/ Page,,4
THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1956.
THE KEIR HARDIE STORY
TURNING POINT-NOW IT'S HARDIE, M.P.
I
By EMRYS HUGHES
De
From now on it was to war on the Liberals. "The wea- Wrote pon has been forged," Hardie.
"A
General Election will come, and it is for us to sco no Liberal gets returned Better a at who is not with u
If Hardie would only stand
N 1888 the Liberal MP and explained how unfortunate for Mid-Lanark rei was that Liberals and Labour
should fight each other. Hurdle had signed. lived and worked in the constituency, and it was not surprising that he
stand by urged to miners.
down in Mid-Lanark he would that
give him an assurance that
W the General Election he would thousand times an open foe than the be adopted a mewhere, the a secret enemy. The wolf in Liberal Party paying hie ex- sheep's clothing is always most penses and guaranteeing him a to be feared."
salary-300 was the yearly sum hinted aí.
The working class Labour MP's of those days were re- turned to Westminster through the support of the Liberal Party "Lib-Labs" they were known as. Hardie was on the Liberal Associa- tion's Het of candidates.
Mid-Lanark was EL sent
have that should
been fought by a Lib-Lab man. But, without consulting the electors, the local Executive Welsh chose n young lawyer, Mr J. W. Phillips, later to become ↓ dls tinguished financier, Lord St Davids.
Fight Was On
JARDIE immediately reinvent
The Mid-Lanark election, the It was a templing offer to a activities of the Scottish Labour young man like Hardie, living Party, the conflicts at the TUC had now hand to mouth on a with the old school, trum
Keir Hardle meagre salary. To his surprise, made the name of Trevelyan received an abrupt known south of the Border. and emplate NO. The fight was Miss A novelist, On going Florence Harkness, paid the election expenses of £270.
Beginning Of End
In South West Ham, near of London, there was a group working men Radicale who had captured the local Liberal As sociation. They wrote to Hardie asking him if they should nominate him as their candidate and he accepted.
for the This was a problem He hud
Headquarters and Liberal
their National Schnadhorst, Agent, was by no means pleased that the stubborn Scotsman who had caused all the trouble Mid-Lanark had now arrived in London.
HARDIE received 617 votes to
the Liberal's 3,847. been overwhelmingly defeated, but it had been a significant and historic election. It was the first me that Labour had slood, I dependent, deflaal, as a separate political party. with its own programme and policy
of the It was the beginning end for the Liberal Party. Keir Hardie had lost the by-election but had created
Hasure to the lateralist, and unterwards, the Part met his supportera and decided shared Hardle's views carne to- to fight both Turies and Liberals gether to form a Scottish Labour as a Labour candidate. Liberals, anxious to avoid a split in the vole, did their best to get bim to withdraw
The Party.
Three months later, on August 20, a conference was held at the Waterion Rooms, Clasgow, and was the Scottish Labour Party hard. Ker Handle was appointed
Bir George Trevelyan, a lead ing Liberal MP, asked Hardie to meet him. He was very polite secretary.
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CITILI. He argued to himself, use fellows at SW Hom were an awkward lot and it was not
10
persuade an easy matter Hardle to withdraw from a fight. The discreet line for the Liberals would be to leave Hardie to be delealed at SW Ham and not to Itz case the trouble interfere spread to ather London 2017- giftueneles.
Schnadhurst invited Bardie to meet him a fels office and met with a refusal. Later they met in the pre- on neutral ground
sence of a third party. Schnad- hurst, wishing to plachte Herdle, do to aid asked what he could him in SW Hum. "Nothing,' was the reply, "except to keep out of the way."
Hardle was convinced that the seat could be won, and oddress- ed a series of open air meetings at the dock gates, many of the at 5.30 in the morning when the dockers went to their work.
Cuuninghame-Graham, Liberal MP for NW Lanarkshire and Arm friend of Hardle, went to a vivid help him, and wrote
of the district of description Canning Town: "A very miera- cosm of the nineteenth century Street upon street of world. half-cocked brick abominations, falsely called houses: here and there a Little Bethel' chapel, in its hideousness making sweet re- ligion a
rhapsody of bricks and stucco. An air of desolation over
HOTEL
TRAYALGAR
|Ingitä" Sellara walim
vive! mr nelson
BAR
TILES
MILITARY POLL
'Well,' I said, 'I'm fad up and want to go home,' and this sailor said, 'England expects every man to do his duty, chum,' and
I said, "Nelson wasn't always so hot at doing what he was told, chum,' then he flipped me one, then I flipped him one ;.;.“
He no
longer shouts and no longer struts on Formosa --but the "Gimo" is not yet to be
not_yet
T
endless ordinates.
no
written off-
THERE MAY STILL BE HOPE FOR CHIANG
the
By Les
a delicate and Sun's Kugintang took over.
furn
WIS
ruled
vacuum, and
All it.
Armour
nearly the whole of Chine
Then he turned on the Com, munista
Stulwell afterwards General wrote: "Fifty or a handed years ago, Chiang might have been an acceptable leader of China. Since Dr Sun's death in 1925, But his lack of education handi- Chiang had been as near to capped him under modern con- titular head of the government ditions. The picture wo Beog as any one, He removed the clearly is dark to him. He Communists from the govern- hurdles logic by using his intui-
dismisses proven
ment and ordered Borodin, the 100 by saying Chinese fogla
of
course,
wat The
Erk
fact,
from
were government
dictator
La different.
At the Cairo conference with Churchill and Roosevelt in 1943, of the Allied aides re- ported alarmed,
behaved like Hitler.
Chiang
Neither General Stillwell nor, the Allied
aldes--who, under-
standably, found Chiang dinleit taken as Impartial -can be observers.
Yet it is clear fromm
the records of the period that Chiong was running into serious trouble,
He was still out of touch with the modem world, still torn be- his instinctive feeling
O 11 the then and for long after that a north and succeeded in unifying other hand, moral revolution, a return to Formosa sacred principles, "would rescue government is their country from its decline,
The Marchus did fail and Dr artificial thing. The young Chiang proved him- 2 hoi-house plant; and the self an üble mallary leader in the uprising. He was made old man with
Chief of Start. bis curious
Within a short time, however, Russian adviser to the govern combina-
both he and Dr Sun began to ment, to leave the country. uon of Metho- realise the
mormity
their of
To all appearances he had de- dis principles undertaking. What they want cided long before to break with
at the earliest some and Confudan ed
a moral revolution, the Communists outlook is not Their conviction that the possible moment. really strong replacement of 龋 morally lax DICTATOR unough to
government by a morally alert it into
[UE' result, it T win would goverment
to have
merely another split. quickly proved very HE Generalissimo is anything else.
Communists Formosan home, been based on a taulty premise. From his 69 today and history must look queer indeed. In fact, in
the operating deposing he looks older than In 1887, when he was born, Manchus they left a political Hankow and were in no way politicians of subordinate to the Kuomintang he is. He is quiet the Mandhu dynasty still the whole place that only modern and reserved, now. He no
with some semblance
It was about that time that civilisation gives. On one skłe.
longer shouts it has the In Chelelang provine of why every hue and it rushed in to overnment in the Kuon
father was a poverty hla
Local ""warlord" ~ ex-officers the first signs of the incs of endless docks and on
He longer stricken peasant, life was still of the various armies-in parti- began to appear in Chiang. He tween the other lincs of
ruled by ancient custom, and cular had a field day, and large had learned that only a tough, that China must have a strong misery,"
struts.
as such was B
central "government"
country became, centralised government stood a
government and There is an air of benc-
constant hope thought in fact, feudal holdings run by chance. hardly anyone
that, somehow, thing The
But the business sickened the volence about him.
who
moral about.
revolution would unashamed titie "Generalissimo"
him and, three years later, after He grew up in the period robber barong,"
tho Јарелеве marcited Into It was becoming daily
Even then the importance of once either grand or im- when
FACTIONS
Manchuria he resigned to start economics and sociology eluded "It wrote:
a more clear to the outside world out posing a little like
or
move him. China that
governed
The Communists, the Yuan Shib-bat, who con- ment based on the Methodist Japanese, and the warlords were the comic opera, depending on tradition, ignorant of techno. Sun resignce in favour of a "moral regeneration" the how you looked at it-now logy and looking only inward, trolled much of North China and principles he had absorbed from to him simply bad and
In various could never survive in competi- showed some promise of being his wife, Mayling Boong.
evidence scems pitiful.
Chiang 1934, ho started a full-scale the
ale the spread of moral rot, 19 He Is like the South Ameri- tion with the West. Occidental able to restore order.
*NEW
Life
Movumen!"
It did who must wear commerce spread fast and in and many of the revolutionary can admiral
pot occur to him that curious combination lauders installed themselves in
of the
the lack of an
economie bass Methodism and Confucianism, ment ot much China
the country and Its Both these attracted immense mediaeval social systems would any other admiral beccause he
however, proved little The young Chiang, meanwhile, has no ships.
place in Won And yet Chiang is not yet to
queror or civil disobedient. in 1916, went down to defeat in have cul very deep. Не be written off.
By 1880, Chiang was back in an abortive, attempt to hav
the tray. One
or inte
generals... himself proclaimed Emperor.
From there the battle was on Chang Hsuch-lang-kidnapped THE war ended with another Dr Sun and Chiang him in zo effort to persuade him split with" the Communists, in carnest. wont to Canton and con- to come to terms with the who had all along continued to centrated in consolidating South Communists and issue a joint govern sizable areas of the
declaration China
against north. In 1921, Dr Sun tried again Japan, which was on the verge The old struggle
full-scale war again. realise that the hard veneer of THEN, in 1008, he found him-
self in Japan for special to form a provisional govern of launching efficiency imposed by the Con-
The effect ment in Canton,
The but warring against Calna proper.
Co
promferd munist regime on the mainland military training.
In the end, Chiang did come bread and eflcient government. must have been rather like factions drove him out, and be can only, yet, be skin deep.
A New Party
Hardle he
0 is difficult to mike
10
exactly whether j is Socialistic programune or clear grit of the man that has
1 incline impressed them. think the latter, as programmes LCES are many, men are few. elequent than Burns, less dog- matic than Mana, less preacher then Tillett. Keli Hardle tras, nevertheless, somo
none qualities which
of them
written He alone of Labour posacsses. leaders
of
#
0
areas of the
men
by
R
were
come.
for
Succeses
nis
their
more stripes on his sleeve than fact, became the real govern estive than Dr Sun and, attention, but. neither seems to niways leave it prey to any, con
known to me, at any little island
rate, has something poetle about
times.
al
Thero Wes
American
THOW
military
is not acudemy-a shrine of tradition, insulated from all off in Formosa, the carefully
overflowing that was going on in the world. with refugees, hangers-on, and His educaliom only widened the his personallly and his speeches."
military
advisers, gulf between his view of the written off in the world and the real world. The toples that Hardie talked He is not
back streets
of Hongkong, VISIONARY about were not those which the
where the teeming thousands electors usually heard about riection nothing of the political checp- jacle about him. He appealed to their manhood and their self- respect; he wanted to make un- employment, low wages and bad housing the real issue of politics. He wanted a new party, a party that would fight In Parliament for the working class-a Labour
Party!
Ite
PARADISE
no c
490
of
(war
CORRUPTION"
was
on
social engineers, "land Their 05
armies moved. Chiang was, as of old
but weaker now-and-corruption.
Д cliff. Already. and Chiang were forced to to terms with the Communists. Chi
Chiang promised morality is not even written off falling of
Japan was competing with the sex refuge in Shanghal, where But the Japanese moved befoto and desperately compromised in Washington.
West at its own game and some sembisase of order sull the new unity could become with the warlords who often as Most important, perhaps, he winning steadily on points.
effcetive. Neniding fell on not, betrayed him to
him to the Com- remained. has not written himself off.
There, 100, he met the
years later, they wera. Dezember 18, 1037 and the munists, scholarly visionary, Sun Yat- back with a little more success, Chinese troope fled pell melk. The Communists were highly Was sent to Russia to RETREATS their organisation grow as fast
skilled Chiang Dr. Sun was fired with the act as liaison with Russian The result was a victory with really is doing some of the
I things he used to talk about: vision of a New China, a liberal leaders who were prepared to HIANG once more threw up
of freed
his political offices but this the a majority of 1,232 over the Tory. His island goverment does democracy
back Suit in his attempt to
time merzity in order to assume At 30, Keir Hardle had won his boar
Manchus, but dedicated to an restore order. some resemblance to a way into Parliament, the first democratic regime,
Corrup- cent moral principles. It is was during that visit that direct command of the army despread fast in his ranks,
that Chiang hay Chiang developed his almost In effect, he established a In the end there was nothing tion is certainly the exception probable
those fanatical
hatred cf. Cam- milltary government, respon for it but exile, to Formosa, rather than the rule among his never recovered from
carly meetings
munism. He saw in Russia the sible, in theory, to a president Even
then, officera.
Li Tsung-Jen, D problems andthesis China's
but in fact, answerable, pinced Chlane ki one of his, Nta Dr. Sun saw He
prezident who had re- puppet has given some new.
TOTAL: The revolution order,
one but himself P thought to the question of how as predominantly
of resignation, contoo China might be governed Maschus were decadent dense, and above all, utter ruthious The rout became an humanely and efficiently.
and morally, blind"," They Had ness. The visit scene to have retreat, and Chiang eventually right to rule Formosa -
independent Labour MP..
V (AR_Rights Reserved) .
TOMORROW :. Member For The
Unemployed
$5.
1956 GILES ANNUAL
stock will be limited.
Bookings accepted a
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST LTD. HONG KONG
and must pay the penalty,
of
the
quite simply In the face lacted their responsibilities (convinced him that his original established". hlav Movernment 2d was the. President:
interior love Formosa, «Das Te infoTTER his return, however," government took shape and his ") "The day could actually come loss educated China, were 4% he arranged a deal with the defences proved; adequate," Witr? really appl
His importance may Fultimate-
bellef was right what was securely in Chungking sur and Chiang Just while the Communist re-
of the citizen when It never seems to have oc- gime suts worse, the Formbea curred to De: Sun, and still lessed was a moral revolution, rounded by the
·WARLORDS did it occur to regime may get better,
his word was absolute, But Chiang's that
argued th
E', that--the cor made no pro the ・ mainland," "
of China's
when
xom Formosa will look liko To provent that, the ecotiomle, anid - sociological, The Communists, They and the World War II came Allied help, the resignation of
the Com trouble was that China had no Kuomintang would collaborate but Chiang, stil, nourishing hb, and Chiang had thecel
which, to with= minists
and rout the warlords for may be more careful weapons with
old hatred of the foreigner; not, President all, along. a good of stunth. They won, of in what they do.
stand the economie penetration and all
the West Chiname
that
social At
2. Comph i was a sorry, spectac that time, the Kuomintang America's General may organisation with 10 depen still only controlled the souths Vinegar Joe Bulwell, who Since then crumble in exactly the same totally united, for an Industrial Including Polding and bur
denco on var family units, was the whole of the north eventually! way that Chiang's did-and-by
It may even be that the munist government
the time there could even bed oxstence mainly in warlord and JUTA government la Formosa gab 300% De Bun, and..
Derty In Communist funds 431 cursed, the fareLEDGY who
to” be recalled,