Jottings. (1911)

The Jottings Column from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is culled from the front page of that ultra-respectable journal, the “Labour Leader” :

”LET LIARS PERISH

and prove the truth that Socialism is not Atheism by helping me with

10,000 Socialist Shillings.

Cheques or Bank Notes to help pay off debt of £800 on my New Church. . . Rev. W. Schoneld, Manchester. Thy will be done on Earth, United we stand.”

This from the Church that deadly foe of all intellectual progress, the enemy of Science and the upholder of slavery. Could barefaced cheek go farther ?

* * *

This same gentleman at the last General Election, speaking at a meeting in support of Mr. John Hodge, Labour candidate for the Gorton Division, stated that “he was not a Liberal, in fact he hadn’t a vote at all, but he recognised very clearly that Liberalism and Labourism were identical, and the Liberal workingmen in the audience would be noodles indeed to waste their votes when they could achieve the same object by voting for the Labour man” (cheers). That “object” was the veto of the House of Lords. After appealing for Liberal votes for a “Labour” candidate, he now appeals for “Socialist shillings” for the purpose of still further prolonging the process whereby the workers are reduced to a condition for being all the more easily exploited by the master class. I am fairly safe in affirming that he will not get one Socialist shilling.

* * *

Not only are the working class deluded into voting the parasites into power, they are even required to pay for the chloroforming process which keeps them in ignorance and upon which the capitalist sharks rely so much. These gentry profess to believe in a special Providence : why don’t they appeal in that direction ?

The fact is that when it comes to a question of £ s. d., they are as materialistic as the most brazen Atheist. They evidently believe in practising the (slightly altered) dictum, “you will be done on earth.” When will the workers get wise to this ?

* * *

Speaking at the Prince’s Theatre, Blackburn, on Jan. 22nd, under the auspices of the local I.L.P., Mr. Philip Snowden said :

“Socialism is nothing more than a scheme of industrial reorganisation for the reconciliation of Capital and Labour by placing the ownership of land and capital under democratic control. Out of all their theories they have now evolved that concrete idea.”

That’s all !

* * *

In his opening remarks Mr. Snowden said “He had felt for a long time that the I.L.P. had been so much engaged in mere political work that they had not paid the attention which was needed to the education of the people in the fundamental principles of Socialism.”

The reason is that they do not understand the fundamental principles of Socialism—excepting perhaps, those few who hold to the opinion that where it touches the pocket to tell the truth, it is the very height of folly to be wise. To speak of reconciling Capital and Labour under Socialism is an obvious attempt to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds—but it pays at the moment. Mr. Snowden professes to believe in a kind of harmony between Capital and Labour, but the only harmony I can conceive is that existing between the horse-leech and its victim. Besides, I was not aware that capital would exist at all under Socialism. The existence of capitalism, presupposes exploitation. But, of course, Mr. Snowden, being interested in the maintenance of capitalism, cannot be expected to shout that truth from the housetops.

* * *

This according to Liebknecht: “Whoever conceives of Socialism in the sense of a sentimental philanthropic striving after human equality, with no idea of the existence of the evils of capitalist society, is no Socialist in the sense of the class struggle, without which modern Socialism is unthinkable.”

The working class must learn that it need expect nothing from any political party that does not stand upon the basis of the class struggle. The S.P.G.B. is the only party that takes up this position, therefore it is the only party of the workers.

* * *

A remarkable letter penned by a suicide was read at an inquest held at Aldershot recently on the body of an unknown man who was found decapitated on the railway. The deceased wrote :

“Kindly free from censure the courageous driver of that train responsible for this, another tragedy. The cause of this tragedy is the unfair distribution of work. I have searched in vain, for the past three and a half months, for a situation.

“But I say the time is coming when a man who becomes really conscious of the real cause of this hellful drama, the unfair distribution of work, will not commit, as I have done, suicide; but will instantaneously arm himself with a revolver, and he will make a “B” line for the Prime Minister of the country and make him pay the penalty with his life.

“I have been to church—the manufactory of crime—and I am convinced that if people from the North, South, and East refrain from going to church after this day, there will be no recurrence of the Sidney-street affair.

“I do not believe in murder, nevertheless I warn the leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister of this country of the real and, as I believe, proper conviction that is growing….it cannot be stopped.

“Now I am afraid I shall have to close up as my train will be here presently.—Good-bye, BRITON.”

The jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst of unsound mind. Of course ! It would not do to say that this hellish system of capitalism had forced him to seek oblivion, would it ? It might enlighten the proletariat. And how near to the truth this poor devil got, to say that he was insane. If he had elected to kill someone else instead of himself would he have been found insane ? I venture to think not.

Tom Sala

The queer side. (1911)

From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under a capitalist regime one is either exploiter or exploited ; there is ever a gulf between the two sections of society, and that gulf widens as the system developes. The affairs of every-day life give the lie to those who, from ignorance or interest, promulgate the idea of the identity of interest between robber and robbed.

* * *

“Before an audience of 10,000 sightseers and guarded by a band of 300 police, Lord Deceis has been married to Miss V. Gould, heiress of Mr. G. Gould . . Lord Deceis is 45 years of age, his bride 18. . . A cake costing £200 was imported for the purpose from Scotland. . . . The bride wore a dress of white satin embroidered with silver . . and a rope of diamonds.”

* * *

“That the worst of slums may exist even in fashionable Folkestone was proved at an inquest on the body of an old woman, of 72 named Mary Sellars. The evidence proved that she died under the most terrible conditions of suffering and neglect. ‘In a small attic 8 ft. x 10 ft., which contained as furniture an iron bedstead, an old chair and a pail,’ said the coroner’s officer, ‘he found the deceased, in the midst of the squalor, lying naked save for the protection of a pair of trousers, an old skirt and a coat thrown over her.’ The deceased had suffered from pleurisy and peritonitis, and had not had any food for hours before death.

“The husband was a corporation labourer earning 18s. a week. The coroner censured him severely, and the jury returned a verdict that ‘Death was due to natural causes.’ ”

* * *

The above cuttings are from the same issue of Reynold’s Newspaper (12.2.11). The first refers to a marriage of members of the capitalist class—people who have never performed a necessary function in the production of the wealth they waste. The latter records the death of one of the exploited—a member of the class that produce the wealth that loafers such as Lord Deceis may roam the world in luxury and comfort, and that the daughters of millionaires may purchase titles.

Such is the evidence of the “identity of interest.” Wealth produced by one class whose members starve, and owned by another class whose members squander.

* * *

“Death was due to natural causes.” It is, of course, natural for a person to die under such conditions, but are the conditions natural ?

It was natural for a policeman to die after receiving a bullet in a vital part, but the twelve “good men and true” returned a different verdict. But then the policeman was a defender of private property, while the woman was only a worn-out toiler. More evidence of the “identity of interest.”

* * *

A writer in the same paper says “Pauperism is the question of the hour. . . The public mind is aroused to the importance of the subject and measures heroic are advocated in order to strike at the root of the evil.” He also quotes Dr. Chalmers as having said “It is thus, then, by a sort of festering and spreading operation, the sphere of destitution is constantly widening in every parish where the benevolence of love has been superseded by the benevolence of law. The following might be given as an example of the benevolence of love.

* * *

The Evening Times, reporting an interview with a Mr. Mumford, chairman of the Paddington Works Committee, quoted that gentleman as follows :

“These figures might be given as an approximate estimate of the numbers of willing to work “out of works” in the building trade :

Painters 3,823

Plasterers 297

Bricklayers 847

Carpenters 597

Navvies 1,269

Labourers 5,254

“It is a simple proposition in the economy of labour to suggest that housewives get their houses in order early this season in order to give work to the painter and others, and to save the extra money they will have to pay when the men are in demand for the Coronation week.”

* * *

The usual form of “benevolence.” Get the work done now, primarily in the interest of the poor unemployed workman, but incidentally—quite incidentally of course—to save money. That means that the same amount of work will be spread over a longer period at a reduced cost. It means that, in the long run, less wages will be paid. That appears to me to be a good method of increasing poverty—but then, of course, the more poverty there is the greater scope for the “benevolence of love,” for this particular sentiment, like appetite, “glows by what it feeds on.”

* * *

The other brand of benevolence can be witnessed in the spectacle of the kind Liberal Government endeavouring to persuade the aged pauper to leave the workhouse and starve outside on five bob a week. According to a writer in the London Quarterly Review, the cost of London indoor paupers, including all charges, amounts to £34 15s. 11¾d. per head per annum. The benevolence of the law offers them £13, and that fierce democrat, Lloyd George, swells his manly buzzum and talks about “sweeping poverty from every hearth.”

* * *

The fringe of the evil is not touched by such reform, much less does it “strike at the root.” The cause, as Lloyd George admits, “lies deep down in the social system,” where also that antagonism of interest finds its root—in the ownership by a class of the means of life. It is indeed questionable whether George & Co. could do anything if they desired to, as all things work to the interest of those who own.

* * *

A contributor to the Nineteenth Century Magazine (Jan., 1911) says that the introduction of State maintenance means that the husband gives the wife less for housekeeping because the children are now provided for by the benevolence of the State. True, and the unemployed worker will reduce the price of the said husband’s labour-power by the amount so saved in order to obtain a job, and so in a short space of time the average wage will suffer a depreciation equal to the diminution of the burden placed upon it.

Nor does it necessarily follow that money wages will drop. The cost of living of the working class is continually on the increase. The Board of Trade Labour Gazette (January, 1911) shows a steady increase in the price of necessaries. The price of food in 1909 reached a point that has net been recorded since 1884. So, even did money wages remain stationary, the workers’ condition would be worsened. The same official return for Feb., 1911 shows a fall in the total wages bill of £49 per week, while the number of unemployed has increased.

The interest of the ruling class is to rule and to keep a subject class as cheaply as possible and all such alterations will be toward that end.

The interest of the working class is not to be ruled, but to shake from their backs those social parasites who keep them poor and insult them by talking twaddle and endeavouring to prove what is obviously untrue, that these tinkering reforms and proposals are introduced “in the interests of the masses.”

Twel.

Daylight robbery. (1911)

 From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are frequently told by our more outspoken enemies that the workers are not robbed, and, there are members of the working class who actually believe it. But the following extract from a recent issue of the “Daily Telegraph” not only completely refutes the former, but may also enlighten the latter.

Under the heading “Census of Production” was given a list of industries concerned mainly with food, drink, and tobacco, and it was stated that the Board of Trade preliminary tables summarising the returns received in respect of those trades give the following results for twelve months:

Gross output from 13 divisions £257,215,000

Net                               „ „ „          £84,325,000

Persons employed                             407,830

The “Daily Telegraph” commented thus, upon the figures:

“The first column represents the gross output, that is the selling value or value of work done. The second shows the net sums realised after deducting the cost of the materials used. The figures denoting the net output express completely, and without duplication, the total amount by which the value of the products of the industries exceeded the value of the materials purchased from the outside, that is they represent the value added to the raw materials in the course of manufacture. This sum constitutes for any industry the fund from which wages, salaries, rents, royalties, rates, taxes, depreciation, advertisement and sales expenses, and all other similar charges, as well as profits, have to be defrayed.”

Now rents, profits, etc., are not paid to the working class, who benefit only under the item wages. On the other hand, no value can be added to raw material except by labour. It follows therefore that while the workers produce the whole of the £84,325,000 worth of wealth which figures as the net output, they are robbed of all that is not included in the term wages.

Now let us do a little sum in simple division. 

The net output, £84,000,000, divided among the 407,830 persons employed, gives over £275 per annum to each. The difference between this sum and the average wage of the workers in those trades shows the extent of the robbery as far as those particular industries are concerned. And if the average rate of wages in these industries is that of the whole country, then these workers are rolled of over three-fourths of their produce.

Criticus

The affairs of the criminal. (1911)

From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Press has given no little attention to the Government’s changes in the methods of handling released convicts. Has the Socialist anything to say on the matter ? Yes. He, like the rest of the workers, is called upon to support the administration that thus deals with the suppression of “crime” and “criminals,” and, since he would influence the workers in another direction, he must give reasons why he refuses to support that which, for him, is a detail of capitalist defence. The occasion, then, calls for some discussion of the new arrangements and, necessarily, as the Socialist view is quite distinct from, and in violent contrast with, every other view, a general statement of the nature of “crime” and “criminals.”

To-day men speak of actions as criminal which are commonly held to be very immoral—actions in violation of the law of the land, or of what is considered to be correct living. But in the narrow sense those are criminals whose actions bring them within the cognizance of the Law of the day, and render them liable to imprisonment or death.

It is useful to point out in the first place the important fact that there is nothing fixed or absolute in “crime.” Actions that are “criminal” at one time or in one country, are not so at another time or in another country, In Borneo and New Guinea, to this day among the natives, man-eating is quite correct, while in most other lands it is criminal. To-day, in England, someone sticks a knife into a fellow human and gets hunged for it, while another pushes his knife, on the end of a Lee Enfield, into a man whom he never saw before, and is a “hero.” Often in the past the usurer and he who “cornered” stuffs was hoist on the gallows or imprisoned, but now such a person has but to succeed to be acknowledged a smart fellow, worthy of every honour. One might continue indefinitely to multiply examples showing the changes in men’s attitude towards certain conduct, but it is more interesting to enquire why these changes take place.

Take our examples. Those who have studied savage life tell in that behind custom aud ritual cannibalism has its roots in famine—in human necessity. And men “make virtue of necessity.” With peoples in a higher stage of development, the necessity has passed away, and with that the virtue. Here “order” of a different kind is required ; industry must proceed with a minimum of waste and disturbance, and the stranger within the camp may be more useful to the ruling interest alive than dead ; human sympathy comes through in queer ways, for man who may starve one another may no longer eat one another.

Likewise your fellow with the knife—he has become a general nuisance. The rich have other tools, and no longer have need of the bravo ; there’s no virtue in him, and he is suspended. The soldier, on the other hand, is a handy fellow. In orderly fashion he will proceed to wipe out the inconvenient Kaffir or the troublesome workman. The more he kills the finer fellow he is.

Clearly here the change of attitude is due to the change of interests—interests, of course, of men in a position to enforce their desires—ruling interests. Such are only the common interest or that of the great, majority, while society is in its primitive stages. But since classes evolved, men have been branded as criminal and punished for actions that conflict with the class-interest dominant at the moment.

Unlike the Christian and capitalist hack, the Socialist may not approach this question through the mysteries of God given conscience, and the assumed absolute “right” and “wrong,” but must view it from the basis of human experience. He perceives that crime is a question of circumstances, pre-eminent among which is class-interest. Class-interest decides that the satisfaction of men’s hunger by taking and eating bread is in certain circumstances criminal. The principle of property—the basis of class rule—may not be violated with impunity. The punishment for man-slaying in certain circumstances will be found to be ultimately on the same basis of class-interest, just as sanitation was undertaken when the gay clothing made in fever-infested slums wan found to kill aristocrats.

Criminality, then, depends upon circumstances, and your criminal is a victim of such.

Let men but consider the criminal’s case and ask how came he in such a position. They will find that such are made of very much the same flesh and blood as themselves, that while unasked-for inherited characteristics count for something, it is essentially the difference of circumstances, of child-training, companionship, opportunity, and requirements, that accounts for the difference between the criminal and the man in the street.

Our opponents are fond of bragging of the “individual” who makes his mark and imposes his will upon the world, as though he were some Olympic deity. But the slightest examination of the individual’s career will show that he is but a fly upon the wheel, and makes little difference. Rather than he imposing his will upon the world he will be found to derive that will, in its specific form, from the world about him, the social organisation or system of which he is but an atom. That system to-day is one wherein the means of livelihood, of joyous and comfortable existence, are greedily monopolised by a small class—the ruling, capitalist class. The great bulk of mankind are kept poor and hungry and anxious and miserable, and as such are treated with contempt until, taking instruction from the masters, they come to hold one another in disdain. When some seek to satisfy their needs—seek to get out of their wretched position—in ways inconvenient to the ruling class, the latter, with its instrument the machinery of State to hand, lands them in gaol.

Latterly the ruling class has taken to improving its prison arrangements—all in the interest of the prisoners, of course. Some of the revelations of police persecution and “criminal”-breeding under the “ticket-of-leave” system have made somewhat of a scandal, while the more up-to-date and cheaper prison-elevator schemes of the Salvation Army and other bodies seem to offer a better way.

The latest scheme is to hand the supervision of released convicts over to a new organisation composed of the Salvation Army, the Church Army, and other bodies concerned to clear the streets of the human wreckage produced by capitalism.

Here is no real improvement on the old conditions, for these organisations can only do as in the past, namely, force the men to work for next to nothing and destroy outside firms, as in the notorious case of the firewood industry. It means that badly paid workers will be discharged and replaced by worse paid ones. Others will go to gaol instead of these—that is your reform.

The Socialist cannot stand for any such hollow sham, and must needs denounce it. He knows that while the criminal withholders of the people’s bread are allowed to keep on the even tenor of their way, and millionaires are produced at one end of the social scale, gaols will be filled at the other. He knows that millions of sons and daughters of men shall rot aud die in the brothels and gaols, secular aud religious and industrial, of capitalism ere it shall be ended. Let Tories and Liberals and Labour men continue their shams and futilities. For us the cleansing touch of Revolution !

H. B.

Correspondence. (1911)

 Letter to the Editors from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

A. E. Hester writes :

(1) Production under your system must be international, obviously therefore each country will be interdependent upon the ether. They must, then, agree to sustain each other in food, clothing, etc. Is this possible?

(2) How could each get the full value of his labour?

(3) The natural wealth of some countries is greater than others, who could not produce on equal terms.

(4) If Production is to be national, then Socialism is impossible and not worth consideration.

____________________________________

(1) Even under capitalism countries are interdependent, and, in a sense, “sustain each other in food, clothing, etc.” Hence your query “Is this possible ?” is answered in the affirmative by the facts around you to-day.

(2) No Socialist says that “each man will get the full value of his labour,” for the simple reason that, as the Socialist is always pointing out, production under Socialism will be social—as, indeed, it is to-day—and no man can say exactly what is the value contributes.

What the Socialist says is that the working class is the only section of society engaged in wealth production, and therefore the working class, collectively, should own the results of its applied energy.

(3) No one country has greater natural advantages in every direction than another. Some have the advantage in one way, some in another. And, as the development of International trade has shown, these advantages, or their results, are being exchanged in increasing quantities.

(4) The most elementary examination of present day trade shows that production is growing more international year by year. Raw materials from one part of the globe are worked up in another ; goods partly manufactured in one country are finished in another, and so on. Your query, therefore, has no basis in fact.

Jack Fitzgerald

Mr. Dooley on Strikes. (1911)

 From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“I see the sthrike has been called off,” said Mr. Hennessy. “Which wan?” asked Mr. Dooley. “I can’t keep track iv thim. Somebody is sthrikin’ all th’ time. Th’ Brotherhood iv Molasses Candy Pullers sthrikes, an’ th’ Amalgamated Union iv Pickle Sorters quits in sympathy. Th’ carpinter that has bin puttin’ up a chicken coop f’r Hogan knocked off wurruk whin he found Hogan was shaviti’ himself without a card fr’m the Barbers’ Union. Hogan fixed it with th’ walkin’ dillygate iv th’ barbers, an’ the carpinter quit wurruk because he found Hogan was wearin’ a pair iv nonunion pants. Hogan wint down town an’ had his pants unionised an’ come home to find th’ carpinter had sthruck because Hogan’s hens were layin’ eggs without th’ union label. Hogan injooced th’ hens to jine th’ union. But wan iv thim laid an egg two days in succission, an’ th’ others sthruck.”

Blogger's Note:

"Mr. Dooley (or Martin J. Dooley) is a fictional Irish immigrant bartender created by American journalist and humorist Finley Peter Dunne . . . " For more information, keep reading . . . 

Answers to Correspondents. (1911)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

P. Wright.—You are to be congratulated upon the alacrity with which you drop the religious issue. The point you try to uphold, however, is not a whit more defensible. It is not because production is carried on by a class that it is held to be social. Your “syllogism” is therefore beside the point.

“In dealing with production the word ‘social’ does not ’embrace every unit capable of taking part in that production.” You are evidently entangled in the coils of the absolute. All things are relative. The means of production in the middle ages were petty, individual, and practically self-sufficing. Today they are none of these things. Contrasted with the primitive tool the modern machine is a social instrument. The producer with his household is no longer self-sufficing. He depends on the simultaneous activity of millions. Even apart from the modern and essentially social factor of specialisation and the division of labour, the unit of production is now entirely dependent on the existence of huge and complex social organisations and forces, for production, regulation, communication, transport, and exchange. Both historically and economically considered, modern production has an obviously social character ; so much so that it cries aloud for social ownership, and the assertion that it has not this nature to-day is as little worth serious attention as is the statement that the earth is flat.

S. Hadden.—The term “general” means all industries, and contraction can take place, for instance, by a larger amount of profit being converted into revenue.

Acknowledgments. (1911)

From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

RECEIVED —

“Western Clarion” (Vancouver, B.C.).

“Weekly People” (New York).

"New York Call" (New York).

“Gaelic American” (New York).

“Western Wage-Earner" (Vancouver, B.C.).

“Civil Service Socialist” (London).

"The New World" (West Ham).

“Freedom” (London).

Books Received. (1911)

From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Christ Myth," by Arthur Drews, Ph.D. T. Fisher Unwin 7s. 6d. (Will be reviewed next month.)

"The Concentration of Capital: a Marxian Fallacy," by W. Tcherkoff. Freedom Press, 127 Ossulton-st. N.W.

Suppression ! (1911)

Party News from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

News comes to hand as we go to Press that the Islington Borough Council have declared their sympathy with and fellow-feeling for, the bourgeois murderers of thirty thousand Parisian working-men, -women, and -children. They have suppressed the Commune Celebration Meeting which our Islington Branch were arranging for the 20th March, at the Caledonian Road Baths.

The Commemoration Meeting will he held on March 20th at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7.30) at the Myddleton Hall, Almedia Street, Upper Islington.

All Workers should come and listen to what your masters say you shall not hear. Nothing to pay.

Islington branch. (1911)

Party News from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

ISLINGTON BRANCH

Are holding the following lectures on Thurs. evenings at 8.15, at Co-operative Hall, 144, Seven Sisters Road (entrance in Thane Villas).

Feb. 2nd—”Socialism versus State and Militarism” …… T. W. Allen

„ 9th—”Society and the Genius”…… A. Reginald

„ 16th—”The Economic Position of the Workers” … J. Fitzgerald

„ 23rd—”The Futility of the Reform Movement” … H. J. Newman

„ 30th—”Socialism and the Religious Question” ……

Have you read “Socialism and Religion,” the latest S.P.G.B. pamphlet? It will interest and enlighten you, whatever may be your outlook on the religious question. It is an important addition to working-class literature.