From the “Socialist Standard,” Sept. and Oct. 1904 (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard is now in its 38th year of publication, the first issue being published in September, 1904. That is a long time in the history of the Socialist movement, long enough for many popular and instructive movements and events to have been forgotten. For the information of our readers and in order to encourage an interest in these forgotten events it is proposed each month to publish brief extracts from early issues of the Socialist Standard. The extracts below are taken from the two issues, September, 1904, and October, 1904: —

1. From our first editorial: —

“In dealing with all questions affecting the welfare of the working-class our standpoint will be frankly revolutionary. We shall show that the misery, the poverty, and the degradation caused by capitalism grows far more rapidly than does the enacting of palliative legislation for its removal. The adequate alleviation of these ills can be brought about only by a political party having Socialism for its object. So long as the powers of administration are controlled by the capitalist class so long can that class render nugatory any legislation they consider to unduly favour the workers.”—(S.S., September, 1904.)

2. “Coventry Cycle Trade: Female Wage-Slaves Oust Males.”

“More men are out of work in Coventry at present than for many years past, having been displaced by female employees, who have even been set to work upon small capstan lathes and wheel building. . . . The amount of unskilled male labour in the cycle trade has been reduced to a few hands. The skilled mechanics are now feeling the pinch, many having been out of work all this year. . . Girl’s average wage is 15s., and as the watch and silk trades have greatly fallen off, girls are plentiful.” (From a newspaper, August 31st, 1904, reproduced in S.S., September, 1904.)

3. “The Bogey of the Taxes.”

“Whether he is living in a country whose fiscal policy is based on Free Trade or in one in which it is based on Protection; whether the country is highly taxed or otherwise; whether the district he lives in is highly rated or the reverse, makes little difference; the worker finds that whatever of the above conditions he may be under, a subsistence is all that upon an average he obtains.” (S.S., October, 1904.)

4. “The Futility of Reform.”

“We have, therefore, to recognise all the time that it is only possible to secure any real benefit for the people when the people themselves become class conscious, when behind the Socialists in Parliament and on other bodies there stands a solid phalanx of men clear in their knowledge of Socialism and clear in their knowledge that the only way to secure the Socialist Commonwealth of the future is to depend only upon the efforts of themselves and those who have the same class conscious opinions. Therefore we have no palliative programme. The only palliative we shall ever secure is the Socialist society of the future gained by fighting uncompromisingly at all times and in every season.”—(S.S., October, 1904.)

5. The Increase of Lunacy.

“According to the Daily Express, it is an unpleasant and appalling fact that lunacy is steadily increasing in England and Wales, and it is startling to find that whereas one person in every 327 was certified as insane in 1894, the figures for 1904 are one in 288. But to the Socialist there is nothing startling in the fact. As the struggle for existence becomes more intense, as we speed up, as the raging, tearing, hurrying and scurrying possess us, and as the position of the worker becomes more precarious, we must expect that the mental equilibrium will be disturbed.”—(S.S., October, 1904.)

(The position appears to have worsened since 1904. According to the Statistical Abstract, 1939, the number of persons registered as insane in England and Wales in 1938 was 157,353, equivalent to one person in every 263. Expressing the figures in another way, out of every 10,000 of the population the number registered as insane was 33 in 1894, 35 in 1905, 37 in 1914. In 1920 it had declined to 31, but since then it has steadily risen until in 1938 it was 38 in every 10,000 of the population.)