54 



The Review of Reviews. 



conservyXtive social reform. 



Mr. F. E. Smith aspires to fill the role of Lord 

 Randolph Churchill, and to make Tory democracy a 

 reality to the masses. In the Oxford and Cambridge 

 Review for June he takes the occasion of the merging of 

 the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in a common 

 Unionist Party to suggest a programme. He puts 

 national defence first ; for his own part he has always 

 advocated compulsory training. He thinks the over- 

 whelming majority of the Conservative Party are of 

 the same opinion. He then instances Tariff licform, 

 " constant loyalty to the monarchy," and complete 

 reform of the Second Chamber, which should lie 

 marked by security, stability, and impartiality between 

 the I^arties. But, he insists, the Party will never 

 conquer a majority adequate to its purposes until it 

 re-establishes itself in the confidence of great industrial 

 centres. 



A CRUSADE ACMNST POVERTY. 



" The wrongs under which manv poor persons labour 

 are so cruel and undeniable that it is astounding that 

 any school of political thought should conceive a policy 

 of inactivity to be possible." He goes on : — 



I should like to inscribe on the walls of every Conservative 

 club, and particularly of those clubs to which the wealtiiier 

 members of the Party belong, these words from Mr. Booth's 

 " Life and Labour of the People " : " The result of all our 

 irtquiries makes it reasonably sure that one-third of the popula- 

 tion are on or above the line of poverty or are below it, having 

 at most an income which, one lime with another, averages 2 Is. 

 or 22s. for a small family (or u]^ to 25s. or 26s. for one of larger 

 size), and in many cases falling much below this level." 

 Mr. Booth shows that in London alone 354,444 men, women, 

 and children live in chronic want on less than iSs. per week 

 per family, while 938,293 persons subsist on less than 21s. 

 a family. 



Mr. Rowntree's investigations showed that these incredible 

 conditions applied in an almost exactly similar degree to the 

 city of York. 



Tariff Reform would alleviate these evils, he says, 

 but he has never believed that it would end them. 

 " A contented proletariat should be one of the first 

 objects of enlightened Conservative policy." The 

 doctrine of the survival of the fittest may have played 

 a part in the infancy of civilisation, but cannot survive 

 contact with either Christianity or civilisation. 



THE QUESTION Or THE SLUMS. 



Legislation, rightly conceived and adequately con- 

 sidered, has already done much to remedy poverty : — 



I woulil invite those who think they can arrest the progress of 

 social reform by the warning-post of retrenchment to consider 

 whether they seriously believe that the last word has been said 

 on the contributions of the rich to the necessities of the poor. 

 To take a specific illuslralion, do they think that our existing 

 slums will be tolerated for long or that they will be removed 

 without public contribution 'I The ipicstion, then, to which 

 conslruclive Conservative slalesmanship should be directed is 

 not whether further reforms will be necessary, but how can 

 those reforms be elTected with the least mischief to our public 

 and private finance. 



He thinks it is likely that future Chancellors will 

 look more to the contributions of that lu.xurious class 



living entirely for pleasure which was treated with 

 eomparati\-e indulgence by the litidget of 1910. 



STRIKES IN NECESSARY SERVICES. 



In the same Review for July Mr. F. E. Smith con- 

 tinues to dexelop his doctrine. Writing on industrial 

 unrest, he says : — 



The public mind is rapidly advancing towards the view that 

 a new -method must be tried, at least as far as the necessary 

 services are concerned. The community will never permit 

 ilsell to be starved into submission by a particular and com- 

 paratively small set of individuals. It will and must organise 

 itself and fight to the death against this particular species of 

 industri.il blackmail. It will in the last resort utilise the Navy 

 to unload vessels, the Army to run the railway food supplies, and 

 civilian special constables, as in the time of the Gordon riots, to 

 maintain public order at any cost where the official police are 

 insufficient for the task. Yet such a course of procedure, how- 

 ever necessary, is obviously unfair to the workers in the 

 necessary services. 



Society is bound to give to those men a special degree of 

 consideration. If the Home Secretary deprives them in effect 

 of their most powerful weapon, he is morally responsible fur 

 their general welfare. The community must be fed, but the 

 people who transmit the food supplies ought not to suffer 

 because their services are essential. The State cannot agree to 

 sweat workers because the nation cannot get on without their 

 work. 



GOVERNME.NT GUARANTEE FOR REASONABLE PAY. 



There is only one w.ay out of the difficulty. The Govern- 

 ment must be prepared to ensure reasonable conditions of pay 

 as far as the workers in the necessary services are concerned, 

 and in return it must enforce the most stringent provisions 

 against striking in those services. The proposition is obviously 

 a fair one. An impartial board would decide the rates of pay- 

 ment on the understanding that the payment admits of reason- 

 able conditions of living and can be reasonably borne by the 

 jirofits of the industry. 



In the United Kingdom, the railway, the transport, and to 

 a great extent the coal-mining services are practically a national 

 monopoly. They cannot be suddenly destroyed by a blast of 

 foreign competition if too great a burden is placed upon them. 

 But the position of other British industries is, so long as Free 

 Trade Lasts, a perfectly difi'erent one. Not only have they no 

 monopoly, they have not even a fair chance. No court 

 would really be in a position to say whether a compulsory award 

 might not produce an invasion of cheaper foreign goods and 

 so destroy trade, employer and workman in one fell swoop. 

 It will be far wiser to concentrate one's attention on these 

 national services and to deal with them first. If compulsory 

 arbitration proved a legislative success, the case for extending 

 its operation to other trades would obviously be strengthened. 

 AMEND THE TRADE DISPUTES ACT. 



Mr. Smith looks forward to some alteration in the 

 Trade Disputes Act : — 



So far did this trouble go in the case of the Last dock strike 

 that the men— apparently with the approval and consent of the 

 CJovernment — made a voluntary offer of a financial deposit on 

 the part of their Union as a guarantee that terms once accepted 

 would not be lirokcn as long as the terms of agreement lasted. 

 Such a proposal is absolutely inconsistent with the principle of 

 the Trade Disputes Act, and some amendment of that .-Vet must 

 inevitably follow if such a <lcposit is to be secpiestrated or 

 touched in any way. 



A WOMAN, Hilda Kckikoski, belonging to the Con- 

 servative Old Finnish Party, so says Palen-Kordcs in 

 the Conleiiiporary, proposed to read a few verses out 

 of the Bible, with explanation of them, at each 

 meeting of the Seim (or Parliament) lufore the iimi- 

 mencenicnt of business. The proposal lailed. 



