The beauties of “progress”. (1925)

From the May 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “I am not saying that everything is perfect, but when we are taking stock, when we are looking ahead, let us not forget at the same time to be conscious of the progress that has been made up to now.!—(Mr. Stanley Baldwin, Yorkshire Post, March 13, 1925.)

If, of course, millions have failed to experience the progress, then they must be consoled with the fact that Mr. Baldwin did not state that “everything is perfect” (sic). Even a body like the Free Church admits in conference that the past 20 years has left untouched the most “serious and perilous evils,” and that “no social arrangement seems able to remove them” (“Daily News,” 13/3/25). Their remedy consisted of a few pious reflections and a resolution to request the Government to sanction instruction in schools on the evils of gambling. They furthermore will continue to support the system which produces the “serious evils.” Another gentleman who has sworn to save humanity, has re-discovered that everything is not perfect. In a white heat he declares :—

  “It is intolerable in a land of considerable wealth there should be millions in slums. It is intolerable in a country of such resources there should be millions on the brink of starvation, millions living beneath the poverty line and millions on the margin.”—(Lloyd George, Daily Chronicle, February 16, 1925.)

Having relieved himself, like the rest of the supporters of capitalism he will proceed to do everything in his power to maintain the system that breeds and fosters the above. Has he not told the wicked Tories that he represents a party “which is just as firmly rooted as you in the existing order” (“Daily News,” 26/10/24)? That is in the “order” that he tells us is “intolerable.” Of course it is fairly tolerable for those with the “considerable wealth,” but who are not in the slums with the abdomens on the margin of emptiness. Fellow-workers, while you remain indifferent to your class interests you, too, unconsciously support that order. Doing so, you will continue to have increasing doses of the above kind of progress.

W. E. MacHaffie