The Connecticut labor news., 1924-08-23
TAWNEY TALKS ON GROWING POWER OF
 LABOR IN EUROPE
Says Great Britain Has Found Her True Level and Peerage Is
 On the Decline.

Policy of the British Labor Movement ; | delivered at the annual gathering of
 the Institute of Politics, Willamstown | Mass, Prof K. H. Tawney of the Lon
 don School of Economics, London Uni
 versity, said that the changes advocat-
 ed by the British Labor party are vital
 not only to the interests of the wage
 earners, but to the welfare of the coun- I try as whole.
 While admitting that the reconstruc-
 ton plans put forward by the party would take several future parlaments | to achieve, he was emphatic that how ever long such changes might take the party was determined that they must be brought about.
 | This was the second of the noted pro | fessor's series of lectures. In his first lecture he prophesied that the Labor program was destined to produce radi- cal changes in English life.
 Prof. Tawney is one of the foremost English authorities on the history of the British labor movement and labor organizations. He is the author of many publications, including 'The Sick ness of an Acquisitive Society," which attracted wide attention. He had been member of several royal commissions. These are the equivalent to Congress sional committees in this country with the exception that their personnel is not confined to legislators only.
 Member of Coal Commission.
 As a member of the famous coal commission convened by Lloyd George to inquire into the condition of the mines under private enterprise, Prof. Tawney, together with Robert Smile, the ministers leader, Sidney Webb, a cabinet minister, and a number of other wellknown figures, cross examin ed at length many dukes and earls of royal blood in an effort to discover how they justified their holdings of land merely by virtue of an accident of birth" and for which they had not done stroke of work.
 This was the first time in English histofy that the peerage had been forced to appear in public and justify their hereditary rights.
 Great Britain said Prof. Tawney, "has for generation passed out of the age of easy aff1uence which reached its zenith line in the last third of the nine teenth century. With the modern world adoption of modern industrial techni- que she has lost the advantage of mere priority. the process has been as morally salu- tary as it has been economically dis agreeable"
 Good Will and Cooperation.
 The speaker said this changed situa- ton needs a vital change of policy.
 England must conserve her natural resources, develop by education the ca pacities of all grades of her workers, and take every possible step to see that production is carried out in an atmos- phere of good will and cooperation"
 Pointing out that advances in social legislation did not come by mere 'fa- talistic acquiesence in the ire play of economic forces" he asserted that they came only by deliberate and continu- ous intervention on the part of volun- tary association and the state"
 Dealing with the unemployment in surance acts Prof. Tawney said that the Labor party regarded them as t'one item i'll the general plan by which the surplus wealth of the community is made available for raising the general standard of life"
 The party proposed to carry the idea further by extending the old-age pen persons over the age of 70. They pro- posed also to establish pensions for widows, extended the public health ser vices and make education as far as pos sible free and universal. l
 Greater Economic Equality. 1
 "Without ignoring the importance of the incentive to economic effort, British labor believes that with the expenditure on the improvement of health and intelligence it can add large y to the economic resources of the na- tion-the principle of which a truism forgotten, consists of human beings.
 "The party holds that 'once the habit s established men with large means are much more ready to be public-spirited han is usually supposed, even by them selves, and that they, as we'll as their poorer fellow countrynen will gain by he establishment of greater economic equality It will endeavor in short to diminish the temptations of the rich md to make it somewhat easier for ( hem to cultivate in a practical form he difficult virtue of fraternity.' II