A "Simple" Cure For Industrial Trouble. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily News of Wednesday, February 27th, 1929, reports : “That the General Council of the Trade Union Congress considered the draft interim report on Unemployment which has been prepared by the Mond-Turner Conference.”

The report was adopted with a few modifications. The news goes on to say: "That the report deals with more or less palliative measures for unemployment and that more preventive measures will be covered in the final report, assuming that the Conference continues its work. It discusses the practicability of the Organisation of National Works to supplement measures, such as credit facilities, to foster a general revival in trade." The question on providing pensions at 65 was also discussed.

This appeared on page 9. On page 11 we find another report. It is headed. Psychology Removes Worries in British Workshops. Six Girls Now Do the Work of 120. Increased Output and Greater Economy.

The report is a long one, but the following extracts will suffice:—

  "The phenomenal labour saving referred to above was achieved in the design and equipment of a new safety glass works. Radical changes have been achieved in production methods and labour-saving devices have been introduced which have led to a marked reduction of manufacturing costs. Thus in the case of two connected operations six girls will now do the work which formerly required 120. Waste of material has been reduced from 18 to 5 per cent, and the new factory will be able to produce in one shift almost double the output originally specified. The scope of the National Institutes of Industrial Psychology includes, the layout of factories, the sequence of processes, the elimination of waste of effort, material, and time in production, the selection of appropriate employees, and, lastly, the greater efficiency and contentment of the employees by improved working conditions.” 

The report finishes by quoting the World's Economic Conference's opinion: 

  "That the workers should be safeguarded from temporary unemployment, resulting from this rationalisation, otherwise the movement will encounter the same opposition as befell the first attempt to introduce Taylor’s system of scientific management.”

Viewing these reports together, the thing that suggests itself is the fact that here we have two organisations, both claiming to strive for the good of the workers and yet one nullifies the effects of the other. The trade unions struggle for shorter hours and more pay and confer with the masters in an endeavour to foster trade to bring about more employment and when they have succeeded the masters employ psychologists to find out how they can do without a great percentage of the workers, leaving those still in employment more efficient, turning out as much if not more work with less waste and yet being contented with their job, keeping at bay those elements of industrial unrest which are so disturbing to the capitalist. Thus the trade unions find themselves precisely where they were, but with probably a bigger army of unemployed to deal with. Being Socialists, we realise that psychology when used simply for the benefit of mankind can be a great aid to human happiness, but in the hands of the masters, being used as a means to further exploitation, it becomes yet another burden upon the backs of the workers. The watchword of industry to-day is produce more, yet all the time the competition for the world’s markets is becoming more fierce and the markets more limited, making the disposal of the commodities less and less certain with the result that the unemployment figures increase and the different countries, in spite of peace pacts, etc., are heading straight for war. It is a time for serious reflection, fellow-workers.

Do you not find all these social remedies simply cancel each other? It is a ceaseless following of blind alleyways in which the workers get bewildered and hopeless. Unless they understand the Socialist position, they are tempted to make useless angry demonstrations and riots which can only result in loss of life or injury to our class and give the Government a chance to demonstrate their power and make an example of a few of the workers. There is only one sound policy to pursue, and that is the constant preaching of Socialism. When we have sufficient knowledge as a class, we can obtain political power. Remembering that the salvation of the workers must be the work of the workers, we must neither put our faith in the Lord, nor leaders, nor psychologists. Given the knowledge, the rest, by comparison, will be simplicity itself. Join the S.P.G.B., fellow wage slaves, and help to spread that knowledge that Socialism may come in our time, and we enjoy the fruits of our labour.

May Otway

An Echo of the Past. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

“A denouncement of young women authors who write obscene books was made by Miss Christabel Pankhurst in a speech at the Æolian Hall, Bond Street, yesterday. She said that pagan novels were much in evidence to-day, and she was grateful to the Home Secretary for the step he had taken regarding books which were not decent to read. This is not the sort of freedom for which we women fought and got the vote” (Daily Chronicle, March 7th). We do not know by what standard Miss Christabel Pankhurst judges what is decent to read, nor do we remember any special protest being made during the war by either Miss Pankhurst or the present Home Secretary when reams of literature with plentiful detail of war-time atrocities were circulated among young people in order to fan the war fever. We gave it as our opinion at the time that under normal conditions such material would probably meet with the attention of the police. Evidently what is necessary to our masters at one time shocks them at another. In view of the recent extension of the franchise to women it may be interesting to recall that the “freedom” the Suffragettes fought for was only the freedom which would enable Capitalist ladies to vote on equal terms with their property-owning males. Before the Suffragette movement the Working Class had sufficient votes to out-number the Capitalists. To-day, with the extension of the franchise as a means to stabilise present-day Society, the preponderance of working-class votes is greater than ever. Without class-consciousness, however, votes merely enable the workers to continue their enslaved condition. For women, as for men, the only hope lies in the coming of Socialism, the triumph of emancipation, without distinction of race or sex.

Mac.

Editorial: The Labour Party and Unemployment. (1929)

Editorial from the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing in the Morning Post (February 18th), Mr. Tom Shaw, M.P., Minister of Labour in the Labour Government, gave a statement of his Party’s policy with regard to unemployment.

The first point to notice is that Mr. Shaw without hesitation accepts the view that unemployment in this country is a national problem to be solved on national lines. His criticism of the captains of industry here is that they have allowed their foreign competitors to out-distance them :—

 Rationalisation, standardisation, combination, and centralisation, have made relatively more progress in other countries than our own.

Mr. Shaw blandly assumes that more rationalisation will mean less unemployment, something the very reverse of the truth. These various processes are introduced with the set purpose of securing economy in production; a greater output with the employment of fewer workers; the continual addition of surplus workers to the army of the unemployed. If Mr. Shaw does not believe this, will he show us the capitalist countries where unemployment has been permanently lessened by any or all of the means he enumerates?

Then he goes on to say that it "makes his heartache" to go into country towns and villages and see the shops " full of Danish products.” He wants British tummies lined with British butter made by British hands from the milk of British cows, reared on British grass. He does not dislike the Danes. He has to be sure a profound admiration for their success as exporters of dairy produce. The whole secret of their success “is that Denmark's farmers have adopted co-operation and scientific methods." Mr. Shaw wants British farmers to adopt the same methods and secure the same success. Beautiful; but how will this solve the unemployment problem? Denmark suffers just as much from unemployment as any other capitalist country, and when the promised greater efficiency of British farmers threatens to ruin their Danish competitors, some Danish Mr. Shaw will be telling his compatriots to adopt still more efficient methods, with the object of still further under-cutting the prices of dairy products; and so on in the manner normal to the capitalist system.

Something rotten in the State of Denmark

Mr. Shaw is careful to say that he does not hate the Danes. It is then difficult to see why he discriminates between them and other peoples also unfortunate enough not to have been born British. For although the sight of Danish eggs makes his heart ache, he goes on in the next column to say that "every effort ought to be made to develop trade to a much larger degree" with "China, India, and Russia." Does Mr. Shaw really believe that trade with China, Russia and India, or with any other country, can be developed on a one-sided basis consisting only of the export of British manufactures without corresponding imports from those countries? Why do Danish eggs make his heart ache, but not Chinese eggs? and Danish butter, but not Russian butter? When Russia buys agricultural machinery, tractors and ploughs and other means of increasing the productivity of Russian agriculture, the effect will be to throw still cheaper Russian wheat on to the British market to undercut British farmers.

Mr. Shaw also wants to develop Empire trade, and says: “We want to see . . . Canadian fruits and Canadian grain far more widely sold in our markets." And what about British fruit growers and grain growers? Is it any nicer to be ruined by Canadian competitors than by Danes. And again how will this solve the unemployment problem?

Foreign Trade and Unemployment.

Mr. Shaw makes the usual assumption that unemployment can be reduced by the development of export trade and by the development of home manufactures. Let us remind him, therefore, that in 1928 exports were greater than in 1927, and imports were less than in 1927.

The total amount of wealth produced in this country was greater, yet at the end of 1928 the numbers unemployed were 200,000 or more above the level at the end of 1927. More wealth and more exports accompanied by more unemployment!

Lastly, Mr. Shaw speaks of remedying unemployment by reducing the expenditure on armaments. What is going to happen to the thousands of men now withdrawn from the labour market for service in the forces ? What of the ship workers engaged in naval construction and the engineers employed in the manufacture of rifles, ammunition, etc.?

And, lastly, does he not recall that in 1924 the Labour Government incurred some criticism because it laid down 5 new cruisers, and that one of the reasons given by authoritative Labour Ministers for that step was the need for making employment?

Editorial: What Lloyd-George Promised In 1906. (1929)

Editorial from the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Bungler or Rogue?"

Mr. Lloyd George has made a definite pledge that if returned to power his party will “reduce the terrible figures of the workless in the course of a single year to normal proportions.” (Lloyd George’s address to Liberal candidates on March 1st, 1929.) The unemployed are to be absorbed in road and bridge work, in land drainage, telephone development, house building and other schemes, financed by means of a big loan. By “normal proportions” is meant the pre-war 4.7 per cent., “representing something over half-a-million unemployed.” (See “We Can Conquer Unemployment,” p. 6.) It is, of course, not impossible for capitalist governments to put some or all of the unemployed on camouflaged relief works and call this the abolition of unemployment. We are, therefore, much more concerned with an earlier, comprehensive, and totally unfulfilled pledge, which was given by Mr. Lloyd George in 1906. Speaking at Birmingham on October 22nd of that year, Mr. Lloyd George referred to signs of widespread unrest among the workers, and said:—

  The new movement represented a real upheaval, due to the impatience of the people of the slow progress made by existing parties, in redressing wrongs. . . . No wonder the people asked “why all this tarrying and dallying?” They said to the old political parties, “If you are in earnest you are bunglers; if you are not in earnest you are rogues! ”

What the Liberals would do in three years.

Mr. Lloyd George confessed that past “reforms” had failed to cure the evils for which they were intended as a remedy.

  Here you have been tinkering for generations with reform, and the end of it all is slums, pauperism, and great want in a land of plenty.

He then gave his definite pledge that the Liberals would achieve something material in three years or forfeit their claim to the confidence of the electorate :—

  The answer rested with the Liberals during the next three years. . . . The people had said to them “We are going to give you your chance, but it is only a chance." The whole future of the Liberal Party depended upon the practical answer they gave to the expectations of the people.

The Pledge Broken.

So much for the pledge. Now for the performance.

Speaking at Park Hall, Cardiff, on December 29th, 1911, that is five years after the giving of the pledge, Mr. Lloyd George said

 To-day you have greater poverty in the aggregate in the land than you have ever had. You have oppression of the weak by the strong. You have a more severe economic bondage than you probably ever had; for grinding labour to-day does not always guarantee sustenance or security. At any rate that condition of things was foreign to the barbaric regime of the darker ages. (Supplement to Christian Commonwealth, January 17th, 1912.)

The Futility of Reforming Capitalism

More than 20 years have passed since then. Numerous “reforms” have in those years been placed on the statute book, By Liberals, by Tories, and by the Labour Party, yet the position has become so much worse in many respects that Mr. Lloyd George can actually dazzle the eyes of thousands of working-class voters by promising to reduce unemployment to its pre-war level, that is to take us back to the condition of "normal” poverty and insecurity depicted by him in 1911.

This is capitalist "progress”; the natural fruit of Tory, Liberal, and Labour reforms of capitalism. Only Socialism will remove the causes of working-class poverty by abolishing the private ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth. You are poor, whether in work or out, whether trade is good or bad, and whether capitalism is organised in independent companies, in combines, or in the State capitalist or nationalised undertakings so beloved of the Labour Party.

You are poor because the capitalist class own and control your means of living (the land, factories, railways, etc.) and live on the wealth you produce. This is capitalism. Why not end it?

John Wheatley's Friends. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the Labour Government, Mr. Wheatley, as Minister of Health, was responsible for a Housing Act. When he introduced the Bill in the House, Mr. Wheatley pointed out to some Conservative critics that "The proposals which I am submitting are real capitalism—an attempt to patch up, in the interests of humanity, a capitalist ordered society ” (Parliamentary Debates, June 3rd, 1924).

Mr. Wheatley’s consideration for his capitalist friends has not gone unappreciated among them. A public meeting was called by the Property Owners’ Protection Association at the Cannon Street Hotel on March 1st to protest against Section 46 of the Housing Act, 1925, passed by the Conservative Government. At the meeting an attack was made on Mr. Chamberlain, present Minister of Health, and Mr. E. T. Campbell, M.P., rose to protest. "I ask you,” said Mr. Campbell, "whether you prefer Mr. Chamberlain as Minister or Mr. Wheatley? ” This question, according to the Daily Telegraph (March 2nd), was greeted with cries of "Mr. Wheatley.”

A Letter From An Australian Reader. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrades,

As we have just recently got over an election, it would be interesting to you to have a few words in connection with this important event in the lives of the Free Australian Workers.

The employing class won again or, rather, the workers here handed the political machinery over to the representatives of their masters to do with as they may. The Bruce Nationalist Government got a majority, but only with the aid of the Country Party, and although the so-called Labour Party is the largest individual party in the House, they have to take a back seat owing to the pact between the Country Party and the Nats.

As usual, during the campaign we had the old cries trotted out. The most emphasised was that of "Law and order,” which was trumpeted through all the agencies of the master class. The Nationalists accused the Labourites of wanting to subvert the constitution of the country to the "Communist-revolutionary-disloyal-bolshevik-moscovian-red” policy of the extremists, and the Labourites just as emphatically denied the charge. Just how revolutionary the Labour proposals were can be gauged by the fact that the Federal Treasurer accused the Labour Party of stealing the Nationalist’s Party’s policy, and the Labour leader, Mr. Scullin, threw the charge back in his teeth with the accusation that the Nats, had stolen Labour’s programme.

Comparing the two policies, one is hard put to it to find a great deal of difference. Of course, both are straight out for Capitalism, but each have certain little peculiarities which are probably inserted for the purpose of making a noticeable distinction for the benefit of the electors. Both parties contained the following proposals in their programmes:—

• Retention of the White Australian Policy.
• Loyalty to the British Empire.
• Industrial Peace.
• Law and Order.
• Interests of the Community.

While they are prating about the White Australian Policy, the Nationalist Federal Government is allowing Coolie Labour to discharge ships on which White Australians refused to work for reduced pay which a constitutional Arbitration Court has forced upon them. And the Coolie Labour is being protected by State Police under a Labour Government. This is the same State Government (Queensland) which dismissed 11,000 railway men because they refused to blackleg last year on the sugar workers. They also stopped the unemployment dole during the strike on the excuse that there was plenty of work on the wharves.

As far as the British Empire goes, when Bruce (Nat.) accused Scullin (Lab.) of not being loyal because he never mentioned the Empire in his political speech, Scullin replied that as he thought that everybody knew how unswerving his loyalty was, he did not think it necessary to stress the point.

As for industrial peace, what they are going to do in this regard is almost beyond comprehension. Mond will be jealous. Havelock Wilson will jump with joy when he hears how his gospel of Industrial Peace is permeating the intellectual pates of our Capitalist apologists. The Labour Party say that Bruce (Nat.) has had his chance for six years to bring about Industrial Peace but he has failed. Consequently, they ought to be given an opportunity to show just how they can do the job. All the Labour politicians gave it out that “Labour” is the only party that can usher in this Peaceful Industrial Era. And they are right, too. If they cannot quieten the workers, then nobody can. Has not Premier McCormack fought against the workers on every opportunity? He has allowed seamen to be jailed for refusing to sail in ships loaded by blacklegs. He has allowed the police to be used to protect Italian workers who, owing to their ignorance of local affairs, have been used to break strikes, and to reduce the standard of living.

During the recent water-front strike, the Victorian State so-called Labour Government allowed the police to shoot down wharf-labourers (dockers) who were kicking against reductions in wages and worsening of conditions.

Just prior to the dissolution of the last Parliament, the Nationalist Government passed an Amended Arbitration Bill. All the Labour Pollies designated the Bill as a Union-smashing medium, attacked the Government for introducing it, and held public meetings telling the workers not to submit to this dastardly piece of iniquitous legislation, etc., etc., and yet when the Waterside Workers repudiated an award given under this very Bill, they were told to get back to work by the most loud-mouthed denunciators of the Bill. But then, it is not expedient for the workers to strike at election times, as it reacts on the Labour Party or, at least, the Labourites say it does. The most flagrant betrayals of the workers of this country have taken place during election times when the slaves are told that if they do anything “It will jeopardise the Labour Party at the elections.” To this political dirge the conditions of the workers are allowed to be broken down almost without protest in many cases.

Another sop the Labour Party dished up for the workers was the Leg-puller for the Ladies, namely, Child-Endowment. This has been a great election cry for Labour for a long time now. But a few years ago the Labour Party got into Power in New South Wales, and Mr. Lang introduced this wonderful “humane” legislation. This is what their own supporters said about it in the “Australian Worker” (Sydney, 28/10/27):—

  . . . . As a matter of fact, the Family Endowment Act—for which, in its present form, the Nationalist Members in the N.S.W. Upper House are entirely responsible—is “manna from Heaven" for the employers.
  It is now common knowledge that if the N.S.W. basic wage had been increased, in accordance with the increase in the cost of living, the increase would have been 12s. per week, or approximately an addition to the wages bill of the State of something like £13,000,000. Under the Family Endowment Act the employers' contributions amount to £3,000,000 per annum—equal, as Industrial Commissioner Piddington pointed out, to an increase of 3s. per week in the basic wage.
  It is plain that, because of the adoption of Child Endowment, the employers in New South Wales have been made a present of something like £10,000,000 per annum, which they would have had to pay if the basic wage had been computed on the old basis. Industry in New South Wales can hardly be said to be unduly penalised when, as a matter of fact, the employers are actually saving £10,000,000 per annum because of the change in the method of computing wages . . .

The excuse that the Nationalist Members of the Upper House are responsible for the Bill “in its present form" is a sly get out. Prior to this, Labour Premier Lang had flooded the Upper House with Labour Members with a view to abolishing that Chamber. Unfortunately, the appointed ones were so true to Labour that they could not forsake its old policy of twist and turn, with the result that when they were appointed, they ratted on the Party and the Chamber is still in existence.

The election result has rather a "Gilbertian" touch about it. Although the Nationalists lost several seats, and Labour did not get the Governmental Benches, both parties expressed the greatest of pleasure when the number went up.

Several commercial papers were counting on Labour getting in; in fact, were hoping that Labour would do the trick with a view to getting Theodore, ex-Premier of Queensland, in a position where he would be able to use his “administrative ability" in the interests of the Australian manufacturers. Knowing his record in Queensland, they had the greatest faith in him to look after the welfare of the “community." However, they slipped, and they will have to wait another three years for Ted unless he goes the way of all (Labour) flesh, that is, into the ranks of the Nationalists.

Communist Party Contortion. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Party at its formation opposed the Labour Party. Then for a time they supported and opposed Labour candidates in different places at the same time. Finally they gave them unqualified support everywhere. They now propose a new line of action which involves opposition to the Labour Party once again. Though claiming to oppose, they still desire to affiliate with them, but “the fight for affiliation, however, must be converted into an offensive fight against the treacherous leadership of the Labour Party ” (The Communist, April, 1928).

Apparently all would be considered well if the Communists could only become the new leaders of the old politically ignorant followers. The way these would-be revolutionaries propose to "come out" as an independent political party is to change their attitude towards the Labour Party and Labour Government, by replacing the slogan of “Labour Government” by the slogan of “Revolutionary Workers’ Government.” This drastic change need not alarm their vote-catching competitors, the Labour Party, because "in some districts active support to Labourites, who pledge themselves to vote for the elementary demands of the Working Class and accepting the Communist Party into the Labour Party is admissible.” (Ibid.)

Needless to say, these pledges, and more if necessary, will be given to such political simpletons if the votes are forthcoming. The Labourites know how to outdo even the Liberals at that game, because the Daily Herald (March 4th) tells us that the Lloyd George gamble for votes "is a good programme as far as it goes. There is not an item in it to which the next Labour Government is not committed.” Add to that some of the Communists’ very elementary demands, which include Land Nationalisation and the Abolition of the Monarchy, and we get some idea of what “revolutionary” means to a Communist. Those who do seek to revolutionise society, and not to reform and patch it, will not be misled by Communist clamour. Such aspirants to Leadership must, like their Labour brethren, trim their sails in order to cater for the muddle-headed discontents who are looking around for a party that appears to them to offer most in exchange for their votes. Only voters with Socialist knowledge know that it is not Parliament as such that can achieve their objective, but a Parliament that contains representatives of an organised working class outside it. We do not expect the capitalists to surrender unless faced with an organised working class in control of political machinery, nor do we imagine for a moment that such an experienced class will be disturbed by any intellectual (!) minority with a following fed on silly slogans and chatter about “disarming the Bourgeoise."

The political control that the working class will acquire as a result of Socialist knowledge, including control of the armed forces, will be acquired only when they gain such knowledge, and, therefore, cease to support capitalist agents. There will then be no power available for use by the master class that could prevent an organised majority of workers from using the present political machinery to establish Socialism.

Mac

A Curious "Class" War. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

As an insight into the minds of the people to whom it is necessary to direct propaganda, surely there has been nothing better for some time than a little incident just lately reported in the Daily News and which they describe as a cruel hoax upon 10,000 hungry ex-Service men.

In the issue of that paper dated January 9th the report is made of a rumour which was spread in regard to the proposed Ford factory at Dagenham and, according to which, a contingent of 400 miners were being brought to Romford with the object of work associated with this factory being given to them. The report continued that the unemployed ex-Service men in the district accepted the rumour as true and that in consequence 500 of them went to the neighbourhood of the proposed factory to offer resistance, by force if necessary, to what they regarded as an unfair measure and so as to obtain for themselves all such temporary jobs as there might be available.

The point to be noted is that one section of the working class was prepared, if necessary, to use violent methods in order to coerce a number of other workers suffering from the direst poverty—possibly in a sorrier plight than they themselves were in —to take no advantage from this possibility of a job. An intention by one section of workers, we may say, to fight another section in order to get a job—the only thing all workers now live for.

What a sad reflection it induces as to the state of their minds. Or, rather, what a reflection upon the means used to produce that state of mind.

Communists imagine that, by some method that they alone understand but which they are entirely incapable of explaining, that they are going to lead such a divided rabble against all the powerful, devastating and horror-producing means of destruction that the capitalists know so well how to use, in an attempt to overthrow the capitalist class.

Just imagine the case of these ex-Service men. Having been willing to make every possible sacrifice for "their” country and that glorious Empire upon which the sun never rises, they come home to this country of “theirs” and in which their permission to live is conceded by the luxurious provision of a dole or a pension, and are willing to fight men by whose side they fought in the War in an attempt to secure a job which it is certain would only be temporary from a firm owned by those “hated foreigners" who have brought the art of exploitation to the highest pitch of efficiency.

The Press and capitalist parties, the school histories, religion, etc., we know, are responsible, as we also know who foster the "education" supplied through these agencies.

There is only one conclusion: the nature of capitalism and the remorseless and ruthlessly brutal nature of the pirates who exploit them will have to be brought home in a very clear manner to a very large number of workers before a Socialist society becomes a nearer possibility.

Miners, ex-Service men and others: Wake up!

G. M. A.

A Foggy Knight on Socialism. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Through a twenty-four page article in a 3/6 monthly (“Fortnightly Review,” February and March issues), Sir Reginald Mitchell-Banks, M.P, asserts, warns, and re-asserts regarding what he terms ”The shifting sands of Socialism.” The amount of Socialist criticism his contribution contains may be estimated by the fact that he merely concerns himself with the vague definitions given by such enemies of Socialism as Philip Snowden, Sydney Webb and Bernard Shaw.

By this method he avoids the task of having to meet scientific generalisations and provable theories. By assuming that Nationalisation, Municipalisation and other forms of Capitalist development are Socialism, Sir Mitchell reaches the conclusions he wishes to arrive at. This question-begging method makes it easy then to attribute Capitalistically-produced evils to Socialism. It can then be shown that where Socialism has been ”experimented with” that ”not one success has been recorded.”

In fairness to our critic, we will allow that he states: ”All I can do is to indicate what I believe to be the essential points in the Socialist case.” We then see how convenient is such a proviso. Sir Mitchell claims that: "Socialism is based on the ground that Capitalism has failed to provide a decent standard of life for the mass of the people.” What is "decent” we are not told, but we may add that Capitalism is the Capitalists’ own system, and presupposes a working-class who are content to provide their masters with luxury and comfort while accepting a slave’s portion themselves. That Capitalism has failed to provide a "decent standard” for the mass, our critic says is "demonstrably contrary to facts.”

On the very next page we are told that this same Capitalism has "found colossal annual sums for assistance of children, the aged, the sick and the unemployed,” and a few lines further on that there is no evidence to prove that Socialism will abolish the evils which he now tells us "admittedly still exist.” Of course, Russia has to be touched on because "there you may see Socialism of the Marxian type in being, and it is beyond doubt a failure.” Same method of unsupported assertion, same want of evidence that it is Socialism. Instead, we get another contradiction, for we learn that: "Wherever you discern a ray of light it is produced by a resumption of Capitalist methods.” This is a novel method of making your case good, for we are to believe that there are two social systems in existence in Russia. Where Sir Mitchell sees in Russia what he terms failure, it is labelled "Marxism in being," and where he sees "rays of light" (presumably wages, trade, profit) they are produced by Capitalist methods. Very convenient ! We claim, and have supplied evidence in the past, that Capitalism is the system in vogue in Russia at present. Social systems cannot be tried one day and abandoned the next in the fantastic manner inferred. All the material, economic and intellectual, for the establishment of a new system of society is generated in the system that precedes it. Advanced Capitalist countries have developed the necessary industrial technique, but the intellectual material for the establishment of Socialism, a Socialist majority of workers, has yet to be generated in these countries. This is more so in economically and politically backward Russia, where the majority are peasants and large scale social production, the basis for Socialism, has still to be developed.

Sir Mitchell’s article is a wind-beating onslaught upon a "Socialism" of his own making. His attempted criticism makes one wonder why members of the Capitalist class are not wise enough to leave such tasks to their hired journalists. They, at least, would hardly exhibit such mental poverty as is contained in the following statement, made without a scrap of evidence to support it: "Nothing worth mentioning is left of Marx as an economist or as a prophet. It seems his speciality was being wrong.” The best answer to this is to advise readers to study for themselves the correctness of an analysis of Capitalist conditions and tendencies that has stood the onslaughts of the paid professors of the Universities for over half-a-century. Sir Reginald Mitchell Banks, M.P., may be considered a great man in Capitalist circles, but his entry into the field as a critic of Socialism reminds us that pygmies remain pygmies, even though perched on stilts.

Mac.

Our First Prospective Candidate For Parliament. (1929)

Party News from the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a member of the Battersea Branch, Comrade Barker, of the Tooting Branch, was adopted as prospective candidate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain for Battersea.

It now remains for those who desire to see our candidate go to the polls to give practical effect to their wishes by swelling the Parliamentary Fund to the required dimensions.

As we pointed out originally, our candidate will go to the poll if we are provided with sufficient funds to carry the business through.

The Socialist Party and National Defence. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do We Want a Navy?
In the Morning Post (February 25th), the late Right Hon. Stephen Walsh, M.P., wrote an article under the title “Labour Party and National Defence." In it he explained the attitude of a Labour Government to questions affecting the organisation and use of the Army, Navy and Air Force. As he was Secretary for War in the Labour Government, he spoke with authority and knowledge, and as he was an enthusiastic supporter of the war in 1914, and of conscription, and an avowed believer in the need to maintain the British Empire, it is not surprising that his views received ungrudging approval from the editor of the Morning Post. It is, of course, true that not all of Mr. Walsh’s Labour colleagues were so boldly jingo during the war, nor so unrepentantly imperialistic now. But on the fundamental problem of national defence, Mr. Walsh could speak for his party, and his views would be endorsed by practically all the influential groups in it, from J. H. Thomas to the I.L.P.

Mr. Walsh’s words are that the Army, Navy and Air Force are required in order that “the British citizen . . may pursue his daily avocation in security.’' This is a statement acceptable by Tories, Liberals, and the Labour Party alike. It is not accepted by the Socialist Party.

Who is the “British citizen” and what is his “daily avocation”?

To come straight to the point, a point obscured by Mr. Walsh’s use of undefined terms like “the nation,” “our country,” etc., British citizens and, in fact the citizens of all the capitalistic world, consist of two main classes. On the one side there are the propertied few, who live on property incomes, without the need to work for their living. On the other side are the great majority who are propertyless and are compelled to sell their working power for wages or salaries, to the propertied class. The one class has property to lose, and a privileged position to lose, wealth and security to lose. The other class count themselves fortunate only in being able to find employment, and life even then is arduous and insecure. The Capitalist class, in short, have something worth defending, and for its defence they maintain, and will maintain, whatever armed forces they think necessary. Non-resistance to an attack by other capitalist governments, or defeat in war, means to them the loss of something material. Thus defeat in the Great War, the subsequent imposition of indemnities, the loss of colonies, meant the extraction of wealth from the pockets of the German capitalists— the only class who could pay—and the loss of opportunities for lucrative colonial investment. The burden of defeat has not, in fact, fallen on the German workers. The employers in defeated Germany can afford to depress the standard of living of their employees below efficiency level, no more, and no less, than can employers in victorious Britain.

The capitalist needs efficiency in his wage-slaves for the production of profit, just as the farmer needs well-fed horses and cattle. And the extent to which the German workers can, by organisation and otherwise, secure standards over and above the level required to make them efficient wealth-producers, is not importantly affected by the defeat or victory of their employers in a war with foreign capitalist states. It is conditioned by the forces of the capitalist system itself, and by the political needs of the ruling class. In times when their position is endangered from abroad, rather than in the piping times of peace, the ruling class are most willing to give concessions to their wage-slaves.

The war left the position of the German working-class and the condition of the British working-class just what it was before 1914. Both countries in 1914 were capitalist countries, governed by and for the capitalist class. The same is true in 1919 and 1929, with this difference, that whereas the British capitalists are wealthier than ever, their German colleagues have had to pay the price of military defeat.

Figures issued by German official sources disclose something of the extent of the loss of Germany’s propertied class. (See “Observer,” March 17th.) In 1914, there were 15,549 persons with fortunes of one million marks or over; now there are only 2,235, and owners of more than £500,000 have decreased from 229 to 33.

Mr. Walsh wrote of carrying on our “daily avocation in security.” We can now give more precise meaning to the phrase. The “daily avocation” of the capitalist class is the extraction of profit from the exploitation of the working-class, by whose labour wealth is produced.

German capitalists and British capitalists need armed forces to protect their privileged position, and these armed forces are intended to be used not only in war with foreign states, but also against members of the working-class who rebel against the system, whether individually or collectively. This we see in times of industrial conflict, strikes, lock-outs, etc.

Members of the working-class, on the other hand, do not enjoy the possession of battleships and howitzers, poison-gas, and aeroplanes to enable them to pursue their “daily avocation in security,” because the threat to them comes not from foreign capitalists in particular, but from the capitalist class in general. The ruling class in Germany in 1914 did not construct great armaments at enormous cost in order to disturb the normal pre-war army of British unemployed in their “daily avocation” of looking for a job; nor to rob the workers o( their slums, nor to interfere with the activities of those British workers who were fortunate enough to have employment. The object of the capitalist class in general is to exploit the working class. When capitalist states quarrel, the object of the quarrel and the prize for the victor is a re-division of the wealth of which the working-class are, under capitalism, normally robbed. Armaments exist to give the capitalists security. The position of the workers is as secure or insecure in defeat as in victory. The workers have nothing to defend. National Defence is a purely capitalist question. Not national defence, but the overthrow of capitalism is the object of the Socialist Party.

Edgar Hardcastle

Love Your Enemies. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Was Jesus a Communist ? I don’t know, search me! Bernard Shaw and the Rev. “Dick” Sheppard say that he was. Prebendary Gough and the Very Rev Dean Inge, of St. Pauls, on the other hand will not stand for this. In fact one could almost say that the latter gentleman in particular, regards Communists as very unnice people. In the course of an article in the Evening Standard (13. 3. 29) entitled “ Should Blood Sports be Banned?” our kindly and Very Rev. Dean becomes almost irrev.:—

  There is the question of field sports and big game shooting, I have never killed anything target than a wasp, and that was in self-defence, and it would give me no pleasure to shoot any noxious animals, except Communists.

Turn the other cheek ? Well, that might do for people with less cheek!

Sarcastigator.

Heard in the Train. (1929)

A Short Story from the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morning, Dick! Just enough room for you before “she” goes. We’re lucky this morning; only twelve standing. Was just reading in the “Wail” that all the hotels in St. Moritz are booked up for visitors for the ice sports, and that London is "empty.” Wish this carriage was a little more "empty,” don’t you? Always moaning? Surely, Dick, you are not satisfied with conditions in general, are you? It is a poor horse that hasn’t a kick when it is stung with continual whipping, and you are in a worse predicament than that beast of burden, for to buy a horse needs money, but as for you—there are two million workers wandering the streets seeking a master, willing to work but unable to do so, desirous of producing the very articles we are so badly in need of—food, clothing and shelter.

Look at these vile slums we are passing now! Drab, dingy buildings, where no pure air can penetrate. They want bombarding with 15-inch shells, man. A breeder of prize pigs would scorn them rent-free, and yet we are the working class. We build the luxurious hotels and mansions of the world and have to exist in those vile dens from childhood until the master whispers in our ear that we are too old for work, and we toddle along to the workhouse. We build floating palaces to transport our masters to foreign climes, and our share of that luxury is probably a view of the “ocean greyhound” as we stand on the end of Southend Pier.

What d’ye say? Why talk of classes. Look, here’s another train passing us. A few carriages are first class, some second and a lot third. Well, why not have all first class carriages? They are much more comfortable and there is no shortage of material necessary for making first class carriages. The Socialist argues that there should be but one class—the working class —for a class which doesn’t work is not necessary, is but a drone in the hive and should be abolished.

Won’t alter human nature, Dick? Well, the Socialist doesn’t propose to alter human nature. Human nature is but man’s desire to eat, sleep and drink and reproduce his species and to experience, understand and enjoy all that civilisation can make accessible. Our aims are concentrated upon educating the workers to understand what their position in society actually is, viz., a slave class. It is not we who propose to alter anything—only the position of my foot when you’ve finished standing on it. The alteration or change over from Capitalism to Socialism must be accomplished by the working class themselves, and once our mission has succeeded the Socialist Party will cease to exist; its function of educating and organising the working class is the sole reason for its existence.

Oh, yes! I know you think the Labour Party ought to have a chance. They ought to have another chance to vote for another war—the same as they voted for the last war. Do you forget the alliances they have made at elections when they have amalgamated with the Liberals, and vice-versa? Here! look at that “Daily Herald” placard on that bookstall—“ We gave four winners yesterday.” Come on, buy the Socialist Standard and we’ll give you A winner—back Socialism for the Human Race—there is no other running; it’s bound to win.

Well, here we are, Dick. Think it over during the day. There’s probably a branch of the Socialist Party your way. Call round; they’ll be glad to see you.

H. G.

A. J. Cook Returns To The Fold. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last year Mr. Arthur Cook joined with Mr. Maxton in publishing a document called “Our Case,” in which these two “rebels” explained their dissatisfaction with the Labour Party.

In “Our Case” they made it perfectly clear that, in their view, the Labour Party’s programme is not a Socialist programme. On page 17, they say :—

“Does the new Labour Party Programme aim at the speedy transfer to the State, under the control of the workers, of the great basic industries of the country, and the development of these industries towards a Socialistic system of production for use? Not in our opinion. If every measure in the Labour Party Programme was carried, then we would not have Socialism but rationalised capitalism, in which the main industries of the country remain in the hands of the exploiting capitalist class, supplemented by State ownership of the transport, electricity supply and coal-producing services with a view to giving the owners of capitalist industry a cheaper service in respect of transport and power.”

On page 23 they continue with their denunciation of the Labour programme :—

“We believe that the Labour Party should scrap its existing programme and develop a vigorous Socialist Programme. That is our case, and we leave it to the working class to judge whether it is a good one or not. We do not enter upon this campaign light-heartedly, but having entered upon it we mean to go through with it to the end. We are engaged in no merely emotional campaign. If the workers accept our policy then they must work to make it the policy of the Labour Movement by electing to positions of trust those who support this vigorous Socialist policy. The fight within the Labour Movement to-day is a fight between the forces of Socialism and those who have fallen under the influence of capitalism." (Our italics.)

Since the writing of that pamphlet no essential change has occurred in the economic or political situation, nor in the contents of the Labour Party’s programme. Yet we find Mr. Cook writing in the “Miner” (March 9th, 1929) as follows:-

The only Party whom we can look to for help and support in time of need' and trouble is our own Labour Party, which is pledged to repeal the Eight Hour Act, amend the Compensation Act, secure pensions at 60, raise the school age, institute a minimum wage and safety in the mines, with a practical scheme for the nationalisation of the mines, minerals and by-products. We know this cannot be accomplished in the twinkling of an eye, but will take time, but they are the only Party who can and will do it. Therefore it is the bounden duty of all of us to put on one side disagreements or personal differences and work for a majority Labour Government at the next General Election.

Mr. Cook calls himself a socialist, yet he tells us that the only party deserving of working-class support is that party whose programme, in his own words, means “rationalised capitalism.” Naturally, Mr. Cook’s change of front has brought on his head wild denunciations and charges of “treachery” from the communists who so recently were backing him. But in truth it is not Mr. Cook’s lack of knowledge of the elementary principles of socialism which is the real source of injury to the working class, nor his quite natural inability to resist the pressure of his colleagues even when he vaguely sees the unsoundness of their policies. The real source of danger is the state of mind among the working class which permits them to put their trust in the Cooks, or the Baldwins, or any other political leader, and for this the communists who now direct their man-hunt against Cook are as much responsible as any one. The power for harm of Mr. Cook or any leader depends directly upon the amount of trust placed in him. Those who teach the working class to trust in leaders are thereby preparing the ground in which are sown harvests of treachery or disillusion. If Mr. Cook had no following of people in the habit of placing implicit and uncritical trust in his judgments, his change of front would have no particular significance. As it is, however, those who have followed Cook in the past will now either follow him again and give their support to the Labour Programme, or perhaps allow their disappointment to disgust them with any kind of political activity. Our method, and the only effective method of building up a genuine socialist party, is to base our organisation on socialist knowledge, and the clear grasp of socialist principles by each member. Such a party is incapable of being harmed by the defection of individuals due to whatever cause.

Edgar Hardcastle

What To Do With Your Vote. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a few short weeks you will again be invited to attend at various schoolrooms and public buildings labelled: "Polling Booth," and there inscribe against the name of some individual or other a little cross. Quite a simple little process, and one which, in our dull world, becomes every now and then invested with an air of excitement and festivity. Some of you will be voting for the first time in your lives, most will have voted at several previous elections. The great majority will feel that the occasion is such a rare one, and the excitement so general, they must, if only from a sense of duty, affix their little cross upon the ballot paper. There will be no lack of advisers. The hoardings will groan beneath ten-feet posters calling your attention to the enormous achievements of the party whose power is expiring, and, in contrast, to the millennium about to dawn if you vote for the other side this time. Each side—so called—will call your attention to the shocking lies now being disseminated by the other. Each will tell you that a vote for the other is a vote for catastrophe. Little windows in shabby streets will break out in a rash of cards, begging the passer-by to "Vote for Spoofem," or some other. Halls and schoolrooms will be hired, street corners and market places annexed, whereat hoarse and fervent orators will pour forth tales of their opponents' rascality and the stained-glass, saintly purity of themselves. The newspapers and the Press generally will join in the national fever, and if report be true, the ether will be exploited by means of the radio. Leather-lunged loud-speakers are to squawk their message from touring vans, and altogether we are in for a hell of a time.

In the face of all this racket and excitement, to ask you to make no use of your vote seems rather feeble, doesn't it? In point of fact, we do not ASK you to do anything. When you try and quietly figure it all out, the feebleness lies in a rather different direction.

In the first place, why all this pother, why this hectic atmosphere, why these repeated emphatic appeals for your vote? Very briefly, it is because they want to GOVERN you. There is a tremendous emphasis on that word "govern." Familiarity has dulled appreciation of its essential meaning to most people, but it is worth pausing just there, and saying the word "govern" over and over again to yourself until it takes on a little flavour if strangeness, and you try and realise what government means. Time was when people were not asked to vote for government. They got it, hard and heavy, and they knew it. And when it hurt too much, rebellion was born, and riot, insurrection and discontent. Now, after generations of struggle, you have gained the right of being asked whom you wish to govern you. But notice, in particular, you are still to be governed. Even the Labour Party promises you a Labour Government. Now, if you still retain enough of the flavour of strangeness about that common word, government, you should ask yourself, "Who are the governors, pray, and who are the governed?" and "Why Government at all?" A critical survey of the world around you should supply you with the answer. The governors are the rich, those who hold the keys to our means of life. The governed are the poor, those who have to hire themselves for wages to the rich and powerful. The rich govern the poor, that is, they keep you in order and stamp upon any sign of revolt or discontent, and by long experience they have found that the way of retaining their power to govern you is by getting your assent to its continuance. So they arrange themselves into two or three groups, whose opinions differ upon trifling administrative details, and represent themselves to you as dire and bitter antagonists and ask you to choose or the other for master. Now, in theory, this is a dangerous proceeding, for you might see through the trick and say "A plague on all your houses." In practice, it has worked out very satisfactorily for the rich, for as they own the Press, the Pulpit, the Schools, the Broadcasting service, and your means of livelihood, any alternative opinion is heavily handicapped. But in spite of all, no monopoly can be complete, or eternal. The little sheet you are now reading is a proof of that.

The system in which a small rich class own the means whereby all live, and a large class have to hire themselves for wages in order to live, is called Capitalism. It is the system in which we are living to-day. The Socialist Party of Great Britain suggests as an alternative that the means of living should be taken away from the small parasitic class at present owning them, and commonly owned and administered by the whole people. That alternative is called Socialism. You will be asked some day to vote for the one or the other. That question will not be asked of you at the next General Election. What you will be asked is: "Do you still want to be governed; do you still believe in Capitalism? If you do, it will not matter to Capitalism whether you put your little cross against the Conservative, the Liberal, or the Labour candidate. They will have secured your voluntary assent to the continuance of Capitalism, and your willing acceptance of the fact of being governed. That is all that matters to them. If, where a Socialist candidate is not running, you write the word "Socialism" across your ballot paper, your vote is spoiled. True, but at any rate you have not signified that you are a willing supporter of Capitalism. The best thing, of course, is to join the Socialist Party and see that at the next General Election there is no need to spoil any ballot paper.

W. T. Hopley 

Sidelights on Lenin (1929)

Book Review from the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reminiscences of Lenin by Clara Zetkin. Modern Books, Ltd. 2s. and 1s.

This brief account of recollections of Lenin is written by the German Communist, Clara Zetkin, formerly an active member of the large Social Democratic Party. Quite a large part of the book is occupied with Lenin's criticism of the German Communist Party.

The relations of the workers' struggle towards art and culture is also dwelt upon by Lenin in his discussions with the author and other women. Lenin upon one occasion pointed out that millions in Russia "are crying out to learn the art of spelling, of writing their names, of counting; are crying for culture . . . "

Clara Zetkin said: "Don't complain so bitterly, Comrade Lenin. To a certain extent it really helped forward the revolution. It prevented the mind of the workers being stopped up and corrupted with bourgeois ideas and conceptions. Your propaganda and agitation is falling on virgin soil. It is easier to sow and to reap where you have not first of all to uproot a whole forest."

"Yes, that is true," Lenin replied, "but only within limits, or, more correctly, for a certain period of our struggle. Illiteracy was compatible with the seizure of power, with the necessity to destroy the old State apparatus. But do we destroy merely for destruction's sake? We destroy in order to build better. Illiteracy is incompatible with the task of construction."

These words of Lenin are an answer to many Bolsheviks who imagine our task of getting Socialism is hindered by education. Even Lenin's point, that it was easier to overthrow Czarism because the masses were illiterate, could only apply to countries like Russia. Modern countries depend upon an enlightened working class to even desire to abolish the established system.

Later in the book we are told how Lenin objected to the German Communist Women's Circle mainly occupying their time discussing sex and marriage. He pointed out that they should be discussing the Proletarian Revolution and the larger social question of which sex and marriage are only a part, and not even a fundamental part.

The book, while fragmentary in its treatment, is interesting. It pays a great homage to the unassuming and helpful character of Lenin.

Adolph Kohn