MATERIALS ILLUSTRATING CONTEMPORARY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS BY CARLTON HAYES ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY CARLTON HAYES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 413.I The Athenæum Press hat Bib. 9-8.26 13743-2 PREFACE The following pages are an attempt to place at the command of college and university students some first-hand materials for the study of current political and social problems. From many volumes of parliamentary debates, reports, and statutes have been selected, in the first place, a few of the most important Acts which have been passed by the British Parliament since the Liberal Government came into power in 1905, dealing with a vast range of social problems and activities that the Industrial Revolution had brought face to face with a typical modern democracy; and secondly, extracts from the debates in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords with a view to illustrating different points of view which various classes, political parties, and prominent persons have entertained on these liberal and radical proposals. To study the social problem in Great Britain should be a valuable introduction to the study of all the grave problems that confront every modern industrial state. To appreciate the efforts of contemporary statesmen in Great Britain to provide governmental solutions, partial at least, for these problems should be illuminating not only to the student of present-day affairs, but likewise to the historian who would sketch the development of society and social legislation or trace the marvellous growth of state activity in modern times. And possibly knowledge of these matters will not be confined to professional scholars; the speeches of Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Churchill and many another have not an exclusively academic flavour or interest they are making history. An introductory chapter serves as an apology for the title and scope of this book. It makes no pretension to deal exhaustively or even adequately with any special event of the nineteenth century merely to point out a lane of approach to the study of contemporary British history and how such study may be profitably linked up with the great highway of general nineteenth-century history. Many topics indirectly of social and political significance might have been included in the volume had space permitted. But, in general, land laws, Irish Home Rule, and Welsh Disestablishment have been inexorably crowded out by Employers' Liability, Labour Unions, Child Welfare, Old Age Pensions, Budget Reform, the decline of the House of Lords, and National Insurance. It is quite obvious, too, that the very nature of the subject-matter will militate against its permanence. Most of the enactments herein presented will no doubt be superseded, or, at least, amended in detail, in the near future, for finality is not a common attribute of governmental regulations, and the solution of one problem frequently acts to create another. It is hoped, however, that occasional new editions may keep the work near to date. To several authorities I am under obligations. First of all should be mentioned the reporters of the great mass of parliamentary proceedings, who, quite as anonymous as the monastic chroniclers of the Middle Ages, have infinitely surpassed the monks in the wealth of information with which they have supplied us. Then I would express gratitude to the compilers of the "Annual Register" and to the writers on the London Times and the Spectator, from whose digests and reports I have drawn freely. And I would confess the stimulus which has been given this work by the perusal of the writings of such enthusiastic British Liberals as Mr. David Lloyd George, Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. J. A. Hobson, and Mr. Percy Alden. To my colleague, Professor Charles A. Beard, I am indebted for the immediate suggestion of the work, as well as for a lively sympathy with its purpose and valuable criticism in its completion. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CARLTON HAYES CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION I. THE HOME SECRETARY ON WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION Mr. H. J. Gladstone, Commons, March 26, 1906 Mr. G. N. Barnes, Commons, March 26, 1906 4. MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN ON WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION 6. EMPLOYER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION 41 Mr. H. G. Montgomery, Commons, April 4, 1906 V |