LABOUR'S FIGHT FOR POWELL 
CHAPTER 11 
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THE most poverty-stricken districts are by no meds, the easiest, 
to win for Labour. The chronic want of com DL poceisasies 
and comforts amongst the mass of the people pina af nndue 
influence to charity organisations which always use thétr-poiwer 
to perpetuate the evil conditions they make such a parade of 
relieving. This, no doubt, is for the purpose of preserving for 
themselves the hypocritical satisfaction of doing good to their 
less fortunate fellows. The consequences are disastrous. The 
workers become dependent upon a charity which is exercised in 
the name of the class that battens upon their toil. Help given 
oy such people is always accompanied by a hint that the real 
friends of the worker are not those who urge him to use his 
powers to destroy the social evils from which he suffers, but 
those who help him to endure with patience the wropgs they 
continue to impose upon him. There are no greater enemies of 
the people than those who make a hobby of ‘“ doing the poor 
good.”’ 
Moreover, before the removal of the Pauper Disqualification 
those in most need of the help which a powerful local Labour 
Movement could give were unable to support that Movement at 
the Polls. Because their necessity was great and they had had 
to appeal to the Poor Law Guardians for help, they were 
disfranchised not merely from taking part in Guardians’ 
Elections, but from exercising their right of citizenship at all. 
Happily that disqualification has gone, and with it much of 
the “ Pauper Taint’ of pre-war days. 
These difficulties were present in Poplar in an intensified 
form. The approach of an election was always heralded by 
increased activity in the distribution of blankets and coals, 
and by more frequent visits on the part of the charitable busy- 
bodies. But for practically forty years the message of Labour 
and Socialism has been preached at Poplar street corners with 
unsurpassed vigour and enthusiasm. In the face of poverty and 
ignorance, in spite of disheartening indifference alternating 
with the bitterest hostility, the work of propaganda has gone 
on until there is to-day no electorate in the country more 
politically educated than that of Poplar Borough. 
The Poplar Labour Movement has always laid great stress 
upon the importance of Local Government, particularly the 
work of the Board of Guardians. The present policy of the 
Poplar Board is not new. It is the logical sequence of that 
initiated in 1893, when the late Right Honourable W. Crooks, 
P.C., M.P., and Mr. G. Lansbury, M.P., became the first 
Labour Members of that body. That there was work for them 
to do is shown by a descrintion which Will Crooks gave later