Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1906 — LABOR’S GREAT TRIUMPH. [ARTICLE]

LABOR’S GREAT TRIUMPH.

Trade Unionism create* a New Order in British Politics. The greatest surprise in the recent elections in Great Britain was the large number, of labor representatives returned to Parliament, Hitherto labor has been a rather negligible quantity in British politics, notwithstanding the fact that workingmen have sat in Parliament since the early 'Bo’s, but now it must be reckoned with both within" and outside legislative halls. Before the onslaught made by labor in the British constituencies, Unionists, titled, knighted and moneyed, went down; Conservative strongholds were carried, and -Liberals were either defeated or had their majorities reduced. A cotton spinner captured Sir James Fergusson’s seat in Manchester; a mil] hand beat Sir Ernest Flower in Bradford ; printers headed the poll at Norwich, Burnley, Manchester and Deptford; a navvy, who was once employed in excavations for the Manchester ship canal, is member for Stoke-on-Trent; a railway guard has a majority of over 7,000 at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where Mr, Morley once suffered defeat. An obscurj collier distanced a mine owner; a cottoij operative vanquished Lord Goschen’s son. at Bolton; a stonemason’s son and a warehouse clerk each won by 7,500 Votes at Leicester over Sir John Rolleston; a laster in a boat factory carried a Wolverhampton seat against Sir Alfred Hickman ; miners have been victorious at Morpeth and in Glamorganshire; a furniture maker, who had begun life in a mineral water factory, triumphs at Leeds; an<J men who have been carpenters, ship., wiights. steel smelters, sailors, engineers, mechanics, pitmen and even newsboys are sent to Parliament in place of university men, baronets with large estates, ship owners, manufacturers, bankers and the sons of earls. They may not be working at their trades now, but they have sprung from the toiling millions, and their election in suck numbers is q triumph for Democracy,