Our Parliamentary Fund (1937)

Party News from the November 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades, sympathisers and friends, gather round, and make this the greatest effort of all. Use every known trick you have to put the Socialist Party of Great Britain on a sound financial basis for the forthcoming parliamentary election. Some of you have, in the past, done more than your share; well, forget about it, and go ahead and knock spots off your previous achievements. Money is urgently required. Don’t forget this money will be used for a purpose that the S.P.G.B. have been striving at for over thirty years, i.e., to put up a candidate or candidates at the next general election.

Some of you have ideas, but you don't execute them, you let them slide, the E.C. are waiting for these ideas (money-raising ideas, of course), others when the “Standard" arrives read the list of subscriptions to the Parliamentary Fund (usually about two inches) and take it for granted that it will reach the sum aimed at. Maybe I have been guilty of this in the past, and I am turning over a new leaf, I wonder how much space would be required in the "Standard" if all of us sent something, well, let's have a go, I, for one, will make it my business to have that space increased. All of us who have read anything of the life of Marx and Engels will understand what these two pioneers would have done in a case like this. I suggest that in honour of these two we make this effort something that even the E.C. did not expect. Fancy asking a miserable £400 ! I am willing to bet new rolls (morning rolls) that we beat that amount, all the talk in the world won't make you stick it if you don't want to; miss the pools, stop smoking, don’t go to the pictures, leave the "gee-gees” alone, cut out Sunday papers, at least do something that will enable you to increase that pain in the eye, the space for the Parliamentary Fund. Make it at least half a column.

Marx himself suffered many times from the lack of "filthy lucre," the S.P.G.B. have the same trouble now, we can help, we will help, only the dead have an excuse, the living have none. To all who read this appeal I say get your name or nom de plume in the Parliamentary Fund, promote a dance, sell something, raffle something, go round your friends with a subscription sheet, anyway, use your nut, and get that few shillings (or pounds), send it on as fast as you can, don’t wait, start now, never mind what you have already done, this is different, it’s really urgent. As a member of the central branch living in Scotland I am determined to raise at least £10, if I fail to reach that sum I will fine myself 10s. over my own subscription. To every member, sympathiser and friend who helps to swell that space please accept my sincere thanks. 

Angus McPhail

PARLIAMENTARY FUND

The following donations to the Parliamentary Fund have been received: Previously acknowledged, £180 11s. 6½d. (donation to October 19th); W.A., £1; Littlewood’s, 3s.; W.W., 4s.; J.C., 4s.: H.W., 4s.; J.V., 2s. 6d.; Southend Branch, £1; Bloomsbury Branch, £1; Collections (S. Cork), £1 3s. 6d.; Hutch, 1s. 6d.; Stepney Branch, 10s.; F.J.H., £1; Rimmer, 1s. 6d.; W.J.M., 10s.; Gladstone Park, 1s.; West Ham Branch, £1 18s.; Rolls Royce, 10s.; W.J.B., 1s.; Quartet, 6s.; Rimmington, 10s.; W.L.B., £1; D.L., 2s.; Mrs. H., 10s.; A.J., 2s.; Lewisham Guarantee, 17s.; Lewisham Members, 11s. 8d.; S.W. London Stamp Books, 13s. 9d.; S.W. London Donation, £2 14s. 8d.; Manchester Branch, 13s. 3d.; Dagenham and Romford, 10s.; I. D., 6d.; Southend Branch, £1; U.P. Workers, £1 14s. 6d.; A.P., 10s. ; Collection, October, 9th 1937, 5s. 6d.; Guarantees, £2 13s.; Total £204 18s. 4½d.