Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone

Mr. Egerton to Earl Granville. Cairo, May 10, 1884

The messengers sent in succession by the Governor of Dongola with the ciphered message for Gordon have returned. He telegraphed yesterday that they report that the rebels have invested Khartoum; that, in consequence, excursions in steamers are made on the White Nile in order to attack those on the banks; that the rebels have constructed wooden shelters to protect themselves against the projectiles; when the Government forces pursue them into these shelters, the rebels take flight into the country beyond gun-shot; that this state of things makes it impossible to get into Khartoum.

Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Egypt," No. 22 of 1884, C 4,042

Earl Granville to Mr. Egerton, May 17, 1884

The following is the further message which Her Majesty's Government desires to communicate to General Gordon in addition to that contained in my telegram of the 23rd ultimo, which should be repeated to him. Having regard to the time which has elapsed, Her Majesty's Government desires to add to their communication of the 23rd April as follows: As the original plan for the evacuation of the Soudan has been dropped, and as aggressive operations cannot be undertaken with the countenance of Her Majesty's Government, General Gordon is enjoined to consider and either to report upon, or, if feasible, to adopt, at the first proper moment, measures for his own removal and that of the Egyptians at Khartoum who have suffered for him or who have served him faithfully, including their wives and children, by whatever route he may consider best, having especial regard to his own safety and that of the other British subjects. With regard to the Egyptians above referred to, General Gordon is authorized to make free use of money rewards or promises at his discretion. For example, he is at liberty to assign to Egyptian soldiers at Khartoum sums for themselves and for persons brought with them per head, contingent on their safe arrival at Korosko, or whatever point he may consider a place of safety; or he may employ or pay the tribes in the neighbourhood to escort them. In the event of General Gordon having despatched any persons or agents to other points, he is authorized to spend any money required for the purpose of recalling them or securing their safety.

GORDON'S POSITION (1884)

I

Source.—The Times, July 29

Last night at eleven o'clock the British and African Royal Mail steamer Kinsembo arrived in Plymouth Sound, having on board Mr. H. M. Stanley, the African explorer. In the course of a conversation with a correspondent, Mr. Stanley declared that General Gordon might leave Khartoum whenever he chose, and had three routes of escape open to him. He was a soldier, but not a traveller. He would not leave Khartoum ingloriously. He could escape by means of the Congo, the Nile, and across the desert to Zanzibar. He could force his way through the country, because the people would be afraid of an armed force. He is perfectly well supplied with arms and ammunition, and is quite strong enough to meet the Mahdi. Mr. Stanley derides the suggested expedition to Khartoum, and says the men would die like flies when the summer is waning. He says that Gordon only requires to act like a soldier, as he believes he will, to settle the whole difficulty.

II

Source.– Holland's Life of the Duke of Devonshire, vol. i., p. 472 et seq. (Longmans.)

On 29th July Lord Hartington circulated to the Cabinet his own final memorandum on the subject. He said: "I wish before Parliament is prorogued, and it becomes absolutely impossible to do anything for the relief of General Gordon, to bring the subject once more under the consideration of the Cabinet. On the last occasion when it was discussed, although an opinion was expressed that the balance of probability was that no expedition would be required to enable General Gordon and those dependent on him to leave Khartoum, I gathered that a considerable majority were in favour of making some preparations, and taking some steps which would make a relief expedition to Khartoum possible. I believe that I have already stated the grounds on which I think that if anything is now attempted it must be by the Valley of the Nile, and not by the Suakin-Berber line. The delay which has taken place makes it impossible that the railway should be constructed for any considerable distance on that line during the next autumn and winter, the period during which military operations would be practicable without great suffering and loss of life to the troops. The renewed concentration of the tribes under Osman Digna, near Suakin, and the fall of Berber, makes it inevitable that severe fighting would have to be done at both ends of the march, and, in consequence of the necessity of crossing the desert in small detachments, the engagement near Berber would be fought under great disadvantages. On the other hand, we have for the defence of the Nile itself been compelled to send a considerable force of British and Egyptian troops up the Nile; and the positions which are now occupied by those troops are so many stages on the advance by the Nile Valley… The proposal which I make is that a brigade should be ordered to advance as soon as possible to Dongola by the Nile… I have not entered into the question whether it is or is not probable that General Gordon can leave Khartoum without assistance. As we know absolutely nothing, any opinion on this subject can only be guess-work. But I do not see how it is possible to redeem the pledges which we have given, if the necessity should be proved to exist, without some such preparations and measures as those which I now suggest…" Mr. Chamberlain minuted that he was "against what is called an expedition, or the preparations for an expedition." He did not think that the information was sufficient to justify it. He thought that more information should first be obtained… Mr. Gladstone minuted (July 31): "I confess it to be my strong conviction that to send an expedition either to Dongola or Khartoum at the present time would be to act in the teeth of evidence as to Gordon which, however imperfect, is far from being trivial, and would be a grave and dangerous error." Mr. Gladstone at the same time wrote to Lord Granville a letter, which the latter forwarded to Lord Hartington. He said: "I had intended to give much time to-day to collecting the sum of the evidence as to Gordon's position, which appears to me to be strangely underrated by some… Undoubtedly I can be no party to the proposed despatch, as a first step, of a brigade to Dongola. I do not think the evidence as to Gordon's position requires or justifies, in itself, military preparations for the contingency of a military expedition. There are, however, preparations, perhaps, of various kinds which might be made, and which are matters simply of cost, and do not include necessary consequences in point of policy. To these I have never offered an insuperable objection, and the adoption of them might be, at the worst, a smaller evil than the evils with which we are threatened in other forms. This on what I may call my side. On the other hand, I hope I may presume that, while we are looking into the matters I have just indicated, nothing will be done to accelerate a Gordon crisis until we see, in the early days of next week, what the Conference crisis is to produce."

GORDON'S OWN MEDITATIONS (1884)

Source.—General Gordon's Journal, pp. 46, 56, 59, 93, 112. (Kegan Paul.)

September 17.– Had Zobeir Pasha been sent up when I asked for him, Berber would in all probability never have fallen, and one might have made a Soudan Government in opposition to the Mahdi. We choose to refuse his coming up because of his antecedents in re slave trade; granted that we had reason, yet as we take no precautions as to the future of these with respect to the slave trade, the above opposition seems absurd. I will not send up A. because he will do this, but will leave the country to B., who will do exactly the same.

September 19.– I was engaged in a certain work —i. e., to take down the garrisons, etc. It suited me altogether to accept this work (when once it was decided on to abandon the Soudan), which, to my idea, is preferable to letting it be under those wretched effete Egyptian Pashas. Her Majesty's Government agreed to send me. It was a mutual affair; they owe me positively nothing, and I owe them nothing. A member of Parliament, in one of our last received papers, asked "whether officers were not supposed to go where they were ordered?" I quite agree with his view, but it cannot be said I was ordered to go. The subject was too complex for any order. It was, "Will you go and try?" and my answer was, "Only too delighted." As for all that may be said of our holding out, etc., etc., it is all twaddle, for we had no option; as for all that may be said as to why I did not escape with Stewart, it is simply because the people would not have been such fools as to have let me go, so there is an end of those great-coats of self-sacrifice, etc. I must add in re "the people not letting me go," that even if they had been willing for me to go, I would not have gone, and left them in their misery.

September 19.– Anyone reading the telegram 5th May, Suakin, 29th April, Massowah, and without date, Egerton saying, "Her Majesty's Government does not entertain your proposal to supply Turkish or other troops in order to undertake military operations in the Soudan, and consequently if you stay at Kartoum you should state your reasons," might imagine one was luxuriating up here, whereas, I am sure, no one wishes more to be out of this than myself; the reasons are those horribly plucky Arabs. I own to having been very insubordinate to Her Majesty's Government and its officials, but it is my nature, and I cannot help it.

September 24.– I altogether decline the imputation that the projected expedition has come to relieve me. It has come to save our national honour in extricating the garrisons, etc., from a position our action in Egypt has placed those garrisons. As to myself, I could make good my retreat at any moment if I wished.

September 29.– My idea is to induce Her Majesty's Government to undertake the extrication of all people or garrisons, now hemmed in or captive, and that if this is not their programme then to resign my commission and do what I can to attain it (the object)… I say this, because I should be sorry for Lord Wolseley to advance from Dongola without fully knowing my views. If Her Majesty's Government are going to abandon the garrisons, then do not advance. I say nothing of evacuating the country; I merely maintain that if we do so, everyone in the Soudan, captive or hemmed in, ought to have the option and power of retreat.

THE FRANCHISE AND REDISTRIBUTION (1884)

Source.—The Times, November 19

The Representation of the People Bill was yesterday read a second time in the House of Lords without a division, and without discussion upon anything it contains… The terms offered by the Government, and now definitely accepted by the Opposition, are, first, that the draft of the Redistribution Bill shall be submitted in private to the Conservative leaders, in order that, by suggesting the alterations they think necessary, they may convince themselves of the equity and fairness of the measure. In the second place, it is agreed that, when a Redistribution Bill satisfactory to both parties has been framed, the Opposition will give to the Government adequate assurance that the Franchise Bill shall pass the House of Lords… Lastly, the Government pledge themselves to take up the Redistribution Bill as early as possible in the New Year, to push it through its remaining stages with all possible expedition, and, relying upon the loyal support of the Opposition being given to the joint scheme, to stake not only their credit but their existence upon the passing of the Bill into law in the Session of 1885.

FEEDING POOR SCHOOL CHILDREN (1884)

Source.—The Times, December 13

The question of providing penny dinners for the children of the London poor has received pretty ample discussion. Everybody can form an idea now of the difficulties which will have to be surmounted by the central committee of School Board managers and teachers… The vital principle of the scheme is that the dinners shall be supplied on a self-supporting basis. In some places the work has been undertaken with more zeal than knowledge, and there has been quick disappointment. The Vicar of St. Mark's, Walworth, who seems to doubt whether the scheme can be carried out on purely commercial lines, tells us how fastidious are the children of the poor. They turn from macaroni; they dislike the flavour of cabbage boiled up in a stew; they will have nothing to say to haricot beans, lentils, or salads; they mistrust soup; and are generally most attracted by suet dumplings and jam or currant puddings.

THE DEATH OF GORDON (1885)

Source.– Sir Reginald Wingate's Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan, pp. 166-172. (Macmillans.)

Soon all that had been in the commissariat was finished, and then the inhabitants and the soldiers had to eat dogs, donkeys, skins of animals, gum, and palm fibre, and famine prevailed. The soldiers stood on the fortifications like pieces of wood. The civilians were even worse off. Many died of hunger, and corpses filled the streets; no one had even energy to bury them… We were heartbroken; the people and soldiers began to lose faith in Gordon's promises, and they were terribly weak from famine. At last Sunday morning broke, and Gordon Pasha, who used always to watch the enemy's movements from the top of the palace, noticed a considerable movement in the south, which looked as if the Arabs were collecting at Kalakala. He at once sent word to all of us who had attended the previous meeting, and to a few others, to come at once to the palace. We all came, but Gordon Pasha did not see us. We were again addressed by Giriagis Bey, who said he had been told by Gordon Pasha to inform us that he noticed much movement in the enemy's lines, and believed an attack would be made on the town; he therefore ordered us to collect every male in the town from the age of eight, even to the old men, and to line all the fortifications, and that if we had difficulty in getting this order obeyed we were to use force. Giriagis said that Gordon Pasha now appealed to us for the last time to make a determined stand, for in twenty-four hours' time he had no doubt the English would arrive; but that if we preferred to submit then, he gave the commandant liberty to open the gates, and let all join the rebels. He had nothing more to say. I then asked to be allowed to see the Pasha, and was admitted to his presence. I found him sitting on a divan, and as I came in he pulled off his tarboush (fez) and flung it from him, saying, "What more can I say? I have nothing more to say; the people will no longer believe me; I have told them over and over again that help would be here, but it has never come, and now they must see I tell them lies. If this, my last promise, fails, I can do nothing more. Go and collect all the people you can on the lines, and make a good stand. Now leave me to smoke these cigarettes." (There were two full boxes of cigarettes on the table.) I could see he was in despair, and he spoke in a tone I had never heard before. I knew then that he had been too agitated to address the meeting, and thought the sight of his despair would dishearten us. All the anxiety he had undergone had gradually turned his hair to a snowy white. I left him, and this was the last time I saw him alive… It was a gloomy day, that last day in Khartoum; hundreds lay dead and dying in the streets from starvation, and there were none to bury them. At length the night came, and, as I afterwards learnt, Gordon Pasha sat up writing till midnight, and then lay down to sleep. He awoke some time between two and three a.m. The wild war-cries of the Arabs were heard close at hand. A large body of rebels had crept in the dark close up to the broken-down parapet and filled-up ditch, between the White Nile and the Messalamieh Gate. The soldiers never knew of the enemy's approach until about twenty minutes before they were actually attacked, when the tramp of feet was heard, and the alarm was sounded; but they were so tired out and exhausted that it was not until the sentries fired that the rest of the men suddenly started up surprised, to find swarms of Arabs pouring over the ditch and up the parapet, yelling and shouting their war-cries. Here they met with little resistance, for most of the soldiers were four or five paces apart, and were too feeble to oppose such a rush. The Arabs were soon within the lines, and thus able to attack the rest of the soldiers from behind. They were opposed at some points, but it was soon all over… Meanwhile Gordon Pasha, on being roused by the noise, went on to the roof of the palace in his sleeping clothes. He soon made out that the rebels had entered the town, and for upwards of an hour he kept up a hot fire in the direction of the attack. I heard that he also sent word to get up steam in the steamer, but the engineer was not there; he had been too frightened to leave his house. As dawn approached Gordon Pasha could see the Arab banners in the town, and soon the gun became useless, for he could not depress it enough to fire on the enemy. By this time the Arabs had crowded round the palace in thousands, but for a time no one dared enter, for they thought mines were laid to blow them up. Meanwhile Gordon Pasha had left the roof; he went to his bedroom, which was close to the divan, and there he put on a white uniform, his sword, which he did not draw, and, carrying his revolver in his right hand, stepped out into the passage in front of the entrance to the office, and just at the head of the staircase. During this interval four men, more brave than the rest, forced their way into the palace, and once in were followed by hundreds of others. Of these latter, the majority rushed up the stairs to the roof, where, after a short resistance, the palace guard, servants, and cavasses were all killed; while the four men – Taha Shahin, a Dongolawi, whose father was formerly in my service; Ibrahim Abu Shanab, servant of George Angelleto; Hamad Wad Ahmed Jar en Nebbi, Hassani; and a fourth, also a Dongolawi, servant to Fathallah Jehami – followed by a crowd of others, knowing Gordon Pasha's room, rushed towards it. Taha Shahin was the first to encounter Gordon beside the door of the divan, apparently waiting for the Arabs, and standing with a calm and dignified manner, his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Shahin, dashing forward with the curse "Mala' oun el yom yomek!" (O cursed one, your time is come!), plunged his spear into his body. Gordon, it is said, made a gesture of scorn with his right hand, and turned his back, where he received another spear wound, which caused him to fall forward, and was most likely his mortal wound. The other three men, closely following Shahin, then rushed in, and, cutting at the prostrate body with their swords, must have killed him in a few seconds. His death occurred just before sunrise. He made no resistance, and did not fire a shot from his revolver. From all I knew, I am convinced that he never intended to surrender. I should say he must have intended to use his revolver only if he saw it was the intention of the Arabs to take him prisoner alive; but he saw such crowds rushing on him with swords and spears, and there being no important emirs with them, he must have known that they did not intend to spare him, and that was most likely what he wanted… Gordon Pasha's head was immediately cut off and sent to the Mahdi at Omdurman, while his body was dragged downstairs and left exposed for a time in the garden, where many Arabs came to plunge their spears into it. I heard that the Mahdi had given orders for Gordon to be spared, but what I have stated was told me by the four men I have mentioned, and I believe the Mahdi pardoned them for their disobedience of orders… I saw Gordon Pasha's head exposed in Omdurman. It was fixed between the branches of a tree, and all who passed by threw stones at it.

[Note. – This account is from the journal of Bordeini Bey, an eminent Khartoum merchant, who willingly gave up his large stores of grain to Gordon for the supply of the garrison. He was taken prisoner at the fall of the city.]

THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY (1885)

Source.– Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt, vol. i., p. 589. (Macmillans.)

It has been already shown that General Gordon paid little heed to his instructions, that he was consumed with a desire to "smash the Mahdi," and that the view that he was constrained to withdraw everyone who wished to leave from the most distant parts of the Soudan was, to say the least, quixotic. The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that it was a mistake to send General Gordon to the Soudan. But do they afford any justification for the delay in preparing and in despatching the relief expedition? I cannot think that they do so. Whatever errors of judgment General Gordon may have committed, the broad facts, as they existed in the early summer of 1884, were that he was sent to Khartoum by the British Government, who never denied their responsibility for his safety, that he was beleaguered, and that he was, therefore, unable to get away. It is just possible that he could have effected his retreat, if, having abandoned the southern posts, he had moved northward with the Khartoum garrison in April or early in May. As time went on, and nothing was heard of him, it became more and more clear that he either could not or would not – probably that he could not – move. The most indulgent critic would scarcely extend beyond June 27 the date at which the Government should have decided on the question of whether a relief expedition should or should not be despatched. On that day the news that Berber had been captured on May 26 by the Dervishes was finally confirmed. Yet it was not till six weeks later that the Government obtained from Parliament the funds necessary to prepare for an expedition.

THE VOTE OF CENSURE (1885)

Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 294, col. 1311. (House of Lords debate on Egypt, February 26, 1885.)

The Marquis of Salisbury: … The conduct of Her Majesty's Government has been an alternation of periods of slumber and periods of rush, and the rush, however vehement, has always been too unprepared and too unintelligent to repair the damage which the period of slumber has effected… The case of the bombardment of Alexandria, the case of the abandonment of the Soudan, the case of the mission of General Graham's force – they are all on the same plan, and all show you that remarkable characteristic of torpor during the time when action was needed, and hasty, impulsive, ill-considered action when the time for action had passed by. Their further conduct was modelled on their action in the past. So far was it modelled that we were able to put it to the test which establishes a scientific law. I should like to quote what I said on the 4th of April, when discussing the prospect of the relief of General Gordon. What I said was this: "Are these circumstances encouraging to us when we are asked to trust that, on the inspiration of the moment, when the danger comes, Her Majesty's Government will find some means of relieving General Gordon? I fear that the history of the past will be repeated in the future; and just again, when it is too late, the critical resolution will be taken; some terrible news will come that the position of Gordon is absolutely a forlorn and hopeless one, and then, under the pressure of public wrath and Parliamentary censure, some desperate resolution of sending an expedition will be formed too late to achieve the object which it is desired to gain." I quote these words to show that by that time we had ascertained the laws of motion and the orbits of those erratic comets who sit on the Treasury Bench. Now the terrible responsibility and shame rests upon the Government, because they were warned in March and April of the danger to General Gordon, because they received every intimation which men could reasonably look for that his danger would be extreme, and because they delayed from March and April right down to the 15th of August before they took a single measure to relieve him. What were they doing all that time? It is very difficult to conceive. What happened during those eventful months? I suppose some day the memoirs will tell our grandchildren, but we shall never know. Some people think there were divisions in the Cabinet, and that after division on division a decision was put off, lest the Cabinet be broken up. I am rather inclined to think it was due to the peculiar position of the Prime Minister. He came in as the apostle of the Midlothian campaign, loaded with all the doctrines and all the follies of that pilgrimage. We have seen on each occasion, after one of these mishaps, when he has been forced by events and by the common sense of the nation to take some active steps – we have seen his extreme supporters falling foul of him, and reproaching him with having deserted their opinions and disappointed the ardent hopes which they had formed of him as the apostle of absolute negation in foreign affairs. I think he has always felt the danger of that reproach. He always felt the debt he had incurred to those supporters. He always felt a dread lest they should break away; and he put off again and again to the last practical moment any action which might bring him into open conflict with the doctrine by which his present eminence was gained. At all events, this is clear – that throughout those six months the Government knew perfectly well the danger in which General Gordon was placed. It has been said that General Gordon did not ask for troops. I am surprised at that defence. One of the characteristics of General Gordon was the extreme abnegation of his nature. It was not to be expected that he should send home a telegram to say, "I am in great danger, therefore send me troops" – he would probably have cut off his right hand before he would have sent a telegram of that sort. But he sent home telegrams through Mr. Power, telegrams saying that the people of Khartoum were in great danger; that the Mahdi would succeed unless military succour was sent forward; urging at one time the sending forward of Sir Evelyn Wood and his Egyptians, and at another the landing of Indians at Suakin and the establishment of the Berber route, and distinctly telling the Government – and this is the main point – that unless they would consent to his views the supremacy of the Mahdi was assured… Well, now, my Lords, is it conceivable that after two months, in May, the Prime Minister should have said that they were waiting to have reasonable proof that Gordon was in danger? By that time Khartoum was surrounded, the Governor of Berber had announced that his case was hopeless, which was too surely proved by the massacre which took place in June; and yet in May Mr. Gladstone was still waiting for "reasonable proof" that the men who were surrounded, who had announced that they had only five months' food, were in danger… It was the business of the Government not to interpret General Gordon's telegrams as if they had been statutory declarations, but to judge for themselves of the circumstances of the case, and to see that those who were surrounded, who were only three Englishmen among such a vast body of Mohammedans, and who were already cut off from all communications with the civilized world by the occupation of every important town upon the river, were really in danger, and that if they meant to answer their responsibilities they were bound to relieve them. I cannot tell what blindness fell over the eyes of some members of Her Majesty's Government…

MORE FENIANISM (1885)

Source.—The Times, January 26

The "dynamite war," as it is called by the disloyal Irish and the Irish-American outrage-mongers, was continued in London on Saturday with some success to the perpetrators. Accepting the privilege accorded to all comers to view the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London, they cunningly placed charged machines of dynamite in the Crypt leading out of Westminster Hall, in the House of Commons chamber itself, and caused, almost at the same time, an explosion in the Tower of London. The first explosion at Westminster was in the Hall itself. Some visitors were passing through the Crypt, when one noticed a parcel on the ground. It is described as the usual "black bag." … The nearest police-constable, Cole by name, picked up the smoking parcel, and brought it to the entrance of the Crypt, where, from its heat or some other cause, he dropped it. It was fortunate for him that he did so, for in an instant a terrific explosion burst from the parcel… The stone flooring was shattered, and the rails round the Crypt were somewhat twisted by the immediate blow of the explosion. Its secondary effect was to break some of the windows, and shake down from the vast beams of Irish oak, forming the roof, the accumulated dust of ages… The chamber of the House of Commons presented the scene of a complete wreck from the second explosion. The benches of the Government side were torn up, and some of the seats had been hurled up into the gallery above… The explosion at the Tower of London was the most serious in its effects of the three, for several persons were injured, some damage was done to the building, and a fire ensued, lasting an hour… The explosive was placed between the stands of arms in the ancient banqueting-room of the Tower.

NEW LABOUR MOVEMENTS (1885)

Source.—The Times, January 31

Industrial Remuneration Conference

Yesterday the delegates held their concluding sitting at Prince's Hall, Piccadilly, when the subject set down for discussion was: Would the more general distribution of capital or land, or the State management of capital or land, promote or impair the production of wealth and the welfare of the community?..

The discussion on the papers was begun by Mr. Williams (Social Democratic Federation), who said that if they left all the machinery, all the railways, and all the mines in the hands of the rich capitalists, the working classes would still continue to be oppressed. They must either say that the Government had no right to interfere with anything, or they must admit that the State must equally interfere between the landlord, the capitalist, and the labourer. He compared the part played by politicians like Mr. Chamberlain, who directed their attacks exclusively against the landlords, and spared the rich capitalists, to that sustained by the Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist."

Mr. B. Shaw (Fabian Society) said he had no desire to give pain to the burglar – if any of that trade were in the room – or to the landlord or the capitalist, pure and simple; all he could say was that all three belonged to the same class, and that the injury each inflicted on the community was precisely of the same nature.

[Note. – The Social Democratic Federation had been founded in 1881; the Fabian Society, a few weeks before this conference met.]

THE UNEMPLOYED (1885)

Source.—The Times, February 17

Yesterday afternoon three or four thousand of the unemployed of London held a demonstration on the Embankment near Cleopatra's Needle, and afterwards marched to Westminster, carrying banners. From Whitehall a large number of the crowd passed into Downing Street near the Premier's residence, where a Cabinet meeting was being held at the time, but at the request of the police, of whom an extra force were in attendance, the crowd moved round to King Street, where they were addressed in somewhat inflammatory terms by some of their speakers, who wore red badges. One speaker clung to the top of a lamp-post, and thence harangued the crowd; another spoke from a window-sill. Meantime, in the absence of Sir Charles Dilke, who was at the Cabinet Meeting, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, Parliamentary Secretary of the Local Government Board, received a small deputation of the leaders… At the close of the interview the crowd marched back to the Embankment, where the following resolution was passed unanimously: "That this meeting of the Unemployed, having heard the answer given by the Local Government Board to their deputation, considers the refusal to start public works to be a sentence of death on thousands of those out of work, and the recommendation to bring pressure to bear on the local bodies to be a direct incitement to violence; further, it will hold Mr. G. W. E. Russell and the members of the Government, individually and collectively, guilty of the murder of those who may die in the next few weeks, and whose lives would have been saved had the suggestions of the deputation been acted on."

    (Signed) John Burns, Engineer.
    John E. Williams, Labourer.
    William Henry, Foreman.
    James Macdonald, Tailor.