Notes by the Way: Gandhi and the Millionaires (1942)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Gandhi and the Millionaires

At the time of Gandhi’s arrest several British newspapers made much of the close association between Congress leaders and wealthy Indian capitalists. The “Daily Express” had the following : —

“Just as ten years ago German industrialists decided to finance Hitler for their own ends, so to-day it is largely the great Indian capitalists who stand behind Congress.

Men like the Birla brothers, great mill owners, and Walchand Hirachand, chairman of the £1,700,000 Scindia Steam Navigation Company, see India freed from British control, as the industrialists’ paradise, with high tariff walls. Some rich Congressmen would like to do a business deal with Japan, too. It is against such tendencies that two new leaders have now sprung up, who are putting Congress through the greatest crisis of its career.” (“Daily Express,” August 6th, 1942.)

The “Evening Standard” (August 4th) said :

“There was surely never a quainter contrast in political associates than that between Gandhi and his host for the Bombay meeting of Congress, Ghanshyam Das Birla, the millionaire of big business. . . . Now and then their friendship has been criticised by Indian Socialists.”

This is fair comment. A political movement which claims to represent the interests of Indian workers and peasants has got to explain why it receives financial support from Indian big business, the exploiters of the Indian toilers; but why does this apply only in India; why not nearer home ? What about big business influence in British political parties ? And why should Indian workers be impressed by advice from millionaire controlled British newspapers, or from politicians who likewise find their close associates in the ranks of the captains of industry?

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Are Bishops More Honest? 

The Bishop of Liverpool, advocating whipping for juvenile law breakers, says : “There is no doubt that since the last war the standard of honesty in Britain has been steadily going down.” (“Evening News,” August 19th.) In accordance with the biblical precept, “If any would not work, neither should he eat,” it is certainly dishonest of our investing class to live at the expense of the workers, but Dr. David is probably being rather unfair to his fellow Church dignitaries if he suggests that they, along with boys who rob orchards, are becoming more dishonest. Did not the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who were the biggest mining royalty owners in the country, willy-nilly suffer a reduction of revenue of about £120,000 a year when coal royalties were vested in the Coal Commission ? And observe how the Church has become more sensitive to criticisms about its slum property, and has sold it, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury (“News Chronicle,” August 13th, 1942). And all done without, so far as we have heard, a single Bishop being flogged.

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G. B. Shaw and the Indian Riots

There must be heart-searching among Labour Party adherents who have so long supported Indian nationalism against what they said was a needlessly repressive policy of British Governments, that while Labour leaders are in the Government strong measures against national rioters are again being used. The following are two items in the “Daily Express” (August 20th, 1942) :—

“A Cawnpore man has been sentenced to 20 whip lashes and two years’ hard labour for damaging Government property and causing damage by fire. This is probably the first whipping ordered in India under the new regulations. A new order issued in New Delhi empowers Provincial Governments to set up special courts to try certain offences in event of emergency, and to impose collective fines in areas where offences “prejudicial to safety” occur.”—Reuter, B.U.P.

G. B. Shaw, asked to send a message to an India League demonstration in this country, is reported by the “Evening Standard” as follows : —

“The second (blunder) was the Flogging Bill, which seemed so natural to Ministers educated at Eton that they could not see how it could shock all Europe, including Adolf Hitler.”

At whom is the gibe intended? Mr. Amery went to Harrow, Sir Stafford Cripps to Winchester, and Mr. Attlee to Haileybury, and they are the three most closely concerned with India to-day.” (“Evening Standard,” August 25th.)

* * *

An Echo of the Russian Purge

At the time of the Russian trials in 1938 there was much discussion about the prisoners’ confessions, ranging from Major-General Sir Wyndham Childs, who wrote : “Those who guessed the application of a new and terrible drug were not far wrong” (“John Bull,” March 19th, 1938), to the uncritical believers in things Bolshevist who were prepared to accept everything. When the latter read in their newspapers in July of this year that the Russian People’s Commissarfor the Navy had sent a message “to Mr. Alexander, First Lord of the Admiralty, in reply to a Red Navy Day message” (“Evening Standard,

” July 29th, 1942), did it call up some recollection in their minds? Do they remember Zelensky’s confession? Here is one of the passages from the Official Report published by the Russian Government: “The President: Your testimony contains the phrase: “To come to an understanding with these leaders for possible assistance in the event of an uprising against the Soviet power.” Do you confirm this or not?

Zelensky: I do.

The President: How did you endeavour to utilize this?

Zelensky: At a meeting with a certain Alexander . . .

The President: Who is this Alexander?

Zelensky: The leader of the British Co-operative Party, which is affiliated with the Labour Party. (Page 338.)

According to the Official Report of Zelensky’s “confession,” Mr. Alexander is supposed to have said he would welcome a Right Government, and that the Cooperative Movement could guarantee such credits and assistance as was granted to the Soviet Government during the time of the embargo.

Rakovsky, in his confession, also implicated Mr. Alexander. Rakovsky got twenty years’ imprisonment and Zelensky was sentenced to be shot, while Mr. Alexander, who said that the confessions about him were baseleses, is now Ruler of the Kings’ Navee, receiving greetings from the Russian Government.

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Bolshevist Books for British Bairns

War brings about strange happenings. What must be the thoughts of staunch Conservatives who for years persecuted teachers, suspected of Communist leanings, when they read about the new policy of the Board of Education? Under the heading, “Stalin’s text-books for British School Children,” the “Daily Express” (August 25th, 1942) reported that the Board of Education have sent out to schools a list of 40 books recommended for teachers Among them are “Selected Works of Lenin,” and Stalin’s “Foundations of Leninism.”

And a month earlier the R.A F. had been dropping copies of Stalin’s May Day Order in the Rhineland and Central Germany (“Daily Mail,” July 23rd, 1942).

* * *

The Upper 100,000

We have heard a lot lately about the nearly extinct rich, bled white by taxation. Comprehensive figures about income and taxation have been published by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (House of Commons Reports, July 23rd, 1942). Among other things it is possible to find out from the figures how many people there are with incomes exceeding £2,000 a year, how much tax they pay now, and how much tax they paid in 1938-39. The figures have been analysed in the “Economist” (August 1st, 1942), and they show that there are 105,000 persons whose income is more than £2,000 a year, including 100 with more than £100,000 a year each. These figures relate to total income before income tax and surtax have been deducted. Consequently they hide the harrowing facts that, in the words of the “Manchester Guardian” (July 31st, 1942), “tax has become crushing” above the £2,000 a year level. Here is the bitter truth about these crushed souls : —

“In 1938-39 the 105,1000 persons with incomes above £2,000 a year had an average income, after paying tax, of £3,150 per head, but ” the war . . . has reduced their average net income, after tax, from £3,150 to £1,950.” (“Times,” July 27th, 1942.)

They used to jog along on an average of £60 a week after paying tax, and just managed to make ends meet; now all they have for food, clothing and shelter is an average of £37 10s. a week ! In the words of the “Manchester Guardian,” “There are still 105,000 people with gross incomes of over £2,000 a year, but their average net income after tax is only £1,950 ” (July 31st, 1942) (our italics). One wonders why this sobbing city editor headed his article, “Rich and Poor”; “Poor and Poor” or “Poor Workers and Poorer Surtax Payers” would have been more seemly. Now that they are down and out, he ought not to have added insult to injury. His final words are : —

“There cannot be more than a few hundred persons left with a net income of £5,000 a year.”

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Postcript on Mr. Bevin

Mr. Bevin’s statement that at the end of the war “the rentier, comfortably living on interest, would certainly be gone.” brought swift, if indirect, repudiation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood. On July 30th, Rear-Admiral Beamish asked a question in the House of Commons plainly directed against Mr. Bevin, though he was not mentioned : —

“LOANS (SECURITY).

READ-ADMIRAL BEAMISH asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in order to encourage thrift and to allay doubts that have arisen in the minds of those who direct and subscribe to the War Savings Campaign, he will again make it clear that those who lend money to the State and rentier people living on interest can look to the future without fears for their loans or their interest ?

SIR K. WOOD: Loans to the State will be honoured without exception or qualification. The State is not directly responsible for private loans, but its the declared policy of His Majesty’s Government to maintain public confidence in the credit structure of the country, and no action of any kind is contemplated which would interfere with the rights of creditors in respect of private loans.” (House of Commons Debates, July 30th, 1942.)

On Sunday, August 2nd, the reply was given wide publicity by being included in the news on the wireless. Before his statement was repudiated Mr. Bevin’s words had caused consternation in various circles. Anxious investors wrote to the newspapers and to their banks and financial advisers, the War Savings Organisation felt that it was distinctly discouraging to their campaign, and many letters on the subject were published in newspaper correspondence columns. Among the latter was one from Sir Rowland Evans, published by the “Daily Telegraph,” which provided us with the entertaining spectacle of a defender of capitalism quoting Bolshevist Russia against Mr. Bevin’s alarming views : —

To the Editor of “The Daily Telegraph.” 

Sir,—According to his recent speech, Mr. Ernest Bevin welcomes the prospect of there being no “rentier people living on interest” at the end of the war. Apparently he disapproves of the principle of interest on capital as he does of the motive of profit.

But Mr. Bevin’s Socialist friends in this country need not be discouraged by his ethics in this matter from taking up War Loan or buying Savings Certificates, or have any qualms of conscience in receiving interest on their capital thus invested, for their fellow war-workers in Soviet Russia have been doing the same thing—and on quite a big scale. For example, as early as 1937 the Soviet Government floated a Defence Loan of 4,000,000,000 roubles, bearing interest at 4 per cent., redeemable in 1957.—Yours faithfully, (“Daily Telegraph,” July 24th.)

Edgar Hardcastle