USA: To Whom It May Concern (1999)

From the October 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Day trading and Internet trading on PCs have grown rapidly due to the need to attract smaller investors by giving them faster access to the trading floor. But it is not only money at risk from widespread playing of a financial video game with volatile share prices.

Time magazine (August 9) featured the 12 killings and suicide carried out in July by an American day trader who tried to make a living betting on share prices. “Who was Mark Orrin Barton? Why did he go berserk?”, they asked. But despite reporting how Barton had lost heavily from trading in erratic Internet stocks; despite mentioning how he twice remarked on a declining stock market to people he worked with at brokerage firms before opening fire on them; despite pointing out he was the prime suspect in his first wife’s murder shortly after taking out a $600,000 life-insurance policy on her (he had wanted it to be $1 million, but could not afford the premiums); and despite printing Barton’s thoughts in his letter for the police (“I have come to hate this life and this system of things. I have come to have no hope . . . [I plan] to kill as many of the people that greedily sought my destruction”), the magazine concluded “he scatters clues but no answers.”

On the contrary, to those willing to face them, the answers for 13 dead and 9 others with gunshot injuries are unmistakable: money and the marketplace. Or—as these are both part of the same system—capitalism. Only capitalism requires money to exploit productive resources, offer finished goods and services to a subordinate majority for profit, and coerce those able to work into becoming employees of an asset-owning class. And because capitalism makes money vitally important for obtaining necessities of life, achieving a bearable existence, and avoiding all manner of disturbing problems; getting and retaining as much of it as possible are what daily preoccupies and drives the vast majority of people, thereby helping maintain the status quo.

Inevitably, when difficulties and worries intensify to the point where sufferers “come to have no hope”, people can snap and lash out. Perhaps Barton thought blame lay just with specific people “that greedily sought [his] destruction”. Or perhaps, as his To-Whom-It-May-Concern letter suggested, he knew full well that capitalism’s “system of things” was indeed responsible, but was not aware a much easier way of living could be pursued, and so, seeing no way out, chose to die with those connected most closely to his downfall.

On July 27, the manager of Momentum Securities, where Barton hired computers and phone lines to gamble at online share trading, insisted debts incurred over several weeks be cleared up. Barton handed over a $50,000 cheque without funds in the bank to cover it. He went home and bludgeoned his estranged second wife to death with a hammer. Next day, the cheque bounced. That night, he killed his 11-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter the same way. On the third day, Barton arranged to see the Momentum manager, purportedly to pay off his debt at the firm. Once inside his office, Barton opened fire. He also gunned down the manager of All-Tech, another brokerage across the road where Barton had ceased trading in April, apparently because he had been barred until able to restore his account to a minimum balance of $40,000. Several other day traders who had lent Barton money to settle numerous debts, and no doubt wanted paying back, were also killed or injured.

Following the suicide of the man other traders called “Rocket”, because of how excited he got when his stock gambles were climbing, it can be seen that his losses consumed virtually all the cash from his first wife’s insurance settlement. If he did kill her for a better life, as the police believe, the “system” soon determined otherwise. With the known facts, is there the slightest doubt that minority ownership of vital assets, a market necessary for business transactions, and the money mechanism an owning class needs to exploit property and people were what drove Barton “berserk”?

If those working in the media insisted on reporting the true cause of these regular losses of life, rather than usually just beating about the bush, then we would all move that much nearer that much sooner to ending them for good. For this deadly violence is not unavoidable. A change of ownership of productive industries and resources from a few to the many would eliminate the stress of personal financial worries since there would be no finance to worry about.

Maybe, in needing money themselves just like Mark Barton, media employees don’t want to risk their own living standards until support for common asset ownership becomes overwhelming. But as the media do have the ability to inform and influence most people, their weak-kneed entertaining-for-profit reportage of capitalism-caused tragedies and scandals merely perpetuates these incidents, endangering everyone including themselves.

Perhaps those who write and broadcast will consider what will happen when the prolonged US bull market collapses in a big way. How many more Mark Bartons will violently emerge from an estimated 5 million other apparently normal Americans also engaged in online trading from home computers, and from millions of other small-scale investors with life savings tied up in stocks and shares? And how many more “ordinary” individual killings from robberies, domestic quarrels, financial disputes, etc will follow that such a serious market downturn, which would impact on economies world-wide, accompanied as it will be by an increase in social poverty and desperation as squeezed profits means unemployment rises and indispensable money becomes even harder to obtain?

Just one week after Barton’s rampage, another gunman in America shot two dead at his workplace, and a third at a firm where his mother stated he had earlier been laid off due to “economic downsizing”.

Max Hess

Gould v. Dawkins (1999)

Book Review from the October 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Darwin Wars by Andrew Brown. Simon and Schuster. £12.99.

This is a journalistic account of the arguments that have gone on recently amongst biologists in the Darwinian tradition, between those Brown calls the “Dawkinsians” and the “Gouldians”, so-called after Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene (1976) and Stephen Jay Gould, author of The Mismeasure of Man (1981) and of a series of collected essays on various aspects of evolution.

Although both sides have done original work in the field of biology and evolution, the argument is not really about the facts but about their interpretation. It is in fact a continuation of the old argument between the “Social Darwinists” and their opponents. The so-called Social Darwinists argued that the laws of biological evolution applied to humans in society and that in the social struggle for existence those who came out on top—the rich and the powerful—were entitled to their privileged social position as by achieving it they had proved to be “the fittest”.

Socialists were amongst those who opposed this apology for capitalist rule, arguing that Darwinian natural selection only applied in nature not to human society; because humans had acquired (as a result of course of their evolved biological make-up) the capacity to use tools their social development was driven not by biology but by technology, with social struggles not being a struggle of individuals against each other to survive but a struggle of classes over the control of the tools humans had developed.

Social Darwinism was revived in the 1970s under the name of “Sociobiology” which claimed, once again, that the laws of biological evolution applied to human society and that the behaviour of humans in society was governed by their biological nature; this, they said, was aggressive and anti-social as such traits had been necessary for human survival and so had evolved as part of the human biological make-up.

This was an attack on the up-to-then fairly widespread view amongst social anthropologists that there was no such thing as human nature in the sense of no such thing as biologically-determined human social behaviour since human behaviour in society was socially determined by the culture of the society they lived in. The findings of these anthropologists still stand but times had changed. The post-war boom had come to an end and, with states no longer able to sustain “altruistic” social reforms at previous levels, rugged individualism and no pity for the poor were back on the agenda.

Dawkins’s book The Selfish Gene appeared in 1976. It was a brilliant title to capture the spirit of the coming period. His basic argument was that Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” takes place not between individual organisms but between their individual genes (a controversial proposition in itself) and that genes could therefore be metaphorically described as “selfish” in struggling to survive. The title, however, left itself to being interpreted as saying that humans were genetically selfish and that there was in fact a human gene for selfishness. As a biologist Dawkins knew this to be nonsense but he nevertheless let the title stand.

In the dispute between the “Dawkinsians” and the “Gouldians” it is clear on whose side Socialists don’t stand. Although Dawkins is a militant atheist who makes mince-meat of religion, he is wrong in so far as he lets it be suggested that human social behaviour is genetically determined. This argument has been refuted years ago and has only been revived recently for non-scientific, ideological reasons. This, however, does not make us uncritical “Gouldians”. Gould’s books contain valuable material, but we are not obliged to follow his view that evolution does not mean “progress”, nor his view that there is no inherent incompatibility between science and religion.

Adam Buick

Greasy Pole: Alan Clark – gladly missed (1999)

The Greasy Pole column from the October 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was never easy to upset Alan Clark but somebody once managed to do this when they called him a fascist. To be clear about this, Clark did not object to being known as a racist bigot. It was just that he regarded fascists as shopkeepers who were concerned about their profits and he was above such vulgarity. He was, he said, a Nazi.

A comment like that tells us all we need to know about the late MP for Kensington and Chelsea and about his contempt for the person on the receiving end, who was no less than the editor of the Daily Telegraph. He was a vain and self-absorbed man who constantly fretted about himself—about his workload, his fellow MPs, the shortage of his favourite vitamins. He operated on the principle that an assumed superiority to the majority of people gave him the right to be rude, cynical and bigoted towards them—and that they would not only accept this but admire him for it.

Well perhaps he was right; after all he was wealthy enough to get away with such behaviour. How else to explain the fact that during his life so many people fawned on him and that when he died they queued up to give vent to their shock and grief? “A national treasure,” wailed the Scotsman: “An exceptional man,” grovelled Labour’s champion spin doctor Alistair Campbell: “A doughty parliamentarian, an accomplished historian,” burbled Margaret Thatcher (one of the very few Clark genuinely liked). But—as we might have expected—leading the field for gut-wrenching sycophancy was Tony Blair: “. . . kind and thoughtful . . . a complete one-off and above all his own man. We will all miss him,” raved the Labour leader.

Moral Standards

Perhaps Blair had forgotten that only a few days before this he had spearheaded his government’s latest stunt—a drive to raise “moral standards” in this country, which promises to be aimed against impoverished workers who try to get by through crime or young girls who get pregnant before they have so much as stepped onto the treadmill of working exploitation. The drive will not be directed against rich philanderers like Clark, who took open pride in his reputation as a compulsive ogler, groper and seducer of women, a man who, when asked about his notorious affairs with a married woman and her two daughters, was unflinchingly contemptuous: “I should be horsewhipped” he sneered.

Blair’s expressed admiration for Clark being “his own man” should not be taken as heralding a change in policy, to encourage any independent thought among the Labour benches. What possible reason can there have been for all those extravagant tributes to the dead Tory? Was he really worth such a fuss being made over his memory? As a politician Clark was pretty small beer. Although he rated himself as clever enough, in the way politicians have to be, for one of the top ministries (he assumed he would fill the vacancy caused when the equally obnoxious Nicholas Ridley had to resign over some leaked injudicious comments about the Germans in Europe) he never rose higher than a junior minister. Perhaps, for his own peace of mind, that was just as well because even at that he resented the work which went with the job. His diaries are littered with sour complaints about the red boxes which had to be cleared and about the civil servants who arranged his timetable for him (although they were, after all, only doing their job; if they hadn’t done it they would have been condemned along with all the other “wankers”).

Selling Arms

As Minister for Procurement at Defence Clark saw nothing wrong with the sale to Iraq of British-made arms which were later used against British soldiers in the Gulf War. Nothing wrong, either, with selling weaponry to the Indonesian government to be used in East Timor. All of this, said Clark, was a good advertisement for the deadly efficiency of “our kit”. Well after all this is capitalism; what do a few thousand lives matter when there is a healthy profit to be made? In the infamous Churchill Matrix scandal he at first encouraged the company (who of course wanted some of that healthy profit) to break the embargo on selling arms to Iraq then watched while they were prosecuted for doing what he had urged on them. Being Alan Clark he then wrecked the whole thing by giving crucial evidence which ensured their acquittal. There was a grisly kind of consistency in all of this: as Norman Tebbit observed he “. . . really did not care what people thought of him or what he said or what he did”.

Clark’s high reputation as an historian is, to put it mildly, charitable since it rests almost entirely on one book—The Donkeys—which is interesting but little more than a shallow exploitation of the then fashionable tendency to expose the cruel incompetence and complacency of British generals in the First World War. His account of the German invasion of Russia—Barbarossa—is tedious and unsatisfactory in its failure to give the war there any real historical perspective. Appropriately, it has been almost forgotten; there are better works, by more competent writers, on that excessively gruesome episode in capitalism’s history.

And what—as if it matters—about Clark’s aristocratic assumptions? What about his moated castle in Kent? His homes in Scotland and Switzerland? His collection of powerful, expensive cars which he drove at speeds careless of the safety of anyone else who happened to be on the road at the same time? He relished the sneer about Michael Heseltine, that he was a man so unaristocratic that he had “bought his own furniture”—as if proper blue bloods like Clark had had their stuff in the family for centuries. The truth is that the Clark fortunes originated in the money made by his grandfather in the thread trade in Scotland. From that the family acquired it all—the castle, houses, cars, furniture, paintings, aristocratic pretensions . . . From the exploitation of the workers in Paisley Clark could be sent to the poshest school in the land; he once said he quite understood football hooligans because he had played the Eton Wall Game.

Conspiracy 

So this exceptionally obnoxious man was just another fraud. Parliament, among other places, is full of them, peddling their particular deception to sustain a social system which by any human standards should be abolished without delay. All that can be said for Clark is that perhaps he was an unusual fraud, who had the knack of stimulating admiration for behaviour which does not often expect to be tolerated. Capitalism endures through a massive defrauding of its people, as evidenced by the fact that so many of them accepted the self-assessment of Alan Clark as a bit of a rogue, the kind of person they would all like to be if they were rich enough. Which says a lot about this social system and how it operates and what it does to people.

Ivan

TV Review: Darling and His Great Democratic Deficit (1999)

TV Review from the October 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is little more unsettling than watching some oily defender of capitalism defend the indefensible and appear to believe every word of it. A bad curry comes close, as does malaria, but these only attack the senses in a physical way. For the inducement of sheer intellectual pandemonium in his victims, little could beat Social Security Secretary Alistair Darling. In BBC1’s On The Record (Sunday 19 September) he put in a bravura Orwellian performance in defence of the government’s drive to “eliminate poverty in Britain”.

Given his apparent level of supreme self-confidence in everything his government is doing, why then—the more observant viewer may ask—did Darling barely answer a single question that was put to him? He did, of course, give answers, but rarely if ever to the questions that were actually asked. Requested by John Humphrys to outline what the government would do to help those with poverty-level private pensions which were still sufficient to disqualify them from receiving state aid, Darling replied with an answer concerning how the government plans to continue its scheme to change the tax status of savings accounts. Humphrys furrowed his brow. Asked why more people were officially living in poverty now in the UK than for decades, Darling replied by saying that there were more people now in work than under Thatcher or Major. Humphrys` furrowed brow returned. No doubt when he was asked if he wanted a glass of water before the programme began he replied with “No thank you, I’ve just eaten, and incidentally I think the government can take great credit for that”.

Even with an interviewer as tenacious as John Humphrys can be, it is still quite amazing how much politicians can get away with. And Darling’s interview was hardly on a topic without relevance. Over a quarter of UK residents now officially live in poverty. Poverty is a major contributor to death, disease of various kinds, mental health problems, increased incidence of crime, alcohol and drug abuse, to name but a few. It is probably the biggest single cause of social problems in society and yet a government supposedly elected to eradicate poverty and bring about some sort of social cohesion in Britain cannot address itself to some of the most pertinent questions it is faced with. Why?

Dodgers

This is a government which is expert at seeming to do lots of things while in reality doing little or nothing. It is forever launching “initiatives”, programmes and pilot projects operating at the margins of major social problems. The most minuscule change in the law or the taxation system is presented as a bold new leap which will help to radically alter the state of British society. Even attempts at removing previous reforms—as with the attack on single parents` benefits—are presented as brand new positive reforms. It promises full employment and the eradication of poverty—but never within any remote timescale. In short, it talks big but delivers little.

That this state of affairs has come about is only, of course, a reflection of the (political and economic) impotence of politicians. If they were able to achieve much, then presumably they would—especially if they’d been elected on that basis. But the reality is that they are unable to deal with any of the major problems they supposedly spend their time addressing—in other words, they have even ceased, in the narrow sense, to be reformists. As the economic structure and dynamic of world capitalism does not allow them the leeway to be genuine reformists and try to change the system from within, they are left to chase shadows, playing at being reformists.

To that extent, Alistair Darling is the ideal New Labour politician. He is not even a proper reformist any more, though apparently he thinks he is; he takes great pride in responding to any pertinent question with a tangential answer which can demonstrate some sort of reformist activity, however irrelevant; and he is most passionate of all about the most trifling things of all. In fact he has a hollow fervour akin to some sort of mixed-up born-again Christian who doesn’t really believe in miracles any more. Just like his Dear Leader.

Now some time ago it was mooted by several of the TV interviewers that they should take strong action against ministers and other politicians who appeared to operate a policy of deliberately not answering the questions asked of them, and who instead appear to be reading with gusto off a pre-prepared script. As in the run-up to the next General Election this situation is only likely get worse it may be time for John Humphrys and co to consider what Labour would like to ban across the public services—strike action. After all, the tactic for dealing with vandals and football hooligans in recent years has been to “deny them the oxygen of publicity”. Couldn’t workers at the BBC do the same if the politicians refuse to answer questions and therefore be democratically accountable? Just a thought, maybe, but a nice one at that.

Dave Perrin

50 Years Ago: A Labour Prophet has a Fall (1999)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Labour Party Conference in May, 1940, when the Labour Party decided to enter the Churchill Government, Mr. Arthur Greenwood, M.P., made a prophecy about the outcome of the war:

“We shall have a trembling capitalist system which can never recover again. We shall have broken the back of the vested interests, and we can build a socialist commonwealth which will be a powerful factor in the world.” (Daily Herald, May 14th, 1940.)

On the 10th anniversary of the outbreak of war Mr. Greenwood gave a message to the Daily Mail (September 3rd, 1949) which included the following:-

“This peace has not yet been won, and Britain’s effort to-day must be directed towards the fullest use of all human and material resources, so as to play our part in the reshaping of the whole world.”

British Capitalism is indeed in a bad way, but what the Labour Government is now doing is to direct all their efforts to trying to put it on its feet again while urging the workers to refrain from making demands that would stand in the way of British capitalist recovery. The Labour Party’s latest pronouncement of policy is appropriately called “Labour Believes in Britain,” not “Labour Believes in Socialism.”

(From Socialist Standard, October1949)

Socialism in Coventry. (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism in this city is of the sort one would naturally expect to find where its professors fail to recognise its basic principle. To this fact we may attribute the lack of proper enthusiasm, and want of adequate financial support which were conspicuous features of the Clarion Sunday lectures held last winter.

All the alleged labour and so-called Socialist parties here have identified themselves, time and again with one of the capitalist parties—the Liberals.

Some two years ago when Dr. Clifford brought his nonconformist conscience to Coventry, and spoke in the Corn Exchange to the kind-hearted Liberals on the monstrosities of the wicked-hearted Tories, the Independent Labour Party had its representative on the platform. Is Dr. Clifford in favour of, or will the Liberal Party grant, that Secular Education which the I.L.P. and other professedly Socialist bodies demand ? We know they will not. Then why this coquetting ? Is such a policy calculated to make converts to the Cause from amongst Conservatives who see professedly independent Socialists hobnobbing with their natural enemies, the Liberals?

The Liberal element was much in evidence during the Clarion Lectures referred to. Liberal members of the Town Council took the chair on more than one occasion, and I heard Mr. H. K. Farren express the hope that the Mayor (a Liberal) would see his way to preside at some future date. Yet only a few weeks ago this same mayor bluntly informed a deputation convened by the Trades Council on behalf of the unemployed, that “the general feeling of the Council was antagonistic to the Trades Council, and communications sent by the latter body “were invariably treated with contempt.”

As a result of this unemployed conference, work was found by the Town Council for 90 men of the thousands standing idle. Val victis !

“See yonder poor o’erlabour’d wight,

So abject, mean, and vile,

Who begs a brother of the earth

To give him leave to toil ;

And see his lordly fellow worm

The poor petition spurn,

Unmindful tho’ a weeping wife

And helpless offspring mourn.”

So the capitalist-class flouts the claims of the worker and the only way for Socialists to checkmate them and effectually combat the evil tendencies which are the natural outcome of Bourgeois domination is by the maintenance of complete independence and of uncompromising opposition to both wings of the capitalist party. Complete independence must be the watchword of all Socialists, otherwise we cannot wonder at Conservatives regarding us as little more than a wing of the Liberal Party.

James Hutcheson 

Socialists and Liberals. Mr. Will Thorne’s view. (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Stratford Express” publishes the following letter:-

“November 11th. 1904.

“Dear Sir—In reply to yours, with reference to attending at Mr. Crooks’ meeting to-night, I think it will be impossible for me to attend, as I have to attend a joint meeting at the Bricklayers’ Hall, Southwark, in connection with the sections engaged in the building trade.

“I should like to point out that by the compact made by the Liberal and Radical members of the West Ham Town Council with the Tories with a view of defeating the ends of the Labour Party, it has made it almost impossible for the advanced workers in the borough to render any assistance to the Liberal and Radical candidate for the north side of the borough. No doubt some of these gentlemen will say that the Socialist and Labour Party made a compact with the members of the Council in 1898.

“But I should like to point out that the compact we made was with the Liberals and Radicals and Irish Nationalists. Many members of the Liberal and Radical Party have been urging a compact between Liberalism and Labour, but it has never been suggested or thought of by the Socialists and Labour members with the Tories. You will, therefore, see that there is a great deal of difference between the compact made in 1898 and the agreement made between the Liberals and Tories of the West Ham Town Council for the election of Mr. Byford as Mayor, and for filling up the vacant aldermanic seats.

“If this thing is going to continue, then it seems to me that the gulf which exists between Liberalism and Labour will become very much wider. I trust that you will have a very successful meeting. I was thinking of writing a letter to the Press about the compact made by the Liberals and Radicals and the Tory members on the West Ham Town Council.

“Yours truly,

“W. Thorne.

“Mr. W. Wadley

“68, Hampton-road, Forest Gate, E.”

[Increased destitution] (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

In conversation with the directing officials of the Church Army, at its headquarters last Monday a representative of the “Morning Advertiser” learnt that the exceptional distress now prevailing had very greatly increased the stress of work which the organisation has normally to bear at the present season of the year. During the month of October the applicants at headquarters for help exceeded by 61 percent. the total of those who similarly applied in the corresponding month of 1903. It is noticeable, also, the representative was told, that many of these destitute persons came from a superior class.

Socialism and Individualism. (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

The polemicists of reaction set themselves up as defenders of Individualism.

According to them Socialism will be the sacrificing of the individual to Society.

Is there any foundation for such a statement?

None.

Socialism is not an obstacle to the physical, intellectual, or moral development of man.

On the contrary, it is to-day the only social order capable of assuring the preservation of the individual.

Not only is capitalism the opponent of Individualism but it is its most redoubtable enemy.

Bourgeois society has sacrificed the living to the dead, the productive majority to the parasitical minority. It has made man a slave to the Rich. It has turned against the individual all the forces that have been forged to conquer Nature.

The individual has nothing to hope for, but everything to fear from a continuation of Capitalism.

The exploitation of man by man, of which the defenders of capitalism demand the continuance, is a powerful factor of organic degeneracy.

Denial is impossible.

Under capitalism man loses his means of action and development.

The iniquitous social system deprives him of the most primitive rights, refuses him the means of wealth production, the products of his hand and brain, condemns him to live in slavery, poverty, and ignorance.

Under this régime man weakens, deforms, and wastes.

The degeneration of the people, submissive to capitalism, is not controvertible.

It is proved – we have established it elsewhere – by a decrease in height, weight, muscular force, fertility, sight, hearing, smell, memory, etc., and by an increase of professional maladies, bodily deformities, accidents, lunatics, etc.

The cause of those evils is known, it is the exploitation of man by man.

The interest of the individual demands the abolition of social inequalities, the microbe of all degeneracy.

Socialism demands:

The integral development of man, physically, intellectually, and morally, the free growth of the individual.

Scientific Individualism – Individualism in the highest essence – is SOCIALISM.

Let us prepare its triumph.

(From the French of Désiré Descamps by A. W. Pearson )

Correspondence. (1904)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

(To the Editors)

Our comrade Hawkins forwards a copy of the following letter which he has received:

“Draviel, 15.11.04

Dear Comrade,—I have just received No. 3 of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, containing your interview, and I am glad to find that you have given a very full and faithful account thereof.

Trusting that the paper will be successful and with my best wishes and our kind regards to Mrs Hawkins and yourself.

Yours fraternally

Paul Lafargue.”

#    #    #    #

12, Shelgate Road,

Clapham Junctn., S.W.

14.11.04.

Comrades,

Just a few lines of congratulations. I am glad to see that a straight, uncompromising Socialist party has at last entered the political field. If ever there were need of such party it is at the present time. When one looks around and sees the so-called Socialist parties wobbling about, advising the workers to do one thing one moment and the opposite the next, it is no wonder that the workers are in a chaotic state. It is no wonder that they are apathetic. Therefore, when almost at the last moment as it seems, a straight party springs into existence, I cannot but feel that every success should meet its progress. I think that if you continue as you have begun, the workers will wake up from their apathetic mood and support you wherever you lead. I am heartily pleased with the SOCIALIST STANDARD, and wish it every success. I, at any rate, will do my best to advertise the paper and forward the Cause.

I remain, yours fraternally,

H. T. Davey.

Answers to Correspondents. (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

F. M. (Hamburg). — Your note to hand. Shall be pleased to hear from you further at any time.

C. F. (Kentish Town). — Hardly suitable, but try again.

H. C. (Canning Town). — You are quite mistaken in supposing that we should not welcome the provision of adequate maintenance of all school children. Nothing which we have ever said or written could bear any such construction. What we do believe is that nothing in the shape of adequate free maintenance will be given by any section of the capitalist party, and that anything short of adequate maintenance is not worth fighting for. When we have the working-class of this country organised on a Socialist basis and as a Socialist political party, we shall deal with all these matters as part of a regular revolutionary programme, but at present we can gain nothing by soliciting reforms and favours from a class against whose material interests it would be to grant them. We shall treat of this matter fully in a subsequent issue.

A. M. (Manchester). — 1. We think you will find the matter discussed at length in Giffen’s “Essays on Finance.” 2. Mulhall covers too short a period. We hope to be able to furnish the figures in some future issue when we have time to work them out.

J. C. T. (Birmingham). — 1. The facts may be as stated but the source is so very unreliable that you cannot quote without some independent evidence. 2. We can afford to display indifference.

J. B. (Plymouth). — We shall consider the matter.

R. T. (Newhaven). — Anyone can join The Socialist Party of Great Britain by signing our Declaration of Principles as shewn on page 7. We can send form to anyone who wishes to join. It is, of course, more interesting to have a Branch in the locality to which you can belong, but failing this, you should belong to the Central organisation pending the formation of a Branch. We shall be pleased to furnish any further information either direct or through our columns.

From Our Branches. (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reports from Branches for insertion under this heading must be in before the 20th of each month, otherwise they cannot appear.

Edmonton.

Another month of good work well done fitly sums up our position here. Since our last report although three meetings had to be abandoned owing to the rain, nevertheless we have held four meetings in Waltham, four in Edmonton and three in Tottenham. These meetings have been very successful and, as a result, the Edmonton Branch is not only stronger in every way but a sound Branch will soon exist in Tottenham also.

On Sunday, November 20, we had a field-day, the meeting at West Green Rd. lasting nearly four hours, during which five critics—two from the Temperance Party, two from the S.D.F. and one from the Primrose League—had each a turn on the platform. Needless to say the criticism, which was more or less friendly and certainly courteous—in striking contrast to that which greeted us in the evening at Edmonton—was effectively answered, so much so that a resolution thanking The Socialist Party of Great Britain for the addresses delivered and pledging the meeting to work for the realisation of the object of that Party, moved and seconded by two of the audience unknown personally to any of us, was carried unanimously by the meeting. A good sale of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD and an increase of three to our membership were also pleasing features of an all-round good meeting. In the evening at Angel Road, Edmonton, we proceeded to hold our usual meeting, but before half-an-hour had elapsed the local S.D.F. had planted their platform on the edge of our audience and commenced a series of antics that compelled almost everyone to laugh. We have entirely failed even yet to learn what was the matter with them. They put up Mr. Thomas, Mr. Pearson, and Mr. Mercer, each of whom had two trials to take the attention of the audience from our speaker but in this they absolutely failed ; abandoning their platform they tried to break up our meeting by entering the audience and trying to incite a portion of it to riot. In this they failed also and eventually when close upon 10 p.m. the police, as usual, had to make us close our meeting, it fell to the lot of the revolutionary Social-Democratic Federationists to cheer the police and to exhort them to “lock the–––up.” However, the police are not yet the servants of the S.D.F. no matter how anxious one of the latter evidently is to become the servant of the former.

Still, be those things as they may, the Edmonton Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain is in high spirits and full of confidence. We have no desire to bluff ourselves nor yet another body, but the steady sale of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD and the foolish tactics of those who, to suppress an opponent, would jeopardise the right of public meeting by trying to turn orderly meetings into bear-gardens, will yet, and we believe very soon, show effectually that our Party is right, that our Party is justified and alone worth of the confidence of the working-class. Speed the day!

A. Anderson.

Fulham.

The meetings we have held here have been successful from the numerical standpoint, and the sales of our paper have been fairly good considering the large number of men there are unemployed in this district. The week-night meetings that we hold at Fulham Cross at 8.30 on Wednesdays are better attended than the Sunday morning meetings and have been very successful. Once the summer comes again (as the poet sings) this branch will be placed on a firmer footing. We are getting well known now and a good number of men are beginning to undertand which is The Socialist Party

E. J. B. Allen.

Islington.

With the departure of the last leaves of autumn and the arrival of hoar winter with his chilly blasts comes a falling off in the attendance at our open-air meetings. Too great are the temptations of the cheery inglenook and the fireside’s genial glow. No longer do the opening buds of spring, the full-blown flowers of summer, or the many hued leaves of autumn bring the people out to the parks clad in their dainty raiment. No longer the proletariat dons his “Sunday best” to stroll through the thronged avenues——[We have cut out thirteen foolscap pages of similar matter to the above.—EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.]

So we may explain to ourselves the falling off both in the number of our meetings and in the number of the audience at those meetings. We have, however, done something in this direction and shall continue while the weather allows. We are somewhat hampered in our work by the fact that a number of our members are working in enforced overtime. It is not for us to point out the anomaly of such overtime in view of the number of people at present unemployed. Suffice it to say that it is this very unemployment which the capitalist employs as a lever to force men to work excess hours.

Fraternal greetings and a promise of rare doings from the merry village of Islington.

Percy O'Brien MacTavish.

Peckham.

I am sorry I was too late for you last month. It was not because there was nothing doing, for, as a matter of fact, things have been very lively in Peckham. The Liberals have been holding open-air meetings which we have attended, and we have asked pertinent questions, which have been talked round. The Liberals allowed opposition, so Comrade Belsey and others put forward our position, and this was well received by the audience. I may say the Liberals were discussing the fiscal policy, and we challenged them to a debate on the subject, but this was not accepted.

We had some handbills printed and distributed at their meeting, announcing a mass meeting of The Socialist Party of Great Britain to take place at the same spot on the following Monday. We wrote Comrades Lehane, Kent, and Anderson, but owing to its turning out such a wet night they did not put in an appearance. It left off raining by the time for starting, and in spite of the weather we had a good meeting, which was adjourned till the following Monday. At the adjourned meeting Anderson turned up and met with such success that we had a third meeting, when Anderson was again the speaker. Our audience was quite as large as that of the Liberals, and Anderson, in spite of the bad weather (all three Mondays were wet), was kept until past 11 o’clock answering questions.

We are still carrying on our outdoor meetings. We had a good meeting at Peckham Rye on Sunday (13th) morning, and we intend having one on Sunday next, weather permitting. The branch meetings are well attended, as are also our Friday night discussions. We have also made several new members and altogether are going on satisfactorily.

W. Russell.

Wood Green.

Since my last report of the Movement in Wood Green several really good and successful open-air meetings have been held, both from a standpoint of the numbers attending them, and the intelligent interest shown by numerous questions and lively discussion. Perhaps the most important of those meetings was the one held on Oct. 23rd, when there was a debate between C. Horn, of New Southgate, and comrade A. Anderson, of Edmonton.

The debate arose out of a previous meeting at which C. Horn was present, and at which the speaker, Anderson, referred very plainly to the conduct of C. Horn (who claims to be a Socialist and is a late member of the S.D.F.) in actively supporting a Liberal capitalist candidate for parliamentary honours, thus betraying the working class. Now the two men meet, the one to defend opportunism, the other for uncompromising revolutionary Socialism. It was a sight never to be forgotten to see the great mass of faces turned towards the speakers, eager to take in the whole argument, and anxious to show their appreciation of the many good points.

Comrade Anderson was never in better form, and never before have the workers heard in such plain language the principles of Socialism. This evidently told, not only upon the audience, but upon Horn himself, for his last words were “It is quite true the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the working-class themselves.”

At the conclusion of the debate the meeting did not break up, but nearly the whole of the audience remained to listen to another address. The meeting commenced at 11 o’c. and closed at 2.30.

Another feature in Wood Green is that THE SOCIALIST STANDARD is going well, many people asking for the first and second numbers,

John Crump.

[The first care of Italian Socialists]. (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first care of the Italian Socialists on obtaining control of the administration of the city Reggi-Emelia has been to adopt the following series of commandments for use in the public schools, to impress the children with the ethics of citizenship and the religion of humanity:

• “Love thy schoolmates, for they will be thy co-workers for life.
• “Love knowledge—the bread of intellect: cherish the same gratitude toward thy teacher as toward thy father and mother.
• “Make every day thou livest the occasion for some good and beneficial deed; always sow the seeds of kindness.
• “Honour good men and true women; esteem all men as equals; bend thy knees to no one.
• “Bear hatred to none, and insult none; the word ‘revenge’ shall be excluded from the vocabulary ; but stand up for thy rights and resist oppression:
• “Do not be a coward; stand by the weak and respect and love justice.”

—Eastern Herald.

SPGB Notices. (1904)

Party Notices from the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Forecast of the Coming Revolution: Interview with Paul Lafargue. (1904)

From the November 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amongst the best known leaders of Socialist thought is our comrade Paul Lafargue, author of "The Evolution of Property", "Socialism and the Intellectuals", and many other volumes and pamphlets of great value to International Socialism. A visit to Paris brought us in touch with a French comrade, through whose kindly offices we received an invitation to visit the veteran debater at his pleasant retreat in a little village some dozen miles from the French capital. Lafargue and his wife (once known personally to English Socialists as Laura Marx) received us with the true comradeship, which in palpable form made it plain that “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, is no empty phrase amongst Socialists.

Mindful of the interests of the Party, we secured from our comrade the following interesting expression of his views upon some vital topics of moment:

“The two countries which will benefit from the Russo-Japanese War”, said Lafargue, in answer to a query, “are America and England. Though the Japs succeed in expelling Russia from Manchuria, they are at the same time weakening themselves for a long period, and thus limiting their capacity for industrial competition. Again, the financiers of England and America—principally the former—will draw from Japan a great deal even of such profit as may accrue to her in return for their present assistance. Japan has for years been developing extraordinarily, but the War hinders this. The resources she is squandering in war are lost to industry.”

“And the results of all this upon our policy in the Far East, comrade?”

“The most important thing is the appearance of Japan upon the scene as the strong power of the East, so strong that no European country can compete with it. The rise of Japan marks the conclusion of European piracy in the Far East. Nobody expected such an extraordinary power. Further, Japan will organise China, industrially and politically.”

“What is your view, comrade, of the industrial position in Japan?”

“The rise of Japan industrially has been so rapid that the horrors of child and female labour in the England of the early nineteenth century have been reproduced—with the great difference that the intermediate stages from the England of the fifteenth century were totally absent in Japan. The psychological difference is enormous, and must produce a revolt, but the form we cannot forecast. In England and France the revolt was against the machine, and whilst this may not prove so in Japan, this we know—the Japs start with a Socialist movement such as was not, and could not be, in England and France in the initial stages of Capitalism. Just as the Japs adopt and adapt the ready-made science of Europe, so the Social science of the New Age finds there a ready soil. We may expect the Japanese people, who have shown such extraordinary courage on the battlefield, to show in the Social struggle the same indomitable energy and enterprise.”

“Now, as to the War again, comrade, what are its results upon Europe?”

“This war has shown that Russia has made a fool of Europe with a show of power. Particularly has Czarism befooled France. That show has enabled her to draw from France about eleven milliards of francs (some £400,000,000) by State loans and financial companies for the industrial exploitation of Russia. The latter investments have been chiefly for coal-mining and metal works. These found prosperity as long as the Russian State was a huge customer for railway construction, &c, but even before the War this fell off; and now, in so far as they have a revival, it is only the artificial stimulus of war time, which will have its due reaction. Even now the lack of money is strangling this revival. Either victory or defeat for Russia now means revolution—a bourgeois or constitutional revolution. The first thing that the new power will have to do will be to proclaim the bankruptcy of Russia—as the best means to obtain credit. You will recollect a similar process in the French Revolution. The new rulers of Russia will be the more ready to declare this bankruptcy, in that the losers will be, not the Russians but the French. The international effects will be felt primarily in France, where the chief debt of Russia is held. The fall of the present Russian political system will shake the whole fabric of European society.”

“What is the likely effect upon Socialism in France of the loss of all this capital through the fraud and folly of the bourgeois politicians and the financial magnates who dominate them?”

“Ah, that is the question. Remember the fuss about Panama involving only 1½ milliards of francs. You will see why I anticipate great results from the loss of some eight times as much. Only the Socialist Party of France has opposed itself to the Franco-Russian Alliances and denounced it as a fraud upon the French people. The discrediting of all the bourgeois parties must mean the immense growth of the party of the Proletariat. Only the Socialist Party of France, the Revolutionists of France, had the courage and insight to oppose the alliance with despotism.”

“Very good, comrade; so much for the economic factors. What of other forces?”

“Russia is a compound of different nationalities. In the centre the Slavs, surrounded by Poles, Finns, Caucasians, Armenians, &c, held down by main force. These will spring into position again on the occasion of the Revolution, and Poland principally (the Ireland of Russia), which has never lost the sense of nationality, despite the tyranny of centuries, will make her influence felt. She will want to reconstitute her nationality with the Austrian and the German Poles. Thus I believe that the next few years will bring us the European revolution, which, if Socialists are sufficiently bold and well organised, will mean also the Social Revolution.”

This concluded, as far as the War is concerned, one of the most instructive conversations in which 1 ever had the pleasure of participating. In a future issue I hope to reproduce some expressions of our comrade upon trade unionism, but with which it would be a pity to complicate this article. The difference between the Socialists and the pseudo-Socialists can easily be seen by a comparison of the large-mindedness and grip of the situation disclosed by our comrade, with the puny reflection of Capitalist sentimentality exhibited by Jaurès in dealing with this same position. The attitude of the Reformists in France sufficiently indicates the absurdity of the claim of such superficial politicians to in any sense represent Socialism either in France or elsewhere. Jaurès and his school are straining every nerve in a “Stop the War” agitation, on the surface in the interests of peace, but in reality designed to, if possible, stave off the evil day of capitalist collapse. It was not for nothing that our comrades of the Socialist Party of France moved the resolution at the recent International Congress, which declared against compromise and intrigue with capitalist parties. The Socialists of France have fought and are fighting the same battle against treachery and folly of opportunism, which we of The Socialist Party of Great Britain are waging in this country.

I am sure every Socialist in England joins with us in reciprocating the fraternal greetings extended by Paul and Laura Lafargue to the unofficial representatives of British Socialism to whom this interview was accorded.

H. J. Hawkins.

(Socialist Standard, November 1904)

Correspondence

Our comrade Hawkins forwards a copy of the following letter which he has received:

“Draviel, 15.11.04

Dear Comrade,—I have just received No. 3 of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, containing your interview, and I am glad to find that you have given a very full and faithful account thereof.

Trusting that the paper will be successful and with my best wishes and our kind regards to Mrs Hawkins and yourself.

Yours fraternally

Paul Lafargue." LAFARGUE.

(Socialist Standard, December 1904)