To the last, however, he was not forgiven by many people for daring to be poor. A worthy lady at a church sewing-party in a London suburb became very indignant at the mention of the name of the Labour Mayor of Poplar. One of the members present—to whom I am indebted for the incident—happened to make an incidental reference to Crooks. "It's a shame, I say, to let such people be made important," cried the good lady with much feeling, stopping for a moment her work of making garments for the church bazaar. "Look how they interfere with business. My husband used to get fifteen per cent. from his Poplar property before they made that man Crooks Mayor. Now, what with being compelled to spend so much on repairs and new drains, it's as much as he can do to get ten per cent."
When Crooks heard of the incident, he said he had little doubt the husband was an ordinary decent man who invested in poor property, because, as house investment agencies sometimes state in their advertisements, it pays better than any other kind.
"Probably he is one of that large class who leave the collection of the rents and all control to agents. That is why slum property has paid so well in the past. It has been neglected. Nothing has been spent on ordinary repairs. Whatever expense we as a Municipal Council may put the owners to in order to make their property healthy, is strictly regulated by law. We cannot go beyond the letter of the law. The reason why investors in slum property have reaped such a rich harvest in the past is because neither they nor the local authorities have carried out the law.
"No man with ordinary sentiment can own slum property and collect his own rents. A flint-hearted agent generally has control. I know such a one well. If the tenant does not pay up by Saturday he waits and watches round the corner on Sunday morning. As soon as he sees the wife turn out to buy a piece of meat or a few vegetables from a coster's stall for Sunday's dinner, he pounces down on her and demands her few pence on account.
"It's so easy to run away from responsibility by simply saying, 'This is a mere investment, and I am not concerned with the tenants.'
"A very wealthy man who owns a lot of small houses in Poplar had his attention called to the hardship inflicted by the heavy increase in rents. He was told that a widow whose rent had just been doubled would have to seek parish relief if the new demand were enforced. 'My dear good fellow,' said the owner, 'I leave these matters to my agent. I don't want the woman's money. Look here,' pulling a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket. 'Why should I care about the woman's rent? I leave these trifles to my agent, and never interfere.'
"Can you wonder that so many of our people are driven to drink and immorality?" Crooks went on after telling this incident. "Sweated as they are for rent in this way, they begin to live in an unholy state of overcrowding. House speculators, Jewish and English, gamble with the people's homes. Nearly every time a house changes hands the rent is raised. The overcrowding is thus made worse than ever. The family living in three rooms takes two. The family in two rooms pushes its furniture closer together and goes into one.
"Surely something should be done by the State to prevent this gambling with poor people's rents. I would like to see Fair Rent Courts, where the rents could be fixed in fair proportion to the value of the house. Something of the kind has been done in Ireland; why not in England?
"One thing is certain: the more crowded the home is, the more convenient becomes the public-house, with its welcome light and deceptive cheerfulness tempting the wretched. Of course, in theory it is easy to argue that the poorer the man the more reason there is that he should not place in the publican's till the money that ought to be spent on food. I fear few of us would retain the moral courage to resist if we had to eat, live, and sleep in the same room, sometimes in the company of a corpse for several days."
Property owners were not alone in their opposition to the Labour Mayor. The publicans almost in a body were ranged against him. Nor was this only because of his uncompromising attack on the drink interests as such. It was mainly because he insisted on public-houses being rated on the same principle as the grocer's shop or the working-man's dwelling-house.
For several years before his mayoralty he had been Chairman of the Poplar Assessment Committee. He found that while small tradesmen and householders were rated to the full market value of their shops and dwellings, public-houses were very much under-assessed. He therefore persuaded the Committee, in face of all that the publicans said and threatened, to raise their assessments to the proper scale. The publicans brought the whole strength of their organisation against him, briefing counsel in appeals and subsidising opposition candidates at the local elections. This kind of thing had no fears for Crooks. His policy prevailed.
Sorely though the problem of housing vexed him, he rarely came away from a slum visit without some instance of quaint humour. On one occasion he was called into a tenement when the woman told him to mind the hole in the floor.
"Why don't you ask the landlord to repair it?" he asked.
"I did tell him about it," she answered in despair, "but he only said, 'What! the floor fallen in? Why, you must have been walking on it!'"
He feels keenly that we are allowing the English working-class home to be broken up by the gambling of speculators. By the time the gamblers are finished, it will be found they have broken more than the poor man's home. It will be found they have broken the English race.
The cost to the municipality of preventing the existence of slums is small, he maintains, compared with the cost to the Poor Law authority of dealing with the human wreckage that slums create. He brought out this fact in a striking way in a paper he read before the Central Poor Law Conference at the Guildhall. His subject was "Pauperism and Overcrowding." He estimated from a study of the official returns that overcrowding and insanitation in the homes of the poor threw an additional expenditure on the Poor Law every year in London of about £134,000. He obtained this figure by estimating the number of people forced into workhouse infirmaries or requiring the outside attendance of the parish doctor owing to sickness solely caused by slumdom.
As regards the inmates of public asylums, he showed that London was involved in a still heavier yearly outlay. The number of such inmates per thousand inhabitants of London varied from 1.9 in the healthy districts to 10.1 in the overcrowded districts. The mean rate was 4.7. The numbers above this mean rate were all found in the slum quarters. By adding them up he arrived at a total of 2,700 people who were forced into asylums as the results of ill-housing. It cost London £70,000 a year to maintain this number in asylums. He further argued that an additional sum of half a million sterling must be put down as representing the cost of providing the necessary asylum accommodation for these 2,700 inmates, the creation of our slums.
"So if the public refuse to spend a few hundreds on improving the homes and conditions of the poor, they are compelled to spend tens of thousands after the slums have robbed their denizens of health and reason. I know some of the poor do not live the cleanest and best lives. They live down to their environment. And if we don't improve the environment, then, apart from all the higher considerations, we are penalised for our neglect by having to pay for their care and keep in asylums and infirmaries.
"We Labour men are sometimes accused of crying for the moon. No; we are crying for the sun, and before we are finished we mean to get a little more sun into the homes and hearts of the people."
A Dinner to the Labour Mayor—The Mayoress—The King's Twenty-five Thousand Guests—The Prince and Princess of Wales at Poplar—Organising a Coronation Treat for Children—A Little Girl's Thanks—At the Lord Mayor's Banquet in a Blue Serge Suit—The Mayor of Poplar's Carriage at St. Paul's—A Testimonial on Quitting Office.
Since the Labour Mayor was debarred by what he called his "chronic want of wealth" from entertaining at his own expense, the Poplar Labour League decided to entertain him at a dinner on their own part by way of commemorating his election. Directly the project was talked about, friends of his of all classes expressed a wish to attend.
The dinner was given on January 11th, 1902. An old Chartist was in the chair, Mr. Nathan Robinson, one of the Mayor's colleagues on the London County Council. Lord Monkswell sat at the same table with stevedores and gas-workers. Some of the Mayor's fellow-workers on the Asylums Board fraternised with some of the Mayor's fellow-workers on the Labour League. Nearly every trade and every church in Poplar were represented. Dean Lawless of the Roman Catholics, the Rev. Mr. Nairn of the Presbyterians, and Father Dolling of the Anglicans, sat at meat together for the first time in their lives, drawn by the engaging personality of the Labour Mayor.
"I must just write a word of congratulation on our dinner of Saturday," wrote Dolling from St. Saviour's Clergy House a couple of days later. "I think it was just splendid. It is given to few men to gain the respect, confidence, and esteem—I might say the affection—of friends and foes, colleagues and opponents. God grant you strength and perseverance."
The same spirit breathed through a letter from the Roman Catholic Dean:—"God bless you and God speed you; and also your gentle wife, the Mayoress."
Mrs. Crooks, by the way, filled the office of Mayoress with a quiet dignity and grace that won everyone's regard. As her husband stood primarily as a working-man Mayor, she too as Mayoress made no pretence at being other than a working-man's wife. She could be seen cleaning her own doorstep as housewife in the morning and taking part in some public function as Mayoress in the afternoon.
The day the appointment was announced a journalist from an evening paper went down to Poplar, hoping evidently to find the new Mayoress greatly elated. He seemed surprised to find her so busy in the kitchen preparing the children's dinner that she had barely time to grant him the interview he sought.
"Why should you think it would make any difference to us?" she asked him, with natural simplicity. "Dad will just be the same plain and cheery Will Crooks that he has always been. Of course, we'll do our best as Mayor and Mayoress, but it will simply be as ordinary working-people."
With perfect self-possession and a modest, dignified bearing, which remained the same when she was receiving the Prince and Princess of Wales as when attending a conference of working women, Mrs. Crooks carried out her duties as Mayoress of Poplar and won good opinions on every hand.
The unbounded pride of the poor in their Mayor was something to remember. For the first time they became conscious of a personal tie between themselves and a public office that previously had always seemed far removed from them. They followed him admiringly. They hovered about his door until the Mayoress despaired of keeping the step clean. If they could obtain a momentary glimpse of him in his robes and chain, or better still, pass a few words with him, it was something to boast of. Speculation as to where he kept the mayoral chain reached the length of one wild suggestion that he put it under his pillow at night.
On the Sunday morning that the Mayor and Council went in state to the parish church, nearly all Poplar turned out to honour the occasion. The streets were lined with spectators as for a royal pageant. Work-people alone would have filled the spacious church of All Saints four or five times over could they have obtained admission.
Even the children at the Poor Law school at Forest Gate, four miles away, joined in the chorus of congratulations.
"The boys and girls here have toasted your election as Mayor with cheers that you might almost have heard at Poplar," wrote the superintendent. "We all feel that in a way we have some share in your new dignity."
Coronation year was a busy year for the London mayors. Crooks, who had a great share in organising the King's Dinner to the Poor of the whole of London, carried through the local arrangements in Poplar for feeding twenty-five thousand without a hitch. It is notorious that the deplorable muddle which marked the dinner arrangements in some of the West End boroughs brought a Royal request to the mayors for an explanation.
The King had made known his intention to visit Poplar during the dinner. It is known how his illness prevented him from leaving Buckingham Palace on the memorable Saturday. The Prince and Princess of Wales, on behalf of the King, attended the two or three centres he had arranged to visit. Much to the consternation of metropolitan mayors in wealthier districts, who were competing among themselves to secure the Royal visitors, the Prince and Princess went to Poplar.
The King's guests, we have seen, numbered twenty-five thousand in Poplar alone. Of these, three thousand dined under a great awning in the Tunnel Gardens, one of the open spaces Crooks had secured for the borough. The Mayor passed among the motley throng like a benediction, receiving the good-natured chaff of the men and their wives concerning his gold-laced hat and scarlet robe. Only one of the three thousand, a steward, was inclined to be cantankerous, though not in the Mayor's hearing. Pointing to Crooks with a carving-knife he said to his companion:—
"I wonder he ain't ashamed of himself. Why couldn't we have had a gentleman for mayor like Morton? I've been a sheriff's officer myself, and I call it a disgrace to Poplar."
He changed his tone when the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived and were formally received by the Mayor and Mayoress, before going round the tables, chatting and joking with Crooks.
"Well, that takes the cake!" said the ex-sheriff's officer in amazement. "There's the Prince of Wales talking to that fellow Crooks just as though he was talking to a gentleman!"
Later on the mayors of other London boroughs, chiefly out of their own private purses, gave a special Coronation treat to the children. It looked as though the children of Poplar, in the absence of a wealthy mayor, would receive no such favours.
Crooks met the need by a public appeal. Nearly £300 was subscribed, chiefly by local employers and residents, enabling the Mayor to entertain about eight thousand children. Some five thousand were divided among four garden parties. Infants to the number of three thousand were entertained at their own schools. All the crippled children in the borough were taken in brakes to Epping Forest for the day.
A couple of days later Crooks received through the post an unsigned letter in a child's large round hand-writing. This is what it said:—
All the little boys and girls in our school want to thank you for the very nice party we had in honour of the King's Coronation. Some of us had chocolate and very nice medals, and all the school had cakes, lemonade, fruit, sweets, and a little medal. We had sports in the playground and prizes for those who won the races. And we all enjoyed it very much.
Please accept the best thanks from the children of the Infants' School, Wade Street.
He tells many amusing stories about the mayoralty. An ardent admirer chased him over half of Poplar one night, following him from the Town Hall to a chapel bazaar and from the bazaar to a Labour meeting, guarding carefully under his arm a brown paper parcel. At last he saw his chance of getting a private word with the Mayor.
"Pardon me, Will, but I've just heard as how you've been asked to dine at the Mansion House with all the other mayors. And I thought I'd like to offer to lend you my ole dress suit. I couldn't abear the thought of our Mayor not looking as good as the other blokes. 'Tain't much to speak of, Will"—unfolding the parcel—"but perhaps your missus can touch it up a bit."
Crooks did not go to the City banquet on that occasion. It was not until three years later that, on the invitation of Lord Mayor Pounds, he attended the Ninth of November banquet at the Guildhall. Then he turned up in his blue serge suit, which, in a way, made him one of the most conspicuous figures present, since all the other guests were in Court dress, uniform, or ordinary evening dress. A crowded company in the reception room broke out into rounds of applause when the Labour man in his plain attire walked down the room after being announced. He was received in the most cordial way by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress.
He had an amusing experience in connection with a State service at St. Paul's, to which he was invited as Mayor of Poplar.
"I took train to the City, and was walking towards the Cathedral when a cabman from my own district accosted me.
"'I say, Mr. Crooks, let me give you a lift up to the Cathedral, so that I can get a chance to see what's going.'
"'All right,' said I; and I got into his cab, and was driven up with as much dignity as the cab and horse could command.
"The cabman then rode away and took up his position in waiting. The service over, all the titled people crowded out, and there was an eager demand for carriages. A stout policeman at the door called out the names.
"'The Duke of ——'s carriage.' 'The Mayor of Westminster's carriage.' 'Lady ——'s carriage.' And so on, as each swell conveyance rolled up. Then, when the policeman learnt who I was, he yelled, 'The Mayor of Poplar's carriage.'
"Up drove my cabby with his growler.
"'Take that thing away!' shouted the policeman. 'Make room for the Mayor of Poplar's carriage.'
"'Who yer getting at?' said cabby mischievously. 'This is the Mayor of Poplar's carriage.'
"'All right, constable,' I said, as I went down the steps; 'that's my cab.'
"The policeman immediately began to apologise. Cabby said he wouldn't have missed the fun for fifty quid."
At the Coronation ceremony at the Abbey, to which all the London mayors were invited, Crooks asked to be exempt from wearing Court dress. The King sent him the exemption he asked for.
"I attended the Abbey in my mayoral robes, and when the ceremony was over I escaped from the crowd as quickly as I could, and was going to a house near by to take off my robes. I found myself in Dean's Yard, which was quiet and almost deserted, save for a few youngsters.
"'I say, Tom, here's the King,' I heard one of them remark as I approached.
"'That ain't the King,' said a second youngster; 'that's the Dook of Connort.'
"'Garn! he ain't no royalty!' said another of the lads. And looking up into my face, he asked, 'Who is yer, guv'nor?'
"The question was more than I could stand, and I had to hurry away laughing heartily."
His year of office was pronounced by opponents and supporters to be a triumphant success. From the very first the Labour Mayor proved that he knew his duties. He had not been in office long before he obtained a gift of £15,000 for the building of three additional public libraries for Poplar. As an administrator he brought about many changes in the Borough Council's methods of doing work, introducing into the municipal life of Poplar something of the business-like methods of the L.C.C.
How far his efforts succeeded is shown by the presentation made to him and Mrs. Crooks at the close of the mayoral year. All parties on the Borough Council combined in a gift of silver plate to the Mayoress, and an illuminated address to the Mayor.
"Had we only known what a good mayor you would have made, Mr. Crooks," said one of the Conservative members, "we should never have opposed your election."
In thanking his colleagues on behalf of himself and his wife, Crooks closed his speech with these words:—"We are as poor now as when we began, but money cannot buy the satisfaction we possess. We have had opportunities of being useful, and we have done the best we could with our opportunities. As I have lived, so I hope to end my days—a servant of the people."
Address to the National Committee on Old Age Pensions—Paying Pensions through the Poor Law—A Walk from West to East—The Living Pension and the Living Wage—Scientific Starvation under Bumbledom—Defending the Living Pension at the L.G.B. Inquiry—Poplar "a Shining Light."
With several other Labour leaders, Crooks was invited to join the National Committee on Old Age Pensions that arose out of Mr. Charles Booth's Conferences at Browning Hall. Mr. Richard Seddon, on his last visit to England, described at one of the conferences the New Zealand experiment.
It was news to all the members of the Committee to hear Crooks unfold the details of a scheme differing largely both from Mr. Booth's and Mr. Seddon's. It was one that had been forced upon him after much reflection and experience.
"For two or three generations the working classes of this country have been asked to vote for Doodle or Foodle and Old Age Pensions. The elector of to-day, like his father and grandfather before him, is still waiting for the fulfilment of the promise. It seems a vain hope. He, too, like those before him, may die of old age still waiting, perhaps ending his days in the workhouse.
"Now I for one have got tired of waiting. I've commenced to pay pensions already. I maintain that it is both lawful, and right to pay pensions through the Poor Law. And I intend to go on paying them, and to urge others to pay them, until Liberal and Conservative politicians cease deluding the people by promises and establish a State system."
He put forward his scheme before many other assemblies. To the argument that this is only a system of "glorified out-relief," he makes answer, "So are most pensions. At the risk of outraging the feelings of economists, I hold that out-relief to the poor is no more degrading than out-relief to the rich. We hear no talk of endangering the independence of Cabinet Ministers or of Civil Servants when they are paid old age pensions.
"It is argued the poor have the workhouse provided for them. True; but was it not Ruskin who pointed out that—
The poor seem to have a prejudice against the workhouse which the rich have not; for, of course, everyone who takes a pension from Government goes into the workhouse on a grand scale; only the workhouses for the rich do not involve the idea of work, and should be called playhouses. But the poor like to die independently, it appears. Perhaps, if we make the playhouses pretty and pleasant enough, or give them their pensions at home, their minds might be reconciled to the conditions.
"Look down as you may on these veterans of almost endless toil, but don't forget they have made our country what it is. They have fought in the industrial army for British supremacy in the commercial world and obtained it. The least their country can do is to honour their old age."
The twofold character of Crooks's Poor Law policy has already appeared. While he wants to make life in the workhouse less like life in prison, he is also anxious that all worn-out old men and women, who have friends to look after them, should be kept as far from the workhouse as possible.
"To do that means the granting of a pension. Call it outdoor relief if you like, but at the same time call the Right Honourable Gerald Balfour's and Lord Eversley's pensions outdoor relief.
"At any rate, relief must be on a more generous scale than it usually is if you are going to keep honourable old people out of the workhouse. Failing that, out-relief has a tendency to perpetuate sweating. Mr. Chaplin was not alone in deprecating inadequate out-relief. The Aged Poor Commission, of which the King was a member, reporting in 1895, called attention to the ill-effects of inadequate out-door grants and suggested that the amounts be increased."
In one of our many walks together about the streets of London, I remember with what animation and depth of feeling he discussed this subject. We began somewhere in Westminster with the intention of taking a 'bus at Charing Cross. We found ourselves still walking eastward as we passed Temple Bar, and then agreed to mount a 'bus at Ludgate Circus. We were still on our feet as we went through St. Paul's Churchyard, so decided to walk on to the Bank. But he forgot everything but the poor again until we stopped our walk for a moment at Aldgate Church. Before a 'bus could arrive he was deep in the subject again, and almost mechanically resumed walking. And so, on through Whitechapel and Stepney and Limehouse into Poplar, he discoursed earnestly all the way on the need for poor people's pensions.
"Since I prefer to call out-relief a pension," he said, "I'm going to see that it is a real pension, and not a dole. Inadequate out-relief gives the sweater his opportunity. A sympathetic half-crown a week to a worn-out old woman making shirts at ninepence the dozen has the effect of dragging the struggling young widow with a family of children down to accepting the same price. It sometimes takes a whole week to earn one-and-six, so little wonder that the pinch of hunger sends many a young widow to the devil. We may preach that the wages of sin is death, but life isn't worth living at all to many people. An unknown hell has no more terrors to them than an awful earth.
"How would I stop this? I would stop it by making it impossible for the old woman to be the unconscious instrument in encompassing the ruin of the young woman. The old woman cannot live on a half-crown dole from the Guardians; so to make a shilling or two more she undercuts the young woman, and the sweater gets them both at reduced wages. Now if the old woman deserves help at all, the help ought to be sufficient to keep her without the necessity of falling into the sweater's net and dragging others with her. The help must be a pension on which she can live. It ought not to be a dole on which she starves."
"Then you stand for the Living Pension as well as for the Living Wage?"
"Precisely. But nearly all pension schemes, like most out-relief systems, fix the allowance at a starvation figure. Sums of four or five shillings won't save old people from hardship. For example, we have in the Poplar workhouse old pensioners who received as much as six shillings a week. They found they couldn't live outside on that, and so had no alternative but the House. Only the other day there was another six-shilling pensioner admitted to the House. He had struggled on outside in his one room, selling and pawning his few things bit by bit to eke out a living until he hadn't a stick left. So, although receiving a pension of six shillings a week, he was forced into the workhouse."
"Do you find the same thing happening in regard to old people assisted by a friendly society or a trade union?"
"Occasionally we do," answered Crooks. "The other day, for instance, a superannuated trade unionist came before the Board, an old man blunt in speech and not without independence.
"'We understand you have a pension of six shillings a week,' says the Chairman.
"'That's all right, guv'nor. But how could you pay three shillings a week out of that for the rent of our one room and then you and the wife live on the rest?'
"Take another case," resumed Crooks as we crossed Commercial Road. "A fine-looking old woman enters the relief committee room, scrupulously clean but poorly clad—a splendid specimen of a self-respecting honourable old English woman.
"'Now, my good woman, what can we do for you?'
"'Well, sir, we've nothing left in the world, and I've come to see if you can assist us?'
"'Where's your husband?'
"'He's ill in bed to-day. He's turned seventy-three. I'm seventy-five myself. We've been living on his club money until now. He had six months' full pay and six months' half-pay. That's as much as the club allows. Now we've got nothing. He worked up to a little more than a year ago; At seventy-three he can't work any longer.'
"'We are very sorry,' says the Chairman, 'but the Poor Law practice is to ask old people like you to come into the workhouse.'
"'Anything but that, sir,' pleads the old lady tearfully. 'Both of us over seventy; we should feel it so much now after working all our lives. We can look after ourselves outside if you can give us a little help.'
"Here, then, you have an honest, hard-working old couple still faced with nothing but the workhouse, although they have been thrifty and done everything which the political promoters of old-age pensions say ought to be done. We made full inquiries, and for a time at least we thought we would meet their wishes and let them live outside. We gave them six shillings a week, and watched the case carefully. We saw that to eke out existence, one by one their articles of furniture were going. Struggle and strive as they did on their six shillings a week, they would have been compelled to come into the House ultimately after a few further stages of this system of scientific starvation if we hadn't found outside help for them from another quarter."
"You want, then, to base out-relief, like an old-age pension, on the Living Wage principle?"
"No other plan will work. No other plan is just," he said in his earnest way. "The out-relief ought to be the pension. There are a lot of old people receiving out-relief grants of three or four shillings. What is the result? They toil and struggle and pine outside on an amount which barely keeps body and soul together. They reach the workhouse at last, as a rule, through the infirmary. That means they break down and have to get medical orders for admission. It has been proved that thirty per cent. of the people in Poor Law infirmaries are suffering ailments of some kind or other due to want of proper nourishment.
"That is what I mean when I say that the present Poor Law, as Bumbledom would administer it, has nothing better to prescribe than scientific starvation to old people who refuse the House. If one is foolish enough to grow old without being artful enough to get rich, this world is the wrong place to be in.
"When old age comes to working people, both thrifty and unthrifty have in most instances to turn to one of two things—precarious charity or the Poor Law. Charity is a splendid exercise for many people, but no law or custom exists compelling its practice. Now the Poor Law can be enforced; only it has been used to terrorise the poor. The State sets up a system to save old people from starvation, and then allows it to be used to perpetuate starvation.
"It won't do. So long as we have this system, I'm going to make not the worst use of it, but the best use of it. And I believe in paying old-age pensions through the Poor Law. The Poor Law ought not to degrade any more than the Rich Law degrades under which Ministers and officers of the State receive their pensions. Why do I say pay pensions through the Poor Law? Because it is here. It is something to begin with at once. It is the thin edge of the wedge of a system of universal old-age pensions, free and adequate."
Pending the adoption of some national system, he practises in Poplar the policy he urges in public, that of paying a living pension through the Poor Law.
His policy received unexpected endorsement in a letter sent to him by an old woman of eighty-three in a provincial town. She wrote to him in the summer of 1906 at the time others were attacking him for his policy.
Your noble efforts on behalf of penniless old people like me I see are being condemned in some of the papers. They can't know the facts. I was managing very comfortably until the Liberator crash took away my income. I started a small school and maintained myself until I was seventy. After that I was no good for work. What I should have done I don't know had it not been for a few friends who, like yourself, believe in out-relief grants of sufficient amount to keep a person living; and they persuaded the Guardians to help me. I thank you for the fight you are making on behalf of hundreds of helpless old people like myself. May the King soon call you Sir Will Crooks.
He was examined at some length on his Living Pension policy at the Local Government Board Inquiry into the Poplar Guardians' administration. He admitted that old people over sixty receiving out-relief in Poplar were costing the borough a sixpenny rate.
"I say it is wicked to compel us," he stated in evidence, "to maintain out of our local rates these old people who ought to be a charge—as I have said hundreds of times, and repeat—for the whole metropolis or for the nation rather than the locality. These industrial veterans are thrust upon us in Poplar to maintain, notwithstanding that most of the wealth they created has been enjoyed by people who live elsewhere, and thus escape their share of the burden of maintaining their old workers in old age. But because this unjust state of things exists, are we, with a full sense of our responsibility, to tell these broken-down old workers that we refuse to bear the burden ourselves, and that they must do the best they can?"
Then followed a rapid fire of questions and answers between himself and the legal representative of the Poplar Municipal Alliance.
Q.—Is not that rather a dangerous doctrine? If local authorities generally allowed their sympathies to carry them into acts not contemplated by their constitution and their powers, what do you think the general result would be?
A.—It is contemplated by our constitution. We are here to relieve distress. We are created for that purpose.
Q.—Do you say there is any machinery or power in the Poor Law which authorises you to give allowances which are, in fact, old age pensions to these people?
A.—It allows us to give out-door relief. You can call it what you like.... We cannot refuse to give people help and assistance in old age.
Q.—I am not quarrelling for a moment with the proposition in the abstract; I am quarrelling with your method of carrying it out in your local machinery.
A.—Tell me what you would do—leave them to starve on the streets?
Q.—I suggest, is it not a dangerous doctrine for local authorities to exceed their statutory powers?
A.—I assure you we have never done anything of the kind, and I challenge you to prove it.
Q.—I ask you to show me any authority for a grant continuously of, say, ten shillings a week to these old people?
A.—The Local Government Board issued an order dealing with the matter.
The Inspector:—You rely on Mr. Chaplin's circular?
A.—Yes, with regard to the treatment of the aged and deserving poor. That circular reads:—
It has been felt that persons who have habitually led decent and deserving lives should, if they require relief in their old age, receive different treatment from those whose previous habits and character have been unsatisfactory, and who have failed to exercise thrift in bringing up their families or otherwise. The Local Government Board consider that aged and deserving persons should not be urged to enter the workhouse at all unless there is some cause which renders such a course necessary, such as infirmity of mind or body, the absence of house accommodation, or of a suitable person to care for them, or some similar cause; but think they should be relieved by giving adequate outdoor relief. The Board are happy to think it is commonly the practice of Boards of Guardians to grant outdoor relief in such cases, but they are afraid that too frequently such relief is not adequate in amount. They are desirous of pressing upon the Boards of Guardians that such relief should, when granted, be always adequate.
That is our authority for what we are doing.... For once in a way one can say this Inquiry at least will be an enlightening one.
Q.—I hope it will, Mr. Crooks.
A.—I am sure it will.
Q.—To other places than Poplar?
A.—I hope so indeed. Poplar will be a shining light in the days to come.
Labour Candidate for Woolwich—Lord Charles Beresford describes Crooks as a Fair and Square Opponent—How the Election Fund was Raised—Crooks recommended by John Burns as "Wise on Poor Law"—Half-loaf and Whole Loaf—"Greatest By-election Victory of Modern Times."
On the morning of February 19th, 1903, the Press stated that considerable excitement was created in London on the previous day by the announcement that Lord Charles Beresford had been offered the command of the Channel squadron, and that he was about to resign his Parliamentary seat in Woolwich.
A few days later the genial admiral, from a public platform, was bidding good-bye to his constituents and introducing to them the Conservative candidate in the person of Mr. Geoffrey Drage. He took occasion to throw out the warning that the opposition candidate was a strong man, whom he knew to be a fair and square opponent.
The reference was to Crooks. He had been adopted as Labour candidate some few weeks previously. The invitation sent to him by the Woolwich Labour Representation Association was a unanimous one. It surprised him to receive it, since his association with Woolwich—on the other side of the Thames two miles below Poplar—was a very slight one. When he accepted the invitation it was believed there would be at least two years to prepare for the General Election. The Labour candidate had barely made his début before the by-election was announced.
Nobody but the little band of Labour men in the constituency believed in Crooks's chances. The honours had fallen so easily hitherto to the Conservatives. Lord Charles Beresford got the seat without a contest. Sir Edwin Hughes before him was returned unopposed in 1900, while for sixteen years previously he held the seat by majorities averaging more than two thousand. The majority at the previous contest (which took place in 1895) reached 2,805.
Faced with this formidable figure, Crooks entered upon the contest with all his usual zeal and good humour. There was first the difficulty of the election expenses. The Labour Association quickly raised £200 from among its members. It soon became evident, however, that before the Labour Party could get in touch with the sixteen thousand voters on the register and meet the returning officer's fees, a sum four or five times as large as that would be needed.
An appeal to the public was sent out by the Association, signed by S. H. Grinling, M.A. (chairman), W. Barefoot (treasurer), and A. Hall (secretary). The appeal was taken up by the Daily News, which opened a Woolwich Election Fund. In about a fortnight that paper raised £1,000. Contributions poured in from all classes, in every part of the kingdom, accompanied by a chorus of well-wishes of which any public man might indeed be proud.
As from day to day the amounts were acknowledged in the Daily News, one saw side by side with the modest two shillings from "Four workers" £10 from Lord Portsmouth. Among the shillings and sixpences from working women and girls appeared £5 from Lady Trevelyan, and a list of subscriptions from Father Adderley, containing one "From a lady in lieu of a new hat." The day "Two Chalfont lads" sent "a bob each," two sums of £50 were acknowledged from the Right Hon. Sydney Buxton and Mr. George Cadbury. The authors of "The Heart of the Empire," with a gift of £25, shared the same spirit with "A Leominster working-man," who forwarded three shillings, and "Four working men of Cirencester," who sent four shillings between them. Dr. Clifford, the Rev. Stopford Brooke, and Canon Scott Holland swelled the list, together with old Labour Members of Parliament like Mr. T. Burt and Mr. H. Broadhurst.
"A fellow worker of Mr. Crooks on the Asylums Board" was responsible for £10, while colleagues of his on the London County Council contributed about £100 between them.
From Porchester Square came a substantial cheque with an unsigned note written in the third person, to this effect:—
The lady who sends the enclosed is nearly eighty-four, and therefore cannot offer any help in person, but she most heartily wishes Mr. Crooks success in his brave fight, as she has for a long time past desired to see more Labour representatives in the House of Commons.
The campaign went on merrily. The magnetic personality of the Labour candidate drew to his side every Progressive section in the constituency. It was not only that working-men threw themselves into the fight with Herculean energy, but the temperance societies and the churches of nearly every denomination became enthusiastic in his support.
They seemed to share the same estimate of the candidate as Mr. Keir Hardie, who wrote to the electors describing Crooks as "a first-class fighting man, and the best of good fellows, who would, if returned, bring credit and honour to the constituency."
Mr. John Burns went down to Woolwich to pay his tribute in person. With the Labour candidate he addressed a mass meeting of over five thousand electors in the Drill Hall, while crowds surged outside the doors, delaying the tram traffic in the streets. Mr. Burns fell into glowing periods in his eulogy of his old colleague:—
Woolwich has in Mr. Crooks a man who not only carries a banner which typifies a cause, but honours the army for which he works. By his tolerance and sweet-tempered geniality, he has united the Progressive forces of Woolwich as they have never been united before. In securing what is possible to-day, Mr. Crooks never forgets his ideal, but with a brotherly love and Christian charity pursues the line of least resistance in a way which Labour has not always shown.
Before sitting down, Mr. Burns took occasion to tell his five thousand hearers that among other reasons why he was there to commend their candidate was because Crooks was "wise on Poor Law."
As the contest developed, Crooks found that much the same kind of thing was being said against him as he had heard during his mayoralty in Poplar. He told one of his public meetings:—
"Lovely ladies are already going about with lovely stories. As they canvass for my opponent they tell the elector or his wife that the rates will go up if a Labour candidate is elected. They say that because he is a poor man he will have to be paid a salary of £500 a year out of the rates. You tell these alluring ladies that Will Crooks has been in public life for fourteen years, and has never had a penny from the rates all the time. Tell them further that if he remains in public life another fifty years, he will still never have a penny from the rates."
Evidently those good ladies had not read his election address. There he stated:—
"I have no desire to enter Parliament unless it be for the opportunities it may afford me of continuing and extending my life's work. If I can further the well-being of my country by assisting in the developing of a nation of self-respecting men and women, whose children shall be educated and physically and mentally fitted to face their responsibilities and duties, I shall be content.
"I therefore ask those of you who believe that the greatness of our Empire rests on the happiness and prosperity of its people to consider carefully the importance of the present election.
"I am of opinion that a strong Labour Party in the House of Commons, comprised of men who know the sufferings and share the aspirations of all grades of workmen, is certain to exercise greater influence for good than the academic student."
As the day of the poll (March 11th) drew near, confident hopes of victory began to be entertained by many outside the Labour Party. The most telling election cry used by his supporters was innocently supplied by the opposition candidate, Mr. Drage, a gentleman who at one time sat with Crooks on the Asylums Board. At one of his public meetings early in the campaign, Mr. Drage attempted to justify certain low wages paid in the Woolwich Arsenal by remarking that half a loaf was better than no bread.
The Labour Party seized upon the words at once. "No half-loaf policy for us; we want the whole loaf," was their immediate retort.
From that moment the loaf became the feature of the fight. As Free Trade and Protection were also to the front, the loaf had a double significance. Crooks's supporters carried about the streets, on the end of poles, loaves and half-loaves to represent the rival policies. "F. C. G.," in one of his Westminster Gazette cartoons, represented Crooks standing firm and solid on the whole loaf, while his opponent balanced himself with some temerity on a tottering half-loaf.
Polling day dawned hopefully. Sunshine illumined the streets, while the Labour candidate's carriages filled them. For once a Labour man out-classed a Conservative in the number and style of his conveyances. Friends of Crooks sent four-in-hands, motor cars, two-horse carriages, traps, drags, vans, coal-carts, and donkey shays. The bakers of the district had made thousands of miniature loaves about the size of walnuts, which were in evidence everywhere. With stalks through them, these loaves were sold in the streets and shops for a penny. Men wore them in their buttonholes, boys in their caps, and women on their dresses as a symbol of the Labour man's policy of the whole loaf.
Victory had been hoped for, but victory such as that achieved was beyond the wildest dreams. A Conservative majority of 2805 was turned by Crooks into a Labour majority of 3229—"the greatest by-election victory of modern times," as the Speaker described it. The actual poll was:—
| Crooks (Labour) | 8687 |
| Drage (Conservative) | 5458 |
| —— | |
| Majority | 3229 |