Coronation Day.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 23, 11 August 1911, Page 5

Coronation Day.

In the East End of London.

By HON. J. P. JONES, M.L.C. (Vie). As I. did not take my seat in the Abbey, I journeyed to the East End to Bee how the millions there would spend Coronation Day. : ~ ' What a place this East End is! After visit-ing the offices of the Sailors' iTJnion in West India Dock road, I made my way through the endless narrow .thoroughfares, some of them no ■wider than the span of one's arms; many of them reached from the main streets (like Mile End road) by nar-' I'ow passages. Here's where London's working folk' huddle together ..with innumerable children, in houses with little or no ihome comforts, devoid of reasonable furnishings, in streets where the sun as rarely seen, and then only whilst it is passing directly overhead ; their playground is the narrow street or court, aud this kind of thing is repeated throughout the area I traversed all afternoon. What a tragedy it'is! No wonder the infantile death rate is 150 per 1000. Compare this with Lctchworth Garden City, where it is 54. Think of the thousands done to death at an fearly age, and those who are not are Inarmed physically and, mentally for life. English people have no imagination, otherwise they would stop and think what all this'"means to their Empire. tWhen you think that only last week in the middle of summer with trade at its •busiest, owing to Coronation preparations, no less than 55,000 children of the 750,000 attending school had to he fed by the authorities, whose conservative methods keep the applications down to a minimum. In winter the •number is much higher. Last year tb° number of" paupers in Great Britain reached 1,139,780, costing over £14,. 000,000. This, of course, refers only to those dealt with by the authorities and treated as paupers, not taking into at»count the millions of poor who one time andvthe other receive relief. If'the whole of England's pauper population were killed off the same number would again be reached (under existing conditions),inside of 12 years. $Vhat an \igly story for the greatest 'nation.in..the" world.s In 1908 (latest figures) 125 deaths occurred from starvation. Think of it! And the official but absolutely died from starvation. Thin kof it! And the official note says that in 80 of the cases numerous applications had been made for relief, or was made when deceased was in a dying condition and it was then too late to save life. As I left "this area of poverty wit'i its narrow streets decked out in flags and bunting of the cheapest kind, in .which the people had spent the few pence they could ill afford (and as the woman in'a grocer's shop said to mc, "to-morrow many of those children ■will go hungry, for there are two Coronation holidays and no pay") my thoughts skipped over to the West End of London, where money spent without the slightest concern. I compared the decorations of Lord Rothschild's, where 60 yards of ermine stretched along the front of his mansion, with the paper flags of -these loyal subjects in the East. What an awful condition England is in: half the land owned by 2500 people.; millions of its people sweated and robbed of the fruits of their labor. Oiietliirtieth of the population receive an income of £440 per head, or £2200 per family, while the rest receive only £27 per head or £440 per family. A few are millionaires and a few ! millions in poverty. -. In Piccadilly and Leicester Square j any night one may see these wealthy magnates driving to the theatre, in all the luxury imaginable, and a 1 few yards away in the back streets one may see the bootless and ragged dear little children whose only enjoyment is obtained on the hard stone street or court. And England is producing more and , more every year of these dull-brained serfs of the wretched capitalist system, and what pains one most is that they are- so used, to this environment. They grow up in it from childhood, and they are so awfully ignorant outside of the mere humdrum that it seems hopeless to get them to kick against it, they' Idols'for .the charity that comes their ■wray and tlie army of those engaged in that activity is great; many, lam eiire, with the- best intentions, but 'many more find it a ..useful and entertaining pastime- from their otherwise lazy. life. 'If they would only seek the cause instead of tinkering, with the effect, it would be better for the masses. How is this condition to. be remedied? "There is no. darkness but ignorance," and the work of the . Socialist is to dispel this darkness, and all edu-

cative means that will lead to that end must be seized upon and utilised. Amidst all the pomp and ceremony of to-day's proceedings in this great city and in all the other cities of Great Britain that I have visited, and the European cities likewise, I find the same results from this cursed system of capitalism —the many ill-clpad and hungry that the few may wallow in luxury. ; I wish the anguished cries of the mothers as their infant babes die in their arms, would reach the ears of the rich as they sit in their banquet halls. They will some day, if we do our duty. , North London, June 22.—Tom Mann is doing great work in sailors' strike.