fellow-countrymen--viz. "that even if, as Mr. Chamberlain + suggests, the Colonies do desire Preference, it is no reason why + the poor of Great Britain should pay more for their bread to help + those Colonies which have no poor, or certainly no poverty + compared with the poverty we have in this country." + + This, as you will note, makes a very great difference in the + reading of your quotation of what I really did say. + + I am, yours truly, + + WILL CROOKS. + + +In reply Mr. Chamberlain sent a tardy apology, thus:-- + + + SIR,--I have your letter of December 17th, and in reply I beg to + say that the statement which you say you have repeatedly used is in + no sense inconsistent with the statement which you were reported to + have made at Leith, and which referred not to the Colonies but to + foreign countries. Unfortunately, I have only the extract which was + sent to me and not the whole speech, and of course if you deny + having used the words which I quoted I most readily accept your + contradiction. + + I am, yours faithfully, + + JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. + + +A fallacy very popular with Protectionists was neatly dealt with by +Crooks at a meeting of the London County Council. One of the Moderate +members asked whether an assurance could be given that certain tramway +materials would be of British manufacture. + +The reply was that since the Council worked under Free Trade conditions, +no such assurance could be given. + +"Will not trade union conditions be observed?" inquired another Moderate +member. + +"Yes." + +"Do you call that acting on a Free Trade basis?" + +"Some members," interposed Crooks, "seem to identify trade union +conditions with Protection." + +"Quite right too," shouted the Moderate. + +"Yes," came Crooks's retort; "but the one kind of Protection is the +protection of the workers against the sweater, and the other kind is the +protection of the sweater against the workers." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +PREPARING FOR THE UNEMPLOYED ACT + + Principles for dealing with Unemployed--Twenty-four Per Cent. of + Poplar's Wage-earners out of Work--Folly of Stone-breaking and + Oakum-picking--Public Warning by Crooks and Canon Barnett--How + Crooks used a Gift of £1,000. + + +Crooks's three years in Mr. Balfour's Parliament had a remarkable +triumph in the Unemployed Act. No one needs reminding that the measure +was introduced by the Government; but as the sequel will show, it is +doubtful whether it would have seen the light, and it is certain it +would never have been passed but for his untiring advocacy. + +This was so far recognised at the time that one of the bitterest +opponents of the measure, Sir William Chance, a stern disciple of the +Charity Organisation Society, described it as "a Poplar Bill framed to +meet Poplar's needs." + +So it was. For Poplar's needs just then were the needs of the +unemployed. And the unemployed's needs were the same all the country +over. The Bill was introduced about the time the Poplar Guardians took a +census of the unemployed in typical working-class streets in the +district, revealing over twenty-four per cent. of the wage-earners out +of work. + +The Bill was based on the principle which had guided Crooks in all his +dealings with the unemployed. The only sound way to help an unemployed +man, he maintains, is by work rather than by relief. The condition he +imposes on the provision of such work is that it must be useful. He will +have nothing to do with "works" provided only as "relief." Work that is +not useful can never relieve. + +His agitation in Parliament put the crown on fifteen years of laborious +striving to make the State admit a duty to its unemployed citizens. + +As far back as September, 1893, he was appealing in the _Daily +Chronicle_ to the Board of Trade and the Thames Conservancy to help in +allaying the threatened distress of the coming winter by reclaiming +foreshores. His appeal was taken up at the time by other papers, which +complimented him upon the practical common-sense character of his +proposals. + +Somewhere in the archives of the Board of Trade that scheme of his +doubtless lies buried to this day. He is still confident it will be +carried out some time. He is fond of saying that it takes Parliament +seven years to grasp a new idea and seven more to carry it out. + +Compressed into a few lines in his own words, the story of his effort +runs in this way:--"It was in the November of 1893 that in consequence +of what I had been saying at public meetings and in the Press, I was +urged to lay the scheme before Mr. Mundella, who was President of the +Board of Trade at the time. There was great suffering that winter, and +the Local Government Board advised all the local authorities to put in +hand as much public work as possible. Well and good, I said, but let the +Government do the same. I pointed out that under the Foreshores Act of +1866 the Board of Trade had power to reclaim land. Again, under an Act +of 1857 the Thames Conservancy could reclaim miles of foreshore in and +below London. I showed that this was just the kind of work to absorb +unskilled labour, and supplied examples of the success of reclaiming +land on the banks of the Forth and the Tay and on the Lincolnshire +coast." + +As his Poor Law duties crowded heavily upon him he had opportunities as +a Guardian of carrying out in his own district his guiding principle in +regard to the provision of useful work. He found the usual "task" work +going on in the workhouse. He saw its degrading uselessness and +abolished it. In place of oakum-picking and stone-breaking he +substituted useful and profitable work like clothes-making, laundry +work, bread-baking, wood-chopping, painting, and cleaning. + +For every ton of oakum picked in the workhouse the ratepayers were +involved in an expenditure of £10. The Guardians were often glad to get +rid of the oakum when picked by returning it free to the firm supplying +it. At the best they got 2s. 6d. per ton for it. + +To a man like Crooks, holding firmly to Ruskin's theory that the +employment of persons on a useless business cannot relieve ultimate +distress, all work of that kind was wicked as well as wasteful. + +He told his own Board so very plainly in 1895. It was a bitter winter. +River and docks were frozen for weeks, closing the door against work to +half the men in Poplar. The Guardians were besieged by starving +families. Well-nigh in despair the Board arranged that the relieving +officers should send the out-of-work men to break stones at three +stoneyards specially opened in different parts of the district. + +"It's a mistake," he argued. "You are putting men to break stones which +nobody wants. You are wasting men and money by inventing work which is +utterly useless. Plenty of useful work can be found with care and +organisation." + +After six disastrous weeks the Guardians admitted he was right. Only the +worst class of men went into the stoneyards. He showed that this work of +breaking stones was costing £3 2s. 6d. per yard, whereas the work could +be done outside at trade union rate of wages for 2s. 6d. per yard. + +When the stoneyards were closed and it became known to the loafers +thriving under the system that Crooks was responsible, they threatened +his life. These men knew they had been sent to the stoneyard simply to +justify the Guardians in paying them wages. They grumbled and idled most +of the time. Self-respecting men out of work refused to mix with them. + +Some time later Crooks joined with Canon Barnett, George Lansbury, and +others in a letter to the _Times_ and the Press generally, uttering a +note of warning to municipal authorities against "made work" for the +unemployed. This joint letter stated:-- + + + Made work tends to be regarded as a source of relief rather than of + earnings. It is often as tempting to the idler as it is repugnant + to the self-respecting workman.... + + We would therefore submit that the municipalities which may decide + to take part in meeting present needs could best do so by leaving + distinctively "relief" duties to Guardians and other agencies; by + starting and carrying on, as good employers, works which have a + definite public advantage, and by requiring of each worker the best + work during a continuous period under thorough supervision. + + +The most successful scheme for relieving distress with which Crooks was +associated in the severe winters of the early 'nineties was one on which +a dozen years later the Unemployed Act was based. It represented +co-operation between a committee of citizens and the local authorities. + +The Committee was formed in the first instance as a relief committee by +the Rector of Poplar. When Crooks joined at the rector's request and +found himself sitting among none but parsons, representing every +denomination in the district, he told them their first duty was to widen +their ranks. + +"You will never do anything so long as your committee is confined to +gentlemen like these," he told the clerical chairman. "What you need is +to get hold of trade union secretaries and the secretaries of the +friendly and temperance societies and members of working men's clubs. +They will soon discriminate between the waster and the deserving man. +The waster is always boasting that parsons are so easily deceived." + +Besides the Labour men, representatives of other classes were invited to +join the committee. The Bishop of London and Canon Scott Holland backed +up the Committee's appeal to the public for funds, and about £5,000 was +raised to meet Poplar's needs. + +It was amusing to see how often the working men members had to undeceive +the parsons. One good vicar tearfully brought forward several cases +which the Labour men proved had been manufactured for him by +professional cadgers. + +"I have never known a distress committee to equal that one," was +Crooks's verdict. + +It taught him that a shilling given to an unemployed man for work done +was better than a sovereign given simply as charity. + +Ever since he has steadily worked for the unemployed under that +conviction. He changed that committee from a relief committee into a +committee for providing work. + +In its second winter he received an offer for the unemployed of £1,000 +from Mr. A. F. Hills, of the Thames Ironworks, on condition that he +should raise a similar sum. He took the offer at once to the Poplar +District Board, the precursor of the Borough Council. They agreed to +vote another £1,000, and to put men to work on repaving roads and +lime-whiting courts and alleys. So far was the local authority +satisfied with the way the work was done that, after spending Mr. +Hills's £1,000 in wages and the second £1,000 they themselves had +promised, they voted another £3,000 during the prevalence of the +distress. + +Meanwhile, Crooks had brought about co-operation between the rector's +Distress Committee and the local authority. The Committee went on as +usual investigating the condition of families, with the great advantage +of now being able to offer a job rather than relief to the out-of-work +husband. + +"When we came to starving families, as we did very often, we fed them up +until the man was able to go to work. As soon as a man was able to work +we sent him to the local authority. If he failed to turn up for the +work, but came round later for relief, he got this answer: 'We can't +afford to play the fool in this business. If you won't turn up to work +you can't be in distress. All we can do for you now is to put you at the +bottom of our list. When we reach your name again we'll give you one +more chance. If you don't take the work then, don't come here any more.' + +"Of course, the cost of the labour to the District Board was somewhat +higher than it would have been in the hands of skilled road-makers. You +must always allow for a loss due to the want of experience (as well as +the want of food) when you engage unemployed men. But remember we had a +free gift of £1,000 from Mr. Hills, which more than met the extra +expense, so that the ratepayers lost nothing. On the other hand, the +community got something that it needed. How much better, then, to pay +this little difference in price by employing out-of-work men on public +works than by giving them relief under the guise of stone-breaking, +which costs the community over £3 per ton when it can be done in the +open market for 2s. 6d. a ton." + +The winter that witnessed this scheme was described as "a red-letter one +in the history of the unemployed difficulty in the East End of London." +The words appear in the report of the Poplar District Board. In summing +up what had been done, the Board further stated that "on every ground +much good has been accomplished and a valuable lesson learned." The +Board also thanked the local Relief Committee and Mr. Hills and Crooks +personally for their co-operation. + +The lesson that had been learned saw fruit in the Unemployed Act a dozen +years later. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +AGITATION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS + + How the Workless Man Degenerates--Pleading the Cause of the + Unemployed in the House--Creation of the Central Unemployed + Committee--Feeding the Starving out of the Rates--"Would a Hen + bring 'em off?"--A Letter from the Prime Minister--Crooks's + Rejoinder. + + +The interval was one of unwearied agitation. Of all his other pressing +public duties he gave first place to this of urging the State to deal +with the unemployed. + +"This unemployed question is a terrible worry, Crooks," said a +Conservative member, walking with him out of the House of Commons into +Palace Yard one evening. + +"Yes," Crooks replied as the other stepped into his motor car, "it is a +terrible worry when you have it for breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper." + +It was the beginning of the winter of 1904. He had spent the afternoon +in one of his interminable battles in Parliament urging that +preparations should be made to act wisely instead of waiting until +panic-stricken, and that the usual wild schemes for helping the +unemployed would once again result in waste and demoralisation. + +"I stood for a minute or two interested in the hurry and scurry of +people hastening to clubland, to dinner parties, and to theatres," he +afterwards remarked when recalling the incident. "Then, turning my back +on the West End, I wended my way eastward. Yes, a terrible worry the +unemployed, and yet how few people seemed to realise it. Never-ending +lines of conveyances, long queues of pleasure-seekers thronging the +theatre doors, all the externals of my surroundings pointed to +everything but unemployment. But straight in front of me was my home in +Poplar, and I knew that in a few more minutes I should be hearing a tale +of some family's misery, considering myself a lucky man if I spent a few +minutes indoors without someone calling to ask, 'Can you help to get me +a job?' + +"Truly to some of us the unemployed are a terrible worry, not only in +December, January, and February, but summer and winter, night and day, +all the year round. But more terrible than the unemployed themselves is +the heart-breaking carelessness of the British public, which, generous +to a fault, will not make up its mind until stirred by sensational +appeals. + +"'Oh, but,' some of my political opponents say to me, 'the unemployed +are generally such a shiftless, good-for-nothing class. What good can +you expect to do with such men? I quite sympathise with your keenness, +but they are a very worthless, thankless lot, and you are wasting a lot +of time over them.' + +"Well, suppose we allow that as a class the unemployed retain a large +measure of original sin. I know other classes possessing the same +weakness, but neither class prejudices nor racial hatreds interest me +very much. So, for the sake of argument, we will say that the unemployed +are very imperfect. This is one of the reasons why my Labour colleagues +and I want to press home the importance of England making a praiseworthy +effort to grapple with the problem. We see how quickly a workless man +deteriorates. A person out of work in October, unless promptly dealt +with, is in danger of becoming by the following March that social wreck +known as a loafer. And I object to loafers at both ends of the scale, +whether in Park Lane or in Poplar." + +In the issue of _Vanity Fair_ containing "Spy's" popular cartoon of +Crooks, the Labour member himself had an article on the unemployed. + +"If _Vanity Fair_ will train the rich, the Labour men will guide the +poor," he wrote. Further: "Old England is as dear to the Labour man with +poverty for his birthright as to the hereditary legislator with a county +for a heritage. But wealth, and the carelessness that wealth often +induces, are blind to the causes which heap misery and discontent upon +the people from generation to generation. To the wealthy the whole +business is a social phenomenon, but to us it is a permanent terror. + +"And so, whatever our differences may appear to be, our Labour hopes are +concentrating upon sound practical methods by which the conditions and +opportunities of the people shall be improved. + +"You who read this are invited to remember that organised work is the +first step which will separate the workman from demoralising charity, +his wife from the pawnshop, and his children from the streets. Sentiment +and sympathy need no longer be the prey of the fawning cadger, or the +victim of hypocritical distress. + +"To keep England in the forefront of the nations of the earth we must +begin in the homes of our people, there to raise a truly Imperial and +patriotic race of good, healthy, honest men and women. The task is +admittedly a difficult one, for social reconstruction is as much moral +as economic, but helping hands stretch out in every direction. The one +great need is to change a national apathy into keen, sympathetic, +well-balanced criticism." + +His agitation for the unemployed in the House of Commons, which formed +the main part of his parliamentary life for a couple of years, began +with the opening of the Session of 1904. He seconded Mr. Keir Hardie's +amendment to the Address, regretting, "in view of distress arising from +lack of employment," that no proposal was made for helping out-of-work +men. + +Crooks began his speech by declaring that mere relief schemes encouraged +the loafer. He knew well both the loafer and the man who was born tired. +The wife of one such got up early and wakened her husband in time for +work. + +"Is it raining?" the man asked from the folds of the bedclothes. + +"No." + +"Does it look like raining?" + +"No." + +"Oh, I wish it was Sunday." + +With a sudden change of tone and manner, Crooks then went on to tell the +House that if an able-bodied man out of a job was driven into the +workhouse, he generally remained a workhouse inmate for the rest of his +life. It degraded and demoralised him. It took away his muscle to stand +up and fight for himself. If the Local Government Board would permit +Guardians to take land, this man could be put to useful work. Even +able-bodied men of the "in-and-out" type would be better for being put +to work on the land under powers of compulsory detention. Of course, +these men should be allowed to go out if they really desired to look for +other work. What they should not be allowed to do was to drag their +wives and children about the country, vagrants bringing up more +vagrants. Employment on farm colonies would quickly get rid of the tramp +difficulty. Such men, trained in useful agricultural work, if they felt +they had little chance in this country, would then have some equipment +for the colonies. A country like Canada, for instance, had no use for +men who had simply been loafing about English towns, but would very +quickly find work for men who had had a little training and discipline +on the land. It would be better for the whole community that something +of this sort should be done than that we should go on with the present +system of doles and relief, whose effects, like idleness, only +demoralised. + +The appeal to the House on that occasion fell on deaf ears. + +The winter of 1904 was made memorable to him by the creation of the +Central Unemployed Committee. For several years he had urged that the +Poor Law Unions of London should be empowered to form a central +committee to deal with the unemployed on well-organised lines. With the +several Unions acting separately, confusion and waste followed on +well-meaning efforts. The genuine unemployed received little real help. + +Few public men took his scheme for a central organisation seriously at +first. He was well-nigh worn out with his failures when unexpectedly the +then President of the Local Government Board came to his aid. Crooks, +with several other Members of Parliament, had waited upon Mr. Long in +deputation. The result was the calling together of the famous Unemployed +Conference at the Local Government Board on October 14th, 1904. + +To that Conference the Poplar Guardians sent Crooks and Lansbury, armed +with a series of carefully-thought-out proposals. Some of them found a +ready acceptance on the part of Mr. Long. Others were adopted by the +succeeding Government. + +Since those Poplar proposals have already figured prominently in +unemployed schemes and promise to appear in projects yet to be framed, +the substance of them is here set out:-- + + + 1. The President of the Local Government Board to combine the + London Unions for the purpose of dealing with the unemployed and + the unemployable. + + 2. Such central authority to take over the control of all + able-bodied inmates in London workhouses. + + 3. Farm colonies to be established by the central authority for + providing work. + + 4. Local Distress Committees to be also set up, consisting of + members of Borough Councils and Boards of Guardians, to work on the + lines already laid down by the Mansion House and the Poplar + Distress Committees. + + 5. The cost to these local committees of dealing with urgent need + occasioned by want of work to be a charge on the whole of London or + on the National Exchequer, instead of being a charge on the + locality, "always provided that the payment given be for work done + on lines similar to those adopted by the Mansion House and the + Poplar Distress Committees." + + 6. Rural District Councils to be asked to supply the Local + Government Board with information when labourers are wanted on the + land, such information to be sent to the Local Distress Committees. + + 7. Parliament to take in hand the question of afforestation, the + reclamation of foreshores, and the building of sea walls along the + coast where the tide threatens encroachment. + + +Almost immediately after the Whitehall Conference Mr. Long formed a +Central Unemployed Committee for London, personally arranging that +Crooks and Lansbury should become members. He also advised the formation +of local Distress Committees by the Poor Law and Municipal authorities. + +While Crooks was calling the nation's attention in Parliament and at +public meetings throughout the country to the wasteful and disorganised +way in which we met these recurring periods of distress, he was making +reasonable use of the local machinery at his hands. + +Little could be done through the newly-formed committees in the way of +providing work during that winter. Want was felt keenly all over the +East End. Distress brooded over West Ham, for instance, like a black +cloud. To such a plight was that district reduced owing to lack of work +that the _Daily Telegraph_ and the _Daily News_ between them raised +£30,000 for relief. + +West Ham's neighbour, Poplar, was in an equally bad plight, but there +the Guardians made an attempt to deal with the distress themselves. They +grappled boldly with a terrible state of things. The newspaper funds, by +bringing bread to West Ham, saved that district, according to the +testimony of the local police superintendent, from serious rioting. +Poplar, too, said the _Daily Mail_ at the time, was only saved from a +series of bread riots by the promptness of Will Crooks. + +He talked into calmness a lean and clamorous crowd of starving men who +swarmed into the Guardians' offices one day. He promised that their +claims should be considered and their cases investigated, and advised +them to go away quietly. + +Poplar fed its starving poor, and in doing so the Guardians did not +hesitate to raise the rate for the time being by fourpence. In no single +case, however, was money given to families where the out-of-work husband +was under sixty years of age. All they got was a few shillings' worth +of food, just enough to keep body and soul together until the husband +found work again. Had food not been given in this way, scores of +families would have been forced into the workhouse, where the cost of +their keep would have been four or five times greater. + +In the following winter, in face of similar distress, the same policy +was followed. It was mainly for thus feeding the starving that the +Poplar Board was afterwards so violently attacked. But, given the like +distress, Crooks stoutly maintains he will apply the same remedy. + +"The Poor Law is entrusted to us to prevent starvation," he holds. "My +dead friend and neighbour Dolling used to say that 'the law that +safeguards the poor is always in the hands of those who do not put it +into force.' So long as I live that shall not be said of Poplar." + +With all the pressing claims of Poplar and his daily duties in +Parliament, together with the calls made upon his time by the London +County Council and the Asylums Board, he was yet constant in his +attendance at the Guildhall meetings of the Central Unemployed +Committee. He and Lansbury spared themselves in nothing on that +Committee. They believed that on its success depended the future of +State-aid for the unemployed. They believed that such a crisis as they +were grappling with in Poplar in the winter of 1904 would never recur +once they got the State to recognise its duty to assist in organising +useful work for hard times. + +"The lesson of all our work on Mr. Long's Unemployed Committee was +this," he told me. "The only way to deal properly with the unemployed in +winter is to make your preparations in summer. The test of the Central +Unemployed Committee will be the character of its organisation in good +times. Only by being well organised when there is little distress will +it prove a success when times are bad. It is far harder to organise +useful work for the unemployed through public bodies than it is to raise +money for their relief." + +Crooks himself had seen the dark shadows of that winter creeping up +ominously in the previous summer. Before Parliament adjourned in August +he uttered a warning note in the House of Commons. He asked the Prime +Minister whether the various Government Departments could not do +something to prepare for the exceptional needs. Mr. Balfour's reply was +to the effect that inquiries would be made. + +"Ah, those inquiries!" said Crooks, recalling the promise at a public +meeting in Woolwich. "I've seen a good many inquiries and Royal +Commissions in my time, and they always remind me of the East Ender who +went down Petticoat Lane on market day. He saw on a barrow some +hard-boiled eggs which had been dyed various colours, evidently for +children. He'd seen nothing like them before. + +"'Wot kind of eggs is them?' says he. + +"'Them? Them's pheasants' eggs,' says the coster. + +"'Would a hen bring 'em off?' + +"'Rather!' + +"'How much for a sitting?' + +"'Eighteenpence and half yer luck.' + +"A month or two later the same man was down that way again. The coster +saw him. + +"'Ain't you the bloke as bought them pheasants' eggs?' + +"'Yes.' + +"'How'd yer get on?' + +"'Well,' he says mournful like, 'that old hen sat and sat and sat until +I'm blowed if she didn't cook them pheasants' eggs at last.' + +"And," added Crooks, "I have never known a Royal Commission or a +Government Inquiry yet that didn't sit and sit and sit until its report +was cooked by the time it had done with it." + +As the distress deepened with the approach of winter, the Poplar +Guardians pressed for an Autumn Session of Parliament. They wrote to the +Government welcoming Mr. Long's scheme of Distress Committees, but +doubting their efficacy unless power was granted to raise a halfpenny +rate for providing the unemployed with work. + +As Chairman of the Board, Crooks himself wrote a long letter to the +Prime Minister on November 21st. He supplied official figures, showing +the exceptional distress then prevailing, and pointed out that the +Guardians' request for an Autumn Session was supported by fifty-six +other Poor Law Unions and no fewer than eighty municipalities throughout +the country. + +To that letter Mr. Balfour sent the following reply:-- + + + 10, Downing Street, Whitehall, S.W. _November 28th, 1904._ + + DEAR MR. CROOKS,-- + + I am well aware that in many parts of the metropolis--and more + particularly, I fear, in the district in which as a Guardian you + are immediately concerned--much temporary distress prevails at the + present moment. + + How best to deal with the situation thus created has, as you know, + been the subject of most anxious consideration on the part of the + President of the Local Government Board; and Mr. Walter Long has + established a scheme--now, I understand, in actual working--which + will have the effect of organising and generalising methods which + local experience has already proved to be useful, thereby greatly + increasing both their economy and their efficiency. + + You are, I gather, of opinion that this by itself is not + sufficient, and you suggest that a special Session of Parliament is + required to meet the emergency. I would venture, however, to make + two remarks on this project. In the first place, I think we ought + to wait and see how far the new machinery fulfils the hope of its + designers; and, in the second place, I think we should abstain from + basing exaggerated hopes upon anything which may be immediately + accomplished by Parliamentary debates. These are invaluable for the + purpose of criticising legislative proposals or executive action. + They may educate the public mind. They may prepare the way for a + constructive policy. They can hardly, however, frame one. And, so + far as I can judge, an abstract discussion upon the general + situation would not only be of little present value to those whom + it is intended to benefit, but it would do them a positive injury. + Organised effort would be paralysed till the decision of Parliament + was known; and between the beginning of our debates and the moment + when their result could be embodied in a working shape much + preventable suffering would inevitably have occurred. + + Yours very truly, + ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR. + + +In his reply on behalf of the Guardians, Crooks said: + +"From a purely academic standpoint your argument is doubtless correct; +but while Mr. Long's scheme does, in a general way, show a departure in +the direction of making London a unit for dealing with the unemployed, +yet it has no power to enforce contributions from anyone. Thus all poor +parts, where work-people are aggregated, have to bear abnormal burdens +which should be shared, if not by the nation, then at least by the +metropolis. + +"The position in this district has reached a stage where something +immediate has to be done, and the only course open to the Guardians is +to meet the numerous applications made to them by grants of out-door +relief. The total amount of out-door relief now being granted by the +Guardians exceeds £690 per week, and is borne entirely by local rates, +which already stand at 10s. in the £, and will considerably increase by +the addition of this extra relief. + +"If the public were assured that the problem would be seriously taken up +by his Majesty's Government at an early date, funds might be forthcoming +to bridge over the present period of anxiety. + +"The Guardians desire to emphasise the fact that this question of +dealing with the unemployed has been several times before Parliament, +and if the Government really desire to grapple with this great evil, +they could, in a short time, with the expert advice at the disposal of +the Government, set in operation a great deal of work useful to the +nation. The Guardians, therefore, sincerely hope that their previous +representations will be acted upon, and that you will give an assurance +that the matter shall be laid before Parliament at the earliest possible +moment." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE QUEEN INTERVENES + + A Breakdown from Overwork--Health Permanently Impaired--Appointment + of a Royal Commission on the Poor Law--Saving the Unemployed + Bill--Need of Money to Work the Bill--Mrs. Crooks heads the Women's + March to Whitehall--Mr. Balfour's Sympathetic but Unsatisfactory + Reply--Queen Alexandra's Intervention--A Vote of Money in the New + Parliament. + + +The labour and anxiety, the long arduous days and the sleepless nights +Crooks endured that winter for the unemployed, culminated in a sudden +and serious illness. + +The attack was short, but dangerous. His doctor reported that unless a +change took place within a few hours it would be a case for confinement +to bed for at least three months. Fortunately, the welcome change came. + +A few days before he took to his bed he got a severe shaking by a fall +while jumping off a 'bus in the Strand. That was not the cause of his +illness, however. The real cause, as his medical man declared, was +nervous breakdown due to overwork. His overwork had all been in the +direction of trying to get work for the unemployed. + +He fretted himself into a worse condition during the first few days of +his illness. Every night, instead of sleeping, he was mentally putting +hosts of unemployed men to work. + +The sympathy and affection shown during his illness by his neighbours at +Poplar affected him deeply. All day long callers of all sorts and +conditions were making inquiries and leaving messages of good-will. +Labourers, mechanics, widows, children, tradesmen, public men, +officials, Free Church ministers, Anglican clergymen, Roman Catholic +priests, and Sisters of the Poor were among those who came to the door +once the news leaked out that the man from their midst, whom they had so +often delighted to honour, lay sick and in danger. Their sympathy was +intensified by the knowledge that Mrs. Crooks herself had not wholly +recovered from a serious operation that had kept her for weeks in +hospital. + +That breakdown shattered him for life. He has never been the same in +health since, and knows he can never be the same again. Sometimes for +weeks together he endures agonising nervous pains, deprived of sleep and +rest, yet all the time steadily refusing to slacken his labours for +those whom he is fond of calling "the people at our end of the town." + +As soon as he was able to get out again in the New Year (1905), he took +up the case for the unemployed, if not with all his former zeal, +certainly with all the zeal he could then command. + +Towards the end of January he had so far recovered as to be able to +attend the Liverpool Conference of the Labour Representation Committee. +He was then in a position to make public for the first time that the +King's Speech at the opening of Parliament in the following month would +in all likelihood promise an Unemployed Bill. On his motion the +Conference decided: + + + That the policy of the Labour Party in Parliament relating to + unemployment should be to secure fuller powers for the local + authorities to acquire and use land, to re-organise the local + administrative machinery for dealing with poverty and unemployment, + to bring pressure on the Government to put the recommendations of + the Afforestation Committee into effect, to undertake forthwith, + through the Board of Trade, the reclamation of foreshores, and to + create a Labour Ministry. + + +His forecast of the King's Speech proved correct. An Unemployed Bill was +promised. It was introduced on April 18th by Mr. Gerald Balfour, who had +succeeded Mr. Long at the Local Government Board. The Bill confirmed Mr. +Long's scheme of Distress Committees in London, and provided for the +formation of similar bodies in provincial towns. It granted the +principle of State aid by permitting the cost of organisation, including +the provision of farm colonies, to be charged to the rates, leaving it +to voluntary subscriptions to provide a fund for paying the men's wages. + +That Session was made memorable to Crooks in another sense. A Royal +Commission on the Poor Law was appointed, and although it was little +faith he had in Commissions generally, he believed that, whatever came +of the recommendations of this one, it would help the people of England +to see, while its investigations were going on, something of the cruelty +and folly of a system which had been ruthlessly thrust upon the voteless +labouring people by the middle class individualists who came into power +after the Reform Act of 1832. His fellow Guardian, George Lansbury, was +appointed a member of the Commission--a notable compliment to Poplar, +which for a dozen years had striven to make this soulless system humane +and helpful. + +Although the Unemployed Bill passed second reading with a majority of +217, the Session dragged wearily on with little prospect of its getting +through the Committee stage and becoming law. When August dawned and the +House found itself within a week of adjournment, everyone but Crooks +despaired of getting the measure through. The Prime Minister told the +House there was no time for the Bill. Several of Crooks's Labour +colleagues declared the Bill to be too meagre a thing to fight for. + +"I admit its faults and shortcomings as readily as anyone," he argued +with his Party; "but it contains the germ of a great principle--State +recognition of the need and State aid in carrying out the organisation." + +Almost alone he fought for the Bill in the last days of the Session. He +urged the Government to save the unemployed from foolish and useless +rioting by holding out to them the hope which the passing of the Bill +would convey. + +By a dramatic coincidence, on the very afternoon he was thus warning +the Government the police were charging a crowd of desperate unemployed +in Manchester. + +"The Prime Minister urges the plea that there is no time," Crooks went +on to tell the House. "What would the business men of this House think, +when they went down to their offices to-morrow, if they were told by the +manager that grouse-shooting would begin on the Twelfth and that +therefore business would have to be suspended? Does the Government +prefer grouse-shooting to finding work for honest men? Was this Bill of +theirs only introduced to kill time--to wait until the birds were big +enough to be shot? I don't want to stop your holidays. Go and kill your +grouse and your partridges. But are you going to put dead birds before +living men? + +"There was the day on which the Eton and Harrow match was played. What +will the unemployed say when they hear that the Government could not +find time to discuss this Bill because Ministers wished to see two +schools play cricket? Do you think the working man gets a day off to see +his sons play cricket in the public parks? Unlike many hon. members of +this House, workmen do not live by dividends. They have nothing to sell +but their labour. When out of work a little help often saves them from +ruin and pauperism. They are only asking to be given an opportunity to +fulfil the Divine curse by earning their living in the sweat of their +brow." + +His appeal went home. The following day the Government sprang a +surprise on the House. The Bill would be taken that week. It was passed +within a few days. "H. W. M.," in his parliamentary sketch in the _Daily +News_ of August 5th, referring to what he called "the strange story of +the passing of the Unemployed Bill," said: + + + At the end of last week its chances seemed to have disappeared. + To-day it has passed Committee, and Monday will see it through the + Commons. The Member chiefly responsible for this issue is Mr. + Crooks, who has shown undoubted subtleness as a Parliamentary + tactician. + + +In his final speech on the Bill, Crooks argued that even the loafer +would become a better man by being given, not the charity that +demoralised, but a day's work for a day's pay. Such a man, by being put +on a farm colony for a few months, would be turned into a good citizen. +He stood for discipline in Labour as the Government stood for discipline +in the Army and Navy. He wanted to preserve the manhood of the nation +rather than to see it degraded, as it was by the present system of +despising an unemployed man. The type of men who hung idle about all our +large towns was the type that filled the workhouses and prisons. Take +them in their early stages of unemployment, put them under proper +discipline on the land, and he was prepared to prophesy they would +become useful citizens. It was a loss to the nation that men and women +should be going about without the common necessaries owing to being out +of work. + +So the Bill went through, and people of all classes agree with his old +friend, Mr. A. F. Hills, a large employer, who wrote to him a letter on +the subject, ending with the words: "I believe that generations yet +unborn will in the years to come rise up and call you blessed." + +In the opinion of many people well able to gauge the distress and +discontent of the country, the Act came just in time to prevent serious +disorders in the large towns. For the winter that immediately followed +found the unemployed in a worse plight than ever. + +Promptly the Distress Committees formed under the Act got to work. The +London Committees found themselves at first stranded for funds. The weak +point in the Act was that which allowed only the expense of organisation +to be made a public charge. The Committees found themselves asking, What +was the use of organising work for the unemployed when there were no +means of paying wages? It looked as though public subscriptions were not +to be forthcoming. Was the Act, so hardly won, to fail on its first +trial? + +Again Poplar fought the cause of the poor for the whole country. This +time the workless men's wives took action. The women of Poplar met in +the Town Hall, Mrs. Crooks in the chair, with the object of urging +Parliament to vote money to the Distress Committees set up under the new +Act. + +Mrs. Crooks, as reported in the _Times_, said: + + + They were endeavouring to enlist the help and sympathy of those in + high places to give some little time to the consideration of the + claims of the wives and children of men who were willing to work, + but who were unable to find the wherewithal to feed those near and + dear to them. The Queen had more than once shown her desire to + help. Was it, then, too much to expect that their wealthy sisters + would use their influence with their all-too-powerful husbands to + appeal, with the women of Poplar, to the King and Government to + call Parliament together with a view to passing estimates to enable + work to be undertaken--work that would give them their daily bread? + Theirs was a cry for national defence, and Parliament must see to + it. + + +The meeting decided to petition the King to instruct the Prime Minister +to call Parliament together. In acknowledging a vote of thanks to his +wife for taking the chair, Crooks said the mothers and sisters had +remained too long indoors, suffering in silence. If the King could see +that meeting it would make him realise what unemployment meant to the +wives and mothers of his industrial army, and he would no doubt do +something to ensure that they should not lack the sustenance needed to +bring up strong daughters and strong sons as faithful and loyal +citizens. They had got the machinery, and they had got certain powers, +but they needed funds. They had got an organisation that could gather up +all the information as to useful work that needed doing--work that would +be profitable and inspiring to the men who did it, instead of being +degrading, like the foolish and useless and expensive task-work which +was all the Poor Law had to offer. + +[Illustration: MR. & MRS. WILL CROOKS + +_Photo: G. Dendry._] + +About a month later took place the memorable women's march to Whitehall. +The day, November 6th, was truly a tragic and historic one in the +social life of London. + +Headed by Mrs. Crooks and the then Mayoress of Poplar (Mrs. Dalton), +some six thousand poor women gathered on the Thames Embankment, near +Charing Cross Bridge, and marched to the offices of the Local Government +Board in order to back up their appeal to the Premier to aid their +out-of-work husbands and brothers. The women came not only from Poplar, +where the march had been organised by George Lansbury, but from +Edmonton, Paddington, West Ham, Woolwich, and Southwark. Some carried +infants in arms; others had children dragging at their skirts. + +"Work for our men--Bread for our children." So ran the appeal on the +banner that floated above the Southwark contingent, led by Mrs. Herbert +Stead. + +The Embankment was deep in mud, and, as the women trudged bravely +through it--those carrying babies unable to save their skirts from +dragging in the road--the scene was one that filled you with an +indignant shame. Even those other women in motors and carriages, who had +driven down to see the sight out of curiosity, sank back into their +cushions aghast, sickened, ashamed at this spectacle of their sisters' +plight. + +In Whitehall the processionists told off a dozen of their number to form +the deputation to Mr. Balfour. The women were accompanied into the Local +Government Board offices by Crooks and Lansbury and two or three other +men from the Central Workers' Unemployed Committee. + +The object of the visit was explained by Lansbury, and then a working +woman from Poplar read the women's memorial. The memorial spoke of the +misery, degradation, and desperation of the women which had driven them +to determine to bear their lot in silence no longer. They thought that +Parliament should make it impossible for unscrupulous employers to grind +the faces of the poor. The Government had gone to the aid of the +tenantry of Ireland. The plight of the poor in London was worse. If war +were threatened, ways would be found for raising money. The country was +faced with a worse evil than war in the presence of starving citizens. +In the name of their country, their homes, and their children, they +appealed to the Prime Minister not to send them empty away. + +Several of the workless men's wives who, it had been arranged, should +speak broke down; so Mrs. Crooks explained they had not come to utter +words only; they had come as Englishwomen, driven to despair, in the +hope that the Premier, as the chief Minister of the King, would no +longer leave them in a worse condition than that of his dogs and horses. + +Mr. Balfour was sympathetic, but had nothing to suggest. He saw no hope +of Parliament voting money. The deputation came away sullen and +disappointed. For the time it looked as though the women's march had +been in vain. But, before a week passed, another woman spoke. The need +was met by Queen Alexandra. On November 13th her Majesty issued her +famous appeal: + +"I appeal to all charitably disposed people in the Empire, both men and +women, to assist me in alleviating the suffering of the poor starving +unemployed during this winter. For this purpose I head the list with +£2,000." + +Before the winter was over the public, in response to this appeal, +subscribed £150,000--a sum that proved sufficient that winter to keep +Distress Committees going in London and elsewhere during the time of +greatest privation. + +The needs of the next winter were provided for by the State. The new +Liberal Government had not been in office many months before it voted +£200,000 to the Distress Committees appointed under the Unemployed Act. + +Poplar had done its work. The women had marched to victory. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +HOME LIFE AND SOME ENGAGEMENTS + + Crooks becomes a Grandfather--A Glimpse of his Home Life--Mr. G. R. + Sims on "A Morning with Will Crooks"--Crooks's Daily + Post-bag--Sample Letters--Speaking at Religious and Temperance + Meetings--On Adult Sunday Schools--On the Licensing Bill--A Homily + to Free Churchmen. + + +By this time Crooks had moved from Northumberland Street to Gough +Street, a few minutes' walk away. The change was from a five-roomed +house to a six-roomed house, "with exactly three and a half feet more +space for a garden at the back," as he jocularly described it. + +His two eldest daughters had both married, and his eldest son, who was +doing well at the same trade his father learnt--that of cooper--had also +settled down to married life in Poplar. This son had the pleasure one +day of telephoning to his father at the County Council offices, just +after the latter had passed his fiftieth birthday, "You became a +grandfather this morning. Cheer up!" + +Another daughter qualified at the Cheltenham Training College as a +school teacher. The youngest daughter elected to be "mother's right hand +at home." The youngest son was apprenticed in a Thames shipbuilding +yard. + +Of his children he would often remark, during the controversy over +religious education in schools, that they seemed to disprove the +theories of both contending parties. One of his daughters and a son, who +were educated in Board Schools, became communicating members of the +Church of England, while two daughters educated in Church of England +schools afterwards became Nonconformists. + +A glimpse of his home life was given in the "Celebrities at Home" +series, published in the _World_. The writer described Gough Street as a +row of tiny houses so much alike that the only difference between one +and another was the number on the door. + + + But if you did not know Mr. Crooks's number, you could guess his + house by waiting at the corner of the street. Because, between + half-past nine and half-past ten, the door-knocker of No. 81 will + beat a tattoo twelve or twenty times to the hour, when all the + other knockers are silent. For this is the hour when Mr. Crooks is + at home and receives his visitors, while he takes his breakfast in + a spasmodic and interrupted manner--bad, one feels sure, for his + digestion. They are not social callers. They come because they want + something--an order for free medicine or for an artificial limb, + for advice as to a likely quarter to get work, for a hundred and + one needs of poor people who have no resources of their own. + + They are pleasant rooms in which the Labour member finds the best + happiness of his life. They are not large. They are not handsomely + furnished, for a Labour member has no need of luxury; but to Mr. + Crooks every little adornment in them has its own story to tell and + its own pleasant memory. On one of the walls are two oil paintings + of ships in distress--"good or bad," says Mr. Crooks, "I'm no + judge," But they are valuable to him, because they were painted by + a man down on his luck, as a thanksgiving for a good turn done to + him by the only friend he had. + + "Bless you," says Mr. Crooks, "they all bring me little things, and + I can't refuse them. See that champagne glass on the piano? That + was given me by a poor old lady I used to look after a bit. That + wine glass on the other side came from another old friend. Someone + will bring me a China shepherd, another a vase or candlestick, or a + comic pig. It's pleasant, you know!"... + + Mr. Crooks is one of the pleasantest and most interesting men to + visit. If you take him at the right time--half-past nine + o'clock--it means an early journey from the West!--he will sit you + down to a plate of porridge and give you more information about the + life of the working-classes in the course of an hour than the most + laborious reading of Blue-books will do in a lifetime. + + The visitor must be prepared for interruptions. In a corner of the + breakfast-room is a member of the family who likes to have his say. + It is a poll-parrot--"as cunning as a barge-load of monkeys," says + his owner affectionately. He has a peculiar habit of cracking + invisible filbert-nuts at the back of his throat, rather + disconcerting to a stranger; and although he dotes on Mr. Crooks, + it is a little game of his to snub the Labour member by + depreciatory remarks and scornful whistles of derision. But he + always has an affectionate "Goo'-bye, Will!" for his master when he + puts on his hat in the morning. To Mrs. Crooks he is always + courteous. "Goo'-morning, mother!" he says, when the lady comes + down to breakfast, and thrusts his beak out for a kiss. Then he + calls "Tilly! Tilly!" in a shrill voice, like an elderly landlady, + and is not satisfied till Mrs. Crooks's pretty, black-eyed daughter + has given him his morning greeting. + + "He has his little prejudices, like the rest of us," says Mr. + Crooks. "He can't abide babies, and squawks at them fearfully." + + +Mr. George R. Sims gave a sketch of "A Morning with Will Crooks" in the +_Daily Chronicle_ of May 2nd, 1906. He suggested that if 81, Gough +Street--Crooks's Castle, as he called it--had a brass plate on the door, +the most appropriate device to be inscribed upon it would be, "Inquire +within upon everything." + + + It was twenty minutes past ten when I arrived. At half-past ten we + were due at the relieving office. But before we started, some three + or four pathetic narratives had found their way into the little + hall for Mr. Crooks to mark, learn, and inwardly digest. + + I appreciated the situation, and expressed sympathy. + + "It is depressing," said the people's M.P., "but, after all, + somebody's got to listen and somebody's got to help." + + We went out into the street. In the hundred yards that we walked to + our destination six sad riddles of life were submitted to Mr. + Crooks for solution. + + The broad-shouldered, black-bearded, smiling politician of the + people had a cheery word of advice for all applicants, and scarcely + had these pavement consultations ended before we were seated in the + relieving office listening to tales of woe told by a procession of + poor petitioners with whom the world had gone woefully wrong. + + The committee of relief were generous and sympathetic. Poplar has a + reputation for generosity in this matter. It struck me that at + times the committee might have impressed a little more earnestly + upon the recipients of out-relief the other side of the situation; + but I am bound to admit that undeserving cases--cases which had a + history of drink and thriftlessness--were dismissed with no + illusions.... + + We went to the workhouse at the dinner hour. A comfortable place + certainly, and the dinner probably better than a good many of the + inmates had been accustomed to when they were earning their own + living.... + + A pleasant hour with Mr. and Mrs. Crooks and their daughters at + the castle, a stroll in the little garden which is Mrs. Crooks's + delight, a short interview with Tommy the Tortoise, and it is time + for the Member for Woolwich to start for Westminster and take his + place in the National Assembly. + + He takes up a leather case containing some sixty or seventy letters + to be answered, and we go out into the street, which is happily + bathed in sunshine. We get on the top of an omnibus, and I listen + to the merry stories merrily told until we arrive at Aldgate + Station and bid each other good-bye. + + I have spent a most interesting and instructive morning with a + typical Englishman, a man who has laboured with skill and used his + brains as well as his hands to good purpose--a man who has fought + his way up from boyhood, a man whose heart is as big as his + shoulders are broad. + + Beyond his sterling common sense and his sympathy with suffering, + Will Crooks has one golden quality in a tribune of the people. He + has a sense of humour. It does your eyes good to see him smile. And + he has a laugh that makes you feel the sunshine even when the north + wind blows. + + +Sometimes the Labour man has nearly a hundred letters a day to deal +with. First attention is always given to those from people seeking +counsel or help in Poplar and Woolwich. + +An old man of ninety-four asks him to visit him for old times' sake. A +widow has lost her property--will Mr. Crooks see her righted? A sick +woman wants to know how she can get into a convalescent home. An anxious +father asks him to speak to a wayward son, because "the lad sets such +store by what you say, Mr. Crooks." Again, it is a distracted mother +who writes, maybe about a son or a daughter who has run away or fallen +into trouble. + +Amusing letters come sometimes, varying the note of sorrow sounded in so +many of the others. This, for instance, from a sympathetic Frenchman, +who evidently imagines that a place called Poplar must be studded with +trees of that name and surrounded by open fields. "I see," wrote this +sympathiser from across the Channel, "that you are doing much for the +unemployed, and I have pleasure in sending you enclosed cheque for them. +I would suggest, in view of the importance of the poor children having +pure milk, that the money be spent in putting unemployed men to work in +cleaning out the ponds in the fields and lanes of Poplar where the +cattle drink." + +While Crooks is essentially a home-loving man, counting it one of his +chief joys to have an evening free or a week-end to call his own, he +regards it as a duty to speak at religious and temperance meetings, and +on behalf of other movements not necessarily allied with the Labour +Party. + +One day finds him with the Bishop of London at the Mansion House meeting +of the United Temperance Council. Another day he is speaking with the +President of the Baptist Union, the Rev. John Wilson, one of his best +supporters in Woolwich, at the Union's annual gathering. Another day he +is congratulating Canon Hensley Henson, at the annual meeting of the +London Wesleyan Mission, on having "six of his parishioners on the +platform"--a reference to the presence of half a dozen members of +Parliament, Canon Henson being rector of the House of Commons. + +After addressing the Baptist Union on a second occasion, a letter came +to him from the secretary, the Rev. J. H. Shakespeare:-- + + + On behalf of the Council of the Baptist Union and on my own behalf + I beg to thank you most warmly for the magnificent services you + rendered to us last Tuesday night. It was delightful to hear you. I + personally was very curious to see you managing a dense crowd of + men. It does not seem to me that there is any reason why you should + ever stop drawing from the rich and endless resources of your + eloquence and wit and your wise sayings. + + I feel very deeply indebted to you for having kept your engagement + under such trying circumstances, and I hope you were not too + fatigued afterwards. + + +A different letter was one from his old friend the Hon. and Rev. J. G. +Adderley, announcing his call to Birmingham:-- + + + Alas! I leave dear old London on November 2nd. Thank you for all + you have been to me during my time here. I have known you now + fifteen years. + + +The many occasions on which he addressed working men at adult Sunday +schools in different parts of the country forced him to this conclusion, +to which he gave public expression:-- + + + The adult school movement has, I do sincerely believe, done more to + make men understand that Brotherhood is not merely a word, but a + real living thing, than any other movement of recent days. Men + under the influence of adult schools now begin to see that their + whole life on earth does not consist merely in eating, drinking, + and working and going to a place of worship, but in taking a + living part in God's work personally--in a word, in striving for + some of Christ's ideals on earth as in Heaven. + + +He assisted at conducting something like an adult school in Poplar. +Besides the Sunday morning meetings at the Dock Gates, the Labour +League, in conjunction with the Rector of Poplar, carry on a winter +series of addresses at the Town Hall on Sunday afternoons, to which +Crooks and his friend, Mr. Fred Butler, give a good deal of their time. +Of these Town Hall meetings he wrote in the article he contributed to +the volume of essays on "Christianity and the Working Classes":-- + + + The meetings are always crowded with working-men and their wives + and working girls and lads. The rector or myself takes the + chair--often we are both on the platform together. The gatherings + are not religious in the orthodox sense, nor is any attempt made to + teach religion, but I venture to say they have as much influence + for good on the work-people of Poplar as many of the churches. We + nearly always begin with music by singers or players who give their + services, and then we have a "talk," generally by a public man, on + social questions, on education, on books, and authors, and + citizenship. Some of our speakers take Biblical subjects. + + Thus every week we get together a good company of work-people who + ordinarily attend no place of worship on Sunday; and if nothing + more, we keep them out of the public-house, we make them think for + themselves, we awaken some sense of citizenship. The presence of + the rector has convinced many, who were formerly hostile to all + parsons, Anglican and Nonconformist, that the Churches and Labour + can work in harmony. Without pretending to be this, that, or the + other, our gatherings have made for the love of one's neighbour, + and therefore for the cause of Christ. + + +Nearly every P.S.A. and adult school and men's Sunday meeting in London +wanted him. He would be at the Whitefield Tabernacle one Sunday, at the +Leysian Mission another, at Dr. Clifford's church another. + +The demands made upon him by temperance bodies redoubled after the +introduction of the Licensing Bill of 1904, of which he was an +uncompromising opponent. In nearly all his temperance addresses, full as +they were of his humorous fancies, he denounced the practice, followed +by so many temperance reformers, of making cheap jests at the men or +women whom drink has degraded. + +"We who can overcome temptation should be the last to make light of +those who have failed to overcome temptation. Rather should we use our +greater power to assist them." + +What he said from public platforms he did not hesitate to repeat on the +floor of the House of Commons. Speaking after Mr. Balfour, in one of the +debates on the Licensing Bill, he said:-- + +"I wish to take the opportunity, while the Prime Minister is in the +House, to say a few words on the question of temptation, because the +impression left on my mind by the remarks of the right hon. gentleman is +that every man who indulges in drink is capable of taking care of +himself and of overcoming the drink habit by his own efforts. I hold +that there are thousands of our fellow-men and women who cannot resist +temptation when the opportunity to drink is put in their way. No doubt +if everyone had the moral fibre of the Prime Minister there would be +little need for a measure of temperance reform. Those hon. members who +attend prayers at the opening of the proceedings of this House listen to +the words, 'Lead us not into temptation.' I ask the Prime Minister +whether he has ever thought that the thousands of people in our asylums +through drink are there because they are capable of looking after +themselves? No; it is because temptation has been too much for them. +Does not that involve an obligation on the State to take temptation out +of their way?" + +The National Free Church Council invited him to address their annual +gathering in 1906. The Council met in Birmingham in March, and the +President (the Rev. J. Scott Lidgett), in introducing Crooks, said the +invitation to him had not been given lightly. It was a deliberate +recognition of the claim that Labour had upon the thought, energy, and +prayer of the Free Churches. Then, turning to Crooks, he clasped his +hand. "Thus," said the President, "Labour and the Free Churches are +joined in their endeavour to solve some of the great human problems." + +"The world," said Crooks in his opening remarks, "could be divided into +two classes--some willing to work and the rest willing to let them." He +went on to ask the representatives of the churches to put it out of +their heads that the workman who did not go to a place of worship was a +man utterly without religion. Such a man often had greater faith and +more works to his credit than many regular worshippers. + +Shortly afterwards the Free Church Council asked him to the banquet +given at the Hotel Cecil in celebration of the return of nearly two +hundred Free Churchmen to the House of Commons. + +"You Free Churchmen," he said in his after-dinner speech, "have to come +out of yourselves a great deal more in the future than you have in +by-gone days. You cannot live for Sunday alone. You have to live for all +the seven days of the week, and we expect you to come out and take a +share of the work of social reorganisation. You are all of you, or the +majority of you, a little bit ashamed of South Africa, and some of you +wish you had got your tongues loose two or three years ago instead of +now. You can imagine how I feel about this. A few of us at that time had +to take our lives in our hands because we dared to say that that was a +wicked war. Remember, the Empire does not consist in yelling about the +Union Jack; the Empire begins in the workman's kitchen.... + +"I have been told plenty of times that our men and women are not +God-fearing. Aren't they? I know the stories they tell you parsons +sometimes; but down at the bottom of their hearts is a deep religious +feeling which some of us would be better for having. Why can I always +get the truth from the poor, who so often deceive you parsons? Why, +because they feel I am a brother, and they have a doubt about you. You +have got to wear that doubt off. You have got to make the humblest of +our brothers and sisters understand that you do really care for them, +that you intend to use the Parliamentary machine to abolish sweating +and slumdom. We have got to promote industry in such a way that every +honest worker may find useful work to do. We have to deal with the +shirker whether he wears a top hat or hobnail boots." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +COLONISING ENGLAND + + Signs of Progress--a Crown Farm Cut Up into Small Holdings--The + Colony Experiment at Laindon--How it was Killed by the Local + Government Board--The Hollesley Bay Farm--A Minister for Labour + Wanted. + + +After nearly twenty years of hard public service, Crooks saw some of the +things for which he had striven so strenuously adopted as part of the +policy of two successive Governments. + +Woolwich re-elected him at the General Election with over nine thousand +votes, some three or four hundred more than it gave him at the famous +by-election three years before. He saw the new Government back up the +Unemployed Act. He saw the Poor Law Commission at work. He saw the +appointment of another Commission to consider the question of coast +erosion and the reclamation of foreshores, which makes him believe there +is still a chance for the scheme he laid before the Board of Trade in +1893. + +Meanwhile, he believes he has done something practical in Parliament for +the unemployed in another direction. He discovered that of the 70,000 +acres of agricultural Crown lands, about 5,000 had been lying idle for +many years. Thereupon he promptly reminded Sir Henry +Campbell-Bannerman's Government, in the early days of its first +Session, that at the General Election they had talked about the need for +colonising England. Here, he told the House, was a chance to give effect +to the promise. Cut up the idle land into small holdings, and it would +let at once. Make better use of the other land by dividing it into +smaller farms. Further, why not try a scheme of afforestation on some +portion of these Crown lands, which, after all, were the lands of the +people? + +He exacted a promise from the Government that the question of giving the +Board of Agriculture some control of Crown lands, instead of leaving +them in the hands of the Department of Woods and Forests, would be +considered. + +Something was done sooner than he expected. The President of the Local +Government Board (Mr. John Burns) informed the House that a scheme of +afforestation would be started on Crown lands the succeeding year. +Moreover, Lord Carrington, whose encouragement of small holdings on his +own estates Crooks had commended in the Commons, was added to the +Commission of Woods and Forests in his capacity as President of the +Board of Agriculture. A start was immediately made by cutting up into +small parcels a Crown farm of 916 acres at Burwell in Cambridgeshire. + +This quiet little reform Crooks hails as affording further means of +solving the problem of unemployment. + +"Whatever may be said to the contrary," is his way of putting it, "I +maintain that even the town wastrel takes more kindly to the land than +to anything else. Of course, I know that before he can be made of any +use on the land he must be trained; but then it is well known that I +favour farm colonies for training him." + +Since he entered Parliament he had seen farm colonies for the unemployed +become realities. His own Board of Guardians was the pioneer of the +modern farm colony in this country. For nearly a dozen years the +Guardians pleaded with the Local Government Board to be allowed to take +a farm. Consent was at last obtained in 1903, when the Guardians had an +offer of 100 acres at Laindon, in Essex, rent free for three years. The +offer was made by Mr. Joseph Fels, a London manufacturer, who had been +favourably impressed by a system he had seen in Philadelphia, whereby +unemployed men were put to cultivate vacant land. + +At first the Guardians' experiment was confined to able-bodied men from +the workhouse. Its scope was widened with the coming of winter. The +Poplar Unemployed Committee, which had the Mayor at its head and Crooks +and Lansbury among its members, agreed on the suggestion of these latter +to send a number of out-of-work men to this farm, meeting the expenses +by a public appeal. + +The need for giving out-of-work men proper training on the land was +being urged at the same time by Mr. John Burns. That winter, as chairman +of the Unemployed Conference called by the London County Council, Mr. +Burns and Canon Escreet, the vice-chairman, signed a report urging that +every opportunity should be taken to provide such training on the land +as would fit the workers for efficient labour. The report went on:-- + + + Efforts in this direction are already made in the case of emigrants + to the Colonies, but it does not seem altogether reasonable that + special efforts should be made which would have the effect of + providing the colonies with specially trained labour if no efforts + in this direction are made on behalf of the Home Country. It is not + suggested that training for colonial life should not be provided, + but merely that the needs of the United Kingdom should be equally + borne in mind. + + +"I've seen wastrels," says Crooks, "who were going from bad to worse in +our back streets in Poplar regain health and strength when sent to our +farm at Laindon, and as they felt their muscles strengthening turn to +work like men. I have seen many a decent unemployed man tided over hard +times by being sent to work on our farm. The result of our first +winter's experiment was that twenty-five of the men emigrated to Canada, +the better for the training we had given them on the land. A dozen +obtained work on their own account. And then, as the winter passed and +trade got better, we began to discharge the men gradually. Over one +hundred of the discharged men have never asked for relief from the +Guardians since. If we had taken them into the workhouse at the time of +their destitution, as the Poor Law prescribes, the greater part of them +would have become permanent charges on the rates for the rest of their +lives." + +This promising experiment was killed by the Local Government Board. The +Local Government Board refused to allow the farm to be continued except +as a branch workhouse. Mr. Fels, at the end of the three years' trial, +wrote to the Guardians:-- + + + I desire to emphasise that my offer of the farm in the first + instance was not for the purpose of establishing a branch + workhouse, and in that way perpetuating stone yards, oakum picking, + and corn grinding, and other useless tasks, which seems to be all + the Local Government Board want to do. + + On the contrary, I hoped that your Board would be allowed to try to + re-establish men who were down on their luck. I never for one + moment dreamed that your Board would be forced by the Local + Government Board to keep 150 men on one hundred acres of land, it + being obvious to me then, as now, that neither men nor staff could + have a chance in such conditions. Although the Local Government + Board has stifled this experiment, I am convinced that some such + Poor Law reform is bound to come. + + +The Poplar experiment certainly satisfied Mr. Long when he was at the +Local Government Board. He expressly stated, when suggesting the +formation of his Central Unemployed Committee, that farm colonies +represented one means by which the Committee could assist men out of +work. + +One of the first things the Committee did was to take the Hollesley Bay +Farm, where both Crooks and Lansbury as active members of the Committee +helped to develop the work. Mr. Fels again assisted, this time building +a number of cottages with a view to drafting off some of the colonists +into a position of independence, joined by their wives and families +from London. The hope is entertained that some proportion of them may +become small holders. Hollesley Bay Farm, which had been an agricultural +training college for the sons of rich men going to the colonies, thus +became a centre for training poor men to colonise their own country. + +All these practical schemes for helping the unemployed and saving the +cities from recurring periods of distress, which Crooks had done so much +to set going, lend colour to his claim that the time has come for the +addition to all future Cabinets of a new member to be styled the +Minister for Labour. For nearly twenty years we have seen this labouring +man, content with his three or four pounds a week, in a working-man's +house in a working-man's neighbourhood, devising and carrying out social +measures for the well-being of the nation that ought rightly to have +come from the Government. + +"The first thing a Labour Minister would do," he says, "would be to take +over the Labour Department and other more or less allied departments of +the Board of Trade. The present Labour returns of the Board of Trade are +no good to anybody. I would have the Labour Minister obtain from all the +local authorities a statement of what they regard as useful public works +for their own districts. As soon as a spell of bad trade set in in any +particular district our Minister of Industry would turn up the +suggestions that had reached him from the affected quarter and make a +national grant towards starting the local works. + +"Then again I should leave to his Department rather than to the Local +Government Board the duty of controlling farm colonies. I want to see +the Government responsible for three separate kinds of labour colonies. +First I want a farm colony for the habitual able-bodied pauper. He needs +to have his muscles hardened and to be trained to work. The tasks set +such a man in the workhouse are wasteful, and do him no good. You might +have a combination of Poor Law Unions interested in such a colony. The +second class of farm colony would be for habitual tramps. These men need +to be kept entirely separate from able-bodied paupers. The third class +would be voluntary colonies, to which unemployed men could be sent and +trained in market gardening and farming. + +"In fact, the practical work a Minister of Labour could do is endless. +He could settle differences between masters and men before a strike was +thought of. To him could be referred disputes as to machinery, questions +as to safeguards, matters affecting hours, meal-times, overtime, and +women's work. He would be the most useful Minister in the Cabinet." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE REVIVAL OF BUMBLEDOM + + Crooks's Poor Law Policy Attacked--How a Local Government Board + Inquiry was Conducted--Crooks's Mistake in Remaining Chairman of + the Board of Guardians--The Inspector's Report--Why the Poor Die + rather than go to Poplar Workhouse. + + +It is easy to understand that the humane spirit Crooks had infused into +Poor Law administration, and the fact of his having made the State +recognise a duty to the unemployed, was not acceptable to the old order +of Poor Law administrators, nor to some of the officials of the Local +Government Board. + +When Crooks entered upon Poor Law work he found it bound hand and foot +by red tape. The men elected by the people did not rule at all. They +were little more than the servants of paid officials, whether in the +person of Bumble in the workhouse or of Bumble at the Local Government +Board. + +We have seen how he fought against Bumble administration, and how +successive Presidents of the Local Government Board lent him their +support. Mr. Ritchie, at the request of Poplar, reduced the +qualification for Guardians. Sir Henry Fowler abolished it, and, again +at Poplar's request, deprived workhouse masters of the power to refuse +admission to Guardians. Mr. Henry Chaplin ordered "workhouse comforts" +and "adequate out-relief." Mr. Walter Long improved the dietary scale +and formed the Central Unemployed Committee. Mr. Gerald Balfour passed +the Unemployed Act. + +All these reforms were more or less unwelcome to Bumbledom. One can +understand how impatiently those who stood for the old harsh order of +things waited for an opportunity to break into revolt. Their opportunity +came in June, 1906, at the Local Government Board Inquiry into Poplar's +Poor Law administration. + +Crooks, who was still Chairman, courted the fullest and most open +investigation. Directly he heard that the Poplar Municipal Alliance was +making charges against the Guardians to the Local Government Board, he +appealed for a public Inquiry. + +On the opening day of the public Inquiry at Poplar Crooks and his +colleague George Lansbury felt it to be their duty to protest against +its being conducted by an Inspector who, they alleged, had his verdict +in his pocket. They wished to make no reflection upon the Inspector's +personal integrity, but they declared then and afterwards that it +appeared to them to be "quite unjust to appoint so extreme an opponent +of their policy to conduct the inquiry." + +For fifteen out of the twenty days that the inquiry lasted the Inspector +allowed the Municipal Alliance practically to direct the proceedings. +They did their best to discredit Crooks's Poor Law policy on account of +the malpractices of some of his colleagues, of which, up to then, owing +to the pressure of his other public duties, he had been ignorant. + +The Inspector, whose knowledge might have taught him how far from true +many of the innuendoes were, made no attempt to stop them. He appeared +to think it quite right to allow statements to go forth to the public +that paupers were being fed on all kinds of delicacies, and that +serviettes, pocket handkerchiefs, and outfits for girls going to service +were for the use of the ordinary inmates of the workhouse. + +The public did not know at the time that the "Linen Collars for +Workhouse Inmates," blazoned forth in the Press as an example of +Poplar's extravagance, were simply what were supplied to the boys in the +school, that they too, like the girls, might go out into the world no +longer branded, but self-respecting. + +All through the Inquiry the public was given to understand that Poplar +was an example of what happens under Labour administration. Since the +two most prominent Guardians, Crooks and Lansbury, were known everywhere +as Labour leaders, the whole Board was wrongly supposed to consist of +their followers. In reality, out of a Board of twenty-four members only +ten were Labour representatives, and not half of these Socialists. The +majority of the Guardians were Conservatives and Liberals. + +The policy of Crooks and Lansbury did to a large extent dominate the +Board, due no doubt to their ability and personal magnetism. But +between the _policy_ of these two men and the _administration_ of +certain of their colleagues lay a gulf that neither the Inspector nor +the Press seemed to see at the time. These two were held responsible for +certain faults of administration committed by individual members of the +Board belonging to the Liberal and Conservative parties. They were +actually held up to reproach and ridicule for faults and follies +committed by colleagues who had bitterly opposed their policy at every +step. + +The Inquiry taught Crooks his mistake in consenting to remain Chairman +of the Board after his election to Parliament. We have seen that his +consent to remain was given reluctantly, and on the understanding that +he should devote less time to the work. He little thought that some of +those who pressed him to stay would take advantage of his relaxed +attention to bring discredit on the Board's administration. He therefore +seized an early opportunity in the succeeding year of resigning the +office, informing the Board by word of mouth, and the people of Poplar +by circular letter, that in doing so, owing to the press of other public +duties, he did not propose to abandon in the smallest way any part of +that policy of Poor Law reform to which the best years of his public +life had been devoted. He also publicly declared in Poplar repeatedly +that he would do his best to expose and turn out of public life any +person guilty of corruption, and even while the Inquiry was going on he +appealed to the Inspector more than once to order a prosecution of +suspected Guardians and contractors. + +After the dust and din caused by the Municipal Alliance had died down, +that body found itself largely discredited in Poplar. One of its members +wrote to the Press:-- + + + Over this Inquiry we have already made many enemies.... It would be + difficult to define what the Alliance set out to do, but the + methods employed in doing it were, to say the least, unworthy.... + + I did not think, when we embarked on this expensive trip, that we + were going to attempt to cover with ridicule men who, it must be + admitted, have devoted a considerable portion of their time to the + affairs of the Union, and are now proved to have been thoroughly + honest in their policy. + + +The Alliance was to receive a heavier blow from the Poplar people. To +them an insult to Crooks was an insult to Poplar. The Borough Council +Elections followed soon after the Inquiry, the Alliance throwing all its +weight into the local campaign. In nearly all the other London boroughs +the Progressives and Labour men were badly beaten. In Poplar the Labour +Party went back larger in numbers and backed by a stronger vote of the +electors than they had ever had before. Lansbury defeated the Chairman +of the Alliance. + +"That," said Crooks at the time, in an interview in one of the daily +papers, "is the answer of the people of Poplar to the slanders and +misrepresentations levelled against me. The people of Poplar know the +truth about my policy, whatever may have been the shortcomings of some +of my colleagues; the people of London do not know--they only have the +Yellow Press version." + +Again, when a few weeks later the triennial election for the London +County Council took place, the people of Poplar stood by their Labour +member. Progressive and Labour seats fell all over London in March, +1907, but Crooks was re-elected for Poplar at the top of the poll with +3,504 votes, though the Alliance strained every nerve to oust him. + +Then it was that his outside accusers began to suspect they had been +misled. Here was a prophet in his own country indeed--accused and +slandered outside, but trusted and honoured by his neighbours. And when +a month later the election of Guardians took place, and Poplar, put to a +third test, declared more emphatically than ever for the Crooks policy +by defeating about two-thirds of the Alliance candidates and electing an +increased number of Labour men, the eyes of the public were opened. + +But the revival of Bumbledom was not yet at an end. The Local Government +Board Inspector's report came out three and a half months after the +inquiry closed. The unusual course was followed of publishing it before +the evidence. When the evidence did appear it disproved many of the +Inspector's conclusions. + +The Inspector was bound to say there was no reflection upon the +"personal integrity of Mr. Crooks and Mr. Lansbury." + +While deprecating the standard of comfort in the workhouse, the +Inspector made no reference to the doctor's statement that he did not +think the inmates were too well fed or clad. Rather, he tried to +undermine Crooks's policy by remarks of this kind:-- + + + Mr. Crooks in his evidence admitted that the dietary in the + workhouse was better than could be obtained by the independent + labourer in the borough with a wife and two children to keep who + received anything under 30s. a week. + + +The evidence gives a different version. What Crooks said (page 389) +was:-- + +"A man with 30s. a week with a wife and two children can only just keep +himself in decency. When he gets below that he gets below the Local +Government Board diet.... The men in the workhouse get a bare +subsistence, and no man outside ought to be paid wages less than enable +him to get that kind of living. What you have to prove is that we are +giving the people in the workhouse such luxury as a man in ordinary work +at from thirty to forty shillings a week could not get at home. But what +he" [the legal representative of the Municipal Alliance] "does not say +is that we are dealing with the very aged in the workhouse--the +able-bodied, as you know, are exceedingly limited in number--but he does +not appreciate for a moment that after all a man's liberty is worth +something. Liberty has not fallen in value. It is a priceless something. +A man will die for it. And our people will die--a good many of +them--rather than go into the workhouse." + +It happened that the people of Poplar were dying for it about that very +time. While the Local Government Board was harassing Crooks for his +efforts to save the poor from starvation, another Department of the +State was in correspondence with the Guardians over two cases of people +who had died from starvation in Poplar. This was the Home Office. + +It is a theory of the British Constitution that no person in the kingdom +should die of starvation. Yet in London alone forty-eight people died of +starvation in the winter of 1905-6. Whitechapel, which gives no +out-relief, and is held up as a model by the Inspector who conducted the +Poplar inquiry, had ten deaths from starvation within its borders during +the year. Poplar, where the Guardians are said to be too generous in +their treatment of the poor, was unable, with all its zeal, to prevent +two people dying from want of food. + +One of the victims was a child whose father refused to go into Poplar +workhouse--this so-called "palace of luxury"--because he thought he +might still be able to earn a trifle outside. Out-relief in the way of +food was given to the value of 3s. 6d. a week, but that not being enough +for a family of five, the youngest defied the British Constitution by +quietly slipping into the grave--"Died of asthenia and bronchitis," was +the coroner's verdict, "due to mother's want of food, accelerated by +want of proper clothing." + +Shortly afterwards a married labourer in Old Ford, faced with +starvation, refused to apply to the Poplar Guardians because it had +become common talk among the poor of the district that the Local +Government Board would no longer allow the Guardians to assist people +outside the workhouse. And one morning this unemployed man had to run to +the nearest doctor's because one of his children was "took queer." What +followed was told by the doctor in evidence a few days later at the +Poplar Coroner's Court. He related how he was knocked up in the early +morning, and how, when he went to the house, he found no sign of food, +no fire, and, lying on some scanty bedding, a girl-child, who had been +dead about an hour. Death, he added, was due to exhaustion from want of +sufficient food. He was so shocked with the poverty of the home that he +gave the parents five shillings out of his own pocket, and sent them +something to eat. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE + + Crooks Appeals to the Public--"This Insult to the Poor"--Resentment + all over the Country--A Voice from the Hungry 'Forties--Cheering + Letters--A Government Department's Blunder--Poplar's Appeal to + Crooks. + + +The day after the report of the Local Government Board Inspector was +published, Crooks sent his decision upon it to the Press. He wrote from +the House of Commons, where, as he stated in his letter, "the unfairness +and injustice of the report in its bearings on my Poor Law policy are so +far recognised that to-day I have been told by members of all parties +that the report is not only wicked but brutal." He further stated in his +letter to the Press:-- + +"Will you permit me to make it public through your columns that I accept +the challenge thrown down in the Local Government Board report? Against +all its strictures I intend to maintain my stand on that policy of +humanising the Poor Law, to which I have given the greater part of my +life. And in doing so I propose to appeal from the Local Government +Board to the public. + +"If the public upholds this insult to the poor I shall be painfully +surprised. After twenty days of a searching inquiry, and after twice +twenty pages of a strained attack on Mr. Lansbury and myself, there is +nothing to show that we have done anything against the actual orders and +regulations of the very Board that now rises in mock-heroic wrath to +slay us. Our only crime is that we have humanised a system framed in +1834, when the voteless working classes were dragooned by a middle-class +majority.... + +"My present duty is clear. The public may remember that at Mr. Chaplin's +request I went as a nominee of the Local Government Board on the +Metropolitan Asylums Board. It may remember that I was co-opted on the +Central Unemployed Body on the suggestion of Mr. Walter Long. Now that +the Local Government Board, under the new Government, has seen fit to +attack me and my Labour colleagues, and to flout the poor as I venture +to say they have never been flouted by that Department before, I can no +longer hold those two positions. I propose to resign. Nor until its +attitude towards the poor and the unemployed changes will I ever consent +to represent the Local Government Board on any public body again. I +prefer to represent the people.... + +"The faults of administration at Poplar, so grossly magnified in this +report, are common to all such bodies, and Poplar will do its best to +avoid them. But the policy will not change. By that we stand or fall." + +The reason for that policy was briefly explained in a special report +issued by the Poplar Guardians and signed by Crooks as Chairman. It +formed part of the Board's reply to the Inspector's report. Thus:-- + + + This policy was never put in force with the idea that it would lead + to a reduction in rates or in the number applying for relief. No + one imagines that decent treatment of the poor will choke off + applicants in the manner that harsh treatment will, but we claim + that under the Act of Elizabeth, the poor (not merely the + destitute, but the poor) are entitled to come to society in time of + need. + + The State provides all kinds of services for the community, such as + roads, sewers, light, police, army, navy, education, etc., and we + all enjoy those privileges. The State pensions its well-paid + Cabinet Ministers and officials; and we claim that the poor, whose + charter is the 43rd of Elizabeth, instead of being penalised when + needing help, should receive such help in an ungrudging measure and + in a manner which would most effectively preserve their + self-respect. + + Finally, we would again repeat that our pauperism is due to our + poverty, that our policy is based on the claims recognised by + statute as the due right of the poor. We neither palliate nor + excuse any lapses either on the part of members or officers of the + Board, but we claim that as a Board we have carried out our duties + as efficiently and as economically as we were able, that we have + never given indiscriminate relief either in or out of the + workhouse, and in the main have usefully tried to do our duty both + to the poor, who have our first claim, and to the ratepayers. + + We have never ceased to urge for the past ten years that the poor + are a metropolitan charge, that unemployment is a national + question, that the Poor Law should be reformed. We are glad to know + that our work, despite this present attack, has been successful, + and that the poor of Poplar are better cared for, and not only the + poor of Poplar, but the poor of the United Kingdom generally, as a + result of our effort. + + +His appeal to the public won an inspiring response. Bumbledom was +against him, but the people were with him. While a section of the Press +was attacking him, it was so far ignorant of what the people of England +were thinking as to know nothing at all of the tremendous meetings he +was addressing all over the country. + +His meetings in Poplar and Woolwich, where he was supported with rousing +enthusiasm, were the largest he had ever had in those boroughs. At +Chesterfield he addressed an open-air meeting of nearly twenty thousand +Midland miners, when his reference to his Poor Law policy was cheered to +the echo. The Cleveland miners were equally enthusiastic when he went up +to their annual gathering. It was the same at public meetings in +Newcastle, Burton, Huddersfield, Rossendale, Stockport, Batley, +Sunderland, Penarth--the man who had stood out against one of +Bumbledom's fiercest onslaughts had the good-will and confidence of the +working people of England. At his indoor meetings there were rarely +fewer than two thousand people present. Often he had audiences of four +and five thousand. + +It looked as though a recurrence of his old illness would prevent him +from keeping an appointment to speak on his Poor Law policy at Bradford. +Such was the strength of the appeal sent to him, however, that he +determined to risk it. He had to be helped by his wife on the journey, +and when at the meeting it was found he was unable to stand there was a +unanimous call that he be allowed to keep his chair while speaking. +Seated in the middle of the platform, he held an audience of two or +three thousand people for upwards of an hour. The response he wrung from +the crowded hall moved him deeply. Bumbledom never had a worse hour. + +Of course his first public meeting after the publication of the Local +Government Board's report took place at the Dock Gates in Poplar. + +"We never had a better meeting," he wrote to me the next day. "The +audience backed me to a man and woman--and, by the way, we never had so +many women present before. It did me good." + +At some of his provincial meetings there were people who well-nigh +worshipped him. Old men in particular who had known the Hungry 'Forties +would come up to him after the meeting and say:-- + +"Let me shake you by the hand, Mr. Crooks. We read about it in the +papers, but the papers don't understand. We've been through it, and +know. Don't be down-hearted, Mr. Crooks. God bless you!" + +At a small country town a bed had been reserved for him at the little +hotel outside the railway station. He arrived about midnight, and found +the place in darkness. He knocked loudly for some time. At last a man's +voice was heard from the railway line. + +"Is that Mr. Crooks? Lord love yer, we knew you'd be late, and gone +again early in the morning, and so that I shouldn't miss seeing you I +told the hotel-keeper to go to bed and let me have the keys, so that +you couldn't get in without me shaking you by the hand." + +His first public meeting in Woolwich after the Local Government Board +Inquiry drew an audience of over five thousand people to the Drill Hall. +His colleague Lansbury shared in the inspiring reception and addressed +the meeting. + +Crooks told the audience it was no wonder that Lansbury and he got angry +at times over our iniquitous Poor Law system. Such was the injustice of +the rating system in London that Poplar--which was spending out of the +rates per head of population less than half what West-End districts like +Kensington and Marylebone were spending--appeared to outsiders to be +extravagant. If those West-End Boroughs had Poplar's poor to look after, +their rates, instead of being about 7s., would be about 15s. in the +pound. The poor of Poplar were London's poor; yet the cost of looking +after them was borne mainly by the people of Poplar. London was the only +city in the world where those who grew rich on the labour of the poor +were able to segregate themselves in favoured quarters, and escape their +obligation to help the aged poor unable to work longer. + +He went on to show the iniquities of our Poor Law system from a national +standpoint. About £28,000,000 a year was raised in the name of the Poor +Law. Of this only £14,000,000 had any connection with the Poor Law at +all. And how were the fourteen millions spent? The poor got seven and a +half millions, while the remaining six and a half millions were spent +in administrative charges. That meant that every 5s. given to the poor +out of the rates cost the ratepayers another 4s. 9d. to give it. No +wonder that Bumbledom became nervous when Guardians urged that the poor +rather than officials should receive more of this money raised for the +poor. The Local Government Board Inspector, when deploring that Poplar's +expenditure on the poor had gone up during the last ten years, might +have added that during the same period the cost of collecting rates in +the City had gone up from £11,000 to £23,000. It seemed to be all right +when officials got the money, but all wrong when the poor got it. + +"I believe in being a true Guardian of the poor, and not merely a +Guardian of the Poor Rate. We in Poplar have preferred to save the lives +of the poor rather than the rates. Even then we have administered with +remarkable economy; for Poplar's rates would not be high if London as a +whole paid its proper share towards maintaining London's poor. We in +Poplar, however, have not allowed an unjust rating system to prevent us +from doing our duty to broken-down old people, to the starving and to +the unemployed. We agree with Carlyle that 'to believe practically, that +the poor and luckless are here only as a nuisance to be abraded and +abated, and in some permissible manner made away with, and swept out of +sight, is not an amiable faith. To say to the poor: Ye shall eat the +bread of affliction and drink the water of affliction and be very +miserable while here, requires not so much a stretch of heroic faculty +in any sense as due toughness of bowels.'" + +From Stockport, where he had been addressing one of a series of public +meetings in the Midlands, he wrote:-- + +"How good the people are! Whenever I mention Poplar, it is truly +inspiring to hear the magnificent response. Last night the moment the +word passed my lips an audience of two thousand cheered like one man. It +sometimes overwhelms me almost. Who am I to deserve it?... + +"I am sometimes told that I affect to despise my critics. You know +better, of course. But, really, after such experiences as these, I can't +help laughing at them when I think of their ponderous official +pronouncements against my policy and of the equally ponderous lectures +read to me by certain sections of the Press and the Church. When will +the Press and the Church, and 'all who are put in authority over us,' +come to learn what the mind of the people really is, and begin to +interpret it rightly? I know the heart of the people to be true. That is +why I laugh and go on my way confident that the little piece of +well-doing I have aimed at on behalf of the poor and the unemployed will +in the end put to 'silence the ignorance of foolish men.'" + +If his meetings were inspiring, the same can be said of his +correspondence. Public men, in various parts of the country, including +Guardians, wrote to congratulate him on the brave stand he had made +against the forces of Bumbledom. From other quarters he had many +encouraging letters. + +Canon Scott Holland wrote: "You know how your friends feel for you in +this cruel trouble. We need not tell you how we trust you, and believe +in you, and stand by you." + +"You have made many lives happier and better by your work on behalf of +the poor," wrote a high official from a central Poor Law establishment. +"I thought it might be a comfort to you to know we feel indignant that +you have been rudely assailed." + +It was encouraging also to receive a note from a prominent Woolwich +Conservative. The writer commenced by saying that although he was a +political opponent, and would continue to be so, he had the greatest +respect for Crooks personally, and wished to assure him that he did not +agree with the attacks that had been made on his Poor Law policy. + +"Cheer up," came a message from the Rev. A. Tildsley, pastor of the +Poplar and Bromley Tabernacle. "Don't get off your high pedestal to go +down to your opponents' level. Leave the mud alone. The sun shines +daily, and will soon dry it. Then it will drop off itself. All good men +have to pay the price. This is not your first baptism of fire in defence +of the poor." + +From the Oxford House Settlement, Bethnal Green, the Rev. H. S. +Woolcombe wrote:--"I am perfectly certain that this attack cannot do you +any permanent harm, and that you and Lansbury are both men too big to +let it abate your courage and determination to go on with your work." + +Letters came to him from abroad long after the Inquiry. Unknown friends +in America, France, and other countries sent him sympathetic letters. He +told one of his Woolwich meetings--according to the report in the Labour +Party's weekly newspaper, the _Woolwich Pioneer_:-- + + + He had had a few letters that were not sympathetic (Laughter, and a + voice, "Rub it in for Robb"). Well, he had rubbed it in as well as + he could. Mr. Robb [the legal representative of the Alliance at the + Inquiry] was not a bad chap at all. A man must earn his money, and + Mr. Robb had earned his very well. He (Mr. Crooks) had not a word + to say against anybody. Some mud had been thrown, but it would + easily brush off. After all, there still remained the obligation to + look after those who were unable to look after themselves, and to + give to the poor and little children left to their care and mercy + the best of their ability and service. They were proud that God had + given them the opportunity to do the work they had done. And they + were not ashamed. + + +It is noteworthy that when the Local Government Board was investigating +the Guardians' contracts something was brought to light which even the +Inspector records to the credit of Poplar. He found that some years +previously the Guardians, recognising that the system of dealing with +contracts by Poor Law authorities was a faulty one, liable to abuse, had +appealed to the Local Government Board to establish a central authority +for dealing with all Poor Law contracts in London, thus removing from +the local Guardians the temptation towards favouritism and loose +administration. + +That appeal was disregarded, though it is understood the Local +Government Board will shortly be compelled to carry out Poplar's +suggestion, because of the demoralisation which the loose system has +created. Had the appeal been heeded at the time--originated as it was by +the Labour Members at Poplar--much of the corruption brought to light in +several Poor Law Unions in respect to contracts could never have taken +place. The Local Government Board's own loose system, therefore, has +been indirectly responsible for corruption on Poor Law bodies. + +This fact doubtless influenced Canon Barnett to pass very severe +strictures on the Local Government Board's gross neglect of duty. "The +inspectors of the Local Government Board," he stated in the _Daily +News_, "hold inquiries into scandals for which they are themselves +largely responsible. Why did they not discover and report these matters +years ago? We ought to have independent inquiries, in which the +inspectors are subjected to examination, for it is their perfunctory +inspection which has allowed the growth of such evil." + +Defeated over the Inquiry the Local Government Board carried out a +minute analysis of the Guardians' accounts. The ordinary Local +Government Board audit occupies only three days. In the case of Poplar, +it was on this occasion extended over three months. Every item was +carefully examined in accounts representing an expenditure of over a +quarter of a million sterling. On the whole of this sum, the auditor, +after his three months' investigation, only found half a dozen trifling +items that he could question. These represented a few shillings for +"Guardians' and other persons' teas," and about £5 in respect to +excessive fares under the head of travelling expenses. These items were +surcharged to the individual Guardians responsible, of whom Crooks, +needless to say, was not one. Indeed, he as Chairman assisted the +auditor in bringing to light what he considered the excessive fares +which had been charged by some of his colleagues on the Board. + +The surcharge for the teas revealed Bumbledom at its worst. The "other +persons' teas" referred to included the occasional afternoon cup offered +to the ladies of the Brabazon Society on their visiting days. Bumbledom, +which connives at Guardians' six-course dinners at five shillings per +head in other Unions, proved itself to be so far embittered against +Poplar that it actually objected to a cup of tea and a lunch biscuit to +lady visitors belonging to a society which has given thousands of pounds +from the private purses of its members for brightening our workhouses. + +It happened that these ladies were presenting their yearly report on +Poplar Workhouse about the same time the Local Government Board attack +took place. These good women are not influenced by the Local Government +Board or by Municipal Alliances or by the party differences among the +Guardians. Their opinion is that of a quiet body of independent, +intelligent women. In their report on Poplar Workhouse they say:-- + + + During the year forty-six meetings have been held, and at each some + part of the House has been visited. The year has been singularly + free from complaints, all the inmates seeming happy and contented. + + The nurses in charge are kindness itself, and are uniformly + good-tempered and active. The whole House is kept beautifully + clean, and each ward is a picture of cosiness and comfort. + + Every useful aid is procured for the infirm, to help them to move + about easily. The sick are kindly tended, and the little children's + health and comfort carefully supervised. + + +Observe, in connection with this three months' audit, that not a penny +was surcharged in respect to the out-relief grants. Notwithstanding all +the wild charges that had been made, not a single case could be found +where Crooks's policy of helping the poor could be proved to be illegal. +After all the hubbub, a three months' scrutiny under the eye of a +capable Government auditor proved that Poplar had simply been carrying +out the law relating to the poor. + +The Local Government Board was badly beaten in its attempt to discredit +Crooks's policy. Finally, it was argued on the Board's behalf, as though +in a last grasp at a straw, that the decrease in the amount of +out-relief during the year of the Inquiry was in itself a justification +of the Local Government Board's action. Everybody outside the Board +knows differently. The year referred to (1906) was the most prosperous +this country has ever experienced. If anything, the industries of +Poplar shared in that prosperity to a larger extent than other parts of +the country. The primary cause of the decrease was not the Inquiry, but +the lessening of want brought about by an extraordinary trade revival. + +"Give us," Crooks has repeatedly stated in public, "the same terrible +state of things that we had in some of the previous winters, and I shall +apply the same remedy again. The law is there for the sake of the poor, +not for the sake of officials. My policy is not a haphazard one. It is +the outcome of years of experience. It is fundamentally sound, and will +one day become a national policy." + +Crooks had indeed played a part for the poor of the whole nation. Before +the echoes of the Bumbledom agitation had died away the very Government +which allowed one of its Departments to be made an instrument in that +agitation was promising to carry out the very reforms for which Crooks +had striven and suffered--Old Age Pensions, Amendment of the Poor Law, +and Equalisation of London Rates. + +The Government, however, shirked a discussion of the Poplar Report in +the House of Commons. The Labour Party, backed by Conservative Members, +pressed the Prime Minister for an opportunity to discuss the report. Mr. +Keir Hardie and Crooks pointed out that, as the report stood, an +injustice was done to a popularly elected body, the effect of which +would be to deter other Boards of Guardians from carrying out the Poor +Law in a humane spirit. They further maintained that the country was now +without guidance as to how to treat poor people out of work and in need +of food. + +But the Government had learnt by this time that a departmental blunder +had been committed by associating the Poor Law policy of Crooks with the +faulty administration of some of his colleagues. The Prime Minister got +out of the difficulty by informing the House that the report was not +made by the Local Government Board, but to that Board by one of their +officers, "and," he added, "I don't understand that it is proposed to +call in question any action of my right hon. friend the President in +regard to the report." + +Indeed, the President of the Local Government Board assured a friend of +Crooks in a conversation in the Lobby that there had been a +misunderstanding somewhere. He sought an early opportunity of giving +Crooks a similar assurance. + + +It was said of Crooks in Poplar about that time that he was going to +leave the neighbourhood never to return. Working-men came round to him +in solemn deputation, and women and children stopped him in the street, +in order to hear from his own lips that the bodeful rumour bore no +meaning. The rumour, which never had the smallest basis of truth, +reached the workhouse, where he had not been seen for two or three +weeks, weighed down as he was by a hundred public attacks, his own +wearing illness and a heavy domestic trouble. But one afternoon he found +time to go and see the inmates again. And old men hobbled towards him +and clutched his arm and hand as they broke down in their efforts to +tell him what was in their hearts. When he entered the women's wards +there was a chorus of almost tearful appeals. "Say it isn't true, Mr. +Crooks." "Don't go away and leave us, Mr. Crooks." + +Sitting alone at the end of a bench was one old dame talking to herself +in that vague, mumbling way common to many old women in our workhouses. +As she rambled on in her talk she took up the cry:-- + +"Don't leave us, Mr. Crooks. For over seventy years I worked hard, Mr. +Crooks, ever since I was eight years of age. Brought up a family of +ten--two boys died in the wars, one drowned at sea. All the others left +me long ago, and I don't know where they are. And my man was buried in +'eighty-nine--buried near the brickfields where we worked together +thirty years before. And I kept myself outside for fifteen years, a lone +old woman; and you helped me, Mr. Crooks, until I couldn't look after +myself any longer, and then you made me comfortable here. So now I count +the days between your coming to see us to cheer us up. So please don't +leave us, Mr. Crooks. Don't--don't leave us, Mr. Crooks." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"THE HAPPY WARRIOR" + + A Cheerful Invalid and his Neighbours--The Starving Children in the + Schools--Public Confidence in Crooks--Left Smiling. + + +Shortly afterwards he was laid low for two or three weeks, the victim of +his old enemy, muscular rheumatism. + +"Some of my ancestors must have been aristocrats," he used to tell his +visitors good-naturedly from his sick bed in explanation of his +recurring complaint. + +As usual, the knocker at No. 81, Gough Street, knew no rest during his +illness. Hundreds of people called to leave sympathetic little messages +of goodwill. From Woolwich came a telegram from a party of children. An +old bedridden man laboriously penned a letter, brought round by his aged +wife, to say that Mr. Crooks might like to know that an "ole bloke as is +pegging out fast" was thinking of him all day, and hoping he would soon +get well. + +This message cheered the invalid greatly, and he sent back a reply that +renewed the old man's youth for weeks. For Crooks never lost his +cheerfulness when lying bandaged in bed. He used to banter his wife and +daughters, and his Labour colleagues in Parliament who came to visit +him, until they had to hold their sides with laughter. His cheery doctor +used to store up good stories for the invalid's delectation; but he +always had to admit that Crooks could cap them all with better ones. + +Once back at work again, Crooks threw all the time and energy he could +spare from Parliament and his Labour meetings into a campaign for +feeding starving school children. Perhaps the best instance of the +people's trust in him was supplied by what happened in consequence of a +powerful plea for hungry children he made on the London County Council. +The Moderates were then in power, and he pleaded with them to persist no +longer in their policy of refusing to exercise their powers under the +Necessitous School Children's Act, which enables them to spend public +money on food for starving scholars. + +It was nigh on midnight before he got an opportunity of raising the +question, and then--according to the _Daily Mail_, which had often been +one of his bitterest opponents--he "electrified his sleepy colleagues as +he expressed the agony of hungry children and the despair of parents +unable to satisfy their cravings. The speech was spoken without a single +note; it came from his heart. When Mr. Crooks sat down, exhausted by the +effort--he was far from well--there was a moment of dead silence. Then +there broke out the applause which relieved the tension. There was +scarcely a dry eye in the Council chamber." + +In the course of his speech to the Council Crooks said:-- + + + There are no hard-hearted men and there are no hard-hearted women; + there are only men and women ignorant of the need. Only the other + day a teacher in one of our schools showed me a letter from a + mother of three fatherless girls. It ran:-- + + Dear Teacher,--Will you allow my little girls to + come home at half-past three? I shall have earned sixpence + by then, and shall be able to give them something warm to eat. + They have had nothing all day. + + Here are we, satisfied after a good dinner. Yet I know that this + very night hundreds of little children have gone to bed with + nothing but a cup of cold water for their supper, and that in the + morning they will have nothing but water for their breakfasts. What + do you expect them to become? What sort of citizens of this great + Empire City will they make? + + I have seen the poor as they live, and I tell you that, much as + they may forgive you for many things, they will never forgive you + for neglecting the children--the children stunted in body and mind + for want of food, old before their time, with the souls, not of + children, but of old men and women. + + A nation which neglects its children is damned. You are neglecting + London's hungry children by leaving the provision of meals to + private subscriptions which all over London have failed to meet the + little people's need. You never talk of running the Army and Navy + and the defence of the Empire generally by means of private + subscriptions and charitable doles. Yet the thing that is of + greater importance at the present moment than the Army and Navy to + us, as an Imperial people, is that the children who are going to + inherit the responsibility of the government of our vast Empire + should be properly fed and clothed _now_. + + What have you to say to facts like these? A woman, early the other + morning, as soon as the shutters were down, entered a pawnbroker's + shop, and took from under her shawl, in a shamefaced manner, a + small bundle. The pawnbroker's assistant unrolled the bundle, and + there, clean washed and scarcely dry, was the woman's chemise. She + had taken it off her body, washed and partly dried it, and to the + pawnbroker's assistant she said: + + "For the love of God, lend me sixpence on this." + + "I cannot," said the assistant. "It's not worth it." + + "Then give me threepence," pleaded the woman. "I must give my + children a mouthful before they go to school this morning." + + You object to feed the children because it would increase the + rates. Yes, it would increase the rates by a farthing. But + indirectly you are increasing the rates to a far greater extent by + starving the children. By neglecting them now you will be compelled + to feed and shelter them later in life in workhouses and + infirmaries. + + I appeal to you to rise to a sense of your responsibilities, and + see that these children are fed. If it meant that I should be + driven out of public life by feeding starving children out of the + rates, I should feed them out of the rates. I should then have done + my duty. + + +The appeal moved the Council deeply, but on a party vote he was +defeated, many of the Councillors who voted against him crowding round +him afterwards to assure him of their individual sympathy. + +The sequel came the day after his speech was reported in the Press. From +all parts of London he and his wife had cheques and postal orders +showered upon them from people in all walks of life, from little +children to old people. Nearly £200 in all came to hand, together with +huge parcels of boots and clothing, every donor leaving it entirely in +Crooks's hands as to how the money and the things were distributed, so +long as the needy children got them. + +This is just the kind of thing that he deprecates, but, public bodies +having failed to meet the need, he and his wife set to work, and did +their best to meet it in their own neighbourhood. With the aid of a few +friends they got in touch with some of the poorest schools in the East +End, and soon thousands of hungry school children were fed and hundreds +of the naked clothed. + +Crooks gave the London County Council no rest on this subject. He went +on agitating until the Moderate majority in the succeeding winter at +last gave in and agreed to make the feeding of necessitous scholars a +public charge. + + +Thus we leave him, still in the ranks fighting. We must part from him +with a smile, since that is how he likes best to leave both friend and +enemy. And those who heard him speak in the winter of 1908 at the City +Temple smile every time they think of the occasion--a mass meeting of +the London Federation of Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhoods. + +No written word can adequately describe the hilarious effect of Crooks's +speech. Without the man behind them, the words alone convey little, as I +many times have been made to feel keenly while writing this narrative. +Indeed, one of Mr. Crooks's colleagues in Parliament, a staid, dull man +of much wealth, accosted him in the House one afternoon with the remark: +"How is it, Mr. Crooks, that when I repeat your stories to my +constituents, they never laugh?" + +At the City Temple Crooks told his great audience how delighted he had +been to observe the growth of the religious and civic spirit among the +working classes since this movement for Sunday afternoon meetings began. + +"At the meetings in the early days," he said, "you know how you used to +be troubled with the irrelevant questioner. I was present once when the +speaker, after narrating his experiences abroad, was asked whether he +was in favour of compulsory vaccination! Another time a man got up, and +after reading out a list of parsons who had been sentenced asked me what +I had to say to that? + +"'A bad lot,' I answered, 'but it doesn't shake my faith in Christianity +any more than to-day's fog shakes my faith in the sun." + +"On another occasion a man asked me what I meant by condemning betting, +seeing that the aristocracy backed horses. + +"'But the aristocracy know no better. You do. So set them an example.' + +"Then there was the heckler who wanted to know whether I objected to a +man leaving money for the propagation of atheism. + +"'If he likes to do it, let him,' I answered. 'He's sure to regret it as +soon as he is dead.' + +"And that reminds me," continued Crooks, "of what happened at the last +County Council election. A local undertaker, who had always supported me +before, stopped me in the street to say he was going to vote on the +other side this time. + +"''Tain't as I don't believe in you, Mr. Crooks. I likes you as well as +ever I did; but men in our calling must keep an eye on the party that +best helps business, you know!' + +"I told him I did not understand. + +"'Why,' said the undertaker, 'I could make a decent living when the +death rate was 20 per 1,000. I can even get along nicely when it's 18; +but since you've bin on the move, Mr. Crooks, I can't make a living +nohow, with a death rate no more'n 14.'" + + + + +INDEX + + +A + +Adult Sunday Schools, 213, 259 + +Afforestation for unemployed, 265 + + +B + +Baby-farming in London, 94 + +Balfour, Mr. Arthur, 17, 238, 261 + +Baptist Union, Crooks addresses the, 257 + +Barnett, Canon, 222, 290 + +Beresford, Lord Charles, 186, 187 + +Bishop of London, The, 257 + +Blackwall Tunnel, Crooks and the, 101-04 + +Boarding-out children, 125 + +Borough Councillor, Crooks as a, 68, 154-74, 212 + +Brabazon Society and Poplar Workhouse, 291 + +Brotherhoods, Men's, 300 + +Burns, Mr. John, 68, 189, 195, 265, 266, 294 + + +C + +Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., 195, 294 + +Canada and the unemployed, 231, 267 + +Central Unemployed Committee, 232, 235 + +Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, 214, 217 + +Chandler, Bishop, 23, 76 + +Chaplin, Mr. Henry, 115, 144, 185 + +Chesterton, Mr. G. K., 148, 149 + +Children correspondents of Crooks, 171, 198 + +Children, Poor Law, 119, 125 + +Children, Starving School, 297 + +Christianity and the working classes, 259 + +Churches and Labour, 261 + +City Temple Speech, 300 + +"College" at the Dock Gates, Crooks's, 57, 212 + +Collins, Sir William, 97 + +Coronation festivities at Poplar, 169-171 + +Craftsmanship, Need of, 41 + +Crooks, Mrs., Will's mother; his tributes to, 3, 6, 18, 36 + +Crooks, Mrs., Will Crooks's second wife, 73, 167, 249 + +Crooks, Will: + born in a one-roomed home, 1; + taken into the workhouse, 9; + sent to a Poor Law school, 11; + an errand-boy, 16, 26; + at George Green schools, 19; + at Sunday School, 19; + books of his youth, 22; + at work in a smithy, 33; + apprenticed to coopering, 36; + nicknamed "Young John Bright," 37; + first marriage, 43; + dismissed as an agitator, 44; + out of work, 44, 51; + tramping experiences, 45; + finds work at Liverpool, 46, 50; + his child's death there, 46; + gets work as a dock labourer, 50; + his "college" at the dock gates, 57-66; + his part in the Great Dock Strike, 67; + a dangerous illness, 69; + death of his first wife, 72; + his second marriage, 73; + the Will Crooks Wages Fund formed, 75; + his election to the London County Council, 76; + declines a partnership, 81; + refuses a rent-free house, 82; + his work on the L.C.C., 85-104; + helps to formulate the Fair Wage Clause, 87; + is chosen Chairman of the Public Control Committee, 94; + declines the Vice-chairmanship of the L.C.C., 98; + secures open spaces for Poplar, 98; + his overcoat stolen, 99; + pleads the cause of good craftsmanship, 100; + the Blackwall Tunnel one of his monuments, 101; + is chosen Chairman of the Bridges Committee, 102; + becomes a Guardian for Poplar, 105; + is elected Chairman of the Board, 112; + changes the composition of the Board and of its staff, 112; + abolishes the pauper's garb, 114; + reforms the workhouse, 114-118; + sends Poor Law children to Board Schools, 120; + provides a home for them, 123; + his work on the Metropolitan Asylums Board, 128-43; + a peace-maker among the poor, 144; + chosen Mayor of Poplar, 154; + organises the King's Dinner to the Poor at Poplar, 169; + receives the Prince and Princess of Wales, 169; + raises funds for a Coronation treat to children, 170; + his policy of paying old age pensions through the Poor Law, 175-85; + his first election for Woolwich, 186-201; + his maiden speech, 202; + advocates the payment of members, 204; + introduces a Women's Enfranchisement Bill, 206; + retires from the Poplar Borough Council, 212; + up and down the country, 213; + ridicules Protection and Preference, 213-18; + his efforts for the unemployed, 219-51; + advocates the provision of useful work, 221; + his activity as a member of the Poplar Distress Committee, 223-26; + his scheme for a Central Unemployed Committee adopted by Mr. Walter + Long, 232; + his appeal to Mr. Balfour for rating powers for providing + work, 237-40; + overwork and illness, 241-42; + secures the passing of the Unemployed Bill, 244-47; + his children, 252-53; + his home life described by the _World_, 253; + his morning's work sketched by Mr. G. R. Sims, 255-56; + his many-sided activity, 257-60; + his temperance work, 260; + his relations with the Free Churches, 262-63; + his schemes for colonising England, 264-70; + defends the Poplar Board of Guardians at the Local Government + Inquiry (1906), 272; + sees his mistake in having remained Chairman of the Board, 274; + his reply to the Inspector's report, 280; + appeals to the public in defence of his policy, 281; + receives letters of encouragement, 287; + is assured by Mr. John Burns that there had been a + misunderstanding, 294; + is besought not to leave Poplar, 295 + +Crown Lands and small holdings, 264 + + +D + +_Daily News_ Woolwich Election Fund, 188 + +Deaths from starvation, 278 + +Dickens, Charles, References to, 19, 32, 149, 118 + +Dock Strike, The Great, 67-69 + +Dolling, Father, 23, 166, 235 + +Drage, Mr. Geoffrey, 191, 193 + + +E + +East India Company, The, 28, 29 + + +F + +Fair Rent Courts advocated by Crooks, 162 + +Fair Wage Clause in the L.C.C.'s contracts, 87 + +Farm Colonies, 231, 243, 266, 268 + +Feeding Necessitous Scholars, 297-300 + +First offenders, Children as, 138 + +Foreshore reclamation, 220 + +Free Church Council, Crooks and the, 261 + +Free Trade defended by Crooks, 191, 214 + +Frenchman, A, on Poplar, 257 + +Fry, Mr. C. B., 148 + + +G + +General Election of 1906, 200 + +George the Fourth at Blackwall, 31 + +Gorst, Sir John, 209 + +Government employees' wages, 203 + +Guardians, _see_ Poplar Board of Guardians + +Guildhall Poor Law Conference, 121 + + +H + +Hardie, Mr. Keir, 189, 195 + +Hills, Mr. A. F., 224, 226, 247 + +Hollesley Bay Farm Colony, 268 + +Holyoake, George Jacob, 42 + +Hungry 'Forties, The, 284 + + +I + +Illness of Crooks, 241, 296 + + +J + +Juvenile Offenders' Bill, 137 + + +K + +King's Coronation Dinner to the Poor, 158, 169; + his Majesty's visit to Poplar as Prince of Wales, 102 + + +L + +Labour Co-partnership, 41 + +Labour Representation Committee, The, 199, 242 + +Laindon Farm Colony, 266 + +Lansbury, George, 105, 232, 235, 242, 249, 273, 276, 281 + +Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, 195 + +Libraries for Poplar secured by Crooks, 65, 174 + +Licensing Bill of 1904, 260 + +Liddon, Canon, 47 + +Little Englanders, 215 + +Local Government Board Inquiry at Poplar, 117, 183, 271-95 + +London County Council, 76-104, 297 + +Long, Mr. Walter, 116, 232, 281 + + +M + +Mansion House scene, A, 157 + +McDougall, Sir John, 96 + +Metropolitan Asylums Board, 128 + +Minister for Labour wanted, 269 + +Monkswell, Lord, 99, 166 + +Morley, Mr. John, 208 + +M.P.'s investments, Crooks on, 210 + + +O + +Oakum-picking, Cost of, 221 + +Old Age Pensions, 176-85 + +Open spaces for Poplar secured by Crooks, 98-100 + + +P + +Parliament, Crooks's speeches in, 125, 202, 204, 245, 230, 246, 261, 265 + +Payment of Members, 204 + +Peruvian Frigate Mutiny, The, 30 + +Pirates hung at Blackwall, 29 + +Political Economy, Crooks on, 88, 150 + +Poor Law, Pensions paid through the, 179 + +Poor Law Commission, 243 + +Poor Law Schools, Parliamentary Committee on, 123 + +Poplar, A walk round, with Crooks, 25-32 + +Poplar Board of Guardians, Crooks and the, 105-27, 175-85, 234-40, + 271-95 + +Poplar Labour League, 75, 166 + +Poplar Municipal Alliance, The, 272, _and ff._ + +Poplar Workhouse, Will Crooks an inmate of, 8-11; + _see also_ Poplar Board of Guardians + +Prince of Wales, The, and Crooks, 170 + + +Q + +Queen Alexandra and the unemployed, 250 + + +R + +Reformatory schools, 141 + +Remand homes, 136 + +Ritchie, Lord, 105, 137 + +Rosebery, Lord, 72, 89 + + +S + +School of Marine Engineering at Poplar, Crooks and the, 101 + +Scientific starvation, 181 + +Sheldon, Rev. Charles, 148 + +Sims, Mr. George R., 148, 255 + +Slums as investments, 161 + +Small holdings, 264 + +South African War, Crooks's opposition to, 201, 263 + +_Speaker_, The, on the Woolwich by-election, 192, 201 + +Stanley, The Hon. Maud, 48 + +Stone-breaking condemned by Crooks, 222 + +Sutton Poor Law School, Crooks an inmate of the, 11-12 + +Sweated women, 3, 178, 207 + + +T + +Talbot, Bishop, 196 + +Technical Education Board, The, 100 + +Technical Education for workhouse children, 124 + +Trade Unionism and Protection, 217 + +Trade Unionist, Crooks as a, 43, 53 + +Tree, Mr. Beerbohm-, 148 + + +U + +Unemployed Act, 223, 243, 245 + +Unemployment schemes, 221, 232, 265 + + +V + +_Vanity Fair_ on Crooks, 208, 229 + + +W + +Wages Fund, The Will Crooks, 75 + +Watermen, Old, at Poplar, 30 + +Welby, Lord, 96 + +Women's enfranchisement, 206 + +Women's march to Whitehall, The, 249 + +Women's wages, 178, 207 + +Woolwich by-election, 186 + +Woolwich Labour Association, 187 + +Workmen's drinking habits, Crooks on, 54 + +Wyckoff, Professor, 48 + + +PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C. +20.1009. + + + + + Books by George Haw. + + + CHRISTIANITY AND THE WORKING CLASSES. Edited by George Haw, with + contributions by WILL CROOKS, Canon Barnett, Dr. Horton, and + others. + + NO ROOM TO LIVE. The Story of Overcrowded London. + + TO-DAY'S WORK. A Popular Treatise on Local Government. + + THE ENGLISHMAN'S CASTLE. A Survey of the People's Housing + Conditions in Town and Country. + + RELIGIOUS DOUBTS OF THE DEMOCRACY. Edited by George Haw, with + contributions by G. K. Chesterton, George W. E. Russell, Professor + Moulton, and others. + + BRITAIN'S HOMES. A Study of the Housing Problem. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's From Workhouse to Westminster, by George Haw + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41023 *** |