Alladin's Lamp. Another Conjuror Fails. (1919)

Pamphlet Review from the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The New Way. To Pay Old Debts. To Find New Money, and Reduce Taxation." By John T. Day, Editor of the "Shoe and Leather Record."

The Sign of the Loose Jaw

In the above pamphlet Mr. Day, like most capitalist writers on economic subjects, makes quite a number of ill-considered statements, easily seen of the to be false or absurd. Most of these statements are unsupported by evidence of any kind, and no reasoning whatever is attempted to justify them. Sometimes in a further statement the author even supplies evidence, unconsciously, that exposes his previous utterances, as, for instance, when he says that "Money is only counters," and further on explains that "When we send money abroad in settlement of international balances, it goes as metal and not as money. It may or may not have been minted into sovereigns, but if it has it is more likely than not to be melted down at the end of its journey."

Surely this is direct and conclusive evidence that the metal contained in a sovereign is equal to the value stamped on its face. All Mr. Day's subsequent jeers at the gold standard, therefore, fall flat, because gold as a standard of price is real value, and the sovereign, being the unit of measure, is exchangable for other forms of wealth in multiples or fractions of itself.

The Frailty of Bradburys.

For the same reason our author's statement that "paper money is as good as any other for internal purposes" is only true up to a certain point and under favourable conditions. But why a difference between internal and external purposes ? If it is lack of confidence which makes gold international money, then lack of confidence in the home government, industrial crises, or financial panic, will transform credit notes into mere "scraps of paper," and gold immediately asserts itself as the only general equivalent embodying value—the only equivalent desired because its value is the result of embodied labour, which, of course, is the only source of exchange value. Credit in all its forms is only the acceptance of a promise to pay in the recognised medium of exchange. Neither commodities that are unsaleable, nor businesses that are redundant, are acceptable as equivalent or as security.

A Definition of "Tick."

The credit system, therefore, depends for its stability on expanding trade. Directly markets show signs of failure to absorb the increasing mass of commodities flung indiscriminately upon them, up goes the bank rate. If this does not restrict production, a certain proportion of commodities become unsaleable, prices fall, small capitalists, unable to pay the high rate of interest or push their sales by extensive advertising, are the first to go to the wall—hence their agitation for "cheap money."

The Finger of Gord.

Mr. Day, as a champion of the smaller fish in the capitalist sea, is desirous of saving these smaller fish from the cannibal greed of the bigger fish, who in every industrial crisis scoop them up wholesale through bankruptcy. He, therefore, calls upon the Government to nationalise the Bank of England and provide State credit, i.e., provide the smaller capitalists with the necessary capital to carry on production in spite of a falling market.

But the large capitalists reply, in the language of Malthus, that the world is for the fittest, and when the world's commerce is convulsed with repeated shocks that shake down business houses in every crisis, a divine purpose is revealed because the big concerns, with their wider scope, can effect economies in production and cheapen commodities for all mankind. To the small capitalists, as to the large, exploitation of the workers is natural, and is a necessary part of what would be the best of all possible systems, if they could only retain the plunder.

The predicament in which the small capitalists find themselves is due entirely to the natural development of the capitalist system. Competition between capitalists for a limited market must necessarily result in the success of those who operate with the largest amounts of capital. We see this truth emphasised daily, large concerns acquiring others in competition with them and amalgamating into groups with the object of controlling entire industries or markets.

The extinction of the small capitalist is no concern of the workers. Their immediate concern is how to escape exploitation altogether. If they side with him and endeavour to stop the progress of the big concerns, their action must be as futile and foolish as was that of the Luddites, who sought to hinder the march of machine production by smashing a few of the machines. It is no more possible to arrest the development of a social system than it is to reestablish the conditions of a former period or system.

In the United States a movement against the trusts has been on foot for years. A number of Acts have been placed on the Statute Book and, as one writer put it, "there is a growing hostility towards wealth"; but the power of the trusts has not diminished, and the amalgamation and absorption still go on.

In this country men like Mr. Day, instead of agitating against trusts, invent wonderful schemes for providing unlimited credit. Much more marvellous than the slave of the magic lamp, who only created wealth from nothing, he would transform the national debt—which is on the wrong side of nothing—into its equivalent of assets, or real wealth, by a magic systena of book-keeping all his own.

Briefly, Mr. Day's idea is 

"that the Bank of England should be nationalised. That the Treasury should offer to exchange outstanding war bonds for what might be called national credit bonds, bearing a higher face value, but carrying no interest. These would be received at the Bank of England, and credit given for them at their face value. Thus the Bank and the Treasury would be as it were two pockets of the same garment, and when and whether the debt was paid to the Bank would be of little consequence. The whole transition would be merely a matter of book-keeping. No money would pass. Consequently, the entire debt might be quickly wiped out, in form as well as in substance, without a penny being raised by taxation."

If the matter were as simple as this the question might well be asked, why did not the Government print credit and treasury notes for the payment of everything they needed to prosecute the war ? Mr. Day's scheme is the same in substance, the only difference being that he defers its adoption till after the war and increases the face value of the bonds by three per cent.

Those capitalists who availed themselves of the offer would gain the three per cent., but in doing so would renounce the interest periodically due to them, while at the same time their opportunities for investment would diminish as the amount withdrawn in this way increased. It must be obvious that no bank would receive and pay interest on credit or treasury notes unless a large percentage could be profitably loaned by them. The result would be a diminution, and possibly the disappearance, of interest on deposits. Mr. Day would, in any case, have not only cheap money, but, as the experiment progressed, vast quantities of idle money.

Of course, the scheme could never get as far as this. Some of the small capitalists, already tired of their five per cent. patriotism and hard up for capital, might avail themselves of it, but the vast majority would hang on to their five per cent. until they could see opportunities of using their capital in the ordinary way of exploitation for a higher return.

Mr. Day's new way to pay old debts, etc., so far as he is concerned, is an "Arabian Nights" dream. It must remain a dream because the big financiers and capitalists, who in group form control the political machinery in every country, actually use the bank rate as a brake on production. When the world's markets are saturated with commodities and demand begins to slacken, they beat the smaller capitalists out of the market with their high rate of interest and ensure for themselves the bulk of the trade.

But who gets the trade, or who pays the taxes, or the national debt, is of small interest to the working class. They can neither pay out of wages based on the cost of living, nor obtain anything more from trade than such wages. Their obvious course is, therefore, to understand why it is that, although they produce all the national wealth, their share is a bare living wage.

Large and small capitalists are united in one class to exploit the working class. The elimination of the small capitalists, or the more equitable distribution of trade, or capital, among capitalists generally, matters nothing to the workers. The more closely the latter examine all such questions the more convinced will they become that, for them, the one question that transcends all others is their exploitation as a class. Their "New way to pay old debts" should be to gain control of the political
machine, and to use the power they thus obtain to take from all capitalists, nbig and little, the right to exploit.

F. Foan

More about the S. P. of A. (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our June issue contained a brief statement upon the so-called Left Wing of the Socialist Party of America. Later information reveals developments of an interesting and somewhat dramatic character.

The National Executive Committee of the S. P. of A. at its session held in Chicago from the 24th to the 30th of May, expelled, without granting them a hearing, the whole of the S.P. of Michigan, comprising about 5,000 members, on the ground that their opposition to a reform programme is a violation of the Party constitution.

Following on this, the Russian, Lettish, Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and South Slavic Federations within the S.P. of A., which support, the “Left Wing” movement, were “suspended.” All told, the Federations number about 30,000.

Naturally the Left Wingers are up in arms and refuse to recognise these actions of the N.E.C. They, moreover, accuse the N.E.C. of deliberately plotting to retain office by: (1) elimination of the Left Wing votes, cast by the expelled and suspended members, for the new N.E.C. and Party officials, the returns of the recent elections for which are being held up and kept secret; (2) excluding the delegates from these “Left Wing” groups to the Party Convention to be held on August 30th, at which the Left Wingers hoped to carry everything victoriously before them.

R. W. Housley

By The Way. (1919)

The By The Way column from the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is often urged by opponents of Socialism that the workers have not that superior mental ability necessary to control society which, it is alleged, is possessed by members of the capitalist class and their professional hirelings. Even working men themselves engaged in highly skilled occupations take up the same cry that the workers are unfit mentally to run society. They have imbibed these things from early youth, and never seem to question the veracity of such obviously foolish assertions.

Turn in any direction you like and see who it is that to-day do the necessary work of society—run the railways and the ships, producing them also; obtain the coal from the bowels of the earth ; in short, do all the necessary work in producing food, clothing, and shelter, and then ask yourself whether it is the overfed capitalist, with his wonderful "directive ability," or his slaves, the working class, who perform all the useful services in society.

If, then, the working class do all these things to-day, surely when they see the need for another system of society and unite to bring it about, they will have also the intelligence to control the society which they seek to establish.

Evidence abounds on every hand to show the bungling and incompetence of the ruling class to-day. Could, then, the workers, with their inexperience in controling society, and their lower standard of education, do worse ? Emphatically, no !

During the war there was the spectacle of the Antwerp expedition, the ill-starred Dardanelles campaign, the horrible treatment of the sick and wounded recorded in the Mesopotamia Commission Report, and sending sand to Egypt, to mention just a few instances relating purely to the military side. Other examples abound. 

The food question offers another instance of mismanagement. Tons of foodstuffs have been destroyed at a time when the world was crying aloud for food. When we produce for use instead of for profit such cases as the following could not happen while the populace was clamouring for sustenance.

  "The fish glut continued at Grimsby yesterday, and after manure manufacturers had taken all their plants could deal with, tons of wholesome fish food were carted away to be thrown on the land for manure." —"Sunday Express," July 13th, 1919.

The workers to-day have sufficient intelligence to produce a superabundance of wealth which they hand over to an idle, parasitic class. When they equip themselves politically they have at hand the necessary weapons to secure their emancipation and institute a system where social production will be accompanied by social ownership; in a word, Socialism. Join up and work for it.

--0--

"Never again !" and we are going to make "England a land fit for heroes" may be good stunts for a while, but the day of reckoning must come. Have I not scriptural authority for saying "Behold, what a man soweth that shall he also reap ? And in order to stave off the day of reckoning Lld. George and his gang are obliged to resort to camouflage and smoke screens in quick succession. One day it is a commission to try and pacify the miners ; then on the subject of labour unrest and the high cost of living he steps into the shoes of Old Moore and kids his audience that all will be well in the Summer. To quote his own words—"By the Summer I hope that the cost of living in a working man's household will have gone down by about 4s. a week." Then we get the theatrical performance in the Commons about the Kaiser to be tried. Once upon a time he was to hang! Almost every week some sort of show is arranged in order to divert the attention of the masses. Cavell and Fryatt processions are arranged. Trafalgar Square is decorated for Joy Loan week. Inspections of the troops seems to be a very important item now that "we have crushed this horrible nightmare of Prussian militarism."

And so the game goes on, and side by side with it come the illustrations which go to show that the speakers who give utterance to the phrases quoted in the beginning of the previous paragraph, are talking with their tongues in their cheeks. I have newspaper extracts from various sources which would fill a whole issue of this journal relating to the way capitalism rewards its heroes.

One organisation recently founded for the benefit of ex-service men, states in an announcement concerning its activities, that—

  "Over 36,000 soldiers had been invalided out of the Army with nerve trouble, and nearly 6,000 were in pauper lunatic asylums, due to war service at the beginning of the present year. Since then the number has very largely increased, and it is still increasing daily.
"The country is teeming with ex-service men suffering from physical and mental instability, who are in danger of becoming derelicts. In many cases they must ultimately drift into asylums unless they are taken in hand at once. I am convinced that nothing equal to the emergency will be done by the Government alone."—"Daily News," July 11th, 1919.

That the discharged and demobilised men are beginning to realise that they have been spoofed is evidenced by their refusal to take part in the various "peace festivities" and in the resolutions passed in various parts of the country protesting about the treatment meted out to them. It all helps.

--0--

One other case from the same newspaper and in the same issue—

  "After serving in the Army, John Smith was discharged a few weeks ago. His efforts to find work as a porter were not successful and he was picked up in Greenwich by the L.C.C. Ambulance Service in a deplorable state of destitution and starvation."

The newspaper account goes on to say that after receiving attention he was taken to the infirmary, where "everything is being done to make him comfortable." This beautifully illustrates how safe the world has been made for democracy. After fighting for freedom this soldier's only reward is the freedom to starve.

--0--

"People who say there will be no more war are mistaken: You must keep up drill and a keen spirit, as you will be in the fighting next time."—Col. Methuen, D.S.O. (Rhodesian forces) to Cadets at Acton.—"Evening News," June11th, 1919.

--0--

In the days of yore Mr. C. B. Stanton used to proclaim himself "a Socialist and a member of the old red international." Whether he ever really understood anything about Socialism is gravely open to doubt. Like many other labour leaders, he mouths the phrases in order to catch the votes and support of the unwary. Judging from recent events one might definitely say that he had joined the black international. According to newspaper reports the name of Mr. C. B. Stanton was attached to the letter accompanying the memorial against coal nationalisation, which was sent to the Prime Minister. 

--0--

Our democratic King held a democratic garden party when most democrats were engaged in the democratic business of producing wealth. Anyone who read the account of those present, together with the description of their apparel, would readily realise this. However, as we who toil were unable to be present, we were "represented" by such stalwarts of the labour movement as Mr. Will Crooks and Mr. Stanton. Concerning the latter I read—

  "One of the most interesting things at Friday's Garden party was the King's meeting with Mr. C. B. Stanton, whom his Majesty recognised at once. They had a long talk together, particularly about Labour subjects, and his Majesty was delighted with the frank and easy way in which the M.P. addressed himself to each topic raised. A little later Prince Albert saw the member in a crowd and begged someone to introduce him. "I know all about you," the Prince said, and am delighted to meet you."—"Sunday Express," July 13, 1919.

--0--

Peace ! What an air of unreality there is about the official celebration of what our masters are pleased to term the peace. With a state of turmoil existing between the railway men and the N.E.R. Co. over the question of the eyesight test, the miners demanding the nationalization of the mines, and the Government increasing the price of coal by 6s. per ton, not to mention what one might call the hundred-and-one minor industrial troubles, the bosses order us to cease work for half-a-day, proclaim it a bank holiday, and a large number of us will receive capitalist generosity to the extent of being paid for a few paltry hours absense from the grindstone. Bells are being rung and sanctimonious humbugs and thieves are giving thanks to God for giving "us" the victory after millions of creatures "created in His own image" have been defacing "His handiwork" !

--0--

It is, of course, common knowledge that the great Powers have been engaged in a war for freedom and democracy, though I must confess that I should not have detected this sublime truth had not the papers and capitalist politicians told me so. In the matter of freedom the following extracts from the text of a Bill, reintroduced by Senator H. S. New, of Indiana, and which breathes freedom in every clause, was recently taken in the sixty-sixth Congress, with a view to suppressing Bolshevik activities in the United States, are illuminating.

  "That the display, exhibition, or appearance of a red flag, red banner or red emblem, or a black flag, black banner or black emblem at a meeting, gathering or parade, public or private, held for the purpose of political, governmental, social, business or religious discussion, is hereby declared to be unlawful and illegal. 

  That the advocacy, by speech or writing, of the overthrow, by violence or any other unlawful means, of the representative form of government now secured to the citizens of the United States, and the constitutions of the several States, is hereby declared to be unlawful and illegal. 

  That the organisation of, or attempt to organise, any association or society the object of which is to advocate the overthrow of the existing form of government of the United States by any unlawful means whatsoever, or the renting of any assembly hall or meeting place, with or without compensation, for the organisation of any association or society, the object of which is to advocate the overthrow of the existing form of constitutional government by violence or unlawful means, is hereby declared to be unlawful and illegal. 

  That any person or persons convicted for violating any section of this act shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both." —"Christian Science Monitor," May 30th, 1919

From the foregoing, noted in conjunction with similar steps being taken by other governments, it would seem that the international capitalist class are getting the "wind up." It is necessary, then, for the workers the world over to study their position in society, to realise that the day is fast approaching when they must cross the line either to take their stand with that ever-increasing army of class-conscious workers desirous of ushering in the Socialist Commonwealth, or of actually opposing it. The class war is on. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.

--0--

In a leading article of the "Daily News" (4.7.19) dealing with Lloyd George's presentation of the peace treaty to the House of Commons there occurred amongst other matter the following statement and question, which are worthy of repetition here—

  "The argument that German colonies should be held by trustees responsible to the League of Nations because in many cases Germans have ill-treated natives may deserve consideration. But are there no records of ill-treatment of natives by Belgians and Portuguese ?"

And I would add, as our contemporary appears to suffer from forgetfulness, is England free from guilt in this matter ? Let the cocoa scribe, together with the news writers of what is often termed the Yellow Press, take a peep back into history, and re-read what Dr. Conan Doyle says in his "Crime of the Congo." Speaking of British responsibility in this matter he says (p. 13):

  "More important, however, is Article VI., both on account of the issues at stake, and because the signatories bound themselves solemnly, "in the name of Almighty God," to watch over its enforcement. It ran: "All the powers exercising foreign rights or influence in these territories pledge themselves to watch over the preservation of the native populations and the improvement of their moral and material conditions of existence, and to work together for the suppression of the slave trade." That was the pledge of the united nations of Europe. It is a disgrace to each of them, including ourselves, the way in which they have fulfilled that oath. Before their eyes, as I shall show in the sequel, they have had enacted one long, horrible tragedy, vouched for by priests and missionaries, traders, travellers and consuls, all corroborated by a Belgian commission of enquiry. They have seen these unhappy people, who were their wards, robbed of all they possessed, debauched, degraded, mutilated, tortured, murdered, all on such a scale as has never, to my knowledge, occurred before in the whole course of history, and now after all these years, with the facts notorious, we are still at the stage of polite diplomatic expostulations."

And yet nations so severely condemned by Conan Doyle for being untrue to their trust are to be entrusted with mandates for the administering of colonies and native populations !

The Scout.

A Matter of Definition. More Weird Statements From a Capitalist Apologist. (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

Continued.

Mr. Drysdale divides his articles under two headings: "The Spirit of Revolution" (in which, as we have already seen, he mis-uses the word "revolution," giving a false definition in order to vent his political bias) and "Antidotes to Revolution" (in which he endeavours to reconcile opposing class interests by magnifying capitalist troubles and minimising or ignoring the effects of the capitalist system on the workers).

His most important conclusion is that the issue of paper money has depreciated the value of the sovereign in relation to the things it will buy, and the only remedy is for the workers to restore the balance by producing more wealth and practicing thrift more zealously, to meet the excess of credit. In other words, they must work harder and live more frugally in order that the capitalists as a whole may free themselves from their indebtedness to some of their number.

Like most capitalist writers who swear that they have no object but the truth, his adherence ends with declaring it. Henceforth he is only concerned with the force and cogency of his own shallow analysis and conclusions. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but the capitatist economist is seldom anything but a stranger to truth, and the premises on which Mr. Drysdale bases his so-called arguments are certainly stranger than truth, but would only raise a smile as fiction. He says :

  "We all eat bread, though not all in the sweat of our faces; and even the most industrious of the British consume more than they produce."

Consume more of what ? If bread is meant, the question naturally arises, are all bakers in this country foreigners? If wealth in the literal and economic sense is intended, then Mr. Drysdale gives himself the lie when, further on, he says, "More people than ever before in our history are eating who do not produce." Those who do prodvide, then, must provide for them by producing more than they consume.

According to the last census there are, in this country, approximately twenty million adults out of a total population of forty-five million. From this twenty million we have to subtract six hundred thousand recorded as of no "no occupation," the entire personal of the Army and Navy, together with those who provide the machinery and munitions of war, the clergy, lawyers, flunkeys, and many more. All these have to be fed, clothed, and housed, and the deduction is plain that they are provided for by the rest of the adults, assisted by children, who must produce far more than they consume.

Next Mr. Drysdale says "equalisation of the ascertained wealth would only equalise misery, for each man's portion would be negligible."

The ascertained wealth of the country consists of the means of wealth production, land, mines, railways, factories and machines, together with the nature-given material. All this wealth is owned by the capitalist class, and their revenue from it in rent, interest, and profit—all of which is the result of the exploitation of the working class—amounts to two-thirds of the national income. The working class receives one-third as wages. Equalised or averaged out, each would receive barely sufficient for the necessaries of life. The two-thirds taken by the capitalist class might, therefore, very conveniently be spread over the working class—who are the only people engaged in its production—without adding to their misery.

It must not be assumed, however, that this method is suggested as a basis for any reorganisation of the distribution of wealth. The above facts and figures may be verified in Mr. Chiozza Money's "Riches and Poverty," page 58, and merely prove that Mr. Drysdale's statement is untrue.

It is evidence of sheer humbug on the part of capitalist writers when they pretend that the only wealth capable of division is money. Mr. Drysdale knows very well that the money in circulation is only a very small fraction of the total wealth of society, which wealth is owned by the capitalist class, and divided amongst them, unequally, it is true, but in such a way that, although numbering only one eighth of the population, they receive two-thirds of the annual income.

These statements of Mr. Drysdale's, together with many others, quite apart from their being untrue, are obviously absurd. Where he does not give himself the lie, the commonest of common sense, with a small dose of elementary arithmetic, shows their absurdity. His next statement is of a different character. He says—

  The practical value of Socialism, as of Christianity—and the rulers of all countries have used them both—is that they are international, but the international bond of both alike snaps in the war under the opposing strain of the more domestic passion, patriotism.

This has been said, or written, by every capitalist hack who wanted to fling a cheap sneer at Socialism, since the war began. The boast about patriotism is worth very little. Economic necessity, jeers, white feathers, and conscription packed the Army. This was openly stated in the House of Commons, not by Labour members though. Some idea of the numbers who went unwillingly can be gained by the congested state of the tribunals when dealing with appeals for exemption.

Capitalist attacks, throughout the war, have always been directed against the pseudo-Socialist organisations like the British Socialist Party and the Independent Labour Party, who have never once expressed antagonism to the war in Socialist terms. Consequently the Socialist position has never yet been met by capitalist defenders. Both before the war and since the champions of capitalism used both these dummy Socialist parties to show how easily they could vanquish Socialism. In Parliament, during the war, the capitalist statesmen and politicians never once had to meet Socialist arguments from the so-called Socialist members; nevertheless the capitalist Press continued to refer to the Labour Party as a Socialist party. Both capitalist parties know the value of the Labour Party in this respect, and it is only in this way that the rulers of the country "have used them."

It is only the international bond of Labourism that has snapped under the strain of war, as it was easy to foretell that it would. While the Labour Party continue to uphold the present system of society, in which human labour-power is a commodity, and the means of wealth-production and the results of the industrial process belong to the ruling class, they must, to be logical, support the capitalist State in every movement to extend markets, because the rapid sale and export of goods is essential to continuous production.

But the Socialist points out that every capitalist country can, or is rapidly reaching the point where it can, produce more wealth than it consumes, and is, therefore, compelled to join in the struggle for markets. The keener and more intense the struggle, the worse does the condition of the workers become. The success of one nation over others does not improve conditions for the workers of that nation, because the lack of employment in the beaten nations drives the workers into the countries where they are in demand (to mention one obvious reason). Thus capitalism makes the working class an international slave class—the very condition that, once given recognition by the workers, must form the basis of a genuine Socialist International. As this international slave class is everywhere compelled to organise and oppose the greed of the capitalist class, which becomes more insatiable with growing competition for markets, the antagonism of the labour market over the buying and selling of labour-power, is transformed, by the spread of Socialist knowledge, into class antagonism. The working class then takes up its historic mission—the abolition of classes through the establishment of Socialism.

Mr. Drysdale's sneer at "international Socialism," therefore, only reveals two things which it would have been better, from his point of view, to have kept hidden: His own dishonesty or ignorance about Socialism on the one hand, and the treacherous part played by labour leaders and pseudo-Socialists in all the belligerent countries. Socialism is opposed to capitalism in all its forms and manifestations. Those leaders of working-class thought, therefore, who supported the war, in every country, and yet called themselves Socialists, accomplished a double treachery against the working-
class.

F. Foan

Peace (!) (1919)

Editorial from the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peace, we are told, has now been made. On 28th June, 1919, the representatives of the Allied powers and Germany signed a “Peace treaty”, officially terminating the “Great War”, which it had claimed would “end all war” and “make the world safe for democracy”.

To achieve the great result millions of the working class lie in war graves, millions are maimed, crippled, or disfigured for life, millions more, with constitutions shattered, are wondering what the future holds for them.

Alongside this enormous waste of human life and limb, the destruction of wealth that has taken place seems trivial. Yet here the quantities are staggering. Numberless houses, factories and works, numerous mines, roads, railways and canals, thousands of ships with their cargoes, millions of tons of munitions, and extensive crops, forests, and the like, have been destroyed in this welter of war. And even now we are not at the end of the waste and destruction, for Mr. Bonar Law, speaking at a “Victory Loan” meeting, stated that there were still 23 other wars in progress.

But the “Great War” has ended. And almost immediately, in every country throughout the capitalist world, strikes and struggles between masters and workers blaze up. In the countries of the conquerors and the conquered alike, in neutral States and border zones, over-riding all the artificial divisions of territory and race, the antagonism between the working class and the master class gains greater prominence, with fiercer fights, than ever before. These fights, necessary for immediate purposes as many of them are, provide no solution for the fundamental problem facing the working class.

To the capitalist class a solution is impossible. They cannot abolish the antagonism except by abolishing themselves.

The “League of Nations”, claimed by its supporters to be the greatest safeguard of future peace that has resulted from the war, is cynically exposed by the military treaties between England, France, and America, to be a combination of the stronger Powers to enforce methods and conditions suitable to their own interests upon the weaker nations.

What other arrangements or undertakings have been made we do not at present know, but the refusal of China, one of the Allies, to sign the “Peace” Treaty is significant. One reason for China’s action that has leaked out is the practical handing over of Chinese territory – the Shantung Peninsular, to Japan. As this action threatens to at least restrain, if not to shut out, American trade in that part of China, because of the important seaports on the Shantung coast, it is raising a pretty quarrel between America and Japan, whose trade rivalry is already intense.

Such portions of the “Peace” Treaty with Germany as have been published further support our case. Large areas are to be taken from Germany and handed over to France, Belgium, Poland, and Denmark. In some cases a plebiscite of the inhabitants of certain areas may be taken later on, but this is entirely within the discretion of the “League”, who may withhold such plebiscite if they wish. It is, of course, quite an accident that so many of these areas contain rich coal and ore deposits. In addition the Allies are to enjoy the “most favoured nation” treatment in commerce, to have unrestricted freedom of transit for their goods, and no Tariff discrimination for five years. While children are starving in Germany over 100,000 milch cows are to be taken by the Allies.

In the Socialist Standard for September 1914, in our Manifesto on the War, we stated:

  “The Capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the questions of the control of trade routes and the world’s markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political ignorance and blind passions of the working class of their respective countries in order to induce the said workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters’ quarrel.”

Alone of all parties in this country we took our stand upon the Socialist position. So-called Socialist parties that supported the war then, are now in many cases pretending to be opposed to such wars and are urging the workers to demonstrate and strike against British soldiers being used against Russian workers. Too ignorant or cowardly in those days to stand for the interests of the working class, they now try to achieve a popularity and reputation by urging soldiers to refuse to fire on Russian workers, while they applauded or were silent when the same soldiers were shooting down German, Austrian, or Hungarian soldiers.

Nay, even when these soldiers were used against workers at home–in Dublin, Hull, Tonypandy, and Glasgow–they accepted the right claimed by the capitalists to use such forces for their own interests, without any call for a strike.

In the manifesto mentioned above we said:

  “The machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers. These armed forces, therefore, will only be set in motion to further the interests of the class who control them – the master class.”

As far as Russia is concerned, there are signs that “intervention” is nearing its end – not because of the demonstrations (those called for 21st July were a ghastly failure), but because of a division of interests in the capitalist camp.

While the British and French capitalists who have invested large amounts of capital in developing Russian industry, desire intervention for the purpose of seizing control of the productive forces, either for themselves or in combination with the Russian master class, the other capitalists are quietly but effectively protesting against the scheme. Those who manufacture at home and seek markets abroad, note with anxiety how Japan and America are preparing to take hold of the Russian market. According to some reports, German merchants are already trading in Russia. On the other hand the Bolshevik Government has repeatedly announced its readiness to make “economic” and “industrial” concessions to foreign capitalists in exchange for seeds, machinery, and tools. The acceptance of these “concessions” can have but one result–the running of the main industries of Russia on capitalist lines.

The backward economic conditions of Russia compel the Bolsheviks to make these offers that are in flat contradiction to their theories, and they can no more resist successfully the force of these circumstances than they could avoid signing the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Hence that section of the capitalist class who wish to open trade with Russia favour the withdrawal of Allied support of all kinds from Kotchak and Dennikin, and the making of a commercial agreement with the Bolshevik Government. Their need for haste is increased by the open campaign of jingoism that arose again after the Armistice and which has been epitomised by Sir Douglas Haig when receiving the Freedom of the City of London on the 12th June, 1919. Speaking of his experience of the war he said:

  “My message to you, and through you to the Empire, is to urge you, now that the war has given you at once the reason and the opportunity to do so, to set up forthwith the organisation of a strong citizen Army on Territorial lines–an organisation which shall ensure that every able-bodied citizen shall come forward when the next crisis comes, not as a willing, patriotic, but militarily ignorant volunteer, but as a trained man.” (Daily News, 13.6.1919).

Here, even before the “Peace” treaty was signed, was the exposure of the foul lies of the capitalist class that this war was “to end all war”.

While competition between capitalist groups for routes, markets, and control of raw material exists, the cause of war remains. The amalgamation of some of these groups into “leagues” or “associations”, while it may put off the evil day for a while, only makes the struggle the greater when it does arise. But even if the whole of the greater capitalists of the world were to unite for the control of the globe, there would still remain the greatest of all wars to be fought out – the Class War for the freedom of Mankind.

During the “Great War” the capitalist class on both sides broke down many of the old national and racial barriers that still existed between various sections of slaves under their control. Black chattel slaves fought alongside yellow contract workers. Irish Home Rulers stood by jingo Englishmen, French Syndicalists by Japanese Imperialists.

Clearer than ever before stands out the great fact that there is no hope for real peace in the world until these various sections of workers recognise the common fundamental character of their slavery and set to work to remove it, thus ending the enslavement of the human race by the establishment of Socialism.

As in September 1914, so now we say:

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.”

Executive Committee,

Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Peace—Competition—War. (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the day the Press was gushing and frothing over the spectacular peace-signing business (30.6.19) the "Daily News" published an editorial on the matter, and also several articles by those they designate "Great Men." The articles in question are best summed up as a conglomeration of contradictory vapourings.

In its editorial the "Daily News" sends up a hymn of thanksgiving that "the world has won its freedom," and then goes on to make the following curious remarks:

  "We are friends to-day with France, and our sincerest prayer is that that friendship will never be broken. . . . . She is again the most formidable figure on the Continent. She, almost alone, stands erect and triumphant over the ruins of Empires.  We rejoice in her miraculous recovery ; but we should be fools to blind ourselves to the implications." (Italics mine.)

These sound pacific words ! What is the nature of the implications to which we must not blind ourselves? Of course the nature is the old capitalist nature. The crushing of Germany has strengthened the commercial power of France—one of the competitors in the rush for the world's markets.

The article goes on further to enlighten us :

  "And is there anyone who looks to Japan and the Far East without large and vague apprehensions ? Or Westward across the Atlantic without wondering what the future has in store there and realising, however dimly, that if the United States is compelled to forsake its historic pacifism for militarism it is sea power which will be its capital concern."

Undoubtedly the above shows that the present peace is to be a lasting one ! The subscribers to this view have evidently studied the relativity of all things, and the meaning they attach to "lasting" is a day or two—or rather its a lasting peace until the next great war !

The idea of setting up America with her gigantic naval programme as a pacifist nation, is truly comical. In the last twenty-five years America has been at war with Spain, the Phillipines, China, and Germany, to say nothing of the murderous slaughter of American working men in the various strikes. At the moment of writing it is announced that America contemplates the construction of two liners larger than anything afloat, and so constructed that they are easily convertible into commerce protectors.

The Peace Treaty receives anything but a glowing reference from the "Daily News." "It does not aim at abolishing militarism ; it aims at abolishing Prussia," is their tribute to the efforts of Lloyd George & Co.

After mourning over the defects of the Peace Treaty the article hails the "League of Nations" as the new deliverer and the promise of a glorious future. It then proceeds to knock the bottom out of the League with the following remarks:

   "There are grave defects in this momentous document. The provision that unanimity is required for action is the most disquieting of these defects."

And we might tack on this the fact that, so far, the League consists mainly of England, France, and America, and excludes the Central Powers; also that the nations composing the League are laying themselves out for more efficient predatory forces than ever, as witness America's mighty warships, Britain's gigantic airships and flying machines, and the recent big armament combine, Explosives, Ltd.

Things certainly look promising !

From the other articles, in the same paper, already alluded to I will extract some of the wisdom of the "Great Men."

Sir Walter Runciman writes :

  "Now that peace is signed, the first necessity for the British Empire and for the whole world is to get trade going everywhere. . . . Only by a full stream of trade can the flow of food and goods between all peoples wipe out hunger, misery, and unemployment, and possibly anarchy."

Capital lying idle is unfruitful, but capital employed in trade brings in rich returns, hence the anxiety of the profit seekers to get on with the business. That a full stream of trade will will wipe out hunger, etc., is the usual delusive humbug of the employing class. Just prior to the war trade was booming everywhere. Statistics showed relatively higher returns than ever before, and yet the lackeys of the master class (Lloyd George among them) admitted that there was greater poverty and misery existing than any previous records showed. For years the number of inmates in the lunatic asylums, and the number of homeless on the streets of London, had been growing. With the improvement in productive processes and machinery, and the increase in the number of women in industry, brought about by the war, we have far worse times ahead when trade booms again.

Another writer, Dr. Clifford, says:

 "The seed of new wars are sown with a prodigal hand. . . . An economic struggle is to follow the military, and an international trade rivalry is arranged to block the way to international co-operation and reconciliation."

As he correctly states, the seeds of new wars are already sown—the seeds of war exist in the very marrow of capitalism. The economic laws governing capitalism drive different sections into trade conflict, and it becomes a question of the eclipse of a particular section or a trial of arms.

The seeds of new wars are not hard to discover. While England has been deeply involved in war, America has been restoring her shipbuilding industries, which were previously decaying, and now ranges herself against England as a powerful competitor in the shipbuilding and carrying trades.

At the recent coal enquiry competent witnesses expressed the fear that in the future America and France would be serious competitors in the iron and steel trades.

For some years Japan and America have been in a state of doubtful friendship in their competition for the Chinese trade. Latterly China has been developing rapidly, and may soon be able to supply a great part of her own needs, and also compete abroad. We may witness the spectacle of Japan and America at each other's throats over the Chinese market, and either or both at the throat of China to force her to accept their goods.

Japan is becoming yearly a more serious competitor in European markets, and "cheap German muck" may yet give place to "cheap Japanese muck."

In a note relating to a conversation with a "well-known authority in the City," headed "Japan ready to sell," in the "Daily News" (9.7.19.) the following appears :

   "Japan is manufacturing all the fancy goods, the cheap crockery, the toilet and clothes brushes, and the thousand-and-one little knick-knacks that used to come from Germany and Austria. . . . The Japanese are making just those goods which we formerly imported from enemy countries on account of their cheapness."

A writer in the "Penny Magazine" during the last two months also points out that Japan, India, and America are steadily encroaching upon England's cotton trade. Modern inventions have deprived Lancashire of the advantage she formerly possessed in her humid atmosphere. As the other countries possess the raw material (and Lancashire does not) and can produce the necessary atmosphere artificially, Lancashire is going downhill and may be crushed out of the trade eventually.

That "our staunch ally," Japan (who is pinching our trade!) has learnt from the experience of the leading nations, and is developing her industries and piling up her wealth strictly in accordance with capitalist tradition, is borne out by the New York special correspondent of the "Daily News" (16.7.19.) in the following quotation relating to Korea :

"The regular use of torture, the establishment of compulsory prostitution, the promotion of the opium traffic, the suppression of free speech, the repeated flogging of women, the massacre of scores of unarmed people at a time when no disturbance was proceeding, and many other atrocities indicate that Japan should spare no effort to dismiss officials responsible and completely change her attitude towards this problem.
Already Japan is confronted with the Chinese boycott, which tends to substitute American for Japanese trade. Her Korean policy must inevitably determine her position in the Far East, and beyond all question the cruelties practised in Korea have caused indignation here."

If Japan continues to forge ahead it can easily be seen that she may soon become an "enemy country" so far as the other leading capitalist nations are concerned. The recent disclosure by President Wilson of the secret treaty between Japan, Germany, and Russia, if true, shows that Japan is well up to her rivals in the unscrupulous scramble for markets.

In spite of the ringing of the joy bells of peace England is still at war in India and Russia.

India, as well as pinching our trade, is developing in other directions. She is the world's greatest producer of hides, and the only producer of jute, while her export of manganese and tungsten materially affects the manufacture of steel in Europe. Such a prize must be retained at all costs.

A side-light on the intervention of England in Russia is given in by Sir A. Steel-Maitland when addressing business men interested in Russian trade. He said:

"In the next 20 years the part of the world where trade expansion was likely to be quickest was in Central and South-Eastern Russia, and the enormous belt of country east of the Urals. British traders now had a good chance of establishing themselves there." —"Daily News," 12.7.19.

In "The World's Work" during the war Mr. R. C. Martens (of Martens & Co., a large American commercial concern) contributed an article and a series of maps relating to the resources of European and Asiatic Russia. In the course of the article he made the following remarks :

"The war has caused American manufactures to double at least. Most other countries have also expanded their manufacturing capacities with the result that the world's manufacturing capacity is at least three times as great as it was before the war. . . . Will the industrial nations not have to look for markets for their surplus in lands where there is greatest natural wealth ? If so, Russia will assuredly be the greatest commercial field in the world at the end of this war."

And he closes the article with this significant remark:

  "The opportunity is waiting."

No wonder England and the "great democracy of the West" are taking such a fatherly and bloodthirsty interest in Russian affairs.

The "Daily Chronicle" for August 6th adds its quota to the mass of evidence supporting our contention. Under the heading "Tariff War Breaks Out in Europe" our contemporary reports:

  ". . the introduction into Italy of hats, caps, gloves, and umbrellas is wholly forbidden. So, too are threads, textiles, and all semi-manufactured goods, whether in wool, linen, cotton, hemp, or jute.
The same applies to agricultural machinery and to . all parts thereof.  . .

BOHEMIA'S COUNTER TARIFF.

. . Already Bohemia has retaliated on the shutting out of her glass wares by imposing a steep tariff of 300 kronen on Italian wines."

The report then goes on to declare that there is every prospect of Sweden, who had made the promised supply of paper pulp dependent upon the admission into Italy of certain cheap paper goods, retaliating by stopping the paper pulp supply. Truly, we are a happy family in these days of universal peace !

As the military war waned the trade war took its place and rages with greater violence every day. The inevitable result will be another recourse to the battlefield.

So that the last doubt may be dispelled from the minds of readers as to the everlasting nature of the "peace" I will conclude with another quotation from the "Daily News" (12.7.19.)

  "Sir Douglas Haig and Admiral Sir Roger Keyes received the freedom of the city (Aberdeen) to-day, and also honorary degrees of the University. Sir Douglas, in reply, urged that every growing lad should be taught the use of the rifle, so that when the next great trial came, "as one day it surely will," we should be found a nation in arms, ready and prepared to meet it."

As the Socialist Party has all along pointed out. the wars of civilised countries, since the birth of the capitalist system, have been caused through the struggles between sections of the world's capitalist class for the trade routes, raw materials, markets, and the like. As long as there is commodity production, buying and selling, with the consequent competition among buyers and sellers and the enslavement of the producing class, wars are of the very essence of things. Lasting peace can only arrive when the private ownership of the means of living has been abolished and common ownership has emerged from the ruins—in other words, wars and all the other evils that are a consequence of capitalism can only disappear when capitalism gives place to Socialism.

Gilmac.

The Making of a Socialist. (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Someone has said that fools learn from experience, and wise men from observation and reflection. If this be correct, it is to be feared that the dictum of Carlyle as to most people on these islands being found in the former category has a good deal of truth in it. Certainly, with regard to political and economic phenomena, the great majority of working-class men and women—even those who have a tendency towards independent thinking—seem to require something obvious and hammer-like to be forced on them in a quite personal way before they are able to visualise and focus the true political and economic situation and their place relative to it.

For instance, the loss of a dearly-loved relation or friend in war will be necessary before they can bring themselves to attempt fathom the cause and object of war; the disaster of unemployment must overtake them before they can understand the part unemployment plays in the present social system ; the continuous scraping to make ends meet must be brought forcibly home to them before they can realise that the amount of the meagre wage they receive is based upon their cost of subsistence; the superciliousness or brutality to them personally by someone "drest in a little brief authority" must touch their self-esteem before the fact of their degradation as members of the "lower" class, as social slaves, can germinate in their brains.

In some way or other their self-interest must suffer before they can realise that politics is anything but a game played by followers of different schools of thought for their own amusment, or that economics is anything but a dry and pedantic subject, fit only for professional pedagogues and a few fanatics.

It is, of course, not surprising that such an attitude of mind shomld predominate. The early training of working-class men and women, both in the school and the home, the noxious doctrines innoculated later on from the pulpit, platform, and Press, all do their part in forming the working class into what the capitalists desire that they should become, that is, in the sphere of politics, adherents to, and supporters of, one or other of the orthodox political parties, and in the sphere of economics, hard-working, docile, and respectable wage slaves.

So complete and successful is the slave-morality engendered by the agents of the capitalists, and accepted without question by most of the contemporary generation of working-class men and women, that the younger and growing generation finds it almost impossible, without some particularly violent reaction, to fight against the stream of capitalist ethics, and become instead opponents of capitalism ; to become, indeed—at least in theory—what is, from the capitalist standpoint, immoral, irreligious, and unethical.

Even when this negative attitude of direct and bitter opposition to the capitalist system has been attained, it is practically useless inasfar as it remains purely negative. A consciousness of the further development of society must be born; the knowledge that, following the inevitable downfall of the capitalist system—based as that system is on the production of wealth for profit—must come, in the ordinary course of evolution, a system based on production for use—the system known as Socialism— such knowledge must grow and fructify, otherwise the negative attitude of antagonism to capitalism is injurious to the individual, either soon ending in sterility, or developing into an idée fixe, with the unfortunate results of anarchy and chaos of intellect which such "fixed ideas" usually generate.

There is another fact to be taken into consideration. The mental process by which the opponent of capitalism becomes a Socialist is often retarded by his wanderings after fallacious ideals. He is sometimes caught in the toils of the reformist parties, is mentally fleeced and plundered by one or other of the pseudo-Socialist organisations, and it is only after many false starts and much perturbation and disillusionment that by means of a process of deduction he eventually arrives at what the force of circumstances and the logical sequence of events urge and finally compel him to become, that is, a class-conscious proletarian, with a historical sense of his place in nature and society, and a definite philosophical standpoint from which all phenomena can be judged and commended or condemned as the case may be—in short, a Socialist.

We have now arrived at the point where the Socialist, having evaded, or escaped from, the quicksands of pseudo-Socialism, has clearly realised the fact of his new theory of life, and has began to take his part in the work of propaganda, which is so vital to the early and successful inauguration of the Socialist Commonwealth. There still remains, however, the need for unrelaxing vigilence in all that he thinks, or says, or does. While capitalism lasts the Socialist, who must of necessity live and work under the present system, is obliged, however much it goes against the grain, to accept, for all practical purposes, the morality of a system with which he finds himself totally at variance. Hence the paradox, that the Socialist, even while he is doing his utmost to overthrow a system which he hates, must at the same time act, to a very great extent, at any rate, in accordance with, and adhere to, the conventions of that system.

It will be seen, therefore, that there is always a necessity for alertness, for a steadfastness of purpose, in the cause of Socialism, to militate against any possible undermining of the Socialist's principles. The Socialist, like any other member of the working class, has to live and work under capitalist conditions and has to conform, in the main, to the conventional morality of capitalism. But he must, at the same time, use every effort and take every opportunity to hasten the downfall of what has, in effect, become an obsolete social system, and to help inaugurate the next stage in the development of society.

One of the reasons of defection from the principles of Socialism is to be found in the inability of certain superficial minds to build up, as it were, brick by brick, a philosophical structure, from whose topmost tower every hill and undulation of the workings of modern society can be surveyed. Unless the Socialist possesses a definite and unassailable point of view, it is really a misnomer to speak of him as a Socialist at all. He is simply one of those mental ineffectives who are always to be found attaching themselves to any unpopular cause and who, having no rock-bottomed principles, are easily swayed by any stronger personality with whom they happen to come in contact. If that stronger personality should be a direct or indirect agent of the capitalists, the result, of course, is the deviation from the Socialist cause to any passing craze, such as Woman's Suffrage, or Nationalisation, or something of that description. To such people capitalist environment is too strong to enable the somewhat vague and nebulous ideas they possess relating to Socialism to stand any chance of developing on right lines.

To the Socialist, to the man, that is, who has realised his position in nature and society, and who has built up for himself a philosophy of life in accordance with that realisation, the questions that would have vexed and distracted him in the non-Socialist days have become simplified to an enormous degree. Whether it be in the ordinary routine of every-day affairs, or in the realms of literature, art, or science, his whole activities will be examined in the light of their value to Socialism; the facts appertaining to the present social system will be arraigned and judged at the bar of the Socialist philosophy, and the results used in the most effective way in criticising capitalism and advocating the establishment of the new order of society. 

It is hoped that the foregoing will give some idea as to the making of Socialists, which, of course, is one of the main objects of the Socialist Party. The road to Socialism is a hard road, and perhaps this account of what is largely a personal experience may lend some assistance to those younger future comrades who are now groping more or less blindly toward the beacon—seen only by them at present as a faint and far-off glimmer—of the Socialist Commonwealth.

F. J. Webb 

Slavery. (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the average working man hears the word "slavery" a picture usually flashes across his mind of a black man working with a gang on a plantation in some far-distant land, with the cruel whip of the overseer continually applied to his dusky back to urge him on to greater efforts. Perhaps our "free" worker recalls having seen in childhood, the magic lantern pictures that tell the story of the famous "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Then he shrugs his shoulders and thanks God he was not born a nigger.

Slavery in various forms has existed from the remote past—since the origin of private property (during barbaric times). Has slavery ceased with the growth of the great "democratic" States of to-day? To answer this question it is necessary to enquire a little closer as to what slavery really is.

A slave is one who is compelled to work the whole or part of his time for another. The chattel-slave gives up all his time, the bondslave a part.

Thus the Romans put foreigners captured in war to work in mines, in their houses, and on their lands. The pious pilgrim fathers of North America bought negroes for rum, and sold them to the Southern planters.

Although the Roman slave and the negro slave were acquired bodily and for life, they were not taken for the good of their health, nor out of charity ; they were taken to work for their respective masters, and their lives were only of worth to the masters as long as they could work, as the fearful annals of slavery show only too clearly.

The era of purchasing a slave bodily as a chattel, or binding him for definite a period, as a serf, has passed away, but has the era of slavery passed also ?

We are told by politicians of various shades of opinion that in the past people were wicked and enslaved their fellow beings, but that now things are very different—we are a free people. The writer of these lines, who is one of the "free" people, has a weakness for sunny slopes, shady trees, and cool, country breezes these warm days, but so soon as he commences to make plans for a trip to Arcadia his freedom has a disagreeable habit of vanishing. If he goes away (that is if he can raise the wind!) he will lose his job, for employers won't allow workmen to play fast and loose with their jobs. There is always somebody outside the gate whom hunger will drive to forego holidays in order to keep the job.

If we can't get jobs we must starve, and if we are caught starving we are likely to be jailed for not having "visible means of subsistence"—this appears to be rather a curious form of freedom !

All around us are vast factories, and workshops of various descriptions, in which we—who are called the working class—work. We are given a job at the will of somebody else, and sacked at his will. We depend for our existence on obtaining work, as we possess nothing with which to obtain the necessaries of life, and consequently depend upon the sale of our working power. We are, therefore, in a state of dependence upon those who give us work.

Those who give us work are the owners of the vast works already alluded to. We are the slaves of the employing class.

Through owning all the means of production the employers compel us to work under the conditions they lay down, and we must abide by these conditions or starve. The only way we can escape capitalism is by getting off the earth.

Our form of slavery, wage-slavery, is in some respects worse than previous forms. The buyer of a chattel slave generally found it to his advantage to feed and house the slave well: a well-fed slave was capable of working harder, and lived longer, than an ill-fed one. He was property, the same as a horse, and his death meant a fresh outlay to buy another. In the case of the wage-slave it is different. His power to work is purchased in many cases from hour to hour, in some instances from week to week, but in comparatively few cases for longer periods. If he is ill or dies it does not matter to the employer, as he has only bought certain amounts of labour power, which he never pays for until it has been expended in his factory, field, mine, workshop, office, or the like. Therefore he loses nothing by the death of his wage thrall, and the labour power of other men will do just as well to continue the work. There are always plenty to fill vacant jobs, as discharged and demobilised soldiers are learning to their cost.

Philantrophists and labour leaders put before you various propositions as means to ameliorate your lot, but very little examination will show you that anything short of the overthrow of capitalism leaves you as you are—a wage slave.

So long as capitalism lasts the laws governing it will last. Under capitalism the workers' labour power is bought and sold on the market the same as any other commodity, and is therefore amenable to commodity laws. It is a matter of experience that there is always an over supply of workers, and consequently wages on an average rule at the lowest cost of subsistence —i.e., the lowest on which a worker can live, reproduce his kind, and do the particular class of work required.

No reforms can touch this position—the laws of capitalism nullify reforms.

We are slaves and will remain slaves as long as we allow the employing class to rob us of the products of our toil.

We, the working class, produce all the wealth of the world, but the capitalist or employing class own it, through their ownership of the powers of production. Therefore to obtain our freedom we must overthrow capitalism, i.e., modern private ownership, and substitute common ownership.

Capitalism only exists with your consent. You give this consent at election time by voting the capitalists into power. Withhold your consent, i.e., vote yourselves into power, and capitalism will give place to Socialism.

So long as you vote for capitalism you are unfit for Socialism—you are not class-conscious.

Confusionist bodies of various kinds may increase their following in various ways by compounding in various ways, but they cannot gain the support of class-conscious working men —fit subjects for Socialism. In other words, they do not get an inch nearer the ultimate goal by holding up the promise of immediate but delusive gains. Only the confused will support the confusionist.

The capitalist keeps his privileged position by controlling the machinery of government, which he uses to keep us in subjection. This is the citadel we must attack, and carry, to usher in the Socialist Commonwealth, and thereby abolish human slavery for ever. 

Gilmac.

Our £1,000 Fund (1919)

Party News from the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

We give below a further list of subscriptions and other additions to our fund. It will be noticed that the vast .bulk of the increase since our last list was published consists of the fruits of the Sixpenny Collection, and Branch-donations. The amount given as ordinary direct individual contributions, as also the increment from collecting sheets, have fallen to a very low level, and there is only one way to draw any comfort from the contemplation of them. That is to remember that no less an authority than J. Christ has declared that “The poor shall inherit the earth." - (From that point of view the state of our fund is reassuring! But

Comparisons. (1919)

Jack Cornwell, VC
(8 January 1900 – 2 June 1916)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

“We do not forget Jack Cornwell,” said the Lord Mayor of London addressing same of the men of the Navy. The humbug of it is paralyzing to those who remember how the class for whom he was speaking kept Jack’s mother out of her pension, tied up the money publicly subscribed for her benefit, and left her to starve. 

Similar cant is the Government’s eulogies of the rank and file who did the fighting and the suffering, and the workers who supplied the means by which the war was carried on and won. Thousands of those who bore and reared the men who died in the trenches or at sea, and those men and women, and boys and girls, who were blown to pieces in the munitions factories, are Old Age Pensioners, yet, we are informed by the “Daily Chronicle” (Aug. 5th), notwithstanding that the London Old Age Pensions Committee is “still urging the Government to authorise a special allowance to old age pensioners in order that none of them, owing to poverty, should be left out of the peace rejoicings,” the Chancellor of the Exchequer “has hitherto declined to authorise a special allowance of 5s. to every pensioner, as recommended by the Committee.”

And at the moment when they are refusing a stingy 5s. to the poverty-stricken fathers and mothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers, of their “heroes,” they are showering hundreds of thousands upon their fighting-chiefs, and fighting like the very devil to pass a Bill to raise their own salaries from £2,000 a year to £5,000. They are as dead to shame as they are to humanity.

Stir yourselves, workers, and settle with the gang once for all.

J.

The Police v. The Police (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalist Press has been busy explaining to Simple Simon that the action of the police in "breaking their oath" is not only mutiny, but "a crime." Of course, it is always a crime when the bulldog turns and rends its master's hand, notwithstanding that that hand was doing things with a stick. But there is another side to the question.

During the long period when the workers were more somnolent than they are now, and that condition was reflected in a far more incomplete organisation and a far greater trust in and submission to their union officials, the bosses were not so much afraid of the "labour unrest" as they are to-day. Consequently they did not attach the same importance to the bobby as they do now, and they made the mistake of paying him accordingly.

The result was inevitable. Notwithstanding his oath, the policeman was forced to struggle for a betterment of his miserable condition. More even than in other trades—if that were possible—this necessarily meant organisation. A union was formed, and as the aspect of industrial affairs became darker, a police trade union, affiliated possibly with other trade unions, deriving a certain amount of its strength from those unions, was regarded as an extremely sinister thing.

The bosses got a bit nervous. They made panic concessions, and then they started to cut out the "cancer" - in other words, to smash the union.

Now it is quite clear that the men owed every jot and tittle of the improvement in their condition to the union. Their oath availed them nothing. It was only intended to bind them to vile conditions of pay and tyrannical discipline. They might have stood meekly by it till doomsday, nothing would have been done for them. Only when they seriously threatened to commit the "crime" of leaving their oath to look after itself, as butcher Asquith did his registration and other pledges, and Lloyd George did his pledge concerning sending young boys to the "front," did the masters deign to give them some measure of alleviation.

It is quite plain, then, where the crime comes in. It is certainly not in breaking their oath, which they had been driven to do by the callous indifference of the bosses to their claims, but in their desertion of the instrument which had gained them so much. To allow that to be crushed out, and those who had undertaken the task of organising them for the struggle, to go down in the hour of victory is both a mean and cowardly crime.

Writers in this paper have previously pointed out how extremely unlikely it was that any sort of union that could be any good to the men would secure official recognition. The forecast seems to be pretty correct. Had the police, however, behaved with sufficient courage and intelligence as to force the question of recognition to a successful issue, the simple and inevitable result must have been the increased use of bayonets instead of batons in industrial disputes. The masters have more strings than one to their bow.

A. E. Jacomb