Socialist Sonnet No. 250: Anti-speak (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Anti-speak

 

Sundering people by race, religion

Or some other such arbitrary means,

Brings its horrors to our doom scrolling screens:

Bombed-out news bytes from a bloodied region.

Who were victims become perpetrators,

Those once herded into camps will become

Herders, with power to strike their critics dumb

By framing them as virulent haters.

The persecuted dead will be recalled

By those who consider themselves chosen,

Their determination certain, frozen,

As if humanity has failed and stalled.

Not one state! Nor two states! A better call

To end war and terror, ‘No States At All!’

 

D. A.

SPGB Snippets: Misconceptions galore (2026)

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain website 

October 14, 2026

There have never been more misconceptions than there are today about what socialism is and who supposedly stands for it. To name but a few – the left-wing of the Labour Party, China, Cuba, North Korea, Corbyn/Sultana’s Your Party, the Greens led by Polanski, the small left-wing groups with ‘socialist’ in their names, Mamdami the mayor of New York, and so on and so forth.

One of the tasks of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is to shake these mistaken ideas from people’s minds and place in front of them the vision of a moneyless, wageless society of common ownership, cooperative endeavour and free access to all goods and services which is what socialism started off as and still is.

The Liberal Party Condemned. Lloyd-George’s Three-Year Old Judgment. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Beg to Remind You.

In the issue of the Socialist Standard for Dec. 1906, we printed a criticism of a speech—a remarkable speech— made in Birmingham on Oct. ’22nd 1906 by Mr. Lloyd-George. He said that in returning the Liberal Government to power, the people had, in effect, declared :

“We are going to give you a chance, but it is only a chance. . . . Here you have been tinkering for generations with reform, and the end of it all is slums, pauperism, and great want in the land of plenty.”

Lloyd-George declared that if the conditions which gave rise to this complaint of the people were not removed in three years, the Great Liberal Party would deserve to go, and a new movement would grew up to displace the Liberal “bunglers or rogues.” We have not quite reached the three year limit, but are within easy sight of that end, and may justifiably remind “the people” of Mr. Lloyd-George’s opinion and prophecy. The Liberal Government, the “strongest government of modern times,” has had more than three years to show their hand and to commence their endeavour to remove the “great want in the land of plenty” if they intend to do so. The political memory of “the people” is proverbially short and they may have forgotten that in the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he and his colleagues deserve to be turned out if they do not accomplish in three years what we at the time declared to be impossible.

As governments go they have been strenuous, with autumn sessions (things of such working-class importance that some working-class organisations conduct special campaigns for them) and all-night sittings. They have passed countless bills and reshaped administration in many departments ; but after all they have done we have to apply the Lloyd-George test: have they abolished the “great want in the land of plenty” ?

The item in the programme of their accomplishments we are pointed to by exultant Liberals is the one of Old Age Pensions. The criticisms of this are too numerous, and have been laboured in these columns too often, to receive a detailed examination now, but that it is calculated to save the rates by inducing old veterans of labour to keep out of the workhouse, where their maintenance will average 11s. a week, is sufficient to show the hollowness of its blessing.

A Rainbow to Chew.

The particular item in which our prophet is interested, and which comes so near the end of the three year limit, is the Budget. The flagging interest and enthusiasm of its supporters is now being lashed into renewed vigour by Ministerialists, but whether the effects of the stimulus will last, assisted though it is by the political bankruptcy of the official opposition, remains to be seen. The Budget has been labelled “Democratic” and “working man’s,” although the reason for this is not very obvious. True, the Labour Party are among its supporters, and a recent demonstration in its favour was backed by certain branches of the I.L.P. and several trade unions, but there are probably other than working-class interests involved here. The whole of the pother is about the raising of the money, but the capitalist class must pay, for the simple but sufficient reason that they cannot get blood out of a stone. We are not concerned how it is raised so much as with the way it is spent; and when we look at the factors which have necessitated the extra revenue, we are amazed at the coolness that calls the Budget “democratic.” The bulk of the extra money is for the Navy and the Army. Dreadnoughts and Territorial Armies do nothing, surely, to remedy the “great want in a land of plenty.” Soldiers are handy on cccassions such as the one at Belfast; and though Dreadnoughts might not be able to be effective at Hull or at Grimsby when the workmen become disaffected, there is no question that smaller naval fry are useful. But even this hardly justifies the term “democratic,” nor affords a reason for working-class enthusiasm.

Purely a Thieves’ Wrangle.

The most subtle political factor in the carefully simulated campaign in favour of the Budget, the item upon which it is intended to focus working-class attention, is the introdiiction of the tax upon the increase of value of urban land. The landlord, doing nothing, is able, under existing fiscal arrangements to draw a proportion of the value given to land by the accumulation of population or the erection of factories, houses, etc. The proposal of the Government which has been designated “revolutionary” is a levy on this increased value. I am not opposed to the land tax, so much as to the private possession of the land entirely ; but the position for us is simply that the disadvantages of the present arrangement falls on the industrial capitalist, while the position of the workman remains ever the same—that of “great want in the land of plenty.” While the process of the ground landlord bleeding the capitalist does not affect the working-class, for the reason that the capitalist pays the smallest wages possible all the time, so the similar process of the ground landlord bleeding the houseowner does not affect the worker, for the reason that the houseowner gets the highest rent possible all the time. But, as has been the case throughout that period of history that has seen the capitalist class question the supremacy of the landed aristocrats, the capitalists are once more prepared to use the working class for their own political ends. It is a matter of comparative ease to illustrate the injustice of the privilege enjoyed by the owners of the land, while the privilege of the ownership of capital is more completely obscured by complicated processes of exchange.

Short and Codling.

Nevertheless, there is a complete essential identity in both privileges, and while either remains, the workman is the under-dog, suffering “great want in the land of plenty.” To emphasise the idleness and the hollowness of land taxes as a solution of that poverty, it is but necessary in the first place to point to our Australasian Colonies which enjoy such taxation, but where, notwithstanding, the same social inequality prevails: in the second place it is sufficient to indicate that such inequality, arising from the distribution of wealth, the ownership of the direct processes of such production and distribution have a far greater effect than the more indirect ownership of the land ; and as between the landlord and the capitalist, the direct despoiler of the workman is the capitalist, however he, in his turn, may be despoiled of his plunder by the landlord.

The distinction sought to be urged by Liberals generally between land and capital, and more particularly with regard to the conditions of ownership, do not hold water for one moment. The perfection of the processes and the instruments of production is in no way due to the capitalist class, but is the outcome of countless ages of evolution, and represents the co-ordinated experience of the race in the methods of maintaining its existence. That development is due to the workers who operate and fashion, rather than to the idlers who merely own. The instruments of production are essentially as social and as necessary as land, and the private ownership of one can be maintained no more logically than the other. The Liberal Party in using the social necessity argument to combat the claims of the landlords, is preparing a rod for its own back when it maintains the claims of the capitalists.

The Issue Clearly Put.

The question immediately remaining to be solved is whether the workers are sufficiently conscious of their position as a class, against both the landlord and capitalist factions, to see through the latest attempt of their masters, and keep the issue to the broader, simpler one so excellently phrased by the very man who is now busy organising the new side-track, viz., why is there, after three years of Liberal Government, no diminution, of that “great want in the land of plenty ?” Once the true answer to this pregnant question, an answer which only the untrammelled voice and pen of enlightened Labour dare formulate, is understood by the workers, the new movement predicted by Lloyd-George will make short work of both Liberal and Tory “bunglers or rogues.”

R. H. Kent

Bungling Bernstein. (1909)

Book Review from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Evolutionary Socialism. By Edward Bernstein. Published by I.L.P.

Often when a certain theory or hypothesis is laid down in any science it has been found after a time, that a number of facts are discovered which the theory does not adequately explain. A revision of the theory is then necessary, or a new one, even, may be required.

On other occasions it has been found that the new facts were not accurately taken, and upon this being corrected the theory has been found sufficient for the needs of Science. Isaac Newton’s theory of the Law of Gravity and Lamarck’s theory of “Transformism” are classical cases in point.

In sociology Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were the first to formulate the theory that material interests are the driving force of human actions, in the mass, while the methods of production and distribution of wealth formed the basis, and determined the form of society.

Examining the factors of social evolution they were able to point out, in the main, the path modern society is travelling and the end it must arrive at, and naturally all the capitalist apologists shrieked in concert at these “preposterous ideas”. But whenever any of them attempted to come to close quarters they always game to grief.

Nowadays point after point is being admitted by various apologists until we have reached a stage where Professor Seligman, in his Economic Interpretation of History, admits so much that we need not trouble about the rest.

The book whose title is given above is written by one who professes to be a Marxist, but who tries to show “where the Marx-Engels theory appears to me to be especially mistaken or self-contradictory” (preface).

Marx and Engels  were no penny-a-liners, as Bernstein, but men of immense knowledge and intellectual power, and a critic who would show them in error must be prepared to handle vast quantities of information in a scientific manner and logical style. Does Bernstein do this? Let one of his supporters, Mr. Austin F. Harrison, answer.

“His [Bernstein’s] criticism was purely negative; his language – and probably intentionally so – obscure; his arguments a labyrinth of antitheses, discussions and digressions” (Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1902).

The above was written before the book had appeared in English; now that it is at hand Harrison’s statement is found fully justified. To attempt to follow this labyrinth would be a waste of time. All that is necessary is to take some of the important points and see how they will stand examination.

On page 15 we are told that “sciences, arts, a whole series of social relations are to-day much less dependent upon economics than formerly, or, in order to give no room for misconception, the point of economic development attained to-day leaves the ideological, and especially the ethical, factors, greater space for independent activity than was formerly the case”.

This is one specimen of the supposed criticism and limitation of “The Economic Interpretation of History”. To carry the least weight such a statement should show how the factors, “having greater space for independent activity”, are thereby “less dependent upon economics”. So far from showing any such thing the paragraph admits that this activity is entirely based upon economic development, and that without it such activity could not exist.

In a footnote on page 36 an attempt is made to defend the “final utility” school because Marx says in Vol. 3 of Capital, “the use value on a social basis appears here as the determining factor for the shares of the total social labour time which falls to the lot of the different particular spheres of production”. How this affects the question of exchange-value – the real ground of dispute between the Marxist and Jevonian schools, our critic has not time to tell us. A far larger share of the total social labour time is devoted to producing bread than sealskin coats, but the bread is far cheaper per lb. than the coats. The point is brought forward in another way when on pages 38-9 we are told that the theory of labour is a key, “but this key refuses service over and above a certain point, and therefore it has become disastrous to nearly every disciple of Marx”.

What is the point at which the key fails? Upon the answer to this question depends the value of the statement, and the answer we get is – nothing. Obviously the statement is worth as much as the answer.

Every student of economics knows that many able writers on economics have endeavoured to show where the key fails, but from Rae to Bohm-Bawerk they have all proved ghastly failures. This may be one reason why Bernstein does not attempt the task. His book will probably circulate most widely among I.L.P. members, who, lacking knowledge of Marx and his critics, may be persuaded to accept such statements as true. Instead of attempting an answer, Bernstein airily offers another superior piece of information to his readers:

“A scientific basis for Socialism or Communism cannot be supported on the fact only that the wage worker does not receive the full value of the product of his work. ‘Marx’, says Engels in his preface to the Poverty of Philosophy, ‘has never based his communistic demands on this, but on the necessary collapse of the capitalist mode of production which is being daily more nearly brought to pass before our eyes” (p. 39).

Socialists, of course, always teach that the workers must become conscious or have knowledge of, their exploitation before they will free themselves from wage slavery, but we may remark that the statement of Engels’ is taken from a passage wherein he criticises Rodbertus for mixing up morals in what should have been an economic analysis.

We are then treated to a section on “The Distribution of Wealth in the Modern Community” for the purpose of examining the statement regarding the necessary collapse of society and to show its falsity. A short sketch is given of Marx’s description of the development of capitalism and the cause of crises, and the question is asked, “is all that true?” Note the answer.

“Yes and no. It is true above all as a tendency. The forces painted are there and work in the given direction. And the proceedings are also taken from reality. The fall of the profit rate is a fact, the increase of the rate of surplus-value is a fact” (pp. 41-2).

We rub our eyes. Do we read correctly? If all the above is admitted what is left for Marx’s opponent to quibble about? But we are told on page 42, “When the statement does not agree with reality it is not because something false is said, but because what is said is incomplete”.

Bernstein then endeavours to show where this “incompleteness” exists and this section is certainly the trickiest in the book. It therefore deserves detailed attention.

After saying  there is a lack of exhaustive statistics upon the division of shares in Joint Stock undertakings he states: “the ‘Trust’ has quite a different effect upon the distribution of wealth from what it seems to outsiders to possess”, and gives such figures as the following to support the statement.

“The English Sewing Thread Trust . . . counts 12,300 shareholders; of these

                                                                             6,000 with £60 average capital

                                                                             4,500 with £150 average capital

                                                                             1,800 with £315 average capital”.

Note first that no evidence whatever is given as to authenticity of the figures, nor is the total capital of the company given. Obviously the value of the figures in face of the latter omission is nil. Then we are told that with reference to J. & P. Coats, Ltd., that the position “is similar”, but, curiously, no figures are given at all. The Coats combine is more than three times the size of the English Sewing Thread Trust, and, according to the fancy figuring of Bernstein, should have given us still greater proofs of the distribution of wealth. Why this silence?

Let us fill the gap a little. Firstly, the capital of the English Sewing Thread Trust is £3,000,000 (Mr. Chiozza Money, Daily News, Nov. 3rd, ’06). Bernstein’s figures a sum of £1,602,000, leaving £1,398,000, or nearly half the total capital in someone else’s hands. Who holds this huge share, and therefore dominating power? The Trust was formed by combining about sixteen firms, and it obviously is the principal owners of these firms who hold the vast capital given above and thereby actually control the whole business.

J. & P. Coats, according to Mr. Money (same article), have a Capital of £10,000,000, and make a profit of £3,000,000 a year. Coats, Ltd., combine the firms of Coats, Paisley; Clarke & Co.; Jonas Brooks & Bros.; and James Chadwick & Bro. The heads of these particular firms, particularly Coats, hold such a large proportion of the shares that Bernstein dare not give the figures.

But this is not all. The averaging of the amounts per shareholder is a piece of deliberate misleading. Take, for instance, the 6,000 shareholders with an average of £60 each. It is quite possible, as certain legal cases have shown, that ten of the original shareholders may have taken up £30,000 worth of shares each, outside the original allotment, leaving £60,000 worth to be divided among 5,990 shareholders.

The shares held by the various members of the Chamberlain family in Kynock’s, Ltd., published during the South African War, is a case in point.

Bernstein admits that “not all shareholders deserve the name of capitalists, and often one and the same great capitalist appears in all possible companies as a moderate shareholder. But with all this the number of shareholders and the average amount of their holding of shares has been of rapid growth” (p. 44).

“How blind we were,” says Paul Lafargue with caustic irony, in his Socialism and the Intellectuals, “by our sectarianism when we thought that this new form of property, essentially capitalistic, was enabling the financiers to plunge their thieving hands into the smallest purses to extract the last pieces of silver”.

Some figures are then given, from the Income Taxation returns to show how broadly the national income is distributed. We need not trouble the reader with them as he will find a masterly analysis of these returns in Mr. Chiozza Money’s Riches and Poverty, far superior to anything of Bernstein’s. And Mr. Money’s conclusion is that “more than one-third of the entire income of the United Kingdom is enjoyed by less than one-thirtieth of its people” (p. 42). This by a member of the Liberal Party.

Some tables of Income Taxation for Prussia and Saxony are given on page 47 which show that the number of large incomes have increased in greater ratio than the others! Thus is Saxony incomes of £165 to £180 have increased 74% while incomes of over £2,700 have increased 272%! In Prussia incomes of £300 to £1,525 have increased 46.1% while incomes over £5,000 have increased 100%. Bernstein should be a good judge of self-contradiction, being such a past master in it himself.

No figures are given for what should be the best example of all – America – where capitalism has reached the highest stage of development; and this although directly challenged by a New York paper – the Volkszeitung – to do so.

Concerning accumulated wealth, as apart from income, Mr. Money says (p. 72) “about one-seventieth part of the population owns far more than one-half of the accumulated wealth, public and private, of the United Kingdom”. Against such a state of affairs as this Bernstein’s superficial shuffling of figures is puerile.

In the next section we are told that the existence of large numbers of small and medium-sized establishments disprove the “concentration theory” of Marx, and figures are given to show “that at least two-thirds of the businesses registered as factories belong to the category of medium-sized businesses with fifty to sixty workers”.

Only those absolutely ignorant of present-day production can be mislead by such a fallacy. The size of the factories give no clue whatever to the ownership. Thus the Imperial Tobacco Company have factories of all sorts and sizes up and down the country. Salmon & Gluckstein’s various shops with A. Baker & Co’s and A. Jones & Co’s numerous branches are all owned by the above Tobacco Co. Messrs. Freeman, Hardy & Willis have shops in nearly every provincial town, and by their amalgamation with Rabbits & Sons of London have obtained control of a large number of shops in the Metropolis.

Lipton’s, Ltd., have shops in nearly every industrial centre, as have Boots, Ltd., the chemists. Most of these shops and businesses are small or medium-sized, but are, nevertheless, exactly evidence of concentration instead of the contrary. The same applies to America, where according to Bernstein there are “910 manufactories of agricultural implements with 30,723 workers”, an average of 33 to each factory. But this industry is almost entirely in the hands of a huge combine to whom these various factories belong. And once more we have the curious fact that in a table of figures given for Prussia it is the “giant establishments” that show by far the greatest relative increase! (Page 57.) Bernstein indeed says: “A remarkable movement towards the great establishments, and often two or more of the establishments enumerated are only departments of one and the same enterprise. The process of industrial and commercial concentration is most obvious” (pp. 57-8). Then why was the book written?

Then we are brought into the region that is supposed to show the greatest evidence of all against concentration – agriculture. A table is given for the year 1895 in Germany, but as not table is given for any other year it is useless for any comparative purpose. In Holland, we are told, the number of large holdings have actually decreased, but as we are not given the area of these holdings we may as well assume that they have been combined.

France is the classic land of peasant proprietorship, and owing to its laws of inheritance should give support to Bernstein’s views. Bracke, in Le Socialisme, gives the following figures taken from the Minister of Agriculture’s speech delivered on 14th March, 1909.

                       YEAR 1892

Area of Holdings                       Proprietors

Under 1 hectare                          2,235,405

1 to 10 hectares                          2,617,557

10 to 40 hectares                            711,118

40 to 100 hectares                          105,391

100 upwards                                     32,280

                         YEAR 1908

Under 1 hectare                            2,087,851

1 to 10 hectares)                           2,523,713

10 to 40 hectares)                             745,862

40 to 100 hectares)                           118,497

100 hectares upwards)                        29,541

As the greatest decrease in proprietors has taken place in the smallest holdings the deduction is that concentration has been going on in these sections, and the figures of the areas of the two sections that the Minister gives confirms this.

                           YEAR 1892

Under 1 hectare                          1,243,200 hectares

1 to 10 hectares                        10,383,300 hectares

                            YEAR 1908

Under 1 hectare                            1,228,597 hectares

1 to 10 hectares                          11,559,342 hectares

Thus while the proprietors of less than 1 hectare have diminished by 147,554, the area has decreased only by 14,603 hectares; and while the proprietors of 1 to 10 hectares have decreased by 93,843, the area has increased by 1,176,042. A remarkable illustration in support of Marx from an unexpected quarter.

With regard to England, Mr. Money, in his Riches and Poverty (p. 75), gives these figures:

Total area of United Kingdom                77,000,000 acres

Owned by 2,500 persons                      43,426,900

That is more than half the land owned by 2,500 persons!

The treatment of America is brief, as the only evidence forthcoming is the statement that “There can be no doubt that . . . in the Eastern States of the United States the small and medium agricultural holding is increasing everywhere” (page 71). The authority for the above statement is – Bernstein.

This completes the portion of the book where some attempt at argument, however superficially tricky, is made. In the succeeding sections there is a collapse to the stale depths of the Sunday school type of opposition to Socialism. The workers are incapable of carrying on the production and distribution of wealth without the captain of industry, the man of brains. The failure of the productive side of co-operation has shown how impossible it is for the manager to be under the control or at the recall of the producers. Indeed, Bradlaugh’s old objection to Socialism, that you could not get a community to work together except under a strong religious bond is given in his very words – without acknowledgement.

Therefore the Socialist should join hands with the progressive Liberals, help them in their foreign policy – i.e., in obtaining new markets, etc. Above all “rights of property which common law allows must be inviolable in every community so long as, and in the measure in which the common law allows them. To take away lawful property otherwise than by compensation, is confiscation, which can only be justified in cases of extreme pressure of circumstances – war, epidemics” (page 191).

On page 214 Bernstein says “I hold a whole series of objections raised by opponents against certain items in Marx’s theory as unrefuted, some as irrefutable”.

These objections are evidently of great value for Bernstein keeps them greedily to himself, and does not allow the common herd who may read his book to share them.

Marx may rest in peace. If Bernstein is the best agent the capitalist class can find in the Social Democratic Party of Germany their intellectual bankruptcy is glaring. For he is not only a member of the Germany Party, but has been one of its Parliamentary candidates. The reason may be that they were over-awed by his statement that “Social Democracy required a Kant who should judge the received opinion and examine it critically and with deep acuteness” (page 223). How flattered the intellectual giant of Konisberg would be could he return, to find his prototype in sociology, according to Bernstein, in – Bernstein.

Jack Fitzgerald

Jottings. (1909)

The Jottings Column from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Harry Bradford, writing in the August issue of the Pioneer (Burnley) informs his readers that “The S.D.P. is a poor parent and cannot yet give its children the toys and allurements that the capitalists use to entice them to their fold.” And further “The old age toffy-stick is too long withheld and too melting to satisfy.”

* * *

Then if the capitalist class use reforms as toys, i.e., in order to keep the workers quiet and prevent them becoming unruly, what are we to think of an organisation, claiming to be a working-class, revolutionary body, that advocates capitalist “toffy sticks” and toys ? The S.D.P. had the following capitalist allurements on their programme for a number of years : “Free and adequate State pensions or provision for aged and disabled workers. Public assistance not to entail any forfeiture of political rights.” One can only conclude, first, that the S.D.P.—as an organisation—has been playing the capitalist game, and secondly that Mr. Bradford is either not aware of the methods which the S.D.P. propose taking in order to “carry on the class war,” or that he wilfully misrepresents its objects.

* * *

Knowing that the S.P.G.B. have sent speakers to Nottingham lately, I wondered at first whether the “new, vigorous policy of complete independence” of the Notts I.L.P. was a consequence of these visits, but upon reading the article in the Labour Leader a little further I found they were “marching steadily ahead along the traditional lines of the I.L.P.,” and then I knew why “many social attractions to keep the members together” were necessary. The lack of unanimity as to the objective of the Party for the time being makes necessary the social functions which figure so largely in the I.L.P.

* * *

The debate on the Eight Hours Bill in the House of Commons last year (March 18) brought forth admissions from “Labour” members that with a decreased working day the existing output could be maintained without increased expenditure to the employer.

In his address to the Economic Science and Statistics section of the British Association, Professor Chapman said :

“These changes” (i.e., in the character of the world’s work) “all tended to specialisation, to concentration, both in working and in leisure, and to constant demands for the curtailment of the working hours of the day.

“In the course of long investigations he had found no instance in which an abbreviation of hours had resulted in a proportionate curtailment of output. There was, indeed, every reason to suppose that the production in the shorter hours seldom fell short of the production in the longer hours, and in some cases the product or its value had actually been augmented after a short interval. He (Prof. Chapman) sought also to show that the value of leisure would inevitably rise with progress and that the working day would become less in the future.” Daily News, 27.8.09.

* * *

Thus the “Labour” members, unconsciously, and Professor Chapman, consciously, arrive at the same conclusion, viz., that shortening the working day under capitalist rule means a similar or greater output than results from the longer working day. This is exactly the position laid down by Karl Marx in “Capital,” Chap. XV. p. 417.

* * *

Coincident with the statement of Professor Chapman just alluded to, we have the Board of Education issuing a revised syllabus of physical education. The reason is that the high pressure rate of existence calls for a physically better equipped worker. Education (!) being under capitalist control, it becomes necessary to prepare the future worker for the stress he has to undergo by the introduction of games, etc. We have already partial measures of feeding school children in order that the physical exercises shall not be wasted. In fact, the two schemes hang together, one being the complement of the other.

* * *

“This country, and other countries, have become dominated by a system of commercialism by which wealth and power are so unevenly distributed that for thousands of persons permission to live, even on the borders of starvation, is only granted upon conditions of labour compared to which the lot of the old Negro slave was princely. The greatness of a nation now it judged by the amount of its exports and imports, rather than the happiness of its people. And so we have little children working in the factories, and women, to get back to their work, neglecting their duties of motherhood, for which alone they were created. The inevitable result is the production of a large proportion of the candidates for the asylums.”— Manchester Guardian, 8.31.09.

* * *

No, the above is not the “ravings of a harebrained Socialist,” but a fragment of truth as told by Dr. Frank Perceval, Medical Superintendent Lancashire Asylums Board, in his Annual Report to that body.

* * *

Shackleton, as president of the Trades Unions Congress, desired Richard Bell to express regret to the Railway Clerks Association for having sided with the masters in a dispute between the N.E. Ry. Co. and the R.C.A. But when Ben Tillett got up and stated that “Mr. Asquith is a liar,” who was the first to rise in defense of the master class, and to fret and fume over this smirching of their representative’s “good name”? Shackleton promptly demanded the withdrawal of the remark. Bell sided with the masters in their efforts to prevent the Railway Clerks combining against them, but the whole Labour Party stand solid behind that arsenal of shot and shell for working-class butchery—the Budget.

JAYBEE

The Rainy Day. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world’s arena has been somewhat crowded latterly, and he must he a singularly moribund individual who has allowed the series of recent world-happenings to drop through his cerebral filter without observing that we are on the eve of stupendous changes. Putting aside the North Pole incident, and even the question of the abolition or retention of the Censor, we think it vastly more important to consider that Japan has jumped out of feudalism into modern capitalism, and that almost within the memory of still young men. Japan hits now quite a number of well equipped, up-to-date cotton mills, with which, she is not only supplying her home demand, but is exporting to China. She is thus a new and dangerous competitor in the international race for markets. Turkey now shows signs of throwing off the sloth of ages and of joining in the scramble. Persia, too, and Egypt, are profiting by the example of their contigious neighbours and are responding to the stimulus of imported civilisation. The tremendous expansive powers of the means of production are, to the intelligent student at least, well known, and it would seem only a question of a very short time, before the countries named pass through the stages of the importation of machinery and staple products to being self-supporting, and at last to that where a surplus is produced and exportation begins. This stage once reached, and possessing a proletariat who can rub along comfortably on twopence or threepence a day, it is easy to see where the trouble will commence. Capital, that remarkably shy bird which is always “going abroad,” will have to either consider the advisability of an inter-planetary trip, or throw up the sponge. The latter process an awakened and intelligent proletariat can materially assist, and our steadily increasing membership tends to show that we are getting this.

Whilst, however, these portentous happenings are being enacted abroad, some no less interesting incidents are occupying the stage at home, in this our own, our native land. The comparatively puny event, the Budget, has been recently dealt with in our columns. Its chief purpose has been to give the Labour Party another opportunity of exhibiting their identity with the enemy, and of justifying the name that Engels applied to their particular hotch-potch of ideas, demands, etc. He called it Flunkeyism.

But to get on, what we would particularly point out is that the period of bad trade, which has been with us now for several years, has apparently developed a deep and abiding affection for us, and in spite of the newspaper predictions of “better next year,” it is still the common experience to find hundreds of applicants for one poorly remunerated job ; still one reads regularly, almost daily, of some poor devil’s suicide through want of employment. And in view of the facts first stated we feel almost justified in assuming that capitalism, at least in Great Britain, has reached that point where good and bad times cease to alternate and we get all depression, or but slight and short returns to “prosperity.” With the home market almost at a standstill owing to the inability of the worker to purchase back more than a mere fraction of his products ; with foreign markets becoming ever more restricted ; with an enormous army of unemployed always on hand and close on a million people classed as paupers: with all these meaning facts confronting them it is very evident that the “masters of the bread” are feeling far from comfortable. The “good time coming” has failed to materialise, so something must be done to quieten working-class unrest and if possible to offer a counter-attraction to the steadily increasing agitation of the wicked Socialist.

Result (1) the Budget, (2) Insurance against Unemployment. The former, as we have observed, has been dealt with in our columns already. It is of the latter we now wish to speak.

Mr. Winston Churchill, in an interview which the Daily Mail (16.8.09) claims to have had with him, was considerate enough to explain the proposed scheme to the interviewer, and in doing so exposed, not only the cloven hoof, but the goat-like haunches, the horned head and leering grin of capitalism’s patron saint, the Father of Lies. The main features of the scheme are these : It will be (1) compulsory ; (2) contributory ; (3) divided up into different sections for different trades.

"Compulsion was necessary. Voluntary schemes fail for the reason that most of those who join them are men likely to be most often unemployed."

See the beautiful and touching solicitude of our rulers for the comfort and well-being of the worker. Only those likely to benefit joined under a voluntary system. What is wanted is a membership composed of men who will only want to pay in and never draw out.

“Contributions from men and employers were also necessary. To begin with, the country could not afford to do without them ; and moreover, the idea is to increase the stability of our institutions by giving the mass of industrial workers a direct interest in maintaining them. With a ‘stake in the country’ in the form of insurance against evil days these workers will pay no attention to the vague promises of revolutionary Socialism.”

Thus Mr. Churchill. The position of the S.P.G.B. regarding palliatives is, or should be, well known, and we think the above a striking confirmation of our attitude. Social reform is the antidote to Socialism. Palliatives are the sops thrown out to keep the workers busy while the capitalists make their position more secure, and serve much the same purpose as the impedimenta thrown out by a man in a sleigh pursued by wolves.

The details of the scheme are also extremely interesting. The amount of subscription is not yet definitely fixed, but will probably be 2½d. per week from the worker, 2½d. a week from the employer, and the same from the State. Every worker is to have a card upon which stamps to the value of his own and his employer’s contribution must be stuck each week. The employer is to affix the stamp, deducting the worker’s 2½d. from his wages. The employer may to save time and trouble, send all his cards to the local labour exchange with a cheque for the amount due, and the cards will be stamped without any further trouble to him.

The labour exchanges and the insurance plan will work closely together. When a worker loses his job he is to report himself to the exchange, which immediately tries to find him work. For a week he receives nothing. It is assumed that he will have saved enough to last him a week, and in the meantime the exchange endeavours to find him a job in order to save the fund.

When the exchange hears of work likely to suit the unemployed worker he must either take it or explain to a committee of masters and men why he objects. If they consider his objection unsatisfactory he is bound to accept the job or lose his out-of-work allowance. If neither the man nor the exchange can find work, than after seven days he begins to receive the tremendous sum of eight shillings or less per week, which may go on for fifteen weeks, or more if the benefits are slightly less. If still out of work after twenty weeks he drops out of benefit, and when next he finds employment must start all over again. The second time he has to subscribe longer before he becomes entitled to claim on the funds. The original period of probation will most probably be eight months. The second will be longer and the third longer still. This will have the effect of clearing the fund of those who are habitually unemployed for long spells. The frequently out-of-work must seek relief of the distress committee : they are outside the limits of the labour exchange and insurance system, which is in no sense charitable. “It is a purely economic and mathematical business arrangement for preventing waste.”

The unemployed problem is a necessary consequence of and an indispensable adjunct to the capitalist method of wealth making. The introduction of machinery and improved methods into industry, renders an increasing number of workers superfluous. These form what Engels calls “the reserve army of labour,” a weapon for crushing the wages of those in work down to mere subsistence level, and also a store from which drafts may be drawn to meet the fluctuations in trade. But the capitalist is faced with another difficulty. The worker’s wage is crushed so near the bare subsistence level that he is unable to put anything away to tide over a spell of unemployment of even short duration. The consequence is that when the capitalist next takes him down off the shelf, he is devitalized, spiritless and out of condition generally, hence not so energetic, not so productive, as the capitalist wants. The proposed scheme of insurance will just provide a few niggardly, shillings to keep the landlord off for a week or two, and with the two or three shillings he has cheated himself out of during the probation period (eight months at least) it is hoped he will keep himself physically fit until the capitalist has need of his services again.

What a hollow sham ! What a mockery ! !

“Many of the greatest employers of labour have warmly welcomed the idea. Sir Charles McLaren, for instance, believes it will add materially to the wealth of the nation.”

Workers, beware when the enemy warmly welcomes anything affecting your relations with him ! You may be fairly sure that it is not for your benefit. When you have a dispute with him as to what constitutes a “fair” portion of your product to hand you back as wages, notice how he “warmly welcomes” the troops who go down to blow your brains out. Notice how he “warmly welcomes” the establishment of conciliation boards when a mere glance at statistics show an ever greater proportion of disputes settled, through them, in favour of the masters. Workers, how long are you going to chase the Will-o’-the-wisps the master class is never tired of contriving for your greater befoolment ? All the budgets, tariff reforms, insurance and other capitalist schemes won’t alter the fact that you have to seek the permission of the owners of the means of life, to work, as a means to live. Nothing save Socialism, the ownership by the people of those means, will change the conditions that make you hirelings, slaves, lackeys; who receive only a fragment of the wealth you alone produce, when you are fortunate enough to be graciously allowed to produce it—for someone else

If you are convinced that in Socialism alone is to be found your only escape, do not wait for someone else to join, but come in and help to build up a solid party. We are often asked how are we going to bring this better state about. Believe us, no select half-dozen are going to do it, but you, and I, and all of us, combined as a class, can do that, and anything else humanly possible that we wish.—when you join. Come in.

Wilfred.

Blogger's Note:

When 'Wilfred' writes: ". .  . The comparatively puny event, the Budget, has been recently dealt with in our columns . . . ",  he's possibly referring to the following editorials from earlier Socialist Standards:

• Jun 1909: Raising the Wind.
• July 1909: A Capitalist Budget.
• Sep 1909: Liberalism’s Last Ditch. 

Editorial: “De Massa ob de Shepfold”. (1909)

Editorial from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The annual meeting of trades union “shepherds” and fleecers has taken place. Ipswich was the venue chosen on this occasion. The old Essex town has been the scene of many a sale of fatted beasts and meek-eyed bleaters in years gone by, but a new kind of cattle was bought and sold there a few days since, a new breed of sheep—more meek of eye, more trustful of their shepherd, more timidly plaintive in their complaining bleat, than any which have proceeded them to the local market place—passed under the hammer and on to their unsuspected fate.

Of course the gathering was graced by the presence of the Mayor of the town and the two sitting M.P.’s for the locality, presumably as the direct representatives of the butchers (M. P. —meat purveyor, you see). Equally of course the former opened his mouth and spake, saying, “These are our faithful shepherds, who do look well after our mut’n ‘n our wool, who do cry ‘wolf’ when the Socialist appeareth, and who do—Gordnozowtheydoit—contrive to get our sheep into the market in the pink of condition as to fleece, and all prime and rosy as to meat, and warranted quite to ride and drive as temper. It ain’t often I drop into poetry (I’ll have pleasure in dropping into somewhere else with Pete when I’ve finished with this job), but I am reminded, forcibly reminded, when I picture the sheep they have brought us to-day, of Shelley’s well-known lines:

“Their wool is wrapped about their ears,

Their wool is wrapped about their eyes,”

and as long as we leave it to these chaps the wool will continue to be where it is. The good shepherd is worthy of his hire, in other words these chaps deserve well of us.”

The Mayor having “breathed” as a certain “labour” paper puts it, “political neutrality” intermixed with the utmost friendliness, it was the turn of the chief shepherd, Shackl’em, no, Shackleton. “The young lambs ran a pretty race,” he began, dropping into poetry at once in emulation of his predecessor, but someone said the question of child labour wasn’t on the agenda, and the president changed the subject. He began with great adroitness to pull the wool over the eyes and ears of his patient bleaters, and we may congratulate him on his quite remarkable resource in the operation. Of course he had the advantage afforded by the fact that it was long ago ruled that discussion on the chairman’s speech was out of order. But this wise ordination did not make the man ; it only gave him his opportunity. Where all are so admirable it is impossible to select any particular distortion, misrepresentation, or dowright (ought we say upright?), honest lie and say “this is his best.” But we may give two instances which prove the man to be possessed of no ordinary accomplishment, even if they do not bear the stamp of genius. Read, mark, learn and digest, all ye who aspire to some little eminence in the gentle art of telling lies, and go home and be modest.

Firstly he enlarged with much effect upon the number of delegates present and trade unionists represented as compared with the Congress held in the Eastern counties in 1891. A man of less calibre might have spoilt this by letting it slip out that, however the present numbers compared with those of 1894, there had been a steady decrease in those, figures for some years now, but not so Shackleton. Again he said with convincing blandness (a point to be noted, for it is often not so much the lie you tell as the way you tell it) “Trade unionism no longer waits upon the orthodox parties to carry out its wishes.” How can they keep such a man down ? He is bound to rise like scum in a pot. And talking of pots, did the “revolutionary” Thorne cackle under the pot ? Perhaps he dared not for fear the pot should boil over and the scum souse him out.

Better a little spark beneath the pot

Than in a boiling-over lost outright.

—O. Ma.

In another part of his speech Shackleton sang the praises of the “generous and kindly disposed Liberal Party,” and from his “exalted” position beseeched his brothers in “arms” to arouse their “apathetic” constituents to a sense of implicit trust in their “generous benefactors,” the Liberal Party. “We see in this Budget great possibilities. The care of the aged, the feeding of the necessitous school-children and the more humane treatment of the unemployed workers will make ever increasing demands on the public purse, and we see for the first time the opportunity of raising the money without unduly taxing the poor to keep the poor.” Count it to his honour that he spoke with deep emotion. Dilly, Dilly, murmured the butchers, and the sheep said Ba ! and wept. So copiously did the tears flow that Shackleton might be said to have cast his bread upon the waters. And was it returned unto him manyfold ? Yes. Mr. Shackleton. later announced that the Board of Trade had sent him word that they had graciously consented, to have all the appointments of officials of Labour Exchanges made by a committee consisting of three persons—an employer, an official of the Board of Trade, and—Mr. Shackleton himself. What a day for Labour ! How the delegates did cheer ! Virtue rewarded ! ability recognised ! Striking confirmation of his eulogism of their “generous benefactors,” the Liberal Party. Could the Board of Trade have been listening at the keyhole ? or was it inspiration ? At any rate it is another bond of union between the “generous, kindly disposed” Liberal Party and the very unorthodox Labour Party. And now perhaps Shackleton will be able to do something for unemployed children who have got over their “teething.” He can certainly do something for his fellow-shepherds, and we hear that the “revolutionaries” have already hidden the red flag, while the Thorne is quiet beneath the pot.

Of course other things transpired at the Congress, though of less importance. There was the indictment of Richard Bell for defending, in the Parliamentary debate in July on the North Eastern Railways Bill, the action of the company’s manager to prevent the combination of the railway clerks. The delegates, being trade union delegates (and perhaps afraid of the law of lie-Bell), forgave him—the wool is wrapped about their eyes. The Government Unemployed Insurance scheme was hailed with great joy. The Salvation Army, so near the heart of J. R. MacDonald, who once declared that he had “many irons in the fire,” but he hadn’t one iron that they “did not hold one end of” (the hot end, it is to be presumed, or he would not have been so cheerful—was put “through the hoop.” Ben Tillett placed it on record that all Cabinet Ministers are liars, greatly to the horror of Shackleton. Thorne pictured the unemployed luxuriously lounging in the Labour Exchanges waiting for the masters to call and ask them to go to work. Tillett moved that Congress call upon the Government to appoint a Labour Minister with Cabinet rank. Since he aspires so high, and “trade unionism no longer waits upon the orthodox parties to carry out its wishes,” Tillett may consider himself appointed to the select circle of “liars.”

The dominant note of Congress was love toward the Liberal Party, a sure sign of the near approach of a General Election. The “labour” papers all reported “some progress,” as must we also—backwards.

Blogger's Note:

“De Massa ob de Shepfold” is from a poem by Sarah Pratt McLean Greene, who was an American author and poet. The wording is rather dubious for modern eyes because it follows a fashion from this period where poems and songs were adapted into supposed African American spiritual style verse and, I quote, "written in African American "dialect" ". 

". . . and perhaps afraid of the law of lie-Bell . . . " might be a jokey reference to fact that Richard Bell had previously sued the Socialist Standard for libel. See the August 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard for more details.

The Position in Lancashire. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

When dealing with the condition of any section of the working class the primary question always is, what are their wages? What is their cost of living ? A Government enquiry was commenced in October 1906 into various matters dealing with the wages of, and the prices paid by, the working class in Burnley, and the result was .published in the Burnley Gazette of February 12 1908. Compared with London prices, which are taken as 100, the prices index number for Burnley for all commodities was 95. The index number of rent and prices combined in Burnley was 87 compared with 100 in London. Taking the London rate of wages as 100, the Burnley index number for the building trades was 85, in the engineering the same, in the printing it was 81, in the furnishing trades 81. In the cotton trades the earnings of the male and female weavers are the same—for a four loom weaver it is given as from 22s. to 28s. per week. This, it must be remembered, is when working full time and when work is of good quality. It is absurd to claim these figures as a fair indication of the average wage of the weavers. In the Manchester Guardian of July 29th, 1908 it was stated in a special article that “If we go back for 34 or 35 years it will be seen that rates of wages are no higher to-day in the textile trades (including operative cotton spinners and weavers and jute and linen operatives) than they were in 1874.” Another fact worthy of note was thus stated by Mr. Philip Snowden in a speech in the House of Commons on January 30th, 1908, “In the most important of our industries, particularly in the textile trades, the actual number of persons employed was less than it was at some former decade.” The recent blue book “Public Health and Social Conditions,” gives the number employed in the textile trades in 1851 and 1901 as 1,671,681 and 1,301,685 respectively. Every fundamental industry wherein machinery is well established shows the same feature; this in spite of the much larger amount of raw material handled.

The wages received by the male workers are thus really inadequate to rear a family upon a “civilised” standard. Often a whole family are to be found working in the mills—man and wife, and children full and half time. Pretty fairy tales are in circulation in “middle-class” circles anent the earnings of these families when all are merrily working. One would imagine that the Income Tax assessors are missing a fertile source of revenue. But, alas, this state of financial felicity is temporary: the children marry and set up wigwams of their own, and pass through the old struggle and suffering.

Our readers know well the wage conditions in those trades where the wives of the workers work side by side with men. And for years the proportion of women to men workers has been steadily increasing. Many of the older mills are terrible from a hygenie point of view; the clouds of artificially formed vapour floating in the air do not add to their salubrity. And women toiling in such holes to within a few weeks of child-birth does not tend to produce a race of Spartans, even with the help of municipal milk depots, lady inspectors, and, let us say also, state feeding of children. We cannot wonder that such districts are notorious for their enormous infantile death-rate. Baden Powell’s boy scouts, in this part of the country at any rate, would not make ideal advertisements for a beef extract. Imagine the long ten hours of toil, every day producing miles of shoddy, adulterated cottons, every yard of which is a replica of every other yard ; stuff which would be disdainfully refused, often, by our slum proletariat, and intended ultimately for a far distant market. And our women folk up North have been so perverted by spending half their living hours under such noxious and tense conditions that it is said many of them actually prefer it to the alternative of domestic drudgery. Perhaps under capitalism there is little to choose twixt the two desolations.

There is, I understand, a legend in existence, well believed, holding that in the Lancashire textile towns a large number of the workers own the houses wherein they live. Now it is certain that to only a very small proportion does this apply. A certain number of houses are purchased by the workers with the aid of money borrowed from building and co-operative societies. It is well known that in very many cases married women, where possible, go to work in the mills to help eke out the earnings of the husband. In some instances the attempt is made to lay aside the money earned by the women folk to purchase a house through the co-operative or other societies. This money earned by the women—at an inculcalable injury to health it is sure—is the creator of some miniature working-class fortunes. The hoards are made at this cost; many of the married women actually take out their children at five o’clock in the morning to a pseudo-mother to be nursed until the cessation of work. And when man and wife return “home” after the day’s toil they find a dreary, cold home, and are face to face with that amount of household work which all know to be in itself sufficient to tax the powers of any normal woman. Anti-Socialists and others propagate tales of working-class wealth as expressed in building societies, co-operative societies, penny banks, house property, and so on. But fancy a tradesman calculating his financial position by overlooking his assets alone ! What about working-class liabilities ? I imagine it would be a fairly safe assumption to regard the assets in house property of the Lancashire textile workers as heavily balanced by their liabilities in the form of doctors’ bills, credit drapers’ accounts, money lenders debts, mortgages and other accounts owing to—the capitalist class.

This, then, is the position. The majority of Lancashire workers do not, and never expect to, own their houses. A minority attempt to, and after a few years’ struggle (wife working at mill, etc.) give up the fight in disgust. Another minority, with the help of luck and the gift of the “money sense,” sometimes even manage to get hold of a few houses, rise out of their class, and become object lessons in thrift and parsimony to the rest of the proletariat. But “one swallow does not make a summer,” and the fact that a few lucky, financially acute working men rise out of their class is no more a proof that the whole working class as a class could so be saved than the fact that a few Roman slaves were manumitted was a proof that Roman chattel slavery would be abolished in that manner.

The co-operative society is natural to Lancashire. It is its stronghold and if anywhere it has benefited the workers, Lancashire should be that place. When these societies originated they had only the small grocer possessed of little capital to fight, and a certain progress was made. But now the company shops are in the field, and it remains to be seen whether the co-operatives can survive in competion with these monster concerns. It would be of interest if some of the co-operative leaders would give us their ideas as to the origin of the precious “divi.” It is extracted, of course, from the unpaid labour of the shopmen, but co-operators seem vague as to its source. Many experiments in co-partnership have been made in Lancashire, and the village of Haggate, near Burnley, is the stock example of successful thrift, providence and foresight. Though a few working men have risen out of their class, the majority are really unable to rise above the economic, mental and moral limits which capitalism has created. The Wholesale Co-operative Society had a turnover of ten millions in 1895 ; at the end of the next decade, 1905, it was twenty millions. So that even if the movement were economically sound it is not keeping pace at all with the development of capitalism.

Lancashire is looked upon as a stronghold of trade unionism, and most of the large towns boast a trades council. These councils have not the least influence upon working-class conditions, and do not make the difference of a pipeful of tobacco to the worker. They will send a resolution on the housing question to the local M.P., pass a vigorous one condemning the Russian atrocities, then the painters will propose resolutions condemning the park-keepers for painting railings to occupy their time during the winter months. It is all petty and ephemeral. “Practical” politics and so-called bread-and-buttter questions tax the energies of the Lancashire trades councils.

Certainly the cotton operatives possess leaders ! Some of them are credited with the possession of “Socialistic” ideas, but

“Lo, there are many ways and many traps

And many guides, and which of them is lord ?

For verily Mahomet has the sword,

And he may have the truth—perhaps ! Perhaps !”

So speaks the Oriental poet. Substitute for “Mahomet” “the capitalist” and the truth is out. Justly do we honour pioneers ! We see so many obsequious camp-followers, so many fakirs negotiating and arbitrating and conciliating, so many “leaders” merely reflecting the opinions of orthodoxy and only too ready to become “revolutionaries” when it pays them, that it is not surprising what an amount of inert opposition the S.P.G.B. has to face. Our Shackletons and Gills are typical of the minor “leaders” in the textile world ; as Meredith put it, “unimpressionable English, who won’t believe in the existence of aims that don’t drop on the ground before your eyes, and squat and stare at you.” Such men are really illiterate. Their education has been a continued accretion of ill-digested, ephemeral facts collided with in everyday life. They are mediocre and pious, that is, they hold certain theological views by virtue of hereditary and environmental influences ; they are temperance agitators because Bill Jones was a drunkard and ill-treated his family ; they are Liberals because Chapel folks are Liberals and Churchmen are Conservatives. Their religion, politics and ethics have a common source in capitalist literature and capitalist journalism. The textile union leaders, then, are hopeless. As Mr. Pickwick said : “It is always best on those occasions to do what the mob do.” “But suppose there are two mobs ?” suggested Mr. Snodgrass. “Shout with the largest,” replied Mr. Pickwick. Our textile leaders are Mr. Pickwick glorified. As we say, they know on which side their bread is buttered.

The only Socialism the bulk of the Lancashire people know of is that of the I.L.P. and S.D.P. —pseudo-Socialism. I.L.P. is, of course, a synonym for Labourism in Lancashire as in other parts of Great Britain. It is safe to assert that every Labour M.P. sent from a Lancashire constituency was elected by Liberal votes. At this moment the S.D.P. in Shackleton’s constituency are threatening opposition because he is shaky in regard to some of their reforms. Not because he is not a Socialist, forsooth ! No. If he would but shout at capitalists as whited sepulchres and advocate state maintenance he would be as acceptable as Irving, and blessed by them. There is no question but the S.D.P. in Lancashire is swamped by the Labour Party ; a reform party outflanked by another reform party, but one asking for fewer reforms. Simply that and nothing more. Politically the Lancashire artizan must be converted from Labourism; industrially he must be converted from the sick-aud-burial-society, thrifty, provident kind of industrial organisation dubbed Trade Unionism.

John A. Dawson

A Look Round. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Holloway and Hornsey Press” of Sept. 3rd says “Messrs. J. Keith and Blackham, Ltd., whose works are at the rear of Holloway Hall, advertised for some gas-fitters. They were told to apply at 11 o’clock, but at an early hour crowds began to assemble. They lined each side of Holloway Road and blocked the whole roadway leading to the works. So great was the pressure that the gates leading to the works were forced in, and one man had to be taken to the hospital. As a last resort the police had to be fetched and taken into the works by a side entrance, and the men driven away by the arm of the law.

“Now the great majority of these men were trained workmen, masters of their trade, yet over a thousand turned up when only twenty places were vacant ! Some of these men had been works managers, and they possessed the highest testimonials, and yet they were willing to take a job as an ordinary gas-fitter.”

* * *

The same journal naturally asks “What is the use of repeating the parrot cry that the cause of unemployment is that our lads do not learn a trade, when the fact stares us in the face that over a thousand men fight with one another for work for twenty ?”

* * *

Speaking at Wallsall Wood on Sunday, Aug. 8th, Mr. J. Keir Hardie, M.P. said “They had thirty-four men in the House of Commons, returned there without thanks to the Liberal and Tory parties (cries of ‘Question’ and ‘No’). Those thirty-four Labour Members had been, returned to the House of Commons often in opposition to both Liberal and Tory, and in those constituencies where either one or the other parties did not oppose the Labour Party it was because they knew it was hopeless to do so, and so made a virtue of necessity. (Laughter.)” Labour Leader, August 13th.

What an ungrateful lot to be sure : “returned without thanks to the Liberal and Tory parties” indeed! What will the seven thousand Liberals think who voted for Keir Hardie at the last general election ?

* * *

But the Liberals have the thanks of Keir Hardie after all. At the same meeting he stated that “The present Liberal Government was granting reforms—Old Age Pensions, the Budget, the Miners’ Eight Hours Act and measures of that kind. Credit was due to the Government for these measures.” (Italics ours.)

And why did the Government pass these bills ?: “It was the presence of the Labour Party.”

We leave Keir Hardie to explain the advantages to be derived by the working class from any of the above bills.

* * *

Speaking of the Eight Hours Bill the Sunday Times (August 1st) says “The miners have recently gained the advantages of the Eight Hours Act and ever since the coalfields have been seething with discontent. Prompted, no doubt,, by the consideration arising out of the changed condition established by the Act, the Scottish coal-owners sought a reduction of wages, and the dispute which followed assumed national dimensions.”

Apart from this there has also been an attempt by the masters to compel the men to work the eight hours right off without a stoppage for meals, while we know from past experience that a reduction of hours usually results in an even greater speeding up of the worker, a greater expenditure of energy in the shorter period leaving him at the end of the day in a worse condition, physically and mentally, than when working under the old conditions.

* * *

The Commission in Lunacy in their annual report, show that the number of insane persons has increased from 30,762 in 1849 to 128,787 on January 1st of this year, and recognise the significance of the increase of insanity by their suggestion for the accommodation of a further 15,000 for whom there is no room at present.

Fifty years of progress !

H. A. Young

S. D. P. and taxation. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

H. M. Hyndman (S. D. P.) in Justice, 7.8.09, says that “If Mr. Lloyd George were to bring about a reduction of Rates and Taxes by the Confiscation of rent for that purpose it would only benefit the Capitalist Class”, thus affirming that rates and taxes are no concern of the working class.

E. Belfort Bax and H. Quelch (S. D. F.) in their Catechism of Socialism say “that the Working Class do not pay taxes, but that they are paid out of the surplus value robbed by the Capitalist Class from the Working Class.”

Miss Kough (S. D. F.) speaking for the Watford Socialist Society on August 8th last, in advocating Adult Suffrage said that it was “only right that working class women who have to pay their share of the taxes should have a vote and a voice in the spending of those taxes.”

When asked to reconcile her statement with that of Hyndman in Justice, the organ of the party she was a member of, Miss Kough said she “was not going to be answerable for wild statements which appear in papers.” This is cruel! Poor Hyndman!

When the position of Bax and Quelch was pointed out to the lady she replied that she did “not care what they said, anybody with common sense knows the workers do pay taxes.” That is why the audience applauded the statement: it was common sense, which is so often uncommon nonsense.

But to accuse Bax and Quelch of having no sense in these matters – well, it must be spite against Bax for his attitude on the woman question. But what about Quelch? – well, let them fight it out. Where are we now? Do the workers pay taxes? According to the S. D. P. we don’t know. The S. P. G. B. have repeatedly pointed out in their organ that they do not and nothing has or can be brought forward to show they do – so the working class do not pay rates or taxes.

Watford.

"The World For The Workers." (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Copies of the above four-part song S., A, T,. B. — complete with pianoforte accompaniment and Tonic-Solfa setting may be obtained, price 3d., or post free 3½d., through the branches or from the Head Office.

Blogger's Notes:

The lyrics for Hans Neumann's party song were reproduced in the April 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Last year a SPGB member put the lyrics — and the S., A, T,. B. musical description — through one of those A.I. software programmes that I neither understand nor particularly like (A.I. brings out my inner Ned Ludd) and brought Hans Neumann's song to 'life'. You can check it out below:

I won't lie: it's not really my cup of tea. Sounds a bit too much like a Runrig album track. I could imagine an accompanying video which would have lots of sweeping shots of Britain's green and pleasant land, which is ironic as Hans Neumann was a German émigré revolutionary socialist. 

In fairness to the SPGB member who put this together, they took another shot with the lyric and came up with a jauntier, folkier version entitled the 'Fitzy version', which is obviously a hat tip to the SPGB stalwart, Jack Fitzgerald. You can check it out below:

I'm not saying it completely works but it's got a certain something. If the more traditional version had a Runrig flavour, this reminds me of the 1980s British folk punk band The Men They Couldn't Hang, and that's not a bad thing. The decision to turn it into a more upbeat song is reminiscent of Billy Bragg, with Dick Gaughan,  recording Jim Connell's Red Flag with the 'White Cockade' tune. 

A socialist song shouldn't be a dirge. (No scoffing at the back, please.)

Correspondence; [The Socialist Party of Canada and the International Socialist Bureau.] (1909)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor.

SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA.

Dominion Executive Committee,

 

Vancouver, B.C. 

Aug. 2, ’09.

 

RESOLUTION.

In view of the fact that a demand has been made in various quarters that this committee take steps to affiliate with the International Socialist Bureau, it has become necessary that the committee define its position on this question.

Whereas, the I.S.B. has seen fit to admit to membership and representation certain non-Socialist bodies, particularly the British Labour Party ; and

Whereas, such parties are not only ignorant of Socialism, but practice openly the most shameless policy of fusion and compromise with capitalist parties, advocating at most a number of petty, and, in many cases, misleading reforms ; and

Whereas, such endorsation of the I.S.B. can only result in the encouragement and fostering of “fake” Labour and pseudo-Socialist parties to the detriment of the Socialist Party proper, and the misleading and betrayal of the working class ; and such action also affords encouragement and justification for that element existing to a greater or less extent in all Socialist Parties, which is in favour of opportunistic methods and compromise ; and

Whereas, this committee considers that the Party funds can be expended more usefully for purposes of propaganda and organisation than in a way that has little more than sentimental value if any ;

For these reasons this Committee declines to consider any affiliation which entails the slightest suspicion, of fusion or compromise. Such action would, moreover, be a direct violation of the constitution of the Party, which expressly forbids any such action.

This resolution, in the above terms, to be forwarded to the International Socialist Bureau, to the affiliated Socialist Parties, and to the Provincial Executive Committee. In point of fact, to be given the widest possible publicity.

THE DOMINION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

 

[We reprint the above as requested and are pleased to note that the British Labour Party is appreciated in Canada at its true worth. —Ed. “S.S.”] .

Correspondence: [The wrong Rhind.] (1909)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor.

Returning from my holidays a few days since, my attention was drawn to a letter which appeared in the Socialist Standard of July over my signature (there being only one Jno. Rhind of Old Trafford). Now I wish to entirely repudiate it and to state that this is the first communication you have ever received from me or by my authority.

To my mind it is a very mean trick, and unworthy of any man, more especially if he professes to be a Socialist.

I may further state that I consider life too short to waste my time over such side-tracking questions as who pays the rates.

Trusting you will give this repudiation the same publicity as you gave the letter referred to,

Jno. Rhind

Reply:

[We regret, of course, that Mr. Rhind should have been—as it appears—”tricked” ; but from information to hand we gather that he has not been misrepresented. The “side-tracking” is all with the Tories, Liberals, Labourites and pseudo-Socialists of no matter what stripe, who seek to interest and keep busy the workers with the amount of the rates rather than with Socialism.—Ed. “S.S.”]

Correspondence; [The Socialist Attitude To Trade Unions.] (1909)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

H. Harrison (Salford) asks :

“How does a Trade Unionist stand in respect to membership of your Party seeing that he supports palliative measures—8 hours day, etc.—and in many ways upholds the present system ?”

Reply:

A member of the S.P.G.B., like others, has to live, and in some trades cannot do so without being a member of a trade union. He is often warranted in adhering to a trade union because it to some extent slackens the tendency of working-class conditions to worsen : it offers the means of somewhat more effectively resisting the employers than were he isolated.

But your S.P.G.B. member remains a Socialist though a member of a trade union, and will not fail as opportunity offers to point out the weakness of the trade union position, its lack of understanding of capitalism and its consequent faulty tactics. He will oppose the support of “Labour” M.P.s as far as possible and generally carry on the work of a Socialist, which is, at the present juncture, mostly the work of propaganda. How much of his time and energy may be advisedly spent with the trade union his experience will decide.—Ed. ” S.S.”