Illuminations. (1905)

From the July 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

[By the flashlight man.]

John Burns has been the chief supporter of Mr. J. Allen Baker, L.C.C., the Liberal candidate at the East Finsbury election.

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Upon the L.C.C. Mr. Baker is a “Progressive,” the descriptive name by which the Liberals try to hide their identity in municipal matters. It is the old tale of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

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At Mr. Baker’s first public meeting the great J.B. said the candidate he was there to support had one great claim upon them, and it was enough—he was against the Government,

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Whether a government of the capitalist faction of which Burns and Baker are such shining lights would be less capitalist than the present Burns did not state.

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His reason for backing Baker is no better and no worse than the S.D.F. reason for backing Burns, Philip Stanhope, Lionel Holland, and other capitalist candidates at the last election—they were against the war.

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Not the war which is being waged all over the world between the capitalist-class and the working-class, but the struggle for political supremacy between the dominant factions in South Africa.

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It is true that, previous to urging the workers to vote for Burns, the S.D.F. had denounced him as “a self-seeker and a traitor to the cause of the people” ; had declared that he was “firmly caught in the nets of the Liberal party” ; that he covered his “recreancy and treachery with ambiguous and lying allegations of cowardice and knavery against those whom he had deserted” ; that they urged the workers of Battersea to shew their self-respect by treating him as the workers of New South Wales did Fitzgerald, Kelly and others— “kick out the traitors”—that they issued a cartoon depicting “Judas Burns betraying the Christ of Labour” to the Liberal Party, led by Asquith ; and declared that “such a creature should be hounded from out of the company of all decent folk.”

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And after all this, my friends, they urged the workers of Battersea to vote for Burns, the Battersea S.D.F. supported him, and Councillor Jack Jones of West Ham canvassed for him!

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One would think that the surest way to inspire confidence in the minds of the thinking working-class is to prove to them that you are reliable, that you mean what you say, that you are logical and consistent. But the S.D.F. thinks otherwise.

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Philip Stanhope, for example, whom the S.D.F. supported at Burnley, H. M. Hyndman standing down, has been described by the S.D.F. as a “third-rate Liberal hack.” Most people understand this to mean a political prostitute. Did the S.D.F. mean this of Stanhope ? and if they did why did they withdraw Hyndman and urge the workers of Burnley to vote for such a person ?

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Of course we know that statements have been made in Burnley and elsewhere concerning an alleged contribution to the funds of the S.D.F. which Stanhope made about the time of that election. But does anyone imagine that the political policy of the S.D.F. would be affected by contributions from outside sources to its funds ?

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“Any Socialist who would compromise with capitalism, provided he can exact from the enemy some pennyworths of reform, is earning the scorn, not the gratitude, of his children’s children, who, like himself, will be born into slavery if no more heroic effort be made to break the chains of capitalism and wagedom. We do not want any opportunists in the S.D.F. We point out to them that there are organisations formed for the express purpose of getting pennyworths, and if not pennyworths then ‘ha’porths’ of Socialism, and we humbly give them leave to depart a body which calls upon its members to make unceasing, untiring efforts to prepare itself for the final struggle in the class war, which will not be a sham fight, followed by a march-past of Labour M.P.’s shouldering Blue Books, and the S.D.F. programme of palliatives embodied in Acts of Parliament.”

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The above is an extract from a leading article in Justice. Of course, it is not of recent date. It is more than twelve years old, and was written by J. Hunter Watts.

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It is an illumination showing the difference between then and now, between the S. D. F. was and what it is. And when we think of what it might have been we are sad.