COST OF LIVING AND GENERAL UNREST.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 483, 17 July 1912, Page 6

COST OF LIVING AND GENERAL UNREST.

To the Editor.

Sir, —In my last article I mentioned the fact that the first Labour member elected to the British House of Commons was just an ordinary tarm labourer, a man of evenly balanced mind, whose common sense taught him to take up the cudgels against the strong arm of the law, was at once futile and undesirable, and these ideas he strongly urged upon hia numerous compeers, as he also did to hia pseudo friends, the militant "Chartists," hundreds of whom were subsequently transported beyond the seas for various terms, as an outcome of the Chartist riots. This poor, simple man had taken upon himself a gigantic task, if at that time he aspired to eventually become a member of that August body. First, his lack of education; secondly, it was a sine qua non at that time, that very aspirant to a seat, must be possessed of capital or property in his own right, of at least £SOO per annum, plus his electioneering expenses. Such was the conservatism of the ruling classes of those days, albeit, they flaunted as their axiom, "Vox populi; vox dei," and when challenged with this incongruity, exclaimed "We are the people." I mention these facts to show that immense difficulties may be overcome, if approached in a proper and sober spirit, for it marks an epoch in the British empirical, political institutions, and all political reform institutions start from that date, and to make this as concise as possible. All those difficulties above enumerated were eventually overcome, by the fair mindedness of this simple honest man, whose fairness and whose simple eloquence charmed the Liberal and Radical members of the British House of Commons, that it resulted in the reform of the franchise, and the voting by ballot. The lesson taught by the foregoing incidents should impress upon your readers the necessity of approaching every phase of difficulty that on cnmes in contact with in this complex life of ours, and they ought to be very few in this Dominion compared with the millions of people*of different nationalities and different requirements in Britain. Take for example, the suffragettes in the Mother country, including ladies of high degree, who by their anger and want of tact, have injured the cause they first espoused. am of the minority who think that y properly qualifiedwomen are eminently fitted to take part in any deliberative assembly of men, either in church, or State, and it is only our unwonted arrogance which debars them from taking their proper place, a fact evidenced by men of highest literary and other attainments, who, again and again, acknowledge what they owe to their positions, to either their wives or mothers.Nor do 1 believe that many of the numerous strikes that are now striking all round, if the- various unions would admit their wives to their deliberations,, for women can see much further ahead of them than most men, and until the employees and strikers meet each other in different frames of mind, than they do at the present, unrest will continue to the detriment of both sides, and the general public in particular, and it may cultminate, in civil war. Trusting wiser counsels will prevail. I am, etc., OLD SETTLER.