The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-04-09

long time to come. They have
gained the machinery of Cancellation
to stifie strikes, to delay them and
to strangle them.
Milk and Water Laborites.
Immediately they had succeeded the
Daily Herald opens with campaign
for Courts of Inquiry. Here we are
told, within a few short weeks
miners strike will be upon us. Why
not a Court of Inquiry now and
avoid all the distress and dislocation
of industry which strikes entail? We
are told to look at the Steel Shelters
Confederation, the highest paid work
ers in the country operating with a
sliding scale which goes up or down
according to the cost of living, and
they have had no strike for forty
years. Look at the National Union
of Railwaymen, how they are settling
things without strikes. In this policy
the General Council of the Trades
Union Congress is lending every as
sistance and is turning to account its
latest concession to the revolutionary
workers of the unemployed commit
tees. 1t has begun thru its joint COM
mittee Of the Congress and the I'm
employed Workers Committee to
take the sting out of the movement
by giving it a respectable constitu-
tional agitation with the sting drawn
out of the demands. 1t is clear that
the concession to the Unemployed is
part of the big concerted move to
maneuver the whole working class
movement into a truce with capital
ism. The final debate on Poplar adds
strength to this contention.
Poplar Debate No. 2 Rent Bill.
John Wheatley, the Minister of
Health scored parliamentary
triumph" but he delivered, on behalf
of Macdonald, a most hefty blow at
the workers of Poplar and every
where else where they had been ac-
lively fighting for the guardians to
line up with the Poplar policy. He
turned the tables on Asquith and the
Tories but failed utterly to take his
stand with the Poplar guardians and
fight the opposition as class war
fighter. His case was purely par
liamentary case, on the rights and
wrongs of the procedure he had
taken with regard to cancelling the
order which nobody had been able to
enforce. He said: "Let me summar-
ize what have been saying. / have
not surrendered Poplar. l do not in
tend to surrender to Poplar. l have
rescued MY department from a state
of degradation. have put my de-
paTtment in a position in which it
can and will enforce the law and do
so fearlessly because impartially and
fairly. :. l am willing and anxious,
as is the Government, to reform the
Poor Law, and particularly the Poor
Law system of London, at the earliest
possible moment and in doing so
will see, if am in Office, that the
rights of the poor and the principles
of Popular Government are protected
in the measure submitted to the
House"
In an earlier part of the speech he
declared, 81 am not defending the
Poplar Guardians. That is not my
business or my duty"
Lansbury was left to face the brunt
of this part of the business and it
seems to settle very definitely the
fate of Wheatley in the cabinet of
Macdonald. To decline to line up
with Poplar when every section of the
opposition were attacking Poplar and
cared not two pence whether the Poor
Law was reformed or not SO long as
Poplar could be discredited in the
eyes of the people, may be good par
liamentarism in the Macdonald school
but it is damned poor class war fight
ing.
Poor Law Reform.
Indeed his final declaration on the
Poor Law reform is a complete sur
render to the Liberals who are only
becoming enthusiastic about poor law