Should the workers obey the law? The working class viewpoint. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Capitalist Ideal … ‘a law-abiding citizen‘

Those four words constitute the very highest eulogy than can be pronounced by capitalist lips. A man may be a poltroon or a hero, a rogue or a fool, a Christian or an atheist, an abstainer or a sot, a prince or a porter, but the finale for all worthy men alike, at the end of the day’s workless pleasure or pleasureless work, is this sententious approval – “He was a law-abiding citizen.”

On all other matters appertaining to the conduct of other people capitalists may be divided. One is monarchist, another republican, a third a teetotal fanatic, and a fourth a devotee of the hop and the grape, and the convictions of each play their part in the appraisement of the merits of their fellow men; but, whether they fill it with wine or water, not one would refuse to drain a glass and turn it, empty, down, to the memory of “a law-abiding citizen”.

But what is this fetich which is the highest pinnacle of capitalist ethic, the last word in capitalist morality? The Law! The Might and Majesty of the Law; the strong arm of the Law. Ah! that is the whole secret of it. The Law is all might, and majesty, and strong arm. Soldier and sailor, judge and jailor, policeman and prison and Jack Ketch! The Might and Majesty of the Law, indeed.

One would think that the Law, needing the support of such a vast machinery of coercion, must be a very uncomfortable and unpleasant thing to some people, and not that only, but antagonistic to an enormous number of the population. It must be so indeed. If Peace sits armed beneath her olive, she is armed against somebody.

And who is it that the Law is armed against? Perchance, reader, it is you and me. 

It is a saying which  continually assails our ears, that without Law there could be no Order. If this is true, if this is the very nature of things human, then it is truly a sad case with that poor, miserable rag, “human nature”, which it profits the prophets to tell us is fore-ordained to frustrate the Socialist ideal.

But it is not true. In spite of all that our “civilisation”, and particularly our capitalist “civilisation” has done for it, still “human nature” has not fallen so immeasurably below the wild beast standard that, in all circumstances, order can only exist under the wing of the Law.

The Law is a Class Instrument.

The common impression of that all is disorder and insecurity in savage life is far from the truth. In point of fact all the might and majesty of the Law has never been able to secure the orderly existence that obtained among primitive savage people. Barbarities there may be, connected with superstitious rites, but anarchy has never found a place among the savage races of the communistic stage. The reason is obvious – the interest of one is the interest of all.

Disorder creeps in with the rise of a ruling class, and Law slinks at its heels. A ruling class is always more or less parasitic. It raises itself upon the class it rules, making the latter toil and moil for it. In other words, it is a robber class.

Now if there is one trait inherent in “human nature” it is this – a rooted objection to being robbed. That process never fails, as far as the victim is conscious of it, to arouse the spleen of him whom it is practised upon. Hence a coercive force becomes necessary – not to the subject class, but to the ruling class.

This coercive force exists to conserve the social system under which, and the institutions by which, the dominant class practise their robbery. At first coercion is open, lawless force, for no cunningly devised cloak can obscure the antagonism of interests between the chattel-slave and his master. But as society grows more complex, as the ruling class finds itself threatened by other classes rising from below, as the rulers in society become relatively fewer, and, finally, as they are compelled more and more to rely on the subject classes to become their own suppressors, the necessity develops of substituting laws to be maintained for people to be suppressed.

Suppression is the function of the Law.

But whether the big ones of the earth  make laws for the suppression of people, and maintain those laws by force, or they suppress the people without troubling about laws, is in essence the same thing – suppression. Only the method is different.

From the earlier rising of the “State”, class rule has been based upon private property, so Law, at the bottom, has always had a private-property basis. This explains how it happens that the Law of ancient Rome has served for the foundation of the Law of every modern State. Roman Law was projected to maintain the ascendancy of a propertied class. After all these centuries, though new classes have risen and died away, still Law has no other function than to support a propertied class against the expropriated.

Law, then, is nothing but a class instrument – a weapon of the capitalist State for its own preservation. It is necessary to the capitalist State because the ruling class in capitalism have laid thieves’ hands upon the means of life and enslaved the people. The strong arm of the Law, soldier and sailor, judge and jailor, policeman and prison and Jack Ketch, is significant of the class struggle and class antagonism set up by that seizure of the means of life.

The Law is the Enemy of the People.

When the worker understands this his attitude toward the Law will be determined  accordingly. As he perceives it to be antagonistic to him, so he will become antagonistic to it – as, with increasing class-consciousness, he must to every instrument of the capitalist State. However much he may be made to fear the Law, the proletarian will no longer respect it. He will come to regard it in its true light, as the enemy, not the friend, of the working class; as the necessary adjunct of class rule, by means of which alone the producers of all wealth can be robbed and murdered and debauched, with some sort of one-sided orderliness, by a class of idle, drunken parasites, steeped to the neck in moral turpitude, sunk to the eye-brows in abomination which even the hardened Law dares find no name for.

That superstitious awe which, quite apart from the fear of policeman and prison and Jack Ketch, surrounds the Majesty of the Law, will dissipate, and no longer will the worker “blush for shame” at being caught in the act of law-breaking. On the other hand, such episodes as the “Houndsditch affair” and “Sidney Street” will assume a different aspect. It will be seen that, instead of the police laying down their lives for any high principle, they have died to secure against the depredations of desperate members of the working class, the wealth stolen from their fellows with outrage and violence infinitely more villainous than ever these so-called Anarchists resort to, as the ghastly murders of Whitehaven and Westhoughton transcend in callous brutality those of Houndsditch.

Great as the revolutionary’s satisfaction must be to observe the breaking down and extinction of this reverence for the Law that is equivalent to so many thousands of extra policemen to the capitalist class, such satisfaction does not arise solely from the fact of the increasing difficulties of our expropriators and spoliators, but from the recognition of the larger fact that, as successive lessons such as that now being wrought out in connection with the strike at Hull, teach the workers how the Law is always on the side of the masters, how completely it is in their hands, they will be driven to enquire what the Might and Majesty of the Law really means.

The Workers’ Course.

This spirit of enquiry will be the herald of the dawn. They will perceive then that this mass of legality which men call law, is simply the stalking-horse of oppression, the verbal garment of brute force. They will realise that it is this brute force alone which maintains the murderers of Whitehaven and Bolton, of Belfast and Tonypandy, in power, by maintaining their control of the means of life.

The workers’ course will then be very clear. They will set their faces toward the capture of all this coercive force, by organised struggle on the political field. When they have succeeded in capturing political power they have, by the very fact of so doing, proclaimed at once their strength and their capacity. Their strength to wield the armed forces to the revolutionary purpose, since they will have captured the instruments by which it is wielded. Their capacity to organise themselves as a productive community, since they will have organised themselves for the infinitely more difficult task of their own emancipation.

The first fact in itself would undermine the military strength of the capitalist class, for the working-class soldiery armed in the capitalist interest, realising the political strength of their own class, and inevitably sharing in the advanced proletarian class-consciousness, would be encouraged to follow their class interest – just as the French regulars, under the much less favourable circumstances of the Paris Commune, sided with the workers when they thought them strong, and against them when they thought them weak.

Let the workers, therefore, regard the Law and its machinery from their own standpoint – as an instrument of their oppression, and organise themselves into a political party in order to capture it, and use it in the final act of all law, the glorious crowning fruition of the last and bitterest of all class struggles – their own emancipation from slavery.

A. E. Jacomb

Editorial: The strike and its leaders. (1911)

Editorial from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who has not read the Liberal rejoicings over the tremendous increase in the shipping returns? The Tariff Reformer has been continually confounded by the Liberal’s references to the progress of the shipping trade. The Free Traders have told us that British capital controls more than half the carrying trade of the world. But our good Liberal Press has changed its tune very remarkably during the past few weeks. The great majority of the shipowners are members of our Liberal party, and the ferment among the seamen they employ has met with their most vehement opposition. No longer are told about the wealthy and ever-rising shipping industry ! But we are met with the lying plea that there is depression in the trade and the granting of better terms to the men will ruin the industry.

The men are fighting one of the most brutal unions of employers that capitalism has ever known. Besides a strong organisation with great financial resources sufficient to indemnify their members for any decline in profits, the Liberal shipowners have driven the once sacred and hallowed “competition” out of their business. Line after line has amalgamated with its rivals, and alliances and agreements have made “cutting” a thing of the past, and strengthened the position of the masters against the workers.

At a time when the Liberals are claiming to be the only true friends of the working class, it is useful to notice the actual composition of this party. What are the prominent names in the shipping trade ? Russell Rea, M.P., the Cobden Club champion ; Lord Furness, the director of twenty companies ; Mark Palmer, the lord of Yarrow; the great Wilson family of Hull ; the Runciman family of immortal memory ; the Pirries ; the Phillips ; the Peases : Liberal shipowners all. They are they who pay that £5 per month for skilled men working in the modern moving infernos is outrageous.

The hypocrisy of these supporters of “the greatest democratic government of our time” is glaring. Lord Furness was one of the most prominent “opponents” of (that terminological inexactitude) “Chinese Slavery.” His protests were pathetic, and his tearful denunciation of “the greatest blot on England’s fair fame” will be remembered even when other Furnesses sit in that ever-extending chamber of horrors. But Furness & Co. believe that sentiment “in business” does not pay. That explains why the “Persiana,” of the Furness line, lying in Barry Dock, engaged Chinese firemen at £3 10s. per month in preference to firemen of other nationalities at £4 10s. An unconsidered trifle is the fact that it costs 1s. 3d. per day to keep an European, but 6d. covers the cost in the case of the celestial.

It is enlightening to learn that the seamen’s leader, Mr. J. Havelock Wilson, is a staunch supporter of the Liberal party. It is something of which a workmen’s leader should be proud. He was elected for Middlesborough in the Liberal interest, and the great foes of the workers—the Liberal shipowners—have always been pleased to contribute to his election fund. At the bye-election at Jarrow in 1910 he withdrew as seamen’s candidate because “he did not contend that Mr. Russell Rea would not make as good a representative as he would,” and “he did not want, under the circumstances, to let the Conservative in.” Of course, Mr. Wilson has been amply repaid for his help to our masters, by the presence of the mighty ones on his election platforms.

What reason can a seamen’s representative have for supporting the Liberal party ? One of the first things the beloved Lloyd George did after his appointment in 1906 was to bring in a Merchant Shipping Bill, by which he raised the load line of British vessels. Havelock Wilson knows this, for did he not tell the unemployed seamen of Jarrow (vide Manchester Guardian) that “thousands of you are so unemployed to-day because of that very alteration of the load line, for at one stroke of the pen, by the alteration of the freeboard of ships, we have added to the tonnage of our vessels nearly one million tons of shipping.”

Thus cunningly and silently did the shipowners’ champion, Lloyd George, undo the work of Samuel Plimsoll. The latter carried on an agitation in the House of Commons in the early seventies, but met with the determined opposition of Gladstone & Co. For correctly describing the Liberal shipowners as “cold-blooded murderers” they had him brutally ejected from the House. How well the Liberals display the continuity in their brutality ! When the great Liberal shipowner, Wilson, tried to break the Hull Dock Strike in 1894, by importing blacklegs, the Liberal Government despatched gun-boats to protect Wilson’s property and guard the strike-breakers.

It is to Hull that the Liberals have again sent the forces of the State. The London policemen, fresh from performing the capitalists’ coronation celebrations, have been called upon to discard their medals, white gloves, etc., and to proceed to Hull, armed with strong batons, for the purpose of enabling the Liberal shipowners to run their brutal business.

The police have already tried their practised hands on the strikers and the hospitals are busy. We may expect the soldiers to be utilised shortly, for has not Mr. Winston Churchill told us in the House of Commons (June 26) that “when a local authority borrowed police it had to pay for them, but could obtain soldiers without paying anything at all. Consequently there was an incentive to use soldiers instead of police.”

Meanwhile the men’s leaders are playing the masters’ game very well. The Union Castle and the Royal Mail lines had arranged for ships to take the plutocratic parasites to see the Naval review at Spithead. According to the Manchester Guardian of June 22, “In the morning Mr. Havelock Wilson stated in an interview that he was going to send a telegram to the owners of the Coronation ships that the Union were willing to enter into negotiations to supply crews, without any regard to other matters under dispute, in order that the coronation guests might not be inconvenienced.”

This is the strain that might be expected from a man who, in the contest in which the Labour, Liberal, and Tory parties were represented, shocked the Labourites by supporting the Liberal, who was a well known South Wales shipowner (Mr. S. H. Radcliffe).

The Union leaders are advising the men to accept terms which mean a miserable struggle to exist in the future as in the past. “Now I find,” says Havelock Wilson, “that in one or two instances where companies have recognised the Union and I have ordered a compromise, there has been reluctance to carry out my instructions.”

Mr. Wilson is far more anxious for the recognition, of the Union, in other words of the leaders, than for securing the workers a better position. He wants to become a power, and if any workman fails to do his bidding—he threatens to resign.

In the manifesto quoted above Mr. Wilson says also :

“Before war was declared a conference of the representatives of the seamen was held, and after discussing the whole of our policy it was unanimously decided that I should have full and absolute control of the movement right through the United Kingdom, with full power to modify terms and insist upon higher ones, just as the movement presented itself to me.”

So bad are the conditions of life for the dockers at Liverpool that this same leading Liberal paper (June 29) says :

“Non-union men are forcing the pace for the Union. It was non-union men who declined to unload the Glasgow boat which came in with a non-union crew, and non-union dockers, not disciplined to await a signal from recognised and authorised leaders, have been coming out elsewhere as the days have elapsed.”

And they further state that “it has been impossible to distinguish the non-union from the Union man, unless it has been that the non-union man has been the more ready to give up his job.”

Our sympathy is extended to the struggling seamen in their fight, but we would counsel them to be wary of the wiles of their leaders. They may get a concession from time to time to suit the convenience of their masters, but the battle they fight to-day will have to be continually fought, and when these battles are over they are wage-slaves still, with all the horrors of capitalism still to face.

Great changes in the ways of navigation also portend trouble for the toilers. The adoption of oil fuel instead of coal is considered a great saving by the masters. When this is more widely used the fireman will have their unemployed ranks increased.

The dockers who are striking have had lessons in this direction. Ever since the concession of the “tanner” an hour in 1889, speeding-up and hustling is a marked feature of dock life. Working with fewer men in a gang to do the work ; the use of cup and suction elevators ; the adoption of improved cranes : these are the weapons with which the dock labourers are faced, and that have resulted in so much casual employment amongst them.

The leaders of the Dockers’ Union are equally reprehensible with those of the seamen. Ben Tillett, the man who has gone up and down the country, at Trade Union Congresses, and in Liberal rags, advocating “Compulsory Arbitration”—the employers’ panacea. Tom Mann, who is trying to side-track the workers into wasting their powers in a futile chasing of “a kind of unionism known as industrial unionism.”

These are your leaders, toilers of land and sea !

Blogger's Note:

The 1910 bye-election where J. Havelock Wilson withdrew his candidacy was not Jarrow; it was South Shields.

The Birkbeck collapse. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are always being told about “the savings of the working classes” and the vested interest they have in the banks and allied institutions in this country. But when the Birkbeck Building Society’s Bank closed its doors, another story was told by our good capitalist Press.

We then heard of the hundreds of pounds being lost by this investor and that one, and day by day the story was continued of 10s. in the £ amounting to one, two and three hundred pounds, being carried away.

Much was written about the struggle of this shopkeeper and that professional man, etc., to save up his little hoard.

Once for all, then, the anti-Socialists give the lie to their own cry. that it is the savings of the workers invested in these institutions. They themselves amply prove that the banks are filled with the money of others than members of the working class

Even the small savings of the working class are at the mercy of the capitalist financiers. The workers do not control the money, which comes into the hands of the capitalists, who use it to exploit the toilers.

The sequel to the bankruptcy supplied backing to the Socialist contention that the control over capital concentrates into relatively fewer hands as this system develops.

The business of the Birkbeck was acquired by the London County and Westminster Bank, one of the premier banks, with a capital of 14 millions. That is the usual way—the small concern dies the large one grows greater at its expense.

Adolph Kohn

Labour in Lancashire. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many facts of interest to workers may be gleaned from the report of the International Federation of Textile Workers’ Associations, presented to their conference held at Amsterdam in June. Mr. Wm. Marsland, the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Cotton Spinners of England, is also Secretary of the Federation, and he tells us that out of the total membership of 430,027, England accounts for 200,000. During the three years the Report covers the membership in this country has remained stationary. This stagnant condition has obtained in most other lands, and is ascribed to “the severe depression in trade which has been more or less prevalent in all countries for the greater part of the three years.”

In the reports from the British Spinners’ Unions, Mr. Mullin, secretary of the Card and Blowing Room Operatives, states that the funds have suffered greatly during the last three years. In 1908 £1,730, 1909 £27,000, and in 1910 £45,000 was paid out for “Bad Trade” benefit. “The drain on our funds for accidents and injuries to members has been very great,” he points out, notwithstanding the century of “factory legislation” we have had.

On behalf of the Operative Spinners’ Association Mr. Marsland states that, since 1908 £277,000 has been paid in “Bad Trade” benefit and £173,000 for strikes and lock-outs.

Mr. W. C. Robinson, of the “Beamers, Twisters and Drawers,” says: “The mechanical drawing and tying machines grow but slowly ; however, they are increasing, and we expect they will do, consequently we have to make some additional provision for monetary payments to our members who are thrown out of work in consequence of their introduction.”

Under the “Weaving Section” reports, Mr. J. Cross, of the Northern Counties Weavers’ Amalgamation, points out that “the majority of the mills worked short time, and some of them were closed altogether for months at a stretch, and £276,000 was spent in the three years on strikes and stoppage.” After drawing attention to the pilfering “system in the weaving department of inflicting fines for alleged bad work,” mostly caused by the cheapest materials being used, Mr. Cross goes on to say : “In about one-half the weaving mills it is the practice to use artificial humidity in order to make what may be called a ‘weaving atmosphere.’ The practice is to send into the sheds hot steam ejected from the pipes, or to spray the air with fine particles of water. The workpeople have taken strong objection to artificial humidity of any kind on the ground that it is detrimental to their health, and that the practice is mostly required ia order to facilitate the weaving of inferior material. The objections of the workpeople can be well understood even by an outside observer, when it is explained that hot steam is sent through the sheds even during the summer months, causing the greatest personal discomfort and much physical prostration, and in the winter in months the sheds are heated to such an extent that many people are apt to contract bronchitis and rheumatism.”

It is news pregnant with dire meaning for the immediate future to learn that :

 “The Northrop loom is making progress, and if the adoption of the loom should assume a mire rapid character THE COTTON WEAVERS OF LANCASHIRE WILL BE FACE TO FACE WITH THE GREATEST PROBLEM OF THEIR LIVES. When it is considered that the operatives are working 12, 16, and 20 NORTHROP LOOMS EACH, AND THE NUMBER OF LOOMS OF THE LANCASHIRE TYPE WORKED BY EACH WEAVER (THE AVERAGE IS ABOUT FOUR LOOMS FOR EACH WEAVER) THE PROSPECT OF STEADY EMPLOYMENT IN THE FUTURE IS NOT VERY BRIGHT.”

“It is admitted on every hand that the introduction of the new loom means the displacement of a large number of workpeople, and it cannot be expected that the cotton trade will ever, under the most favourable conditions, be able to expand sufficiently to absorb the unemployed.”

Time after time during the last 70 years hours have been reduced in the cotton factories and strike after strike has been declared. Yet the fact stands out that the operative of to-day is faced with greater difficulties than ever before. He produces more in fewer hours, and works “short time” and is unemployed to a degree previously unknown. Through sheer depletion of their funds the operatives go back to work on the masters’ terms after being locked out for weeks. Combination among the masters and amalgamation of companies proceed fast and far. In view of the conditions under which the men work and the poverty they suffer, it is not surprising that ill health dogs their footsteps all their lives. At a protest meeting against the Insurance Bill held by the Lancashire Branch of the British Medical Association we were told, anent the £160 limit: 

“That, as they knew in Lancashire, was going to take away from them the cream of their practice. Wage earners from 30s. per week upwards were the backbone of their practice, and they received from these wage earners more than from all the others combined.” 

Hence we see that it is the workers who provide the doctors with work—and fees—through illness resulting from the conditions of their toil.

What have the Lancashire toilers done to end their slavery ? History answers “Little.” Lancashire is a stronghold of Liberalism and Free Trade, and despite the fact that the great majority of the employers in her staple industries (textiles) are Liberals, they are voted info place and power every time. Mr. C. W. Macara, the secretary of the employers’ federation, who has again and again organised the lock out of the operatives and reduced them to servile submission, is also Vice-President of the Free Trade Union and a noted Liberal. The officials of the trade unions are Liberals also practically to a man and the Labour M.P.s for local divisions may be seen advocating Free Trade upon the Free Trade League platforms throughout Lancashire. Is it not time that the workers of Lancashire took a lesson from their employers and organised politically to protect their interests ? It cannot be done by Labour Parties who support half-time for children in the mills, and who seek to murder the toddling little ones by backing Bills to lower the age at which they leave school and enter the factory hells of Lancashire.

No ! The road to liberty, the road from slavery, is the Socialist road. March on, toilers of Cottonopolis !

Adolph Kohn

Co-partnership in gas works. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the annual meeting of the Labour Co-partnership Association, held at Westminster in March and reported in the columns of the “Gas World” (April 1st.), the president, Mr. Corbett Woodall, said there was evidence of “a revolt against the attempted classification of human flesh and blood with raw material, or fuel, as a contributory to the supposed need of capital in the way of profitable employment.” The “attempt,” we are told, was an error, even from an economic point of view, as riper experience had abundantly demonstrated. Meanwhile labour organised for its own deliverance.”

It may be noted in passing, that such elastic logic on the part of Mr. Woodall permits him to declare first, that the attempted classification is economically unsound, and then to show trade union and labour organisation as a desire on the part of the workers for deliverance. This tempts one to ask, what do they wish to be delivered from?—especially as the platform of the Co-partnership Association has resounded to the tread of such considerate friends of the workers as Alexander Henderson, Arthur J. Balfour, and others.

Since the workers’ very existence is determined by the economic basis of present society, it is fatuous for Mr. Woodall to say no one can possibly object to “defensive” action on the part of the wage-earner. If the workers’ premisses are unsound, then the defensive, action falls and constitutes the objection in itself.

Corbett Woodall mouths effusions as to a fair minimum wage. He might just as reasonably talk of an honest burglary. He says the workers must not be aggressive, because co-partnership spells salvation to them. They must not pin their official faith to Socialism.

The speaker knew, and had great respect for, many labour leaders, and it surprised him that “so many of them should profess themselves Socialists." Mr. Woodhall must realise that when labour men are Socialists they will not seek his society or respect, or pat him on the back on Co-partnership platforms. They will, instead, be educating the trustful and misguided “co-partners” in the science of revolt, and not in leading them to the shambles.

“What is wanted,” Mr. Woodall went on to declare, “is an appeal to the soul of man, who has never been satisfied with bread alone.” We require inducement to the improvement of man and of the fruits of his toil. The hope of mankind lies in his power of self-sacrifice.

But what self sacrifice has Mr. Woodall and his like, unblushing mouthers of “altruism” as they are, ever subjected themselves to? The various agreements drawn up for “co-partners” to sign certainly show nothing on the masters’ part of self-sacrifice, no tendency except to perpetuate the wages system. Their actions are as materialistic even as Mr. Woodall declares Socialism to be, and conceived on class lines narrower than that of the trade union policy he girds at—narrower if only because the capitalist class is smaller. They recognise to-day that it is cheaper to bribe the worker than to fight him, more so as the wages have gradually decreased since the introduction of profit-sharing by gas companies, not to mention the speeding-up, the introduction of wage saving machinery, and the miserable system of espionage, inseparable from the profit-sharing, as apparently, an appeal to the soul of man.

The present writer, at all events, cannot disagree with Mr. Woodall’s claim that the world is ripe for another step upward and onward in social progress. It its not only capitalism, however, that is “growing weary of wages settlements that do not settle anything, and of bargains that bear no more strain than wet paper.” But the way does not lie through co-partnership, and it is hopeless to think of agreements to obtain finality when a growing number of the working class absolutely deny the right of existence to a master class, and declare that nothing short of the overthrow of the existing social form can eradicate the hostility which exists between employers and employed.

A table was submitted showing that in all 28 companies with 19,613 co-partner employers have paid £726,126 in a period of 21 years. The highest percentage was paid by the South Metropolitan Gas Co.—8¼ per cent. This, on a wage of 25s. a week would be less than 2s. On the other hand, where wages were 35s., they are now 25s., so that to reduce wages 10s. at a cost of 2s. in the guise of divided profit, certainly warrants all the enthusiasm for co-partnership which the masters lavish upon it.

Further confirmation of this point was contained in the statement that the late Sir George Livesey “would relate how he once inquired of another large employer of labour, whether a workman with a real interest in saving time and materials and stopping waste, might not be worth an extra 5 per cent. on his wages. ‘Say 20 per cent.’ was the answer.”

Although this was a “co”-partnership meeting, only the “profit” payable to the workers was dealt with. The very fact that masters show such animated interest in forcing a share of their profits (?) upon those from whom, in other times and places, they just as enthusiastically wring that profit, is a sufficiently illuminating circumstance to put co-partnery in its proper place, among the many swindles the capitalists and their henchmen, the labour “leaders,” have together devised for the benefit of their credulous dupes.

"Southerner."

A blue-blooded hippopotamus. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lest we congratulate ourselves too early that the violent hysteria which has seized the Press and public is subsiding, and that Reason is climbing back to her perch, we are rudely shaken by that daily masterpiece of culture and refinement, the “Daily Express,” into a due regard for the stern realities of a coronation. The “Daily Express” is not a paper to be read every day. Nature has wisely ordained otherwise. I refer to that well-known fact of psychology by which it is incumbent that the more intense pleasures should be tasted relatively infrequently. A regular reader of the sheet referred to is a deplorable spectacle, and as much to be pitied as a victim of the opium habit.

The usual brilliancy of the “Daily Express’s” dazzling pages reached its blinding zenith a few days ago, when it informed the mere work-a-day world that the King—God bless him !—was, in the opinion of the Boy Scouts, a hippopotamus. This, of course, will be greeted by the less intelligent (that is if the first paroxysm of shocked patriotism leaves him mentally whole) with what is known to “Daily Express” readers as a howl of derision, followed by an expression of unbelief in our good faith. Any criticism on these lines is silenced by referring those so afflicted to the “Daily Express” of Saturday, June 10.

To save you any trouble in the matter I will quote the first part of the column in full :

#    #    #    #

THIRTY THOUSAND BOY SCOUTS.

WEIRD ZULU WELCOME TO THE KING.

“HE IS A LION—A LION.”

“Thirty thousand Boy Scouts will greet the King at Windsor on July 4, and the form of their greeting will be far from conventional. The long lines of a military parade will be lacking, for Lieut.-General Baden Powell will marshal the Scouts after the manner of Zulu and Basuto impis.

“Every Scout will give the call of his patrol bird or animal—the wolf, bull, rattlesnake, hyena, peewit, cuckoo, and scores of others. Then there will be a dead silence, and a moment later the Scouts will sing the weird Zulu chant :—

‘Een gonyâma, yonyâma.

Invooboo

Yah bô ! Yah bô !

Invooboo.’

which, being interpreted means :— 

‘He is a lion—a lion ! 

Yes ! he is better than that ; he is a hippopotamus!’ ”

So that you will perceive that the Boy Scouts are not so mad as they look, not by a jugful. Yah bo ! Yah bo ! The Editor’s salary to three yonyâmas that not one Englishman in a thousand knew the true inwardness of Yah bo until June 10. I hope, further, that any takers will journey to ancient and castellated Windsor on July 4, and take a gramophone record of 30,000 wolves, bears, bulls, rattlesnakes, hyenas, cuckoos, peewits, etc., in full song, and present it to an Institution for Broken-down Clergymen, to be used as a sedative, or to give them a kindly foretaste of the bliss to come. Let him save a record blank until after the “dead silence.” Dead silence sounds ominous and almost prophetic, doesn’t it ? Thirty thousand sparrow-legged Boy Scouts yell Yah bo ! to the King of England, Emperor of India, etc., provides a spectacle which is at once inspiring, illuminating and of happy augury. This is a joy that Caesar never tasted. Neither Alexander nor Pompey could command it. Thirty thousand penny broomsticks athwart the blue of heaven, and then : “Yah bo ! Invooboo ! ”

Ah ! God is good ! Centuries, ages, aeons of evolution, and then to come to “Yah bo!” Enough ! Our duty is plain and clear as a pitchfork. Our youth shall be instructed in the whole art and mystery of gonyâma, coupled with Yah bo. After which—we shall see what we shall see.

PARIS.

The real motive behind State Insurance. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as with Labour Exchanges and Old-Age Pensions, so with the latest dodge, State Insurance it is a soporific. All along the line of Liberal legislation an examination shows that the benefits go to the employing class, not to the employed.

In working-class districts all over the country, the people are told from Liberal platforms that poverty and destitution, sickness and disease, are to be vigorously dealt with and eradicated, while at the same time the employers are being assured that these schemes, far from costing them anything, will, in the long run, result in a greater return for the sums that are to be expended.

Lloyd George, at Birmingham, exposed the mockery of the claim that these measures are being introduced to benefit the working class. He said:

“Take a brewer’s horse. How well he is looked after – well fed, cared for, and doctored. If he does not feel up to the mark he has got a guardian there specially looking after him. He says there is something the matter with his horse to-day. He is kept there, is doctored, until he is right. That is not merely humanity, it is good business. Take a machine. If you neglect a machine, a very small matter develops into a big one. It may simply mean that you want to oil a bearing, to tighten a screw. But if the machinist says I cannot afford to allow this machine to rest for two or three days in order to overhaul it, what happens? That machine has a bad breakdown sooner or later, and it may have to be scrapped. It is good business to overhaul a thing of that kind in time before it develops.”

Just so. To keep the worker in a fit condition ensures a greater output, and the increased efficiency resulting from such condition will enable the employer to wring more profit out of his victim, for, while the labour power may cost a little more, the return is certain to be greater.

A paper issued by the Government contains still more significant statements from German employers who have experienced the working of similar insurance schemes. The president of one of the largest associations of employers in the iron and steel industry, basing his opinions on special enquiries addressed to leading firms, says, among other things:

“The laws ‘pay’ employers from their own standpoint, since they, too, are given a greater feeling of security . . . and they are protected against constant disputes with exacting claimants.

“The proof that these laws are remunerative to employers lies in the fact that an employer has an interest in having at his disposal a healthy and efficient labour force.”

From the “Chemical Industry” comes the statement that:

"From the standpoint of the employers these laws are remunerative to the extent that the efficiency of the worker is increased, and without the insurance laws  correspondingly higher wages would have to be paid.”

Herr E. Schmidt, president of the German Tobacco Manufacturer’s Association, says:

“To-day, however, these contributions are booked either to the general expenses account or the wages account – for they are, in fact, a part of wages . . . Speaking as one employer to another, I am of the opinion that the investment in these insurance contributions is not a bad one.”

Apart from the capitalist as employer, the statement of the Poor Law Board of Frankfort-on-Main that “the insurance laws have unquestionably afforded direct and permanent relief to the Poor funds” is reiterated by the thirteen towns quoted.

To sum up the whole question, it is but necessary to quote Dr. F. Lahn, Director of the Bavarian Statistical Office, bearing in mind that the State referred to is a capitalist State, and that “national economy” means for the working class a greater speeding up – an economy in the matter of wages. He says:

“Industrial insurance is regarded by many people as a burden placed on certain branches of economic production, and is judged in the same way as taxation. Such a view is just as one-sided and fallacious as if one were to represent our schemes of sanitation, education, and poor relief as a system of national taxation instead of as important constituents of our national system of social welfare, devised to awaken slumbering powers in the body politic, to use them in the service of the State by the nurture and increase of our productive efficiency to further the national economy and the welfare of the State. If it is true that in the keen rivalry of the nations victory will lie with those peoples which have at command the greatest reserves of strength and health, industrial insurance must take a leading place in this policy of industrial welfare.”

Just as Germany a few years ago recognised that in order to obtain the markets of the world they must have efficient labourers, so to-day the “British” capitalists, ever behind, realise that to combat Germany they must economise, they must obtain a better quality of labour-power – if possible without increasing its cost. Hence there is a welling-up of the milk of human kindness in the capitalist breast, and we get State Insurance and the like.

Twel.

Economic laws in operation. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Economic laws are as exacting as any other laws, and if violated they enforced penalties.”

So said Mr. Meredith Whittaker at the conference between masters and men during the printers’ strike, over which he presided last January.

The forty-eight hour week proposal was, of course, tha main subject discussed. The men’s argument was that a reduction of hours must of necessity lessen unemployment, but Mr. Whittaker took quite another view. By the process of, as he termed it, “dipping into” official figures on the subject, he appeared to give incontrovertible proof that the reduction of printers’ hours in the past had hardly effected such a highly desirable result.

“We contest the assertion,” Mr. Whittaker said, “that the shortening of hours reduces the number of unemployed. You secured in 1901 a reduction of 1½ hours per week, nearly 3 percent. the average ; and you sought this largely—you pressed for it—because you said you would solve the unemployment question within your own area or your own society. You got a reduction of hours equivalent to 3 per cent. If the same amount of work had been done it would have necessitated the employment of 3 per cent. more of your members. What was the effect ? The average unemployment in the London Society of Compositors for the five years before 1901 was 2.8 per cent. You were going to wipe that out and have no unemployment in view. You got a reduction in hours, but the panacea did not cure the complaint. It was the wrong medicine. The average for unemployment for the five years after 1901 was 4.4 per cent. When you were working 54 hours your unemployment was 2.58 per cent. The hours were reduced to 52½ and your unemployment percentage leaped up to 4.4.”

The above is an extract from “The Organiser,” issued in May last. The opening statement should be borne in mind by the working class when they are extorted by their leaders to chase airy nothings in the shape of eight hours bills and other capitalist reforms as a remedy for unemployment.

Whenever a reduction of hours takes place either by or against the will of the masters, economic laws sooner or later assert themselves, and the workers are no better off than before. The shortened working time is amply compensated for by the introduction of more efficient machinery and a general all-round “hustle.” Mr. Whittaker said that unemployment is a national question. We go further and say it is international, for wherever the modern industrial system holds sway unemployment exists, and the average condition of the workers of all nations is the same, i.e., they work hard and are poor.

So we have it in plain language from a representative of the master class, that “palliatives” do not tend to abolish unemployment in the least—naturally he did not attempt to show that there could be a remedy.

We Socialists point out the fact that unemployment is inherent in capitalist society, and can only be abolished by abolishing the system of society which gives rise to it. To this end, in spite of the seeming tallness of the order, the working class must organise themselves into a political party conscious of their interest at all times. Then, and then only, will any progress be made. The nucleus of this great party, we say, is the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and if you are class-conscious, join it now.

A. J. G.

Leaves from the diary of a philanthropist. (1911)

A Short Story from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oct. 16, 1908.—This day is the thirtieth anniversary of my marriage and the fortieth of my business career. I remember well even now, how I calculated that my ten-year-old business warranted the step. I always opined that £1,000 per year was the minimum sum upon which a cultivated man could take the step of holy matrimony. My wife’s dowry, of course, helped. As I look calmly back over the forty years I can estimate the relative values of various incidents and personal qualities which have contributed to my successful career. Minor factors in that success have been the building of a railroad near my native town, the growth of population in the district creating a market for my products ; a plentiful supply of cheap labour ; my good fortune in obtaining capable foremen at reasonable wages ; and, last of all, the use of my recognised mental qualities, famed business foresight, and a determination to find regular employment for my beloved workpeople. My native town has indeed prospered : its population must have quadrupled during the last fifty years.

Jan. 9, 1909.—The granting of a commission on sales (usually called profit-sharing) to my shop managers has been a remarkable success, resulting in a large increase in trade. At a dinner which I gave to my staff a few days ago, several of the men spoke in eulogy of the commission scheme. They said, speaking with much feeling, that it had been a continual stimulus to increased exertion, and that without it their efforts to increase trade could not have been so determined. Some of the managers of my retail shops who proved incapable of response to this reasonable stimulus I have been compelled to dismiss.

I received to-day an acknowledgment of the cheque sent to the Guild of Help. It is with deep humility that I thank the Giver of All Blessings for such opportunities to succour the fallen. I notice that the receipt was signed by the chairman of the I.L.P., who is, I hear, chairman of the Guild.

July 9, 1909.—Following the example of my competitors, I twelve months ago placed a suggestion box in each department of my works. This was my scheme. If an idea occurred to any employee which he or she thought would conduce to the more economical working of the department, it was to be written down and placed in this box. For any adopted suggestion I promised a reward of 10s. The scheme has been fruitful—it is one more example of the value of that Mutual Aid which philanthropists see existing throughout all time.

Dec. 3. 1909.—I have been invited to woo the constituency in which I reside, in the Liberal interest. The city is an industrial one and important enough to warrant any expenditure. Have given my political agent £10,000 for charitable purposes, but I am on the horns of a dilemma as regards its distribution. If I give to both Liberal and Tory I shall be accused of trying to change Tory votes to Liberal ; if I give to Liberal alone I shall also be suspected of corruption. It is not my aim to debauch a constituency, but merely to help poor people with whom I hope to stand in intimate relationship.

The Trades Union Congress is being held here this year. I have invited the delegates to a dinner at my place, and also to visit my model factory and see how well-ventilated rooms make the girls work merrily and briskly. The local Liberal paper is sending a reporter to write up the delegates’ speeches. Have arranged for a series of whole page adverts in this paper—the proprietor is an earnest and useful man.

Feb. 6, 1910.—I learnt the value of sobriety and thrift at a Wesleyan Methodist Band of Hope. These cardinal virtues, having stood with me all possible tests, deserve wider recognition and acceptance, so, with this object in view, I purpose building a Wesleyan chapel. A suitable site, about half a mile from my factory, has been secured. It is in the centre of the city, between the Corporation Gas Works and Messrs. Tanquick’s large tanyard.

Hearing that about a dozen capable youths in this town, connected with the various religious bodies, were becoming infected with Socialism, and that in the ordinary way they may, perchance, become eloquent expositors of the Word, I have made arrangements to subsidise them and so allow them to attend a theological seminary. I often wonder why those Enemies of the Red Flag and similar organisations insist upon brazenly purchasing working-class talent : the bargain is too apparent. Clever working lads can be diverted from red ruin in far less ostentatious ways.

May 28, 1911.—I have to-day been pondering over the position I am placed in by recent legislation—I mean of the type of Workmen’s Compensation and State Insurance. Certainly I cannot oppose such legislation, although the new insurance scheme will cost me £500 per year. I readily allow that an employer of labour ought to stand in a moral relationship to his “hands.” He ought not to think always of buying cheap and selling dear, and overlook human duties.

Well-meaning persons say that an increase in the price of my commodities must be the result of this legislation, but they speak rashly. The price I receive for my goods is not just what I desire, not any price I please to ask, but it is defined by well-known economic laws. If I am to save the £500 I must act on different lines. For instance, I buy labour-power, and as a check upon it I intend to purchase an Automatic Time Register. I check other commodities which I purchase, and there is no legitimate reason why I should not rigidly check labour-power. I also intend to economise in the office, first by purchasing an Addressing Machine and a Calculating Machine. I can now obtain an addressing Machine which will address 3,000 customers an hour. This is the track I must follow—economise so that I may ultimately be a helpful citizen. I have given instructions to the head of each department to keep a watchful eye on the machinery market, and to be in touch with all new mechanical improvements. If Lloyd George does not lessen my income he has certainly succeeded in quickening my faculties. But let us not forget the apostolic instruction : “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” If we strive to carry out this great teaching we shall help forward that greater and nobler day when it shall be said of us:

Then in no were for the Party ;

   Then all were for the State ;

Then the great man helped the poor,

    And the poor man loved the great.

John A. Dawson

Answers to Correspondents. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

S. J. Cresswick (Kennington).—The policy of the Socialist Party is to convince the working class of the need for Socialism, and to organise them for its realisation. The Socialist finds all the forces of capitalism arrayed against him, and the tactics to be pursued in combating them depend at all times upon the stage of the economic and political development that capitalism has reached. One thing is certain, however—we can never ally ourselves with the enemy, but must wage unceasing war against him. We have no qualms about using any measure the capitalists provide, such as Suffrage, for instance, to prosecute that war to a successful conclusion. As to the support of a particular measure, that would be decided at the time according to its merits.

L. S. (Nottingham).—Just as on any other specific question, the Socialist Party would decide the action to be taken.

Surplus value. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Commodities are sold at their real values.” Karl Marx

“Good, then,” says our opponent, “since commodities are so exchanged, wherein lies the robbery of which you complain ? The capitalist, in exchange for the commodity labour-power, gives an equivalent value in the shape of money, which the worker can again exchange for any commodity he requires.”

To the casual observer it would appear that there is a contradiction in the Socialist teaching. If the above quoted statements are correct it would seem that the worker does not receive sufficient to satisfy his natural requirements because his labour is not of sufficient value. The question will naturally arise, whence comes the wealth upon which the capitalist lives ? Is it that his labour is of more use to the community, and that consequently he receives more in exchange ? Scarcely, for, as can be readily seen, those who receive the greatest share of the world’s wealth, whatever their ability may be, do not use that ability in production.

The millionaires do nothing in the creation of their bank balances. The capital from which they draw their vast incomes is often invested in concerns they know little about. Maybe the industry in which they are “interested” is in a country they have never visited. The process by which the wealth is obtained is foreign to them, and all that they are concerned with is that the shares purchased by them (or their agents) are of a certain value and are “a good speculation.”

It is possible that the wealthy individual has been instrumental in floating the company in which his money is invested, or he may be familiar with the purchase and sale of “stocks and shares.” He may have amassed his millions in a successful gamble on the Stock Exchange, or in the purchase of a patent or a mine.

But starting a company produces nothing, and a lifetime spent in buying and selling shares, however many thousands it may bring into the pocket of the fortunate speculator, will not raise one atom of metal or a morsel of coal; will not produce an ear of corn or weave a single thread of linen cloth.

In what way, then, does the capitalist obtain vast stores of wealth without producing a fraction of it, while those who seemingly produce all are often without the bare necessaries of existence ?

Before unravelling this tangle, and having shown how the capitalist can obtain wealth without doing anything useful, let us see what the worker does and how he is rewarded.

The proletarian, whether artizan or labourer, seeks a job, the reason being, not that he is particularly fond of the atmosphere of a capitalist factory, mine, or workshop, but that, having nothing to exist upon, he is compelled to get food, clothing, and shelter from those who possess these things.

The worker obtains a situation in a factory, and proceeds to operate some tool or machine, to take part in the production of some commodity. He works for a certain number of hours, and at the expiration of that time is given a sum of money which is called his wage.

He has exchanged his commodity, labour-power, for another commodity, gold. The value of the gold he receives is equivalent to the value of the labour-power expended.

How are these values determined and in what way are these different articles related ?

The value of the gold is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to produce it, and the value of labour-power is determined in exactly the same way.

If, for instance, the time taken to produce an ounce of gold be found equal to the average number of hours required to produce those things necessary for the maintenance of an artizan for the period of one month, then an ounce of gold will be (on the average) the price of one month’s labour-power. In other words his wage will be one ounce of gold (£3 17s.10½d.) per month.

During the period of labour the artizan has expended an amount of energy that can be replaced by the expenditure of £3 17s.10½d. Has he lost anything ? Does not the transaction leave him where he was before ? Let us see.

Were we considering a machine or other inanimate object, we should say : “That which was used has been replaced and there has been a fair exchange.” But the worker is human, and as such does not exist merely to labour. He has occupied the whole of a month either in working or in recuperating. This experience has not been an enjoyable one, and had he consulted his own desires he would have ignored the “hooter” and gone about some other and more enjoyable business. He has lost a week of his life, and in return he has nothing to show. To the ordinary worker one week is as the next, and his whole life, with very few and short periods excepted, is spent in the same way. He has been robbed of all the pleasure and happiness that otherwise he might have enjoyed.

How has the employer fared ? He has taken the worker’s labour-power and given in return just sufficient to replace it. Employer and employed enter into a bargain. The employed does the work and gets nothing ; the employer does nothing and gets—what ?

I have previously stated that the proletarian had to enter the factory in order to obtain the means of life from those who possess those things. The capitalist has capital, and enters into the bargain with that. Where did he get it ? He may have got it as a legacy ; he may have “worked hard and saved it by thrift” ; possibly, very possibly, he “pinched” it, but that does not matter for the moment. He advances sufficient for the labourer to live upon for a certain period, and during that period the latter must work and add value to some article or raw material, the property of the employer.

Now while the capitalist pays the full value for labour-power, that is, its cost of production, he does not give the labourer the value of his labour, namely, what he produces.

Given the present mode of production—scientific method, organised labour, power-driven machinery, etc., the worker can produce in 6 hours sufficient to provide himself and his family with necessaries for a much longer period—for at least 48 hours. If, then, the employer works that individual for 24 hours and gives him in return sufficient to maintain him for 48, he can show a profit amounting to the product of 18 hours labour—three-quarters of the fruits of the labourer’s toil.

That is what we call surplus value—value produced by the workers for which they receive nothing in exchange.

The difference between the labour-power of the worker and all other commodities is that in its consumption it creates a greater value than itself.

Prior to the capitalist system there was surplus labour. The labourer at one time produced for himself and also for his feudal lord. His week was divided into days during which he worked on his own land and days in which he was compelled to work for another, but the division was more clear and he could see that a great portion of his life was spent in work from which he obtained no benefit. Under capitalism, however, it is made to appear that the toiler receives full value for his labour by clouding its real meaning, and giving to the term “labour” the significance that should be applied to the expression “labour power.”

“Those who labour in reality feed both the pensioners (called the rich) and themselves.” Yes, and the “pensioners ” are fed well for doing nothing, while those who labour exist upon the offal and the shoddy.

To abolish the commodity nature of human labour-power is the object of the Socialist, for while the labourer is compelled to sell his commodity in the open market its price will approximate to its cost of production and the working class will be compelled to accept a subsistence while robbed of the comforts of life that they themselves produce.

Twel.

The use of religion. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“In societies such us ours, in which the inequality of fortune presents a striking contrast besides our political equality, the religious sentiment is the best means of reconciling and uniting together the rich and the poor….. It teaches the poor man to be patient and honest amid all temptations, to be confident of a brighter future here below, and to look beyond the world to the hope of a good reward in another and a higher sphere of existence.”—M. Chevalier

Mrs. Partington again. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

John Bull for June 10 published an article headed “Is the Small Trader Doomed? The Multi-Shop Octopus.”

Once again the wild, despairing cry of the small shopkeeper is heard deploring the passing of his kind. After describing the methods by which the great firms oust the “little men,” the position of the combine’s employees is summed up thus :

“The lot of the employees is very unsatisfactory, the majority of these companies refusing to employ a man who has been in the service of their rivals, no matter why he left his previous situation. They are discharged on the merest pretext, as the continuous advertising amply proves, and their wages compare unfavourably with those paid by the small trader. One of the managers recently remarked that he did not think it advisable to keep a man more than 6 months as by that time they had exhausted all his ideas. Pick his brain and throw him on the human scrap heap !”

“The remedy” for the small trader is, John Bull tells us, “for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to impose a tax on multi-shop trading, as is done in Germany.”

Is this a case for Bottomley’s “Business Government” or—the Lunacy Commissioners ?

A. Kay

Blogger's Note:

Once again mention of a 'Mrs. Partington' crops again in the early issue of the Standard. Once again, here's a link to give you the background details.

“Daily Express” policy. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Commenting on the article “King Capital’s Coronation” in our June issue, the Daily Express of June 8 waxes righteously pharisaic.

It compares Socialism, which “means degradation and ruin,” with Daily Expressism, which “supports all measures designed to lift humanity to higher levels, to improve the conditions of life for all classes, to add to the sum of human happiness, and to promote the welfare of the whole community.”

Also—but this quite incidentally—”to make the workers more efficient” and “to give the British manufacturer fair play.”

That is what we workers are too stupid to see. If instead of studying Socialism we read the Daily Express, what an improvement would be wrought in us. Made thereby wiser and more efficient we should no longer dream of wronging the poor downtrodden manufacturer. We should learn to love “laws which are immutable” and to bear patiently “distresses which must continue as long as the world shall last.”

But a horrid thought obtrudes.

If economic laws are immutable and social distress unending, why does the Daily Express waste its time in supporting measures designed “to uplift humanity to higher levels,” etc ?

Can it be that Mr. Pearson, who is really responsible for this balderdash, doesn’t care a hang about the world’s impossible uplifting, but looks only to certain social and financial benefits which such twaddle obtains from the capitalists and their Government ? Perish the suggestion !

None the less, there is something the workers can learn from the Daily Express.

It is not to throw money away buying it.

A. Hoskyns

Letter: The Socialist Party and Reforms. (1911)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party and Reforms.

[To The Editor.]

Forest Gate, Essex.

Sir,—Recognising your Party’s hostility toward reforms, and being, for the most part, in sympathy with your standpoint in this respect, I still remain without any knowledge as to how such reforms as the following can be considered as being detrimental to working-class interest, and some comment on the matter may, therefore, elucidate your unswerving attitude in regard to any reform whatsoever:

(1) Educational reform (already conceded).

(2) Male suffrage (ditto)

(3) The feeding of school children, from the point of view that it is impossible for children to be effectively educated unless well fed. If they are well fed, therefore, it would follow that as a result of their education they would better understand their position in life than they would if they were ill-fed and mal-educated. Therefore why oppose this reform ?

(4) Secular education— the advantages of which need no comment.—Yours, etc.,

L. A. Bostock

 

Reply:

The S.P.G.B., as distinguished from every other organisation in this country, is the party with Socialism, and nothing but Socialism, as its object. It is, consequently, not to be side-tracked into raising mere hostility to reform or the reverse—into equal importance with its object. Its guiding principle is not hostility to reforms but hostility to capitalism ; and since its aim is Socialism its whole policy in regard to reforms is dictated solely by the exigencies of the class struggle for Socialism, and must continue to he so dictated, whatever changes in the conditions of the fight may intervene.

Wherever needful for its object the Party must, therefore, make use of, ignore, or resist, any reform as determined by the particular circumstances. Consequently it cannot seek support for or advocate any policy of reform or anti-reform, for such must always be sacrificed upon occasion for its object, while such policies might—as seen in other organisations—attract those who do not accept the object of the Party, thus weakening its definite aim. All such matters are considered by it as worthy of attention only in so far as they bear distinctly on the question of working-class emancipation.

This subordination of all means to one end, and of all issues to the supreme one of the conquest of the State for Socialism, is the only logical policy for the Socialist Party. Without it, indeed, the party could not be Socialist.

Mr. Bostock is, therefore, completely in error in assuming that in showing the unsatisfactory nature of reforms in themselves, and their utter futility as solutions of what is called the “Social Problem,” the S.P.G.B. is necessarily hostile toward all reforms, and considers them as being in every case inevitably “detrimental to working-class interest.”

Even were the capitalists omniscient and of one opinion on. every point, it would still remain a fact that they are compelled by economic development to weaken their stronghold. Our enemies are forced, as it were, to dig their own graves, and it is by no means our policy to prevent them doing so. We should, indeed, be traitors to our cause did we not endeavour to make it profit by every mistake and every point of weakness of the enemy. There is danger only in allowing any consideration whatever to influence the policy of the party other than its object and the conditions of the struggle necessary to its attainment. Socialists, in short, must beware of being scared or cajoled either to the right or the left of the scientific way to Socialism.

With regard to the reforms enumerated by our correspondent, our attitude results inevitably from the position outlined above. All of them have been dealt with in these columns. Let us, however, briefly notice them here.

(1) The Education Acts were not motived (despite declarations to the contrary) by any wish on the part of the ruling class as a whole to benefit the workers, but to benefit themselves and to obtain cheap and efficient wage workers. It should be noted that the paltry measures of working-class “education” now in force stop short even of this despicable ideal. Therefore the Socialist has certainly no feeling whatever of gratitude toward his exploiters when he takes the fullest advantage of this reform for the furtherance of the workers’ cause.

(2) Male suffrage does not exist. We take the greatest useful advantage of the present property suffrage, and would not consider Adult Suffrage “detrimental to working-class interest.” Socialism is the interest of the many, not of the few ; its method, therefore, is that of democracy. But since Socialism is greater than all means, we would not bargain with our enemies, or bate one jot or tittle of our object or principles for any extension of the franchise, much less for a more promise. We have, moreover, seen the dismal folly of supporting an individual or a party that is utterly opposed to us on every vital point because of some minor point of utility. The grain of good is overwhelmed by a flood of harm.

(3) We do not oppose, and never have opposed, the feeding of school children. We have adversely criticised certain proposals for State maintenance, which would mean the taking of children from their parents to be reared in barracks by the State, pithed with anti-working-class ideas, and given the mentality of the flunkey. We have further pointed out the economic effects of such a measure on the labour market, where feeding here, is often counterbalanced by more misery there, and where, owing to the worsening trend of economic pressure, every attempt short of Socialism to stem the tide of increasing working-class poverty must fail. And we have pointed the inevitable Socialist moral.

It is, further, a fallacy to assume that the class-consciousness of the worker has any definite relation to the amount of food he gets. The flunkeys are probably the best fed and the least class-conscious. The slum-proletariat is the worst fed, and is hardly more class-conscious than the wage-slaves of flunkeydom. We rely neither on feeding nor on starving, but upon ripening economic conditions, together with sound Socialist propaganda.

(4) As to Secular Education under Capitalism, it may well prove a mare’s nest. Its advantages may possibly be non-existent. Only when religion has lost its efficacy as a working-class drug will it be abandoned by the ruling class in the schools. But what will take its place ? A scientific curriculum ! Or superstition in even worse forms, such as cunningly devised capitalist ethics, or a deadlier patriotism ? Hence the peculiar wisdom of the classic phrase “Wait and see! ”

Reforms usually take away with the left hand what they offer with the right, and the last state of the reformed is often worse than, his first. There is a vast difference between the vague proposal and the final measure. The latter may in its own. cunning clauses more than neutralise the grain of good originally proposed. Let the capitalist class, therefore, take entire responsibility for its handiwork. Our lack of enthusiasm and severely critical attitude toward all reforms of whatever colour is, inconsequence, fully justified. Not only do we regard them as mere minor and relatively insignificant incidents in the class war, but we know them to be, in the main, fraudulent in themselves.

SOCIALISM can no more come by an accumulation of reforms than a new and up-to-date boiler can result from an accumulation of patches on an ancient one. It presupposes the conquest of. political power by the Socialist working class —the SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

A program of reforms is not only superfluous, Its existence proves that the party possessing it has taken reform for its object instead of Socialism. It is, moreover, a fraud upon the toilers, for until they are supreme their party can pass no reforms —these are grants by the capitalist class, to be considered only in so far as they can be made use of for the cause—and when the working class is triumphant reforms will be entirely redundant, for Socialism will be here.

W.

Suffragette mangled. (1911)

Party News from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another serious blow has been dealt the “time wasters” and “confusion mongers.” This time the deed was done in the ancient borough of Gravesend, which is far-famed for its shrimps and its cesspools. The recipients of this latest trouncing were the Women’s Social and Political Union, and their champion was “Organiser” Miss Laura Ainsworth.

The debate took place at the “Clock Tower” on Saturday, June 3. Even before the debate commenced the lady flew the white flag by desiring that the wording of the proposition should be altered, to which ye gallant knight, Anderson., with his usual courtesy, agreed. Then the lady, who should have opened by affirming “That Women’s Suffrage is essential for the betterment of the Working Class,” with that true understanding of “Women’s Rights” which might be expected of her, refused to speak first, thus putting Anderson in the curious position of having to confirm a negative. However, our comrade’s first speech made it evident to the large audience that the lady’s case was hopeless. Miss Ainsworth’s first effort made it still more so; and the second speech of Anderson so reduced the supporter of votes for wealthy women that the debate became almost a farce.

The poor girl tried again, but could not last out her appointed time, and left us about 9.20 in a hurry to catch one of those convenient trains.

Anderson then spent the rest of the time up till 10 p.m. answering questions and putting the Socialist position, and so effectively did he do this that the members of the I.L.P. who were present had dismay writ large on their faces.

It was a splendid meeting. Good propaganda was done and some of the humbug of the pseudo-Socialists ably exposed. Everyone present was supplied with leaflets, and the Independent Labour Party were once more publicly challenged to support in debate their claim to the title of Socialists.

W. G. Wragg

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For July. (London District.) (1911)

 Party News from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

My usual moan when posting the lecture lists from the Pre-WW1 period: Not enough label space on the blog for all the speakers listed, so it becomes an SPGB Sophie's Choice at my end. (Poor taste? Just a tad.) Anyway, here's some brief info about some of the speakers who missed the cut:

• H. Joy: A member of Tooting Branch. Joined the Party in October 1907.
• C. Parker: A member of West Ham Branch. Joined the SPGB in May 1906, and was lapsed from membership in October 1929.
• F. Stearn: A member of Tottenham Branch. Lapsed during the war.
• H. Cooper: A member of Earlsfield Branch. Was a member of the SPGB from 1908 until 1915.
• F. J. Rourke: A member of Tottenham Branch. Was a member of the SPGB from 1909 until 1914.
• C. Ginger: Another member of Tottenham Branch. Charles Ginger was one of those SPGB members who joined the Party more than once. There's a suggestion that C. Ginger could also be Frank Grainger, who had originally left the SPGB to join the Herald League. (See Ken Weller's book). Frank Grainger eventually rejoined the SPGB in the 1930s, and was actually selected as the Party's parliamentary candidate for the East Ham North constituency, which the Party was planning to contest at the probable 1940 General Election. (WW2 intervened.) According to Ken Weller, after he resigned from the SPGB, later worked for the Economic League.
• J. Nightman: Here's a wee mystery. J. Nightman is listed 6 times in the July 1911 lecture list but there's no record of a 'J. Nightman' in the membership records. As I've mentioned previously on the blog, the membership records are incomplete and it's possible 'J. Nightman' is one of those missing members. Alternatively, it could have been a nom de guerre that a socialist had had to adopt whilst fighting the class war. We'll never know.

King Capital’s Coronation and its real meaning to the working class. (1911)

From the June 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much Ado About the.

A King is to be crowned.

In the presence of our Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Premiers of the five dominions of “our” mighty Empire, arid the assembled monarchs of many lands, and the Lord God of Israel and the Stock Exchange himself.

The Crown, and the Sceptre, and the Sword of State, and the Cap of Maintenance, and the Rod with the Dove, and the Monkey on the Stick, and all the other symbolical insignia and regalia which have come down to us from barbarism, along with ye Ancient Order of Foresters and ye game of skittles, are to be brought from their dungeon in the Tower (where they have rivalled a pawnbroker’s window) and taken to the House of God at Westminster, there to be used in the great ceremony.

And there, before a vast concourse of gentlemen who have won the same distinction in the divorce court that their forefathers gained in piratical, slave-hunting, and other plundering forays of the past, and of high born dames whose “Sir Joshua Reynolds” peach-bloom cheeks are veritable triumphs of the house-decorator’s art, and other high-born dames whose ancient lineage goes back to the mighty Pork Kings of Chicago, one George Wettin, a most cosmopolitan British gentleman, will swear great oaths to be faithful to certain hoary superstitions, and to uphold certain important and worthy institutions, and to lay hold of eternal life, and to do it all for the dirt-cheap, upset-competition price of a million a year or nearest offer.

Shampooing of George Wettin.

And then another gentleman, who makes a point of doing the job in his nightshirt, scabs on and scandalises every tiddle-wig in the Kingdom by giving the said G. Wettin a dry shampoo with consecrated hair oil, in the full blaze of the public eye, and to the evident perturbation of the Unicorn, who claims affinity with the barbers by virtue of the pole sticking out of his forehead.

What does it all mean; the Crown, and the Orb, and the Sceptre and the Sword of State, and the Cap of Maintenance, and the rest of the jewelled symbols?

What does it mean: the swelling Anthem, the mumbled prayer, the intoned exhortation, the anointing with oil, the Crowning and Enthronisation?

What does it mean: the barbaric pomp and splendour, the lavish display of wealth, the clank of arms and armour and the jingle of spurs, the foregathering from the ends of the earth of the Empire’s rulers?

What does it mean: the flaunting flags, the streets lined with police and military, the hoarse acclamation of pallid millions whose rags flutter a significant reply to the bunting overhead, the bestowing of a meal upon thousands of little children whom hunger makes glad to accept even such a trifle from hands so heavy-laden with wealth that they cannot feel the weight of the charitable grains they scatter?

We are told that these gaudy jewels, this “impressive service”, are full of symbolism and historic significance. They are indeed. To the worker who will think it is very obvious that the Crown and the Sceptre and the rest are the symbols of ruling power. But who it is that rules, and who it is that are ruled, are matters less generally understood.

It is commonly believed that “royal” power is the attribute of the monarch of a constitutional country, but nothing could be farther from the truth. That question our capitalist masters in this country fought out many years ago. They have left the King his name and his robes, his Crown and his palaces, but they have stripped him of every vestige of power. The “Crown” is not the King, in any capacity, but the capitalist State. The King’s Speech to Parliament is written by his Ministers, even the prerogative of mercy is not the King’s, but belongs to the capitalist Cabinet.

How are the Mighty Fallen!

The subservience of the royalty of capitalist countries to their capitalist paymasters is shown in such acts as that of the present King’s father (then Prince of Wales) in publicly associating himself, at the time of the “trial” of the Jameson raiders, with Cecil Rhodes, the arch-fiend in that disgusting business, who was even then busy engineering the war which was to give the cosmopolitan mine-owners £4,000,000 a year in extra profits, at the cost of so many thousands of workingmen’s lives.

Even the swearing to uphold the institutions of capitalism is all bunkum and make-believe, There is today, in this country at all events, no institution of capitalism that the capitalists themselves are not fully able to maintain, or that they trust to other hands than their own. Why, this man whom they swear to uphold the very walls of capitalism, they do not trust even with the command of one of the fleets of his own (!) navy, for fear he might be in a position to dictate terms to them, or act detrimentally to their interests.

The King as such is a nonentity, a dummy, a convenient cloak behind which the capitalist class carry on their operations of robbing the workers of the fruits of their toil. As a private individual, the landlord of vast estates, George Wettin may make himself feared, but no one trembles at his royal word, or quakes at the thunder of his anointed brow. If the great ones of the capitalist world bow and scrape before him, it is only because he is the incarnation of capitalism, the symbol of the domination of a class of parasites and thieves, the image of themselves triumphant. They know that while the workers will flock in millions to cheer this straw man of theirs, dragged through the streets like a fifth of November guy, they and their plunder are safe. Hence they set the example of deification, knowing well they will be followed by their sheep.

Playing the Game.

The aim of the master class is to keep the workers ignorant, for an ignorant subject class, not knowing how to act in their own interests, can be more easily and inexpensively kept in subjection than an educated one. In fostering this ignorance the first thing to be done is to preserve the inertia of the mind – the tendency of the mind to run in an unchanging direction.

The capitalists know, as well as we do, that it is changing environment that causes the alteration in the mental outlook of the people. Their great endeavour, therefore, is to oppose to that ceaseless evolution in the world about them, over which they have no control, counteracting conditions and influences. Hence they cling with the tenacity of desperation, to the empty husks and decaying forms of the past.

This can be seen in every dominant interest, since every interest, when it has become dominant, becomes conservative and reactionary. It explains why the Catholic Church clings so frantically to its out-of-date forms, why the Anglican and other Churches set their faces so relentlessly against innovation, and why capitalist countries would rather convert their monarchies to their own ends than abolish them.

The Use of Kings.

A king, in the popular mind, rules by divine sanction and in accordance with grey and hoary custom – as the Archbishop will remind the world at the great shampooing in the words: “Be thou anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. And as Solomon was appointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be you anointed, blessed and consecrated king over this people, whom the Lord thy God has given you to govern.”

The capitalists, on the other hand, have no ancient usage behind them, no special appointment from heaven. Unless they can disguise the fact of their dominance, they are clearly seen to rule by might alone – a perpetual challenge to might. A ruling class which has to confess that it rules because it possesses the means of life, already has one foot in the grave, for it holds a lamp to the line of class cleavage that all men may see.

This is the real use of monarchs in capitalist States. Behind the person of the King the capitalists can hide the fact that it is they in reality who rule. By parading their kings before the workers at every possible opportunity, and with every circumstance of pomp and display that their ingenuity can invent, by investing them with divine right and something of divinity itself, the capitalists awaken and stimulate and nurture that spirit of reverence which is so deadly an enemy to the growth of revolutionary ideas, and so detract attention from themselves.

As it is to the interest of the capitalist class to represent that they, together with the working class, are subservient to a greater power, and to set the example of loyalty to their king, it becomes the imperative duty of Socialists to strip the sham of all its disguising tinsel, and to expose the grim, sordid, unromantic, iron form of tyrant Capital beneath it all. No kingly power exists today in Western Europe. Everywhere the owners of the means of production have either bent the monarchy to their will or broken it. Power lies alone with the class of property-owners. They rule who “buzz” us to the check-board at dawn, who tell us we are “sacked” at dusk; they rule who grind our faces on the factory mill-stones; and rob us at the pay-box; they rule who lock us out of the workshops and quarries and mines, in order to convince us by starvation that their view of the value of our labour is correct; they rule who make mockery of their own laws, and bury our poor fellows alive in blazing coal seams in the bowels of the earth. They rule who own.

Clear your minds, fellow workers, of any idea that these Prime Ministers of the Dominions of the Empire have gathered together to render homage to the house of Hanover. They come to celebrate the dominion of their class and to take steps in conference assembled, to ensure the continued crucifixion of Labour. The whole of this inglorious show, indeed, is subordinate to this object. It is not an effort to solidify and make more stable the monarchy, but to blind the workers to their true position, and make capitalist domination more secure.

It is for this reason that the impudent thieves mock your poverty by flaunting in your faces the wealth they have stolen from you. They wish you to believe that you are sharers in the stupendous opulence all their efforts could not hide from your vision. The late Lord Salisbury, wise in his generation, once cynically said that what the working class wanted was not education but a circus. They are giving us a circus, in order to make our minds less receptive of education.

Fellow workers, there is but one meaning attaching to class rule, and that is class plunder. No man wishes to rule over another except to plunder him. Consider whence comes all this wealth and luxury which is to riot before your weary eyes? Is there one jot or tittle of it that you have not made? You, the workers of the world are the true Atlas. You carry the world upon your shoulders. Your strong arms sow, and reap, and gather the harvest of the field, your stout hearts face the terrors of the mine and battle with the dangers of the deep; your virile brains conquer natural forces, and turn the tyrants of the Cosmic System into agents of wealth production. And what is your portion of it all?

This question is answered by the ranks of armed men who press your serried masses into the gutters, by the gaudy regimental banners whose last glorious inscriptions are “Belfast” and “Tonypandy”, by the proposal to compel you to pay to ensure that you shall have 6s. a week to keep wife and family on when you are unemployed.

As long as you are ruled starvation will be your lot, for those who rule over you can always plunder you and always will. You are ruled, not by kings, but by those who possess the land, mines, factories, machinery, railways, and other means of production and distribution, and just because they possess those things. Since you are denied access to those things all the doors of life are shut against you except that of the labour market. You must become wage slaves – must sell your energies to those who own the productive forces. This means that goods are produced for profit, and that profit, that wealth you produce but which is taken away from you, goes to glut the market and to throw you out of work, so that you and your children starve when the warehouses are fullest.

The remedy for all this is to take these means of production and distribution away from their present owners and make them the property of the whole community. Bread will then be produced to feed people, not for profit, and clothes to clothe them, and houses to shelter them. All able-bodied adults will take part in the necessary social labour, and all will partake freely of the wealth produced.

To do this the workers must first study Socialism and organise to capture political power, in order that the political machinery may be used to end for ever the class domination which political power alone upholds.

A. E. Jacomb