100 Years of Reforms (1945)

From the July 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are indebted to “The Economist” December 30th, 1944, for the opportunity we are taking of quoting, somewhat more fully than is customary with quotations. The article which appeared in the above issue was called “Condition of the People.” We feel the editor of this shilling weekly (beyond the reading range of the average worker), will not begrudge us the liberty we are taking of so freely quoting from its columns. Our plea, in justification, being to draw attention to their review, their comments.

Now for the quotations with our few brief comments by the way.

“A hundred years ago a young and ardent revolutionary, Friedrich Engels, wrote a book on ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.’ In the closing days of this year, it seems appropriate to attempt a review, however sketchy, of working class conditions in 1944…..

Indeed, to draw any detailed comparison between conditions in 1844 and 1944 would be a waste of time, since there can be no comparison between two incomparables. When Engels wrote his book the total population of the British Isles was less than 20 millions. People lived and worked under primitive barbarous conditions, herded together like cattle in their tenements, they were illiterate, half starved, filthy and diseased. The only relaxations were liquor, horse play and sex. Typhus and the yellow fever spread through the infested dwellings, but the toll of life was no matter because workers were plentiful and cheap.

“. . . . The infantile mortality rate was as high as 155 per thousand . . the average expectation of life in the labouring class in Liverpool was only 15 years. Not for nothing were the 1840’s known as the hungry forties. . . . There are still dark satanic mills in Lancashire and the West Riding. London still has its East End, Glasgow its Gorbals, and Manchester its Ancoats.”

Just one comment may be made here : —

Despite the amenities of life which the more fortunate workers of our day were able, before the war, to experience compared with a hundred years ago, the war years, notwithstanding their fuller employment and purchasing potentialities, find the workers, nevertheless thwarted in a variety of ways, from enjoying a higher standard of living. A few obvious factors may be mentioned; the rationing and coupon system (restricting purchases to bare necessities), black marketing racketeers, which the Government are incapable of controlling, theirs being an unconventional way of buying and selling, with the profit motive the one and only objective —i.e., Capitalism. The “black market” therefore, rules on the luxury or “extra comforts” line.

On top of all this is the aggravated misery of average home life occasioned by the bomb, black out, plus overcrowding which housing shortage causes.

Astutely, the ruling class have also fostered, on a gigantic scale, “national savings,” thereby encouraging the workers to “deny for the sweet by and by.”

The “Economist” continues : —

“But whatever the improvement in health and nutrition, the problem of the rich and the poor, the inequalities of wealth have not been eliminated. Disraeli’s ‘Two Nations,’ still exist. The most recent estimate of the distribution of property, that of Mr. H. Campion, shows that in 1936, out of a total of 16-17 thousand millions of private property …. approximately 85 per cent. was held by 1.8 million persons, or 7 per cent. of the total adult population. Moreover, three quarters of the adult population possessed less than £100 worth of property and 1.5 per cent. of the adult population had property of £10,000 and over. These estimates show that whatever levelling up at the bottom may have taken place and however the relative share of the middle classes in property may have increased, the property structure of Society has not altered fundamentally. (italics ours).

“Mr. R. Titmuss in his “Birth, Poverty and Wealth,” showed that before the War, the infant mortality rate among middle and professional classes was 33 per 1,000 live births, compared with 77 among unskilled labourers.. The class divisions are even sharper in Education. The calculation that only 2 per cent. of the population go to public schools, yet 57 per cent. of the members of Parliament come from the public schools is a striking illustration of the existence of privilege.”

The “Economist” quoting from “Birth, Poverty and Wealth” ibid :—”unsatisfactory sites of homes and villages, insufficient supplies of water, unsatisfactory provision for drainage, grossly inadequate provision for the removal of refuse, widespread absence of decent sanitary conveniences, the persistence of the unspeakably filthy privy midden in many of the mining areas, gross overcrowding and huddling the sexes together in the congested industrial towns and villages, occupation of one roomed houses by large families, groups of lightless and unventilated houses in the older burghs clotted masses of slums in the great cities.”

As the “Economist” says, “the above is not a passage from Engels, it is an extract from the report of a ‘Royal Commission on Housing in Scotland in 1917’ quoted in the 1944 report of the Scottish. Housing advisory Council, with the comment that: ‘these evils have been only slightly mitigated by housebuilding between the two wars.’

“. . . . 40,500 houses in Scotland still have no independent water closets and no sanitary conveniences of any kind. Conditions in Scottish mining areas, according to the recent report on the Scottish coalfields ‘can only be described as deplorable.’ The facts disclosed by the evacuation survey ‘Our Towns’ in 1943 can only be understood against the demoralising background of slum conditions. Public opinion was understandably appalled at the descriptions, unemotionally related by trained social workers, of the dirty and verminous children ridden with scabies and other skin diseases, with disgusting sleeping and feeding habits, of the negligence and fecklessness of their parents. It showed how ignorance and folly were exploited by all kinds of money lenders, clothing clubs, insurance touts, quack doctors and vendors of patent medicines …. they belong to the ‘submerged tenth’ the ranks of the unemployables and the ‘irreducible minimum.’”

The “Economist” concludes on a note of appeal to authority, the Government, to be progressive in a policy of social reform. The “Economist” puts it like this, to quote again from their article : —

“‘Progress’ said Herbert Spencer, ‘is not an accident? It is, or should be, conscious policy, and that policy should be directed towards raising the level of the lowest paid. . . . The year 1945 which should bring the end of the War, will provide an unparalleled opportunity for progress towards these aims . . . reforms in education, health, housing and social insurance . . . family allowances. . . . Whatsoever Government is returned to power it will be committed to this programme of social reform.”

Concluding and summing up the “Economist” says :—

“But to say that there has been progress since 1844 is not enough, the question is whether the advances in social conditions have been commensurate with technical and scientific progress of the nations productive capacity, and the answer, on all the evidence can only be in the negative.” (italics ours).

The above quotations should be a reminder to the working class in their political struggle for emancipation from Capitalist exploitation. A hundred years of reforms, in which Conservative, Liberal and Labour have played their part in advocating, not forgetting the “revolutionary” reforms of the Communist Party.

The Socialist Party again reminds the working class that so long as the means of life remain the private property of the capitalist ruling class, they must remain enslaved to that class. It is the function of the defenders of private property to advocate and institute reforms, thereby prolonging the privilege of the capitalist and their apologetic professional political decoys. Likewise, it is equally necessary for the working class party, the Socialist Party, to be uncompromisingly hostile to, and independent of all other political parties. Because we are convinced of this truth, we are confident, that the workers will join with us in the task we have in hand. That task is the establishment of Socialism—the common ownership of the means of production and distribution—a revolutionary objective, to avert which capitalism will offer every reform under the sun. For such reasons the Socialist Party need not waste time in their advocacy.

Billy Iles