When those in authority over us determined that no newspaper or books should be sent out of the country without the permission of the War Office, we made application to mail this journal to the Colonies and neutral countries. We have now been favoured with a reply the tenor of which b that the War Office has been compelled to stop our organ on some occasions in the past for the reason that a portion of its contents might be used by the enemy powers for “their propaganda". And we are further informed that, in consequence of this, instructions have been issued to stop in future all copies of the Socialist Standard addressed to places outside the United Kingdom.
Nothing that we publish can be used by our masters' enemies without being stripped from its context, for the simple reason that our criticism applies with just as much force to the German and Austrian capitalists as to British. Our internationalism is so real a thing that we refuse to set national bounds even to our enemies. Not British capitalists or German capitalists are the foe, but capitalism and the capitalist class of the world.
[From the Socialist Standard, November, 1916].
No comments:
Post a Comment