Neither the Labour Party nor the LRC had a "Leader" until the title was adopted in 1922. Keir Hardie was probably the nearest equivalent in 1905.

His meeting was at the Empire Theatre, Cleethorpes. Councillor Oakes was Chairman. Pete Curran was also due to speak, but did not appear. Tom Proctor spoke at some length. Then there were questions. Did he agree with a scheme to enable seamen to record their votes before going to sea? He did. In what way would municipalisation benefit temperance reform?. Because thereby vested interests would be destroyed. Why did he come to Grimsby to support a candidate who would support measures which he, Mr Proctor had denounced? He, Tom Proctor, did not know that he had come to assist in the return of the present member!

Keir Hardie rose to speak, and said the questioner had insinuated that one of the outcomes of Mr Proctor's canditure would be the return of the present member. But their Member had been returned before Mr Proctor came. He could not be responsible for that. He took it that the gentleman who asked the question was against the present government ("yes, that is so"). Then drop the Liberal candidate. He would make no accusations against the capitalist Members of Parliament. They were doing what everyone would do in their places. But their interests lay against the interests of the workers. He argued that because there was no dividing line in politics there was no need for a new party.

Why was there no dividing line in politics ? Because the issues that were now up for settlement were not political, they were social and economic. It was not a question of whether the Tory Party or the Liberal Party was good enough but whether they sufficiently represented the people to meet the social needs. It was a question of the rights of property versus the rights of humanity.

Standing still and marking time was not going to solve the social problem. They had had half a century of free trade, and at the end of it what was the condition of the people? A third of them, during periods of free trade, were receiving less than than would keep them in any reasonable state of efficiency and comfort.

Many thought that if those people were in poverty it was because of their drinking and thriftless habits. He did not want to minimise the evil which drunkenness inflicted upon the people. It aggravated poverty.

But it was not intemperance which caused poverty. The investigation of Charles Booth in London, and Mr Rowntree in York, and of Mr Mann in Bedford, had produced conclusions which ...showed clearly that poverty was due to low wages and irregular employment....Charles Booth stated that it took £1 1s. per week to maintain a family in physical efficiency in London. There were 360,000 families in London where the income of the whole household, when in full work, was less than £1 1s per week.

In Bedford Mr Mann showed the cost of maintaining a family was 18s. per week, exclusive of any allowance for beer, tobacco, newspapers, or even Sunday collections. The average income, however, was only 14s. 10d. per week, so that in Bedford the people received 4s. 3d. below what it cost to keep life in. There, he contended, they had the cause of poverty.

They wanted a party with a constructive policy: a party that would protect childhood, that would give to manhood a full and free opportunity to earn a livelihood by honest labour: a party that would throw the shield of public support around the aged worker and protect him from the degradation and infamy of our Poor Law and Workhouse system. Only the Labour Party could do these things effectively and efficiently.

(extracts from newspaper reports)