Question Time. (1913)

From the April 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

A most amusing poster was exhibited at the Tooting branch of the B.S.P recently, and from the Socialist point of view a most comprehensive one, too.

A meeting was advertised for March 9th at which Mr. E Crump was to give a lecture. and the a subject was to be : “Where Are We?’’

Had the speaker shown the same sincerity in keeping his engagement as he did in choosing his subject the position would even then have been humorous, but his failure to turn up placed a touch of reality on the whole affair.

After an existence of twenty seven years, smelling as sweetly under a variety of names, the B.S.P. find it necessary to ask themselves where they are! When we remember that the same party, on the occasion of the Borough Council election in 1912, opposed the Progressives in Battersea and supported them in Tooting, the above incident can only be taken as a true reflex of their "organisation.”

It is interesting to note, also, that what is called a “Transition Programme” (whatever that may be) finds a place on the preliminary agenda for the B.S.P.’s Whitsuntide Conference. The following extracts reveal the terrifying and r-r revolutionary nature of the discussion that is to take place :—

   “The Abolition of the Monarchy.” “Free Administration of Justice and Legal Advice.” “Compensation for Persons Innocently Accused and Imprisoned.” “Abolition of Indirect Taxation,” etc, etc.

Now at last we can feel that capitalism is tottering to its grave Surely nothing but the fear of the advent of Socialism would move the B.S.P. to endeavour to perpetuate the present rotten system with such desperation as the above suggests.

Yet H. M. Hyndman, the G.O.M. of confusion, has said that we are faced with a system which makes reform impossible.

When intelligent workers note these facts, and also bear in mind the controversy raging round the subject of strengthening the very forces which exist to keep us in our slavery, they will agree that the time is over-ripe for questions, including the plaintive one of the lost—"Where are we? "

C. Baggett