At Random. (1907)

From the January 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Justice (24/11/06) is bitterly disappointed with the “Labour” members. They have never, it says, “risen to the level of their opportunities.” “We have not had a single Socialist speech in the House since Parliament opened last February.” They (the “Labour” members) have “perfectly acquired the House of Commons manner . . . and have quite the air of statesmen and legislators. But that is not quite what they were elected for. If they have got hold of the idea that a Labour Party is to he a second-rate imitation of the Liberal or Tory Party, they have quite mistaken their mission.” And more of the same sort.

***

All very smart and all very nasty. If the Socialist Standard had said the same thing it would have been abusive and blackguardly. However, as Justice has introduced the matter, I hope I may not be thought too forward if I enquire as to Justice’s and the S.D.F.’s own particular member. I mean, of course, Will Thorne. What’s he doing? And if he isn’t now to be distinguished from the rest of the “Labour” members and the “Labour” members are not to be distinguished except by their awkwardness from the members who are not “Labour,” what’s the S.D.F. doing ?

***

There were times when the S.D.F. plumed itself upon the hold it kept upon members elected to public bodies. Why hasn’t it kept a hold on Will Thorne? Is it because it fears to estrange Will by criticism? Is it because it fears the loss of its only member? Is it because Thorne is not the S.D.F.’s member and therefore not amenable to S.D.F. influence ?

***

The reply I give is an affirmative to all the questions. The S.D.F. cannot afford to lose Thorne or Thorne’s influence. Thorne is not amenable to S.D.F. instruction although a member of the S.D.F. Thorne was elected as the L.R.C. candidate and is paid as such. The S.D.F.’s claim on Thorne is only persevered in because the S.D.F. only has Thorne’s M.P.-ship to swagger with. It makes an important thing of its very remote association with Thorne so as to make the most it can for itself out of Thorne’s electoral success. It’s pitiable but there it is.

***

And now it displays the fraudulent nature of its claim by showing that it has no claim on, and is without influence over, its own alleged member. It means just that ; or this – the S.D.F. has lost the last excuse for its existence. By which I mean to say that if S.D.F. members are so little educated upon the duties and responsibilities, the organisation and the discipline which the acceptance of Socialism involves that they do not insist upon their fellow members, into whatever public position they may go, following closely the line marked out by the Party as a whole, then there is no purpose in the organisation and it may as well be dead. If the Party has not insisted because it has no clearly defined line to follow, then again it may as well be dead in name as it is in fact.

***

John Burns, according to the German Press, has declared that he is not a State Socialist. I agree. Whatever else he’ is—and I could suggest quite a number of names that would fairly fit—he is not a Socialist, State or otherwise.

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John has since stated that he has no recollection of saying anything of the sort, but he will not contradict the newspaper report because he never contradicts anything that is said about him. I disagree. John’s memory is statesmanlike—and short. He would contradict fast enough if it paid.

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Preaching in Westminster Abbey recently, the Rev. A. Taylor, M.A., said that the elevation of womanhood in all lands was due to the teaching of the Bible ! Is this merely the ordinary ignorance of “culture” or has the pronouncement anything to do with the fact that the reverend gentleman is the Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society ?

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Another ecclesiastical dignitary, the celebrated Father Bernard Vaughan, has replied to another Bernard, yclept, Shaw. In his reply the worthy Father has well maintained his reputation for sensationalism in three statements. (1) That in Shaw’s lecture on religion he was “unable to detect a shadow of scientific thought.” (2) That the prayer that rose to his lips after reading it was “Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he does,” and (3) that Shaw would find “eminently satisfactory results” from an enquiry into “the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church.”

***

I did not know that the father’s investigation into “Smart Set” morals qualified him to pronounce authoritatively upon scientific thought. Moreover, as he has so well pointed out, the tenets of the church to which he belongs are eminently satisfactory to—those who know not what they do ! and it would seem, only those. However, statements one and two are all right—a coincidence in the circumstances quite sensational.

***

After “Rocks Ahead,” “Another Political Wreck.” Should the third effort not be entitled “Saved from the Sea” ? I throw out the suggestion for what it may be worth. If the drama is to be well rounded we must have a coming to. The villain might then stand a chance of retrieving his fortunes by playing rescuer and even getting applause at the fall of the curtain. However. I have it on good authority that the reason for the selection of nautical titles has nothing to do with the author being at sea.

***

Herbert Burrows thinks that his comrade Askew is not worth discussing with ; he thinks Askew has deliberately insinuated things against him (Burrows) which are maliciously false ; and he holds that if Askew has a spark of decency in him he ought to be ashamed of himself and apologise.

***

This is distinctly the Burrovian method. If anyone disagrees with Herbert and says so, and particularly if he goes so far as to give good reason for his disagreement, he is (pace Herbert) a fellow of no decency, not to say a thorough paced scoundrel. Herbert, of course, is a gentleman, never uses language that is ungentlemanly and anybody who has known him and his Socialism will admit at once that the Socialist movement ought to be proud of its Burrows. Herbert says so and Herbert ought to know.

***

I am glad to find Herbert ragging more members of the S.D.F. because to me that is prima facie evidence that these members are waking up. When anything of the kind happens, and particularly if in the process the position of Herbert and what I may call the official S.D.F. comes under sharp criticism (as it must) Mr. Burrows can always be relied upon to start in with the “slang.” And it will always be found that the safest and surest sign that he hasn’t the rockiest leg to stand upon is when he falls back upon his “past record.” I will, when I get time, turn up some of that record and I think I can surprise the Burrowsite (if there is any such misguided person alive) with a reproduction of some of the gentlemanly language that ethical Herbert has given off.

***

In the same paper for December 15th, Mr. H. M. Hyndman has an article on the same subject, from which I extract the following :

“No pluck whatever has been displayed. Nothing meaner or more contemptible has ever been done, even by our scurviest enemies, the Liberals, than the wholesale discharges of men from Woolwich Arsenal and elsewhere. What has the Labour Party had to say about this infamous conduct ? So far as I know, nothing. Worse still, when Mr. John Burns turned the whole unemployed question, which made his personal and pecuniary fortune, into a farce, who was it who jumped up in haste to thank him for his fine speech and flatter him to his face for his valuable proposal ? No less conspicuous a person than the Chairman at the time of the Independent Labour Party and the Whip of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. Yet not a single man of the whole group dared rise and publicly repudiate such mean talk as utterly unworthy of themselves and their constituents.”

***

In these last days everybody is mightily concerned to manufacture a particular brand of what is called Socialism to meet the requirements of some particular group of individuals. Every brand requires a distinctive label, and every label demands a separate organisation to push it upon public attention. During the last few days I have come across a “Socialism” for millionaires (this is a strictly proprietary brand, placed on the market as was fit and proper, by that “mad-hatter” of the “advanced” movement who owns the Fabian Society), the Guild of St. Matthew brand of “Socialism”; “Socialism for the ‘educated middle class'” ; Tory “Socialism” (!),; I.L.P. “Socialism” (which is realised when land and Capital are nationalised), S.D.F. “Socialism,”— which Mr. H. M. Hyndman says is to be achieved for the working class by the class above, and so on.

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Amid the din of so many pedlars crying their wares it is grateful to come across a small body of propagandists who advance just a plain, unqualified Socialism as the solution for the problem of poverty which affects one class only—the working class ; a Socialism which they preach as members of the working class to members of the working class only on the ground that only the working class matter. At any rate I am grateful to these, The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

***

Professor Oliver Lodge has given us his articles of faith. He holds that the two greatest requirements of life are companionship and affection. But what about food ?

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“We are told that our women friends who are agitating for the Limited Bill, are in favour of Adult Suffrage. Then why don’t they agitate for it instead of for the smaller measure ? I have always held that the best way to get part is to ask for the whole, and that if you ask for part you won’t even get that.”

***

Hear ! Hear !! Hear !!! Precisely what we are always pointing out to those who, while professing to want Socialism, prefer to ask for unemployed relief, payment of members and—a citizen army ! And one of the men who call us “Impossiblists” therefore, is—the writer of the foregoing extract, H. Quelch!

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Messrs. Quelch & Co. are most vehement opponents of those who urge in connection with this “Votes for Women” agitation that the best way to secure complete adult suffrage is to get the right of women to the vote conceded ; that the only way indeed to the ultimate goal is to proceed by short stages. Mr. Quelch says in effect, and I quite agree with him, that if we must proceed by stages we will at any rate endeavour to make those stages as few as possible, and the best way to do that is not to concentrate upon a stage, because that stage is thereby made, for all practical purposes, the ultimate goal, with the result that progress toward it is again made in stages, but rather to demand the whole so that when a concession is wrung out of the ruling class (and if the concession is material it will have to to be wrung anyhow) it will be as substantial a concession as possible. Mr. Quelch says this, at any rate, upon the question of votes for women,—and anything else that suits his purpose at the moment, for that matter. Yet when we apply the same process of reasoning to the position taken up by Mr. Quelch and his friends in connection with their palliative proposals, we are quite impossible !

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The question of the unemployed is in point. Mr. Quelch knows that only Socialism will solve the unemployed problem—and sometimes says so. Mr. Quelch knows that the capitalist class cannot solve the unemployed problem it they would and would not it they could and sometimes says so. Yet Mr. Quelch heads deputations to the capitalist class who cannot and will not solve the unemployed problem, to ask for relief for some of the unemployed. The result is a farcical drop of relief to a vast ocean of misery, the drop to be administered in homeopathic doses by a contemptible capitalist hack.

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And this is not the only result, as Mr. Quelch knows. He knows that the miserable labour derelicts who follow his lead are being deluded by his agitation even as the “suffragettes” are being (as he says) deluded. They are not organised for, or concentrated upon, the ultimate goal. They are not demanding the whole. They are only asking for what Mr. Quelch implies it is absurd to ask for, viz., a very small part of what they want, with the result that they don’t “even get that.” And because they don’t understand that the whole is their right ; because the leaders of the agitation by their cap-in-hand deputations convey the impression that the little they are asking for is the most they ought to expect; because of this they induce the belief in the working class that the capitalists who finally give the bit of relief are excellent good fellows who are doing their best and who deserve to be supported. In other words the class struggle is obscured, and instead of having advanced a stage in the direction of the ultimate goal, they have at the best remained where they were, and at the very probable worst, have actually retreated a stage.

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Therefore it is not in the mouth of Mr. Quelch & Co. to talk down at the “Suffragettes” who are but doing what Mr. Quelch himself does. It is notoriously unwise for the occupants of glass houses to exercise with catapaults and it is proverbially grotesque for the man with a beam in his own eye to labour in the endeavour to pluck the mote out of the eye of his—sister ! The only safe place from which Mr. Quelch may criticise the one-step-at-a-timer is in the ranks of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. If he has determined to be consistent for the future I invite him to apply for membership.

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Try the quality of the “Labour Leader’s” parliamentary writer with me. He is referring to the number of ladies in purple and fine linen who are escorted about the precincts of the House of Parliamentary Gallants and goes on : “The Labour members stand and wonder at it all. Some of them—Barnes, Will Thorne and some others sternly leave the lobby” ! . . . Why—if a plain person may ask the question—do they leave the lobby ? And how do they do it sternly ? Does the sight of the lovely ladies with whom they may not mix give them the waterbrash ? Or what ? And who are these others who prefer not to leave the lobby ? Why do they stay ? Is it on the chance of a tete-a-tete? In any case are we to conclude that they also serve who only stand and wonder?

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Try again. They (the Balfours, etc.) “are very nonplussed by the presence of the Labour men. It is not that our men interrupt them . . . but they make them feel they are there. Just as they are going to utter their most unreal sentiment they happen to make a half turn, and then—they get a full broadside from the eyes of Keir Hardie.” Dear ! Dear ! How very dreadful ! Especially when you are not expecting it. But why doesn’t Keir Hardie sit on the other side of the House ? He could then fix his man every time, and his man couldn’t say a word. Perhaps those eyes would impel the victim to speak the truth. You never can tell. As it is Hardie has to wait for the half turn before he can operate. Surely it cannot be that love of compromise and half measures has led the “Labour” Group to prefer half turns when they might get a full turn for the same effort. A half loaf may be better than no bread, but, I have never heard that a half turn is better than a whole stare !

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These are examples of the strong meat the Labour Leader regales its readers with. It’s the sort of literary wash that may serve to satisfy the unhealthy cravings of some of the I.L.P. now that the novelty of the “Labour” Group has worn so thin that the capitalist Press cannot work good “copy” out of it, but it will scarcely do more than impel a sensation of hilarity (or perhaps of nausea) in sober and serious students of working-class politics. The Labour Leader, taking its cue from the “Labour” leaders, is playing down to the weakest headed of its following. Which, being interpreted, is to say that the Labour Leader is playing it as low and as sloppily as it can well do.

Alegra.