Under conditions such as those described, is it to be wondered at that
many Anarchists are frankly cynical as to the benefits labor will derive
from the labor parties? There will be at least two, that have suddenly
forced the gilded doors of the "Mother of Parliaments" and about which
the guilty middle class grew nervous. We know that men like T. Burt, H.
Broadhurst, W. Abraham, F. Madison and a score of others are but
nominal labor men not having worked at their various trades for years
and are middle class by training and income, that others like Keir
Hardie, J. R. MacDonald, John Ward and many more are at best labor
politicians so steeped in political bargaining and compromising that the
net results to labor from them will be very small indeed. It is not
necessary nor would it be just to question the honesty or well-meaning
of many of the forty-three labor members, to prove that a distinct
disappointment awaits those who elected them. Past history foretells the
future clearly enough. We have seen John Burns, hero of the Dock Strike,
who entered Parliament as a Revolutionary Socialist, becoming in a few
short years as docile as a lamb to those above him in power and as
autocratic as a Russian provincial governor to those who needed his
assistance, finally enter a Liberal Cabinet with the "hero of
Featherstone," H. H. Asquith, by whose orders striking miners were shot
down in real American fashion, Sir Edward Grey, and other Jingo
Imperialists--and the end is not yet. There are our other friends (?).
H. Broadhurst, special favorite of the King; W. Abraham, ex-coal miner,
who so endeared himself to the coal operators of Wales in his capacity
as official of the Miners' Union and Scale Committee that when his
daughter was married several years ago she received a cheque for L100
from one of the aforesaid operators, and others whom space forbids
mentioning. Such is the material of which the labor parties now in the
House of Commons is formed, and it requires a violent stretch of
imagination to see any real, lasting benefit can accrue from the
forty-three men now sitting there as representatives of the oppressed
masses. An inability to see this, however, by no means implies a lack of
inherent good in the formation of the Labor Representation Committee and
the Miners' Federation, their fraternization with the Socialists and the
forces which impelled that organization and fraternization. It is the
agitation which preceded it, and we hope will continue, and the growing
desire on the part of the workers for a larger share of the product of
their toil and a part in the management of industry that we see hope.
The form that movement has taken or the beneficial results from the
efforts of the elected are details. It is scarcely five years since the
Labor Representation Committee sprang into existence, and it says much
for the solidarity of labor that over a million trade unionists,
thirteen thousand members of the Independent Labor Party and eight
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