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) THEATRE ROYAL & EMPIRE PALACE, erthyr I I Licensee—Mr. Will Smithson. Resident Manager-Mr. Fred Dry. m m 16.30 TWICE NIGHTLY. 8.30 I j Week commencing MONDAY, JUNE 17th, 1918. I | MARY CONNOLLY S THE FAMOUS DUBLIN STREET SINGER, and I GRAND VAUDEVILLE COMPANY I L= VW Circle, ?- StaHa, 9d. Pit, 6d. Gallery 3d. j | liltMHMiaMmMII PLUS NEW TAX. II It r" II II It II "tt' j Merthyr Etectnc !eatre I • Week commencing Monday, June 17th. 1-. CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE FROM 2.30 DLL 10.30 P.M. DAILY. II I Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday— I | FREDERICK and The Eternal City iI I ?? The Eterna! Ci*ty !j By HaU Catne. i. I 1 SKIRTS—Triangle Drama. Pathe's Gazette. j ? SKIRTS—Triang!e Drama. Pathe's Gazette. ? 2 Thursday, Friday, and Saturday- 2 I The Squaw Man's Son ( I Featuring Wallace Reid and Anita King. I I THE RED ACE-Part 8. CAST ADRIFT—Comedy, j I Pathe's Gazette, &c. j — — — | ADMISSION 3d—Tax, !d.; 6d—Tax, 2d.; 1/——Tax, 3d. I ? Children's Performance at One o'clock on Saturdays. I » Ordinary Saturday Performance starts at 3.30 o'clock. Other Days 2.30 as uauaL 5 L.. II II II II .i BOOKS THREE ESSENTIALS IN THE SOCIALIST ARMOURY. SOCIALISM AFTER THE WAR 1/- By J. R. MACDONALD, M.P. THE STATE 1/3 By WILLIAM PAUL. INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM AND THE MINING tNDUSTRY 1/- By GEORGE HARVEY. The Democrats Handbook to Merthyr 6d., reduced to Id., Postage 2d. (A Mine of local Historical and Industrial Information). OUR SHOP, Pontmorlais, Merthyr HOPE CHAPEL, MERTHYR, SUNDAY, JUNE 16th, 1918. Rev. J. Morgan Jones, M.A. A CORDIAL WELCOME EXTENDED TO ALL MERTHYR < L.P. MEETINGS. OLYMPIA RINK, MERTHYR, Sunday Next, June 16th, 1918, At 2.45 p.m. prompt. Speaker: MR. J. B. HOUSTON, M.A. GLASGOW. •V I- ■ ■ Admission by Silver Collection. LIVE BOOKS! LARGE SUPPLY OF KERR AND CO.'S. PRACTICALLY EVERY I.L.P., S.L.P., B.S.P. AND "HERALD" BOOKS & PAMPHLETS IN STOCK. Also good selection of other rare Books not Been in any other Bookshop in Wales. NOTE ADDRESS- Reformers' Bookstall, 42 HIGH STREET, TONYREFAIL. Pay us a visit or send a card stating your need. NEATH SOCIALIST SOCIETY STOP-WATCH COMPETITION. WATCH CASE OPENED MAY 18th. WATCH STOPPED AT THREE MINUTES PAST FIVE (5.3). "T r I.L.P. HALL, GRAIG SQUARE, PONTYPRIDD SUNDAY, JUNE 16th, a.t 6 p.m. Dd. L. DAVIES (Chairman, Pontypridd U.D.C.). SUBJECT-" HOW TO SAVE THE COUNTRY FROM BANKRUPTCY." Kindly Note Time of Meeting. ARE WE DOING YOUR PRINTING ? We have the most modern equipment, and good work is quickly turned out by Trade Unionists at reasonable rates. NOTE THE ADDRESS THE LABOUR PIONEER PRESS

The Spirit of Dowlais I.U.H. I VIGOROUS PROTESTS AT BRANCH I MEETING. The Dowlais Branch of t,he National Union of Railwaymen had many important matters be- fore it at its last meeting, and amongst the resolutions passed and ordered to be transmitted to the Premier, the Home Secretary, and various sources were the following: THE C.D. ACTS. I That this meeting of the Dowlais Branch of the National Union of Railwaymen condemns the return to the policy of the discredited C.D. Acts embodied in the Regulation 40d of the De- fence of the Realm Act, protesta against com- pulsory medical examination as a futile and abominable practice, and demands the imme- diate withdrawal of the said Regulation." THE RIGHT OF TRIAL. I Tha.t this meeting of the Dowlais Branch of the National Union of Railwaymen strongly protests against the action of the Government in deporting and interning persons without trial. We assert that such mode of procedure constitutes a grave menace to Trade Union interests. We therefore call upon our M.P.'s and Executive Committee to take such steps as be in their power to abolish this practice." BERTRAND RUSSELL SENTENCE. I "That this meeting of the Dowlais Branch of the National Union of Railwaymen expresses its strongest protest against the heavy sentence passed upon Mr. Bertrand Russell, F.R.R., for having exprpssed in an article on the German Peaoe Offer, that should the war continue in- definitely, an American garrison might be used to intimidate strikers in this country. We fur- ther call for the immediate release of Mr. Rus- sell as the sentence is in our opinion extremely unjust. THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. I "That this meeting of the Dowlais Branch 01 the National Union of Railway-men protests against the action of the authorities in destroy- ing the printing plant of Mr. S. H. Street, -of 4 Blegborough-road, Streatham as a wanton violation of the freedom of the press and the rights of the printing trade. It further de- mands that adequate compensation should be made to Mr. S. H. Street and that a full public enquiry should be instituted into the methods recently adopted by the Home Office to prevent criticism of the Government."

PLACE YOUR ORDER NOW. The Board of Trade has ordered that no more papers shall be sent out on Sale or Return after June 24th, 1918. This means if you want The Pioneer" you must order it. Those of our readers who purchase their copy through a newsagent should place their order at once since newsagents orders well in ad- vance through their wholesale houses. Literature Secretaries should also observe the new Regulation, and so avoid any misunder- standings.

I Officers at Trade Union Meetings. WE are pleased to learn of Mr. T. 1. Mardy Jones protest against the presence of police officers at a trade-union meeting at Llantwit Fardre last Sunday. With Mr. Jones we whole- heartedly join in condemnation of this latest im- portation from Prussia, as a gross breach of an inalienable right hardly won and dearly held by the trade union movement in these isles. Per- haps we ought not to have written inalienable there, for the Defence of the Realm Act al- ready, we believe, alienates the right theoreti- cally, and, unfortunately, the trade union branches as a whole are not filled with that virulent love of trade union liberties that does characterise our South Wales movement among the miners, and without which an easy toler- ance of official supervision virtually, means a surrender of the right to transact collective in- dustrial business free from the trammels of an autocratic oversight by officers of the crown. Mr. Jones did right, too, in taking his objection on principle, for we do not suppose that had the officers remained throughout the meeting under notice and followed that up by attend- ance at all Federation meetings for months to come, that they would have found anything in the projects before the meetings, or even in the speeches foi1 or against those projects, to which legitimate objection could be taken even under the widespread meshes of D.O.R.A. We per- sonally do not take the extreme view that the conscious intent of our rulers is to become the mentors of democracy as is the Prussian Execu- tive, by the exercise of a supervision that is all embracive. We believe that the British attempts in this direction are the outcome of a nervous fear on the pan of people who entirely fail to understand and as a result cordially distrust the trade-union as an integral part of v the democra- tic machinery, a distrust that has been height- ened by the (to them) inexplainable invasion of the political field by the industrial army. Not having the workers opportunities to learn at first-hand the vital relationship between produc- tion and politics, not knowing by bitter experi- ence that the modes of production are an ill- valiblc index to the state of Government en- joyed, to them the whole thing is a mystery; and we imagine that their dreams are peopled by nightmare visions of firebrands who meet in cellars and thou go forth to trade union gather- ings to s-ow the poison of political revolution in the minds of innocent, ignorant, but pliablo proletariats. Such a picture is a grotesque cari- cature of the real facts, but "still it is under- standable and in its light the visit of the official Las an antidote to the imagined firebrand is understandable. Much less understandable is the docility of the workers as a whole that would allow the mentorship without protest; for, though we believe, as we have already said, that the intention is not to unnecessarily inti- midate or officially mentor the movement; the surrender of the principle of private meeting oould easily lead to the evolution and growth of such intention in the days to come. There is nothing on earth to justify such interference with trade union rights; for it is obviously fool- ish to postulate that secret propaganda. harm- ful to the Government, or contrary to the in- terests of the Commonweal can be engaged in through the media of trades unions with their thousands of individuals; and more parti cularly with their cosmopolitan outlook on politics. Thanks to the fact that in politics some of the workers may be fooled all the time the adminis- tration have a much more effective supervision than could be provided by the attendance of the entire police force at trade union gatherings. Against the last kind of supervision there is no complaint except a complaint anent the crass ignorance of individuals who are apparently in- ca-pable of learning which party in politics fur- ther their real interests and the interests of the world in general; but against the imported supervision of police or military officers there must be, as there has been by Mr. Johes, a spirited protest on principle.

A French Journalist and War Aims. I ONE of the sanest political articles on tho peace campaign that has come to us from France has this week been translated from the article of M. Auguste Gauvain in Los Journal des Debats." What M. Gauvain wants, is what we have all along been demanding, a sober statement" of the Allied war aims, "without literary flourishes." "Only too often," says the political edito1- of the Journal," "have the Allies expressed themselves more as journal- ists than as statesmen, employing rhetorical phrases garnished with epithets. It is just one of the peculiarities of this war that Ministers speak like publicists and chiefs of armies reason like diplomats." The sad truth of M. Gau- v-ain's contention must be reluctantly conceded by all who have considered tt.he rabid outpour- ings of the Allied leaders unblinded by the blinkers of a spurious patriotism, and unfettered by political party bias. The signal failure of the war has not been found in the courage of our soldiers, which has risen to heights unpre- cedented in the military history of the nation; it has been in our total inability to produce a statesman on our side, which is the only siJe we are concerned with at the moment. The British muddle has been paralleled by French muddle, and Italian Imperialism has been muddle, blinded by its desires for national ex- equally blinded by its desires fOT national ex- pansion. In the time of tragedy played in deadly earnest on a world-wide stage, the prin- ciple actors have strutted to and fro with mouthfuls of folly that paraded as words of wisdom under a veneer of phrases that rolled oily from the tongue. Small brains have been paraded as -genius because their paucity of real thought has been hidden behind a vocal scree if that tickled the ear by its euphony, but eluded the intellect by its nullity of real germane idea. Historical sense has been as signally ab- sent as international political sagacity; and chicanery has so far triumphed over honest de- sire for peace that the most important advances in that direction tha.t came from the side of Austria were deliberately hidden from the gaze of two important Allies-Russia and America; in the one case because a revolution had led to a renunciation of Imperialistic self-seeking, and in the other, apparently, because President Wilson's high ideology was incompatible with the ulterior aims of continental nationalists. From first to last a stupid hypocricy has camou- flaged economic motives behind moral issues; and attempts at rapprochement have been nipped in the bud by idiotically hateful speeches uttered by men whose greatest, responsibility is the securing of a, sane peace full of the promise of permanency. Too long has the insanity of impossible endians held the people apart; too long have the polittical buffoons stood between the peoples whose sole hope is peace. Too long have the politically ignorant masses of the na- tions accepted journalese as the expression of the highest wisdom because its utterers were holding the reins of office. The determined at- tempt to find a way out by other than process of arms has yet to be made. And the first step in the direction of the discovery of that way out must be in the plain understandable pro- nunciation for which the French journalist calls. In the name of humanity, in the name of Euro- pean civilisation, that pronunciation must be made in unequivocal terms. Negotiation is the only way; negotiation that surrenders no de- mocratic principle; negotiation that .spells a new page in international relationship because it dis- places the old mistrust by a new social trust internationally is the only salvation of this world; and negotiation will be bmtiglit, greatly nearer by the issuance of a plain statement of aims that holds firm to principles acceptable to the peoples internationally because founded on the principles of justice. Whoso stands in the way of such a pronouncement is an enemy ot the people, and must go.

Socialism and the Education Bill. I W); desire to congratulate our N.A.C. Chairman. Tr, Philip Snow den, on the support which he seoued in his advocacy of an amendment in the Education 'Bill by which he -ought to assure to the parent- of children of post-elementary school age. a maintenance grant during their compulsory attendance in, continuation schools. The objections which were ra ised against the motion during the discussion showed, as they have always showed, how weak the fearsome high-rates bogey is when contrastixl with the elementary justice that Mr.. Snowden's amend- ment stood for. For the high-rates bogey is really the bogey behind hose artificial arguv ments that. present;1.1 either as economic arguments against, the amendment on the ground that maintenance meant a lowering of the wages of the parents; cr the equally ^tallow pretence that objection was taken to it occause in its logical competition -.he argument for maintenance should apply to children in attend- ance at elementary schools. We can understand the opposition Nvli (-Ii Mi. Fisher offered to the amendment, for he was naturally anxious to save his bill from the opposition of the very elass of politicians who in their arguments proved so unequal to combatting the common measure of justice that Mr. Snowden and his backers pleaded, but which was sufficiently strongly entrenched ,is to defeat that amend- ment- despite the logical strength of the ease put forward in it", advocacy. One member. Major E. F. Wood, if we remember aright, was courageous enough to give voice to a. financial objection which we are going to hear inereasing- ly raised whenever matters of urgent social need are brought before the green benches in the future. He contested the amendment because the cost of the war h<b depleted our finances so far that we cannot, afford to mete out justice in these cases. That is going to be a. common plea of the future; the people must see to it that the reply that, constructive policy is not to bo stopped for this reason is steadfastly given. If we can afford to per day on destruction and death; then we can and must better afford the cost, of one day's war- per yar, aile or seven day's war per year, for the purpose of securing decency and prosperity to our people.

Neath Parliamentary Division. I REV. HERBERT MORGAN NOMINATED I FOR LABOUR. The Rev. Herbert Morgan, M.A., ha* con- sorted to allow his name to go forward as La- bour candidato for the Neath Parliamentary Division, and has been nominated by a number of Trade Union branches in Neath and Swansea Valley, including the Neath Trades and Labour Council. Mr. Morgan is very popular in the Neath and Swansea Valleys, and there is little doubt t,hat he will be the selected candidate when the Neath Division Labour Party meet to make their final choice. Mr. Morgan is a very courageous man, as well as a great scholar and a renowned preacher. He studied under Dr. Fairburn at. Mansfield College, Oxford, where he took his degree. He is a Socialist of some years' standing, and a member of the Labour Party.

of account by the Board of Education. It would be their duty in scrutinising schemes submitted to them by education authorities to see whether they contained some sort of provi- sion for hard cases. But if it were made man- datory on every local authority to provide a vast system of maintenance aIlowance-s for young persons attending continuation schools, whose wages might not be reduced at all, and who at any rate would be in a better position to help the family than the children in tho ele- mentary schools, the amendment would have consequences which' the hon. members would be the first to admit would be unfortunate. In further debate. Mr. Fisher, on the basis of figures concerning the coal-mining industry, which were afterwards questioned, estimated that the cost of this proposal to the country would ultimately be some £ 39.000,000 for the three million young persons in attendance at the schools. Colonel Wedgwood declared that any system of dealing merely with hard case8- would not meet the situation. What was demanded was not charity, but justice. Parents deprived of their property as represented by the wage-earn- ing capacity of their children ought to be com- pensated. Sir R. Newman (U-Exe.ter) appealed to the Government to consider whether, without offend- ing supporters, they could nob at a later stage bring forward some amendment that would meet the general demand made by Mr. Snowden. Mr. Snowden expressed himself grateful for the reception given to his amendment by the Committee generally. He calculated that the cost would be nothing like ;C39,000,000-ce-r- tainly for some years to come the cost would not amount to more than R7,000,000 a year. The Committee divided. For the amendment there were .54, and against it 143: majority against, 89.

Socialism and the Education Bill. STRONG SUPPORT FOR MR. SNOWDEN'S MAINTENANCE AMENDMENT. MR. FISHER'S FINANCIAL OBJECTION. The House. of Commons resumed the discus- sion on the Education Bill on Monday, and, as was to have been expected, our leaders were well forward in the discussions. Mr. P. Snowden, who at the last sitting had moved an amendment to the compulsory attend- ance at Continuation Schools Clause, providing that under approved schemes the local authori- ties shall pay maintenance allowance to young persons in compulsory attendance now remarked that he had been taunted by Mr. Goldstone with not subscribing to resolutions passed at IR-ade union and Labour conferences, but there was a difference between passing pious resolu- tions and translating them into actiom Captain A. Smith (Lab.—Clitheroe) pointed out that these resolutions for the extension of the age had always been associate d with the qllestion of maintenance. Mr. Snowden believed that was so. Why did not members of that House bring forward a pro- posal that every child should go to school till he was 18, and then go on to a university—ad- vantages members themselves had enjoyed t If it was good for them it was good for others. The answer was* that it was an economic ques- tion. When education was made compulsorv it was also made free. This bill would entail a further sacrifice, and the State had no right to put. the whole financial burden on the parents. TURNED DOWN. Mr. Fisher (President of the Board of Educa- tion) said that much as he sympathised with the plea on behalf of poor persons, he was unable to accept Mr. Snowden's proposal, which meant that, maintenance allowances should be paid to all young persons who attended continuation schools from 280 to 320 hours a year, and which treated all alike irrespective of family circum- stances. This amendment would carry us very far. if maintenance allowances were to oe paid in those cases, ought they not by a parity of reasoning to be paid to younger children attend- ing elementary schools. The remedy for the evil—an undoubted evil—was to raisè the stan- I i,e tlic- gtan- dard of adult wages. He believed one of the consequences of the present educational legisla- tion would be to reduce the amount of juvenile labour and so raise the average of adult wages, he. idea for which we ought, to .strive was a i-tate of society m which the head of the family would be able to earn a sufficient income upon which to maintain his family decently. Cohmel Wedgewood and Mr. Tyson Wilson supported the amendment, as did Mr. Adamson, ii-lio that tlit, amendment had n been accepted, and wished to assure tho Committee that the bill did not go farther than the Labour party demanded; indeed, for many years at their conferences they had asked for .more than the bill gave. They felt that owing to their economic position without this amend- ment l>e:ng accepted their hopes of setting up the ladder from the e lementary school to, the higher grade school and the university would blighted. The war had proved how impor- tant in the interests of the State, was the edu- cation of the child. It was even more a concern of the State than of the individual parent, and the charge should devolve upon the State. THE WAR BURDEN. Major E. F. Wood (U-li,ipon) felt great sym- Pat-III with the arguments of Air. Snowden and Mr. Adamson. They all wished to make the period of transition from school to industrial employment as easy as possible, whether from the point of view of the worker or the employer. But it must, also be recognised that the argu- ments used on behalf of the amendment might also he 4jsed on behalf of maintenance grants for children in elementary schools generally. The financial burden that would be laid on the State would bo serious, and in face of the posi- tion that we should occupy alter the war they could not well shoulder burdens of the kind under discussion. MR. MACDOAlO AND THE FAMILY. Mr. J. It. Macdonald observed t,hat w* should not do very much in this world until we estab- lished the family upon a basis of its own. The family income ought to be sufficient to enable a family as a social unit to keep itself going. In numerous cases however, this condition of thing.s did not exist, and therefore the State, which made certain compulsory demands the satisfaction of which were in the State's own interest, should provide that the hurden should not fall on those who could not afford to bear it. Mr. G. W. Currie (U—Leith Burghs) re- garded the. amendment as worth supporting as an antidote to what he might call the Lanca- shire poison. (Oh!) Mr. Snowden put the amendment forward as a Socialist 'and he (Mr. Currie) supported it as a Conservative.- It was right to help people to fit themselves for the of the community. He would like to see wages on the level that would en- able the family unit to meet its requirements to the full. That was his chief reason for sup- porting Mi-. Chamberlain on Tariff Reform. But they could not wait ten years, or more for this result to be attained, and in the meantime the State should accept, the obligation which the amendment contemplated. lr. C. H. Roberta (L—Lincoln), suggested that a subsidy to education such as the amend- ment proposed tended to reduce wages and therefoio. to defeat the object which Mr. Mac- donald cherished of having the self-supporting family unit. Sir C. Bathurst (IT—Wilton) observed that the chief hindrance to many children in certain districts obtaining the full advantage of educa- tion was malnutrition. He suggested that the provisions of the Meal a Act should be extended. Captain A. Smith (Lab.-—Clitheroe) depre- cated this suggestion, wliioh would be, very hurtful to the self-respect of the young people if it were, adopted, and would be distinctly harmful. There would be a,reat, increase of local burdens owing to this bill, and having re- gard to this fact it was only right that the. State itself should meet the obligation to which this amendment related. 0 MR. FISHER'S REPLY. Mr. -Fisher said that he fully appreciated the arguments of the Labour members, but he pointed out that one gi-eat objection to the amendment was that at the very initiation of their new scheme of continuation classes thisp was substantially an invitation to employers to reduce wages. Under the scheme of the bill it was not certa,in that there would be any reduc- tion in the wages of these young persons. In some oases there might actually be a- reduction. It was hoped t,hat in many cases there would be none. It would be wise to wait to see how the economic situation developed. Of course the circumstances which the hon. mem b ers had in view were not left entirely out (Continued at foot of preceding column).