174 



The Review of Reviews. 



February iO, 1906. 



PROGRAMMES FOR THE LABOUR PARTY. 



Mr. Herbert Vivian, who has much to say that is 

 true concerning pretended Labour parties, in the 

 Fortnightly Review suggests the following programme 

 for a real Labour party : — 



The first duty must be to insist upon a fair representa- 

 tion of the people. Unequal electoral areas, indeed almost 

 any system of election short of proportional representation, 

 reduces a General Election to the level of a lottery. Such 

 a state of things crie3 aloud for immediate and drastic 

 remedies. Even then, given a thoroughly representative 

 assembly, its powers would remain paralysed by the enor- 

 mous mass of business which comes before it. This can only 

 be remedied by a very wiae system ot decentralisation. 

 Then, before proceeding to much-needed legislation, the first 

 and most imperat.ve step would be a reform of public ex- 

 penditure. At present the estimates are set before Parlia- 

 ment in a condition of such calculated confusion that they 

 may almost be compared to the fraudulent balance-sheet 

 of some bogus company. 



If we can once secure an economical and efficient admin- 

 istration, we shall be justified in spending something to 

 solve the problems of poverty. Otherwise, certainly not. A 

 reform of the Poor Laws will do away with much of the 

 existing misery without extra expenditure, and a wise ad- 

 ministrator may hcpe to abolish lack of employment and 

 starvation without unduly straining the national resources. 



MK KKIK EABDIB'B PROGRAMME. 



In the Nineteenth Century Mr. K< ir Hardie tells us 

 that he is now indifferent to the payment of mem- 

 bers, seeing that a lev) of a penny a month from 

 each of the 2,250,000 trades unionists will raisi 

 enough to provide ,£200 a year for 250 members. 

 He is alarmed at a prospect ol a collision with tin- 

 House of Lords, fearing lest it should divert atten- 

 tion from social questions ami be fought prematurely 

 by combatants not really in earnest. The 1 ne poli- 

 tical question of real urgency is the enfranchisement 

 of women, whose claim is obviously fair and just. 



What he is really anxious about are social reforms 

 such as : — 



1. The provision of meals by the educational authority 

 for children attending schools. 



2. A drastic amendment of the Unemployed Workmen's 

 Act, placing the cost of working labour colonies or other 

 undertakings on the public funds. 



3. State insurance against unemployment. In parts of 

 Switzerland and other Continental countries a workman 

 who is insured against unemployment is further assisted by 

 a subsidy from the communal fund, and a demand for a 

 similar arrangement in this country is, 1 should say. one 

 of the certainties of the next Parliament. The Trades Union 

 movement last year spent nearly £500,000 in providing a 

 small weekly allowance for those of its members who were 

 out of work, and the proposal will probably take the form 

 of supplementing this to the extent of at least 50 per cent, 

 from the public funds. 



4. Pensions for the aged poor apart from the Poor Law 

 is also a matter of some importance. 



5. An attempt should be made to have £1,000,000 a year 

 estimated for in the Budget daring the next five years to be 

 applied to such great public undertakings as afforestation, 

 the reclamation of waste lands and foreshores, and other 

 works of public utility. 



6. Distress Committees, therefore, should be empowered 

 not merely to acquire land for Labour Colonies, but also 

 land to let out as small holdings to those who have been 

 trained in the Colonies. 



7. Protection for Trades Union funds and the right to 

 picket are matters in which the Trades Unionists will 

 brook no delay. Here, it may be, conflict will arise between 

 the Government and the Trades Unions. A big effort will 

 be made to have the various Government departments re- 

 cognise the Trades Unions to the extent of receiving com- 

 plaints from Government workers through their trade' union 

 officials. 



8. Personally I should strongly favour legislation for 

 enforcing a minimum living wage in the sweated industries 

 and for shortening the working day to a maximum of 



eight hours or a forty-eight hours working week for all 

 wage-earners, beginning with the miners. 



9. An effort will certainly be made to confer upon muni- 

 cipalities full powers to proceed with any undertaking 

 upon which the citizens of the town decide and for which 

 they are prepared to pay. This, I anticipate, will include 

 very extended powers for the acquisition of land within 

 and without the city boundaries, so as to secure the land's 

 increasing value for the town, to be used in relief of the 

 rates. 



10. In addition to these the Labour Party will enthusias- 

 tically support proposals for the reduction of military ex- 

 penditure, and for such ;i reform ot our system of taxation 

 as will not only graduate the tax upon incomes, but also 

 upon sources of income. Temperance reform, affecting the 

 social condition of the nation, will for a certainty be 

 wa'mlv backed nn by the Labour Party, though persona' !y 

 I would empower localities to either suppress the public- 

 house entirely, reduce the number of licences, or muni- 

 cipalise the business, according to the opinion of the rate- 

 payers. 



A tolerably comprehensive programme— at least, 



as a starter. 



A FEW HINDUSTANI PROVERBS. 



The Asiatic Quarterly "Review contains some Hin- 

 dustani proverbs collected by the late William 

 Young, C.S.I. As proverbs are supposed to mint 

 the currency of a people's thought, the few here 

 cted may be taken to give glimpses of the Hindu 

 character. Of patronage, for example, the saying 

 runs. " Better than an Arab horse, a dog well recom- 

 mended.'' A Persian saw says, " To eat sweetmeats 

 one must have a mouth.'' A not unknown social 

 incongruity is described thus, " Dwells in a pigsty, 

 dreams of a palace." Official rapacity is satirised in 

 the saying, " Small mouth, mighty swallow." Ad- 

 justment of means to ends, of coat to cloth, is ex- 

 pressed, " Measure first your sheet, then stretch out 

 your feet. In depreciation of over-gentleness, we 

 have the saws. " It is fear of the stick makes the 

 monkev so quick": and "No fear, no love"; and 

 '■ The house of kindness is the house of blindness." 

 The motive that leads a man when angered by his 

 superior to take it out of his inferior is put so, " The 

 big horse made him quail, so he twisted the donkey's 

 tail." The unwisdom of using a park of artillery 

 to kill a fly is put. " To scotch a snake, don't break 

 a stake." The accessible though inferior to be pre- 

 ferred to the inaccessible though superior, " Better 

 a dog at hand than brother in far-off land." The 

 policy of erecting Battle Abbey after the victory of 

 Hastings is ridiculed in " Threescore rats and ten 

 Puss devoured, and then Set out for Holy Mecca." 

 •' Much cry, little wool," is paralleled by " Much 

 thunder, little rain ; much talk, little done." The 

 Hindu proverb is hard on the woman : " In woman, 

 land or gold, the cause of every ill is told," <"<-> which 

 the late writer gallantly rejoins with another Hindu 

 proverb, " You milk into a sieve, and yet Are vexed 

 so little milk to get." He also retorts that Hindus 

 need not expect enfranchisement " till the Oriental 

 has so far stepped out of his barbarism as to re- 

 cognise woman as the free and equal companion of 

 man.' The same argument at home would disfran- 

 chise the nation. 





