Matters Parliamentary. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

That “zeal for reform” commented upon in last month’s Socialist Standard continues to actuate our legislative assembly. That parliamentary passion for progress still inflames the minds and ennobles the purpose of our faithful commons. We still make headway “with sledgehammer strokes.” Privilege and Corruption are like the notorious aunt of the celebrated Charley, “still running,” and hot foot upon their trail comes a press of stern, relentless champions of truth, righteousness, peace and political purity, with souls illumined by the vision of what might be and with minds revolted by the knowledge of what is. We are having a time.

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And it’s all due to the “Labour” Party and their policy of independence. Straight from the forge and the bench and the coal seam (or nearly straight), they have come to fan the smouldering embers of reform into a fierce white heat once more. There they sit, a small but solidly welded phalanx, splendid in their isolation, unswerving in their determination, yet radiating a warm and genial glow that suffuses the whole house and “with new fervour fills the hearts of men.” Already this has borne wonderful fruit. Flogging has been abolished in the Navy—for an experimental twelve months to see whether the Captains can manage to rub along without it. This is a victory for humanitarianism ! The Chinese Labour Ordinance has been shewn to be not such a bad affair after all—certainly not slavery—and the Government’s decision not to interfere for the present has been upheld. This is a victory for truth ! Then the expenditure on armaments is not to be reduced which, although not a victory for retrenchment may be reckoned a victory for efficiency ! Also the fiscal status quo has been affirmed and the ghost of Protection has been laid—-a victory for industrial freedom this !

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Three separate and distinct resolutions have been passed in favour of payment of members, payment of election expenses, and old age pensions subject to certain necessary precautions as to when they shall be put into operation and the scope of their application which are left to the decision of the Government. This is not exactly a victory for anything as the Government has laid it down that the time was never more inopportune for increased expenditure. The Government has a passion for economy in these directions. Yet whole-souled reformers need not be despondent. All in good time we shall have payment of members and in the interval doubtless public and private subscriptions will come to the aid of the poor but honest and honourable member for Stoke whose gallant struggle with adversity has done so much to force this (to him) pressing question upon the attention of a sympathetic house. In these matters we must, of course, make haste slowly lest financial disaster overtake us. Mr. Ward will understand this and although he is not attached to the Parliamentary “Labour” Party per se and is therefore not “independent,” he will, with Mr. Roberts who does belong to the “Labour Party” and is ” independent,” repose his perfect confidence in the intentions of the Government and will refuse to embarrass it. It is this spirit of sweet reasonableness which has endeared the “Labour” members to their capitalist fellow-workers and enabled them to achieve in so short a time so many magnificent triumphs. Which shews how, when Capital and Labour work hand-in-hand, apparently insurmountable difficulties may be overcome ! We should all be very grateful.

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Nevertheless, and at the risk of incurring the opprobrium of those who rejoice in the work of the “Labour” members, we are not grateful. We find no consolation in such victories. Such exhibitions of sweet reasonableness do not appeal to us. We have no confidence in the intentions of the Government because we know the Government and its intentions. It is a capitalist government and its intentions are to maintain capitalist domination. Capitalist domination means continued working-class enslavement; working-class poverty and unhappiness. It intends to maintain the power of the class it represents by a carefully simulated sympathy for the wishes of those who claim to voice working-class requirements. That is its game. It will kill the working-class agitation with kindness.

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It will accept any number of reform resolutions of the payment of members order. Why not ? They are not dangerous. On the contrary, they are advantageous to capitalist interests because they obscure the class line, they blur the antagonism existing between Capital and Labour. They convey the idea of a common concern, a common progress towards a mutual objective. If necessary the Government may even translate the resolution into practice without trepidation. It will if pressed. Yet the position of the working class will not even then be affected. How can it be ? Such legislative enactments simply do not touch the problem of poverty. But the Government is not pressed even on such immaterial matters as these. The Government accepts the resolutions on the understanding that it will fix its own time to introduce a bill and impose its own limits upon the scope of the measure. It could accept a resolution for the socialization of the means of production upon such terms.

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And the “Labour” members accept these conditions without protest and have faith in the intentions of the Government ! Such sweet reasonableness ? Such damnable stupidity rather. What are such victories worth? What is the independence of the “Labour Party” worth? What are the members of the “Labour Party” worth ? And these are the men we are asked to support. These are the methods we are asked to approve. These are the individuals who swell with indignation when their actions are adversely criticised. Why, ordinary hack Liberals have more determination. The boasted “progress” they recognise and proclaim as little short of flummery. They are waiting, they say, for the curtain to rise upon a stage set for what they consider will be serious business. Some of them are prepared to move resolutions against their own party and persist, against the appeals of their own chief, to a division. But the “Labour” members are loyal to their chief. And their chief is mightily concerned because he thinks he heard another honourable member say “damn”—while political refugees are being deported back to Russia and there, on the authority of a Rothschild, shot out of hand ; and the working-class slave and die waiting in their ignorance for the men who claim to be fighting on their behalf, to act.

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If they had any grit, if they had half the courage of the professions some of them have made outside the House of Commons, the “Labour ” M.P.’s would break through every form and custom of Parliament to force the hands of the Government on behalf of their class. In the past men of determination have single-handed achieved their purpose in the teeth of the whole 670 representatives of capitalism. And there are a score and ten “Labour” representatives; and they have confidence in the intentions of the Government and decline to embarrass it ! “They have no intention of pressing the Government” (Keir Hardie, 19.3.06); and their views on the land question are identical with those of the Minister of Agriculture (W. Crooks, 17.3.06) ; and they are so interested in the prolongation of the life of the present administration that Crooks, Shackleton, Snowden and others vote for the Government and against a reduction in the land forces moved by a Liberal against his Party. These men of peace and progress ; these men who are the new force in politics; these “leaders” of working-class thought; these champions of independence; these harbingers of a new era—faugh ! An ounce of civet good Mr. Apothecary while Mr. Thorne and Mr. Crooks act as advertisement touts for works on the hire-purchase system.

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Outside the House, however, addressing audiences who believe in them and upon whom they rely for their standing (and their salaries), they can change their tactics. Some of them can wax quite truculent. The talk of their fellow M.P.’s they deride as piffle and the forms of the House are childish and silly. Inside the House they make slavish conformation to the childish forms, and valuable contribution to the derisive piffle. They are clothed with respectability and obsessed by desire to create favorable impressions. But outside the “whispering humbleness” can be shed. They are only anxious to drop the cackle and get to business. And as for confidence in the intentions of the Government, why—! They have no delusions as to what their reception will be when they demand substantial concessions.

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“The moment,” says Mr. Keir Hardie at Swansea on the 17th ulto., “it became known that the Labour Representation Committee meant encroachment on privilege and monopoly, the fight against it would become earnest” and —

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“There has been no contempt shewn in the treatment of Labour so far. Contemptuous treatment can only be extended with safety to those who are not successful and Labour has now succeeded. Vigorous and determined opposition will, no doubt, be offered to the claims of Labour WHEN its advocates demand the substantial concessions and changes which ALONE can benefit the class which the Labour Party has been specially created to give FIRST assistance to,” says Mr. J. R. Clynes in the “Labour Record.’

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Then why hasn’t it become known that the L.R.C. means encroachment upon privilege? And when will “Labour’s” advocates demand those substantial concessions which alone can benefit the workers ? And why, it the Labour Party has been specially created to give first attention to these substantial concessions, haven’t they been given first attention ? What are they fooling about ? Why don’t they drop the cackle and get to business? We are tired of their damnable faces and their smug conceits and their oppressive respectability.

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They would not matter were it not for the unfortunate fact that a considerable section of the working class who sit in darkness, are content to pin their hopes of beneficial change to these gentlemen. To us it is all important that the working class should understand why they are poor. Until they do, they cannot take effective action. And the only way by which that may be accomplished is by the consistent and emphatic declaration of the class struggle. The class struggle is submerged by the Parliamentary pirouettes of the Labour Party marrionettes and the working class mind is confused by their vacillations and quick changes. That is why we protest more particularly against the actions of the “Labour” M.P’s. It is our business to hit as hard as possible those individuals whose work is most calculated to keep the workers in darkness. Just as the most dangerous enemy is the false friend, so the most dangerous working class leader is he who, attached to the working class by birth and breeding, leads that class into an intellectual morass while ostensibly helping them in the direction of their desires. Labour, said Mr. Clynes, has now succeeded. It has—in raising another obstacle to its own progress.

Agra.