The TUC and the miners (1984)

From the October 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as the greatest strength which the working class can have is consciousness of its social position and active solidarity in action, so the greatest weakness it can show is political ignorance and class disunity. At the TUC conference the rhetoric of solidarity provided an unconvincing disguise for the realities of class sectionalism and political naivete.

On the agenda was the Miners’ Strike. What a great opportunity for the speechwriters of spontaneous clichés to stir the conference hall with slogans as empty as the bellies of the strikers. Even before the conference commenced there was a deal struck between the leaders — leaders, note — of the TUC and the NUM. Scargill and his mates left the luxury suite of the TUC's General Secretary, having agreed on a compromise resolution to the conference. (Incidentally, we did not notice the press demanding that the miners' leaders should ballot the striking miners before the deal with Murray could be supported by the NUM). The compromise motion — stripped of the inevitable verbiage — amounted to three propositions: the TUC calls on the government to implement The Plan for Coal; the TUC calls on unions to raise money for the striking miners; the TUC calls on unions not to cross picket lines where coal or alternative energy products are being moved.

Let us take a look at the motion which was, after all, carried by an overwhelming majority of delegates, claiming to represent millions of workers.

The Plan for Coal

The TUC places itself in a position of dangerous class collaboration when it issues advice to governments about how to run capitalism. In fact, at least half of this year's TUC conference was spent on political discussions about the running of capitalism which is a matter workers should have nothing to do with. Resolutions were passed telling the government how to run its indoctrination (polite term: education) service, whether to support NATO, how to expand the health service and — in the case being considered — why it must stick to the policy for the coal industry outlined by the Labour government in 1974. The job of trade unions is to fight in the field of employment (the industrial struggle) over the question of wages and working conditions. If union officials put all the effort which is currently wasted on devising plans for the system which robs them and giving aid to the capitalist Labour Party into engaging militantly in the necessary struggle over the rate of exploitation then the bosses would have more to worry about and the House of Lords would have fewer retired union bosses claiming their seats in the rest home for those who have given loyal service to the cause of privilege and thievery.

TUC insistence that the government should implement The Plan for Coal is futile on at least three counts. Firstly, the government which has changed the old coal policy was elected, like all governments. mainly by members of the working class, not by a majority of capitalists. It has been estimated that as many as 35 per cent of trade unionists voted for the Tory government in the general election last year. For trade union leaders, who happen to be supporters of the Labour Party's schemes for capitalism, to insist — on behalf of their members — that the government must accept their set of priorities for capitalism is an impotent gesture. Secondly, by endorsing The Plan for Coal the TUC — again, on behalf of millions of workers — is giving its support to a plan for profit. The Plan for Coal is a policy for the running of the energy industry within Britain and within capitalism. But workers have no stake in Britain or in capitalism; our interest lies in the production of coal and other energy products solely for use. The details of organising democratic production for need within a worldwide, socialist society is what should be concerning workers — not these miserable little pleas for the capitalists to exploit us this way instead of that. Thirdly, what a massive waste of time and hope it is for the TUC to pass such pious resolutions, which will be regarded with contempt by Margaret Thatcher and her ministers.

Financial backing

The original demand of the NUM was for a 10p levy on all trade unionists to provide for the strike fund. After the deal struck between the NUM and General Council the demand was dropped and a general appeal for unions to provide money for the strike was included. This again was not a matter for the TUC: it is long-established that it is up to individual unions what they do with their funds. It was pointed out by one delegate that the government certainly did not ballot anyone before spending the three billion pounds which it has paid out so far to break the strike. This is untrue: the government won its right to represent the exploiters through the ballot box. If, instead of wasting its time on pious motions. the united trade union movement — the workers within it, not just their leaders — were to have engaged in the political struggle to prevent the election of a government which will strain every muscle to defeat the power of organised labour (which would mean opposing the Labour as well as the Tory party), then the agents of capitalism would have been defeated at the ballot box. Face the facts: the only alternative to the mess which the working class is in is socialism.

Inter-union solidarity

It was the third clause of the motion which was the most important, for if it was adhered to there can be little doubt that the miners' cause would be much advanced. It was the most important promise and also the most dishonest. The hard reality is that TUC leaders voting against crossing picket lines will not alter the fact that "total physical support" will not be given to the striking miners by most workers who are simply interested in going to work to get their pay. Hammond of the EEPTU — one of the most disgustingly reactionary trade union leaders in the history of the movement, to be sure — was being honest w'hen he stated that the TUC could make whatever phoney promises it liked to the miners, but his members in the power stations (who would be vital to the implementation of clause 3) would not be refusing to cross picket lines. Ron Todd of the T and G admitted that passing the motion was one thing, but implementing it would be another: the truer way of putting that is to say that if the TGWU started expelling members for crossing miners’ or dockers’ picket lines it would lead to the destruction of the union. TUC leaders' promises are next to worthless; what counts is the active solidarity of the rank and file workers.

Unity is Strength

Most strikes could be won by united action on the part of class-conscious workers in different industries and different countries. At present trade unionism is too sectional and too nationalist in its outlook. But why confine our ambitions to the limited aim of uniting to win strikes? Working-class unity, on the basis of socialist understanding, could win more than the crumbs or a bigger slice of the cake: it could win the world for the workers. Uniting for the feeble aim of the "right" to be employed (exploited) or "defending Britain's coal industry" is a waste of energy in comparison with the real struggle before us which is to win the world and everything in it for the people of the world.

Socialism will not be obtained by passing resolutions at the TUC. These opportunist union leaders who talk about representing the workers and who then spend more on a hotel suite for a week than most working-class families can afford for their annual holiday are enemies of socialism and will remain so as long as they seek to lead the working class. Socialism will not be helped by members of that viciously anti-working class party, the Labour Party, which has used the money of honest trade unionists in order to campaign for the power to govern against the unions. Socialism requires neither leaders nor followers. Workers must make our own revolution, consciously, democratically and united. If the miners learn any lesson from the TUC conference it is to ignore the sympathetic cheering and check the small print of the practical plans for action. Those seeking revolution rather than resolutions will have no great expectations about the outcome of the TUC's meaningless pledge of support.

Steve Coleman

Miners and the law (1984)

From the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who can now doubt the existence of the iron fist of the state? With the miners' strike now in its seventh month, the velvet glove of rhetoric about justice and the rule of law has been revealed as thread-bare. At each stage of the policing and judicial process the liberal concepts of justice and equality before the law have been cynically abandoned in the case of striking miners. We should not, of course, be surprised since the tactics used by the police and courts have been tried and tested in Northern Ireland and during the inner city riots in St. Pauls. Toxteth and Brixton — Dip-lock courts where judges sit alone without juries are paralleled in the use of stipendiary magistrates; internment without trial has its counterpart in the use of bail conditions which severely curtail freedom of movement even though criminal charges may not. in the end, be brought; and the militarisation of the police in recent years.

From the very start of the strike the police have implemented contingency plans that had been formulated long before the beginning of the present dispute. The “intercept” strategy — attempts by the police to prevent miners getting to the collieries to picket by setting up road blocks — was put into operation despite the fact that the police have no powers in this country to set up road blocks under existing laws. (The Police and Criminal Evidence Bill currently being enacted does give the police this power, but at present it is not law.) Suggestions have also been made that the police have removed, or tampered with road signs with the intention of confusing miners travelling to picket lines outside their own areas. So much for freedom of movement!

For those workers who do manage to get to the picket lines with the intention of trying peacefully to persuade their fellow workers to join the strike, there is the risk that they will be subject to indiscriminate arrest by police “snatch squads”; cavalry charges by police in riot gear on horses carrying batons; and verbal and physical abuse. Allegations by miners that during certain picketing incidents they have been subjected to physical mal-treatment by the police both during and after arrest are too numerous and too consistent to be disregarded. These policing tactics are being implemented by what has become a national police force organised by the National Reporting Centre. In order to avoid outraging local councillors — both Tory and Labour — who are implementing its penny-pinching policies on public expenditure, the government has now decided to pay for the extra cost of policing the strike. “Law and order" has once again been shown to be exempt from the cash limits imposed on other areas of public spending like health care, housing or education.

After their arrest striking miners are frequently subjected to political questioning by “plainclothes policemen" on areas wholly unrelated to the spurious offences with which they have been charged. The types of questions asked clearly reveal the intentions of the interrogators and those who have deployed them. Miners are commonly asked to reveal who organised the picket, how much they are paid for picketing, how their action is co-ordinated, whether they are union officials, what are their political affiliations, what their views are on the trade union movement, unemployment and related topics. Miners who refused to answer such questions have then been subjected to threats that they would continue to be held in police custody until they came up with the information required.

Once they have been charged miners go through the farce of appearing in court for the purpose of getting bail. At this point in the process the political use of the courts is at its most blatant. Under the terms of the Bail Act magistrates should decide whether or not bail is appropriate given the circumstances of a particular individual and whether conditions should be imposed. In the case of striking miners bail has been almost universally conditional upon the accused not attending NCB property in connection with the dispute, except their own place of work. In some cases the conditions imposed — that the accused should not go out between the hours of 11.00pm and 9.00am, or that he should not enter a specified area such as the county of Nottinghamshire — have amounted to a curfew.

Early in October a High Court hearing began concerning this issue. The NUM allege that Mansfield Magistrates Court, in particular, has been operating a blanket policy of bail conditions in flagrant disregard of the Bail Act. Evidence was given to the court that pre-prepared printed bail conditions were merely stapled to the bail form as pickets were brought before the courts, whether or not the miner was of “previously good character” and whatever his circumstances. It is unlikely that the NUM will win the action since the dice are loaded against them; however, their failure to do so will add to the considerable evidence that is accumulating to show that the courts are not impartial.

There can be little doubt that bail in these cases is being used as a means of social control, as a way to keep miners away from picket lines. This contention is given extra weight when the rate of successful prosecutions is considered. The conviction rate in magistrates’ courts is usually very high (around 90 per cent), but in the case of pickets there is evidence to suggest that the rate of successful prosecutions is much lower. The charges brought are frequently vague (behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace; obstruction) or derived from obscure and archaic legislation. They are also often based on the flimsiest of evidence, with the result that the police are. in a significant number of cases, dropping the charges (sometimes the night before the case is due to be heard) or not offering any evidence at all. Although it is too early to give firm statistics — the cases are only just beginning to be heard in large numbers — a preliminary survey of cases from the South Yorkshire area showed that more than 60 per cent of miners charged have been subject to bail conditions curtailing their freedom of action and movement for considerable periods of time (on average 124 days in the cases in the survey referred to) only to have the charges against them either withdrawn, dismissed or not proven.

It is possible that this pattern will alter now that the government has sent in stipendiary magistrates to deal with the backlog of cases. These are professional, paid magistrates who sit alone and who are not noted for their leniency. Again the liberal notion of judgement by one’s peers has been shown to be an expedient that the ruling class will dispense with when it is under threat.

Members of the working class arrive at an understanding of the contradictions of capitalism and the case for socialism through a variety of means, one of the most important of which is their own experience. To expose the rotten core of capitalism and its coercive arms — the state, the police and the criminal justice system — will not necessarily result in a socialist consciousness, but making the nature of the state transparent can only contribute to the undermining of the belief — still prevalent among significant sections of the working class — that the administration of justice in capitalism is impartial. The miners’ strike, whatever its outcome, will have demonstrated that the liberal rhetoric of justice and equality before the law is meaningless given the basic inequality of capitalism. The remedy is not to try to make the courts and police fairer or more impartial but to do away with the need for them altogether; and that can only be brought about if the working class collectively and co-operatively work together for socialism.

Janie Percy-Smith

Party News (1984)

Party News from the December 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Debates.

Late October. Doncaster. The Socialist Party was in debate against the local Young Tories. An audience of 40, including 30 non-members, listened to the case for capitalism, as defended by a young lawyer who argued that without the laws of property society would descend into chaos. The socialist speaker had to explain that capitalism is in chaos and that only socialist production for use will enable people to bring social affairs under control. Several striking miners were present and they were left in no doubt that the solution to the problems of capitalism involved much more than defeating "Thatcherism" and electing a Labour government of capitalism. The case for revolution received an enthusiastic reception from quite a few of those present and our comrades in Doncaster are looking forward to the speedy growth of the Party in the South Yorkshire area. The local Labourites agreed at the end of the meeting to hold a debate with us in the near future. Will they be true to their word?

In the same week. Islington branch ran a debate against a bunch of Leninist jokers who take themselves more seriously than any workers are ever likely to: the Communist Workers’ Organisation. They were arguing that a majority of workers can never achieve socialist understanding under capitalism but, instead of drawing from this unhistorical assumption the logical conclusion that socialism is therefore impossible. the CWO plans to set up socialism (as a leadership) without the workers being conscious.

The debate, which attracted an audience of 60, most of them non-members, proved to be an interesting education class in the follies of Leninism, part of the education being provided by the socialist speaker and the other part being demonstrated by the idiocies uttered by the bogus communists of the CWO. The latter organisation — about twenty of them throughout the country — regard themselves as the revolutionary vanguard of what they call "the class". According to them, office workers, foremen, policemen and trade union officials are not members of the working class.

In their published statement on the post-revolutionary transition period we are informed that the vanguard will set up a "proletarian state" — for, according to these Leninists, it is an anarchist fallacy to imagine that the state will disappear immediately in a socialist society. Their speaker stated (into the microphone, and obtainable from the Tapes Committee) that “there will need to be a socialist police force". Their second speaker, a Leninist caricature who ought to audition for Citizen Smith, thought that workers can't understand socialist ideas and they won’t understand them until the socialist revolution takes place.

A couple of silly romanticists salivated over the fact that the CWO's revolution would involve "a scries of bloody battles" (but not just yet) and that the CWO was all in favour of the miners using class violence (which the Leninist vanguard was prepared to endorse on a theoretical level, but would leave the miners themselves to the practical activity of serving the prison sentences).

The CWO, like a few other obscure Leninist sects with whom the Socialist Party has debated, has an infuriating habit of speaking in language that few workers can understand: when they attend a meeting they arc "making an intervention"; anyone with whom they agree is part of "the revolutionary milieu"; and democracy is only a "bourgeois fetish". The Socialist Party was accused of paying too much attention to "democratism”.

These would-be state-capitalist dictators are a laugh a cliché; the young Tories of Doncaster, confused and anti-working class as they were clearly shown to be,d could give the CWO lessons in political integrity. But we have more than a strong suspicion that public debating will not be engaged in by the CWO again in a hurry; after all. if you think that workers are too thick to understand the case for socialism — which is what the CWO position amounts to — why bother talking to the dummies?

Steve Coleman

Activity in Paris

It seems that several years of hard work by very few members has finally begun to pay off, with the possible formation of a regular discussion group in Paris. Our French language journal, Socialisme Mondial, now has about eighty subscribers. A series of press advertisements has produced a modest but steady response and a list of over one hundred current contacts throughout France. Recently, a couple of members visited about ten contacts in the Paris area, some of whom are now fully in agreement with the socialist case and could form the nucleus of a group there. We have also been exchanging literature with several other groups in Paris calling themselves "communist". Some of these contacts have proved quite fruitful. We can, then, report that a small but determined group of French workers is in the course of emerging from the political wilderness to challenge the stale myths of capitalism in all of its forms.

Clifford Slapper

Wood Green Branch Report. (1906)

From the January 1906 Socialist Standard.

Party News from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The propaganda of the Party in the district continues, notwithstanding the weather. Some very good meetings have been held by the local comrades in fog, and rain, and wind, and all those other elements which are usually considered detrimental to out-door meetings. Whether it is that the pressure of economic conditions is beginning to have a stimulating effect on the minds of the inhabitants, or whether it is a mere curiosity to know what possesses us that we should so diligently persist in our efforts, the fact remains that there is an increasing interest shown in our work. Probably the cause is to be found in the excellent lectures that have been delivered during the past three months in Dovecote Hall. These lectures have been an unqualified success. The approaches to Socialism, when examined in detail, are intensely fascinating, and we believe that considerable impetus has been given to the study of our Propaganda by means of these lectures and the excellent discussions that follow. We most heartily recommend a visit to the Hall to anyone, especially to those whose pet objection is Socialism. We can promise such a fair field but no favour.

Dick Kent

Important Notice. (1906)

Party News from the February 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our next issue, which will be published on March 3rd, will contain a further instalment of "The Extinction of Petty Enterprise," by Karl Kautsky, also an article on "Independent Labour at the Polls," showing the extent to which "Labour" candidates have compacted with the Liberal Party for the purpose of securing election to Parliament, etc. Readers should ensure an early copy by forwarding 1s. 6. to the S.P.G.B. Offices, 1a, Caledonian Rd., Kings Cross, London, N., for which sum The Socialist Standard will be sent post free to any part of the world for twelve mouths.

*    *    *    *

P. Gillies was expelled by the Tottenham Branch of the Socialist Party of Great Britain at their meeting on January 28th, for supporting the Liberal Candidate for the Tottenham Division at the recent parliamentary election.

The Ethics of Revolution. (1906)

From the March 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

In stating the case for Socialism the modern revolutionist proceeds from the material ground work upon which Society rests, to trace the manner in which present day capitalist society came into being, to show the forces at work within that society, and to explain how the foundation is being prepared for a social revolution. In showing how men's actions are mainly determined by their material interests, and how the economic factor is the chief determinant of material conditions, the Socialist takes little notice of the individual as such, but deals almost solely with the classes winch are in existence owing to economic necessity. It is generally admitted that environment is a principal factor in the creation of character; so that the strength of the Socialists’ claim as to the importance of the economic factor is at once apparent.

Some good people in the Labour movement, however, are keenly endeavouring to get the workers to study ethics. They urge that the world would be much better and happier if only people were more moral and altruistic, and they further argue that if the working class, the despised and rejected of men. would display a higher morality, the capitalist class would be converted to the Labour movement. The Socialist has one of his most insidious foes in the ethical culturist. Their position is a denial of the materialist basis of Socialism, because it is simply an appeal to the individual, as though the majority of individuals could elevate themselves above their environment. If the teaching of ethics were all that is required to bring social salvation, how comes it that after 2,000 years of the teaching of the ethics of Christianity for example, the hewers of wood and drawers of water are worse off than they have been for ages? Buddha, Confucius, and others taught the Golden Rule long before Christ, yet the world is little the better.

The teaching of love and brotherhood, in a system that exists owing to the robbery of one class by another, is immoral. The moral course is that followed by the Socialist, who points out why this robbery takes place, explains the method by which it is done, and shows how it may be ended. The Socialist alone, in the light of his economic determinism, can point to the moral advances of the past and lay his linger on each of the causes. The advance from cannibalism to chattel-slavery was only accomplished because the domestication of animals and the growth of agriculture made it more profitable to enslave a man than to eat him. The change from chattel-slavery to wage-labour occurred through the advent of manufacture by machinery which rendered “free” wage-labour more profitable, because the wage-labourer has only to be kept while producing profit, whereas the chattel-slave had to be kept whether his labour was profitable or not

Both cannibalism and chattel-slavery appear immoral now, because the advanced material position renders them unnecessary. Under Socialism, the worker having lost his commodity character. wage-slavery will appear just as immoral as chattel-slavery and cannibalism do now.

Standing firmly all the time on his materialist philosophy, the Socialist keeps clear of the illogical position taken up by the ethicist and the alleged Labour leader. Realising that with a society whose material foundation is conducive to a better relationship between man and man, a higher morality must ensue because of this advance in civilisation, he endeavours to teach his fellow members of the working class the opposition of the capitalist class and system to their interests, and the immorality of their position, and he organises them for the overthrow of capitalism, and the establishment of the higher system Socialism. The revolutionist is the most moral because he points out the causes of to-day’s evils, and organises to uproot them, while the Utopian ethicist leads the workers, consciously or unconsciously, in a manner calculated to breed despair, since they do not show the way to social emancipation, but on the contrary, blind them to the root causes of their misery. Revolution alone is moral, because it is consistent with the facts of life. The revolutionist is the true ethical teacher, because he endeavours to establish a form of society in which man's relationship with his fellows would necessitate a higher ethic than that of to-day

E. J. B. Allen

Paddington Branch Report. (1906)

Party News from the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Throughout the Winter we have been very busy waging the fight, and have missed only two Sunday meetings and those through rain. Speaking to good-sized audiences and arousing keen interest in the principles of our Party have resulted in considerable discussion and good sales of literature, whilst constant reiteration of Socialism is every day turning the apathetic into the sympathetic, and the sympathetic into out-and-out followers. Just now we are being heckled by one or two of the very old school of Trade Unionism, who, having had the same questions answered by various speakers, still persist in asking them, so proving both their doggedness and the thickness of their skulls. Another phase of our activity is that every Sunday night a number of our comrades have made raids upon some of the strongholds of confusion, carrying death and destruction (figuratively speaking) into their midst, so that the name of the S.P.G.B. is dreaded by the misleaders of the working class.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, the debate between our comrade Fitzgerald and a local councillor and Tory politician has been carried through with great success before a large audience, and our future task is to transform this triumph into a boom for the S.P.G.B.

F. S. Leigh

Second Annual Conference of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. (1906)

Party News from the May 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Communist Club. Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, the S.P.G.B. held its 2nd Annual Conference on Good Friday and Saturday.

It wan unanimously agreed early in the proceedings to admit the press and the public.

Twenty-seven delegates attended, representing 13 branches. R. Elrick (Islington). was appointed chairman on Friday, and L. Boyne (Tottenham) on Saturday.

The report of the Executive Committee (which showed a gratifying increase of membership, an improved financial position, many enquiries from the provinces and prospects of the formation of several provincial branches, an extended circulation of The Socialist Standard and the holding of 600 propaganda meetings) was approved and adopted nem. con. Arising from its discussion the E.C. were instructed to organise a cycling corps to further extend the area of Party activity, 

Some considerable discussion arose over the election of officers. Eventually it was decided that as the only nomination for Secretary, and some of those for the Executive and Auditors, had arrived at Head Office late they were therefore invalid.

The following officer were then declared duly elected:

Treasurer: A. J. M. Gray.
Executive: A. Anderson. A. Barker. J. Crump. H. Davies. T. Dix. P. Dumenil. J. Fitzgerald. W. Gifford, W. T. Hopley. A. Jones. T. A. Jackson. H. Neumann.
Auditor: J. H. Kennett.
T. A. Jackson was elected General Secretary  pro. tem.

The voting on Amendments to Rules resulted in the alteration of seven Rules. The amendments will be included in further issues of the Party Manifesto and will be forwarded to Branches as soon as printed.

A keen and interesting discussion centred upon a resolution moved by J. J. Humphrey (Fulham) and seconded by W. T. Hopley (Paddington) respecting Trade Unionism, during which both supporters and opponents realized that very wide issues needing careful consideration were raised. The resolution was defeated by a card vote and it was unanimously agreed on the motion of H. C. Phillips (Romford) and F. Blewett (Battersea), "That the E.C. be instructed to call a Special Party Meeting to discuss our position re Trade Unionism, and that a poll of the Party be taken on all resolutions arising therefrom."

It was agreed on the motion of the Paddington Branch that an organiser be appointed.

The audited Treasurer's statement was, after discussion, unanimously adopted.

After the adjournment on Friday, a Social and Dance was held, lasting until midnight, at which many comrades and several friends of the Communist Club assisted the Amhurst Quadrille Band to entertain a crowded and well satisfied company.

The 2nd Annual Conference showed to all whom it may concern that the Socialist Party of Great Britain is moving steadily forward to the attainment of its ideal

THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS.

Copies of the Photograph of the Conference may be obtained at Head Office, price 2/- each, postage 3d.

Captains and Guides. (1906)

From the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Union of Teachers has been in existence for 35 years. It has three representatives in Parliament, a membership rivalling in numbers the great Trade Unions, each member a “captain and guide of the democracy.” An Archbishop sends greeting to its latest Conference, Vicar and Major, Ex-Cabinet Minister and M.P„ all unite to “welcome” and patronise the delegates assembled at said Conference. All are greeted with rapturous “applause," and all is as well as well can be in this best of all possible educational worlds.

And yet—and yet—the career of a “captain," the lot of a “guide," is still like unto the policeman's life “when constabulary duty's to be done." List to the plaint of the President. “A career inadequately remunerated, passed under harassing conditions, practically in many cases, the servants of officials who rule with an iron hand, depending for their livelihood on voice and brain, and, if these fail, cast aside without remorse."

Every "elementary” teacher will agree with this picture. Who can say who will be the next to swell the scrap-heap which the present state of Society is ever tending to increase? In case of breakdown, his service to the State entitles him to a pauper's dole, his old age is rewarded with little better. He is a little higher than the artisan, and a little lower than the bank clerk. In any case, he is absolutely dependent upon wages for his subsistence. He is, in short, a proletarian. Does he ever seriously consider that, for class purposes, he is ever busily employed in manufacturing better material for the merchant and sweater, sturdier stuff, mayhap for "cannon fodder," obedient tools to shoot their own kith and kin if necessary. Does his ever-increasing dread of inspector and "organiser,” his anything but dignified scramble for “promotion" ever give him time to reflect that a proportion of his scholars will inevitably join the ranks of the unemployed, that a Social System which he (for the most part) accepts as “ inevitable.” but which is merely rendered possible by his mental inertia, and the mental inertia of his fellow-workers in all walks of life, will condemn some of the scholars to join the army of shame in our great city?

I rejoice that there are faint gleams in our ranks (I speak as a teacher) of the dawn of class consciousness. The utterance of the President at Conference was an indication in this direction, as was that of the President of the London Teachers Association last October. “Did the man in the street but realise that the struggle between the Old and the New in education was in progress, and that he was interested in the result, that Democracy was contending against Privilege, he would come in and help. '

But there is clearly a very faint perception among teachers of real issues that will have to be met, perhaps not so many decades hence. I put it to the less prejudiced of the profession would any historian imagine from the proceedings of the Conference that 13,000,000 were on the borderland of of, or beneath, the poverty line? Men who have hardly learnt to think outside their Catechism, who are apparently proud of their subordination to a church whose chief “educational" aim has been to keep the teacher in his proper station, and to see that he inculcates in his pupils due respect for his “pastors and masters,'' unite with more or less sincere believers in “ Simple Bible Teaching,” to cheer such “tosh" as “if the Bible is excluded from the schools, they shut out in the slums and towns of the great cities tens of thousands of little scraps of humanity from the sweetening and bee-utifying influences of Christian truth." Really, they must have been exceptionally conscientious down Bristol way in times past. One cannot help calling to mind how, in this unregenerate Metropolis, whole "Scripture" lessons were quietly, but firmly, appropriated for instruction in other than “Christian truth" when the “Annual Parade Day” neared. And —“Christian Truth ! ” "What is Truth" said jesting Pilate. Should he be polite enough to “wait for an answer” to-day. one might reply, “Dunno. I’ll ask you one, what is Christian Truth ? "

Comrades—.Socialism is “in the air." In any case it behoves you as teachers and students to acquaint yourselves with a force that has already commanded the attention of serious men and women of all classes. We are not “all Socialists now.” That is one of the lies resorted to by a class that well understands the real import of the radical change implied by real Socialism.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has been formed to do educational spade work in the matter of Socialism. It is a frankly intransigeant body, which believes firmly in Socialism as the only possible way to economic salvation and clean living. Rejecting all compromise, viewing all “palliative" mongering with distrust and suspicion, it is determined to make for the goal of Social Salvation by ever insisting on what is becoming more and more patent to thinking people, that “he who would lie free, himself must strike the blow.” The initial step is to bring home to the dumb, driven masses that before they enter the Land of Economic Freedom, they must recognise their bondage. Alas! how shall they learn it, while the captains and guides of the coming race are but dimly conscious themselves. The ideal held out by the S.P.G.B. is high “The World for the Workers." Your petty vexations, the harassing conditions under which you work, the lack of opportunity for self-culture, the reeking schoolroom, the barrack school and battalion classes, the sickening fear of comparative and actual failure are but part of the burden under which all Labour is groaning. If 35 years of Unionism has effected so little for you, might it not be worth while to seriously review the position, and dominated by a set definiteness of purpose, recognising your position as but units, useful units in the great capitalist game of Grab, infuse a more dignified, less cap-in-hand attitude into your Union? The declared reason for the existence of the N U.T. is the furtherance of the interests of the child. Is there not a danger that it may become the happy hunting-ground of the eloquent Party-man in a hurry to round his own life into a success?

A. Reginald

The New Mrs. Caudle. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Right Honourable the Member for Battersea still pursues the tenor of his strenuous way and may with some degree of confidence be expected to attain to the ideal which he seems to have set before him, of going down to posterity as the possessor of lecturing talents, not less efficient than those which the notorious Mrs. Caudle exercised with such effect upon her unfortunate spouse. And, indeed, the resemblance between the celebrated lady mentioned and our “Honest John” rests upon more than that idiosyncratic volubility which has impelled both characters to erupt into torrential verbosity with little or no provocation. The substance of their disquisitions is almost identical — the same relentless logic, the same elegance of diction, the same charm of style, the same irrepressible argumentativeness, the same measure of applicability of their observations to the subject addressed. If Mrs. Caudle were alive to-day, she would be jealous indeed of her reputation now challenged so persistently by her great nude prototype. It is true she might argue with justice that Mr. Burns is afforded facilities she never had. She lived in the ante-women’s suffrage days and probably was never able to get even so close to the sounding-board of the Empire as the ladies’ gallery of the House of Commons, whereas John has his feet on the floor of the House right beneath the sounding board itself. But, then, John could retort that he started heavily handicapped, in as much as he could not commence in the nature of things as an old woman. But, however that may be, John is making palpable progress which his elevation to the proud dignity of heavily fee’d jackal to the Liberal Capitalist Party has only served to fillip. He is simply insatiable, rushing to every point of the him instruction, and who certainly have little or nothing to learn from him. Overweening, bumptious and arrogant he always was. as those who knew him intimately in the days that are past, were aware. To these undesirable qualities are added to-day a cringing servility before his paymasters and a passion for giving unsolicited advice to all and sundry, often absurdly inapplicable to the moment; when that is not so, coming with little decency from an individual of Burns’ record. A sense of humour, which he seems to entirely lack, would save him from many n ludicrous situation; a little less superficial knowledge would enable him to pose with a little more reason and a little more success in that character of Tribune of the People which he so loves to affect. And if to both were added a little more courtesy, a little more discrimination, and it were possible to subtract something of the pimp and the bully, he might conceivably become a fairly tolerable person. As it is, we fear that he is altogether intolerable, that his advice is an impertinence and his lectures an infliction, and we take solace from the knowledge that, unlike the unfortunate Mr. Caudle, who was apparently quite unable to rid himself of the incubus of his bedmate and her lectures, he will surely awake one day to find himself discovered as the vainglorious pedagogue he is, and cast off by those upon whose ignorance he relies for his success as champion curtain-lecturer. The day that witnesses the consummation of that desirable act will witness also his fall from his present high estate; for the one thing that is quite certain is that it is only by virtue of his ability to gull and hector the working class that the capitalist Liberal Party consent to fee him so liberally and invest him with a little brief authority.

John Burns as seen by the Punch cartoonist Harry Furniss.

compass in order, cuckoo-like, to find another nest in which to deposit his curtain-lecture egg. He makes surprise visits to workhouses and turns off upon the pauper inmates his famous exhortation to abstemious living and thrift. He attends temperance meetings to emphasise the folly of working men wasting their substance (which they have not got) upon four-ale and other delectable draughts. He sternly lectures the “Labour” members of the House of Commons, whose one concern is to conform to the rules of that august assembly, upon the enormity of any departure from orthodox Parliamentary procedure, and lays it down with crushing vocal inflection to the same men obsessed by the necessity for the establishment of an unquestioned reputation for respectability, that proper deportment is a personal condition to he striven for single-mindedly. He lectures tariff reformers upon the stupidity of quoting, without examination, figures relating to pauperism, and corrects their information with more figures which he has had supplied to him. and which he has never examined. He lectures women demonstrators upon their lack of self-control, and is seized with an uncontrollable desire to slap them but dare not. He attends the distribution of prizes at a girls' gymnastic school, and lectures the unfortunate pupils about the urgency of a knowledge of washing and ironing. And so on. And so on.

Always careering about fully caparisoned with bundles of lectures and packets of gratuitous advice for persons who, generally speaking, are better qualified to give

We trust John Burns may find sufficient grace to peruse in chastened mood these few plain words. We trust too, they may have the effect of causing him to reconsider himself.

However that may be, it will surely not be hurtful to him if he will desist for a few moments from trying to force his opinions upon others as though they were things of value and hearken with what respect he may to the opinion that some of the others desire for his own good to offer him.

Alegra.

Party Notes. (1906)

Party News from the August 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to a writer in the South London Mail for July 13, a young man on Clapham Common said he had endeavoured to become a member of the S.P.G.B., but, in consequence of his being a Christian, he was refused admission.

This is a case where the writer, if he desires to do us justice, should produce his “young man." There are no “religions tests" applied to candidates for membership of this Party. All that is asked of them is their signature to our Declaration of Principles, after which their conduct must be in strict accordance therewith or they must leave the Party.

*    *    *    *

Last month we referred to a challenge issued by Mr. H. S. Wishart to debate the policy of the S.P.G.B. This gentleman, who is a prominent member of the Woolwich I.L.P. and chief local apologist for Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., now writes as under:—

200, Lakedale Road.

Plumstead.

7 July, 1906.

Wm. Gifford.

Dear Sir,

Your letter asking for a debate out of what transpired at Bexley Heath, was handed by me to the Bexley Heath Branch of the I.L.P.

The members of that branch decline to countenance such debate with any member of the S.P.G.B., so that I cannot take it up.

As a member of the I.L.P. I naturally prefer to fall in with the opinion of my fellow members so long as no question of principle is concerned.

                                                                            Yours sincerely,

                                                                                      Henry Stewart Wishart.

Comment would be superfluous!

*    *    *    *

Our translation of Karl Kautsky's "Decline of Petty Industry” has been issued as a pamphlet under the title of “From Handicraft to Capitalism.” Post free 1½d. Usual terms to branches and the trade.

*    *    *    *

Two comrades, both speakers, intend taking a cycling tour for a week, leaving London on August 11th. Any cycling comrades wishing to join them are requested to communicate with Head Office at once. 

*    *    *    *

At last Saturday's meeting of the Q.D.M. it was decided to organise a Party Outing, to take place on the 2nd Sunday in September, at Watford.

Tottenham Branch Report. (1906)

Party News from the September 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

No compromising! No slackening! No suspension of hostilities. We are still at it,—and still winning. Despite the threats of a section of the Shopocracy we still retain full possession of the "fort” at St. Ann’s (where the Band played once) and there our Thursday evening meetings continue to arouse the intelligent interest of large audiences. At West Green Corner our Sunday morning and evening meetings (which occupy some six hours of the day of Rest), continue likewise splendid propaganda efforts. In addition to maintaining these three stations we sent out a scouting party and on its report dispatched a detachment which on the 14th July captured the “fort” at the “Salisbury," Harringay, and there every Saturday evening successful meetings have since been held. Altogether since the beginning of July till the time of writing we have held over 30 very good propaganda meetings and have, at the request of the Executive Committee, undertaken the charge of meetings in Finsbury Park, where already two good meetings have been held.

As a result of this activity the Branch is in thorough good fighting form, and its Business Meetings (which are often attended by members of the public) show clearly that our recruits, young and old, realise the serious import of the Socialist Mission and are determined to take a worthy part therein.

A public challenge to debate has been accepted by a Mr. Davis, a well-known Liberal, and when this comes off a splendid opportunity will be given us to show the Workers wherein lies the path to Social Salvation.

Our membership is increasing but as this may meet the eye of some who have not yet decided, let us just say that we have room for a few more and plenty for them to do. Get a move on! Will ye?

Thos. Dicks

At Random. (1906)

From the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is a significant commentary on the timeworn and threadbare policy of retrenchment and reform that was going to benefit the working class so much when the Liberal Party came into power, that the only perceptible influence upon the workers of that policy of economy is the discharge of a large number of workmen from the Government workshops. Woolwich is feeling the pinch pretty severely.

Yet there are some who cannot see that the Liberal party represents the interests of the master class against the workers. In politics, as in industry, what is the capitalist's meat is the working man’s poison. In order that the capitalist ratepayer may have his burden lightened, the working class must be taught to starve.

If you lack necessaries in spite of your labour, it is because your masters enjoy luxury in spite of their idleness.

John D. Rockefeller wants the people to hold fast to the simple life. Meanwhile he holds fast to the almighty dollar.-- The Worker.

"Temporising and Reactionary" (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Prominent S.D.F. Member's Criticism of S.D.F. Methods.

133, Goswell-road, E.C.

31/8/06.

To the Editor, The Socialist Standard.

Dear Comrade

Could you please find room in your forthcoming issue of the Standard for the following letter of resignation of my membership of the S.D.F., addressed to Comrade F. B. Buckeridge of the Southampton Branch, S.D.F. I have cancelled all my lecture engagements with the S.D.F. branches.

Yours fraternally,

Guy A. Aldred

P.S.—I should be obliged to be supplied with a membership form of the S.P.G.B.

*    *    *    *

(Copy.)

133, Goswell-road. E.C.

31/8/06

To Comrade F. B. Buckeridge,

St. Andrew’s-road. Southampton.

Dear Comrade.

I had delayed writing to you before, with regard to your request that I should lecture for you on September 9th. next, because I wanted to give you an answer in the affirmative. 1 have, however, after a careful study of the position. come to the conclusion that the S.D.F., mistaking numbers for efficiency and popularity for sound economics, is not a workers’ party. I regret, therefore, that I can no longer speak from the S.D.F. platform; and shall at once resign my membership, and as soon as possible settle my dues to my branch, thus leaving the party in an honourable manner. I shall apply to the Socialist Party of Great Britain for membership.

Yours fraternally,

Guy A. Aldred.

*    *    *    *

133, Goswell-road. E.C.

2/9/06

To the Editor, The Socialist Standard.

Dear Comrade,

After having been, during my membership of the S.D.F., one of the most vigorous opponents of the Party of winch the Standard is the organ, and having opposed that Party's Principles in a debate with Comrade Fitzgerald, I feel I owe an explanation to your readers for having accepted its principles, even though 1 may not be allowed to join its ranks. As a matter of fact, however, my acceptance of the revolutionary principles for the inculcation of which your organisation alone among Socialist organisations avowedly stands, represents the maturity of those ideas that first led me to join the S.D.F., and, subsequently, in disgust, to throw up Parliamentary correspondence for Justice. I now see quite clearly that a revisionist policy is incompatible with a revolutionary policy and it is because of that fact that the S.D.F. is so unsatisfactory an organisation. I have got about a good deal among its rank-and-file during my membership and I was surprised to find two distinct sets of feelings existing among its members. On the one hand there were the frankly revolutionary spirits, good, earnest, and sincere comrades; on the other, tame revisionists and mere social reformers. This being so, the organisation, as such, could have no policy, and hence could not be "class-conscious.” Now, Comrade, in the past I have accused your Party of merely mouthing the Class War, and have stated that I could do that on the S.D.F. platform. There may be an element of truth in that, but further study has revealed to me this fact, that if I speak on the S,D.F. platform I ought to subscribe to its constitution; and if I did so subscribe, I should have to subscribe to temporising and reactionary political "tactics” such as find practical expression in the case of Mr. W. Thorne, M.P. I cannot honestly do so and preach the Class War; so. although not yet a member of the S.P.G.B. 1 feel I can no longer honestly mount the S.D.F. platform as a supporter of S.D.F. tactics. Again; recently I initiated a correspondence in Justice on why Socialists could not philosophically believe in the capricious effects of prayer nor be Christians. Justice indulges in the old cant about "private religious belief.” This betrays a desire to negate Marxian economics and philosophic Socialism in order to secure the support of “class-conscious Socialists ” save the mark ! —like the Rev. Conrad Noel. No! Socialism is not to be established, the workers are not to be emancipated by the revisionist and respectable tactics of official S.D.F.ers. Only when the workers have realised the meaning of class-consciousness will they be emancipated. Meanwhile the class-controllers may be depended upon to delude by granting palliative "reforms” to soften the suffering occasioned by capitalistic and class-control of the necessities of existence.

Just now I am I booked up for several engagements with comrades in the S.D.F. I admire and respect for their devotion to the cause of working-class emancipation, a devotion wrongly employed in the interest of the revisionists at the head of the S.D.F. 1 find it hard to cut myself adrift from these colleagues ; but I feel I must be true to myself.

In conclusion, therefore, Comrade, let me thank those comrades of the S.P.G.B. who have so persistently brought under my notice the logic of the revolutionary position and also the official abuses existing in the S.D.F. Whatever the future may have in store for me, I shall remember, with gratitude, the services they have rendered me. Thanking you in anticipation, Yours fraternally,

Guy A. Aldred.

(Late Parliamentary Correspondent to Justice.)

{Subsequent to the receipt of the foregoing an article by our correspondent appeared in Justice which conveyed the impression that the writer had not clearly apprehended the position of the S.P.G.B. He was written on the subject by the General Secretary of the Party and the following reply was received.}

*    *    *    *

16/9/06               

133, Goswell-rd, E.C.

To Comrade W. Gifford,
Gen. Sec., S.P.G.B.

Dear Comrade,

Your letter of the l4th inst to hand. In reply, I would beg to state that the letter that appeared in Justice above my name was sent some days previous to the letter I addressed to the Southampton S.D.F. and a copy of which I addressed to you. At the same time as I addressed this copy to you I addressed another copy of the same letter to the editor of Justice, and it is this letter to which reference is made in the editorial comment. When I noticed this fact I addressed a further letter of complaint to the editor of Justice ; but was informed, by Comrade A. A. Watts, in the communication I enclose, that Quelch could not publish it. These are the facts.

Coming to my attitude at the present time. Briefly. it is this: Socialism, standing for the complete revolution of the present state of Society, can only be realised when the proletariat are educated up to class-consciousness and are thus able to obtain their own emancipation. In the meantime, it is unnecessary for Socialists to ask for or to seek to obtain palliatives, since the directing of attention to these palliatives must inevitably divert attention away from the end at which we aim. .Socialism is therefore opposed, not only to both capitalist parties, but also to the humbug of the present Labour Party; the existence of a Parliamentary Labour Party without a Socialist programme and a Socialist proletariat being more or less a farce. Furthermore, seeing that Trade-Unionism tends to perpetuate the present system, and by its standing for a minimum wage, tends to play into the hands of the Capitalistic Class who need but reply by increasing the cost of the necessities of existence, Socialism must attack and denounce it as being ineffective, and tending to create an aristocracy of labour, since the unskilled do not and cannot benefit by its workings, so long as Capitalism endures. I stand therefore, for anti-revisionism, anti-palliationism, and clear and straightforward revolutionary Socialist propaganda; and am opposed to voting for either Liberal or Tory party under any circumstances. I am also opposed to the placarding of any district with bills, by a Socialist candidate for either municipal or Parliamentary office that would lead other than class conscious electors to vote for such a candidate. I also feel that many members of the S.D.F. do not understand economics. These facts notwithstanding, I have withdrawn my resignation, since 1 feel that to leave under present circumstances would be of no service to the cause. Among S.D.F.-ers it would be thought that I had been “huffed” into resignation over the religious question, whilst it seems to me that the S.P.G.B. comrades would be doubtful about my sincerity. I also find that whilst the rank and file of the S.D.F. includes many tame and inane revisionists, it also includes many avowed revolutionaries. I also find that there is nothing in the constitution forbidding one to preach revolutionary, clear-cut Socialism. Rather than be misunderstood, I propose to use the S.D.F platform for placing before members these revolutionary ideas, and where it brings me in conflict with other members to, without hesitation, oppose these members; then, if I am expelled, members and comrades will be in no doubt as to the reason of my expulsion. So far as organised representation is concerned, I will only add that, in my opinion, the S.P.G.B. embodies, in its constitution, the best organised expression of class-conscious Socialism. But under present circumstances, although I gain nothing by so doing, I believe, in order that I may not be misunderstood, it is best for me to at present expound clear-cut and uncompromising "impossibilism" on the S.D.F. platform.

With best wishes, and giving you full permission to publish this correspondence. I remain, fraternally yours,

Guy A. Aldred

*    *    *    *

{Enclosure.}

Twentieth Century Press. Ltd.
37a, Clerkenwell Green,
London E.C

Sept. 10th, 1906.
Dear Comrade

H. Quelch asks me to write round to you to say he cannot publish your letter.

Regarding your later note, respecting the article on Egypt, he would he very pleased to have it if you will send it in.

Fraternally yours,

A. A. Watts. Sec.

Imported Nonsense (1906)

From the December 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The sapient gentleman whom the Daily News is pleased to claim as its own special correspondent in Paris, in referring to the appointments of Viviani and Briand to the Clemenceau Cabinet says: "The Socialist ideal is, of course, the substitution of "collective" exploitation for "capitalistic" exploitation. The Daily News gentleman had better try again. “The Socialist ideal is of course" nothing of the kind. It is the substitution of collective ownership and control for capitalistic ownership and control with the consequent extinction of exploitation altogether. The Daily News gent has been studying the work of those Socialists who unfortunately afflict the movement in France as in England. He has correctly stated their ideal. They are for State capitalism or collective exploitation. We are not concerned with State capitalism. We are concerned with Socialism. Socialism is the negation of capitalism. Consequently State capitalism cannot be the ideal of any Socialist. Ergo those who preach State capitalism or collective exploitation are not Socialists. The Daily News gent has been studying in the wrong school.