British Hypocrisy Exemplified. (1917)

From the February 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Early in 1915 it was admitted in the House of Commons that anilyne dyes were still coming into this country from Germany. Some time later various convictions were secured against individuals for trading with the “enemy," notably in the Fownes case. The following cutting from the ‘Daily Mail” of Nov. 4th last provides food for useful reflection :

“STILL TRADING WITH THE HUNS.

“Mr. Runciman's 'National Interest' Excuse.

“The Government is still permitting trading with the enemy. Mr. Runciman’s excuse is that it is in 'the national interest.' In a written reply to Colonel Norton-Griffiths he says:
  Licences to import specified goods of enemy origin have been issued when it was clearly to the advantage of this country to obtain them, and the sale of British-owned goods in enemy countries has been authorised in special cases. Payments to enemies have been allowed in certain cases in order to preserve a British interest.  The main consideration is that the transaction should be proved to be so greatly to the advantage of this country as to justify a relaxation of the prohibition.

To sheepish believers and followers of the great Horatio and other “never againers,” I would whisper: Smile damn you, smile !

"Bockaboy."

Slaves in War Time (1917)

From the February 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the past couple of years the workers of “this country of ours” have been hearing a great deal about "poison gas” through those journals of "mud and blood,” the "Daily Mail,” "Sunday Chronicle,” "Daily News,” and "Manchester Guardian,” and others of that great heap of refuse which is spread broadcast daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, to the detriment of the wage-slaves who buy them.

This "poison gas" is the gas which is being used by the various armed nations against their opponents on the European field of slaughter. But we Socialists draw attention to another kind of "poison gas” the doses of "mental chloroform” daily given out to the wage workers by parson, politician, and journalist—all of them hirelings of the master class.

These individuals, in order to gain life’s necessaries, "gas” the workers with their fairy stories concerning man’s activities and his relations with other men in the material world, and fool them with the "eternal life” phantasy.

Of course, it is not to the interest of our masters to have editorials dealing with and exposing this brand of "poison gas.” Such work is left to the working class itself; hence the reason and the need for the Socialist Standard.

It is surprising to find how many workers are always ready to believe anything the papers and their masters tell them. We have heard a lot of cant and hypocrisy mouthed by parson, pressman, and politician on "Equality of Sacrifice.” They wax quite eloquent on "everyone doing his bit.” It is, however, rather hard to find what most of these hirelings and their masters (the employing class) have sacrificed. For instance, what have the food manufacturers, the shipping companies, or the armament firms sacrificed? Their profits?—not likely ! You see what is really meant by their cant phrases is sacrifice for the "lower classes.”

Everyone nowadays is aware of the huge profits that are being raked in by our "good” masters. Consequently, to the workers who have started to think for themselves the question naturally arises, "For what are we fighting?” But the reply, of course, rests upon what is meant by "we.” If "we” means the workers, then the only reply can be, a more intense form of slavery in the future even than in the past, greater poverty and misery for the many, and an outlook eloquent of strikes and revolts of the workers against their miserable conditions.

On the other hand, if "we” stands for the master class, then the fighting is for the control of trade routes and the securing of further markets in which to sell their surplus manufactures ; the gaining of territory in which to "collar” the natural resources, and the obtaining of cheap native labour. In other words, it means big profits now, with the chance of even bigger profits in the future.

Are we not constantly having these facts brought to our minds by flaring newspaper headlines, such as "How to Capture Germany’s Trade,” "How Great Britain may Increase Her Share of the World’s Commerce,” and so on? Then, again, have we not got such things in our midst as the Anti-German League, whose object is the smashing of the industries of Germany? Have not "our’ politicians told us that as soon as the war is over we must be ready to smash the Germans on the field of commerce after having smashed them on the field of blood?

Of course, in order that the state of affairs may not be too easily seen, our masters and their agents (the "patriots”) lie and bully and invent such statements to gull the workers as that this war is "a fight for Liberty and Freedom,” and “a struggle to suppress German Militarism.” And this, mind you, when the masters are so rapidly increasing militarism here.

Then we have the good old catch cry of the violation of Belgium's neutrality, as though any country hesitates to break treaties and make "scraps of paper” of them when it suits their interests to do so. This is admitted by that "patriot," Harold Begbie, of “Fall In" fame, when he says ("Daily Chronicle", Aug. 5, 1914), “At every Christian frontier you can pick up a broken treaty and a dishonoured bond.”

Then England is supposed to be fighting for the “rights of small nations,” this after what happened to the Dutch Republics a few years ago. Concerning this we might with interest read what was said at that time by Mr. Merriman, who was then an English member of the Cape Assembly. He was reported thus:

   I say “never again" will England hold the title she did as the friend of small peoples. When it is a question of tyranny towards some small powers, how can she say anything? The Transvaal and the Free State will be flung in her teeth.

—“The Speaker," Oct. 27th, 1900. 

And to show how kind-hearted this country was we were told :

    We went into war for equal rights, and we were prosecuting it for annexation. Wc went into the country for philanthropy and we remained in it for burglary.—Mr. Lloyd George, reported in the “Manchester Guardian,” July 26th, 1900.

All the flowery excuses which have been spread broadcast since August 1914 are but dust thrown in the eyes of the toilers to prevent them from seeing the truth.

Some very enlightening articles have recently made their appearance in the columns of the anti-working class papers. One in the “Weekly Dispatch” for March 19th, 1916, which told of the huge profits that have been, and are still being, made owing to war conditions, commenced with this valuable piece of evidence:

   In this country millions have been made by companies who hold the lives of the civilian population in the hollow of their hands.

This knocks the bottom out of the statement so often made that we are fighting for our liberties. What liberties are possessed by any person whose life is held in the hollow of some other person’s hand ?

In the same paper for Dec. 24th last another “war profits” article appeared. To give that part which deals with armament firms, would not, perhaps, be out of place. For such people a "good” war is a heaven-sent blessing.

Munition profits—in the early months of the war at any rate—were fabulous. Recent figures in some cases, are not accessible, but here are the facts of a few typical companies' change in fortune:

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	Latest Profits.	Pre-War Profits.
Armstrong	£852,300	£689,000
Cammell Laird	301,500	171,700
Curtis and Harvey	143,800	48,100
Projectile	192,700	14,000
Webbley and Scott	61,300	9,500
Thorneycroft	239,670	32,000

(6 months only.)

From such instances we can see how well the master class can afford to invest a portion of their profits in the War Loan at 5 per cent. Yet they would have us believe they are making a sacrifice. A sacrifice at 5 per cent. smells good. The fellows who are making the sacrifices are the workers, who are being used as food for cannon, and who, when they return broken from the war, are not even given the bare means of existence.

How often do we find in the daily and weekly Press such headlines as "Starved under Hun Rule”? Yet what about the thousands of starvation cases under the rule of the Brit-hun ?

That high-class organ of piffle and bluff, the “Daily Dispatch,” on Aug. 9th last commenced its editorial in the following strain :

  Among the good resolutions we all made in entering this war was one that the scandalous treatment that in past wars was meted out to our broken soldiers should not this time disgrace our national fame.
 We recalled Mr. Robert Blatchford's piercing remark about “the candidate for the British workhouse charging the guns at Balaclava,” and nothing had bitten deeper into the nation’s conscience than the spectacle of war-worn veterans, with medals on their chests, selling matches and bootlaces at back doors. We rightly resolved, at any rate, that that mutt never happen again.

After pondering over the latter part the only conclusion one can come to is that our masters never expected any of their warriors, even the wrecked ones, to return. Of course, the attempt is made to convey the impression that every provision is made for those of our “Tommies" who come back maimed, but does anyone with the least common sense believe that? No! "Equality of sacrifice” is a fine phrase for rogues to use and fools to swallow.

The shareholders in shipping, tea, armament, coal, iron, milling and other companies, are obtaining dividends of from 35 to 40 per cent, without ever having done a day's work to earn it. On the other hand, the man who has been broken in fighting for such shareholders gets a pension of 8d. a day and is buried a pauper. Even this is not the worst, for the "Weekly Dispatch” for Dec. 20th says there are "50,000 broken soldiers without pensions."

One has only to go through the daily papers to find scores of cases regarding the treatment of the broken Tommy. Space admits only of a few in the present article, but each goes to prove our contention. Thus we read in our masters’ papers accounts like these :

  At a meeting of the Redruth Urban Council a member declared that numbers of soldiers, broken in the war, called on him every day stating that they were unable to secure employment of any kind and had to go to the workhouse to get food.

—“Manchester Evening News,” Feb. 3rd, 1916.

  A case was reported this week where two heroes found their way into the workhouse because they were unable to get any allowance from the War Office. It is this sort of thing that does a great deal of harm and in itself is entirely indefensible.

“Reynolds’s,” Feb. 13th, 1916.

Of course, we know the "harm” our masters are afraid of. It is not that the soldiers may "demand” a mere allowance, but that the above treatment may help in a large degree to awaken the workers from their slumbers, in which case the wage slaves, becoming intelligent and understanding the class struggle, will not waste their time demanding anything, but will turn their energies toward the capture of the political machinery, in order to abolish capitalism and its many evils.

"A grateful country will never forget you.” So runs the cry. The following shows the amount of truth in it:

AN EX-SOLDIER’S PLIGHT.

NO PENSION, NO FOOD, AND NO SHELTER.

“I am a discharged soldier,” said a man who asked a West London magistrate for advice, “I have served my King and country for twelve years, eight months. I have been in France gassed and wounded. I came out time-expired, and went back again for 180 days in the Royal Garrison Artillery. Since I have been discharged I have only had two sums of 10s. from the Soldiers and Sailors Association. I have been sleeping out for several nights and have had no food for two or three days." The man, who looked very ill, had had no pension, and the magistrate said if the story was true it was a case of very great hardship, and directed the court missionary to investigate the case, and, in the meantime, to give the man a little help.

—“News of the World," Oct.8th, 1916.

And in the Manchester edition of the "Daily Dispatch” for Aug. 18th last there was a photograph of a man standing alongside a street organ, and underneath were the words : “Not receiving the pension due to him, a Manchester soldier, disabled at Ypres, turns a street barrel organ for a living.”

These cases go to show the attitude of the ruling class toward the workers, and are irresistible evidence that it was rank hypocrisy when they tried to make us believe that they intended to "make good ’ to the "heroes.”

Those of the discharged "Tommies” who can work are treated in a similar way. The following, although it has been quoted in these columns before, will show the truth of my statement :

   Army and Navy men wanted who have done their bit; bring discharge papers ; salary 28s. a week to start with."—“Daily Chronicle,” July 21st, 1916. 

There is magnificent generosity for our gallant warriors ; 28s. a week for those "who have  done their bit”!  One would like to ask, where is their country now? The truth is the workers of all lands, whether they be Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, Belgians, Englishmen, or Italians, have no country ; they are but the slaves of those who own and control society’s means of production.

The war, we Socialists hope, will be the means of enlightening large numbers of our fellow workers as to their true position in society.

To us the only hope of freedom, comfort, and happiness lies in "A system of society bused upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means, and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community." And this can only be brought about by the workers learning and understanding the Socialist position.

H. C. A.

Will Thorne and the Others (1917)

Editorial from the February 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

A REPUDIATION OF THEIR CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR SOCIALISM.

There was a time when Mr. Will Thorne was spoken of as "honest, blundering Bill Thorne." It was not honesty blundering, however, that led him, after specifically declaring during his last election campaign that he was not standing as a Socialist, to bawl from the balcony of the West Ham Town Hall upon the night of the declaration of the poll which elected him, that he had won a great victory for Socialism and Labour.

At the recent Labour Conference Mr. Thorne, in moving a hostile amendment to a resolution calling for the holding of an International Socialist Conference after the war, asked: "What sort of an International Conference would it be with delegates from Serbia and Bulgaria upon it?"

Would the man who claimed a Socialist victory when he did not stand as a Socialist, say if he stood as a Socialist when he arose to move that amendment and make that remark? It is not at all difficult to supply an answer in the absence of one from the member for South West Ham.

Mr. Thorne does not speak as a Socialist because he is not a Socialist. His claim to be such is exactly on a par with his claim to have won a victory for Socialism when he admitted that he had not fought a battle for Socialism. Not understanding the class struggle, not realising the unity of interest of the working class the world over, he is a nationalist—an anti-Socialist. But just as he regards himself as a Socialist, so he regards other nationalists of other lands as Socialists also. And just as his ignorance of the fundamental facts of the class antagonism has permitted this sordid masters' quarrel to fill him with hatred of his fellow-workers of other climes, so he sees the Thornes and Clynes of other lands seething in a hatred of their own class of other nations such as utterly precludes a peaceful international conference when the present strife is over.

Undoubtedly Thorne is right within certain limits. The hatred with which he regards his fellow working men of Germany and Austria and Bulgaria is no doubt heartily reciprocated by his mental parallels in those countries. And doubtless also that attitude of mind is as fully appreciated by Kaiser, Hindenburg, Bhung, Schippeowner, Schweater and the rest as is Thorne’s similar mental attitude by a like circle at home, as an expression of loyal love and fidelity toward “the hand that feeds.” To argue that such men can sit in peaceable international conference were fatuous, and therefore Thorne, so far, is right.

But this only proves what has already been stated here, that Thorne is not a Socialist. And by implication, neither are his mental images of other countries Socialists. And by the rules of logical argument, since a Socialist conference must be composed of Socialists, and since the Thornes and Clynes and Hendersons of this and other countries are not Socialists, a conference composed of such elements cannot by any possibility be a Socialist conference.

We always have maintained that the late conglomeration called the International Socialist Bureau was not Socialist at all. Events have proved us correct. The first blast of war found the Thornes and Clynes and Hyndmans of the various countries at each other’s throats. The "Socialist International” collapsed. It was not founded on the international unity of working-class interests; it was not reared and tested and levelled and plumbed and kept true and sound by that grand instrument for working-class guidance, the principle of the class struggle. Had it been so based and built Thorne would have been pitched out neck and crop at least at no later date than the first opportunity after he fought an election but did “not stand as a Socialist.” Such evidence that he did not (or would not) understand that the line of cleavage is drawn between the classes, and that therefore the political struggle must follow the same line, and that again therefore the man who “did not stand as a Socialist" in that highest expression of the class struggle, the political struggle, necessarily stood in opposition to Socialism—such evidence, we say, of these things, would have sufficed to place him outside any Socialist International that was such in fact as well as in name.

And the same remark applies to all the members of the Labour Party, who each and every one ran upon the same constitution, and not as Socialists. It applies also to those “Labour representatives” of other countries who have followed the same line of action. These men, and the organisations whose mentality they reflected, who could not separate themselves from their masters in peace time, would not have been permitted to remain in a SOCIALIST international to wreck it because, perforce, they found themselves in hostile camps in war time.

The Socialist can never be a nationalist. His mind can conceive no division of interests between the working peoples of the world. To him capitalism is one the world over, an international torture-rack on which every working-class race of the present day is stretched in agony. To him this capitalist war, terrible as it is, is but one of the torture twists of that rack, wringing impartially the thews of all workers unfortunate enough to be caught in its toils. His bosom, therefore, harbours no hatred for the German or Austrian worker whom he finds in arms against his fellow of Britain or France. Whether the combatants are the willing or coerced tools of the master butchers, and whichever side they serve, they are alike the subjects of the Socialist's pity, regret, and fraternal concern. He knows that they are a part of his class, wherever they are to be found; he knows that their ignorance, so curiously alike in England and France and Germany and Russia, as the late International itself, in both its rise and its fall, amply proves, is part of the class ignorance it is his mission to combat and disperse; he knows that their weakness as well as their strength, their agony as well as their emancipation, their struggle as well as their foes, are international. The only thing he finds in his whole political outlook that is not international is the sectional interest of the master class—before which the International composed of the Thornes and Clynes and Hyndmans of all countries collapsed like a house of cards before a “Jack Johnson.”

This is the difference, then, between Mr. Thorne and hie like on the one hand and the Socialist on the other and it is the difference between an International composed of Labour adventurers and one consisting of Socialists and founded upon Socialist principles. For the former Mr. Thorne may be permitted to speak—for the latter he never shall. Any Congress which may be engineered and set up by men of the kidney of those is doomed to be rotten at the start, since it must start with the assumption that the workers must defend their masters' property. It must therefore crumble at the test, whether it is confined to the “Allies” and neutrals or not.