Straws: In Oil (1935)

The Straws column from the July 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Oil.

The Rt. Hon. G. N. Barnes was presented with his portrait in oils at Geneva, in recognition of his 40 years “international work.” In a sterner age recognition of his national “services” alone would have found expression by a disillusioned working class through the medium of boiling oil—minus the portrait.


Pensions—for ex-Soldiers.

“They will not get it while I am in office” (G. N. Barnes, 1916). The “they” included a big array of hopeless physical wrecks who had been “passed” for army service, the “it” being a pension. Ten years previously, as Chairman of the Labour Party, Barnes was warmly defending the “loyalty” of “Labour” to the Throne, and gaily voting additional grants to the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. In 1909 he gave his blessing to a Wages Board Bill, whose chief merit (according to Keir Hardie) was "to cheapen the cost of production.”


Paying Industries.

An Italian newspaper says that Sir Norman Angell “has made of peace a paying industry.” Rather neatly put.

The Salvation Army has made a “paying industry" of the down-an-out. Competition in the “Peace" line is now on the cards. General Evangeline Booth declares, “Never again can there be a real war in this God-hungry world," "which is coming it strong," whatever may be the import of “real" and "God-hungry," one thing is certain. The gold-hungry, oil-hungry, rubber-hungry capitalist may at any time succeed in making a pretty good imitation of the "real" thing, unless the working class remove the cause of war by abolishing its incentive—private property in the means of life.


Salvation—of Private Property.

In a foreword to the Salvation Army Social Report, 1909, it was asserted that the Army was building “a strong barrier against Socialism." It was probably for that reason that the High Priest of the Independent Labour Party of those days (James Ramsay MacDonald) said: "Whatever agency comes or goes, the country cannot spare one agency, and that is the Salvation Army."

The Salvation Army is being badly treated by the capitalist class. The work of their leaders is poorly paid in comparison with the fat incomes of "eminent" bishops. For exploitation of working class ignorance this blatant organisation easily beats the whole bench of bishops.

Augustus Snellgrove