Steel and Gold. (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

"M. Hanotaux, who has been French Minister of Foreign affairs since 1870, has been talking out of school. He has been telling the readers of the “Journal” that the Near East tangle will be set straight peaceably and why there will be no war.

 ‘Protocols [he says] are only so much paper. Behind their fragile tissue lurks the real thing. If an agreement has been arrived at it is because certain interests have received adequate satisfaction, or because some pressure stronger than the will of princes, stronger even than the will of peoples, has been brought to bear upon Governments and reduced them to silence.’

That pressure, we are invited to believe, is the pressure of gold, and the power that is stronger than princes, Cabinets, and peoples is “high finance.” There will be no war in the Near East because Russia alone cares to make war and she dare not. She dare not because she is about to launch a collossal loan. “How can the bondholders be in a happy and generous frame of mind if the ground trembles beneath their feet ? There is but one solution, and that is peace.” And M. Hanotaux sums up the situation in the words—“Europe buys her peace as she did in the days of the Vikings.” It has been said pretty often that the modern arbiters of peace and war are the international financiers, and that, somehow, nations fight so long as it pays the loanmongers, and keep the pace so long as it pays the loanmongers. But hitherto these things have been said by Radicals or Socialists or anti-militarists, and official persons have been faithful to the magniloquent phrases about "the will of the people’’ and “vital national interests." M. Hanotaux is, we believe, the first man who has sat in a Cabinet, and certainly the first man who has occupied that Holy of Holies a Foreign Office, to say that in the realm of international affairs money and power are identical, and that all the apparatus of the chancelleries is only the mask behind which the financier works.”

—Manchester Guardian, 24.12.08. 

Visions of an Egyptian Campaign and a South African War, and smaller bickerings in different parts of the globe arise where the influence of financial interests are obvious testimony to the truth of the statement contained in the above.

Wolf and Lamb. (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Queer Partnership.

“In the chair was Mr. Shackleton, M.P., one of the most conspicuous Labour members in the present House of Commons; the chief address was delivered by Mr. A. J. Balfour, in his capacity as president; and the vote of thanks to the ex-Premier was presented to a crowded audience by three gentlemen representative of widely apart walks of life, namely, Sir Christopher Furness, M.P., one of the great captains of industry in the country ; Professor A. C. Pigou, Lecturer in Economics at Cambridge University; and Mr. Amos Mann, who has for years been associated with the Labour Co-Partnership movement, particularly in the Midlands. Hardly less notable than the group of speakers was the numerous company of ladies and gentlemen who supported them on the platform—employers and employed. Labour men and co-operators, philanthropists and Parliamentarians. Of members of the House of Commons there must have been at least three-score present, representing practically every shade of opinion in that Assembly. Mr. Maddison, M.P., put this unpolitical character of the gathering in a nutshell when, in speaking to one of the business resolutions towards the close of the proceedings, be declared that the annual meeting of the association furnished one of the few occasions when it was possible, without the risk of subsequent criticism, to stand on the same platform with men with whom one might disagree on every other conceivable subject but the one that had brought them together. —Daily Telegraph, 2.12.08.

And what is the object of this rare occasion when it is possible for this collection of such seemingly bitter and irreconcilable foes to stand upon the same platform ? Let Mr. Balfour, the chief spokesman, answer:—

  “He advocated the movement, he said, not simply because it might minimise strikes, and incite to a larger output of work, but rather because it would give the workman a wider and deeper interest in his work and give him greater knowledge of the difficulties of the employer. 'Nothing can be better for the country,’ he added, ‘than that the artisan classes of the community should have the closest and most intimate knowledge possible of business methods, business difficulties, and business risks, as well as business profits.’ ”—Ibid.

Here, then, is the description of the movement, gently named Labour Co-Partnership, by one of the prominent official representatives of the employing class. The occasion is when arrangements are to be made—or attempted to be made—not only for minimising strikes and inciting to larger output (matters of great importance from the view-point of the employers’ interests), but also for initiating the workers into knowledge of business difficulties and business risks.

What are business risks ? Properly speaking, of course, the reference is to business man's risk in the commercial competition.

Not only in the home market, but also in the foreign and neutral markets of the world, the “business men” of England find themselves face to face with the ever-growing competition of their foreign rivals. To hold their own in the markets or to increase their share of these markets it is necessary that they sell cheaper than their competitors. But to sell cheaper they must produce, or have produced for them, cheaper than before.

How may this be done ?

Here the truth of Marx’s analysis of capitalism is at once admitted in practice, if denied in theory.

According to Marx the value of an article is fixed by the average time taken under the prevailing conditions of society to produce it. And every representative of capitalism, from the Trust magnate to the Co-Partner, agrees with this. Hence the incitement to a larger output of work and a minimising of strikes. Hence, also, the other statement of Mr. Balfour’s, that “Every arrangement which softened or obliterated the division between employer and employed, between owner and occupier, was to them welcome.’’ In other words, the employers adopt various methods for reducing the time required to produce articles, admitting that this is a reduction in the value of these articles, which can then be sold at a lower price.

But certain difficulties present themselves.

When trade is “booming," and the employer is making larger profits than usual, the “ungrateful” workman, despite the fact that be may be enjoying “plenty of work,” sometimes takes it into his head that he would like a slightly larger share of the wealth he has produced so abundantly, and taking a "mean advaniage” of the employer, he threatens to strike unless his demands are granted. To have a strike to contend with means stoppage of production, and therefore the losing of the opportunity of making those larger profits. The employer grates his teeth. Under his breath he curses the “wicked workers” who were not content—despite all the P.S.A. addresses delivered by various “Labour” leaders—to remain in the position in which capitalism had placed them. For the time being the master may yield to the men’s demands, but always with the intention of finding some way out of the difficulty in the future. This, however, is no easy task, far, as Sir Christopher Furness said in a speech at the meeting mentioned above, “Knowing hew thoroughly the strike habit was ingrained in the artizan classes, Business co-partnery would have bad no chance whatever unless the possibility of striking had been entirely removed.”

Here, then, are the two difficulties facing the capitalist—to get the “lazy” worker to speed up, and to prevent strikes taking place at awkward moments—awkward, that is, for the capitalist’s profits. Labour Co-Partnership meets both these points in a splendid way for the exploiter.

The employee is compulsorily “allowed” to take up shares in the business. Sometimes, When the employer has been seized with an extra acute attack of “regard for the worker,” the latter is even allowed to be present at some of the Directors’ Meetings, where he may listen with bated breath and awe-struck mien while the “superman” Directors wrestle with the “business difficulties and business risks, as well as the business profits,” and tell him how the concern should be run. It is pointed out to the worker that unless he strains every nerve and muscle to produce as cheaply as possible, his rivals will get the trade and the workers in the Co-Partnership concern will not only lose their dividends (often amounting to fabulous sums), but may even lose their jobs, in spite of the fact that they are co-partners. And thus one point is gained.

Then as for striking, why, that would be absurd. Are not they “interested” in the firm ? Are they not “part owners” ? And would you expect a man to strike against his own interests and property ? Certainly not. Then hurrah! for what is probably the most successful of the detail swindles perpetrated upon the working class. And cheer for the Labourite, Lib-Lab, and philanthropists who graced this meeting with their presence. Whether Shackleton (late chairman of the Labour Party), Maddison (member of the Liberal Party), H. Vivian (member of the T.U. Group), Balfour (late Tory Prime Minister) or Furness (Liberal steelmaster and shipowner), they all agree upon this fundamental

point—that the workers must be driven harder, bound in still tighter servitude, exploited more ruthlessly than ever, for the benefit of the employing class. “Birds of a feather flock together,” and the fact, so often pointed out in our columns, that these so-called Labour Leaders are merely the agents of the employers, receives additional and overwhelming evidence from the gathering under notice.

“Nonsense!” we will be told. "Do not the men share in the profits ? Are not huge sums disbursed yearly among, for instance, the employees in the South Metropolitan Gas Works ?” Our answer is NO! The workers not only do not share in the profits, but they have produced increased profits for the employers while suffering an actual decrease of wages. For it is the fact that since the inauguration of this scheme at the South Metropolitan Gas Works, profits have gone up by leaps and bounds, and the cost of producing gas has considerably decreased. While under the old system the men worked eight hours a day, under the new they work twelve! Not only this, but even with the longer hours the speed has been increased to such an extent that more in produced now per man per hour than under the old scheme. The few shillings “dividend" the worker annually receives is based upon the fact that production must be brought to a certain level before any "dividend" is awarded. Thus the work is increased in intensity and the working day in length, and out of the vast surplus thus created the worker receives a miserable mite, far below what his ordinary wages, taken over the increased time of his toil, would have amounted to.

The much lauded Co-Partnership scheme is thus seen to be but another contrivance and a most excellent and successful one from any but a working-class point of view—whereby the capitalist is enabled to pick cleaner the bones of the worker lamb, and it is interesting to note with what accord the “Labour” leaders lend themselves to the machination.

Jack Fitzgerald

S.P.G.B. Lecture List and Meetings For February. (1909)

Party News from the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tottenham Branch Report. (1909)

Party News from the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

In my last note I promised a future communication on the doings—if life lasted to it—of the Tottenham Labour League and Right to Work Committee. This must, however, be deferred yet again, as we understand that the affairs of the League, or some of its officials, are engaging the attention of the police. . My reference to the Anti-Socialist campaign has seemingly borne fruit, and the branch is now busy fixing up details for a debate with Mr. Farraday, representing the Anti-Socialist Union. Particulars will be advertised later and a good meeting is certain. This does not, however, exhaust the list of our local activities, for beyond running our regular open-air meetings, we watch the enemy, and on Friday, January 22nd, helped to expose a most unscrupulous attempt to exploit Socialist sentiment. The event was extensively advertised as a “Great Socialist Demonstration,” and was organised by The City of London, Finsbury, and North London Branches of the I.L.P., with Mr. Fred Jowett, M.P., Bradford, as the star turn. The “demonstration” was held in a local school-room. Mr. Harvey, president of the aforesaid Labour League, presided, accompanied on the platform by one or two I.L.Pers and local Liberals. The audience, which numbered about 200, included many members and sympathisers of the S.P.G.B., and had been drawn by the advertisements to hear what Mr. Jowett, M.P., had to say about Socialism. Realising this, and anticipating that the Socialism was to come from the audience and not from the platform, Mr. Harvey apologised in a confused, halting manner for the advertisements, admitting that “they would give cause of complaint to many;” but resuming his more usual blustering tone, he warned the meeting that there was only going to bp one chairman, and that was himself. This spread an air of mystery over the meeting, but this was quickly dispelled when Mr. Jowett arose and opened his address in these words: “I am not here to preach Socialism: I have come to preach democracy. My subject is: The Parliamentary Machine.” He then spoke for over an hour, and not a single word he uttered would have been objected to by any Liberal or Conservative M.P., although he made many erroneous statements. A few minutes were allowed for questions, during which it was easily seen that we had the sympathy of the meeting, but the chairman speedily closured questions, and adopting the policy Mr. Jowett had complained of as being adopted in the “House,” he put up a Mr. Montague to “talk out time.” This gentleman has the unfortunate faculty of driving an audience away, so he very quickly resumed his seat. The Chairman then began to grow angry, and as a vent to his wrath, indulged in a few tilts at us, which, if they did no other good, provided us with amusement which we greatly appreciated. Making a plea for “practical politics," he showed very clearly, even to those with the least discernment, that it was merely the “lust of office,” the desire to be numbered among King Capital’s administrators, that inspired the I.L.P. He then explained the presence of Liberals on the platform by the impudent assertion that a man could be a good Socialist and still call himself a Liberal, and, carrying his effrontery to the region of the ridiculous, he warned his hearers against men who, calling themselves Socialists, were simply Liberals in disguise. Thereupon there were loud and persistent cries from the assembly for Mr. Jowett to reply to the unhappy if wayward shaft, but that gentleman, who had already been complimented by a member of the audience for his “Liberal” speech, maintained a very discreet silence. The fiasco then “petered out,” the audience once again having had it brought home to them that Socialism was not to be learnt from the I.L.P., but only from the S.P.G.B.—which is as we have always said.

Alex Anderson

The Labour Party and the Law. (1909)

Editorial from the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent ruling of the Appeal Court that Trade Unions have no legal power to force their members into supporting any political party, even when a majority of that Trade Union agrees to supporting that political party, came as a veritable bolt from the blue. The Labour Party, “the new force in politics,” the political organisation which in 1906 claimed that it had frightened the House of Lords into passing the Trades Disputes Bill, awakens in 1909 to discover that it has no legal standing at all, and is only suffered to exist by the voluntary support of its members. Now while we agree that political work must be done voluntarily, as is the whole of the work of the S.P.G.B., because only then is it the expression of the real convictions of the person expressing it, it is doubtful indeed whether the Labour Party can depend upon sufficient voluntary pence to pay its members’ salaries and its working expenses. Hence the decision o( the Labour Party to appeal against the Appeal Court's finding, and to attempt to cling to the privilege of levying Trade Union members for the support of a political party over which they have little or no control.

The rabid anti-Socialist Press, like the Daily Express, accused the Socialists of capturing the Trade Unions by controlling the Labour Party; but the Labour Party is not a Socialist party any more than it is a Tory party, its political representatives being mainly concerned with maintaining the status quo, keeping their seats—and their jobs. So the job-hunters who run the show have to pose as advanced reformers to the rank and file of the I.L.P., who do the work, and as tolerant, “practical,” men to the Trade Unions, who find the money. The net result to the working class is, in addition to the loss of their money, the disappointment of seeing nothing as the result of their expenditure of money, energy, and enthusiasm in “independent” politics. Yet these people have the ear of the public, and the Socialist has but little chance of a hearing. To believe that so great a sham can last for long is to be with as little faith in the workers as those middle-class “leaders" who have so graciously come among us to lead us, and who contemn us meanwhile.

The Socialist Party is clear that in the first, place the trade organisation is not the starting point of the political organisation if for no other reason than the fact that the unit of the union is the trade, while the unit of the political organisation is the locality; and in the second place that the workers’ effort towards their emancipation must be made voluntarily as the result of conviction of “class-consciousness”; certainly not as the result of watering down the position to appeal to a majority, and then using that majority to enforce the financial support of the minority of a type of organisation which has been enabled to build up its membership partly owing to the fact that party feeling in political matters has been rigidly excluded.

Sark! (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since our last issue an event, so fraught with human importance that it is bound to become historic, has taken place. Not with a flourish of trumpets, not with a dazzling display on those beautious wayside erections which (it is alleged) many members of the working class, with truly revolutionary disregard for the rights others, claim as “ the working man’s picture gallery,” but quietly, quietly as nature working up to some catastrophic horror, this event baa been developed. In its making it has been evolutionary, doubtless enough, but in its birth, its being launched upon the sea of human environment, it is cataclysmal.

Kata, Greek prefix signifying down, back, thorough; Greek, kluzo, to wash. What should we working men who write for working men do without our Latin and our Greek? Cataclysmal is the very adjective. This event which I speak of has burst upon us as a deluge, a flood; it has given us a thorough sluicing; it has been kluso, to wash (and plenty of it), and kato, down (and up), back (and front) and tree-mendiously thorough. It has been a political washout, and the ground whereon we stood is holey ground, with a vengeance. Gone is that pyramid of economic sophistry and hare-brained political quackery on which we had elevated ourselves to conspicuity; gone also that underlying working-class ignorance and hankering after the moon without which as a foundation our pyramid had never been erected at all, and we and those who gave us faith (it is quite inconceivable that any thought for themselves) stand in gullies and hollows, but with our political feet upon the firm rock of truth of the tertiary formation—as we know by its fossils.

And this event is the publication of the first number of the Anti-Socialist. An auspicious birth, fellow members of the working class, since it spells doom to the Socialist movement. Alas! shall we be able to fulfil our obligations to those who have subscribed to the end of the volume? Shall see even another issue of The Socialist Standard? If there were shareholders —but this is not the Labour Leader.

The Anti-Socialist has the blessing of the Church in the person of our brother in Christ, the Canon of Westminster. Other notable sympathisers with what the Anti-Socialist lightly refers to as the ass-pirations of labour, who recommend the new publication to working men are Sir A. Acland Hood, Lord George Hamilton, Admiral Fremantle, C. Arthur Pearson, Andrew Carnegie, and the editor of the Daily Express. This galaxy of noble and disinterested champions of labour surely have a right to be heard with respect on the matter of what is the true interest of the workers. Andrew, at all events, we know to have very decided views upon the subject, as witness a little shooting affair at Pittsburg some score or so years ago, which is still held in sacred memory.

We are treated to a cartoon in this first number; it is entitled: The Workman's Dream. A workman is depicted, seated, and under the influence of the pantomimic gestures of an individual we are invited to imagine is a Socialist, while another individual labelled “Socialist” has extracted a resplendent watch and chain and quite a fabulous store of coin of the realm, from the subject’s pocket, while from the anticipatory smile on the face of the brigand (who, by the way, I am sure is meant for Mr. G. B. Shaw) there is plenty more to come. Inscribed thereunder we read “ The Socialists hypnotise the working man, and pick his pocket.” And what is the dream with which the Socialists have beguiled the working man while they are a doin’ of it? The artist has given it expression. The worker dreams that he has an easy chair to sit in, a fender to put his feet on, and a table —with some grub on it. That is all, if we except a gem like a decanter stopper which decorates his finger. O chimeric vision of paradise! O ironic mockery! O wickedly delusive irradiance! A divan chair, a fender, and a table with some grub on it. Well might the workman suspect the intentions of those who lure him with such impossible extravagance. I notice that the worker still wears his hob-nails and corduroys. It would fairly have given the Socialists' game away to have suggested escape from these. Born in 'em, live in 'em, marry in ’em, die in ’em.

A. E. Jacomb

Our New Leaflet (1909)

Editorial from the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

In issuing “The Socialist View" of the unemployment question in leaflet form for free distribution, we have commenced the year well. The leaflet is at once a clear, comprehensive, simple and straight-forward statement of the case, and it is up to the Party members and sympathisers to see that it is placed in the hands of as many members of the working class, employed and unemployed alike, as is possible. This is particularly desirable at the present time because not only is the question of unemployment very acute, but the confusion that has overtaken the pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties on this matter seems to have reached something of a climax. Take, for instance, the grand national campaign that was to have been organised by the Social Democratic Party. This, has fizzled out, as Socialists knew it must, and now that “collections” are not forthcoming, and the “leaders" are not prepared to take their own advice and “rush the bakers’ shops,” the London unemployed decline to be used as “unpaid sandwich men,” to walk the streets accompanied by more policemen than “comrades,” to advertise the S.D.P. Those leaders sought to excuse their use of the unemployed on the plea that they were teaching them the principles of Socialism, illustrating those principles by the unemployment of their students. The force of this is seen when the “leader” is hustled out of Berkeley Square by the police. The men, being without a leader, disperse. Their class-consciousness could not be very profound, nor their Socialist education complete.

And what of the “Labour” Party—the great Independent-Free-Trade-Radical-Gospel-Temperance-Secular-Nonconformist-Labour Party? In the House of Commons its members were busy prating about opening ports and closing “pubs” ; outside, they are now, on the platform and in the capitalist Press, slanging each other as traitors and enemies. Yet despite the ever intensifying poverty and misery due to increasing unemployment, they are all of them content to moon about in what Liebknecht well termed “the dream of the right to work,” content to dream—for £200 a year.

Take the Socialist Labour Party—this party through a somewhat chequered career has, as it were, boxed the compass, yet has failed entirely to grasp the Socialist position. From advocating palliatives it has swung to the other extreme, and absurdly talked of “taking and holding,” and now we find it appealing, cap in hand, to the representatives of the capitalist class, asking what they are going to do for the unemployed, while, as if to further illustrate the confusion existing in that party its national secretary has been expelled for assisting a “right to work” committee.

The only remedy (!) the Tory Party can suggest is the same Protection that is proved powerless to touch the unemployed problem in Germany, France, or America; while the panacea of the Liberal Government is to be found in the new army scheme, coupled with the (conveniently made from the necessity of) putting in hand that work purposely held over from the Summer.

Amid and against all this confusion the S.RG.B. pursues its course as steadily and uncompromisingly as ever. The first and only Socialist party established in these isles, it has consistently held aloft the banner of Socialism. Increasing numbers and increasing strength have but spurred it on to greater efforts, while neither the wiles of the capitalist-class politician nor the sentimental ambiguities of the "labour leader,” the shrieks of the ultra moral and religious anti-Socialist, nor even the increase in working-class unemployment has succeeded in effecting in it the slightest deviation from the Socialist principles or change in its policy. Coming from such a party, the leaflet mentioned above will throw a welcome light on the outer world of political and economic darkness, and shed a peculiar light on the burning question of unemployment from an unmistakably Socialist, and therefore undeniably working-class, view-point.