Party News from the July 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
The Blight of Snobbery. (1907)
An Organisation of “Respectable” Workers.
Notwithstanding our past efforts to point the more excellent way to the Railway Clerks’ Association, that organisation of the more “respectable” railway employees, like the ploughman of the famous Elegy, still continues to pursue its dull and melancholy way. Its latest lucubration makes it clear that although as their watch-word in large capitals informs us “Association is the law of Progress,” it does not follow that progress must accompany association. Intellectual progress (the analogy is intended to be void of offence) would not, for example, result from wooden heads be they never so closely associated. A silk purse is not the outcome of the association of sows’ ears. Two years ago we gently argued with the R.C.A. in an endeavour to show that its position was unhappy and untenable, yet to-day it comes along with pretty much the same sort of fallacious pronouncement. It has had two years of association but that has not connoted progress—of intellect anyhow.
This is its statement of some reasons why railway clerks should combine–preferably in the R.C.A. :—
“On nearly every railway there are evidences of reactionary tendencies which will become very detrimental to the welfare of the clerical Staff unless steps are taken to counteract them. Salaries are being kept down, staff reduced, holidays made more difficult to obtain, returns are multiplied, and office work made heavier and more complicated every year. Sunday business increases without any extra remuneration being allowed to clerks who are called upon to sacrifice their Sabbath. Girl clerks are introduced to keep down the standard of the men, and the word “Economy” is abused wherever opportunity allows.
Instead of Railway Clerks participating in the general improvement of trade and the increase of National wealth, their condition is either stationary or declining while Railway revenues are steadily advancing. Prospects of promotion diminish every year through the introduction of young men from universities who have undue preference over experienced capable men amongst the general staff.”
Excepting that it seems to be assumed that if railway clerks would but join the R.C.A. they would participate in the increase of National wealth—an absurd assumption of course—this statement, doubtless, fairly represents some of the conditions of railway clerical labour. It is what we should expect to find seeing that railway clerks are in the same position as any other section of the working class—the position of an exploited or robbed class. In common with the rest of the workers they have to sell their labour-power for wages, and any hardening of their conditions simply means that the capitalist class, who buy their labour-power, are endeavouring to squeeze a little extra surplus value out of the deal—whether the exigencies of industrial conflict necessitate such squeezing in order that dividends may be maintained, doesn’t matter for present purposes.
The Roots of Capitalist Philanthropy.
The operation may be ill-advised from a capitalist point of view. It might be better business for them to make, for example, the surroundings of their employees more congenial; but they, naturally, would only consider that matter favourably if they could see that it was possible to get greater profits out of the improvement. It is their concern for profits which is the actuating motive, not the increased comfort and happiness of their wage-slaves, and they may be relied upon to make any such alterations in their own interests without any assistance from an organisation of employees.
The R.C.A. or any other such body presumably does not exist for the purpose of informing the master class of the best means of getting larger profits. Seeing that all profit is obtained from the exploitation of the workers, they (the workers) are not concerned with being party to the increase of that robbery—not unless they are very stupid. It is no advantage to them if they are translated into conditions which enable them to speed up their energies to permit of three days’ work being done in two, when, as is inevitable, the speeding-up process results in the production of an earlier state of decrepitude. They are concerned, or should be, in securing, if possible, some real advantage—a benefit which has no counterbalancing loss.
If we are agreed so far, it will at once be seen that such benefit cannot be obtained except at the expense of capitalists’ profits. And the capitalist is not going to relinguish any portion of the profits, upon which his existence depends, without a struggle. Into this struggle the worker, out for increased benefits, must fling himself willy-nilly. There is no other way for him. He cannot achieve his purpose by “blarney,” by pleading the misery of his lot, by appealing to the “higher nature” of his employer. Capitalism knows no higher nature. It only knows higher profits. The worker has got to go into the struggle. And his measure of success will be the measure of his appreciation of the conditions of the conflict.
The Class Struggle.
The conditions of the conflict are simple. He is fighting as a worker against the capitalist whose interests are absolutely and entirely opposed to his own. It is not a fight of individuals either. It is not him versus his employer. If it were he would go under at once because his employer has always the unemployed reserve to fall back upon and all he has to do is to sack his “hand” and get a new one from the hungry crowd clamourously appealing for work outside. It is not even a section of workers against a section of capitalists. Threaten a section of the institution of profit-mongering seriously, and immediately the capitalist section becomes a capitalist class with all the forces that Capital can command hurrying up to the defence of one of its citadels. The sectional struggles of the workers since the rise of capitalism are in evidence as proof of this. A Tory mine-owner (Masham) calls upon a capitalist Liberal Government for help against his striking workers, and in a twinkling we have the soldiery shooting down the workers in revolt. Scores of cases could be cited if space allowed.
The struggle then is between class and class. When the workers recognise that, they will have appreciated the conditions of their battle and will organise their forces on a class basis accordingly. As it is they organise sectionally, enter the fight sectionally, and are beaten in detail by the opposing forces acting in concert, with their economic power buttressed by political power controlling the armaments of the country. The working class in such circumstances are in a condition of pitiable impotence. Under the direction of leaders either fraudulent or ignorant they waste their substance and their strength with a recklessness at once prodigal and imbecile. And if as a result of repeated efforts repeatedly smashed, they fall back hopeless, dispirited, apathetic, what wonder is it ?
But even if any ground existed for the supposition that sectional fights might be productive of good, it would be at once conceded that the larger the section, the better the chances of success. If the railway workers could take sectional action for sectional benefit to themselves as railway workers, it would surely be allowed at once that such action ought to be taken by the whole of the railway workers. The larger the association, the more effective the action— that is always argued by the trade union leaders. And yet we have the Railway Clerks’ Association coming along to railway workers, mouthing “union is strength” and the rest of the inconsequentialities of trade union stock-in-trade, to urge that a section of a section should organise themselves separately—without connection with any other firm in the same street !
How Not to Organise.
Here is the acme even of trade union absurdity. Railway clerks must combine separately. In the name of the ten-a-penny gods, why? Because their interests are separate and distinct from the interests of the rest of railway workers ! Really, I hardly know whether this is rant or cant or fustian. The interests of clerks are as distinct from those of engine drivers as the interests of platelayers are distinct from those of porters—neither more nor less. Therefore—a platelayers’ union, and a carriage washers’ union, and a porters’ union, and two or three score other unions in the same industrial section ! Why not ?
The fact is, of course, that the R.C.A. is endeavouring to play up or down to the “respectability” of the clerk. He doesn’t wear corduroys—therefore his interests are different. He wears a black coat —which, perhaps, poor devil, he hasn’t paid for—and therefore his ways are not the ways of the carman who, probably, wouldn’t have a coat at all if the Company in its large-hearted charity didn’t supply him with one. He is a superior person our railway clerk, and must be treated “as sich.”
Of course, this cult of the bob-tailed coat is a live thing with railway clerks or the R.C.A. would be unable to exploit it. But it is none the less a manifestation of clerkly ignorance, not less but more pitiably ludicrous because it is crowned with the stove-pipe hat of caste. Clerks, railway or other, will have to recognise the essential unity of their interests with those of the more horny-handed sons of labour if they are to effect any material change in their condition. As members of the working class themselves there is no progress for them apart from the general advance of their class. Any organisation they may be associated with not based upon this conception of class solidarity coupled with the recognition of the conditions of the conflict they are consciously or unconsciously participating in to-day—conditions briefly set out in the foregoing—is not an organisation at all for their purposes. It is simply a delusion and a snare from which, when wisdom comes, they will flee—after giving it a parting kick as a mark of their esteem.
R.C.A. Fatuity.
Does the Railway Clerks’ Association give even a fleeting intimation, of its recognition of the essentials of working-class organisation? To that question we have to answer to-day as we have answered before—not one. On the contrary it seems to lay itself out to shew that more appalling stupidity, more abysmal ignorance can find lodgement in the clerical breast—or that part of their anatomy clerks usually think with—than in the mental fit-up of any other species of proletarian. The public pronouncement previously referred to after detailing some of the reasons for organisation on the part of railway clerks, goes on with sublime fatuity (or stupendous cheek) to say—
“The Association advocates nothing of a character likely to be detrimental to proper discipline or the best interests of the Railway Companies, and one of its aims is to promote a better understanding between Directors, Officers and Staff.”
Is there any “Labour” organisation maintaining itself leech-like upon working-ignorance anywhere, that can beat that for folly ? Here are workmen acquiescing in the announcement made by their leaders with an air of authoritative wisdom to the effect that on the one hand out of their own pence the men are voluntarily creating an organisation for the purpose of looking after the best interests of their employers, while on the other they assert they have entered into association to protect themselves against their employers ! Apparently the R.C.A. is of opinion that the best way to fight the employer is to kill him with kindness—a method for which, perhaps, something might be said if the employer under such treatment did not take so unconscionable a time in dying.
And this is the organisation which railway clerks are strongly pressed to join ; an organisation without a glimmer of understanding of the working class position ; an organisation whose idea of association is to sub-divide the working class into as many sections and sub-sections as the numerical strength will allow ; an organisation that conducts its campaign against capitalism by studying the best interests of capitalism and modifying its own action to conform to the requirements of those best interests ! How the board-rooms must ring with the laughter of the great-hearted Directors when the news comes in of the steps their clerical workers are taking to secure some amelioration in their hard condition. Small wonder that Directors of Companies sat at one time—whether they do or not, now, does not appear in the document under notice—in the presidential and vice-presidential chairs of the R.C.A.—it was most excellent good business for them.
And small wonder also that such an organisation should have as its most prominent fugleman, the nominee of a person of so malodorous a reputation as the President of the Local Government Board. Alderman W. J. West, J.P., the nominee referred to, is the President of the R.C.A. and under the aegis of Burns stood as L.C.C. candidate for Battersea, vice Burns himself, (who had been called to higher things by his too satisfied capitalist paymasters). We had the satisfaction of doing something toward the defeat of Mr. West’s pseudo-Progressive and confusionist candidature, just as we hope to have the satisfaction of doing something toward defeating the work of Mr. West’s pseudo-labour confusionist organisation.
The Duty o£ the S.P.G.B.
That is our business in life as a Socialist Party. We are out to combat working-class error, and invincible though the error seems when manifested in such appalling pronouncements as the one quoted from above, we are by no means dismayed. To some number we who form the S.P.G.B. are clerks ourselves and have some intimate knowledge of the forces which operate to produce in the clerk that sense of snobbish superiority which is so pitiable because based upon such slender ground—as the clerks themselves make patent every time they “spread” themselves to achieve dialectical effects in political or economic discussion. As the Emerald Islander would put it, “they can never open their mouth without putting their foot in it.” Break down the fancy line of caste, however, let in upon him the light of the Socialist philosophy that raises (or reduces) the man with the hoe to the level of the man with the pen, and the clerk takes his place with the rest of the working class and may be relied upon to do his share in the work of breaking down the society forms behind which the forces of capitalism lie entrenched, and setting to utter rout those forms thus unmasked.
The Only Hope.
We despair neither of the clerk nor the navvy. Pressure of economic forces will compel him to cast about for the, means of economic salvation, as in fact it is doing to-day, and although his untutored efforts may be temporarily arrested by charlatan or fool and his energies switched off and wasted in absurd organisations of the type of the R.C.A., it must occur that, in the result, for the very simple reason that the Socialist Party alone holds the solution of the industrial problem, he must turn to the Socialist Party for the way of escape. The Socialist Party alone can explain the phenomena of economic cataclysm. The Socialist Party alone can unravel the tangled skein of working-class hardship and poverty and insecurity. And in the Socialism they advocate can adequate and final remedy be found. “There is no other name given under Heaven whereby we may he saved” except Socialism.
Our appeal to the clerks of the R.C.A. and to every other memher of the exploited working class is that they should concentrate their mental energies upon a fair and full consideration of the Socialist position. The result will be sure. It will he death to the Railway Clerks’ Association and all other such causes of working-class confusion, but it will mean life to the railway clerk and to the rest of the proletariat.
A. James
Random Notes. (1907)
Bernard Shaw has a three column article in the Clarion upon “the moral of the L.C.C. elections,” one column and a half of which is devoted to his showing, mainly on the evidence of the return of Sidney Webb and Frank Smith, that the results of those elections do not spell defeat for Socialism. The other column and a half is mainly devoted to supporting the contention of Robert Blatchford, that the results of the elections do spell defeat for Socialism ! And yet we are urged by the quidnunc and the cognoscente to believe that Shaw is not merely the farceur he has been represented, but, on the contrary, is a desperately earnest person.
o o o
The Tribune (April 1st) quotes this from the report of the Executive of the S.D.F. to their annual conference :—
“It is necessary here to call attention to the conduct of Mr. John Burns, who, as President of the Local Government Board, has now gone back entirely upon his former opinions, and the most hypocritical employer of sweated labour, with a predilection for conventional Sunday-school morality, might well envy the power of glib pharisaical cant which the “man with the red flag” can now always bring to bear upon the unemployed question.”
o o o
and this is the S.D.F. conception of correct tactics on the unemployed question :—
“This conference further calls upon the Government at once to amend the existing Unemployed Workmen Act to such an extent as to provide useful and remunerative work for unemployed men, and to make sufficient grants from the Imperial Exchequer to local authorities to enable them to give employment to all citizens in need of it.”
o o o
And then reflect that Burns is at the head of the Governmental department which must deal with the call “to provide useful and remunerative work,” etc. And that the Government is, according to the S.D.F., representative of capitalist interests. And that, also according to the S.D.F., capitalist interests absolutely rely upon continued labour redundancy. So, we will call upon the capitalist Government to put into operation the pharisaical cant of their obedient servant, the ex-“man with the red flag,” in order that the unemployed upon whom capitalist interests depend, may obtain the work that the capitalist Government cannot provide !
o o o
Sweet, isn’t it ? Likely to have an exceedingly enlightening effect upon the working class the S.D.F. allege they are educating—what? Don’t tell the unemployed that the capitalist Government can do nothing for them. That would be the truth, of course, but it wouldn’t be good “tactics.” Therefore we will lead them to suppose that the Government can do something for them, and we will call upon the Government to do that something which they cannot ! So will our reputation as practical politicians grow.
o o o
May the beneficent fates turn the hungry eyes of the uneducated working-class unemployed away from such tactic-struck educators. And may the same beneficent fates turn the brains of those well-intentioned S.D.F. rank-and-filers in order that they may see their own stupidity in following with such pathetic fidelity the fatuous leading of their purblind—or is it pharisaical—captains. We offer the beneficent fates aforementioned, the columns of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD as a medium for the expression of their powers. Indeed, the S.D.F. man may rightly regard these columns as the instrument which the fates are using to divert his path from that abyss of political impotence toward which his unthinking steps are being urged by the tactical grotesques he hails as leaders. If he will not so regard these columns, he must needs gang his ain gait (I hope that’s good Scots) and suffer the penalty which “baffle-headedness” always invokes. And he may count himself a fortunate fellow if he awakes from his somnambulistic perambulations before he finds himself up to his neck in a slough of despond, being pelted by the objurgatory brickbats of a long-suffering working class.
o o o
At the annual dinner of the athletic club of Messrs. J. Lyons & Go’s employees, the chairman (Mr. Isidore Gluckstein) in responding to the vote of thanks to the directors of the Company for the support they had given the club, remarked that they were pleased to encourage athletics among their staff because “outdoor sports not only bettered a man physically but enabled him to do his indoor work all the better.” So. Scratch the benevolent director and you find the hungry capitalist. It is good for the men that they should be physically robust. It is also good business for the employer. And the greatest of these (to the employer) is the good business.
o o o
The Paris Herald reports the death, in Pittsburg, of John Brislin, the inventor of modern rolling mill machinery. John was a boyhood friend of Andrew Carnegie, and John thought, when, in conjunction with Anton Vinnac, he perfected his patent, that his old pal, Andrew, who was in the steel business, would see him through all right. Instead of which, John and Anton had to take action against the Carnegie Steel Company for stealing and working their patent. They estimated their invention to be worth 40,000,000 dollars. Andrew’s company offered them 100,000 dollars. They refused and the States District Court gave a verdict in their favour. Then old pal Andrew’s company took the case to the Federal Court of Appeal which, being a court of commercial justice and Andrew’s company easily having the most money, naturally reversed the order of the lower court. Having no more money to fight, Anton died of grief and John lost his eyesight and Andrew by the grace of God and the poverty of his old pal, waxed fat upon the invention that didn’t belong to him and began to make a name as a philanthropist and library purveyor. Recently John received a letter from Andrew in which Andrew seems to have held out some hope that Jobn might expect some justice soon and John was so shocked that he died of heart failure.
o o o
Under Socialism of course, it will be impossible for genius to reap the reward due to it. It is only under capitalism that genius can hope to secure adequate recognition. All the same I don’t marvel that John died.
o o o
“There is no other movement in the world, unless perhaps the Christian Church, which numbers among its professed followers so many who fail to understand or appreciate, the meaning and application of its fundamental teachings, as does Socialism in England. This is the more remarkable as the points in dispute are scientific facts, capable of the fullest and most complete demonstration.”E. J. Lamel in “Justice,” 6.4.07.
Many a true word spoken even in Justice. We entirely agree with Mr. Lamel, but cannot allow the exception which he makes in favour of the S.D.F., to which he belongs.
o o o
Our objection to the S.D.F. is quite as strong as Mr. Lamel’s objection to the pseudo-Socialists who will have none of the S.D.F. because that organisation refuses “to accept an anaemic, milk-and-water ‘Socialism’ as the genuine, full-blooded article.” And our objection to the S.D.F. is for very much the same reason. S.D.F. “Socialism” is anaemic and milk-and-water as Mr. Lamel will find if he will peruse fairly the statement of the position set out in the Manifesto of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (price Id.)
o o o
It is curious, too, to find a writer like Mr. Lamel, who seems to pose as an exponent of the scientific view, making reference to the private ownership of land and capital, as though the common ownership of capital, like the common ownership of land, was conceivable. He speaks of the predictions of Marx with the air of one who has Marx at his finger-tips. But if he really knew his Marx he would not confuse (as he appears to do) capital with wealth.
o o o
Nor would he fall into the error common among those unscientific persons whom he so vigorously trounces, that the working class which “suffered the most” in prosecuting the South African War, “now has, directly or indirectly, to pay the piper.” As a matter of fact the working class temporarily benefited by the industrial incentive which the war gave. And if it is true, as Mr. Lamel states (a statement in which the “scientific Socialist” will concur), that the working class “has to rely for its livelihood upon the proceeds of its labour” (read labour-power) “sold as a ware,” it will be interesting to know how the working class can ”pay the piper,” having regard to the fact, accepted by all “scientific Socialists,” that competition for work reduces the average working-class return to a bare subsistence level.
o o o
These points are urged, not with a view of scoring off Mr. Lamel’s ignorance, but rather with the idea of suggesting to Mr. Lamel and those who stand with him, that just as the S.P.G.B. has been at pains to establish itself on what Mr. Lamel may regard as the minutiae of Marxian economics, so it has been at pains to discover the error of the pseudo-Socialist Parties in order that it might, by dissociating itself from such error, and the confusion which it must inevitably work, present a clear issue to the working class.
o o o
This clear issue is absolutely necessary to enable the working class to begin to build up that organisation upon which it must rely in the struggle of the future. That is essential to class-conscious action—the only action that can effect working-class emancipation. Wherefore, to Mr. Lamel and all those whose desire it is to do all that men may to forward the revolution, we throw out the challenge to show us wherein our position is unsound. Failing that—and in the three years of our existence it has not been done once—we insist that the S.P.G.B. is the only Party of the workers, and that in it all Socialists (the term connotes a scientific appreciation of all the facts of the economic situation and needs no qualification) should be organised for the purpose of giving effective assistance in the working-class struggle for freedom.
o o o
At the meeting of the London Central Unemployed Committee (April 5th)—
“Mr. Lansbury said he thought it was time the Body seriously considered their position. THEY HAD FOOLED THE UNEMPLOYED LAST WINTER. They had the amusing spectacle of Parliament voting £200,000 and setting up in London elaborate and costly machinery, and yet they had not been able to spend that money in providing work.They had registered the unemployed, investigated their birth, and “inquested” them up and down London, and the result had been that a petty few thousand had received a few weeks’ employment. He protested against the way in which things were being managed and against the man at the head of affairs and the whole of his wretched department.He protested against the return of £90,000 to the Treasury and against the man who was doing it. The Liberal Government was fooling the unemployed.”
o o o
And this is the organisation brought into existence by the Government measure for which the S.D.F. claimed credit ! This is the abortion which was hailed by “Labour” members, (and those who want to be “Labour” members,) as something very like a revolution. For the first time, we were told, Parliament had recognised its duty towards the out-of-work. For the first time the legislature had admitted its moral obligation—and so on. We pointed out at the time that the thing was a fraud—must be a fraud and could not by any chance be any other. And now Lansbury comes along to say that the unemployed has been “inquested” and “fooled” and that practically nothing had been done or could be done,
o o o
What now ? Well, if the unemployed are not sick to death of the dreary business ; if they are content to believe that their self-styled representatives in the House are doing everything needful or possible ; if they can still manage to find spiritual sustenance from the faith that is in them—faith in others doing what they require—if these things still are, then the next step will be the step that was taken last. And it will be productive of the same result. But if the unemployed recognise the futility of starving and insist for themselves upon the right to the things which are life, then, although the unemployed problem will not be solved, they will not be hungry.
o o o
There is no solution for the unemployed problem short of Socialism. The working class sooner or later must recognise that and organise accordingly for the overthrow of capitalist domination. But in the meantime? Well, in the meantime they will get the equivalent of nothing unless they evince a determination to refuse to starve quietly—unless, in short, they constitute themselves a menace to the peace of mind of the master class. We are no advocates of rioting because an unarmed mob versus a well disciplined, well armed force means immediate defeat for the rioters. The most powerful menace to official complacency is the growth of a class-conscious working-class organisation. Given that and a refusal to be satisfied with promises or with anything short of the extirpation of capitalism, and doles will come tumbling down as manna from heaven. Take the doles in your stride but do not allow them to divert you from your purpose a hair’s breadth. Concentrate upon THE WORLD for the working class and, as the scriptures have it, all other things shall be added unto you.
Alegra.
A Look Round. (1907)
Mr. Louis A. Hill, to whose utterances I have previously referred in these columns, continues his advocacy of an Eight Hours Act for bakers and continues to make unprovable statements in connection therewith.
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In communications to the Dally News and the Daily Express recently, he stated that the passing of the bill would “find work for practically every unemployed baker in London” and “would find employment in London alone for some 4,000 or 5,000 extra hands.” Now in my humble opinion Mr. Hill knows he cannot justify these statements, hence his refusal to debate the matter with a member of the S.P.G.B., when asked to do so at the meeting of bakers held at Canning Town on February 9th.
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In the February issue of the Journeymen Bakers’ Magazine, Mr. Jenkins, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Operative Bakers, reported that during the Labour Conference at Belfast he visited one of the largest and most up-to-date bakeries in the city, and “had special facilities offered me to examine the newest machinery that had been introduced from a labour-saving point of view, and found, as I had expected, that every development of machinery was throwing men out of work, the result being that 102 men were on the out-of-work list, so that with a 700 membership, one out of every seven were out of work, which represents a very serious state of things ; up to now they have been able to deal with this small army of unemployed, but from all appearances they may be eventually hard pushed to provide for them unless by a serious increase of contributions, notwithstanding they are working under a 48 hour week.”
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According to the British Baker for April 19 last, Mr. Jenkins attended the Annual Dinner of the Portsmouth Branch of the A.U.O.B. & C. on April 10 and in replying to the toast of “The Amalgamated Union,” laid special stress on the Eight Hours Day Bill for the Baking Trade now before Parliament, which had, he said, been rendered necessary by the excessive labour forced on those who could find employment, the result, in connection with modern improvement, being an ever-increasing army of unemployed bakers, which the proposed Bill would practically eliminate. Where ten or fifteen years since ten or eleven sacks was considered a fair output per man, now double that amount was the output in many of the factories, and it was evident that something to alter the conditions of the workers was an absolute necessity.
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Once again I ask Mr. Hill, and also Mr. Jenkins, to reconcile their extravagant statements with the actual facts as admitted by, at any rate, the last-named.
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That “Radical of Radicals,” Mr. Horatio Bottomley, has made Mr. Featherstone Asquith a present of a suggestion, but does not for a moment suppose that Mr. Asquith will adopt it. He says : “An Old Age Pension of 5s. per week for every law-abiding citizen—whether otherwise “deserving” or not—of the age of seventy years and upwards, who cares to claim it. That will exactly fit the case—and Mr. Asquith’s name will go down to posterity as that of the great Chancellor who, out of the country’s wealth, fed and clothed the aged when their powers of contributing to it were exhausted. No man could seek a higher reputation than this.”
***
Oh! that will be joyful. Most members of the working class are “too old at forty.” The great friendly societies, who take care only to enrol “good lives,” show in their statistics the number of middle-aged members who, mainly because of unemployment, lapse. And if they can only manage to “hang on” until they are 70, and never break the law, Horatio would give them five shillings per week !
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This, in Mr. Bottomley’s opinion, will enable them to feed and clothe themselves. I should like to see Bottomley, Asquith & Co. doing it at the price. And what about rent ?
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In the following year Mr. Bottomley would extend the pensions to those of 65 years of age, thus bringing himself into line with those other advocates of “justice” for the squeezed-out workers, the Labour Party, who through Mr. G. N. Barnes, urged this proposal in the House of Commons in February, 1906.
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In sending stamps for twelve months’ subscription to THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, “Wrong Fount” expresses his appreciation of our efforts to produce an interesting and instructive journal, the reading of which has greatly strengthened him. He is a member of the S.D.F., and has been recently a municipal candidate for that body. He does not wish his name and town to be mentioned, as “the time has not yet arrived,” whatever that may mean. He adds:—”You have a good work ahead ; it is good if only for what the ‘S.S.’ has taught me, although I am still ashamed of my ignorance. Go on, Lads!”
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Well, we cannot expect to dispel ignorance all at once. It took many years for some of us who were in the S.D.F. to arrive at the stage of entirely breaking away from the reform and palliative mongering of that body. But at last “the time arrived,” and we formed the S.P.G.B.
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One paragraph in “Wrong Fount’s” letter is undoubtedly based upon an insufficient knowledge of the facts, and may also be due to some prejudice on his part against us. He says: “might I suggest that there is a vast difference between criticism and vilification—although I must confess that the latter weapon is not used so much now as it was formerly by you. That is good, too.”
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Now, I do not think it can be charged against us that we have ever vilified anyone in the columns of this journal. To vilify means to degrade by slander and a slander is a false or malicious report. So far as we know, no “slanders” have ever appeared and every effort will be made to keep them out. Upon reconsideration “Wrong Fount” will no doubt withdraw his remark.
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On Wednesday, September 6th, 1905 (one year and eight months ago), whilst the Trade Union Congress was sitting at Hanley, over a hundred people were evicted during a heavy downpour of rain from their homes at New Hemsworth, near Barnsley, at the instance of the Colliery Company, with whom they were in dispute. Other evictions followed later. The dispute is not yet settled, and the evicted ones have not yet returned to “their” homes. They are endeavouring to subsist on the few shillings that can be raised by making charitable appeals to their fellow members of the working class, who have not sufficient for themselves.
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For fourteen months out of the twenty there has been a “Labour” Party in the House of Commons, specially claiming to represent the Trade Unionists, of whom the Hemsworth colliers form a part. While the colliers and their wives and children have been suffering and starving, the “Labour” Party have been earning the encomiums of the capitalist party, and boasting of their “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability.” One of them (Ramsay MacDonald) moved the adjournment of the House to discuss the shooting of natives in Natal, but none (not even W. Thorne, S.D.F.) has risked his reputation for “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability” by denouncing the damnable system which produces such outrages as the Hemsworth evictions.
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“Wrong Fount” may accuse me of vilification, but can he deny that what I have written is true and justifiable ?
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Of course one can quite understand the reluctance of Keir Hardie and his friends to take action concerning such a glaring illustration of that class war which they declare is only a “shibboleth” and “a reactionary and whiggish precept, certain to lead the movement away from the real aims of Socialism.”
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A formal report has been issued by the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the “probable economic effect of a limit of eight hours to the working day of coal mines.” Some interesting evidence has been given, particularly as to the effect of a reduction in other industries. Mr. H. F. Donaldson, M.I.C.E., chief superintendent of the Ordnance Factories, Woolwich, detailed how the hours in the factories had been reduced from 54 to 48. Their method of work was really piecework, and the production had been approximately the same as under the old regime. The attendance of the men had been more regular since the shortening of the hours. He did not think that the reduction had meant an increased intensity of labour, but it did mean “hustle,”
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Mr. J. Lowrie, manager of the Royal Army Clothing Factory, Grosvenor Road, also gave evidence. He said that at his establishment there were employed 1,532 women and girls, of whom 1,385 were on piece work. Until 1894 they were working 55 hours per week, after which year they were reduced to 48. He did not think this reduction of seven hours had made any difference in the output: there was the same efficiency in the shorter hours. He considered it had been an economic success.
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And there are some folks who talk of dealing with the unemployed problem by enacting an Eight Hours Day !
J. Kay
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