Party News: Durham Miners Gala (2026)

Party News from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party members distributed the 2 texts below at the 2026 Durham Miners’ Gala.

Having a laugh

 

If the tiny minority who claim ownership of the world’s wealth ever stopped to consider their situation, they’d surely wet themselves laughing – because the majority accept their claim, even though it’s the majority who create the wealth in the first place.

And there’s more merriment for the capitalists as most people keep swallowing the line served up by political parties – ‘we promise to make the system work for “hard-working families”‘.

Bullshit of course! The system is and always will be loaded against the majority. It will always keep us on edge, forever worried about making ends meet, about downwards pressure on wages, about losing our job.

Our message: we could all get along fine without capitalists and the SPGB’s aim is to get rid of their stupid system. Please think about joining us. Either that or be one more reason for capitalists to be cheerful.

The next revolution

This Gala celebrates the storied history of working-class resistance against the bosses.

But why do we have bosses?

Because the world’s fabulous wealth is held in private hands.

The rich own the Earth, while the rest of us do all the work.

Do you think the rich are doing a good job looking after the planet?

They’re not, are they?

They would rather see it all burn than give up their wealth.

The next revolution must be to abolish private ownership.

Abolish billionaire elites and their puppet politicians.

Abolish property trading, markets and money.

Abolish poverty, environmental destruction and nationalist wars. And abolish bosses.

We have the technology. We have the wit. We just need the will.

Democratic common ownership. It’s the only future worth celebrating. Join us, and bring it one step closer.

Party News: Durham Miners Gala - Part 1 (2026)

Party News from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘It’s not bloody ‘gah-la’, they call it ‘gay-la’ round here.’

‘No it’s not, it’s ‘gah-la’, I’ve heard people say that.’

‘For cryin’ out loud, it’s both. And it’s your round.’

The important thing you learn from the Durham Miners Gala is that, contrary to dismal impressions, radical left politics in the UK is not dead, but alive and well and willing to celebrate the fact every July. The Gala has been going since 1871, and attracts around 200,000 people, making it the world’s biggest such event, and jamming Durham’s small historic streets with crowds, performers, party-heads and the inevitable brass bands.

The enormous Gala field looked like a rock festival, with marquees, food kiosks, a bar with a very long queue, and a funfair. Pop and folk acoustic bands played on a big sound stage, in between impassioned speeches about union solidarity, including the fact that when the Reform-controlled council defunded Durham Pride, Durham Miners stepped up to support the event, recalling the support given to them by Pride members in 1984.

Our members were everywhere, discussing politics at our marquee stall, or out in the field, or on the way in. We dished out hundreds of leaflets, and distributed a lot of books and pamphlets, though we underestimated how much material we needed, forgetting that last year our stall was cleaned out.

All in all, a terrific event and one worth getting involved in for any member who can make the time to come along. We’ll be doing it again next year, for certain!

PJS

Party News: Durham Miners Gala - Part 2 (2026)

Party News from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

As ever a fabulous day out where there is always a real buzz all day. I would recommend it to anyone. What I find really heartening is the number of people who are willing to come over to our stand (and presumably the other political stands) and have an open and straightforward discussion about politics. There was very little rancour in the discussion. We had the opportunity to discuss our case in a degree of depth with many people ranging from anarcho-syndicalists to some older members of a local boy scout group. Wandering around the Gala field is also very interesting. As usual there are the various leftist groups who all hate capitalism, but not quite as much as they hate each other. The Gala organisers either by luck or judgement managed to place the various Trotskyist splinter groups in a way that meant that the Trots were firewalled from each other, usually by some hardline Stalinists or the Labour Party. What becomes apparent when you talk to them about their politics is that generally speaking they just want to cosplay the 1917 October Revolution and that the differences between each group is that their different leaders fell out with each other because they thought it was their turn to wear the Lenin or Trotsky costume. They really should stop referring to themselves as political parties and call themselves what they are: Historical Re-enactment Societies.

T. K.

Editorial: Burnham’s plan to rearrange the chairs

Editorial from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The new Prime Minister seems to have borrowed the argument for his flagship policy from the Welsh and Scots Nationalists. Their mantra is that the problems faced by workers living in their geographical area are due to political decisions being made in London rather than in Cardiff or Edinburgh. Burnham’s variation is that the way to solve the problems that workers in England face is to transfer more decision-making powers from London to regional mayors.

These proposals are based on the assumption that governments are able to control the way the capitalist economy works. All the evidence shows that this is not the case. Governments don’t, and can’t, control how capitalism works. It is, rather, the other way round. The capitalist economy generates economic laws which limit what governments can do in that the only choice they have is between giving priority to profits or provoking an economic slowdown.

If you believe that governments can control the economy you will mistakenly conclude that solving the problems facing workers is a matter of government policy and that the policy pursued by those who decide what governments do is the key factor. But, as in fact governments can’t control the way the economy works — can’t overcome its basic economic law that profits must come first — then who makes or where the decision is made to give priority to profit-making is unimportant. Whether this decision is made in London or Cardiff or Edinburgh or Manchester or Midsomer Norton is not going to make any difference. Capitalism will get its way, and as capitalism is the cause of the problems workers face, wherever they live, those problems will continue.

In any event, most decisions concerning the economy are not made by governments, national or regional, but by private enterprises whose goal is to maximise profits for their owners. None of the conventional parties challenge this. So their policies have to be ‘business friendly’ as it is private enterprises in pursuit of profits that decide what is produced.

Burnham’s claim isn’t even that devolving powers to regional mayors would directly benefit workers. It is only that it would, supposedly, benefit them by promoting ‘growth’ which would provide more jobs and extra tax revenue to improve education, the health services and public amenities (after paying more for ‘defence’). Growth, in the sense of the accumulation out of profits of more capital, is what capitalism is all about but it is not something that a government can make happen. The most that a government can do is to maintain or create favourable conditions for profit-making for whenever those in charge of private enterprises see a prospect of making a profit.

It’s not who makes decisions or where they make them but what they decide that is important, and what they decide is imposed by the economic laws of capitalism. We confidently predict that Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’ won’t work, either to bring about capitalist growth or to solve workers’ problems. It’s no more than rearranging the chairs.

SPGB Snippets: Rough reality (2026)

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain website 

July 26, 2026

Andy Burnham pledged ‘to finally end long-term rough sleeping across the UK’. He previously aimed to prevent rough sleeping in Manchester by 2020, and in 2019 the Conservative Party manifesto committed to ending ‘the blight of rough sleeping’. Instead, in 2025 the number of people estimated to sleep rough on a single night in England was the highest recorded, at nearly 4,800.

Rough sleeping is not just about housing. Rough sleepers are among the most marginalised and victimised in capitalist society. Support services, however ‘well-funded’, can only ever offer limited palliatives as they are working within a system that pushes people into homelessness – why previous attempts to end rough sleeping have failed, despite Burnham’s ambition.

Are the Managers Really in Control? Part Two (1981)

From the February 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1. 

In Part One (Socialist Standard, January 1981 ) we discussed James Burnham’s clearly expressed  argument that class society could exist without property titles vested in individuals. He was of course proved wrong by events: industrial managers have not replaced private capitalists as the possessing, ruling class, on the basis of the state ownership of the means of production (for Burnham never expected the managers to come to power within the legal framework of private capitalism).

Burnham gave as the reason why the “managers”, by which he meant those who actually managed the process of production, would be the new ruling class the alleged fact that a ruling class must have some function in the process of production :

“Social rule . . . depends on de facto control of the instruments of production—the means whereby society lives; and such control can be held only by some group which plays a direct and integral role in production” (The Managerial Revolution, p. 232).

In the past when the means of production were small-scale and scattered this was so. At that time the various means and instruments of production could be, and were, controlled individually. But today, due precisely to the development of modern industry brought about by capitalism, this is no longer so; the production of wealth has become socialised. The wealth of modern society is produced by the co-operative labour of those who work. In this sense the point of production is not the individual mine or factory, but society. Thus it is those who control society, not those who manage production at factory level, who are really in a position to control the use of today’s means of production.

It is the state which is the centre of social control so that whoever controls the state controls society and so, potentially at least, the means of production. This is so even in Western capitalism with its legal property titles. The private capitalists of the West, just as much as the possessing class in Russia (which in fact is also a capitalist class), now possess the means of production because they control the state rather than vice-versa. They use this control to back up their historically-inherited legal property titles, having long ceased to have any necessary productive function. Whereas in Russia the possessing class own the means of production directly through the state, in the West this is done indirectly through individual property titles ultimately enforceable by the state. In the end this amounts to the same thing: today’s socially-operated means of production are possessed and controlled by a minority class socially, through the state, the centre of social control.

Actually, Burnham himself unwittingly recognisedthat access to the modern means of production can only be controlled socially when he argued that managerial rule would be based on the state ownership of the means of production. For, on the basis of state ownership, any group which established its exclusive stable control over the state would become a collective possessing class precisely because it would therefore control the use of the means of production. If industrial managers were to organiseas a group, win popular support or acquiescence, and come to gain control of state power they would indeed become the ruling and possessing class—but  by virtue of controlling the state not of being managers.

Burnham was wrong, then, in assuming that the managers’ technical function in production was a compelling reason why they should emerge as such a group whereas in fact they were no more, or less, likely than any other group to do so.

State Capitalism

Both Rizzi and Burnham (and, indeed, Wittfogel also) rejected the view that Russia could be described as state capitalism. Both of them regarded Russia as a new class society: “bureaucratic collectivism” for Rizzi and “managerial society” for Burnham. This rejection of a state capitalist analysis of Russia was an inheritance from their Trotskyist past where they had learned to identify capitalism with private capitalism. For Trotsky, capitalism could not exist without private property titles vested in individuals; for him “state capitalism” was state control of private capitalist industry.

Capitalism, however, is not characterised by the legal form that class possession of the means of production takes, but by the social fact that those who “possess” the means of production exploit wage-labour and accumulate the surplus-value thus obtained as capital. An examination of “the specific economic form in which unpaid surplus labour is pumped out of the direct producers” in Russia shows this to be the case there. The excluded majority live by selling their labour-power to various state enterprises; the products of these enterprises are sold on the market with a view to profit; and the difference between the wages of the producers and the value of what they produce is surplus value which is used for capital accumulation and the consumption of the privileged class. Russia is thus capitalist and its possessing, ruling, privileged class a capitalist class.

Russia can be described as state capitalist in order to distinguish the form of capitalist class possession of the means of production there from the legal property-holding of the West. It should not be forgotten, however, that private property titles do still exist in Russia (though, admittedly, not as the predominant form) and that this could grow in the future. Equally, elements of non-legal de facto class possession through the state exist in Western countries, though the capitalist title-holders are able through their control of Parliament to prevent politicians and state officials gaining a permanent and widespread privileged consumption at their expense.

We see, then, that in East and West alike control of the use of today’s socially-operated means of production rests ultimately in the hands of those who control the state. It is clear that on the basis of class possession of the means of production a variety of such forms—both with regard to control of production and to the allocation of consumer goods among the privileged class—are possible. Each particular case needs to be examined on its own in the light of the historical and social facts. It is not possible to lay down a priori, as Burnham tried to do, which particular group would be most likely to emerge as the ruling class on the basis of state-owned industry. Nor can it be said that there is any particular reason why there should be any tendency for individual property titles to be abolished and replaced by de facto possession through the state.

Classless Society

The above analysis has certain practical implications. Since the state is the organ of social control, and since it is through controlling this organ that the capitalist class, East and West, is able to maintain its possession of the means of production, it is clear that the excluded producing class of wage and salary earners must, in order to establish a classless society, begin by gaining control of the state. Not, be it quickly added, to form a “socialist government” or a “workers state” (both absurd contradictions; when there is socialism there will be no state and where there is a state there is no socialism), but simply and solely to take state power out of the hands of the capitalist class, so removing the last obstacle to society establishing common ownership and democratic social control over the means of production. This presupposes both a widespread desire and understanding among the working class to establish a classless, socialist society and that the working class have democratically organised themselves, without political or industrial leaders, to carry out this desire. In the absence of such majority socialist understanding any attempt to establish socialism would inevitably fail and most probably lead to the sort of state capitalist society, based on de facto class possession of the means of production which we have been discussing.

The essence of class possession is precisely control over the use of the means of production by a section only of society. Once the use of the means of production is under the democratic control of the whole of society then “class possession”, “private property”, “class ownership”, call it what you will, has been abolished. The means of production could still be said to “belong” to those who controlled their use—in other words, to be “commonly owned” by the democratically-organised community.

But to talk of “common property”, “social property”, and the like can be misleading in that these terms do not fully bring out the fact that the transfer to society of the power to control the production of wealth makes the whole concept of “property” redundant. The question “who would own the means of production in socialist society?” can be answered just as correctly by saying “nobody” as by saying “everybody”, or “society”, or the “community”.

What social control over production will mean in practice is that every member of society will be free to take part, on equal terms with every other member, in deciding how the means of production should be used. As Burnham put it:

“For society to be ‘classless’ would mean that within society there would be no group (with the exception, perhaps, of temporary delegate bodies, freely elected by the community and subject always to recall) which would exercise, as a group, any special degree of control over access to the instruments of production; and no group receiving, as a group, preferential treatment in distribution” (The Managerial Revolution, p.55).

Society’s power to control production would be embodied in various democratic institutions. “Common ownership” and “democratic social control” of the means of production are merely, as we have said, two different ways of describing the same situation. This is why discussion as to whether one could exist without the other is quite meaningless.

Socialism is democratic or it is not socialism. A society where the means of production were formally the common property of society but where only a minority took part in deciding how they should be used would be one in which “common property” was merely a fiction since in practice the means of production would be the sectional possession of the decision-making minority.

In the end the only guarantee in socialist society against the emergence of a new ruling class which would negate the common ownership of the means of production is people using the democratic institutions—the actual democratic participation of all the people in the running of society. This is why it is absolutely essential that those who establish socialism—the majority working class who will constitute also the major part of the people of socialist society—must be fully aware of its implications, being prepared and organised to participate not only in its establishment but also in its subsequent running.

Adam Buick

SPGB Snippets: Football: beautiful or ugly? (2026)

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain website 

July 22, 2026

Can we separate the skills of the beautiful game from the ugliness of the money machine that drives it and the rivalries and nationalism it thrives on? Should we regard the emotional investment of fans as people being brought together or a reminder of how alienated they are from their own lives and capabilities. Is it, as one commentator stated, people being sold ‘meaningless thrills to patch over the pain’?

Whatever the case, in the society of voluntary cooperative work and free access to goods and services that socialists look forward to, appreciation of the talents of others – including footballers – will still exist, but side by side with each person having the time and space to cultivate their own talents and capabilities.

This Month's Quotation: Karl Marx (1936)

The Front Page quote from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Ignorance never helped nor did anybody any good."

KarL Marx

Does the Navy safeguard our daily bread? (1936)

From the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Two opinions about the Navy have been jostling for front place in the past six months. One is that the Navy is rotten: just a lot of old tin-cans waiting for an enterprising dictator to sink them. The dictator, the ex-Labour leader Mussolini, is supposed to have bawled the British fleet off the Western Mediterranean into an Eastern funk-hole, and to have assumed the mastery of the sea. The other opinion is that the fleet retired voluntarily, too proud to fight, or according to some crooked hidden plan of those who decide the foreign policy of the British capitalists.

Which of these is the truth we do not know. Probably the supermen who are in control do not know. Probably the naval experts who advise them, like the professional economists, are all at sixes and sevens, and able to provide every variety of contradictory opinion on demand. As for the theory of a cunning piece of double-dealing, perhaps it is true, as alleged by Continentals who have studied British diplomatic and Governmental methods, that the reputation for cunning enjoyed abroad by the British ruling class is due to pure mischance. The benighted foreigners watch the elephantine blunderings of the British Cabinet and conclude that it must be an elaborate smoke-screen hiding deep-laid plans and plots, simply because it is unbelievable that Baldwin and Co. can really be as silly as they seem.

However, these are realms into which it is profitless for us to go. Instead, let us try to answer another question about the Navy.

What the Navy does for the British Workers

What the Navy does for the British investors who have some £3,000 million invested abroad we know, but what do the workers get out of their masters' expensive little toy? Mr. Kenneth Lindsay, M.P., one of Mr. MacDonald’s ex-Labour Party group, has answered the question. Mr. Lindsay is Civil Lord of the Admiralty and presumably knows all about fighting ships. Speaking in the House of Commons on May 28th, 1936, he told the M.P.s that he identified himself with Mr. Winston Churchill’s statement, “the purpose of the Navy is to ensure the arrival of our daily bread.” He went on to say that “the Admiralty programme was based on months of careful studies. They aimed to make the British Navy 100 per cent, efficient.” (Manchester Guardian, May 29th, 1936.) This should give comfort to us all, the knowledge that the Navy is seeing to it that we are all rightly and adequately fed and that the gentlemen in control have been burning the midnight oil to ensure 100 per cent. efficiency. But not so fast. On turning over the pages of the same newspaper from which that piece of news was taken we find more news about our food. Dr. G. W. Theobald, of the British Post-Graduate Medical School, London, says that at least ten per cent. of our population has to be fed on a weekly budget of 4s. or less for each individual. (Dr. Theobald’s proposal was not more steel for the Navy, but that “every school should instruct girls to take iron for one month in the year to prevent anaemia.”) Another doctor, speaking at the joint conference of the Royal Institute of Public Health and the Institute of Hygiene, where Dr. Theobald made his speech, commented on the inadequate food of working-class mothers: "One finds mothers towards the end of the week living on bread and tea, and saving pennies to buy meat and pies for the boys.” Dr. M’Gonigle and M. J. Kirby, in a recent authoritative study, ”Poverty and Public Health,” have shown that there are 20,000,000 people in this country who are too poor to be properly fed. Mr. Lloyd George, in a speech at the Central Hall, Westminster, on March 13th, 1936, added his testimony (Daily Telegraph, I4th March, 1936):—

We have it on the authority of men of science, who have devoted the whole of their lives to the study of this problem, that over 40 per cent. of our fellow-countrymen are inadequately fed in a land of exuberant plenty and abounding wealth.

There are still millions living in habitations that are unfit for human beings to dwell in, and side by side with these conditions we have statistical and revenue testimony as to the enormous fortunes and huge incomes enjoyed by a few.

We find then that if the Navy’s job really is to ”ensure the arrival of our daily bread,” it falls down badly on the job. Or rather, it ensures that the working class get bread but very little else, for, according to the Medical Officer of Health for Chorley, tea and bread and butter forms seventy per cent. of the breakfast and tea meals of elementary school children in that town, “the term bread and butter” including “bread with margarine and bread dipped and fried in fat.” (News Chronicle, June 13th, 1936.)

What the Navy is really for

Of course there is no need to elaborate the argument. The Navy does not and never did exist for the purpose imagined by Mr. Churchill and Mr. Lindsay. British capitalists might at one time, even if they cannot now, boast of being mistress of the seas, but it was not for the sake of British workers. The purpose of the Navy, as of the rest of the armed forces, is to defend capitalist investments at home and abroad against attacks from all quarters. Mr. Philip Jordan, in an article on ”Empire Defence” (News Chronicle, June 12th, 1936), gives a reasonably accurate account of the reason why the Navy is engaged on keeping open the "pipe-lines” of British commerce: —

”These pipe-lines British naval strategy is concerned to preserve; for upon their unimpeded maintenance depends the ease with which tribute and life flow into imperial Britain: gold and diamonds from South Africa, cotton from Egypt, spices from Ceylon, all treasure from India, tin and rubber from Malay, wool from Australasia; and from all and more of them interest on the loans with which British capitalists dowered them in early and late days.” (Italics ours.)

Among the purposes of the armed forces is defending capitalist property against the working-class. It includes keeping the working-class in perpetual poverty, for only so can they be compelled to submit to exploitation for the good of the class which controls the political machinery, including the armed forces, and through it the accumulated wealth of the country.

What is the moral? An obvious one. The working class must themselves gain control of the machinery of Government and use it, including the Navy, for the purpose of ending capitalism. Then for the first time will the whole population be well-fed, well-clothed and well-housed.

Edgar Hardcastle

Notes by the Way: Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution (1936)

The Notes by the Way Column from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution

The Daily Worker of June 16th published in full the new Constitution of Soviet Russia. It is a lengthy document containing much that will interest those who wish to follow developments in that country. Two small paragraphs, however, will tell Socialists almost as much as the rest of the Constitution. They are articles 12 and 118. The first contains the statement: —

In the U.S.S.R. the principle of Socialism is being realised: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

The second says that “Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work—the right to receive guaranteed work with payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality.” 

Those who know nothing of Socialist principles and who (like the Daily Worker) can see nothing strange in describing the Labour Party as "socialist,” will find these principles in no way remarkable; payment in accordance with the quantity and quality of work is, after all, the declared principle of every capitalist undertaking. Socialists, however, can only be amazed at the impudence of the Communists in trying to pass off as a principle of Socialism "to each according to the quantity and quality of his work.”

We have heard of another, quite different, principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Perhaps the Daily Worker will tell us why they have produced this corrupted version and on what ground they describe it as socialist.

Pigs “Better Housed and Fed” than Proletarians

Sir Benjamin Dawson, Bt., Chairman of the Bradford Central Division Conservative Association, recently alarmed his political associates by making a speech on the condition of the workers in Bradford. It happened thus: he read an advertisement asking for “coals for the poor and aged,” and he was surprised that such things could be necessary in view of the progress we are supposed to have made in the past forty years. So he made a tour of inspection.

“When I had finished my tour, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my country, thoroughly ashamed of the National Government, and thoroughly ashamed of the Conservative Party.

“The pigs on my farm are better housed and fed than some of the people I saw that day.’’—(From a pamphlet reproducing the speech.)

Sir Benjamin, as a mark of his sincerity, rushed off to the Conservative Association, told them what he had seen and what he felt, and offered to resign his chairmanship.

He went on to make some other pertinent remarks about the fact that poverty exists in the midst of plenty, and that those who have money can get what they want and where they want it— on top of Mount Snowdon if they so desire.

Nevertheless. Sir B. Dawson makes a common error in saying that "the cause of these terrible conditions is poverty, and poverty arises from unemployment.''

For years the S.P.G.B. has combated the false doctrine that only the unemployed are poor. Poverty exists for the employed worker as well. Consequently, Sir B. Dawson's remedy—shorter hours, so that the unemployed can be absorbed into employment—is no remedy at all, even if it achieved its first purpose of removing unemployment. Even if all the workers were got back to work, they would still be poor. Moreover, capitalism would continue to create more unemployment by introducing still more labour-displacing machinery.

A Hero of the Home Front

Mr. J. H. Thomas, war-supporter, did all of his fighting on the home-front, which gives an odd flavour to a remark in the Times editorial on the passing of Thomas: “He faced the emergency of war without flinching . . ." (Times, June 3rd, 1936.)

Quite a lot of us can face other people's wars without flinching.

A Question to a Labour Councillor

Speaking at a Conference of the Socialist League on June 1st, a Mr. F. R. Levy, of Stepney, said that he is a member of a council with sixty-five Labour members out of seventy.

The majority of them do not know the first little thing about Socialism or what it stands for. They are either out for a career or are there because some friend of theirs wants a job.—(Manchester Guardian, June 2nd, 1936.)

Mr. Levy went on to urge greater care in the selection of Labour candidates, which misses the most important point about the whole matter, that is, the character of the vote behind the elected delegate. There will be no progress towards the conquest of power for Socialism until the electorate is Socialist, when it will give a mandate for Socialism. If Mr. Levy desired to help Socialism on he could begin now by fighting elections on one demand only—Socialism. We know it is safe to say that the whole of the Labour candidates, at Stepney and elsewhere, do nothing of the kind. Instead they solicit votes on a programme of reforms of capitalism, thus delaying the day when the workers will realise that their only salvation is in Socialism.

Mr. Chamberlain*s Understanding of Capitalism

Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech in Parliament on May 20th, made two admissions of interest to Socialists. The first was an admission that capitalism will in due course produce another trade depression.

. . . . I accept the broad principle that these things do work in cycles, and I have to look forward to the time when we may expect in the natural course of things that trade activity will diminish instead of increase.—(Hansard, col. 1266, May 20th, 1936.)

(It is worth noticing how Mr. Chamberlain unconsciously identifies capitalism with nature, and says “in the natural course of things" when he should say “in the capitalist course of things.")

The second point (col. 1,263) discloses the way in which a capitalist financial expert views expenditure on old-age pensions, unemployment, etc. Another M.P. had said, “Why not raise wages and scrap the expenditure on the social services ?" Mr. Chamberlain replied as follows:—

I did not quite apprehend how my hon. Friend thought it would be possible to provide that the rise in the wages of the workers could be so general, widespread and universal as to give them the equivalent for the social services they would lose.

Mr. Chamberlain here admits the Socialist contention that social services are an alternative to wage increases, and his references to "spreading" explain why the capitalists prefer the method of social services. A wage increase will be largely spent by the workers on satisfying the immediate needs of themselves and their families, and still leave the capitalists to provide for the destitute and for the big increase of unemployment during times of crisis. In other words, the social service method is cheaper.

French Capitalists Provide German Armaments

The following is taken from an article in the American Industrial Worker (April 18th, 1936), written by Pierre van Paassen: —

France is arming Germany! Her munitions makers, like those of other lands, know no fatherland but profit.

If Herr Hitler felt strong enough March 7th to defy the world, tear the Locarno Treaty to shreds and install himself on the Rhine with heavy artillery, monster tanks, mobile forts of steel and bombing planes, this was made possible by the French mining trusts.

Seventy-five per cent. of the steel in Germany’s artillery and other war equipment comes from France. Seventy-five per cent, of the shells and bullets which are going to kill French soldiers or the soldiers of nations allied with France in an eventual war with Germany are of French origin.

An average of 60 freight trains loaded with iron ore left France every day in 1933, 1934, and 1935 for Germany. The rate of export is even higher in 1936.

An expert, Paul Allard, has figured out that of every two shells Germany fires off in the next war, one will be of French origin. That is to say, one out of every two shells fired by Germans to kill Frenchmen in the next war will represent a profit to the Comite des Forges, the great French steel trust.

The Co-Operative Movement Admits Defeat

The Co-operative movement is not only fundamentally different from the conceptions of such pioneers as Robert Owen, but even the restricted aims it set itself are now seen to be unattainable. The latter-day notion was that the co-operative trading and manufacturing organisations could beat the private capitalist traders on their own field and thus gradually drive them out of business.

The controllers of the movement now know that this is impossible. At the recent congress of the Co-operative Union a delegate stated that “after ninety years of co-operation they still had only ten per cent. of the retail trade in the country and only half of that trade was placed with the Cooperative Wholesale Society. Only one-third of that was manufactured in their own factories." (Daily Herald, June 4th, 1936.)

A still more amazing confession of failure is an advertisement issued by the C.W.S. itself, in the June issue of The Clerk. It is an appeal to readers when shopping at Co-operative stores to insist that articles purchased came originally from the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and not from a private wholesaler or manufacturer. In other words, the retail Co-operative stores are refusing to buy Co-operative goods themselves, doubtless to a great extent because they can make a bigger profit by handling the better-known products of private manufacturers.

Illusions about Russia, Sweden and France

For years the Bolsheviks complained, with good reason, that the capitalist Press was filled with reckless or deliberately lying statements about conditions in Russia. It would appear that many Communists decided that the best answer to one lie is another. Consider, for example, the following utterly untrue assertion about Russia, which appeared in the Daily Worker (June 1st, 1936), from their own Moscow correspondent: —

In the U.S.S.R. Socialist society has been built.

This is untrue, and the Daily Worker knows it.

Another ridiculous statement, this time about Sweden, was made by the City Editor of the Daily Herald on June 8th, 1936. Mr. Francis Williams there tells us that the administration of capitalism in Sweden by a Labour Government is an instance of “ Socialism in action."

There is this difference between Mr. Williams and the Daily Worker, that Mr. Williams just does not know any better.

A third statement, about France, was made by Major Attlee, leader of the Labour Party. Writing in the Daily Herald (June 15th, 1936), he said: —

There are many people who have maintained until now that Socialism could not be introduced without bloodshed. The French Government is showing that it can.

All three statements are entirely without foundation, and such lies or ignorance do untold harm to Socialism.

The Friends of J. H. Thomas

The Daily Worker (May 25th, 1936) celebrates the eclipse of Mr. J. H. Thomas by telling us that they always knew he was a friend of the ruling class and an enemy of the workers, right back to 1926, 1921, 1919 and 1911—the dates of various noteworthy betrayals.

All of this may be true, but will the Communists now tell us why they persisted in playing Thomas’s game by telling the workers he was a fit and proper person to have their votes and represent their interests in Parliament after 1911, after 1919, after 1921 and after 1926? Even after the General Strike the Communists continued this policy, and mentioned J. H. Thomas by name as one of the Labour M.P.s they would not oppose. (See Communist Review, February, 1928.)

Saving the Girls from Vice

Reynolds' News, advocate of the stupid policy of trying to improve capitalism with reforms instead of abolishing it, neatly gave its whole case away in its issue of May 17th, 1936. It published an article on “Soho’s Vice Racketeers,” and demanded instant action to stop landlords from drawing high rents from brothels. This is how the article ends: —

Fifty years have passed since W. T. Stead aroused the sleeping conscience of the nation by his Pall Mall revelations of “The Maiden Tribute." The M.P. who takes the lid off Soho now will startle the British nation even more.

So fifty years after one reformer reformed London, the position is more startling than ever. So let’s pretend to reform it again.

In reformist circles this is known as progress! 

The Half-Brotherhood of the Sea

The building of luxury liners for plutocrats, while the bulk of the population is underfed and miserably housed and clothed, is a mark of the rottenness of capitalist civilisation, and the way the reformists from Labour to Fascist have rushed in to praise it is a mark of their essentially reactionary attitude. The maiden voyage of the “Queen Mary” led the Daily Herald to publish a sticky editorial about the “comradeship of the sea which transcends national boundaries.” (May 28th, 1936.)

So little does the sea differ from the other i fields of competitive profit-seeking that the very next day the Herald published a fierce attack on the Russian Government for carrying timber in Russian and other non-British ships, "in which wages are lower than those of the British and Scandinavian ships which used 'to handle most of the trade.” (Daily Herald, May 29th, 1936.) The Herald calls it “blacklegging on British shipping and undermining its wage standards,” and adds that it “is not going to be quietly tolerated.”

Surely this is not comradely language to use towards fellow seafarers?

And while we are on the subject, what about the T.U.C.’s policy of excluding coloured seamen from British ships, even coloured seamen who are British subjects? The Indian Labour movement has long protested against this still less comradely attitude.

This Jewish Business

The attempt by German Nazis and British Fascists to explain everything under the sun by reference to the 400,000 Jews in Germany and the 350,000 in Britain (fewer than one per cent. of the population) leads them into curious situations. The German doctrine of a pure, noble, non-Jewish, Nordic race, made even Mussolini laugh. He pointed out that the originators of the idea of a “chosen race” were the Jews themselves. Mussolini has never hesitated to employ Jews as his Ministers and assistants. In Austria, where he finances and controls the "Heimwehr,” a Fascist movement, one of his principal allies and friends is Otto Mandl, who is also political adviser to Fascist Prince Starhemberg and owner of the great Hirtenberg Arms Factory. Mandl is a Jew. (See Evening Standard, October 21st, 1935.) Not for that reason, but because he is a typical capitalist, he supplied arms and munitions both to the Nazis and to the Heimwehr, although they were fighting each other.

In England, Sir Oswald Mosley’s organisation attacks the Jews, and is in turn attacked by Lieut.-Col. Hutchison’s organisation for being the friend of Jews. Truth, published by Hutchison's “National Workers’ Party of Great Britain,” shows a photograph of Mosley speaking at Birmingham Town Hall on September 25th, 1931, at a meeting of the New Party. “ On Mosley’s left is Kid Lewis, Jew boxer. . . . Forming a trio, arm-in-arm, is Mr. W. E. D. Allen, son of David and Sarah Allen, nephew of Samuel Allen; some time M.P. for Belfast. . . . Behind Allen is Peter Cheney, another Jew. . . . The lawyer employed by Sir Oswald Mosley and the Blackshirts is Mr. St. John Hutchinson, whose daughter, in 1935, was converted to Judaism, and married a Rothschild.”

One of the queer errors into which such nonsense betrays its adherents was illustrated in a recent issue of the Blackshirt, which saw fit to comment on The Socialist Standard being sold at a meeting by an individual in whose features the sharp-eyed Fascist thought he discerned Jewish characteristics. As it happens, the individual in question is indeed of mixed stock—pure British “aryan” mixed with Italian; not a trace of Jewish  blood!

But enough of all this rubbish. Individuals are the product of a variety of moulding forces, and the environment of a segregated Jewish group doubtless plays an important part, but dominating all sectional environments is capitalism, with its class divisions and the exploitation of one class by another. The struggles of the exploited to compete with each other for employment, and at the same time to resist the employers, are more important in determining the individual’s conduct than the fact of being Jewish or Gentile.

The only really useful contribution towards ridding society of the unpleasant characteristics of exploiters and exploited is to strive for the abolition of class ownership of the means of production and distribution, and this the Fascists are not doing. What they are doing is to provide a political cloak (or rather, a shirt) under which individuals can promote private vendettas and commercial rivalries against Jews. Most of the anti-Jewish activity is' of the kind mentioned by the Manchester Guardian's Warsaw correspondent: “Many peasants attack Jews merely for looting their shops rather than for other reasons." (Manchester Guardian, February 10th, 1936.) The remainder is mainly blind discontent with capitalism misdirected by Fascists into these useless channels.

Edgar Hardcastle

Here and There: A Labour Party Trumpeter (1936)

The Here and There column from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Labour Party Trumpeter

Mr. Herbert Morrison has been on a lecture tour in the United States of America. His object was to interest American audiences in the League of Nations and the policy of the British Labour Party. According to a report in the Chicago Daily News for April 24th, he said: —

I think there is misunderstanding about the British Labour Party, because you haven’t had many visitors who represent average official opinion of this Party; more of your visitors have represented the extreme Left Wing of the Party or else the Independent Labour Party, which fights us. A British Labour Government would be well fitted to co-operate with your country whether it has a Republican or Democratic Government.

In effect, Mr. Morrison is saying that the Labour Party is “well fitted" to administer the capitalist system. As Socialists we do not need to be assured of this. We have said so for thirty years and more. Members and supporters of the Labour Party who have denied it, might, however, ponder the point again.

 

I.L.P Confusion and Hysteria

The above quotation from the Chicago Daily News was reproduced and unfavourably commented upon in the New Leader for May 29th, in a column headed "This is Capitalism." The I.L.P. boasted for many years that the Labour Party was its child. And a proud parent it was, too. But after thirty years of telling the workers that the Labour Party was “Socialist," the I.L.P. discovered that it was not. After taking so long to discover that the Labour Party is not a Socialist party, it could reasonably be assumed that it would not easily be forgotten. Let us see. The New Leader for May 22nd discusses the various proposals for a "United Front." It dismissed the idea of a "People's Front," such as exists in France and Spain, and which includes Liberals, as unsupportable because of its capital character. The I.L.P. argues for a "Workers' Front."

It is a united Working Class Front without any alliance or compromise with the Liberal and League capitalists.

It is a united Working Class Front between the Labour Party, the Co-operative Party, the I.L.P., and the Communist Party on a maximum agreed programme, with liberty of criticism and action beyond this programme.

It is common action between them on a Federal basis—an alliance of partners, not a rigid and unreal unity such as affiliation to the Labour Party would involve—in order to join forces against our common enemy the capitalist class and its political parties, and to realise common aims.

It will be noticed that the I.L.P. refuses to enter an “alliance or compromise with the Liberal and League capitalists," but will enter a “United Front" with the Labour Party (which it denounces as a capitalist party) "in order to join forces against our common enemy, the capitalist class and its political parties, and to realise common aims." Join with capitalist parties to fight the capitalist class “to realise our common aims." Phew!

Again, in the New Leader, May 29th, Mr. John McGovern, M.P., in a letter to the Editor, complains that the Editor of the I.L.P. inter-party journal, Controversy, deleted a statement from an article by him (McGovern) that C. A. Smith, Fenner Brockway and C. L. R. James had stated that they “would bear arms and join the army if they were in Abyssinia . . .  on behalf of the Emperor."

In his reply, C. A. Smith rises to noble heights: ". . .  I now repeat that had I been in Abyssinia only conflicting duties or sheer cowardice would have prevented my fighting against the Fascist invaders." Twenty years ago the capitalist class persuaded millions of workers to fight in war for capitalist interests with the cry of “Defend poor little Belgium." To-day, Mr. C. A. Smith, a leader in the self-styled revolutionary I.L.P., has let himself into a similar trap. Poor Abyssinia! Drive out the Fascist invaders! For whom and for what end?

Communists and the Labour Party

The Communist Party has applied to the Labour Party for affiliation. The correspondence relating to the application has been published in a penny pamphlet by the Communist Party. In one letter to the Secretary of the Labour Party, Mr. Pollitt says: “The Communist Party, if affiliated to the Labour Party, would certainly work, as many of your most energetic and sincere members are now working, to strengthen the policy and principles of the Labour Party for the achievement of Socialism, in accordance with the democratic principles provided in the Labour Party constitution, and would at the same time in the daily struggle loyally carry out all agreed upon decisions and mobilise all upon whom it has influence to take part."

Mr. Pollitt goes on to speak approvingly of the “People's Front" as it exists in France. He asks of the Secretary of the Labour Party: “Is it not a fact that the United Front has saved France from Fascism ? Is it not a fact that so profound has this experience been that the United Front has broadened out into the People's Front, embracing large sections of the middle class and all who fear Fascism and war."

Notice "embracing large sections of the middle classes." Even Mr. Pollitt, accustomed as he is to right-about-face changes in Communist Party policy, hesitates to point out that a People's Front on the French model means an alliance with the Liberals. Workers whose memories are not so conveniently short as Mr. Pollitt's will remember that not so long ago the Labour Party was referred to in communist journals as "traitorous," “Social-Fascist" and "war-mongering." The Labour Party has not forgotten, and there seems no prospect of a " United Front " just yet! It is an amusing thought, though, that we may yet see the erstwhile advocates of the violent overthrow of capitalism reproaching the Labour Party for being “too extreme." It is really very confusing.

Poverty, Health and Housing

In a review of a book called Poverty and Public Health, by G. C. M'Gonigle and J. Kirby (Gollancz, 6s.), the News Chronicle (June 8th, 1936) gives some interesting figures on malnutrition and housing.

The close connection between wages and health can be seen from the following table: —

Wages 25s. to 35s., death rate 25.96 per 1,000.

"          35s   "  45s.      "      "    19.34  "       "

"          45s   "  55s.      "      "    19.23  "       "

"          55s   "  65s.      "      "    15.13  "       "

"          65s   "  75s.      "      "    13.51  "       "

"          75s   and up,.    "      "    11.52  "       "

The death rate among workers whose wages are less than two pounds a week is therefore nearly twice as high as among workers whose wages are between three and four pounds a week.

Other interesting facts are mentioned. Far example, an investigation carried out in Stockton revealed that a slum population, after being moved to a new housing estate, was showing a death rate of 33.55 per thousand instead of the expected rate of 8.12 per thousand. That is to say, four times as many deaths as should have occurred were occurring among these ex-slum dwellers now living under “ ideal ** conditions. The plight of unemployed workers on new housing estates is particularly appalling. On one such estate it was found that the amount of money available for four was 2s. 10½d. a week per man. Contrast this with the cost of the British Medical Association's minimum diet, which in 1932 was 4s. 10½d., and which to-day. Dr. M'Gonigle says, is 7s. Our reformers, if they face these awkward facts at all, will doubtless advocate more reforms; reforms catch votes anyway.

Wage-Slaves and Health

Labour Management for February has an interesting article called “ One-Day Absenteeism,*' by Dr. Garland, the medical officer at a large factory which employs thousands of women workers. The doctor argues for greater tolerance for the worker who takes an occasional day off from work. The occasional day off would have a “tonic" and “stimulating" effect on return to work. Workers at the factory where Dr. Garland is employed are shut out for the day, and lose the day's wages, if they are not within the factory gates when the hooter blows. On the other hand, if the worker is away on account of sickness for one day or more, she (or he) does not lose her wages. The result is, according to Dr. Garland, that many workers who are absent because of being shut out in the morning, produce medical certificates to explain their absence for the day. Some of these certificates are for complaints that would lay the average person low for several weeks. The panel doctor in working-class districts apparently cannot afford to risk unpopularity by refusing certificates. His income from medical certificates, at one shilling each, even on a small panel of only 1,000 patients, means an addition to his income, according to Dr. Garland, of probably one hundred pounds a year. On the other hand, says the doctor, “The average worker is rarely feeling so fit and sound that he or she hasn’t an odd pain or ache somewhere that can be magnified into gastritis, enteritis, tonsilitis, or some other ‘ itis ' . . . ."

A curious mix-up which reveals how dependent is the position of the medical practitioner and how near many workers are to working no longer in this life.

Changes in Russia

The U.S.S.R. is introducing a parliamentary regime, or at least some of it. The much-vaunted Soviet system of “pure proletarian democracy" is to be replaced by a parliamentary form of government, which, until recently, was looked upon with withering and pitying contempt by the fervent communist. There are to be two chambers, direct voting, the abolition of plural votes (the town workers, under the Soviet constitution, had proportionately more votes than the peasants), the secret ballot, and much of the paraphernalia of western parliamentary government. Any organised group of citizens, we are told, will be able to include names in the list of candidates for parliamentary seats. Louis Fischer tells us in Reynolds News (May 31st, 1936), “The new Constitution contains numerous provisions sensational in their significance. For instance, an interesting declaration will be made about private property."

That declaration should be interesting.

Something else is interesting too. The Russian Government is seeking pacts and alliances with the western parliamentary countries. Shall we yet see another "War to Save Democracy" ?

The Passing of the Crisis

The Ministry of Labour returns issued at the end of May make interesting reading. The number of people at work reached the figure of 10,831,000, which is the highest in the history of unemployed insurance, and excludes the recent inclusion of agricultural workers in unemployment insurance. The number of unemployed was 1,703,941, as against nearly three million, three or four years ago. The facts are significant. Capitalism, once having reached the lowest pitch in the slump, recovered, and is now, once again, going through a period of expansion. There is nothing new in this; it has been the course in every industrial crisis for the past one hundred and fifty years. The pendulum in capitalist production having swung back must, by its very nature, swing forward again. But where are the shoddy economists, capitalist and self-styled Socialist alike, who only yesterday were telling the world that the end of the capitalist system was at hand? Have they relegated the end to an uncertain future date, as the Christians have the second coming of Christ ? The chances are that if the workers allow capitalism to continue long enough to have another crisis they will be prophesying as wrongly, dismally and noisily as ever.

It is curious how events can upset flimsy minds. The New Leader published articles about eight years ago eulogising American mass production methods. Henry Ford, we were told, had shown Marx to be wrong. The New Leader has since discovered many new “lines.” Others talked glibly of the crisis which had lasted since the last war—the mere fact of there being unemployment continuously since then was evidence enough, for them, of a continuous crisis. A little knowledge would show how capitalism really works. The recurring periods of depression and expansion, with the consequent increase and decrease in unemployment, are the very essence of capitalism. These in themselves will not bring it to an end. This will only be done when the.workers understand that the appalling poverty and insecurity which exist side by side with immense wealth in periods of depression and expansion alike, can be abolished by the social ownership of the means of life.

 

The Passing of a Labour Leader

Bruce Clavering has an article in the Sunday Referee (May 24th, 1936), about the life of J. H. Thomas. Certain facts stand out and emphasise how useful he has been to the capitalist class. In 1911, the article says, "the railwaymen wanted to strike. Thomas saw Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He launched an impassioned appeal, but Lloyd George was unmoved.  "I, too, am a Welshman/ said L.G.”

“Then the Chancellor made his own appeal. He pointed out that the Kaiser had issued a virtual ultimatum over Morocco, banking on the trouble in England keeping Britain’s hands tied. Thomas responded to the appeal and called off the strike.” 

"During the war he swelled the army with more recruits than almost any other single man. As an Englishman he was a patriot . . . . he achieved the best for his country and for himself.” 

Trotsky’s verdict on Thomas was, “This incredible lackey.”

Whether J. H. Thomas was sincere, insincere, rogue or fool does not interest us. He served the master-class faithfully and well, and in doing so was supported enthusiastically by the railway workers. His usefulness to the master-class and, to some extent, his popularity with them, was because he could command an enormous working-class following.

His life aptly illustrates the perils for the working-class in “leadership” and the need for the working-class to have knowledge of Socialist principles.

Harry Waite

Spotlights on Capitalism (1936)

From the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

China—Scene of the Next War?

Now that the whole of Africa has been parcelled out, there remain very few areas of the world’s surface which are not subject to the political domination of advanced capitalist countries. China, however, is one of them, and so we find the birds of prey gathered around for the final picking. The one secure source of revenue in China is the Customs, and the Daily Telegraph mentions (May 14th, 1936), that they are the one point of economic security for Chinese loans, which are largely held by British capitalists. The Japs, however, have established a demilitarised zone in the north of China, where Chinese troops are not allowed to penetrate, and set up a local Government, known as the “ Independent East Hopei Anti-Communist Autonomous Council.” As a result of this, they are able to obstruct the Chinese Customs in such a way that goods can be brought across the Great Wall of China, or landed on the coast, either duty-free or on payment of only a quarter of the normal duties. This naturally diverts goods from such ports as Shanghai, where full duties have to be paid, and so the amount of both trade and duties at these ports declines, and the actual loss to the revenue has amounted in one week alone to as much as £120,000. As the interest on the loans has hitherto taken “only” one-fifth of the Customs dues, there is still ample cover for the service of the loans. Nevertheless, the bondholders are very much upset, and so the Governments of both Great Britain and the United States have made strong official representations in Tokio.

For nearly a hundred years now, the capitalist powers have been nibbling at China; one of the most notorious occasions was the Opium Wars, fought with the object of forcing the Chinese to buy Indian opium—a harmful drug which they were quite capable of producing themselves. Twice have British troops marched on Pekin, and as long ago as 1860 they burnt the magnificent Imperial Palace, just outside Pekin, to the ground. The French pinched Annam and Tongking—once Chinese provinces, Japan long ago stole Taiwan, and more recently Korea, whilst her present intrigues are setting the teeth of the other capitalist powers on edge. Great Britain holds Hong Kong, whilst land in the vicinity has been obtained for fortification purposes. At every available opportunity the Chinese have been forced to agree to the opening of certain of their ports—called “treaty ports”—to foreign trade, and these even extend to the interior of China up to the limit of navigability of the Yang-tze-Kiang. Modern internal transport is now almost entirely in foreign hands. The majority of the railways are owned by British capitalists, whilst in the latest sphere— that of aviation—a new scramble has commenced. Here the British are behind—due doubtless to the British Government's present embargo on loans to foreign Governments and companies—and so we find the more important towns in this vast country —16 times the size of the British Isles—linked by a network of regular services, the most important being the American (China National Aviation Corporation), whilst the Germans have not been slow and their Eurasia Aviation Corporation flies from Shanghai to Hanchow and from Pekin to Canton. Chinese capitalism is, however, fast developing, and so we find the national South-Western Aviation Corporation operating American machines from Canton to Hangchow and Pakhoi in the southwestern extremity, and even now a dispute has arisen with the French and American lines over the carriage of mails.

Those who watch for the next war may well turn their eyes to China.

#    #    #    #

Beauty in the Stores

F. W. Woolworth & Co., Ltd., who last year made a profit of over £5,000,000, believe in leaving no stone unturned to increase their turnover, and so we find them issuing The New Bond. Unlike Chinese bonds, which produce a revenue for the purchaser, this “Bond" costs twopence and is designed to benefit the seller, rather than the buyer. The buyers are Woolworths' girl slaves, and the purchase of The New Bond is quite optional. We understand, however, that it is a brave girl who would refuse to buy. Like all “house” publications of this nature, the object is to produce a “team spirit” amongst the employees and to make them feel that they are at j one with the firm.

An issue before us contains a beauty chat— . “ Our Beauty Chat ” it is called, and we read— 

“It is the discreet touch of Rouge and Lipstick that makes or mars a face. The lighter shades of Rouge, such as Orange or Cherry, make your skin appear clearer—eyes brighter; but should you have blue-black hair and brown eyes, a slightly darker shade is necessary, such as Rosée.”

Concluding, they say—“ We shall recommend the well-known cosmetics which can be obtained at 'your' Store, so let us vote for a Bigger, Brighter, Beauty Movement!M

And, of course, Bigger and Better dividends. In return the firm will give the employees a paltry Christmas box and a vote of thanks!

  R. M.

Blogger's Note:

Original spelling in the article retained. A year to the day, Japan invaded China in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

New Premises Fund (1936)

Party News from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fund being raised to enable us to obtain larger and more convenient premises has now been open for more than a year and out of the sum aimed at, £300, we have so far received £182. We now urgently appeal for further donations to complete the fund at latest before the end of this year.

A list of donations up to 23rd June appears below.

SPGB Meetings (1936)

Party News from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

'Comrade Clifford', who was the London speaker at the Durdham Downs, Bristol meeting, was Clifford Groves.

SPGB Propaganda Meetings (1936)

Party News from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard