The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1894-02-17 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

JOHN  CONWAY.  Under the auspioes of the Rirkenhead branch of the Independent Lab Our Alfiottlie 114 s given on Wednesday evening in the Queen's Hall, Cbiugh. ton-road, by Miss Katharine St. John Conway, B.A. (Mrs. Bruce Glazier), on Liberty, Equality and I.P Fraternity." Mr. S. Reeves, of Liverpool 1 . , presided, and the body of the hall was fairly wen filled with working men and others. i The Chairman, n introducing . the lecturer, said Miss Conwayabad done and was doing more to forward the new labour movement in the North of England than other man or woman. Referring to the growth of the Independent Labour Party, he said Liberalism and Toryism were but the one dog under a different name, and there were but two parties for the political fight in the future, one consisting of theme who desired to live by their own labour, and the other, Liberals or Tories or whatever they might be called, who desired to live by the labour of somebody else. Miss Conway delivered • vigorous sad lengthy address, in the amuse of which she declared that there was no liberty unless there was room to grow and develop, and it wee the most sacred duty of a nation to see that those opportunities were provided for all. There was neither liberty nor equality while the capitalists held the land sod implements of production, compelling the poor worker to leg for work, or become a criminal or pauper. Owing to this state of things the conditions of labour were such that instead of the avdrage life of man being as according to the Scriptures, three score years and ten, atatiatios showed that while the average Woof the masters was 55 years, the poor worker lived only an average of frem 27 to 29 years. Conditions which brought about such • result were in her °plaice nothing but wholesale murder. She dwelt on the hardships of the working claws, stating that many and many of their lives were without any sign of joy, and many men did not know what joy was unbar they were drunk. She told of a Scotch village where there was not a cottage which had more than ;two rooms, and some with only one, while on the hill a little way off lived the owners of the land, two old ladies, in • palace of seventy-one rooms to accommodate only themselves and their servants. There was no meaning, the said, in either juitioe, honesty, or love, unless there was equality of opportunity. There could be none of that fraternity or love as taught by the humble Nazarene, while on the one aide were the workers fighting for permission to work, and on the other side, the masters fighting for the power to sell. To-day, the words liberty, equality, and fraternity, were laving lies in the land, but the Independent Labour Party would make them truths. (Applause.) The lecture. advocated strongly the taxation of value, a gn,dnated insaust tax, sad &sib duties, Speaking of the evils of competition she said they could be kfledthehy peopk doing the work for themselvesasin the Post Ofte. ,:i&veryotie must work together for the -common weal and thole who drew the profit must also ecintribute.ln conclusion, the lecturer appealedfor recruits for the Independent Labour Party and urged her bearers to give their votes only to those who would give their worship to the trinity, "liberty, equality, and fraternity." (Applause.) Dissuasion was invited and one question was asked and answered.. The meeting then dispersed, several men enrolling themselves as members of the Birkenhead Branch ot„ the Independent Labour Party.