Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/598

ÆT. 53] takes away all chance of their forming a popular party underneath the more advanced Liberals: so that in politics the break-up of the old parties and the formation of a strong reactionary party goes on apace....

"Sunday I went to the new premises of the Hoxton Branch (the Labour Emancipation League) to lecture: I rather liked it: a queer little no-shaped slip cut off from some workshop or other, neatly whitewashed, with some innocent decoration obviously by the decorator member of the branch: all very poor but showing signs of sticking to it: the room full of a new audience of the usual type of attenders at such places: all working men except a parson in the front row, and perhaps a clerk or two, the opposition represented by a fool of the debating club type; but our men glad of any opposition at all. I heard that our branch lecture was a wretched failure. The fact is our branch, which was very vigorous a little time ago, is sick now; the men want some little new thing to be doing or they get slack in attendance. I must try to push them together a bit. I attended the Council meeting on Monday. It was in the end quarrelsome.... We passed a resolution practically bidding our speakers not to draw on quarrels with the police: though I doubt if they will heed it often: as some of them are ambitious of figuring as heroes in this 'free-speech' business. This is a pity; as if the police stick to it, they can of course beat us in the long run: and we have more out-a-door stations already than we can man properly....

"March 20th. The annual meeting of our Hammersmith Branch came off: a dead failure, as all our meetings except the open-air ones have been lately. However I really think the savage second winter has had something to do with it; we have had Rh