This Month's Quotation: Socialist (1933)

The Front Page quote from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The 

emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex"

                                                                                 From the SPGB's Declaration of Principles.

The Rise of Sir John Ellerman: The Rewards of Capitalism (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month the richest man in England, Sir John Ellerman, died. He was reputed to be worth about £30 million at the time of his death, and a few years ago he owned properties estimated at £55 million. His income was upwards of £1 million a year, about £20,000 a week, equal to the wages of eight or nine thousand workers.

Those who profess to believe that capitalism distributes rewards, according to ability, diligence, thrift and other so-called virtues, hastened to point out what a splendid example Sir John Ellerman set to all of us. Was he not abstemious, they said, spending only a small part of his income ? That is true. He was in the habit of spending on his own personal needs a mere 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. of the sums coming to him day by day from his investments, but that 5 per cent. meant £50,000 a year—a mere trifle of £1,000 a week.

It was inevitable that the slush-writers of the daily Press would tell us of a romantic rise from poverty to fabulous wealth; of how their hero started with nothing. He did indeed—if we can describe as “nothing” a bagatelle of £20,000 or so, which he inherited from his maternal grandfather.

The frenzied lunacy of modern capitalism can be illustrated in certain of its aspects from the life of Sir John Ellerman. We may believe that a sure £1,000 a week could provide a very pleasant existence, although in this case it included such eccentricities as frequent pleasure cruises on his own liners, Sir John Ellerman being the only occupant, travelling in magnificent solitude on a boat equipped to carry 250 or 350 passengers. Perhaps the journalistic apologists for capitalism will try their hand at discovering some ethical or economic justification for this appalling wastefulness when there are thousands of over-worked and undernourished working men and women, to whom such a cruise, which they cannot afford, might mean restored health and happiness.

Yet, in spite of his wealth, those who knew him said that he had no interest in life outside financial operations and the control of his wealth— “his work was his hobby and his hobby was his work."

We defy the capitalist economists and the capitalist Press to give a reasoned defence of a system which gives to one self-centred individual, obsessed with the single pleasure of exercising his financial skill, complete control over the means of life of tens of thousands of men and women. He controlled nearly 300 ships. He owned £3 million of house property. In Earl’s Court alone he recently sold an estate of 1,150 houses and nearly 200 blocks of flats. Yet he used only one house himself. He was ground landlord of a large part of Oxford Street. At one time he had a large interest in The Times and was proprietor of The Financial Times and several other papers. He took no interest in the journalistic side, but regarded them simply as means of piling up money. He had extensive brewing interests. At one period he had no less a sum than £10 million on deposit with London banks. In the last twelve months he made two separate loans of about £1 million to public companies.

On an occasion like this, the newspaper writers boast about the stupendous wealth of the multi-millionaires as if it belonged to them. Yet this will not prevent them in a few weeks' time from asserting that “we are all capitalists now," that “wealth is becoming more and more equally divided," that companies are owned by small shareholders only, and so on, ad nauseam. By coincidence the man who is particularly notorious for keeping these false notions in circulation by his speeches and letters to the Press (Mr. Walter Runciman) is himself interested in shipping and cannot be unaware of the great fortunes made by Sir John Ellerman and others in that industry.

The reality of the contrast between the riches of the few and the poverty of the many was brought out in an advertisement issued last year by the Confederation Life Association as part of a campaign for popularising insurance. The Association claimed that carefully compiled statistics show that out of an average group of 100 men aged 25, 58 will be alive at 65. Of these 58, one will be wealthy, two fairly well off, five able to live on their savings, and 50 without enough to support them.

That is one side of a picture, the other side of which is the £30 million fortune of Sir John Ellerman.

In passing, it is worth while pointing out once more the absurdity of the assertion by Major Douglas, that all property belongs to the bankers. Sir John Ellerman was not a banker. The richest living man in England is the Methodist, Mr. Joseph Rank, who is also not a banker but has vast interests in flour milling. Other recent big fortunes disclosed at death have been Sir David Yule, £25 million—Anglo-Indian merchant; the Earl of Iveagh, £11 million—head of Guinness brewery; Sir George Wills, £10 million—tobacco; and Sir Joseph Robinson, £10 million—diamond magnate.

Facts, however, appear to matter little to the blind defenders of capitalism, or to the one-eyed critics of certain features of capitalism who belong to the Douglas school. 

Edgar Hardcastle

The London Money Market (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you take a walk through the streets of London you will not find the Money Market, as you would find, say, Leadenhall or Smithfield Markets if you searched for them. The Money Market, while it has a name, has no local habitation. The term must not be considered to indicate a particular place where a particular type of business is transacted, but the organised relationships that have grown up in connection with a certain class of financial dealings. What are those dealings, and between whom do these organised relationships exist? To answer those questions is to describe the London Money Market and that it is now proposed to do.

A Market, in the sense in which the word is used in the phrase “the money market,” means the organised bringing together on a payment basis of entities with complementary needs. Any market has two major features therefore, it can be considered firstly with regard to the thing dealt in, secondly with regard to those who deal.

The money market is concerned with “ short-term money ” and “short term paper.” Let me explain what is meant by these terms. First of all, short term money. To describe what is meant by short term money it is necessary to digress for a moment to give an account of how a bank works. What follows will seem heretical to the “credit creationists” and the followers of Major Douglas, but it is nevertheless a mere description of facts known to anyone who is familiar with banking practice.

The business of banking in its essentials is a very simple affair. It is only in certain uninstructed and perverse minds that the banker is regarded as a Cagliostro, who out of nothing creates something, who spends what he never had, and lends what he never received. In fact the banks are not magicians, but in the main plodding creatures of routine who borrow money with the one hand and lend or invest nearly all of it with the other. What the banker lends is determined by what he has of his own, and what he can borrow. The banker borrows by accepting deposits from customers. Those deposits he undertakes to repay either on demand, that is, when the deposits are on current account, or after some stipulated period of notice has been given, that is, when the deposits are “time” deposits. The banker, then, can be considered as starting out in business with the capital with which the bank was founded plus the funds lent to him in the form of deposits by depositors. Accumulated profits in the form of undistributed reserves will in the process of time add to the funds which he can employ in his business. Having acquired funds in this way the banker’s object is to employ them as profitably as he can, consistently with the safety of his business. It would not do for him to sink all the funds entrusted to him into, say, a gold mine, even if over a period of years it promised to yield huge profits, for he must hold himself prepared to repay his depositors at any time. His object is, therefore, to keep a “liquid” position, i.e., to invest the bulk of his funds in such a form that they can easily be converted into cash at any moment that may be necessary, without any, or at least only a small risk of loss.

A large portion of a banker’s assets will, therefore, be held in an easily realisable form. First of all, there will be his actual cash reserve consisting of notes and coin in his own till, and current account balances with other banks. The Clearing Banks hold their balances with the Bank of England, the private banks hold theirs with the Clearing Banks and the Bank of England. But cash in the till, and in a current account, earns nothing, and the banker’s object is to make profits, so that only a limited amount is held in this way. The next liquid item among the banker’s assets is his short-term money. This consists of his cash surplus which he does not want to keep in the till and which he is prepared to lend for short-term at a rate of interest. There exists a special class of borrowers—the discount brokers of whom I will have more to say later—who are in a position to utilise funds liable to be called from them at short notice. Short-term money, therefore, can be stated to be that part of a banker’s cash which he is willing to lend with the right to recall at a moment’s notice, or, in some instances, at a few days’ notice. It is the duty of The manager who "keeps the till” in each head office of a bank to make an estimate first thing each morning, of his probable incomings and outgoings. Suppose that on a particular day he estimates that he will receive £5,000,000 more than he will have to pay out, and that he has sufficient cash in the till, and a large enough balance in the Bank of England. He then decides that he can lend £5,000,000 of short-term money. On the other hand, if he estimates that his payments will exceed his receipts he will decide to demand repayment of some of the short-term money that he has lent. Not all the short-term money with which the money market works represents bankers' surpluses, but for present purposes this is a sufficient approximation to the truth. In passing, it might be pointed out that the banks in lending or demanding repayments of short-term money, in order to adjust their cash positions, throw a revealing light on modern financial controversies regarding the power of bankers to “create credit.” A bank regulates the amount of short-term money it lends in the light of the relationship between its daily receipts and daily outgoings. If it receives more than it pays out it lends money; if it pays out more than it receives, it demands repayment of money lent, in the language of the market it "calls.” No bank manager faced with an excess of payments over receipts has ever been known to say: “I won’t call in any of my short-term money. I’ll create some credit to fill in the gap,” even although that would be a simpler and much more profitable way in which to meet the situation if such a thing were possible. No! he does just what an ordinary individual does in similar circumstances, he realises part of his assets. He does not create new assets. The reason is simply that a bank like you or me, has not yet discovered the philosopher's stone and cannot “create” credit. The banker can only direct into certain channels the funds entrusted to him.

So much for short-term money. What of “short-term paper”? Short-term paper falls into two categories—“commercial” paper and ”government” paper. By paper is meant bills which fall due for payment at some future date. In London few bills run for more than three months (or 90 days), many only run for 30 or 60 days. Perhaps it will help to make the matter clear if I give a brief account of how commercial bills originate. The following is a typical example:—

A merchant in London may wish to buy hides from an exporter in Montevideo. The latter is willing to sell but wishes to be assured of payment. The merchant, therefore, goes to his bank and arranges for a “letter of credit ” to be opened in favour of the Montevideo exporter to cover the cost of the shipment. In other words, the merchant arranges for the bank to advise the exporter that he can “draw a bill” on them which they undertake to pay. This undertaking by the bank is sufficient guarantee for the exporter, who accordingly ships the hides and draws a bill on the bank for the cost. The bill will be made out in something like this form: “To such-and-such a bank in London please pay to X. ninety days after sight £1,000 in connection with shipment of hides per s.s. * Darien.* Signed —-."

This exporter’s bill is payable in sterling ninety days after being presented to the London bank. Now the exporter does not want English currency after ninety days but local currency immediately, so he sells the bill to an exchange bank in Montevideo. The latter send it to their London agents, who present it to the bank on which it is drawn. If it is in order the latter will then “accept" it, that is, they will write their name across the front of it. By so doing the bank definitely admits its liability to pay the bill on maturity.

This is known as accepting a bill, and. the bill, after acceptance, is known as a “first-class bank acceptance." If a bill is drawn not on a bank but on an importer, and accepted by him, it is not a bank acceptance, and its ranking in the world of bills will be dependent upon the standing of the acceptor. But to revert to the accepted bill which is in the hands of the London agents of the Montevideo exporter. This entitles them to receive its face value after 90 days. But they may want funds at once. They can obtain them by selling the bill now for something less than its face value. This is known as "discounting" the bill. It is the discount brokers whom I have mentioned already who specialise in discounting bills, i.e., in giving cash here and now in exchange for promises to pay cash at a later date. So much for commercial bills, which are bills arising out of ordinary trading transactions.

Now we come to Government short-term paper, i.e,, Treasury Bills. The Treasury’s collection of revenue from taxation does not coincide in point of time with its expenditure. Sometimes it is paying out faster than revenue is coming in. At other times, vice versa. To smooth out the flow of revenue and expenditure, therefore, the Treasury wants to borrow at “short-term." This it does by issuing Treasury Bills which are nothing more than promises by the Treasury (i.e., the Government) to pay the amount indicated on the face of them at a given date. Each week the Treasury announces the amount of Treasury Bills it proposes to issue, and they are tendered for by the banks and discount houses. The highest bidders, i.e., those who are willing to charge the least for lending cash to the Treasury, have the bills allotted to them.

Having considered the things dealt with in the money market, i.e., short-term money and short-term paper, let us turn to those who form the market. They form a hierarchy. First, we have the discount companies. These are mostly private and partnership concerns working with very little capital of their own. Their business is to borrow short-term money whenever they can and to utilise it by discounting bills. Their profit consists in the difference between the rate at which they borrow and the rate at which they discount. The margin will be very small, probably only 1/32 of one per cent., but this is calculated on their turnover during the year, and the sum may be very large in proportion to their own capital.

At the end of 1932 the three large discount houses, whose capitals total £3¼ millions, had discounted £177,000,000 of bills. If short-term money is scarce relative to the demand for it the price will rise, i.e., the rate of interest payable on loans will rise. This will lead the discount brokers to charge more for discounting bills.

Above the discount houses come the lenders of short-term money, the joint stock banks, the merchant banks, and accepting houses. They have already been referred to, and here it is only necessary to add that not only do they supply the discount houses with the funds with which they work, but they also buy bills from the discount houses if they wish to increase their own bill holdings. At the top of the money market hierarchy stands the Bank of England. It occupies its position of importance because it is to it that the market has to have recourse in times of stringency. If the banks are demanding repayment of their loans and the discount houses cannot otherwise obtain the means to carry all their bills, their only remedy is to seek assistance from the Bank of England. This can be done in one of two ways, either by discounting approved bills at the Bank at the official rate of discount, i.e., the Bank rate, or by borrowing at the Bank's rate for short-term loans, which is half per cent, above Bank rate. The Bank of England does not lend for less than a week. As the market rate of discount is normally below the Bank rate, the discount houses will not have recourse to the Bank of England unless they are compelled, as it involves them in loss on their bills. At a time, therefore, when short-term money is scarce, and the market has to have recourse to the Bank, the Bank rate will tend to rise and the open market rate to follow. In turn, short-term money rates will rise.

The Bank of England, therefore, in times when money is “tight," that is, when the supply of short money available at the lending thanks is insufficient to meet the market’s requirements, is able to determine money rates. At times of monetary ease the Bank of England cannot so easily control rates, and the gap between the official rate of discount and the open market rate will tend to widen. Unless the Bank of England then takes steps to draw off some of the excess of short-term funds by selling, in the open market, securities out of its holdings, the official rate will move downwards in sympathy with the open market rates.

This adjustment of rates throughout the market in response to changes in monetary conditions is one of the most convincing pieces of evidence available to show how delicate a mechanism the London Money Market is. The fact that it weathers storms such as those produced by the outbreak of War in 1914 and the slump of 1930 is evidence of its strength.

As long as Capitalism functions through instruments as finely attuned in their responses and as tough in their resistances to shock as the London Money Market, it is folly to believe that its walls will collapse at the blowing of trumpets by the Maxtons or Communists of the world. 

B. S.

"Socialism" in Queensland (1933)

Pamphlet Review from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Distant Pastures Look Green

[Since the following article was written by our Australian Comrade there have been certain changes in the Governments of the Australian States, but this does not invalidate the argument.]

When we were young and our mothers chased us to Sunday School to give the old man a chance to have his Sunday nap after his weary week’s toil, we were taught to sing the old ditty, “There is a happy land, far, far away." Whether or not we sang to help us forget the miserable land in which we dwelt we did not know, but it is amusing to learn that Labour politicians were serving up a political version of that old dirge to the workers in old England at that time in order to catch votes. Like the preachers, the politicians always seem to know of a better world somewhere, but it is never where we are. Therefore we are not surprised to hear that the I.L.P. .was telling the English workers that there is a happy land, way down south, where Labour Politicians have established Socialism—to wit, Queensland.

The I.L.P. for many years has sold a pamphlet entitled “Socialism in Queensland" by S. B. M. Potter, and to show English workers that our Australian pastures were not as green as they were painted in Britain we offer a brief report on the conditions in the I.L.P.'s distant paradise.

On page 3 we are told that a clean sweep had “been made of capitalist governments and that Labour was in office in five of the six Australian States. Since the pamphlet was written there have been elections and, at the present time of writing, there are Labour Governments in New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria. In Tasmania, Queensland, and Western Australia, the Labour Governments were kicked out. In the Federal Parliament the Labour Party held power, having been swept in on a wave of dissatisfaction against the Bruce-Page coalition Government in 1929. The distribution of the seats may be one factor, but political confusion and lack of understanding is the main cause of the contradictory vote casting. In many cases where a majority of electors send a majority of Labour candidates into the Lower House the same electors send a majority of Nationalist candidates into the Senate. The voting qualifications are the same and the result, consequently, reflects the confusion which exists among electors generally. It is with such an electorate that the I.L.P. claim that Socialism had been established.

The Ryan Government

Mr. Potter refers to the wonderful administration of the Ryan Government in Queensland and stresses the “anti-profiteering" policy embarked upon by Mr. Ryan. Sugar was reduced in price; meat was made cheaper; fish, food in general, and other commodities were reduced in price. When we know that wages are adjusted almost automatically in Australia in accordance with cost of living figures compiled by the Commonwealth Statisticians, all this talk about low price commodities sounds very cheap.

Besides, wherever the Labour Party has indulged in Nationalisation, especially in Queensland, there have been strong suspicions regarding the manner in which the transactions have been carried out. The findings in the Royal Commission on the Mungana Mines transactions confirmed these suspicions to such an extent that Mr. Theodore, ex-Premier of Queensland, was sued by the Nationalist Government for restitution and damages in connection with having enriched himself enormously by the sales of the mines to the State. So glaring were the charges against him that Mr. Theodore had to relinquish his post as Federal Treasurer. His returning to that position before the charges had been dealt with by a court provided an excuse for a section of the Australian Labour Party, who can see the writing on the wall, to get into the Nationalist Party.

But let us glance at a few matters concerning the Labour "Socialist” Government in Queensland which Mr. Potter does not mention. In 1919 the meat workers were on strike and a bitter fight ensued between the meat workers and the meat barons. Did Mr. Ryan help the meat workers during the struggle? When the meat workers began picketing to prevent the scabs from taking their jobs and breaking the strike, Mr. Ryan rushed police reinforcements to the strike centres and the most brutal attacks were made on meetings of strikers by the Labour Government's armed police. The following excerpts from the local Labour paper contain historical mementoes of the occurrences: —

Daily Standard, July 4th, 1919.

Resolution carried at the Returned Soldiers’ and Sailors’ League:—

That we protest against the Police firing into an unarmed crowd on Sunday night last and this meeting demands a public inquiry from the Minister of Justice.

Daily Standard, July 14th, 1919.

One could near small groups conversing about the arrest that afternoon of Messrs. Carney and Kelly, and the Police refused to furnish information or grant bail. Also the fact that Kelly had been taken from a sick bed and thrown into a cold cell.

Daily Standard, July 18th, 1919.

At a meeting of the Railway men last night 500 men were present. The position of the men suspended for refusing to scab was discussed. . . . Much resentment is felt in Union circles over the Government suspending the men for refusing to scab.

Mr. Carney moved

That this meeting of combined W.P.O.s protest against the Hunnish Police methods in the searching of houses and the examining of women and children, particularly regarding the gun raids, and the same be wired to the Premier at once.

It was also decided to take no action in selecting a Labour candidate until such time as an inquiry “be made at Townsville into the police action on ‘Bloody Sunday,' June 29th, 1919." The Daily Standard reports further that “Mr. Bolger considered that the State Government should be informed that its action in sending the police to fight Unionists was antagonistic to Labour interests in Townsville." The reply that the meat workers got from Mr. Ryan, the I.L.P.’s hero, was: “One thing is certain—that the authority of the Executive Government will be upheld." (D.S., July 9th, 1919.) However did Mr. Potter miss these “Socialistic" activities of the Labour Governments?

Let us leave the meat workers and take a trip to the Arbitration Court with the Railway men. In connection with the latter the Daily Standard published the following on September 13th, 1919: —

The Government yesterday made a protest in the Arbitration Court against Mr. Justice McCawley’s decision to fix the Basic Minimum Wage for Railway employees at £3 7s. 6d. . . . Mr. Madsen (for the Government) quoted Knibbs, to show that the cost of living in Brisbane was the lowest on the list with the exception of Perth. ... If the Basic Wage were increased 3s. per week it would cost the State an additional £122,000 per year. ...

Here we have a glaring example of the effect of the low prices on the wages of the workers in “Socialist" Queensland.

On page 6 Mr. Potter quotes the Crewe Chronicle, where it says: . . . “Turning to the railways, Socialistic management and control have proved disastrous." We are not siding with Mr. Potter in his opposition to the Chronicle, but we must point out the error of the latter here. The Daily Standard, October 28th, 1919, reported “Comrade" Fraser's speech thus: —

He said it was a fallacy to say that they could not have high wages and low prices, and quoted instances in the Railways of how men were being paid higher wages than formerly and were able to show lower production costs.

In 1913 the value of output was 1161,560,763.

In 1913 the wages paid were £33,606,087.

In 1914 the value of output was /166,450,508.

In 1914 the wages paid were £34,103,703.

In 1915 the value of output was £169,066,700.

In 1915 the wages paid were £33,210,654.

In 1916 the value of output was £172,574,845.

In 1916 the wages paid were £33,828,840.

In 1917 the value of output was £206,386,646.

In 1917 the wages paid were £36,618,218. 

While the value of the output from 1913 increased by nearly £45,000,000 the advance in wages or labour’s share was only £4,000,000. . . .  A strong Labour Party is the only hope in sight.

Notwithstanding these facts the railwaymen had to fight the Labour Government tooth and nail in an endeavour to protect their wages. Truly, as Mr. Potter says, the men who guided Queensland’s political destinies had an “eye to the future of the State,” but the Queensland workers were overlooked by these

"Socialistic” visionaries of the future.

Railway workers have probably suffered more than any other section of Queensland workers at the hands of the Labour Governments. Although it has been referred to in previous issues of the Socialist Standard we might mention, in passing, the incident of 1927, when the railway men refused to scab on the sugar workers, and Mr. McCormack, then Labour Premier, not only sacked about 11,000 of them, but refused to let them have their jobs back until they signed a declaration that they would not take any such action in future!

Mr. Potter devotes a good deal of his pamphlet to the success of State trading under Labour Governments. Nationalist politicians quote figures just as voluminously to show the reverse. Between Labour and Nationalist politicians figures are distorted for the purpose of bolstering up their cases or knocking down the case of the opponent. Results are what counts .with us, and the conditions of the Queensland workers speak volumes for the anti-working class character of the Labour Party.

The object of Labour administration, according to. Mr. Potter, is to cheapen foodstuffs. Whatever benefit this can be to workers whose wages are based upon cost of living figures compiled by the Government Statistician we have yet to learn. Comparison with New South Wales shows how the workers in the latter State would be in advance of the Queensland workers for seven adjustments out of nine from 1923 to 1928. The index numbers and wages were: —

The foregoing should be sufficient to convince even an I.L.P.'er that “Socialist" Queensland is not such a “happy” land after all.

We who have lived in sunny Queensland have had our minds seared, not by the tropical sun, but by the red-hot attacks of Labour Politicians. It might be alright to put this stuff across Mr. Churchill, who said that Labour was unfit to govern, but when Mr. Potter has had as much Labour rule as have had the Australian workers, he might write in a different strain.

As to the I.L.P., it is their business to find an election cry, and to them one is as good as another, as long as it gets the votes. As for the Socialist Party, we do not potter about with capitalism, we want to end it. All the fanciful pictures of distant pastures leaves us cold. As soon as the workers agree with us and act in accordance with the principles of the Socialist Party, all pseudo Socialism will be abolished along with the capitalist system, by the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community.  

W. J. Clarke,

Socialist Party of Australia.

The Ethics of the Morality Muffs. (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Ethical Union” bears the mark of its own condemnation writ large in its forehead. Its name gives it away. The “ethics" which are to transform society are the “ethics" born of capitalism. “The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class"—grasp this fact, first clearly enunciated, and proved by Marx and Engels, and the nauseating twaddle dished out by J. A. Hobson in his pamphlet “The Moral Challenge to the Economic System" will stand out for what it is worth.

The “Chief Object" of the Union is: “ . . .  To advocate a religion of human fellowship and service . . . and by purely human and natural means to help men to love, know, and to do the right in all relations of life."

The “purely human and natural means" touch is the feeble expression of a shamefaced agnosticism claiming to be “religious."

The “doing right" in “all relations of life" has an ancient and fish-like smell. The business end of the Christian knife has always carved deep in the body of the exploited class—chattel-slave, serf, wage-slave—the injunction to “do right" in the station of life to which the capitalist Mumbo-Jumbo has called him.

See content the humble gleaner 

   Take the scattered ears that fall,

God his children ever viewing,

   Kindly, bounteous cares for all.

But in a small collection of verse not favoured in choirs and places where they sing (“Nettles," D. H. Lawrence):

Almighty Mammon, make me rich!

Make me rich quickly, with never a hitch 

In my fine prosperity! Kick those in the ditch 

Who hinder me, Mammon, great son of a bitch 

Note well: the Ethical Union was founded in 1896. 1914-18 taught it nothing. Its Chief Object is, “The supreme aim of religion is the love of goodness." Let us call to witness Robert Graves (“Good-bye to all that," p. 295) for one sidelight on Christians at war.

The bayonet-fighting instructors’ faces were permanently set in a ghastly grin, “ Hurt him now! In at the belly! Tear his guts out! ” they would scream as the men charged the dummies. “Now that upper swing at his privates with the butt. No more little Fritzes. Naaoh! Anyone would think that you loved the bloody swine, patting and stroking ’em like that. Bite him I say 1 stick your teeth in him and worry him! Eat his heart out.’’

. . . Pass the Woodbine, Willy, to the gentle Nazarene.

J. A. Hobson talks of the “collapse of capitalism’’ (p. 4), and bases the alleged “collapse" upon the fact that “all the goods and services which this economic system could produce could not get consumed." Considering that the working class has never had “enough purchasing power to buy," the “collapse" is many hundred years overdue (read our penny pamphlet, “Why Capitalism will not Collapse").

The Macaulayesque twaddle is faithfully reproduced: “No reader of English history can fail to recognise that though much injustice and oppression of the weak exist to-day the callous indifference with which these evils were once regarded by the well-to-do has largely disappeared."

Marx and Engels (Communist Manifesto, 1848) supply the answer: “A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances . . .  to this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians . . . hole and corner reformers of every imaginable kind." The sentimental yearnings of Lady Bountiful towards Poor Jo are the holy water with which she consecrates the essential obscurity of her parasitism on the working class.

J. A. Hobson actually sees “many signs of what may be almost called a revolutionary spirit among abler business men" (p. 17)—a spirit which will, he thinks, induce the lion to lie down with the lamb (Erewhon Butler's thesis that “eating" is “loving" has pertinence here).

Fellow workers: the S.P.G.B. puts a straight issue to you. If your chains gall, if you dread the future for your children (your responsibility) seek a knowledge of the only path to emancipation. Discard your “leaders." Have faith in yourselves. Get knowledge, get understanding. Buy the SOCIALIST STANDARD, read its pamphlets (they will be historical documents of the first value), attend our meetings, bombard our speakers with questions. It is your business.

Augustus Snellgrove

The Socialist Forum: Socialists and Charity. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and Charity.

A correspondent writes as follows: —

The opening paragraph in the article on Charity, in the May Socialist Standard, conveys sentiments with which I heartily concur, and emphasises a state of affairs that unfortunately does universally prevail. The argument advanced throughout the succeeding paragraphs sketches the tragedy of the working-class in lurid colours, but I think it is a reasonable statement to make that the condition which obtains is largely contributed to by the workers themselves. I am convinced that, although hardships under any social system are inevitable, a great many, owing primarily to careless and irresponsible spending, are avoidable. There are thousands of disciplined-minded workers with limited wages throughout the country who manage quite well to maintain a self-respecting and healthy existence by their economy, avoiding habits of excess and intemperance, which really are the dominant causes for most of the misery and destitution which exists. It is a shameful cry on the part of the advocates of Socialism to taunt charity workers, and to associate with these ideal efforts such terms as “Lies, Cant and Humbug." Charitable efforts are actuated almost entirely by human kindliness. The voluntary system of maintaining hospitals in this country is a shining example to the rest of the world of the sense of responsibility which actuates the minds of those in the community who are able and willing to help their neighbours. Hospitals succour thousands of grateful patients throughout the year, and I fail to find in the vague programme styled “Socialism” with all its empty platitudes any better system to take the place of that grand voluntary scheme of charitable effort upon which the community is able to rely.

Reply.

Had our correspondent contented himself with saying that some workers are thriftless and intemperate he would have been on safe ground, but even then he should ask himself what are the causes of these characteristics. He would find, if he pursued his inquiries, that the conditions of capitalist employment and the devices adopted by capitalist Governments to patch up the evils produced by their system are direct causes of thriftlessness and intemperance. It should be obvious to any observer that excessive hours of work and excessively laborious work, the worry of unemployment, undernourishment due to insufficient wages, bad housing conditions and the adulteration of food, are factors which drive the workers to seek relief in stimulants, including alcohol, and are factors over which the individual worker has little or no control. Even then it is his poverty which often compels him to buy the cheaper and more harmful stimulants.

To charge any number of the workers with careless and irresponsible spending is ludicrous. How can workers go in for careless and irresponsible spending when the average wage of industrial workers is in the neighbourhood of £2 10s. 0d. a week?

To say that hardship is inevitable under any social system may be true (although, obviously, the hardships due to scarcity of the necessaries of life could now be abolished), but what is not inevitable is that such hardships should fall on only part of the population. There is nothing inevitable about the kind of hardship we see every day under capitalism, of workers dismissed in order to cheapen production by means of labour-saving devices, which serve to enhance the profits of shareholders.

With regard to charity, our correspondent is living in a world which is largely one of make-believe. Behind charitable donations there is some spontaneous sympathy for the victims of capitalism; often, however, from people who will not raise a finger to prevent the need for such charity. They would be doing something of greater practical utility if they helped to abolish the cause of the hardship—the capitalist system.

On the other hand, a vast amount of so-called charity is simply a highly organised capitalist business. Under cover of permits granted by the Government and the police, but only to certain influential and favoured organisations, men and women whose living depends on it, conduct gigantic campaigns of mass advertising and mass intimidation in the form of “flag days" to extract money from the public. The collecting organisations themselves, and the distributing organisations (charities, hospitals, etc.), are often conducted on lines which are as far removed from human kindness and sympathy as anything could be.

It is a common practice nowadays for the victim of a street accident, who lands in a “voluntary" hospital, to be questioned almost immediately by a businesslike official as to whether he or she holds an insurance as a registered reader of a newspaper. The whole or part of the proceeds are, of course, appropriated by the hospital. Next, the hospital authorities press the victim to bring an action if there is the slightest chance of getting damages—in which also the “voluntary” hospital, dips its rapacious hand.

At the Conference of the National Association of Trade Union Approved Societies in Edinburgh, on June 15th, 1933, a resolution was passed protesting against the growing practice on the part of hospitals of making non-paying patients wait for beds, and giving preference to paying patients. The General Secretary, Mr. Ernest Corbey, said (Daily Herald, June 16th) that there is a general move all over the country to reserve more beds for paying patients. So little does Mr. Corbey regard the “voluntary” hospitals as charitable institutions that he expressly concentrated his complaint mainly on the rate-supported hospitals. He said: “We may not be able to grouse very much about voluntary hospitals, on which our claim is less legitimate . . . ."

Our correspondent concludes with some extravagant and misplaced praise for that grand voluntary scheme of charitable effort upon which the community is able to rely. It is misplaced because the community, as capitalist Governments have everywhere been forced to recognise, has not been able to rely on charity.

One country after another has had to institute unemployment insurance and work-houses and poor law relief, because the thin trickle of charity was not enough. One country after another has had to institute state and municipal hospitals, because charity would not provide sufficient voluntary ones. Taking the industrial capitalist countries as a whole, dependence on voluntary hospitals is becoming the exception rather than the rule.

Charity is sometimes the spontaneous expression of fellow feeling by people who do not understand why the need exists. It is more often a salve to the conscience of the exploiter; a cheap insurance against the discontent of the dispossessed; and the insult which the exploiting class adds to the injury wrought by it on the workers. 

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: Parliament and Local Government. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Parliament and Local Government.

To the Editor.

Please accept thanks for publication and reply to my letter under above heading, Socialist Standard, June, 1933. It is not my intention to enter into a hair-splitting competition. Yet, if you ask me to define what I mean by Reforms, I should say that they are such “measures” which deal with effects, while leaving untouched the fundamental principles of Capitalism. If I allow myself to be dragged into this game of parsing and analysing every word I use, you can keep me at it for everlasting, just as the working class are, generation after generation, dissipating their political activity chasing the chimera of Reform. Of course it would be absurd for a Socialist to put forward the class position on each and every occasion. Nothing is so boring and tiresome as to hear some so-called Socialists and Communists airing their views by dragging in the class struggle when, say, for instance, that spectrum analysis, bee-keeping, vegetable blight, or something of that nature, is the subject under discussion. From your remarks I gather that the S.P.G.B., per the exalted personages known to the readers of The Socialist Standard as the Ed. Comm, will tell the M.P. delegate what to do. Apparently the people who voted for the man who is supposed to be the personification of a definite set of principles are not in the act. I am beginning to see what is meant by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. To use your own language, the thing boils down to this: By your own admission there is nothing that divides the S.P.G.B. from the Labour Party, I.L.P. or C.P. There is no reason why they should not present an united front of varying degrees of Reforms. I will quote from your own words : “May we instance measures (of course they are not “Reforms” when you call them “Measures") for stopping or avoiding a war, for reducing hours of work, or for raising unemployment pay?” But why stop short of that? What about milk for starving babies, or Hitler’s marriage dowries ?

(2) Nothing could beat your woolly word spinning under the heading of what the S.P.G.B. would do with their delegate returned by a majority on a Local Body. The electors, we are told, will have voted for a “purpose," expecting nothing else. That “purpose,'’ according to your reply, cannot deceive, disappoint, confuse or disillusion the electors, as we are led to understand that their contentment will arise from the fact that they know that “the conquest of the powers, National and Local” is a necessary step towards Socialism, and so is reading, writing and arithmetic. As far as I can see, you have admitted every point that I raised, and if it pleases the members of the S.P.G.B., it is no one else's affair.

Yours,

"PRECISION.”

Reply.

Our reply will be brief and will be confined almost entirely to corrections of misstatements made by our correspondent.

We did not say that the Editorial Committee would give instructions to Party M.P.s in Parliament or delegates on Local Councils. What we said was: “The Socialist will take his instructions from the S.P.G.B.," i.e., from the Party.

Secondly, our correspondent is simply imagining something which nowhere appears in the reply to his last letter, when he writes: "To use your own language, the thing boils down to this: By your own admission, there is nothing that divides the S.P.G.B. from the Labour Party, I.L.P. or C.P."

Neither in that language nor in any other language did we make such an admission or anything even faintly resembling it. S.P.G.B. candidates at every election stand and will always stand for Socialism, and nothing else. Unless our correspondent thinks that the candidates of the Labour Party, I.L.P. and C.P. fight elections on the issue of Socialism and nothing else, he knows that there is this fundamental difference which divides those parties from the S.P.G.B.

Our correspondent is contemptuous of the notion that Socialist delegates in Parliament would be instructed by the S.P.G.B. to use their votes against war, or for measures reducing hours of work or raising unemployment pay. This same correspondent, two-and-a-half years ago (see Socialist Standard, November, 1930), wrote telling us that we ought to organise public meetings of protest against the L.C.C. bye-law which forbids us selling literature and taking collections in the parks, get the meetings to show by means of a vote that they disapproved, and send the result of the votes to the L.C.C. Thus he would have us canvass support and votes on a minor reform but would not have Socialist delegates in Parliament vote on it.

As our correspondent raises the question of reading and writing, etc., as an intended parallel with the necessity of gaining control of the local machinery of Government, may we point out an obvious difference. The Capitalists do supply the reading and writing, compulsorily, but they do not put Socialists in control of the machinery of Government. For our correspondent's further information, if the capitalists were to introduce a measure into Parliament, having for its object the abolition of education in reading and writing, etc., Socialist delegates would doubtless be instructed to vote against it, as also against measures for the limitation of the franchise, or the prohibition of public meetings and the sale of

literature.

Ed. Comm.

Literature sellers wanted. (1933)

Party News from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

In order to increase our circulation and make the Party more widely known literature sellers are wanted to sell the “Socialist Standard” In busy London thoroughfares, at railway termini, etc. For this purpose Party members can be supplied with the "S.S.” at trade rates. Will all members wishing to co-operate get in touch with the Literature Secretary at 42, Great Dover Street, S.E.1.

Answers to correspondents. (1933)

Letters to the Editors from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard 

 

Julius Kaplan (Massachusetts).—We regret that pressure on space prevents publication at present of an article dealing with your questions on the vote. See forthcoming re-issue of pamphlet "Socialism." An article will appear shortly.— Ed. Comm. 

 

"Puzzled Socialist."—If you will give your name and address, not necessarily for publication, we will reply to your questions. —Ed. Comm.

Spade Work in Hull (1933)

Party News from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much-needed propaganda has been carried on with good effect in Hull during recent weeks, by Comrade Cash, who is staying there at the invitation of a local comrade. In about two weeks, at the end of June and beginning of July, ten meetings were held, with an average audience of about 60 or 70, and with small but steady sales of literature. In view of the difficulty of gathering an audience almost single-handed, and in view of many unfavourable local conditions, the interest aroused has been quite satisfactory. With continuous propaganda good progress could be made here. Hull members and sympathisers are urged to give their support.

Blogger's Note:

This report of Sammy Cash doing a speaking tour in Hull was originally attached to this Provincial Propaganda Tour report on the blog, but I only just realised that they were actually two separate reports, recording two separate propaganda activities.

S.P.G.B. Propaganda Meetings (1933)

Party News from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marxism, a Virile “Ghost” - Part 1 (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to an article in John O' London's Weekly, dated May 13th, 1933, "Marxism is Dead,” and though students of Marxian thought may feel ill disposed to mourn the loss of one departed spirit alone, we find the theories of Adam Smith coupled with those of Marx.

In passing, we should like to take the opportunity of mentioning that the number of times Marxism has been "appointed dead” during the last half century must surely surpass the number of times the world has been “coming to an end" since the going of Jesus Christ.

However, the death of Marxism having been “duly certified,” the writer of the article in question proceeds to the post mortem examination. But what does the analysis reveal? Lest Marxians should await the result of the analysis in fear and trembling, we hasten to disclose the findings of our journalistic analyst. Let us reproduce his own words. After suggesting that the two most important books ever written on political economy are “The Wealth of Nations,” by Adam Smith, and ”Das Kapital,” by Karl Marx, our critic says: — 

“The doctrines of Adam Smith and Karl Marx alike are, of course, discredited amongst modem students of economics for the simple reason that those doctrines left out the human factor."

It further appears that both Marx and Smith helped to bring their own works to disaster because of "their essentially materialistic outlook on the economic activities of mankind.”

What a revelation, indeed! We seem to remember hearing all this before, many a time. Anyhow, aside from the positively untrue and dogmatic assertion that Marx’s theories are discredited amongst students of economics (unless it is meant that they are discredited by those who oppose Marx’s theories, in which case we sympathetically agree). What, may we ask, is meant by the "human factor.” Presumably, since no details are given by our critic, we can but conclude that we have once again encountered that hoary objection to Marxism that it leaves no part to the influence of human behaviour in moulding the history of human society.

Now, were it not that this notion is so often stated in open or disguised form, even by pseudo-Socialists, we would feel impelled to act similarly to the Pharisee of old and ”pass by on the other side.” But, unlike the Pharisee, instead of thanking ”God” for not being "as other men,” we should confer the honour upon Marx himself. For even a casual study of Marx’s works is sufficient to dispel the illusion stated above. But perhaps a casual acquaintance with his writings is too much to expect from some of his critics.

Rather does it seem that the one indispensable condition for a criticism of Marxism is not to have read Marx at all. Or to have read him and ignore what he says. Significantly enough, in the same article from which we have quoted, the writer says quite bluntly: “It is safe to say that not more than a very small percentage of Marxian Communists have ever read ‘Das Kapital' or any of their master’s voluminous writings.” From which we gather at least one of the reasons for his criticism, for, if only a comparatively small number of Marx’s adherents are adequately acquainted with his writings, then it is fairly safe to make any kind of attack upon those writings. One may gain access to a “coward’s castle" at any time, where ignorance and credulity offer an easy passport.

However, what was the materialistic outlook of Marx? Did he fail to observe the operation of what is called the human factor?

These are questions which have often been replied to in the history of Socialist thought and will bear answering again in view of the continuously increasing interest in Marx’s theories.

At the moment we shall do well to let Marx speak for himself. When dealing with a series of events in French history during the nineteenth century Marx wrote as follows:—

“Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth, he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such conditions as he finds close at hand.”

This is taken from a work in which, from first page to last, he proves how men acting upon the political and economic conditions of their time, exerted a considerable influence upon them. We refer to "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.’’ Again, when contrasting the materialistic views of some of his predecessors with his own, Marx declares in the most unmistakeable manner:—

“The materialistic doctrine that men are the products of conditions and education, different men therefore the products of other conditions and changed education, forgets that circumstances may be altered by men and that the educator has himself to be educated.” (Engels, “ Feuerbach,” appendix, page 130.)

What could be more dear and comprehensive than these two statements. Those who really want to understand will find in them the foundation stones, so to speak, of the science of sociology, the science dealing with human society, and the history of its development.

But to return to the matter of Marx’s materialistic outlook upon mankind. The materialist attitude of mind, both in science and philosophy, Which took definite form in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was the result of a lengthy process of investigation made by thinkers over many centuries. Hence, apart from certain definite modifications introduced into materialist thought by Marx, materialism as a doctrine was no more the exclusive product of Marx’s brain than the general theory of organic evolution was that of Darwin’s. Historically considered, the foundations of materialism were laid by some of the greatest thinkers of Ancient Greece. Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristotle and Hippocrates, were among the ancient minds who formulated the rough and ready groundwork of all modern materialist methods of thought, despite the fact that they lacked the solid backing at the disposal o£ modern scientific workers.

Democritus formulated his world-renowned theory of the atom and indicated the general truth upon which modem science rests, namely: “Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing is ever annihilated.” In this view-point he was followed by a number of thinkers who endeavoured to explain the whys and wherefores of existence, aiming all the time to find the cause or causes of things within nature’s own operations. Some idea may be gathered of the influence these men had on the world of thought and understanding immediately around them, from that powerful poem of classical antiquity, ”Of the Nature of Things,” by the Roman poet, Lucretius. He attempted to explain the many phases of existence, including man himself, biologically considered, and the rise of mankind from the savage to the civilised state, by means of purely natural causes. Amongst his most notable examples in this direction are his suggestions on the origin of speech and language. Says Lucretius: —

“ But Nature ’twas

Urged men to utter the various sounds of tongue. 

And need and use did mould the names of things. 

About in same wise as the lack-speech years,

Compel young children unto gesturings 

Making them point with finger here and there, at what’s before them.

For each creature feels by instinct to what use to put his powers.”

Of course, modern scientific thought would not put it in quite this way, but it cannot be logically disputed that here, at last, are the germs of a rational interpretation of natural phenomena.

In effect, the whole mode of reasoning here referred to marked a revolutionary departure from the primitive and age-long method of regarding all manifestations of existence as though some power or powers outside and above nature guided and controlled existence. Those of our readers who are desirous of obtaining detailed information concerning the methods of enquiry of the Greeks, and even thinkers of recent times, should consult ”The Biographical History of Philosophy,” by George Henry Lewes. This work is easily one of the best of the nineteenth century’s productions.

However, it is not without significance that these early attempts at a true understanding of nature’s workings were suppressed or kept in the background by the tyranny exercised by and through the power of “Holy Mother Church," but a discussion of this need not detain us at this juncture.

But when the revival of learning and the spirit of “free" enquiry arose after the “long winter sleep of the Christian Middle Ages," the formulas of some of the Greek thinkers were revived and re-employed in investigation, but this time with the more ripened experience and accumulated knowledge of a later social advancement. Perhaps it will appear strange to some to learn that, in the words of Engels: “The original home of all modern materialism, from the seventeenth century onwards, is England." A nasty knock this for those who attribute the origin of materialism to Germanic sources in the attempt to preserve the illusion of “English respectability."

Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hartley, Priestley and others form a band of thinkers who, by the scientific method of observation and experiment in their various fields of research, helped to furnish the truth of modern materialist thought. Further, the growth of the various natural sciences from the fifteenth century onwards until the explanation of the origin of species by Charles Darwin, in the middle of the nineteenth century, mainly settled the question as to whether natural phenomena had a natural or supernatural origin.

Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Geology and Biology were the sciences which, each in their turn, presented the world with a picture of nature's workings without the aid of any external power. In strict logic the “Gods" were consigned to the limbo of the dark and ignorant past.

Pierre Laplace, the eminent French astronomer and mathematician, truly summed up the position in his reply to Napoleon. Asked by the Emperor why he had not even mentioned the supernatural in his work, “Mecanique Celeste," Laplace replied: “Sire, I have managed without that hypothesis."

Nevertheless, despite all that had been accomplished in the physical sciences, the last stronghold of supernaturalism was, as yet, to be conquered, namely, human society and its history, the science of sociology was yet to be placed upon a sound foundation.

It was inevitable that as something approaching exactitude had been established in the natural sciences, human history and its modes of being mid becoming could not for long be left outside the general trend of scientific thought and classification. Unquestionably, it was no mean task to survey the history of human society and reduce its movements to the operation of ascertainable natural laws, for the simple reason that history had mainly presented itself as a “ crude heap of irrationality and violence." The great task consisted in discovering some sort of order in the seeming disorder of historic events and their relationship and interconnection with one another. Further, was human society and its mode of being always the same as it presented itself to the general view of the nineteenth century, or had it also experienced an evolution, a process of development, such as had been ascertained in the purely physical world? In other words, could the principle of natural causation apply here as elsewhere? An affirmative answer to these questions was finally given by means of the materialistic method.

Thomas Henry Buckle, the author of the introduction to “The History of Civilisation in England," is outstanding among a few historians who made noteworthy attempts to formulate the laws of social development. Buckle saw clearly enough that such notions as chance action, the alleged free will of man theory, the doctrines of predestination and supernatural guidance could account for nothing of value to the problem of history. Moreover, he openly said so. Buckle went direct to the purely physical surroundings of mankind to find an explanation. Climate, Food, Soil and the General Aspect of Nature were the agents chosen by him to explain the rise and growth of society and its institutions. Rightly or wrongly this was a method of historical research which cannot be said to be other than materialistic throughout. It sought the material background of human existence as the propelling force behind the rise of society from its earliest beginnings.

But Buckle's theory of physical geography fell short in its application to the major question to be answered. Granted that it could account for the background, so to speak, of human endeavour in its earlier stages, but since the conditions of physical geography remain fairly stationary over immense periods of time, they could hardly be said to account for the many remarkable changes in human society that have taken place in historic times.

The real explanation to the problem was discovered and most comprehensively stated by Marx, with Engels and the American Ethnologist, Lewis Henry Morgan, making the same discovery independently of each other. This explanation is now known throughout the world as the materialist conception of history. Briefly, it is founded upon the recognition of the simple fact of organic existence, not, by the way, disputed within the domain of biology, that the primary need of mankind is the acquisition of the means of subsistence, and, therefore, the manner by which these are produced and distributed, forms the basis of all social organisation, no matter how varied the form such social organisation may take.

Further, this theory ascribes the final causes of all great social changes, namely, the changes from one form of society to another, to the changes which take place in the means and methods of producing and distributing the wherewithal to live, whatever form they may take, at particular stages of social development. We respectfully ask readers to note the phrase, “final causes of social change," and not the sole causes as is so often wrongly conceived or stated.

However, this is the essence of Marx’s crowning "crime," to use the phrase of our critic, his "materialistic outlook upon the economic activities of mankind."

From what we have so far stated, it should be perfectly plain that materialism as a system of thought amounts to our accounting for the operation of natural forces, through "laws" of nature herself. Observation and experimentation with the facts of existence, with verification through experience, is ^the kernel of the materialist doctrine. As far as human knowledge extends, the principle of causation is seen to be operative throughout nature, in all its manifestations, and whoever seeks to overthrow the materialist method must produce from nature something without a cause. We leave to other minds, however, this attempt at miracle working.

Robertus.

(To be continued.)

Mr. Lansbury's Solicitude for the Capitalists (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Lansbury is often regarded by many misguided people in the so-called Labour movement as a “sincere” worker in the cause of the workers. Sincerity without knowledge or intelligence is useless to any cause, but Mr. Lansbury clearly indicated his concern for the capitalist class, euphemistically referred to as “the taxpayer,” on the occasion of the discussion in the House of Commons on the subject of the £400,000 loan to Newfoundland to enable that state to pay interest on its external debt. “He was very disturbed at the lack of evidence of the future ability of Newfoundland to pay the money. The Government were accepting a responsibility for which, sooner or later, the taxpayers would have to foot the bill.” (News-Chronicle, 29/6/33.) Is it of any interest to the members of the working class whether their masters choose to finance the capitalist class of Newfoundland or not? The burden of the taxes falls on the capitalist class, and it is their concern, and theirs alone, whether they should lend money to foreign states. Mr. Lansbury, deliberately or otherwise, endeavours to get the workers interested in their masters’ troubles, and so lead them away from getting a correct understanding of their position in society.

R. M.

Editorial: The Friends of the Russian Government (1933)

Editorial from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some recent activities of the Russian Government which received little notice in the Press are of sufficient importance to be placed on record. They should be studied by those who believe that the friction between the Russian Government and some other governments is different in kind from the trade quarrels which are always taking place between national groups of capitalists and the governments they control. Socialists have long pointed out how the need to find markets abroad and to borrow money from foreign capitalists to pay for imports of raw materials and machinery, etc., overrides other considerations in the relationships between capitalist states, so that religion, patriotism and humanity all have to take second place when trade and profits are at stake. It does not surprise us, but it may come as a shock to Communists, that the requirements of expanding capitalist industry in Russia should have induced the Russian Government to adopt the same callous attitude as the rest of the powers.

We refer to agreements just made or renewed between Russia, on the one hand, and the three open dictatorships on the other—Italy, Poland and Germany. The following description of these agreements is taken from an official Russian publication, the Moscow Narodny Bank “Monthly Review ” (May, 1933).

First, Italy: —

   The Soviet-Italian Agreement signed on May 6th by Signor Mussolini . . . and M. Levenson, the Commercial Representative of the U.S.S.R. in Italy, though not the first to be concluded between the two countries, is of special importance at the present time.
    This Agreement has been welcomed in both countries as demonstrating the continued economic collaboration between the U.S.S.R. and Italy. . . .
    The Soviet-Italian Agreement is a new proof of the desire of the U.S.S.R. to maintain normal relations with the rest of the world and that some countries appreciate the need of such relations and are determined to utilise them for the good of both, countries.

Then Germany: —

   On May 5th the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., M. Litvinov, and the German Ambassador in Moscow, M. von Dirksen, exchanged Notes on the ratification of the Agreement concluded in Moscow on June 24th, 1931, which has now become operative. At the same time an exchange of Protocols took place for the continuation of the Berlin Treaty concerning neutrality and non-aggression of April 24th, 1926, and of the Convention concerning the Procedure of Conciliation of January 25th, 1929.
   The Protocol states that the two Governments, by prolonging the Treaty, intend to continue the existing friendly relations between the Soviet Union and Germany, and to further collaboration which is in the interests of both countries and contributes towards assuring the peace of the world.—(Italics ours.)

The Treaty of 1926:—

    Lays down the principle that the contracting parties are not only to observe neutrality if one of them is attacked by a third Power, but they undertake not to participate in any economic or financial boycott against the other party.

This last provision, incidentally, prevents Russia from-supporting the boycott of German goods, which the trade unions in various countries are organising as a protest against the Hitler Government's brutal treatment of Communists and others.

Mr. Fenner Brockway, who supported the move by the I.L.P. to form a United Front with the Communists, writes (New Leader, June 16th) that the Communist International, because of this agreement with Hitler, "has opposed an international working class economic boycott of Germany."

Lastly, there is Poland, where Pilsudski is dictator, often referred to by Communists as the "butcher” : —

    On May 2nd a delegation of six representatives of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade of the U.S.S.R. arrived in Warsaw at the special invitation of the Polish Government and was accorded a very warm reception. . . .
     A satisfactory improvement has taken place in the past few months in the economic and political relations between the Soviet Union and Poland.
     The Non-Aggression Pact recently signed between the two countries is a very important symptom of this change, which is also reflected in the transactions between the two Governments. The recent visit of the Soviet Minister in Warsaw to Marshal Pilsudski, who very rarely receives foreign diplomats, is another indication of the welcome change that has taken place. The Governments seem determined to utilise the existing friendly relations to the best advantage of both countries.—(Italics ours.)’

So we have here a pretty picture of the Russian Government making agreements and seeking to cultivate “normal" and “friendly” relationships with Italy, Poland and Germany, while the Governments of Mussolini, Pilsudski and Hitler, carry on their normal brutal repression of all opposition, including Socialists and Communists. Are the Communists in the prisons and concentration camps of these countries expected to rejoice when they read that Russian envoys received “a very warm welcome," and that Pilsudski has graciously condescended to receive the Soviet Ambassador, and that Russia undertakes “not to participate in any economic or financial boycott ” of Hitler’s Germany?

This is in striking contrast with the generous declaration made by the Bolsheviks when first they seized power that they regarded Socialists all over the world as being under their special protection.

It is also an ironical commentary on the depths to which Socialism has been dragged by the well-meaning people who advocate the seizure of power before a majority is prepared to accept and work for Socialism, that the four principal dictatorships have as their figureheads men who have claimed to be Socialists and have learned how to be successful demagogues in the ranks of so-called Socialist parties—Hitler in Germany, who brazenly proclaims that his advent to power means the early triumph of Socialism; Pilsudski, who led the so-called Socialist Party of Poland into the bog of Polish nationalism; Mussolini, who did the same in Italy; and lastly, Stalin, who rose to eminence on the backs of the men who led the seizure of power in Russia in 1917, and who now cultivates friendly relations with his three fellow dictators.

The Socialist Forum: Socialists and Membership of the Labour Party (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks the following question: —

Towards the end of your declaration you state " . . . the party seeking emancipation should be hostile to every other party." This, of course, includes the Labour Party.

I fully appreciate that the S.P.G.B. cannot afford to dissipate its energies in lending support to the reformist policy of the Labour Party. It seems to me, however, that individual members could do good work (until they were expelled) within the D.L.P. in opposing and criticising its present policy.

I believe it to be a fact that a large number of Labour Party supporters are under the impression that the principles which they support are truly revolutionary.

At the Leicester Conference it was reiterated time after time, that the object of the Labour Party (unlike the Conservatives and Liberals) is the establishment of Socialism "by substituting community-owned and publicly-controlled industries and services for disorganised competition and domination of vested interests."

Anyone who is not familiar with the whole of the Labour Party's activities may be forgiven for reading "community-owned and publicly controlled" to have the same meaning as the "the common ownership and democratic control" in the statement of objects of the S.P.G.B.

The concrete proposals which the Labour Party put forward each year, however, that this is not the case.

It is in the belief that the fluctuating principles and policy of the Labour Party are not a true reflex of the views of the whole party membership, that I suggest that a strong leaven of Marxist Socialism in the local D.L.P.s might force a wider recognition of the fallacies underlying the official brand of Labour Party "Socialism."

If membership of the S.P.G.B. definitely precludes membership of the local Divisional Labour Party, I should be obliged if you will meet the points I have raised.

Reply.

Membership of the S.P.G.B. does carry with it the definite and absolute prohibition of membership of any other political party in this country. The primary reason for that condition of membership is explained in our Declaration of Principles. Having made up our minds that the paramount need of to-day (not of some distant time in the future) is Socialism, we came together in a Party which exists only for that purpose. In addition we have learned by observation and by the past experience of the founders of the S.P.G.B. when trying to work inside the Social Democratic Federation (prior to the formation of the S.P.G.B.), that any advantage there may be in working inside or in association with a reformist party is enormously outweighed by its disadvantages. If members of the S.P.G.B. were allowed to be member so the Labour Party they would have to choose between admitting their membership of the S.P.G.B. or concealing it.If they concealed it they could not carry on open propaganda for the S.P.G.B. Their attempts to preach Socialist principles robbed of the essential principle that there must be an independent non-reformist Socialist political party, would in practice be interpreted not as a condemnation, but as friendly criticism of the Labour Party. It would help the Labour Party, not the S.P.G.B.

Open support of the S.P.G.B. inside the Labour Party would, of course, be in flat contradiction of the Labour Party's programme and constitution, and would lead automatically and speedily to expulsion. Obviously the Labour Party would not permit members to oppose its own candidates at election times and to denounce the Labour Party's aims and activities.

Our correspondent perceives that expulsion would result, but, nevertheless, thinks that good work might be done. We think he overlooks the weakness of the position in which the individual would find himself. At present, members of the S.P.G.B. appear before members of the Labour Party as frank and open opponents, who hold fundamentally different views, and say so. Their position is open and above-board. They are known for what they are. Contrast this with the position of the Socialist who joins the Labour Party. To become a member he must declare that he accepts the Labour Party constitution and that he is not a member of an opposing party. He then declares this, knowing it to be false. He then devotes himself, not to the promotion of the objects of the Labour Party, but to a different and hostile purpose. As soon as this becomes apparent to his fellow members of the Labour Party he is dubbed a "disruptionist" and his chances of securing a dispassionate hearing are at once destroyed. He is rightly regarded as having received membership under false pretences and any views he may express, either then or subsequently (after his expulsion) will be discounted accordingly.

The only method for the Socialist Party to adopt is the one which avoids confusion and which stresses the need for the working class to recognise the unbridgeable gulf between reformism and  Socialism. We do not gain by implying that a man can consistently hold membership in the Labour Party and the S.P.G.B. at the same time. We want it to be known from one end of the country to the other that the Labour Party and the S.P.G.B. are opponents and that there can never be a truce to the conflict between them.

Ed. Comm.