The following day I was arrested, but the indictment said nothing about the tram strike and dealt with the leaflet published by the "War on War League," of which they discovered I was the author. The prosecutor at the court proceedings asked me if I had addressed a meeting of the tramway strikers the night before. My retort was, "Yes, or I would not be here!"

However, without going into the lengthy proceedings, the court decreed that I should pay £5 suffer six months' imprisonment. As usual I did neither. This time even the Whig Tory John X. Merriman, who brought the question up in the House, said the punishment was too severe, and the House saw through the camouflage of the prosecution. The Hon. W. B. Madeley, M.P., speaking with other Labour men at a meeting of the strikers, put it thus (I quote from the Cape Argus):

"Proceeding, the Member for Benoni said the sort of justice dished out to the workers was never better exemplified than last week, when Wilfrid Harrison was convicted and fined £ 50 or six months' hard labour for issuing a pamphlet on war. As they all were aware the highest authorities considered the sentence was out of all proportion to the offence. After two days the fine was reduced to 50s. and the 'criminal' set at liberty (laughter).

" 'The pamphlet was issued as far back as December,' said Mr. Madeley, 'and no notice had been taken, nor would any notice have been taken had not Harrison addressed a meeting of tramway striker. (Shame') What I cannot for the life of me understand,' he went on, 'is this: If the issuing and publication of the matter contained in Harrison's pamphlet was a crime, why are not the editors of the Cape Times and Cape Argus now in Roeland Street gaol? The convicted man only had 1,000 pamphlets printed, only half of which got into circulation. The papers I mention circulated throughout the length and breadth of South Africa and contained Harrison's pamphlet word for word.' (Shame!)

"(The leaflet referred to was published in the newspaper only as a necessary part of the evidence given in court against Harrison. -Ed., Cape Argus )" Here it is:

War!

"A familiar word, a necessary phenomenon, we are told, to maintain our libertarian traditions and national civilisation.

'We admit it because it is customary to admit prevailing conditions without question or analysis. Head hunting or warfare in primitive times was customary, and also considered essential to man's religion and destiny; then between individuals, now between organised nations, the same instinct is there, the same purpose, the same atrocious acts. A distinct analogy between primitive and modern warfare; but the primitive method has been analysed and admitted to be barbarous, brutal and inhuman: modern organised warfare is still customary, lawful, just and heroic! The former was renounced because the perpetrators lived in a condition of savagery. The latter is accepted because the man, and not the deed, is considered a civilised product.

"It is to-day NOT murder, it is war! So let us give it the necessary analysis and for the moment cast aside sentiment. Picture the 'hero' glorified and awarded the Victoria or Iron Cross in the melee that brought him his fame.

"The reports of the pistol, the clash of the sword, the dying moans of those whom he has slain, 'and over whom he stands a maddened and excited victor bespattered in human blood. The heads of mothers' sons and children's fathers lie at his feet, their blood and brains besmear the ground, while in a dark garret to-day these mothers and children mourn with bitter their loss that has been his fame.

"These and other gruesome deeds are demanded of you who respond to the ironical call of 'your country needs you!' Truly it does! In your country there is always unemployment, high rents and dear goods, there is always bad housing and starvation there is squalor and filth in home and factory, there is poverty and starvation. So YOUR country needs you! And yet in your country there are factories filled with goods eaten with moth and decay, and there are palaces and mansions in which a superfluity of luxury abounds.

"Yes! YOUR country needs YOU. Are you prepared to fight for your country and help to bring wealth, happiness and peace with ALL people."

The court implied that such seditious matter was dangerous for the public to read and would frustrate the efforts of the Government to carry on the war. If that is so, surely I was assisted by the Cape Argus and Cape Times. The reason given by them for its publication does not nullify its effect on the community, nor prevent them from being my fellow "criminals," as Mr. Madeley argued. As a result of all this controversy on the war and strikes, our crowd extended in numbers and hostility, but we also gained an increasing number of supporters. It was known that many came from the country districts by train, and we made big collections to carry on our work.

Noting our increasing crowd and enthusiasm, the Government became more touchy. Detectives were always busy at the meetings with their notebooks, which, it appears, had to go through a few days' examination before they made arrests. So if they did not appear at my residence on the Thursday morning following our Sunday evening meeting I knew we were safe for another week. I was so indicted on about five occasions, in addition to the other arrests concerning strikes.

Seeing that we were so much trouble to them one wonders they did not stop our meetings-as I have it from one who heard the Attorney General wail at our continual nuisance. On the contrary it wasn't us that were the nuisance, but the authorities that were a nuisance to us. If they didn't interfere we claimed to be capable of managing the crowds ourselves, in addition to teaching them the virtues of a humanitarian creed. Further, all the court procedure of our prosecution was of no avail. They could neither hold me in their prisons nor collect our public money in fines. Only on the one and the first occasion, the Salt Rivet Works general strike, did the public pay the £50 fine imposed-that also was against my wish, as I told the judge. On three other occasions-the Bullhoek massacre (to which I shall refer later), the tramway strike (or war leaflet) and the seamen's strike over the Scapa Flow incident-I received £75 or six months, £50 or six months and £30 or four months respectively. The first was nullified by the Appellate Court, the second by the House of Parliament, and the third, as a result of an influential deputation, was reduced to a nominal fine.

I have been detained at Roeland Street prison on several occasions awaiting trial, but only once have I adorned myself in the garb of a convict. That was following the conviction over the war leaflet, and then only for two days, when the sentence was nullified by the House. I wondered then, when given my "new" robes and my disc of identification, whether criminals so branded had also to dispense with their former habits of cleanliness, because the appearance of the suit I got seemed to suggest that I should give it very careful scrutiny, and also the very greasy hat. I made no complaint at the time because I thought it might involve one of the warders, who otherwise showed me every respect. I was also in the same detention ward with one indicted for murder, so they make no discrimination. When I entered he hailed me in a cordial manner, not because of my complicity in the crime, as some of the others may have thought, but because he had often attended our meetings .

Another indictment, which came under the title of "Inciting to Public Violence," was served on me. "That on the 14 th day of November, 1916, he did wrongfully and unlawfully in a public place, to wit, of Adderley Street, Cape Town, use insulting words to, and in the presence of, divers persons, to the prosecutor unknown, there and then assembled, whereby a breach of the peace may have been occasioned." The "insulting" words were that I "wrongfully" told the audience that "General Botha was asking the workers of South Africa to go and fight, shoot down and kill the workers of Germany, whom they did not know and therefore could not have any animosity against." So it is "unlawful" in war time to tell the truth.

Following the secession of the twenty Labour men from the Labour Party, they formed the International Socialist League, and published a paper called The International. We imported a few dozen each week from Johannesburg to sell at our weekly meeting, and I often read the headlines from the platform; in fact, often sold them from there, as the crowd often swarmed up fearing we might sell out. This, however, we found was a violation of the Sunday Observance Act, therefore another indictment was worded against me thus:

"Wilfrid Henry Harrison, hereinafter referred to as the accused, is guilty of the crime of contravening Section 2 of Ordinance No. I of 1838 in that, on Sunday, 21 st September, 1919, he did wrongfully and unlawfully sell or offer for sale certain goods and merchandise; or did trade and deal on the Lord's Day, and did then and there sell a publication called The International to James Alexander Clay and divers other persons, whose names to the prosecutor are not known, for the sum of three-pence sterling per copy." I have no record of the verdict that I can put my hand on at the moment, but I think it was £10 or one month. In conversation with one of the detectives afterwards I asked why we were so prosecuted.

"Oh," he said, "we prosecute when there is public complaint." Therefore the following week I had quite a list of institutions that had and were then violating the Sunday Observance Act, and I made strenuous efforts by complaint against them in order to protect "Our Lord's Day." I went further to show that Socialists were very pious and religious people, and that we did not believe in selling anything at any time, never mind Sundays. It was the Capitalist system that sold things at a very big profit. The authorities must be very partial people, or have a bad memory, when they allowed both the Cape Times and Cafe Argus to be sold on Sundays throughout the 1914-1918 World War.

I also made an emphatic protest against our pious Municipal Councillors, who sanctified their positions by attending church on Mayoral Sunday, yet violated the Sunday Observance Act by offering for sale tickets to permit people to enter their own pier. The detective at our next meeting came up to me and quietly said, "You can sell The International in future. There will be nothing more about it." I am not finding stories to fit in with the pages of events, hut what I relate actually happened.

Those were strenuous days in the Socialist movement of Cape Town, and we had a group of comrades at that time who were worthy of the cause and put their energy into it regardless of consequences.

During the1914-1918 War period were the most strenuous days of my life. As secretary of the party, doing all the meetings, encountering continual persecutions and running my own private business, which, owing to the war boom, and I suppose my continual self-advertisement, increased accordingly. Socialism being my religion is therefore my recreation. Hence I suffered nothing, but enjoyed every move. However, there is a limit to human powers of physical endurance and subsequently my vocal organs began to feel the strain, so much so that my doctor said it would kill me if I continued. Therefore I had to slow down or suffer the alternative and die a martyr to the cause. I have heard a lot about that sort of people, but it requires more courage than I have to emulate them. However, providence or some other psychological factor intervened and saved me, as later pages will reveal.

The Labour Advance Party

Socialism has many interpretations, and likewise has suffered many denominational sects. The old S.D.F. had, of course, its share of dissenters, who took on some side issue which they perhaps thought was a more direct means to the end. In the first decade of the present century some of the S.D.F. thought the trade union movements would fit in all right with us to advance our political ambitions, and the-then Trades and Labour Council or some of them who agreed to co-operate. The new movement was to be known as "The Labour Advance Party." J. H. Howard, then our secretary, was the chief spirit.

There was at that time in Cape Town a free-lance ecclesiastic known as Dr. Davidson Buchanan, who also claimed to be a Socialist, as far as the two doctrines could find compatibility, and he associated himself with us, especially on the question of unemployment. He also was found to be very sympathetic to the Labour Advance Party, hence for a time, with his noted eloquence and Howard's, they made some show. Buchanan, like most free-lance disciples faith, was a world missionary, and the time came for him Howard and his colleagues thought this an opportunity to give Labour Advance Party some advertisement. Dr. Buchanan had his own church, the Opera House, where the Cape Town General Post Office now stands, which he, as a noted orator, packed every Sunday evening. On the evening of his departure, Howard, with an appropriate portmanteau, advanced to the platform, and in an equally, speech presented it to the Doctor on behalf of the Labour Party. It was all easily and eloquently put, until the Doctor's reply. Here all his eloquence could not show the compatibility of the two creeds of his association. He had not, he said, ever made that a political platform. And the murmur of assent from his audience seemed to indicate that they thought the same. Socialism then went hand in hand with the "Free Thought" movement-their literature distributed with our own.

Howard was in debate with another free-lance missionary about that time. The subject was, "Is the Bible the Word of God?" with Howard on the negative, of course. However, with that damper, Buchanan's absence, and a letter from Parkhouse, president of the Trades and Labour Council at that time, saying he found it impossible to find any enthusiasm amongst his fellow councillors, and also that he found some prejudice against the Socialist movement, the Labour Advance Party soon faded out. Howard afterwards stood as a Socialist for the Cape House of Assembly, before the Union Parliament, and would have polled perhaps a fairly strong vote but for the "ticket" system. Howard and I went on a deputation to the Cape Indian Association to see if they knew any difference between a Socialist and the orthodox political parties. They gave us no definite reply, but one of their officials told me afterwards they "had put Howard on their ticket." That meant that a vote to each of the others on their ticket was against Howard. The only way to give one man your whole support then was to "plump" for him. A good many people did so, but he was overwhelmed by the ticket of seven.

Following the conclusion of hostilities in 1918 there was another group in the S.D.F. who thought the movement too academic and not sufficiently in touch with the immediate ravages of industry, nor sufficiently in the vicinity of the proletariat. The group, headed by A. Z. Berman, Joe Pick and a few others, decided to call themselves the "Industrial Socialist League." They also decided to rent a hall in Ayre Street, District Six, in the central residential area of the Coloured community. The hall, formerly known as the Winter Gardens, was fairly spacious and in the district of cheap rents. Every­thing, therefore, looked hopeful. Tea parties were organised for a start, which of course in that area showed hope of large audiences. But propaganda on a strange unknown topic is another matter. The "Stone" meetings were of long standing and collected the political elements of that area, but the common people are not much concerned, and the more illiterate districts are the worst possible places to gain attention. Their many grievances teach them to tolerate them rather than look for a remedy. In fact, they know it to be a biblical legend that the poor shall suffer. Use is second nature with everybody. There­fore, though the spacious hall was admirable for tea parties and was stormed with patrons, the propaganda meetings had a rather desolate appearance.