a third of the national income. Nearly five million dollars have to be taken from the product of labor each working day to defray the interest on the war debt. The Labor Party proposes to wipe out about half of the debt by a levy on capital on all fortunes over $25,000, ranging from a minimum of one per cent to over fifty per cent on large fortunes, in order to secure approximate equality of sacrifice for all classes. At present about seventy-three per cent of the national income is spent for war, past and future, and twenty-seven per cent for the constructive work of peace. Thus labor or any liberal party will be crippled for lack of finances for any constructive policy for education or social insurance.

At present 13,992 persons in England each have an in-. come of from $450,000 to over $5,000,000 a year, while two and a half per cent of the population own eighty-eight per cent of the wealth of the country. Eighty-eight per cent of the population, or forty million people, own but twelve per cent of the wealth, and are below the income tax level of those having an income of $650.00 a year.1 Charles Booth showed that 32 per cent of the people of London were living in chronic poverty. It is to be wondered at that four and a half million voters at the last election asked for a thorough reconstruction of the national finance?

The Labor Party proposes to use the surplus above the standard of life to secure industrial efficiency and a decent social order. It desires to use this surplus not to increase a few swollen fortunes for a leisure class aristocracy, but to educate and build up the community as a whole. The Labor Party repudiates the policy of using this surplus wealth to build up an imperialistic army and navy for the conquest and subjugation of other races and the exploitation of their raw materials. They have the fullest respect 1 Labor Speakers' Handbook, pp. 9-11, based on Government returns.

for locai autonomy, self-determination and "Home rule all round," not for Ireland only, but for India, Egypt, Mesopotamia and all dominions.1

The British Labor Party stands for the spiritual ideal of a new social order. It proposes to attain this by a gradual constructive process of evolution, not by sudden violent revolution. It repudiates the dictatorship of any minority or class, whether of aristocracy, plutocracy or proletariat; whether of communist radicalism on the one hand, or of fascisti reaction on the other. By an overwhelming majority of 2,514,000, with only 366,000 opposing votes, the Labor Party refused affiliation with the Communist Party because of their rejection of the constitution of the Labor Party in "the political, social and economic emancipation of the people by means of Parliamentary Democracy."2

British labor stands for a scheme of change of "inevitable gradualness . . . rooted in political democracy. . . . Every step toward our goal is dependent on gaining the assent and support of at least a numerical majority of the whole people. Violence persuades no one, convinces no one, They recall that their founder was "not

satisfies no one. 113

1 These statements of policy are taken from Labor and the New Social Order. pp. 5-22, and other official pronouncements of the Labor Party in its Annual Conferences. Among the principal resolutions passed by the annual conference of the Labor Party from 1918 to the present are:

1. Improvement and protection of workers' standard of life.

2. Unemployment insurance, operating where possible through Trade Unions.

3. Complete emancipation of women, industrially and politically.

4. Reform of the franchise and abolition of the present Second Chamber, or House of Lords.

5. Improved relations with the Dominions and India.

6. Temperance reform.

7. Nationalization of railways and canals, supply of electricity, coal and iron mines, and life insurance.

8. Representative government in industry.

9. Capital levy on all fortunes above £5,000 and graduated income tax. Report of Annual Conference of Labor Party, London, 1923, p. 189.

Presidential Address, Labor Party Conference, 1923, pp. 11, 12.

Karl Marx but Robert Owen, and that Robert Owen preached no 'class war' but the ancient doctrine of human brotherhood reaffirmed in the words of William Morris, 'forsooth, brothers, fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell; fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death; and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them; and the life that is in it, that shall live on and on for ever." "1

4. The aim of workers' education in England is to unite scholarship and labor, the universities and the trade unions, the intellectuals and manual workers, in one broadening movement of education for democracy. Two decades ago the universities of England were for the most part select and exclusive institutions for the privileged class. With the previous rise of the middle class the universities had widened their scope, and now with the rise of the laboring classes they are magnificently responding to the larger ideal of "an educated nation."

Among the principal existing agencies for workers' education are the Workers' Educational Association, the education work of the Co-operative Movement and the two residential institutions of Ruskin College, Oxford, and the Labor College, London, with their extension work in classes and summer schools.2

Labor leaders for a century had advocated adult education, but the control of this movement by the workers themselves is of recent origin. Under the leadership of Mr.

1 Presidential Address, Labor Party Conference, 1923, p. 15.

? A conference of national trade unions in October, 1920, resulted in the appointment, of a Workers' Educational Trade Union Committee to develop education among organized workers under their own control. It operates in connection with the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and the strong unions to give effect to the decision of the Trade Union Congress to coordinate as far as possible the various educational activities on behalf of trade unionists. It works in connection with Ruskin College, Oxford, the Labor College and Plebs League, the Scottish Labor College, the Workers' Educational Association in its short full-time courses, summer schools for workers, week-end schools, tutorial three and one year classes, study circles and courses of lectures.

Albert Mansbridge who sought to draw the universities and the workers together, the Workers' Educational Association was organized in 1903 and Mr. R. H. Tawney of Oxford was asked to take the first University Tutorial class at Rochdale in 1906.1 A report on Oxford and Working Class Education led to the awakening of the universities to the realization of their responsibility to the working classes. Soon "there was not a university nor a university college in England and Wales which had not established classes."

The W. E. A. is a federation of working class and educational institutions and organizations, and individual members, organized in 279 branches, 13 districts, 3 federations, and, finally, in a national association. For the year ending May 31, 1920, it had enrolled 12,438 students in classes, 357 in residential summer schools, and over 1,000 in study circles. These students are working men and women. The function of a branch council is to organize three-year university tutorial classes, one-year classes, study circles, single lectures and courses of lectures.

The W. E. A. declares itself to be an educational expression of the working class movement, and stands for the principle of working class control in adult education. It has set up within each university in England and Wales a joint committee, on which the workers' organizations have equal representation with the universities. The students of each class have the right to select their own subject and the final choice in the selection of their tutor. Grants

1 Classes were organized under a Central Joint Advisory Committee, the first body that ever united all the great educational institutions for a common object. This committee provided the supply of teachers, while the Workers' Educational Association provided for the demand on the part of the workers and the actual organization of the classes. The whole control of the movement was democratic and not paternal 'or patronizing. The Final Report of the Adult Education Committee proposes "the establishment at each university of a department of extra-mural adult education with an academic head." See, An Adventure in Working Class Education and University Tutorial Classes, by Albert Mansbridge.

are received from university funds, the Board of Education, and local education authorities toward the cost of tuition.

In addition to lectures, conferences, summer schools and literature, the Workers' Educational Association seeks to organize tutorial classes with not more than thirty-two members in each, who are pledged to a three years' course of serious study under the direction of a joint committee representing the universities and the workers. Each class meets twenty-four times a year for an hour's lecture followed by at least an hour's discussion. A high standard of continuous study is aimed at. Essays or papers are written by the students, usually every two weeks. The object of the study is not utilitarian to learn a trade or to make money. It is primarily cultural rather than practical, regarding education as a "means of life" rather than a "means of livelihood." It aims to develop the mind and character for intelligent citizenship as a means to the building of a better social order.

The principal subjects of study include economics, history, sociology, the natural sciences, modern languages, literature and music. The following subjects have been especially emphasized: Trade Union History and Problems, the Co-operative Movement, History of Social Movements, Economic and Political Theory, International Problems, Social Psychology, Industrial History and Administration. The aim is to maintain the same standard as in a university course. The students pay nominal fees which are supplemented by grants from the Board of Education and the universities. The Workers' Educational Association is a "Federation of over 3,000 Educational and Workers' Organizations non-sectarian and non-political." Thus the universities of England are being gradually democratized and the workers educated.