Wednesday, October 4, 2017

By the Way. (1913)

The By The Way column from the September 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the columns of “Justice” of August 16th, 1913, under the heading “The Critical Chronicle,” the B.S.P. confusionists are at it again. Dealing with the Chesterfield bye-election the following suggestion occurs:
   “It is questionable, however, if the votes the stalwarts in Chesterfield can exercise would not have been more effective, in these special circumstances, if cast for the Tory candidate.”
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From the “Evening News” (August 7th) report of the 16th Annual General Meeting of George Newnes, Ltd., held at the Savoy Hotel, I take the following significant statement, made by the secretary in his report:
    “There is no doubt that the advertiser realises that, whilst our publications are read by all sections of the community, we comprise amongst our readers practically the whole of the people who have money to spend on things other than the , necessaries of life.
    “For the purposes of our business it is interesting to note that of the 400,000 adults who died in the United Kingdom last year, 355,000 left nothing, and that the other 45,000 left £276,000,000. I think I may safely say that practically every member of the class from which the 45,000 were drawn is a reader of one or more of our publications.”

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In the Declaration of Principles of the S.P. it is stated that “as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers . . .” In this connection it is interesting to note the remarks that fell from the lips of Mr. Josiah Wedgwood, M.P., at Southampton, at a demonstration “to protest against the killing of strikers on the Rand." He said :
    “We now know what the British Army is for  . . . to protect the interests of landowners and employers. both at home and in the colonies."
Mv word. Josh, what a discovery !


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"In Leicester, a town of shoemakers. 156 children were notified as being insufficiently shod, according to Dr. Allan Warner's report to the Education Committee " (“Daily Citizen,” July 28, 1913)


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We have heard so much rot from that enemy of the working class, Mr. Lloyd George, that it is astounding that anyone can now be found to take him seriously. In 1909 he was going to take us to “fields of waving corn," but in 1913 he tells us at Sutton-in-Ashfield that, in the words of the old song, “we’ve got a long way to go."

“I have never," he said in conclusion, "pretended that this Act is going to remove all the social and economic evils which oppress the people, to remove the mischief at the root of our social condition. There is much more to he done before undeserved poverty and privation is is chased out of this proud country."
The Scout.

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