HAVELOCK WILSON

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 46, 19 November 1918, Page 8

HAVELOCK WILSON

LABOUR'S SEA DELEGATE,

;Bv Alexander .¥. Thompson, in the "Daily Mail.")

You need only look af Havelock Wilson to understand why he is not a pacifist. Though he/is sixty years old and temporarily disqualified by rheumatism from the practice of the hornpipe, there is still .i Viking swagger lr the curl of his greying moustache, a fighting trucuieuce in his sea eagle's iio=c, a pugnacious tilt about his urbud square, shoulders, the litheiiess of the British seadog in his steely frame, and the light of the joy of battle in his laughing eyes. 'He bears his years with wonderful lightness. His hair js still thick ind brown; his face has the frankness of a boy, his manners have tho breezy energy and cuurteous gallantry ol Marryat's midshipmen. "Will you bo good enough, when disen- • gaged,'very kindly-to put mc through?" 1 hear him say to the telephone girl as •J. wait. Then, "Thank you so much. I know,you are always obliging." In these days ,of wrong numbers and general telephonic exasperation, what greater proof could a simple sailorman give 6f a noble, forgiving, and chivalrous nature? .

But that is not quite the way he talks to masculine miscreants in strike times.

"Now then, yo.i fellows," he will say, "let me see if I can't put some ginger and fight into vou. 1 want - you all to understand, including that Shetlander over there, who thinks he's holding this meeting .that while this row is on every man-jack of you' has got to ungiuo his eyelids and no shenanigan. Look here, old Ulow-me-Tight witii the second-hand Tartar whiskers"—this to the ancient mariner who persists iii telling his mates what he did in similar circumstances in 1863—"would you just hold your jawwhile I'm talking, or shall" we toss up two rounds out of-three whether it's me a§ you for outside? But I can (cil you .beforehand it won't be me."

Here a breathless messenger turns up to announce' (he arrival of a ship. "Hello,'messmate, what's up with you?" Then, the news being told,' "Now, lads, every man oh board that ship has got to join this union, and no ,cod. about it. Who* volunteers? What? All,of you? Well; Fcl have blushed for you if you hadn't. Now go and set about it."

Tlavelock Wilson has a third manner, the manner in which he delivered his maiden speech when first returned os Independent Labour member for Middlesborough,' an.l when Mr. Asq.iith stopped his own speech on sailors' grievances to give a Chance to "the man who knew all about it." That is tho manner he wears when he is desperately in earnest. To discover tho characteristics of that manner you have only to !.sk him what he thinks of the linking of British sailors bv German submarines

Hnvelock Wilson has been fighting all 'his life, ever since, he jumped out of his bedroom window in 1858 to,run away to sea with all his worldly possessions in a pillow-case, right up to this present climax of his calmer when he is fighting, almost single-handed, against the nambypamby tosh of tha Labour pacifists. Though told that he might as well,try to organise the tornado and the typhoon, he did 'actually succeed, after years of struggle, in organising tho seamen in a trade imbn.

He has been in gaol for Labour agitation. Jn the course of his strenuous fighting life he :6is had writs for.damages, and petitions in bankruptcy "as thick," ho says, with his happy sailor smile, "as blackberries on a helge." He has been sold up repeatedly in the cause ofUho men for whom he fought. He has been thrown out of Belgium and Germany for trying to establish international co-operation in trade unionism. No man in the Labour ranks has suffered so much for his faith. They called him "tho stormy petrel of Labour." Compare his turbulent .ife.of strife* with the easy careers of tho 'siring, Pleasant-Sunday-Afternoon gentlemen who now suspect him of "betraying tho Labour cause"!