A cutting cutting. (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

“When found make a note of !” Thus our old and esteemed friend, Cap’n Cuttle. Here is something we found and made a note of. It was discovered in the financial column of London Opinion for November 21st last. You all remember the great cotton “lock-out” of last year? The capitalist Press was never tired of reminding you of the awful loss the workers sustained in working days, wages, and what not, whilst the loss to “your country’s trade” was incalculable, irreparable, and altogether deplorable. The inference is, of course, that you were a very stupid, short-sighted lot, to grumble at, and actually go so far as to resist, attempts at slicing your wages. A shilling in the pound off £2 10 per week only meant 2s. 6d. per week short, and £2 7s. 6d. was not such a bad wage, after all. Why will you be so unreasonable ?

Perhaps it is accounted for by the fact that many of you were only getting 18s. or £1 per week, and 5% off that meant all the difference-between at best a hand-to-mouth existence and positive privation. Many of you, no doubt, took the view that “if we accept a 5% reduction, what is to prevent the imposition of a 10 or 20% reduction” ? Perhaps the cutting will help us.

“TEXTILES.—The termination o£ the strike amongst the Cotton operatives should have a good effect on prices in this section of the Industrial Market. That little harm will have been done appears apparent, and that the masters will be benefited to no small extent seems probable, for they have been able to get rid of the large surplus stocks which had accumulated during the depression which is now passing away, in addition to saving an enormous aggregate in wages and working expenses.” London Opinion.

The italics are ours.

Need we say more? Do you want it any plainer than that ? They have given you the sack for several months and made a profit on the business. Sounds like a joke, doesn’t it ?

In our unregenerate days we used to wonder what the Socialists meant by affirming that the average trade union was the best friend the employers ever had. Is anyone in doubt after perusing a statement like the foregoing ? Five or six months without employment and consequent lack of the wherewithal to live, would, if occurring upon so large a scale as in the instance under notice, speedily settle the hash of the workers. How fortunate, then, that when the cotton operatives have produced more fabric than the market can absorb, and the employers “find themselves compelled to announce a reduction in wages” in the sure and certain knowledge that the men will “jib,” how fortunate, we say, that the men are able through their trade union, to scrape along on bread and margarine until the “large surplus stocks” have been got rid of.

Nothing remains to be done now but to create some more surplus stocks, and then the same tragi-comedy will be enacted over again. You pay the piper, fellow-workers, how do you like the tune ? Don’t you think a change of melody might be advantageous ? Or do you prefer to shuffle along until the fast approaching day when you will be “scrapped”—too old at forty—and die in the cheerful knowledge that your children will do the same ?

On our back page you will find a Declaration of Principles. Read it through carefully and think it over. There is not a difficult word or sentence in it. It was thought out, written and put together by working men ; it should not be difficult for any working man in possession of ordinary common sense to understand it. If you should be doubtful upon any point, let us have your difficulty. It will only cost you a penny stamp. Or if you care to drop in at any of our meetings (they are all open) we will do our best to help you there. But, above all, do something definite. Don’t become a “half-and-halfer.” Don’t become a parti-coloured nonentity—a Socialist “er, to a certain extent” to the Socialist; a Liberal to the Liberal; a Tory to the Tory and nothing to the nobody.

If you see no flaws in our position, let us have your name and, above everything, your help. Socialism will come in your time—if you want it—and work for it. Our Secretary waits.

Wilfred.

Exhibition Review: Manchester and the world (2026)

Exhibition Review from the January 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The John Rylands Library in Manchester was founded on the basis of profits made from the cotton industry. It is currently staging an exhibition, ‘Cottonopolis: the Origins of Global Manchester’, on until May. A number of books, letters and samples of cloth are displayed (one of the books being Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England).

The population of Manchester grew massively in the 19th century, to over ninety thousand, this increase being mainly in workers in the cotton industry. There were massive increases in production of calico and fustian, especially in the twenty years from 1790, and cotton cloth became Britain’s most valuable export. Inventions by Arkwright, Compton and others increased productivity enormously, and there was sizeable growth in companies that made machines, as well as in companies that output the cotton cloth. Steam power resulted in mechanical mills, and new ways of printing cloth were also developed. Mass production meant that the British weaving industry was able to out-compete manufacturers in India.

But, of course, weaving was only part of the story, as the raw cotton came from plantations worked on by slave labour, in the Caribbean and the American South. Some of the cloths manufactured were poor quality ‘Africa goods’, produced for sale to slave traders to clothe the slaves. One suggestion made in the displays is that the creation of a captive workforce in the colonies changed ideas about how workers in Britain could be exploited under the same industrial machine.

Nor was it just Manchester that profited from the enormous expansion of the cotton trade. Liverpool became an important port for imports and exports, and new canals were built, partly to transport food, coal and so on to the growing industrial hub in the city and its surroundings.

Not a large exhibition, but an informative and interesting set of displays.

Paul Bennett

Jottings. (1909)

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

“The Liverpool Education Committee have completed arrangements for establishing technical evening classes for the female employes of the Ogden Branch of the Imperial Tobacco Company. The classes have been arranged at the request of the Company, who are providing rooms, lighting, heating, and cleaning free of charge to the Education Committee.” Manchester Guardian, 24.11.08.

The public spirit of the Imperial Tobacco Company is, of course, quite disinterested.

* * *

A conference was recently held at Bradford with regard to the system of employing children half-time in mills. Mr. Jonathan Peate reported on the conference to the Council of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce. In the course of his report are the following items. “Some firms employed a large number of half-timers, and if the abolition of this class of labour took place, or if the age limit was increased, it would be a great hardship to those firms.” Again: “In many cases, also, half-timers were earning an income which, if the system was abolished, would make a serious difference to, and cause great hardship to, the families to which they belonged.” And further : “These children were receiving training in the practical work of a mill which must be of the utmost value to them in later years, when they had to earn their own livelihood.”

* * *

Funny, isn’t it ? Thus are the interests of capital and labour identical. The half-timers are charitably employed because of the hardship to their families if deprived of their small wages ; the employer will also suffer hardship if he cannot employ them, and has to employ some adult (perhaps the half-timer’s father) to do the same work at higher wages.

* * *

And when the little beggars cease to eat in idleness the bread of charity, and are compelled to take life seriously and begin “to earn their own livelihood,” such training really might be of “the utmost value to them,” if they are not unemployed owing to a new generation of half-timers having supplanted them. In this case it would seem that their only hope lies in the direction of begetting baby breadwinners (did anyone say “Socialism” ?) as soon as possible.

* * *

The cry of the parents driven by economic pressure to send their children to work in order that subsistence level may be reached by the aid of their wages, is on a par with the cry of the “We cannot see them starve” sufferer from sentimental diarrhoea, who wants to do something for the unemployed under capitalism. He does something for them by blinding them to the only solution, in urging them to look for help to the class whose existence depends on a continuance of a reserve of unemployed labour.

* * *

A delegate to a deputation of teachers who visited Mr. McKenna on November 5th, 1907, showed how reforms may be made of no avail towards combatting the evils they are, ostensibly, directed against. Mr. Sykes (N.U.T.), speaking of half-timers, said that in 24 years experience he ”had never known a child rejected as physically unfit, although some of them were not robust enough to be allowed in the playground.”

* * *

The Manchester Guardian (6.11.07), dealing with this matter, said in effect, the half-timer keeps down the wages of adults by the competition of his cheaper labour, and is in turn forced, by entering unskilled employment, to a lifetime of low wages, and is flung into the industrial system whilst he should be playing.

* * *

“There has never been a Socialist speech delivered in the House; no Conference (of the Labour Party) has ever accepted Socialism except as a pious opinion. In some form the House of Commons would accept a Socialist resolution, provided there were no committal, but even that step has never been ventured.”

Ben Tillett in Justice, 5.12.08.

* * *

This is hard on our S.D.P. M.P., Will Thorne; but so far as one can see, if Ben Tillett is elected for the Eccles Division he will be on the same basis as Thorne. He will be elected as the “labour” candidate for Eccles, and not as an avowed Social-Democrat, vide S.D.P. rule 41, and rule 42 cannot be enforced by the E.C. of the S.D.P. any more than in the case of Mr. Thorne. We are not likely to hear a Socialist speech from Mr. Tillett, however, because on July 20th, 1907, he “was adopted by the Eccles Division Labour Party as Labour candidate, with the distinct understanding from the Dockers’ Union that his title should be ‘Labour Candidate.'” So wrote the General Secretary of the Eccles Division Labour Party, on October 8th, 1908, to the Manchester Evening News, correcting a statement that Mr. Tillett was “the adopted Social-Democratic candidate for Eccles.” I have seen no repudiation of this statement so far. Mr. J. R. MacDonald, also, in a published letter to Mr. Tillett, tells him he is “one of our candidates.”

* * *

“Referring to the unemployed, Mr. Grayson said that Mr. Blatchford was at present organising a scheme for feeding the hungry. If they ran short of funds they would appeal to Rothschild, the Duke of Portland, and the like, to put down a bit of their surplus cash, and if that appeal failed, all they could then say to the unemployed was ‘use your own savage discretion.’ If they could not get work and could not get food, then, without inciting, they would gently indicate that it was their indefeasible right to have bread.”—Manchester Guardian, 9.11.08. Report of speech at Greenfield, 7.11.08.

* * *

Poverty is rife under capitalist society to-day, so we will beg of the capitalist class to relieve our needs, not by disbursing all their surplus wealth, but just a bit of it. If we were to ask too much “that appeal” might fail. And when it comes to standing the hungry up “all in a row” before the rifles of the military, you won’t catch us inciting. Oh, no ! That’s risky. They might not accept our humble apologies so readily as they did Bill Thorne’s. And the “stone jug !”—they say you have to be quiet there !

* * *

If the workers cannot afford enough to keep the unemployed fed, we will ask the Rothschilds and others to be charitable. We will leave it to their generosity—we want no semblance of compelling them to disgorge by the strength of our class-conscious organisation. Not at all ! We’ll ask them “to put down a bit of their surplus cash,” and only when that appeal fails will we tell the workers that theirs is the indefeasible right to have, not only bread, but all else they require.

* * *

Even as a vote-catching dodge, this is pitiable, for the other axe-grinders can out-bribe them every time. If the Blatchford brigade give soup, the Liberal party will offer soup and pudding, and the Tory party will come along with soup, pudding, blanket, a suit of clothes and an overcoat to wrap them up in, and will scoop the lot. The race is to the rich, votes to the highest bidder, until the workers are taught what Socialism is; then they will no longer be bought and sold for a mess of pottage or a drink at the bar, will no longer be exploited in “charity,” either for the benefit of Liberal or Tory politician, noisy mumper on the “labour” movement, or the circulation of the “smart” journal of a “smart” set—much too smart for anything deeper than flirtation with Socialism.

Blogger's Note:

This was an unsigned Jottings column, but during this period of the Standard the regular writer of the column was Jim Brough of Manchester Branch, and as the unsigned author quotes from the Manchester Evening News in relation to Ben Tillett being selected as the Labour Party candidate in Eccles, I can't help but think that Brough penned this month's Jottings column.

P.S. Tillett did contest Eccles as the Labour Representative Committee candidate at the 1906 General Election but, by the time that the January 1910 election came around, he'd been replaced by G. H. Stuart-Bunning as the Labour Party candidate.

Children in labour (1988)

From the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The traditional view of child labour is summed up in a Low Pay Unit pamphlet:

"Child Labour" conjures up images of the pauper apprentices of Tudor times and the rag and dust sifters and mill children of the early industrial revolution. Its heyday was during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when industrialisation drew upon the labour of children in new and more wholesome ways than had been customary in the family economy of earlier years.

(Working Children 1985)

Newspaper reports in recent years however. suggest that child labour is neither a thing of the past nor confined to delivering newspapers, baby sitting or similar chores normally associated with children's work. "Scandal of pin money Pupils'' was the headline in the Daily Express on 12 December 1977; "Slave Labour ", screamed the Daily Mirror, 20 October 1982. In April 1973 The Times reported that three schoolboys, all aged thirteen, were employed in a factory operating highly dangerous, defective power presses for 17 pence an hour.

Child labour does of course have a long history. In an agrarian economy, where there was no distinction between employment in the home and other labour, men, women and children each had a task to perform tending crops and providing for everyday necessities. Children also played a role in industrial labour. The daughters and sons of artisans frequently helped in the manufacturing process or were apprenticed in the trade of their parents. Children of weavers had a staged career of tasks given to them according to their age and abilities, ranging from fetching and carrying to treading cotton, winding bobbins and spinning. Life for these children was hard and often involved long hours of work.

In the late sixteenth century children orphaned due to the death or poverty of their parents became the responsibility of the parish in which they lived. A system arose of apprenticing orphans to local craftsmen or placing them in special workshops to learn a trade. This was administered by local justices whose main concern was to rid the parish of any unwanted burden. The treatment of orphans varied from employer to employer but cases of cruelty and sadism were not unknown.

With the coming of the industrial revolution the parish workshops evolved into factories and the exploitation of children as slave labour was common. The practice of apprenticing orphans continued as late as the 1840s, when boards of guardians in Staffordshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire were found to be

. . . still getting rid of pauper boys of six. seven and eight by apprenticing them to colliers with a guinea thrown in "for clothes".

(E.P. Thompson: The Making of the English Working Class)

Child labour in modern times is seen as one of the unacceptable features of capitalism. Apologists for the system moralise about it but at the same time seek to convince us that a society in which a majority are economically coerced and treated as mere factors in the profit-making machine is the best the human race can hope to achieve. Workers are employed because they produce an economic surplus over and above their wages, which are inevitably very low for a large section of the workforce. According to the Low Pay Unit, figures for April 1986 show that 17 per cent of full-time workers were being paid less than £2.40 an hour, while over a third were receiving less than £3.00. Of the women who work part-time, 50 per cent were earning less than £2.40 an hour and 75 per cent received less than £3.00 an hour. In total, around 2 million women part-time workers and 1.6 million full-time workers. both men and women, received less than £2.40 an hour, including overtime pay. (Low Pay Unit: Britain's False Economy. 1987.)

When confronted by the exploitation of child labour socialists reply that the only answer is to end the system where a majority of men. women and, in many cases, children are treated as economic units. This can only be done by establishing, by democratic political means, a world-wide system where the means of production are owned in common and production takes place solely to meet the people's needs. In such a society the exploitation endemic in employment will be replaced by voluntary co-operation to produce the things people have democratically decided they need. All will have the right to take part in decisions about what is to be produced and how production is organised. Let's take a look at what the alternative — doing "something now" — has achieved in the last 180 years in the area of child labour.

One of the earliest pieces of legislation was the 1802 Health and Morale of Apprentices Act. Its aim was to limit children's working hours and its main concern was with pauper apprentices. It sought to abolish night work and limited the working day of apprentices in cotton mills to twelve hours. There were also provisions made for school on Sunday and proper clothing and sleeping arrangements. [To]  make sure that employers complied with the act, four independent factory inspectors were appointed to enforce the law among the 3,000 textile manufacturing establishments of the time.

Apart from the low standards set by the act, its major flaw was that enforcement depended on magistrates who were in most cases mill owners themselves. Similar problems affected another act passed in 1819 and sponsored by Sir Robert Peel, which outlawed employment in cotton mills for children under the age of nine. As it had no independent inspectorate it was largely ignored by mill owners.

Next came the Factory Act of 1833, which was based on the evidence of the Sadler Committee of 1832 and the Factory Commission of 1833. It outlawed the employment in all textile factories of children under the age of nine; between nine and thirteen no child was allowed to work more than 48 hours a week; for those aged thirteen to eighteen the limit was sixty-nine hours and anyone under twenty one years was prohibited from night work. Such was the concern to [missing text]

In 1840 a further factory commission investigated employment in the mines, discovering even worse conditions than those existing in the mills. Small children were used to operate ventilation traps which involved sitting in the dark, sometimes thirteen to fourteen hours. Other children were used to hurry coal down shafts, pushing great loads for miles with their heads while bent double. Soon after the commission published its report in 1842, the Mines Act was passed which prohibited the employment underground of children under ten and women. It also restricted the number of hours and types of work performed by children.

An important turning point in controlling child employment came with the Elementary Education Act of 1870. This provided elementary education on a national basis and set up an administration system of local school boards to keep track of attendance. The 1880 Education Act made school attendance compulsory for the first time and a child could only leave school at ten if he or she satisfied the attendance requirements. Children with poor attendance records were not allowed to leave until the age of thirteen. Prior to the 1880 act. the Factory and Workshops Act of 1878 had extended the 1833 Act to all factories and raised the minimum age of employment to ten. which also limited the hours children under fourteen could work to half the normal working day.

In 1920 the International Labour Organisation and the League of Nations met in Washington to draw up a convention on the employment of children binding on all ratifying nations. In Britain it was embodied in the Employment of Women. Young Persons and Children Act of 1920, which tied together past legislation and provided a list of types of employment which were prohibited to children under a minimum working age.

Subsequent acts such as the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, the Factory Act of 1961 and the Infants Children and Young Persons Act. 1963 form the basis of modern child labour law. The most important aspects of these acts are the prohibition of child employment in industrial undertakings, a minimum age of thirteen for part-time employment, restrictions on hour and times of work done by children and the provision for local authority bye-laws which can set higher standards than the minimum requirements. There exists a wide variation between local authorities as to the extent of provisions under these bye-laws and the degree of care that is taken to see that they are enforced.

As with the nineteenth century act the major problem with more recent legislation concerns enforcement, responsibility for which falls mainly on three bodies — the Health and Safety Inspectorate. Local Authority Health Officers and the Education Welfare services. All of these bodies have other tasks apart from discovering the illegal employment of children and all are massively understaffed. It is estimated that the Health and Safety Inspectorate has only 750 general factory inspectors to cover 730,000 manufacturing establishments. Much of the education and welfare surveillance work on child labour is done by educational welfare officers through voluntary overtime, patrolling the streets outside normal hours of work.

Due to this understaffing routine inspections are more frequent in large firms or those where the risk of accident is considered high (for example, chemical plants). Less visible firms may never see a factory inspector. As a result "back street firms" — most likely to employ child labour illegally are least likely to be visited. In addition, educational welfare staff have no specific right of entry. As the Inner London Education Authority states:

The more serious kinds of illegal employment in factories, restaurants and building sites tend not to be detected because educational welfare staff have no specific right of entry.

(Working Children, pp. 12-13)

In 1973 an attempt was made to reduce the uncertainty surrounding the legal protection given to working children. The Employment of Children Act received the Royal Assent on 23 May of that year but as yet it still remains on the statute book and has never been fully implemented.

It is therefore not surprising that child labour is still widespread in modern Britain. A survey carried out by the Low Pay Unit and Open University in 1982-3 estimates its extent. Interviews of 1,700 children in the London, Luton and Bedfordshire areas found that, apart from newspaper delivering, children were employed in a wide range of jobs including retailing, catering and cleaning. Close to one in ten children in the survey had more than one job and half of these had more than two. While newspaper delivery accounted for one third of all children working, shop work accounted for one in five and farm work and cleaning both accounted for 13 per cent. A variety of other work performed by children included hotel and catering. painting and decorating, sewing machining. modelling, clerical work and work in street markets. More than one in five children were employed in manual jobs, cleaning, furniture removals, construction labour and garage work. The findings confirm that a majority of these children were in one way or another working illegally. An analysis of the data for London found that four out of five were illegally employed, either under age, working illegal hours or working in jobs they should not have been doing.

It does not require a degree in economics to appreciate that children are forced to work because of the financial position of their families. The survey indicated that there was a definite relationship between the socio-economic position of the families and child labour. The highest proportion of working children in the survey were from manual working class backgrounds (51 per cent) and the unemployed (52 per cent).

Neither is it any mystery why employers use child labour. It is of course a source of cheap and easily disposable labour power and savings can be made not only directly on wages but also indirectly. Children are invariably paid "cash in hand", do not appear on employers’ records and therefore are not subject to national insurance contributions. They are not members of a trade union even where the company is unionised. Neither have they any of the rights of adult workers, such as the right to claim unfair dismissal, the right to an itemised pay slip and, as they pay no national insurance, they have no right to sick pay. Furthermore they are not classified as employees under the Health and Safety at Work Act. If injured at work children have no right to compensation unless their parents can prove in court that the employer has been negligent in some respect. Since most children are employed illegally, taking such cases to court could result in the parents being deemed parties to such negligence.

Despite the large number of health and safety regulations applying to the employment of children, a large minority of those surveyed reported having accidents while in their current jobs. One third of all boys and 29 per cent of girls reported some accident or injury. The main causes were heavy weights, broken glass, slipping or falling and injuries from materials and machinery. Of all the children at work only 19 per cent of boys and 18 per cent of girls were given uniforms or any kind of protective clothing by their employers.

Apart from accidents, the health of working children suffers in other ways. In 1970 a group of teachers in Tynemouth conducted a survey of pupils to discover why so many were falling asleep in class. They discovered that of the 390 interviewed over one third were working illegally and many of them were being grossly overworked and underpaid. As the Low Pay Unit pamphlet suggests, these findings illustrate the fallacy of the view that employment is good for children's health and education. An official of the National Association of School Masters stated:

Children are late to school, fail to do their homework, fall asleep during lessons and are unable to take part in any out of school activities such as sports because they have to report to work.

(Working Children, p.32)

The exploitative use of child labour is not a thing of the distant past. Reform via legislation has failed. The enactment of new laws may give the illusion that something is being done but this is merely a surface appearance; the problem remains because its root cause has not been treated. Doing something now may sound appealing but the reality is that nothing changes because a system unfit for men. women and children remains firmly in operation.

Ray Carr

Blogger's Note:

Sadly, the original text was garbled in places. It looks like there was a typesetting/proof-reading mishap. I couldn't see any notices of corrections in later Standards.

Comments and Critiques. (1908)

From the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The article “Who are the Impossibilists?” which appears in another column, deals at length with the statement Mr. Quelch, Editor of Justice, has permitted himself to make recently. I may, however, here be permitted, as the matter is of importance, to supplement that article by a few remarks of my own upon a point that it does not cover.

***

Seldom can Mr. Quelch be drawn into explanations of the S.D.P. attitude upon what he is pleased to call “impossibilism.” He knows too well the danger of that. Consequently, most of his references have been but very ill-natured ebulitions of vinegary vituperation directed against the personal of the S.P.G.B. And as Mr. Quelch is something of an expert in the language of the literary hooligan, he has, doubtless, often had occasion to congratulate himself upon the effectiveness of his efforts in this direction. Readily conceding him pre-eminence in a department we prefer not to enter, we persistently emphasize the unassailable position we occupy as a working-class party, and continually point out how, because they do not occupy our position, the other parties and the individuals composing them have been driven by the pressure of circumstances into taking illogical action with pitiably futile results.

***

However, Mr. Quelch has recently allowed himself to be drawn into something like a serious criticism of “impossibilism,” and has again demonstrated, not only the folly of his own party’s attitude, but the extent to which he is obliged to follow the line of suppresis veri, suggestis falsi in his endeavours to bolster his own case. Possibly his apology for an argument will have the effect of impressing a few, but it is certain that the man or woman who has taken the trouble to analyse the statement will at once perceive that it is a rather clumsy attempt to mislead. Take the paragraph which follows and dissect it with me.

***

That is from Justice for June 13th, and the italics are Mr. Quelch’s own.

[“Our organisation is opposed to “impossibilism” because it is impossibilism, and we are Social-Democrats, not impossibilists. The impossibilist position may be summed up as follows: The emancipation of the working class can only be achieved by the working class themselves. In order for the working class to achieve its emancipation it is necessary that the workers should be educated, organised and class-conscious. But no reforms of any advantage to the workers are possible under capitalism ; therefore the workers cannot become educated, etc., until they have emancipated themselves ; yet they cannot emancipate themselves until they are educated.”]

***

Now Mr. Quelch has, quite unintentionally, divided his paragraph into two parts just where I should myself have cut it. A distinct break comes immediately before the italicised portion. Something has been left out there that destroys completely the continuity of the argument. What is that something and why has it been omitted ?

***

The omitted sentence following the words “In order for the working class to achieve its emancipation it is necessary that the workers should be educated, organised, and class conscious,” would read something like this : “The education and organisation of the workers can only come through reforms.” The rest of the paragraph could then follow on coherently.

***

The point Mr. Quelch wishes to emphasise is clear in the words he himself italicises, viz., the contradictory contention of the “impossibilists” that reforms are useless and yet without them the workers cannot become educated. But if he had put in the sentence I claim he should have put in for coherent reasoning, everyone with any knowledge of our position would have seen that he was stating the opposite of the fact in order to justify a conclusion that reflected upon our sense of logic ; in plain, blunt English, that he was lying his way to a conclusion damaging to us. So he drops the essential connecting link from its proper place, and suggests it in his final sentence.

***

The fact is that we have never contended that the education of the workers is effected through palliatives. We have urged, urged strongly, the very reverse, viz., that the effect of palliative mongering must be the utter confusion of the mind of the workers, and to that extent delay their effective organisation. That being so, Mr. Quelch’s argument becomes at once absurd.

***

Among other reasons advanced for the “Daylight Saving Bill” are (1) that it would benefit the physique, general health, and welfare of all classes of the community, and (2) reduce the industrial, commercial, and domestic expenditure on artificial light. From which it appears that if the unemployed rose with the sun their general health would improve. I wonder they have not tried this method of improving their physique, instead of working for wages.

***

The second reason explains why chambers of commerce, borough councils, and railway companies supported the measure. Reduction of industrial, commercial, and domestic expenditure would be to their advantage. The advantages to the workers are not nearly so obvious.

***

Mr. James Billington, vice-president of the Amal. Assn. of Operative Cotton Spinners, speaking at a dinner given to Mr. Thos. Ashton, President, said “Instead of having driven trade out of the country the unions have made the British workman what he is to-day—the best workman on the face of the earth. That even the employers admit. By our existence what have we prevented the employers taking from us? . . . Taken all round the spinners are the best paid body of workmen in the kingdom.”

***

I have before me extracts from the half-yearly reports of 26 cotton-spinning concerns. One each paid a dividend equal to 18½, 11⅔, and 10½ per cent. per annum respectively, 17 paid equal to 10, 1 to 7, 2 to 5 and 1 equal to 4 per cent. per annum. The remaining one paid no dividend.

***

These figures are enough to make any operative spinner proud. Dividends being the proceeds of the robbery of the workers, it looks as if we are to understand from Mr. Billington’s remark that the more the workers are robbed the better for them.

***

“Quartus,” writing in the Manchester Guardian, 2nd July, 1908, gives an example of what a young curate in a working-class district has to contend with in the way of slums, sweating, slack trade, and their attendant evils. “He (the curate) reflects on the little that legislation has effected in removing obvious evils and making it easier to do right.” Recognising this, in our typical case the curate ultimately becomes a vigorous reformer, turns agitator, and perhaps joins the I.L.P. !

***

Our curate then would be in the same sad case as the “Socialist” who, recognising the futility of reform from the working-class standpoint, persists in agitating for them, “because we cannot let the children starve whilst Socialism is coming.” Yet Mr. Quartus does not see he has written anything funny.

***

The Editor of the Christ Church Monthly Visitor, Burton-on-Trent, thinks that the reply of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the question “Can a Christian be a Socialist?” “will not commend itself to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Ah well! we must take the consequences.

***

A member of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Socialist Society (affiliated to the I.L.P.), speaking in criticism of the S.P.G.B., said he had no fault to find with our Socialism, it was absolutely correct; so also was the Socialism of his society, the I.L.P., S.D.P., and the Fabian Society. He was working with others to alter the I.L.P. Altering it to what ? Why is he concerned to change that which is “absolutely correct” ? If, as he says, our position, based as it is on a recognition of the class antagonism now prevailing, is correct, the position of the I.L.P., which denies the existence of the class struggle, is wrong. If our argument as to the futility of palliatives is sound, then the S.D.P. policy of reform propaganda is unsound.

***

“Economist,” in The Grocer (4.7.08), deals succinctly with the development of the system that has ruthlessly crushed out the little shopkeeper and established the large capitalist and the trustified form of production and distribution on top. If the writer is not a member of the S.P.G.B. he ought to be.

***

For the quarter ending March 31st the directors of Brunner Mond & Co. declared a dividend at the rate of 30 per cent. for the year on ordinary shares, and 7 per cent. on preference shares. £100,000 was placed to reserve fund, £2,500 to the writing off of the patent account, and £35,000 was carried forward !

***

Small wonder that the Brunners and Monds are such enthusiastic supporters of the eight hours day.

***

“The arrangements for the International Peace Congress, which opens in London on Sunday, July 26, are nearly completed. The President of the Congress is Lord Courtney of Penwith, and the Hon. Treasurer Lord Avebury. A special fund is being raised in connection with the Congress, among the latest donors to which is Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who has given the sum of £100. A meeting for adults will take place in Queen’s Hall on July 28, the speakers being Lord Courtney, Mr. Lloyd-George, Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., and Dr. Clifford. The United Labour Peace Demonstration in Trafalgar Square, fixed for the last day of the Congress, Saturday, August 1, is being officially supported by the following important bodies :—The Trade Unions Congress Parliamentary Committee, the London Trades Council, the Metropolitan Radical Federation, the Labour Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Independent Labour Part, and the General Federation of Trade Unions.”—Manchester Guardian, 2.7.08.

***

A notable combination. “Which way blows tie wind ? ”

Labour in Lancashire. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many facts of interest to workers may be gleaned from the report of the International Federation of Textile Workers’ Associations, presented to their conference held at Amsterdam in June. Mr. Wm. Marsland, the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Cotton Spinners of England, is also Secretary of the Federation, and he tells us that out of the total membership of 430,027, England accounts for 200,000. During the three years the Report covers the membership in this country has remained stationary. This stagnant condition has obtained in most other lands, and is ascribed to “the severe depression in trade which has been more or less prevalent in all countries for the greater part of the three years.”

In the reports from the British Spinners’ Unions, Mr. Mullin, secretary of the Card and Blowing Room Operatives, states that the funds have suffered greatly during the last three years. In 1908 £1,730, 1909 £27,000, and in 1910 £45,000 was paid out for “Bad Trade” benefit. “The drain on our funds for accidents and injuries to members has been very great,” he points out, notwithstanding the century of “factory legislation” we have had.

On behalf of the Operative Spinners’ Association Mr. Marsland states that, since 1908 £277,000 has been paid in “Bad Trade” benefit and £173,000 for strikes and lock-outs.

Mr. W. C. Robinson, of the “Beamers, Twisters and Drawers,” says: “The mechanical drawing and tying machines grow but slowly ; however, they are increasing, and we expect they will do, consequently we have to make some additional provision for monetary payments to our members who are thrown out of work in consequence of their introduction.”

Under the “Weaving Section” reports, Mr. J. Cross, of the Northern Counties Weavers’ Amalgamation, points out that “the majority of the mills worked short time, and some of them were closed altogether for months at a stretch, and £276,000 was spent in the three years on strikes and stoppage.” After drawing attention to the pilfering “system in the weaving department of inflicting fines for alleged bad work,” mostly caused by the cheapest materials being used, Mr. Cross goes on to say : “In about one-half the weaving mills it is the practice to use artificial humidity in order to make what may be called a ‘weaving atmosphere.’ The practice is to send into the sheds hot steam ejected from the pipes, or to spray the air with fine particles of water. The workpeople have taken strong objection to artificial humidity of any kind on the ground that it is detrimental to their health, and that the practice is mostly required ia order to facilitate the weaving of inferior material. The objections of the workpeople can be well understood even by an outside observer, when it is explained that hot steam is sent through the sheds even during the summer months, causing the greatest personal discomfort and much physical prostration, and in the winter in months the sheds are heated to such an extent that many people are apt to contract bronchitis and rheumatism.”

It is news pregnant with dire meaning for the immediate future to learn that :

 “The Northrop loom is making progress, and if the adoption of the loom should assume a mire rapid character THE COTTON WEAVERS OF LANCASHIRE WILL BE FACE TO FACE WITH THE GREATEST PROBLEM OF THEIR LIVES. When it is considered that the operatives are working 12, 16, and 20 NORTHROP LOOMS EACH, AND THE NUMBER OF LOOMS OF THE LANCASHIRE TYPE WORKED BY EACH WEAVER (THE AVERAGE IS ABOUT FOUR LOOMS FOR EACH WEAVER) THE PROSPECT OF STEADY EMPLOYMENT IN THE FUTURE IS NOT VERY BRIGHT.”

“It is admitted on every hand that the introduction of the new loom means the displacement of a large number of workpeople, and it cannot be expected that the cotton trade will ever, under the most favourable conditions, be able to expand sufficiently to absorb the unemployed.”

Time after time during the last 70 years hours have been reduced in the cotton factories and strike after strike has been declared. Yet the fact stands out that the operative of to-day is faced with greater difficulties than ever before. He produces more in fewer hours, and works “short time” and is unemployed to a degree previously unknown. Through sheer depletion of their funds the operatives go back to work on the masters’ terms after being locked out for weeks. Combination among the masters and amalgamation of companies proceed fast and far. In view of the conditions under which the men work and the poverty they suffer, it is not surprising that ill health dogs their footsteps all their lives. At a protest meeting against the Insurance Bill held by the Lancashire Branch of the British Medical Association we were told, anent the £160 limit: 

“That, as they knew in Lancashire, was going to take away from them the cream of their practice. Wage earners from 30s. per week upwards were the backbone of their practice, and they received from these wage earners more than from all the others combined.” 

Hence we see that it is the workers who provide the doctors with work—and fees—through illness resulting from the conditions of their toil.

What have the Lancashire toilers done to end their slavery ? History answers “Little.” Lancashire is a stronghold of Liberalism and Free Trade, and despite the fact that the great majority of the employers in her staple industries (textiles) are Liberals, they are voted info place and power every time. Mr. C. W. Macara, the secretary of the employers’ federation, who has again and again organised the lock out of the operatives and reduced them to servile submission, is also Vice-President of the Free Trade Union and a noted Liberal. The officials of the trade unions are Liberals also practically to a man and the Labour M.P.s for local divisions may be seen advocating Free Trade upon the Free Trade League platforms throughout Lancashire. Is it not time that the workers of Lancashire took a lesson from their employers and organised politically to protect their interests ? It cannot be done by Labour Parties who support half-time for children in the mills, and who seek to murder the toddling little ones by backing Bills to lower the age at which they leave school and enter the factory hells of Lancashire.

No ! The road to liberty, the road from slavery, is the Socialist road. March on, toilers of Cottonopolis !

Adolph Kohn

Capitalism at work (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 70th anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard carried throughout its pages a series of snippets from old Socialist Standard articles highlighting the SPGB's unique position on issues of the day. Where possible, I've provided a link to the full article.

 

“The facts are, we believe, that in value the export of British cotton to India, for instance, is now greater than in 1913, but the volume is from various causes very greatly less the volume exported in 1913. This state of things is al very well for the banker and the financier; it is ruin to the unfortunate operative who is on permanent short time; because to him, the volume manufactured is everything. But there must be something wrong with a system in which a trade can flourish financially while the people who are engaged in it are in desperate straits, and in which the prospect of ample raw material takes on the air of a positive calamity.” (Daily News, 11th August 1926.)

We have said this often. Now they say it perhaps it will carry more weight.

[From “Ruined by Riches”, Socialist Standard, September 1926]

Notes by the Way: A Tip for Hire Purchase Financiers (1949)

The Notes by the Way Column from the November 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Tip for Hire Purchase Financiers

The Daily Worker (12/10/49) had an article on “Hire Purchase—New Style ” in Hungary. It appears that in “Socialist” Hungary “hire purchase . . . . is now organised as a State enterprise,” and is “no longer a means whereby manufacturers can sell expensive goods to poor people, but one designed to help the poorest and largest families.”

The Worker correspondent does not explain how it is that in “Socialist” Hungary there should be “poorest families” unable to get what they need without hire purchase, but he describes a feature that will make the financiers of hire purchase here and in U.S.A. turn green with envy. One of their bugbears is the worker who gets the goods and defaults on payments or manages to disappear before he has paid them off. If they would take a tip from Budapest it need never happen again, for in that blessed land “hire purchase payments are deducted from pay at work. If the purchaser changes his job the payments are transferred to the new job.”

* * *

Cupboard Love for the Trade Unions

The Tory, Liberal and Labour Parties are all, so they say, anxious to save the trade unions. In 1927 the Tories “saved” them by introducing the Trade Disputes Act which among other things made it more difficult for trade unions to provide funds for the Labour Party and compelled the Civil Service and Post Office unions to disaffiliate. The Act made it necessary for each member of a trade union to indicate his desire to pay the political contribution, thus reversing the clause of the 1913 Act which required those who objected to paying the political contribution to register their objection. It was designed, as everybody realised, to hit at Labour Party funds, and did so effectively. Labour Party trade union membership dropped in 1927 from 3,240,000 to 2,025,000, and income from affiliation fees dropped by £15,000.

In 1946 the Labour Government restored the pre-1927 position with a consequent big increase in trade union affiliated membership and funds. Trade union affiliated membership in 1947 showed an increase from 2,635,000 to 4,386,000, and trade union affiliation fees jumped by about £25,000 to £77,000.

Now the Tories are proposing if returned to power to reopen the question and Mr. Churchill claims— though on what evidence is not known—that about a third of the members of trade unions are Conservatives.

As the accumulated funds of the “registered” trade unions (representing about 85 per cent. of the total trade union membership) amount now to over £50 million, the interest taken in them by the three political parties is not surprising.

Even under the present arrangement of “ contracting out” of political contributions, a considerable proportion of trade unionists do not pay, as can be seen by the difference between total membership of the unions and the number of members who pay the political contribution, i.e.,‘ membership on which the unions are affiliated to the Labour Party. In 1947 the Agricultural Workers' Union, with 130,000 members, was affiliated to the Labour Party on a membership of 71,000. The Transport and General Workers' Union (membership 1,264,000) was affiliated on 800,000; and the A.E.U. (742,000) was affiliated on 609,000.

* * *

Whither India?

Nehru, Prime Minister of India, calls himself a Socialist and declared in 1946 that his party intended to set up a “Socialist Republic of India” (News Chronicle, 22/11/46). Like his friends and admirers, Attlee and Cripps, all he meant was that he would make use of socialist phrases as a bait to keep the Indian workers acquiescent while his government got on with the job of building up India into a first-class capitalist Power. India needs foreign capital which British investors under present conditions are unable to supply in anything like the amount needed; hence Nehru’s wooing of the U.S.A. capitalists, who in their turn are anxious to find a safe area for foreign investments. On October 13th Nehru addressed both Houses of Congress at Washington and had not a word to say about his proclaimed intention of establishing Socialism—that is only for home consumption before working class audiences. Instead he buttered up the Congressmen and Senators with the usual poppycock about how the Indian Constitution “had been greatly influenced by the principles and ideals enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence ” (Times 14/10/49.) The whole of his speech requires interpretation in this way, but his audience would certainly know how to “read between the lines.” What, in effect, he was saying was that his Government have the workers well in hand, will not line up with Russia, and will give security for American capital.

What he asked in return, and this of course was the real purpose of the visit, was in the concluding phrases—“But we . . . need much mechanical and technological aid,” and “we shall, therefore, gladly welcome such aid and co-operation on terms which are of mutual benefit.”

In short Nehru was assuring them that they need not take seriously anything he may have said about destroying Capitalism and putting Socialism in its place.

* * *

The Tito-Stalin Slanging Match

The root of the Tito-Stalin conflict is the desire of the Russian ruling clique to incorporate Yugoslavia economically and militarily into the Russian system and the counter efforts of Tito’s group to strike a better bargain with U.S.A. A fairly close parallel can be found in the way the Italian ruling class changed sides in both world wars; both countries are industrially weak and both occupy a strategically important position, but nevertheless one that is exposed to pressure from those who wield combined naval and air power in the Mediterranean.

The Yugoslav spokesmen have complained that the Russian Government tried to control the Yugoslav army, installed its own agents in the country; compelled Yugoslavia to export to the Russian market at prices below world level, and by setting up so-called joint industrial enterprises that are in fact controlled by Russia alone, sought to turn all the Balkan satellites into Russian colonies. This is the normal relationship that the stronger Powers try to impose on the weaker ones and it did not surprise socialists. The communists have been very much surprised because they have fallen into a trap set by their own tortuous propaganda. Having decided to pretend that Russian State Capitalism is Socialism they have ended by believing it, and have in consequence thought that the economic and class forces that push all capitalist states into rivalry and imperialism would cease to operate East of the “iron curtain." Forgetting their once-held view that international politics could only be explained by looking at the underlying economic forces the communists have been forced into the absurd “idealistic” explanation of the Yugoslav attitude that it is due to Tito and his colleagues having been got at, bribed and flattered by American agents.

An entertaining though tragic aspect of the conflict is the way both sides present their case under a cloud of Marxist phrases. In between blackguarding each other in the choicest invective the Stalinites accuse Tito of betraying Socialism—as if he ever had any to betray—while Tito smartly retorts with references to and quotations from Marx and Lenin. Telling the miners in Belgrade that Russia must not interfere in Yugoslav affairs, because Yugoslavia is one of the countries “which are building up Socialism,” Tito added: “ We must clear this matter up and say—as Lenin once said against Trotsky—it is possible to create Socialism in one country ” (Times 12/9/49).

A little later we find Tito working up the war spirit with talk about fighting to the death in defence “Marxist Leninism”—the enemy of course being the Russians who will be told they are fighting for the same principles. He was addressing high-ranking army officers after the manoeuvres:—

“It is better to die in battle honestly fighting for justice and truth than allow yourselves to be trampled on or bend your necks like slaves and sec the great principles of Marxist-Leninism destroyed without resistance.

"We have carried out these manoeuvres when attempts are being made to frighten our people, disrupt our unity, and render impossible the successful building of Socialism."

The Army, he said, would defend Yugoslavia “until the last breath and regardless when the attack came."— (Daily Mail, October 10th, 1949.)

It only remains now for the British and American Governments to “discover” that Tito is defending democracy. Already Mr. Bevin has dug out the old phrases about a small nation bullied by a big one (at the United Nations), and various articles and speeches have been made on the theme that Tito is really a very fine fellow.

* * *

Ship-owners and Shipyard Workers

Workers in the shipyards are worried. During October many hundreds were stood off, and we are told that “shipyards all over Britain are expected in the next few weeks to declare thousands of workers redundant” (People, 9/10/49). Most of them are skilled workers.

"They have been kept busy ever since the war ended on reconversion of liners and freighters back to peace-time requirements. Now that work is coming to an end. The rush is over. Demand for new ships is also slackening off and there is only enough work in sight in the shipyards to keep occupied the regular peace-time ship workers.” 

Among the factors disturbing the owners and workers is “growing foreign competition.” The Daily Telegraph (4/10/49) quotes an official of the Confederation of Clyde Shipbuilding and Engineering Operatives as saying that with the re-entry of Japan and Germany into the shipbuilding market, “there is no saying what might happen in the future.” And according to the Liverpool Dai Post (3/10/49, quoted in Daily Worker, 8/10/49) shipowners are also worried about the threatened undercutting of Atlantic fares by big, fast Russian liners and on 5th October the first Russian ship to dock at Montreal for years “undercut British and Canadian freight rates and secured a cargo of cereals for Britain” (Herald, 6/10/49).

There are problems here for both owners and workers. The sacked workers are assured by the Herald (14/10/49) that they have not much to be worried about, for they “will be quickly absorbed in other jobs,” the industries named being engineering and the building trades. They may be absorbed in these industries for a time, but the Herald does not take into account either the likely restriction of building or what will happen to these and all industries when Capitalism develops a major crisis. For the building trade there is already talk of curtailing of building plans as part of the plans the Government is considering in order to enforce concentration on the export trades.

The shipowners are also thinking ahead. On October 13th, when Mr. Attlee attended the annual dinner of the Chamber of Shipping at the Dorchester Hotel, Mr. Colin Anderson, the President, let fall a delicate hint that when they are in serious difficulties the shipowners will turn to the Government for some kind of assistance.

“We face a cold decade—we are already feeling the first frosts. Where shall we stand when the winter is really upon us? Rather than be slowly frozen even we may be forced to contemplate applying for the shelter of some form of counter-action—a garment which, in this case, perhaps only the State would be able to provide."— (Daily Telegraph, October 10th, 1949.)

Mr. Anderson (who by the way made his remarks in the course of a speech “ proposing the toast of the Government”) said that the shipowners are trying to work out a sensible way of retaining the valuable aspects of private enterprise, but doubtless “if winter comes” they won’t much mind the Labour Government buying them out with State-guaranteed bonds which will save them from the icy blast that will send the shipyard workers to the Labour Exchange and the dole.

* * *

The Co-operatives and the Sugar Industry

The Daily Express (16/9/49) suggested that the Co-operative societies may not be enthusiastic about the suggested nationalisation of the sugar industry by the Labour Government. It was pointed out that the Co-operative Wholesale Society was not represented at the meeting of Tate & Lyle shareholders when nationalisation was discussed and opposed. And there is a curious item of information in the same issue of the Daily Express, to the effect that the C.W.S., in addition to being Tate & Lyle's biggest customers are also “ the largest single shareholder in Tate & Lyle.”

* * *

Herald Editors Slip Up

On October 6th the Daily Herald editorial described the frigid reception Sir Stafford Cripps received at the Guildhall. Their comment was: —

”We might say that if the bankers and merchants of the City of London received with enthusiasm a pronouncement by a Socialist Chancellor, that would be sensational news. It would also be sinister news.”

But on the same page of the Herald we read the following about a meeting of Wall Street stockbrokers in New York addressed by Mr. Maurice Webb, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party: —

”. . . Webb was asked to explain Labour policy to the 24 most important stockbrokers on Wall Street. He was surprised when his only critic turned out to be an Englishman who had emigrated to the States years ago.”

* * *

Another Cotton Revolution on the Way

The industrial revolution made the cotton industry largely a woman’s industry and at present about two- thirds of the workers in the weaving section are women. Now as a result of technical changes recommended by the Cotton Manufacturing Commission it is forecast that men will replace women.

”Thirteen men sitting as the Cotton Manufacturing Commission have come to the conclusion that married women weavers—the bulk of the labour force in the industry—cannot adapt themselves as well as men to redeployment.”—(News-Chronicle, October 5th, 1949.) 

Another report (Daily Telegraph, 5/10/49) says: “The industry must ‘redeploy' or perish. Redeployment—the rearrangement of machines giving highly- skilled operatives more looms, and increasing output and wages by up to 25 per cent.—was the essential part of the Commission’s recommendations.”

The Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Moelwyn Hughes, K.C., told a Press Conference that “he wanted the industry to pay a wage sufficient for a married man to keep a family without his wife going out to work. He visualised the industry becoming predominantly
male instead of female” (Daily Telegraph, 5/10/49).


* * *

A Scientist on Scientists

Professor J. D. Bernal, Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, London, caused a stir by a speech in Moscow in which he said that science outside Russia and her satellites is under the direction of war makers. He subsequently explained in a letter to the Times (8/10/49) that when he spoke of “capitalist countries” he meant mainly America and not “Socialist Britain.”

The controversy produced a useful admission about the limitations of some scientists when they wander out of their own field, from Sir Edward V. Appleton, Principal of Edinburgh University. Speaking in Edinburgh on October 3rd, Sir Edward Appleton, who was formerly Professor of Physics and is Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said: —

‘‘The statement by Professor Bernal is a striking illustration of the fact that the reliability of the scientist does not always extend beyond his own laboratory, and one often finds a scientist who, while not ready to accept any scientific result until it is fully tested, is quite ready to voice wholly untested opinions about other matters in the most prejudicial and dogmatic manner.”—(Manchester Guardian, October 4th, 1949.)

If any other evidence is required that the above criticism fits Professor Bernal we have the latter’s own letter to the Times; for without any evidence at all— all the evidence is against it—and obviously without any serious thought, he describes Capitalist Britain as “ Socialist.”

Edgar Hardcastle

[Press Cuttings.] (1907)

From the March 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Child Labour on Farms.

It passes one’s comprehension that after 100 years’ legislation on behalf of factory children, the farmer and other individuals may yet employ younger children than were ever dragged into cotton mills, and may work them for longer hours than were ever known in the history of the factory system ! 

Co-operative News.

____________

Street bookmaking is practically dead ; but its place has been taken by bookmaking through the post. This—according to a prominent member of the Metropolitan Police force, who has been engaged for twenty-five years in the prosecution of street bookmakers—is the main result of the new Betting Act increasing the penalties for street betting, which came into operation at the beginning of the year.

So that in getting rid of one evil it is questionable whether a greater evil is not being created. Street betting has probably disappeared, but the betting will be carried on just as much as before. 

Daily Chronicle

____________

Of all the Western industries introduced into Japan, the one which has made the most rapid progress is, says Engineering, that of cotton-spinning and manufacturing. Its products are also those which compete most directly with the corresponding British manufactures. Some of the most enterprising men of the Japanese Empire control the factories; and behind the young industry is the whole force of the paternal Government urging it on. There are 49 cotton-spinning companies in Japan, operating eighty-five mills. At present Japanese mills are making profits, not because of any special skill of their operatives, but simply on account of the difference in price between the raw materials and the simplest forms of manufactures therefrom. It is simply a question of keeping the belt on the tight pulley ; and that they are doing this to the fullest extent is shown by the fact that for the last six months of the period covered by this report, 81 out of 85 mills ran both night and day, and averaged over 22 hours a day.

____________

The Law Journal, referring to the question raised in the music hall strike whether pickets, whose proceedings lead to the gathering of crowds in the streets can be fined under the provisions of the Highway Act, 1835, having regard to the fact that peaceful picketing is legal under the provisions of the Trades Disputes Act, says it should have supposed that the section was intended to take away doubts as to the legality of picketing itself, and not to make the pickets entitled to over-ride public rights as well as molest individuals in the course of a trade dispute. If Mr. Atherley Jones’s reading of the Trades Disputes Act is correct, pickets would be entitled to trespass on private property in furtherance of their trade dispute.

Blogger's Note:

Llewellyn Atherley-Jones was the son of the famous Chartist, Ernest Jones.

India To-Day. (1931)

From the June 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from May Issue.)

''India   is   now   one  of  the   eight  most important  industrial   areas   in   the  world" (Simon Report, page 23).                                 

India's industrial importance is the basis of the present strife there. The conditions of the workers in the industrial centres are admitted by all to be terrible, but endeavours are being made, with some success, to direct their discontent into a channel that will not interfere with the continued accumulation of the huge profits that are being made out of their industry. The Nationalists and the Imperialists each seek the support of the Indian worker for their particular brands of exploitation.

Connection with Western culture and Western markets has gradually taught the more fortunate of India's millions the essentials of capitalist enterprise. Native Indian capitalists have acquired large fortunes and have gradually taken a more and more important part in the exploitation of India's resources and of their fellow-countrymen, and they now thirst for unshackled political dominion.

India is predominantly an agricultural country, but its size and population are so huge that the industrial portion, though only just over 10 per cent. of the whole, has an important effect on world industrial relations. The total population is 319 millions, of which 32½ millions belong to the towns.

Bombay and Calcutta, each with a population of over a million, are at present the two principal industrial centres, but other towns are rapidly rising to challenge them in industrial importance.

Bombay is the greatest centre of cotton spinning and weaving in Asia, and the trade and industry of the city are now predominantly Indian. In fact, the pioneers of the textile manufacturing industry were Indians and the first mill was set up by an Indian. The textile industry was originally built upon yarn of low grade, as Lancashire monopolised the trade in higher quality cloths. China and the Far East had supplied India's market. Of recent years the Japanese have gradually captured this trade, mainly by means of the cheap products of their Chinese mills. The Bombay mills, therefore, turned over to the manufacture of cloth. In the new trade, factories also arose in the interior of India, at Ahmedabad, Sholapur, and Nagpur. These new factories offer serious competition to Bombay and tend to expand at its expense. As one writer puts it : "These conditions explain why Bombay, struggling for its life, is the centre of the industrial politics of India." It may be added that India is the largest single import market in the world for cotton textiles. Owing to the native and Japanese grip on the India market, the lifting of the boycott will not go far to restore Lancashire's lost trade.

Calcutta, in Bengal, is the centre of the jute industry. The Bengal production of jute is so great that India holds the virtual monopoly of this trade. Originally the trade was in the hands of Europeans, but most of the share capital of the jute mills is now in native hands. This is also true of the tea gardens of Assam and elsewhere, which were first established and developed by the British. They are now carried on side by side with many that are Indian-owned. In fact, all over India, commercial enterprise is failing more and more into Indian hands.

The iron and steel industry offers yet another important example of native progress. The native-owned Tata Iron and Steel Company, founded by J. N. Tata (a Bombay Parsee who made a fortune in the cotton mills of Bombay and Nagpur), built a steel city in the jungles of Northern India near the coalfields of Bengal and the port of Calcutta. The works produced at full pressure during the war, supplying the essential needs of India and the armies which fought in Egypt, East Africa, and Mesopotamia. Its products are exported to Pacific markets as far east as Japan. British and native steel now divide the home market, but native steel is steadily gaining.

From the above it will be seen that industrial progress is pushing forward rapidly in India and that its principal requirements are being met more and more by the products of native industry. This being so, the native manufacturers are offering greater opposition to the competition of foreign concerns, and more particularly the British competitor who seeks to use his political ascendancy to further his economic interests. Where the natives secure a tariff against the foreign importer, the British firms demand and obtain preferential treatment.

The Indian demand for dominion status or independence rests on the economic interests of the native capitalists. The basis of the British opposition has been briefly put by the Manchester Guardian as follows :—

There are two chief reasons why a self-regarding England may hesitate to relax her control over India. The first is that her influence in the East depends partly upon her power to summon troops and to draw resources from India in time of need. This power will vanish when India has Dominion status. The second is that Great Britain finds in India her best market, and that she has a thousand millions of capital invested there.—(December 30th, 1929.)

It will be noticed that the grounds for and against Indian independence have no connection whatever with the general well-being of India's millions, yet the protagonists on each side pour forth idealistic phrases by the shoal to induce the belief that the special interest of each is a movement for "spiritual and moral'' uplifting. The furtherance of capitalist exploitation has always been bolstered up with similar nebulous nonsense.

There are a multitude, of economic interests involved in India, some of which cut across each other. We can only mention a few of them to illustrate the complexity of Indian affairs.

The most important element is the native Indian manufacturer, faced by severe competition of the highly organised Eastern and Western industries, who demands protection. He sees Indian products being-shipped abroad, to return manufactured and sold in competition with his own goods.

Many native merchants have amassed considerable wealth and have built up extensive selling organisations in India. For long they have been dependent upon the agents of British firms. They now want freedom to make direct foreign connections and cut out the cost of and dependence upon .the middlemen.

Foreign firms, on the other hand (particularly Japanese and American), are establishing their own selling organisations in India and endeavouring to cut out the native merchant altogether. This, together with foreign competition and the development of hand weaving in the villages, supplied the enthusiasm for the boycott of foreign goods, and the sudden cult for village-made cloth, etc.

The educated Indians (the "intellectuals"), who have shared professorships, judgeships, etc., want to keep their lucrative connections. On the other hand, they see a tendency to open these professions to a larger group of people than formerly. Educated Indians (whose education has been obtained at considerable cost) find their number accumulating at a far greater rate than the openings for employment. Consequently, as a mass, they are changeable. Those who have security in the Government service want a continuance of the British occupation; those who cannot get a job, favour the other side; those who are in and out, divide their support accordingly. The recent constitutional reforms give more scope to this group and promise opportunities of a political career. On the other hand, some see in Indian self-government still greater opportunities for employment and advancement. This explains why they are probably the most vocal and most fickle element in Indian politics.

There is a large body of natives that act as agents for importing firms. Where there is little danger of the business being taken out of their hands by direct representatives, they favour a continuance of the old regime.

There are also, of course, the wealthy Indian Princes, who still draw enormous revenues from India and are dependent upon the British occupation for a continuance of their lazy and luxurious modes of living.

Another considerable element in the situation is the conflicting interests of British merchants themselves. The following quotation from No. 11 of "Studies in World Economy," issued by the Carnegie Endowment, will make the position clear:

The large British trading companies in India typically are influenced less by sentiments of nationality than by commercial considerations. Many of them claim to be, and are, strictly international in their trade policy and outlook. It is for this reason that considerations of profit rather than of nationality determine their actions. British officials have frequently called attention to the fact that American manufacturers often have been able to use British houses of established influence to promote the trade of American manufacturers because the American exporter was able to enlist the service of the British house by offering larger commissions, by sending auxiliary salesmen and technical experts, and, in general, by providing greater opportunity for profit than was furnished by manufacturing exporters in the United Kingdom. (Page 149.)

Over 70 per cent. of the Indian population draw their sustenance from the soil. The peasant problem, therefore, has a considerable influence in some directions on the course of affairs. The demands of the peasants for manufactures are few, but there are so many millions of peasants that the aggregate of these demands amounts to a considerable proportion of India's total needs. The vast majority of the peasants live in debt to the moneylender. Their household requirements are supplied by a shop or two in the village, whose owners frequently provide the first market for village produce and add to their earnings by moneylending. Rises in prices immediately affect their demand for goods owing to the fact that the "standard of living is at the very margin of subsistence " (page 158, "Studies in World Economy"). Their small holdings do not provide them with occupation for more than half their time, and consequently they provide the manufacturing districts with a floating supply of labour.

The peasants want their small supplies of manufactured goods at the lowest prices (the foreign product, as a rule), and they want to be free to sell their produce with out the restriction of export duties. In these ways their interests are opposed to Nationalism. On the other hand, they urgently want a reduction in taxation (particularly the removal of the salt tax), and the Nationalist movement for village-made cloth has enabled numbers of them to use their unoccupied time and supplement their meagre earnings by weaving. How little the peasant is really stirred by Nationalist aspirations may be gathered from the following remarks of Lajput Rai, a leading Indian Nationalist : —

The desire for political independence, the sense of shame and humiliation born of being a subject race, of being a political pariah, must, from the nature of things, be confined largely to the educated middle class. Even the mass could not be expected to take a very deep interest in the movement for political independence. Their ignorance, their illiteracy, but most of all the hard struggle they have to carry on for barest existence, prevents them from devoting time or thought to the question. Their time and thought are given to the fight against hunger and want, against disease and distress, against misery and wretchedness. They are easy to please. A slight act of kindness or of consideration makes them happy. They are easily confused on fundamental issues. (Young India, page 31.)

The group we have now to consider is the spectre that haunts the deliberations and celebrations of both Nationalists and Imperialists—the Indian working class. The Indian working class has arisen so recently and is still so much influenced by village associations, that clearness of outlook cannot be expected from it yet. The conditions under which the workers live and work resemble England in the middle of last century. Housing conditions are abominable; 70 per cent. of the tenements of Bombay are classified as single rooms. Their relations with their employers, both native and foreign, have been marked by disastrous strikes. The employers in their unrestricted desire to extract the utmost from the workers have made determined efforts to smash the unions, and there have been bitter conflicts in the. Bombay mills, the Tata Iron Works, on the railways, and elsewhere. As the smashing of the workers' organisations for defence involved too much, an effort is being made to convert them into harmless associations which will eternally bargain (and lose) with the employers—hence the attempt to introduce the Whitley idea into India.

The native Bombay employers have made huge fortunes out of their native workers and they do not want Indian Nationalism to interfere with the continued exploitation of the Indian worker. Their fellow native employers in other industries are at one with them on this point, and their henchmen, the educated professional men, etc. (Lajput Rai's "Middle Class"), are seeing to it that capitalist interests are protected in their programme for independence. The most advanced of the Nationalist programmes, where it refers to the workers, only aims at bringing Indian industrialism into line with modern methods adopted in the more advanced capitalist countries. 

Limitations of space compel us to curtail our further remarks, but before concluding we will quote from an illuminating reply of Gandhi's to a reception given him by the Trade Union of Ahmedabad. From this. it will be seen that Gandhi's sentimental outbursts  are  not born of particular interest in the  Indian worker : —

Your work is making you known throughout the world. The members of your Union are jealous of their rights and are prepared to lay down their lives for them, but their leaders, who guide them, have no ill-will against the capitalists. In their welfare and their power you see your own welfare and power. That is the secret of your strength. Outside people cannot understand your position. They have thought of capitalists and working men as exploiters and exploited. All capitalists, according to some, are born ogres. But there need be no such inherent antipathy between the two. It is an erroneous notion. If the capitalists are apt to be proud of their wealth, the working men are apt to be proud of their numerical strength. We are liable to be swayed and intoxicated by the same passions as the capitalists, and it must be our prayer that both may be free from that passion. I feel that no class war poisons the relations between the millowners and the working men in Ahmedabad. I hope and pray that the present cordial relations may be maintained between them.

. . . . . . . . 

But I do not want to deceive you. I must warn you that I do not bear any ill to the capitalists. I can think of doing them no harm. But I want, by means of suffering, to awaken them to their sense of duty, I want to melt their hearts and get them to render justice to their less fortunate brethren. They are human beings, and my appeal to them will not go in vain. The history of Japan reveals many an instance of self-sacrificing capitalists. — (The Indian Labour Review, April, 1931, p. 19.)

No wonder Bombay mill owners gave dinners to Gandhi !

The foregoing brief review of the position will give some idea of the welter of conflicting interests in India, but, apart from the peasants and workers, they are in agreement on one basic fact—that the Indian worker shall be exploited. The point of contention that is the centre of the turmoil is—Who shall be the exploiter?

To the Indian worker it matters not a jot whether he is exploited by Hindu, Moslem, or foreign capitalists. The Irish have secured a measure of independence, but the Irish worker is exploited just as of yore—only the exploitation has been more intensified. And so would it be with the Indian worker. The interests of the workers all over the world are identical, and opposed to the interests of the capitalists, national and international. When the Indian workers have learned this lesson, they will cease to be led into the blind alleys of Nationalist movements and will concentrate their attention upon the throwing off of capitalist domination, native and foreign.                                 

Gilmac.