The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-04
BRITISH LABOR IS
 FOR CONFUSION
Conscription Had to Be Ob-
 tained Gradually
EXPLAINED BY WALSH
Gives Views of English Workingman. If CompulsiOn Had Come at Be- ginning of War Revolution
 Would Have Resulted

London, May Especial )--In the
 smoking room of the House of Com | mons. almost immediately after the history making general compulsion bill
 had passed it's first reading, stephen
 Walsh. the famous labor member, dis cussed the whole question of conscrip- tion in England with your correspond ert
 | Walsh, who sits for the 1nce division of I.anca shire, one of the most import , ant of the mining constituencies, and l is known on account of his gifts as an orator and his lack of inches, as ''the pocket John Bright" has been l much in the public eye, not for the | first time. during the last few moment l ous days, when the fate of compulsion l for al and incidentally that of the | coalition government, were being de- cided Recognized always as the en- bodiment of earnestness and stanch 1 patriotism, combination far from characteristic of all English labor l leaders, it was Walsh's great speech on the governments first. half-hearte1 1 military service bill, which practically 1 confined compulsion to youths of IS and tirnr- expired men, while leaving | the hordes of "unattested" single men 1 to hc .'ealt with later, that more than 1 any other killed this measure at it's l birth. Killed it so certainly that the government, recognizing the uncompro- | ids.5g temper of the House, forebore 1 to submit it even to a first reading. Asked what would be the result of l the general compulsion bill, Walsh,
 who voted for it, replied
 'Crnscription is a word which has alawys lad an evil sound to British ( l to ali our ideas, our principles and our 1 notions of national defense. It is op- | posed to our whole insularity, and for | thcs" reasons we have had to accustom l ourselves to it slowly and by degrees. | What makes it accepta ble now is that 1 the great bulk of the people is be- | glpning to realize, as, I believe, for 1 the first time, that we are really fight l irg battle of right against wrong
 anc not merely for our own defense l The success the failure of this
 bill,' Walsh went on, depends first | and foremost on the attitude of organ ized labor-on that of the trades unions l l doubt if many persons even in Great 1 Britain realize how strong they are | Several of them count their members ! by hundreds of thousands: all told they have membership of just under 4,000,- | oJ0. AnC their leaders are disappointed men, disappointed because, when the 1 n, | With their agreement, they were as- sured that it would provide all the l men that would be necessary For | the most rart. however, those leaders | will tell thei" followers that this meas ure is a necessity and will advise them | to accept ir. The miners, particularly, are keeping very quiet nowadays They are strongest of all in numbers and power, and if they refused to accept | conscription, if they decided to down | tools, the effect would be disastrous for the country, but hardly think this is possible Here and there labor lead | CTS may seek to oppose the inevitable 1 There may be trouble in certain dis l tricts, but it will hardly assume form idable proportions That one can say 1 wlta positiveness."
 "ft is often said. MT. Walsh,' said l the interviewer, that if the govern ment had brought in conscription inn mediately the war began all would have | beer well"
 The labor leader shook his hard, Lan- | eashi'e head grimly in dissent.
 Ut would have meant revolution" | he orclared, revolution in England would have resulted as surely as we sit here. The people, educated for years to dependence upon our fleet, would never have stood it. They would have seen some sinister purpose underlying it, some ulterior motive on the part of the 1 government. No, it has had to come slowly. The people have required dem- onstration that the voluntary system
 was incapable of providing enough men. Even today there are those ready l to assert in the House of Commons that ,oiuntarism is still adequate to | our military necessities But the pub | lie unoerstands the situati tion."
 l 'l'o you think that there is any feel ing among the workers that the war ! is capitalstic one?'
 ] Not enough to count for anything, though at the beginning there may
 have been some such feeling. Proof Of this is the whole heartedness with which they are working for the war particularly in intuition factories, toil- ing night and day But the chief
 rroof of the feeling of labor is the way in which the trades unions have gwen up, one by one, practically every
 one of those regulations and safe l guards for which they have been fight 1 lnS for the past 90 years---ever since
 'S:4 They have surrendered practi-
 cally the lot and there could be no
 more convincing evidence than this | that Creanized labor realizes that this
 Is fight in which it. as we'll as every
 othef class in England, stands or falls
 Like most of his fellows on the la-
 Dor benches, Stephen Walsh is self
 made man. Born in Liverpool 53 years
 aSo, Hc was IOund by policeman
 straying in the streets, a lost orphan.
 lie was educated at the Kirkdale In-
 dustrlal schools, and at the age of IS
 went to work as a miner at Ashton.
 In those days there were no compulsory
 edacatlon acts, and the majority of
 elderly miners were almost wholly H.
 literate, consequently, Walsh's Kirk
 dale training. added to omniyorous
 readlng. gave him an advantage over
 his fellows. He became prominent
 trade union organizer, was instrument
 tai in organizing the powerful Lanca
 shire and Cheshire Miners federation
 and was for eight years member of the Ashton town council. After taking
 part in many election campaigns, he
 was sent to Parliament at his first con-
 test. That was in 1908, when his ma
 Jcrity over Colonel Bundell was no
 less than 4636. representing a labor
 gain Since then he has been twice re-
 turned for the Ince division, with ma iori-
 ties of 2649 in January, 1910, and 17S5 in
 the following December. He sprang in- to sudden fame through a series of re
 markable speeches on the famous coal
 Dill in the course of which he advised
 the miners to place citizenship high
 CT than trade unionism." Small and
 stockily built. with pleasant voice,
 and an easy How of oratory, Walsh al-
 ways has the ear of the House, his great earnestness having won the re-
 spect of members of all parties
 A Notre Dame Lady's Appeal