Voice from the Back: Capitalist moonshine (2003)

Voice from the Back column from the September 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalist moonshine

Phineas T. Barnum (1810-1891) was a famous showman and circus owner who is perhaps best remembered for the phrase, “There's a sucker born every minute”, but even that old huckster would have been astounded at capitalism's most recent scam. Selling property on the moon! It's true; a Mr Dennis M. Hope of the Lunar Embassy is offering on the internet to sell you an acre of the moon. According to their website “The sale of lunar property has been ongoing for 22 years by the Lunar Embassy, which is the only company in the world to possess a legal basis and copyright for the sale of lunar, and other extraterrestial property within the confines of our solar system.” They claim to have sold over a million acres already. Its not as unlikely as it sounds, after all the majority of people on the planet earth seem to think it is a sensible arrangement to have all the resources of this planet owned by a tiny handful.

Winners and losers

“America's defence spending grew so strongly in supplying the war against Iraq that it propelled the US economy to a spring surge just as Britain and the eurozone suffered from cuts in tourism and travel.” Times, Business Section (1 August) In any war some sections of the capitalist class will benefit, such as the armament business, others will lose business and have to face possible tax increases. There is one section of the population that never gains from war – the world's working class. Ask the recently bereaved families of Iraq, Britain or the US.

Yesterday's allies

In reviewing Clyde Prestowitz's book “Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions”, Economist (9 August) highlights the duplicity of US foreign policy. “He reminds us that the United States tacitly accepted the Taliban's assumption of power in Afghanistan, tells us that it supplied them with anthrax and botulin, and unkindly notes that it was one Donald Rumsfeld who went to Baghdad in 1983 to assure Saddam Hussein of American support.” This is not peculiar to US foreign policy, every country in the world adopts a policy that it hopes will advance the interests of their capitalist masters. Duplicity and double-dealing are the norm in the cut-throat world of capitalism.

US charm offensive

Some sectors of the US population seem puzzled that their troops in Afghanistan and Iraq don't seem to be universally loved so perhaps the following may shed some light on the matter. “ Like many of his fellow GIs, (Pte Simon) Behrndt's take on how best to conduct security in an occupied nation is not complicated. “Basically”, he told the Daily Telegraph, “we go in, kick in the doors, pull the guys out of bed, drag them outside, put zip ties around their wrists, throw them in the truck and take them in for questioning . . . The raids are a real adrenaline rush, plus I get to practice my Tae Kon Do moves on out-of-line EPWs (enemy prisoners of war).” The Week (9 August)

The final solution?

Labour's David Blunkett wants longer sentences, Conservative spokesman Oliver Letwin wants more prisons built, but Phil Wheatley, the new director of the prison service reckons they are both wrong. “In a direct challenge to central elements of the home secretary's criminal justice reforms, Phil Wheatley declared that prisons should not be “lightly used” because “they are not the answer” to crime. Mr Wheatley's extraordinary comment that overcrowding was one factor behind the record increase in suicides is likely to be welcomed by members of the judiciary, who have warned that Mr Blunkett's reforms will swell the prison population yet further.” Guardian (18 August) Maybe Wheatley, Letwin and the judiciary have got it wrong; could Blunkett have a “cunning plan” a la Blackadder? With a prison population in England and Wales of 74,000 and 105 suicides maybe his plan is to double the overcrowding and thus the suicide rate. More suicides equals less criminals! It could be a New Labour vote winner with league tables just like schools and hospitals.

Editorial: Caring is Not Enough (2012)

Editorial from the May 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

A system is not a thing which is capable of caring for anything or anyone, it simply performs the functions it was set up or adapted to perform. Capitalism is set up to enable the pursuit of profit for private gain, regardless of other ‘external’ outcomes. The chief beneficiaries of this system do care but only about protecting their interests. Their main concern is for the wellbeing of their own future, and short term gains always take priority over less profitable long term considerations. Such questions as the health and wellbeing of workers are treated as externalities, as is the state of the planet, now being plundered and abused to irredeemable levels through reckless use of its resources and pollution of land, water and air.

Governments don't care; corporations and shareholders don't care, except for upholding the status quo to protect the bottom line. Endless promises are made pre-election and endlessly broken afterwards. Elected politicians, unelected paid advisors and supposed experts working together deliver one failure or crisis after another, following policies and goals that usually fly in the face of public opinion. Meanwhile the electorate, who have no meaningful part to play in the decision-making process, are expected to meekly acquiesce.  

Nevertheless, capitalist governments to some extent have to buy this acquiescence. Modern societies do not consider it acceptable to turn out the old, the sick or the poor to die in the gutter, even if they are no practical use as workers, so state administrations have to invest in looking busy by funding a ‘support’ industry which is forever the subject of new approaches, paradigms and target-led initiatives. In this issue we have personal accounts by three socialists of their experiences in the caring and support services which show just how big a gulf there is between what governments say in their speeches and what they really care about.

None of this will come as any surprise to most Standard readers. But it is encouraging that the almost universal acceptance of the status quo by politicians, economists and the media is being challenged by growing numbers of people around the world who do care and who do believe there are alternatives. Many people are starting to realize that, if the whole world has to live with and bear the consequences of decisions made about it, then it follows that this decision-making process needs to belong to all the people of the world. And that means getting involved, and giving proactive support to the struggle for revolutionary change. A system embodying genuine participative democracy as a fundamental principle is in the best interests of everyone, but it won’t come about if people don’t work for it, however much they care.

Members in the Great War (1964)

From the September 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

When conscription came into operation during the 1914-1918 war, members knew that they stood no chance of being exempted from military service on conscientious grounds. Nevertheless, some went before the tribunals whilst others went on their travels.

Adolph Kohn went to America and landed into trouble there when America came into the war. He took part in the formation of our companion party over there and continued to send articles to the Socialist Standard. One of his articles was opened by the American authorities and they tried to trace him. As soon as he discovered they were looking for him; though he did not know why, he adopted various expedients to keep under cover. One of these was taking a job as a civilian auditor in a military camp. However, he succeeded in remaining free until the end of the war. At the behest of the American authorities the police over here made enquiries. In the course of their enquiries they interviewed Fitzgerald, whom they kept in prison for a night. On him they found an address book containing the name of Kohn's sister, Hilda. They also interviewed her without success. They did not even find out that she was a member of the Party, although she was the General Secretary at that time, and also at the time when Head Office was raided by the police.

Harry Russ had decided to sleep out in the open and keep away from towns. He moved about the country, wet and dry, and after some months reached the neighbourhood of Sheffield. He saw some placards advertising a meeting to be addressed by Ramsay MacDonald. Craving for company he resolved to risk attending just this one meeting. He did so. The meeting was raided and he was arrested, along with others, as an absentee from military service. He refused to be conscripted on the ground that, as a Socialist, he was opposed to the war. He was stripped of his clothes and presented with a uniform but refused to put it on. Various manoeuvres were tried to get him to sign his name, but he refused to sign anything. He was then transferred to Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight. Whilst he was there, one of the buildings was occupied by soldiers who were going back to the front after their leave. One evening a warder who was taking him across the compound pushed him in with the remark, "here you are boys, here's a bloody conchie." He was knocked about and was so furious when he got out that he determined to complain to the warden. He crossed to the gate, which was open, went into the road and, finding it deserted, suddenly decided to walk off. He had the name of a sympathiser on the island who hid him and then provided him with money to get across to Portsmouth and then to London. On the platform at Portsmouth late that night he heard someone calling him. He turned around and found it was an army officer. He thought "this is it," but all the officer wanted to know was if the train in the station was bound for London! When Russ arrived in London he lodged with some members, also "on the run," who pretended to be employed on jobs essential to the war. He succeeded in remaining free until the war ended.

E. Hardy ("H" of the Socialist Standard) was working as a farm pupil when he was called up. He was offered exemption on the ground that he was engaged in the essential service of farming. He refused to accept this on the ground that it would have meant some other worker being called up. He went before the tribunal and was turned down, as he expected. After some months in an army guardroom and a court martial he was put in Wormwood Scrubs prison, where he remained for six months. Whilst in there he learnt from the "old lags" the mystery of dealing with the burden of the bugs that came out and attacked him when he lay down on his plank bed. The method was to use his soap to fill in as many cracks in the planks as he could find. Incidentally he was glad that he had learnt poetry as he was able to while away solitary hours by repeating poetry to himself. In the Scrubs there were other S.P.G.B.'ers. and lively discussion went on under the tolerant eye of a sympathetic warder.

At one time in an army guardroom there were two other S.P.G.B.'ers., and one of them named Brooks, organised a class on Marxian economics among the military prisoners, more than a dozen who listened attentively. It went on for many nights until it came to the notice of the authorities and they separated Brooks, Hardy and the other member from the rest of the prisoners. Eventually Hardy was transferred to a Conscientious Objectors party working on construction in Wales. The first night in camp he climbed into the top hammock. There was an argument going on between two of the inmates. He intervened. Immediately a head popped out below him and a voice exploded "Well, gorblimey, we got rid of old Banks this morning and now we have another S.P.G.B.'er." It appeared that Jimmy Banks had also been transferred there before Hardy and used to hold forth on the Party's position.

One morning, while Hardy was there, the foreman on the job complained about the appearance of one of the C.O.'s who used to turn up for work in a pair of dirty old trousers, supported by a string, a pair of old boots, a ragged shirt with no collar, and a dilapidated coat. The foreman appealed to the chap to dress a bit better. The next morning this man turned up in a clean shirt, collar and tie, a nice coat, hat and walking stick, but he still wore the trousers tied up with string and the dilapidated boots.

Mick Cullen was a member of Birmingham Branch. When he was turned down by the tribunal he got half a column write-up in the Daily Mail headed "A class fighter, not a conscientious objector." Cullen was handed over to the military who put him in a house with other prisoners for the night. He climbed through the window, caught a train to Holyhead and then the night boat to Dublin. At that time Irishmen who were prepared to work in England during the war, to make up for the shortage of manpower, were provided with a green ticket exempting them from military service. The morning Cullen arrived in Dublin he applied for a green ticket, received it and took the boat back to England the same night. As he did not care to risk going back near Birmingham he took a train up the North East Coast. After he had travelled some way up the coast a man who was sitting opposite him in the compartment suddenly leaned forward and demanded to see his exemption papers. Cullen asked him what the hell he was talking about and who the hell he was, anyway. Then the man produced his warrant card showing that he was a police inspector. Cullen then went into action. "Oho," said he, exploding with wrath, "You're just the man I want to meet. I was told in Dublin that there were plenty of jobs over here but I have been traipsing around unable to get one." And so he went on, going for the inspector in a fury. At last the exasperated inspector assured Cullen that he had been just unlucky: that there were plenty of jobs. He gave Cullen his card with the address of a factory in Newcastle and told him to present the card and he would be assured of a job. At the next station the inspector hurriedly got out, obviously glad to escape the ravings of Cullen. However, finally the authorities caught up with Cullen again and he had to make his way back to Ireland and remain there for the rest of the war.

There was a group of members imprisoned in Dartmoor and others in Scotland in C.O. camps where they distributed Party literature.

The present writer also went to Ireland. I packed a kit-bag with so many books that I had no room for my clothes. On that account I had to cycle from Cork around the South and East coast to Belfast wearing two suits, a heavy overcoat, and a heavy kit-bag fastened to my back. I crossed over with a member who was a music hall juggler and was appearing for a week in Cork. I was supposed to be his assistant and he got me through.

In Belfast, being somewhat unsophisticated, I tried to sell art postcards in the streets. I had to give up deciding, by results, that the Irish were not an art-loving nation. I then got a job with a dentist as a canvasser but later the dentist took me in to teach me dentistry. Finally he arranged for me to "walk the hospitals" so that I could qualify. Fearing this would reveal the fact that I was technically a deserter from the army, I told him I was not fitted for the profession and gave up the job. This was not much of a financial loss because, in order to get the job, I had pretended I had private means and the doctor had ordered me to take an open air job on account of my health. In fact I was half starved.

I then followed a number of occupations, including selling cattle, horse and sheep medicine, dock labouring, working in a saw mill and driving a Foden steam wagon. Part of the time a friendly tailor let me sleep in his shop on the sewing board. Finally I got a job cutting timber in the mountains for a lumber company. This lasted me until the war ended, when I returned to London.

These are just a few rambling notes about what happened to a few members of the Party during the 1914-1918 war. Many other members could tell similar stories. Some went to different parts of the world and either remained there or only returned after the passage of a long time. As a result it was a sadly battered and reduced Party that gathered together after the war to continue the struggle.

Gilmac.

Greasy Pole: Mission Implausible (2014)

The Greasy Pole Column from the April 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was enough to recall the reaction of Bumble the Beadle confronted by Oliver Twist asking for another spoonful of workhouse gruel when David Cameron described his government's drive to reduce the number of welfare benefit claimants as a 'Moral Mission... giving them new hope and responsibility' when in fact what they have to look forward to is a closer and more frequent acquaintance with the charity of the Food Banks. The truth of Cameron's phrase was exposed by the author of a recent report from the 'right wing' Policy Exchange think tank '... there are a significant number of people who have had their benefit taken away from them unfairly. Four weeks without any money is driving people to desperate measures'. Even worse – among the regular users of the Food Banks are people suffering from various health problems, including disablement, such that they are unable to work and rely on welfare benefits. Which often requires them to submit to a compulsory programme of tests of their capability and if they fail in this they are likely to be condemned to 'sanctions' – a reduction, or even a stop, of their benefit payments.

ATOS

It is by way of justifying this process, with all its tensions and misery, that Cameron called for that Moral Mission with its assumption that imposed employment is a guarantee of a freer, happier, more fulfilling life. It was clear that bringing this callous fantasy into operation would require one of the specialist organisations of which the better known are SERCO, G4S, Capita Group – and ATOS – none which have been clear of controversy. The government contract was awarded to ATOS, which was formed in 1997 through a series of mergers, take-overs and sell-offs, now presenting itself as supplying hi-tech IT services and network connecting. In the United Kingdom it holds a £500 million government contract to organise and operate the Work Capability Assessment system which forms a judgement of benefit claimants' fitness to work and passes this to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). ATOS claims to do this '... using criteria set out by government, and provides the DWP with independent advice which is used by a DWP Decision Maker, along with any other information they have received, to decide on your entitlement to benefit'. As to their style in carrying out this delicate and sensitive work, their CEO Joe Hemming recently informed the House of Commons Public Administration Committee that it '... is proud of the work it does ...' with '... a real passion for delivering services to the citizen in a way that continues to satisfy the way the citizen wants to be served'.

Protests

But the world outside Joe Hemming's fantasies has rather different experiences. In dealing with claimants who have been referred to them ATOS uses the Logical Integrated Medical Assessment (LIMA) method which works with a spreadsheet listing questions which have to be answered by the infamous Box Ticking method. Sitting there with a computer and a mouse the assessor (described by ATOS as a 'healthcare professional') does not rely on any special knowledge or qualifications or previous contact with the trembling applicant before them. Among the results of these 'assessments' there was the 47-year old woman who was pestered to attend to have her Fitness for Work rated when she was in a coma after a heart attack. A 39-year old woman with three children was suffering from a brain tumour. She informed her assessor of this but was told to start looking for a job. Just weeks afterwards she died. In the year up to September 2013 there were 897,690 'sanctions' (would 'punishment' not be a more suitable word?) by the DWP carrying the threat of a stoppage of benefits. Predictably there was a flood of protest and appeals. During the final three months of that same period there were some 600,000 appeals with a success rate of 87 percent.

Sanctions

It hardly needs to be said that the work of ATOS, in conjunction with that of the DWP, should always be done so that it is, at the very least, sensitive to the desperate existence of the people they are judging. But that does not happen. In 2013 a doctor who had been an ATOS assessor told the BBC that he had been 'instructed to change my reports, to reduce the number of points that might be awarded to the claimants. I felt that was wrong professionally and ethically'. It was the same for a nurse who said she had been instructed to mark down claimants she knew were unfit for work. It was predictable that claimants heavily dependent on charities and food banks should react aggressively to this treatment. The Financial Times reported that in 2013 there were almost 163 cases of ATOS staff being insulted and abused: 'Murdering scum... won't be smiling when we come to hang you bastards' was one sample from Facebook. The response of ATOS staff was also as expected: one said on his Facebook that the claimants were 'parasitic wankers'; another referred to her workplace as '... that Godforsaken place with the down-and-outs'. In Edinburgh the ATOS staff retaliated to a protest outside their office by giving the V sign out of an open window. A likely result of all this is that ATOS will give up on their contract before it is due to expire in August next year.

Morality

There should be more celebration on this score as so profitable is the mission of cajoling people from the stresses of charity back to those of employment that there are plenty of other companies prepared to take over. There will be no change if Labour win the next election. The Work Capacity Assessment was introduced by the previous Labour government in 2008 and in their 2010 election manifesto they proclaimed their intention to widen its scope – ‘people with disabilities will be helped to move into work’ – and pledged that they would extend their 'tough but fair work capacity test' to get more people off Incapacity Benefit and Employment Support Allowance.

The morality of capitalism is founded on intrinsic human misery and operates through legalised theft and exploitation and the consequent hostilities within the class which needs above all to be united. There is no need for ATOS – or for Cameron and his Mission in hypocrisy – to remind us so elaborately of this.

Ivan

The Films (1955)

From the July 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

From time to time Hollywood gives us a film which is worthy of our attention. In this category we may place On The Waterfront, The Barefoot Contessa, and more recently Marty. All these films present not only a high standard of technical skill and acting ability, but also, and this is what makes them particularly interesting, an unusually accurate reflection upon some parts of contemporary life.

This is perhaps most obvious in Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront. It is the story of the docker who is gradually awakened to the reality of the life around him; of his increasing antagonism, his rebellious stirrings, and his final successful combat with the crooked union bosses. This is a film to see not only because of the skill which has gone into its making, but also because it rings true.

The Barefoot Contessa is as subtle as On The Waterfront is obvious. Here is a biting satirical essay upon wealth and power. There are lines in the film which one feels had they appeared in a film of five years ago, would have resulted in the writer making a sprightly appearance before the Un-American Activities Committee.

Of the three, however, Marty is undoubtedly the pick. Here is a film which is pure joy. No great Hollywood epic this, but the simple tale of the search of a very ordinary American, a butcher by profession, for a spouse. The whole thing reads as true to life as the usual product is false. No de-luxe kitchens, no stupendous cars and fashionable clothes, no slinky blonde who makes the rest of her sex pale into masculine insignificance, this is reality; and because it is is real it pulls at the heart strings and tugs at the emotions with devastating effect. There can be few people who could possibly sit through this film without recognising their own experience as they flash before them on the screen.

This is a film about real people living in a real world. Here are depicted social problems of this day and age, problems of loneliness, of old age, of inadequate housing, of artificial social values; they are all paraded before us. The film has no answer to these problems, even though hero and heroine are reunited at the end of the final reel, but at least it has the courage to pose them. We can but hope that this trend in realism, which has already been felt—particularly in the Italian and Mexican film, will be continued, and that the cinema public will not only become aware of life's problems but also realise their solution.

Michael D. Gill

Notes on Party History: The Islington Dispute (1954)

From the August 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Islington dispute occurred in 1906. It revolved around our attitude to Trade Unions, also to the question of whether a Branch of the Party was in order in suspending propaganda activity with the object of forcing the Party to reverse a decision that the Branch considered a fundamental and dangerous mistake.

At the end of December 1905, a certain R. A. V. Morris attended an Executive Committee meeting and asked what was the difference between the S.P.G.B. and the Socialist Labour Party. After his question had been answered he expressed himself as satisfied. A week later a request to form a branch of the Party in the Bexley Heath District was received, and one of the signatories was R. A. V. Morris. On the 9th January, 1906, the Executive agreed to the formation of the Bexley Heath Branch.

From what immediately followed one is forced to the conclusion that the formation of the branch was a shady manoeuvre planned by people interested in the Socialist Labour Party.

In February 1906, the Executive Committee were receiving items for the Party Conference Agenda. On the 20th February the following item was received from the Bexley Heath Branch:

"That the E. C. be instructed to approach the S.L.P. with a view to the union of the two parties."

The E. C. declined to put this item on the Conference Agenda and gave the reason in the resolution that was passed on the subject, which was as follows:

Neumann and Jackson moved:

"That the Bexley Heath and District Branch be informed that the E. C. does not see its way to put their resolution on the Conference Agenda, as it conflicts with the Declaration of Principles of the Party; further that it be pointed out that when R. A. V. Morris attended the E. C. before the Bexley Heath Branch was formed he raised the question of the existence of the two bodies and expressed himself satisfied with the explanation given."

At the 1906 Conference the Bexley Heath delegates brought the matter forward and asked the Conference of the E. C. was in order in declining to put their item on the agenda. The Conference overruled the action of the E. C., restored the item and discussed it. Arising out of the discussion two resolutions were moved and lost.

Before giving the text of these resolutions it should be mentioned that one of the founders of the Party, and a very active speaker and writer, E. J. B. Allen, had been vigorously supporting the ideas of the Industrial Workers of the World, but not supporting the S.L.P. There had already been trouble with Allen and an article of his committing the Party to support of the I.W.W.  had been rejected.

The first resolution referred to above was as follows:

Humphrey and Hopley moved:
"Whereas pure and simple Trade Unions foster trade struggles and keep the workers divided, and
"Whereas the unity of the workers on the economic field, and whereas, only by the unity of the workers in a Socialist Industrial Union, as well as in a Socialist Party is sound progress possible,
Resolved that the Socialist Party of Great Britain condemns pure and simple unionism, and calls upon its members inside and outside of existing trade unions to carry on an organised propaganda in favour of revolutionary industrial unionism as the first step towards the establishment of a Socialist Industrial Union to work in co-operation with the Party for the overthrow of capitalism."

E. J. B. Allen, I. W. Allen, Leigh and Phillips supported the resolution.

Neumann, Fitzgerald, Jackson and Pearson opposed it.

The resolution was defeated on a card vote: 81 for; 111 against.

It was then agreed that a Special Meeting be called to discuss Trade Unions and a poll of the Party be taken on all resolutions arising therefrom.

Later in the Conference Morris and Carter moved:

"That the E. C. be instructed to approach the S. L. P. with a view to the union of the two parties." 

Fairbrother, Humphrey and Phillips supported the resolution and Jackson, Mrs Anderson, A. W. Pearson, Neumann,  Fitzgerald and Gray opposed it. The resolution was lost by 4 votes to 9.

After the Conference the Islington Branch sent a resolution to the new E. C. [the Executive Committee at that time, and for long afterwards, was appointed by a vote of the membership which was counted at the Conference] repudiating the action of the delegates in discussing a motion which was in direct conflict with the D. of P., endorsed the action of the previous E. C., and called upon the new E. C. to ignore the instructions of Conference to take a Poll of the Party on the Conference findings, and to obtain from Bexley Heath Branch a formal withdrawal of its resolution.

The Executive Committee accepted the proposal and submitted the following question to the membership for a referendum vote:

"Did the conference, in accepting as in order the Bexley Heath resolution, exceed its power?"

The result of the Referendum was a majority favoured the view that the Conference had exceeded its power. But the majority was a narrow one, 35 to 34, with a large number of abstentions.

The Executive Committee circulated the result to branches and there let the matter rest. The Islington Branch, however, came back again, urging the E. C. to request the Bexley Heath Branch to forthwith rescind the resolution standing on its books. The E. C. replied that this could not be done without falsifying the records, and that they did not think it necessary to go any further in this matter.

The Islington Branch carried on their agitation. They claimed that the Bexley Heath Branch was still unsound and that the E. C.  had failed in its duty by not pursuing the matter. As a protest they decided to suspend all propaganda activity until the Party had taken such action as would absolve itself from any charge of being unsound. They circulated the E. C. and all Branches to this effect. The E. C. pointed out to them that this action was neither in accord with Party discipline nor helpful to the cause of Socialism. Islington them circulated the branches charging the E. C. with criminal neglect and calling for their immediate removal. The E. C. then informed Islington that they would place Islington's unconstitutional action before the next Delegate Meeting for their decision and Party vote.

The E. C. submitted a statement to the Branches on the subject. Islington claimed that they only received this statement four days before the Delegate Meeting and therefore had no time to place their own case in reply before the members.

The Delegate Meeting, which was held in July, 1906, considered the case and decided that the line taken by the E. C. was correct, and carried a resolution expelling the Islington Branch. This Delegate Meeting also expelled Bexley Heath Branch for supporting the S.L.P.

In August 1906, the Islington Branch submitted to the membership a twenty page printed pamphlet called "Rocks Ahead." This was their reply to the E. C.'s statement. They denied that their action was unconstitutional and claimed that they were not interfering with the E. C.'s power to do as much propaganda in Islington as they liked. This statement was addressed to "Comrades" and put their side without engaging in personalities but bad feeling was developing. In December, 1906, while still claiming to be Branch of the Party, they issued another pamphlet with the title "Another Political Wreck." This pamphlet was addressed "to the Working Class" and was badly marred by personal attacks.

Looking back on this dispute now it appears to the writer that the Islington Branch were on the right track when they urged that action should be taken against Bexley Heath Branch but they were wrong in trying to force the E. C. and the Party to take action by suspending propaganda. However, the dispute was one of the penalties that had to be paid in the work of hammering out a sound policy. The pity of it was that, owing to the feeling developed in the dispute, we lost some valuable members.

Gilmac.

(To be continued).

More Light on the Russian Confessions (1937)

From the September 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The widespread disbelief in the genuineness of the "confessions" made by prisoners of the Russian dictatorship has had the good effect of bringing more information to light. The International Review, which has published much valuable material during its short existence (published in New York. P.O. Box 44, Sta. O, New York City. 15 cents a month, 1 dollar 75 cents a year) reproduces in its August issue extracts from a statement made before an unofficial committee of inquiry in Prague by a German Communist named Wolf, who lived for considerable periods in Russia. Through casual contact with another Communist who fell foul of the Russian police, Wolf suddenly found himself arrested and urged to plead guilty to Trotskyite and Nazi activities. Here is a typical passage describing how "confessions" were extracted from him: -

At 11 o'clock in the night, he was suddenly undressed, examined, transferred to a cell. Sleep? The light remains there day and night. Every several minutes a soldier, in the service of the G.P.U., looked through the hole in the door. Wolf had hardly fallen asleep when the door suddenly opened, and he was subjected to an interrogation that lasted from 11.30 p.m. to 5 a.m., and started again at 6.30. He was permitted to sit down on a small, narrow, backless iron seat, before a small table. This continued for weeks. He raved, crying for sleep. Every interrogation terminated with his signing a stenographic report in Russian, which he could hardly make out.

He describes convincingly how his questioners twisted and distorted every harmless detail of his past activities. He had lodged in the house of a Trotskyite: therefore he must be a Trotskyite. He had once suggested that the Russian lumbermen's paper should get its own radio station: he therefore must have wanted to establish communication with the Nazis with it. His father was in a Nazi concentration camp: Ah, that was just a trick of the Nazis to fool the Russian police.

On the advice of the Russian Communist Party he had written reports to a German Liberal newspaper favourably commenting on industrial development in Russia: that "proved" his contact with the Nazis, although the paper was anti-Nazi and the reports were written before Hitler came to power.

So it goes on, until the police have their "confession." Luckily for Wolf his German citizenship deterred the Russian police eventually.

All that can be said about the police procedure used in Russia is that there are lots of other countries which use the same procedure.

A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, who has just left Russia after many years' residence there, claims to have interviewed 98 people arrested between 1928 and 1932, about half of whom alleged that they "were subjected to actual torture" in Russian jails. The article dealing with this was published by the Manchester Guardian on August 19th, 1937. The correspondent (whose name is not given) points out that only a fraction of the Russian trials are held in public and the witnesses or defendants who "confess" are only a selected few of the much larger number arrested and held by the police.

In conclusion, for the benefit of those who still believe that "confession" means guilt, consider the report from Rebel Spain about the bombing of the British ship, "British Corporal," outside Algiers. The Rebel authorities at Majorca admitted it was their doing, an unfortunate mistake! General Franco, nominally in supreme command over the Majorca authorities, denied this. He had "proof" that the bombing was done by Russian airmen in the pay of the Spanish Republican Government. What was the proof? What else than a "confession" by a Russian airman captured in Rebel territory. And here is the comment of Mr. Philip Jordan, of the News Chronicle (August 12th, 1937): -

If indeed such an airman exists, it is possible that he has said such a thing. When in Spain I was able to authenticate the case of a Russian pilot brought down in rebel territory with three bullet wounds, one of them in his head. For three days and three nights he was not allowed to sleep or to receive medical attention. At the end of that time he was ready to make any statement demanded from him.

What price confessions?

Another Debate. (1910)

From the June 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although Mr. Wimborne was the challenger, he declined to open the debate when he met our representative at Manor Park on April 4th, so Comrade Dawkins took the platform and outlined the propaganda carried on by the S.P.G.B., stating that the audience well knew what Socialism was as expounded by his comrades and himself. And he defied Mr. Wimborne to deal with Socialism and not to saddle the S.P.G.B. with the vagaries of Messers. Quelch, Blatchford, Ramsay Macdonald, or the kidnapped Victor Grayson. Nor was he to set up any Aunt Sally and then proceed to knock the poor old lady down and scalp her, for the satisfaction of exhibiting a reeking trophy to the public gaze.

Mr. Wimborne opened by admitting that the capitalist system was not perfect. He claimed however, that the horrible tyranny which would be set up if the Socialists had their way would be far worse. He quoted from a book he called "Allinson's History of Europe" showing the massacres which were perpetrated in France during the Revolution, and he described the S.P.G.B. as the Jacobins of the Socialist movement, who would ruthlessly slaughter all who disagreed with them. Brotherhood was a dream which could never be realised. Christianity had tried for 2,000 years to bring it about and failed. All the great teachers had failed, then how could a few men calling themselves the Socialist Party of Great Britain hope to do what every great genius had failed to do? Now under present conditions the best man came to the top. There was plenty of scope for talent to display itself. But under Socialism the commune would decree what work every man and woman should do. What would happen if the commune decreed that Comrade Dawkins should sweep the roads? Dawkins would decline and then the awful machinery would be set to work. The President would put down his foot and say: the roads want sweeping—Dawkins is a handy man with a broom and Dawkins shall sweep the roads. Mr. Wimbourne then came to his remedy for the existing evils. First we must trust to scientific development. And we must all admit that things are getting better, said he, whereat the audience set up a roar of derisive laughter. You may laugh and jeer, retorted the speaker, but you forget Old Age Pensions and the Workmen's Compensation Act, which bring solace to the old and to the widows of the killed. This statement moved the crowd to redoubled laughter, and even to actual rudeness, whereupon the disheartened protagonist of Liberalism vacated the platform.

Comrade Dawkins dealt with his opponent's points seriatim and in Dawkinesque style. He pointed out that Mr. Wimborne need not have gone to the early struggles of capitalists for supremacy to show how they will murder without scruple all who jeopardise their material interests, and instanced Cecil Rhodes and Co., who butchered thousands of the Matabele in the quest for gold and diamonds.

Our comrade then showed the fraud of Old Age Pensions and the Workmen's Compensation Act, and demonstrated that scientific development, instead of helping the working class, was kicking them in the bread basket every time. Each new application of science to industry was militating against the working class and must continue to do so under private or class ownership in any form.

With regard to the harrowing spectacle of Dawkins sweeping the roads, Dawkins pointed out that degrading as Mr. Wimborne and his superior friends thought such a job was, hundreds of thousands of men were eager for that work now, at a few shillings per week recompense, that many men now do far dirtier and more unpleasant jobs and don't care who sees them where no social inferiority is implied. Under Socialism no useful, necessary work would be held degrading. Our whole outlook would be altered and such things as the rewarding of men like Kitchener and Cromer with hundreds and thousands and people like Madame Curie with a mere pittance would be regarded as sheer lunacy.

Briefly it was thus.

W. Watts.

Retrospect (1964)

Editorial from the September 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

In this special issue we commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of the first Socialist Standard.

In all that time it has never missed an issue. Through the vicissitudes of two world wars, when we often wondered whether we would be able to carry on at all, to economic slump when we were able to continue publication only through the goodwill of our printers, who carried us in debt for years, the Socialist Standard has carried on.

Now, we look back on those years which have seen so many changes and many terrible events.

Opposite this page we publish the front cover of the first Socialist Standard. It takes us back into another world, September 1904—when the motor-car was still a dangerous novelty; when Orville Wright had only a few months before flown the first aeroplane, for just 12 seconds. Fleming had recently invented the thermionic valve, but radio was still in the distant future; and Rutherford had just begun his researches into the structure of the atom which were to result, forty years later, in the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

War in those days was something associated with petty campaigns to subdue the native populations of Africa and Asia, although the Boer War had given a foretaste of more serious things to come. The Entente Cordiale between Britain and France had been signed a year earlier as a defence against German capitalism, a grimmer warning of the holocaust in the future. And the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War a few months earlier presaged both the rise of Japanese capitalism and the Russian Revolution of 1917.

In the world of politics there was a lot of talk about Socialism, but it was really reformism that was making the running. The formation of the Labour Party had still to wait two years, but parties like the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabians, and the I.L.P., were already busily paving the way for it. The German Social Democratic Party enjoyed the support of millions and there were similar and strong parties in France, Austria, Italy, and other countries, all claiming to be Socialist.

To the uncritical it looked as though Socialism was round the corner. The message by the Dutch Social Democratic Party on our first front page opposite reflects this general feeling of optimism.

But the uncritical were mistaking the high-flown verbiage for the hard content. All of those parties were to become tied to programmes of reform that ultimately extinguished what little spark of revolutionary aims they had. All of them were dominated by the fatal principle of leadership, of state-control and nationalisation; and all their pretence of internationalism was shattered into so many fragments by their support for the First World War.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain refused to follow them along this road. Our first editorial set out the principle we have adhered to ever since. In our fifth paragraph we said: "In dealing with all questions affecting the welfare of the working-class our standpoint will be frankly revolutionary. We shall show that the misery, the poverty and the degradation caused by capitalism, grow far more rapidly than does the enacting of palliative legislation for its removal. The adequate alleviation of these ills can be brought about only by a political party having Socialism for its object." 

This statement, made sixty years ago this month, we can still reproduce today; over 700 issues of the Socialist Standard testify to the consistency with which we have held to it.

Editorial. (1904)

Editorial from the September 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

TO OUR READERS.

Having inaugurated The Socialist Party of Great Britain, we find it indispensable that we should have a journal in which our views may be expressed.

We venture, therefore, to place before you The Socialist Standard, and trust that it will meet with your approval.

In The Socialist Party of Great Britain we are all members of the working class, and cannot hope that our articles will always be finely phrased, but we shall at least endeavour to lay before you on every occasion a sane and sound pronouncement on all matters affecting the welfare of the working class. What we lack in refinement of style we shall make good by the depth of our sincerity and by the truth of our principles.

We shall, for the present, content ourselves with a monthly issue, but we are confident that the various demands upon us, by the quantity of matter at our disposal, and by the growth of our party, will necessitate in the near future, a weekly issue of our paper.

In dealing with all questions affecting the welfare of the working-class our standpoint will be frankly revolutionary. We shall show that that the misery, the poverty, and the degradation caused by capitalism grows far more rapidly than does the enacting of palliative legislation for its removal. The adequate alleviation of these ills can be brought about only by a political party having Socialism for its object. So long as the powers of administration are controlled by the capitalist class so long can that class render nugatory any legisaltion they consider to unduly favour the workers.

We shall be pleased to consider any articles on Socialism and the working-class movement which may be submitted to us, and we also invite criticism on any question that may be dealt with in these columns. We shall give a fair hearing to all sides on any question, and trust that our correspondence columns will be freely used.

In future numbers of The Socialist Standard fresh features will be introduced in order to make our paper the worthy organ of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, and so that members of either the Socialist or of the non-Socialist section of the community, seeking for reliable information on Socialism in all its ramifications, will never fail to find their requirements satisfied in our columns. Any suggestions for the improvement of the paper which may be submitted will receive our serious consideration.

We invite your most merciless criticism of our work, but at the same time we sincerely trust that if The Socialist Standard meets with your approval you will do your utmost by recommending it to your friends to make it worthy of its name and of the Socialist movement.

THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.

Editorial: Left, right, left . . . (2001)

Editorial from the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The traditional response of Labour governments to the problems thrown up by the market economy is to move further to the right, so seasoned opinion would have it. And there would appear to be some justification for this view: from Ramsay MacDonald's formation of a National Government to supersede the Labour administration in 1931, to the eventual centrist drift of the reforming Attlee government after the war, through to the Wilson and Callaghan administrations which were characterised by radical rhetoric but anti-working class intent.

The Blair government first elected in 1997 always promised to be different. The key difference being, of course, that Blair performed the unique feat in Labour Party history of getting in his 'betrayal' of the so-called socialists in the Party before he was even elected. By the time of the 1997 election, Labour's programme was so right wing it was barely distinguishable from that of the Tories – especially so on economic affairs, social issues and foreign policy. Only in the rather more peripheral field of political reform was there any significant (if that is the right word) difference between the two.

That the Blair government in action proved to be as right wing as its declared intentions before election in 1997 was, in a sense, politically honest, but it was an honesty that infuriated the Party's left wing. The left hoped that all the talk before the election of free markets, the "rigour of competition" and of a "strong national defence" were just vote-garnering platitudes. But no – it turned out that Blair, Straw, Brown and co. really did believe all the hype and weren't socialist 'sleepers' after all, to be elected on a centrist platform while moving to the left when in office. As a result, the 1997-2001 Blair administration had the dubious distinction of being the most right wing Labour government ever.

Since the election earlier this year, however, something has happened to get the Daily Mail excited at last. And that something is that Labour, we are told, appears to have had a minor but noticeable shift to the left. The background to this was the nature of Labour's election win: a massive, but ultimately hollow victory characterised by the largest mass abstention in modern British political history and the public humiliation of the Prime Minister on the election trail by irate electors who told him he was no different to the shysters who had been running things over the previous 18 years.

Two concrete issues have since arisen that have defined this apparent shift in attitudes: higher education and the railways. In the former case, the government has promised to change the system of HE finance so that the element of tuition fees paid by students in England and Wales (though no longer in Scotland) is removed. Tuition fees were becoming a demonstrable impediment to the process of widening access to HE and the 'upskilling' that is necessary across key sectors of the UK workforce at present.

As for the railways, Transport Secretary Stephen Byers (one of the many reconstructed Trotskyists in the Cabinet) has at long last sent the administrators into Railtrack – which had accumulated debts of £3.48 billion – indicating that the services formerly provided by the company will be taken out of the control of the shareholders and existing management.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this is being interpreted by many as some kind of 'left turn'. The reality, of course, is slightly different. This is no more an example of New Labour's radical intent than John Major and Michael Heseltine's desire to dump the Poll Tax a decade ago was an example of Conservative radicalism. In each case what is apparent is that the government has presided over financial and economic arrangements that simply haven't been working and which were grossly inefficient and counter-productive to effective business management – their response each time has simply been to try to find "a better way" regardless of supposedly radical considerations. Indeed, they have merely done what was, in a capitalist business sense, the obvious thing to do.

Most importantly, the fact remains that students will continue to leave higher education with average debts in excess of £10,000 for the foreseeable future and the likelihood is that the levels of these debts are going to rise further still when the new system is in place. And as for Railtrack, even the Sunday Times has claimed that the convoluted new scheme hatched by Byers means that "the taxpayer is essentially being asked to subsidise the banks and bondholders that lent money to the old Railtrack" (21 October). In other words, one section of the propertied class bailing out another section in time honoured fashion.

This leaves the mass of the population – the wage and salary-earning working class – exactly where we were: at the behest of the owning class and their priorities at every turn and left with second best in everything from education to transport and beyond. It was the same under old Labour too, but perhaps they just seemed better at pretending to do something about it.

Whatever, no one should be fooled by any spin imparted to enhance New Labour's current 'radical' intentions. From their systematic defence of propertied interests at home to their ruthless pursuit of war abroad, Labour has already proved one thing beyond dispute – an unwavering support for the profit-takers in society rather than the wealth creators that is rabid and undiminished.

August 4th, 1914 (1964)

From the September 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

At midnight on August 4th, 1914, the British ultimatum to Germany expired and the First Great War began.

In our Party there were no illusions about the nature of the war, in spite of the turmoil of the times and the perfidious attitude of other alleged working class parties.

At our first Executive Committee meeting, following the outbreak of the war, arrangements were made to prepare a Manifesto setting forth our opposition and stating the Socialist attitude. At the next Executive Committee meeting a draft was presented and, after approval, sent to the printer to appear in the next, the September issue of the Socialist Standard. This was our War Manifesto. It was later reprinted and distributed in leaflet form.

This manifesto briefly set forth the capitalist basis of society, pointing out that the war was a capitalist war which was no concern of the workers, and did not justify the shedding of working class blood in a conflict which only involved the interests of their masters. It concluded with the following paragraph: -

Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, the pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.

The Party kept its pledge. Its attitude was maintained, from the beginning to the end of the war, without equivocation, in spite of antagonism, persecution and numerous other obstacles.

Gilmac. 

Twenty Years After (1958)

Theatre Review from the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his play, "Chicken Soup with Barley" (Royal Court Theatre), the young Jewish writer, Arnold Wesker, born of Hungarian-Russian parents in the East End of London, gives us glimpses into the world in which he grew up, through the history of a Jewish family from 1936 to 1956, to show the gradual disintegration of a political ideal—the Communist Party.

The play opens at the time of the Blackshirts' marches on the Jewish East End. We are immediately caught up in the excitement of young Communists fighting the Fascists on their doorstep and at the same time looking eagerly towards the crusade in Spain, to the front line. It seemed to them as though any fight with the Red Flag flying was the good fight, a blow for the future, whether in the workshops, the streets or on Jarama Ridge. To Sarah Kahn, her family and friends, out of the ceaseless struggle would come—something. And in the East: Moscow. The Red star still glowed as to them the god had not yet failed.

The war plans are bypassed, and with the end of the war the pattern has changed; there is a strange emptiness now. The Communist Party is somewhere in the background, but the group has naturally been broken up by the war. Gradually they go their various ways; a greengrocer's shop in Manchester, a handicraft furniture in the Cotswolds. The unity and urgency has gone; to each his own salvation. But Sarah Kahn is still the same, carrying on her fight against the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, and against her husband Harry, a drifter of a man who could never hold a job down and to whom even in the old days the party was just something that happened to be around, like his wife and the boys. For Sarah Kahn nothing has changed, life is still fighting and caring.

Her son Ronnie Kahn, now grown up, carries with him the thread of the past, an enthusiasm for the "Left," together with an ambition to write, to write about the working class life he knows, to express its culture and hopes for the future. One day in 1956 he returns home after working in Paris, a shattered man, one of the many whose belief in the great Russian myth had been destroyed by the Hungarian revolt, and with it, his desire to write. Against Harry, now a paralysed wreck of a man after suffering a strike, Sarah's struggle is almost over, but her son now stands in his place. At all costs to be saved from becoming as his father had been. But "If you don't care, you will die," she says. 

This is where the play leaves us, and gives, as its political injunction, that we must simply "care!" The retreat from an illusion has left nothing but a little infused hope that may ease the agony and make life bearable. And perhaps—sometime—who knows?

For thousands a political idea is dead. But those people who take their political philosophy on trust must not be surprised if that trust is forsaken and their ideals turned to ashes. So much for so little. But the tragedy is great.

I.D.J.

Proper Gander: To EDL and Back (2014)

The Proper Gander Column from the April 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Broadcasting budget cuts have led to plans to take BBC3 off the air in 2015, demoted to being an online-only channel. So it looks like there’ll be fewer of its trademark brash documentaries, like EDL Girls – Don’t Call Me Racist. This show follows three women attached to the thuggishly nationalistic English Defence League. Gail is a long-standing leader of the Yorkshire ‘Angels’. She has a steely, scary determination, undaunted when she’s ‘disrespected’ by founding leader Tommy Robinson’s departure from the organisation. Amanda is a younger wannabe member, who thinks ‘it’s quite romantic going on an EDL demo’ as a date with her new boyfriend. Katie is the only one in her family of committed EDLers to doubt their beliefs. She tells her mum that she doesn’t want to be thought of as racist as they sit colouring in A4 placards with felt-tip pens.

Those taking part in the programme hope that it will dispel the stereotype of EDL members as shaven-headed racist young males. If nothing else, it succeeds by reminding us that obnoxious, mistaken beliefs can be held by both men and women. One member objects to bread being marked as halal, claiming that a few pennies from its sale will go to the Taliban. Another says that she doesn’t want her children to be ‘made to wear a burqa’. There are enough reasons to criticise Islam without having to rely on these kinds of laughable misconceptions.

The EDL makes ill-founded generalisations about others, but can’t see the irony when they complain that other people make ill-founded generalisations about them. The difference is that generalisations about EDL members are usually correct, as they all share views which easily fall apart with only the slightest scrutiny. They have a misplaced sense of ownership and loyalty to the country they just happened to have been born in, along with misplaced beliefs about society’s problems, and misplaced blame towards Muslims. They’ve even misappropriated the slogan ‘Whose Streets? Our Streets’ from the left.

Mike Foster

Talks In The Train. (1905)

From the March 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Good morning, John."

"Good morning, William, what do you think of the King's Speech?"

"I am pleased to see that the Government intends to deal with the question of the unemployed!"

"To 'deal' with it!"

"Yes, 'legislation will be submitted to you for the establishment of authorities to deal with the unemployed'!"

"And you really think the Conservatives will 'deal' with it?"

"Is there any reason to doubt it?"

"Yes, the capitalist system, which the House of Commons is elected to support, produces an unemployed problem. If that problem were effectively 'dealt' with it would mean the abolition of the capitalist system, and that, as you know, is not 'practical politics.'"

"But surely you will give the Government credit for good intentions?"

"It is said that the road to Hell is already well-paved with such. Apart from that, both Conservative and Liberal leaders have declared their inability to do anything."

"When did they make those declarations?"

"Speaking at Watford, in October, 1895, the late Lord Salisbury said 'we have got as far as we can to make this country more pleasant to live in for the vast majority of those who inhabit it' and 'we have no panacea for the evils with which we are afflicted.' In the following November, at Brighton, he said 'I am conscious that when the Government has done its best, this would advance but a very small distance in diminishing the suffering which the hand of Providence has inflicted.'"

"But what about Balfour? He is leader now."

"Yes, and at Manchester, in January, 1895, he said 'If you ask me whether anything in the power of the Unionist Party or any other party or within the compass of the wit of man to devise can meet the curse of lack of employment, I fear we can look forward to no prospect of that kind.' He now doubt holds the same opinion now."

"Then we must turn to the Liberals!"

"Who will give you no more better encouragement. In the House of Commons, in February, 1895, Sir William Harcourt said that with regard to the question of the unemployed, he agreed with the position taken up by Mr. Balfour a few days previously at Manchester. Of Asquith, who responsible for the murder of the Featherstone miners, a cynical indifference could only be expected. At Newcastle, in January, 1895, he referred to the unemployed as the nation's 'rubbish!' And when Campbell Bannerman was asked by the unemployed deputation at Poplar in January last what he would propose as a means of dealing with the problem he merely said he 'was not in the Government.'"

"But, then, admitting the futility of expecting either Conservative or Liberals will solve the problem, I think that the promised legislation on the alien question will help."

"In what way?"

"Well, if aliens come over here and drive our own men away and deprive them of work, don't you think the Government  should prohibit alien immigration?"

"You and I are clerks. A few years ago all clerks were males. But women have entered the field against us. In many departments they have not only lowered men's wages, but have driven out male labour altogether. Would you ask the Government to prohibit women and girls entering into competition with clerks and other workmen?"

"Ah! but then they are our own flesh and blood; the others are foreigners."

"But the effect is the same!"

"Still, we must look after our own flesh and blood."

"Is it the rule of the employers to consider 'flesh and blood,' or are they not usually willing to employ any person, irrespective of nationality or creed, who will answer their purpose?"

"But if the aliens were kept out things would be better."

"I cannot see it. The unemployed problem confronts us because of the increasing power of producing wealth which man, aided by machinery, is securing, a power which is increased every day by the improvement of old methods and machines, and the introduction of new. This would continue, even if we had no aliens. All that is urged against these victims of "man's inhumanity to man" could be met by strict enforcement of the Sanitary and Housing Acts, and by the enactment of laws fixing a maximum working week and a minimum wage, equal for both sexes when equal work is done."

"Isn't that a big order?"

"Not if the alien problem is as important as you urge."

"You say that even if all aliens were excluded we should still have an unemployed problem. In that case we have our colonies."

"Where you already have an unemployed problem."

"But not so intense as here."

"But you propose to make it so by sending more men to them."

"Ah! but that's where Chamberlain's scheme comes in. Give our colonies more of our trade."

"That might help for a time; but do not forget there is no cessation of the development of the machine industry, in your colonies as elsewhere. In the near future your colonies will be manufacturing all that they require, and will not them need manufactured goods from Britain. They will be independent of us, as the Continental nations have become. Moreover, by giving your trade to your colonies you take it away from other countries and intensify the unemployed problem in those."

"Oh, that's their business."

"You admit them, that these proposals cannot solve the problem, that at best they would merely improve matters in some parts of the world, and make things worse in others."

"I quite see now that the problem is an international one."

"And can only be solved by international action on the part of the wealth-producers. The present demands of the unemployed are unsound."

"In what way?"

"They are asking for 'work' when already far too much 'work' is done. What is required is something which involves a change in the basis and organisation of society—the redistribution of work."

"The redistribution of work!"

"Yes. Let everybody work. Let each do his share of the work before enjoying any of the results of labour."

"Why, that means—"

"ALL CHANGE!"

CORNER SEAT.