Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1886-01-24
Frice ! Gcnts

rml number required to prevent the
rIoturc in the two or three different
forms devised by the liberal party,
OF course Mr. ParncIl will now have
rs a rule, twice that number at his
disposal, without the necessity of en-
listing the services Of any Of the con-
sryatIyr gentlemen, who naturally
expect payment for those devices.
Another point ON which we may
he qntc certain in the new parlla-
mcnt is that the workngmen repre-
srutatiycs will be- Of little or no use
to workingmen. In the first place,
without being too harsh a critic, one
may say that the majority of the
very small minority Of the working
class members, have no intention
whatever of serving the class they
are supposed to champion. 1t is
doubIy necessary to say this, because
my friend, Lawrence Gr0nlund, in a
recent letter to YOU, unlntcntlonally
misIed your readers. He spoke of
Mr.. George Howell as Il genuine labor
candidate. The mistake is in a
sense cXcusabIc for one who has
been in England 50 short Il time as
GronIund. Had he been in this
country little longer, or had he
taken counsel of any of the actual
Worklngmrn Of London, he would
have learned that Mr.. George Howell
is, Of all the worklngmen that have
sold themselves to the masters and
betrayed their fellows, the most noto-
rious, AS one slight example: the
last time that the present writer met
Mr.. Howell in public was at a meet
ing in the Fast end of London. Mr..
Howell, on that occasion, lcctured in
the place Of Sir Thomas Brassly, the
railway capitalist and owner of the
yacht Sunbeam. He not on y took
the place Of this mamie used his
arguments. The meeting of work
ingmen and women for the most
part, carried by an overwhelming
majority a resolution III -, .v.,
teeth of the lecture Mr.. Howell had
given. At that same meeting he
was challenged to II debate on the
wage question by myself. The chal-
Icngc was repeated in print, but has
never been accepted. For most of
yourreadors it will be enough to say
that Mr.. Howell was u member of
the international; that he deserted
it when the Paris commune broke
out; that in the capitallstc press he
afterwards msreprescntod the organ
jzaton whose chief misfortune was
the connection with it of Mr.. Howell
age and his like.
As to the rest Of the workingmen
members, they are for the most part
Of the same stamp. In the horrible
atmosphere Of the House of Com
mons they would be scduccd from
amy allegiance they might have to
the workers, even if they had not un-
dergonc II preliminary preparation
for their debauching by the patron
Of the masters.
One sign of the times is that Mr..
BradIaugh, whom, for justice sake,
all socialists wish to see in parlia-
mcnt. threatens, if he gets in, to ask
| for statistics of the relations between
capital and labor. Every one knows
that the statistics will be of no value
ana that one death by starvation is
worth more as evidence of the state
Of things than all the figures in the
world. But it is something to see
one of the most shrewd of the radi-
Gals playing this particular card.
J ppose your readers will want
to know what is thought in this coun-
try Of the action Of certain members
Of the Social Democratic Federation
in obtaining money from the Tories
under false prctcnces at the last elec
ton. The subject is an unsavory
one. Let us hasten over it. The
condemnation is universal. Even
the bourgeois press, whose morality
might have prevented them from
understanding the nature of the
i'll action, condemned. Socialist or
CARNATIONS and journals have pro-
tested and disclaimed. Many branch
es and private members of the Fed
Grafton have done the same. In
these last cases, all reports and let-
tcrs adverse to the receivers of the
money have been suppressed in .7us-
iice. Yet in the face of this and