Bebel and the S.P.G.B. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondence arising out of a telegram on the results of the Parliamentary elections, sent by the leader of the German Social Democratic Party to “Reynolds’s Newspaper.”

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The Socialist Party of Great Britain, 

la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

17th February, 1906.

A. Bebel,

Per Addresse “Vorwaerts,” 

68/9 Lindenstrasse, Berlin.

Dear Comrade,

I am instructed by the Executive Committee to forward to you the enclosed cutting from Reynolds’s Newspaper of Sunday, January 28th, 1906, containing text and translation of a telegram alleged to have been sent by you to the paper in question.

The Executive Committee will be glad if you will kindly state whether such a telegram was sent by you, and in the event of a telegram having been sent, whether it is correctly reproduced in the attached cutting.

Awaiting your reply,

Yours fraternally,

(Signed) C. Lehane,

General Secretary.

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HERR BEBEL .
TO “REYNOLDS’S.”
IMPORTANT TELEGRAM. —YESTERDAY.

Herr Bebel, the famous leader of the Social Democratic party in the German Parliament, sent a telegram yesterday to Reynolds’s Newspaper, in reply to a request for his opinion on the results of the General Election. His reply was as follows :—

I welcome the result of the elections as a genuine sign of the desire of the British people for a friendly understanding in foreign affairs, and as a progressive development in domestic affairs. In any case the decision of the voting implies a cold douche for Jingoes with us and with you. On the other hand, with regard to the signs of progress in domestic affairs, I dare not, after old experiences, express an opinion until I know more.

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German Imperial Parliament,

Berlin, February 20th, 1906.

Dear Comrade,

The telegram corresponds with the wording of that sent by me. By way of explanation I wish to state that concerning “progress internally” I have above all in mind possible progress in the amelioration of the working class position. Here I also regard the Liberal Party with distrust.

With fraternal greetings.

(Signed) A. Bebel.

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The Socialist Party of Great Britain,

London, 9th March, 1906.

A. Bebel,

German Imperial Parliament, Berlin.

Dear Comrade,

I am directed by the Executive Committee to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 20th ult. regarding your telegram to Reynolds’s Newspaper.

The Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain wishes to enter its emphatic protest against your action in this matter. The opinion you expressed in the telegram is not in accord with the Socialist position in this country, as set forth in the manifesto (entitled “Why Vote?”) issued by this Party in January last, copy enclosed. Reynolds’s Newspaper is a capitalist organ which has used your telegram against the Socialists and in support of the Liberals.

The Executive Committee regrets that occasion should have arisen to evoke this protest, but the sentiments to which you have given utterance in welcoming Liberalism to political power as an indication of progress in foreign or domestic affairs are such as to leave no other course open. Nationally and internationally there is but one Party to which we can look for progress, and that is the Socialist Party, but Socialism will triumph only by the overthrow of Liberalism in Britain and elsewhere.

Copies of this letter are being forwarded to the German Social-Democratic Party, International Socialist Bureau, and “Vorwaerts.”

Yours fraternally,

(Signed) C. Lehane, 

General Secretary.

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Translated from “Vorwaerts” of March l5th, 1906:

Relating to this matter Comrade Bebel writes us:—

Immediately on the conclusion of the English Parliamentary elections, I received a telegram from the Editorial Department of Reynolds’s Newspaper requesting me to communicate to them my views concerning the result. For this purpose a prepaid telegram form that afforded me the scope of 120 words for my reply was placed at my disposal. As the character of Reynolds’s Newspaper was known to me as that of a bourgeois paper, I at first entertained misgivings as to the advisability of sending a reply. Eventually I dispelled these doubts and sent off the telegram reprinted above.

But I am not a little astonished at the importance the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain attaches to my telegram. When describing the result of the English elections as designating a state of mind of the British people in favour of a peaceable development of affairs externally and conducive to progress internally, I could not, had I been, dreaming, have understood by that only the result in favour of the Liberals, and could not possibly have overlooked the result of the elections in favour of the Socialist Party. The total effect of the elections has the result pointed out by me—the protest raised does not in any way alter my views, which may be characterised in three directions:—

1. Definite disavowal of the protective tariff proposals of Mr. Chamberlain and his colleagues.

2. Renunciation of Jingoism and Chauvinism which have developed more and more under the Conservative regime.

3. Furtherance of progress in the social legislation of England, mainly due to the entrance of representatives of the Socialist Party into Parliament.

In the concluding sentence of my telegram, I certainly expressed distrust as to whether hopes of this kind would be realised in face of the Liberal majority in Parliament.

How the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain could gather from my telegram that I failed to recognise that real progress, internationally and at home, could only be achieved by Socialism, is also a riddle to me. Let no one ascribe to me what, in consideration of my past career, nobody dare impute.

I am not aware in what way Reynolds’s Newspaper has used my telegram against my comrades in England. The loyal interpretation of my telegram that I had reason to expect from the Editorial Department of that journal would have made it impossible. If I have been mistaken in this respect, I am sorry.

(Signed) A. Bebel.

Schoeneberg-Berlin, March 13th, 1906.

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The Socialist Party of Great Britain, 

la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

22nd. March, 1906.

To the Editors, ” Vorwaerts” Berlin.

Dear Comrades,

The questions raised in the telegram sent by Comrade Bebel to Reynolds’s Newspaper and further elaborated by our Comrade in his reply published by Vorwaerts to the protest which the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain felt constrained to enter, are of such serious importance to us here in England and we believe also to the whole international Socialist movement that the Executive Committee desires through the columns of Vorwaerts to deal with the position taken up by Comrade Bebel in this matter.

Let us say at the outset that far from desiring to inconsiderately impute to Comrade Bebel sentiments out of harmony with his record as a fighter in the ranks of Socialism, it was with feelings of pain that we found it necessary to send our protest, recollecting as we did that it was Comrade Bebel who at the International Socialist Congress (Amsterdam, 1904) strongly supported the ”Dresden Resolution” which decisively affirmed our tried and victorious policy based on the class struggle, condemned every attempt to mask the ever-growing class antagonisms, rejected all responsibility of any sort under political and economic conditions based on capitalist production, and discountenanced any measure tending to maintain the dominant class in power; but, having regard to the position laid down in the Dresden Resolution, we deemed it our imperative duty to call attention to an action, to which Comrade Bebel does not appear to attach much importance but to which Reynolds’s Newspaper gave the greatest possible prominence, in the hope that we would in future be saved from the humiliation of seeing the lesson which we have been hard endeavouring to inculcate into the minds of the British working class repudiated by a prominent continental Comrade in the columns of one of the most dangerous organs of Capitalism in this country.

Here we wish to observe that although we called Comrade Bebel’s attention to the manifesto (“Why Vote ?”) issued by The Socialist Party of Great Britain in January last, he has not even hinted at the truth or falsity of the arguments therein set forth. A correct comprehension of the nature of our protest is perhaps impossible unless the position taken up in iliai manifesto is known and appreciated.

Regarding the telegram which is the subject of this correspondence, there is absolutely nothing in it to suggest that the sender was a Socialist, and had it not been announced by Reynolds’s Newspaper that the message had been sent by Comrade Bebel no one would have suspected that this was a pronouncement made by a recognized spokesman of Socialism. On the contrary, the telegram might well be supposed without taxing the imaginative faculty, to have been sent by an ordinary bourgeois radical. Indeed, far from crediting this message to have emanated from Comrade Bebel, and well knowing how erroneous it might be on our part to rely on the mere assertion of a journal like Reynolds’s Newspaper that the published wording was the actual text of the telegram sent, we decided in the first instance to send direct to our Comrade the complete cutting from Reynolds’s Newspaper in order that we might ascertain the authenticity and accuracy of the published message.

We received from Comrade Bebel a letter confirming the telegram and at the same time volunteering the information that as to “progress internally” he had particularly in mind possible progress in the betterment of the position of the working class. The fact that our Comrade thought it necessary to explain a certain part of his telegram would seem to indicate that he himself realised that his message was not explicit in at least this particular, and the further fact that in his statement already published in Vorwaerts he introduced matters not referred to in the telegram serves to shew that he recognises the incompleteness of the position he at first laid down.

In his reply to our letter published in Vorwaerts Comrade Bebel states that his telegram described the result of the English elections as designating a state of mind of the British people ; to this we have raised no objection but we would point out that what we have called attention to was that the telegram also indicated on the part of Comrade Bebel a state of mind which was in our opinion unsatisfactory m so far as it “welcomed” as a sign of progress that result. The concluding sentence of the telegram did certainly express doubt as to whether the expectations of progress would be fulfilled, but similar doubts and in stronger language haver been more than once expressed by Reynolds’s Newspaper itself. That, however, dues not prove the Editor of Reynolds’s Newspaper to be a Socialist. Surely, we are justified in expecting from our comrade an expression of opinion which would convey something more than a doubt as to the power or inclination of the Liberal Party of Capitalism to ameliorate the condition of the working class ? The members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain at any rate entertain no doubts on the matter. British Liberalism is an enemy, and we expect nothing from an enemy but hostility.

Comrade Bebel avers that in sending his telegram he had in mind not merely the result in favour of the Liberals, but also the result in favour of the Socialist Party. Here the result of the elections is regarded as an overwhelming triumph for Liberalism or Radicalism, and as the telegram did not contain any reference to Socialism, it was open to the render to understand that our Comrade sympathised with the Radical victory. We have again perused the telegram and find our impressions in no way altered. In this connection it is well to point out that it is a common practice among capitalist journals in Britain to describe German Socialism as a bourgeois Radical movement, and when we here preach the class struggle they tell us that we are not in accord with the German movement. In the issue of Reynolds’s Newspaper containing Comrade Bebel’s telegram, an editorial article in the column preceding that which was boldly headed by the telegram, points out that “a Socialist in theory is a Radical in practice,” and the publication of the telegram as an ”important” message was calculated to support this position. In that issue, also, is reproduced part of our “Why Vote ?” manifesto, and the obvious contradiction between our advice to the working class to abstain from voting altogether in the last General Election (on the grounds that every candidate appealing for their votes was a conscious or un-conscious supporter of capitalism and that, therefore, whatever the result, it could not be beneficial to them) and the position taken up by Comrade Bebel whose telegram greeted the result as an auspicious sign of progress, was just the. kind of thing which has in the past been used to our detriment by the British Radical press.

Our Comrade says he cannot imagine how we could have thought he did not recognise that genuine progress could be achieved except by Socialism, but there is no mention of Socialism in the telegram and the victory of the Liberal Party is the only result referred to.

Regarding Comrade Bebel’s views with reference to the result of the British elections, we wish to make the following comments :

(1) We agree that it might be described as an expression of determination to uphold the Free Trade system. In view, however, of tho fact that as admitted by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman the head of the Liberal and Free Trade Government, there are in Britain to-day thirteen millions of the working class on the verge of starvation although the Free Trade regime has been established for sixty years, it can scarcely be claimed that the workers have much to congratulate themselves upon. As Comrade Bebel knows, it is difficult to say which are the worst off, the workers of Protectionist America or Free Trade Britain. In Germany where Feudalism is still far from being extinct there doubtless exist reasons for interesting the workers in questions of tariff, but here in Britain where industrial Capitalism enjoys full sway, such reasons are inapplicable. Hence we tell the working class that questions of tariff do not affect them.

(2) If the elections shewed a desire on the part of the British people to renounce jingoism, it is a curious fact that in foreign affairs it is the avowed intention of the Liberal Cabinet to continue the policy of the late Tory Government. On the very day that Reuter’s Berlin telegram containing Comrade Bebel’s view as to the abandonment of Jingoism in England was published, there also appeared in the English press the announcement of the refusal of the British Secretary for War to reduce the standing army which is still on the same footing as it was during the South African War. In this refusal the Government were supported by such “Socialist” Members of Parliament as P. Snowden, D. J. Shackleton and W. Crooks. Indeed, there has been no slackening of Jingoism either during or after tne elections. Comrade Bebel has apparently mistaken Liberal professions for Liberal performances. They profess to be the party of peace, but historical records shew that more wars have been carried on in the name of the British nation while the Liberal Party have been in power than while the Tories have held ollice.

(3) We absolutely deny the accuracy of our Comrade’s assertion that progress is to be expected in the social legislation of England due to the entrance into Parliament of representatives of the Socialist Party. Not a single Socialist canidate was elected. It is not at all clear what Comrade Bebel has in mind when he speaks of the “Socialist Party,” but if he refers to the Labour Representation Committee, which is the organisation that returned the so-called Independent Labour members, we wish to inform our Comrade that this organisation declines to recognise any Socialist candidate : it has no principles, no program, and merely a constitution which states that their members shall be independent of the other political parties. The Independent Labour Party, which ran its candidates under the auspices of the Labour Reprsentation Committee, repudiates the class struggle—see their press. J. Keir Hardie, Chairman of the Labour Party in Parliament, denies the class struggle, and J. Ramsay MacDonald, Secretary of the Labour Representation Committee and Parliamentary Whip of the Labour Party, has recently written a book entitled “Socialism and Society,” published by the Independent Labour Party, repudiating the class struggle and ranking Karl Marx as the last of the Utopian Socialists. Those candidates claiming to be Socialists and recognised as such by the International Socialist Congress or International Socialist Bureau, and who were elected, did not stand as Socialists—they are part and parcel of the non-Socialist Labour Party. The Social Democratic Federation, which is claimed by Reynolds’s Newspaper to be “the only genuine Socialistic organisation in the Kingdom,” did not secure the return of a single Socialist candidate.

The Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain notes that Comrade Bebel recognises that genuine progress in both domestic and international affairs can be achieved only by the Socialist Party, but regrets that he did not remove any possibility of misconception by utilising for the specific indication of this belief the remaining scope of the one hundred and twenty words prepaid by Reynolds’s Newspaper. Had he have done this, the London organ of bourgeois democracy would be unlikely to have given his message the prominence it did.

The Executive Committee of

The Socialist Party of Great Britain,

(Signed) C. Lehane.

General Secretary.

Blogger's Note:

From the same issue of the Socialist Standard see:

• Bebel's Incursion Into English Politics
• Rampageous "Reynolds's."

Editorial: Rampageous "Reynolds's." (1906)

Editorial from the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

With regard to the splutteringly splenetic comments which Reynolds’s Newspaper appears to think the action of our Party in this matter merits, we need only observe that they do not unduly depress us. Curiously enough, we did not expect Reynolds’s to appreciate our protest. We did not suppose, even, that Reynolds’s would understand it. If the hard, cold truth must be told we confess that it was not in our mind that, even presuming Reynolds’s capacity to understand and appreciate a stand for principle, it would have been delighted that the stand should have been made in this particular case. Because if our action secures a wide publicity, and our view obtains a similarly extended endorsement (as we make no doubt it will from those who accept the principle of the class struggle), Reynolds’s stands exposed as merely the capitalist journal it is. This, of course, would not suit Reynolds’s book. It relies largely upon its ability to maintain the fiction that it is a desperately “advanced” organ, at whose voice Re-action halts tremblingly.

So far, therefore, from being abashed by the somewhat subtle sarcasm of its references to “a body calling itself The Socialist Party of Great Britain,” whose secretary, “a Mr. Lehane” etc., or by its crushing denunciation of us as “an obscure sect of Socialist malcontents,” we are almost inclined to hilarity. We cheerfully admit that we are a body calling itself The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We presume to call ourselves that because as a matter of sober fact we are The Socialist Party of Great Britain ! Our secretary is “a Mr. Lehane,” who, as Reynolds’s will be interested to know, we call Comrade Lehane. Also we are Socialist malcontents because there is no other way. If Reynolds’s knows a Socialist who is not a malcontent we should be glad to see him. He would be worth going a long journey to view.

Having gone to this trouble to assure Reynolds’s on these points, perhaps we may now venture to ask a favour for ourselves. That it will be quite an easy request for an organ like Reynolds’s to comply with we are quite ready to believe, although there does seem to be an incomprehensible number of apparently insurmountable difficulties in the way of other, less eminent, organs and persons satisfying our small requirements in the same regard. All we ask is that Reynolds’s will be good enough to slightly abbreviate a few of its Divorce Court reports so that it may find an inch or two of its invaluable space for the publication of the evidence in support of the allegation it has made against us of having sent a misleading letter to Bebel and of largely occupying ourselves with abuse. We should be so much obliged for proof of either or both charges. Would, for example, the extracts from this paper which Reynolds’s has often reproduced with approval contain the abuse? We are sorry to say that we cannot accept, such allegations even from Reynolds’s without some proof.

As it is we are compelled to admit that a complaint of abuse from Reynolds’s comes as refreshingly humourous to us as its rather lumbersome essays in irony. Reynolds’s protesting against abuse is as if the Prince of Darkness protested against the heat !

Editorial: The Second Annual Conference. (1906)

Editorial from the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Second Annual Conference of The Socialist Party of Great Britain will gather at the Communist Club at Easter, to review the work of the year and draw from it the lessons which will enable us to avoid any mistakes of the past and perfect our organisation for the future. The delegates will find the Party stronger numerically than it ever was, and growing rapidly. The propaganda work being confined in the main to the metropolis, our progress has, of course, been made principally in the metropolitan area. Nevertheless, in most of the large and many of the small provincial centres we have now either members of the Party or subscribers to our official organ, THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, and we think we are quite justified in saying that without being extravagantly sanguine over the matter, we have no doubt at all that the near future will show branches forming around the existing nucleus in those districts. At present Watford to the North and Bexley to the South stand as our Branch outposts. A year hence, with the maintenance of that enthusiasm and determination which have endured unabated with our membership during the two years of our existence—and may therefore fairly be regarded now as constant and even an increasing quantity—and we shall surely be heard of further afield. We are young, but in our short two years of life not one single fact, not one isolated incident, has inspired a doubt in our mind as to the correctness of the attitude we have assumed in opposition to all other parties. On the contrary, everything has confirmed us in our faith, and demonstrated the dangers that, attend even the slightest deviation from the line rigidly dictated by the conditions of the class struggle. We have seen how the most honest of men may only traverse these side-tracks and seeming shortcuts at the imminent risk of danger from the pitfalls and gins that beset them. We do not know of an instance where an honest man has escaped unscathed. Knowing therefore what we know, we may go forward with added confidence, satisfied that if our honest man remains honest he will, directly he has discovered his error, make all haste to extricate himself from the difficulties of the political cul-de-sac into which he has unwittingly strayed and follow after along the path of our progress. Let those who gibe at our youth (as though truth had any relation to old age) take what measure of poor consolation they may from their own decrepitude. Let those who sneer at our size (as though truth and bulk were interchangeable terms) make as merry in their hearts as they may. Time, whose inexorable advance none may stay, will cure us all too speedily of our youth, as it will cure our sneerers and gibers of their delusions. For them there is nothing but a painful awakening or—dissolution. The future is with us. Therefore, Comrades of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, let us utilise the opportunity presented by our second Annual Conference to cement again our resolve to follow the straight track at whatever cost, and may our gathering together serve to inspirit us, and nerve us, and strengthen our arm for the work which remains to be done before the last entrenchment of capitalism is rushed, the last rampart scaled, and the forces of Labour, so long held in subjection, come into their own.

The valour of discretion. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Southend S.D.F. prefers to ape Brer Rabbit.

In our January number we referred to and answered certain charges made against the Socialist Party of Great Britain by Mr. Doody, speaking for the Southend Branch of the Social Democratic Federation. These charges were the only answer Mr. Doody appears to have been able to make to questions touching the confusing and unsatisfactory tactics of the S.D.F., which were put to him at a public meeting by our Comrade Rogers. As we were, without difficulty, able to shew, the charges were as devoid of foundation as the allegation that Mr. Doody fully understands the only logical position a Socialist Party can adopt. But as Mr. Doody proceeded to challenge our Comrade Fitzgerald to public debate (in an exuberance doubtless born of the knowledge that Fitzgerald was many miles away), we were content to leave the further presentation of our case in justification of our opposition to the S.D.F. and all other similar capitalist adjuncts in the hands of Fitzgerald, confident of his ability to supply those inhabitants of Southend interested in the matter with all the evidence they might require.

Since then, we have been endeavouring to induce the Southend S.D.F. to give effect to the challenge their champion threw out. We publish the correspondence below from which it will be seen that after much hesitation, they elected to deprive Southend of the pleasure of hearing a local character—as we understand Mr. Doody is—attempt to demolish our case. We can only assume that having some not unnatural misapprehension on this score, they sought to stave off possible catastrophe (and us) by proposing to transfer the discussion from Southend to London. But we are always glad of the opportunity a debate offers to vindicate our position to the working class, and we accepted the changed venue. Since when we can get no further communication from them.

This seems to be a case of a challenge in haste repented at leisure and we ask the workers of Southend where we are pleased to know THE SOCIALIST STANDARD has a very good circulation—to observe what manner of men our opponents are and what manner of method they pursue.

The point that Mr. Doody issued the challenge is, it will be seen, disputed, but as our Comrade Rogers sends details of the incidents leading up to the challenge and has a clear recollection of the whole matter, there seems little doubt that Mr. Doody’s memory is faulty. However, the point is probably in the minds ot the audience of the meeting referred to, and need not be laboured.

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1a. Caledonian Road, London, N.

December 27th, 1905.

Dear Comrade,

We are informed by our member Miss Laura Rogers, that a member of the Southend Branch of the Social Democratic Federation, viz., Mr. Thomas Doody, has publicly expressed his desire to meet our comrade John Fitzgerald in public debate and I shall, therefore, feel obliged if you will inform me as soon as possible, as I understand that you are the Secretary of the Southend Branch of the S.D.F., what proposals you have to make with respect to the challenge.

—Yours fraternally.

R. H. Kent. Asst. Sec.

Mr. S. Howard.

Point Loma, Cromer Road. 

Southend-on-Sea.

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la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

January 17th, 1906.

Dear Comrade,

Will you kindly favor us with an early reply to our letter of the 27th December last, respecting the public, challenge issued by your Mr. Thomas Doody to debate with our Comrade Fitzgerald. 

—Yours fraternally.

R. H. Kent. Asst. Sec.

Mr. S. Howard.

Point Loma, Cromer Road,

Southend-on-Sea.

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Point Loma, Cromer Road, Southend-on-Sea.

Jan’y 20th, 1906.

R.H. Kent,

Assist. Sec’y.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Dear Comrade,

In reply to your letter dated the 17th inst. (to hand last night), I wrote a letter to your office on the 18th inst., but not having your letter of the 27th ulto. before me, I inadvertently addressed it to “Miss Kate Hawkins” as Assistant Sec.! However, the following is a copy of it :—

“I much regret the delay in acknowledging the receipt of your letter of some days ago, with reference to a proposed debate. The question put to Mr. T. Doody by your Miss L. Rogers was, ‘Are yon prepared to defend the tactics of the S.D.F.,’ to which the reply ‘ Yes’ was given; and I am instructed to inform you that he is prepared to do so at any time, and anywhere, in London".

Yours fraternally,

S. Howard,

Branch Sec. S.D.F.

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la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

24th January, 1906.

Mr. S. Howard,

Secretary,

Southend Branch, Social-Democratic Federation,

Point Loma, Cromer Road,

Southend-on-Sea.

Dear Comrade.

I am directed by the Executive Committee to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 20th inst., and in doing so to express their very great surprise at the attempt to change the venue of the proposed debate from Southend to London. They instruct me to point out that the challenge arose out of a public meeting held at Southend under the auspices of the Southend Branch of the Social-Democratic Federation, and was accepted, by Mr. T. Doody who, we presume, was your accredited representative at that meeting.

My Executive, therefore, see no reason why the debate should not be held in Southend, and they suggest that it would not be fair to the members of the public who were present at your meeting when the challenge was given and accepted, if they were deprived of the opportunity of hearing the differences between us fully discussed.

I am accordingly instructed to make the following definite proposals to you: —

That the, debate between Mr. T. Doody, representing the Southend Branch of the Social-Democratic Federation, and our comrade J. Fitzgerald, representing the Executive Committee of this Party, should be held in a public hall at Southend at as early a date as can conveniently be arranged:

That admission to the meeting shall be free : that it shall be well advertised by means of posters and handbills ; and that the total expense shall be borne equally between yourselves and this Party.

Kindly favour me with an early reply, so that arrangements can be made without delay.

Yours fraternally,

R. H. Kent,

Asst. Sec.

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Social-Democratic Federation,

Southend-on-Sea Branch,

Southehurch Road.

Feb. 1st, 1906.

Dear Comrade,

Your letter of the 24th ulto. received, and the same shall be laid before my Branch on the 7th inst.

Yours fraternally,

S. Howard,

Branch Sec.

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Social-Democratic Federation,

Southend-on-Sea Branch,

Southehurch Road. Sunday,

Feb. 18th, 1906.

The Secretary,

Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Comrade,

I reply to your communication of the 24th January. I am instructed to say that my Committee do not see that any good can be gained by having a debate here. Your Party has no branch, and under all the circumstances, if the debate is to take place, it must, as stated in a previous letter to you, be somewhere in London where you have a branch or branches.

Yours fraternally,

P. Pro Branch Committee,

J. Adams.

_______________

la. Caledonian Road, London, N.

24th Feb., 1906.

Mr. J. Adams,

Southend-on-Sea Branch.

Social Democratic Federation, Southchurch Road,

Southend-on-Sea.

Dear Comrade,

Your letter of the 18th inst. was laid before the Executive Committee on Tuesday last, and in reply I am instructed to inform you that the correspondence will be published.

I am further directed to state that the E.C. accepts your offer to debate in London, also your offer to debate in Southend as soon as a branch of this Party is formed in Southend.

Please let us know the dates on which your Mr. Doody could come to London, in order that arrangements may be made for the debate here.

Yours fraternally,

C. Lehane,

General Secretary.

Letter: The Enfranchisement of Women. (1906)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor of “The Socialist Standard.”

Dear Sir,—May I appeal to your readers, men who have fought and won a great victory for Labour, to stand by the women who have now begun in earnest their struggle for political existence?

Working women realise at last that just as Labour men had to agitate and fight to secure their right to be represented in the State, so they must now agitate and fight to win their enfranchisement, for the sake of their homes and their children—for the sake of justice and honour.

Our experience of every agitation for a wider suffrage is that at the last moment women have been left out of the question. We want first to get sex disability abolished, and then to work with all those who desire a broader basis of democratic representation, and a fuller measure of social reform. We shall welcome very gladly all the help we can get from men, and we hope to collect a fund that shall enable us to carry out an organised, vigorous campaign.

Yours etc,

Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence.

Hon. Treasurer,

Women’s Social and Political Union.

Central London Committee.

Reply:

We do not hold the recent election of “Labour” men to Parliament to be a victory for Labour. In our March issue it was shewn to be a victory for confusion.

For the rest Mrs. Pethick Lawrence has reversed what we regard as the correct order of things, and it is for precisely this reason that we are opposed to all the reform school of politicians, whose method is to focus attention upon some supposed ameliorative measure in the hope that by it they may be advanced one step, more or less short, on the road to a more or less distant goal. The goal is subordinate to the steps. We claim that by crystallizing attention on the goal, the possibility of losing our way among a multitude of stops is obviated. It is the goal that matters.

On the question of women’s franchise, for instance, it is the step that concerns Mrs. Lawrence. The goal is a very indistinct and shadowy “fuller measure of social reform.”

Our goal is Socialism. We know that the working class cannot obtain Socialism ’til they understand their class position and the reasons why Socialism alone will materially benefit them. It is our business, therefore, to instruct them so far as we may in their class position and in Socialism. When they understand ; when they are class-conscious, they will fight with us for Socialism. Short of that there is nothing that will avail. The fact that they strive for something less is proof positive that they are not class-conscious. We have therefore class-un-conscious workers to deal with, and if we harness their untutored spirit of revolt to the chariot wheel of reform, we are simply deluding them and wasting energies which might just as well and just as easily be focussed upon the essential—Socialism.

Therefore we are not concerned with electoral reform, howbeit we are of necessity Universal Adult Suffragists. The present franchise which gives the male workers sufficient power to effect any purpose, has been utilised to maintain capitalist domination in politics. That is to say the working-class vote has been used by the working class against working-class interest—why? Because, of working-class ignorance. To an ignorant working class, therefore, the weapon of the vote is useless. Only an intelligent working class can use that weapon to working-class advantage. Why are the workers ignorant? We reply because to a considerable extent their energies have been consumed in unimportant reform agitations such as this of the women’s franchise. How may their ignorance be dispelled ? We answer, by Socialists telling them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth particularly the whole truth.

And the whole truth is that the extension of the franchise to women is not an important matter ; that the important matter is working-class-consciousness—the full appreciation of the absolute and irreconcilable hostility of interest existing between the capitalist class and the working class. When that has been achieved and the workers have organised themselves into a political force translating their industrial antagonism to the capitalist class into political antagonism to all the political forces of capital (which would, of course, be the necessary and inevitable result of class-consciousness), the extension of the franchise to cover women workers and that great body of at present vote-less males, will be effected without difficulty— if, indeed, in the process of organisation, the capitalist class, dismayed by the determination of a rapidly growing working-class party to be satisfied with nothing less than the extinction of capitalism itself, have not enacted a measure of complete enfranchisement in the hope that it might side-track the movement, or at any rate, stay its progress temporarily. If there is one fact that obtrudes upon the attention of students of industrial history more than another it is that the larger the demand preferred by organised determination, the larger the concessions made. We do not, therefore, demand the half-loaf (if it is a half-loaf) of a woman’s vote, nor even the whole loaf (as they regard it) of the more advanced reformer. We demand the whole baker’s shop of Socialism, and it is our business to endeavour to harness the might of the working class to our demand. We have hitched our waggon to a star, and we do not propose to uncouple.

The text for Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and for all who earnestly desire working-class emancipation should be, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Socialism and its righteousness, and all the other things will be added unto you.”

We hope we have without offence made it clear why we cannot respond to the appeal made for help. We have important work to do.

More Confusion. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have before us a copy of the Agenda for the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the United Government Workers’ Federation, which was held on the 15th and 16th of March: a document that illustrates very clearly the confusion existing in the minds of the workers as to the class struggle.

The Agenda consists of about 50 Resolutions on Education—these are tucked away at the bottom of the Agenda and consist of something less than the familiar list of pious aspirations on the subject usually voiced at the Trades Union Congress. The Executive put forward a motion congratulating local organisations on the return of Messrs. Crooks, Bowerman and Jenkins and regretting the failure of Messrs. Quelch and Saunders. And another congratulating the Labour M.P.’s and asking them to ballot for motions for bringing the question of improving the position of State employees before the House of Commons.

Nearly all the rest of the Agenda consists of Resolutions “calling on” “urging,” “respectfully urging,” “requesting,” . . the Government to concede some special points interesting one or other of the local organisations. These or similar motions have doubtless been passed hundreds of times before by working class assemblies with exactly the same result—just nothing at all. How much longer will the workers continue to beg cringingly, each little section for itself, instead of boldly standing up as a class and taking what is their own.

A. R. V. M.

SPGB Meetings. (1906)

Party News from the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard