The blog is glitching bitching

Returning fans.

That's not nice . . . though I do applaud the commitment.

The blog is glitching

Just a heads up that I'm experiencing - what I hope are just temporary - difficulties with the blog.

For the past week or so, the blog has not been listing all the labels on the sidebar. It currently stops at 'European Union'. I don't know if Blogger has suddenly placed a limit on how many labels are visible on the blog or if it's just a temporary glitch whilst they are doing an overhaul. It's difficult to find out any information about what is going on with blogger at the best of times. I do know that this issue is not specific to this blog. Something similar has happened on another blog of mine.

The labels post-European Union - see what I did there? - do still exist in the system. I can find them when I'm drafting new posts for the blog. 

So, if any readers are looking for particular labels which are currently missing in action, and need them sooner rather than later, they can email me at imposs1916@gmail.com and I will send them the links. Alternatively, they can use the search box in the top left hand section of the blog.

The Sinn Fein Policy. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Policy Foreshadowed.

“I had come to the conclusion that the whole system ought to be met with resistance at every point; and the means for this would be extremely simple: a combination amongst the people to obstruct and render impossible the transport and shipment of Irish provisions; to refuse all aid in its removal; to destroy the highways; to prevent everyone, by intimidation, from daring to bid for grain or cattle if brought to auction under distress (a method of obstruction that had put an end to church tithes before); in short, to offer a passive resistance universally, but occasionally, when opportunity served, to try the steel.”

The above lines were written by John Mitchel in 1847 when the Irish Confederation refused to endorse his policy of immediate resistance to the collection of rents, rates, and taxes. The portion relating to the transport and shipment of Irish goods referred to the exportation of Irish produce in a time when the country was devastated by famine and thousands were dying of starvation.

Parnell’s proposition to the Nationalist members, “to withdraw from the British House of Commons and organise the people in Ireland to resist English rule at every point” was defeated on a vote of the party. The idea of carrying on a campaign of passive resistance to British rule in Ireland is therefore not by any means new, but the Sinn Fein Party is the first party that has attempted to organise the people for this object. It has already succeeded in winning over the youngest and most ardent of the Irish race; it has converted four of the official Nationalist members of Parliament including one of their whips, Sir T. G. Esmonde. At a meeting of the Nationalist Party in the House of Commons it was proposed and seconded that the Party adopt the Sinn Fein policy and withdraw from Westminster. In North Leitrim the member, Mr. Dolan, having embraced the new doctrine, is about to contest the seat against the official Nationalist candidate.

The Movement Realised.

The Sinn Fein Party claim to have a majority in favour of their policy in the County and District Councils in the country, and Mr. Sweetman, chairman of the Meath County Council, at the meeting of councillors from various counties proposed and caused to be discussed at length a resolution to this effect: “that we refuse to collect any more rates or taxes”. Thus we see that the Sinn Fein policy will probably in the future be the method adopted throughout Ireland to resist and if possible destroy the domination of “the thrice accursed British Empire”.

What is the nature and origin of the Sinn Fein movement? The words Sinn Fein mean “ourselves alone”, and those who are acquainted with Ireland know that within the last ten years a movement was set on foot for the restoration of the Irish language, customs, industries, music and art; started and organised  by the Gaelic League it was at first strictly non-political and non-sectarian, its ultimate object was an Irish Ireland, everything in language, clothing, manner and sport which was not originally Irish was banned and ridiculed, and the offenders were termed “Shoneens”, “Flunkeys”, and “West Britons”. The Gaelic League was a decided success and it did not exist long before it had a political party formed independent of all others and having for its object “Ireland a Nation”, not in the sense of a British colony, but independent of all external authority. This party was formed on the same basis as Wolfe Tone a century ago formed the “United Irishmen”, and like Tone it wanted “to unite Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter under the common name of Irishman”. “Our independence must be had at all hazards; if the men of property will not support us they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property”. Thus we see the Sinn Fein Party is the child of the Irish education movement, and is alluded to by the Parliamentarians as the “crowd of intellectuals”, “armchair agitators”, etc.

It sees the Futility of Compromise…

The Sinn Fein Party is now possessed of several weekly journals that voice its views. It has also published a large number of pamphlets that have aided considerably in bringing the Party to its present position. In their weekly journals the Sinn Feiners riddle the arguments of the Parliamentarians, they point to the fact that in 1847 the population of Ireland was 9 millions, while today it is about 4 millions after over half a century of labour on the “flure of the House”. That the Land Acts were fraudulent and did not even touch the question of the poverty problem, that a Liberal Government is now in office but not officially pledged to Home Rule; in short, that the Nationalist Party is ineffective as a weapon against British misrule in Ireland.

The Sinn Fein Party propose the immediate withdrawal from Westminster of the 82 Irish members and that the £30,000 now annually spent in maintaining this useless weapon be spent in sending consuls to foreign countries to open up markets for Irish goods. That all monies invested in the banks of Ireland at the present time be withdrawn and a People’s Bank be formed to lend money and transact all business at interest to cover only the cost of management. That a National Stock Exchange be formed in Dublin. That the people refuse to pay rent, rates, or taxes, and that the County Councils and other such bodies responsible refuse to collect same. That, if possible, no articles from which the British Government derives a revenue be consumed by the people. That the money saved in rent, rates, and administration be used in fixing machinery and starting the disused mills and factories, to revive dying industries and introduce new ones. That, in short, by common consent, by means of duly elected members or a general council of the County and District Councils the people of Ireland will refuse to recognise English law, authorities, or customs, and that henceforth Ireland shall be ruled only by the will of the people of Ireland.

Some of the chief spokesmen of this movement are large land owners and capitalists. Mr. John Sweetman owns a large tract of land in C. Meath, is a county councillor, railway director, etc. Edward Martyn is a landowner of County Galway, a J. P. and the exact reflex of the English capitalist. Sir T. G. Esmonde, Bart, M.P., is a bank director, railway director, and landlord. These and many other connected with the Sinn Fein movement give as their principal reason for supporting it the insecurity of their stock, the railways are not making any profit worth speaking of, the canals are idle, and so on.

… But is itself Futile.

From this it is quite evident that if the Sinn Fein movement succeeds profits are intended to rise at the expense of the Irish worker. The Irish capitalist class is still to remain the proud possessor of the land, factories, mills, railways, etc., and readers of this journal know what that means for the poor wretches employed.

The proud boast of the Sinn Fein Party is that Hungary was placed in much the same position as under Austria as Ireland is under England, and that when Hungary established her independence in exactly the same manner as the Sinn Fein movement proposes Ireland should, her trade increased by leaps and bounds, her population increased and new industries were developed, yet we know that today the Magyar is as much a slave as ever, and that there are in Hungary workhouses, prisons, asylums, unemployed, and all the other characteristics of the capitalist system. We know that the trade of Great Britain was greater last year than ever before, and that last year was nevertheless for the workers a year of great unemployment, poverty and privation. Even regarding the present success of the Sinn Fein movement it may be pointed out that the prospect differs vitally from that of Hungary in the important fact that Hungary was almost the equal in population and strength of Austria, and so was able to command political success. Hungary was also helped by the important tactical position it occupied as a barrier against Russian and Turkish advance. But as far as the condition of the people is concerned the Hungarian worker is not one whit better off than the Irish worker, whilst emigrants from Hungary may be counted by the hundred thousand, by whom, it is evident, the foreign exploiters are found at least no worse than the Hungarian masters from whom they flee.

For only Socialism can help the Workers.

In view of these facts it is our duty to warn our fellow-workers in Ireland of the futility of the Sinn Fein policy as far as they are concerned. There can be no relief for the oppressed Irishman in changing an English robber for an Irish one. The person of the robber does not matter—it is the fact of the robbery that spells misery. National divisions are a hindrance to working-class unity and action, and national jealousies and differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends.

The crowd of hungry “intellectuals” clamouring for jobs both within and without the Irish parliamentary party do not represent the interests of the working class in Ireland. They do not, indeed, profess to favour other than capitalist interests, provided that the landlord or capitalist be Irish, but the Irish capitalist is in no wise more merciful than the English exploiter. The national sentiment and perennial enthusiasm of the Irishmen are being exploited by the so-called leaders in the interests of Irish capitalism, and the workers are being used to fight the battles of their oppressors. The Irish capitalist rebels against the English capitalist only because the latter stands in the way of a more thorough exploitation of the Irish workers by Irish capital. Let the thieves fight their own battles! For the worker in Ireland there is but one hope. It is to join the Irish wing of the international Socialist working class and to make common cause with the Socialist workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation; saying to both English and Irish capitalists: “A plague on both your houses”. For the true battle-cry of the working class in broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rally cry is: THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

J. McManus

Peace amongst the Nations. War between the Classes. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The months of July and August were full of interesting events.

The Daily News of July 31st referred to one of these in its leading article, headed “The Palace of Peace.” Its language was sublime. “The foundation stone of Mr. Carnegie’s Palace of Peace was laid yesterday at the Hague to an accompaniment of oratory which does credit to the optimism of the great” and the poster it issued on the same day bore remarkable evidences of the peaceful intentions of British capitalists, who were represented at the Hague. As the events which that Contents Bill had reference to will one day play as important a part in working-class politics as, one day, the Featherstone massacres will, let us reproduce it:

MILITARY

& MAXIMS

POURING INTO

BELFAST

____________

RAILWAY CRISIS

Since then, the power of the master class has been demonstrated in the usual manner. Controlling “the machinery of Government, including the armed forces of the nation” those armed forces have been used, as they must always be, “to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers,” and at time of writing, the hospitals are filled with wounded wage-slaves while preparations are being made for the interment of the killed. 

Two days previously, this same organ of British Nonconformity admitted, in its leader on the Idaho trial, that—

“The trial . . . more and more became a class struggle between capital and labour,”

and that—

“From the beginning the question has been complicated by the fierce prejudices of a kind of smoulder-class war. . . . The whole movement , . . has illustrated the insecurity of authority in America, and the profound scepticism concerning the identity of law and justice”.

The American Commercial Appeal said in the course of an editorial reviewing the Idaho trial:—

“Now, however much we may dislike disorder, we are bound as fair-minded citizens to abide by the evidence adduced in a case. Much disorder was started on both sides. The mine owners were guilty of more infamous crimes than were ever charged against the miners. They had judges and other officers driven from their posts. They had merchants who leaned toward the miners’ side deported from their homes. They bought up the legislature to overturn the will of the people. Peabody stole the governship of Colorado, and then, his nerve weakening, he turned the office over to the lieutenant-governor. The supreme court of Colorado, in league with the mine owners, took charge of the state election and helped to steal the state for the Republican party.

Colorado and some other Western states have been in recent years about as bad as Russia. The source of the trouble has, of course, been the defiance of all law and order by the mine owners. Very few people realise just what these people have done and just what provocation to violence they have given the miners. They corrupted the legislature to kill the eight-hour law that the people had voted for by a large majority. They established the bull-pen, in which hundreds of innocent people were herded like cattle. They had the writ of habeas corpus abolished. They had men driven from their homes and business not only because they were union miners but because they were merchants who sympathised with miners. They threatened to hang judges and other officers if they did not resign. They violated all the prerogatives of American citizens.”

A week later the Daily Telegraph’s Amsterdam correspondent wrote :

“Another war between capital and labour . . . is on the tapis . . . Organised labour is being met by organised capital, and the lesson which Sir George Livesey taught many years ago, when the gasworkers of South London went out on strike, has evidently not been lost upon the Shipping Federation, who seem to be adopting a similar course . . . by drawing free labour from England to replace the strikers if necessary. . . . The Labourers’ Union claims to be a powerful body, but the Shipping Federation is still more powerful, having the support of capital as well as the law of the land !”

International Peace is in the air, but War, the Class War, the inevitable war between capitalist and labourer is on the Earth. And the capitalists are prepared to use any means, like Carnegie, to crush their wage-slaves, and the capitalist governments who are most ready to send troops to shoot down workers in revolt like America, and France, and Russia, and last but not least, Great Britain, play the foremost parts in the farce of international peace “doing credit to the optimism of the great.” Even before the peace conference closed its doors, and as a commentary on the Liberal Premier’s famous peace oration, Great Britain has decided to lay down “almost immediately” three more battleships of the Dreadnought type with improvements.

Without entering into the details of the Belfast dispute, one or two matters may be noted. It is “loyal Ulster” that is the scene of this seething discontent, the portion of the Emerald Isle which has always been held up as a shining example to the remainder. Agrarian outrages are not prevalent and although a feud exists between the Protestants and the Catholics the present struggle is not between these. Christian no longer hurls bricks at Christian as such ; Loyalist no longer pursues Nationalist, or vice versa. No, all these minor differences are forgotten in the greater struggle, that between Capital and Labour. “The line of division,” says the Daily News Parliamentary representative, “is not Catholic and Protestant or Nationalist and Orangeman, but, simply, Labour and Capital.” And here, before the echoes of the oratory at the foundation stone laying of the Palace of Peace have died away, (dimmed somewhat by the noise of the French bombardment of the Moorish towns), the new short rifle of the British Army has been tested in real earnest—in the interests of Capital as against Labour, just as the first Lee-Metford bullets found their human billets at Featherstone in 1893. And a Liberal Government is in office now, as then. Here at home, then, with a “wise and good” monarch, with a Liberal Government, with Free Trade, with a Labour Party in Parliament, with working-men magistrates and working men knights, the class war exists and until the cause of it has been removed no peace is possible. In “protectionist and prosperous America,” then, and in “loyal” Ulster, the “smouldering class war” breaks out into open conflict, as in all other parts of the world.

The ordinary wars for the extension of markets, or for taking away the attention of the people at home from social evils, (the present “military operations” of the French against the Moors have probably been undertaken with both objects in view, considering the recent trouble in the Midi), pale into insignificance beside the War of the Classes which has yet to be prosecuted in grim earnest by the workers all over the world. The mouthers at the Hague Conference may discuss their arrangements for the struggles for the “swag” in which they from time to time engage, with members of the working class as the active participators and sufferers, but the time is rapidly approaching when they will sink their petty differences and unite as the forces of International Capital opposed to International Labour. There can be only one end to the War of the Classes—the abolition of the classes. As the Manifesto of the S.P.G.B. points out: “In the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, therefore the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.”

Speed the day.

Adolph Kohn

Socialism and War. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two questions and an objection.

One cannot help wishing that more of those who have doubts and difficulties in their understanding of Socialism took the trouble to send them along.

The difficulties and objections of the working class regarding their party’s position are precisely what we are labouring to meet, and queries sent to us serve not only to indicate the nature of the difficulties to be met but also tend to show by their discussion the hollowness of objections which too many take for granted.

A subscriber in the Potteries, J. T. Tyson, sends two questions and an objection which, since they deal with matters of general interest and provide an opportunity for making plain the Socialist position, we gladly answer here.

#    #    #    #

Converting the Capitalist.

Regarding the following quotation from this paper: “Members of the capitalist class are only Socialists to the extent that they vacate their class position and go over to the working class,” our correspondent asks :—

Does this mean that a member of the bourgeoisie must give away his wealth and allow the rest of the thieving gang to exploit the philanthropy of that individual ?

By no means. The capitalist would as suggested not do the workers or their cause the slightest good by giving his wealth away in that manner. In present-day society there is for the capitalist only the choice of exploiting or being exploited, and one who vacates his position in that sense simply steps aside to allow a wider field of exploitation to less scrupulous competitors. To expect to lessen exploitation by the withdrawal of a capitalist here and there is like believing that when a bucket of water is lifted out of the sea a hole will remain unfilled by the surrounding ocean.

The capitalist who becomes converted can only use his wealth, power and leisure on the workers’ behalf by helping to end the system of exploitation, and in doing this he “must vacate his class position,” that is to say, take his stand on the side of the class that lives by labour, making its interests his own, and giving battle to his former class which will defend to the last its ability to fatten upon the labour of others. 

There is, however, little need to worry over the line of action of the genuine converted capitalist. He is a rara avis. No class has yet ruled in the interests of a class below it and our masters are not going to break the rule of history. Our propagandist efforts can only be really fruitful by being applied to the working class whose material interests are on our side; and any isolated individuals from the other side who are converted will, from the very fact of their conversion, know what course of action must be pursued.

#    #    #    #

Socialism and War.

The next question is:—

How do you propose to abolish war ?

To know how war is to end it is necessary to know how wars begin.

Formerly wars were dynastic in origin; but to-day, owing to the expansion of capitalist production outstripping the effective demand of the home market and necessitating “fields fresh and pastures new” for the disposal of the ever-growing surplus of commodities, we find that all modern wars are commercial in origin and in aim.

Thus the foreign and colonial markets are indispensable to capitalism, and form a safety valve which is, indeed, now fast becoming choked up.

And in getting such colonies, “spheres of influence,” “open ports,” protectorates and treaties required for this external trade, each nation finds itself at the throat of other capitalist nations, and war is only averted so long as each is afraid of the other.

Russia in seeking ports open to the sea at all seasons and Japan in resisting Russia’s encroachments upon her markets; Britain in seeking markets and a “scientific frontier” in North West India against Russian advance ; the United States in securing rich fields of exploitation in Cuba and the Phillipines; all indicate the commercial basis of modern war which has literally developed from the continued fighting of the chartered trading companies of rival nations in the four quarters of the globe during earlier times.

So long as a corrupt Press and a powerful section of manufacturers of war stores and munitions have everything to gain by war ; so long as rival capitalist nations strive against each other for the plunder of the world ; so long as increasing productive powers render imperative new outlets for the growing surplus of commodities ; so long, indeed, as there exists a wage-slave class to be held in subjection—in short, so long as Capitalism endures—for just so long will war or the armed threat of war be inevitable and the desire for peace a vain aspiration. 

They who concentrate upon Socialism alone are the truest workers for peace, for the abolition of capitalist exploitation is the indispensable prelude to international peace and human solidarity. With international Socialism the struggle of exploiters for plunder is ended, since it is the many who labour who rule, and their paramount interest lies not in destructive contention for plunder but in the co-operation of all for the better utilisation of nature’s forces; and compared with this supreme interest of international labour, every petty conflicting interest must pale into utter insignificance.

In the co-operative commonwealth the necessity of forcing commodities into countries at the cannon’s mouth no more exists. The workers of the world have everything to gain when triumphant by peaceful co-operation, and everything to lose by war

Our correspondent will now gather how alone the principal causes of war can be abolished ; it is by destroying the political and economic supremacy of the exploiting class through the organisation and training of the industrio-political army of the workers to that end.

Peace is only possible when the conditions of peace are present; to-day conditions all round spell bitter strife which can only end by thy defeat of the master class in the great class struggle.

It is, therefore, no part of our duty to aid the ruling class to obtain an improved fighting force or “armed nation” which the class which now rules must perforce control and use to our greater oppression and undoing. Such a proceeding may well be left to capitalists—to Earl Roberts and to the reformers. It is our business to end capitalism, not to forge weapons for our enemies use. When the workers have something other than wage-slavery to defend they will take steps to defend it, for the present all their energy is needed in concentrating upon the conquest of the machinery of government, (which includes the armed forces), in order to convert this “from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.”

#    #    #    #

Do the workers pay for wars?

Referring to the question of taxation to pay for wars, the objection which our correspondent raises runs as follows :—

“It must be admitted that the capitalists do not pay for wars, the wealth has to be got out of the workers, and seeing that the Boer war cost about £240,000,000 it is not likely that this will come out of the capitalists, and to say that they cannot get more than all is in this case wrong. For instance, the English worker gets one-third of the value he creates while the American gets but one-fifth, so that if speeding up became the rule in order to get the equivalent of the cost of the war the worker would be worse off. If I have wrongly understood the situation I hope you will put me right.”

Let us then endeavour to put our friend right.

In the first place, all marketable wealth is created by those whose labour is manually and mentally expended in its production, therefore all the cost of war and everything else comes ultimately from those who produce. So far there is agreement. But to imply from this that the producers actually pay for all, is to say that they possess the wealth their labour has created, and that their banking accounts would have benefited by the £240,000,000 if that amount had not been spent on the war ! It is, however, notoriously not the case that the workers possess the wealth they create, for the wealth as soon as produced is already the property of the master class; the workers, indeed, only receiving the market price of their labour-power—that is, a bare sufficiency for the reproduction and maintenance of that labour-power, and which leaves no surplus with which to pay for wars.

The master class is always engaged in screwing wages down to the lowest profitable limit under the conditions prevailing, and this whether a war has occurred or not. A war in fact does not even usually act detrimentally to the modern workers—at least as far as wages are concerned—since during war and often as an after consequence of war there is actually a larger demand for labour-power, both for the supply of munitions of war and afterwards to replace the property destroyed and to produce for the extended market. The great prosperity of France and Germany after the Franco-German war is a case in point. The condition of the labour market is the immediate governing factor of the price and conditions of labour-power, and if the market is not turned by the war against the wage-worker, how is it possible for the master class to get extra out of the workers for that war ?

The fact that the English worker gets on an average one-third of his product while the American, in spite of higher wages, gets only one-fifth, does not prove that the masters can at will or for any length of time get another two-fifteenths of the English worker’s product by taxation. Indeed, if the taxation could be so manipulated that it really reduced the average wages it would have the effect of causing serious loss to the masters by lowering the efficiency of their available labour supply ; thus they would tend to get even less out of the workers than before. Friend Tyson’s own illustration goes to prove this.

The American worker gets higher wages and his product is proportionally greater because his high wages are the price of a more efficient and speedy labour-power. The lower the standard of subsistence of the workers the lower is the average efficiency of their labour, therefore to reduce wages by any means (other things remaining equal) is to reduce the efficiency of that kind of labour-power.

The researches of C. Booth, Rowntree and Robert Hunter show that the working class under the most diverse conditions gets barely sufficient to maintain and reproduce the respective grades of labour-power; and while the advance of capital steadily increases the robbery of the working man, so also the fact must remain that “high” wages usually mean high profits only because a more intense and more profitable labour-power costs more to produce than a lower grade, and because low wages mean inefficient labour.

To get as much out of the worker here as in America is therefore impossible by means of taxation whether for a war or even a peace conference. To increase the proportion of surplus value to wages here to the same degree as in America can only be done by improvements in the methods of production and in increasing the efficiency of the human machines by feeding, sheltering and training them better. This again depends on economic and social causes for its practicability.

While the bigger capitalists generally recognise that starvation wages do not conduce to efficiency or to high profits in the long run, yet since the efficiency of the workers is due to historical and social rather than to individual or temporary causes, the average capitalist will endeavour to force wages down to the lowest physical limits unless he can in some degree as at Port Sunlight, Bourneville and other places segregate and improve a supply of labour-power for his sole use. If the capitalist cannot ensure that he individually will reap all the benefit of the higher efficiency that is induced, he is not going to embark in “philanthropy” to benefit his competitors. The larger capitalists, indeed, are not generally averse to legislative enactment which aims at increasing the general profit-making capacity of workers, or indeed to old style trade union “collective bargaining” for similar reasons. Such legislation and collective bargaining operates also as a means of crippling the competition of the smaller capitalist, the middle-class manufacturer, baker and the like, who, in his futile struggle against the advance of great capital, strives by sweating and by the payment of wages insufficient to reproduce efficiency to make profit parasitically by the depreciation and degradation of the normal labour-power, relying for renewals upon the necessities of fresh normal workers.

Thus the amount to be wrung out of the workers by the master class is limited by the degree of economic development and by the prevailing state of Society. It is consequently difficult to conceive how the master class in order to pay for wars is to get more from the workers than it otherwise gets, since the capitalists rob the workers to the utmost of their power under any conditions.

The conclusion, indeed, is clear that the workers do not pay for wars since they do not possess the millions required as means of payment. The toilers are skinned before they leave the factory gates, and to rob them further is very like trying to take the trousers off a highlander.

The ruling class takes all that remains over the bare average keep of the wage workers and is, therefore, already squeezing all that it can out of the working class. The payment for war comes in consequence not from wages but from profits, for the class that lives by the daily robbery of the workers is no more a magician than is the common cutpurse and like him it “cannot take more than all.”

F. C. Watts

Unconsidered Trifles. Being Letters not hithero published. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor of the Daily News.

Sir,— I observe in your issue of date that Mr. D. A.Thomas, M.P., has been threatening that unless the Government is prepared to bring in forthwith a radical measure of temperance reform, he will seriously consider the advisability of going over to the “Labour, Independent Labour, or Socialist Party.”

This I think is most kind and considerate of Mr. Thomas and I make no doubt that the “Labour and Independent Labour Party,” which is always on the look-out for persons of political or social standing, will be happy for the chance of welcoming the Welsh gentleman to its councils and adding his political scalp to the tent pole of its wig-wam. Particularly as he is in favor of a “radical measure of temperance reform,” which so far as I have noticed, represents the “Labour and Independent Labour Party’s” most revolutionary proposal. I cannot speak for that Party, but I can speak for The Socialist Party of Great Britain—the only real Labour Party of my knowledge—and on its behalf I must inform Mr. Thomas, M.P., that we cannot do with him.

Mr. Thomas would, I am sure, prefer to have it pointed out quite frankly that we have no use for M.P.’s whose political development has only reached the stage in which such grotesquely unimportant matters as temperance reform occupy pre-eminent positions. The Socialist Party has to deal with great working-class issues and until Mr. Thomas has given some evidence of his appreciation of those issues I am afraid it will be useless for him to apply for membership. Our measure of the fitness of a man to voice Labour’s claims is neither membership of a Westminster political club nor a standing in “Society,” but the indications he gives of a clear knowledge of the. working-class position, its causes and its only remedy, and of his determination to proceed to that remedy along the only lines that can logically be followed by any person claiming to be a Socialist, viz., the lines of relentless hostility toward all other parties of whatever political label.

This may sound strangely to Mr. Thomas but then clearly Mr. Thomas doesn’t understand. The Socialist can only justify his separate organisation upon the ground of the futility of all the other bodies claiming working-class support. Not being able consistently or honestly to support futilities or to stand by passively while his own object is obscured and his work frustrated, he must actively oppose. If he does not he is useless as a Socialist—worse than useless indeed. That is our complaint against all other political parties. If they are representing capitalist interests as is indisputably the case with the orthodox Liberal and Tory, they cannot represent working-class interests which are always and in every essential particular, in antagonism to capitalists’ interests,—witness Belfast where, by the way, Liberal sympathy with the workers in revolt under oppressive conditions, is manifesting itself in the same old way: through soldiery and quick-firing guns even as at Featherstone and Hull. If they are claiming to specially represent working-class interests (as in the case of the “Labour” Party falsely so called), they must establish their claim by giving evidence of their understanding of the working-class position and directly pointing their efforts to the overthrow of the prevailing (capitalist) method of production based upon the exploitation (robbery) of Labour. This evidence is entirely lacking and the conclusion is forced upon us that the “Labour” Party is either composed of ignorant persons, or those who have deliberately bartered their Socialist principles for the wages which the Party pays. If they are definitely asserting their Socialism as is the case (at times) with the Social-Democratic Federation, they are also, by supporting capitalist candidates, by arrangement with capitalist parties and by the propaganda of inconsequentialities sometimes called palliatives, nullifying any good effect of their occasional assertion of Socialism as admittedly the only hope of the workers, obscuring the class issue, confusing the working-class mind and, therefore, as Socialism is inconceivable apart from a class conscious working class, delaying the day of Labour’s emancipation.

For these reasons we are opposed to them all. For these reasons we claim to stand as the only party of the workers—the only Socialist Party in this island. And for these reasons we cannot at this stage of his development accept any application for membership from Mr. Thomas. It will save the gentleman some humiliation if he will try and understand this at once.

Yours etc.,

AGRA.

30.7.07.

__________________

The Menace of Socialism

To the Editor of the Daily Express.

Sir,—I pray you be gentle. As you value truth—and how much you value truth the world knows well—be merciful. Say what you will; do anything that seemeth you fit, but spare us who are Socialists the dire infliction of the public association with our movement of the names of such gentlemen as the vice presidents of the Land Nationalisation Society or similar organisations—names like Thomasson, Cornwall, Macnamara, Bell, Vivian, and unkindest cut of all, Burns ! Scourge us not with whips like these. Have pity ! We do not deserve it—really !

And, oh ! Sir, tell the trenchant, virile, truthful and painstaking author, of your articles under this head, to take it from me that there is nothing subterranean about our propaganda. We are loudly, openly, and unblushingly preachers of discontent, organisers of working-class revolt, propagandists of a fierce, unrelenting war upon Capitalism and all its works and all its champions and must remain so while we remain Socialists, until the working class, with whose well-being we are solely concerned, shall have taken control of the political machinery and through that the whole of the land and other means of life, in their own interests. And we include among the works and champions of Capitalism all shufflers and intriguers, all misleaders whether styling themselves Labour men or otherwise, or whether merely fools or arrant knaves ; Liberals and Tories to a man, Constitutionalists and Tariff or Municipal Reformers so called, literary pimps and panders, journals with the largest circulations, and so on. All who do not accept Socialism as the only hope of the workers, all who are not with us, are against the working class.

Of course we who are Socialists cannot help people taking our name in vain and working in dark ways for the realisation of their ends any more than you could help the good name of your paper (if it had one) being besmirched. But if these people think, as some of them, I believe, quite honestly do, to achieve Socialism by back-stair methods, they must be deplorably stupid people; and deplorably stupid people cannot be Socialists—any more than jingo editors can be honest. If they are not stupid they may be and probably are as you describe them, “political fakes working craftily in the dark” but they will be working for their own aggrandisement.

But that’s not our fault. Not every one who cryeth “Lord! Lord!” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven ; and not every one who sayeth (on occasions) that he is a Socialist will come through an examination creditably. In short, we are not all Socialists now, notwithstanding a certain fat and be-knighted person’s notorious asseveration to the contrary. We repudiate these men of craft and do our best to let in the light upon the stupid; and we are continually exposing the working-class misleader. The young person with a passion for righteousness who spreads himself on your front page every morning, should read THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, the organ of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. He would then be able to get a notion of what Socialism means, the only way it can be realised and the only position a Socialist party can take-up. And he would learn that the Express is not a Socialist paper because it is presumably in favour of the nationalisation of the postal service; nor are Belgium and Germany Socialist countries because they have nationalised railways ; nor is Japan Socialist because she has a form of land nationalisation. And then he may discover to his (probable) surprise that a man may even be a “Constitutionalist,” an anti-Socialist, and a member of the “Socialist” Land Nationalisation Society ! I say probable because I have some reason to know that the writer is quite as well aware as I am that he is writing “piffle.”

However, I note with more than ordinary interest that you include in your latest, list of “Spies and ‘plants’ and political fakes who work craftily in the dark and fight under any colour but their own” the name of your erstwhile particular political pet, your own levelheaded labour-leader, your strong anti-Socialist fighter, Richard Bell, M.P., who, I conclude from your remarks, is really working insidiously for Socialism in the “Socialist” Land Nationalisation Society” ! I hope poor Richard will be properly grateful.

Finally, Sir, I don’t suppose for a moment that you will publish all this. What you will do (if you publish anything at all) will of course be to select those sentences which you think may in themselves look rather atrocious and arrange them in an order that will either seem to reflect upon the writer or support your contention. That of course is the pretty way usually affected by the Northclilfe-Pearson combination. But as I have taken the precaution of keeping a copy which I expect will appear in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, it won’t greatly matter what you do.

Believe me, Sir,

Yours appreciatively,

AGRA.

24.7.07.

The Materialist Conception of History. [Engels] (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first of the important discoveries with which the name of Marx is associated in the history of science, is the conception of the world’s history. All conception of history previous to him is founded on the idea that the ultimate causes of all historic changes are found in the changing ideas of men, and again, that of all historic changes the political are the most important, controlling the whole of history. But whence these ideas are derived by men, and what are the moving causes of political changes, nobody had even enquired. Only in the recent school of French, and partly also of English, historians, the conviction had forced itself that at least since the Middle Ages the driving force in European history was the struggle of the developing bourgeoisie with the feudal nobility for the social and political supremacy. Marx, however, demonstrated that all history has been hitherto a history of class struggles, that all the numerous and intricate political struggles were carried on only for the sake of the social and political supremacy of different classes in society; for the maintenance of the supremacy by older, for the establishment of supremacy by newly rising classes.

Through what agency, now, do these classes rise and exist? Through the pressure of those material and physical conditions under which the society of a given time produces and exchanges its means of subsistence. The feudal reign of the Middle Ages was based on the self-sufficient and almost exchangeless management of small farming communities, producing nearly all their own necessities and receiving from the warlike nobility protection against external foes, and national, or at least political, coherence. When the towns arose and with them a separate branch of skilled industry and a trade first confined to the home market, but later on waxing international, then the civic element of the towns developed and, fighting the nobility, obtained even during the Middle Ages its admission as a likewise privileged class into the feudal order. But by the discovery of new lands outside of Europe in the middle of the fifteenth century, the bourgeoisie obtained a far more extended territory for its trade and hence a new incentive to industry; skilled labour was displaced in the most important branches by more factory-like production which, in its turn met the same fate through industrial organisation on a large scale made possible by the inventions of the 18th century, especially the steam engine. These industries reacted on trade by displacing manual labour in the more backward countries and creating in the further advanced countries the present new means of communication, steam-engines, railways, electric telegraphs. Thus the bourgeoisie united more and more the social wealth and the social power in its own hands, though for a long time it still remained excluded from the political power which still rested in the hands of the nobility, and the monarchy protected by the nobility. But at a certain stage—in France after the great revolution—it also conquered this power and now became in its turn the ruling class in opposition to the proletariat and the small farmer. Observed from this point of view, all historical transactions are very easily explained—with a sufficient knowledge of the contemporaneous economic state of society, unhappily wholly missing in our professional historians.; and in a most simple manner the conceptions and ideas of a given historical period are explained by the economic conditions of existence during that period, and by the social and political conditions dependent on those economic factors. History for the first time was placed on its real foundation ; the obvious fact hitherto totally neglected, that first of all men must eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, and therefore must work, before they can struggle for supremacy and devote themselves to politics, religion, philosophy, etc.—this obvious fact at last found historical recognition.

Engels’ biographic sketch of Marx.

[Quotes] (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Great minds do, indeed, react on the Society which has made them what they are ; but they only pay with interest what they have received.—Macaulay.

____________

It is curious to note that as soon as one is faced by a real human problem one finds no alternative between Unionism and Socialism.—Daily Express.

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Although Mr. Lloyd-George is an advanced Radical he has always been a keen man of business, and his recent pronouncement on railway affairs did not by any means come as a surprise to his friends. It might, indeed, be said of him, that he is an admirable representative of the middle classes.—London Opinion.

____________

Exact justice is commonly more merciful in the long run than pity, for it tends to foster in men those stronger qualities which make them good citizens.—Lowell.

Party Notes. (1907)

Party News from the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The second edition of our Manifesto is selling splendidly.

* * *

Our speakers are often asked : What is the attitude of the S.P.G.B. to the S.D.F. ? to the I.L.P.? to the Labour Party? to the S.L.P. ? All these parties are dealt with in our Manifesto. If you have not yet had it send 1½d. to Head Office for a copy.

* * *

A further edition of “From Handicraft to Capitalism” is now on sale (post free, 1½d.) It should be recollected that the S.P.G.B. alone have been authorised to translate into English “Das Erfurter Program,” by Karl Kautsky, of which “From Handicraft to Capitalism” forms the first part.

* * *

The second part, “The Proletariat,” will be issued as a penny pamphlet very shortly.

* * *

A new pamphlet will also be issued in the course of a few weeks, viz, “Art, Labour, and Socialism,” by Wm. Morris, price 1d., post free,

* * *

Mr. Geo. W. Daw, Conservative Agent for Wandsworth Division, has accepted a challenge to debate with a member of our Tooting Branch. He afterwards received a challenge from the Tooting Branch of the I.L.P. In the course of his reply to them he said-: “Before giving your invitation final consideration I should like to know something more definite about the Socialism of the I.L.P. I think I am justified in making this request, because it is definitely stated in the Manifesto of the S.P.G.B., a body which should be competent to form an accurate opinion on the subject, that ‘the I.L.P. is in reality run by a set of job hunters, whose only apparent political principle is to catch votes on varying pretexts and by still more varying means.’ . . . If, however, your branch is really anxious for a debate, why not accept the repeated challenge of Mr. Barker on. behalf of the S.P.G.B. to prove your claim to be a Socialist Party ?”

* * *

The answer of the local branch of the I.L.P. will be interesting, if not instructive. Perhaps amusing also.

* * *

Our comrade Marsh, of Manchester, informs us that he recently attended an I.L.P. lecture by a Mr. Yardly, who claimed to be a Socialist, and told the audience that Christ was his typical Socialist. He advocated Co-operation, a living wage, and the municipalisation of everything. Our comrade asked a question, but the chairman immediately told the lecturer whom he was, and the lecturer said : “I want no bloody revolution, only evolution !” Our comrade asked him to explain the difference to the meeting, he replied: “You are only fencing.” He was then challenged to debate, but the chairman arose and said they could not accept questions from our comrade !

* * *

Is it a fact that in consequence of the references thereto in the Manifesto of the S.P.G.B., the N.E.C. of the I.L.P. are seriously thinking of publishing the names of the anonymous persons who presented the Party with a cheque for £1,000 last January ?

* * *

An advertisement of the tour of Comrades Dawkins and Kent thro’ the Midlands was sent to Justice. Mr. Quelch returned it and the remittance, declining to insert. Is he afraid that if the rank and file of the S.D.F. became aware of the truth concerning the leaders of the S.D.F. and of the T.C.P., his occupation, like Othello’s, would be gone ?

Adolph Kohn

Answers to Correspondents. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

L. J. Simons (Stoke Newington).—No room in this issue. Letter will appear in next.

V. Wilson (Manchester).—Next month.

F. D. (London, N.W.).—We had seen the S.D.F. definition of “Impossiblists” in Justice and were much amused thereat. We also recognise “that tactics are necessarily determined by circumstances,” but we include as chief item among these circumstances the object to be attained. We also know that policy is not synonymous with principle, but we, however, believe that policy should be consistent with principle. We know of none who hold that “if we cannot find a perfectly straight road to a place we ought not to go there !” But we do not at all believe in going the longest and most treacherous road or indeed going toward an entirely different and undesirable goal in order that the interests of leaders and place hunters may thereby be served. Nor indeed do we believe in using “any available means” but only those means which lead in the quickest and surest way to Socialism irrespective of capitalist blandishments, leaders’ interests or legal forms. We are, then, not “Impossiblists” if Justice’s definition be correct, but we doubt its correctness for we have usually seen what is described as “Impossiblism” associated with Socialist science, working-class sincerity and correct tactics.

Art, Labour and Socialism. By Wm. Morris. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Continued from August issue]

Reprinted from “To-day.”

Something must be wrong then in art, or the happiness of life is sickening in the house of civilisation. What has caused the sickness? Machine-labour will you say? Well, I have seen quoted a passage from one of the ancient Sicilian poets rejoicing in the fashioning of a water-mill, and exulting in labour being set free from the toil of the hand-quern in consequence; and that surely would be a type of man’s natural hope when foreseeing the invention of labour-saving machinery as ’tis called; natural surely, since though I have said that the labour of which art can form a part should be accompanied by pleasure, no one could deny that there is some necessary labour even which is not pleasant in itself, and plenty of unnecessary labour which is merely painful. If machinery had been used for minimising such labour, the utmost ingenuity would scarcely have been wasted on it; but is that the case in any way? Look round the world, and you must agree with John Stuart Mill in his doubt whether all the machinery of modern times has lightened the daily work of one labourer.

And why have our natural hopes been so disappointed? Surely because in these latter days, in which as a matter of fact machinery has been invented, it was by no means invented with the aim of saving the pain of labour. The phrase labour-saving machinery is elliptical, and means machinery which saves the cost of labour, not the labour itself, which will be expended when saved on tending other machines. For a doctrine which, as I have said, began to be accepted under the workshop system, is now universally received, even though we are yet short of the complete development of the system of the Factory. Briefly, the doctrine is this, that the essential aim of manufacture is making a profit; that it is frivolous to consider whether the wares when made will be of more or less use to the world so long as anyone can be found to buy them at a price which, when the workman engaged in making them has received of necessaries and comforts as little as he can be got to take, will leave something over as a reward to the capitalist who has employed him. This doctrine of the sole aim of manufacture (or indeed of life) being the profit of the capitalist and the occupation of the workman, is held, I say, by almost everyone; its corollary is, that labour is necessarily unlimited, and that to attempt to limit it is not so much foolish as wicked, whatever misery may be caused to the community by the manufacture and sale of the wares made.

It is this superstition of commerce being an end in itself, of manmade for commerce, not commerce for man, of which art has sickened; not of the accidental appliances which that superstition when put in practice has brought to its aid; machines and railways and the like, which do now verily control us all, might have been controlled by us, if we had not been resolute to seek ‘profit and occupation’ at the cost of establishing for a time that corrupt and degrading anarchy which has usurped the name of Society.

It is my business here tonight and everywhere to foster your discontent with that anarchy and its visible results; for indeed I think it would be an insult to you to suppose that you are contented with the state of things as they are; contented to see all beauty vanish from our beautiful city, for instance; contented with the squalor of the black country, with the hideousness of London, the wen of all wens, as Cobbett called it; contented with the ugliness and baseness which everywhere surround the life of civilised man; contented, lastly, to be living above that unutterable and sickening misery of which a few details are once again reaching us, as if from some distant unhappy country, of which we could scarcely expect to hear, but which I tell you is the necessary foundation on which our society, our anarchy, rests.

* * * * *

Now above all things I want us not to console ourselves by averages for the fact that the riches of the rich and the comfort of the well-to-do are founded on that terrible mass of undignified, unrewarded, useless misery, concerning which we have of late been hearing a little, a very little; after all we do know that is a fact, and we can only console ourselves by hoping that we may, if we are watchful and diligent (which we very seldom are) we may greatly diminish the amount of it. I ask you is such a hope as that worthy of our boasted civilisation with its perfected creeds, its high morality, its sounding political maxims? Will you think it monstrous that some people have conceived another hope, and see before them the ideal of a society in which there should be no classes permanently degraded for the benefit of the Commonweal?

For one thing I would have you remember, that this lowest class of utter poverty lies like a gulf before the whole of the working classes, who in spite of all averages live a precarious life; the failure in the game of life which entails on a rich man an unambitious retirement, and on a well-to-do man a life of dependence and laborious shifts, drags a working man down into that hell of irredeemable degradation.

I hope there are but few at least here who can comfort their consciences by saying that the working class bring this degradation on themselves by their own unthrift and recklessness. Some do no doubt; stoic philosophers of the higher type not being much commoner among day labourers than among the well-to-do and rich; but we know very well how sorely the mass of the poor strive, practising such thrift as is in itself a degradation to man, in whose very nature it is to love mirth and pleasure, and how in spite of all that they fall into the gulf. What! are we going to deny that when we see all round us in our own class cases of men failing in life by no fault of their own? Nay, many of the failures worthier and more useful than those that succeed: as might indeed be looked for in the state of war which we call the system of unlimited competition, where the best campaigning luggage a man can carry is a hard heart and no scruples.

For indeed the fulfilment of that liberal ideal of the reform of our present system into a state of moderate class supremacy is impossible because that system is after all nothing but a continuous implacable war; the war once ended, commerce, as we now understand the word, comes to an end, and the mountains of wares which are either useless in themselves or only useful to slaves and slave-owners are no longer made, and once again art will be used to determine what things are useful and what useless to be made; since nothing should be made which does not give pleasure to the maker and the user, and that pleasure of making must produce art in the hands of the workman; so will art be used to discriminate between the waste and the usefulness of labour; whereas at present the waste of labour is, as I have said above, a matter never considered at all; so long as a man toils he is supposed to be useful, no matter what he toils at.

I tell you the very essence of competitive commerce is waste; the waste that comes of the anarchy of war. Do not be deceived by the outside appearance of order in our plutocratic society. It fares with it as it does with the older forms of war, that there is an outside look of quiet wonderful order about it; how neat and comforting the steady march of the regiment; how quiet and respectable the sergeants look; how clean the polished cannon; neat as a new pin are the storehouses of murder; the looks of adjutant and sergeant as innocent looking as may be; nay, the very orders for destruction and plunder are given with a quiet precision which seems the very token of a good conscience; this is the mask that lies before the ruined cornfield and the burning cottage, the mangled bodies, the untimely death of worthy men, the desolated home. All this, the results of the order and sobriety which is the face which civilised soldiering turns towards us stay-at-homes, we have been told often and eloquently enough to consider; often enough we have been shown the wrong side of the glories of war, nor can we be shown it too often or too eloquently; yet I say even such a mask is worn by competitive commerce, with its respectable prim order, its talk of peace and the blessings of intercommunication of countries and the like, and all the while its whole energy, its whole organised precision is employed in one thing, the wrenching the means of living from others; while outside that everything must do as it may, whoever is the worse or the better for it; like the war of fire and steel, all other aims must be crushed out before that one object; worse than the older war in one respect at least, that whereas that was intermittent, this is continuous and unresting, and its leaders and captains are never tired of declaring that it must last as long as the world, and is the end-all and be-all of the creation of man of his home; of such the words are said:

For them alone do seethe

A thousand men in troubles wide and dark;

Half ignorant they turn an easy wheel

That sets sharp racks at work to pinch and peel.

What can overthrow this terrible organisation so strong in itself, so rooted in the self-interest, stupidity, and cowardice of strenuous narrow-minded men? So strong in itself and so much fortified against attack by the surrounding anarchy which it has bred?

Nothing, but discontent with that anarchy, and an order which in its turn will arise from it, nay, is arising from it, an order once a part of the internal organisation of that which it is doomed to destroy.

For the fuller development of industrialism from the ancient crafts through the workshop system into the system of the factory and machine, while it has taken from the workmen all pleasure in their labour or hope of distinction and excellence in it, has welded them into a great class, and has by its very oppression and compulsion of the monotony of life driven them into feeling the solidarity of their interests and the antagonism of those interests to those of the capitalist class: they are all through civilisation feeling the necessity of their rising as a class. As I have said, it is impossible for them to coalesce with the middle classes to produce the universal reign of moderate bourgeois society which some have dreamed of; because however many of them may rise out of their class, these become at once part of the middle class, owners of capital, even though it be in a small way, and exploiters of labour; and there is still left behind a lower class which in its own turn drags down to it the unsuccessful in the struggle; a process which is being accelerated in these latter days by the rapid growth of the great factories and stores which are extinguishing the remains of the small workshops served by men who may hope to become small masters, and also the smaller of the tradesmen class; thus then, feeling that it is impossible for them to rise as a class, while competition naturally, and as a necessity for its existence, keeps them down, they have begun to look to association as their natural tendency, just as competition is of the capitalists; in them the hope has arisen, if nowhere else, of finally making an end of class degradation.

I know there are some to whom this possibility of the getting rid of class degradation may come, not as a hope, but as a fear; these may comfort themselves by thinking that this Socialist matter is a hollow scare, in England at least; that the proletariat have no hope, and therefore will lie quiet in this country, where the rapid and nearly complete development of commercialism has crushed the power of combination out of the lower classes; where the very combinations, the Trades Unions, founded for the advancement of the working class as a class, have already become conservative and obstructive bodies, wielded by the middle-class politicians for party purposes; where the proportion of the town and manufacturing districts to the country is so great that the inhabitants, no longer recruited by the peasantry, but become townsmen bred of townsmen, are yearly deteriorating in physique; where lastly education is so backward.

It may be that in England the mass of the working classes has no hope; that it will not be hard to keep them down for a while—possibly a long while. The hope that this may be so I will say plainly is a dastard’s hope, for it is founded on the chance of their degradation. I say such an expectation is that of slaveholders or the hangers-on of slaveholders. I believe, however, that hope is growing among the working class even in England; at any rate you may be sure of one thing, that there is at least discontent. Can any of us doubt that since there is unjust suffering? Or which of us would be contented with 10s. a week to keep our households with, or to dwell in unutterable filth and have to pay the price of good lodging for it; Do you doubt that if we had any time for it amidst our struggle to live we should look into the title of those who kept us there, themselves rich and comfortable, under the pretext that it was necessary to society?

* * * * *

Remember we have but one weapon against that terrible organisation of selfishness which we attack, and that weapon is Union. Yes, and it should be obvious union which we can be conscious of as we mix with others who are hostile or indifferent to the cause; organised brotherhood is that which must break the spell of anarchical Plutocracy. One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman; two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act; a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real—and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon earth? You and me who agree together, it is we who must answer that question.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List, September, 1907. (1907)

Party News from the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Samuel Leight (1985)

From the May 15th, 1985 issue of the Library Journal

You've got to love the wee gems that Archive.org throws up sometimes. Stumbled across — aye, right, 'stumbled across', I'm fooling no one — an advert in the American Library Journal which dates from 1985, and which was probably placed by the late Sam Leight himself, for his two excellent self-published books.

It's a sign . . . a sign I need to get my arse in gear to scan in some essays/chapters from both of these fine books. 

Our First Libel Case. (1907)

From the August 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Plaintiffs’ Original Sin

Nearly twelve months ago, at the instance of the General Secretary and Executive Committee of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, a writ for libel was issued against certain individuals, several of whom were not even members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Mainly as a result of this mistake of the Plaintiffs or of their legal advisors the hearing of the action has been delayed and the bill of costs greatly lengthened. Several of our comrades have appeared at different times before the Master in Chambers upon Plaintiffs’ Solicitors’ applications for “Directions” and other “wangles” that go to make up the Game of Law. It has been interesting to watch the wonderment of the lawyers and their office boys at the unusual spectacle of half-a-dozen members of the Socialist working class up against the legal luminaries engaged, at a heavy fee, to “clear the character” of Mr. R. Bell, M.P., and his fellow officials of the the A.S.R.S. And the legal luminaries have not always scored.

The Trial

Originally, many were sued, but ultimately, two were chosen. These, Comrades A. Anderson and J. Fitzgerald duly appeared before Mr. Justice Darling on July 15th. Arrayed against them were an eminent K.C., Mr. C. F. Gill, and two other Barristers-at-Law, Messrs. Edmond Browne and E. A. Hume, all instructed by Messrs. Pattinson & Brewer, Plaintiffs’ Solicitors. Several files of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, from No. 1 to date, as well as single copies of last August issue, were referred to, quoted from, and passed up to the Judge and the Jury. The Second Edition of our Manifesto was also in evidence. Mr. Gill did his best to “confuse the issue” by withholding, until “m’Lud” drew attention to it, the fact that the E.C. of the A.S.R.S. deliberately ignored the vote of the members concerned and took action in direct opposition to the voting. He also endeavoured to prejudice the Jury by suggesting that the defendants desired to deprive respectable citizens (like himself) of what they had worked hard for and hoped to enjoy in their old age and misrepresented the position of this Party concerning Trade Unions by quoting a resolution which was moved at a Party meeting and ultimately rejected. He also, assisted by Mr. Bell, impressed the Court that those who voted against accepting the concessions voted in favour of a strike, which was not true. He quoted extracts from back numbers of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD which had nothing to do with the case until pulled up by the Judge, who “hoped they would get to the libel shortly.” He put Mr. R. Bell, M.P., J.P., into the box and after asking him a few questions, left him to the tender mercies of our comrades. If Mr. Bell’s attitude in the witness box, under the raking fire of Anderson and Fitzgerald, was typical of his general demeanour, it is impossible for him to give a straight answer. He is a shuffler, first, last, and always.

Mr. Bell, M.P., Labour Misleader

Not only is Mr. Bell a shuffler, but judging by his answer to one of Fitzgerald’s questions, he is cynically indifferent to the conditions under which many of the members of the A.S.R.S. work. He and his Counsel made much of the fact that only 3,000 out of 10,000 N.E.R. men voted, but when asked whether large numbers were at work and therefore unable to attend the meetings he replied “I am not responsible for that.” And his reply to a further question as to whether, when his Executive issued the call for a vote, they intended to abide by the result, should also be carefully noted by railway workers. He practically admitted that there was no intention of carrying out the expressed wishes of the N.E.R. men, unless they coincided with the previously formed views of the Executive. Thus the funds of the Union were wasted and the men fooled. Mr. Bell, in the witness-box, referred to himself as a Trade Union “Leader.” We have no hesitation in describing him as a Misleader of the working class.

The Verdict and After.

Following upon their searching questions, the speeches of our comrades Anderson and Fitzgerald must have come as a surprise to the Court. Of the working class, eating their bread by the sweat of their faces, when permitted by the master class to do so, lacking all the advantages possessed by the bewigged and begowned masters of the forensic art, our comrades logically and eloquently submitted our case to the Jury. But, of course, the verdict went against us. We were prepared for that. Mr. R. Bell and his fellow plaintiffs were awarded damages to the amount of forty shillings ! For ourselves, we shall continue our comments on political and industrial events without fear or favour. We shall say what we think at all times, in whatever language we consider the circumstances justify. This is our first libel action but it may not be our last. We will take that risk and others that may arise. The Socialist Party of Great Britain came into existence to fearlessly advocate the Cause of the Working Class and that Cause will be advocated, by voice and pen, until finally our fellow-workers shall see the light and, discarding their misleaders, capitalist and “labour,” will unite in a conscious effort to emancipate themselves by assuming control of the means of wealth production and distribution.

REPORT OF THE TRIAL

HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

KING’S BENCH DIVISION.

(Before Mr. JUSTICE DARLING and a Special Jury.)

This was an action for an alleged libel which appeared in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD. The plaintiffs were Mr. Richard Bell, M.P., the general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, a society registered under the Trade Union Acts of 1871 and 1876, and the other members of the executive committee of the society. The defendants were Messrs. A. Anderson and J. Fitzgerald, sued on behalf of themselves and the other members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. The matter complained of consisted of the words “Found Out” in large leaded capitals, and immediately below in lighter capitals, “Labour Leaders Sell the Union Members, and their Apologist gets a Warm Reception,” followed by an account of a mass meeting of servants of the North-Eastern Railway, held at Newcastle on July 15th, 1906, for the purpose of considering a report by the plaintiff Mr. Bell as to certain negotiations carried on by the executive committee on behalf of the society with the North-Eastern Railway. The defendants denied malice, and denied that the statements complained of were false, and they pleaded fair comment.

Mr. Gill, K.C., Mr. Edmond Browne, and Mr. E. A. Hume appeared for the plaintiffs; the defendants Anderson and Fitzgerald appeared in person.

Mr. GILL said that the above society was a very powerful trade union, with a large number of members and branches, its object being to improve the condition of the members and the relations of employers and employed and to promote the safety of railway travelling. From time to time there was what was known as an “all grades” movement in connexion with the North-Eastern Railway, and the general secretary’s report presented to the meeting at Cardiff in October, 1906, stated that the movement was sanctioned by the executive committee in 1903. The matter having been threshed out, a conclusion was recommended for acceptance by the men, and that was agreed to in May, 1906, at a conference of the men and the representatives of the railway. An expression of opinion was sought from the men, but so few troubled to vote that when the matter came before the executive committee, which represented the whole society and not merely the servants of one railway, they, on July 12th, 1906, found that only 3,000 out of 10,000 had voted on the question, there being a majority of about 800 in favour of rejecting the terms. Later the executive committee resolved that as so few voted they instructed their secretary to write to the North-Eastern Railway accepting the concessions. All the committee but two voted in favour of that, but Mr. Bell, the secretary, did not vote at all. The rules of the society provided that there was power in the executive committee to take any decisive action subject to a right of appeal to the general meeting, and the committee had power to decide whether they would order a strike at the expense of the whole society. In this case the committee thought it desirable to accept the concessions, although a majority of the members who were servants of that railway were unwilling to do so. Some of the servants of the North-Eastern Railway afterwards expressed adverse opinions as to the benefits which had been derived from the negotiations. The matter attracted the attention of the defendants, known as The Socialist Party of Great Britain, which published a paper called THE SOCIALIST STANDARD.

Mr. GILL said he did not propose to rove over the whole of the paper, interesting as he found it yesterday afternoon.

The JUDGE.—It is not a Sunday paper.

Mr. GILL.—I think it is peculiarly adapted for Sunday consumption, and walking in the park one sometimes hears a little of it.

Mr. GILL said that in the August, 1906 number the matter complained of appeared—namely, “Found out. Labour Leaders sell the union members and their apologist gets a warm reception.” If this was confined to the Socialist party and was only read in their family circles no one would complain, but they gratuitously distributed copies of the paper to the branches of the society. The action was not brought to recover money, as one did not expect to get money from people who held these views. One of the chief reasons why people worked was to save a little money and have it for themselves. The action was, however, brought to prevent the mischief caused by such statements as the libel in question.

Mr. Richard Bell, M.P. for Derby, one of the plaintiffs, stated that he had been general secretary of the society for ten years. It had 90,000 members and 650 branches. An enormous amount of labour was devoted to the negotiations with the North-Eastern Railway, and certain conclusions were agreed to by the representatives of the company and the men. In July, 1906, the executive committee determined that the terms should be accepted and the negotiations should be continued with a view to a conciliation board being appointed. The matter was referred to in witness’s report to the general meeting, and at a meeting of the servants of the North-Eastern Railway some disapproval was expressed. There was no foundation for the imputations made upon him in the alleged libel. The executive committee had considered the interests of the society as a whole. They represented the whole of the members, and not a section.

Cross-examined by Mr. ANDERSON.—The result of the negotiations was submitted to a conference of delegates held at Darlington, and they decided to adjourn the conference to take the opinion of the members of their branches. That adjournment was irregular, and the executive committee decided that they could take the opinion of the branches without the expense of an adjourned conference. There was a majority of 802 against accepting the terms. In spite of this adverse majority, the executive committee accepted the terms. Witness did not think that was dishonourable. He got rather an unfavourable reception, but that was nothing new.

By Mr. FITZGERALD.—The executive committee had to take into consideration the interests of the whole society and not of a section.

Why did you ask for a vote if you were not going to act upon it ?—Just to get their opinion; there were 10.000 men altogether, and only 3,000 voted.

Did you not know that owing to Sunday duty many could not get away ?—I am not responsible for that.

Mr. FITZGERALD.—The men are not either. Did you ask for instructions and then ignore them ? —No, we asked for an opinion, and two-thirds declined to express an opinion.

Continuing, witness said that the executive committee had power and were justified in declining to authorise a strike on the vote of 800 men. So far as work was concerned, he believed that nearly the whole of the men interested could have attended.

Mr. ANDERSON.—When you issued the call to the members of the society, did you, as the paid servant of the men, intend to act on the result of the vote ?—We intended to act as the circumstances justified.

Is it your opinion that the members who did vote voted with the idea that their vote would be acted on if they had a two-thirds majority ?—I cannot say what each individual had in his mind.

Mr. FITZGERALD.—Is it a fact that since the Newcastle meeting you have been appointed a justice of the peace ?

Mr. JUSTICE DARLING created roars of laughter when he remarked that Mr. Fitzgerald was entitled to ask anything to Mr. Bell’s discredit, but “I cannot say sitting here that even if that is so the world ought to think any the worse of him.”

Mr. FITZGERALD was prompt with his retort: I did not want to discredit him: I wanted to show that not a great deal of damage had been inflicted.

Mr. BELL.—I don’t know that the Newcastle meeting had anything to do with the J. P.

Mr. ANDERSON, addressing the jury, declared that the headings were justified. The men were asked to vote on a question, and were then tricked, imposed on, and sold.

At Newcastle, where Mr. Bell went to explain and apologise for the action of the union, he got a very hostile reception. Mr. Anderson said he was a member of the working class and a Socialist. Mr. Gill had attacked his position as a Socialist, which had nothing to do with the case, and it would have been just as relevant if he had referred to Mr. Bell’s attack on Labour leaders, such as Mr. Philip Snowden and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who neglected their Parliamentary duties to write articles for capitalist newspapers and the Harmsworth brigade.

Mr. FITZGERALD also briefly addressed the jury.

Mr. JUSTICE DARLING, in summing up, said that under the rules the executive committee were not bound to obey the majority of the members who were employed by the North-Eastern Railway and who voted on the question, but they had to consider the interests of the society as a whole. If the plaintiffs had not betrayed their trust they were entitled to a verdict.

The jury found a verdict for the plaintiffs for 40s.