The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard
Parliament as a Working Machine
Much ink and lung power is being wasted at the moment by half-baked critics of things as they are, who attribute our ills to the defects of the Parliamentary machine. Parliament, they say, is too slow, it creaks and obstructs, scrap it for a really fast-moving dictatorship or sub-committee of the Socialist League.
All this criticism misses the point. Parliament moves as fast or as slow as those who control it want it to move. If the present Conservative majority does not introduce social reforms desired by the opposition, that is not because Parliament won't let them, but because they do not want to introduce these particular reforms. But let capitalist interests require some fast work and then see what happens.
On June 14th, 1934, Germany announced its intention of defaulting on some bonds held by English investors. Six days later (June 20th) Parliament took the first, or purely formal reading, of the Debts Clearing Offices and Import Restrictions Bill, enabling the Government to seize monies due to Germans for goods sold in England.
The second reading was on June 25th; the Committee hearing and third reading on June 26th; the acceptance of a House of Lords’ amendment on June 28th; and the Royal assent on,the same day.
The Lords had dealt with the Bill in one day, June 27th.
Here we see a piece of legislation vitally affecting widespread interests of capitalist traders and investors, dealt with in three or four days of Parliamentary time. From Germany's announcement to the Royal assent took only fourteen days! Holland and Switzerland, with Parliamentary government, were equally prompt.
While we are on this subject, let us look at a piece of information published in The Times on July 21st. Fascist speakers have been heard to ask whether such an incident as the year-long hold-up of Waterloo Bridge could happen in Fascist Italy, where ”talking-shops” (i.e., democratically elected councils) are supposed to have been replaced by smart, one-man, dictatorial direction from above.
Milan, according to The Times correspondent, also has its traffic problems, and tube railways have been agreed as the solution. That scheme “has been under consideration for many years,” but, says the local dictator, ”it is not likely for many reasons to take practical shape for a long time yet.” So they have decided, ”for a long time yet,” to do without the tube railways, which they are agreed is the solution, and in their place to build the tunnels and run tramcars through them. Even so, the work on this temporary and partial solution will not begin until next year, and will take up to three years What price dictatorship ?
A Question to Mr. Attlee
Mr. Attlee, M.P. , wrote an article in the Daily Herald (August 14th) in which he tried to discuss what another Labour Government would do regarding wages, and in particular the wages of Post Office workers and other Government employees. His views are of some importance in the Labour Party, because he was P.M.G. under the last Labour Government, and is now Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. These qualifications help him to speak with authority, but they also no doubt account for his very guarded utterances.
First, he candidly admits that the “Post Office is not an example of Socialism but of State capitalism”—something the S.P.G.B. has been trying to ram into the thick heads of the “Mr. Attlees” for thirty years. Perhaps, too, it was not so candid as it appears to be. It may very well have been introduced here just to serve as a convenient excuse for the failure of Mr. Attlee and the Labour Government to do anything material for Post Office workers when in office. It is not a case of Mr. Attlee having dropped “Post Office-ism” in order to take up Socialism. What he did was to back up
Mr. Morrison's “Public Utility ism,” and the one has as little to do with Socialism as the other.
Mr. Attlee observes that Post Office employees complain of “scandalously low rates of pay and other evils.” He does not say that the complaints are justified—that would provoke questions as to why the Labour Government did not do something about it—nor does he say that the complaints are not justified—that would annoy some of his readers—who happen to know the facts. Then he goes on to lay the blame on the hard-hearted Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose department, or so says Mr. Attlee, ”is to the Post Office just what the shareholders are to a private company.”
That is as good a defence as Mr. Attlee is likely to find; that is, it is no good at all. It breaks down because the Labour Government (or any Government) is just as much responsible for the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as for any other Department under its control. The fact is that many thousands of Post Office workers were and are paid at rates on which it is impossible to live in anything like decency and comfort. Mr. Attlee and his Labour predecessor at the Post Office, Mr. Lees-Smith, knew all about this but did nothing.
In spite of repeated protests they allowed Post Office and civil service pay to be reduced to the lowest level it has reached since the War. Now—in spite of a further fall in the cost of living since the Labour Government went out of office—the present Government has agreed to raise the level of pay slightly.
Will Mr. Attlee tell us why he consented to Post Office pay being reduced to this low level, seeing that the present P.M.G., Sir Kingsley Wood, has been able to get the Treasury dragons to allow some small improvement, and has, moreover, admitted publicly that hardship exists?
When They are In Office, and when They are Out
Mr. Attlee had a few words to say on the “national minimum wage” as a method a Labour Government would adopt to raise wages. The proposal (although, of course, useless as a remedy) looks so beautiful in its simplicity, can it be that nobody has thought of it before? And can there be people who, having accepted it, subsequently find reasons for not applying it? Mr. Attlee has to admit that there are these villainous people, but their “arguments against a national minimum wage must now be abandoned.”
Who were they? Why, none other than Mr. Attlee’s party, when they were last in office. For years they had preached the need for a national minimum wage. Then, in November, 1930, when in office, they were asked by
Mr. Kirkwood if they would introduce a bill to make wage reductions illegal. The Labour Prime Minister replied as follows (
Hansard, November 26th,
1930; col. 1338): —
Wages, either real or nominal, cannot be fixed by legislation for the wage-earners generally. The Government’s policy is to maintain standards of living and secure as equitable a distribution of wealth as is possible.
This will not prevent Mr. Attlee’s party from playing the same trick once more if they ever get into office again.
Not Interested in the Last War
On August 16th one of these lucky employees of the Post Office, a temporary postman, aged 47, was imprisoned for stealing postal orders. His wage was 34s. a week. The Chairman of the Bench, a Capt. A. Eve, when told that the prisoner had a good character, "served in the War and was discharged after being wounded and gassed,” said: “We don’t want to hear that. It is ancient history.” (Daily Herald, August 17th,)
Of course, it is ancient history to talk about the victims of the last war at a time when our rulers’ attention is fully occupied with the possibility of another.
Labour “ Socialism ”
Before leaving Mr. Attlee, it is worth while placing on record his quaint notions about Socialism. It will at least serve to prevent Labour Party readers of this journal from writing to us telling us that this time the Labour Party really does mean by Socialism what Socialists mean.
Mr. Attlee discusses what a future Labour Government would do about wages. First, in the "transition period,” it would determine in relation to the national wealth “what wages should be paid to the workers in industry.” Then civil servants and industrial workers “must stand together in their demand for a higher standard of life.” (Mr. Attlee forgets to say what the workers are to do if a future Labour Government, like the last one, hears the workers "demanding” these things, but answers "No!”)
Then, after the "transition period,” a beginning is to be made with "socialisation” (Mr. Herbert Morrison’s name for Public Utility Corporations). Then, says Mr. Attlee, the "problem of fixing remuneration will become acute,” and the remedy is that "Socialists must aim at equalitarianism, although it may not be completely attainable for a considerable time.”
Our progress, so far, may be summarised thus: First, a Labour Government, then an inquiry into how much wages the workers can be given, then "a considerable time” during which efforts will be made in the direction of equalitarianism, and of diminishing property incomes.
After this we might hope that Mr. Attlee will expect to have arrived at the desired goal, but what we find instead is that there will still be a wages system, and still, apparently, property incomes, albeit "diminished.”
Mr. Attlee’s followers, who have spent the past twenty or thirty years chasing after Post Office "Socialism” only to discover that it is "State capitalism,” will spend another considerable span of life chasing after "socialisation,” only to discover that it is Public Utility Corporations, and that the wages system and capitalism in general are still there.
It is a sure thing, if the workers allow this to happen, that when that further stage is reached, Mr. Attlee will be writing articles in the Daily Herald of that day, discovering new variations on the old theme.
The Hard-Faced “Daily Herald”
Labour propagandists are fond of saying that the incursion of the publishing firm of
Odhams into the Labour world (was it an incursion or an annexation?) has revolutionised propaganda. It is certainly possible that the
Daily Herald's rise to the position of the world's largest circulation, over two million copies a day, will help the Labour Party to round-up votes as never before, but there is a thorn to every rose, and one little thorn in the side of Labour Party propagandists is the fifteen per cent. dividend paid by Odhams. In the past the Labour Party has been able to denounce wicked bankers and hard-faced business-men for making an “unreasonable" profit. What will they say now? When the
Daily Herald was from a profit-making point of view a flop it was all very well to throw stones, but fifteen per cent. is well above the average rate of profit of industrial and commercial concerns. It is more than most of the banks pay, and far higher than many of them.
Incidentally, Labour Party adherents of
Major Douglas, who believe that the banks have it in their power to pay dividends of hundreds per cent., might explain how it is that most of them pay far less than Odhams.
A Penny Bun for a Good Wage-Slave.
It is when our bosses are kind to us that we see what sort of cattle they think we are. On Saturday, August 18th, some charabancs were to be seen passing along the Thames embankment draped with huge posters, from which we learned that the animals inside were the salesmen of a certain textile firm who had come out top in a "trip-to-the-mills" contest. A present for white-collared Clarence Dubb for being a good boy, to go and inspect his strong-armed brother,
Henry, in the mills. Then each group will be expected to derive satisfaction from not having to do the work done by the other, and both will return more contented to the task of making profits for the shareholders.
Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty.
Somebody ought to make an inquiry into the methods by which the rulers in the various countries keep the workers more or less contented while giving them little else but promises of post-dated blessings. In particular, what is the merit of the five-year period that it should have found favour in so many countries? First, there are the five-year Parliaments in Great Britain, it being found that five years is about the longest period a British worker will tolerate the non-fulfilment of a promise of prosperity by any given gang of politicians—after five years he insists that it shall be unfulfilled by a different gang. Then there is little Father Stalin, whose great contribution to civilisation was the discovery that, if it is put over in a lot of pseudo-Socialist jargon, the five years can be extended to two five-years, and the patient Russian can be kept docile with the promise of carrots, not after the first, but after the second five-year plan. If Professor Laski (an admirer of the Bolsheviks who has just visited Russia) is to be believed, the trick works with large numbers of the workers there. He writes (Nation, New York,’ July 18th): —
I doubt whether an unemployed English worker on the dole has a standard of life as low as lower-paid categories of Russian workmen in full employment. On the other hand, I was assured not only by Russians themselves, but by newspapermen who had lived in Russia for many years, that conditions are definitely better than at any time since 1917. . . .
Russia is a land of hope. The masses have no doubt that the sacrifices of to-day will be justified by the achievements of to-morrow. The mental climate is one of intense exhilaration, of a buoyant and optimistic faith I have never before encountered . . .
Hitler looked across the frontier and is now going one better than Stalin. My German oxen, he says, are even more patient than your Russian ones. In the early days, before and just after the. conquest of power, he promised to introduce Socialism almost immediately, and was asking to be crucified if he did not deliver the goods in five years. A year later, having seen that quite a lot of people are already asking for tangible results and may want to crucify him, he puts forward a plea in his election speech of August 17th for fifteen years in which to justify himself. After all, as Hitler says, the Social Democrats and other parties which shared in the Government of Germany since 1919 got away with it for fifteen years between them, why shouldn't he?
Mussolini appears to have worked on a different theory of kidding the workers. Having discovered in the Italian "left-wing" Labour movements how attractive to the average violent reformist are speeches about “ACTION," he worked out a formula which, so far, has never let him down. He proclaimed the dethronement of talk about theory, and enthroned in its place talk about action. After twelve years, a decreasing but still very large number of Italian workers are contented with it.
But black as it is, the outlook might be worse. We have not yet found a politician able to win an election on a programme of "Prosperity for Posterity: The Millennium in 150 years."
Mr. Selfridge on Myths.
Every day in
The Times and certain other papers there is a half-column of great thoughts inserted by Selfridge & Co., Ltd., and written by "Callisthenes." On August 16th "Callisthenes" discussed "The Great Equality Myth," and regretted that the doctrine of the equality of men is not declining as it ought to be. It would be unfair to hold "Callisthenes" responsible for all the views expressed; doubtless he has to write what he thinks will please
his employers. May we, first of all, however, disabuse him of the notion that the basis of the Socialist case is a belief that “all men are equal," and that “all people should work the same number of hours per week and get the same amount of money in return, the same amount of honour, the same number of the constituents of 'happiness' ” Strange as it may seem to “Callisthenes,” if he listened to a member of the Socialist Party for a month he would hear never a word about any of these doctrines. Socialists are occupied with a very different matter, that is, the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, including, of course, the stores, vehicles, plant and stock of Messrs. Selfridge & Co. What we want and are determined to get, not one day later than need be, is the abolition of the private ownership and control of these things, and their conversion into the common property of society. We shall then be as little concerned as “Callisthenes” as to whether A and B are each 5ft. 9ins. and measure 34ins, round the waist. When “Callisthenes” puts forward his employer’s view about the nature of existing society, these ideas are as remote from reality as are his ideas of Socialism. There is, he tells us, a fundamental quality about men which gives each one “the capacity for earning money .... in different degree.” It is this, we are told, which accounts for economic inequality. This is, of course, not an original view. It is, on the contrary, very old, and it can be shown to be absurd by one simple feature of capitalism that may be observed every day. If Mr. Selfridge’s wealth is due to his superior capacity for earning money (and not to his participation in the capitalist-class ownership of the means of life which compels propertyless workers to submit to exploitation at his hands), why is it that he and every other capitalist hangs on like grim death to his property and will never on any account risk his alleged superior capacity in competition with the workers? Why, in other words, does not Mr. Selfridge come out from behind the rampart of property which protects him and gives him privilege, and pit his brains against those of the lesser men?
The answer (not for publication in The Times) is that Mr. Selfridge is not such a damned fool as all that. He knows full well that a capitalist deprived of his property, even though allowed to keep his “superior brains,” would be a shorn lamb defenceless against the cruel winds that assail the worker looking for work. Mr. Selfridge knows how much pleasanter it is to stick in the ranks of the privileged, where he never has to come into direct and brutal contact with the bread-struggle he finds so bracing for others, where he is flattered, guarded and coddled by servants and secretaries, every one of whom has to smile and jump to it because he or she will otherwise get the sack. If Mr. Selfridge should some day meet his dear fellow members of the great firm on an equal footing, he might hear one or two blistering remarks about his canting “Callisthenes” and his playboy bugler who toots his wage-slaves on and off work morning and evening.
Edgar Hardcastle
Blogger's Note:
For more background on Harry Gordon Selfridge and "Callisthenes", check out this article. 
