The Registration Courts are being held, and many citizens of this “free” country are striving to secure or to retain that very questionable advantage, under present conditions, the vote !
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The Liberals tell us they are in favour of the franchise. They claim to have been foremost in extending it and to desire to still further extend it. The depth of their sincerity may be gauged by the fact that their paid agents are striving at the present moment to keep men off the Register !
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I have frequently commented upon the flabby-ness of the speeches and election literature of some candidates claiming to be Socialists. Even the Labour Leader is now compelled to protest. It says ”The contrast between the substance of the teaching at the innumerable propaganda meetings of the I.L.P., where the power of the movement is created, and the substance of the addresses by some of our candidates claiming to be Socialist and Trade Unionists, is as between an honest dinner and a dish of skilly. Constant complaints reach us on this matter. So cautious to timidity, so practical to the utter iteration of commonplace vestry politics, have the deliverances of many of our candidates become, that quite frequently the speeches of their capitalist opponents are the more inspiring of the two.”
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As most of these “Socialist” candidates have their eyes longingly fixed upon the loaves and fishes of the L.R.C., they are more concerned about becoming M.P.’s than creating a class-conscious Socialist army. Let it be clearly understood that none of them is a member of the S.P.G.B.
* * *
The Trade Union Congress led one of the capitalist sheets to discourse upon the number of “Labour” journals in existence, specially mentioning The Labour Record and Review, edited by F. W. Pethick Lawrence. A few days after Mr. Lawrence was announced to speak at Holmwood, under the auspices of the Home Counties Liberal Association. Is his “Labour” paper edited in the interests of Liberalism or of Labour?
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“What is wrong?” The discussion upon this will doubtless continue until Parliament re-assembles or the space is required for other gas. One of the participants writes, “When we practise true Christian Socialism—’What I have I give unto thee’—all that is now wrong will become right.”
* * *
So that the social problem is to be solved by everybody who has anything giving it to somebody else, then the givers will have nothing and the given-to something which they can give back to those who have nothing, and so on to the end of the chapter. This may be Christian but it isn’t Socialism.
* * *
I am reminded of a lecture upon “Christian Socialism” once delivered by the Rev. Stewart Headlam for the Fabian Society, in which he quoted the saying of Christ “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor” as a proof that Jesus was a Socialist ! All that was wanted was the universal adoption of this teaching real Christianity—and Socialism would be here. When asked who would buy, supposing all became “real” Christians and proceeded to sell all that they had in order to give to the poor, he gave it up.
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Socialism is an economic transformation, desired by those who wish to remove all hindrances to human development. It is concerned with the material things of life because “the basal factor determining the constitution of society is its material and economic condition.” It is neither “Christian” nor “Atheist.”
* * *
Messrs. Rowntree, of York, are “considerate” employers. They run what the Clarion terms a “cocoa oasis in the desert,” and, be it noted, advertise in the Clarion. The firm admit that their considerateness “pays,” and I presume their advertising also does. Most of the employees, they state, are on piece work, and if one is found not to be earning a reasonable minimum, special investigation is made into his case, and a remedy discovered. There are many employees working upon piece who, for want of arrangement, or help, or stimulation of some kind, would go on year after year, earning a comparatively low wage, although they are perfectly capable of earning a higher wage if the necessary help be given by the employer, and this without any alteration in the piece rate.
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In the dining rooms cheap meals are provided, and large numbers use them. The firm lose by this considerably, but they say. “Some material return for this expenditure is no doubt obtained, inasmuch as employees who have had a nutritious dinner in a comfortable and well ventilated room are more vigorous and fit for their work than they otherwise would be. The advantage which the firm derives from this circumstance must be considerable.”
* * *
Messrs, Rowntree, Cadbury, Lever and Co. are farsighted capitalists who see that it is an economic advantage to them to palliate the evils of the capitalist system. But their workers are still slaves, can still be dismissed and turned out to starve at the will of their masters. And owing to the better conditions under which they work they are enabled to do better work and hand over more surplus value to their employers, thus intensifying the problem of unemployment.
* * *
Sir John Gorst is also another farsighted member of the capitalist class. He advocates the provision of free meals to some starving children because “England and Germany have a friendly rivalry in trade and manufactures, and how can we expect to carry on that rivalry with success unless very speedily such a social reform is carried out in this country as would put us on something like a footing with Germany ?”
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There are none so blind as those who cannot see, except those who will not.
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In spite of all the efforts and self-sacrifice on the part of many men and women during the past 150 years, the position of trade unions to-day is by no means an enviable one. They are constantly being called upon to maintain conditions of labour which our forefathers obtained, and the fight grows more difficult every year.—Charity Organisation Review.
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The terrific slaughter wrought in every country by consumption is— at least in the main—the inevitable result of the exploitation of helpless human lives for money profit, the inevitable result of over-work, lack of nutrition, and over-crowding. Talk of “alcoholism.” The drinking bar is largely the refuge from the depressing, debasing surroundings of the so-called home.—Daily News Paris Correspondent.
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Official figures show that 877,057 persons were employed in the mines of the United Kingdom last year, and that 698,967 of this total worked underground. Out of 9,544 children under fourteen years of age employed 6,818 worked underground. The fatal accidents numbered 1,158, involving a loss of 1,202 lives. Compared with the previous year this was an increase of 7 in fatal accidents, and of 10 in the number of lives lost.
* * *
Extracts from a series of articles from the pen of Mr. Collis Lovely on the subject of prison made American shoes, are published in American Shoemaking. Mr. Lovely’s remarks are said to be based on personal observation made in different American prisons, while acting as special agent to investigate the operation of penal institutions under the Department of Labour of the State of Missouri. The investigations were made following his appointment, on March 2nd, 1905.
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Mr. Lovely found 4,258 convicts were employed in shoemaking, at an average wage of 48 cents a day, turning out approximately 8,000,000 pairs of shoes annually, or probably about one-thirtieth of the entire annual production of the factory-made shoes of the United States. Of course, the prison output is disguised, the goods going upon the market as regular lines.
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Kentucky branch penitentiary, at Eddville, supplies the Kentucky Shoe Manufacturing Co. with 175 men at 45 cents per day, and the Frankfort Shoe Co. with 400 men at 50 cents a day, in addition to shop room, water, and light, free of charge. In connection with the Maryland penitentiary, Baltimore, the state supplies the Baltimore Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Co. with 225 men at 45 cents a day, with free shop room, light, water, and power. One of the most impressive examples of the extent that prison labour may be employed by a single firm in the manufacture of boots is, says Mr. Lovely, that of the Davis Boot and Shoe Co., Boston, who make their shoes under a prison contract with the Virginia penitentiary at Richmond, Va. The company employs 901 male convicts at 42 cents per day, and 56 female convicts at 30 cents a day, or a total of 1,017 persons, of which 16 are employed in making shoe boxes. The company’s average output is said to be 5,000 pairs per day, or an average of five pairs per day, per person. Mr. Lovely adds, “I know of no firm employing free labour and making this grade of shoe, whose output exceeds five per day per person employed, and surely none who get their labour at 42 cents a day. This firm uses no machinery in the lasting department, and the task ranges from 36, 42, and 48 pairs per day, or an average of 42 pairs per day, lasted by hand. The task for McKay sewers is 480 pairs per day, edge trimmers 480 pairs per day, and so on all along the line. The above figures will reveal the fact that the total labour cost, exclusive of foremen, to the Davis Shoe Co., is 8 cents and a fraction per pair.”
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The Giesecke Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Co., of Jefferson City, made a contract in December, 1898, with the Missouri State penitentiary, at Jefferson City, for the convicts of that institution to be employed in the manufacture of footgear. This contract put thousands of dollars in the coffers of the company. The State, now, however, exacts 150 instead of 50 cents per day. Not only has this firm been furnished with shoe machine operators for 50 cents a day, but it has had free water, has paid absolutely nothing for rent, has been furnished with power from a 145-horse power engine, which would cost a manufacturer outside of a prison at least 500 dollars a month on payment to the State of only 100 dollars a month. In Missouri the task of a convict is based upon and usually equal to what a free labourer can perform. The penalty for a convict who fails to perform the task set for him is the whippingpost. From ten to thirty-nine lashes are usually given, and the strap used is made of heavy harness leather, 2m. wide and 18in. long, fastened to a wooden handle 12in. long. The strap will bring out the blood with every blow if the warder so desires.
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There is no doubt that America is the “land of the free,” and if such atrocities were perpetrated on the Congo or on the Rand, wouldn’t the Nonconformist conscience shriek ?
J. Kay
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