A MUNICIPAL REVOLUTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
8m—A friend has sent me a copy of your paper dated Sep- tember 3rd. You will, I hope, forgive this belated reply to your leader entitled " A Municipal Revolution." You are quite mistaken in thinking that the Mayor, Aldermen, and Coun- cillors of Poplar are actuated by any of the dire and terrible motives you impute to us. We are a very happy lot of men and women with the same sort of faults and failings which any other thirty English, Irish, Scotch, or Welsh are liable to. We do not imagine that a revolution can be brought about by our action, although we very much want a revolution in thought and action in the social and industrial life of our nation.
Most of us have spent our lives striving to help administer the affairs of Poplar. Not one of us has ever received a penny for our work, and do not wish to receive one. Two or three of us, myself among the number, have given the best part of thirty years to the work. We find the task of relieving poverty by means of doles,.medical inspection, free milk, &c., a perfectly hopeless one; it is like baling out the ocean with a spoon. As we pull out one child and save it a dozen others tumble in. Consequently we have been doing our best for the past twenty years to make our friends and opponents realize that the pre- vention of destitution is better worth doing than relieving destitution. We supported the Mietority Report of the Poor Law Commission, agitated for its adoption, but no Government paid the least heed to us. We declared again and again that the unemployed, the poor, and the sick ought not to be a charge on localities, but should be dealt with by national organization paid for by national money with the one object of preventing destitution. We have never asked for, or expected, money from the Government or from the richer boroughs of London to be spent as we please. We support national control of all expenditure paid for by the nation, and central control for the proper expenditure of money raised centrally in London. We do support the principle of work or full maintenance. We think that while Boards of Guardians are the only legal body in the land that can relieve those in need, the relief should be adequate to enable the recipient to be maintained, in a reasonable standard of health. In Poplar we give a man and wife a total of 20s. plus rent, with 6s. for first child and 5s. for' each other child, with deductions for any earned or other income. I challenge you to say this is more than sufficient to maintain health. We base our demand for work or mainten- ance on the same principle which the nation adopts toward Army and Navy. You keep the fighting men in good health and condition even though they never fight You may also be surprised to know that we have always supported the principle that men or women for whom no work can be found should, in addition to maintenance, be also required to get some training. This would be difficult but-not impossible to arrange. - Well, Sir, we have agitated, passed resolutions, and, in spite of Royal Commissions and ROHM of Commons Committees, nothing has been done, and we are faced with a -burden which.
we cannot bear. We did not take the action which has landed us here because we dislike the M.A.B. or the L.C.C., but solely in order to try to force the Government to face the situation and do something to relieve it. Since coming here outdoor relief in Poplar has risen from £4,500 to £7,600 a week; in West Ham from £12,000 to £17,500 a week. I believe the nation has to fear the chaos which will result from economic failure much more than any evil which men and women who are Socialists and Bolsheviks may do.
I have stuck at local government work and Parliamentary agitation for over thirty years, hiving against hope that the problems of life would be met, and by a peaceful change the competitive anarchy of to-day might be transformed into a co-operative society based on service. I am losing hope. As I see things this civilization is rapidly degenerating. Bread and circuses is we cry for Socialists, for we know it is impos- sible to build a society worth having on anything else but work. You cannot point to a word I have ever spoken or written which advocates "ca' canny." I know only too well the deadly effect of such a doctrine, but I also know, as you know, that loafers and ne'er-do-wells are to be found in every society, and are the products of our time. We in Poplar want to get rid of the luxuries of the rich and the penurious poverty of the poor. We want people to understand that the money spent by those who never earn it, whether this comes to them as an insurance dole, poor-law relief, or as rent, profit, and
interest, all comes from those who do work. The £5,000 a year
pension to an ex-Lord High Chancellor had to be earned by.the sweat of some one's brow, just as much as the 10s. a week paid to an old-age pensioner or the 10s. outdoor relief paid to a man out of work in Poplar. We in Poplar desire that all should work. We believe the nation during the war did some magnificent things. Not the least was the willing sacrifice by women and men of the upper and middle classes of their luxuries. It was had form to have myriads of servants, motor- cars, &c. Surely it is as important to abolish unemployment and poverty as to beat the Germans. If we do not do so then unemployment will pull down this society, and our children will see one more empire crumble in the dust. We must give up paying some idle people huge sums of money each year to be either ornamental or members of committees and societies to harry and worry the poor, and we must give up the idea that some people must suffer poverty in order that others may have comfort. We must learn the lesson Ruskin taught, that two persons cannot have the same thing. If a considerable portion of the nation's labour goes on armies and navies and giving unearned incomes to a privileged few then the mass must remain poor.
You say the need of the hour is " more production." In God's name tell me who is stopping this. Surely if we want more production the one thing to do is to allow willing workers to get at the job and produce. Lenin, whom no doubt you despise, said to a meeting in Moscow : "To get more we must produce more; to produce more we must know more." This is also true of our country. We need most of all to know more, and the knowledge we want most of all is just this: when we have produced more who is to benefit, the whole nation or only a few?
I send this after five weeks in prison. We may be in five days or five months longer, but whether the time is long or short you may take it from me we are all of one mind in saying that we are here because we love our country and we love humanity, which embraces all mankind. All the clever people have had their chance to improve the world. We think it is time the ordinary man and woman was given a chance. We want to help build a society within which there will be neither millionaires nor paupers, and within which all who take out shall also give in by service either of brain or hand, and all shall share the common product equally. Until that day comes we shall go on crying from the housetops our doctrine that all men and women have the right to live; that if this is denied them by society refusing them the right to earn their bread, then_the nation must accept the responsibility for maintenance.• Please forgive this long letter and excuse paper and writing AS it is all being done under difficulties.—I am, Sir, &c.,
H.31. Prison, Brixton, October 8th. GEORGE LANSELTE Y.
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