Keir Hardie (1889)
Source: Clipping in the IISG Jules Guesde archive (388 ARCH00496 Inv. nr. 180_6)
Note: Printed text in English of the speech given by Keir Hardie to the 1889 ('Marxist') Congress of the 2nd International. The first and last few lines are damaged and not fully legible.
Missing phrases filled in by guesswork from the handwritten
French record of the speech are in square brackets.
A note written on the text reads "Keir Hardie, Ayrshire Miners Union",
Related texts: The speech in the context of the Congress and as a leaflet of the Scottish Socialist Party
Transcribed: by Graham Seaman for MIA, August 2026
[To] the members of the International [Congress] [of] Socialists assembled at Paris, July [1889]
[I] have been deputed by the [re]pre[sentatives] [of the] Socialistic Parliamentary [Labour Party of] Great Britain to report on their behalf.[1]
We recognise to the full the necessary antagonism which exists between the worker and the capitalist, and aim at the total elimination of the capitalist from the industrial system; all capital to be owned in common; the whole of the product of labour to belong to the workers. We believe this aim can only, or at least best, be realised by the enactment of such laws as will in the end make it impossible for the capitalist, as such, to exist. We are, therefore, organising the workers politically to secure the return to Parliament and all locally elected bodies to forward our ideas. We are not begging Parliament to pass laws on our behalf as a favour given by an upper to a lower class, but we demand that Parliament, as the creation and servant of the people, shall declare to be necessary to their wellbeing. We exist as a separate and distinct party in the State, our only concern the weal of the workers. A few months ago our comrades at Newcastle polled over 45,000 votes and returned three members to the School Board.
For many years it has been believed that the hours worked in Britain are only nine per day. This is absolutely untrue. It is true that where the hours are fixed by law, as in the factories, they are 56 per week, and this is absolute; it is also true that among the artisans of our large towns a nominal nine-hour day exists. But in this latter case over time is worked so frequently when opposrtunity offers that is times of prosperity the actual time worked is frequently from twelve to fourteen hours a day. A very strong feeling is growing up among the best of our workmen in favour of an eight-hour day fixed by Act of Parliament, with the absolute prohibition of all overtime. Tramway and railway servants work from twelve to eighteen hours a day, while at ironworks and other occupations where work goes on continuously, the time worked is twelve hours per day and seven days a week.
In the agricultural districts wages are 10s and 12s a week. Unskilled workers about public works receive from 12s; about mines and ironworks to 22s in large cities. Among skilled artisans the wage for the nominal working day of nine hours is 20s to 35s a week. Under this head it may be stated that the wealth produced in Great Britain is estimated by Government statisticians to amount to £1200,000,000 a year, of which less than one-third is paid to the workers, leaving over £800,000,000 for the idlers and the semi-idlers.
.There are ten million workers in Great Britain, of whom not more than one million are members of a Trade Union. The Unions are mainly composed of skilled workers, who do not concern themselves much with anyone outside their own membership. The unskilled workers are almost without organisation. Each year a Congress is held of delegates from the different Trade Unions to discuss proposed legislation, but as nearly the whole of the leaders are agreed that Parliament cannot, and should not if it could, improve the economic condition of the workers, the decisions of the Congress are never very extreme. The leading doctrine of British Trade Unionism is that the worker should fix his own hours and rate of wages without the aid of Parliament. In theory this is all right, but experience has proved that under the present industrial system the employers is practically supreme over both matters; in consequence there is growing up among Trade Unionists a demand for the shortening of the hours of labour by Act of Parliament, and this year a vote of the Trade Unionists is being taken for and against an Eight Hours Bill. As I have said, all the leaders are opposed to anything which savours of Socialism, but among the rank and file the opinion is rapidly gaining ground that Trade Unionism on the present lines is a played out force, and that only in so far as it becomes Socialistic-Political can it continue to exist as a power; otherwise it must become a huge friendly society. This feeling is making itself felt at the annual Congresses, and in a few years will, I believe, be the dominant one. I do not wish to be understood as speaking in disparagement of Trade Unions. In the past much good has been accomplished by them, but if they retain the methods in use fifty years ago, while the capitalist changes his methods of fighting against them, the Unions must go to the wall. But, no matter what laws are passed, organisation will continue a necessity till the time comes when the teachings and practice of Socialism will have so changed not only the conditions of society, but the nature of the people, as to make it unnecessary. That day is still a good bit off.
From a Parliamentary paper issued last week we gather that over one million people in Britain are paupers. The number is the lowest known for many years. Three years hence and the number will be double what it is today. One in seven of the people who die in Britain are buried in a pauper's grave; and yet we have "the wealthiest empire in the world."
Of late years a new evil has overtaken us—the importation of workers from other countries, with the object of reducing wages with us. I will give two typical cases. Some years ago the labourers employed at the Glengarnock Ironworks in Ayrshire were paid 17s a week. The employer engaged, through the Russian Consul at Glasgow, a number of Russian Poles, to whom he paid 12s a week. Next he proceeded to reduce the wages of his other labourers to the same figure, the threat being held out to them that unless they accepted these terms whole boatloads of these poor Poles would be got to fill their places. The other case happened a few weeks ago during the seamen's strike. The shipowners brought men from different places on the COntinent to take the places of the strikers, with the result that the men were defeated. Elated by these successes, the employers will not fail in future to make good use of this new weapon for keeing the worker down—that is, unless this new international movement proves strong enough to cope with it.
Eighteen months ago one million of British workmen were walking our streets in enforced idleness. Trade was bad. Now trade is comparatively prosperous; but even now hundreds of thousands of men and women cannot find work. This is cheifly due to the long hours at present being worked by those in employment. If an eight-hour day were the law there would not be a single person idle who wanted work, and the workers would be masters of the situation. A few years hence, when the comparatively good trade we now have has passed away, it will be imperative on the Government either to [shoot?] down 1,500,000 workmen who, with their wives and children, will be starving in idleness, or otherwise to find work for them; and the easiest way of doing the latter will be the passing of an Eight-Hour Acti by Parliament. Despite the name Britain bears among the nations of the earth, there is not a horror produced by overwork and underpay on the Continent but can be equalled, and possiby surpassed, within her shores.
In conclusion, I may add that we are a cold-blooded, practical, Northern people, and in our opinion, if progress is to be made it must come as the result of something more tangible than talking of a bloody revolution in which nobody there believes and which would do no good there id inaugurated to-morrow. The proposal for an Eight Hour Bill has done more to rally the working classes than all else which has gone before, though I am free to admit that to a large extent we are reaping where our comrades of the Socialist League and others have sewn. Cunninghame-Graham, Member of Parilaiment—and one of our most prominent members—has fought this eight hour question to the front so successfully and with such courage that it is now being taken up perforce [even by the previously uninterested] politician. It must soon become a [practical political question and] the deliberations [of the international congress will work in its favour.] [We give fraternal greetings to] those [comrades who have come from all countries whichever shade of opinion they represent.]
[1.] The French minutes show two attempts to translate this introduction by the stenographer. The first, crossed out, reads: "C'est le Parti Ouvrier Socialiste parlamentaire de la Grande Bretagne qui l'a mandaté de rapporter au congrès.". The second reads: "Il a été chargé par les répresentants du Parti Ouvrier Socialiste de la Grande Bretagne." At the time of the delivery of this speech Keir Hardie was the secretary of the newly formed Scottish Labout Party. The president of the party was the M.P. Cunninghame Graham. [[Return]]