This Month's Quotation: Karl Marx (1937)

The Front Page quote from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Even the ruling classes are beginning to realise that contemporary society is not a solid crystal, but an organism capable of changing, and continually undergoing change."

K. Marx

This Month’s Quotation

The quotation in the panel on the front page is taken from Karl Marx’s preface to the first German edition of  "Capital.” The preface was written on July 25th, 1867.

Mr. F. Montague, M.P., Attacks the Labour Theory of Value (Second Article) (1937)

From the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note: 

Fred Montague was the Labour MP for Islington West and, as a young man, was an active member of Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation. He was replying to Frank Evans' two-part article on the Labour Theory of Value which appeared in the July and August 1937 issues of the Socialist Standard.

Link to the first article.

Mr. F. Montague, M.P., Attacks the Labour Theory of Value (Second Article)

It is a matter of common observation that the producer using out-of-date methods stands no chance in competition, and Marx, quite correctly adopts the “socially necessary” formula. But what is not generally seen is that no such formula is logically required in order to establish the labour time concept if it can be established. It is socially necessary labour alone that is held to count, and properly so, but the process of striking an average to arrive at the “standard” around which prices fluctuate works just as well whether socially necessary labour time or individual labour time is assumed. All that is proved by that process is that commodities are commodities and that there are just as many after a series of exchanges as before. Marxists live in a dialectical world of their own. They cannot see that there is no standard but what prices themselves put there, or that prices do not explain themselves. “Socially necessary” has no more to do with one doctrine more than another unless one rather than another is provisionally accepted. There is no objection to a provisional hypothesis in science. The objection is to using it as proof of its own case.

The same manner of limping logic occurs in respect to Utility. Mr. Evans starts off by saying that because some material objects possessing utility (air and sunshine) have no exchange value, therefore utility in other objects also can have nothing to do with exchange value, although these are exchangeable. Yet if I argued that as the product of the hand-loom weaver in an age of the power-loom has no economic relation to value, therefore labour in a modem factory or shed produces no value, Mr. Evans would properly laugh me out of court. Let Mr. Evans try his statement out syllogistically.

Utility theories (for which I hold no brief) no more attempt to explain value in terms of individual usefulness than the Marxian theory attempts to explain value in terms of individual labour. The cup-of-cold-water-to-the-parched-traveller-in-the-desert has no more to do with the case than the hand-loom weaver. If Marx may average, cancel-out, and socialise to further orders, so may the utilitarian. Use-value, after all, is part of the Marxian definition of the commodity and is common to all commodities, and when Mr. Evans says that the usefulness of a commodity “differs with individuals and differs with the same person" the believer in utility as a basis of value has a perfect right to reply, and in fact does so though Marxists do not seem to know it, to the effect that it is average social usefulness that is expressed in demand and that defines its effective are much as the gold limit is defined, or as the length of a pendulum controls its oscillation.

I think that utility is as barren as labour time for the purpose of value and for the same reason, i.e., that it is impossible to find an explanation of the factors of exchange between commodities in any theory dependent upon integrating prices. But it is a striking commentary on Marxian cocksure obtuseness to find that while Marxists are extremely scornful of the simple-minded critic who cannot understand the difference between plain and “undifferentiated" labour yet they swallow the absurd notion that utility can mean nothing more than day-by-day variations of personal tastes.

If, then, we reject the dogmatic assumption (it is nothing more) that labour, measured by time is the basis of value, do we give away the Socialist case? Value expressed in price is a capitalist phenomenon belonging to the money-wages system. In what manner is it necessary to establish its basis in time labour in order to justify the abolition of both money and wages?

The Marxist theory assumes that, qualitative differences in labour are nothing other than a question of what Mr. Evans calls “the time and cost of producing skill" as if the labour of an eminent bacteriologist or of one who succeeds in irrigating a continent were a thing of “clocking-in" and “knocking-off," that such men could be turned out of a sausage machine, and that their remuneration beyond the common undifferentiated denominator is taken out of the worker as a part of surplus value. It does not work out like that even in capitalist economy with all the price averaging and cost averaging in the world. But what if it did ?

Labour time value, even if it were true as a fact of capitalist exchange, can have no application, I contend, to Socialist ideas and principles. Wealth is not a thing of ‘‘hours, days and weeks" of time, but an evolutionary, social, and historical product. Labour time, as such, produces no more than it did in the Stone Age. Marx admits this when he speaks of “existing conditions of production." Existing conditions of production do not occur in a vacuum; they are “congealed" history, to use the approved metaphysical jargon. Yet I am told that exploitation is incapable of proof unless it can be shown that it is exploitation of time labour “in the factory." Could any conclusion be more puerile and beggarly?

Everyone is equally entitled (or contrariwise, no one) to the social heritage of economic evolution. Before the consideration of working begins! All start with a credit that makes the time and factory figment mean and ridiculous: butcher, baker, journeyman, thief, and the village idiot! “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is the antithesis of the Marxian “hours, days and weeks." And the member of the working-class who has never done a stroke of work in his life and for whom capitalism has not been able to find a use is, nevertheless, robbed.

Exploitation is a bigger thing than one of measured labour, and would be even if the time theory could be shown to hold water. Exploitation is the cumulative robbery of the workers in time measured by history and not by the clock. If Socialism is to be defended by proof of exploitation in factory time, then Socialism is reduced to negation and contradiction. It becomes nothing more at best than the case for equality of remuneration. If it is to stand, then, not only capitalist exploitation but “reward" (wages!) under Socialism must logically be “measured by time." And not even State capitalism in Russia can make that work!

Within necessarily limited space I have endeavoured to show (1) that the Marxian labour time doctrine is not a theory of value in the sense, say, that the quantity theory of money is a theory of money, since the subject of the “theory" is not even defined until the theory itself is established; (2) that this difficulty leads to question-begging presumptions in which a form of value by definition is utilised in advance to demonstrate its own nature; (3) that the figurative standard of value is only the mean of the very prices that are said to fluctuate round it and has no other existence outside an imaginary postulate required to beg the question; (4) that the famous “dear" and “cheap" tour de force is a logical absurdity; and (5) that exploitation of labour is not merely a contingent phenomenon of either factory or market. There is no answer to this case in demanding to know what my alternative theory of value is. The subject is Marx. My ideas on value would take as much space again for what they might be worth and, in any event, I am not so terribly concerned. If one is not aware of the rottenness of capitalism and the iniquity of the wage system from practical experience one is not likely to extract the blinding truth out of algebraic transcendentalism.

Reply:

In our previous contribution, in last month's issue, we dealt with the erroneous suggestion that Marx strikes an average of prices to arrive at a standard. In his opening paragraph Mr. Montague writes that, for the purpose of a standard, individual labour would serve as well as socially necessary. Without going deeply into the question, it can be said at once that if we were only concerned with averages it would not matter, but as we are concerned with understanding and explaining prices it does matter very much.

The whole of society’s paid labour is expended on goods and services. Services are charges upon production, and are met out of surplus value. The labour spent in connection with production (which would include transportation) is the only labour that produces value and is the basis of price.

Production is divided between production of gold and production of ordinary commodities. In the exchange of commodities value is expressed in prices related to gold. Thus the relation between the labour required to produce gold and the labour required to produce other articles is expressed as a certain amount of £ s. d. If an unnecessary fraction of the total social labour has been spent on a given article its price will be lower than that of another article containing the same quantity of labour. The socially-necessary idea explains this apparent discrepancy.

Opponents of the labour theory of value have urged, and still do so, that if the value of an article depends upon the amount of labour incorporated in it then the article produced by out-of-date methods is more valuable than that produced by up-to-date methods. The insistence upon socially-necessary as the labour that produces value is the answer to this argument.

Mr. Montague’s second paragraph is.puzzling. It presumably refers to the third paragraph of the article he is criticising (July issue of “ S.S.”), which was as follows: —

Let us take a few commodities. Take apples and amethysts, bread and barometers, cradles and coffins. What have they got in common which make# them all “commodities” ? They are all physical things and have a use, but so also with daisies and dewdrops. What distinguishes the things in the first group is not that they are useful, since this is common to both groups, but that they are the proceeds of human labour and are the subject of commercial transactions. At a stroke the commodity is transformed from a physical into a social phenomenon! For things produced for market bear a banner with this strange device : “I am worth —.” They have value. The things in the second group do not go to market: they have usefulness, but not value. Things produced for exchange have usefulness and value. They represent values, not usefulness, to the intending seller; they represent usefulness only to the prospective buyer, or to the last of a chain of buyers, the one who buys to enjoy the use of them.

The essence of this is: Some useful things never go to market—they have no value. Other useful things do go to market—it is only these that have value. Where do Mr. Montague’s remarks bear on this argument? Where does the logic limp?

To Mr. Montague the labour theory of value is nothing more than averaging prices and making assertions, therefore he can see no difference between it and the averaging of the utilitarians. The fundamental error is Mr. Montague’s and not Marx’s.

Perhaps Mr. Montague has forgotten that the leading utilitarian, Stanley Jevons, gave his case away and supported the labour theory of value when he said: —

It may tend to give the reader confidence in the preceding theories when he finds that they lead directly to the well-known law, as stated in the ordinary language of economists, that value is proportional to the cost of production.—(P. 186, Jevon’s “The Theory of Political Economy.” 4th edition. 1911.)

Mr. Montague is disturbed at the suggestion that qualitative differences in labour are nothing more than a question of the time and cost of producing skill. He instances an eminent bacteriologist and a man who irrigates a continent as examples of the absurdity of the idea. But why has he taken such people? Why not an eminent engine driver or builder’s labourer? Can Mr. Montague point to any professional bacteriologist or similar "eminent” man whose wages are not determined by the cost of educating him? But why worry about the ones that have gained eminence, anyway ? There are thousands of able men and women in all professions who have not gained eminence simply because they have either not been favoured or not been fortunate.

Surely there is no need to “prove” nowadays that scientists of all descriptions are turned out like sausages and that the discoveries of eminent men to-day are discredited to-morrow? And bacteriologists, in particular, have fared as badly as any. What Mr. Montague means by “and that their remuneration beyond the common undifferentiated denominator is taken out of the worker as a part of surplus value” we do not know. Marx has not suggested this nor has any writer in The Socialist Standard. Those who work for wages (or salaries) provide unpaid labour for the capitalist, otherwise they would not be employed. The scientist who does not have to work for his living lives on the unpaid labour of the workers, no matter how eminent he may be.

If we reject the labour theory of value do we give away the Socialist case? Mr. Montague asks this question, and answers, no. He then goes on to make some curious statements, among them a suggestion that, according to Marxists, exploitation only occurs in a factory. This is ridiculous. Whether the worker is employed in a factory, on the market or anywhere else by the capitalist for wages he is exploited. This was the contention of Marx (for example, his instance of the school teacher) and is the view of the Socialist. It is not affected by an analysis of wealth production.

As there is no explanation of what is meant by the assertion that “the member of the working class who has never done a stroke of work in his life and for whom capitalism has not been able to find a use is, nevertheless, robbed,” we are left in the dark. If this means that capitalism has robbed the man of actual wealth then it is nonsense. If it means that capitalism has robbed him of opportunity to engage in useful work then it is not a question of exploitation. Unless we have a common agreement about the meaning of the words we use we cannot make much progress in discussion. So far the meaning given to the term “exploitation” has been: using a person or a thing for one’s own ends. The capitalist class uses the working class for the purpose of producing profit. Hence, the working class is an exploited class and everyone born into the working class belongs to this exploited class. A man can belong to the working class and yet do no work.

Exploitation is both the cumulative robbery of workers in time measured by history and also by the clock. The palaces, ships and masses of capital goods are the historical results of exploitation. The daily output beyond what the worker gets are the daily results of exploitation. Marx has written chapters that explain both points.

The labour theory of value is essential to the accomplishment of Socialism for the following reason:—

The workers, as a class, produce the wealth and receive out of it only their cost of subsistence. The capitalists, as a class, take the rest, although they take no part in production. The labour theory of value explains how the robbery is effected. Until Marx put his theory forward in its perfected, or finished, form, the advocates of the workers were at the mercy of every currency reformer, tariff reformer, nationalist movement, and the like. Nowadays the Socialist knows how and why the workers are robbed, and on account of this he also knows that the only way to stop the robbery is to abolish capitalism and institute Socialism.

Exploitation only exists while there is an exploiting system. Explaining the mechanism of this system does not mean agreeing with it in whole or in part. Again we must say that we cannot see what connection there is between this and the remarks about equality of remuneration. Remuneration is only of importance where people have to live by remuneration, as they do under capitalism.

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” has always been the accepted principle of Socialists and is the antithesis of capitalism, but what this has to do with the Marxian analysis of value we cannot see. In ”The German Ideology” Marx stated quite clearly that capitalist conditions of labour will not apply under Socialism.

Under Socialism there will not be a division of labour and specialisation such as exists to-day, and the individual will no longer be enslaved to the world market.

Socialism is not “defended by proof of exploitation in factory time.” Ignoring for the moment the erroneous use of “factory time," we must point out that the labour theory of value is a criticism and an argument against capitalism. This theory shows that commodity production is built upon the exploitation of the worker and Socialism is put forward as the negation of this. Once Socialism is established, commodity production will be abolished. As the concept of value is only derived from commodities it will also disappear.

The fact that the workers are exploited to-day is the reason why they should abolish this system and establish another—Socialism—where there would be no exploitation.

Mr. Montague set out to show that the “Marxian doctrine of exchange is not a true theory of value,” and also “that it is not Socialist.” He has not accomplished either end. In the course of his argument he has made some irrelevant statements, but it would take more than the space available to deal adequately with them.

Gilmac.

The writer understands that Mr. Montague is making a further contribution. If so, will he explain more clearly what he means by the statement (in the fourth paragraph) “it is impossible to find an explanation of the factors of exchange between commodities in any theory dependant upon integrating prices.” Why is “between" italicised ?   

G.

Editorial: The Labour Party's Pension Plan (1937)

Editorial from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the collapse of the Labour Government in the crisis of 1931 the Labour leaders lost their heads and their control of many of their followers and for a time the traditional social reform policy of the Labour Party gave place to a variety of wildcat ideas and schemes. Among them was the idea that capitalism had collapsed finally and could never again afford reforms. At the same time many workers who had not until then questioned the theory of gradually improving capitalism until it was improved out of existence, began to see that perhaps Socialists are right, and there is no way of escaping the evils of capitalism except by its complete abolition. Six years in the political wilderness and the spectacle of capitalism making its inevitable temporary recovery from the depression has restored the nerve of the Labour leaders, and they are back now to where they started, seeking power on what they consider to be a sound plan for improving the State pension scheme. In brief, the plan (“Labour’s Pension Plan,” price 2d.) proposes that the pension at age 65 should be increased from 10s. to £1 a week per person (35s. for married couples) on condition of retirement from wage-earning employment, except such subsidiary employment as is permitted under the Unemployment Insurance Acts (i.e., up to about £1 a week). A number of other proposals are included in the scheme, including the increase of orphans' allowances to 10s. a week.

It is claimed that the plan would remove 300,000 persons from industry, and thus make way for young people now unemployed.

The estimated cost is £85 million a year, and this is to be met by contributions from workers, employers and the State. The workers' contribution will be not more than 1s. a week, probably only 9d. This contribution will be in addition to existing contributions.

Is it a good plan? No doubt many workers will be glad of an opportunity of getting some additional security in old age, moderate though the amount is, and even though they have to pay heavily for it—9d. or 1s. a week out of wages already insufficient to raise millions above the level of undernourishment. Ought the workers to support the Labour Party on the strength of this plan? Here the Socialist case and the reformist case come to grips.

The Labour Party asks the workers to resign themselves to capitalism for a further period—“we shall not be living under Socialism during the period of office of the next Labour Government" (page 29)—sacrifice some of their present consumption in order to pay extra pension contributions; and then in old age enjoy a modest improvement on the existing miserable pensions.

Obviously—and the pamphlet confesses as much—nobody who has begun to see through capitalism would look at such a pettifogging scheme except for the claim that it is merely the first step in a series which will lead to Socialism. The pamphlet promises that the Labour Party’s ”immediate programme will lay the foundations of a planned economy, on the basis of sound and ordered finance.” Capitalism makes nonsense of this.

If the Labour Party succeeds after a few years' propaganda in making the scheme popular the Tories will appropriate it in some form or other and claim any credit there may be attached to it. On the other hand, it will always be unpopular with large sections of the workers on account of the heavy contribution.

As for the ideas of planned economy and sound finance, the next crisis—as certain as the rising of the sun so long as capitalism remains—will blow plans and financial estimates sky high, and if the Labour Government is in office at that time it will go up in the general explosion. That would matter little to the workers or to Socialism but for the fact that the Labour Party claims that this plan and the rest of its immediate programme is part of the advance towards Socialism.

Against this  uninspiring and unprogressive policy masquerading as practical politics the Socialist asks some simple questions, the self-evident answers to which expose the emptiness of Labourism. Are poverty, unemployment, insecurity, the danger of war and the certainty of crises inseparable from capitalism? Are the powers of production great enough if socially controlled to provide comfort and security for all? Is there anything holding back Socialism except the dearth of Socialists among the working class? Is it not obvious that the preaching of social reforms befogs the workers’ minds to the urgent necessity of Socialism ?

The human race needs Socialism now. The Labour Party, lacking faith in the intelligence and capacity of the working class, thinks to lead them slowly on the road by dangling the carrot of £1 a week at 65, largely paid for in advance by weekly sacrifice of necessities. In the meantime, capitalism goes on its callous way, mocking the puny efforts of the social reformers.

Should the Capitalist be Compensated? (1937)

From the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often reproached by well-meaning people for what they call our "attacks" upon the Labour Party. They argue that all political parties in the Labour movement are working for the same end — Socialism, and that their differences merely arise out of the question of the best means of attaining it. The answer to the assumption that our differences with the Labour Party are only tactical can be answered bluntly. The object of the Labour Party is not, and never has been, Socialism. Further, it has never defined what it means by Socialism; nor, apparently, is the need for definition recognised.

To the assortment of lawyers, generals, bishops, humanitarians, authors, trade unionists and capitalists that are members and supporters of the Labour Party, Socialism might mean everything or anything, or nothing. To the trade unionist it can mean no more than the regulation by the Government of wages and conditions of employment. To the capitalist supporter it can mean no more than State subsidies or assistance of industries which cannot stand up to competition in the world markets. To the parson and the humanitarian it can mean State action to remove a social evil which they imagine to be the hindrance to the perfect social arrangement. To none of these does it mean a new social order based upon the common ownership of the means of life; and consequently there is no understanding that the anomalies that exist under capitalism cannot be removed whilst private property remains.

That this is not so obvious is perhaps in some measure due to the loose way in which the word Socialism is used to describe something which it is not, i.e., Nationalisation. This can fairly be described as the Labour Party’s aim and object, though at no election has it sought unqualified support for it; rather has it been referred to vaguely as something for the remote future. But Nationalisation is not Socialism. True, State-owned industries give the appearance of having eliminated the capitalist, but the elimination is from management and not from ownership.

In an article in Forward (August 28th, 1937), Mr. A. Woodburn illustrates this point and argues the urgency “at the earliest practicable moment" of bringing “the means of production and distribution under public ownership and democratic control.” And he goes on to say: —

The easiest and quickest way to obtain a thing is to buy it.

This does not require making people accept new and strange procedure. They are accustomed to regard purchase as fair. It would eliminate any resistance and minimise objections. The Labour Party, therefore, propose to purchase from existing owners the principal means of production, exchange and distribution.

Quite plausible! And this is how it will be done:—

Let us suppose that the land was valued at £1,000 and the owner drew as feu or ground rent £40 per year. If this piece of land is required it would be nationalised by the owner transferring his title deeds to the State.

The State would give him in return a Land Stock Certificate valued £1,000, giving an annual interest of £40.

All that has taken place is that the land has been nationalised. The owner’s income is untouched—and we may, on grounds of expediency, even be generous in our compensation and increase it.

Notice: The owner transfers his title deeds to the State, which will pay him an annual interest, which the Labour Government in its generosity might increase. Well might prominent capitalists say: “We are all Socialists now!” Who would doubt it! Mr. Woodburn heads his article with the lying caption: “The Land for the People." On his own showing the people who will own it and in whose interest and profit it will be worked will be those who own "Land Stock Certificates," which have been given in exchange for the original title deeds. Mr. Woodburn argues that the workers would be freed from “the despotism of castle and manor." Now that sounds fine; And it can be imagined that many workers might be taken in by the superficial appearance. In fact the worker would be freed from nothing. As now, he would sell for his labour-power wages, which would buy only sufficient, on the average, to keep him in his subject position as a worker. And, as now, when the goods he makes could not be sold in the capitalist markets at a profit he would be faced with all the miseries of unemployment and insecurity.

It could not be otherwise. Wages, rent, interest and profit, are parts of the economic arrangement of capitalism and rest upon the private ownership of the means of living. Abolish private ownership and wages and profits disappear as unnecessary. If wages and profits still exist, then private ownership still exists. Its outward form may appear different, but no specious description of it as “public ownership" will alter facts. No major working class problem would have been solved and quite a host of minor problems might be added.

Mr. Woodburn appears to credit the Labour Party with the miraculous power of being able to retain the basic fundamentals of capitalism, whilst, at the same time, suspending its effects upon the workers. Experience shows the contrary. In 1929/31, when unemployment trebled, wages tumbled, and profits fell, the Labour Government did not then show the capitalists how “generous" it could be and arrange matters so as to “increase" profits. It merely whimpered that it was the victim of the “economic blizzard." That confession expressed the impotence of the Labour Party to control capitalism. It was driven by it. It is the nature of capitalism to function in the interests of the capitalists, and no fancy paper-schemes, which merely aim at changing names, will alter it.

Socialism involves the dispossession of the capitalist class. Dispossession means taking away, its property, thus removing the source of its income and its power of dominance over the workers. Society would become classless. The capitalist class cannot be dispossessed and at the same time retain its income and privileges. It derives its income and is able to live upon the wealth produced by the workers because it owns the land, factories and railways. Dispossess the capitalists and their ability to live on the wealth produced by others ceases. They no longer continue to exist as a capitalist class. But if, under an arrangement such as the Labour Party’s nationalisation proposals, the capitalists continued to receive the incomes and retain the privileges which result from ownership then they would not have been dispossessed. There are no two ways about it—no half measures. Compensation and Socialism are incompatible. Dispossession rules out compensation and is a necessary condition for Socialism. Compensation rules out dispossession—and can only mean capitalism.

It would be misrepresenting the Labour Party to pretend that they have ever believed in the dispossession of the capitalist class. They have not. What they have done is to describe any tinkering experiment proposed by a Labour Government as Socialism. They have encouraged the stupid belief that the evil effects of capitalism can be removed by the return to power of a Labour Government without removing the cause of those evils: the private ownership of the means of living. Such a policy can only mean eventual despair and disillusionment for the millions of workers who vote for the Labour Party, and the harm done to the task of making the workers Socialist cannot be exaggerated.

There are certain officials of the Labour Party who would deny this interpretation of Labour Party policy. They would say that nationalisation is a step towards Socialism and is a phase in the transitional process. Logically, if this were true, then the Labour Party would come before the working-class electorate seeking a mandate for the dispossession of the capitalist class, proposing nationalisation as a means to that end. It does not do so. As the would-be-Marxist Woodburn shows, it is opposed to dispossession. And, moreover, when Mr. Woodburn suggests buying out the capitalists on the grounds that it “would eliminate" the voters' “resistance" because they “regard purchase as fair," he is saying in effect that Labour Party policy is anti-Socialist and is indirectly dictated by those opposed to Socialism. Pandering to the prejudices of non-Socialist working-class voters is not a step towards Socialism, it is a gross betrayal of it. When Mr. Woodburn goes further and uses his knowledge of Marxist writings to give Labour Party policy the approval of Marx he tempts a reply which the printer of this journal would not print. He quotes Marx and contrives to show that Marx was in favour of buying out the capitalists, and that the alternative to it would mean social catastrophe. Mr. Woodburn does not quote Marx directly, but reproduces quotations from Lenin and Kautsky. Despite the fact that he claims to be a Marxist, perhaps he has not read Marx. In a party where knowledge of Marxism is conspicuous by its absence such a reputation is easily acquired.

Slither as he will, Mr. Woodburn cannot show from the essence of Marxism and its principles, not from garbled, secondhand quotations, that Labour Party policy conforms to the scientific revolutionary doctrines formulated by Marx. And the sooner he faces up to the fact that the party of which he is a member is the twentieth-century expression of nineteenth-century Liberalism the better it will be for the workers in this country, and the sooner they will be in a position to consider Socialism upon its merits unconfused by the false claims of Mr. Woodburn and his like.

Members and supporters of the Labour Party who want to see the end of working-class poverty must face facts.

The chief function of the Labour Party when it is not in office is that of “His Majesty’s opposition" to the Government of the day on questions arising out of the administration and the making of laws for the running of capitalism. That it is opposed to the Government is the clearest aspect of its policy. It is willing, when political circumstances dictate, to become the government of the day, undertaking the dirty work of running capitalism for the capitalists, including setting the armed forces in motion against strikers, and in defence of capitalist property when it is attacked by foreign competitive robbers. We oppose the Labour Party because it stands for capitalism. We oppose it—bitterly—because, deliberately or in ignorance, it masks its naked capitalist policy with Socialist phrases and dogma.

Any policy other than the dispossession of the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of living is a capitalist policy.

Its efforts to interpret Socialism in a manner inoffensive to non-Socialists commits it to a capitalist policy. Its use of Socialist phrases is a danger to working-class interests, which can only result in hindrance to the progress of Socialism. Only a sufficient number of workers wanting Socialism can establish it. Until that time, capitalism and all that it means, poverty, insecurity and war, will continue, no matter what government administers it. Until that time, too, workers who despair of one political party after another will be prey to any political mountebank that comes along. Only one thing can prevent it, and that is the spreading of Socialist knowledge.

There is only one party committed to this, and that is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Harry Waite

Letter: A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike

To the Editorial Board,                                                                                                                                                          

The Socialist Standard.

 

Woolwich, S.E.18.

Dear Comrade,

I have been invited as a member of the Communist Party to express my opinion on your article, “ A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike.” (See July The Socialist Standard.)

Your article, in the first place, does not examine the economic history and the relation of the class forces leading up to the agreement, but takes part of the agreement, without regard to the situation, and then condemns Arthur Homer and the Communist Party. You are content merely to repeat what a capitalist paper says, instead of as Marxists examining the whole question in the light of its relationship, taking into account as many facts as possible. Had this been done you would have been in a position to express an opinion.

Although not in any way connected with the mining industry, I submit the following facts:—

In 1933 the Bedwas Lodge was driven off the colliery it had controlled for many years. Under police protection the pit was filled with blacklegs and two thousand men were out. From 1933 to 1936 things were relatively quiet, but in 1934 Emlyn, Parc and Dare had been won back to the S.W.M.F. and Taff Merthyr had been weakened, but Bedwas was still 100 per cent. Miners’ Industrial Union. This had cost the Union money and funds were low. It was obvious that the strength of the Industrial Union was at Bedwas. In 1936 the attack on Bedwas started, and eventually 900 men signed revocation cards. Provisional strike notices were handed in. Ninety per cent. of the coalfield supported them. The Bedwas owners left the Coalowners' Association in order to fight. The huts were ready at the pithead to house the blacklegs.

On the last day of the expiry of the notices the owners said they would be willing to meet the Union if they withdrew the notices. There were stay-in strikes.

The owners met the Union. It now became clear that there would not be a strike. If a strike took place the Company would be smashed, the Company was carrying a million pounds of debt and not another penny was available. If the output did not provide the wages, the wages could not be paid. It was easy to close the colliery and destroy the men’s employment as the price for wiping out the Company Union. Therefore the Bedwas agreement was entered into.

In most instances the agreement is the same as that covering the coalfield agreement, and in some instances there are advantages in the Bedwas agreement. Double shift and new machinery are dealt with in the same manner as the coalfield agreement. Wages differ very little from that in the coalfield agreement.

It is Clause 13—machinery for settling disputes —which has caused uneasiness, but after consultation with the men and the old Bedwas Committee, it was agreed to. Either the agreement or close the fit.

The Independent Arbitrator takes the place of the Finality Committee now functioning in the coalfield, but whereas in the cases of dispute 99 per cent. of the cases of “failure to agree" implied defeat for the appellants, every dispute must now reach a conclusion.

If there is a coalfield fight, Bedwas can do as every other colliery, each individual can terminate his contract and secure release from the agreement. In the event of the Company failing to carry out the agreement there can, and probably will be, strikes.

The Bedwas agreement has not endangered coalfield agreement, although it contains formulations agreed to under duress.

Finally, the agreement has paved the way in a period of relative weakness for die final elimination of Company Unionism in the coalfield. Then is your article justified—you must make the choice—is this an advance from the 100 per cent. Company Unionism and the isolation of the Federation from Bedwas or not? You say that “at best it could be described as compromising and dangerous." Do you understand that the class struggle is full of compromises and dangers for the working class? It is a question whether you will face up to them or not. 

Yours fraternally, 

S. Rodgers.

Reply.

Our correspondent’s letter criticising the article, “A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike," is not very convincing. He says that the alternative to the Bedwas Agreement, signed by Arthur Horner, was closing the pit and throwing the miners out of employment. Such situations can indeed arise, but when faced with a demand by the employers that the Union shall sign a degrading agreement, the workers at least have the alternative of refusing to give their officials authority to sign— in other words, of giving up official recognition of the Union for the time being. The employers would enforce the terms, whether the Union signed or not, but there would be a certain value in the workers refraining from giving collective endorsement to them.

Our correspondent’s letter is, however, hardly consistent with itself. Having stated that the Bedwas workers had to accept the agreement or lose their employment through the closing down of the colliery, our correspondent goes on to say that, in the event of a coalfield fight, the Bedwas workers can individually terminate the agreement and come out on strike. Surely in that case they will be again faced with the closing down of the colliery and the loss of their employment: if it applies in one case so, it will in the other. This “right" of individually terminating his agreement is possessed by every worker, organised or not, but what a right ! It is an admission that real trade union organisation is for the time being impossible.

Ed. Comm.

Parliamentary Fund (1937)

From the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Answer to Correspondent: Equal Rewards to Unequal Persons (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Equal Rewards to Unequal Persons

H. W. Henderson (Glasgow).—The assumption on which your questions rest is not correct. Socialists do not claim that “the worker is entitled to the full product of his labour." With cooperation in production and the sub-division of labour it is seldom that we can know what is the full product of a worker's labour. Even if it were possible to know, the worker could not have the full product of his labour if the means of production are to be replaced and extended. It is quite true that the capacities of individuals vary, but if it is “unjust" for the man with big output to have no greater reward than the man with small output this may be due to physique and health. Would you call it "just’’ that the small and weak should be penalised because they cannot keep up with their more fortunate fellows? You say that some superior capacities are the result of self-development through years of effort. Leaving aside for the present the knotty question of the claim of such individuals to be rewarded, how are you going to get over the practical difficulty of distinguishing between the man whose large output comes without effort and the man whose large output comes only with great effort. Surely it would be "unjust" on your argument to reward them equally?

It is for these and other reasons that Socialists stand by the principle "From each according to his abilities: to each according to his needs," but we have never supposed that it could be applied in Russia or anywhere else where the productive forces were insufficiently developed and where the population was still saturated with capitalist prejudices.

We will return to this subject in the near future and deal with your points more fully.

Ed. Comm.

Answer to Correspondent: Distribution Under Socialism, Why Money Will Not Be Needed (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Distribution Under Socialism, Why Money Will Not Be Needed

P. P. M. (W.1).—See article “This Money Business," " S.S.," February, 1934, and reply to question "Socialism and Motor Cars," October, 1934. In the near future we will have something more on this question. Ed. Comm.

SPGB Meetings (1937)

Party News from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

It's interesting to note that a C. Umpleby was listed as a SPGB contact in Leeds during this period. I'm sure there was a Dave Umpleby who was active in the SPGB in South Yorkshire during the 1990s and 2000s. I wonder if they were related? Umpleby can't be that common a name.

East Ham Outdoor Propaganda (1937)

Party News from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

'Edkins' was George Edkins, who joined the West Ham Branch of the SPGB in January 1928 and was a member of the SPGB for over fifty years. According to his obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard, he was known to be active at indoor and outdoor meetings during this period.

General Open Air Propaganda (1937)

Party News from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Unlike the SPGB Lecture Lists from the pre-WW1 era, this speaking list unfortunately doesn't carry the speakers' forename initials, so it is too difficult to work out who the more obscure speakers are. 

For example, down the decades there's been quite a few Walkers in the SPGB, so I can't be sure who this Walker is who is listed. 'Otto' was most likely a pseudonym and I don't have any info on 'Nesbit', but they must have been viewed as an able Party speaker if they were speaking on the party platform in Hyde Park on a Sunday. That platform always drew the mass crowds. 'Reginald' was the party name of Augustus Snellgrove.

'Banks' was probably Jimmy Banks, who was an SPGBer active in South London, and Rushcroft Road was a speaking pitch in Brixton. He originally joined the Battersea Branch of the SPGB during World War One, and passed away in late 1966. His obituary appeared in the February 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Shanghai: A New Gang "Muscling In" (1937)

From the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is nothing more entertaining than the indignation of one gang of imperialists at the unsportsmanlike conduct of rival gangs. An imperialist newspaper recently reproached Mussolini with stirring up both Jews and Arabs in Palestine and the Near East by promising to support the claims of each of them. The writer pointed out that both promises could not be kept. What he forgot is that the British Government during the Great War did the same thing, down to the last dot and comma, and now could not keep the impossible pledges if it wished.

British imperialists are outraged at the behaviour of the Japanese Government, which hardly troubles to disguise its greedy intention to rob the British in China as well as the Chinese. The Times says that British capitalists have £250 million invested there, of which £180 million is in Shanghai (The Times, August 19th, 1937). The News Chronicle City Editor thinks that the amount is even larger, about £300 millions (News Chronicle, August 27th). The Times wants the Government to take a strong line. It tells Japan that “the free hand which she desires in Eastern Asia will in no circumstances include license to play havoc with the lawful interests of Great Britain."

The City Editor of the News Chronicle (August 27th, 1937) comments on the strong anti-Japanese feeling in the “City," and contrasts it with the City's placid acceptance of General Franco’s brigandage. The reason for the difference of attitude is that in Spain British capitalists have only £40 million, half in Franco territory and half in Government territory, and of the two—

   Property in Franco’s territory is probably a rather better “risk” than property in the Spanish Government’s territory, whereas no one has any illusions as to the relative friendliness of the Chinese and Japanese Governments to British capital.

The City Editor says: “I have no desire to be cynical about the City’s attitude on China and on Spain—but money does talk, doesn’t it?”

The Co-operative newspaper, Reynolds News, (August 22nd, 1937), takes The Times to task for wanting armed action to protect British capitalist interests in Shanghai. This is sound enough, but lest Reynolds News should overlook one of its past editorials, we would like to remind it that, in 1932, when Japan seized Manchuria, Reynolds News wanted action by the Powers to restrain Japan, for the reason that—

    If free rein is given to her vaulting Imperialist ambitions in the Far East, the large economic interests of the Western nations must be imperilled gravely. Their trade and capital investments will collapse. Their treaty ports and extra-territoriality will be lost. Their every right will be abrogated.— (Reynolds's Illustrated News, February 21st. 1932.) 

When Japanese imperialists see the Western imperialists thus blatantly justifying their right to hold Chinese territory they can hardly be blamed for claiming that their “right" to do the same cannot be less. Anyway, what is more important is that the Japanese capitalists have great armed might and are on the doorstep of China, which gives them a big advantage. Badly armed and industrially backward, China is unable to meet Japan’s forces on equal terms.

One organ of British capitalism, the Daily Express, is taking the line that the British Government should in effect walk out of Shanghai and let the new gangsters take-over. If investors have sunk £300 millions there, that is just too bad for them but not worth a war. This is in line with Beaverbrook’s policy of "splendid isolation" for the British Empire. He probably thinks that British capitalists will have enough difficulty holding the Empire without trying also to hold investments outside it.

P. S.

Letter to the Editors: Socialists and the State (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter from a Southampton reader. Our reply follows.

Southampton,

August 22nd, 1937.

Dear Sir,

    

Your party is certainly uncompromising, but when Marx was studying the Paris Commune he discovered the fact that the State, with all its various offices, was not of the slightest use to the working class. In the Socialist Standard, July, 1937, reference is made there to Lewis Morgan; he, more than anyone, illustrates the fact that with a change in the tool, and the ownership thereof, there came a change in government old forms, old means of repression: everything changed when the character of the tool changed. In our day? social methods of production are decaying under private ownership; the S.P.G.B., as I see, contend that the working class will govern, or be governed, as you will, by the political State; you evidently don’t intend an industrial democracy based on the social mode of wealth production.

       I can quote from Marx, Engels, and De Leon, as proof of my ideas, and your movements policy is, to put it mild, dishonest or dumb. A revolutionary organisation holds a great responsibility; do not avoid the facts.

N. Jolliffe.

Reply.

Our correspondent thinks that Marx expressed certain views about the State, and that the S.P.G.B. holds other ideas, and that, therefore, we are dishonest or dumb. It would have been helpful if Mr. Jolliffe had been more explicit about the place in which Marx is supposed to have expressed these views, and that we are supposed to have opposed them, for actually both of these assertions are baseless.

But, before dealing with them, we would remind our correspondent that he is very much mistaken in thinking that he can prove any policy to be sound or unsound by quoting from “Marx, Engels and De Leon," or from Holy Writ or anything else. All he can prove by quoting from Marx is that Marx held a certain view. As Marx was a careful, conscientious and very well-informed and experienced student of political and economic questions, his considered opinion is deserving of the fullest attention, not, however, to be accepted as gospel. Marx, like other people, had to learn by experience, and sometimes made mistakes. Even geniuses make mistakes.

However, on the question before us the only mistakes have been made by Mr. Jolliffe.

What Mr. Jolliffe believes Marx wrote after studying the Paris Commune is that:—:

   The State, with all its various offices, was not of the slightest use to the working class.

What Marx really wrote was as different as chalk is from cheese. (The references are to “Civil War in France,” by Karl Marx; Labour Publishing Co. edition, 1921.)

Marx (p. 8) first quotes, with approval, the declaration of the Communists, that: —

   The proletarians of Paris . . . .  have understood that it is their imperious duty and their absolute right to render themselves masters of their own destinies, by seizing upon the governmental power.

Marx then adds his own comment: —

    But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.

What Mr. Jolliffe has done (and many others before him) is to ignore the first statement about the duty of seizing upon the governmental power, ignore the word "simply,” and ignore the later passages where Marx explains that, having seized on the governmental power, the workers must amputate the “merely repressive organs,” wrest its “legitimate functions” from the usurping authority, and restore the legitimate functions to the responsible agents of society (p. 32). 

Neither here nor anywhere else does Marx ever say that the State is “not of the slightest use to the working class.”

As Mr. Jolliffe has brought in Engels, it will be fitting to use Engels’ own amplification of what Marx and he had in mind. In a letter to Van Patten, on April 18th, 1883 (i.e., immediately after Marx’s death), Engels wrote as follows: —

    . . .  The working class must first take possession of the organised political power of the State and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew. . . . This state may require very considerable alterations before it can fulfil its new functions.

Now if our correspondent will turn to our “Declaration of Principles” he will find precisely the same idea in paragraph 6.

Regarding the next statement in our correspondent’s letter, concerning the supposed views of the S.P.G.B. as to the "Political State” under Socialism, we deny that he can find such a statement in any of our literature. The S.P.G.B. agrees with Marx and Engels that, with the disappearance of classes, there “ also disappears the necessity for the power of armed oppression or state power” (in the letter quoted above). The State will, therefore, in due course "wither away”—

   State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of the processes of production. The State is not “abolished," it dies out.—(Engel’s “ Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.” Chapter III).

Editorial Committee. 

Notes by the Way: The Basque Children (1937)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Basque Children

The rescue of Basque child refugees from General Franco's bombers was a natural gesture of sympathy on the part of workers' organisations in France, England and elsewhere. It provoked in certain quarters some disgusting exhibitions of religious and properties-class hatred and meanness. Although many Catholics actively associated themselves with the refugee committees, some of their less humane fellows used all their influence to prevent the children from being rescued and have since sought to get them sent back. On the plea that the children's religious faith was being harmed they were quite prepared to see their lives endangered. What they fear, of course—and rightly so—is that new contacts may start the children thinking for themselves and freeing themselves from religious shackles.

Other protesters, wealthy people who had never been known to object to the miserable half-starved lives of British children, suddenly became indignant at the idea of spending British money on foreign children while there is so much need for charity at home. The cost of upkeep of the refugees exposed the niggardliness of unemployment child allowances.

The whole gang, aided by some of the viler newspapers, gave distorted publicity to the unruly behaviour of some of the refugee boys. Smug town councils demanded that their lives and property be safeguarded and the hooligans sent back to be bombed. What did they expect of children who have seen the fabric of life destroyed by brutal war? And why not some of the tolerance they habitually show towards the periodical hooliganism of university gangs?

A news item (Sunday Express, September 19th, 1937) provides an interesting parallel with the protests against the refugee camps. The Swanage Town Council has asked the War Office not to send any more Officer Training Corps camps to the neighbourhood on the ground that the university men in the O.T.C. were guilty of various acts of hooliganism and were beyond the control of the local police. One councillor, a magistrate, added that the Territorials (not drawn from university ranks) were much better behaved.

The same gentleman, however, also disclosed something else which was getting the goat of Swanage shopkeepers, the fact that the O.T.C. camps bring all their supplies with them and buy nothing from the local shops. Perhaps this was the reason why so many voices were raised against the Basque children.

Rural Workers Who Cannot Afford Fresh Milk

The Shop Assistant (August 21st, 1937) publishes the following extract from the annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the St. Faith's and Aylesham rural district of Norfolk: —

In the rural parts of this district there is a large number of households where fresh milk is not used, but the supply is by tinned milk. It is curious to find this occurring near farms. There are some cases in which the reason is given that too great a distance has to be covered to obtain milk, but in the majority of cases it is because the families cannot afford it.

The really curious thing about this is not that it happens, but that the medical officer finds it curious. It is typical of capitalist industry everywhere.

Building workers who cannot afford to live in the houses they build (sometimes even when these are so-called "publicly-owned" council houses), shipbuilders who cannot afford to travel, textile workers who are badly clothed, bootmakers with leaky boots, telephone linesmen who cannot afford a telephone. Yet the doctor finds it curious! What has a better claim to be regarded as curious is that workers who see and feel every day the results of private ownership should go on accepting it.

Mr. McGovern is Amazed

In the recent by-election at Springburn, Glasgow, at which the Labour Party candidate, Mrs. Hardie, was elected, Mr. McGovern, M.P., advised the members of the I.L.P. to refrain from voting. One of his reasons was that, although the Labour Party claims to be Socialist, the word "Socialism" was never mentioned once in Mrs. Hardie's election address (The Times, September 7th, 1937). Now, it would indeed by remarkable if a Socialist Party were to run candidates on a non-Socialist programme. Actually what has happened is not at all remarkable since it comes from the Labour Party, which is not Socialist. Where can Mrs. Hardie have learned this trick? Perhaps she learned it from her old acquaintance, Miss Jennie Lee. In 1928 Miss Lee was elected at a by-election at North Lanark. She was the I.L.P.’s nominee and they financed her. Her election address not only contained no reference to Socialism, direct or indirectly, but she did not even mention the I.L.P. or her membership of it. Mr. McGovern should see her about it.

Incidentally, he should also recall that it was the I.L.P. which reduced to a fine art the practice of pretending to be Socialist but running as candidates of the Labour Party on a non-Socialist programme. How else does he suppose that some 200 of its members got themselves into Parliament at the 1929 General Election? Mr. McGovern himself first got into Parliament as candidate of the Labour Party, which he knew was not a Socialist Party.

It is true that Mr. McGovern and his associates in the Independent Labour Party now include at least the words “Socialism" and “Socialist” in their election addresses, but they have made little other change. Votes are still solicited on every kind of reform; which means that the candidates know quite well that they are dependent on the votes of non-Socialists.

It is reported that Glasgow members and branches of the I.L.P. are returning to the Labour Party because they disapprove of Mr. McGovern’s action in advising them not to vote for the Labour candidate.


French Workers Learn by Experience

Fools are said to learn by experience. The working class are not fools—just doped with capitalist propaganda and blinded by leader-worship—but it seems that many experiences are needed before they learn. Every Labour Government, no matter where it exists, is an attempt to defy the truth that the only way that capitalism can be administered is a capitalist way. But still Labour Governments come and go, each one blind to the truth and oblivious of the fate of the last. In 1929 the Labour Government in Great Britain went into office “accepting the present order of society ” (Mr. J. H. Thomas, Daily Herald, July 6th, 1929). Its principal pledge was to reduce unemployment. Two years later it was out on its neck, with unemployment at a record height and capitalism jogging along. The Labour Party was still prepared to accept the present order of society, but the owners of the present order of society for the time being were not prepared to accept the discredited and not-very-competent Labour leaders. Major Attlee and his associates are now busy dressing themselves up for another performance, as purblind as ever.

In the meantime the French Labourites have tried a similar experiment, marked by the same infantile hopefulness in the impossible. In Great Britain in 1929 the Labour Government depended on Liberal votes in the House of Commons. In France the Labourites formed a coalition government with the Liberals, under the premiership, of Leon Blum. After running for a year Blum was forced to quit and hand over the premiership to a Liberal, still maintaining the "Popular Front,” though already the workers are sadly disappointed. It is to be hoped that they will learn how little can be done until capitalism has been got rid of.

Three newspapers which gave approval to Blum’s Government (Daily Herald, Manchester Guardian and The Times) have recognised the simple facts of the situation.

The Daily Herald (June 22nd, 1937), in an editorial, says that Blum fell because “he did not possess the confidence of the big men of property, of the financiers, and the bankers"; which provokes the thought that if Blum went into office prepared to govern "within the present social regime” (his own words, The Times, May 2nd, 1936), yet supposed he could do so without having the confidence of those who own the present social regime, it is time he began to wake up to realities.

The Times Paris correspondent has shown a remarkably clear appreciation of the role of Labour Government and of the narrow limits within which they can diverge from traditional Liberal and Tory policy. On August 23rd, 1937, The Times published an article from him in which he wrote that Blum’s “Socialist” Minister of Finance

Does not seem to have realised that within the framework of the capitalist system social reform can be paid for only out of the profits of industry, and that if the entrepreneur is frightened out of his wits profits disappear. . . .

Two weeks later (The Times, September 7th, 1937), in another article, he wrote: —

M. Blum now supports the Radicals because he has realised that, short of provoking a dangerous upheaval, the problems of a capitalist system must, if they are to be resolved with capitalist support, be met by capitalist methods. . . .

One action of the present Popular Front Government which is highly praised by the British Labourites is the amalgamation of the railways into a single company in which the Government will hold a majority of the shares. The workers expect that it will benefit them, a point on which they will be better informed when they have seen it at work. Just now the French railway shareholders are feeling grateful to the Popular Front Government, because the nationalisation scheme had the result that “ their shares have actually enjoyed a remarkable boom on the Bourse ” (Manchester Guardian, September 1st, 1937).

This recalls the way in which British capitalists supported the Labour Government’s London Passenger Transport Board, which, of course, had no more to do with Socialism than the French railway nationalisation has.

Beaverbrook Outbids the Labour Party

Not only on foreign policy, but on home policy also. Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express is interesting as an example of the way avowed defenders of capitalism can outbid the Labour Party at the game of vote-catching by social reforms. A few of the planks in the Daily Express's policy during recent years are: Higher wages, paid holidays, shorter hours, State control of banking, and now the drastic curtailment of inherited wealth by means of much heavier death duties. (“There is only one serious complaint to be made against death duties. They are not nearly steep enough”—Express editorial, September 15th, 1937.) So successful is this policy that the Daily Herald's 2,000,000 circulation has fallen a bad second to the 2,400,000 of the Express.

It can be said, of course, that Beaverbrook has one policy for the Express and another for the Evening Standard. This is an old game of the Press barons. While Odham's Daily Herald backs the Labour Party’s new pension scheme, a regular contributor to Odham’s People (August 22nd, 1937) poured cold water on it.

“Not for the Prime Purpose of Making Profits"

Lord Beaverbrook, in a signed pronouncement in the Evening Standard (September 9th, 1937), has this: —

The Daily Express is not run for the prime purpose of making profits. This newspaper is a public institution, which, in the national interest, sacrifices money to the main plan of serving the public.

We now await an invitation from Beaverbrook to serve his public by stating the Socialist case in the Daily Express, and we know that with the price of newsprint rising the Daily Express will not try to reduce its size in order to save profits, and we expect when Beaverbrook dies he will turn out to be a poor man—worth only £2,000,000 instead of £5,000,000.

It is all very noble and touching, only we don’t believe it.

The Ellerman Fortune—What Price Social Reforms?

A news item in the Evening Standard (September 8th and 9th, 1937) gives a staggering jolt to the hoary belief of the Labourites that you can gradually tax the capitalist out of existence and find yourselves sliding imperceptibly into Socialism. Sir John Ellerman, after a life of accumulation of the proceeds of the exploitation of the workers, left property worth £40,000,000, of which £17,000,000 was in cash and Government securities. Under the death duties the State took £22,000,000, leaving a paltry £18,000,000 for the heir. On the authority of Sir William Cox, manager of the Ellerman estate, the Evening Standard states that the value of the estate has increased in four years back to the original level of £40,000,000! This as any economic textbook will tell you, must have been due to the brains and work of the present Sir John Ellerman, but the Evening Standard says it is due to the all-round rise in share values:—

Some people have expressed surprise at so rapid an expansion. An examination of the increase in the values of property and securities during the last four years shows that such a growth is by no means exceptional.

It looks as if it will take capitalism quite a long time to die from death duties.

Simultaneously with the above news item, the Labour Party published its brand-new plan for old-age pensions of £l at 65. It will cost £80,000,000 a year, rising in ten years to £90,000,000 a year. As however, under a Labour Government “there will be strict limits . . . to what is practicable to add to the Budget,” the scheme is to be a contributory one: the workers are to pay 1s. men and 9d. women per week in order to qualify (see “ Labour’s Pension Plan,” " National Council of Labour,” 2d., page 29).

When the Labour Party say that expenditure of £80,000,000 a year is not practicable they don’t mean that the Ellerman’s cannot afford it, but that they won’t pay.

The moral of which is, get rid of capitalism, but as the Labour Party pamphlet goes on to say, rather unnecessarily: —

We shall not be living under Socialism during the period of office of the next Labour Government.

The Labour Party should ask Lord Southwood, who is associated with Sir John Ellerman in the recent purchase of Illustrated Newspapers, to tell them about the Ellerman fortune. Lord Southwood (formerly Mr. Elias) is head of Odhams, who own the Labour daily, the Daily Herald.

The Inefficient Russian Dictatorship

One of the popular features of Communist propaganda in the days before they became ashamed of dictatorship and went all democratic was the argument that dictatorship is so very efficient because it doesn’t waste time on talk and doesn’t allow the “stupid” rank and file, in their ignorance, to elect rogues and fools to positions of responsibility. (Nowadays the Fascists can be heard putting over the same arguments.) If ever there was a living example of its falsity the Russian dictatorship provides it. Never a day passes now without more declarations by the Russian Government that its hand-picked men in high places are corrupt and inefficient, rogues and fools, spies and wreckers. One instance out of many is of special interest because it relates not to one of the original hand-picked regional dictators but to the man who was picked to succeed one who had been thrown out only a short while ago. He is Abdullah Rakhimbayev, Premier of the Soviet Republic of Tadjikstan.

He was appointed as recently as 1934 to succeed a former premier discovered to be a "counter-revolutionary." The new genius was instructed to clean things up. This, according to the Moscow correspondent of the Daily Herald (September 13th, 1937), was how he did it: —

   Rakhimbayev was revealed here to-day to have lived like an Oriental potentate, with a harem of three wives.
   One of the wives was an Uzbek, the second was a Tartar, and the third an Ossetian, from Georgia.
  Rakhimbayev, it is asserted, inherited his feudal attitude and habits from his father, a prominent landowner.
   He used to travel about Tadjikstan with the pomp once accorded to the Emir of Bokhara.
   Peasants were treated with the utmost contempt by the Premier’s retinue, and on one occasion 500 collective farmers were forced to trudge eight miles to meet Rakhimbayev.
  (Rakhimbayev was appointed in 1934 to succeed a counter-revolutionary. He was instructed to “bring back Tadjikstan into the proper road of a model Socialist Republic.”)

With all its faults, democracy was never so stupid and stultifying as dictatorship, and it will take more than the new fake democratic constitution to clean up the mess produced or perpetuated by dictatorship in Russia.

Labour Programme of the Indian Nationalists

Mr. V. V. Giri, Minister for Labour and Industries in the Indian Congress Government of Madras, spoke on July 25th about the policy the Government will pursue: —

   You all know that Congress stands for the fundamental rights which have been described by the famous Karachi Resolution. Chief among them being freedom of association and combination, freedom of speech and of the Press, living wage for industrial workers, limited hours of labour, healthy conditions of work, protection against economic consequences of old-age, sickness and unemployment, abolition of contract labour, right of labour to form unions to protect their interest, and a suitable machinery for settlement of disputes through conciliation, substantial reduction in agricultural rent or revenue paid by the peasantry, control over exchange and currency policy to help Indian industries and bring relief to the masses, control by the State of key industries, and ownership of mineral resources and control of usury.
   I do not for a moment claim that this programme is cent, per cent. Socialism, nor do I say that it must satisfy all Socialists. But I am bound to admit that these fundamental rights should be the basis for all workers to unite and organise the economic life of the masses, by organising every peasant in every village and every worker in every industry.—(Indian Labour Journal, August, 1937.)

Good Old Capitalism

The blessings of this capitalist era: —

   Ours is an age of banditry, piracy, civil wars, savage aggressions, guerrilla struggles, frontier fights, gangsters, gunmen and graft, interesting for future historians, never dull for those of who stay alive. —(Daily Express, September 22nd, 1937.)

   No one who examines the evidence can doubt that, actually, the use of torture is more widespread to-day than it was half a century ago.—(Report on treatment of prisoners: “The Accused. An International Survey,” issued by the Howard League for Penal Reform.) 

                                                MALNUTRITION.

   One result of the inquiry into nutrition had been a relisation of the deplorable malnutrition which existed to a smaller or greater degree in all countries of the world. This inquiry had demonstrated in a remarkable manner the fact that malnutrition could not be eliminated without a general improvement in the standard of living.

   Vital statistics showed clearly the connection between poverty on the one hand and ill-health and premature death on the other. Even in advanced countries death rates were 60 per cent. higher in poor areas than in well-to-do. Infantile mortality was as 2 to 1, while the death rate from tuberculosis was as 4 to 1. Could they reconcile it with their consciences that such contrasts should continue to exist? Would the general mass of the people continue to tolerate them?—(Mr. Bruce, representing Australia, at the League of Nations Assembly, September 21st, 1937. Times, September 22nd.)

Edgar Hardcastle