Russia: Land of High Profits. (1930)

Book Review from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Soviet Union Year-Book, 1930.” Publishers: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 7s. 6d.

The Soviet Union Year-Book, compiled and edited by A. A. Santalov and Louis Segal, Ph.D., M.A., is published “to provide business and public men with a reliable information on the economic and political life of the U.S.S.R.” It contains in its 670 pages accurate and detailed information from official sources on all the chief aspects of Russian economic and political life. For business men seeking trade connections, and for those who wish to combat the double campaign of misrepresentation which is carried on by the ignorant and prejudiced in the ranks of capitalist parties on the one hand and the ranks of the communist party on the other it is an indispensable work of reference.

It is not possible here to describe fully the range which is covered. It must suffice to indicate some of the facts and figures which will be useful to the Socialist student of Soviet affairs.

Production and foreign trade.

Much space is devoted to the growth of trade and production. Agricultural production in 1928-29 was 4 per cent. above that in 1913, and in 1932-33 it is planned to reach 59 per cent. above the 1913 level (page 92). Industrial production in 1928-29 was 73 per cent. above 1913 level, and in 1931-32 will reach 166 per cent. above that level (page 94).

Exports in 1928-29 were valued at 877 million roubles, as compared with 1,520 million in 1913. Imports in 1928-29 were valued at 836 million roubles, as compared with 1,374 million in 1913 (page 289). It is planned to increase exports to over 2,000 million roubles in 1932-33, and imports to over 1,705 million. In 1909-13 agricultural exports represented 70 per cent. of the total exports, and industrial exports 30 per cent. In 1932-33 the proportions will be equal, if the plan matures (page 291).

High Rates of interest and profit.

The Concession Companies make staggering profits out of the exploitation of the Russian workers. In 1926-27 the average profit was 81 per cent. on the capital invested by them.

In 1927-28 it was 96 per cent. (see page 208). What a harsh reality after the dreams of the visionaries for whom Russia was to serve as a model to the Western world. One of the Bolshevik slogans of 1917 was “Down with the foreign bondholders.” They were duly “downed” and the National Debts repudiated. The Soviet Government has just repeated its willingness to resume part of the old National Debt obligations, but in the meantime the foreign bondholders have given place to “home” bondholders – a distinction without a difference from the stand point of the Russian workers.

A rapidly increasing percentage of the total revenue of the Government is raised by means of additions to the new National Debt. In 1927-28 the percentage was 0.5; in 1928-29 it was 8.6 per cent., and in 1929-30 it will be 11.5 per cent. (page 397).

On October 1st, 1925, the new National Debt stood at 367 million roubles (£36 million). On October 1st, 1929, it was 2,595 million roubles (£259 million) (see page 398). It is at the present moment nearly 3,000 million (£300 million), and it is planned to increase it to £500 or £600 million in the next year or two.

The amount raised by means of loans during the one year 1929-30 reached the total of 1,335 million roubles (page 391). In the same year the Government spent 450 million roubles on payments to the new investing class who have invested their money in Russian industry through the Russian Central Government. Interest rates are very high; up to 12 per cent.

Other avenues of investment for Russia’s propertied class are the co-operatives. Hundreds of millions of roubles are invested in that way (see pages 226 and 621).

All these forms of investment, in the National Debt, in the co-operatives, and in the trading concerns, etc., are forms of exploitation of the Russian workers They, like the workers everywhere, carry on their backs a class of property owners, receiving incomes from property ownership.

The very high rate of interest which rules in Russia owing to slowness with which foreign investors enter the Russian money markets, may serve to explain why the Russian Government, or certain influential groups behind it, continues without any tangible result to finance Communist parties abroad. Investors inside Russia would naturally not want the interest rates to fall from 10 per cent. or 12 per cent. to 4 per cent. or 5 per cent., and an obvious method of preventing this would be to play upon the fears of foreign Governments and investors, and thus save themselves from unwelcome competitors.

Excess profits tax.

As in this country, the income tax in Russia is a graduated one, there being five categories. In each of them provision is made for different rates of tax on ranges of income from under 1,000 roubles a year up to 24,000 roubles and over (page 402).

The fifth grade applies to those whose incomes are derived from “ownership of industrial and trading enterprises, from money investments, dividends on shares, etc.” (page 402), also incomes from “rent” (page 401).

Then, in addition to the income tax, there is an excess profits tax for those companies whose yearly profits exceed a standard which is described as the “normal profits” (page 405).

It is this economic organisation, possessing all the usual features of exploitation (rent, interest, and profit, a working class, and a property owning class, a stock exchange, etc.), which the Communist parties describe as “Socialism”!

Wages and unemployment. 

The average money wages in 1928-29 was 892 roubles (£89, or about 34s. 6d. a week(page 453).

The worker’s output is increasing at a greater rate than his wages. Under the five-year plan the “productivity of labour in the end of the five-year period will be doubled and real wages are to show an increase of 70 per cent.” (p. 97)

(Information about the inequalities of wages and salaries was given on The Socialist Standard for December, 1929)

The number of unemployed in 1924-25 was 848,000; in 1926-27, 1,353,000; and on January 1st 1930, 1,310,000 (page 454).

The amount paid out in unemployment insurance in 1928-29 was 111,500,000 roubles. This works at about 80 to 90 roubles a year for each unemployed person (on the basis of 1,300,000 unemployed). This, in English coinage, is about £8 10s. a year, or 3s. 3d. a week. The trade unions also pay unemployment benefit to their members from 3 to 18 roubles a month, say from 1s. 6d. to 9s. a week. Although the unemployed are exempt from the obligation to pay rent, or charges for lighting, water and transport, it would seem that they do not have a very pleasant time. Is this what our communists have in mind when they ask the Government here to give the unemployed “full maintenance”?

Inheritance.

As in other capitalist countries inheritance of property is recognised in Russia. “Soviet law recognises the right of inheritance, irrespective of the amount involved” (page 498).

As in this country, it is subject to an inheritance tax (page 405). The tax rises from 5 per cent. on the first 2,000 roubles (£200) up to 90 per cent. on that part between 200,000 and 500,000 roubles (£20,000 to £50,000).

The Communist Party. 

The membership of the Communist Party on July 1st, 1922, was 1,554,012 which represented 184 in every 10,000 of the adult population, or 1 in 54 (page 565).

The number of new members enrolled in 5½ years from 1924 to June, 1929, was 1,408,742. The number expelled in the same period were 128,460.

On July 1st, 1929, the party was composed as follows: – workers, 724,115; peasants, 200,452; employees, etc., 629,327. Women form 13.5 per cent. of the whole membership (page 566).

Education.

In December, 1926 (the last available figures) illiterates had been reduced considerably, but still represented 433 per 1,000 of the whole population (page 462)

The expenditure on education by the Central Government is under 3 per cent. of its total expenditure (page 462).

It is less than the amount spent on army and navy (page 389).

Hopes and facts.

In the first section of the “Constitution of the U.S.S.R.,” passed in 1923, Russia is depicted in the following rosy terms: –

“Here – in the camp of Socialism –are mutual confidence and peace, national freedom and equality, and dwelling together in peace and brotherly collaboration of peoples” (see page 1).

The facts given in this Year-Book sufficiently illustrates how illusory the communist dreams have been. Like many pious hopes embodied in the official documents and constitutions of the rest of the capitalist world these phrases have no relation whatever to the actual facts. Russian capitalism, although administered by the Communist Party dictatorship, reproduces almost down to the last detail the paraphernalia of the capitalist world as we know it here.

The lesson of it is the one we have tried to drive home for so many years, that it is not possible for a minority to impose socialism upon a majority who are hostile or indifferent; nor is it possible to remedy backward economic development by means of fine-sounding but ineffective decrees, issued by dictators.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Great Lie. (1930)

Book Review from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War by Arthur Ponsonby (Allen & Unwin.)

We still speak familiarly of the War, as though it were something that only occurred the other day. It is curious to reflect that our boys of sixteen were babies in arms, and our young men now coming of age were toddling infants when red ruin was let loose on an unsuspecting world. Each year it is customary on the anniversary of the catastrophe, for the tawdry minds of Fleet Street to reassure a doubtful world that the slaughter was not in vain. Its hideous futility and long-drawn-out horror, are concealed in flatulent phrases about our National Honour, our concern for International Rights, the Sacredness of our Pledged Word, our Regard for the Rights of Small Nations, and other eyewash. Should there be any who still allow these illusions to drift about their consciousness, they might do much worse than spend half-a-crown on Mr. Ponsonby’s “Falsehood in Wartime.” August 4th this year again fell on Bank Holiday, exactly as it did sixteen years ago, and it seemed fitting to celebrate the anniversary by reading how our Christian rulers lied the people into massacre, lied them through it, and lied them back to peace and unemployment again. As Mr. Ponsonby says : “There must have been more deliberate lying in the world from 1914 to 1918 than in any other period of the world’s history.”

Those who were too young for the shambles last time, would do well to examine the bait that caught their fathers and their elder brothers. The collection is not exhaustive. It is only an exposure of a few samples, and is intended as a warning. The nation was assured that it was not committed to France in any way. It was a lie. “All preparations, down to the last detail, had been made, as shown by the prompt, secret and well-organised despatch of the Expeditionary Force.” The German invasion of Belgium was given as the cause of Great Britain’s entry into the war. It was a lie. Mr. Ponsonby gives the evidence. Germany, of course, we know was solely responsible for the war ! Mr. Asquith said so : “One Power, and one Power only, and that Power is Germany.” Lloyd George referred to it as the “most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of nations. …” (August 4th, 1917.) Three years later the Welsh Wizard realized “that no one at the head of affairs quite meant war at that stage (August 1st, 1914) . . , and a discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.” Four years of the bloodiest horror the human race has experienced, “and a discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.” What a thought for Bank Holiday. If the twenty million dead could only read that.

And then there was the notorious lie of the passage of hordes of Russian troops through Great Britain, en route for France. In less than a month the atrocity stories commenced. There was the nurse whose breast had been mutilated, the Belgian baby whose hands had been hacked off, the Canadian who was crucified, the tale of the prisoner whose tongue had been torn out, the tattooed man, and so on. All lies, utter downright lies. Everyone remembers the German corpse factory yarn. Who believes it now? And so we go on. Lists of atrocities that never happened, photographs that were faked, official documents that were doctored ; lies by the cubic ton, lies by the square mile, lies by the great gross, and all to secure the killing of men and the starving of women and children. The British established a truth manipulating factory at Crewe House, under the appropriate leadership of Lord Northcliffe, founder of the “Daily Mail.” He’d had some experience.

Mr. Ponsonby is candid. He says in his introduction : “This is no plea that lies should not be used in war-time, but a demonstration of how lies must be used in war-time. If the truth were told from the outset, there would be no reason, and no will to war.”

He calls attention to the new and far more efficient instrument of propaganda which has appeared since the last war—the Government control of broadcasting. He concludes : “None of the heroes prepared for suffering and sacrifice, none of the common herd ready for service and obedience, will be inclined to listen to the call of their country once they discover the polluted sources from whence that call proceeds and recognise the monstrous finger of falsehood which beckons them to the battlefield.”

We agree. We were saying that ten years before the war. It is important to realise, however, that the pollution is not confined to war-time.

W. T. Hopley

Notes by the Way: Are the Labour voters Socialists? (1930)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are the Labour voters Socialists? 

Dr. A. Salter, Labour M.P., stated in an article in the Daily Herald (May 2nd), that not 10 per cent. of the electors are Socialist. He said :—

“Labour candidates polled only 36 per cent. of the total votes at the last election, and of that 36 per cent. how many were those of convinced Socialists? I wish I could believe that 10 per cent. of the people of this country desire the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth !”

Dr. Salter correctly concludes that in face of this the Government has no mandate to introduce Socialism. But in that case, why are they in office, and why is Dr. Salter in Parliament?

* * *

A Labour paradise.

Bermondsey has long had a Labour majority on the Council. The uselessenss of the Labour Party’s policy of reforming capitalism is well illustrated by the following facts about Bermondsey, submitted in evidence to the Licensing Commission by Dr. Salter, M.P. :—

“One in seven of its residents is in receipt of Poor Law Relief. The population is homogeneous in the sense that there are no social strata as in most townships. The middle classes have long since removed from the district, and, owing to obvious residential disadvantages, a steady efflux has been going on for years of all those who could afford to remove to a more open and more desirable neightbourhood. Clerks and artizans have gone, and to-day the people left are almost wholly belonging to the unskilled and casual waterside labour classes. The middle class element is represented only by a small handful of clergy and doctors. There is no resident solicitor or barrister, no civil engineer, architect, or accountant. Most of the non-conformist ministers live outside the borough, and there is no cab-rank or bookshop.”

“Wages are very low, and the average figure for regularly employed adult male workers is well under £3 a week. At the end of 1928 and beginning of 1929 I made an investigation into the wages of 860 successive male panel patients, seen by me with regard to wage rates. I found that the average wage of those in regular employment amounted to £2 16s. 4d. per week.”

“Parts of the borough are very densely covered with a network of small, closely-packed streets and alleyways, while in other districts there are acres of high block dwellings of five or six stories, where the density of the population amounts to between 400 and 500 per acre.”

* * *

Railwaymen's leaders win a "victory" in the Irish Free State.

The officials of the National Union of Railwaymen have won a great “victory,” having obtained recognition from the Irish Omnibus Co. As is usual in such cases what the members have gained is not obvious.

The Great Southern Railway recently bought out the road transport companies which were robbing them of their best paying traffic. They promptly celebrated that move by attacking the wages and conditions of the workers in their road transport concern, the Irish Omnibus Company. The men struck work in April and succeeded eventually in getting the railwaymen to come to their assistance.

The N.U.R. officials had resisted a strike movement among their Irish Free State railway members, but were compelled to recognise the railway strike after it had begun. They then threatened a general strike for Tuesday, July 22nd.

A meeting took place—in secret—between the two companies and the N.U.R. leaders. It was followed by Mr. Cramp’s announcement of a great victory. The terms were that the railway strike was called off, all railway strikers were reinstated, and the N.U.R. was granted official recognition by the Irish Omnibus Co. No guarantee was given for the immediate or ultimate re-instatement of all the ‘bus company strikers, and nothing is said about the wage and other questions which led to the ‘bus strike in the first instance.

As we have often pointed out, the only saieguard against this kind of thing is that the workers on strike should keep the negotiations under their own control, and not entrust them to leaders to conduct in secret with power to accept whatever terms they think fit.

It need hardly be added that the Irish Free State Government, the Government for which misguided Irish workers fought helped the employers just as the British Government used to do before the Irish Free State became “free.”

* * *

St. Thomas the Martyr!

What the Labour Government has done for the Unemployed

Mr. J. H. Thomas, addressing the Conference of the National Union of Railwaymen, in July, 1929, said :

“I have been entrusted with the responsibility of seeing how far within the limits of our Parliamentary traditions and our resources of the State—and accepting the present order of society—how far it is possible to mobilise, organise, institute, and get going useful works for those now unemployed.” (“Daily Herald,” 6th July.— Italics ours.)

Three months later Mr. Thomas had done nothing, but had gained more confidence. In a speech at the Labour Party Conference at Brighton, on Tuesday, October 1st, he told the delegates :—

“I am confident that when February comes our figures will be better than the figures of the late Government.” (“Daily Herald,” 2nd October.)

When February came the figures had gone not down but up—by hundreds of thousands, which drew from his defender, Mr. John S. Clarke, M.P. (who used to worship De Leon, then Lenin, then MacDonald), the explanation that Thomas really knew all the time that unemployment would not fall, he knew that the

“world depression . . . was bound to increase before it showed signs of lifting ; that there was and is no permanent cure for unemployment under a system of private control.” (“Forward,” 31st May, 1930.)

Mr. Thomas, it appears, was really a noble fellow, “suffering a distressing martyrdom without complaint,” and lying for the sake of you and me. Anyway, Mr. Thomas’ luck was out, and in due course he transferred his £5,000 a year martyrdom to another Cabinet ministership. Now the number of unemployed on the register is over 2,000,000, which is the highest figure since the national coal strike in 1921, and represents an increase of 900,000 during the period of the office of the Labour Government.

* * *

Dean Inge studies Socialism.

Not long ago, Dean Inge was presented with a copy of out pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion.” We see that he has been profiting by it. In the course of a lecture at the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at Leeds on July 18th, he spoke about Socialism and Religion and put very plainly the fundamental antagonism between them. He rejected the possibility of Christ having been a Socialist, and the claim that Socialism is based upon New Testament teaching. Speaking of Christ, he said :— (Manchester Guardian, July 19th).

“It is hardly necessary to say that even if He had wished to lay clown a scheme of Socialism, and such an idea never occurred to Him, the conditions of Palestine under Pontius Pilate and Herod would have put it out of the question. His travelling missionaries were to live on alms like begging friars, but this proves nothing. His own little band seems to have carried a bag with money in it, and to have bought food when they needed it. Christ was a prophet, not a legislator.

Some people reject Christianity because they do not understand it; others because they do understand it. To the latter class unquestionably belong the disciples of Karl Marx, for what excites their passionate hatred of Christianity is precisely that idealistic standard of values which cuts the ground from under the feet of their savage and vindictive materialism. If Christ is right, Marx is utterly wrong.”

Except that materialists are almost always less savage and vindictive than idealists, this is just what we point out in our pamphlet. We are, however, startled by Dean Inge’s association of Rousseau and Marx, and by his statement that had there been no Rousseau there would perhaps have been no Marx and no Socialist doctrine.

Dean Inge goes on to repeat a statement he has often made, and which, in spite of being challenged, he does not attempt to prove. That is his assertion that communist-administered capitalism in Russia is the result of applying Marxian theories. It is one of the privileges of being a Dean that statements which are sound sense and statements which are clotted nonsense are alike accepted without question by nine people out of ten. This is bad for the nine people, and has a most demoralising effect on Deans.

P. R.

Letter: The case for Spiritualism. (1930)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Battersea, S.W.11.

To the Editor.

Dear Sir,

Being interested in political economy and a reader of long standing of the S.S., I am tempted to ascertain your views of the following :—

For many years past I have held no brief for any religion, but having heard a lot about spiritualism and also read your criticism on same, decided to test it myself.

I told nobody where I was going, and I went into a meeting a perfect stranger to all. To my surprise I was told of my dead aunt, her manners when alive, how she died, her age, and her name ; after which I was told I was suffering from a complaint which I had attended hospital for. The said complaint is very uncommon, and is not visible to anyone except when nude.

Sir, the above is only one of many experiences I have witnessed during my visits to these said places ; therefore I consider it calls for an explanation to many who, like myself, desire to know and seek the truth.

I must say that not one word or hint was given by me, in any manner at all to assist these people.

Sir, realizing the value of space in the S.S. relating to things of political importance, and, therefore, placing my inquiry second, I should like to have a reply through any channel you may desire.

I am, One in the struggle,

CURIOUS.

Reply:

Our correspondent’s experience and the conclusions he draws from it are common ones among those who have been attracted to Spiritualism. In order to test it let us put the problem in its simplest form.

This reader went to a spiritualist meeting and was told several things about himself which he and others already knew.

That in itself he would not regard as startling except for his belief that he was “a perfect stranger” to those present, and that the things he was told were not known to them.

Now may we ask our correspondent if he really has good ground to believe that nobody present knew anything whatever about him. We, of course, know no more than is told in the letter, but it will be readily agreed that it is by no means difficult for people whom we do not know by sight to have or to get information which in such circumstances may sound impressive.

The ability of certain persons to get hold of facts about him does not in any way whatever help to establish the belief in the existence of so-called “spirit forces.”

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Economic Questions. (1930)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor of the Socialist Standard.

Is it, or is it not, correct to hold that Marx used the term “Capital” in the sense of “Money,” seeing that all commodities are only “Money” circulating in a different way?

That the “Price of Production” (of commodities) is not “determined” by the “quantity of labour embodied in them,” but is ultimately “determined” by monopoly“?

An adherent of the. S.P.G.B. informed me that a lecturer on economics at headquarters seriously discussed the question as to whether a “cart-horse” is “constant” or “variable” capital. If this is a fact (?) then I feel bound to remark that the lecturer must be considered a “doctrinaire,” and in no way propagating “Socialism in Our Time.”

I trust you will favour me with a reply, because it is important to clear up such current conceptions—or “misconceptions.”

I remain, Yours faithfully,

Robert Chapman,

Walworth.

Reply:

The replies to the points raised are given below.

(1) This matter is dealt with in “Capital,” Volume I, page 123 (Sonnenschein Edition), in the following’ passage :—

“As a matter of history, capital as opposed to landed property, invariably takes the form at first of money; it appears as moneyed wealth, as the capital of the merchant and of the usurer. But we have no need to refer to the origin of capital in order to discover that the first form of appearance of capital is money. We can see it daily under our very eyes. All new capital, to commence with, comes on the stage, that is, on the market, whether of commodities, labour, or money, even in our days, in the shape of money that by a definite process has to be transformed into capital.”

(2) The “Price of Production” is the cost price plus the average profit. This is, of course, affected if the manufacturer has to buy raw materials from sellers who have a monopoly, and on the other hand the manufacturer’s selling price will be affected if he has a monopoly. In other words, the theory of value in its simple form assumes competition. Monopoly (which in practice is, however, only an interference with competition, not a complete suspension of it) modifies the simple theory. Nevertheless, the labour theory of value is still the underlying explanation, even in a world where monopoly is strong.

It must not be forgotten that there are many forces at work tending to undermine monopoly. This subject is dealt with in “Capital,” Volume III, pages 186, 209 and 1003 (Kerr Edition).

(3) Your point here appears to be that a lecturer should keep to main issues, and not devote attention to minor academic points. Once granted, however, that it is worth while studying economics, the lecturer cannot avoid dealing with such points if raised by a student. To the student a clear view of such points may often be necessary in order that he may understand the general theory.

Editorial Committee.

Answer to correspondent. 

S. Gilbert. Your long letter referring to the article “Parliament or Soviet” rests upon a supposed quotation from the “Gotha Programme.” As, however, the article contains no such quotation, we fail to see what is the point of your letter.

Letter: The Pay of Civil Servants. (1930)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

A letter from a reader.

Forest Gate.

Dear Sir,

As a regular reader of the Socialist Standard I should like to take exception to the article appearing a month or two ago on “Nationalisation,” in which the low wages of various Governmental employees were quoted.

As a Socialist, I am aware of the defects of Nationalisation, but would like to point out that though some employees of the Government do very badly, some do very well.

Under the term Government I include the Local Councils of Boroughs, etc.

In the first instance we have policemen receiving, after 10 years’ service, £4 10s. wages, plus 15/6 rent aid, for a constable ; sergeants, inspectors, etc., get more; much more in the cases of the higher ranks.

Firemen, I believe, receive the same wages, less the rent aid, as it is termed.

Teachers in the Elementary Schools appear to do very well when compared with industrial workers.

Lady Teachers commence, I believe, with £3 per week, and get somewhere about £5 a week after a few years, as one instance.

School Attendance Officers as the school board man of our school days is known, start at about £4 16s., and rise to £5 5s.

Also we have Local Government Board Officers as the clerks employed by Municipal Councils term themselves, with others such as sanitary inspectors, etc., receiving in many cases anything from £4 10s. to £7 or £8 per week, coupled with three or four weeks’ holiday.

Most of the above have no more training than a skilled mechanic is required to have, and in many cases they have considerably less, but compare the wages and conditions and they are vastly different, as you already know.

I hope I am not taking up too much of your valuable space, but I am afraid I could not state my case in less words. 

In conclusion, I wish the S.P.G.B. and the Standard the best of luck in the future, and hope you will receive this letter in the spirit of helpful criticism that is intended by myself, as full facts are and must continue to be the essential feature of the S.S.

Best wishes from

“SOCIALIST.”

Reply:

Our correspondent misses the point of the article he criticises. The contention made in that article was that there is “little difference from the workers’ point of view, between State capitalism and private capitalism, whether under a Conservative or a Labour Government.”

To say, as our correspondent does, that an elementary teacher is paid more than an industrial worker, has nothing whatever to do with the question discussed. He must compare like with like; for example, compare the pay of industrial workers in the Government service with the pay of industrial workers outside. If he does he will find that our contention is correct.

But the whole question is easily settled by the statements of Civil Service authorities themselves. The Civil Service Industrial Court which fixes the pay of civil servants has laid it down when dealing with lower grade civil servants that

“the broad principle which should be followed in determining the rates of wages of Post Office servants, is that of the maintenance of a fair relativity as between their wages and those in outside industries as a whole.”

The Industrial Court takes into account the civil servant pension rights and any other benefits he may receive, and fixes his cash wage accordingly.

But whereas the Civil Service bases the pay of lower grades on the rates of pay in comparable occupations outside, the higher grades in the Civil Service are definitely paid less than the rates of pay in comparable occupations outside. This has long been a complaint of the grades concerned. In evidence given at the Royal Commission on the Civil Service (now sitting), Sir Evelyn Murray, Secretary of the Post Office, was asked if the Post Office pay as much in their higher grades as is paid outside, and replied :—

“I do not think that is a principle that the Government have ever accepted as regards the higher grades of the service.” (See Minutes of Evidence. Question 4618.)

—Editorial Committee

Points for Propagandists. (1930)

From the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over-production and want.

The followers of Malthus and the Secularists who still talk of over-population are completely refuted by the universal facts of modern industry. The command of man over nature in producing a food supply has increased so rapidly that there is a widespread demand to limit production.

Agriculture lagged behind industry so long in increased production that whilst industrial products declined in price, the products of agriculture tended to rise. The application of machinery to farming and the adoption of large scale methods on the land has now reached such a pitch and so lowered prices that the agriculturist is crying out. Prominent owners express their joy that the crop in South America is poor this year. Such is the pass to which production for sale and profit has brought us.

The Sunday Express (June 29th) tells us that 2 million acres of wheat and maize land will go out of cultivation next season and that Brazilians are burning coffee because they cannot sell. The meat combines of S. America have been practising restriction of production, we are told by the same paper. They also inform us that in spite of “real efforts” to restrict the production of petroleum in U.S.A. it increased there by 14 million metric tons. The total world increase this year, compared to last, is 23 million metric tons. The Shell Oil Co., however, is not in bankruptcy, but was able to report a profit balance of 6 million pounds and pay 25% dividend this year.

Economic development proceeds alongside the efforts to limit production, as the recent advances in the oil refineries show. The News of the World (June 29th) reports that a new process for doubling the yield of motor spirit from crude oil by the use of hydrogen is being developed. The German Chemical Trust and the Standard Oil Co., and the Royal Dutch Co. jointly control the process, in order to control output and extract all possible profits by gently but firmly killing that noble spirit of competition which used to be praised as “the life of trade.”

The increase of productive power along with the vast increase of wealth which cannot find a market has led the author of “The Case for Capitalism”—Mr. Hartley Withers, to make the following confession :

“This spectacle of universal plenty along with universal distress, is very far from creditable to the alleged enlightenment and civilisation which we are now supposed to enjoy. People who have worked for us have worked so well that they cannot make a living, and yet we are none of us getting nearly as much benefit as we should out of the consequent cheapness of things (“Sunday Dispatch,” 6th June).

Let society own the tools and produce for use !

* * *

Is Socialism a religion? 

“There is a conventional assumption that Socialism is opposed to religion. The assumption comes from orthodox camps on both sides. With all the being born of 40 years of active Socialist life I would like to shake it as a terrier proverbially shakes a rat.”

The angry author of these words is Mrs. Bruce Glasier, in the I.L.P. paper, the New Leader (June 13th). She shows the “harmony” between Socialism and Religion by robbing Religion of its accepted meaning, and defining it as “the spirit of the whole.” Karl Marx and Lenin are both religious types, according to her.

She does not attempt to show that Socialism is in accord with religion, as commonly and correctly understood. She leaves completely alone the conflict between the materialist basis of Socialism and the superstitions and supernatural character of religion. The community spirit is common alike to religion and Socialism, Mrs. Glasier informs us.

Socialism, however, is the object of a militant movement recognising the class struggle in modern society. The Socialist realises also that religion as we know it, is an instrument of the ruling class to divert attention from the real world and the real work to be done.

This I.L.P. pioneer has a conception of religion as confused as her idea of Socialism—”the economics of the Lord’s Prayer.” Why not the Sociology of Baptism ?

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Children's Allowances and the I.L.P.

The I.L.P. state on the front page of the New Leader (June 27th) that employers will not be able to deduct children’s allowances from wages, as they will be paid like pensions through the Post Office. Such childish simplicity and evasion may suit these reformers. It is not necessary for the employers to inquire if their workers are getting children’s allowances, but the general receipt of such payments will act as a basis for compiling the average family cost of living. In a fiercely competitive labour market there will be little difficulty in employers making the workers accept the revised wages. Lord MacMillan, in making his report on woollen wage reductions, pointed out that social services such as pensions, insurance, etc., should be taken into consideration in fixing present-day-wages. It has been a regular policy for years to engage pensioned men who can live on less wages.

Children’s allowance experience in Australia give the lie to the I.L.P.

In another issue (July 11th) the New Leader tells us that during strikes the children’s allowances will assist the workers to win, as the children will no longer go hungry on account of the strike. Such is simple faith. During recent strikes it has been noted how difficult it has been for the strikers to get poor law relief for the children. During the General Strike (1926) the Press stated that plans were being made to attack the bank accounts of the Trade Unions to prevent strike pay being issued. And if children’s allowances were passed by a capitalist government they would control its administration and these allowances could be suspended when it suited the governing body if the interests of the employers were at stake.

It is not surprising that such a body of misleaders as the I.L.P. should have their discussions of party policy in private as they announce to take place at their Summer School at Welwyn (New Leader, July 11th). More secret diplomacy !

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How government ownership works.

The One Big Union of Canada has sent a representative to the Privy Council here to appeal against the decision of the Government-owned railway of Canada—The Canadian National. This national railway has adopted a policy pushed by the American Federation of Labor, known as the B. & O. Plan, called so because it was first initiated by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the U.S.A. It has led to the promotion of many safe and servile company unions there.

The masters needed a scheme to kill any militant union activity and also to increase output while silencing workers’ complaints. The B. & O. Plan is a brand of efficiency systems which pretends to make for profit sharing and fosters “co-operation” between master and man. A pliable tool was found in the American Federation of Labor Unions, which was given special privileges to enlist membership and to smooth the path for the adoption of the masters’ plans. The One Big Union complain that the American Union has been given sole recognition, with the result that either dismissal or joining the American Federation has been forced on the men.

Speeding-up and spying on each other, which is the common feature of co-partnership systems, has become the rule. The O.B.U. complain that J. H. Thomas is at the head of the “forceful” union they are fighting. They are applying to the Privy Council for the right of assembly and freedom to join a union of their choice.

So much for Government ownership or nationalisation, the aim of Labour Parties. The One Big Union has to face the fact that business, nationally or privately owned, is carried on for profit, and concentration of industry collectively in investors’ hands—called national ownership—simply provides a more, powerful force against the workers.

The municipalising or nationalising ideas of many of the workers in Canadian Unions has been given a nasty blow, which should make them sec the need for political action for Socialism.

Adolph Kohn