The Tell-tale Brass Plate.
According to the Labour Party State-owned concerns are forms of “public ownership” or “socialisation.” The matter was put to the test at Marlborough Street Court on 5th April. A man who had “made a stand for what he considered to be the rights of the individual citizen” was charged with trespassing on London Transport property. (Evening News, 6/4/49) Although he had not bought his right to be there, in the shape of a railway ticket, he insisted on remaining in Warren Street Station though the railway police told him to go away. Although the Magistrate dismissed the charge under the Probation Act he told the man, “ You are quite wrong. You have no right to be there.”
We advise the man and any others (particularly Labourites) who believe that nationalisation introduces some fundamental change in the capitalist system to go to the same Underground station (Warren Street) and look down on the pavement. They will see a brass plate let into the pathway which bears the words: London Transport—Private Property.”
Bevan’s "Socialism for Business Men.”
Speaking at Newport, Monmouth, Mr. Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, told his Labour Party audience that “ given twenty years of Labour government, we shall make Britain so strong that even the Tories could be left in charge.” (Daily Herald, 28/3/49). He went on to say that although bigoted Tories will vote against the Labour Government at the next election “less bigoted Tories will hesitate because even private enterprise works better under the beneficent guidance of a Socialist government. That proves that Socialism is a good thing and it is beginning to dawn on some business men.”
There are some who tell us that Bevan is one of the brighter brains in the Labour Party. We shudder to think what the less bright ones must be like.
The Savage Bishops.
In a review of ”A History of English Criminal Law” (L. Radzinowicz) the Economist (9/4/49) shows how savagely the Church resisted attempts to lessen the cruelties of the criminal law in the early 19th century. Innumerable offences now regarded as minor ones were punishable by death, including the theft of more than 5s. from a shop or more than 40s. in cases of housebreaking.
“It was naturally the propertied class that supported the system most wholeheartedly. George Selwyn, the Whig M.P., friend of Walpole and the Hollands, never missed an execution, and once travelled to Paris on purpose to see a man put to death . . . Archdeacon Paley, the judicious protagonist of religious truth, not only believed in the criminal law as it stood, but was attracted by n proposal to make the punishment of murderers a hundred times more horrible than it was already.”Towards the end of the 18th century the system was beginning to break down "but for a reason that reflected no credit on the clergy, the aristocracy or the legislature.” The change was due to “the ordinary men and women” who on juries used deliberately to undervalue the articles stolen so that the death penalty would be avoided. A few of the judges did the same: but the Bishops were of sterner stuff.
“But if there is something to be said for the lawyers there was nothing to be said for the bishops. When Romilly, in 1810, brought in a Bill to abolish the death penalty for 5s. thefts, the Archbishop of Canterbury led six other bishops into the 'No’ lobby and contributed seven ecclesiastical votes to the successful defence of savagery. The record of the Anglican Church, says Mr. Radzinowicz, is that it never led in any important movement for reform.”
Russian State Capitalism.
The Daily Mail had asked whether the British Labour government is "aiming at some form of State capitalism on the Russian model” and the Daily Worker, reproducing the question in its issue of 15th January, 1949, dismissed the idea that Russia is a state capitalist country. The Russian model, said the Worker, “contains no element of capitalism of any kind.”
Since Russia has the wages system, production of commodities for sale, bond-holding, profits and profit taxes, Rouble millionaires, etc., etc., this means that in the eyes of the Daily Worker writer they are not elements of capitalism.
The question is raised again by the Russian Budget. According to the Anglo-Russian News Bulletin (28/3/49), published for the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee by its Communist Secretary, W. P. Coates, Russian Budget Revenue for 1949 is to come from the following sources:
Turnover Tax, 261869 million Roubles.
Allocations from Profits, 33.933 million Roubles.
Taxes, 36,468 million Roubles.
State Loans, 22,921 million Roubles.
The Turnover Tax is similar to purchase tax. The allocations from profits represent that part of the profits of State concerns retained by the government. According to the "Bulletin,” “only about a third of the profits of the State enterprises are allocated to the budget—the rest goes for capital development and the increase in the current capital of the enterprises.” The State loans represent money invested by the population, on which of course the government pays interest.
How it can be claimed by the Daily Worker that these are not features of capitalism is a mystery. In one respect, however, Russian State Capitalism does at the moment differ from British. Whereas the British state railways are at present running at a loss the Daily Worker (14/3/49) quotes the Russian Minister of Railways, Mr. Boris Beshchev, as having reported that “as a result of the increase of goods traffic and the reduction of costs, the railways would become a highly profitable branch of the national economy in 1949.” If it were not for the British link-up with U.S.A. we might see Mr. Beschev invited over here to show the Railway Executive how to turn their losses into profits.
The Workers' Share in the National Income.
In the official publication, “National Income and Expenditure” (April, 1949, H.M. Stationery Office. Is., page 12) the government publishes its annual return showing distribution of the national income, set out under the heading “Personal Income from Work and Property.” The figures are after deduction of tax and relate to 1948 and the two earlier years and also to 1938. Comparing 1938 with 1948 the percentage going to wages is shown as having increased from 39 per cent. to 48 per cent.; salaries have fallen from 25 per cent. to 21 per cent; and profits, interest and rent (including professional earnings and income from farming) are shown as having fallen from 34 per cent. in 1938 to 28 per cent. in 1948. The balance (2 per cent, in 1938 and 3 par cent, in 1948) is made up of pay of the armed forces.
In using the above figures it is important to observe that the rise of wages from 39 per cent in 1938 to 48 per cent. in 1948 does not constitute any kind of proof that the purchasing power of wages is higher. The total amount received in the form of wages is larger than in 1938 partly because of the big increase of prices and corresponding increase of wages, and partly because the total number of workers in civil employment is over 1,000,000 more than in 1938 because of the fall of unemployment.
No recent estimate is available of the ownership of property but Mr. Francis Williams, former editor of the Daily Herald, stated in “World Digest” (June, 1941) that on the eve of the war “80 per cent of the total capital belonged to less than 6 per cent. of the community.” Even the Labour Ministers do not claim that much alteration has occurred and Mr. Gaitskell, Minister of Fuel, speaking at Oxford on 8th March, said:
“ . . . . there is still a tremendous inequality of capital. Property is still very unequally divided and that is a problem which has got to be tackled.” (Daily Express, 9/3/49.)
Mr. Attlee on Working and Shirking.
Although the booklet “National Income and Expenditure” is published by Mr. Attlee’s government, it would seem that he has not read it. Under the heading “ Income from Property” it shows that in 1948 the amount of income that went to receivers of rent, dividends and interest (before deduction of tax) was £1,479,000,000; in spite of which Mr. Attlee in a speech at Glasgow on April 10th referred to the receivers of property income in the past tense, as if they have ceased to exist. The following extract is from a report of his speech published by the Manchester Guardian (11/4/49):
“I stress . . . the duty of the citizen of the State as much as his rights. Everyone who fails to contribute his fair share is as much a parasite as those who used to live on the backs of the people without working. The man who slacks at work is scrounging on his mates. If a section of the workers make use of a key position to do little work and extract disproportionate wages they are just as much exploiters as the property-owners who used to hold the nation to ransom. They are acting anti-socially.”
This is a foretaste of what will be said by the Labour Ministers when eventually their attempt to improve capitalism collapses. They will blame it all on the workers.
The New Defenders of Capitalist Profit
The Rt. Hon. Arthur Woodburn, M.P., is in the Labour Government as Secretary of State for Scotland. For many years he was active in the National Council of Labour Colleges and was author in 1931 of “An Outline of Finance,” published by the N.C.L.C. as one of the “Plebs” Textbooks. Like other members of the Labour Party, Mr. Woodburn used to attack capitalism and the profit motive, and spoke of the day when the profit motive would disappear. Now some chickens are coming home to roost to the great embarrassment of Sir Stafford Cripps, Mr. Woodburn, and others.
For the past 50 years, and especially between the wars, the Conservative Party, the Anti-Socialist Union and similar bodies had a regular line of propaganda which consisted first of pretending that Socialism is a scheme for “dividing up” and then of producing figures to show that if the incomes of the rich were divided up among the workers each worker would receive very little as his share. One such leaflet was issued by the Conservative Party in 1927, called “ If Incomes were Divided Up.” The leaflet claimed that if all incomes above £250 a year were divided up, first deducting taxes, rates and the amount that was normally saved and reinvested in industry, what was left would only add 5s. a week to the wage of each worker’s family. The purpose of this propaganda was to persuade the workers that “soaking the rich” was not worth doing.
Times have changed and the Tories do not need to do this any more, for the job has been taken over by Sir Stafford Cripps and other members of the Government. It was Cripps who, at the T.U.C. last year, told the delegates that the capitalists must be allowed to make profit and that even if the Government took away another quarter of their profit it would mean only a trifling extra amount on wages. Now Mr. Woodburn has been backing up Sir Stafford. In a series of answers to Questions on “The Truth About Profits,” published in the “Plebs” (December, 1948). he explained at length why it is useless to try to raise wages by digging into profits. Here is Mr. Woodburn’s answer to the question. “Would it be practicable to take all the £320,000,000 profits for the State? ”
“Even if we take over these companies, the owners would presumably receive bonds on which the normal interest would be paid and the portion to be saved would be the £320,000,000 less that amount. Even if the whole £320,000,000 were confiscated (which no one proposes) and handed over to the 20,000,000 workers, it would amount to only £16 or 320s. a year, which, spread over 365 days, is less than 1s. a day, or about 6s. 2d. per week.”
Edgar Hardcastle
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