it.

The English Government is simplicity itself compared to it. As
compared with ours it is as direct as a convention of the I. W. W.
(Applause). The English people elect a Parliament and when some demand
comes up from the country for different legislation which reaches
Parliament and is strong enough to demand a division in Parliament and
the old majority fails, Parliament is dissolved at once, and you go
right straight back to the people and elect a new Parliament upon that
issue and they go at once to Parliament and pass a law, and there is
no power on earth that can stop them. The king hasn't any more to say
about the laws of England, nor any more power than a floor manager of
a charity ball would have to say about it. He is just an ornament, and
not much of an ornament at that. (Applause). The House of Lords is
comparatively helpless, and they never had any constitution; there
never was any power in England to set aside any law that the people
made. It was the law, plain and direct and simple, and you might get
somewhere with it. But we have built up a machine that destroys every
person who undertakes to touch it. I don't know how you are ever going
to remedy it. Nothing short of a political revolution, which would be
about as complete as the Deluge, could ever change our laws under our
present system (applause) in any important particular.

But while anybody is voting they had better vote the right way if they
can find it out. If they can't it is just as well not to vote. They
had better vote for some workingman's candidate and be counted as long
as you are doing it. (Applause). Still any benefit that must come
anywhere in the near future must come some other way. Workingmen have
not raised their wages by it; they haven't shortened their hours of
toil by it; they haven't improved the conditions of life by it; it has
all been done in some other way. All of this has been accomplished by
trades-unionism, by organization. If you can organize workingmen
sufficiently so that they may make their demands strong enough you can
accomplish something in all of these directions. (Applause). But our
political institutions are such that before you could get anything
like a political revolution you need an industrial revolution.
(Applause).

And then we come to face some of the problems of today, and I want to
speak a little bit about that. I have talked to you about as long as I
ought to tonight, but I want to say something