The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-02-17
BRITISH UNIONS WIN
IN POLITICAL BATTLE
Magnificent Political Victory
Won by Wage Farmers Of
Great Britain.
What the Leading London
Daily Papers Said Before
the Returns Were In.

ain in the general elections which
closed this week were but dimly re-
Elected in the cable dispatches and it
Is only now. when the daily and weekly
newspapers are beginning to arrive
that the American workingmen are
able to obtain details of a political up
heaval which almost amounts to a rev.
olution.
While the latest dispatches state that
the Labor party has captured SO seats
In the new Parliament, against seven
held heretofore, there are many dis
trict strongholds of Liberals and Tor
les. in which the labor candidates were
victory, and in another year or two
those districts can safely be counted
in the working class column.
But overshadowing the balloting that
swept tho fossilized policies of the old
conservative party out Of existence is
an awakened conscience that is causing
oven the triumphant Liberals of the re-
dictionary wing great uneasiness. While
1t may be too clearly to make pre-
dictions, yet the fact is looming up on
tho horizon of British politics that
the present Liberal government will be
driven forward and be compelled to
embark upon an era or progressive
legislation or there will be a break be-
tween the radical and conservative
wings Of the party in control.
That the ruling class Of Great Brit
ain, whether 1t be designated Conser-
vative or Liberals, is thoroughly al
armed is shown In the comments Of
jfo1 iatjo loil
ing closely upon the statement of Mr..
Joseph Chamberlain, the only Tory
leader who has some political life left
when he declared that England had her
choice between tariff reform and social
ism and is choosing socialism.
The London Times, the leading organ
Of class privilege in Europe, says:
while they (the politicians) have
been disputing about their issues, an
other issue has been shaping itself
after the fashion of such things, quiet
ly, silently, without observation. That
issue is whether the working classes
who form the bulk Of the electorate
are to dictate the policy they desire, or
to go on contending themselves with
choosing between policies offered them
by the traditional parties in the state.
They have decided for the first al
tentative. They have done what some
observers expected them to do, long
ago, but what they have so long alb
| stained from doing that these observers
had forgotten to go on expecting it.
| The polls fully bear out what we said
about the Labor vote. Where the
workingmen have run candidates of
fhax
immense majorities."
The Daily Mail remarks:
! ''The enormous Labor polls are, in
deed. the great feature Of the election
and even where Labor has not won it
has voted in a manner that is beginning
to cause nervousness to it's Liberal ally
1t Is significant too that of Its nominal
ly Liberal candidates, many are indis-
| tingu1shed from communists or extreme
Socialists"
| Says the London Standard:
III Sir Henry Campbell Bannermann
counts upon the members Of the indie
| pendent Labor party to swell his ma
| jortty at Westminster, he Is nursing g
| delsion. They will give him their votes
so long as his policy suits their de-
mands; but they feel no scruple when
he fails to satisfy them, about leaving
| him In the lurch Of a critical division
He will require all the liberal adher-
ents he can muster if he Is to hold
his ground in the Hobbies against q
party, compact and unattached who will
neither offer nor accept terms from
offcialism.:'
And this from the Daily Telegraph
I'VE should be the last to deny the
rights of the Industrial classes to oom-
| bine to secure what advantages they
could from tho exercise of the fran
chise. At the same time 1t would be
futile to ignore the fact that their lead.
ors-and one of the most conspicuous
Of them in in the cabinst-have de.
clared their undying hostility to cap.
italists and capital has realized his OWL
power and has communicated to the
members of that much abused class
upon which nine out Of ever ten artis
ans depend for their existence-who arr
standing as radical candidates and wht
are supplying the sinews Of war fol
their less affuent friends?"
And the Pail Mall Gazette adds:
"A new power has arisen in the land
90 A'
face with new fact, big with POSSIBLE
ities for the future. Hitherto the Brit
ish workingman has had the vote, bu
has hardly cared to use it; he has IL
the main, treated the franchise much a,
Polar bear would treat g. fur-line,
overcoat-he has had no use for it, Thu
time it is otherwise the workinsmal
(when he has used 1t at all) or one O.
been moved to use it for his own pur
poses, not a. heretofore for the bench
foregoing, will suffice for the present
Official Liberalism will find to It
cost that politics is not all a Gospe
Tea of a Pleasant Sunday Aftsrn oo
when it has to deal with a powerful
Labor party in the House Of Commons
, And it is already an assured fact tina
the giant 10 awake, refreshed from hi
long slumber, and rejoicing to run hi
:, course
Other London dailies that commen
on similar tones might be quoted bu
the foregoing will suffice for the pres