A blue-blooded hippopotamus. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lest we congratulate ourselves too early that the violent hysteria which has seized the Press and public is subsiding, and that Reason is climbing back to her perch, we are rudely shaken by that daily masterpiece of culture and refinement, the “Daily Express,” into a due regard for the stern realities of a coronation. The “Daily Express” is not a paper to be read every day. Nature has wisely ordained otherwise. I refer to that well-known fact of psychology by which it is incumbent that the more intense pleasures should be tasted relatively infrequently. A regular reader of the sheet referred to is a deplorable spectacle, and as much to be pitied as a victim of the opium habit.

The usual brilliancy of the “Daily Express’s” dazzling pages reached its blinding zenith a few days ago, when it informed the mere work-a-day world that the King—God bless him !—was, in the opinion of the Boy Scouts, a hippopotamus. This, of course, will be greeted by the less intelligent (that is if the first paroxysm of shocked patriotism leaves him mentally whole) with what is known to “Daily Express” readers as a howl of derision, followed by an expression of unbelief in our good faith. Any criticism on these lines is silenced by referring those so afflicted to the “Daily Express” of Saturday, June 10.

To save you any trouble in the matter I will quote the first part of the column in full :

#    #    #    #

THIRTY THOUSAND BOY SCOUTS.

WEIRD ZULU WELCOME TO THE KING.

“HE IS A LION—A LION.”

“Thirty thousand Boy Scouts will greet the King at Windsor on July 4, and the form of their greeting will be far from conventional. The long lines of a military parade will be lacking, for Lieut.-General Baden Powell will marshal the Scouts after the manner of Zulu and Basuto impis.

“Every Scout will give the call of his patrol bird or animal—the wolf, bull, rattlesnake, hyena, peewit, cuckoo, and scores of others. Then there will be a dead silence, and a moment later the Scouts will sing the weird Zulu chant :—

‘Een gonyâma, yonyâma.

Invooboo

Yah bô ! Yah bô !

Invooboo.’

which, being interpreted means :— 

‘He is a lion—a lion ! 

Yes ! he is better than that ; he is a hippopotamus!’ ”

So that you will perceive that the Boy Scouts are not so mad as they look, not by a jugful. Yah bo ! Yah bo ! The Editor’s salary to three yonyâmas that not one Englishman in a thousand knew the true inwardness of Yah bo until June 10. I hope, further, that any takers will journey to ancient and castellated Windsor on July 4, and take a gramophone record of 30,000 wolves, bears, bulls, rattlesnakes, hyenas, cuckoos, peewits, etc., in full song, and present it to an Institution for Broken-down Clergymen, to be used as a sedative, or to give them a kindly foretaste of the bliss to come. Let him save a record blank until after the “dead silence.” Dead silence sounds ominous and almost prophetic, doesn’t it ? Thirty thousand sparrow-legged Boy Scouts yell Yah bo ! to the King of England, Emperor of India, etc., provides a spectacle which is at once inspiring, illuminating and of happy augury. This is a joy that Caesar never tasted. Neither Alexander nor Pompey could command it. Thirty thousand penny broomsticks athwart the blue of heaven, and then : “Yah bo ! Invooboo ! ”

Ah ! God is good ! Centuries, ages, aeons of evolution, and then to come to “Yah bo!” Enough ! Our duty is plain and clear as a pitchfork. Our youth shall be instructed in the whole art and mystery of gonyâma, coupled with Yah bo. After which—we shall see what we shall see.

PARIS.

“Daily Express” policy. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Commenting on the article “King Capital’s Coronation” in our June issue, the Daily Express of June 8 waxes righteously pharisaic.

It compares Socialism, which “means degradation and ruin,” with Daily Expressism, which “supports all measures designed to lift humanity to higher levels, to improve the conditions of life for all classes, to add to the sum of human happiness, and to promote the welfare of the whole community.”

Also—but this quite incidentally—”to make the workers more efficient” and “to give the British manufacturer fair play.”

That is what we workers are too stupid to see. If instead of studying Socialism we read the Daily Express, what an improvement would be wrought in us. Made thereby wiser and more efficient we should no longer dream of wronging the poor downtrodden manufacturer. We should learn to love “laws which are immutable” and to bear patiently “distresses which must continue as long as the world shall last.”

But a horrid thought obtrudes.

If economic laws are immutable and social distress unending, why does the Daily Express waste its time in supporting measures designed “to uplift humanity to higher levels,” etc ?

Can it be that Mr. Pearson, who is really responsible for this balderdash, doesn’t care a hang about the world’s impossible uplifting, but looks only to certain social and financial benefits which such twaddle obtains from the capitalists and their Government ? Perish the suggestion !

None the less, there is something the workers can learn from the Daily Express.

It is not to throw money away buying it.

A. Hoskyns

King Capital’s Coronation and its real meaning to the working class. (1911)

From the June 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much Ado About the.

A King is to be crowned.

In the presence of our Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Premiers of the five dominions of “our” mighty Empire, arid the assembled monarchs of many lands, and the Lord God of Israel and the Stock Exchange himself.

The Crown, and the Sceptre, and the Sword of State, and the Cap of Maintenance, and the Rod with the Dove, and the Monkey on the Stick, and all the other symbolical insignia and regalia which have come down to us from barbarism, along with ye Ancient Order of Foresters and ye game of skittles, are to be brought from their dungeon in the Tower (where they have rivalled a pawnbroker’s window) and taken to the House of God at Westminster, there to be used in the great ceremony.

And there, before a vast concourse of gentlemen who have won the same distinction in the divorce court that their forefathers gained in piratical, slave-hunting, and other plundering forays of the past, and of high born dames whose “Sir Joshua Reynolds” peach-bloom cheeks are veritable triumphs of the house-decorator’s art, and other high-born dames whose ancient lineage goes back to the mighty Pork Kings of Chicago, one George Wettin, a most cosmopolitan British gentleman, will swear great oaths to be faithful to certain hoary superstitions, and to uphold certain important and worthy institutions, and to lay hold of eternal life, and to do it all for the dirt-cheap, upset-competition price of a million a year or nearest offer.

Shampooing of George Wettin.

And then another gentleman, who makes a point of doing the job in his nightshirt, scabs on and scandalises every tiddle-wig in the Kingdom by giving the said G. Wettin a dry shampoo with consecrated hair oil, in the full blaze of the public eye, and to the evident perturbation of the Unicorn, who claims affinity with the barbers by virtue of the pole sticking out of his forehead.

What does it all mean; the Crown, and the Orb, and the Sceptre and the Sword of State, and the Cap of Maintenance, and the rest of the jewelled symbols?

What does it mean: the swelling Anthem, the mumbled prayer, the intoned exhortation, the anointing with oil, the Crowning and Enthronisation?

What does it mean: the barbaric pomp and splendour, the lavish display of wealth, the clank of arms and armour and the jingle of spurs, the foregathering from the ends of the earth of the Empire’s rulers?

What does it mean: the flaunting flags, the streets lined with police and military, the hoarse acclamation of pallid millions whose rags flutter a significant reply to the bunting overhead, the bestowing of a meal upon thousands of little children whom hunger makes glad to accept even such a trifle from hands so heavy-laden with wealth that they cannot feel the weight of the charitable grains they scatter?

We are told that these gaudy jewels, this “impressive service”, are full of symbolism and historic significance. They are indeed. To the worker who will think it is very obvious that the Crown and the Sceptre and the rest are the symbols of ruling power. But who it is that rules, and who it is that are ruled, are matters less generally understood.

It is commonly believed that “royal” power is the attribute of the monarch of a constitutional country, but nothing could be farther from the truth. That question our capitalist masters in this country fought out many years ago. They have left the King his name and his robes, his Crown and his palaces, but they have stripped him of every vestige of power. The “Crown” is not the King, in any capacity, but the capitalist State. The King’s Speech to Parliament is written by his Ministers, even the prerogative of mercy is not the King’s, but belongs to the capitalist Cabinet.

How are the Mighty Fallen!

The subservience of the royalty of capitalist countries to their capitalist paymasters is shown in such acts as that of the present King’s father (then Prince of Wales) in publicly associating himself, at the time of the “trial” of the Jameson raiders, with Cecil Rhodes, the arch-fiend in that disgusting business, who was even then busy engineering the war which was to give the cosmopolitan mine-owners £4,000,000 a year in extra profits, at the cost of so many thousands of workingmen’s lives.

Even the swearing to uphold the institutions of capitalism is all bunkum and make-believe, There is today, in this country at all events, no institution of capitalism that the capitalists themselves are not fully able to maintain, or that they trust to other hands than their own. Why, this man whom they swear to uphold the very walls of capitalism, they do not trust even with the command of one of the fleets of his own (!) navy, for fear he might be in a position to dictate terms to them, or act detrimentally to their interests.

The King as such is a nonentity, a dummy, a convenient cloak behind which the capitalist class carry on their operations of robbing the workers of the fruits of their toil. As a private individual, the landlord of vast estates, George Wettin may make himself feared, but no one trembles at his royal word, or quakes at the thunder of his anointed brow. If the great ones of the capitalist world bow and scrape before him, it is only because he is the incarnation of capitalism, the symbol of the domination of a class of parasites and thieves, the image of themselves triumphant. They know that while the workers will flock in millions to cheer this straw man of theirs, dragged through the streets like a fifth of November guy, they and their plunder are safe. Hence they set the example of deification, knowing well they will be followed by their sheep.

Playing the Game.

The aim of the master class is to keep the workers ignorant, for an ignorant subject class, not knowing how to act in their own interests, can be more easily and inexpensively kept in subjection than an educated one. In fostering this ignorance the first thing to be done is to preserve the inertia of the mind – the tendency of the mind to run in an unchanging direction.

The capitalists know, as well as we do, that it is changing environment that causes the alteration in the mental outlook of the people. Their great endeavour, therefore, is to oppose to that ceaseless evolution in the world about them, over which they have no control, counteracting conditions and influences. Hence they cling with the tenacity of desperation, to the empty husks and decaying forms of the past.

This can be seen in every dominant interest, since every interest, when it has become dominant, becomes conservative and reactionary. It explains why the Catholic Church clings so frantically to its out-of-date forms, why the Anglican and other Churches set their faces so relentlessly against innovation, and why capitalist countries would rather convert their monarchies to their own ends than abolish them.

The Use of Kings.

A king, in the popular mind, rules by divine sanction and in accordance with grey and hoary custom – as the Archbishop will remind the world at the great shampooing in the words: “Be thou anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. And as Solomon was appointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be you anointed, blessed and consecrated king over this people, whom the Lord thy God has given you to govern.”

The capitalists, on the other hand, have no ancient usage behind them, no special appointment from heaven. Unless they can disguise the fact of their dominance, they are clearly seen to rule by might alone – a perpetual challenge to might. A ruling class which has to confess that it rules because it possesses the means of life, already has one foot in the grave, for it holds a lamp to the line of class cleavage that all men may see.

This is the real use of monarchs in capitalist States. Behind the person of the King the capitalists can hide the fact that it is they in reality who rule. By parading their kings before the workers at every possible opportunity, and with every circumstance of pomp and display that their ingenuity can invent, by investing them with divine right and something of divinity itself, the capitalists awaken and stimulate and nurture that spirit of reverence which is so deadly an enemy to the growth of revolutionary ideas, and so detract attention from themselves.

As it is to the interest of the capitalist class to represent that they, together with the working class, are subservient to a greater power, and to set the example of loyalty to their king, it becomes the imperative duty of Socialists to strip the sham of all its disguising tinsel, and to expose the grim, sordid, unromantic, iron form of tyrant Capital beneath it all. No kingly power exists today in Western Europe. Everywhere the owners of the means of production have either bent the monarchy to their will or broken it. Power lies alone with the class of property-owners. They rule who “buzz” us to the check-board at dawn, who tell us we are “sacked” at dusk; they rule who grind our faces on the factory mill-stones; and rob us at the pay-box; they rule who lock us out of the workshops and quarries and mines, in order to convince us by starvation that their view of the value of our labour is correct; they rule who make mockery of their own laws, and bury our poor fellows alive in blazing coal seams in the bowels of the earth. They rule who own.

Clear your minds, fellow workers, of any idea that these Prime Ministers of the Dominions of the Empire have gathered together to render homage to the house of Hanover. They come to celebrate the dominion of their class and to take steps in conference assembled, to ensure the continued crucifixion of Labour. The whole of this inglorious show, indeed, is subordinate to this object. It is not an effort to solidify and make more stable the monarchy, but to blind the workers to their true position, and make capitalist domination more secure.

It is for this reason that the impudent thieves mock your poverty by flaunting in your faces the wealth they have stolen from you. They wish you to believe that you are sharers in the stupendous opulence all their efforts could not hide from your vision. The late Lord Salisbury, wise in his generation, once cynically said that what the working class wanted was not education but a circus. They are giving us a circus, in order to make our minds less receptive of education.

Fellow workers, there is but one meaning attaching to class rule, and that is class plunder. No man wishes to rule over another except to plunder him. Consider whence comes all this wealth and luxury which is to riot before your weary eyes? Is there one jot or tittle of it that you have not made? You, the workers of the world are the true Atlas. You carry the world upon your shoulders. Your strong arms sow, and reap, and gather the harvest of the field, your stout hearts face the terrors of the mine and battle with the dangers of the deep; your virile brains conquer natural forces, and turn the tyrants of the Cosmic System into agents of wealth production. And what is your portion of it all?

This question is answered by the ranks of armed men who press your serried masses into the gutters, by the gaudy regimental banners whose last glorious inscriptions are “Belfast” and “Tonypandy”, by the proposal to compel you to pay to ensure that you shall have 6s. a week to keep wife and family on when you are unemployed.

As long as you are ruled starvation will be your lot, for those who rule over you can always plunder you and always will. You are ruled, not by kings, but by those who possess the land, mines, factories, machinery, railways, and other means of production and distribution, and just because they possess those things. Since you are denied access to those things all the doors of life are shut against you except that of the labour market. You must become wage slaves – must sell your energies to those who own the productive forces. This means that goods are produced for profit, and that profit, that wealth you produce but which is taken away from you, goes to glut the market and to throw you out of work, so that you and your children starve when the warehouses are fullest.

The remedy for all this is to take these means of production and distribution away from their present owners and make them the property of the whole community. Bread will then be produced to feed people, not for profit, and clothes to clothe them, and houses to shelter them. All able-bodied adults will take part in the necessary social labour, and all will partake freely of the wealth produced.

To do this the workers must first study Socialism and organise to capture political power, in order that the political machinery may be used to end for ever the class domination which political power alone upholds.

A. E. Jacomb

50 Years Ago: Sidelights on Capitalist Rule (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the themes of Mr. Harold Nicolson’s biography of the late King George V is that he showed a good grasp of problems of government and, indeed, the examples quoted do seem to indicate that he often displayed more insight and level-headedness than some of the leading politicians. But what is the major problem of the governments of capitalism? It is of course to keep the working class as far as possible satisfied with the system under which they are exploited, and if they can’t be kept satisfied, at least to keep them quiet. One example selected by a Manchester Guardian reviewer is George V’s handling of the political crisis which brought down MacDonald’s Labour Government in 1931 and led to the formation of a “national” three party government with MacDonald as Prime Minister.

During the crisis the King interviewed the leader of the Liberals Sir Herbert Samuel and according to Mr. Nicolson’s account this is what was said:-

“Sir Herbert ‘told the King that, in view of the fact that the necessary economies would prove most unpalatable to the working-class, it would be to the general interest if they could be imposed by a Labour Government. The best solution would be if Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, either with his present or with a reconstituted Labour Cabinet, could propose the economies required. If he failed to secure the support of a sufficient number of his colleagues, then the best alternative would be a National Government composed of members of the three parties.’”

Further information was given by Sir Oliver Wigram in his record of a later discussion with the King. He says that the King found:-

“Sir Herbert Samuel the clearest-minded of the three and said he had put the case for a National Government much clearer than either of the others. It was after the King’s interview with Sir Herbert Samuel that His Majesty became convinced of the necessity for the National Government.”

When MacDonald went to see the King to tell him that “all was up” with the Labour Government, the King impressed on him “that he was the only man to lead the country through this crisis and he hoped he would reconsider the situation.”

It would certainly seem that Sir Herbert Samuel (now Viscount Samuel) had a very shrewd idea of the part a Labour Government can play in keeping capitalism on an even keel.

(From Socialist Standard , September 1952)

Sugar-coated. (1913)

From the April 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is “A Magazine for the Home” called “The Helpful Friend.” The local Baptist bible-banger or one of his emissaries comes “like a thief in the night” and thrusts a copy, month by month, in my letter-box. I do not know whether he regards this as inserting “the thin end of the wedge,” or as “doing good by stealth,” though I look to settle this point, among others, when I catch him at it.

But if “The Helpful Friend” is not a friend, it is sometimes helpful, for even the cat would laugh if it was given to reading its pages.

In the current issue the Rev. F. B. Meyer, keeper of the “Nonconformist Conscience” and the man who stopped the prize fight, writing under the title “Everyday Miracles,” says : “To turn water into wine is to ennoble what is common and ordinary.”

Now this is very frank. The Church, as a rule, is rather loth to publicly recognise the locus standi of “booze,” whatever opinion it may hold in private. But the truth is out at last, and we know that water is common, ordinary, and plebian (like the present scribe), while wine is noble and aristocratic (like you, fair reader).

Omar Khayyam and the parson reconciled at last !

* * *

This leads us to the thought that we live in a wonderfully democratic age. Only a few days ago King George V. of glorious memory (when he’s dead, of course) whose blood is the bluest of the blue (though I hope it will never make itself obtrusively manifest in the Royal countenance) went all the way to Chingford to open a “common and ordinary” reservoir.

If one might think the Royal thoughts they were probably “how fine it would be if Jesus were here now, so that once again it might happen that (as the Rev. F. B. Meyer puts it) ‘The modest water saw her God and blushed.'” After all, it is one of the saddest reflections to think that so much water remained “common and ordinary” for want of a presence next higher in rank than His Majesty, and no doubt the King, who is not altogether the backbone of the temperance movement, would see it in this light.

But what I intended to remark was, if the King would take so much trouble over “common, ordinary” water, to what lengths of condescension, self-sacrifice, and democracy would he go for that nobler liquid whose modesty is so intense as not only to cause her to blush, but to cause her king to blush also !

* * *

But the Rev. F. B. M. explains the ancient miracle in a way that looks to me suspiciously like robbing his Saviour, and if it wasn’t for my rooted objection to advertising a person who would do such a thing I would charge him with it—I would, really. I have always been taught that Jesus turned the water into wine, and now this clerical ragamuffin comes along and says he didn’t : the water blushed ! For shame ! For the proverb sayeth: “All is not wine that blushes.”

* * *

In the same article the reverend gent remarks with evident feeling: “How many innocent” (that means cheap) “joys there are in ail lives, however sad and dark !” (That means out of work.) “The morning flush,” (that’s washing the streets down in the night) “the evening glow,” (the night shift in the foundry know what this means) “the tender green”

(That’s the tender that takes ashore

The emigrant’s mother he’ll see no more.)

“and laughing flowers of spring,” (I don’t believe they do it,) “the many sounds of nature from the roll of the breaker” (that, evidently, is the machine that breaks up the roads and saves the man with the pickaxe the trouble—a very innocent joy, that,) “and hum of insect life” (kill that fl—); “the unexpected gleams of sunshine” (that’s when the office windows are cleaned) “which now from this side and now from that” (Its a very dodgy sort of sun, you know, that performs this “everyday miracle.”) “send a thrill through the heart” (That’s shock !) “and a light over the countenance.” (That’s what causes it: its so rare and unexpected.)

Now it will be noticed that the parson’s share of the above is divine truth (suitably hidden, of course, as divine truth always is, from the gaze of the vulgar), while my share is revelation. The two together are division of labour, and as such they are economically sound. (I had it in mind to say that they are sound in another way, mine being sound and the Holy Joe’s noise, but let that pass.) Beyond this I have only to say that they are a jolly cheap lot (in which respect they may be likened unto water), and that if the worker can only be brought to realise that (as the Rev. F. B. M. puts it) “he takes them all straight from the hand of Christ,” then the conclusion of the Rev. gent, that “it is this fact which turns the water into wine,” will be established on impregnable rock, and another “everyday miracle” will be achieved.

Which, of course, is why our dear brother in God wrote his message, and why the inspired word was put into my letter-box, and why I have donned the mantle of the prophet and revealed divine truth, which else had lain hidden like the germ in the german sausage.

* * *

The Reverend author rounds off with the assurance that ” He keeps the best till last,” and closes with those lines of Browning’s :—

“Grow old along with Me,

The Best is yet to be; the Last

For which the First was made.”

I confess that I was divided within myself as to whether this was a covert allusion to the workhouse or a prophetic forecast of the Old Age Pensions. But in what strange places do we find the truth revealed ! I discovered the solution among the advertisements on the cover of “The Helpful Friend,” where the portrait of a staid and elderly gentleman with a long white beard like a tombstone upside down, and a mouth like a fold in the “Financial Times,” and looking a “helpful friend,” every inch, first caught my eye, and afterwards this legend underneath : “We supply the Cheapest Funerals in the District.”

Which, I am afraid, sums up from the working-class point of view, the whole matter of those “innocent joys” aforementioned, as being taken “direct from the hand of Christ,” and signs the bill “Thank you for Nothing.”

* * *

In another part of “The Helpful Friend” a funny tale is told of two men who had been taking rather too much of a certain noble and blushing liquid “straight from the hand of Christ.” They went to the river, got into their boat and worked hard and long at the oars without making any progress, simply because they had forgotten to unmoor the boat.

We are told that the moral is that we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven because we are tied to the world, and we are exhorted to “cut the cord, cut the cord ! Set yourselves free from the clogging weight of earthly things, and you will soon voyage heavenward.”

Who is going to contest the truth of that ? Not I, for one. It is getting very near to the materialist conception to assert that it is only worldly things that keep us here. Who is not aware of it ? Personally, I feel that my load of the “clogging weight of earthly things” is so infinitesimal that, but for being an abnormally wicked wretch, strongly under the influence of “the other place,” it would be insufficient to keep me here, and I should, willy-nilly (overwhelmingly nilly, I can assure you), soar heavenward with the rope in my hands, and my dot of “the clogging weight of earthly things” swinging, oh, so lightly ! on the end.

Which, of course, wouldn’t be much good to the gentleman with the tombstone whiskers.

But drawing my deduction from what I have already said, it seems pretty plain why the Rev. Meyers and Campbells are so heavily burdened with “the clogging weight of earthly things.” Their pure and holy souls fret so in their carnal prisons that anything less than about £2,000 a year could not hold them down, hence, for the sake of their flocks, they have this great burden laid upon them, and they strain hard at the oars that should waft them to heaven, without (to the everlasting regret of the helpful friend with the tombstone whiskers) making any more progress than is quite inevitable in the course of nature. But they take darned good care that nobody cuts their cord.

* * *

On the occasion of the historic visit of the King to Chingford to secure the water supply of the teeming millions of HIS people; he passed through West Ham, which is particularly and peculiarly a district of those “glad, beautiful, and pure” (I am quoting the Rev. F. B. Meyer again) “English homes,” which are “under God the secret of our national greatness.” For the most “glad, beautiful, and pure” portion of this salubrious oasis (the portion commonly known as dockland) that stern old revolutionary warrior, Mr. William Thorne, happens by the Grace of God and the blindness of the people, to be the “sitting Member.” Hence Mr. William Thorne was, I understand, presented to His Majesty, when the following chin-wag didn’t take place :

HIGH PERSONAGE (with a bow and a scrape): This, Maj’sty, is Mr. Willyum Thorne, M.P. for the Southern portion of the borough. Mr. Thorne is called Bill by his friends, but desires to support the dignity of the borough under the name of Willyum.

MAJESTY : ‘Do, Mr. Thorne ?

THORNE: How does your Majesty find yourself and how’s your mother and the missus and all the youngsters ?

MAJESTY: So-so, considering how hard they work. (Prolonged pause.) Say, Thorne, I was thinking.

THORNE : G’on, no larks.

MAJESTY : Honour bright, I was thinking that your friends call you Bill.

THORNE: I can’t get ’em to realise who I am, but perhaps after this (sentence finished in eloquent silence.)

MAJESTY : Well, we are not exactly enemies, are we ?

THORNE : Far from it, or I shouldn’t be here.

MAJESTY : Well, I was thinking of a compromise.

THORNE (with quickening interest) : Ah ! I do, very often.

MAJESTY (extending his hand): Then let it be Billiam.

THORNE (dissembling, but nevertheless visibly chapfallen): Honoured, I’m sure, and (a glance at a corner establishment near the Town Hall, where a white swan was undergoing agonies of loyal fervour and manifesting the same through a roaring trade at the bar) if it wasn’t for the Free Churches, which means votes, riper acquaintance might lead to something better.

MAJESTY (following Thorne’s eye and, after a furtive glance at his gracious lady, whereupon he sighed sadly and subsided into a slough of despond): To tell the truth, Billiam, I was thinking of something better—a knighthood or something of that. We’ve brought the sword along.

THORNE : I once came near being made a J.P., but some of me boys said they weren’t going to pay me to send ’em to prison. My word, they didn’t half ruck ! Some of ’em jib at this (indicating his aldermanic rotundity). They say it represents the Free Churches and others better than it represents labour. They forget its labour for me to carry it about. So before I commit myself I should like to know whether there is any chink attached.

MAJESTY : I don’t think there can be, or the sword wouldn’t have been used so much by one or two I could mention.

THORNE (drawing himself proudly to his full height): la that case I’ll die what I’ve lived—honest Will Thorne.

MAJESTY : Good, you’ll be very useful as that, no doubt, so we’ll leave it at Billiam.

Hurrah for the revolution ! shouted Bill under his breath as the King drove away.

“THE PILLMAN.”

The Anti-Socialist Union runs away again. (1927)

Party News from the May 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Years before the war the Anti-Socialist Union decided that it would not debate with the Socialist Party, although it was willing enough to meet the numerous bodies which misrepresented the Socialist case, because they were afraid to accept the full implications of Socialism. The excuse of the A.S.U. was that we had printed a scurrilous article on the occasion of the coronation of George V. They declared that such vile matter ought never to have seen the light of day and they would not countenance it even to the extent of opposing us in debate. Yet the declared object of the A.S.U. was precisely this work of opposing Socialist propaganda ! The Anti-Socialist Union promptly demonstrated its sincerity by circulating this same scurrilous article among potential givers of donations, in order to scare them into paying up. We pointed out then, that the A.S.U. was a fraud. It obtained money under false pretences, since it was unwilling to carry out its nominal purpose of fighting Socialism. It has now changed its name to “The Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Union,” but it has not grown either more honest or more courageous.

On March 28th, a Mr. Norman, speaking on Tower Hill, expressed to one of our members his willingness to debate, and invited us to approach the Union to make the necessary arrangements. Their reply and our subsequent letter are printed on facing page. No further comment is needed.

—————-

The Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Union,

58 and 60, Victoria Street,

Westminster, S.W.I.

April 5th, 1927.

Dear Sir,

In reply to your letter of the 1st inst., I have to say that it will be impossible for us to arrange for Mr. Norman to take part in a debate with you, owing to the very large number of meetings which have been arranged for him in different parts of the country.

I may say, however, that Mr. Norman has debated on many occasions, during the past winter, with prominent Socialists, under the auspices of this organization.

Yours faithfully,

The Director, Public Speaking Class.

—————-

Socialist Party of Great Britain.

8th April, 1927.

The Director of Public Speaking Classes,

The Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Union, 58, Victoria Street, S.W.I.

Dear Sir,

I learn with surprise that Mr. Norman will not be able to debate with the Socialist Party. It would seem reasonable to suppose that Mr. Norman was aware of the large number of meetings he is engaged to address at the time of accepting the offer to debate with us; why then did he accept it ?

The fact that Mr. Norman has already debated with representatives of other Parties hardly seems to have any bearing on his expressed willingness and your refusal to debate with a representative of the Socialist Party.

Yours fraternally,

Acting General Secretary.

The Great War and the Greater Wars that are coming. (1924)

From the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the world turned wearily from the battlefield there has been a gradual slump in the literature of war, and the tide has set towards the “Problems of the Peace.” All who could wield a facile pen have rushed to their ink-pots and boldly covered reams of white paper with explanations of why the New World that was expected to follow the war looks so dreadfully like the old one. Most people can see that the rich are still with us, and apparently richer than ever. None will deny that the poor are still here, and relatively if not absolutely, poorer than ever. What has happened? Fortunately the scribes will tell us this also. Unhappily, they have so many explanations of the same phenomena that a process of cancelling out takes place, and the only voice that emerges is that of the one who tells us to get ready for another war. Certainly the facts seem to support that view. There are more bayonets and more armed preparations in Europe to-day than ever before. Recourse to the League of Nations has simply added to them. Every barracks is full of soldiers, drilling and training for the next great struggle. Fleets are being overhauled and provided with deadlier guns than ever. Every week we are informed of a new development in aerial terror, whilst placid bands of assiduous chemists have added seventy new poisonous gases to the weapons of the next war. The joke about the “War to End War” has become too hackneyed for repetition, but few seem to have learned the lesson.

The latest addition to the literature of the Peace is a two volume, 1,400 page work, entitled “These Eventful Years: The Twentieth Century in the Making, as Told by Many of its Makers.” Rather a mouthful, isn’t it? Such an expressive title ! obviously chosen for its slight poetic flavour. These Eventful Years ! One can almost hear it being mournfully intoned to the evening congregation. And thus it is called a Pisgah book. This is possibly more apposite than the originators thought. They have intended, doubtless, to convey that they were surveying the world and its affairs from a sublime height. Why Pisgah, and not the Matterhorn or Everest should have been chosen is not clear. We can only assume their choice was influenced by the knowledge that Pisgah stands near the head of the Dead Sea.

It remains but to add that the price of the work being only a paltry fifty shillings, there can be little excuse for non-possession. Think of the contributors, too ! Von Tirpitz and H. G. Wells, Sir Oliver Lodge and Phillip Snowden, Lady Rhondda and Wellington Koo, Admiral von Scheer and Admiral Jellicoe, Ludendorff and Bertrand Russell; and seventy others including J. L. Garvin. We do not intend to review this stupendous work, owing to our having been unfortunately overlooked on the free list. J. L. Garvin, with that native modesty that so well becomes him, has partially remedied this by using up three columns of his “Observer” (August 24th) in boosting his own contribution to the book.

He explains that he was asked to contribute the first four chapters entitled a “Introduction to the History of Our Own Times,” and they trace the steady approach of the war through the preceding twenty-five years. Their measure may be taken when one notes that the fall of Bismarck is taken as the catastrophic starting-point, and that the interval is filled up with proper names. The Kaiser and the Tsar, variously referred to as William II and Nicholas II, or the German Emperor and the last of the Tsars, are the villains of the piece. What those two men have to answer for ! Curiously enough, the name George the Fifth nowhere appears. This seems to be a grave omission. Surely if our late redoubtable antagonist and our former ally were epitomised or symbolically expressed in the occupant of the throne, a like service should be performed for our own monarch. And we all know what he did in the Great War. If the Kaiser lost his war, obviously George the Fifth won it. Let justice be done.

But to resume. The story of the war itself occupies 50 pages. He suggests the temper of that account by a brief extract describing the turning point of the conflict, July 18th, 1918. It is a forceful piece of writing, quite in the vein of the militant arm-chair strategist. “Machine guns flashed over the standing corn”; troops “gathered under those far-ranging tree-tops”; the French force “thrust like a sword” into the “flank of the exposed German salient”; the enemy “lost 15,000 prisoners, 300 guns and broad positions that were vital,” etc., etc. But not a word of a dead man. The monarchs previously so much in the limelight also appear to have been elsewhere.

And then we get to the Peace. It is recognised and admitted that the Peace is a frost.

“What the Germans forgot in 1871, the Allies did not remember at the end of June, 1919.” Yes, the Peace is a frost. And what will happen when the thaw sets in?

“Europe is slowly drifting towards another catastrophe.” The map of Europe as re-drawn under the Peace Treaties cannot endure. The existing League of Nations is described as utterly inadequate. The exclusion of Germany is described as “one of the most fantastic travesties of human purpose”; the banning of Russia as timid and parochial.

And what is the lesson mankind is to learn from all this? What practical steps are formulated that we may avoid another Armageddon? What must we do to be saved?

Mr. Garvin’s own summary may do him less than justice, but apparently there are but two things to be done to avert the threatened holocaust. First revise the Peace Treaties by peaceful means, and next enlarge the League of Nations by the inclusion of Germany and Russia, followed later by America.

Is it possible that a man of education, and some width of outlook can fob his readers off with that stuff? Does he really believe it himself? Unfortunately there is no reason for doubting it. Mr. Garvin and those of his school look upon the present system of society as final, and for all useful purposes, eternal. Modification there may be, but fundamental change—no. Just as slavery was justified and defended in former times, even by men of culture and feeling, so wage-slavery under capitalism is justified and apologised for by those who profit by it. This attitude may result from a lack of imagination, but more probably from a comfortable feeling that the working class is a special dispensation of Providence, designed to do the necessary work of the world, in order that a smaller aristocratic class may cultivate the finer side of life.

With this view of human society it is not to be wondered at that the re-drawing of frontiers appears to them as epochal; that the stage-play of international leagues assumes a solemn profundity. When the working class realises its true position, it will view an arbitrary line drawn across a country as of equal validity with a chalk mark across the Atlantic. If Alsace were restored to Germany to-morrow, the Alsatian would still remain a peasant or a worker. If the Germans, Austrians, Poles, Rumanians, Czechs, Tyrolese, etc., were all re-shuffled to-morrow, the workers of those areas would still remain workers. Differences of comfort or amenity, custom and language there might be, but working men would remain working men, and that is the essence of the matter. The Irish workers are finding out that a difference in political bosses is not such a vital matter as they once thought. Where capitalism is, there is wage-slavery, and the colour of the flag that floats over the factory makes no real difference to the worker. The great nations of the world are capitalist nations. The League of Nations can be nought else but a league of capitalists. Capitalists live solely and entirely upon the robbery of the working class. How then can we get enthusiastic over a league of our exploiters?

The working class will organise itself to expropriate those who live parasitically upon it. It will link itself with the workers of every country, to achieve this internationally, when the workers understand their class-interests.

W. T. Hopley

King Capital's Coronation (1964)

A classic reprint from the September 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard 

  From the treasury of past Socialist Standards we have selected the following four articles for reprinting in this Special Number. The choice was not easy to make from so much excellence.

A King is to be crowned.

In the presence of our Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Premiers of the five dominions of “our” mighty Empire, arid the assembled monarchs of many lands, and the Lord God of Israel and the Stock Exchange himself.

The Crown, and the Sceptre, and the Sword of State, and the Cap of Maintenance, and the Rod with the Dove, and the Monkey on the Stick, and all the other symbolical insignia and regalia which have come down to us from barbarism, along with ye Ancient Order of Foresters and ye game of skittles, are to be brought from their dungeon in the Tower (where they have rivalled a pawnbroker’s window) and taken to the House of God at Westminster, there to be used in the great ceremony.

And there, before a vast concourse of gentlemen who have won the same distinction in the divorce court that their forefathers gained in piratical, slave-hunting, and other plundering forays of the past, and of high born dames whose “Sir Joshua Reynolds” peach-bloom cheeks are veritable triumphs of the house-decorator’s art, and other high-born dames whose ancient lineage goes back to the mighty Pork Kings of Chicago, one George Wettin, a most cosmopolitan British gentleman, will swear great oaths to be faithful to certain hoary superstitions, and to uphold certain important and worthy institutions, and to lay hold of eternal life, and to do it all for the dirt-cheap, upset-competition price of a million a year or nearest offer.

And then another gentleman, who makes a point of doing the job in his nightshirt, scabs on and scandalises every tiddle-wig in the Kingdom by giving the said G. Wettin a dry shampoo with consecrated hair oil, in the full blaze of the public eye, and to the evident perturbation of the Unicorn, who claims affinity with the barbers by virtue of the pole sticking out of his forehead.

What does it all mean; the Crown, and the Orb, and the Sceptre and the Sword of State, and the Cap of Maintenance, and the rest of the jewelled symbols?

What does it mean: the swelling Anthem, the mumbled prayer, the intoned exhortation, the anointing with oil, the Crowning and Enthronisation?

What does it mean: the barbaric pomp and splendour, the lavish display of wealth, the clank of arms and armour and the jingle of spurs, the foregathering from the ends of the earth of the Empire’s rulers?

What does it mean: the flaunting flags, the streets lined with police and military, the hoarse acclamation of pallid millions whose rags flutter a significant reply to the bunting overhead, the bestowing of a meal upon thousands of little children whom hunger makes glad to accept even such a trifle from hands so heavy-laden with wealth that they cannot feel the weight of the charitable grains they scatter?

We are told that these gaudy jewels, this “impressive service”, are full of symbolism and historic significance. They are indeed. To the worker who will think it is very obvious that the Crown and the Sceptre and the rest are the symbols of ruling power. But who it is that rules, and who it is that are ruled, are matters less generally understood.

It is commonly believed that “royal” power is the attribute of the monarch of a constitutional country, but nothing could be farther from the truth. That question our capitalist masters in this country fought out many years ago. They have left the King his name and his robes, his Crown and his palaces, but they have stripped him of every vestige of power. The “Crown” is not the King, in any capacity, but the capitalist State. The King’s Speech to Parliament is written by his Ministers, even the prerogative of mercy is not the King’s, but belongs to the capitalist Cabinet.

The subservience of the royalty of capitalist countries to their capitalist paymasters is shown in such acts as that of the present King’s father (then Prince of Wales) in publicly associating himself, at the time of the “trial” of the Jameson raiders, with Cecil Rhodes, the arch-fiend in that disgusting business, who was even then busy engineering the war which was to give the cosmopolitan mine-owners £4,000,000 a year in extra profits, at the cost of so many thousands of workingmen’s lives.

Even the swearing to uphold the institutions of capitalism is all bunkum and make-believe, There is today, in this country at all events, no institution of capitalism that the capitalists themselves are not fully able to maintain, or that they trust to other hands than their own. Why, this man whom they swear to uphold the very walls of capitalism, they do not trust even with the command of one of the fleets of his own (!) navy, for fear he might be in a position to dictate terms to them, or act detrimentally to their interests.

The King as such is a nonentity, a dummy, a convenient cloak behind which the capitalist class carry on their operations of robbing the workers of the fruits of their toil. As a private individual, the landlord of vast estates, George Wettin may make himself feared, but no one trembles at his royal word, or quakes at the thunder of his anointed brow. If the great ones of the capitalist world bow and scrape before him, it is only because he is the incarnation of capitalism, the symbol of the domination of a class of parasites and thieves, the image of themselves triumphant. They know that while the workers will flock in millions to cheer this straw man of theirs, dragged through the streets like a fifth of November guy, they and their plunder are safe. Hence they set the example of deification, knowing well they will be followed by their sheep.

The aim of the master class is to keep the workers ignorant, for an ignorant subject class, not knowing how to act in their own interests, can be more easily and inexpensively kept in subjection than an educated one. In fostering this ignorance the first thing to be done is to preserve the inertia of the mind – the tendency of the mind to run in an unchanging direction.

The capitalists know, as well as we do, that it is changing environment that causes the alteration in the mental outlook of the people. Their great endeavour, therefore, is to oppose to that ceaseless evolution in the world about them, over which they have no control, counteracting conditions and influences. Hence they cling with the tenacity of desperation, to the empty husks and decaying forms of the past.

This can be seen in every dominant interest, since every interest, when it has become dominant, becomes conservative and reactionary. It explains why the Catholic Church clings so frantically to its out-of-date forms, why the Anglican and other Churches set their faces so relentlessly against innovation, and why capitalist countries would rather convert their monarchies to their own ends than abolish them.

A king, in the popular mind, rules by divine sanction and in accordance with grey and hoary custom – as the Archbishop will remind the world at the great shampooing in the words: “Be thou anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. And as Solomon was appointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be you anointed, blessed and consecrated king over this people, whom the Lord thy God has given you to govern.”

The capitalists, on the other hand, have no ancient usage behind them, no special appointment from heaven. Unless they can disguise the fact of their dominance, they are clearly seen to rule by might alone – a perpetual challenge to might. A ruling class which has to confess that it rules because it possesses the means of life, already has one foot in the grave, for it holds a lamp to the line of class cleavage that all men may see.

This is the real use of monarchs in capitalist States. Behind the person of the King the capitalists can hide the fact that it is they in reality who rule. By parading their kings before the workers at every possible opportunity, and with every circumstance of pomp and display that their ingenuity can invent, by investing them with divine right and something of divinity itself, the capitalists awaken and stimulate and nurture that spirit of reverence which is so deadly an enemy to the growth of revolutionary ideas, and so detract attention from themselves.

As it is to the interest of the capitalist class to represent that they, together with the working class, are subservient to a greater power, and to set the example of loyalty to their king, it becomes the imperative duty of Socialists to strip the sham of all its disguising tinsel, and to expose the grim, sordid, unromantic, iron form of tyrant Capital beneath it all. No kingly power exists today in Western Europe. Everywhere the owners of the means of production have either bent the monarchy to their will or broken it. Power lies alone with the class of property-owners. They rule who “buzz” us to the check-board at dawn, who tell us we are “sacked” at dusk; they rule who grind our faces on the factory mill-stones; and rob us at the pay-box; they rule who lock us out of the workshops and quarries and mines, in order to convince us by starvation that their view of the value of our labour is correct; they rule who make mockery of their own laws, and bury our poor fellows alive in blazing coal seams in the bowels of the earth. They rule who own.

Clear your minds, fellow workers, of any idea that these Prime Ministers of the Dominions of the Empire have gathered together to render homage to the house of Hanover. They come to celebrate the dominion of their class and to take steps in conference assembled, to ensure the continued crucifixion of Labour. The whole of this inglorious show, indeed, is subordinate to this object. It is not an effort to solidify and make more stable the monarchy, but to blind the workers to their true position, and make capitalist domination more secure.

It is for this reason that the impudent thieves mock your poverty by flaunting in your faces the wealth they have stolen from you. They wish you to believe that you are sharers in the stupendous opulence all their efforts could not hide from your vision. The late Lord Salisbury, wise in his generation, once cynically said that what the working class wanted was not education but a circus. They are giving us a circus, in order to make our minds less receptive of education.

Fellow workers, there is but one meaning attaching to class rule, and that is class plunder. No man wishes to rule over another except to plunder him. Consider whence comes all this wealth and luxury which is to riot before your weary eyes? Is there one jot or tittle of it that you have not made? You, the workers of the world are the true Atlas. You carry the world upon your shoulders. Your strong arms sow, and reap, and gather the harvest of the field, your stout hearts face the terrors of the mine and battle with the dangers of the deep; your virile brains conquer natural forces, and turn the tyrants of the Cosmic System into agents of wealth production. And what is your portion of it all?

This question is answered by the ranks of armed men who press your serried masses into the gutters, by the gaudy regimental banners whose last glorious inscriptions are “Belfast” and “Tonypandy”, by the proposal to compel you to pay to ensure that you shall have 6s. a week to keep wife and family on when you are unemployed.

As long as you are ruled starvation will be your lot, for those who rule over you can always plunder you and always will. You are ruled, not by kings, but by those who possess the land, mines, factories, machinery, railways, and other means of production and distribution, and just because they possess those things. Since you are denied access to those things all the doors of life are shut against you except that of the labour market. You must become wage slaves – must sell your energies to those who own the productive forces. This means that goods are produced for profit, and that profit, that wealth you produce but which is taken away from you, goes to glut the market and to throw you out of work, so that you and your children starve when the warehouses are fullest.

The remedy for all this is to take these means of production and distribution away from their present owners and make them the property of the whole community. Bread will then be produced to feed people, not for profit, and clothes to clothe them, and houses to shelter them. All able-bodied adults will take part in the necessary social labour, and all will partake freely of the wealth produced.

To do this the workers must first study Socialism and organise to capture political power, in order that the political machinery may be used to end for ever the class domination which political power alone upholds.

A. E. Jacomb

Reprinted from the "Socialist Standard," June, 1911.

The Thieves' Kitchen Records. (1920)

From the March 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Giveth His Only Son."

As usual, the old farce of the Kings' Speech to Parliament was carried out with mock solemnity and cobwebs, a la Dirty Dick and King Solomon. Considering that it is now some sixteen month's since the war actually ceased— the war which was to inaugurate a "beautiful new world" for the workers of this country, the Speech offers nothing but flap-doodle touching on this point, and precious little even of that. In fact, the only indication of anything tangible, in connection with this matter of "everything for nothing" for the working class, has to be read into, or got out of, the royal announcement that He (G. Wettin) has "had great pleasure in assenting to the proposal that the Prince of Wales should visit Australia and New Zealand and should take the opportunity on his return voyage of seeing some of My West Indian possessions." So it seems that the King gives his only begotten (if he hadn't begotten any others) son in order that the workers may enjoy by proxy all the delights that the "beautiful new world" has to offer, what time they are slogging into the task of increasing production to enable the pound sterling to "look the dollar in the face." May the thought sustain them in their monotonous and wearisome labours, until the young man returns and his father finds him a job of work to take some of the weight off Ole Bill's shoulder, and enable Tom Smith to let go long enough to spit on his hand— may the reflection sustain and refresh them, I say, and revive their drooping spirits, and renew their ebbing strength, and soothe their aching limbs, and charm away the pains of their cramped and pitiless occupations, for nothing else in King Capital's Gracious speech will. 

The New Forty Thieves.

In the Thieves Kitchen there were prior to the war, in addition to the old hands at the game, who had been in the business donkey's years before Blueskin and Jack Shepherd were thought of, a new  group of approximately forty, of whom it may be said that, though they were only minors in the matter of golloping up the swag, were the most active and assiduous in supporting and forwarding any scheme afoot for the robbery of the human bees, possibly for the same reason that the petty sneak thief is the most active member of other thieves' kitchens—he has to do a big business to keep up his fat. Of these forty many a year or so ago got soused in boiling oil—which is no loss to public life. But some have survived even unto this day, and their reception of the Speech was characteristic. 

More pay for lickspittles.

Mr. Adamson, the leader of the Lib-Labs, in his comic-opera role of leader of the Opposition, opened: "I desire to offer my congratulations to the mover and seconder for the excellent speeches . . ." et so on ad vomitum. That was about the limit of his "opposition." He was glad to note that the mover of the Address had "struck a very optimistic vein, and thought we would be able to overcome these difficulties [the "aftermath of the war"] in the manner in which we have been able to overcome the difficulties of the past. This is a welcoming and supporting of smug capitalist complacency which should be noted by all workers who are satisfied with the way in which "the difficulties of the past" have been overcome, and especially those workers who elected Mr. Adamson to represent THEM.

Once Bit Twice Shy.

In the debate on the Address the question of Russia arose, and in replying Mr. Liar George became really funny. "The horrors of Bolshevism have revolted the consciences of mankind," said he who has taken no step to purge British Authority of the dastardly massacre of Amritsar, "The first war on opinion was made by the Bolsheviks when they dissolved the National Assembly," wailed he who for five years has tyranised under that garrotter's outfit of noose and bludgeon and pitch-plaster — D.O.R.A. "We were bound to give the anti-Bolsheviks their chance to recover Russia. . . . We were bound by considerations of honour," cried he whose considerations of honour never prevented him breaking pledges given to his working-class dupes. "There is no government in Russia which can speak for any defined area. It is perfectly true that the Bolsheviks have over-run the Ukraine and part of the Cossack land, but they have only been there a few weeks and they have been there before. I do not say that General Denikin will drive them out, but no one can tell whether the Ukranians will tolerate them. No one can say whether the Cossacks will tolerate them in their country." So again spoke the spokesman of the Thieves' Kitchen. And it is strikingly strange how every one of his arguments might have been used with even greater force to deter him and his gang from conceding to Denikin and —what's his name, Coldchuck ?—the right to speak for, not only people of territories it was doubtful if they could hold, but of territories they did not occupy.

Of course, no member of the "Labour" Opposition had the courage to open his mouth to say these things, notwithstanding the professed Bolshevik sympathies of many of them. They, grateful dogs, respect the hand that feeds them.

Hands off Profits !

On the second day of the Debate on the Address Mr. Brace moved an amendment regretting "the absence of any proposal to nationalise the mines of the country . ." He had a pretty good turn before three o'clock, and he carried on well after four, but he contributed nothing to the cause of the workers, but something to the cause of the masters. Here are samples of his arguments:

  "An hon. Member asks me, 'Suppose it does not pay ?' But it must pay ! . . . In addition to paying interest on the Bonds it must find money towards a sinking fund to redeem the Bonds. Indeed it must find profit for national purposes. For the mines are to be worked not to produce profit for a few people, but for the whole."

So the capitalist Shylock is to have his pound of flesh —the Labour Party will see to that. The mines are to be run for profit to pay capitalist State expenses ; and to provide interest on capitalist Bonds; and to redeem those Bonds so the mines shall become the property of the whole of the capitalists instead of of a few of them. The capitalists will lose nothing—the Labour Party will see to that.

On the other hand, Mr. Brace and those for whom he spoke were thoughtful enough to provide additional shackles for the miners, for he embraced the following from the Sankey Report:

  The contracts of employment of workmen shall embody an undertaking . . . that no workman will, in consequence of any dispute, join in giving notice to determine his contract, nor will he combine to cease work, unless and until the question in dispute has been before the Local Mining Council and the District Mining Council and those Councils have failed to settle the dispute. 

That is the sort of strangle hold the Labour Party are ready to get fixed on the workers—the treacherous hounds! We have only to consider how long we have been kept in the shackles of D.O.R.A., under the pretence that the war is not yet finished, to imagine what tricks the ruling class could play with that phrase "failed to settle the dispute."

Welsh Humbug again.

The Prime Minister butted in in due course, and as usual indulged in cant so open and shameless as to suggest an utter lack of the sense of humour on his part. He wanted an illustration, and turned, of course, to the workers of Russia, who, he said "are to be told [by the State] where they are to work—not in what particular factory, but in what particular town or locality. The State is to say to them 'You are no use here ; you must go to another village, which is 100 miles away.'"

This the speaker called labour conscription. But one would think that he, Mr. Lloyd George, would be the last to drag that in, when one remembers how many thousands ol men were sent, under his tyranny, not one hundred miles but three hundred, not only to certain districts but to particular factories. He did not call that labour conscription, the canting hypocrite !

The Straight Griffin.

In the debate on Supplies on Feb. 10th Mr. Lloyd George received the lie direct regarding the whole tissue of falsehoods with which he has supported his sneak-thief, under-hand, shame-faced policy of British intervention in Russia. Lieut.-Colonel Malone, taking the Government to task for treacherously supplying arms, munitions, and forces against a people who are still technically their allies, had many things to say which no member of the Government, nor any supporter of their policy, had the courage to attempt to controvert. Here are some of Lieut -Colonel Malone's remarks :

  "I see that General Knox declared publicly a short time ago that it is no use keeping Bolsheviks in prison ; that it is much the better plan to shoot them without trial. . . Yesterday General Knox was granted the K.C.B. Was it for that he was granted the K.C.B., or was it for organising the Koltchak regime? Who were the men who surrounded Admiral Koltchak? Unelected, unnominated, unconstitutionally elected people, who had no connection with the Russian people. . ."
  "I now pass to General Denikin. I will not burden the House by repeating the terrible list of atrocities which have been reported concerning territories occupied by Gen. Denikin. I will only mention one or two." 

The Picture Reversed.

The speaker then gave details of massacres, rape, branding and other villainies committed by the Denikinites which all the elaboration of capitalist hatred, could not surpass in their charges against the Bolsheviks. He then showed, from the evidence of correspondents serving with Denikin, what sort of man the "saviour of Russia" is, and drew attention to the case of the G.O.C., North Command parading his officers and men to "listen to one of these propaganda lectures by a certain reverend gentleman, a member of the Church of England, . . which is intended to stir up hate against the Soviet population." Later the speaker squarely challenged Lr. George on his statement that the Bolsheviks had sold guns to the Germans to be used against the British. The cowards who followed wisely changed the subject. 

A. E. Jacomb

50 Years Ago: King Capital's Coronation (1961)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

A king is to be crowned. In the presence of Our Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Premiers of the five Dominions of “our" Mighty Empire, and the assembled Monarchs of many lands, and the Lord God of Israel and the Stock Exchange himself.

•

It is commonly believed that “royal" power is the attribute of the monarch of a constitutional country, but nothing could be further from the truth. That question our capitalist masters fought out many years ago. They have left the King his name and his robes, his crown and his palaces, but they have stripped him of every vestige of power. The “Crown" is not the King, in any capacity, but the capitalist State. The King's Speech to Parliament is written by his Ministers, even the prerogative of mercy is not the King's but belongs to the capitalist Cabinet.

•

Even the swearing to uphold the institutions of capitalism is all bunkum and make-believe. There is today, in this country at all events, no institution of capitalism that the capitalists themselves are not fully able to maintain, or that they trust to other hands than their own.

•

This is the real use of Monarchs in capitalist States. Behind the person of the King the capitalists can hide the fact that it is they in reality who rule. By parading their kings before the workers at every possible opportunity, and with every circumstance of pomp and display that their ingenuity can invent, by investing them with divine right and something of divinity itself, the capitalists awaken and simulate and nurture that spirit of reverence, which is so deadly an enemy to the growth of revolutionary ideas, and so detract attention from themselves.

[From the 
Socialist Standard,  June, 1911.]

Points For Propagandists. (1929)

From the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Workers’ Savings

In the early days of Capitalism it was possible for the man with small capital to set up in business with some chance of climbing to the top, and in consequence saving ranked high among the Capitalist virtues. Out of this developed the silly theory that the possession of wealth in the modern world denotes “abstinence" and “self-denial" on the part of the possessing class. It was effectively answered by the late Sir William Ashley, economic adviser to the Conservative Party. In his “Economic Organisation of England” (p. 157) he says :—

Phrases like these have occasioned no little mirth; it is hard to discover self-denial or parsimony as the world understands these words, in the processes by which modern capital is most largely accumulated.

Capitalist savings result mainly, not from self-denial, but from having incomes so large that it is difficult not to save. Knowing this, and overlooking the fact that the position of the workers is essentially different from their own, it is a common error for wealthy bankers and Cabinet Ministers to assume that the accumulation of funds in savings banks indicates prosperity among the workers. Every wage-earner appreciates only too well that the necessity of putting something by, out of wages already inadequate for decent comfort, is the result not of prosperity, but of the insecurity of his existence. It is therefore interesting to see that Major-General J. E. B. Seely, Chairman of the National Savings Committee, has realised this. In a speech at Leeds on December 12th he said that in November, 1928, more Savings Certificates had been sold than in any November since 1921.

  As unemployment and distress grow, savings have increased. The reason is that the British people, when they are up against something, are determined to lay something up against the dangers looming ahead. Households now living on 30s. a week are saving more than they did when they were earning £7 or £8 a week. ("Daily Mail,” 13 December.)

And what a commentary on Capitalism. Here we have one of the wealthiest ruling classes known to history financing a huge national organisation in order to persuade its wage-slaves, starving on 30s. a week that they ought to save!

Statements of Fact.

There are, perhaps, different standards of accuracy and reliability observed by different Governments and newspapers, but during the War every Government and the Press of every belligerent country was engaged in faking and suppressing news, as well as in downright lying. In consequence, most people are inclined to be sceptical about some, if not all, of the "facts” they read, especially if they are "official." 

So much so, that the "Daily News” on November 28th referred to the numerous letters received by all the newspapers, asking if the bulletins about the King’s illness were genuine or whether something was being kept back. The "Daily News,” as usual a little pompous, informed its readers in heavy black type as follows:—

   “The Daily News"—speaking with high authority—feels it a duty to say, and to emphasise, that the bulletins published about the King’s health are statements of fact 'and that nothing has been kept back.

Subsequently we were told of the anxiety which the King’s condition had given rise to in these early weeks, and it appears that what the "Daily News” felt it a duty not only "to say,” but also ”to emphasise,” was one of those "statements of fact ” like the war-time "victories” which were more costly than defeats and were almost invariably followed by "withdrawals”  "according to plan.”

Patriotism and Profit.

The ‘‘Daily Mail,” so solicitous for everything British and so anxious to preserve British industry and provide work and wages for British workers, remarks that—

increasing numbers of British investors and speculators are seeking investment opportunities abroad, and particularly across the Atlantic. ("Daily Mail,” 27 November, 1928.)

Knowing the Britishness and integrity of the "Daily Mail,” you will expect, as a matter of course, that the Editor will denounce this investment of British money in American industries and will particularly express his abhorrence of speculators. On the contrary he announces that— 

each day we shall publish . . . a concise review . . . of the investment situation in New York, with helpful hints as to American and Canadian securities from the British investor’s point of view.

The National Income.

Sir Josiah Stamp and Professor Bowley ("The National Income”) have shown that the total real national income in 1924 was approximately the same as in 1911, or, in other words, the value of the wealth produced (including incomes from abroad) had increased by the same percentage as prices. As population had in the meantime increased slightly, this meant that the total purchasing power per head of the population was slightly less than in 1911.

The national income is now definitely increasing again. Mr. G. D. Rokeling has recently conducted a further enquiry for the "Economist.” It is published under the title, "A British Index of National Prosperity, 1920-1927,” with a commendatory Introduction by Sir Josiah Stamp. (Published by the "Economist.” 2s. 6d.)

In it Mr. Rokeling estimates (page 31) that the real national income has increased between 1920 and 1927 by about 8 per cent. The increase between 1924 and 1927 is 6.7 per cent. After allowing for the increase in population, this gives an increase per head of the population of 5.3 per cent, between 1924 and 1927. The “Economist” (October 6th, 1928) considers that this estimated increase is probably slightly less than the actual increase.

Edgar Hardcastle

Mechanical Loyalty. (1911)

From the June 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

An English nobleman once tried to train a mule to box scientifically with its hind hoofs. The verdict was “Death from very natural causes."

When the capitalists created a cheap gutter Press they little suspected it would contribute to their undoing. Yet the rags continually, if unconsciously, deal murderous blows at the system they were intended to strengthen.

Just an instance:

That the Queen rehearses her train-bearers may be good reading, but it scarcely conduces to popular acceptance of her inherent grace. Snapshots of the State horses being inured to cheering, firing, and flag-waving seems calculated to take the gilt off the ginger-bread—or even off the State coach.

The people should be given to understand that all things royal are spontaneously dignified. Else what price a circus parade?

But the cruellest Press photos were those of the elephants learning to kneel, the dromedary and pony learning to bow. Not so would the show have been given away in the past. Our forefathers believed that the very animals recognised and did homage to anointed majesty.

Coronation—hungry children—Church and armed forces—full pubs.—full gaols. What a hotch-potch! Also enthusiastic obeisance from well-trained quadrupeds and well-drilled humans.

And the royal nonentities will carry on as if they swallowed it all. Poor henpecked George will try not to look thirsty, while his grim-faced consort conveniently forgets that she married him after his brother (her first betrothed) died, selling her body for a crown as surely as some of her less fortunate sisters sell theirs for five shillings.

A. Hoskyns

Sidelights on Capitalist Rule (1952)

Editorial from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the themes of Mr. Harold Nicolson's biography of the late King George V is that he showed a good grasp of problems of government and, indeed, the examples quoted do seem to indicate that he often displayed more insight and level-headedness than some of the leading politicians. But what is the major problem of the governments of capitalism? It is of course to keep the working class as far as possible satisfied with the system under which they are exploited, and if they can't be kept satisfied, at least to keep them quiet. One example selected by a Manchester Guardian reviewer is George V's handling of the political crisis which brought down MacDonald's Labour Government in 1931 and led to the formation of a “national” three party government with MacDonald as Prime Minister.

During the crisis the King interviewed the leader of the Liberals Sir Herbert Samuel and according to Mr. Nicolson's account this is what was said:-

Sir Herbert "told the King that, in view of the fact that the necessary economies would prove most unpalatable to the working-class, it would be to the general interest if they could be imposed by a Labour Government. The best solution would be if Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, either with his present or with a reconstituted Labour Cabinet, could propose the economies required. If he failed to secure the support of a sufficient number of his colleagues, then the best alternative would be a National Government composed of members of the three parties."

Further information was given by Sir Oliver Wigram in his record of a later discussion with the King. He says that the King found:-

“Sir Herbert Samuel the clearest-minded of the three and said he had put the case for a National Government much clearer than either of the others. It was after the King's interview with Sir Herbert Samuel that His Majesty became convinced of the necessity for the National Government.”

When MacDonald went to see the King to tell him that “all was up” with the Labour Government, the King impressed on him “that he was the only man to lead the country through this crisis and he hoped he would reconsider the situation.”

It would certainly seem that Sir Herbert Samuel (now Viscount Samuel) had a very shrewd idea of the part a Labour Government can play in keeping capitalism on an even keel.

*     *     *

The fact that we should have had to wait until now to know what arguments Samuel was using to try to keep a Labour Government in office in 1931 gives point to the recent controversy about the practice of Ministers maintaining secrecy on the discussions that go on inside the Cabinet.

In letters and articles in the Press various views have been expressed on the issue that arose between Mr. Bevan and Mr. Attlee on this question but it was left to Mr. W. Harvey Moore, Q.C., to suggest in a letter to The Times (16/8/52) that "secrecy is an evil, and knowledge and criticism of the actions of politicians is essential in a true democracy . . . The ordinary man who has to suffer for the mistakes of those who govern him is entitled to know 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.'"

Mr. Moore mentions the countries beyond the "Iron Curtain" where any disclosure of facts that may be discreditable to members of the Government is regarded as treasonable and he thinks any tendency in that direction should be avoided in this country.

But as we live in a capitalist world where war and the threat of war are always with us he has to make an exception of strategic secrets that may be useful to a potential enemy.

*     *     *

On the same day (16th August 1952) the Manchester Guardian had two editorials, one on the British workers and the other on the workers in Czechoslovakia, and what a difference of outlook they displayed. The first criticised the British trade unions that are pressing for higher wages and threatening a ban on overtime to meet dismissals. The Guardian's argument here is that if British prices are not kept down British exports will be riven out of world markets by the competition of countries with cheaper products.

In the second article the Guardian related that the Communists who govern in Czechoslovakia are complaining in like manner of the workers there. The Czechoslovak Prime Minister complains of irresponsibility and indolence on the part of the trade unions and describes as traitors the workers who resist having to work more than eight hours a day. On the hours question the Guardian writer makes the jibe that the Communists regard it as a righteous desire if workers in the West want shorter hours, but regard it as criminal if workers in the "Peoples' Democracies" have the same desire. The jibe strikes home, but it also hits the Manchester Guardian, whose sour condemnation of British workers contrasts markedly with its evident satisfaction that the Czechoslovak Communist is in trouble with its own workers.

It is particularly interesting to notice that in Britain the workers who threaten to strike for higher wages when the Government says they shouldn't are suspected of being "communist" inspired, while the Czechoslovak workers who do the same are accused by their Communist Prime Minister of being "traitors and diversionists" in the pay of Western capitalists or "captives of bourgeois ideologies." Thus the Government of the two halves of the capitalist world play exactly the same game, of seeking to divide the workers on National lines. The workers answer ought to be that of uniting internationally so that the working class of all countries could stand together against its exploiters and work together for the removal of capitalism and establishment of Socialism. But that would displease equally the Manchester Guardian and the Czechoslovak Government.