Just now it is the fashion for everybody to ask everybody else to define their attitude, to state their war aims. Not to be outdone, God has lined up with the rest in so far as he has made a pronouncement as to his attitude. At least, so we are told in a “Prophetic Message" that is being circulated. I don’t know what enterprising individual has managed to secure an interview, or what pressure has been brought to bear; that, I suppose, is a diplomatic secret. He is pro-Ally, of course, as the message below will show.
“If it were not for the prayers of mine own chosen people, who are calling unto me day and night, I would have swept the people of this nation from before me,'' saith the Lord. "But it is the prayers of my people who are saving this nation and withholding me from destroying them utterly. But I am still the prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, and for mine own people’s sake I will not destroy, but I will pour out the vials of my wrath till they humble themselves and repent, and seek me to deliver, for I am the Lord God of Hosts, and I am still the God of battles as well as the God of peace.
Taking it on the whole, it is about at clear as anybody else's “attitude,” but I have a strong suspicion that God has told the same tale in other than Allied quarters. He can hardly be blamed for trying to keep square with everybody, as his reflections cannot be at all comforting, considering the mess he has made of the human race. If I might venture to give him a tip, the best attitude he could have adopted, to my thinking, was that of "benevolent neutrality.”
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Speaking of "attitudes,” there is no mistaking that of the Labour Party. To anything savouring of democracy they are in deadly opposition. They make no effort to hide it. In fact, they are brazen over it. Their members never seem to tire of affirming their allegiance to the capitalist class, and the capitalist Press is invariably at their disposal for the purpose of voicing their their support of capitalist interests. But one of the clearest official pronouncements is made by Mr. W. F. Purdy, chairman of the party executive and assistant secretary of the Shipwrights Union in an interview with a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian” (7.6.17), from which I take the following extracts. Speaking on the party's attitude toward the war and the Stockholm Congress he said:
At the Annual Conference at Manchester in January there was an unmistakable decision that the Labour Party should not take part in any international congress on peace and war until victory was achieved, and then only with the Socialists and trade union organisations of the Allied Powers. . . it was an honourable obligation on all sections of the party to respect it or get out. (This latter is a rub at the I.L.P. peace delegates.) . . . They (the I.L.P.) opposed the voluntary recruiting scheme, they opposed Labour taking any share in the first coalition Government, they opposed the Military Service Act, they opposed our joining the present coalition Government; yet all these decisions have been endorsed by the legally elected and constituted conference of the party. As chairman of the Executive of the Labour Party, I am not going to meet or sit in conference with representatives of the enemy countries while we are at war. I mean to carry out the policy of British Labour as laid down by our representative gathering. That policy is to pursue the war to a successful termination—which means to a complete victory over the enemy.
So there you have it. Capitalism for ever! On with the orgy of blood !
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Perpend. Lord Hugh Cecil in the Debate on the Franchise Bill (6.6.17) “cheered himself by thinking that the Labour Party hardly ever knew its own interests; indeed, the political incompetence of the Labour Party was much the greatest safeguard of our constitutional system.”
Gee!
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Such is the prevailing ignorance and confusion regarding the real causes of the war and the issues involved—due, in the first place, to the indifference, before the war, to matters political and economic, and secondly, to the deliberate lying and bluffing of the capitalist and pseudo-labour Press and politicians—that it does not come as a surprise to find sections of “organised” workers hotly denouncing and and repudiating each other, for all the world as if the responsibility for the war was theirs as well as their masters’.
Such a position was the outcome of the recent peace convention at Leeds. It claimed to be a representative gathering. It was. I.L.P.ers, B.S.P.ers, Labour fakers, Quakers, Syndicalists —in fact a regular hotch-potch—rubbed shoulders with each other. From such a mixture of elements nothing tangible and clear could emerge, and, as one foresaw would be the case, the issues put forward for discussion were capitalist issues pure and simple.
Of course, the mere cry, of “peace” was sufficient to rouse the Labour Party into immediate opposition, along with other organisations, some of which were allied to those represented at the convention! Can you wonder at the success of every move made by the master class ? Some want peace, others don’t. Those who want peace suggest negotiations on terms that concern only the capitalists. Those who deprecate any “premature” or “patched-up” peace do so also for reasons that only concern capitalists. The latter are usually led by the type of idiot who believe that “capital and labour ought to be reconciled” in a time of national stress, and who devote their energies to bringing about such a condition (they believe it possible!)—that is, when they are not wholly engaged in the service of capital.
A great many there are, of course, as we happen to know, who thoroughly understand the correct line to be taken up—based on a dear conception of Socialist principles—and there is no reason whatever why anyone should be left in the dark. The matter is quite ample. Yet when one examines the composition both of convention and opposition, and reflects that all of them derive their knowledge from the same source, is., the stuff emanating from such people as Lansbury, MacDonald, Blatchford, Hodge, Bottomley, etc., etc., it makes one-wonder if the light will ever down on them—whether order will ever come out of chaos.
Due to this condition of things, it is unfortunately true that the majority of the working class of Britain, despite the suffering entailed, accept and support, and very often defend, the principle of the “right” to fight, to suffer, and to die in defence of the interests of their masters.
It remain for Socialists to combat and banish this fatal principle. Only by the permeation of Socialist doctrine will capitalism and labour-fakerism, with their concomitant evils—war and ignorance-cease to exist.
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A minister, asked in the House of Commons how many British airmen lost their lives in the last German air-raid on London, replied that he did not know. Such a reply must add greatly to the general confidence in the veracity of the war figures the Government treats us to.
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Anyone familiar with the protean accomplishments of Bill Thorne will not be surprised at his latest stunt. As a versatile artist Bill is Class A, and it should not be long before he is top of the bill. His latest “turn” is a visit to Buckingham Palace to see the King. Bill describes it as very interesting. ” It was marked by an entire absence of formality or convention. It was my first visit to Buckenham Palace, but I went there as if I had known the place all my life.” That’s just Bill all over. He can adapt himself anywhere. I wonder if he went in the coat Sir F. E. Smith gave him. I can imagine the look of imitative dignity on Bill’s face as he was ushered in by the flunkey!
And what would the flunkey have thought could he have known that he was bowing and scraping to one of the biggest flunkeys in the country ? But perhaps the coat did the trick. Good old Bill! If cheek can accomplish anything you’re the boy for the job. Hobnobbing with Royalty ! Gee! I wonder what’s in the wind!
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A report is current that the extensive work of the German missionary societies in Togoland is being taken over by Scottish missionaries, and that a large sum of money is being raised for the purpose. This would appear to mean that the country itself, as in the case of Uganda, where the flag followed the missionary, will be “taken over”—in the interests of British capitalism, forming, as it does, a valuable source of raw material which the manufacturer at home is anxious to take advantage of, along with an available amount of labour-power requisite for its supply. It used to be said that “the flag follows the missionary, trade follows the flag," but, as a writer in the “Daily Mail” (9.6.17) points out, the old motto is amended in this crisis—trade directs the flag. One aspect of it that is never amended is that exploitation follows the lot, every time. The following lines by A. C. Benson should be appropriate to the occasion :
“Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How can we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds beset: God, who made thee mighty, make mightier yet."
Gott mit uns! Truly we are a great nation !
May Field
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