As in local government, so in the Imperial Parliament. Rural England sends no Labour member to the House of Commons. Only in very exceptional cases has a tenant farmer been elected. It is the social labour of the mine and the mill that has produced the Labour member of Parliament. Mr. Joseph Arch made a valiant attempt to organise the agricultural labourers of England, and from 1880 to 1890 a rural labourers' union, with some thousands of members, was in existence. For a time this secured a rise in wages, and when Mr. Arch was in Parliament, as a Liberal M.P. (1885-1895), the rural labourer hoped for lasting improvement in the conditions of life. But the Union fell to pieces, and Mr. Arch was not strong enough single-handed to force the claims of his constituents on the House of Commons. THE WORKMAN IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS To-day there are more than forty workmen in the House of Commons, and the great majority of these have served an apprenticeship in municipal and trade union offices. Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Stafford, South Wales, Glasgow, Dundee, Leicester, Norwich and London, all have their elected Labour members in Parliament, and a marked preference is shown for the man who has proved his honesty and capacity in the municipality, or as the leader of his trade union. All the miners' representatives are tried and experienced men. Mr. G.N. Barnes, M.P., was for ten years the general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Mr. Clynes, M.P., was elected to the office of district secretary of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union twenty years ago; Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., has been general secretary of the same union since 1889, and has sat on the West Ham Corporation for more than sixteen years. Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., and Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., are well known for their work on the London County Council and on their local borough council and board of guardians. Similarly with other Labour members of Parliament. Their lives are marked by a sense of public responsibility, with the result that in the House of Commons they are grave, business-like, and undemonstrative. The Labour members do not make "scenes"; they respect the rules of the House and the dignity of the National Assembly, partly because they are all in sober middle age, but more because they have learnt that public business can only be carried on by due observance of order; and they are in Parliament to get business done for their constituents, to promote legislation that will make life easier for the working class. When Mr. Victor Grayson, in the exuberance of youth, and with a passion that blazed out against the misery of the poor, made a "scene" in the House of Commons, and was expelled, the Labour members were quite sincere in their disapproval. They understood, with a wider knowledge than Mr. Grayson possessed, that "scenes" alienated sympathy in the House, were not helpful in debate, and were not popular with the electors.