Policies and Puppets. (1923)

From the February 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

A change in the personnel of the puppet group that moves in accordance with the string-pulling of the Imperialists who direct Government policy, may provide an excuse to introduce certain modifications in Government policy; modifications that have become necessary owing to new circumstances affecting the invests of this Imperialist section; but as such a change is not due to a fundamental alteration in social conditions, it has no important influence upon the general position of the working class, except in so far as better administration, from a capitalist standpoint, tightens the bonds of wage slavery and thereby worsens the workers’ position.

The recent statements of influential capitalist journals bear out this view in so far as it affects the change in governmental personnel from the Lloyd George group to the Bonar Law group.

The governmental change in itself provided a useful opportunity for shifting the responsibility for working class troubles from the capitalist system on to the latest scapegoat, the Lloyd George Coalition Government. The international exchange difficulties, the Eastern muddles, the reparation squabbles, labour troubles are all supposed to have been accentuated and made difficult of solution by the blundering of the late Government.

The fact that these international squabbles, muddles, and labour troubles “we always have with us,” in spite of numerous changes in Government and governmental policy, is conveniently ignored.

The “Observer,” a Sunday paper representing the big capitalists, trumpets the virtues of Bonar Law and the vices of Lloyd George. Of Bonar Law they write, in their editorial (7/1/23), after laying down certain alleged principles that should guide England and France on the question of German reparations:

  “Mr. Bonar Law has been guided by these principles. He has done well, and won the increased respect of all men at home and abroad by transparent sincerity, good sense, good temper, and the quiet moral grit which has brought this deepening muddle to a plain issue at last. No one could have done more.”

And what of Lloyd George? In the same editorial occurs the following:

  “The Entente was envenomed and almost destroyed by pretences of agreement.  . . . The direct and indirect consequences of the final fiasco of coalition policy in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor changed the whole diplomatic situation from one end of Europe to the other.”

Bonar Law’s policy has brought the “muddle’’ to a “plain issue”; Lloyd George’s policy resulted in a “fiasco.” What was the fundamental difference between the two policies? Lloyd George hung on to France as it suited certain interests to do so. Bonar Law broke with France as it no longer suited these interests to continue the alliance in its old form.

The group behind the English Government, having got all they could get by alliance with France, lately found themselves fettered by such alliance in Eastern matters and in their dealings with Germany.

In the first place, the early settlement of the German indemnity is not a matter that seriously affects the interests of the more important English capitalists. At the moment English trade with Germany is improving and would be adversely influenced by pressing for fulfilment of reparations. The following provides one illustration of this fact:

  “Last year we saw a sensational leap in the figures of our coal exports to Germany, which rose to 8,345,606 tons, being nearly equal to the total export in 1913, which was 8,952,328 tons. The rapid rise in our export of coal to Germany in the last three years will be seen from the following table:— 

1920        1921           1922
13,457 tons 817,877 tons 8,345,606 tons  

“Even last year’s figures are expected to be greatly exceeded in the near future, as Herr Stinnes and other German industrialists are stated to be in negotiation with British firms for the supply of large quantities.” (“Observer,” 14/1/23.)

The step taken by France has called forth certain rather significap^: comments. For example:

   “Our hands will be free with regard to all the peace treaties. We shall no longer be bound by any of them. We shall have to pursue a quite decisive policy of separate settlement, both with Russia and Turkey.” (“Observer,” 7/1/23)
   “We at least have recovered our freedom. We are no longer involved in a policy that has brought Europe to beggary. We can at last address ourselves to the task of re-establishing peace in the world. We have tried to carry out that task with France and have failed. We must look elsewhere, and especially westward for aid in an enterprise that cannot be discontinued if the white civilisation is to have a chance of surviving.” (A. G. G. in “Daily News,” 6/1/23.)

Here we see England’s freedom from the Peace Treaty obligations heralded with something akin to joy. But the Government did not wait for the break with France in order to “look westward,” as instance the negotiations that are going on between this country and America.

The replacement of Lloyd George by Bonar Law was the excuse for Britain’s alteration in policy in this as well as in other directions.

As can be gathered from the statement with reference to coal, quoted above, England is striving to obtain a favoured position with reference to Germany; France is also striving for the same object. Apart from the question of reparations, France bas another motive for invading the Ruhr Valley, as the following quotation points out:

  "The real hope of Paris is that Germany, when fairly laid on the rack, will soon scream for mercy after the first cry of defiance, and that under French supremacy, political and financial, there will be brought about a huge economic combination between France and Germany, but chiefly an alliance of French iron and steel with German coal, coke and shipping.” (“Observer,” 7/1/23.)

One of the lines along which English “freedom” will travel is being indicated by the attempt to come to some sort of alliance with America and freeze out France. America is righteously indignant at France’s action, and America wants to take a larger share in the Eastern negotiations (see the "Manchester Guardian Weekly,” 8/12/22, on the Crane-King Report on Palestine), in which so far she has only had a representative with a watching brief. The following remarks on the Anglo-American negotiations are instructive :

  “There are wider opportunities before the Washington negotiators. The funding of the British debt removes one of the inhibitions on American policy in Europe. Responsibility then rests more heavily on the two creditor countries for intervention of a constructive, even if limited, kind in Europe, where the course of affairs, without their help or influence, threatens their interests more and more gravely. Protest against the state of things which is developing will be useless unless accompanied by proposals for its remedy.”

  “England and the United States have a common interest and now a common occasion for action in this sense. It is hardly possible that the conversation at Washington will not broaden out informally into a full survey of the immediate future in Europe. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer is there. Mr. Harvey, fully informed as to European conditions, and fully alive to the dangers now in plain view, is there. The risk, now immediate in Europe, of a decisive plunge into chaos, supplies such an occasion for a departure in policy such as there has not been since America took up Germany's challenge and entered the war.” ("Observer,” 14/1/23.)

Here we see foreshadowed a temporary bloc with America to skim the cream in European and Eastern negotiations. The two nations together make the most powerful financial and political bloc in existence.

The whole matter at the bottom is nothing more than the manipulations of certain powerful groups of capitalists for control of the sources of raw material (with particular reference to oil) and the arteries of distribution.

The policy of England and America scores with the majority of people on account of its apparent peaceful tendency.

Internally the English Government are in a strong position on the indemnity question. On the surface the French have committed what is virtually an act of war by invading the Ruhr Valley. So the English piously throw up their hands and protest their desire to “keep the peace.” In this they have the support of “labour’s opposition party.” 

The National Joint Council of the Trades Union Congress General Council, the Executive Committee of the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Party has played directly into the Government’s hands by its protest against the French Government’s policy, winding up by demanding that the British Government "shall refrain from all measures of support or co-operation with the French troops in their present action,” etc., etc. (“Observer,” 14/1/23). Was this manifesto inspired? How the Imperialist group must smile! Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the Leader of the Parliamentary Labour group, was not behindhand in making a pronouncement on the situation. Speaking at Port Talbot on the 6/1/23, he said :

  “Lastly, in our policy regarding Reparations, we ought not to be ashamed to let the world know quite definitely that we must look after our own national interests, and not sacrifice them merely to keep up the balance of an alliance with France or any other country.” (“Observer,” 7/1/23.)

A very statesmanlike statement, no doubt, but what has it all to do with the working class? Who does "our” and “we,” etc., stand for in the above quotation? Evidently the British Imperialists, as the workers' interests are not national, but international, and at the moment are bound up with such questions as unemployment and labour conditions generally.

The plain and obvious facts of the case can be gleaned from the statements we have already quoted above.

The different nations alter their policies and their spokesmen to suit the interests of the particular capitalist sections that predominate. The section served by imperialist policies predominates at present in all capitalist nations. This section in England replaced Lloyd George by Bonar Law. The position, therefore, from the workers' standpoint, is the same all the world over. That position is that the struggle over trade routes and exploitable territory, with coalitions and breaks among capitalist nations, is a struggle that concerns the capitalists alone. These, struggles will continue to occupy the historical stage until capitalist rule is replaced by Socialist administration. This will come into being when the workers conquer political power and administer the affairs of society in the equal interest of all the members of society.

Gilmac.

1913. January the First. (1913)

From the January 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again we reach the First of January. Once again we are deluged with the hypocritical cant and humbug of the phrase "Peace and Goodwill." As in the past, our ears are greeted with “A Happy and Prosperous New Year.” The whole world, from duke to dustman, mouths the meaningless nothing.

What are the prospects of a happy New Year for the working class? What room is there in capitalism for peace and goodwill, when the very prosperity of the one depends upon the ruin of some other? Happiness cannot come with hunger, and many must be without food. And why are not you one of these ? It is simply because circumstances have decreed that some other shall be idle instead of you.

The best that can happen for the underpaid clerk—his one hope of prosperity—is the death or discharge of his fellow employee who receives the higher salary he aspires to. The best that can befall the struggling tradesman is the failure of the man across the road who halves his trade and cuts his prices. During the season’s “boom” the factory has been working full time, and producing a vast store of goods, much of which will not be disposed of. After the "boom” someone must go, and each looks at the other with the good wishes on his lips, hoping against hope that it is the other man who will be discharged.

And we wish each other a prosperous New Year! What cant!

What have the workers to look forward to in 1913? Great increases in wealth production, doubtless, and the consequent unemployment that "over production” brings in its train. “Trade has been phenomenally good” our masters’ journals tell us. But how stand the producers of the wealth?

The Thames Iron Works closes its gates on the eve of Christmas, and thousands of families that arey always "on the verge” are pushed into desperate poverty. With all our growing prosperity and our "strength as a nation,” the workers —those who produce all things and who make the strength of the nation—are incapable of withstanding the smallest disturbance. The "resources of the nation’’ are practically without limit, but the resources of the toilers—"the backbone of the nation” as the political aspirant loves to call them, are nil.

"In the social world,” says one restless editor of the capitalist brand, "there is a growing consciousness of the duty of society to provide for those members of the community who, for some reason or another, have found it impossible to win a secure means of livelihood for themselves and their families.” It may be perfectly correct that the “social world” is growing conscious of its "duty,” but then what constitutes this "social world,” and what is its duty?

The "social world” of the writer whom I have quoted is the capitalist class, and the society to whom they owe any duty is—themselves. Society, in their conception, is the taxpayer and the business man, who are as distinct from the worker of England as is the "heathen Chinese.” The "social world” does not understand the proletariat, and cannot legislate in its interest, neither does it desire to do so. What is happening is simply that our "social world” is realising that there is an unmistakable stirring within the mass that the "social world” lives upon ; that the “mob," hitherto so easily suppressed, is striving to find a way out of its horrible conditions of existence. Toe "populace” is calling for light in its abysmal darkness; and our "social world” is not desirous of helping it to see, is not in the least in sympathy with its demand for illumination. Our "social world” is uneasy and afraid—afraid of something incomprehensible, and afraid largely because, not understanding that which they fear, they do not know what to do.

Their pastors and ministers and others who batten upon their fears, are holding aloft the the misery of the mass, telling of the desperation of the starving multitude, in order to wring from them donations for the soup kitchen, the missions, and the Church. It is upon these and similar institutions that the parsons and their pals get their fat and easy living. Pro Salvationist and anti-Socialist turn out their begging letters by the million, using the "coming revolt” as a bogey wherewith to frighten the “prosperous citizen.”

These donations are regarded by the panniky bourgeoisie as being in the nature of “good investments.” It is the modern obedience to the ancient injunction to "cast thy bread upon the waters.” For the well to do are told by the bishops and the smaller fry of the Church, what is the undoubted truth, viz., that “the East End would not take things so quietly were it not for religion,” and that these institutions are a “strong 'barrier” against the "Godless Socialism” they so much dread.

The lot of the artisan and the labourer is no better to-day than it was ten or twenty years ago. In the words of Mr. Bonar Law: “In spite of a vast increase in the wealth of the world and of the United Kingdom, the condition of the workmen in this country has not improved. It has grown worse.” (Glasgow, 22.5.12.)

From all sides we get the admission, not only that “wages have not increased at all between 1900-1910, but that, indeed, they have suffered a depression in the interval.” (“Daily News.”) The “Daily News,” which represents the view of the party in power, tells us in a leading article (17.9.12) that, despite the glories of Free Trade, they are forced to “arrive at the disquieting fact that the net result to labour of an industrial prosperity which is unexampled is that the working-classes are substantially worse off than they were in 1900.”

This significant conclusion arrived at by such defenders of capitalism as Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Lloyd George, the “Daily News,” and other prominent people and leading papers too numerous to mention, does not take into consideration an all-important condition that must be taken into account. That is that during the period mentioned, those who have been engaged in actual production have had their labour vastly intensified. Year by year new machinery has been introduced to compete with and speed up the labourer. Year by year new methods are taken up with the object of eliminating those rapidly diminishing moments of rest which the workers are able to snatch from their toil. Day by day the machine is driven faster, and the result has been that a gigantic amount of energy is sucked out of the worker in a shorter working day.

Even such a defender of "reformed" capitalism as Mr. Thomas of the railway servants, is compelled to admit that "more passengers and goods traffic could now be handled in eight hours than formerly could be handled in ten."

To keep up this mad and increasing pace a greater amount of food and leisure is rendered necessary in order that the worker may be able to maintain himself in the required state of physical and mental efficiency. Some recreation is necessary in order that he may keep sane. The worker is to-day being burned out faster and more ruthlessly than ever he was. The pitiless, insatiable maw of the capitalist Moloch is ever grasping for more profits, and the blood of the toiler, it is very certain, will be even more greedily sucked in this new year now opening than it has been in the past.

And even though those benighted wights, the Labour reformers, with their multitudinous drops and pills and ointments, were both in power and in earnest the evil could neither be reformed out of existence nor held in the leash. It grows too fast for the first; it springs too irresistibly from the foundations of the prevailing system and method of wealth production for the second.

Is there, then, no hope? Can nothing be done to stem the tide of wasted life and labour? Is there no way of escape for the struggling wage slave, befogged and befooled by notions of trade and tariff? Stern necessity compels the answer—NONE. The very first step most be to clear the worker’s mind of the cobwebs— of every befogging capitalist notion.

“You cannot redeem those below except by the sacrifice of those above.” Thus spake Mr. Lloyd George not a great while ago. The words are true—let us adopt them, for in them lies the workers only hope.

SACRIFICE THOSE ABOVE. Pull them down. Overthrow their stronghold and trample on their privileges. Turn out the capitalist liar and fool, knave and bully. As a capitalist he must go. While he is above he will feed on those below, and. fellow workers, WE ARE “THOSE BELOW.”

The only hope for the wage slave is to abolish the wage slavery, root, branch and twig, and to take control of the things that are necessary for the lives, comfort, well-being, and happiness of those we hold dear. So lend a willing hand, fellow wage-slave, to this imperative task, in the year 1913. Learn to give intelligent utterance to the “unlearned discontent” that is within you, for only those who KNOW can ever hope to remove the barrier which alone bars our progress toward freedom, a full life, and happiness.

The determination to acquire the knowledge essential to this undertaking, to befit oneself to be an instrument for good in the great struggle for human emancipation, to make oneself an efficient and capable judge in the day when the whole future of humanity shall depend upon the wisdom of the working class, is the best of all possible New Year resolutions for working folk.

T. W. Lobb

Death the Sanctifier (1923)

From the December 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bonar Law is dead. While he lived he was our enemy. Now that he is dead must we be sorrowful? He helped to send our fathers, and brothers and sons to the European shambles; his life is the history of staunch support of the master’s policy of robbing and oppressing the workers. He did his best to delude the workers into the belief that capitalism was the best of all possible systems, and has hepled to press down the workers’ wages since the armistice was declared. Must we revere him because he has gone the way of all flesh? He was our enemy and those who now speak so nicely of him are our enemies.

Such a one is Ramsay MacDonald. Here is his tribute:—

“It was with profound regret when I landed at Dover this morning that I learned of the death of Mr. Bonar Law. When a man has done the work he has done and passes out it is always difficult adequately to express all one feels. I can say no more.”—(Daily Herald, 31/10/23.)

Strange that there are still some who believe that Ramsay MacDonald is a sincere representative of working-class interests!

Gilmac.

Not just political (2012)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

A friend recently brought to my attention the history of the turmoil that took place in GB following WWI when the principal unions had apparently coalesced for unified action and apparently got cold feet when confronted with the situation of the potential power of their organized resistance to capitalist exploitation. The dilemma was expressed in the statement made by the Prime Minister to the Triple Alliance accordingly:

"Gentlemen, you have fashioned in the Triple Alliance of the unions represented by you, a most powerful instrument. I feel bound to tell you that in our opinion we are at your mercy. The Army is disaffected and cannot be relied upon... If you carry out your threat to strike, then you will defeat us... If you do so, have you weighed the consequences... if a force arises in the State which is stronger than the State itself, then it must be ready to take on the functions of the state, or withdraw and accept the authority of the State. Gentlemen, have you conferred and if you have, are you ready?" (David Lloyd George to Union Leaders in 1919) This seems to have taken the wind out of their sails.

If this statement and the history surrounding is accurate, it would suggest that tactically the idea of a parallel class conscious unified union organization to that of a political party is desirable and indeed, essential in order to use its power to back up the mandate of a socialist ballot plurality. That the Triple Alliance didn't have the mettle to act does not invalidate the potential tactical necessity of unified working class action. During the formation of the IWW Daniel De Leon wrote a series of responses to those who argued that either political or economic action alone were sufficient to create a socialist transformation ("As To Politics") demonstrating with decisive logic that both were essential.

Your Party has apparently steadfastly resisted the dual necessity of working class action, vague allusions notwithstanding, and has given the impression of pure and simple political action as being the sole necessity to transform society into the cooperative commonwealth. Yet David Lloyd George's comment seems to suggest the latent power of working class economic action is a decisive factor.

Perhaps you can enlighten me on the historical significance of what happened way back in 1919 and your reaction to those events and your subsequent applications of lessons learned.

Bernard Bortnick, Dallas, Texas

Reply:

The words you quote are taken from, In Place of Fear (1952) by the Labour politician Aneurin Bevan, and published many years after the events in question.  Bevan recounts that, the miners’ leader Robert Smillie, (who died in 1940) told him - and this must have been some years after 1919 - that this is what Lloyd George had said.  So this is a third-hand report - not that Lloyd George would not have said something like this but it can be doubted that these were his exact words.

If correct and Lloyd George wasn't just windbagging, this would illustrate precisely why a political party is essential - the unions had no programme to seize the power that supposedly lay at their feet and backed down. Contrary to what you keep on asserting, the Socialist Party doesn't reject industrial organisation as a key plank of a revolutionary strategy. We are dissimilar to Industrial Unionists and the like in refusing to cut one of our legs off before running the race. We are for the working class using all the resources at its disposal, both political and economic, and chasing the rulers into every centre of their power, wresting that power from them.

For the record, here is what the Socialist Standard of the time (April 1919) said (note the rather different approach taken by Bonar Law, who was the leader of the Conservative party and a Minister in Lloyd George‘s coalition government):

“It was when the Reports of the Commission were given to the Government that the great lesson for the workers emerged. In announcing that the Government had accepted and would act upon the Report of the Chairman's section of the Commission and referring to the possibility of a strike, Mr. Bonar Law said
‘If such a strike comes the Government—and no Government could do otherwise—will use all the resources of the State without the smallest hesitation.’

If such a strike came, the mine-owners, if they decided to fight it out, could win by simply pitting their immense resources of wealth, an indication of which is given by the figures above, against the few pounds the miners could gather together. On the economic field the masters are in a far stronger position than the workers and can beat them any time they decide to fight to a finish. Yet in this, as in so many other cases, they threaten to use the overwhelming power of the State for their purpose because it is so much more speedy and decisive.

But how comes it that they can use the State for this purpose? Because on 14th December, 1918, the miners, in conjunction with the large majority of the other workers, placed the State in the hands of the masters when they voted the latter into possession of political power.

While the workers accept the poisonous nonsense that ‘capital should have a fair profit,’ while they swallow the lies and humbug of the labour leaders like Thomas, Brace, Williams, and so on, that the interests of the master class are the interests of the ‘community,’ or ‘society,’ they will be easily led to vote their masters into possession of the power to rule society.

When the working class rids itself of this stupidity, and realises its weakness in the economic field against the power of the employers, then it will turn to the facts of its situation for a solution and find that the way to salvation lies through organisation for control of the political power. Not until that is assured can the workers own the means of life and operate them for their own benefit. When that lesson is learnt the day of Socialism will be dawning.”

-Editors