The Independent Labour Party, Harold Monro & Arthur Romney Green

There were numerous lectures at the Independent Labour Party, Haslemere on Kings Road, held in Arthur Romney Green's workshop and showroom.  In addition to the Ramsay MacDonald and Joe St  Loe Strachey, chaired by the Lord Bishop of Dorking written in a previous post here, there is a record of Harold Monro giving a lecture.

Monro (1879-1932), see Wikipedia here, was a poet and proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop, an influential shop that sold and published poetry in Bloomsbury, London.

Harold Monro and the Poetry Workshop (Grant, Joy, University of California Press, 1967)

In Harold Monro and the Poetry Workshop (Grant, Joy, University of California Press, 1967), online here, Grant writes:

"Through James Guthrie, Monro came into contact with the community of weavers, embroiderers and other craftsmen who inhabited Haslemere at that time, and were trying to conduct their lives on the principles of Ruskin and Morris.  He was especially friendly with Romney Green, the designer and carpenter, who made superb tables and chairs out of ponderous baulks of oak, and who later supplied the furniture for the Poetry Bookshop.  ‘This rugged, fiery, somewhat intractable yet generous creature’, Arundel del Re writes, ‘loathed all forms of aestheticism and literary cant.’  He believed, with Whitman, that art was for the regeneration of man.

"There were thus kindred souls of progressive outlook near at hand, and we hear of Monro going to Haslemere to lecture to the Independent Labour Party there.  

"…The interior (of the Poetry Bookshop) fulfilled the promise of the outside.  Monro called in Romney Green to provide bookshelves, tables and settles in his characteristic style – massive but finely proportioned furniture hewn from great baulks of oak.  It added to the homeliness of the  shop and with its flavour of rus in urbe suggested the character of the proprietor."

Not on Mr King's Secret Service

On 1st March 1916 Joseph King made a stand in Parliament against the secrecy of the war effort, and more generally that the Government "kept from the public things which might just as well be attained in a public way".  In doing so, King appears to set himself apart from his peers.  In retrospect there is some irony here, as King himself was successfully prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act later that year, in October 1916.  

Perhaps his treatment in that case was informed by his very public stance in respect of the Defence of the Realm below.  

from shorehamfort.co.uk

In response to a motion to provide a supplementary sum for the Secret Service of £50,000, the following debate took place (HC Deb 01 March 1916 vol 80 cc1139-48):

"Mr. KING 

I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.

 

Whenever the Secret Service Vote comes before the House I always take the opportunity of drawing attention to one or two peculiar circumstances connected with it. On former occasions, and in times of peace, I have always objected to the Vote because it is secret and because it attains, or attempts to attain, by methods kept from the public things which might just as well be attained in a public way. But at the present time the other view may be entertained, that as practically all our expenditure of a war nature is secret, all our Army expenditure, all our Navy expenditure, all our advances to our Allies and to our Colonies are kept entirely secret from us, what is the good of having a Secret Service Vote at all? All Votes for the War are entirely secret. As far as I can understand, they are not even to be put before the Public Accounts Committee. I, at any rate, have seen the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, as printed, and I do not understand that the expenditure of the War is set out there at all as we were given to understand it would be, or at any rate in such an intelligible form that we can understand what the expenditure on the War has been. Why have a Secret Service Vote at all when all the operations, to the extent of £5,000,000 a day, are carried on secretly? It is a mere absurdity. It is a contradiction in terms in these times to put forward a Secret Service Vote at all. I am sorry that no one connected with the Foreign Office is present. I think on previous occasions, as the Secret Service Vote is in some sort of way connected with the Foreign Office, we have had a representative of the Foreign Office to support and explain it. Whether that be so or not, I intend to call attention to two definite facts in connection with this Vote which I think are of some importance. If the Secret Service Vote is to be in any sense effective it ought to be kept secret, and at the present time there is a gentleman going up and down the country lecturing, and making a very large amount of money by his lectures, which he puts forward on the ground that he was employed for a good number of years by the Foreign Office on secret service.

William Le Queux, Goodreads.com

I refer, of course, to Mr. William Le Queux. If you go to any watering-place you will see advertisements of Mr. William Le Queux, stating that he will give to the public, in return for the purchase of a half-crown ticket, the benefit of his great experiences and the secrets of the Courts of Europe and of diplomacy which he has attained while he was in the Secret Service. If it is true that he was in the Secret Service, he ought not to be allowed to go about disclosing the secrets. If he was not in the Secret Service, he is a fraud, a deception, and a humbug, and he is also a discredit to the country and ought to be prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act for throwing discredit on the country and on the Foreign Office. I should like some explanation of what to my mind is a perfect scandal—the way in which Mr. W. Le Queux has been going about for months saying he was a friend of the late Marquess of Salisbury, that he had many intimate communications with him, that he was sent on a secret service mission with Secret Service money. And then he gets ex-Cabinet Ministers to take the chair for him at his lectures.

HON. MEMBERS 

Whom?

St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Middleton,
Vanity Fair

Mr. KING 

The gentleman known as Viscount Midleton, who in this House was known as Mr. St. John Brodrick, who was formerly Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, takes the chair for him. I have no doubt, therefore, that Mr. St. John Brodrick, with all his authority at the Foreign Office, backs him up. If it was not that this gentleman professes under such auspices to give away the secrets of the Foreign Office the matter would be of less consequence. But with this backing up it becomes a perfect scandal.

There is one other, to my mind, important fact in connection with this Vote that ought to be met from the Treasury Bench—I refer to the case of Mr. Master-man. It has become an open secret, which anyone can see clearly by giving attention to the answers which have been given to frequent questions in this House as to the work, emoluments and method of pay of Mr. Masterman in his present position, that he is serving in the Secret Service and is paid out of the Secret Service Vote. I have always been a very great admirer of Mr. Masterman, but I do not agree with all his views, and I do not agree with a man being in the Secret Service and publishing elaborate statements of the policy of this country under his own signature. If he is in the Secret Service let him do secret work and not public work. I have it, everyone has it, on the very best authority, that he is in the Secret Service at present. Let him, therefore, do his work quietly and in secret. I am sorry I have not the
attention of any Cabinet Minister, because I am perhaps misguided enough to think that these matters I am bringing before the Committee are of such interest and importance that they ought to receive the attention of a Cabinet Minister, and I hope they will get some answer now.

The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. Montagu) 

No.

Mr. KING 

They will not get any answer?

Mr. MONTAGU 

No.

Mr. KING 

Then I am very sorry.

Mr. MONTAGU 

I am now asking for money for the Secret Service. If my hon. Friend wishes to persuade us not to vote that money, he is perfectly entitled to do so. Secret Service money is money deliberately and repeatedly voted by Parliament about which hon. Members abrogate their right to ask any questions. If you do not like the Secret Service, do not vote it; but do not ask questions as to how it is spent, because then it is not Secret Service.

Mr. KING 

I am afraid I shall have to make my speech all over again. I have just been pointing out two definite cases of men who say they are in the Secret Service and are doing public work, and one of them is giving away, with the support of men who have been in the Foreign Office, what he declares to be the secrets of the Foreign Office. It is a perfect scandal, and it only bears out what I say, that if you vote money in secret you will have it misused and misapplied and you will put it into the hands of people who are quite unworthy of your confidence. I suppose as we are not to have any reply to my speech it is a case of either take it or leave it. I am afraid I shall be the only Member who will have the courage to speak out against this Vote, but I must, as a protest against the way in which my entirely well meant and serious allegations have been met, move a reduction of the Vote."

Joseph King's war themes

A cursory review of Hansard highlights Joseph King's interests in the war effort.  His speeches are commonly concerns with the well-being of soldiers, others and the cost of the war.  There are numerous speeches that King initiated or took part in that are titled "deserters", "conscientious objectors", "nerve shaken soldiers", "court marshall prisoners", "prisoners of war", "aliens" and "military service".

Hansard, from Parliament UK

For example in 1916:

10 January 1916: 

"MR KING asked the Under Secretary of War whether he will state the number of desertions from the Army at Home reported from 4^th August, 1914, to the latest available; and whether any men have during that period been imprisoned for desertion?

MR TENNANT I do not consider that it is in the public interest to give this information, but I will ask my hon. Friend not to run away with the idea that the number of desertions during the period in question causes concern." (Hansard, HC Deb 10 January 1916 vol 77 c1276)

and also that day:

"Mr. KING 

asked whether the number of divisions contributed by this country to the land forces of the Allies has reached or has exceeded the limit laid down by the Secretary of State for War on 25th August, 1914; what definite undertakings, if any, have been given by this country to maintain a definite number of fightiog men in the field; and what is the number of battalions which have to be in training or in reserve in order to make good losses or wastage in the field abroad?

Mr. TENNANT 

My hon. Friend must be aware that it cannot be in the public interest to give this information." (

HC Deb 10 January 1916 vol 77 c1279)

On 21st February 1916:

"Mr. KING asked the Prime Minister whether, with a view to bringing the financial and military demands on the country into harmony, the question has been considered of limiting the numbers of our military and naval forces; and, if so, whether any Cabinet decision has been reached?

The PRIME MINISTER 

The relation between the military and financial requirements of the War is engaging the constant attention of the Government, and, as I stated last week, has recently been the subject of special consideration." (

HC Deb 21 February 1916 vol 80 cc432-3)

"Mr. KING 

asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to an answer given by the Under-Secretary of state for war on 20th January with regard to the execution of persons in this country by the military authority within some forty-eight hours of the dismissal of the appeal by the court of criminal appeal; whether such a period admits of an appeal to the clemency of the crown and the consideration by the crown of such an appeal; and whether he will endeavour to secure consistency of practice in this respect as between the war office and the home office?

The PRIME MINISTER 

In every case where an appeal to the clemency of the Crown has been made the execution has been postponed in order that the appeal may receive full consideration. Prisoners of this class are always assisted by experienced counsel and solicitors, who are free to give any advice they may consider necessary or desirable regarding the matter of appeals." (

HC Deb 21 February 1916 vol 80 c437W)

Joseph King's first Parliamentary speech 23 Feb 1910

Joseph King was elected Liberal MP for North Somerset in the early 1910 general election which ran from 15 January to 10 February.  The election produced a hung parliament, with the Conservative Party  led by Arthur Balfour and their Liberal Unionist allies receiving the largest number of votes, but the Liberals led by H. H. Asquith winning the largest number of seats, returning two more MPs than the Conservatives. Asquith formed a government with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by John Redmond.  A second election was soon held in December. (wikipedia)

Joseph King, MP
from Haslemere Educational Museum

On the 23rd February 1910 Hansard records Joseph King speaking in the House of Commons for the first time on a debate following the King Edward VII's speech (referred to in Hansard as 'His Majesty's gracious speech') at the opening of Parliament two days earlier on the 21st February.  MPs were debating free trade and tariff reform.

The Only Hope is Tariff Reform c.1906 poster,
People's History Museum, Manchester

I think that Joseph King's first words to Parliament reveal his strength of character, and his alignment with the 'peasant'(!).  By questioning the view of the average population about the Parliamentary debate, King tries to ground the debate to address the interests of the everyday person.

Hansard records the proceedings as thus:

Mr Joseph King
“I have only sat in this House for two or three days, but I have already become conscious that the light in which Members regard the burning questions of the day is somewhat different from that in which they are regarded outside.  I cannot, for instance, imagine so much excitement being created in an ordinary assembly of either Liberals or of politicians of various kinds by the question which excited this House on the two previous days, and which has caused so much comment and discussion in the Lobbies…Surely if there was one question in connection with Tariff Reform which was universally discussed at the recent elections, except possibly in those industrial districts like Sheffield, where the subject was judiciously kept in the background, it was the effect of the proposed taxes on food upon the cost of the living of the people.  The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, when challenged upon this subject, gave us the very interesting information that he for one was against all taxation on foreign wheat or flour, and he warned the House that there were many others beside himself who shared that opinion.

The Glutton,
The Budget League, (supported by the Liberals) poster,
1910 UK general election,
People's History Museum, Manchester

Mr H. W. Forster
My hon. Friend was referring not to foreign corn, but to Colonial corn.

§

Mr King
That only strengthens my argument. These Gentlemen from the manufacturing districts want Tariff Reform for the benefit of their manufactures, but they will not have it at any price when it is at all beneficial to the landed interest. I venture to express the opinion which I frequently expressed on public platforms during the course of the General Election, that the Tariff Reform policy is one of intellectual poverty and moral perversion. 

290It is an intellectually poor policy, because it cannot yet convince the representatives of the working classes that it is going to do them any benefit whatsoever. I am sure if any speech profoundly held this House to-night it must have been the masterly speech we had from the hon. Member for Leicester. I had been acquainted beforehand with the lines on which the Labour Members treated the Fiscal Question, but I must confess I was surprised, delighted, I might even say inspired by the eloquent treatment the hon. Member meted out to this Question from the point of view of the Labour party.

I desire to call attention to what seems to be a very significant omission in the language of this Amendment, which, I suppose, has been borrowed from the Amendment to the Address proposed last year by the same right hon. Gentleman. Why should he choose again to put forward exactly the same words on this occasion? Circumstances have altered a good deal, as he himself has admitted, but in one respect, surely, the Tariff Reform policy has advanced. It is now absolutely pledged by the words and promises of the Leaders at any rate of the party, to a tax upon food. But the probable and promised effects of such a tax find no place whatever in the language of this Amendment. I venture to suggest that that is a very remarkable and very serious omission. It is remarkable for this reason, that the right hon. Gentleman who comes down to this House and proposes the Amendment says nothing in the Amendment about the important problem which, I venture to say, has exercised the thoughts and attention of more members of the electorate than any other single aspect of this Fiscal Question during the recent election. We must remember that during the election the Leader of the Opposition issued a letter to very many Conservative and Unionist candidates, and, although this letter was couched in personal and almost intimate terms to the individual candidate, it was circulated throughout the length and breadth of the land, and it was, in fact, a stereotyped document distributed broadcast over the country. I would venture to call the attention of the House to the words which the Leader of the Opposition used in encouraging and helping his supporters by this circular letter.

Tariff Reform poster,
UK general election,
January 1910,
LSE library

 They were:— I am not surprised that your Radical opponent is attempting to raise the old and often contradicted misrepresentation as to the effect of Tariff Reform on the cost of living of the working classes. I have frequently and explicitly stated that no increase will take place. 

291It seems to me that that is rather audacious language even for the very agile, and I think I may say versatile politician who leads the Tariff Reform party. I ask the House to notice especially the form in which this pledge and promise is made, for it is both one and the other—nay, more, it is a pledge, a promise, and a prophecy that, under Tariff Reform, there will be no increase in the cost of living. It is not that there will be no increase, relatively, in the cost of food. I take it the cost of living covers not only the cost of meat and drink consumed, but also that of clothing, furniture and all the other necessaries of life. I assert that the pledge, promise and prophecy of the Leader of the Opposition is that Tariff Reform is going to make no increase in the cost of such living, and I repeat that that is very audacious and extravagant language. Indeed I am not surprised that in the few remarks which the proposer of this Amendment offered on the subject of food taxes he avoided anything like a recurrence of the pledge or promise made by the Leader of the Opposition. It is apparent to anyone who takes a broad view of the course of events, not only in this country but throughout the world, that the cost of food has risen, is rising, and is likely to me still further. And it is likely to rise still further independently of tariffs, for certain well-recognised reasons. There is, for instance, a great disinclination on the part of people all over the world to live in the country so long as they can live in the town. There is a disinclination on the part of capitalists to embark upon large methods and schemes of agricultural production so long as they can get outlets for their capital and energies in industrial, manufacturing, and commercial occupations. Then there is this great fact, the significance of which is only just beginning to be recognised. Ten years ago we were almost being fed by the United States of America. At the present time we are receiving from the United States practically no wheat at all, and in a few years we shall probably see the United States not only ceasing to export food stuffs of any kind, but themselves becoming importers of food stuffs from other countries. That is a remarkable and significant fact and it is one which leads to this conclusion, that, at this time, for us to embark upon a policy which means restricting the markets in which we may buy the food of our people is a bad and foolish policy. I say that any wise and far-sighted statesman looking out upon the facts and 292looking out upon the general tendency of trade and commerce and the development of agriculture all over the world, would naturally be led to the conclusion which is the conclusion of Free Traders, at any rate, that we must preserve the right to buy food for our people in any market the world offers us.

Liberal advert,
UK election campaign
January 1910

I venture to call the attention of the House to two further facts of great importance and significance in this connection. One is this, that the great progress and development of the Eastern nations of the world, especially Japan and China, means that those countries are living at a higher standard and taking on the ways of living and the higher living, such as we have hitherto associated only with European countries or their colonies. For instance, China and Japan are now ceasing to sustain their working classes purely upon rice, and are adding meat and cereals—wheat and other food, in a way which, it is agreed, was quite unknown to them two or three years ago. That is another significant fact, and all these facts tend to the conclusion that the price of food will rise not only in our country but all over the world. It makes me wonder still more at the audacity—I will say the reckless audacity—of the Tariff Reform party who not only in the rank and file of the irresponsible members of that party, but by the leaders of that party have given the pledge which they have done, that Tariff Reform will cause no increase in the cost of living of the working classes.

Labour, January 1910
UK general election poster,
LSE library
Taunton, neighbouring constituency to North Somerset

In view of the reckless, illogical and unwarrantable nature of those promises I am not surprised that much which we have seen upon the hoardings and in the literature during the recent election has been entirely dropped in this Debate by Members on the other side of the House. I had the honour of fighting and holding by a substantial majority a seat which runs into the great city of Bristol. I am glad to say that in Bristol and the surrounding constituencies we held our own with somewhat reduced majorities, and the representation of that great industrial area is the same in this Parliament as it was in the last. We can number five Liberal and Free Trade Members against one Conservative and Tariff Reformer, but in every case in every fight in that district we had to contend with placards, posters, statements, leaflets and speeches asseverating that it was due to the Liberal policy that the price of bread had increased, a statement which the right hon. Gentleman 293who proposed this Amendment was very careful to go out of his way entirely to deny. Such is the difference between Tariff Reform in the constituencies and Tariff Reform on the floor of the House of Commons. It is just the same, of course, with their naval scare. Their naval scare shows Tariff Reform Unionists or Conservatives, or whatever other alias they may call themselves by, in just the same light. We were actually warned that, it might be before Parliament met, an invasion would appear, and I was expecting, when I came down to this House on the first day, that there was, at any rate, one subject, at all events, upon which I should hear some enlightened opinions and some valuable suggestions. I anticipated that there would be, at any rate, a demonstration in force from Members opposite to secure if possible that before one or two days had passed at least a dozen "Dreadnoughts" should be laid down.

§

Liberal 1910
UK general election poster
People's History Museum, Manchester

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Emmott) 

 I am afraid I must remind the hon. Member that we are now on an Amendment and the question of the Navy does not arise on that Amendment.

§Mr King 

I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for your timely warning, and that is a subject which we may be able to refer to on another occasion. I will not detain the House much longer, but I should like just to quote some significant words which would seem to me to apply with extraordinary appropriateness at the present time—words which came from an authority the bona fides of which no one in this House will deny—I mean the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley (Mr. Jesse Collings). Writing now some eighteen years ago, he used these words: There are signs that the advocates of Protection will be to the fore with elaborate arguments to prove that a duty on corn would benefit the farmer, the labourer, and the nation; in other words, to show that a country can, in some mysterious way, be benefited by raising the price of food. Discussions of this nature will be a sheer waste of time, inasmuch as it may be taken as an absolute and settled fact that the people of this country will not submit to any tax whatever on foodstuffs imported into this country. I commend those words to the House, because I believe they sum up in singularly forcible language the present position.

Tariff reform poster,
LSE library

 Spoken though they were eighteen years ago, they ought to be borne in mind, and they convey a warning, and a serious warning, too, to those who come forward at the present time and tell us that a tax on food 

294will increase the prosperity of this country and reduce its cost of living. We have seen during the last two days in this House how a Minister with one clear, definite object in view before him, can be pestered, or at any rate perplexed, by a variety of councillors, admittedly his friends and supporters, yet declaring that success in the great object in which he and they are united can only be obtained by one definite or particular line of action. If that is the case with regard to the policy which this House is going to pursue in reference to the one object to which this Session is to be devoted, what will be the state of things if in an evil day—an evil day which I do not anticipate—the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition crosses over with a variegated party behind him, yet united upon one subject—that, they want Tariff Reform in one form or another? How is he going to square the interests which are represented by the speech we have just listened to with the interests which will be voiced by the Member for that very agricultural constituency Wimbledon? Their point of view with regard to Tariff Reform is entirely different. It cannot be squared, and, as a warning and as a very cogent argument against this Amendment, I cite this fact, that the Tariff Reform party are not united in their policy, they cannot be united in their policy, and they will, if ever they get into power, be still less united in their policy than they are at present. It is with this firm conviction that Tariff Reform is not only a futile, but an impossible, a reckless, and an unwise policy, that I have great pleasure in opposing this Amendment.

January 1910,
UK general election,
LSE library