The Wealth of the Catholic Church in Spain (1937)

From the September 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spokesmen of the Catholic Church and Catholic periodicals have recently been doing their utmost to counter the widely accepted belief that the Spanish Catholic Church was wealthy and on the side of the, propertied class against the poor. Letters to the Press have been written arguing that the Catholic Church lost its wealth by a series of confiscations during the 19th century, so that long before the rebellion it had become a poor organisation, in no way associated by financial interest with the propertied class. It is claimed, too, that the Catholic priests were poorly paid. The last statement is certainly true, but it has nothing to do with the case, any more than has another very naive claim that the Catholic Church could not be wealthy because its income is largely derived from the pennies of the poor! It all depends on how many poor and how many pennies; and is about as true of the Catholic Church as of Woolworth's, the Coats' cotton combine, and many another great organisation which produces millionaire shareholders “out of the pennies of the poor."

The question is not whether the mass of Spanish clergy were poor, but whether the Catholic organisations and those in control of them were rich and powerful, and tied up with wealth and big business. Opponents of the Church in Spain maintain that, in addition to being the largest landowners, it had big holdings in banking, commercial and industrial concerns, newspapers, tramways, etc. As, however, Catholics may question the reliability of statements from such sources, let us see what some Catholics themselves have to say.

Mr. William Teeling, himself a Catholic, deals with this in his “The Pope in Politics—The Life the Work of Pope Pius XI" (Lovat Dickson, Ltd., London, 1937): —

. . . The [Spanish] State had amortised the Church’s property in 1835, and had guaranteed to pay the Spanish clergy from this income. As a result the country priests were extremely poorly paid (their income often amounted to only one peseta a day), were of a low mental type, and were badly educated. Much more powerful and better off were the Spanish orders, especially the Jesuits, who were very influential with the upper classes, and ran many colleges, and the University of Bilbao.—(Italics ours. Page 137.)

Mr. Teeling's information here relates to the position in 1923 and was based on the observations of a Catholic priest from Great Britain visiting Spain for the first time in that year. His article on the subject was published by the Catholic Tablet in 1923.

Mr. Teeling goes on to point out that the Liberals in Spain wanted to deprive the Catholic Church of some of its privileges, and among other things they "wished for a fresh Concordat with the Church to deal with the wealth of the Orders, and would have made the State independent of the Church. . . ."

In passing, it is interesting, in view of the Catholic denial that they have resisted the development of education, to find Mr. Teeling's Catholic priest reporting in 1923 that “he found the Spaniards keen on home life, but many were too poor even to go to school, for there were hardly any free schools. In Andalusia, 45 per cent. of the people were unable to read. . . . (Page 138.)

Mr. Teeling goes on to say that Pope Pius XI: —

Has, on more than one occasion, spoken to friends of mine about his great worry as to what would happen to the Church in Spain, for he felt it would not reform because it had too much wealth and ease.—(Pages 138-9.)

Another Catholic who substantiates the view that the controllers of the Spanish Church were wealthy is Don Angel Osserio y Gallardo, who is described as the “most authoritative representative of Conservative Catholic opinion in Spain." In a broadcast from Madrid (reported in the Daily Herald, September 19th, 1936) he said:—

The Church must not be confounded with the ecclesiastical degeneracy of bishops, laden with jewels, who drag God into political conflicts and ask His intervention to assure the electoral defeat of the Left.

Another Catholic witness is Senor Semprun Gurrea, a Conservative, who lectured in Philosophy of Law at Madrid University and has for many years contributed to a Spanish Catholic review, Cruz y Raya. An essay by him was published as a 2d. pamphlet by the Labour Publications Dept. (Transport House, S.W.l) under the title, “A Catholic Looks at Spain."

He points out that the searches and investigations of Catholic buildings by the Government after the rebellion: —

Revealed . . . activities which were perhaps licit in themselves, but were far from conforming to the rules, the needs and the mission of a religious life; e.g., the accumulation of treasure and goods, which is difficult to explain in places of prayer and disinterestedness.—(Page 11.)

Again, on the character of the Catholic bishops, he writes: —

Those elected were, with few exceptions, men too immersed in temporal matters, too closely connected with great personages, all the world of the nobility and the greater bourgeoisie which surrounds the high places of power and social life.—(Page 26.)

In fairness to Senor Gurrea (and, indeed, to the other Catholics mentioned) it must be pointed out that, in condemning bishops, he expressly dissociates himself from any attack on the Church as a whole.

With reference to the disclosure of “accumulation of treasure" in ecclesiastical buildings, it may be recalled that, in the early months of the rebellion, search brought to light nearly £500,000 in the Bishop’s Palace at Madrid (Sunday Times, August 25th, 1936), and, according to a report in the Manchester Guardian (August 5th, 1936), a total of 30 million pesetos (nearly £1,000,000) was confiscated in Catalonia alone. Another report was that nearly 100 million pesetos were confiscated from the “Little Sisters of the Poor" in Madrid, in the form of bank notes and shares.

One aspect of the matter seems to have been overlooked by the too zealous spokesmen of the Catholic Church. On the one hand, they assert that the Church had no wealth, while on the other they complain that elements on the Government side looted their property! This gives point to a claim made by the Catalonian Anarchist and Syndicalist organisations, F.A.I. and C.N.T., in their own English organ, Spain (Information Bulletin of the C.N.T. and F.A.I., published by Freedom, London, August, 1936), that they had acquired a fund of over 20 million pesetos “drawn from confiscated property of the Church and Fascists."

The truth of the matter is that the big bosses in the Catholic Church, as in other propertied organisations, share the interests and outlook of the land-owning and big-business class generally. When a rebellion was organised by the army leaders, not for religious but, in the words of the Catholic Tablet, “for economic and class reasons" (Tablet, August 1st, 1936), it was only to be expected that those who dominated the Catholic Church should throw the whole weight and wealth of their organisation on to the side of rebellion and reaction. It is greatly to the credit of many Catholics in Spain that they resisted this attempt to stampede them into support of brutal Fascism under the guise of a fight for religion.

Perhaps some of them have already observed and wondered at the remarkable spectacle of the Pope apparently busy fighting Hitlerism in Germany while encouraging the Hitlerite campaigns for Fascism (and iron ore) in Spain.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: An Irish Correspondent Wants the Workers to Back General Franco! (1937)

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

An Irish Correspondent Wants the Workers to Back General Franco!

An Irish Catholic correspondent, Mr. P. Cunningham, has written us a long letter—nearly 900 words — criticising our attitude towards General Franco, the Spanish Catholic Church, etc.

The chief characteristic of the letter is that it contains hardly any reasoned statements, and no attempt at proof whatever, but is full of unsupported assertions, rhetorical questions, half-truths, veiled insinuations—in short, it is typical of the anti-Socialist propaganda found in the more reckless types of Catholic journals. Here are some specimens from the letter: —

. . . You are probably influenced by that English jingoism that judges all foreigners as dirty and superstitious and would not like to see General Franco in power because a strong Spain might recover Gibraltar. . . .

. . . What is the object of concentrating so much attention on the so-called atrocities of the Nationalists and references to savage-fighting Moors, etc.? The Moors, I am told by people who have come in contact with them, are chivalrous fighters and respectful to women and imbued with religious ideas. . . .

. . . Was the Government [of Spain] a democratic Government and lawfully elected? Did it not unlawfully seize power before the elections were over and did it not use its usurped power to tamper with the ballot boxes? . . .

. . . You, brother, are probably a London clerk who knows nothing about Catholicism except the prejudice handed down from your ancestors. . . .

So Mr. Cunningham goes on,, with wild assertions about Spanish Government atrocities, but never a word about such wanton slaughters as the massacre by Rebel airmen at Guernica (testified by several responsible eye-witnesses and correspondents who were on the spot within a few hours. (See Manchester Guardian, July 30th, 1937; Noel Monks in Daily Express, April 28th and 29th; The Times Special Correspondent, The Times, April 28th, 29th and 30th, and May 5th and 6th.)

It will be noticed that Mr. Cunningham makes no attempt whatever to support his silly statement about Socialists being interested in which capitalist gang controls Gibraltar, nor about our supposed views on “foreigners." Had He taken the trouble to read our literature he would have known our attitude on British (and other) Imperialisms and would have known that we are in close association with “foreign" Socialist parties.

His question about the Spanish Government and the elections is a pure invention, and he—as usual—makes no effort to supply evidence in support of it.

He writes objecting to our statement that the Spanish Catholic Church was wealthy, and, as this is of importance, it is dealt with elsewhere in this issue.

Mr. Cunningham’s present attitude is interesting for another reason. In 1924 (The Socialist Standard, October, 1924) he also wrote us a letter, but he was not then urging us to support General Franco, but was telling us that we and the Communists ought to cease “splitting the workers" and get together inside the Labour movement!

Mr. Cunningham's real trouble is that he never at any time understood what Socialism is all about. He declares (in an article in Hibernia, Dublin, July, 1937) that: —

As a youth I called myself a Socialist, but Socialism then meant the right of the worker to a decent standard of living, better education and the abolition of slums. It seems to my mind, after all, one need not be a Socialist to work for these objects.

So as a youth he mistook Social Reform for Socialism and miscalled himself a Socialist. Now he thinks that Russian State Capitalism is Socialism (Hibernia, July), calls himself an anti-Socialist, and wants the worker to back Franco!

Mr. Cunningham is 13 years older but just as far removed as ever from understanding Socialism.

Ed. Comm.

Society and Morals. Part V. Military States. (1917)

From the December 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part IV.

We must now consider that method of exploitation by a military power subjecting a community of workers, which, as we have indicated in our survey of the origins of classes, is demarked from chattel slavery by several important characters. With the latter system, people of various races, languages, and customs are often brought violently together and herded together in a strange community, forming a heterogeneous working mass of independent units. Under the system at present claiming our notice, however, the producers continue their accustomed occupations and remain in their native district. They are the original community, the ruling class being a superimposed and usually an intrusive element. But with the chattel slave system it was the free class who represented the old community and who alone had a permanent organisation. It is somewhat difficult to find a suitable name for this system ; “feudal serfdom” it is too little recognised is only one type of several social forms which are allied by the points noted above.

Owing to the method of subjection used it is usual to find with this system that certain groups, at least, of the producers are of a common race and language, have their own well-founded social organisations and institutions, and are bound by ties of common custom and tradition dating from a past when their exploitation was unknown.

For workers under these conditions to be regularly deprived of the product of their surplus labour-power and a smooth-running system of exploitation to be founded, the would-be rulers must proceed by methods much more subtle and gradual and less disruptive, than those adopted to obtain chattel slaves. Moral force and persuasion must accompany the inevitable physical force. Hence, where such a system is evolved, we generally find, first, that the power of the ruling class is a growth passing through several stages : secondly, that this class largely adopts the forms of, and adapts to its use the institutions of, the pre-class era, and, thirdly, that it takes advantage of the superstitious tendencies of its subjects by allying itself with religion and obtaining a supernatural sanction. To these phenomena we will now turn.

From War-Chief to Monarch.

The common groundwork upon which all forms of this variety of exploitation arose was an agricultural economy carried on under the organisation we have before touched upon, village communities united in tribes. As agriculture is essentially a peaceful occupation, the “profession of arms” (except at periods when, a serious state of war exists) tends to become a specialised social function. Thus arises a warrior class who have the duty of protecting the villages, and in return are allotted a share of the common produce. This war-band frequently adds to its prosperity by engaging in raids for plunder, the fruits of which bring increasing wealth and influence, especially to the chieftain or war-leader.

But a semi-independent and powerful fighting body soon re-acts upon the community which gave it birth. The chief demands an increased share of the products of the community, and, in various ways, influences and brings pressure to bear upon its councils.

After obtaining a measure of control in his own tribe, the chief together with his followers, by conquest subjects other tribes. And so, in ever-widening circles, with successful warfare sphere of power grows–from the tribe to the nation and the nation to the empire. Along these or similar lines is developed a social group the confines of which are not determined by the extent of blood-ties, as was the case previously, but by the area over which the military leader and his followers hold sway. Its basis is no longer personal but territorial, and its size may range from a petty State with a few tribes to a vast empire like that of ancient Persia. The workers within it may be in any degree of subjection, from the condition of serfs bound to the land to that of a tribute-paying peasantry.

A good example of an early stage in the process was to be found among the Zulus before the British occupation. They were in a state of transition from a purely tribal and gentile to a feudal form of society, largely owing to the efforts of military chiefs like Chaka. Among them communistic and patriarchal institutions persisted vigorously, showing the gradual nature of the process of subjection to which we have referred.

The ruler who desires a continuous stream of plunder or tribute and the smooth running of his rule does not attempt to abolish the traditional methods of regulating production and social order, but he strives to adapt them to serve his interests. Wherever possible he secures the allegiance of the tribal chiefs he has conquered instead of deposing them, and allows them to retain a semblance of their old position, while making them responsible, to him, for the collection of tribute and the supply of “men-at-arms.” But where the conquered chiefs prove obstinate they are supplanted by men chosen by the king, usually as a reward for services rendered. These form the king’s local agents (satraps, thanes, barons), who owe to him allegiance and military service, and exact a similar submission from their subordinates, together with intensification of the exploitation on their own account. In many cases they become so wealthy and strong as to materially check the power of the monarch himself, as in the well-known case of King John and the barons.

State Religion and Law.

The social units of tribal society are, as we have seen, independent, and the members of each group maintain an exclusiveness and intolerant dislike toward outsiders. This state of affairs is a menace to the newly founded monarchic State, for not only is internal strife probable, but these well-organised and sharply defined groups, belonging as they do almost exclusively to the subjected peoples, form excellent centres for the fostering of “sedition” and rebellion. But to wipe out such deeply-grounded institutions and ideas the king must proceed very carefully ; and one of the most successful methods adopted is to attack the exclusiveness of tribal religion, so powerful in their support.

This may be done in various ways, either by respecting the various sectional creeds but enforcing tolerance among them, as did Alexander and the Romans, or by urging the acceptance of a “universal religion,” as did the Persians and the Mohammedans. The principle is illustrated by the practice of the Romans. In proportion as the ruling class in Rome, in addition to importing slaves, exploited by a ruthless taxation the conquered peoples within the Empire, so did the exclusiveness of the old Roman religion fade before a cosmopolitan tolerance which regarded the multitudinous creeds of the Empire as all equally true and useful. At this stage intolerant Christianity was a disturbing factor, and it was accordingly persecuted. But when the Christian religion spread wide amongst the oppressed, without distinction of race differences, it became legally sanctioned and made the State religion of Rome.

Often the monarch, through the artificialisation of tradition fostered by the priesthood, may himself be vested with the character of a deity, venerated and worshipped by the superstitious multitudes of his subjects. This occurred in ancient Peru and in Egypt, and even persisted up to recent times in Japan, where the sacred personality of the Mikado is supposed to be the descendant of the gods, by a spurious projection of ancestor-worship, which, both in Japan and in China, is the State religion.

This political use of religion invariably results in the creation of a powerful priesthood which in some instances have almost superseded the secular rulers, as appears to be the case with the Bhuddist Lamas of Thibet. These priests become the guardians and propagators of a new morality, in which servility, respect for authority, and contentment are prime virtues, and this they preach to the workers under the guise of “divine revelation and truth.”

But, for a long time, the ancient customs and conceptions of the pre-class stage continue to find acceptance, and, indeed, in some instances, even thousands of years of political or class rule have entirely failed to eradicate them. Thus of China Mrs. Bishop says in “The Yangste Valley” (p. 535), “The villages are self-governing, and no official dares to trench on their hereditary privileges. Every successive dynasty has found itself bound to protect them in these and no ‘Son of Heaven’ who called them in question could occupy the Dragon Throne for six months.” This case is, however, exceptional ; usually the end of patriarchal law begins by the king, whilst respecting outwardly the multitudinous local law customs in his dominions, for convenience in administration and with a view, also to extinguishing tribal intolerance, strives to harmonise them by as far as possible overlooking minor peculiarities whilst emphasising and retaining the common characters of each code. This is not really difficult, though, to a bigoted tribesman, it would appear impossible, for the social basis of them all is the same. In this way was formed the “common law” and the well-known ancient law codes such as those of Mann and Hammnurabi.

When the law is recorded in writing another blow is struck at Patriarchalism, for instead of custom changing gradually and unnoticeably with the slow changes in society, the law, now fixed and easily referred back to, can be visibly seen, with social changes, to grow anomalous and obsolete, and thus the possibility of deliberately altering law, even of making it is rendered conceivable.

So, through a combination of circumstances, the kingdom becomes a social organism less and less divided along racial and tribal or blood lines, but more and more clearly split along lines of class—between oppressors and oppressed.

R.W. Housley

(To be Continued.)

The Catholic Church and the Spanish Workers (1936)

From the October 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the civil war drags on through its third month, many things stand out even more clearly than at the beginning. The rebels lack popular support in most parts of Spain but the outcome does not depend on popular support. It is fighting strength that counts. Correspondents of several British newspapers, including the Times (August 26th and September 4th), have reported that a majority of the conscript soldiers in the rebel armies, and the mass of workers and peasants behind the rebel lines would be . disposed to desert to the Government side if given the opportunity. The rebel commanders, however, take care not to let the opportunity arise and when, as happened in the Alcazar at Toledo, rebel men, women and children tried to give themselves up, the rebel commanders did not hesitate to slaughter them, women and children as well as men—“a fusillade from the insurgents cut them down”—so wrote an eyewitness, Mr. Harold Pemberton, correspondent of the Daily Express (September 21st). The rebels dare not rely on conscripts but they can rely on their mercenary Moorish troops for as long as the money lasts. The position, therefore, is that the Government forces are being slowly strangled under the combined pressure of foreign Governments, mercenary troops, and lavish supplies of money and munitions. If the money and the munitions continue then the rebels will prove, as has been proved before, that a military force can, for a time at least, dragoon a hostile civil population by sheer ruthlessness. How ruthless the Military-Catholic rebels are has been exposed in an earlier despatch from Harold Pemberton, published in the Daily Express on August 27th.

Basing his statements on what he had actually seen with the rebel armies, he wrote: —

While the Communists are committing atrocities, the rebels are killing wholesale, mathematically and methodically—as a military expedient. No one must be left alive as a possible threat to the rear of their motorised columns. There is no attempt at a trial. Killings in Seville average 30 to 40 a day. After Merida was captured 1,000 were killed. Village killings average 10 to 15 a day—until the supply of victims is exhausted. It is estimated that there will be half a million deaths before peace comes . . . On leaving Merida with Photographer Tovey we were offered “Communist ears” as souvenirs.

It is no wonder that the rebels in due course expelled a number of British journalists, including the correspondents of the Times, Morning Post and Daily Express. They were anxious that the world should not know how they carried on their fight for “ patriotism and religion.”

It is well that workers should take notice of this further example of the ruthlessness of a propertied class fighting to retain its privileged position. The lesson to be learned from it is not that workers should try to emulate their savagery but that we should realise that while power is in the hands of a panic-stricken ruling class they will stop at no atrocity to gain their ends.

The Catholic Church Commits Suicide

Forefront among those who glory in the rebellion, justify the rebel atrocities, or seek to blacken the Government with misrepresentations are the Catholic Church in Spain, the Pope, and the bulk of the prominent Catholics in England along with their Press. The Universe has vied with the Daily Mail in gutter journalism. The Catholic Bishops, like Bishop Amigo of Southwark, have assisted in a widespread campaign to whitewash the rebels. Bishop Amigo was able to discover that they and their Moorish mercenaries “are fighting for God and their country” to prevent its “total destruction" (Manchester Guardian, September 4th). The Catholic Tablet, wholeheartedly on the side of the rebels but above the disreputable behaviour of such papers as the Universe, was nearer the truth when it admitted (August 1st) that the rebellion was begun by the rebels for “economic and class reasons ” and could be broadly described “as a class war.” The Tablet, however, was more far-seeing than Bishop Amigo, and has backed the rebels with a certain amount of misgiving: fortunately, a well-founded misgiving, for the civil war is going to do the Catholic Church in Spain more harm than 30 years of propaganda. Whether the rebels win or lose there are millions of Spanish workers and peasants who will never forget that when they tried to climb out of hideous poverty the Catholic Church helped the landowners and military leaders to grind them down again, by force of arms and with the aid of Moorish troops and every device of modern warfare. For every Spanish worker who hated the Catholic Church before the rebellion for its century-long exploitation of the poor and defence of oppression, there will be ten in future.

One Catholic and Protestant lie needs to be nailed down, that is that the Government forces wantonly organised attacks on non-combatant Priests and Nuns. The Catholic Church right from the beginning openly sided with the rebels and gave them every material and other support in its power. Does the Catholic Church, in face of that, really expect to enjoy the rights of a neutral? And having taken the side of the rebels against the Government and its working-class supporters, does the Catholic Church expect to be received everywhere with open arms? Nevertheless there has not been a scrap of published evidence that the Spanish Government encouraged or condoned any such attacks. Where attacks were made they were the actions of individuals or groups, blindly hitting out at those whom they regarded as their enemies.

One argument used by the defenders of the Pope is that he protests always and everywhere against attacks on Priests. It is only a pretence, as can be shown from very recent history. Where and when did the Pope ever protest against the killing of Abyssinian Christian Priests by the Pope’s friends, the Government of Italy? It was reported in the Daily Telegraph on September 2nd that the Bishop of Dessie “has been shot by a firing squad on the market-place, the chief square of Addis Ababa.” His crime was precisely that of many Spanish Priests, “inciting a group of Abyssinian warriors ” to resist the Italians. When and where did the Pope protest? Or the Universe? Or the Daily Mail?

Before leaving the subject of the Catholic Church it must be said that a minority of Catholics in this country who saw the economic and class character of the Spanish conflict have resisted the mass pressure of the Catholic authorities and have continued to stand on the side of the republicans. In view of the difficulties of their position the fact that they stood their ground deserves recognition.

A wider problem, of which the reactionary nature of the Catholic Church is only a part, is the power of the capitalist Press and political parties to stampede large numbers of workers whenever an issue affecting property rights arises.. The trade unions which voted money for the relief of the victims of the rebellion were immediately faced with opposition from members misled by the Rothermere newspapers and others of like character. In passing, it is important to notice that condemnation of the Daily Mail did not come only from sources sympathetic to the Spanish Government but also from the Conservative Spectator, which charged the Mail with exhibiting ”a colour-blindness which leaves atrocities invisible except when Reds commit them.”

There is only one remedy for the evil of lying, propaganda. Changing the policy of those who control the Press is out of the question. All that can be done is the slow work of enlightening the workers, teaching them to discriminate and apply their own critical judgment to everything presented to them. Only when the workers are immune to the effects of lying propaganda—and not before— will the evil cease.

One lesson taught again by the events in Spain, that can never be emphasised too strongly, is the danger of going ahead in advance of what is justified by the degree of understanding and unity achieved by the mass of the population. The Spanish workers were, and still are, divided by their outlook, and by their allegiance to rival organisations. This encouraged the rebels to begin the rebellion and now, day by day, it enables them to win battles owing to the terrible lack of co-ordination among the Government militias, born of mutual mistrust as well as of inexperience. One ominous feature is that the Spanish Fascists are now setting out to win over the Syndicalists to their side. Imitating Mussolini, who successfully won over thousands of Syndicalists to the Fascist ranks in Italy, the Spanish Fascists are calling their Movement a National Syndicalist one, and giving it aims such as those Hitler used with big effect to gain working-class support in Germany. They appeal, particularly, to the Syndicalists’ traditional opposition to Parliament and political action. Should this succeed, Spain may sooner or later go Fascist with the backing of large numbers of workers, as did Italy and Germany. Here, again, the only remedy is the slow one of Socialist education, and until the necessary preparatory work has been performed any attempt to force the pace spells reaction—on top of failure—from which it may take years to recover.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism v. Secularism. (1913)

From the August 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

It will be remembered that during the time the “Daily Standard” was carrying on its campaign against what it euphemistically called “The Red Peril,” the S.P.G.B. was misrepresented by a holy leech as being Atheistic first and Socialistic afterwards. Of course, the Socialist Party at once and rightly repudiated the allegation; but in view of the fact that this lie of the reverend gentleman is widely accepted as the truth, and that it is being persistently circulated both by the enemies of Socialism and the ignoramuses of Secularism, each for purposes of their own, it is thought advisable to set out in plain and unmistakeable language the attitude of the S.P.G.B. towards the movement known as

ATHEISTIC SECULARISM.

In the course of a debate (Cohen v. Gun) on the subject of “Theism v. Atheism,” a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society pointed out that “Theism is always, in the ultimate, merely an expression of some theory of the origin of the Universe.” No doubt he was quite right in making this assertion, for the moment Theism ceases to be so characterised it becomes meaningless and loses its raison d’etre. It is in this connection alone that it can be judged on its argumentative merits or demerits. For this very reason, however, Atheism, its antithesis, finds itself, as a philosophy, within the same groove, merely representing antagonistic views on this specific subject and this alone.

In the first part of Herbert Spencer’s “First Principles” we find Atheism and Theism, as he conceives them, dealt with in an impartial and masterly way. All the arguments that may be deduced in support of either contention are clearly set forth, dissected, and analysed ; and while showing the fallacies and the self-contradictory nature of the Theistic mode of reasoning, he proceeds to show that Atheism, as a reasonable hypothesis accounting for the origin of the Universe,

CANNOT BE ACCEPTED,

not on the ground of improbability, but of inconceivability.

Speaking of Theism as a theory of the Uni­verse Herbert Spencer writes :

“To conceive existence through infinite past time implies the conception of infinite past time, which is an impossibility. To this let us add that even were self existence conceivable it would not be an explanation of the Universe. No one will say that the existence of an object at the present moment is made easier to understand by the discovery that it existed an hour ago, or a clay ago, or a year ago; and if its existence now is not made more comprehensible by knowledge of its existence during some previous finite period, then no knowledge of it during many such finite periods, even if we could extend them to an infinite period, would make it more comprehensible. Thus the Athe­istic theory is not only absolutely unthinkable, but even were it thinkable, would not be a solution. The assertion that the Universe is self-existent does not really carry us a step beyond the cognition of its present existence, and so leaves us with a mere re-statement of the mystery.”

Evidently the representative of the National Secularist Society was fully aware of this, for he was careful to point out that : “It is the

SOLE BUSINESS

of Atheism to analyse theistic arguments and to reject them if they prove unsatisfactory on account of the contradictions which they imply.”

It will here be noticed that no alternative hypothesis is offered.

The above admission (from which there appears to be no escape) by the aforementioned speaker—probably the most capable man in the ranks of Atheism, explicitly excludes that philosophy from dealing with anything outside theistic controversies, and although it may be contended that Secularists do extend their activities in other directions, yet an impartial examination of the attitude they adopt and the propaganda they advocate, will show that as far as the real, vital, and fundamental issues are concerned, they are as indifferent or as reactionary as the Theists they oppose.

The economic and political aspects of society are either rigidly kept out of their discussions or are considered as of little or no importance in comparison with Secularism. Thus, in spite of his profession of determinism, the Secularist utterly fails to understand that religious ideas, like his own—like all ideas, in fact—are determined by

SOCIAL CONDITIONS,

and are therefore nothing but the results of such conditions.

What are those conditions, and how are they characterised ?

These are questions which have no weight in the propaganda of the Secularist. To the Socialist the solution of these problems are of extreme importance, because it carries him to the very foundation of society. It breaks through the veil of idealism and enables him to see what lies behind the scenes. Such a solution affords the only explanation of the rise of and the course followed by ideas, and therefore of intellectual development. The conception of history, from the materialist point of view, is based upon the fact that before we can think and have ideas, we must have food, clothing, and shelter. How they necessaries of life are produced and distributed determines in general what the people of an epoch shall think and shall strive for. In other words, ideas are subservient to economic forces. Further, these economic forces constitute the centre of gravitation of political activities ; whether the manner in which the necessaries of existence are produced and distributed shall be preserved or abolished constitutes the object of those who endeavour to capture political power.

Thus it is that legislative measures, enacted or in the process of being enacted, no matter what aspect they may present, always find their root-motive in

MATERIAL ADVANTAGE

and are subservient to the basic principle of modern society, viz., private property.

The Secularist or pseudo-materialist places the cart before the horse in true Christian fashion. He is much more interested in effects than in the causes that produce them. Although, as we have already seen, and on their own admission, Atheism can only stand as a negation of fallacious theistic ideas, the Secularists nevertheless regard it as a basic principle upon which they proceed to elaborate a certain plan of conduct and to derive from it their conceptions of ”right” and “wrong,” “justice” and “injustice,” “good” and “evil,” and various other forms of morality. They assert that man is the creature environment and circumstances, and yet they disregard the material factors which govern the society upon which they propose to operate! And with what results ?

In the political arena, which is but a reflex of the circumstances in which we live, they are

HOPELESSLY DIVIDED.

One finds all shades of opinions among them—similar opinions, in fact, to those held by the very people they are out to attack. Such are the “refreshing fruits” of their so-called “philosophy” ! Such are the people who parade their propaganda under the name of Materialism, while they attribute their unbeliefs to the triumph of Reason ! They do not realise that such an expression is just as illogical and just as silly as any that ever flowed from the lips of a Christian. By this they imply that Reason is something transcending all laws, something beyond the scope of cause and effect, whereas, it being only a function of the brain acting in accordance with acquired experience, it cannot be conceived as triumphing over anything. One might as well talk about the wetness and ponderousity of water triumphing over oxygen and hydrogen.

The fact is that the Secularist will not atone for his sins, so a scape-goat is to be found, and he finds it in the shape of Reason.

This simply tends to show that atheistic Secularists are people who have extricated themselves from one superstition to embrace another. As the Socialist Party points out in its pamphlet “Socialism and Religion”: “The bourgeois-freethinker is, like the Christian, attributing miraculous powers to the

“FIGMENTS OF MEN’S BRAINS.”

Now, in the face of this it is obvious that the attitude of Socialists toward Secularism must be identical with that they assume towards religion: it must be one of uncompromising antagonism. Neither of them explain the bed-rock basis of society ; neither of them are concerned with the cause of increasing wealth in one section of the community at the cost of the perpetual and ever increasing poverty of the other section.. These things are outside the sphere of activity of their respective philosophies.

While the Christian from his abysmal ignorance tells us that men must be born again before they may be able to change and improve society,, the Secularist believes that social evils find their immediate cause in the existence and influence of religion ! In his study of history he sees nothing but the evil deeds of priestcraft. Deeper than this he does not go and does not

WISH TO GO.

Thus his so called philosophy is not unlike the Hindu theory of the earth resting on the back of an elephant, itself standing on a tortoise, and then — nothing except his triumphant Reason !

While the Theists and the Atheists are wasting their time and energy on things that do not matter, while academic discussion affords sport for their intelligence, there is a situation the gravity of which increases in intensity as each day passes. That situation is that the producers of the world are poor because they are robbed ; they are robbed because the means of wealth production are private property owned by those who have political power. What matters it to -the worker whether his master imposes upon him atheistic ethics or Christian morality ? In either case is his misery more bearable ? Is his insecurity lessened ? Does his worry and care for the morrow leave more room for the peaceful enjoyment of life ? Obviously no !

In the sphere of politics there is nothing to distinguish the bourgeois freethinker from the Christian. Both are to be found in the same camp, lending their efforts to the work of repressing and oppressing the working class. The J. M. Robertsons, the Greenwoods, the Haldanes and the Morleys are engaged in an unholy alliance with the Asquiths, the Isaacs and the Lloyd Georges. In France the Briands and the Clemenceaux are against the working class. In Portugal the Positivist legislators are

FILLING THE PRISONS

with exploited and discontented wage-slaves.

Secularism, forsooth ! Does any Secularist really think that the affairs of this world are run and managed by religion ? Why, if by Secularism it is meant that the affairs of this world can be run without supernatural intervention. what else is there, what else can there be, but Secularism to govern now ?

One thing reigns supreme : the grim class struggle.

The question as to how parasites shall continue to live and workers be exploited alone sways the destinies of millions to day ; and the simple and only question regarding the destinies of millions to-morrow is as to how parasites shall be swept out of existence and workers be free. This abolition of the parasites, this freeing of the workers, is the object of Socialism. The Socialist cares little for a world of ideas whereby workers are enslaved. When the workers come into their own they will have a

WORLD OF IDEAS

of their own. In the meantime, let it be noted that the Socialist looks upon Theism and Atheism, Secularism and Christism, as so many red herrings drawn across his path, as so many Will-o’-the-wisps which disappear one by one as he travels towards his emancipation.

M. J. Le Cart

Halo Halo (2026)

The Halo Halo Column from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent speculation is that an individual who is nominally in charge of one of the most powerful capitalistic entities on the planet and ‘has his finger on the nuclear button’, may be the ‘Antichrist’. Karl Marx noted that recourse to the ‘mist-enveloped regions of the religious world’ show that ‘in that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race.’ The Antichrist is, along with other made-up things, a product of the human mind so we’re not taking it seriously.

Pope Leo XIV has incurred the wrath of the megalomaniac currently spreading death, destruction and mayhem everywhere. On his social media the egoist said, ‘he’s WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.  I don’t want a Pope who criticises the President of the United States.’ It’s not known if he’s asked how many divisions the Pope has yet.

The ‘leader’ of the ‘most powerful nation’ on earth, one comprising a hell (sic) of a lot of Christians who look forward to the ‘end times’, also posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Jewish soothsayer. One of his previous gung-ho supporters said it’s ‘more than blasphemy’ and ‘it’s an Antichrist spirit.’ Given how ‘his’ adherents proclaim the sanctity of life and love for your neighbour, their continuing support for someone who threatened to blast a civilisation back to the stone age ain’t very Christian at all.

Is the Islamic Republic of Iran still fighting with the Great Satan and the Little Satan? Back in 1979 when Iran’s monarchy was replaced by an Islamic theocracy a ‘leader’ coined the Satan expressions including the Lesser Satan (the Soviet Union). In July 2014 the Socialist Standard noted that Pope Francis blamed Satan for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians saying ‘More than once we have been on the verge of peace, but the evil one has succeeded in blocking it’.

Quoted in the Mail Online from an original podcast run by an American Christian ex-Navy SEAL, a Catholic priest suggested that the time of the Antichrist may be near. He said that the AC would rule the world through ‘economies’ and that ‘modern financial systems and emerging digital technologies could potentially create the kind of centralised economic control described in biblical prophecy’. Revelation 13;16-17: ‘And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name’.

Sounding more like an anti-globalist, he opined, ‘one of the ways how he’s going to control people is through digital currencies, and he’s going to just shut people off, and that’s how they’ll be able to basically starve people out…’

DC

A Bishop on Credulity. A Parson’s Poisonous Piffle Pulverised. (1916)

From the October 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Cross and the Crook.

“Christ died on the Cross,” We are told, and a wag who knew something added, “and his followers have lived on the cross ever since.” Consequently, when we read that the Bishop of London, holding aloft a “shepherd’s crook,” has commenced a series of open-air sermons, we must agree that the symbol fits the occasions. For if the crook is not emblematical of crooked ways it signifies a shepherd and sheep, and the sheep need a shepherd because the wool is drawn over their eyes. A beneficent capitalist executive, having for long realised the need of the sheep, have provided shepherds at a huge expense to their class. The Bishop of London is one of the provided (and well provided for—so well provided for, indeed, that he says, “Why, I wouldn’t take another blessed farthing if it was offered me.”)

“At 58 years of age, and unmarried,” says the Bishop, “I am one of the healthiest men in London.” Even sheep with wool combed over their eyes should be able to see that it is possible for their shepherd, with such an income, to keep healthy for quite a long time to come. He need not live in a reeking slum, or work in the poisonous fumes of a factory, or feed on adulterated and semi-decayed food. With £15,000 a year he can have the very best of medical attention, and should live to a hundred. Even then he will not wear out—his duties are too light—and he certainly will not rust, out, because, like most of the clergy, he is naturally oily.

Of course, the Bishop insists that his good health is the reward of a moral life, with especial emphasis on celibacy.

A word of explanation here. Personalities are not in our line ; as critics we deal with suggested reforms, with social evils occasionally, and always with the capitalist system itself. But the Bishop of London comes out with a mission of regeneration, denouncing drink and prostitution and furnishing an example of moral rectitude in his own person; talks endlessly about himself. Consequently I take up his challenge and merely remark that no doubt every member of his audiences could acquire all his boasted virtues on his salary.

The Science of the Crook.

Of course the Bishop would question their ability to perform the duties of his position. What are these onerous and brain-racking duties? First, to understand the standard of intelligence of his flocks, to be able to discern what they will appreciate according to that standard, and then to tickle their intelligence by bolstering up all the vile superstitions that poison their lives and render them easy victims for his capitalist masters. He jeers at science—that pleases his flocks, to whom study and thought are painful—but if he were charged with ignorance of modern science he would doubtless repudiate the charge with indignation. Yet in his discourse he adopts the attitude of one entirely ignorant of the facts and evidence of scientific evolution.

He selects two opposite points in the evolutionary circle and, ignoring the intervening ages with their endless panorama of development, seeks to ridicule science by comparing the phenomena of each, and by thus bringing them into juxtaposition, giving them the appearance of an absurd metamorphosis. His hearers, however, would swallow even this if it were only in “the book” alongside other miracles such as driving out devils and turning water into wine. But I leave it to the reader’s judgment.

The Argument of the Crook.

The following is from a “Daily Chronicle” report, 12.9. 16.

“The first thing that helped him to believe in God, added the Bishop, was Nature. “Why are we not blown off this earth as we rush through space at 10 miles a second ?” he asked. “The answer is because Someone has wrapped 70 miles of atmosphere round the earth. The most credulous person who is here is the man who can believe that that happens by accident.”

One might as well say that by flinging broadcast a bundle of letters one could produce a play of Shakespeare as that the universe was not the result of a designed plan.”

Of course, scientists have never suggested that the scattering of type broadcast would produce a Shakespearian play, or even so poor a thing as a bishop’s sermon, though both, they tell us, and everything else good and bad, have come in their turn as a result of the long process of development from the clashing of dead suns, the diffusion of fire-dust, the fusion of nebulas, and all the subsequent physical changes that resulted in the existence of this planet with an atmosphere and temperature capable of nursing into maturity capitalist society.

When we say nursing, however, we fail to perceive the necessity of a nurse. Unlike the bourgeois bishop who must have “someone” to wrap seventy miles of atmosphere round the earth, we perceive that the forces immanent in matter being the eternal property of matter, must manifest themselves wherever matter exists.

But the bishop has the effrontery to tell us that unless we can conceive of “someone wrapping seventy miles of atmosphere round the earth” have no alternative but to regard it as an accident. He would doubtless be surprised to learn that in nature—apart from man—there is no such thing as an accident. Accidents can only exist as ideas in the brains of animals, like man, who are ignorant of natural laws. When we know all the substances in which matter can express itself, and all the forces that belong to those substances, such words as accident and chance will be meaningless.

The Credulity of the Crook.

Those who uphold a social system where the mass of the people are enslaved by a small class, which exploits and governs them, cannot conceive of law without law-makers. The physical world must be analogous with their social world—and the spiritual world of their imagination an echo. If it, the physical world, reveals the fact that it evolves according to laws that can be understood and defined, that is evidence to them of a personality behind it—a supreme law-maker of the physical world, who was also its creator. Surely credulity cannot exceed this! Because an atmosphere envelops the earth “Someone” wrapped it round. Because suns are scattered like dust over the sky “Someone” arranged them. But the followers of this system of argument (!) never have the faculty of logic sufficiently developed to ask the old but still unanswered question, who created that “someone,” and again, who created that creator, and so without end.

When scientific knowledge becomes general it will be seen that the idea of a supreme law-maker, together with a spiritual world and the ideas of chance and accident, grew in men’s minds because of their ignorance, and its adoption and preservation by the ruling class is the outcome of their desire to maintain supremacy over the working class. To keep alive the fictions and superstitions of the past is to cloud the intellects of the workers and shut them off from real knowledge.

Thus are the workers, under capitalism, provided with a philosophy—a way of looking at things—ready made, that fits the system and keeps them mentally wedded to it. If sickness comes their way they must visit the panel doctor and have faith ; when husbands and brothers are murdered in capitalist mines or factories, or butcher each other on the capitalist-made battlefield, it is “God’s will” ; when the worker is unemployed it is his “luck” that’s out or he is “not worth his salt” ; when we point to the class division of society—the ruling class owning wealth but not producing, and the working class producing all wealth but owning none—it is “God’s will” once again, “otherwise it could not be.”

The Exit of the Crook.

It is small wonder that those who hear the message of Socialism for the first time fail to see in the working class the instrument of its fulfilment. It is only when they realise the full strength and meaning of Socialism that their doubts leave them. However ignorant and apathetic the workers may be to-day, the Socialist philosophy, pregnant with truth and appeal alike to self interest and the interest of their class, must eventually triumph over the traditions and superstitions of the past. As the torrent of human knowledge swells, the efforts to dam it up, to confine it to the ruling class and their sneaking tools, becomes ever more futile. The very sanction that a capitalist government must have from an ever-widening circle in society—which compels them to extend the franchise—opens the way to discussion of all the facts of capitalist society, and teaches the worker to use his reason and judgment. As these faculties develop, Socialist principles will be understood and accepted by the workers generally, because they embody the truth of their social position, show them the cause of their poverty, and point the way to their emancipation.

Down the steeps of capitalist anarchy the workers are driven to worse horrors and suffering. One by one the battle-cries and watchwords of their leaders and shepherds are proved worthless and discarded. Socialism—an object of contempt for the “respectable”—is first examined, next tolerated, and finally recognised as the only hope of the workers.

Poverty and misery cannot achieve Socialism, but those who suffer must needs seek the remedy, which they undoubtedly will find in spite of all the hopes and efforts of capitalists and their ecclesiastical agents to the contrary. The strength of Socialism, to-day is in its principles, based upon scientific analysis. The last century has seen the triumph of science in the field of wealth production and distribution. Tomorrow will tear down the theological and economic veil that masks the slavery of the wealth producers, and, revealing to them the real nature of capitalist society, will forge them a weapon to break through the social forms that bind them, to a system dictated by science and common sense.

Meanwhile we are faced with a wily foe. Every discovery in the realm of science is discredited until it is established beyond doubt, when it is claimed as a manifestation of the power of “Almighty God” and a justification of capitalist society. Thus Gallileo, when he, alone, proclaimed the earth’s movement round the sun, was imprisoned and threatened with torture by the priests of his day ; now celestial motions are claimed as evidence of supreme power. Darwin’s theory of evolution was hotly contested by the clergy, and is even now ridiculed by the more ignorant among them ; the more cunning, however, accept evolution and pretend to believe that “God” breathed into the elementary protoplasm and thus imparted the character of struggle and development.

Because the capitalist and his bishop are smug and self-satisfied they overlook the obvious—the poisoned nature of the breath. For their claim is an admission of “God’s” responsibility for parasitism, the cruelty of religious persecution, the horrors of militarism, and the squalor and misery of the working class.

There is still one discovery they have not yet annexed to the glory of their universal dictator—”the Materialist Conception of History,” given to the workers by Marx and Engels 68 years ago. Over that discovery the last great conflict must be fought. Only the working class can bring it to an issue. The game of the master class is to ignore it because it is the key to social evolution, and leaves them stranded in the realm of sociology, without a divine law-maker or a divine purpose in their rule.

And Dr. Ingram, how will he regard it ? For him it will be an accident, because it threatens with extinction his class and his vocation. To him it will matter nothing that the working class will rise to take over its inheritance—to free themselves from capitalist slavery. His sympathies are with his class, the class that he serves by fraudulently misrepresenting science, preaching decaying superstitions, and assisting to keep the workers in ignorance to facilitate their exploitation.

F. Foan

History Through Tinted Spectacles (1952)

From the October 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is evident to anyone who is a student of history, however humble, and who is at the same time interested in trends in modem society, that much effort is being expended in bringing the minds of the public to bear on the so-called glories of the Mediaeval Age.

One can think of a number of reasons for this; first, there is the short-term policy—that of “cashing in" in a box-office sense, on the public’s natural curiosity for things of the past, as is evidenced by the spate of so-called “historical’’ films now being shown throughout the country.

The second and more serious reason for this revival in Mediaevalism and obscurantism is to provide an opiate for a society which is beginning to be restive, and in some cases, resistive to the present conditions of graft and gloom that its “leaders” are continually creating for it. These “leaders” are becoming increasingly aware that society is desperately ill and is heading for another major breakdown. Blame is continually laid at the "other fellow’s” door; it is either the poison of Russian "Communism,” which persists in corrupting the Capitalist Democracies or the poison of Capitalist germ bombs which continue to pour down on the heads of "Communist” countries.

The "free world,” i.e., the countries outside Russian Imperialism but subjected to other brands of the same disorder, are on the one hand building up economic barriers to protect themselves from one another (Britain, Australia, U.S.A. are all devoted to the cause of export whilst frowning on imports), while on the other hand they claim they are forced by the threat of Soviet Imperialism to form military alliances for their mutual protection.

It is plain to see that the world is rapidly dividing into two camps, the one representing the well-known company of actors who have for many years treated the general public with drama after drama—usually tragedy from the audience’s point of view—the other a somewhat newer company, branded as upstarts by the more respected company of stock-brokers, bishops and bankers but nevertheless feared for its lustiness and cleverness born of a study of the weaknesses in the make-up of its adversary. No amount of assurances from either side that both companies can continue to do business without coming to blows should convince us when we realise that it is in the nature of both to expand at the other’s expense. In the meantime the audience is being suitably conditioned by both sides whether it be the hypnotic influence of the Russian political ballet or the sanctified self-righteousness of the Western Capitalist knight errants both striving valiantly in the lists at U.N.O.

Which brings us back to Mediaevalism. It is one of the weapons in the armoury of Capitalist, the idea being to feed the workers on past glories in order to forget present-day problems. It is believed by some that a return to Mediaeval faith and philosophy, to the Mediaeval spirit of adventure and chivalry, will give this wobbling society of ours some "spiritual stability” whatever that may mean.

The lusty infant, Soviet Capitalism, utilises history too. It is more than ever tending to portray Russian history as a means of propaganda to its own and other audiences. It has made its peace with the Church on conditions mutually beneficial to Church and State.

In Britain, where an official State religion helps the Capitalist class in its legislation, abetted by numerous other Christian sects, many faithful Protestants banded in the Protestant League are much perturbed at the swing back to Catholicism on the one hand and to the rash of spiritualist churches on the other. While the latter disease is perhaps the misguided groping of befuddled and dispirited workers for a way out of their daily cares, the former appears to be a deliberate plan to bring the minds of people back to the Mediaeval philosophy of poverty.

The attempt to give the bloody wars in Malaya and Korea a semblance of a new kind of “Knight Errantry” is clearly seen from the public utterances of the leaders of Church and State to whom these wars appear as a holy crusade against “Communist” atheism by the one, as an economic necessity by the other, and as salvation to both from the horrors that may come when the exploited classes of all countries break their fetters.

It is when we really study the Mediaeval scene in its true light that we begin to see how utterly funny the present attempts at re-creation are, funny if they were not so terribly serious, if is time that the exploited masses realised the truth about the so-called glories of the Middle Ages; that it was a time of pestilence, famine and rigid class distinction when no man could get outside the pattern of lighters, prayers and peasants with the latter class supporting the whole Feudal structure on its broad back. The prayers and fighters often allied themselves with one another, as for example during the Fourth Crusade in Palestine. Villehardouin, one of six ambassadors to the Doge of Venice, asked for aid in transporting the Crusaders. He tells of an agreement made in March of the year 1201 —“ Sire, we have come to you on behalf of the noble barons of France who have taken the cross.... they pray for you for God's sake .... to furnish them transports and ships of war." The Doge then tells the ambassadors what aid he is prepared to give and continues, “ . . . and we will do more, we will add fifty galleys for the love of God on condition that of every conquest by sea or land, we shall have one half and you the other ....” While therefore the Venetians were willing to help the Crusade along “for the love of God ” they did not let that great love blind them to a fat share in the booty. The Church was of course extremely interested in the Crusade; the “private" of those days, like some of his counterparts to-day, was only interested in his orders and in the belief that dying in the war for Mother Church was a sure passport to heaven.

So great was the oppression of the serfs by the Chapter of Notre Dame de Paris in the reign of Louis, that Queen Blanche did what many modern philanthropists would do—remonstrated “in all humility" whereto the monks replied that “ they might starve their serfs as they pleased.”

The glorious works of art and architecture, the magnificent cathedrals and palaces, were built not only by the veneration of Christian craftsmen, but out of the sweat of the ignorant and oppressed masses and the blood of the conscript peasant who died fighting holy wars for Christian lords against other Christian lords and even if he did manage to survive the battles alive, lived to supply the wealth with which the members of the late lord's family bribed the Church in order that the period of confinement in purgatory would be lessened.

The progressive thinkers often thought at the peril of their lives if their views were a danger to the existing order. Galileo, who professed the theory of Copernicus that the earth moved round the sun, was forced to recant his scientific belief although earlier, Copernicus had dedicated the same treatise to the Pope. (The Mediaeval Church attracted to herself thinkers and men of learning in order that she might remain the dominating factor, though when she failed at any time she came down with a heavy hand on the blasphemer).

The seamen and explorers of the “Age of Discoveries” were inspired much more by the spur of loot than they were by the spirit of adventure.

It is indeed a fitting comment on the crisis in modern Capitalist society that it must once more revert to a past which it itself burst asunder as being incompatible with the new forms of exploitation and profit-making; that it once again invokes the Medieval spirit on the one hand and piles up super modern weapons on the other.

The writing is on the wall. Capitalism is like the villain in a crime magazine, waiting with bated breath for the stroke of midnight it has nowhere to turn. The world has been grabbed long ago (or almost all of it though various re-distributions go on from time to time, conducted by force or the threat of force as we see in Europe and Asia at the present time). We might remember in this connection the words of Cecil Rhodes, an arch Imperialist to whom the annexation of territories was part of his life blood, “ the world is nearly all parcelled out and what is left of it is bring divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of the stars overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could . . ."

The Christian fighting barons had a faith; the rising Capitalist class had a faith; Cecil Rhodes cleariy had one and we know for a certainty that the Church never lacked a faith. The workers should realise that these faiths, common to them all had to have for practical purposes, a vast army of unthinking automatons to keep them going—first peasants, now wage-workers.

The issue facing the perplexed workers is what to believe in and what to do. They can of course swallow the distortions of the glorious past and live in the Cinema dream world; they can stupify themselves with the various brands of opium turned out by the purveyors of the many religious sects from the State Established to those of humbler but perhaps more exciting causes. They can stop thinking altogether and “concentrate” on placing 14 correct symbols in their proper places on a football coupon, thereby hoping to win a fortune. One thing is plain they cannot go back. They are creatures of the present and must .take the consequences of the present.

Alternatively they can learn to understand Socialism. This will not come as a gift from heaven, neither is it mysteriously inspired nor does it come from “ leaders.” It can only grow from knowledge—a knowledge of the nature of Capitalism and the laws which govern Capitalist society. The only emancipators of the world's toilers will be the toilers themselves. They will then build edifices that will be monuments to those that follow—monuments to men who overcame the last barrier, who understood what freedom meant and having understood, became free.

W.T.B.

Jottings. (1911)

The Jottings Column from the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“I understand that about twenty of the lasters recently discharged from the Wheatsheaf Works through the introduction of new labour-saving machinery, have this week each been handed a solatium of £10 by the Committee of the Wholesale Co operative Society.”—”Shoe and Leather Record.”

* * *

Lucky dogs ! I don’t know which they ought to be most thankful for—Co-operation, or the fact that they are lasters. Now I’ll tell you what I should do if I were a laster displaced by machinery, but with a solatium (blessed word) of £10 in my pocket.

I’d just let the machine do the work, and I’d last out on stout and oysters and rest till the old-age pension came along. Of course, one would have to be a pretty good laster to do it, but then what is the good of being a laster if you can’t last ?

* * *

Ireland is not the only subject of injustice. Mr. Douglas Hall, M.P., has discovered that the ‘armless (ask the Manchester carters), necessary copper is unjustly put upon on occasion, and he has taken up the cudgels on his behalf. He has entered into wordy warfare with Mr. Winston Churchill on the subject of the policemen’s Coronation medals, for he thinks it a burning shame that the police force in the Isle of Wight should not have medals to commemorate the fact that they have done some work—of a kind.

The hon. member felt so strongly on the matter, and the pure flame of chivalry blazed up so strongly within him, that he was moved to get up a petition, and “in less than an hour” (says he in a letter to Mr. Churchill, (which he also took the opportunity to get inserted in that excellent advertising medium, the “Isle of Wight County Times”) he obtained 100 signatures of Members of Parliament to the appeal.

* * *

Since it was discovered at Belfast that police cannot be relied upon to “bash” strikers while they have grievances of their own to brood over, quite a lot has been done to make “buttons” lie more comfortably. The policemen’s Sunday rest, is a case in point. It would be a pity to spoil all this for the sake of a few medals.

But I was forgetting—it may interest some of the workers who were lately bashed on the head by policemen at Tonypandy, Hull, Manchester and other places, to learn that among the M.P.’s who signed the petition are those prominent members of the Labour Party, Mr. George N. Barnes and Mr. Philip Snowden.

Couldn’t either of these gentlemen be induced to get up a petition for the recognition of the extremely valuable services of the police who were sent to South Wales in connection with the colliery dispute ? I am sure he could get the signature of every colliery-owner in Wales.

* * *

“The reason of the strength of Socialism was that it was so strenuous and uncompromising.”

Thus the “Daily Chronicle” (13. 7.11) reports Lord Selborne. It is very well said. Socialism must be uncompromising in order to be Socialism ; it must be strenuous in order to be strong. It seems the I.LP.-er and S.D.P.-er may learn something from a lord—I had thought they were incapable of learning anything from anybody.

If Lord Selborne will watch us and read the Socialist Standard in the future as he has evidently done in the past, he will discover that there are other sources of Socialist strength.

* * *

The hopelessness of the workers’ fight for anything else than Socialism (though, of course, the struggle must be kept up) is finely illustrated in the columns of the “Manchester Daily Despatch” (10.7.11), wherein it is pointed out that owing to the carters’ strike in that city there has been an unprecedented demand for motor lorries and waggons. The result has been that many firms have found these vehicles so economical, speedy and convenient that they are adopting them as rapidly as their demands can be met. It is claimed, and probably upon fair grounds, that when the carters’ strike is finished, many of the men will have no work to return to.

The tragedy of the workers’ position under capitalism is that their struggles, and still more their victories, handicap them against their pitiless competitor, machinery. Though it does not justify resigning the fight, it is, nevertheless, a never-to be forgotten fact that the lower wages are the slower machinery advances.

There is but one escape from this—Socialism. I am not going to adorn the tale with a moral.

* * *

Mr. Lloyd George, speaking at the Welsh Baptist Chapel, Castle Street, London, on June 25, is reported to have said :

“No reform was ever brought about by the people who suffered only, but always through the help of those who profited nothing.”

As it stands the statement is sheer nonsense, for it is just those who “suffer only” who gain nothing from reforms. However, ascribing this to temporary aberration (perhaps on the part of the printer), and reading the true meaning into the words (i.e., that reforms are never brought about solely by those who are to gain by them, but always with the help of those they will not profit), it seems to me that the statement is very near the truth.

I am not well up in the matter of reforms, but as far as my observations go they bear out the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I cannot call to mind any reform that has not solely benefited the ruling class, but to get which they have not sought and obtained the assistance of the gullible section of the working class.

* * *

Mr. Lloyd George also said upon the same auspicious occasion : “All the poverty of London was really at the door of religion.”

How redolent of truth he was that fine summer afternoon. Some little correction, possibly, is needed, as with all general truths ; but in the sense that religion is one of the chief pillars of the present system of robbery, the pronouncement is substantially correct—though the parson must think it is like the politician’s darn’d cheek to go into the chapel and say so.

* * *

One more little selection from the same candid chin-wag. There was no stopping him when he got on the straight and narrow path of truth. You see he had escaped from the House of Commons, where only good, honest, downright lying is permissible, and he felt something of the wild exultation of the converted cannibal who has the good fortune to drop into a hut where they are boiling the missionary for supper. He spake unto the multitude thus :

“There is nothing between the people and tyranny but the spirit of the Christian Church.”

That’s just it—the vacuous, ethereal, ghostly, spirituous, spiritual spirit of the Christian Church—an intangible obfuscation of the foggy order that romps the land with a collection bag—a something just solid enough to hide the tyrant and his methods, but no sort of a foil against his mailed fist.

Yes, it is quite true that the spirit of the Christian Church is all that stands between the workers and tyranny, and that is one of the reasons the former cannot see who is hitting them

* * *

The “Evening News” of July 15 has the following on the action of the Labour Party in voting for the Financial resolution of the Insurance Bill after protesting against it.

“It was a Labour Party—

    The ‘Independent’ sort—

Its manner bluff and hearty,

    Its temper sometimes short.

It was its chiefest glory

    Its manly breast to thump

And say for Rad. or Tory

   It didn’t care a dump.

“It had its fixed convictions,

   Its views on what to do ;

And knowing no restrictions,

   It meant to see them through.

If, thinking these were novel

   (And O, his lights were dim)

The Premier didn’t grovel,

   Well, all the worse for him.

“Amendments most extensive

    It cheerfully designed ;

Its manner was offensive,

    But O, its heart was kind !

And when its speeches sprightly

    The Chancellor had chid,

It touched its hat politely

    And voted as he bid !—C. E. B.”

So doth genius put the whole thing in a nutshell.

A. E. Jacomb.

Catholic Democracy. (1914)

Book Review from the August 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

How significant the word democracy has be­come ! Kings, State and church ministers, politicians, and even employers say they are out for the benefit of the people. Now the Catholic Church, a remnant of feudal society, also toes the line in this respect.

How queer ! The same church that was responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of human beings who would not submit to her, and for the death of such pioneers of public speech as Servetus, Bruno, and Ferrer (see Professor Bury’s “History of Freedom of Thought”), is now attempting to capture the heart of democracy ! Why is this ?

In feudal society the Catholic Church was representative of that society. About a third of the land and stock, the giving of alms, and learning, were monopolised by her. But with the coming of the bourgeois revolution in Eng­land in the seventeenth century, its power de­clined. The capitalist class, who were in need of science and a free course in the productive processes, crippled her. No longer could the Church have the full sway she possessed in feudal times.

In England, though, the week-kneed capitalists had not the necessary courage to uproot society and destroy it root and branch. They made a compromise with the aristocratic or land-owning class, and through this the Catholic Church was allowed to remain.

With the development of capitalist conditions, however, the capitalist class saw clearly that if they wished to keep the workers in subjection they must instil into their minds religion, i.e., belief in an eternal future. Since the inaugu­ration of capitalism we find ever so many reli­gious sects springing up by the side of the old Church in all capitalist countries.

The Catholic Church, then, since it is exist­ing in capitalist society, must have some special use for the capitalist class, and right well do the heads of this Church see that this is so.

The Church does not say, according to Father Day (who has written a book called “Catholic Democracy, Individualism, and Socialism”), that the capitalist revolution has not had its good qualities—it is the awful reign of terror and its consequences that the Church condemns.

Father Day says (p. 4) : “for though the revolutionary movement [French revolution] contained elements of good and eventually resulted in good, bringing about, amongst other things, the overthrow of a corrupt and oppressive aristocracy, and the emancipation of suffering and down-trodden people, it was, in reality, the outcome of a blind, popular passion rather than a rationally controlled emotion.”

Of course, it would not do to say that the capitalist revolution was “against the will of Gcd,” for look at the good positions these Catholic priests hold.

Again, the Catholic Church is serving the ruling class by preaching to the workers that Catholic democracy alone will save them from the abominable conditions of their slave state. And what, pray, is this Catholic democracy ? Anything that will help the workers ? Well, let Pope Leo XII., as quoted by Father Day, answer this question.

“What social democracy means and what Christian democracy ought to mean does not admit of doubt. The former, more or less extreme as the caee may be, is by many carried to such wicked extravagance as to reckon on humane satisfaction supreme, and to acknowledge nothing higher ; to pursue bodily and natural goods only, and to make the whole happiness of man consist in attaining and enjoying them. Such persons would place the supreme power of the State indiscriminately in the hands of the masses of the people. Moreover, they would abolish all distinctions of rank, and make all citizens equal, in order that all might equally have access to the good things of life. They would likewise do away with ownership, confiscate private fortunes, and socialise the instruments of labour. But Christian democracy ought to have as its foundation the principles laid down by divine faith, having regard, indeed, to the temporal advantage of the poorer and less educated, but designing therewith to fit their minds for the enjoyment of the things eternal. Accordingly, to Christian democracy let there be nothing more sacred than law and right ; let it bid the right of having and holding inviolate ; let it maintain the diversity of ranks which properly belongs to a well-ordered State.” (Pages 13-14.)

To show the Church’s respect for the capitalist class the Pope is quoted as follows by Father Day:

“God forbid that under the name of Christian democracy should lie the surreptitious aim of throwing off all obedience and turning away from those in lawful authority. The law of nature no less than that of Christ, enjoins respect for all such as in their several degrees hold office in the State, and further enjoins obedience to their lawful commands.”

It will be seen from the foregoing that there is no attempt to conceal the nature of Catholic democracy. The Church is on the side of the masters, it must therefore, be antagonistic to the workers, because the master class and the woking class are in conflict.

But do not think that Father Day is without his reasons for opposing Socialism. He meets all the arguments of Socialists, not excepting Karl Marx.

The pity of it all is, however, that our rever­end Father gets so hopelessly mixed up. At one time he will say that such an one is no Socialist, and will next proceed to quote him as a Social­ist. For instance, on page 112 he says :

“As far as it is a constructive system at all Bernstein’s revisionism is not Socialism, but a system of social reform on the basis of modern Liberalism. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is its present exponent in England.”

He afterwards quotes MacDonald and his clique as representing Socialist opinion in this country.

In proceeding to attack Karl Marx’s theories. Father Day tackles him firstly on “equality.” He (the priest) cannot understand how class distinctions arise from the economic conditions existing at a given period. No, he says, “class distinctions in most cases spring directly from ‘unequal talents and capacities,’ and are, like them, ‘privileges of nature.’ ” True, as soon as society is rid of its parasites, the class who to­-day is not equal to the task of working will cease to exist.

He next goes on to criticise Marx’s theory of surplus-value, and attacks it, one must suppose, from the social labour-time theory. Says the priest (p. 134) :

“People buy objects on account of their usefulness, their worth or fitness to afford them pleasure. These qualities accordingly are the chief factors in determining the prices or the commercial value of the goods. The labour force expended in making them is a matter of quite secondary consideration. At the same time, inasmuch as it forms a part of the cost of production, it must, of course, be paid for by the purchaser. Also good workmanship, as far as it results in better qualities in articles produced, has the effect of enhancing prices. But mere embodied labour is no real measure of worth. Were it a real measure we should have to judge artificial jewelry as being more valuable than real jewelry, and bad art as often superior to good. The theory of ‘surplus value’; is therefore baseless, and falls to the ground.”

It is clear from the preceding, as well as subsequent extracts from his effusions, e.g., his definition of capital on page 260, that he has never understood capitalist wealth.

In capitalist society wealth takes on the commodity form. Undoubtedly a commodity must have a use value, but its use value can only be realised when it falls out of circulation, when, in a word, it is consumed and functions no more. In the process of exchange, therefore, it in only exchange value that can be taken into account. It is the average social labour time that is necessary to be expended on the production of commodities that determines their value. Nothing else can be attributed as a basis of value. Even if we could measure the value of a commodity by its utility—which we cannot do, for it in impossible to say how many times more useful is an umbrella than a pair of braces, for example—it would not apply at the point of exchange, for we cannot know the usefulness of an article until we have used it. Again, the question of rare art does not apply to the average wealth of society ; and that there is more average socially necessary labour time in what Father Day calls “artificial” jewelry than in his so-called “real” jewelry is an assertion he should condescend to prove before he claims it as a fact.

Thus it will be seen the priestly champion of capitalism does not in any way touch Marx’s position, whilst his own case is fallacious.

Next Father Day treats with Marx’s theory of the materialist conception of history in a rather humorous fashion, at least, from the Socialist standpoint. He says (p. 139) :

“A further general basis of the Socialist theory, not altogether relinquished, is the material conception of history which Marx had developed from the doctrine of Comte and Herbert Spencer [elsewhere Marx and Spencer are said to have borrowed from Comte. Rather funny that the moralist ideas of Comte should have shaped the materialism of Marx, whilst Spencer’s evolutionary works came out rather too late in the day for the Socialist philosopher to borrow from]. According to this conception, the production and exchange of wealth are held to be the sole determining factors of the evolution of social life and of the growth of the whole of civilisation. Society, laws, politics, morals, and religion, are simply the outgrowth of economic conditions. The doctrine is flagrantly untrue, and clearly has no value except from the standpoint of downright materialism. If man has a purely material being, and is without any spiritual faculty, it might then be claimed that civilization depended on material causes. But granted that man is endowed with spiritual soul, then it at once becomes evident that economic conditions, which are the chance circumstances of barter and exchange, cannot be the ultimate cause of all social development. Religion and moral ideas are an immensely more powerful cause in shaping social development than all the forces of industrial and economic conditions.”

It need hardly be mentioned that this is merely burking the question. Father Day must prove before we grant it that there is a spiritual being. He had a chance of doing that when he quoted our pamphlet “Socialism and Religion” on pages 177-181 of his own book, but he seemed to wish to get out of the conflict.

For us religion has no meaning, except as an instrument used by the master class to keep the workers in ignorance. People living in a savage state, where scientific knowledge is unknown, can be excused for being religious; but to-day, when the forces of nature are so largely understood and controlled by man, and when fresh discoveries are the daily fruits of scientific research, there can be little or no excuse for such ignorance and superstition.

Father Day has the cheek —or the blindness—to attempt to defend the “anarchy of production” as Engels called it, obtaining in the present capitalist mode of production. On page 151 he says :

“Thus workmen and manufacturers offer their services and commodities when and where a rise in wages or prices indicates an understocked market and the chance of a favourable bargain ; and when these circumstances are reversed, they withhold them. Purchasers and employers, on the contrary, look out for an overstocked market in order to obtain for themselves the most favourable terms. By this process of individual choice and effort social supply and demand are automatically determined, whilst at the same time labour and distribution are naturally adjusted and organised.”

How beautiful ! In the first place, can the workers, even combined, withhold their labour force for any great length of time, until the labour market demands a big supply of workers ? We know very well that the workers, possessing practically nothing but their power to labour, must sell this as soon as possible, or else they will perish of starvation.

Again, do the workers always find a master ? We know that through the system of production which Father Day eulogises, there appears after a mad run of production, the crisis. By a system in which each individual producer seeks to get rich as quickly as he can there is produced such an abundance of commodities that a crash occurs. The market is choked with goods and no more are needed ; production ceases and workmen are thrown out idle ; manufacturers who have not enough to tide over the crisis are ruined, and help to swell the ranks of the unemployed. Because warehouses and storerooms are crammed with the things the workers have produced and are in need of, they must go without them.

Capitalism, then, suffers from over-production, and not from under-production, as R. B. Suthers of Tariff Reform “Clarion” fame would have it in criticising Father Day upon this point.

Under Socialism, according to our reverend Father, the people would not have the brains to carry on production. Presumably not, since all the wizards of society, including Catholic priests, would be no more.

From amongst a whole mish-mash of wild assertions occur such glaring errors as the attribution to Arkwright of the spinning jenny invented by Hargreaves ; and in one place Marx is spoken of as a State Socialist, then Engels, the co-worker of Marx, in another place shows the State to be superfluous in a Socialist regime.

The best pages of Father Day’s book are those which refer to our pamphlet “Socialism and Religion,” and to our Declaration of Principles.

When the workers get to understand those principles they will no longer uphold the capitalist system and the horrible conditions of life it means for them ; but by organising themselves “consciously and politically,” they will usher in the Socialist regime, when the workers will come to their own.

L. M.