The Dumpling by Coulson Kernahan

"It's this way," Parker began a trifle importantly -- and something there was in his way of saying even these three words which made me suspect him to be a man fond of the sound of his own voice. Though entirely uneducated, he had, as I afterwards heard, a keen memory, and a ready knack of picking up scraps of information, both of which stood him in good stead in the speeches upon social subjects which he was apt to deliver in the parks on Sunday afternoons, and at other places where debaters foregather.

"It was this way, Mr. Grant. What with the strikes, and the work going out of the country, to Germany and America, and never coming back, in consequence of the strikes, things have been cruel hard in East London this winter, and when a big firm of ship-builders closed their yards, and went North, that meant starvation to thousands of us. Then the Dumpling turned up, and used to address meetings of the unemployed. 'Law! ' he says to them as was agitating to have the law altered, 'while you are asking for law, your wives and children are starving. The law won't do nothing for you unless you force it; and the rate you're going on, you won't force it -- not an inch in ten years; and where will you be then? Starved, and in your graves, you and your wives and children. You can send a score or two of your Labour leaders to Parliament, and much good that will do you. They can't make laws; there aren't enough of them in Parliament to do it. They get voted down, and then where are you? Look here, boys,' he says; 'it's Parliament as makes the laws, and Parliament, even this Parliament, a big part of it, is made up of landowners, and landlords, and company promoters, and capitalists, and big employers, and sweaters. They aren't going to make laws against themselves -- 'tain't likely. For one poor man in Parliament there's fifty rich, and you haven't got no chance there. But, boys,' he says, a-wagging his finger at us, 'for every rich man in Parliament there's hundreds and thousands out o' Parliament as is poor and starving. You're in a minority in Parliament, and minorities always get crushed. We have got it on the authority of a Cabinet Minister -- and _he_ ought to know.