A Look Round. (1907)

From the June 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

When engaged last month in seeking matter for the Socialist Standard, I alighted on a report of a speech at a banquet, which was so up to the standard of capitalist clap-trap that I at once attributed it to a capitalist politician. But I was mistaken.

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The words that led me to such a conclusion were the following : “Although at the present time they had not got everything they wanted or everything they ought to have, yet things were vastly different from what they were a few years ago. They had now a tolerably comfortable standard of wages and comparatively shorter hours, while they also had attained to political power.”

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The speaker was Mr. G. N. Barnes, M.P., and the occasion the annual dinner of the Plaistow and East Ham branch of the A.S.E., held at the “White Horse,” East Ham, on May 4th. Mr. Barnes and Sir John Bethell, Liberal M.P. for the Romford Division, were the principal guests.

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Of what use is a “tolerably comfortable standard of wages” to the working class if, as usually happens, it is accompanied by more frequent and longer periods of unemployment than were experienced under the old standard ?

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There are but two classes in Society—the producers of wealth and the master class. If by trade union or any other effort the working class succeed in securing a larger share of the product of their labour, it must necessarily be at the expense of the master class. Competition among the latter compels them to be always on the lookout for means whereby the cost of production may be reduced and profits increased. “Concessions” wrung from them by the organised working class stimulate them in their efforts. As a result, old machinery is scrapped or improved, and new machinery introduced. Under the new conditions fewer workmen are required, and so many are discharged altogether or put on short time. In some cases their places are taken by women and even by boys and girls.

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Thus we see the limitations of working-class effort under capitalism, so long as that effort is only directed to palliating the evils of the system, to making it more bearable for the wage-workers.

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No doubt the unemployed will be gratified to learn that Mr. Haldane has decided to increase by one shilling per week the minimum rate of pay of leading hands and labourers of the Army Ordnance Department at Devenport and certain other places. He regrets that he cannot accede to the request to make the rate of pay for labourers at Devenport the same as that at Woolwich, where, he points out, the cost of living is much higher.

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How interesting to the unemployed labourers of Woolwich, of whom there are just now a few, to be reminded that their rate of wages is higher than that of their fellow labourers at Devenport. The income of the workers must be measured by their purchasing power, not by rates of wages.

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But the members of the A.S.E., at any rate, have attained to “a tolerably comfortable standard of wages.” Mr. G. N. Barnes says so, and he should know because he is their General Secretary and a “Labour” member.

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Professedly, the Daily News stands for “righteousness.” Thus on May 13 it printed a letter relating to the L.C.C. tram clerks, signed by “New Cross,” who complained that the clerks were working every evening till 9 and 10 p.m., and that the overtime pay was at the rate of l½d. per hour, but in some cases it had not been paid for at alL Here again can we see that rate and payment are not the same.

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The letter also appeared in other papers, which qualification for membership of the Party, and assert no special claim to “righteousness.” But in the other papers the letter contained words which were not printed in the Daily News, as follows: “Last year the clerks worked from Xmas until the latter end of July until 10 o’clock at night, and without any relaxation.”

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As the letter appeared in the “righteous” Daily News, it would seem that the “wicked” Municipal Reformers were alone the sweaters, but the omitted clause relating to last year involves the “righteous” Progressives.

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Mr. W. Lander, of Bolton, in presiding at the 39th Annual Co-operative Congress at Preston on Whit Monday asked whether it was not a fact that in some directions they were following the practices of their competitors ? Prize giving, he said, bonus systems, overlapping, and the increase of credit trading could scarcely be described as methods which make for the elevation of the individual, the purifying of trade, and the betterment of the condition of the people.

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It was pointed out in our May issue that the Co-operative Societies are capitalist concerns, as of course they could not otherwise be under capitalism. If, therefore, they are to flourish they must fight other capitalist concerns on capitalist lines. They are useful to capitalist politicians because of their pratings of “thrift,” “self help,” “independence of the State,” etc. Many of their leading lights, past and present, are general utility men for the Liberals.

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A discussion took place at the Congress on sweating. The President asked whether the Co-operators are sufficiently careful in making their purchases and whether they ever inquire as to the source of supply of their commodities. And everybody seemed pleased when it was announced that Mr. Gladstone had consented to an exhibition of sweated goods in one of the anterooms of the House of Commons.

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It is sometimes asserted that if there were no purchasers of cheap goods there would be no sweated labour. Apart from the fact that the working class, even when they receive what is considered a fair wage, can only afford to buy cheap goods, what guarantee is there that the workers engaged in producing high priced goods receive higher wages than those who produce low priced goods ? At the Congress itself Mrs. Gasson, a member of the National Anti-Sweating League, said that the League had in their possession a lady’s blouse which would be sold for 35s. to 40s., for making which the worker received sixpence.

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Under capitalism the working class are poor. Some get a “fair” wage and are poor; some get a sweated wage and are poor ; others are unemployed and get no wage at all. They are all poor.

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And what, after all, is a fair wage ? Is it the Trade Union rate ? Because if so anything below it must be “sweating.” Yet in the same issue of the Daily News that reports the discussion referred to above appears an advertisement for a non-Society Linotype operator, used to daily news work, 6,000 essential, salary, 40s. for 50 hours. The minimum rate fixed by the London Society of Compositors is 45s. for 48 hours, but although they have fixed it, it is evident they cannot enforce it. The piece rate for a London lino-operator is 3d. per 1,000. The man who has to produce 6,000 per hour for 50 hours per week should make £3 15s. in wages. He is offered 40s., from which it is also evident that the Daily News is not prepared to sacrifice any portion of its revenue in the interest of what are called “fair” wages for the working class.

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Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Labour M.P. for Leicester, has been on the warpath again in the House of Commons. This time he is concerned about Baptists in the Congo. On May 6 he asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he had received from the Baptist Missionary Society complaints that the fiscal imposts upon materials used for the construction of churches, schools, and hospitals, and for the carrying out of the general work of missionary societies, were heavy and oppressive.

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As the effect, if not always the object, of missionary work is to bring those parts of the world in which their operations are carried on under the capitalist form of society, and to fit the wild, untutored savage for wage-slavery, bringing him into competition with white labour, Mr. MacDonald’s anxiety to assist the Missionary Societies will no doubt be shared by the members of the I.L.P., whose chairmanship he adorns.

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Miss Macarthur, the Secretary of the Women’s Trade Union League, who has recently returned from America, told a Daily Chronicle interviewer that in the States there is a large proportion of “model” factories, and employers state quite frankly that they give these good conditions because they find it pays.

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Just as they become convinced that it will pay, the capitalist class, by legal enactment or otherwise, will institute reforms. It may pay them only from the point of view that the reforms will enable them to get better value out of the wage workers, or, as Mr. A. J. Balfour put it, as an “antidote to Socialism.” Because we of The Socialist Party of Great Britain know this we assert that the working class has no concern with the advocacy of Reforms. If it is claimed that Reforms, temporary though they may be in their effect, are needed, then the surest and quickest way to secure them is to organise for Socialism and for Socialism alone. Then the master class will throw Reforms to the working class as an “antidote.”

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The Socialist Party of Great Britain is the only Party which at its formation and ever since has declined to side-track the working class by advocating palliatives.

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Another interview with Miss Macarthur stated that the attentions showered upon her while in the States had not turned her head. “She stands just where she did and still believes in old clothes and porridge.” And yet when in Boston she paid 16s. for a pair of gloves which she could easily buy in London for 2s. 9d. “I wouldn’t have bought them” she said, “but I was due at a dinner, and my own were split.” Old clothes and porridge, indeed !

J. Kay

Blogger's Note:

I'm 93% certain that 'J. Kay' was the pen name for Jack Kent when he was writing the 'A Look Round' column.