The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1906-12-28
Labor In Politics.

Labor's remarkable display o.
strength in the last general parlia
mentary elections in England makes
pertinent the questions raised In the
Nineteenth Century and After by w
II. Mallock. Mr.. Mallock treats his
subject 'The Political Powers of La
bor," as one of vital social Importance
at the same time asserting that labor
is Itself mistaken "as to the nature of
Its own Importance" To quote:
The only general criticisms of an adj
verse Kind that can be called for by the
Labor party as at present constituted
are that its members are too apt to at
tribute to labor as such greater powers
and Importance than 1t possesses in a
complex civilization such as our own,
and, further, that its members, in pro-
portion to the exceptional character of
their abilities. fall to represent average
labor directly and represent 1t only in
that indirect way In which 1t might be
represented by any statesmen of equal
ability no matter what their class.
Mr.. Mallock Is a thinker who delves
deep, and in this instance he looks
back of the men who send the labor
leaders to parliament to the political
ideals which these leaders hold and
their intellectual source. He finds that
the labor members In the present house
Of commons have been fed upon classic
literature in the main, with some
slight attention to social and political
science but out of the 100 books, in
Guiding the Bible, Shakespeare, Scott,
Bunyan, Carlyle, Dickens, John Stuart
Mill and Henry George, mo single one
has any bearing on the processes Of
production" None of the writers who
have Influenced the thought Of the la
Dor members touch upon the main OBJ
ject of the Labor members-na
how to secure for the manual laborer
an increase of the products of the ma
tional industry. That labor has a
cause Mr.. Mallock believes and closes
with these words:
The fact however. remains that the
claims of the laborlng class do require
in a complex society such as ours, not
merely as q matter OF sentiment, Dul as
a matter of dispassionate craftsmanship.
a constant and expert attention directed
specially to themselves, and that the best
way of insuring the nation against de-
mands on the part of labor that are un-
reasonable is to satisfy and If poss.i,;~
to anticipate those that are just and II.
sonable. To satisfy or anticipate these
may well tax the powers of the most
gifted politicians and administrators The
interests of labor. as distinct from the
interests of other classes, deserve on all
grounds the services of such men as
these but labor as understood and rep
resented by our present Labor members
must learn that II represents only one
force out of many on which the welfare
of the poorest no less than that of the
claims exceed that which the underlying
facts of society warrant 1t will In the
long run be worsted by forces which are
greater than its own.
The relations of labor to politics In
this country appear to be drawing
nearer and nearer to similarity with
those in England. Organized labor
here is demanding special representa-
ton in legislative bodies. 1t ought to
be possible for it to secure able repre-
sentatives among members of its own
ranks or at least among those in full
sympathy with 1t.