Notes by the Way: Whose May Day? (1955)

The Notes by the Way Column from the June 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whose May Day?

At one time May Day was an occasion on which workers demonstrated international solidarity and drew attention to current claims and grievances. Such May Day meetings were frowned upon by governments and employers, but things are different now. Many governments have taken over May Day and from the side of the workers the demonstrations are often nationalist not internationalist. The following are reports of May Day activities in various countries.

CELEBRATIONS IN MOSCOW 

“Moscow, May 1st.

“Four giant new cannon, which might be capable of firing atomic shells, took part to-day in Moscow's traditional May Day military parade. The emphasis in planning the parade was on air power but because of low cloud and steady rain there was no fly-past”—(Manchester Guardian, 2/5/55.)

“CHINA.—Buddhist monks and nuns in long, flowing saffron and red robes marched with long columns of workers past Mao Tse-tung and other Chinese Communist leaders.

“Mr. Harry Pollitt, Secretary-General of the British Communist Party, was among the foreign guests,

“The Mayor of Peking, Peng Chen, called for the strengthening of national defences and opposing of American occupation of our sacred territory of Formosa.' Balloons with 'Free Formosa’ slogans were carried.”—(Daily Mail, 2/5/55.)

“GERMANY.—East Germany’s growing armed forces were paraded in the Soviet sector of Berlin in a giant demonstration evidently designed to impress Berliners with the Communist capacity to counter West German rearmament.

“West German trade unionists at mass meetings issued a demand for a 40-hour week to replace the present 48-hour week.”—(Daily Mail, 2/5/55.)

“GREECE.— Free Cyprus was the theme of May Day in Athens, with prayers in churches calling for Divine blessing on the ‘liberation struggle '."—(Daily Mail, 2/5/55.)

THE POPE BLESSES WORKERS 

MAY DAY IN ROME 

From our Correspondent 

Rome, May 1st.

“Labour Day was celebrated with great pomp in Rome, where the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the Italian Workers’ Catholic Association (A.C.LI.) was made to synchronise with it. Some 150,000 Catholic workers from all over Italy made a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s, where they were addressed this afternoon by the Pope.

"The Pope, who came down to St. Peter’s Square to bless the workers, announced the institution of a new feast that of St. Joseph the Workman, with which Labour Day will henceforth be celebrated by the Church. He said that he did this in order that May 1st might receive Christian baptism, so that, 'far from being a stimulus for discord, hate, and violence,’ it should be 'a recurring invitation to modern society to accomplish that which is still lacking for social peace.” —(Manchester Guardian, 2/5/55.)

MAY 1, “LOYALTY DAY” 

Washington, April 28th.

“President Eisenhower to-day proclaimed May 1st as loyalty day and called on citizens to observe it 'by reaffirming their loyalty to our beloved country'." Reuter.—(Manchester Guardian, 29/4/55.)

More Prisoners, In Worse Prisons

There are more people in prison today than there were before the war and more than at the beginning of the century. In the debate on Prisoners in the House of Lords on 4th May, 1955, Lord Pakenham commented on the decline of the number of people in prisons and Borstal institutions from 24,000 in 1953 to 21,000 at the present time, but added: “There is still nearly twice the pre-war figure of about 11,000.”

His figures related to England and Wales only. The total for the United Kingdom, after adding Scottish and Northern Ireland prisons, was 13,005 in 1938 and 26,224 in 1952. (See “Annual Abstract of Statistics, 1954, pages 58-68).

A corresponding figure representing the daily average prison population for the years 1900-1904 was 18,775, and the number in 1913-14 was 17,056. (“English Prisons Today” Brockway, p. 28).

In the House of Lords debate Lord Templewood, who has long been active as a prison reformer, regretted that our “Welfare State” has not dealt with this problem “in a common sense and urgent manner.” He said that though “over the last generation we have had a series of great prison reformers . . . in certain respects, particularly in the matter of accommodation and work, so far from making any progress in a world in which a great deal of progress has been made in other walks of life, we have actually fallen back, I would almost say 50 or 60 years.” (Col. 758.)

He went on:—

“To-day there exists a thing unheard of in the days when I or my predecessors were connected with the Home Office. No fewer than 4,595 prisoners are confined three in a cell; they are shut up in that cell about tea-time in the afternoon, and left there with nothing to do until the following morning. A state of affairs like that would have horrified the great penal reformers of the past, who made our system one of the best in the world.”

Lord Huntingdon thought that something should be done, “not only from the humanitarian or Christian standpoint,” but also from the economic point of view—the cost of prisons is nearly £10 million a year and this could be reduced if the prisoners did more useful work.

He described appalling sanitary conditions which would be a “ disgrace to a Hottentot village.”

Lord Chorley said:—

“There are still in existence jails which were condemned long before the First World War and which are not fit to house swine, let alone human beings.”

Taxing the Rich out of Existence ?

For half a century the Labour Party has been lamenting the existence of the very rich and promising to do something to end, or at least to diminish, inequality of property ownership. The rich themselves and the Tory Party joined with the Labour Party in agreeing that as a fact, whether desirable or not, the rich were disappearing. From time to time, however students of the subject intervene to point out that extermination by taxation had plainly failed and the rich were still with us, not noticeably reduced or inconvenienced.

It is a fact that the concentration of property ownership in the hands of a very small minority has not been materially altered by the ups and downs, war and crises of the past half century.

A special correspondent of the “Times Review of Industry” (April 1955, page 109) has bean analysing the report of the Inland Revenue Department and has drawn some interesting conclusions.

Dealing with duties levied on properties left at death he remarks on the very large proportion of the total payments that came from the small number of large estates: “ This year 97 per cent. of the total duty was paid by 16,514 estates (those over £10,000), and 5,205 estates (those over £25,000) paid 87 per cent.”

The year in question was 1953-4, in which there were in all 71,510 estates that paid duty (estates under £2,000 are not included in these figures as they paid no duty in that year).

The writer of the article had forecast a year ago that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would receive less revenue from estate duties. This turned out to be wrong and the Chancellor actually received £10 million more than on the previous year. Part of this increase is attributed to the rise in share prices on the Stock Exchange— “no doubt the rise in stock market values has helped to swell the capital value of estates. . .”

The writer makes an estimate from the official figures of the income and property of the wealthiest group, those with income above £12,000 (before tax) and with estates above £250,000.

He finds that this group (at present numbering about 2,900) have investments worth £1,300 million. The net income of the group (after paying tax) is about £10 million a year whereas the same group are paying out on estate duty some £40 million a year. In spite of this, he writes, “the class is by no means declining in numbers. . .” and note his final comment:—

“No doubt in many instances the high taxation is offset by tax-free capital profits, but even so the steady increase of a class which, in theory, is being taxed out of existence shows the remarkable resilience of capital in a welfare State."

Crime in America

“The crime rate in the United States rose in 1954 for the seventh consecutive year, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, reported to-day. Major crimes committed last year numbered 2,267,250.

The statistics, published in the bureau’s annual crime report, showed that the crime rate has increased by 26.7 per cent since 1950, while the population increased by seven per cent, in the same period. On an average day last year an estimated 34 persons were feloniously slain and 256 other felonious assaults were committed; 49 rapes occurred; 3,674 larcenies were committed; 592 cars were stolen; and there were 185 robberies and 1,422 burglaries.” (Manchester Guardian, 26.4.1955.)

Mental Illness Hits One in Twenty

The following is taken from a report in the Manchester Guardian (24 March, 1955) of an address given by Mr. Walter Maclay, of the Ministry of Health, at a Mental Health Research Fund Meeting at the Mansion House on the previous evening:—

“Nearly half of all the institutional beds available for all forms of illness, he said, were, in fact, required for patients suffering from mental illness. Anything from 10 to 30 per cent. of all patients seen in general practice were not suffering from physical illness at all, but from some form of psychotic or neurotic condition. One in 20 of all children born would spend some time in a mental hospital. It was most important in the national interest that more should be found out about the causes of such illness and how to cure and prevent it. Research was going on continuously, but it was not enough—it was the object of the Research Fund to provide more opportunities for such research in related fields and, if possible, to co-ordinate them."

Edgar Hardcastle