A man named Wilson (why two names alike I don't know) arrived from Australia. He was said to have been a parson and now a noted orator for the Socialist cause. This was in July, 1906. He certainly was an impressive orator and we made good use of him to propagate the cause by holding meetings at various places, including the City Hall. The minutes of that meeting I have before me, recording the collection as £ 22 5s. 5d.

The Cape Parliamentary Debating Society wrote and asked us to reserve a few seats for them, for which they agreed to pay. This was possibly for educational reasons as well as for their amusement, because it had been arranged that members of their society and Wilson Wilson should meet in public debate, and we agreed to find a prominent neutral man to put in the chair. John X. Merriman, one of the leading members of Parliament and subsequently Prime Minister, was invited, but he apologetically declined. Cronwright Schreiner was then asked and he accepted. He was also a Member of Parliament and husband of Olive Schreiner, the famous novelist, from whom he took his name. She was also present at the meeting.

The Cape Parliamentary Debating Society, with all their education, would not meet Wilson Wilson single-handed, so they were allowed to nominate three-the pick of their flock-for the occasion in the persons of Mr. Pearsall of many university honours, Advocate Swift and B. K. Long. The latter was afterwards editor of the Cape Times and M.P. for the Gardens Division of Cape Town. At the outset the chairman ruled that Christianity be no part of the discussion and Wilson Wilson opened by saying he did not want to waste his allotted time by arguing against the assumption that poverty was caused through drink.

Each of the three were allowed to put their case before Wilson Wilson, whose reply appeared to shatter them and induced Mr. Pearsall to say, in loud oratory they ought to all three talk at once. I introduced Wilson to Olive Schreiner after the meeting, whom he seemed anxious to meet. She had been much in touch with the Socialist movement in England during her long stay there in the nineties of the last century. In Cronwright Schrciner's book. Letters of Olive Schreiner, she often wrote of her association with Eleanor, Karl Marx's daughter, with whom she sometimes stayed, and said what a lovable character she was. When she visited France she was also the guest of the other daughter, who was the wife of the French Socialist, Paul Lafarque.

Olive and Cronwright Schreiner

Olive Schreiner kept in touch with us slightly by correspondent but she rarely attended our meetings, as she had no inclination to become a public speaker and only about twice in all her life did she make the attempt and one of those was induced by provocation. Someone hinted at a meeting that her novel. The Story of a South African Farm, was by the help of George Meredith, whom Olive said she had only met once, and then didn't know it was he till afterwards.

Cronwright Schreiner was also an avowed Socialist, and he told me when I questioned him about it that he had preached Socialism to the people at De Aar, a small town, where they lived in Cape Colony. The daily Press about this time began to fear our movement. They wrote one day: "What with Cronwright Schreiner in the House and other prominent Socialists outside, it seemed to indicate that we were fast paving the way for a Social Revolution." I have the minute book of our business meetings before me from 1906 to about 1916, and I note that at one of those meetings in 1907 there were over twenty people nominated as members of the party.

I am not prepared to say they were all philosophical Socialists We, like every Socialist group, had our moderate wing, with whom we sometimes had difficulty to keep in line with our purpose. In fact experience has taught me that when the full movement is assembled the moderates outvote the more revolutionary wing, the reason being that the more moderate do not continually attend-they lack the knowledge and enthusiasm of the more revolutionary wing, who do all the "donkey" work.

Stalin of Russia would never have outvoted Trotsky to succeed Lenin after his death were it not for that reason. The same thing happened after the Rathenau protest and demonstration in Berlin, at which I was present and to which I shall refer later. Our increasing numbers, which sometimes meant whole families, also meant that we had, like most of the orthodox religious faiths to make our premises a social as well as a propaganda institution. Hence we organised social gatherings, hired special cars to take us to Camps Bay and other such recreation resorts, not forgetting, of course, a few propaganda speeches on the beach.

We also had our choir and introduced some music and theatrical talent, gathered generally from our own members and their friends. In fact our spacious quarters in Buitenkant Street was the "church" of all comrades, especially on Sunday evenings, and it had something of the appearance of it, as the photographs will show. We did not exactly christen our offspring there, but we did have a dedication service on my one and only son on January1st 1908, at which I acted as "parson," with Comrades A. Needham and Comrade P. McKillop as sponsors. We did not use the customary bowl of water, but our more appropriate Red Flag, which at the conclusion of my "sermon" I laid on the boy in his mother's lap, with the words, "In the name of liberty, equality and fraternity I now dedicate my son to the cause of international Socialism."

Needham and McKillop followed with rousing and- appropriate and speeches suitable to the occasion. Comrade Needham, I remember, made special emphasis of the boy's possibilities as a future Socialist propagandist "through the teaching of his father." Well, that is thirty-eight years ago and I have not succeeded yet in making that possible. Socialists are born and not made. We are a world of varied opinions and temperaments and no Socialist would wish it to be otherwise. The administration of every country of the world is run by a very small minority of the whole population, including Russia, which even claims the "dictatorship of the proletariat," but rather it is a bureaucracy that dictates Russian administration.

We did not perform marriage ceremonies; in fact the Anarchist section always repudiate such conventions, but our group was the cause several marriages. Many were Jew and Gentile combinations which was evidence of our world brotherhood. Our unconventional tactics caused us to be described as irreligious people, but Socialism a religion in itself and our ethical standards cover all the ground the various religious faiths.

Regarding the immortality of the soul we do not pretend to know anything about that; neither does anybody else, although some of the heads of the churches get so many thousands a year for telling people they do know. The biblical interpretation of God and the Genesis version of world creation are repudiated to-day by all modern scientists on circumstantial evidence and chronological grounds.

The law of evolution has worked in all things from the creation of this planet to the present conditions of chaotic muddle in it, from which we shall again evolve in due course.

The Trade Unions

With the boom in building and construction immediately following the Anglo-Boer War the trade union movement began to grow. The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners had two branches in Cape Town. I joined No. 2 branch immediately after my arrival from England in 1903. There was much stone work in the new cathedral, the law courts in Keerom Street and the City Hall, which meant the stone masons were also strongly organised.

The combination of all the trade unions was represented by a Trades and Labour Council, on which I was delegated to represent the carpenters, McKillop the Typographical Union, and Tom Bolton the stone masons, all of whom were also members of Social Democratic Federation. I was also delegated to represent the S.D.F. on the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Council. Our influence on that body resulted in McKillop being made president and myself vice-president, not because we were Socialists; in fact, I was reminded that my association with the Socialist meetings was not in any way to be confused with my delegation to the Trade Council. One Jack Harlow, a burly member of the Stone Masons's, used every opportunity of keeping me in my place as a trade unionist on that Council. Therefore Press reports of our proceedings were often full of our verbal warfare, on which those in quest of copy love to enlarge. Subsequent happenings there, however, especially in relation to the trade unions' attitude towards Coloured people, brought me into disfavour. I even had the audacity to ask if the Trades Council favoured a clause in the rules of the Stone Masons' Union: "That no Coloured man be permitted to become an apprentice to the trade of stone mason."

''Why did you bring that up?" whispered Jack King, the secretary. The fat was in the fire of course , and Jack Harlow, as usual, rushed into the rescue, and the Press gave it a glowing report the next day. The Trades Council began to think that they, being the political wing of the trade union movement, ought to put up their own represen­tatives for Parliament hence one evening it was decided that a few of those who thought themselves capable, or were sufficiently ambitious, could try a political speech before the Council for them to make their choice and Tom Maginess, of the Engineers' Union, was subsequently chosen. Tom was a decent fellow, and he would often support some of my revolutionary suggestions; he was very superficial on economic questions, but he had a fluent delivery and that goes a long way. They put him up for Liesbeek, Cape Flats. A. W. Elford, a prominent typographical trade unionist, presided at his first meeting. I remember his first remark was: "I make no apology for presiding at this meeting." I suppose that meant that in those days an apology was really necessary to offer the "Ticket of Seven" Capitalists who always thought themselves the representatives for the Cape Peninsula. However, Tom topped the poll. That was over thirty years ago. After Tom's death Charley Pearce represented that constituency for a little while, Walter Snow Salt River and Dr. Foryth the Gardens; but the Labour Party in the Cape has degenerated since. They haven't gained a seat in the Cape Peninsula for over twenty years.