Workmen's advocate., 1890-11-01

of the toiling millions to a higher leye was the one grand problem of human life. and the only worthy aim of human cudrayuur. In January of 1889 h" rame to London. at the request of the shop. Hours Regulation Act Committees, loHct a, m.prclur for them, aud out "t forty nine eases brought ly im only five Nrto lost
 When the dock strike of l-, vctr h.. gan, Beu liIlett ut once wired tu Tom Mann tu come auI help. Hts unl'rn- -pryrte for tn" drckcCs during lI"' strike are well known, and hts orEaul Zatinu on the south euIe nt thr Thames wa, most successful Since that ljm" he has bcru elected president ot th" Dlrkrrs' Union, now numbering >'lur GO 0DJ members, au! hi, work since iu, hpru no less thorou-h than before. \ vigorous speaker, clear thinker, Tom Mann may be p"rrd III the very front rank of lahOr Ir1itr-, He has taken u large share in making the history ot the labor movement in the last years of the nineteenth century. As T docker des. cribps him. "lle had his head screwed on the right way.' An nryideucr of which may be shoRn by hi, able prealdoncy over the congress which has been held recently,
 The following extract from a speech delivered by hlm at meeting of the Sedmcn's and tircmcns Union at Der mundsev Town Hall deserves tO be pre- served. It shows what even the most moderate of the English leaders of lab0r are thinking:
 "Their object a~ trade-unionists was not only to obtain an advance of wage, but to obtain what was far more neces- eary, the c,riUDatioh gf pprcHY and the cause of poverty. There was nothing in nature that said any one man, woman. ur child should be short of the ncces- sarits and comtorts of life, and they were working not only for a bare exist ence wage, but for conditions of Hillu- cnce. He believed that greater cdu- Cationa work had been carried on among the workers of London during the past year than during any period of their history. Discomfort was ranking in their breasts, but it was discontent on a higher plane a discontent apprecia- ting knoWledge and thirsting for It, thinking less of the public house and more of the lecture-hall anl concert room. They were not content to be thought good women and steady fel- l0w>; that was all very we'll as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. They could, some of them, make fine houses, yet they had to dwell in miser- able slums and leave others who had done nothing to live in the splendid mansions they had been building. Others of them were able to make spen- did furniture yet they had to be content with few squalid sticks They could build Pullman cars, and yet the para sites who lived on their labor travel in them, whilst they were relegated to the result of Labor. Nothing ever came that dropped from heaven, or was shot from hell. Workmen make all the good things of life and then go without them. Those who created ought to enjoy, and they were striving to alter the word ought into the word shall. These ideas might be called revolutionary. Very likely. So was every great idea that inspired the human race when it was first moOted; but was not the cause of their own welfare and well-being well worth fighting for? They were taking part in a great movement, and there was a shaking of their chains which was frightening a good many pe0ple-the German Kaiser, for in stance, who began to recognize that if he valued his own skin he must do something for the workers. It was frightening their own statesmen, too, although he had not one atom of con fdence in what they could do for them, but he had far more confidence in what they could do for themselves