The Labor enquirer., 1886-03-20
Social Democrats in London.


1t is not the pilferlng and window smash
ing committed by the roughs and thieves
always present at street meetings, but the
imposing proofs of the momentum acquired
in London by the Socialist propaganda,
which have startled the ruling classes of
Great Britain. Order might have been as
easily maintained after the meeting in Ira
falgar square as after the much larger assem-
blage in Hyde Park, and the failure of the
police to repress disturbances on the former
occasion has been naturally followed by the
forced resignation of the responsible official.
But here the, civil authorities would have
stopped if they faithfully represented any
section of the British people except the
aristocracy of birth and wellth, and if they
really viewed the social revolutionlsts with
the disdain which they profess. They are
not content, however, with substituting a
more efficient commissioner for Mr.. Hender-
son, and taking measures to indemnify the
London shopkeepers for losses sustained
through neglect of duty on the part of the
police. They are trying to transfer large
part of the blame and punishment for an
easily preventable commotion from the lax
guardians of order to the spokesman of the
the poor, who, by the demonstrations in
Trafalgar square and in Hyde Park, did but
invoke the common right of Englishmen to
hold up grievances and compel reform by
public meeting and free speech.
If the plutocrats and aristocrats who, in
spite of political changes, still manage to
dominate the united kingdom, were not
blinded by panic, they would hesitate to
exact from their docile representatives in
parliament and in the ministry rigorous
prosecution of the advocates of labor. They
would shun the fatal blunder of bestowing
upon Hyndman, Burns and Champion the
dignity of martyrdom. They would see
that such ill-counselled precautlon is certain
to transform into gratitude and honor the
repugnance and distrust with which large
proportion of the English workingmen have
hitherto regarded the social revolutionists.
They would shrink from discrediting the
whole existing machinery of government by
the contrast presented between the implac-
able repression of the pleaders for the poor
and the shameless connivance at the vile
offences of the rich. How long will 1t be
before the clear-headed and sound-hearted
members of the English trades unions
acquiesce III The Socialist averment that no
helpcan be looked fuT from either of the
present political parties, when tney mark on
the one hand the ferocious severity with
which the crowns law officers proceeded
against Stead and are now prosecuting
Hyndman, and recall, on the other, the zeal
with which the same officials hushed the
revelations feared from the notorious Mrs.
Jeffries, and sought. to glaze over the nau-
seous infamy of Sir Charles Dilke2 How
long will it be before trades unions raise the
question addressed to the home secretary
in parliament on Thursday, whether there is
one law for thepartisans of landed monopoly
and another for the champions of labor, or
whether Mr.. Hyndman is to be imprisoned
for using in London language less imflam-
matory than Lord Randolph Churchill may
utter with impunity in Ireland2 Or, again,
If journals like the Morning Post and Punch
are suffered to propose the hanging of men
who ask that work shall be given to the
unemployed and starving, why may not the
latter lawfully suggest the same summary
suppression for the scribbling parasites of
power?-New York Sun.