Let Brotherly Love and Tithes Continue. (1933)

From the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Up and down the English countryside a tithe-war is in progress. Farmers, and other holders of land subject to tithe, say they cannot and will not pay. They have organised a national association to defend their interests. Against them stands the Church, with its back to the wall, demanding its money. The Church invokes the law-courts and the police, and at its behest bailiffs seize the land, stock and crops, of the debtors. The answer of the farmers to forced sales of goods is an aggressive boycott of the auction. Massed picketing and veiled threats of violence are usually sufficient to dissuade intending buyers from making bids.

The history of tithes is long and complicated. They go back for many hundreds of years, and it is disputed whether in England they began as the voluntary gifts of pious churchmen or as a compulsory levy. In any event there is no dispute as to their form. The landholder subject to tithe had to donate each year one-tenth of the produce of his land, one-tenth of his calves, lambs, wool, milk, eggs, grain, and so on. At first this stream of wealth was divided into four parts; one part each for the bishop and the parish priest, one part for the upkeep of the church building, and one part for the poor. Subsequently the bishops were otherwise provided for. The tithes were then divided into three parts; one-third for the parson and two-thirds for the monks, to be used by them for their own upkeep, for the entertainment of strangers, and for the relief of the poor. There is no doubt that by this time at least the relief of the poor was not a voluntary act on the part of the monastic houses but was a duty imposed on them by the Crown. In receiving tithe and using part of it to relieve the poor, the monks were acting as agents for the King, as is shown by a statute passed in the early years of the fourteenth century, during the reign of Edward I.

When the monasteries were suppressed at the time of the Reformation about one-third of their tithes were seized by the Crown and handed over to laymen.

The whole of the remaining two-thirds came to be payable to the clergy.

Until 1836 tithes were, for the most part, paid not in money but “in kind." In that year the Tithe Commutation Act substituted a money rent-charge, varying with the price of corn, for the payment in kind. In 1891, owing to the difficulty experienced in the collection of tithe, the obligation was transferred from the tenant to the land-owner.

Both in 1836 and under various later Acts the clergy were given the benefit of relief from part of their liability for rates payable on the tithes received by them.

Under the Tithe Act, 1925, the tithe payment, instead of varying with the price of corn, was for the first time stabilised on the basis of £105 for each £100 of tithe-rent charge; with an additional payment of 4½ per cent. a year to provide a fund for the extinction of tithes over a period of 85 years.

The annual cost is now £3,300,000, of which about two-thirds is payable to the clergy and the remaining third to other receivers of tithe whose rights were acquired from the monasteries at the Reformation. It is this £3,300,000 which is the grievance behind the present dispute.

The Church—A Declining Industry

The Tithe-payers' Association makes the claim that the burden of tithes is ruining the farmers. While it is true that some farmers cannot pay their tithe, it is obvious that we must look further than this for an explanation of the dispute between the tithe-payers and the Church, for the total amount of tithe represents only a very small percentage of the annual income of the farmers. On the other hand, a sum of over £2 million a year is of the utmost importance to the Church. It represents the livelihood of thousands of the clergy.

The fact is, that during recent years changes have been taking place affecting both the farmers and the Church. Many of the former have been badly hit by the post-war slump in the prices of agricultural products. They receive a declining income from the sale of their products but have to pay a fixed charge to the clergy and other recipients of tithe. Their position is doubly difficult in the many cases of farms having been bought on borrowed money at the high prices of the War years. On the other hand, the farmer’s inclination to withhold tithes has been strengthened by the loss of prestige and popularity on the part of the Church and its ministers. The Church is a great commercial concern which, so to speak, has its capital sunk in a declining industry. As Dean Inge puts it, the Church used to be a monopoly undertaking and is now trying to exist under conditions which have deprived it of its monopoly.

It sells an article which has not kept up with the changing demand of the twentieth century. “Spiritual consolations” and the kind of social activities provided by the Church are as definitely out-of-date as horse-’buses, lantern lectures and tallow candles. The hold of the parson is relaxing. The torments of hell and the delights of heaven alike pass over the heads of a generation brought up on war and war-novels, on the cinemas and wireless. Cinemas and wireless have captured the field, hence the interesting results of most of the votes on Sunday opening. In one town after another we see the Councils—composed of elderly persons, often active Church workers—voting against Sunday cinemas, only to have their decision heavily reversed when it goes to a poll. The clergy try to hold back the tide, but what can they do against new needs and 'the cinema combines? They are like the little shopkeepers trying to fight Woolworths, Boots, Selfridges, and the other giant concerns which are fast devouring them.

In a variety of ways the influence and the income of the clergy have been diminished. Now comes the final blow of the campaign against tithes. In reply, the Church militant shows what it is made of, and fights for cash, as it never fought for anything else. As Marx so cruelly said, ”the Anglican Church will more readily pardon attacks upon 38 of its 39 articles than upon one thirty-ninth of its income.”

It is Written in the Bond

The tithe-war is rich in incident. There is the Rector who assented to a farmer sacking one of his unfortunate labourers in order to be able to afford to pay tithe. The Rector said that he could not afford to let the farmer off what he owed, “and that it was a just debt.” The Church authorities, as a whole, have taken up the same legalistic attitude, standing strictly on the letter of the law. Shall not Shylock have his pound of flesh ?  Is it not written in the bond?

Where they do allow some remission it is only on the ordinary commercial principle of taking 75 per cent., because there is no possibility of getting the whole. Yet prominent Churchmen, including Lord Parmoor, state that the burden of tithes is unduly heavy in view of the unforeseen fall in prices.

One case has, however, come to light of a tithe claim being abandoned entirely by the parson to whom it was owed. An old shoe-maker was a tithe-payer to the extent of 3s. 6d. a year. It was the custom to hold an annual ”Tithe Feast," presided over by the Vicar and held at the village “pub," which all tithe-payers were entitled to attend. The old shoe-maker was relieved of his obligation to pay tithe because, as he explained, “they lost money over him" at the annual spread.

Attempts to seize farmers' property have been resisted, with the consequence of numerous cases of assault, some of which reach the courts. In one case of distraint it was disclosed that an original debt of £20 for tithe was increased to £700 through legal costs charged against the debtor in a series of actions to enforce payment.

The attitude of the Daily Herald, official organ of the Labour Party, has been amusing. Its desire to sympathise with the farmers, whose votes it wants, is equalled by its anxiety not to antagonise the supporters of the Church. So it presents the delicate problem of how to give the farmers more without giving the Church less; and as that problem is truly baffling, it demands that the Government shall instantly do its duty—and appoint a Commission! Happy memories of the late Labour Government, with its dozens and dozens of Commissions and Committees of Inquiry, probing into this question and the other.

Why do the Christians so Furiously Rage Together?

It is an entertainment to see how the followers of Jesus fight for filthy lucre as bitterly as any poor benighted heathen. Where is that otherworldliness, that spirit of self-denial that the clergy never fail to recommend to workers who come out on strike?

Christians, were you not commanded to love one another? And do you now send your message of love by the bailiff’s men ? O, ye of little faith! Do you not know that strife can be avoided by the exercise of Christian charity and forbearance? Why, yes, of course you know, for did you not, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at your head, found the Industrial Christian Fellowship for no other purpose than to show the cantankerous workers how to avoid industrial strife, and how to live at peace with the employers?

Lastly, there is the case of Mr. George Middleton. As First Church Estates Commissioner and Chairman of the Tithe Committee of Queen Anne’s Bounty, it falls to Mr. Middleton to defend the Church. This he does in letters to the Press urging the farmers to respect the sanctity of contracts and the rights of private property. What makes his case interesting is that he was a Labour M.P. and an official of a postal workers’ union until he had the good luck to slip into his present position at £1,200 to £1,400 a year, plus cost of living bonus; a job which literally lasts for life. There is no modern nonsense about needing young blood or being too old at 70 or 80 for the First Church Estates Commissioner’s job.

Mr. Middleton is a supporter of the Industrial Christian Fellowship referred to above, and an advocate of peace between employers and employed, but as Chairman of the Tithe Committee of Queen Anne’s Bounty he wages fierce war on tithe defaulters.

Idle talk among ex-soldiers often strays over the question which of the Monarchs, Ministers and Generalissimos won the real prizes of the War in which their loyal followers perished. By common consent it was the defeated ex-Kaiser, with his fortune of millions serenely ending his days in retreat at Doorn. If a similar question were to be put about the fruits of the great Labour Party victory which put them into office in 1929, it can hardly be doubted that Mr. Middleton, wafted into this placid backwater at the Ecclesiastical Commission, was one of fortune’s special favourites.

However, let it not be supposed that we are filled with bitterness towards the clergy or towards the Mr. Middletons. They are only trying to make the most of the opportunities capitalism offers them in the particular circumstances in which they happen to be placed. They are responding to the pressure of material conditions. It does not matter in the least, either to us as Socialists or to the condition of the workers, whether this individual or that secures what plums of office there happen to be. The Church, like any other concern run on business lines, has its highly paid bishoprics and its minority of pleasant livings for the influential few. It also has its rank and file, who live under conditions very much akin to those of the rest of the black-coated workers; with a large minority whose pay is so small that they have great difficulty in making ends meet and “keeping up appearances.” Capitalism being what it is, what can the parson do but try to hold on to his livelihood and demand payment of tithe? And what can the farmer do but try to help himself by whittling it down?

Our quarrel is not with the men, but with the system. Our message is directed to the working class, who alone can alter things. To them we say that it is useless, and worse than useless, to denounce the man who takes the opportunity which capitalism offers while at the same time at the elections upholding the system itself. Capitalism compels us all to struggle for survival and teaches us to kick each other down in the fight for greater security and a better livelihood. The only way to end the wolfish struggle is to end capitalism.

If we dwell on the weak and illogical position of the Church, it is in order to show that the solution does not lie there, but only in Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Betting and the clergy (1953)

From the September 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

That pious organization, the Churches' Committee on Gambling, has been getting quite hot under the famous collar, to judge by their annual meeting in London.

It appears that an enterprising firm dealing in football coupons had the audacity to send some of them to the Secretary of the above-mentioned organization, the Reverend J. Clark Gibson. He says: “They have been sent to me at my home quite unsolicited and unwanted. What would happen if I were bumped off one night and the police came in and these coupons were found in my home, I do not know." (Daily Telegraph, 27.3.53). Of course the reverend gentleman would not know, seeing that he would be as dead as mutton.

Other speakers complained of football pool coupons being sent to them. To illustrate that pool betting is a game of chance and not a matter of skill, the Reverend Clark Gibson brought to the Committee's notice a device similar to a child’s puzzle, with a glass front and fourteen horizontal divisions. In each division is a ball, and the top of the gadget is marked with 1, 2 and x. It is shaken and the coupon is filled in according to where the balls settle. All this, mark you, to prove that this sort of gambling is a game of chance!

Dr. Ellison had this to say: "The danger the country is faced with is the setting up of an industry of gambling. If the gambling habit were allowed to establish itself further it would bring moral collapse." Dr. Ellison should know that the gambling habit has been established for years. Presumably a "flutter" on the horses would be classed as gambling—in which case the gentleman in question should reprimand the British Monarchy, who are not above attending race meetings and, being human, may indulge in speculation. And then there are the gamblers on the Stock Exchange— but, of course, that is entirely different!

Another contributor to this jolly little gathering was Lord Ammon, former Labour M.P. and Member of the Government, who said: "Wages were never higher and we have full employment, yet never was so much being spent on betting and drink. These things indicate a rapid decline in moral standards." Full employment is a somewhat elastic term. Lord Ammon as one-time member of the National Dock Labour Board will know the uncertainty of employment for dockers under "full employment."

It is significant that not one of these guardians of our morals speaks of war being a danger to morals. Their voices are silent on the vilest form of gambling, juggling with human life for the capture of world markets and trade routes. They are more concerned with letters being thrust through their doors. A group of people sets up rules and calls them morals, and an inert mass obeys them.

Social life is largely governed by do's and don'ts. Our rulers and preachers would wish the people to obey these edicts to the letter. That some of them don’t is an ever-increasing anxiety to our rulers. How can society remain stable when there are such rebellious transgressors? It really is too bad, think the clergy. For their very existence is at stake. They must assert themselves at every opportunity, and the Churches' Committee on Gambling knows this.

When it comes to raising people's living standards, religion is usually silent. Practical work was never done by priests—they come in at the death.

J. Crowe.

Sex and the free market (1985)

From the September 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

What glorious offers the market presents us with: if you can afford to pay the price there is little that is not on sale. Food, clothing, shelter, theatre, books . . . and sex. The market knows no limit to what it can tempt the buyer with. You want sex? Then hand over the cash, sign the cheque. American Express will do nicely. In a buying and selling society sex is a commodity an item to be purchased — and money is the key to access.

The supplier of the sexual commodity is called a prostitute. There are some male prostitutes who sell to women and many males who sell their services to other men. but the overwhelming majority of prostitutes are women. As members of the working class, who have nothing to sell but their labour power, prostitutes sell sexual satisfaction — or, at least, the crude pretence of it — to male buyers.

What is the state of the market? It is difficult to assess how many prostitutes there are in Britain. Certainly, there are thousands of full-time prostitutes, thousands more who earn part of their income by selling sex, and — as will be explained further on — many thousands more who are effectively prostitutes, even if that is not in their job description. The number of prostitutes working in the cities is growing, with more women workers each month entering the supply end of the sex market. This recent increase can be explained: firstly, the recession which has led to mass unemployment has hit female workers hardest and therefore women and girls who would once have earned a wage through more conventional employment are now forced to make a living "on the game"; secondly, the low wages and unacceptably tedious jobs usually offered to young girls who are on the dole leave many of them deciding that any way of making a living is better than the indignity of the dole queue or extra-exploitative employment; thirdly, the growing rejection among female workers of the traditionally idealised image of being a wife within a happy family has led many to seek freedom from the stereotypical role of womanhood, only to discover that freedom under capitalism amounts to no more than the opportunity to become an independent item of sale on the market.

Romanticised images of prostitutes who are only in the job because they choose such work are mythical and insulting to the women who end up doing a job that no human being should have to do. Such images are akin to the popular depiction of tramps as "eccentrics" who sleep in the gutters by inclination rather than compulsion. We can dismiss the bogus picture of the high-class whore who lives in an apartment in Mayfair, dresses in Paris fashions, wears the best perfume and sends her children to public schools. In reality, most prostitutes are miserable, frightened and ashamed women who have been trapped into the job in the illusory hope that it will offer an escape route from poverty. Every day a stream of young girls travel to the big cities, their numbers increasing as small town poverty becomes more wretched believing that they will find relief from their impoverished existences in what proves to be a bewildering environment in which money is the sole passport to survival. It is no coincidence that red-light districts are usually in the close vicinity of main-line coach and train stations. In order to survive — to eat. to pay rent, to buy some clothes which might help them obtain a "decent" job — it is tempting to accept the offer of the pimp who tells them that they will be provided with security as his employees. Drug addicts, usually driven to their addiction by their frustration with a world of buying and selling, find themselves further frustrated by lack of money to buy drugs. These are ready recruits for the pimps. And the worn-out old women who are lonely and miserable and often sick, they too are driven onto the streets as discount commodities — “you can have her for half-price as she’s past her prime".

While seduction is erotic, the efforts of the sex-sellers are cold and loveless and hollow; if the pleasures of sex are exciting, the hurried moments of purchased sex are dull and dehumanising. The market not only turns practical existence into a struggle in which those without money lose, but also generates a sickly emotional poverty — a bankruptcy of human feelings.

Getting back to market values

In those glorious years of "Victorian Values”, so beloved by she who presides today over the screwing of the British working class, the rich grew prosperous thanks to unfettered exploitation while tens of thousands of women workers were turned into prostitutes. There were 80,000 prostitute women in Victorian London (Prostitution in London, Mayhew and Bracebridge. 1862). a figure supported by the most reliable academic source of the time, the medical journal, The Lancet, which declared in 1857 that one in every sixty houses in London was a brothel and one in every sixteen women a prostitute. Three years later The Saturday Review stated that there were 360,000 full-time prostitutes in Britain. Contrary to the conventional belief that Victorian sexual practices conformed to a strictly "decent" code of moral values, it is clear from an examination of historical facts that poverty, then as now, forced workers to throw decency and values to the wind. Indeed, with one in every sixteen London women forced to sell sex in order to earn a living, one can understand why our present Prime Minister, motivated by a desire to push workers off the dole queue, is so anxious to revive Victorian values. It was not only women "on the game" who were considered to be sexually purchasable in Victorian Britain: most servant and factory girls were considered open to offer by those with the money to take their pick. Victorian autobiographical tales abound with rich young capitalists who desired a female employee of theirs. How could women workers afford to refuse these offers, knowing that their future employment was at stake? (Still today, many a female employee has to make the undignified choice between accepting her boss’s advances or getting the sack). And how could women, slaving for hours for a pittance of a wage, find it easy to resist the temptation to sell their sexual favours for a sum greater than they might earn in a week? So it was that those who owned and controlled the means of wealth production and distribution demanded and obtained power over every aspect of those they exploited. (Incidentally, this was but a subtle continuation of feudal morality which gave the landlord the right, and the female serf the duty, to engage in property-determined sexual relationships.)

We would be wrong to imagine that Victorian conditions no longer exist in the modem capitalist world. In Bangkok, for example, it has been estimated that one in every three females is a prostitute. And even those employed as wage slaves in the hideous sweatshops of that city are vulnerable to the sexual demands of those who can afford to buy what is not officially for sale.

Where capitalism forces workers into undignified acts there are always moralists ready and waiting to blame the wage slaves for their sins. The vicars, never far from the scene when hookers are in town, are there to sample the wares and then tell the wretched women to repent. Repent for what for being too poor to afford to live in idleness. like the rich ladies of the capitalist class whose parasitism the vicars are there to defend? The venereologist. William Acton, writing in 1857. listed as the main causes of prostitution "natural sinfulness", "the preferment of indolent ease to labour" and "fall from virtue" (Prostitution. Considered In Its Moral, Social And Sanitary Aspects). According to William Bracebridge, prostitutes were not real women: "there is a great abandonment of everything that one may strictly speaking denominate womanly". And if prostitution was caused by sin. as was the common view, then the task of moralists had to be to offer the poor sinners severe correction an activity which many a vicar has indulged in with less than lofty motives. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister, earned the popular nickname "Gladeye". in recognition of his strenuous efforts to redeem "fallen"" women — usually back at his place. Special refuges for so-called fallen women were set up in the mid-nineteenth century — places designed to deny their occupants any kind of sensual comfort in the hope that abstinence would make them forget their sinful impulses.

Prostitutes have always been expected to feel guilty for being the victims of poverty. Not all have complied: on 24 February. 1858 The Times published a letter from an unashamed prostitute — signing herself "Another Unfortunate'" — in which an extremely clear explanation of the cause of her misfortune was given. The letter led to widespread shock among the miserable moralists, causing the editor of The Times to respond, disgustedly:

They have no remorse or misgivings about the nature of their pursuit; on the contrary, they consider the calling an advantageous one, and they look upon their success in it with satisfaction (25 February. 1858)

One might apply the same words to the editor of The Times, being a man paid a fat salary to publish lies.

The letter from "Another Unfortunate” is a unique insight into why a working-class woman became a prostitute, which would apply today as then. She describes her colleagues as "we, who are not fallen, but were always down" and asks

Now, what if I am a prostitute, what business has society to abuse me? Have 1 received any favours at the hands of society? If I am a hideous cancer in society, are not the causes of the disease to be sought in the rottenness of the carcass? Am I not its legitimate child; no bastard. Sir?

She was correct: capitalism creates the walking symptoms of the market disease and it ill-becomes apologists for the market to condemn them.

In The Times of 3 July, 1985 Peter Kellner commented on an article which had appeared a week earlier in the Sun. The latter rag, in its usual effort to search the sewers for news unworthy of adult reading, ran a story under the headline PROSTITUTE CHRISTINE IS A TORY COUNCILLOR It seems that Christine Pearson, a councillor in Thanet, had been revealed by the Sun to be a practising prostitute. The validity of the report is of no concern here. Kellner's comment on the story is worth quoting, however:

I can see no coherent argument for terminating a Conservative councillor's political career on the grounds that she has been accused of selling sex . . . I defy anyone to name an occupation that applies Thatcherite principles more completely than prostitution. It is. surely, the ultimate form of flexible, non-unionised. labour-intensive small business.

People in glass houses

Under capitalism, if you are a member of the working class you need to sell what you possess — your mental and physical energies to whomever will make a purchase. All workers are prostitutes for wages. How many women are employed as barmaids, hostesses in clubs or waitresses in restaurants and are told, either explicitly or implicitly. that part of their function is to give a few thrills to the customers? How many secretaries and others employed in traditionally female jobs have little option but to accept that they are partly employed for their ornamental value? How many young girls are conditioned to want to be glamour models, even if that means being paid money to be humiliated? How many wives would soon lose their source of income from husbands if they refused to provide sex and who dictates the terms of its provision, the one with the money or the one who is dependent? How many parents condition their daughters to behave in ways which will make them desirable to men with money looking for wives? Did not Marx refer to marriage as "legalised prostitution" and, for millions of women, is it not their role in life to be the property of a keeper? Of course, there are important distinctions between these ways of earning an income and prostitution, but the distinctions are not half as great as some would like to pretend. A letter under the headline "Life In The Pool" in The London Standard of 2 July, 1985 makes the point:

I cynically regarded my former job as a secretary as mental prostitution. This was crystallised by a spell or two in Civil Service typing pools. A nice lady sits at a desk with a register in which she enters men who want their letters typed and selects from a mass of available girls somebody to minister to one of these men . . . When the girl returns from being dictated to her name and the time she spent with him is entered. Then how long she takes to do the work (A kind of madam, the supervisor7)

Capitalism conditions workers to deceive themselves into thinking they are not quite as downtrodden and humiliated as the next person: whites are thankful not to be black, men think they are better than women and women who are not "on the game" are glad to be living in more civilised conditions than those who walk the streets. But, in one way or another, all of the virtually propertyless class are walking the streets, selling what they have to whoever will pay to take it from them. Who is the wage slave to condemn the prostitute?

The right to sell your body

In recent years movements have emerged, not seeking to abolish the cause of prostitution but to make it easier to suffer as a prostitute. Without doubt the laws on soliciting, like most laws under capitalism, are designed to punish the victim. In Britain the law does not punish the consumer who buys sex, but the women who sell it meet with several legal impediments. Opposition to these laws has come from two sources. Firstly, there are those grotesque libertarians of the so-called Right groups like the Federation of Conservative Students and the Libertarian Alliance who argue that no laws should exist to fetter any commercial transaction, be it the sale of heroin or the selling of sex through regular market channels.

Secondly, there are those feminists who have demonstrated the limitation of their social understanding by demanding the right of prostitutes to carry on their business undisturbed. Being reformists — whose aim is to mend and not end this rotten system the feminist campaigners do not have as their objective the eradication of the poverty which forces women to sell their bodies to men surely, not the action of liberated women — but the entitlement of women to pursue their undignified and oppressed employment in legal safety. While there is nothing wrong with prostitute women forming a trade union to defend themselves against market pressure (as they have done in some countries with state brothels), it is utter stupidity to equate such action with the quest for “women's liberation".

The legal right to be a prostitute gives the opportunity to be abused, exploited and wasted as a human being. Those who identify with such a right are the enemies of all workers, both women and men, and should be treated with the hostility reserved for those who obstruct the path to genuine human liberation.

Steve Coleman

What is religion? - Part 8 (1954)

From the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 7.

The Economics of Religion

Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, because it was thought to be a suitable religion for slaves. It was a “hotch-potch religion," or a “cemetery of dead religions,” because when the slaves were brought into Rome from many different lands, they brought with them their many religious ideas. Professor Seeley says, “the age was religious because it was an age of servitude" and the Christian teachings of “blessed are the meek, the humble, and the merciful,” fitted very well into needs of society at that time. “ Christianity produced a complete change in the attitude to the Emperor. It made their loyalty more intense.” (Professor Seeley, lectures and essays page 75.) As the New Testament admirably puts it, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but God; the powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Romans Ch. 13 ver. 1 and 2. The Roman Empire was already in decay when Christianity was ushered in, and it was no coincidence that some spiritual opium was needed to quieten the slaves against revolt

In the middle ages the church controlled most of the land. This meant that they had a considerable amount of real economic control in their hands, for under feudalism he who controlled the land controlled most of what was on it. Of more recent times we have seen the power of the Catholic political parties in pre-Nazi Germany, Spain, France, Austria, etc. The controlling of education by the Church, and antagonism to divorce, contraception, etc.

When capitalism was beginning to expand, missionaries played a very important part in paving the way for the trade that was to come, and often in a very crude way. The African natives who were discovered in a state of nakedness, were told by the missionaries that God frowned on such things, and that to be a good Christian one should at least cover the genitals. But the natives had no clothes with which to gain the favours of God; they only had bars of Gold, diamonds and ivory tusks. As chance would have it Lancashire had plenty of cheap pants and pyjamas in all the colours of the rainbow which no self-respecting Englishman would wear, not even in bed. Then guess what happened—yes trade started—and no wonder they called it the “Gold Coast” Where the missionaries didn’t conduct the trade themselves, it didn’t need a lot of imagination for an enterprising trader to follow the missionaries up.

“Look up to Heaven,” said the missionary to the native, and the latter did so. When he looked down again he found that his land was appropriated! As the Zulus say “When white man first came to us he had the Bible, and we owned the land. Now he’s got the land, and we’ve got the Bible.”

Of recent years Bishops and other church dignitaries have become in some cases fabulously rich, so rich that many have been able to invest thousands of pounds in armament firms. (See Alan Handsacre “The Revenues of Religion.”) In Russia we had many examples of millionaire priests investing sums as large as half a million roubles in Soviet War Bonds. This is strange in a country which not long ago was turning churches into anti-religious museums, and persecuting followers of all religions.

It is often argued that Jesus was a Socialist, and Keir Hardie stated that he learnt his socialism from the New Testament. The idea of the disciples having all things in common gives rise to this misunderstanding. Jesus could only have been a socialist if he and his disciples fished with a steam trawler in an environment in which capitalism had already developed. Nothing that Jesus was alleged to have said, makes him a socialist in any way. The whole essence of his teaching was to tolerate the unpleasant things of life for treasure to come in heaven. His whole teaching and prophesies were based on survival after death. We socialists want to survive before death, and to have our good time in this world which we know that we have to live and work.

There are plenty of arguments against religion, and they come from many angles. Perhaps the chief one is that religion is false, and because of this it discourages people from thinking. Socialism, unlike religion, needs understanding and not just believing. Well did Marx say “the criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism” for when we come to realise that there is no subject so holy that we must not or dare not criticise, then we begin to look at everything critically and to accept nothing at its face value. Again Marx wrote “For too long has religion explained history, let us with history explain religion”!

Horace Jarvis

 

(Concluded.)

What is religion? - Part 7 (1954)

From the March 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 6.

The Bible

The Bible is the most important book in the world if judged by its influence upon mankind. It is the source of all our knowledge of God, Christ, and the background of Christianity. Thousands of men have wasted their lives in reading and re-reading it, learning to recite parts of it, repeating it dozens of times and holding discussions on its thousands of meaningless phrases. True there are some good things in it but they are so mixed up with and adulterated by nonsense, that its net value to the human race, if judged on the whole, can only be to its detriment. It is because of the interpretation of some of its phrases that many men have been put to death by the cruellest means of being burnt alive, or starved to death in jails. Much blood has been shed over the interpretation of the scriptures.

The main argument against the Bible is that it certainly is not the word of God, or men inspired by God, and that it contains a host of stupid mistakes, useless ideas, and accounts which can only spread ignorance and confusion. Those who accept the Bible as the word of God or as their guide to life would do well to consider some of these examples.

In Genesis Ch. 1 we are told that animals were made before man, while in Ch. 2 we are told that man was made first and the animals afterwards. Both these accounts cannot be right. As Socialists we know that both are wrong for creation itself is a false theory, no matter which way round it was supposed to have gone.

That God, after making animals and man and peopling the earth with everything that was pleasant and nice, decided to destroy it all, is a peculiar act for an almighty God. Especially if we bear in mind that he knew everything in advance and therefore must have known that Adam and Eve would sin and the devil would triumph and he would have to drown the whole world and start again with Noah and his family. Why did he not start with Noah and Co. in the first place? Millions of innocent animals were sent to an untimely grave through no fault of their own, but by their own creator.

Noah was first told to put two of each animal in the Ark (Genesis Ch. 6 verse 19) and afterwards to put seven of each into the ark (Genesis Ch. 7 verse 2). How all these thousands of animals could be packed into a small boat does not need to be carefully analyzed. All the food needed for these animals and the enormous quantity of excreta deposited in the ark must have made things a little unpleasant for Noah and his family. Where all the rain came from—for it covered the Earth including Mt. Everest, and where all the water disappeared to is problem enough to bamboozle all the clerks of the weather that have ever existed.

We are told that David was a man after God's own heart, and he was in direct descent between Adam and Christ, yet this David (King David it was) amused himself climbing upon the roof of Uriah's house to watch Uriah’s wife bathing. As Uriah was one of his soldiers the Bible tells us how David sent Uriah to fight in the hottest battle in order that he might get killed, while he, the great King David, carried on his interesting occupation undisturbed and committed adultery with her. II Sam. Ch. XI verses 2-1$. Not exactly the correct conduct for a man after God's own heart.

In the first book of Samuel Ch. 18 verse 27 is an account of David having killed 200 Philistines, cut off their foreskins and giving them to Saul in exchange for his daughter Michal for a wife.

The book of Ecclesiastes is said to have been written by an unbeliever because it “lets the cat out of the bag," in Ch. 9 verse S which states “ the dead are dead, they know no more, neither will they have any reward!”

If it is objected to that the Old Testament is a little the worse for its age, let us look at the New Testament, for it contains the words of Christ, so it is alleged, although Jesus never wrote a word of it, nor did his disciples, who passed on to others his ideas by word of mouth and who succeeded admirably in getting the master’s ideas all mixed up and confused, as he being the Son of God knew full well they would before he died. One would have thought that if the whole thing is of any importance to the world and to mankind for generations to come, at least Christ would have written Ins own ideas down crystal clear so that they did not cause any confusion. If God has spoken then why is it that the world is not convinced?

The sermon on the mount is the star sermon, the Gettysburg address of the Bible, the greatest of all sermons preached by the greatest of men, in fact preached by God himself disguised as a man. In this sermon we find the philosophy of Christ, so let us pause and look at it Matt. Ch. 5 verse 29. "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off." Such self-mutilation or self-surgery is a relic of the barbarous past and nobody today would attempt to follow it not even the divines. Verse 40 (same chapter) states, "If any man sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, give him thy cloke also." In other words, if any man sues you for £100, insist on paying £200. "Take no account for your life what yea shall eat or what yea shall drink, or for your body what yea shall put on." Matt Ch. 6 verse 25. Just try to carry this out in practice and tomorrow you will be in the workhouse, in prison, in hospital, or in debt.

Another real truth, direct from the mouth of Christ. "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I come not to bring peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." (Matt. Ch. 10 verse 34.) Then if it was Christ's purpose to bring a sword and disturb the peace of the world, how much better would it have been for mankind if he had stayed away. If it was his avowed purpose to cause family quarrels, then mankind would have benefited by his absence. In one place he poses as the apostle of peace and good will, and in another place we find him declaring that his intentions were to disturb the peace. Can we from this conclude that the Bible is the word of God divinely inspired and suitable for. man's guidance?

St. Matthew was one of Christ’s disciples, and yet he never had the idea that it was necessary to believe anything to go to heaven. “Blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the humble, the meek and the merciful, for they will have treasure in heaven.” All this suited the capitalist very nicely when they took over from feudalism, be humble and submissive, and put up with this "vale of tears” for treasure in heaven (but I want my treasure in this world).

When we come to St. Mark’s gospel we find “He that believeth will be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” (Ch. 16 verse 16.). According to St. Matthew unbelievers will go to heaven, if there is such a place, but according to St. Mark we will not, and yet these two disciples were with Christ When we get to St. John’s gospel we find that everlasting fire is the punishment for not believing. St. Mark goes on to tell us “And these signs will follow those who believe. In my name will they cast out devils, and if they drink any deadly thing it will not hurt them.” Bring on your believer; I’ll not trouble him to cast out any devils, but drink just a wine glass full of sulphuric acid and if it does hurt him, then I should like to know how the conjuring trick is done.

What conclusions can we form from all this contradiction and confusion of ideas? There is only one answer, the Bible cannot be inspired, and as such it should be relegated to the place to which it rightly belongs alongside of many similar manuscripts. This would at least help to free many from the bondage of religious ties which is causing diem to read the Bible under the threat of God and with the glare of hell.

Horace Jarvis

 

(To be continued.)

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.)

The Salvation Army and the Working Class II. (1910)

From the April 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The “Army” in Trade.

“The army of friars should be absolute mendicants, keeping themselves sternly apart from all worldly entanglements . . . Within thirty years of Francis I death in 1226, the Franciscans had become one of the most powerful, wealthy and worldly corporations in Christendom, with their fingers in every sink of political and social corruption, if so be profit for the order could be fished out of it. . . . Who is to say that the Salvation Army in the year 1930 shall not be the replica of what the Franciscan order had become in the year 1640” —T .H. Huxley, “Social Diseases and Worse Remedies.”

A Prophecy Fulfilled.

In its haste get rich quick “for God,” the Salvation Army has literally fallen over itself, thereby justifying Huxley’s forecast with ten years to spare.

It must be borne in mind that the Booth trading concerns are a religious growth, carefully to be distinguished from those undertakings to which the “Social” Scheme has given birth.

“Each territory or country,” we are told, “has its own trade department, but that connected with International headquarters . . . buys and manufactures largely for oversea territories.” In the early days of the “Army” a penny song-book and monthly magazine were published. The latter afterwards became the “War Cry.” Later on “certain articles of uniform were required by our officers. These being difficult to procure elsewhere, we had them prepared and sold them ourselves. From these modest efforts the present trade operations—in their large and ever-increasing proportions—sprang.” (Salvation Army Year Book, 1907)

We are further assured that “trading is now a Salvation Army necessity,” and that “the ‘Army’ must buy and sell.”

Wage-Slavery for God.

After this authoritative pronouncement, if any doubting Thomas yet remains, he is passified by being told that “the entire profits are devoted to the extension of the spiritual work. Sovereigns mean souls. The trading is done for God, and the aim of the ‘Army’ is that strict truth and righteousness actuate every transaction. Every Salvationist ought, therefore, to buy all he needs or can from the Trade department.”

Let us glance at what is being done “for God.”

In addition to religious publications and uniforms, the official list of articles sold includes among others too numerous to mention :

Women’s dresses.

Men’s and children’s suits.

Drapery.

Hosiery.

Boots and shoes.

China and glass.

Earthenware.

Cutlery.

Pianos and organs (hire system).

Flannelette and “Non-Flam.”

Sewing machines.

Furniture of all kinds

Bicycles and mailcarts.

Printing, bookbinding and stationery.

Books.

Watches and clocks.

Bags and portmanteaus.

Underwear.

Bread—families waited on daily.

Tea, coffee and cocoa.

Etc., etc.

The Heavenly Whiteley.

Here we have (in this extract from an official trade department catalogue) proof positive that the ‘Army’ thinks it is justified in competing with the ordinary tradesman in the supply of almost everything, by taking advantage of its peculiar position, reputation and influence.

Moreover it is not only to “members” that the goods in which it deals are supplied. The circulation of the “War Cry” and “Social Gazette” is mainly amongst a class of folk who, whilst perhaps in sympathy with the Salvation Army, are not actually members of that body. Specious advertisements in both the journals referred to, constantly invite the reader to apply for this or that particular trade list or catalogue. In these advertisements all the well-known catchpenny devices for attracting “business” are employed. The following is an example—one out of many. It speaks for itself (“Social Gazette,” Dec. 4. 1909).

OUR CHRISTMAS GIFT TO YOU.

Christmas is the season for giving. The custom has suggested our doing something for our friends which may add a drop to the cup of gladness which we hope will come full to the brim to all our customers this Christmas time. To make a direct gift would be impossible, however great the desire to do so. We propose to do something, however, that will, we hope, be regarded as almost, if not quite, as acceptable to those able to participate. 

FIVE USEFUL AND SERVICEABLE ARTICLES AT HALF-PRICE.

A. A pair of Trousers, usual price 11s, for 5s. 6d.

or B. A Woman’s Honeycomb, Jersey Blouse, usual price 5s. 6d., for 2s. 9d.

or C. A pair of Men’s ‘Fortress’ Boots, usual price 9s. 11d., for 4s. 11½d.

or D. A pair of Women’s ‘Favourite’ Boots, usual price 8s. 11d., for 4s. 5½ d.

or E. A Girl’s Winter Coat, usual price 7s. 6d., for 3s. 9d.

HOW IT IS DONE.

1. One of the Half-Price Articles supplied with every order not less than £1 in amount, not counting the half-price article, cash for which must be sent in addition. Customers may send as many £1 orders as they wish. For every such order is given the option to purchase one of the half-price articles. 

2. The goods to be selected from our Uniform and Outfit Catalogue, or from our Christmas Sheet of USEFUL PRESENTS which will be sent FREE ON APPLICATION.

Under the cloak of religion then the strongest possible appeal is made to the prospective customer’s love of—not God, but—a good bargain.

How it is done.

It is moreover the duty of the “field-officer” (wage-slave commanding a religious corps) to take a lively interest in the trade, push it and try to increase it as much as possible. He must announce the visits of Trade Headquarters’ representatives . . . and afford every facility . . . for getting into touch with his soldiers and friends. These poor wretches are so badly paid (18s. a week if unmarried and 27s. a week if married) that they are forced to push the sale of goods. (Orders and regulations for Field officers. 1904)

For this they receive commission. And mind you, the wages are only paid after all the local expenses of the corps have been met. In case the unfortunate officer, for some reason or other, is unable to meet the weekly expenses, he gets practically no wages at all. A pretty picture, forsooth. Enough to make one’s blood boil. The harassed victim of the malpractices of Booth & Co., forced to undersell and cut the price of commodities which have themselves been produced by sweated labour. And this in good “Salvationese” is called “earning a sovereign for the Kingdom of God” !

Booth and Boots.

Apropos of underselling, a quotation from the “Army’s” boot and shoe catalogue makes interesting reading :

“The following argues in favour of the low price of our boots :

The representative of a manufacturing firm remarked recently that we were selling a certain class of their boots 1s. 9d. per pair less than they were to be obtained at several shops mentioned by him. We were ignorant of the prices of any of the goods sold by the retailers mentioned . . . Any idea of “cutting” the price was, therefore, quite out of the question, showing that either we buy better or are content with smaller profits.”

The official apologist does not tell us which of these two factors—the ‘Army’s’ ability to buy better or its being contented with smaller profits—determines the price of boots.

Possibly a jocular remark made by “General” Booth when about to leave for America (Sept. 1907) may throw a little light on the subject.

“If you are not willing to be sweated,” said he, “don’t have anything to do with the Salvation Army.”

The pious old jester referred to the “field-officers” in the religious work, but inasmuch as we are told that “the trading is done for God” it is quite likely—if the truth were known—(not so easy to come at, that same truth) that the workers and distributors in the “Army’s” trade departments are not paid such handsome salaries as obtain in shops and stores, where profit is the primary consideration and “God” has to be content with a back seat (or shelf) for six days in the week. These factors will probably be found to have some bearing, not only on the price of the “Army’s” boots, but upon its successful competition with the ordinary labour market.

And at this point we are brought face to face with the crux of the whole matter.

The Cheap-Jacks of Religion.

Is the Salvation Army able to create a new or increased demand for the commodities it supplies through the agency of its huge religious staff ? If it is not, then the effect of its participation in the production and distribution of such commodities must necessarily diminish the demand for goods which are produced under the ordinary conditions of the labour market.

In proportion as the “Army” increases its production of those commodities more workers will be employed (by the “Army”) under especially bad economic conditions, and fewer will be the number of those employed (by the ordinary capitalist) at ordinary wages.

The following is taken from the cover of a juvenile clothing catalogue issued by the “Army,” and will serve to give some slight idea as to whether the “Army” is creating a new demand or merely competing with and underselling the ordinary market:

“I am a representative of the Salvation Army Outfit department … I am glad that I belong to the Salvation Army, as people will not only listen to what I say, but will know they can believe what I tell them. I am devoted to the selling of children’s clothing. Every moment of my life, night and day, is given up to it. I am in every way up-to date, although it is myself that says it … I am not afraid of the keenest competition. Compare my prices with those of other sellers of juvenile clothing. I shall like it, and have no doubt about my coming out on top.”

With the “Army’s” launching out into the wholesale and retail tea and coffee business—its incursion into many other departments of trade—we have, unfortunately, no space to deal. For fuller details of this interesting subject we must commend on readers to Mr. Manson’s work.

The “Flannel” Fraud.

But as a final illustration of the lengths to which this hydra-headed monstrous fraud is prepared to go in its desire to “sell,” the story of the “flannelette” is too good to be passed over. We accordingly rescue it from an undeserved oblivion, leaving it to our readers for judgment.

On September 22, 1906, a column advertisement appeared in the “Social Gazette.” This took the form of an “Open letter to Parents” signed by Lieut.-Col. Simpson (the “Army’s” trade Secretary). Big black capitals were splashed all over the page directing urgent attention to the dangers incurred by little children from the use of ordinary flannelette— “1,500 children burned to death in 1905—Save the little ones,” etc., etc.

“Your duty then is plain,” said the worthy Colonel, “send for the Army’s ‘Non-Flam,’ an excellent safety flannelette . . . Your duty is plain . . . Not to use for the precious little ones the dangerous fabric, which has been the cause of so much suffering and death.”

Now the colonel’s own department had been selling ordinary flannelette for years before the date on which this advertisement appeared. It is, to say the least, remarkable that his department continued to advertise it even after the discovery and adoption of “Non-Flam.” Six months later we find a drapery catalogue advertising—yes—”Non-Flam,” but giving precedence and nearly three times the space to—flannelettes at 2¾ d to 8½d. per yard !

None of these were described as non-inflammable. People were even urged to write for patterns of these dangerous materials as being “of exceptional value”—”cheaper than many leading drapers,” etc.

Apparently Colonel Simpson’s principles were his own and could, therefore, be sacrificed. The remainder of the flannelette was Booth & Co’s. and could not !

Fritz.

(To be continued)

The Salvation Army and the Working Class III. (1910)

From the May 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part II.

The Social Scheme.

 The indirect features of the scheme must not be such as to produce injury to the persons whom we seek to benefit.

While assisting one class of the community, it must not seriously interfere with the interests of another. In raising one section of the fallen, we must not thereby endanger the safety of those who with difficulty are keeping on their feet. . . . It is no use conferring six pennyworth of benefit on a man if, at the same time, we do him a shillings worth of harm.

—”In Darkest England,” page 81.

The Book that Made a Stir.

General Booth, when launching onto a sea of controversy his now celebrated book : “In Darkest England and the Way Out,” told his readers that, from calculations he had made himself and from the figures supplied by various authorities on the subject, in these islands fully one-tenth of the population was hopelessly submerged. Hopelessly that is, so far as all previous efforts on their behalf were concerned. This section of the people he nicknamed with his cant phrase “the submerged tenth.”

The purpose of his book was to arouse the public interest in these “lost ones,” and to obtain financial support for the starting of his “social scheme.”

We were shown at great length how hopelessly inadequate to cope with the evils of want and destitution had been the efforts of well-meaning reformers who worked in connection with various “charitable” agencies.

“It is no use trying to bale out the ocean with a pint pot,” said he (“In Darkess England,” page 253). What was wanted, we were told, was an all-embracing plan. “This scheme changes the circumstances of those whose poverty is caused by their misfortune. To begin with it finds work for the unemployed. This is the chief need.”

The Legion of the Lost.

The way in which our octogenarian professor of philanthropy proposed to go to work may best be set forth in his own words :

“The Social Problem presents itself before us whenever a hungry, dirty and ragged man stands at our door asking if we can give him a crust or a job. That is the social question, what are you to do with that man? He has no money in his pocket, all that he can pawn he has pawned long ago, his stomach is as empty as his purse, and the whole of the clothes upon his back, even if sold on the best terms, would not fetch a shilling. . . He asks for work, which he will set to even on his empty stomach and in his ragged uniform, if so be that you will give him something for it, but his hands are idle, for no one employs him. What are you to do with that man ? . . . To deal with this man is the problem of the unemployed. To deal with him effectively you must deal with him immediately, you must provide him in some way or other with food, and shelter, and warmth. Next you must find him something to do, something that will test the reality of his desire to work. This test must be more or less temporary, and should be of such a nature as to prepare him for making a permanent livelihood. Then, having trained him, you must provide him wherewithal to start life afresh. All these things I propose to do. My Scheme divides itself into three sections, each of which is indispensable for the success of the whole. In this three-fold organisation lies the open secret of the solution of the Social Problem.

The Scheme I have to offer consists in the formation of these people into self-helping and self-sustaining communities, each being a kind of cooperative society, or patriarchal family, etc. 

These communities we will call, for want of a better term, Colonies. 

There will be

(1) The City Colony,

(2) The Farm Colony,

(3) The Over-Sea Colony.”

(Before proceeding to our dissection of results we have troubled to quote Booth at some length, in order that those of our readers to whom ”Darkest England” is inaccessible may gain a clear and definite idea as to what his main object was when he set out to conquer “the powers of evil” and bring about “a new heaven and a new earth.”)

The “City” Colony.

By the phrase “City Colony” was meant a number of institutions which were to act as “Harbours of Refuge.” Into these havens were to be gathered all who had been “ship-wrecked.” Food and shelter were to be provided in return for work. Employment found for him, the mariner wrecked on life’s stormy sea was to be rescued and “reformed.” He was then to be restored to the joyful bosom of his happy family, or (in case the wild happy family were not having any) he was to be passed on to the Colony of the second class.

The second stage in this new Pilgrim’s Progress was intended to work out as follows :

Farms for the Famished.

The Salvation Army would buy land near some great city (the neighbourhood of London being chosen for the first experiment). Buildings would be erected and a farm stocked. The “wretched outcast” having passed through the refining fires of the city shelter and workshop, was then to be dumped down into a real live farm—there to be taught the whole art of husbandry.

In fine a regular “Garden City” would arise wherein our friend the W.O. would work out his economic and moral salvation.

Just here we may note a significant remark of the General’s when discussing the prospects of this portion of his scheme. (“In Darkest England,” page 249.)

“As the scheme progresses, it is not irrational to expect that Government, or some of the varied Local authorities will assist in the working out of a plan which, in so marked a manner, will relieve the rates and taxes of the country”.

(The last passage was not originally italicised.) 

In our examination of the actual, every-day working of this famous scheme, we shall have occasion to again refer to this pious hope that the “authorities” would patronise the concern. He then goes on to say: “From the Farm, as from the City . . . large numbers would be restored to friends up and down the country. Some would find employment in their own callings” (thereby pushing others out and lowering the rate of wages), “others would settle in cottages on a small piece of land that we should provide, or on Co-operative Farms which we intend to promote ; while the great bulk, after trial and training, would be passed on to the Foreign Settlement, which would constitute our third class, viz., the Over Sea Colony.”

As the last-named section of the Scheme has up to the present failed to materialise, we shall not let it worry us.

The Return of the “Golden Age.”

The Scheme, in its entirety, was, in the General’s own words :

“To draw up these poor outcasts, reforming them, and creating in them habits of industry, honesty, and truth . . . forwarding from the City to the Country, and there continuing the process of regeneration, and then pouring them forth on to the virgin soils that await their coming in other lands . . . Why not ?”

And Echo—after twenty years of scheming and planning, with money poured out like water ; after twenty years of “food and shelter depots,” Elevators, City and Farm Colonies, et hoc genus omne ; after twenty years of bluff and brag in the capitalist Press, self-denial weeks and special collections—shouts across this awful waste of time, “WHY NOT?”

The Answer.

The answer must be because the whole “Darkest England” Scheme from top to bottom has proved a gigantic fraud and failure. In our detailed examination of the actual working of the Scheme, reviewing the various divisions in their due order as set forth by Booth in his Vade-mecum, much damning evidence in support of our statement will come to light.

At the base of the “Social Scheme” were to be the food and shelter depots of the City Colony.

It was proposed to establish in connection with every Food and Shelter depot a workshop or labour-yard (ominous term) in which any person who came destitute and starving would be supplied with sufficient work to enable him to earn the 4d. needed for his bed and board.

The Salvation Army’s official figures for 1908 tell us that nearly six million meals were supplied at cheap food depots, and over two million cheap lodgings for the homeless were provided.

Specious and Misleading Advertisements.

Judging from the advertisements which appear under the “Army’s” aegis daily in the papers—of which the subjoined taken from the Westminster Gazette is a fair sample—anyone not in the know would naturally imagine that the 6,000 poor referred to had only to present themselves in all their abject misery at a Shelter, and lo and behold—they would be welcomed with open arms.

“STARVATION AND MISERY

are found on every hand among the Poor and Outcast by the Officers of the SALVATION ARMY who live among them, and are qualified to help them in the most economical and able manner. PRAY SEND HELP for so needy a work. £150,000 annually needed for the Army’s Central Funds alone. Over 6,000 Poor sleep in the Homes nightly. 170 Branches of Social and Relief work; are in operation.

Please address cheques (crossed “Bank of England, Law Courts Branch”) to GENERAL BOOTH, 101, Queen Victoria-street, London. Balance-sheets forwarded.”

In reality nothing of the kind takes place. “I was a stranger and ye took me in.” Yes, but there’s an if. The tune they play at the door is “The Absent Minded Beggar” with its haunting refrain of “Pay ! Pay ! Pay !” There is no work test applied at these “poor men’s hostels,” and the “crowd of hungry, desperate wretches, without even a penny in their pouch, demanding food and shelter”—over whose woes twenty long years ago William the saintly waxed so tearfully eloquent—unless they can furnish the needful coin of the realm, are met with that sternest of all arguments on a winter’s night, a closed door !

Fritz.

(To be continued)

The Salvation Army and the Working Class. (1910)

From the June 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to the last issue.

III—Continued.

(B) The true story of the "Elevators." 

Mr. F. A. McKenzie (the Army’s official trumpeter for 1908-9) in his Booth-inspired work of fiction : “Waste Humanity” writes as follows :

“Let us trace what becomes of the man anxious to leave the streets, who appeals to the Salvation Army for aid. He first goes to the Social Headquarters in Whitechapel-road, where he states his case. . . The Army’s officials say to him. Here is a chance for you to rise again. Make the best of it. Do what you are told. Put your heart and back into the work given you. . . . This is not a place of worship—it is a place of work. God bless you !

The man who appears to be genuine, etc., etc., . . . is sent, if there is room, to one of the City Colony Elevators in Spa-road, Bermondsey.”

The process of “Elevation” is both curious and instructive. The “out-of-works” are put to sorting waste paper and refuse. This the Army collects for nothing, under the plea that souls are thereby to be saved and wastrels (!) “elevated.” As no wages are paid, the luckless inmates experience all the refined tortures of an elaborate “truck” system.

Tickets are given them with which to obtain food and shelter. “At Spa Road and Old Street waste paper sorting elevators, the man, whether on the barrows or at the screens, are lucky if, in addition to their keep (valued at 7s.) they get more than a money grant of 6d. or 1s. for a very long week’s work. Many of the inmates remain for years, without showing any sign or seeing any prospect of Elevation.

“It is only natural that many men leave from dissatisfaction after trying the system long enough to learn that, instead of raising them, it is designed to keep them in perpetual submersion.” (“The Salvation Army and the Public,” p. 66.)

Until recently one of the principal industries connected with these depressors (beg pardon, “Elevators”) was the manufacture of firewood. So keen was the Army on getting orders for elevated firewood that many of the ordinary makers were forced to engage fewer hands.

Picture to yourselves these aforesaid hands turned on to the street owing to the operation of this precious schema, there to make their way to the nearest Shelter, thence to find work at an Elevator, pushing more hands out, and so on ad infinitum !

In 1892 the average earnings of an Army wood chopper were 1s. 2½d. per day, paid in tokens thus : Breakfast 3d, Dinner 4d., Tea 3d., Bed 2d., and 2½d. reserved as money grant and to cover cost of Sunday meals.

The average wage (!) paid was therefore 7s. 3d. par week, while the highest possible was 11s. per week—7s. of it being in “truck.”

As regards underselling, whilst on the one hand the officials make loose and vague statements to the effect that “no underselling takes place,” on the other hand we have the definite declaration of certain firewood makers that they have lost orders and contracts through being undersold by the Army, and were compelled to employ fewer hands owing to the capture of their trade by the Army.

When confronted with these definite pronouncements (full data being supplied) the Army found a safe refuge in discreet silence. In au interview published in the Blackburn Times, Aug. 3rd, 1907, General Booth said :

“We have practically no firewood-making now. It raised so much prejudice and silly opposition that we gave it up.”

Doubtless the touching pictures in the Social Gazette of March 21st 1908—”Wood-Chopping” and “Preparing Firewood”—were directly the result of “giving it up” !

IV

Concerning Hanbury Street.

There is no discipline so brutal as that of the sweater ; there is no slavery so relentless as that front which we seek to deliver the victims.”In Darkest England,” p. 166.

Although our factories will be permanent institutions they will not be anything more than temporary resting places to those who avail themselves of their advantages.—Ibid, p. 109.

One of the most famous—or rather, infamous—of the Salvation Army’s social institutions is the Joinery Elevator in Hanbury Street, Whitechapel. Every man who goes into this den has to sign an agreement. From this agreement—a copy of which we have been fortunate enough to obtain—a few quotations will prove very instructive.

CLAUSE 1. “I declare that, being unable to find work elsewhere, and being homeless, friendless, and destitute, I have been admitted to the City Colony, to work only for my subsistence and shelter, and that everything allowed me beyond this will be so allowed by the kindness of the Governor.”

CLAUSE 5. “I understand that no payment of any kind is promised beyond food and lodgings, etc.”

CLAUSE 6. “I agree to give my clothes over to the Officer on entrance, and if, in the opinion of the Officer, they are incapable of further use, the Colony to supply me on loan with the necessary clothes, for which I am prepared to give a receipt, with the distinct understanding that should I on leaving the Colony take these clothes with me without written authority for my so doing, I render myself liable to be charged with embezzlement.”

CLAUSE 7. “I understand that in the event of my giving the Officer cause for dissatisfaction by bad behaviour, or for any other reason, I am liable to instant dismissal, and also to the forfeiture of my reward promised for industrious work.”

From sixty to eighty men are usually employed at these “works.”

Except in the case of a very few outside or “paid hands” taken on from time to time, all the men taken in are “out-of-works.”

“The joinery works,” says Mr. Manson, “are well equipped, the machinery being driven by electricity. Practically every kind of work is undertaken—inside doors and front doors, windows, office partitions, flights of stairs, benches for halls, kitchen tables, and train indicators. To do such work at all competently a man must be a very good joiner. No inexperienced man could do it.”

The hours worked at this “Labour Hospital” are from 6.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. (except on Saturdays). Three-quarters of an hour is allowed for breakfast, and one hour for dinner, both of which are supplied at Quaker Street (a sort of soup kitchen run by the Army) half a mile away.

The working week is 53½ hours, with frequent overtime. And an 11¾ hours’ working day is not uncommon.

The work done is rated by time or by piece. 2s. a day or 12s. a week is the wage or allowance given for time or day work.

9s. a week is deducted as the cost of board and lodging, thus leaving an average of 3s. a week by way of money grant.

Much light from various sources was from time to time thrown upon these “elevating” methods. Forthwith the Salvation Army officials made strenuous efforts to excuse their damnable practices by depreciating and vilifying the quality of the men’s work. “Piece-work” was flatly denied.

Apropos of this last some comparisons of official statements will prove amusing as well as most instructive:

COMMISSIONER STURGESS. (Memorandum July 22nd, 1908.)

“Hanbury St. is not a piecework shop

COLONEL JACOBS

(Commissioner Sturgess’ assistant.)

“When a man becomes experienced we put him on piecework.”

————————

(Agreement signed by men.)

“In the case of task work,” etc.

————————-

(An Army official to a representative of the Times. “It is all piecework.”

——————————–

(War Cry, May 1st, 1909.)

“We said that the majority of those provided with employment had lost their skill, and could only do the commonest class of work, and little of that.

Salvation Army Year Book, 1908. Page 43. “The majority are accomplished hands, and are able to do any hind of work usually carried on in the trades.” (Carpentry, joinery, and painting).

——————————–

A knowledge of what the Army professes to pay its hands for piecework is of great importance, because we can then discover, with a fair degree of accuracy, how these prices compare with those paid outside for exactly the same work. The work-tabs which have—unfortunately from the Army’s point of view—come to light, show this clearly.

These tabs supplied to the men for each job give the price to be paid to the man for making, and bear the signature of the officer in charge.

“Comparisons are odorous,” as the old lady said in the play, but the following list (by no means a complete one), showing the prices paid by the Army for certain work, and the prices estimated by a master-builder as those which he would have to pay for the same work, is positively damning.

No amount of plausibility can possibly explain away these stubborn facts.

——————————–

Fritz.

(To be continued)

The Passing Show: The fruits of leisure (1961)

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

The fruits of leisure

There was an interesting interview with Professor J. D. Bernal in the last issue of the Sunday Empire News before it joined the ranks of those fallen in the newspaper war. “Properly developed and properly utilised, the world can amply support its people”, said the Professor. There could be an “abundant” society, with working time reduced to four hours a day, three days u week. The Professor went on :

“There would have to be a change in culture. People will be educated, fully or part-time, up to the age of 30. Probably they will retire at 45. If they wanted, they could take months or even years off work.

In fact, people who didn’t want to wouldn’t necessarily have to work. Five per cent of the population could produce all the food that was needed for the rest, and another 10 per cent could produce all the goods that were necessary.

They could explore all the fruits of leisure, the arts, the crafts, music and painting. In space exploration there would be all the adventure for the people who wanted adventure. And equal scope to grow roses or something for the people who did not want adventure.”

Professor Bernal was simply giving facts which support our contention that the productivity powers developed within capitalism have now reached the stage when an abundant non-coercive society is possible—what we call Socialism. Unfortunately, however, instead of devoting his efforts to work for this new society, Professor Bernal continues to give his support to the Communist Party and the Eastern bloc—which are dedicated to state capitalism. Some of those supporting state capitalism may do so partly because they do not realise that a Socialist society is possible. Professor Bernal, though, clearly has not got this excuse.

Property

Jesus is reported to have told one man who wanted to join his band of disciples “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor” (Luke, 18, 22). However, it would be unwise to assume that those who claim to be Christians have got any great desire to follow this advice, as one old woman found out recently. A widow of 71, she “was sentenced to seven years’ preventive detention at London Sessions . . . for stealing two brass ornaments from St. John’s Church, Islington. It was stated that she had 16 previous convictions, nine for stealing ornaments from churches” (The Guardian, 12/11/60). This unfortunate perhaps doesn’t realise that whatever the Bible may say, in a capitalist society the Christian churches hang on to their property as tightly as, if not more tightly than, anyone else.

In sentencing the woman, the Chairman of the Sessions remarked: “You have lived a drab life. I suppose you have no ambition except to go back to prison and indeed I am told you would prefer to go there as you have no home outside. It is probably the best place for you.” If this is true, it means that one of our fellow members of the working class prefers the inhumanities of jail to the joys of the “free” life outside it. This will take some explaining away by the advocates of our supposedly “never had it so good” society.

Substantial number

Sir Roy Welensky, the Rhodesian Federal Prime Minister, recently defended the present Rhodesian set-up in the Federal Parliament. As part of a list of advances towards “multi-racialism” which he claimed had been made, he said “In private life there are already a few African professional men operating under European conditions in cities and there is a substantial number of successful African businessmen.” But Sir Roy was wide of the mark in giving this as a reason why the existing settlers’ government should be left in undisturbed control of Rhodesia. The “substantial number of African businessmen”, the developing African capitalist class, is in fact the main reason why the days of the settlers’ government are numbered. A government based on landed interests can hold on for a certain time in certain conditions when capitalism is expanding in a country. It may lean over backwards, as it thinks, in its efforts to be fair to the growing capitalist class. But when a country’s capitalist class comes to maturity, then nothing will content it but the full control of political as well as economic power. Welensky and his settlers, in fact, as the rulers of Rhodesia are doomed.

Alwyn Edgar