3 - Parliament: The Practical Idealist

Summary

ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS maiden speech, on 4 February 1887, Graham was back in his constituency following disturbances and arrests in the Lanarkshire coalfields, and the looting of food shops in Blantyre and Coatbridge by striking miners. From his own words, this was the first time he had come into direct contact with the unemployed, and had his first experience of the miners’ working and living conditions. This was also when he first met Keir Hardie, a miner and journalist who had come to prominence in the previous year. Graham spent most of February attending and addressing miners’ meetings, of which he claimed he addressed ‘63 or 64’ (where he could hardly have failed to meet Hardie), and encouraged them to unite, and to put pressure on their MPs. However, with the miners and their families in deep distress, a motion to resume work was passed at a meeting of the Scottish Miners Federation on 21 February, but Graham promised to champion their cause in parliament. It was reported soon afterwards that Graham had addressed fellow Liberals at Coatbridge:

When I bought my ticket at Euston [station] and came here, I knew I was leaving behind me every chance of rising in political life. What had I, a landlord, to gain by championing the working class? I had everything to lose, but I found the miners in a worse position than I could have believed. Would you have me say to those poor starving fellows that I could do nothing for them?

It is from this point that we witness, if not exactly class politics in Graham’s utterances, then the emergence of a more direct and visceral awareness of class divisions and their consequences.

By the middle of 1887, the land issue had all but disappeared from Graham’s speeches, although Irish home rule was still occasionally mentioned. His focus now became the plight of the miners, but increasingly, the idea of labour representation in the House of Commons. The first opportunity we have to witness any consolidation of his views came on 15 August 1887, during the marathon Coal Mines Regulation Bill, which contained over fifty clauses dealing with the miners’ working conditions. This was a bill introduced by the Liberals (who were now in opposition), supported by Irish MPs.