Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1889-08-17
HOMEWARD BOUND.
LONDON, AUG. ,, 1889,
To the Workmen's Aduocate:

To the Uorkmen'S Adr0cdte:
Homeward bound! How pleasant the
thought! And yet | must tarry here in
England till the 1th, when the great
steamer, Getty of New York leaves
Liverpool to make, trust, swift pas
sage across the Atlantic.
No attempt will be made in these few
lines to give the readers Of the ADvo-
CATE the full benefit of my experience
in Paris and London, but am moved to
a few reflections while still am here in
this metropolis of individualism par
| excellence, London, with its almost five
millions of inhabitants, including the
dwellers in the rapidly Contluctuatng
suburbs. Imagine a city covering an
area of 1lS square miles, its blocks of
rough brick houses divided by innum-
cradle curved, crooked, and, in the
| older districts, narrow streets. A city
| built on the individualist conservative
plan, if the word "plan' may be used at
all. Here is the very flower of every
man for himself and the devil take
the hindmost." No foresight is appar-
ent when one looks at the map of Lon
don, whose roads, streets, alleys and
courts form vast labyrinth of passages.
| Every builder seems to have built to
| suit his fancy. Instead of the broad,
rectangular streets and avenues of the
modern American city, one might fancy
himself in Newport or Boston in the
days of their infancy, when cowpaths
| determined street lines.
| But what of the people? Well, | saw
some of them at Hyde Park last Sun
day, where they had assembled to cele-
brate a victory. The gas stokers and the
employees in the gas retorts had gained a
decided advantage within few weeks,
reducing the hours of labor from twelve
to eight per day, without reduction in
their pay. There were three platforms
Qarge trucks, and from each of them
active labor agitatOrs were making
speeches. Among those who spoke was
Mrs. Annie Besant. One of the trucks
was decorated with the red flag of all
nations, and was the headq Quarters of the
Social Democratic Federation. The So
cialists had done their share in the agi-
tation for the benefit of the stokers,
and their speakers were exhorting the
men not to be satisfied with their pres
ent victory, but to press forward and
work for the complete emancipation of
labor and the organization of the Social
Democracy. Resolutions to the effect
that the land and means Of production
must belong to the people in common
and be operated by them for their own
benefit We're passed with cheers by the
thousands who surrounded the plat
form. The vote was taken simultane-
ously at each of the platforms on the
sound of a bugle. These thousands of
citizens are practically disfranchised,
however, and even if they would they
cannot vote as they shout, The Eng
lish government is sly monster. Free
speech? Yes. Big meetings? Yes.
But when it comes to voting-why, that
is matter for the "taX-payers'; and if
a workman who pays certain amount
of rent and lives within one voting dis
trict for year he is rated thus; and
even then it takes considerable trouble to
be placed in the registry list. From all
that can gather, think that with a
free ballot and universal suffrage the
English workmen would make better
use of their privilege than the Ameri-
cans do But then we must consider that
the English workman has been agitating
and organizing for much longer pc
riod. May it be necessary for the Amer
leans to pass through the details of the
Europeans experience? And yet that
will be their fate unless they rouse from
their apathy and fight their battle on
the political field before they become
too weak to assert their citizenship.
Fraternally,
J. F. BUSCHE.