This Month's Quotation: A Prominent Communist. (1938)

The Front Page quote from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

"There are no such things as defensive or aggressive wars under capitalism . . . Wars are not caused to 'defend democracy' . . . Wars are caused in the search for profit”

This Month's Quotation

Our Panel this month is taken from the New Leader (20/5/1938), who quote from the pamphlet, Labour & War, by Harry Pollitt, published by the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1934.

Our Practical Policy (1938)

From the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers of the Socialist Standard are far greater in numbers than the membership of the “Socialist Party.” At this time of the year especially, when more meetings are held and more of our literature is sold, the official organ of our Party reaches a still wider circle. The result of this activity reflects itself in wider discussions at our meetings and in the letters we receive from critics.

Now there is one very curious thing about certain of our critics, whether well or ill-acquainted with the Socialist Party’s case. They show as keen a desire to agree with the Party position as they do to disagree with the Party’s exposition of it. A few words in explanation will illustrate the apparently unconscious mental contradiction. Every issue of the “S.S,” includes a statement of our Object and of our Declaration of Principles. The latter, to all but very simple minds, is bound up with , the Object — Socialism. These are a lucid and logical statement of the essential facts about capitalist society, and describe the basic action necessary for its removal and for the establishing of Socialism.

The type of critic referred to often shows some acquaintance with the doctrines and teachings of Socialism to the extent that they will not quarrel with our definition of Socialism nor our Declaration of principles. They will even compliment us on their clarity and will express approval of them —“but” and it is the qualifying ‘‘but” which exposes our critics. In fact, they show that what they agree with is a form of words. They completely fail to interpret the Declaration of Principles in the light of the realities of the modern political world.

What is Policy ?

Consider some of the familiar arguments of our opponents, remembering, too, that they are also the arguments of some professing friends. “The Socialist Party has been in existence for thirty-four years and has done nothing . . .” “After thirty-four years the S.P. has only one candidate for. Parliament . . . ." “The Socialist Party has no policy—has never had a policy.” Like the proverbial Irishman who is “agin the Government,” the obstinate negator offers the same difficulty as trying to get to grips with a shadow. But never let it be said that we evaded the job. We will try to be simple, to avoid phrases, to avoid giving offence by appearing to be clever when really we are merely stating an accurately tested truth. Now: The Socialist Party is organised for Socialism. It has defined Socialism. The definition of our Object, “. . . the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth . . . " appears in every Party publication. The attaining of that Object is the task of the Socialist Party. Logically there could be no other. To achieve this object the Socialist Party must first concentrate upon the making of Socialists. There can be no other policy at this stage, because, simply, there can be no Socialism without first there are Socialists. Nor do our critics who profess to agree with us, "but”— tell us what they consider the policy of a Socialist Party should be. They do not because they cannot or dare not. They cannot because to deny the obvious necessity for the making of Socialists before Socialism can be established would stamp them as being incapable of interpreting the political world with the .weapons of Socialist understanding. They dare not because any alternative policy would reveal its reformist and capitalist character and expose the ignorance of its supporters. Let us not be misunderstood. The making of Socialists is not the end all in Socialist policy. But it is the only policy for the moment. There will come a time when the detailed working out of the necessary steps for the dispossessing of the capitalist class will have to be made. But this will only be practical policy when there are sufficient Socialists for the task. The need for it will, in fact, quite obviously, arise out of the conditions of the time. Just as now the first essentials of Socialist policy, the making of Socialists, arises out of the conditions of the present. Doubtless the working out of a detailed policy for the future, aimed at and showing the step-by-step process by which a Socialist working class would effect the dispossession of the capitalists and the overthrow of their system, would be an interesting task. It would, however, in view of the smallness of the Socialist movement and the fact that the structural administration of capitalism is subject to change, be almost purely academic, and most certainly useless. Even the working out of a tactical policy for pursuing the fight with our opponents in the political field is not even an immediate practicable question because: (1) there can be little struggle with opponents who mostly choose to ignore us and (2) because we have little effective backing from the workers. With regret, but without pessimism, it must be admitted that the immediate task of Socialists is chiefly propagandist, that is to say, explaining and interpreting the events of the capitalist world with Socialist knowledge and understanding. This burden we carry out with all the difficulties of voluntary organisation. We have, therefore, no time for unreal grandiose planning. We are busy working-men who, with Engels, would say: "The man who has something serious to say cannot compete with those who have all day to gossip in.” It is, however, the absence of detailed plans which confuse would-be critics (many who style themselves Socialists) of the Socialist Party.

No plan appears to them to mean no policy.' They are wrong and misled by interested leaders whose positions depend upon producing plausible plans purporting to aim at a short cut to social salvations What is not recognised is the irrefutable fact that the subject social position of the worker is bound up with' the Capitalist social system and will only disappear with capitalism, and that any policy which is not directed to bringing capitalism to an end is useless from the Socialist point of view.

The Day-to-Day Struggle

Almost a term of abuse now is the charge that the Socialist Party does not take part in the “day-to-day struggle.” The charge is, of course, untrue. In relation to our numbers our members are engaged in trade union activity comparable to those in any other political organisation. Some of our members hold official positions in their trade unions. Heavy demands are made on the time of our speakers in visiting trade union branches in order to state the case for the Party. Trade union activity is encouraged to its fullest extent. At all times Socialists enter the struggle on the economic field conscious of its limitations. But more often our critics have in mind the struggle on the political field when they charge us with ignoring “the day-to-day struggle.” In that field the struggle is represented to centre around the struggle for peace, democracy, and so forth. We are represented as having no interest in these things because we refuse to line up with the conglomeration of parties in the Labour Movement which is organising to demand them. It is not understood that the amount of democracy possessed by any section of the workers is the result of its struggles with its own capitalist class and independent of the struggles between sections of the capitalists; that when workers are able to impose peace upon the capitalist world they will have achieved such a degree of understanding that they will be in a position to impose far more than that. There is never peace in the capitalist world, only Socialism can guarantee peace. But let us look at the so-called working-class parties with whom it is assumed we should have some common interests and a common policy.

The Communist Party: It is committed to the policy of advocating the military alliance of Great Britain, France and Russia. This has been interpreted by one British Communist writer (T. A. Jackson) as willingness to defend the British Empire. In France the same policy found its expression in Communist advocacy of a Popular Front, which in reality is a premature anticipation of the war-time need of a coalition of all parties in order to defend French capitalism. Though Maurice Thorez has gone further and has said: 

“ Our policy of the People’s Front was not a transitory or temporary tactic, or an electoral pact, but an application of the fundamental principles of Marxism and Leninism, an alliance that will last between the working class and the middle classes'' (Discussion [Communist monthly], July, 1937).

Imagine a parallel picture applied to England. The Communist Party, the Liberals (including Mr. Lloyd George), and “progressive” Conservatives, like the Communist Party’s new sweetheart, the Duchess of Atholl, all included in a Popular Front which is represented to be an alliance between the working class and the middle classes that will last, and as an application of Marxism!

So far as the Labour Party is concerned its difference with the Communists seems to be that it will not have anything to do with them. But, like the Communist Party, it is committed to "Collective Security.” What that means can be measured by the statement of the Minister of War in the British Government that “Britain would only fight in ? future war with allies, that is to say, within a system of Collective Security.” All that need be said about the I.L.P. is that they are at present attempting to negotiate electoral arrangements with the Labour Party. These “working-class” parties are certainly engaged in the day-to-day struggle— but for the benefit of the capitalist class, not for the working class.

It is sheer self-delusion and a misrepresentation of Socialist principles to suggest that because these parties have their origin in the working-class struggle and screen their reform activities with high-sounding working-class sentiment and what appear to be Socialist phrases and slogans, that Socialists can make common cause with them.

The Socialist attitude on war, as on other major questions, is so fundamentally different from that of these parties that it would be a betrayal of Socialist principles and working-class interests to pretend that there could be any point of contact between them and us which could provide a basis for common policy, and no Socialist has any illusions about it. This position, we know, results in our isolation and prevents us engaging in activity which to masses of workers appears to be in their interests. The plaudits provoked by demagogic appeals to political ignorance and popular sentiment are attractive to the weak and the unstable. For us, for the moment, lies apparent isolation and unpopularity—but independence. The ability to endure it in the face of the attractions of demagogy is a test for real virility.

The Making of Socialists

Spontaneous discontent with capitalism rarely in itself makes a Socialist. Something else is necessary. That something is the assimilation of ideas—Socialist ideas. The extent to which the workers are able to do this depends on many factors, but the chief one is propaganda. In a clear field, without the strains and stresses of capitalist propaganda pulling in the opposite direction, Socialist propaganda would easily win a rapid and decisive victory. Whilst all prophecy is speculative, the facts of history are pertinent. In the earlier days of capitalism capitalist propaganda was brutally anti-Socialist. When the Labour movement came into existence (after two hundred years of capitalism) a gradual change took place. Capitalist propaganda is now more subtle and has learned how to use pseudo-Socialist phraseology to serve capitalist interests. Hitler and Mussolini are excellent examples of the use of this trick. The British capitalist class are able to use the British Labour Party and its doctrines for the same purpose. How far the working class will have to acquire Socialist knowledge to nullify the influence of capitalist propaganda will depend upon how far that propaganda exposes itself. Enough to say that at the moment a worker has to be well grounded to escape that influence. But the capitalist has to be everlastingly on the look-out for new ways of preventing the worker from seeing his social relationship as it really is.

Each new effort on the part of the capitalist class expresses a weakening of its influence. As this goes on it will be easier for the worker to interpret the world in the light of his interests. The stresses and strains of capitalist propaganda will lessen their pull. At a given point the acceptance of Socialist ideas must become more general and consequently develop more rapidly. No one with a knowledge of historical movement would deny the possibility of reaching that historical stage within our lifetime. Those who are Socialists will work for it as tenaciously as the Socialist Party has worked for it for 30 years. We have worked for it, never once betraying Socialist principles nor obscuring the immensity of the task. We have maintained our existence on a voluntary basis and have outlived organisations which had far greater resources in finance and membership. We have never been guilty of fostering disillusionment, like the Communists in 1919, when they prophesied the end of capitalism in Europe in a few months and in America in a few years.

In short, the Socialist Party’s policy is based upon a sound understanding and application of Socialist principles, which expresses itself in the immediate and urgent task of making Socialists.

Harry Waite

Who are the malingerers? (1938)

From the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

To be unemployed means to be without work to do. But who is likely to worry much about that ? Does work give us such a grand and glorious feeling that we need lose sleep over its absence?

It may be true, it certainly is true, that labour is “an eternal nature-imposed necessity” to secure the continued existence of the human race, but it is equally true that the march of humanity from savagery to civilisation has been largely motivated by the desire to avoid “work" or to lighten its load. That in this process more and more work has been effected is another side of the story. Whichever way one cares to look at the matter the fact is that work in modern society has assumed such paramount importance that people have actually demanded the "right to work.” It was this that prompted Paul Lafargue, the able and witty son-in-law of Marx, to summon the working class to proclaim the “right to be lazy.”

The Unemployment Assistance Board has undertaken an enquiry into the "causes of prolonged unemployment in individual cases.” Lord Rushcliffe, chairman of the Board, in his report for the year 1937, says that—"It is expected that, as a result of this enquiry, information of great practical importance will be obtained. It has already become clear that there is a considerable number of men and women who have lost interest and are content to remain on unemployment allowance.” The report goes on to point out that—"There are those whose unemployment is due to wilful idleness, who avoid or refuse work when it is obtainable, or throw up jobs upon some flimsy pretext.” It is admitted in this report that the percentage of such cases is small, “but the number is sufficiently large to cause the Board much concern.” That ”much concern” is ominous! From inquiries made in December over 250,000 of the male applicants to the Board were 45 years of age or over, and of such men about 140,000 were 55 years of age or over. Nearly one-third of the men of these ages have been unemployed continuously for three years or more. But the significance of another statement contained in this report may, we are afraid, pass unnoticed. “It is obviously against good policy,” says the report, “that an able-bodied person when out of work and dependent upon public funds for support should be as well off as or, indeed, better off than he would be in work.” What a handsome reward for work there must be that it can be so bluntly stated that men are better off without it.

We are told that half the male applicants declare normal wages of less than fifty shillings per week. In about six per cent., or over 30,000 of the cases, the applicant was receiving an allowance from the Board which was within four shillings of his normal wages. And what is normal wages? The following instances are given in the report. Applicant, aged 48, wife and eight children—scale allowance, 54s., normal wages, 38s., allowance paid, 45s. Applicant, aged 31, wife and seven children—scale allowance, 48s. 7d., normal wages, 40s. 6d., allowance paid, 45s. These are figures that tell their own story, but let us leave it at that for the moment, we have some comments to make. This Britain, which is called ours, but which in reality does not belong to 90 per cent. of the population, is one of the richest parts of the world. Yet, significantly enough, this is but another way of saying that poverty is as commonplace here as anywhere on the earth's surface. For riches and poverty exist side by side under capitalism as surely as night follows day; the one lives, leech-like, on the other’s existence. The wealth of this country or of the world does not descend from heaven, nor does it grow from the earth in the manner of a tropical vegetation.

The rich or ruling class lives, as it can only live, on the proceeds of the labour of the poor, and the poor are the people who are known as workers. They work for the benefit of others because, as things are, they have no other means of obtaining a livelihood. But our highly industrialised, civilised form of society is such that not even all those who are able and willing to work have the opportunity of so doing. At the moment there are roughly about 1,750,000 men and women in this country unemployed. This means that the rich, or employing class, can find no profitable use for them. But the time is past when the ruling class can with safety to itself leave so vast a number of people to starve, they cannot be left to rot and die. Hence we have the “dole” and Poor Law Relief, besides various charity societies ministering to “the poor and needy.” Of course, the whole thing is at bottom a gigantic swindle. For take a glance at the position of those who have need of the dole or Poor Law Relief and charity. They belong to the only useful class in modern society, the only class which actually produces the wealth of the world. The wheels of industry and commerce are dependent for their motion not upon the rich but upon the poor. But what is their reward for all this under capitalism? If the average worker is fortunate enough to be in employment for the major portion of his life, he generally finishes up much as he began, without means and often in debt. Throughout their entire lifetime the workers’ experience is usually a “hand-to-mouth” existence. It has been calculated that out of a total population of 47 millions 13½ millions are seriously undernourished, are compelled to eke out a miserable existence on less than six shillings per week to spend on food.

As we are writing these notes there comes to hand a Press report of a woman charged with stealing goods valued £8 10s. She stated in defence that she stole the goods to sell them to buy food for her children. Two years ago her husband had to go into hospital through eye trouble, the eye was finally removed. Meanwhile, she fell into arrears with the rent and her home was taken from her. When the husband left the hospital he was confronted with the double problem of finding work and a home.

On being asked by the magistrate what she had for dinner the previous day the woman replied—” The children had an egg, I had a corned beef sandwich, and my husband had nothing.”

The woman was placed on probation for twelve months!

The Grand Contrast

But the above state of affairs does not apply to all. The ten per cent. of the population who practically own “this England of ours” experience no such sensations. They live without fear of economic insecurity, in luxury, are never “out of work”—and never in. The same editions of the capitalist Press reporting the case mentioned above and the “concerns” of the Public Assistance Board display picture after picture of the grand scenes at Ascot, that historical annual parade ground of every conceivable kind of social parasite.

“Ascot,” says a leader writer in the Daily Telegraph, “is like the King’s Birthday, the Tower Bridge, the cliffs of Dover, It has a purpose and a meaning. Do not run away with the idea that it is merely a race meeting. It is part of the English scene, as integral as a pack of hounds, a coster in his pearlies or a field of buttercups.” May we say that we haven't the slightest doubt about the integrity of it all. Ascot is as much an integral part of our great British tradition as the poverty of the woman who was placed on twelve months’ probation or that of the workers in general.

The King and Queen lead the way in the Ascot procession, not the stable lads who were recently on strike for a wage barely above the subsistence level. As a prelude a large dinner party was held in the Waterloo chamber of Windsor Castle. At this function the Press announced that the famous Windsor gold plate was in view on a specially-constructed stand and illuminated with tubular lighting. On the racecourse itself, “Beautifully-tailored coats and skirts of pastel-tinted silks were a dress feature.” The Duchess of Kent “wore a triple row of large pearls round her throat, after the style of a choker necklace, and had diamond clips in her hair.” And so on is one celebrity after another described in these Ascot scenes, which might conjure up to the mind the Arabian Nights or a horde of painted savages, whichever way one cares to look at it.

Shortly the King and Queen will visit Paris and their visit is to be marked by a banquet to be held in the Hall of Mirrors.

“M. Carton, President of the Association of the Chefs of France, has called for ten of the best-known chefs to collaborate with him in the preparation of the meal,” There is no mention in this forthcoming event about corned beef sandwiches. Perhaps those are reserved for the French waiters, to remind them of the great slogan of the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”

Now the Public Assistance Board have nothing to do with the class of people who dominate the Ascot parades. It is not they who are referred to as malingerers. Yet they are the people who “toil not, neither do they spin.” The wealth they enjoy is obtained from the blood and sweat of the working class. Among the men who are described by the Public Assistance Board as having been continuously unemployed for three years are those who have helped to make possible the wonderful clothes and ornamentation of these Ascot and other “society” gatherings. Malingering is a disease arising from the anarchy generated in human relationships through class exploitation. To live without working, to live above the standard of those who have to work, that is the hall-mark of “success” in capitalist society. Parasitism is an essential part of social life to-day, therefore, the fact that here and there a few who belong to the working class may sometimes attempt to “get by” without work is but mere child's-play when it is compared with the gigantic exploitation by ten per cent. of the population of the other ninety per cent. Socialism will end social parasitism in every form. Experience proves that when people are given decent and reasonably healthy conditions in which to work they do not shrink from the task. Even the report of the Public Assistance Board is compelled to admit that “of the 451,700 homes covered by the inquiry, 415,060, or 91.9 per cent., were described as well-kept, and only 36,640, or 8.1 per cent., ill-kept.” Further, the percentage of “ill-kept homes is, as might be expected, lowest where the dwelling is of good type."

When the workers awaken to an understanding of the causes of their social conditions they will realise the mockery and insults heaped upon them by the real malingerers, those who live upon the proceeds of their exploitation. The Socialist Party urges the working class to study their position to-day and to end it through Socialism.

Robert Reynolds

Before Hitler (1938)

From the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The decade before Hitler was for German capitalism mainly a period of stabilisation and attempted recovery. Many new parties and groups were thrown up, ranging from different brands of Communism to currency reform fanatics and types of Fascism. The working class, not understanding Socialism, but merely possessing a reformist outlook and suffering deeply, alternately swung their support over to each fresh demagogue, and illusion and despondency were the inevitable result. American capitalism, after helping to smash Germany, now undertook to restore it. This served two purposes. It provided a new outlet for American investments and rebuilt a formidable competitor to Britain, as an offset against the growing Anglo-American rivalry for world dominance.

If it was possible to restore Germany to a healthy economic (capitalist) condition, the prospects would be rosy for profitable financial investment.

Through the Experts Commission (chairman, General Dawes) the chaotic reparations demands and methods of payment were regularised, and German firms, municipalities and local governments were able to obtain the foreign loans necessary to resume their former profit-making activities. The aim of the Dawes Plan was to make of Germany one vast international (and especially American) financial undertaking. American capitalists came to the rescue (on terms) of their German brethren, and in all but name Germany became an American colony. The foreign loans gave such an impetus to German trade that for five years (1924 to 1929) German capitalism was able to quite easily pay its interest claims and reparations demands. It was, however, without solid foundation, for its prosperity was only made possible with the assistance of foreign loans.

Guarantees to the American and other capitalists were included in the Dawes Plan. The State railways were taken out of the control of the Reich and placed in the hands of a company formed for the purpose. The Reichsbank was also taken away from the German Government and transformed into an instrument under “foreign” capitalist control, allowing pickings for the home capitalists, etc. French capitalism now received its reparations share regularly and withdrew its forces from the Ruhr. Herr Stresemann now devoted his energies to securing the evacuation of the Rhineland by the Allied armies, and out of this need of German capitalism was born the Locarno Pact and Germany joined the League of Nations. An era of mad speculation commenced; for the sake of American money German capitalism abolished some of its customs, including Martial Law. The Generals made way for the Dollar.

With the death of President Ebert an election took place (1925). The Social-Democratic candidate, Braun, came second with 8 million votes, withdrew their candidate and supported the nominee (Marx) of the reactionary Catholic Centre Party, as the “ lesser evil."

At the elections in 1928 the Labour Party obtained its greatest victory—over 9 million votes, and the Communists three and a quarter million—on a programme differing very little from the ordinary capitalist parties. Very few among the voters wanted or understood Socialism and were mainly captured by the promise to break the shackles of Versailles. The Social-Democrats now joined a “People’s Front" and entered the capitalist coalition government, demonstrating their political unity and ideological agreement with Stresemann and the capitalists in general. Germany had its Snowdens, MacDonalds, etc. The chief task confronting this motley crew was to make Germany “independent,” that is to say, now that German industry was yielding large profits, the home capitalists wished to limit the grip of American finance and reap the harvest for themselves. The rôle of the Social-Democrats was the same the world over—to act as the facade and to harness the working class to the capitalist machine. For this they received the usual Judas price—a share in the Government and the large salaries that go with it.

Severing became Minister of Interior, Wissell Minister of Labour and Hilferding Finance. The Dawes Plan was superseded by a definite settlement named after its chief-financier, Young. Under the Young Plan the payments to be made by Germany were definitely fixed for 60 years. German capitalism was now master in its own house and the control imposed by the Dawes Plan finished and the Army of Occupation marched out of the Rhineland. Just at this time the “world economic crisis” made its appearance. The financial smash in the New York Stock Exchange let loose a flood which swept everything before it. How this affected Germany will be seen in our concluding article.

Lew.

A Pill For The Public (1938)

Book Review from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

“ Patent Medicines,” by Professor A. J. Clark (Fact, May, 1938).

The select committee set up by H.M. Government in 1914 to "consider and enquire into the question of the sale of patent and proprietary medicines” expressed the hope that the National Insurance Act would curtail the business in secret remedies. Their optimism has been far from justified, and the N.H.I. Act, having failed to put an end to illness, fanned the belief, already widespread, that health could be obtained from a bottle. A number of capitalists, more perspicacious than H.M. Commissioners, were well aware of this. They sank money in the production of patent medicines, and by one device or another encouraged the belief. The sick public, uninformed and receptive, swallowed thousands of panaceas from almost plain water to poisonous drugs, and paid well for the privilege. The proprietors, on the other hand, waxed prosperous.

Prof. A. J. Clark has set out the details in the Fact for May. Let us say here that the monograph is not written from a working-class angle, and that this entails a certain criticism, to which we shall allude later. But, subject to these limits, practically every aspect is covered in a simple and straightforward manner. We think that Prof. Clark might have detailed some of the huge profits made in the trade—for instance, Beecham’s Pills, Ltd., which markets many well-known proprietaries, such as Germolene, Iron Jelloids, Veno’s, Amami shampoos and the like, and has a capital of about two and a half million pounds, declared this year a profit of over £600,000 and a dividend of 85 per cent.

All sections of the community take patent medicines (the expression “Patent Medicine” only strictly applies to those registered under letters patent, of which there are actually very few). The volume of retail trade is, therefore, very large — possibly between £20 and £30 millions annually. The Government takes a rake-off in the shape of medicine stamp duty, which amounted in 1928-9 to one and one-third million pounds, since when it has declined by 44 per cent. Manufacturers found that by slightly altering the composition and printing on the package a pseudo-scientific formula, meaningless to the man in the street, they were legally exempt from paying the duty and pocketed the difference. We know of no case in which the price to the public was afterwards reduced. The law relating to patent medicines is, in fact, a confused jumble of statutes and regulations dating from 1787. It is still possible to use bogus testimonials from fictitious physicians, and perhaps even real physicians! There is a law of the most severe character against the supply of abortifacients; but under cover of wording which is well understood a loophole exists for the business to go on, a business for the most part in either useless or dangerous and always expensive drugs.

Various committees of enquiry have been set up, notably that of 1914, referred to above. Their report was devastating in its revelations and indictment of the patent medicine trade. “Naturally, however, it attracted no attention whatever at the time of its appearance and was allowed rapidly to pass out of print and is now very difficult to obtain. The reasons for its rapid disappearance are unknown” (page 29). The publications of certain analyses carried out by the British Medical Association vanished in an equally mysterious manner. The interests concerned were quite averse to anything being done, and it was pot until 1920 that a “Proprietary Measures Bill" based on the 1914 report, was introduced into the Lords, but “was allowed to perish for lack of Parliamentary facilities.” There' were further Acts in 1931 and 1936, both of which failed to become law. In 1936, however, the Government became alarmed at the decline in revenue, and a committee was set up to. consider this aspect alone. Their report, published in 1937, suggested a much wider basis of taxation, and “a Bill was promptly prepared in accordance with the recommendations of the select committee of 1937; it did not attempt any reform of the secret remedies fraud, but was simply designed to increase revenue by extending the scope of the incidence of the Medicine Duties. . . . The Bill perished chiefly because it proposed to tax cosmetics, a reasonable but highly unpopular proposal” (page 2$). As a matter of fact, there was much internal opposition to the bill, in particular from chemists, who would have lost certain privileges by its provisions and been placed on the same footing as grocers and other traders. No attempt whatever was made to protect the consumer at any stage.

Patent medicine proprietors are able to exercise a considerable pull over the Press, as the biggest single group of advertisers. One firm stated that it spent one-quarter million pounds in 1937 on publicity, largely in the Press. One of the effects of this expenditure is a virtual censorship of anything likely to endanger the patent medicine interests. Millions of people every year, who from malnutrition, bad housing, and overwork fall ill, succumb readily to the clever propaganda of the big advertising, often handled by firms which specialise in this work. And the more readily since the occasional exposures of danger and fraud rarely creep into the popular Press. These dangers and fraud are very real. A certain check is provided by recent poison regulations, but only this year 73 people in the U.S.A. were killed by a preparation before supplies were stopped. And there would have been no legal restriction on its sale in Great Britain. There is no account, of course, of those drugs which only kill if taken in time, or of the false inducement of security and hope. It is also certain that many workers afford patent remedies by cutting the purchase of vital necessities.

Prof. Clark suggests measures for dealing with the problem. It may be that for a variety of reasons a Government will one day be persuaded to frame new laws. They may even be operated. But the real trouble is that people are ill, and the problem one of preventing it—an impossibility while capitalism lasts. The patent medicine proprietors are in business for profit and indifferent to the harm and suffering they may inflict. Capitalist governments have already had 24 years since the first commission’s report to demonstrate their care for the working class. And the last Bill presented to the House was an attempt to increase revenue from the industry! Is it unlikely that any advantage to the workers from future enactments will only be incidental? There can be few grosser instances of the evil workings of the profit system than the patent medicine industry.

Kilner.

Donations to Party Funds. (1938)

Party News from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

How you can help to get the Socialist Standard known. (1938)

From the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Firstly, by getting the Socialist Standard on sale at newsagents. Write to our Publicity Committee and we will give you full information regarding terms and conditions.

Secondly, by getting the Socialist Standard into the public libraries. Write to your local librarian and suggest that he should put the Socialist Standard on show. Get your friends to write. The more local pressure there is the more successful you will be. Our own Libraries Secretary will co-operate from this end if you will communicate with us. And do not forget, once the Socialist Standard is on show, to pay a regular visit to the library and make sure it is well displayed; if not, do not fail to ask the reason why.

Thirdly, send a sixpenny postal order to the Publicity Committee, together with the address of a possible sympathiser, and we will send the Socialist Standard for three consecutive months. Your own name and address will not be disclosed in this connection.

Letter: A reader's criticism of the socialist attitude to Russia. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader's criticism of the socialist attitude to Russia.

A reader asks us to deal with the following letter of criticism of our attitude:

Finsbury Park, N.4.

Dear Comrades,

Do you realise how much harm you are doing to the cause of Socialism in this country by your persistent and consistent condemnation of Russia and Russia’s rulers? Granted, it may not be the particular brand of Socialism which you advocate. But, surely, you don’t forget to take into account Russia’s pre-revolution history? Do you expect a Social Nirvana in 20 years? And please don’t forget you are trying, by British standards, to sit in judgment upon the Russian temperament, one of the most baffling and complex races in the world. And have you no word of encouragement to say of her material and social achievements? I repeat that your attacks upon Russia are doing your movement far more harm than good. The Daily Express surely does the job with a lying completeness. that you could never overtake!

But let me point out to you the core of the danger. For good or ill, the undiscriminating average person always identifies Russia with Socialism. This, of course, is political ignorance. But you will agree with me that the majority of people in this country are politically uneducated. When you teach a small child to read you teach it to utter words. You don’t devote most of your time to teaching it the difference between a consonant and an adjective! That comes later, when the child’s mind has been released from the strain of memorising. And my point is this. Until the masses have become possessed of a general all-round knowledge of the curse of Capitalism in practice, and the solution of Socialism, they will have neither the patience nor the selective knowledge to want to investigate as to whether “ B ” Socialism is more sensible, humane, efficient and just than “ A ” Socialism. To condemn Russian Socialism, to our particular type of worker, is not to give them a true picture of Russia, so much as to damn Russia in their eyes, and in so doing all other Socialism stands equally damned. Concentrate more on the evils of capitalism, which they think are so normal and natural, demonstrate the simple answer of Socialism; and leave the raping of Russia to Beaverbrook’s ignorant paid hacks. Why do the dirty work for the Daily Express ?

M. F. Smyth (Mr.).

Reply.

Before dealing with our correspondent's temperate criticisms of our attitude towards the present rulers of Russia, it is necessary to protest against the unwarranted and unsupported insinuation that we are doing the dirty work of Lord Beaverbrook. We are quite prepared to defend what we do and say. We are not called upon to defend Lord Beaverbrook. If our correspondent, however, thinks we are paid by Lord Beaverbrook to attack the Russian Government it is his duty to provide some sort of evidence. If— as is no doubt the case—he knows perfectly well that his insinuation is absolutely false he should not try to score cheap points by making it. Incidentally, our correspondent appears not to know just what line Beaverbrook does now take towards Stalin. What Beaverbrook’s newspapers have been doing recently is to express admiration for Russia and to argue that the progress made in that country is a tribute to capitalism.

Our correspondent's first point is to say that Russia is a Socialist country, but not “the particular brand of Socialism" advocated by us. This is an old and dangerously muddled form of reasoning and one not confined to Russia. The S.P.G.B. does not advocate a “particular brand" of Socialism: there are no brands of Socialism. There is capitalism, in which goods are produced by wage-earners for sale at a profit, and in which there are privileged sections of the community with large incomes and accumulated wealth, and, on the other hand, there is Socialism, in which things are produced only for use and in which there is no system of wage-labour, no rents, interest or profit, no privileged and unprivileged sections of the population. All the so-called “brands” of Socialism, from Hitler's “pure National Socialism" to the various forms of State capitalism administered by Labour Governments, and including Stalin's State capitalism and Mussolini's system, which he claims is superior to both capitalism and Socialism, are one and all nothing more nor less than varieties of capitalism in various stages of development and under various systems of political control.

The first duty of Socialists in their task of explaining Socialism is to make it crystal clear that none of these varieties of capitalism is Socialism.

This brings us to our correspondent's analogy of teaching a child to speak; He says that we teach the child to utter words and do not devote most of our time to teaching the child the difference between parts of speech. True, but you do take care to teach the child approximately the correct meaning of the words. You do not point to a cat and say, “ That is a dog.” Similarly, as Socialism is a democratic system of society based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, nobody who appreciates the vital need for clarity and understanding would dream of pointing to the Russian dictatorship, in which inequality is great and growing as part of the declared policy of the rulers, and say, “ That is Socialism.”

We are asked to take into account Russia's pre-revolution history and the question is put: "Do you expect a Social Nirvana in 20 years?” The first argument is one used by every apologist for things as they are. Ever since there was a Socialist movement anti-Socialists have been trying to fog the issue and impede progress by telling the workers that things were worse still 50 years earlier, and that we must above all avoid going too fast. Naturally, the privileged group in Russia, living on a standard out of all reach of the mass of the population, reply to the latter's complaints by saying that Russia's pre-Bolshevik backwardness prevents things being improved for the masses. When the masses begin to think they will notice, however, that this factor has not prevented the minority from doing very well for themselves.

Our answer to the particular question is that we never accepted the early Bolshevik claims that Socialism was an immediate possibility in Russia. We pointed out from the first that Socialism will not be possible in Russia or anywhere else until industry has developed to a highly productive stage and the majority of the-population want Socialism. These conditions do not exist in Russia, so the Bolsheviks were either themselves mistaken or they were hoodwinking their followers when they promised Socialism.

It is correct, as our correspondent says, that the average worker identifies Socialism with Russia. He also identifies it with Labour Government and, if he is a typical non-Socialist German worker, he no doubt accepts Hitler’s claim that Germany is now a “pure Socialist” country. All of which are very urgent reasons why Socialists should lose no opportunity of proclaiming that the Russian secret police-ridden dictatorship is not Socialism. We do not want workers to be made lastingly hostile to Socialism by the belief that it means the suppression of speech, organisation, and a never-ending, sickening story of plots, murders, and shootings.

When our correspondent asks us to concentrate on the evils of capitalism he forgets that dictatorship and suppression are two of the most important evil results of capitalism. We shall go on denouncing them, whether in Germany, Russia, France, the British Empire or anywhere else.

We may add that, whether our correspondent is right or not about the Russian temperament, there is a growing mass of Russian workers who object to Stalin.

Ed. Comm.

Answers to Correspondents: Socialists and Parliament. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. G. E. J. Hill (Cheddar) asks the following questions:—

(1) Do you intend to send your own candidates, if possible, to Parliament ?

Answer.

Yes. A start is being made in East Ham North, where our candidate is in the field. The increase in the number of candidates and the return of Socialist candidates to Parliament depends, of course, on the growth in the number of Socialists among the electorate.

(2) Is there any present Parliamentary party you support?

Answer.

No. There are no Members of Parliament who were returned as Socialists, simply on the programme of instituting Socialism. The. Labour M.P.s and the handful of Communist and I.L.P. M.P.s were all returned on a reformist programme, by electors who still believe in the policy of trying to reform capitalism instead of abolishing it.

(3) Could not the S.P.G.B. enter the Labour Party and endeavour to lead it towards a genuine Socialist policy? .

Answer.

The S.P.G.B. is endeavouring to persuade the members of the Labour Party and also the much larger number of workers who are outside that party to adopt the Socialist policy instead of the reformist one. It is a difficult task. Many thousands of workers who know what the S.P.G.B. stands for reject it and choose Labour Party reformism instead. Some day they will learn better and choose Socialism, but already the choice is clear to them. If the S.P.G.B. entered the Labour Party (assuming, which is most unlikely, that the Labour Party would let us) the clear choice would disappear. The S.P.G.B., instead of standing plainly for Socialism, would be associated with reformism and would have to devote the greater part of its energies to explaining that it was in the Labour Party under false pretences and that it did not really accept the Labour programme and policy, although in order to receive affiliation it had to pretend that it did.

This would not keep the Socialist issue clear nor would it speed up the progress of Socialism.

Ed. Comm.

Answers to Correspondents: Why not a weekly “Socialist Standard” ?

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why not a weekly “Socialist Standard” ?

Mr, F. Smith (Finsbury Park) asks why we do not publish The Socialist Standard weekly. We would like to, but it is impossible with our present resources. Having no paid writers and speakers, the S.P.G.B. has to carry on all its propaganda activities through the voluntary work of members in their spare time. It is quite out of the question to publish a weekly journal in that way. When we have the resources, only to be got through more members, we shall not be content with a weekly, but shall want a daily, the first Socialist daily to be published in Great Britain.

Ed. Comm.

Answers to Correspondents. (1938)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. R. Jessop (Spalding).—Thanks for your letter containing many interesting questions. These will be taken up and replied to one by one as space permits. Ed. Comm.

D. G. Dennis (Clapham).—The questions in your letter will be dealt with in due course. At the moment we have a large number of questions awaiting reply in the “ S.S.” Ed. Comm.

J. C. Carr (Salford) and A. Thomson.—See reply to D. G. Dennis above. Ed. Comm.

Letter: The position of a Socialist minority in Parliament and on local councils. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The position of a Socialist minority in Parliament and on local councils.

Mr. R. Jessop (Spalding) asks a question which has often been answered in these columns, but which is obviously of continuing interest and merits repetition.

“What are the tactics of Socialist Members of Parliament in a minority position to be? Supposing the Government should introduce a Bill to increase Old Age Pensions, introduce wages boards, or any measure that would be of benefit to some section of the workers. Would the Socialists oppose such measures on the general grounds that they only deal with the effects of capitalism, or would they support them as giving the workers some small benefit whilst at the same time pointing out that Socialism was the only satisfactory solution to the problem?

The position of a Socialist Town or County Councillor also is not quite clear to me. Whilst capitalism continues, such individuals will be obliged to administer that system on housing committees, gas and water committees, A.R.P. committees, etc. Except that they will be standing by to help in the administration of Socialism, when it is instituted, they will, for the time being so far as I can see, have to do a similar job to any Labour Party member who can see nothing beyond combating the immediate ill-effects of capitalism. Is this your view?”

Regarding Parliament, the answer, in brief, is that a minority of Socialist M.P.s would vote for or against measures introduced by other parties, or refrain from voting, in accordance with the Socialist Party’s view as to which course would be in the interest of the working class and Socialism. To use our correspondent’s own words, they would vote for certain measures “as giving the workers some small benefit, whilst at the same time pointing out that Socialism was the only satisfactory solution to the problem.”

A minority of Socialist M.P.s would obviously not vote against a measure which simply raised old-age pensions, or raised wages, or helped trade union organisation, or made it easier to carry on Socialist propaganda or organisation.

It would, however, be of the greatest importance that a Socialist minority should retain its complete independence and not enter into pacts or bargains with other parties or groups. Its position would be quite different from that of the Labour Party minority, which is elected on a non-Socialist programme by electors who are reformists, not Socialists, and which does enter into arrangements with other Parliamentary parties.

The position is much the same on local Councils, but it is not that stated by our correspondent, who takes it for granted that the minority of Town Councillors must take part in and share responsibility for the administration of local affairs. Although Labour minorities habitually sit on the sub-committees of the Council there is no need for them to do so. A Socialist minority of Councillors would use their position on the Council to put forward the Socialist view, but would make it clear that the majority in control were responsible for Council decisions and for the carrying out of the work of the Council on sub-committees and in the various departments of the local authority services.

The local authorities in Great Britain only have the powers devolved upon them by Parliament and the central Government. They cannot act on their own responsibility, outside the limits set for them. The Council majority are, in effect, only the agents of the central Government, and when a Council refuses to carry out the central Government’s wishes steps are taken, as at Poplar some years ago, to have local services carried on irrespective of the wishes of local electors and their representatives on the Council. A Socialist minority (or even a Socialist majority) on a local Council would be governed as to what they could do by Parliament and the central Government and the electors who voted Socialist would very well realise this and not expect their Socialist delegates on the Council to do the impossible.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: Suppose Hitler and Mussolini attack Great Britain. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (Mr. J. C. Carr, Salford) puts several questions. Two of them, and our answers, are printed below. Others will be dealt with as space permits.

Suppose Hitler and Mussolini attack Great Britain.

The S.P.G.B. naturally does not agree with imperialist war, but what would you do if Hitler and Mussolini were to attack this country? Would the workers he expected to stand still with their arms tied as it were behind their backs?

Reply.

The answer, of course, is yes! Why ever not ? Hitler and Mussolini (which means the German and Italian sections of the robber class) would have only one object in threatening war against the British section of the robber class, that is, to plunder them right and left of the wealth they have accumulated and are now accumulating by the exploitation of the working class in the British Empire. The British ruling class would howl with pain and fury, but if the British workers stood still and declined to get all worked up over the thieves' quarrel the British would have to buy off their German and Italian rival bandits by handing over some of the spoil. For example, they would have to hand over lumps of the overseas Empire and, perhaps, pay colossal “reparations," thus reversing (as far as Germany is concerned) the process going on after 1918. But why should the workers worry about that? They might even find, as German workers in the post-War years, that unemployment would decline, while deliveries of goods were being made to the foreign powers, and also that when a ruling class has its hands full dealing with a stronger foreign power it is apt to be much less dictatorial and much more accommodating to its own subject class. It needs their loyal support and has to pay for it.

To put the matter in proper perspective, it should be observed that the German and Italian Governments would not want to add to their burdens by actually occupying Great Britain, but even if they did temporarily do so (as the British and French occupied German territory after 1918), it would perhaps be a trifle irritating, but the working class would go on living (or partly living) just as usual.

Moreover, and this is important, if the British workers behaved sensibly and refused to fight for their masters, Hitler and Mussolini would find their difficulties multiplied at home. German and Italian workers may be war-mad and imperialism-mad for a while (but their record is no worse and is, indeed, a trifle better than that of the British workers), but when they found that stories of Germany and Italy being threatened by British workers were false they would begin to turn their attention to their own wrongs once more.

Ed. Comm.

Would arms be useful to the workers?

Question.

I suppose you would say don’t re-arm for the capitalists. Did the possibility ever strike you that arms would be useful things to seize and capture for the establishment of the workers’ State?

Reply.

Regarding the first part of the question, our answer can only be that it does not matter what we say about re-armament at the present time. The British workers, because they are not Socialists, returned the present Government to office at the last election with power to re-arm, and the capitalists are going on with it, no matter what anyone says.

Regarding the main part of the question, the possibility of gaining control of the armed forces of the State struck the S.P.G.B. so forcibly and so early that it was embodied in our Declaration of Principles when they were formulated in 1904. But it all presupposes several things. For the workers to have arms means nothing whatever apart from the ideas in the workers' minds. In 1914, when many British workers were war-mad, they did not want arms in order to establish Socialism, but in order to kill their fellow-workers abroad and, incidentally, to kill members of the S.P.G.B. at home.

So, until the workers want Socialism, having arms will not help. When the workers do want Socialism then they will indeed be able to gain possession of the armed forces, along with the rest of the machinery of Government, by means of the vote, just in the same way that Hitler and Mussolini and the British ruling class have done.

We are reminded of the story (it is related by men who are now members of the S.P.G.B.) of how in 1919, just after the War, they were so disillusioned that they listened readily to some organisation preaching armed revolt. They discussed it before demobilisation and as soon as they had handed in their rifles, on being demobilised, they rushed round to a meeting of the organisation to consider ways and means of getting arms!

It shows the absurdity of the idea, for in practice the soldier has no more control of his gun than the worker has control over his employer’s factory. While the workers as a whole are prepared to vote the capitalist class into power it is they, through the State, who control the soldiers’ guns and everything else.

Ed. Comm.

SPGB Meetings (1938)

Party News from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

The July 21st 1938 Lewisham Branch meeting, "Breakaway Unions—For or Against" is an interesting one. Frank Snelling and Bill Waters were both bus workers, and were both involved in rank and file movements in their union. Snelling ended up leading a breakaway union. More details about the bus workers, their rank and file movement and background on Frank Snelling are available at the following links:

• Aug 1938: 'The Busmen's Problem: New Unions or old'
• Oct 1946: 'Mr. Thurtle misfires'
• Apr 1995: Review of Ken Fuller's Radical Aristocrats: London Busworkers from the 1880s to the 1980s

East Ham Parliamentary Campaign (1938)

Party News from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

General Open Air Propaganda (1938)

Party News from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: The Popular Front Splits the French Labour Party (1938)

Editorial from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who preach the Popular Front place in the forefront of their arguments the gain in unity and strength that would be achieved. They say, very plausibly, that as there is a common need for peace and democracy all parties which attach importance to these objects should get together, even if they associate only in a loose Popular Front electoral arrangement. One fallacy in this argument is the idea that adherents of political parties are so many pawns who can be moved here and there without a will of their own. Experience shows that this is not the case. Party Boss “A" may get together with Boss "B" of a rival party and calculate that 2,000,000 votes plus 1,000,000 votes makes a grand total of 3,000,000, but in practice electors refuse to be added up. Many supporters of the Labour Party, for example, are strongly opposed to the Communist Party and others are equally strongly opposed to the Liberal Party. If an electoral arrangement were to be entered into some of these would simply refuse to vote, or give their votes elsewhere. In other words, most people who attach themselves to a political party do so because they have confidence in that party’s programme, and many of them refuse to be enthusiastic about electoral bargains, at which their votes are bought and sold.

A second weakness, or, rather, a particular aspect of the first, is that unity of the Popular Front kind is a forced and very delicate plant. It will not stand up to the cold winds of failure. Blum, in France, entered office at the head of a Popular Front Government two years ago amid hysterical enthusiasm. After early activity, the first Blum Government and later a second Blum Government faded out. Now a Liberal Government is being kept in office by Labour and Communist votes, and the consequence has been that Blum and his Executive Committee are having difficulty in keeping their own party together. Blum's present policy of keeping the Liberal Government in office, in spite of his own declaration that members of it are very “reactionary," was approved by the Party Conference last month only by a comparatively small majority, and one large group have broken away and formed a rival party because they disapprove.

Editorial: Beating the War Drums (1938)

Editorial from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

War-Fever is in the air again. A seamen's leader wants the British navy to bombard some city in rebel Spain as revenge for the bombing of British ships trading in Republican ports. British Chambers of Commerce ask the Government to take a drastic line against Germany for her repudiation of loans made by British investors to Austria. Labour leaders want us to be prepared to go to war to prevent the Germans in Czechoslovakia from following their desire to be incorporated in Hitler Germany. Others want us to go to war to prevent one bloodthirsty gang of dictators—the Chinese group round Chiang-Kai-Shek—from being thrown out by their Japanese prototypes. All very heroic—assuming, of course, that the mouth-fighters are not proposing to leave the real fighting to others—but all very silly, as if the last Great War had never happened to teach them that war is waged by rival capitalist groups about their interests, not ours. No matter how the warmongers try to gloss over the facts, the truth remains that all these wars and prospective wars are fought for capitalist purposes, not to secure the establishment of some ideal of democracy, nationalism or anything else.

The workers are asked to make the supreme sacrifice in the name of patriotism, but if the people who own this country were threatened with the sacrifice of their property they would rush into the arms of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini or any other destroyer of human liberties to safeguard their possessions.

Notes by the Way: Will the Forty Fall for it? (1938)

The Notes by the Way Column from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will the Forty Fall for It?

It is Lord Beaverbrook’s boast that he allows much latitude to his writers and cartoonists— Low in particular—to say or draw what they like. This lands him often in the peculiar position of having the feebleness of his policies exposed by Low’s wit or some telling fact in an article. Recently, during a period of five or six weeks, his editorial arguments for national defence were blown sky high by displayed articles in his Daily Express. First came an article showing how “our" England is owned by a handful of landlords, so that not one in forty of us owns any soil in the land we call our own. Then came an editorial saying that it is only right and democratic that we should have conscription in war-time; every man should take part in national defence. Then this was elaborated in an article which assured the dictators that an attack on England would cause every man to leap to the defence of his native soil!

All of which boils down to this, that the 40 who own no soil are to be conscripted to defend the monopoly rights of the 41st. A very excellent doctrine for the latter, but a strange interpretation of democracy.

The answer of the workers to Lord Beaverbrook—and to the Labour Party advocates of “war to defend democracy"—should be a very determined declaration that they will be willing to defend their native soil when they own it and not before, and that in the meantime they intend to devote their whole energies to gaining possession.

* * * *

The Slum Empire—New Landlords Want to Move In

In order to justify the seizure of the German colonies after the Great War the Allied Governments, their own hands red with the blood of natives slaughtered to protect profits, dwelt on the unfitness of Germans to administer colonies. They lacked, so it appeared, that inherited capacity of the Britisher to rob the native and make him like it at one and the same time.

Now come the West Indian troubles to upset the legend, at a very awkward time, too, just when the Germans are preparing to resume the “white man's burden."

Here are a few of the things said by Mr. Lloyd George in the House of Commons on June 14th, 1938, based on what he saw when he was in Jamaica last year:—

    . . .  he spent over three months in Jamaica, and he was perfectly appalled at the conditions. He felt ashamed that we should have tolerated—and for a very long time—such a state of things under the British flag while we were boasting about our great Empire.
  There was no language, however violent, adequate to describe the conditions (in Kingston, Jamaica).
     In Jamaica wages were incredibly low—he did not know how the people lived and kept a family—and the housing conditions were indescribable. We did not want a slum Empire.

(The Times, June 15th, 1938.) 

Promptly the German Press has drawn a moral in conformity with the desires of the German capitalist.

The official German newspaper, Diplomatic Correspondence, says (Manchester Guardian, June 16th) that the Jamaica disturbances prove that new blood is needed in the government of the Colonies —German blood, of course. The British Government shows “a lack of the right attitude towards the natives. . . . It is once more seen that the nation which likes to be called the first and oldest colonial Power in the world is repeatedly confronted with tasks with which it cannot adequately cope . . ."

The Diplomatic Correspondence goes on to re-inforce its argument from the Palestine troubles

* * * *

How to Spell "Slump"

During the last industrial crisis a writer in The Socialist Standard jeered at the capitalists and their economic advisers because of their inability to learn anything from a crisis or a dozen crises. Always they cherish the same illusions and twitter about the same "remedies," only to discover afresh each time that the permanent prosperity they believed in had crashed again.

We owe our masters an apology. They really have learned something new and refreshing this time. It consists in the remarkable discovery that there will never again be a slump because slumps are in future to be called “recessions."

* * * *

"Basic Incomes": Another Effort to Reform Capitalism

An organisation called the Society to Promote Human Equality has published a pamphlet on “Basic Incomes," which contains for its size (16 pages) a remarkable amount of error and confusion. The scheme, one which has appeared before under various names, is that each individual should receive from the Government an income of 4s. a week; the amount to be increased later on. It would be paid to everyone, from millionaire to pauper.

The authors discuss such questions as the way the money will be provided and the likely effects of the scheme, but are so delightfully vague about everything that it is a little difficult to pin them down. In their own words, the scheme is "experimental" and we would have to wait and see what result it produced.

An example of their vagueness is the following statement on raising the money: —

   How is the money to be found? Three ways only seem to present themselves: (a) By taxation; (b) By the creation of currency or credit; (c) By profits arising from publicly-owned industries. We are concerned mainly that the money should be found by one, or by a combination of the three methods, (p.6.)

The writers are not quite sure whether there are only three ways of doing it, and they are even less sure which way they will use, so they are concerned (but only "mainly") to do it by one, or possibly by all three, of the ways.

They are equally unsure of the effect. They recognise (page 8) that when the worker gets his 4s. per head of his family, his wages may be reduced as a consequence, but, they add, “the cost of production would be reduced, prices would be lower, and real incomes would advance." They leave out of account the more obvious conclusion that, if an employer is able to reduce his wages bill, his profits will be correspondingly increased.

In short, the scheme is an example of the futility of trying to cure a disease before understanding it. The writers live in an abstract world and do not know the real one, in which wages roughly correspond with the workers' cost of living. They do not know that the workers must be kept poor, otherwise they would not work to produce profits for the capitalist class. They do not see that subsidies paid by the Government to supplement wages only result in bringing down the wage level correspondingly, yet this was well enough known a century or more ago, when the practise of subsidising agricultural wages with poor relief was common.

* * * *

The Man Who Did Not Know When To Be Cruel To Children

The military mind is a remarkable thing. An aircraftman who made his seven-year-old son pick up hot coal has been dismissed. For being cruel to a child? But surely that is what aircraftmen are for! Bombing planes are kept precisely for the purpose of slaughtering children’s fathers in foreign air forces, destroying homes, and maiming mothers and children wholesale. Of course, “our" Air Force, like all the others, will protest with their hands on their hearts that they are only for national defence, and that they will only bomb military objects and points of use to military forces. But as that includes railways, factories, roads, bridges, food supplies, etc., etc., and as nobody but a fool believes that bombs can select their targets, the truth is that all air forces are babykilling brigades. Imagine what would happen in war to this particular aircraftman if he returned from a raid with his bombs not thrown, with the excuse that he could not be sure he did not hit some enemy child.

Edgar Hardcastle