A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the July 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Monthly and the S.P.G.B. 

It has for many years been the childish policy of the Communists to attack the S.P.G.B., but never to mention us by name. The Acting Editor of the Labour Monthly, in a letter to a reader, has now offered an explanation for this policy. The following is an extract from the letter, which is dated April 23rd :—

“We do not take notice of the Socialist Party of Great Britain as an organization, because as such it plays no part in the struggle of the working class. Individual members of it may be active in the movement, but the body itself is in the fullest sense a sect, which proclaims as its first principle that it is cut off from every other party. That is to say it is concerned only with a certain set of principles and not with taking part in a movement and taking part in the struggle which goes on outside it. 

The strength of the Communist movement lies not least in that it is part of the working class and merely represents the most advanced part of it. The very fact that the Marxism of the S.P.G.B. is divorced from application, and that it stands outside the Communist International, condemns it as a mere propaganda body, which does not reflect the immediate problems before workers or show in any way how they are being being tackled.”

The letter deserves some comment, although it has to be remembered that the Labour Monthly is not an official Communist organ, and represents nobody but the Editor. He is, however, a Communist and is, or was, on the Party Executive.

It is true that the S.P.G.B. stands by a certain set of principles which it tries to get the workers to accept and act upon. What is the alternative which the Communists and the Labour Party have both in their different ways followed? They say, in effect, “If we cannot get the workers to accept Socialism, then let us put up a programme which they will accept.” So they have both put forward their long and frequently changed programmes of capitalist reforms. So little did the two parties’ programmes differ, that for years the Communists and the Labour Party were found supporting the same candidates at elections, and the Communists will be voting Labour again just so soon as Moscow in its tricky stupidity orders them or permits them to do so.

And what has come of it ? For the Labour Party leaders the reward has been the plums of office. For the Communists there has been no reward whatever. They are more ineffective, more despised, more unpopular and. more ridiculous than at any time in their history.

As regards industrial disputes, the Communist Party, as a party, is just as much a mere propaganda body as we are. It controls no single Trade Union. There is no important Union in which its members are a majority or even influential. The chief difference between the Communists and ourselves is that the Communists pretend to believe that the issuing of a “call to action” to the few thousand readers of its daily paper, a call which they are completely impotent to respond to, is “action,” whereas it is in fact not only mere words, but words which are misleading and are intended to be misleading. The S.P.G.B., being an independent and democratic party, has no need or wish to carry on deception for the purpose of getting money from the Russian Government.

The Acting Editor of the Labour Monthly criticises us because we cut ourselves off from every other party. This refers, presumably, to the Communist Party’s former electoral allies, the Labour Party. Since when, we would like to know, has a willingness to co-operate with a party of capitalism been the hall-mark of a Socialist party?

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Is this working-class education? 

In his “Portrait of Oxford,” Mr. J. G. Sinclair has the following sidelight on Ruskin College, where working-class students acquire “culture” and learn how to climb out of the ranks of their class :—

“A week or two after their arrival the working class students are indistinguishable in appearance from the conventional undergraduate. . . . 

As soon as a RUSKIN COLLEGE student “feels the atmosphere” he discards his colliery trousers, or, as the case may be, his porter’s cap. He is no longer a working man. He is “up at Oxford.” As quickly as possible he gets into a pair of flannel trousers ; walks the “Corn” bareheaded ; and shapes his tongue with all available speed to the twang of the ‘Varsity. He receives invitations from rich ladies, and influential hosts, to tea, to talk over “the condition of the working classes.” If he is clever, the dons know how to flatter him. His ambitions are greatly encouraged. And he soon learns how to balance the two sides of every question in Balfourian style ! 

The RUSKIN COLLEGE student sets the ‘eights which “Jimmy” Thomas and Frank Hodges have so successfully scaled. (Do not lives of Great Men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime !) No more colliery trousers ; no more porters’ caps. It is personal, rather than communal, uplift that RUSKIN COLLEGE student seeks now.”

* * *

The Land Workers' "Living Wage." 

Agricultural workers are supposed by law to be entitled to the minimum wage fixed by the Wages Committees. The Labour Government introduced the Act in 1924, and since coming into office for the second time has appointed more inspectors to enforce it and to inquire into cases of non-payment of the minimum. Like all such reforms, the Act cannot alter the conditions which determine the workers’ position in the capitalist system. Low as the minimum wages are, thousands of workers dare not ask for them, for fear of losing their jobs and their cottages. According to Reynolds’s Illustrated News (April 12th, 1931), in 1930, 4,523 farms were inspected, as a result of which there were 1,630 claims for arrears of wages. Reynolds’s Agricultural Correspondent estimates that “one farmer in four throughout the country is violating the law.” This estimate is based on official inspections over a number of years in every part of the country.

When it is remembered that the minimum rates are so low that a large number of agricultural workers would have received as much, or more, had there been no Wages Act, the small value of such reforms is obvious. In Scotland the land workers’ union refused the “benefits” of such regulation of wages. They preferred to depend upon ordinary Trade Union bargaining.

* * *

Sir Josiah Stamp on Wages. 

Sir Josiah Stampj who constantly advises lower wages as a means of improving trade (and, incidentally, the employers’ profits), and who is paid many thousands of pounds a year by his employers, the L.M.S. Railway, for so doing, says, in his book, “Criticism and Other Addresses” (Ernest Benn, 15s.) :—

“You cannot permanently have the unsheltered engineer, receiving 50s. per week from work in a tram-car, at the front of which his less skilled colleague, as driver, works less hard for £4.”

Sir Josiah Stamp does not explain how lowering tramwaymen’s wages will help the engineer, nor does he explain why you must permanently have an investing class living on its investments without the need to work at all. And what are his thoughts when he rides behind an engine-driver on the L.M.S. Railway who receives as wages perhaps one-twentieth of the amount paid to Stamp?

Sir Josiah Stamp cannot even claim that as an economist he is efficient. As Mr. J. H. Thomas feelingly pointed out recently, Stamp failed to foresee the present depression. Had he done so, Mr. Thomas might not have so lightheartedly taken on the job of tackling unemployment, and might thus have saved his reputation.

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Why the Railwaymen are apathetic. 

Mr. C. T. Cramp, General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, stated recently in the Railway Review (quoted in The Times, April 9th) that the railwaymen are apathetic about nationalisation of the railways. Why should they be otherwise than apathetic? Did not Mr. Cramp, when giving evidence in favour of nationalisation before the Royal Commission on Transport, reply to the question, Would nationalisation of the railways lead to higher wages? with “Certainly not”? (see Daily Telegraph, January 17th, 1929). Taking all things into consideration, the position of the workers is just as unfavourable in State concerns as in private ones. The pay of Government employees is consciously based on rates of pay outside, and Mr. Snowden recently told the Civil Service that they ought not to expect their pay to be kept up, in view of the low pay of miners and others. The pay of Underground railwaymen has, in fact, recently been quoted by Post Office workers, before the Civil Service Commission, as an instance of higher levels of pay in a comparable private company.

For the employers, nationalisation has certain attractions, especially at a time when the future course of railway profits is obscure owing to the competition of road transport. So we learn from the Parliamentary Correspondent of the Daily Express that “powerful support for nationalisation will come from the owners’ side, though two of the groups are said to be unconvinced and hostile” (Daily Express, May 20th).

Of course, the rigging up of nominal opposition to a scheme of nationalisation has often been used with great success as a means of getting better terms.

The Government are now considering the advisability of electrifying the main line railways, as recommended in the Report of the Weir Committee. Railwaymen will be interested to learn that the Committee estimate securing great savings, in running costs, including a saving of £10 millions a year on the wages of drivers and other train staffs.

Edgar Hardcastle