The Passing Show: Our People (1961)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our People

The Government’s recent call to employers to reject any application for wage increases — at a time when inflation has been continuing for twenty-one years — was not, it now appears, an attack on wages. It was, in fact, a “defence of wages.” For Selwyn Lloyd made this clear in a recent speech to those well-known wage-defenders, the bankers and merchants of the City of London, at a banquet in the Mansion House. He said:

“Whatever is said to the contrary in the heat of the moment, I believe that the common-sense of our people will assert itself and they will acknowledge I am right.”

(One passing thought: do our rulers realise how much they irritate the rest of us by calling us “their people”?)

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd could hardly have expected his audience to believe him. As members of the owning class, they knew that all members of that class must constantly strive to cut their costs to the lowest possible; and one of the most important of their costs is wages. Since their competitors, both here and abroad, are always trying to restrict wage-costs, either by reducing wages or by holding back their increase as much as possible, any capitalist who did not watch this aspect very closely would soon be out of business. Either his shareholders would withdraw their money from his business, or he would go bankrupt. Mr. Selwyn Lloyd has simply tried to help the employers in this process by telling the workers that “the country’s well-being” depends on a “wage-pause.”

Mr. Lloyd should take care, next time he addresses an upper class audience, not to speak too persuasively. For if the ruling class did believe he was “defending wages” (that is, from their point of view, keeping up costs) he would not last long as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

A good way to die

The Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury called recently for the abolition of capital punishment, or at least for its complete suspension for a period of five years. The rural dean of Dulwich, however, kept up the good old tradition of those bishops and prominent churchmen who for centuries have supported the most barbarous of punishments against those who broke the law. Hanging, the rural dean said, might be “theologically and intellectually, rather a good way to die.” He went on:

“Why should the Christian say it is such a terrible thing to end someone’s life? We do not believe death is the end. Intellectually, is it so frightful to know, in full possession of your faculties, that you are going to met your Maker in a certain definite time ? I cannot see that, from a Christian point of view, it is so frightful.”

When one thinks of the millions of men killed in wars supported (on both sides) by Christian churches, it is not very surprising that the rural dean should seek to defend the “ending of someone’s life ” by the state apparatus. But, of course, the rural dean’s remarks are for export only. He claims it isn’t so frightful to be told you are going to have your neck broken “in a certain definite time”; but he appears to have taken no steps to embrace such a fate himself.

Convicted

Russia, the country which claims to be Socialist and still has property and all the institutions of property society, has again gladdened the hearts of anti-Socialist propagandists by sentencing two men to death and jailing several others for thefts of public property.” There is, of course, no such thing as “public property” in a private property society. There is property which belongs to members of the ruling class individually, and property which is usually managed by state or “public” boards, which act on behalf of the whole owning class. If this property was really public, or in common ownership, then it would belong equally to everyone, which is another way of saying it would belong to no one. To steal it would be impossible. So that when Russia holds trials for the “theft” of “public property,” it is really the system itself which is put on trial. And convicted.

Affluence

After the vague talk about “the affluent society” come the actual figures, produced by the state machine itself. According to National Income and Expenditure, 1961, published recently, these were the figures of national income:

“In 1960, 10,900,000 people (counting husband and wife as one person), 41 per cent of the total, were receiving less than £500 per annum before payment of tax ; 45 per cent between £500 and £1,000; 12 per cent from £1,000 to £2,000; and 2 per cent more than £2,000. After tax the corresponding percentages were 44; 46; 9 ; and 1.”

In other words, after tax 44 per cent, get less than £10 a week, and 90 per cent, less than £20 a week. And this, remember, is counting the wife’s income in with her husband’s. In the small minority of homes where there is an income coming in besides those of the father and mother, the standard will be correspondingly higher; but in the great majority of homes, the standards are indicated clearly enough by these figures. And anyone who thinks they amount to “affluence” for the ninety per cent., for the workers, should try bringing up a family at today’s inflated prices on anything under £20 per week.

Alwyn Edgar

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

Holocaust 2 (1982)

From the September 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The campaign of genocide which is the current military policy of the State of Israel is a tragic reflection of the real face of nationalism. The mythical image of Zionism as a movement of pioneering, progressive, pious, peace-loving nation-building has been more than exposed by the ruthless attempt to liquidate the city of Beirut “for reasons of national security”.

In early August the Canadian ambassador surveyed fifty-five separate areas of Beirut and declared that “this would make Berlin of 1944 look like a tea party”. The International Red Cross has declared that “at least 80 per cent of the casualties are civilians” (Sunday Times, 8 August 1982). Our TV screens abound with pictures of families which have lost fathers, mothers and children—victims of a senseless struggle of national ambition. In early August a block of flats in West Beirut was destroyed and nearly all of its civilian inhabitants died. Not for a long time has the horror of capitalist war been quite so evident as in the Lebanon.

As ever, when there is killing to be done, God’s rep on earth is to be found sanctifying it. Just as God’s Anglicans were blessing the British killers as they set off for the Falklands, so the British Chief Rabbi, in an interview in the Guardian on August 7, had to say that “to the extent that the only principle governing this action is one of self defence, or that of the security of the State, yes, Biblical or divine sanction can be claimed for it”. One might ask God’s spokesman precisely how a soldier carrying a gun or a pilot dropping a bomb can be engaging in self-defence against unarmed children, but then, one might as well engage in such a seminar with the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

The curse of nationalism is not new. Let it be clear that unlike certain anti-Zionists, socialists do not oppose the tunnel-vision mentality of nationalism only when it is Jewish. To us, the flag-waving, trigger-happy Zionists are no more ignorant and abhorrent than those who have swallowed the diversionary, nationalist message of the PLO. Socialists do not take sides in national conflicts because it is not our aim to support one or other of the competing capitalist or would-be capitalist factions, each of which seeks its own territories and exploitable populations. No socialist will ever fight to defend a border—we want to do away with the divisiveness of countries and states.

But there is a bitter irony about Zionist nationalism. In Dachau, the site of the old Nazi murder camp, a permanent exhibition stands as testimony to the atrocities committed in modern times against millions of Jews. That the survivors of such persecution sought refuge in a nation of their own—a country which would never persecute or exterminate anyone and would be free of the perverse national chauvinism on which Nazism was based—is not difficult to understand. In Israel, and here in Britain, not a few Zionists are now beginning to ask themselves the question: “How can it be that the country created by the holocaust is now inflicting similar misery on people who are just as defenceless as the Jews in Europe had been?” Some of them are blaming Begin. Others say that the PLO has pushed the Israeli government to such measures. The truth is that those who saw a solution in Zionist nationalism—in having their own laws, prisons, borders, army and weapons of destruction—were naive. Their form of nationalism is no less aggressive or bigoted than is ever the case under a system of society where the laws of the jungle are presented as being the rules of civilised conduct. Every nation’s flag is dripping with the blood of its enemies; every ruling class pays for its power in other people’s lives.

Nationalism can never be a solution to the problems of oppression: it was not for the Jews; it would not be for the Palestinians. The problem is class, not national, racial, or religious origins. As a class, workers have no country. The British do not own Britain, the majority of Israelis have no significant economic stake in Israel, the impoverished Arabs do not share their exploiters’ national wealth. There are two classes in society: those who possess without producing and those who produce without possessing. Wars are fought over the interests of the capitalists and would-be capitalists. In the 1940s an aspirant Israeli ruling class, represented by such vicious thugs as the Stern gang (of which the present Israeli Foreign Minister was a member), used terrorist tactics to secure their goal. Having obtained power violently, who could have expected the Israeli ruling class to have maintained power except by the continued use of violence? Israeli workers identify with the aims of their rulers—they see their national identity as more important than their class identity with Arab and other workers. In this they are dangerously mistaken.

The socialist solution to the Middle East conflict is not a piecemeal policy. We do not advocate re-drawing the border or political deals or the exchange of one (American-backed) ruling class for another (Russian-backed) one. These amount to mere rearrangements of the capitalist furniture. Only when Israeli and Arab workers join the worldwide movement for a society without class ownership, nations or armies will the war finally cease.

This is not a pious hope for the future. Workers are dying in Beirut and there is every sign that more will be killed. What is now a local war could turn into something rather bigger. Who will stop the killing once and for all—Habib, Begin or Arafat? To expect this to happen is like hoping for Brezhnev and Reagan to shake hands, make up and disarm. We leave such dreams to the Utopians who are fond of calling themselves Realists. For socialists, it is clear that if there is ever to be peace it is those who are the sitting targets of war who must actively pursue it.

Steve Coleman

Jottings. (1917)

The Jottings Column from the September 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the debate on the War vote in the House of Commons on July 24th, a member ventured to voice his apprehension regarding the attitude of the workers. He pointed out that revolution was being fostered by a certain section of leaders of the people who ought to know better. He met workers who asked “are you prepared for the coming revolution ?” He regretted that this insidious kind of talk was going on, and was being glibly preached at street corners, in the midst of this great war, “indeed, as one who had been so long a workman himself, nothing could be more deplorable to him than this glib talk of red revolution and the singing of the ‘Red Flag’ when they ought to be singing the praises of our men in the trenches.”

Dear me ! How they love the working class in this “democratically constituted” parliament of ours—at least that section of the working class which is not in khaki. (Whatever a man is, or has been, the mere act of donning khaki immediately converts him into a hero). But what I like about the above is its bluntness. There is no mistaking that attitude. Its hatred of the working class is manifest. From every word or so the capitalistic venom usually permeating such utterances, “Suppression” is the key note. Yet it was uttered by a Labour member—R. Tootill.

———————————-

Another of our “leaders”—J. G. Hancock, M.P. for Derbyshire, and agent for the Notts Miners—has announced his withdrawal from all association with the Labour Party in the Mid-Derby Division. Mr. Hancock has reason for his terrible sacrifice. It appears that it is “dominated by extreme Socialists,” whatever that expression may mean. So far as the writer of these notes is aware, there is not an overwhelmingly large number of Socialists in Mid-Derbyshire, though we have hopes, of course. But I suspect he means the I.L.P., with whom he was connected, I believe. If that is so, then that is quite a different thing altogether. Yet, if he claims to be a “leader” of the working class, and is scared away by the “Socialism” of the I.L.P., what hope is there for the working class from such as he ? What would have happened, I wonder, if he had been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be introduced to some real Socialists ? . . .

“Mr. Hancock places himself unreservedly in the hands of the Liberal Association.” That’s good. That’s a more comprehensible statement, anyway. But—isn’t it a distinction without a difference ?

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Everything that ever emanated from Germany is bad—from Goethe down to German sausage. The British Press says so, therefore it must be true. That being so, the Insurance Act, a German importation, stands condemned. That is, if one prefers to use the style of argument served up each morning in the Press. We are not altogether obliged to, however, as numerous instances in its mal-administration can be quoted to prove its rotten nature, whatever its source may happen to be. I purpose quoting one in support of the assertion. It must be borne in mind that the existence of such an Act depends upon the existence of poverty and servitude before it can operate.

At a recent meeting of the National Association of Trade Union Approved Societies, held in Manchester, a representative of the Amalgamated Weavers Approved Society from Heywood brought forward the case of a woman insured under the Insurance Act, whom, he said, five doctors had refused to attend in her confinement. The husband, it was stated, went to five medical men in succession, but each declined to attend on the plea that he was too busy. Finally the woman was taken to Bury Infirmary. The child lived only a short time, and the woman died four days after admission. The Secretary stated that the Association were satisfied that this sort of thing had been going on for some time.

The explanation of the conduct of these doctors lies in the fact that the poor woman was only one of the working class, one of the “common herd.” That is but one feature of a system for which we are fighting to maintain. Workers all over the world are pouring out their life’s blood in order that the “right” to inflict every kind of indignity and torture upon us shall be the exclusive possession of one class—the master class.

This same measure, upon its introduction, was loudly acclaimed by our “labour leaders” as “the greatest Socialistic measure that has ever been placed before the House of Commons.” I leave the reader to reconcile it if he can.

———————————-

About on a par with the above was the brutal contempt shown for the workers in the answer given to a question by W. E. Anderson in the House of Commons, on the occasion of the discussion of the meat question. It was pointed out that arrangements were being considered or made in Glasgow, Dundee, Hamilton, and Aberdeen for sterilising parts of specially selected carcases of tuberculous animals for sale as food to the general public. The “general public” in this case being the poorest section of the community.

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Germany is now without a friend in the world, and this, according to Mr. Hoegger, the chairman of the Cotton and Wool Dyers’ Association, is bound to cause Great Britain to have an enormous trade after peace is declared. This is comforting at any rate, because we workers were beginning to think we were in for a damn bad time. For an “enormous trade” will mean lots of work, and lots of work will mean lots of—graft. That’s our portion.

“I should think,” says Mr. Hoegger, (good, old British name, that), “there is surely no British dye-user who would demean himself, under any circumstances, to enter again into business transactions with a nation which has shown itself so utterly devoid of every moral, social, military and naval sense.” (“Manchester Guardian,” 23.5.17).

There is one factor which Mr. Hoegger himself appears to be “utterly devoid of,” and that is “common” sense. Touching which the Commercial Editor of the “Guardian” comments as follows:

“Just now, we all feel like that, and many, we do not doubt, will maintain the feeling. Human nature, however, is in the aggregate incapable of doing it. We have seen in this war how the Japanese have come to the aid of the Russians, with whom they had a severe struggle not long ago, and the Russian Army, which may be taken to represent the populace, has lately shown anything but an undying hatred towards the Germans. If that is so with belligerents, is it not likely that the people of South America and of some other countries, too, will allow their resentment to die down pretty quickly ? We have to remember that business is not done with nations but with individuals, and when peace comes we shall probably hear that while So-and-So would never think of dealing with the ordinary unspeakable German, they have no difficulty in resuming relations with their former connections, those people being really an exceptionally decent sort. The Germans will take care, of course, to offer goods at low prices, and if there is a financial advantage in buying them, after tariffs have been adjusted, it does not seem likely that they will be kept out of any country very long. Profit is a greater power than hatred.”

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Rev. Bernard Snell, chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, preaching at Brixton the other Sunday (8.7.17), favoured reprisals as an exercise of righteous anger. This was not the time for patience and self-control, but for letting their righteous anger have full sway in the only way that Germany understood. This gentleman evidently believes in a literal interpretation of the Mosaic dispensation. How insatiable in the matter of blood these Christian agents are, for sure ! Give him an axe, somebody, and let him run amok.

Lucilius.

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Can the human intellect, which can provide so much wealth for destruction, devise no means of diverting that wealth to the happiness and well-being of humanity ? Yes, by Socialism.

What is religion? - Part 6 (1954)

From the February 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 5.

Prayer gives some people relief, just as does swearing to others. Some prefer chain smoking or drinking to the point of getting drunk as the best means of drowning their sorrows. Apart from self-relief, prayers give to those who say them, an assurance which they seek. From this aspect it would appear to be somewhat similar to wishful thinking. Prayer may act psychologically like auto-suggestion, especially if it is applied to some aid which one requires for oneself,  as distinct from prayers for others, or prayers for better weather, etc.

As would be expected the priests were not slow to capitalise prayers and make a profession of saying them for others. The Catholic priests have been active at the game for centuries and have persuaded many a poor man to give his savings, as well as the rich to give large sums of money to the church, i.e., the institution or business of the priests. The saying of mass for the soul after death continued the good work paid for in advance by the living, or by his or her relatives. The priests are supposed to be especially good at saying prayers, writing them and reading them, and often learn Latin (the chief language of God) for that purpose. How God knows all the different languages and can understand millions of prayers uttered at the same time from dozens of different lands is one of those mysteries about which we hear nothing.

One would have thought that in a modern civilised community, run on mass production lines and the latest ideas of capitalism, machines would have been invented to say prayers by the million, by the pressing of a button. Especially would this be valuable during wartime, when prayer machines could work day and night asking for divine assistance for victory, or don't the ruling class believe in the usefulness of evoking God’s assistance at such a critical time?

When nations go to war they all claim that God is on their side; in the last war the Russians did not hesitate to call out the priests who had been in cold storage for some years. In the first World War the Germans made a great point of “Gott mit uns” but apparently after being so badly let down were very hesitant in evoking God’s assistance in the second war. No doubt the Christian clergy of the allies would jubilantly declare "that is why they lost.” The old dictum is still true, that "God is on the side of the big battalions” (or with the strongest armies), or u trust in God and keep your powder dry.” Since capitalism came into existence these later precepts have come to be the ones which have been followed very carefully, while too much reliance on God to help is thought to be bad military strategy.

“God heard the embittered nations pray and shout 

God this, God that, and God the other thing,

‘ Good God,’ said God, 'I’ve got my work cut out’.”

If, as the Christians tell us, God knows everything, then prayer is merely telling God what God already knows. In which case it is a sheer waste of time on the part of those who offer them, as well as a distracting force to God. On the other hand if they are trying to persuade God to do something which he has no intentions of doing, then prayer is wicked, because it attempts to alter God’s infallible intentions. They can’t have it both ways.

Horace Jarvis

 

(To be continued.)

Sting in the Tail: The Numbers Game (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Numbers Game

Listen, John, I've just been reading the November / December issue of Labour Party News. It's full of Neil Kinnock and his pals on about the wonderful future they offer "our country" if they get in.

And they've got their own Premier Savings Account at "competitive rates of interest", a competition with a £10,000 tax-free prize, a Visa card, a lottery, and organic wines! Couldn't find a mention of socialism, but you can't have everything, can you?

They’ve got a lot of new members too; 140 here, 35 there, but the official "Recruiter of the Year" is a Nottingham youngster who roped in 200! It's easy, John, there's a membership form inside if you want to join: no conditions, no questions asked.

All this recruitment looks good — what's that you say? Labour's membership has dropped from 350,000 in 1980 to 288,000 now! Christ, that Nottingham youngster had better get his finger out, hadn't he?

Open Secrets

For fifty years groups of Leninists have been boring-from-within the Labour Party.

Because their own ideas have very little electoral support, they hope to gain influence in the Labour Party which they see as "the mass organisation of the working class".

There have been many such hopefuls down through the years of which "Militant" is only the best known. As would-be Bolsheviks they exist as "secret" groups but always there are the inevitable defectors to reveal all.

The latest group to be shopped is "Socialist Organiser" which, according to an ex-member, is:

. . . completely committed to remaining within the Labour Party, and will jump through each and every hoop the (Labour) NEC places before them to save themselves.

The Guardian (24 December)

These groups are an obstacle to Labour's chances of running British capitalism and are being rooted-out, but doubtless there will in the future be others willing to jump through endless hoops in pursuit of Lenin's useless and discredited ideas.

Princely Piffle

Prince Charles, authority on ecology and architecture, has been airing his views on

politics and economics.

Speaking on French TV he

. . . called for a balance between the ideals of capitalism and communism.

The Guardian (24 December)

What he meant by "communism" is, of course, what existed in Eastern Europe and which he described only last year as "one vast prison". What "ideals"of this system does he admire?

The Prince continued:

We need capitalism, but perhaps with a more human face. We need a system in which big capital becomes more and more Interested in local communities. . . and the developing countries.

As if capitalism will do this as an act of altruism and without taking profits into account!

This ignorance of capitalism's priorities is further revealed by his call for banks to lend to "gifted" young people to start their own businesses. Alas, the banks

. . . weren't in the slightest bit interested because young people had nothing to offer as guarantees.

We doubt if bank depositors would share the Prince's desire to see their savings lent without collateral.

Let's hope that HRH knows more about ecology and architecture than he does about politics and economics.

Keen as Mustard

During World War II over one thousand Australian servicemen were used as human guinea-pigs in experiments with mustard gas. Many of them had up to 95% of their skins burned and a top-secret film recorded the horrific details in glorious technicolor.

Were these men prisoners of the Japanese and the victims of a bestial atrocity? No, it was the Australian and British governments who conducted the experiments on them.

All this emerged in a BBC2 Horizon programme on January 14. The experiments were supposed to provide information for "defensive" purposes should Japan use mustard gas, but Horizon revealed that the Allies intended to use the gas on the Japanese: they decided on the atom bomb instead.

Probably the most shocking revelation for many who saw the programme was that the human guinea-pigs were all volunteers. One of the scientists involved in the experiments said that the men "knew what they were in for". This was only partly true because the call for volunteers made no mention of mustard gas, and the men certainly didn’t know there would be such long-term after-effects as leukemia and damage to internal organs.

There is nothing new in workers volunteering to perform capitalism's dangerous tasks. They are forever risking their health and lives in the service of their masters, and it is nothing new for them to be rewarded in cruel and inhuman fashion.

Gulf Reality

While TV commentators move toy tanks over sandy table tops and gush on about "pincer movements" like demented schoolboys: the realities of war are much more soberly summed up by one of the participants of the real war.

Here, for example, are the unexpurgated thoughts of Captain Ronald Thomas, from Stoke-on-Trent and A Squadron of the 16th /5th, as he watched his soldiers load their missiles for what might be the last hours of peace. "Yes, I'm frightened of dying. Everyone's thinking about it now." (A pause here.) "But you know, I'll be really pissed off if I didn't see my family again. I've got four kids. I’d be fucking angry if I was killed."

The Independent (15 January)

Anger is, of course, understandable but it is only anger based on knowledge of how capitalism leads to armed hostility that is of any use in combating the threat of war.

Reality Gulf

Now that hostilities have broken out in the Gulf, it is reassuring to learn that those with a hot line to the deity are showing a touching compassion.

Although Dr Robert Runcie and Cardinal Basil Hume acknowledge that It was sometimes necessary to resort to war, they said in a joint statement that they had emphasised to John Major "our concern that only the minimum force necessary to secure the UN objectives should be used, without inflicting indiscriminate damage on Iraq and its citizens."

They also urged the Prime Minister to safeguard sacred Muslim sites from attack in Iraq.

The Independent 15 January

When the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Roman Catholic Cardinal unite on joint statements, you can be sure you will get a dose of arrant nonsense. "Indiscriminate damage" is the nature of war. There are no rockets or bombs that select the guilty and spare the innocent.

However it is touching to that they are concerned about fellow divines in Iraq — no hiding out in the sacred sites!

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.

By the Way. (1916)

The By The Way Column from the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

The continued absorption of the men of military age has had the effect of bringing in its train a greater demand for children and women to take the place of those workers who are thus removed from agricultural and industrial pursuits, in order that the latter may be trained in the art of scientific slaughter.

During the past month or so much has been said and written with regard to the employment of children and the question of education. Just recently, in the House of Commons, Mr. Arthur Henderson (Labour [!] M.P.), speaking as President of the Board of Education on the Education Vote, let fall the following remarks :

“The question of child-labour had excited much apprehension. . . . The Board had impressed local authorities to make full inquiries into the cases of children employed in agriculture. The Board would regard it as a very grave misfortune if large numbers of children were employed at an early age.

He expressed his gratitude to the Board of Agriculture for their co-operation with the Board of Education, yet in spite of their efforts the number of children engaged in agriculture had nearly doubled. It showed that by-laws were being relaxed without proper care and enquiry.”—”Daily Chronicle,” July 19, 1916.

If one was able to shut one’s eyes to the fact that the speaker was a Labour Member (and consequently was in the House of Commons supposedly in the interest of the working-class) it would be very easy to view the observations recorded above as an apology by an ordinary capitalist politician for jeopardising the education of this country’s future wage-slaves. But stay a moment ! Is not this hon. gentleman identified with the party who used to advocate “the raising of the age of child labour with a view to its ultimate extinction” ?

Another speaker who joined in the discussion said that he believes the President’s estimate of the number of children of school age employed in agriculture was far below the mark, and further suggested that the grant, or a large part of it, should be withdrawn from local authorities if they yielded to popular clamour and for the benefit of farmers robbed the children of their “birthright.”

* * *

We of the Socialist Party have, in season and out of season, insisted that the question of education is one which primarily concerns our masters. They do not educate the children because they desire them to become more intelligent, but because of the increasing development in the modern means of production and the higher education of the wage-slaves of other lands. This point has been referred to on many occasions by Lord Haldane, and even quite recently he emphasised the need of a far higher system of technical education. Therefore, if our masters desire to retain their supremacy as a commercial nation, they will see to it that the future wage-slaves shall be trained accordingly, and hence the grave concern of a small but intelligent section of the capitalist class at the invasion that is taking place in the ranks of the children of school age. Further confirmation of this is to be found also in Mr. Henderson’s speech, wherein he stated that

“The war has also brought home to us that our national prosperity and security demanded greater concentration of intelligence on problems of industry, commerce and public administration. He was glad to say that the Department had not failed to prepare for a re-conquest of the ground they had lost, but had taken steps to go much further than before after the war was over.”

* * *

Whilst I am on this topic there is one item which, perhaps, would not be amiss. It was recently stated in the Press that there were “cases of children attending school who were too sleepy to be taught owing to working early and late.” This was mentioned at the Frome (Somerset) School Attendance Sub-Committee meeting. The report continues :

“One boy of 11 milked seven cows night and morning and then went to school. He started work at five o’clock and had reached Standard II. The Chairman said he knew of a case where the teachers complained that children engaged on farm work were too tired to do anything when they got to school.”—”Daily News,” June 27, 1916.

One can understand the position of the teacher who has to impart information and instruction to children whose mental and physical energies have been sapped ere they reach the classroom. This evil is, of course, not confined to war time only ; it is an inevitable consequence of capitalist society, but to-day it is more pronounced. Here is a glorious opportunity for the idlers of modern society those who heretofore have never done anything useful in the community to do what they are so fond of prating about, work of “national importance.” Will THEY do it ?

To the teachers, parents, and members of the working class we send out our gospel of salvation. Study the position of your class ; realize that you are many and the drones are few ; help to speed the day when the exploitation of yourselves and your children shall be relegated to the past ; and join with us of the Socialist Party to assist the ushering in of a new society, wherein “poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.”

* * *

For some time past we have heard a lot of talk about what our patriotic bosses are doing for those who hare “done their bit.” We have grown accustomed to hearing that after this war “our heroes” are not to sell matches and bananas for a living, but at long last they are going to receive recognition of tasks achieved and duty done. Without here touching on the subject of pensions (which, is engaging a large amount of attention in the Press), I will pass on to an advertisement which caught my eye in the “Daily Chronicle” of July 21st. Here it is :

Army or Navy men wanted who have done their bitt; bring discharge papers; salary 28s. per week to start with . . .

There’s generosity for you ; 28s. a week for those who have “done their bit.” The Lord only knows what the remuneration would be for those outside the condition above stipulated.”

* * *

Our right reverend father in God the Archbishop of Canterbury, recently wrote to the Prime Minister with regard to the plea of the World’s Evangelical Alliance that the second anniversary of the outbreak of war be made a national day of prayer by Order in Council. The reply of Mr. Asquith was a materialistic one, for he and many others, though giving lip-service to orthodox religion, place more reliance in shot and shell than in the efficacy of a day devoted to national prayer. Which reminds one that another gentleman in days gone by was once alleged to have said: “You may pray to God, but keep your powder dry.” However, let me quote :

“I have received your letter. … I am not prepared to recommend that Friday, August 4, be proclaimed a day of national penitence and prayer. I must point out that Monday and Tuesday, August 7 and 8, are declared Bank Holidays.

The suggested Proclamation would enforce a stoppage of work throughout the country on the previous Friday, and would not, I think, conduce to the result which is desired.

I think that the community will readily respond to the proposal that services should be held on that day in churches of all denominations throughout the country, and I believe it to be more in accordance with general thought and feeling that the State should not intervene in the manner suggested.”

—”Daily Chronicle,” July 1, 1916.

* * *

We have from time to time commented upon the £. s. d. point of view of obtaining recruits for the Army. The following is decidedly frank and honest:

“In granting exemption to a farm hand, aged 30, with nine children, the Ramsbury (Wilts.) Tribunal expressed the opinion that it would be cheaper to keep him at home.”—”Daily Mail,” June 34, 1916.

* * *

During the period immediately following the passing of the Compulsory Military Service Bill for single men, there were many outbursts in the House with regard to the methods of roping in potential recruits. Reference was made to the destruction of medical certificates of rejection and those who held them were forced to undergo further examination. Such were the methods used then and ultimately condemned by Mr. Tennant when he could no longer maintain a policy of official ignorance on the matter. Despite all promises of reformation, and the period of time which has since elapsed, we find the following condemnation of the methods adopted by the military authorities :

“Improper treatment of men who have been sent to Warley for medical examination was made the subject of a strong protest to the War Office yesterday by the Ilford Tribunal.

It was stated that the men were asked by the medical authorities to sign a blank card which would be sealed up afterwards and sent to the military authorities. This the men refused to do, and they informed the Tribunal of the fact.

Mr. Middlemas, the military representative, took exception to the treatment of these men and said it was scandalous, and he himself had written a strong letter of protest.”—”Daily Chronicle,” July 21, 1916.

* * *

Much ink and paper has been used to present in lurid terms the “awful frightfulness” of the German. But lo and behold ! in due course come pen pictures of the “frightfulness” of the ruling class of Britain and her Dominions. We have in time of peace heard a great deal about the “master mind” and the “directive ability” of our bosses, and with microscope in hand we have set out to discover these qualities which it is alleged belong to our masters. I have in mind the “gamble” of the Dardanelles and the Meso­potamia campaign particularly at the moment, though numerous other items might be mentioned. That the question is a serious one may be gathered from the fact that the Lords, spiritual and temporal, appear to have been the first to publicly discuss it. Now for the indictment :

“The Duke of Somerset said he had an opportunity that morning of reading three or four very long letters from officers who had been serving in Meso­potamia. He could assure their lordships that the cruelties our men must have suffered through the utter incompetence of the authorities, both in India and at home, were simply disgraceful. They knew what the Belgians suffered and they knew also what our own men suffered when taken prisoners by the Germans at the beginning of the war. But our men were suffering very much worse than they had ever suffered through the brutality of the way in which things had been managed in Mesopotamia. What they had suffered was perfectly indescribable.

He would give one or two instances, in one case a thousand wounded were sent down in a ship with one medical officer and one orderly to look after the whole of them. They were all mixed up together—­officers, British soldiers, and native soldiers. There were men with dysentery and men with shattered limbs all in the same ship, and there was not a bit of morphia or a drop of chloroform. One officer who was sent down wounded never had his wound dressed from the time he was picked up until he got to Bombay.

‘Who is to blame God knows,’ he added. ‘There must be somebody to blame here, and, as for India, I think the officer in command of the troops there must be terribly to blame.'”—”Daily Telegraph,” July 14, 1916.

* * *

“Dardanelles Treaty. Russia promised both sides of the Straits,” are headlines which recently appeared in the “Daily Chronicle” (19.7.10) over a short announcement with regard to the return of the Russian Parliamentary delegates to Russia. The item of news goes on to state that “the most interesting statement was made by Professor Miliukoff, the former Liberal leader, who, according to the Russkoe Slovo, said :

“The most important question in which we were interested was the problem of the Dardanelles. An agreement has been made between Russia and her allies according to which we are promised both sides of the Straits.”

Who said we are fighting on behalf of Belgium ?

The Scout.

Jottings. (1917)

The Jottings Column from the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just now it is the fashion for everybody to ask everybody else to define their attitude, to state their war aims. Not to be outdone, God has lined up with the rest in so far as he has made a pronouncement as to his attitude. At least, so we are told in a “Prophetic Message" that is being circulated. I don’t know what enterprising individual has managed to secure an interview, or what pressure has been brought to bear; that, I suppose, is a diplomatic secret. He is pro-Ally, of course, as the message below will show.

“If it were not for the prayers of mine own chosen people, who are calling unto me day and night, I would have swept the people of this nation from before me,'' saith the Lord. "But it is the prayers of my people who are saving this nation and withholding me from destroying them utterly. But I am still the prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, and for mine own people’s sake I will not destroy, but I will pour out the vials of my wrath till they humble themselves and repent, and seek me to deliver, for I am the Lord God of Hosts, and I am still the God of battles as well as the God of peace. 

Taking it on the whole, it is about at clear as anybody else's “attitude,” but I have a strong suspicion that God has told the same tale in other than Allied quarters. He can hardly be blamed for trying to keep square with everybody, as his reflections cannot be at all comforting, considering the mess he has made of the human race. If I might venture to give him a tip, the best attitude he could have adopted, to my thinking, was that of "benevolent neutrality.”

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Speaking of "attitudes,” there is no mistaking that of the Labour Party. To anything savouring of democracy they are in deadly opposition. They make no effort to hide it. In fact, they are brazen over it. Their members never seem to tire of affirming their allegiance to the capitalist class, and the capitalist Press is invariably at their disposal for the purpose of voicing their their support of capitalist interests. But one of the clearest official pronouncements is made by Mr. W. F. Purdy, chairman of the party executive and assistant secretary of the Shipwrights Union in an interview with a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian” (7.6.17), from which I take the following extracts. Speaking on the party's attitude toward the war and the Stockholm Congress he said:

At the Annual Conference at Manchester in January there was an unmistakable decision that the Labour Party should not take part in any international congress on peace and war until victory was achieved, and then only with the Socialists and trade union organisations of the Allied Powers. . . it was an honourable obligation on all sections of the party to respect it or get out. (This latter is a rub at the I.L.P. peace delegates.) . . . They (the I.L.P.) opposed the voluntary recruiting scheme, they opposed Labour taking any share in the first coalition Government, they opposed the Military Service Act, they opposed our joining the present coalition Government; yet all these decisions have been endorsed by the legally elected and constituted conference of the party. As chairman of the Executive of the Labour Party, I am not going to meet or sit in conference with representatives of the enemy countries while we are at war. I mean to carry out the policy of British Labour as laid down by our representative gathering. That policy is to pursue the war to a successful termination—which means to a complete victory over the enemy.

So there you have it. Capitalism for ever! On with the orgy of blood !

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Perpend. Lord Hugh Cecil in the Debate on the Franchise Bill (6.6.17) “cheered himself by thinking that the Labour Party hardly ever knew its own interests; indeed, the political incompetence of the Labour Party was much the greatest safeguard of our constitutional system.” 

Gee!

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Such is the prevailing ignorance and confusion regarding the real causes of the war and the issues involved—due, in the first place, to the indifference, before the war, to matters political and economic, and secondly, to the deliberate lying and bluffing of the capitalist and pseudo-labour Press and politicians—that it does not come as a surprise to find sections of “organised” workers hotly denouncing and and repudiating each other, for all the world as if the responsibility for the war was theirs as well as their masters’.

Such a position was the outcome of the recent peace convention at Leeds. It claimed to be a representative gathering. It was. I.L.P.ers, B.S.P.ers, Labour fakers, Quakers, Syndicalists —in fact a regular hotch-potch—rubbed shoulders with each other. From such a mixture of elements nothing tangible and clear could emerge, and, as one foresaw would be the case, the issues put forward for discussion were capitalist issues pure and simple.

Of course, the mere cry, of “peace” was sufficient to rouse the Labour Party into immediate opposition, along with other organisations, some of which were allied to those represented at the convention! Can you wonder at the success of every move made by the master class ? Some want peace, others don’t. Those who want peace suggest negotiations on terms that concern only the capitalists. Those who deprecate any “premature” or “patched-up” peace do so also for reasons that only concern capitalists. The latter are usually led by the type of idiot who believe that “capital and labour ought to be reconciled” in a time of national stress, and who devote their energies to bringing about such a condition (they believe it possible!)—that is, when they are not wholly engaged in the service of capital.

A great many there are, of course, as we happen to know, who thoroughly understand the correct line to be taken up—based on a dear conception of Socialist principles—and there is no reason whatever why anyone should be left in the dark. The matter is quite ample. Yet when one examines the composition both of convention and opposition, and reflects that all of them derive their knowledge from the same source, is., the stuff emanating from such people as Lansbury, MacDonald, Blatchford, Hodge, Bottomley, etc., etc., it makes one-wonder if the light will ever down on them—whether order will ever come out of chaos.

Due to this condition of things, it is unfortunately true that the majority of the working class of Britain, despite the suffering entailed, accept and support, and very often defend, the principle of the “right” to fight, to suffer, and to die in defence of the interests of their masters.

It remain for Socialists to combat and banish this fatal principle. Only by the permeation of Socialist doctrine will capitalism and labour-fakerism, with their concomitant evils—war and ignorance-cease to exist.

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A minister, asked in the House of Commons how many British airmen lost their lives in the last German air-raid on London, replied that he did not know. Such a reply must add greatly to the general confidence in the veracity of the war figures the Government treats us to.

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Anyone familiar with the protean accomplishments of Bill Thorne will not be surprised at his latest stunt. As a versatile artist Bill is Class A, and it should not be long before he is top of the bill. His latest “turn” is a visit to Buckingham Palace to see the King. Bill describes it as very interesting. ” It was marked by an entire absence of formality or convention. It was my first visit to Buckenham Palace, but I went there as if I had known the place all my life.” That’s just Bill all over. He can adapt himself anywhere. I wonder if he went in the coat Sir F. E. Smith gave him. I can imagine the look of imitative dignity on Bill’s face as he was ushered in by the flunkey!

And what would the flunkey have thought could he have known that he was bowing and scraping to one of the biggest flunkeys in the country ? But perhaps the coat did the trick. Good old Bill! If cheek can accomplish anything you’re the boy for the job. Hobnobbing with Royalty ! Gee! I wonder what’s in the wind!

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A report is current that the extensive work of the German missionary societies in Togoland is being taken over by Scottish missionaries, and that a large sum of money is being raised for the purpose. This would appear to mean that the country itself, as in the case of Uganda, where the flag followed the missionary, will be “taken over”—in the interests of British capitalism, forming, as it does, a valuable source of raw material which the manufacturer at home is anxious to take advantage of, along with an available amount of labour-power requisite for its supply. It used to be said that “the flag follows the missionary, trade follows the flag," but, as a writer in the “Daily Mail” (9.6.17) points out, the old motto is amended in this crisis—trade directs the flag. One aspect of it that is never amended is that exploitation follows the lot, every time. The following lines by A. C. Benson should be appropriate to the occasion :

“Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How can we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds beset: God, who made thee mighty, make mightier yet."

Gott mit uns! Truly we are a great nation !

May Field