The Future of Palestine - Part 1 (1935)

From the July 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rise of the Nazi Party to power in Germany, with the subsequent persecution of Jews, has resulted in renewed interest in the Zionist movement.

Zionism first came into existence as a political theory at the end of last century at the time of the Dreyfus case. Before then it had taken, more or less, the form of a religious longing to return to the “Holy” Land. It happened that an Austrian journalist, Dr. Theodor Herzl, had been sent to Paris to report on the Dreyfus affair, for a Vienna newspaper. Dr. Herzl was a Jew who had assimilated the culture and manners of Austrian society, and was greatly removed from Judaism. But the story goes that the Dreyfus case, with its attendant anti-Semitism, stirred him so deeply that he set himself the momentous task of discovering a solution to the Jewish problem. He “discovered” that the Jews are persecuted because they have no country of “their own,” and that the problem would be solved if they could be confined to a certain geographical area. He expounded these views in his book, “The Jewish State,” and declared that the Jews must establish a state of their own, preferably in Palestine. He obtained the support of well-known men like Max Nordau, Israel Zangwill and the French Baron, Edmond de Rothschild, who contributed a large fortune for the cause.

In 1901 the Jewish National Fund was inaugurated, in order to facilitate the collection of money for the purchase of land in Palestine and to assist the settlement of Jews in that country.

The movement grew slowly, but in 1917 Lord Balfour addressed his famous letter to Lord Rothschild, informing him that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine . . .” This aroused the enthusiasm of Jews all over the world, who now imagined that here at last was something worth striving for. It was not, however, till 1921, when the Palestine mandate was finally granted to England by the Allied Powers, that the Zionist movement began to assume a more practical form. Different parties had arisen in Zionism representing a variety of opinions and interests. There were the General Zionists, the Poale Zionists (“Socialists”) and the Mizrachists (religious party).

At about this time Dr. Chaim Weitzmann, the chemist who helped to supply England with explosives during the Great War, was the leader of the World Zionist movement, and he sought to interest prominent British Jews in the development of Palestine. Amongst those whom he visited was the late Lord Melchett, head of the Imperial Chemical Industries. We are told by his biographer, Hector Bolitho (“Alfred Mond, first Lord Melchett”) that Dr. Weitzmann touched some hidden chord in Lord Melchett’s heart, with the result that Melchett visited the “Holy Land.” He was so impressed that, according to his biographer, ". . . he had made a vow that he would amass a fortune of fifteen millions, that he would work ruthlessly, until he had enough money to bring the Jews back to their country . . .” (page 366). He was elected to important positions in the Zionist movement, but we are told that ”. ..  the business man in him caused him to curb his zeal and work cautiously . .. ” (page 369).

There now arose a great deal of dissatisfaction with the administration of the Zionist movement, and the Union of Zionist Revisionists was formed by Vladimir Jabotinsky, assisted by Meyer Grossmann, who claimed that their policy alone was in line with the original Herzlian ideal. Meyer Grossman, however, has since left the Revisionists and formed another party of his own called the "Jewish State Party.”

In 1929 there was a serious Arab uprising, stated to have been caused by a demonstration at the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. Lord Melchett, greatly incensed at the slaughter of his "fellow Jews” in Palestine, poured an avalanche of letters on the Press, and spoke passionately at a huge protest meeting in the Albert Hall. He wrote a letter to Lord Beaverbrook beseeching him to give the support of his Press to the Zionist movement. Hector Bolitho (page 370) quotes this letter to Beaverbrook: ”. . . It ought to be under the India Office, which is used to dealing with Eastern people . . . We might as well say that we must evacuate India because of the Moslem rows there . . . as that we must evacuate Palestine because once in six years there is a week’s trouble . . . We simply cannot evacuate Palestine, for the reason that if we did the Italians would be only too glad to walk in . . . and the French would support them. It would give them command of our flying route to India . . . and one bank of the Suez Canal . . . They would then command a magnificent naval harbour in Haifa, the outlet of what is probably the most important oilfield outside the United States of America—the Mosul oilfield.”

Lord Beaverbrook, however, did not agree with Melchett. He looked on Palestine as a barren, rocky country with little avenue for profit-making But Melchett did not see Palestine as barren and rocky. His biographer tells us (page 371). that Melchett ”. . . had bought hundreds of acres of land; he had seen the Dead Sea concessions and the Rutenberg Electric Power Concession growing from strength to strength . . .”

In view of this we are at a loss to understand whether Melchett wanted 15 million pounds to bring the Jews back to Palestine or whether he hoped to make this sum by bringing them to Palestine!

Revisionist Fury.

The Revisionists and the other sections were furious at this Arab uprising, the blame for which they laid at the door of the General Zionists because of their maladministration. A congress was called and Nahum Sokolow was elected president in succession to Weitzmann. But this did not stem the opposition of the Revisionists, who claimed that Sokolow or Weitzmann represented the same policy. Stormy scenes occurred. The Revisionists hurled unkind epithets like ”Red gangsters” at the ”Socialist” Zionists, who retorted by calling the Revisionists ”Dirty Fascists.” Mr. Jabotinsky tore up his congress card, and together with a large body of Revisionists marched out of the Congress Hall. (Quite recently the Revisionists left the Zionist Organisation completely.) When Lord Melchett died, his son continued to support the Zionist movement. He also holds an honoured place on the Board of Directors of Palestine Potash, Ltd.

Among other prominent Jewish capitalists who support Zionism are Lord Reading, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen, Sir Montague Burton and Sir Herbert Samuel. These capitalists feel themselves ”touched” at the plight of their ”fellow” Jews all over the world, and they have contributed large sums of money towards the Zionist movement. Hardly an appeal is made without some of these names, and others equally prominent appearing in the list of donors.

The quest of a country of one’s own would lead some people to believe that the Jews are different from any other race or nation. But Jews, like other races, are divided into two classes, capitalists and workers, and the fact that a Jew is employed.by another Jew does not alter his standing. He is a wage-slave and will be treated as such. No special privileges are conferred on him on account of his religious beliefs, or because of the shape and size of his nose. He is exploited with no less vigour than, for instance, is a Jewish worker employed by a non-Jew, or a non-Jew worker employed by a Jewish capitalist. All capitalists, be they black, white, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist, Jew or atheist, exist by exploitation, and it is the workers whom they exploit.

As has already been mentioned, the Zionists represent all types of opinions, and there is even a so-called Socialist Party amongst them. This party is out to build a ”Socialist” country in Palestine for Jews only, but their ”Socialism” is only Labourism—"State ownership,” and the usual stock-in-trade of reform parties. We need not pay much attention to this party and its chimeras. It spends its time in compromising with the General Zionists, and declaring coalitions. It speaks airily about "Marxism” and claims to have set up "Communistic" colonies in Palestine.

Jewish Imperialists.

The party that most concerns us is the Union of Zionist Revisionists, who are the only party which demand a Jewish state in the fullest sense of the word. Palestine to them is not a place where a few thousand Polish and German Jews may find refuge, it is not a spiritual home where Jews may study the Talmud, or attend universities. Palestine must be a Jewish state, inhabited by a Jewish majority, governed by Jews, administered by Jewish civil servants, and “protected" by a Jewish navy, army, air force and police.

In their pamphlet "Blue-White Papers, 1935," they say ". . . we happen to be thoroughly convinced that a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan is not only the best way, but the only way to give the Empire a permanent stronghold on the Mediterranean . . . Many British statesmen fully realise that the whole value of Palestine to the Empire depends on its transformation into a Jewish state . . . Palestine as a Jewish state, surrounded on all sides by Arab countries, will in the interests of its own preservation always tend to lean upon some powerful Empire, non-Arab and non-Mohammedan. This is an almost providential basis for a permanent alliance between Britain and a Jewish Palestine . . ."

But why is it the British Government does not see eye to eye with the Revisionists? The reason is that they have many conflicting aspects to take into account. A movement by the British Government towards the establishment of a purely Jewish state in Palestine would, for example, arouse antagonism from the Arabs. It favours British imperial interests to remain on good terms with the Arabs as well as with the Jews. They are not going to bum their fingers for Mr. Jabotinsky and Co. Again, it is hard to see how a Jewish state in Palestine will make England’s position more secure in the Mediterranean.

Kaye and Scrutator.

[To be continued.]

Socialism and Social Reform. (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are many people who regard Socialism merely as a demand for Social Reform, as a desire on the part of certain sections of the community for better conditions of labour and living for the working class. This misconception is largely due to organisations claiming to be “Socialist” but devoting their energies to the propagation of reforms, whereby the real issue is obscured, the sympathies of the kind-hearted are aroused and, at election times, the support and votes of those who know nothing of Socialism, but believe in some particular “ameliorative” measure, are secured. It is this kind of “Socialism” that leads people to talk of the Socialist demand as “the true development of the Liberalism which won the working classes the franchise and other privileges they now enjoy,” although, as the Tories justly claim, many of these “privileges” were granted by them in the teeth of the opposition of the champions of Liberalism. It was, therefore, refreshing to read Mr. Balfour’s speech at Birmingham on November 14th. In truth, he said, there is no difficulty or ambiguity about the subject at all. Socialism has one meaning and one meaning alone. Socialism means and can mean nothing else than that the community … is to take all the means of production into its own hands, that private property and private enterprise are to come to an end and all that private enterprise and private property carry with them. That, continued Mr. Balfour, is Socialism, and nothing else is Socialism. In discussing the difference between Socialism and social reform, he said : Social reform is when the State, based upon private enterprise, based upon private properly, recognising that the best productive results can only be obtained by respecting private property and encouraging private enterprise, asks them to contribute towards great national and public objects.

In other words, social reform leaves the basis of Society untouched, and does not affect the relative condition of the propertied class and the working class in the least. On the other hand, Socialism means the abolition of private property and the establishment of common ownership and control of the means of wealth production. It is therefore easy to understand why those who are opposed to Socialism advocate social reform, but it is inexplicable why those who claim to be out for Socialism should, by their advocacy of social reform, help the master class to maintain their supremacy, and side-track the workers from the only cause that can emancipate them, the cause of Revolutionary Socialism.

A Socialist Survey. (1912)

From the June 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

How this “industrial unrest” does spread !

If the said unrest is due to those “beastly agitators” it would seem that capitalism breeds agitators faster than it does contented slaves.

A report from Tokyo, Japan (“Daily Chronicle” 4.5.12) says :—

“It is practically impossible for the lower classes to earn sufficient for their bare needs.”

And that: —

“The number of convicts has increased from 20,000 to 80,000 in the last five years.”

Here we have cause and effect.

* * *

The staple diet of the Japanese worker is rice. So abnormally high is the price of rice that the income of the average family (Y.17 per month or 1s. ½d. per day) is not sufficient to meet the increased expenditure (quoted at Y.25 per month). Consequently :—

“There is a great amount of industrial unrest in the country, which is causing economists a lot of thought.”

Again cause and effect.

* * *

The price of the labourer in Japan, as elsewhere, is determined by the cost of his food and other necessaries. But the capitalist in Japan is exploiting fresh fields, and, like the early industrial capitalists in this country, will squeeze surplus value from the toilers until they die off like flies.

The unemployed, army in Japan will allow it. Cheap labour is plentiful, and so our capitalist can ignore the fact that to keep a slave class it is necessary to replace energy with energy.

The slave, however, is beginning to revolt—which fact, doubtless, is responsible for “a lot of thought.”

“It is a matter of serious consideration for the authorities,” goes on the report, “whether this unrest can best be allayed by the reduction ef the taxes on food or by religious congresses or charitable collections.”

The religious influence is on the wane even in far-off Japan, and a Mr. Izawa is endeavouring to found a new religious body, whose plan is to “gather a religious community around the Emperor, who is the direct descendant of the creator of the world, for the purpose of cultivating loyalty toward the Emperor and of elevating their moral ideas.”

* * *

When the religious bluff fails they will fall back on the “reduction of taxes” and by removing the tax upon rice enable the workers to live more cheaply, and so obviate the necessity of raising wages.

It is merely a repetition of the “bible and the big loaf.” The development of capitalism in Japan is so rapid that the whole list of reforms and “revolutionary” measures over which the workers fought for years in this country will be passed in as many months.

* * *

That the influence of the Church in England is rapidly declining is seen from the following figures anent the “largest individual church in Nonconformity” (vide “Morning Leader”).

“Including the whole of the 35 districts under the control of the English Wesleyan Conference, the total membership is 482,889. As compared with last year the decrease is 2,646. The total decreases for the past six years are as follows : 1907, 2,034 ; 1908, 4,424 ; 1909, 1,144 ; 1910, 2,299 ; 1911, 3,028; 1912, 2,646—total decrease in six years, 15,575.”

Says the editor of the “Methodist Recorder” (again vide “Morning Leader”):—

“We know the explanation that will be forthcoming—that other Churches are in like case, that figures are misleading, that our activities were never greater, that our energies are organised and systematised beyond all precedent, that social unrest is partly responsible, that we are suffering from wearisome discussion of the membership question, that we have more chapels than ever, and more workers, too, and so on.

But all these put together can no more alter the painful facts than any one of them by itself ; and all of them are unsatisfying.”

* * *

The religious communities are fast realising that their flocks are no longer so docile or so faithful as they were, and they are compelled to offer some better inducement than a short shirt and a tin trumpet after decease.

The Rev. Thomas Phillips at the Baptist Union Congress (25.4.1912) said :—

“Eighteen thousand men receive 12s. a week or less ; 50,000 men receive 18s. a week or less. Out of every fourteen workmen in London one is, or has been, a pauper at some period in his career ; one in every five dies in a workhouse, a hospital, or an asylum. One million of our men receive £1 a week or less, and toil at tasks which give them neither security nor comfort. We are here enjoying ourselves, but within 300 yards of this place thirty to forty families are living in two houses. Seven per cent. of our population are in chronic want.

“These things stagger a man’s faith in God and man. I wish that London was not representative of England, but Mr. Rowntree has told the same story of York, and two clergymen have said that, in some respects, Edinburgh is even worse than London.

“The villages are no better off. A writer in a recent number of the ‘Sociological Review’ stated that he had found that, out of 300 people living in the villages, 193 did not get sufficient food to keep body and soul together.”

* * *

“These things” staggered our faith in God long since, and working-class faith in the power of parsons is by no means firmly rooted.

Mr. Phillips wants “Christian business men to devote their energy and power of organisation to settling this tremendous social difficulty.” The Christian business men will support the Christian business when they can see that it pays them, and the churches to-day are not the chloroforming agency that they once were. As Mr. Fleming Williams said at the Congregational Congress (9.5.12):—

“The people are developing a social conscience in the exact ratio in which the Churches are neglecting to cultivate it. The inevitable result will be our Churches will be left high and dry. The world will go on forgetting our existence. They will leave us to discuss our little theological conundrums which hardly affect the great needs and wants of the world.”

* * *

What the “Christian business men” want is a meek and docile wage-slave, and when the Churches cease to assist in supplying their demand they will take their “energy and power of organisation” and their contributions to a more productive agency.

The empty churches (and small contributions) are worrying the clergy to a far greater extent than the “labour unrest,” and as the Bishop of London said when presiding at a meeting at Grosvenor House (6.5.12):—

“Many were breaking down, not from their work, but from the anxiety of keeping their churches going.”

* * *

The following advertisement in the “Daily Chronicle” (4.5.12) is significant of the uses for which the Church is needed :—

“THE LONDON CITY MISSION

is engaged daily in working for the improvement of the moral and spiritual life of

LONDON’S TEEMING POPULATION

By the blessing of God the work is a potent factor for the upbuilding of sterling character, for the lessening of crime, and for the prevention of the outbreak of anarchism. 400 missionaries at work all the year round. Your help in this effort to spread the Gospel among the poor and artisan non-Church-goers of the Metropolis is earnestly solicited.”

* * *

“I am the last person to underrate all these questions of what is called distribution—the distribution of the produce of the world. But speaking for myself, I do most seriously hold there is a yet greater problem to be dealt with, and that is the amount you produce. The progress of mankind must fundamentally turn on the amount it produces, upon its growing control over the forces of Nature, upon all that science, invention, and industrial organisation enable it to do, to add to the daily produce and daily consumed wealth of the world. And important, vital if you please, as is the question of how what we make is to be distributed over the whole community, or among those who make it, behind all that there lies the yet more fundamental problem of how much you can make, and how you can increase the amount you are already making.”

The above statement was made by Mr. A. J. Balfour at a meeting on “Syndicalism and Industrial Problems,” held under the auspices of the Sociological Society (30.4.12).

It is typical of Balfour to spin long sentences meaning nothing on the subject under discussion and then to tail off with some definite (?) statement quite apart from the point.

The problem is not one of production but of ownership, and none knows that better than the ex-leader of the Tory party.

That there is sufficient wealth to-day to provide for all is undeniable, and even were it not so the enormous amount of raw material ready to hand, the vast tracts of uncultivated land, the over-supply of labour-power ready to be applied to that raw material and uncultivated land to produce more wealth, dispose at once of the absurd notion that the population has outgrown the resources of nature.

With the growing command by man over natural forces no fear need be entertained that the civilised, world will ever know famine again. Man’s struggle with nature for the means of life is over—and man has won. The struggle to-day is between man and man, between master and slave, between the plutocratic parasite and the propertyless producer.

* * *

While one section of the community are struggling to exist on from 5s. per head per week, another section can squander and waste an enormous amount of wealth at some silly freak show. The two following cuttings, both from the “Daily Chronicle,” show clearly who waste the “wealth we produce,” and how unevenly such wealth is distributed :—

“A letter has been received by the Russian Famine Committee in London from the members of the Famine Committee of the Free Economic Society, one of the oldest institutions of the kind in Russia, appealing for help.

“‘There has been an almost complete failure of crops (it says) in twenty provinces of Russia, covering the whole region from Nizhny-Novgorod to Astrakhan, as well as South Ural and Western Siberia. At least one half of the 40 million inhabitants of those provinces were doomed to starvation, for few of them could hope to find employment in other parts of Russia in the winter.

‘The population have been brought to ruin and despair. Many become insane and commit suicide. Some among the Mohammedans sell their children to harems, that they may not see them suffer and hear them cry for bread.

‘Typhus and scurvy are rapidly doing their deadly work among them.'”

“Daily Chronicle,” 13.5.12.

“The latest freak entertainment was given here to-day at the Hotel Vanderbilt in the shape of a dog banquet. The idea was originated by Mrs. A. L. Holland, the wife of a multi-millionaire, who gave the banquet in honour of her Pekinese dog, and sent out invitations to eight other Pekinese canines of the ‘smart set.’

“Without exception the dogs turned up, accompanied by their mistresses, and the nine ladies and nine dogs sat together at a table gorgeously decorated in the Chinese fashion, while a Chinese orchestra rendered weird selections of native music.

“Luncheon was served for the ladies, while special attendants catered for the wants of the principal guests, who had silver basins of bread and milk set before them, followed by cut-up biscuit and choice morsels of chicken. Only the breasts of chicken were served to these pampered animals.

“The dinner was voted a great success, and as a souvenir of the affair each dog guest was presented with a silver collar with his name engraved on it. Nothing like to-day’s freak entertainment has been seen since the pony banquet, or the dinner given in honour of Consul, the intelligent baboon.”

“Daily Chronicle,” 18 5.12.

* * *

Were there anything like an equal distribution of the world’s wealth there would be no difficulty in satisfying the needs of those who were for the time being deprived of the means of life by some failure of crops, or disaster of any kind. It is quite possible that the dividend of the multi-millionaire which provided the dog feast was wrung from the labour of the Russian workers who are suffering, quite unnecessarily, the pangs of starvation.

Quite recently the strikers of the Lena gold-fields were mowed down in hundreds for demanding better conditions, because to grant better conditions to those Russian workmen would mean lower dividends for some cosmopolitan financiers and inferior chicken for their Pekinese pups.

* * *

The labour unrest will continue while these conditions are allowed to remain. The demand of labour, the world over, is merely the demand for a living. To quote Jerome K. Jerome, speaking at the Cambridge University Liberal Club .—

“The human labourer in 1912 is, after all, only demanding what has been acceded to without question in the case of the ox and the ass since prehistoric times. I never heard a farmer suggest that the price of corn being what it is, he is quite unable to give his horse more than half its proper rations. The horse has a very effective way of insisting on his minimum wage. The horse does not go out on strike, he just lies down and dies ; and the farmer finds it cheaper—whatever may be the state of the agricultural market—to accede to his demands.

“Practically speaking, the farm labourer does get his minimum wage. He can’t live on 12s. 6d. a week and bring up a wife and six children. It can’t be done. Charity has to step in and make good the difference. Where the minimum wage is not paid—the wage that enables a man and his family to live—the charitable public has to make good the difference. It is a good thing for the charitable public ; it is a good thing for their morals, it is good for their hope of a future reward.

“But it is bad for the labourer ; it turns him into a pauper, it robs him of his self-respect. It is bad for the employer ; it makes him also nothing else than a pauper, going round to the charitable public, cap in hand, whining, ‘Help me to pay my wages. Have pity, kind gentlemen, on a poor employer of labour.’ It makes the employer also a pauper ; and, if it doesn’t, it ought to rob him of his self respect.”

* * *

The employer, as an employer, has no self-respect. He has but one object—to obtain a profit, to get dividends ; and he will struggle to the last to prevent the workers from reducing that profit. Just as the worker, in factory and in field, is but a machine with but one purpose of existence, so the employer, the financier, and the capitalist generally, are sponges absorbing the wealth the worker produces. There is no self-respect in a sponge, just as there should be no desire in a machine. But the worker will not always remain a machine. He will soon want to be a man and to take a man’s part in the enjoyment, as well as in the production, of the world’s wealth. He will, in time, give intelligent purpose to his growing dissatisfaction, and when he does—well, the occupation of the sponge will be gone.

TWEL.

Editorial: No change. (1906)

Editorial from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

At last ! After paltering with the destinies of an imperial race for more years than the Liberal party care to remember, Mr. Balfour has resigned and the great Unionist Party has gone out of office. At last ! After fretting in the shades of opposition for a decade, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman has assumed control of the reins of Government and the Great Liberal Party has gone into office. The most capable, the most industrious, the most earnest, the most successful Government of modern times (vide the Tory Press) and the most disgraceful, the most useless, the most fraudulent, the most shameless Government in the history of mankind (vide the Liberal Press) has decided to take a well-earned rest from its laborious endeavours (Tory Press), or has been forced by the pressure of a disgusted public opinion to vacate its position (Liberal Press), and an impossible government of mutually warring elements that cannot by any chance conduct the affairs or in any adequate way discharge the responsibilities of the English people (Tory Press), or a Government representative of the brains of the Empire, a sound and workmanlike Government that can unhesitatingly claim to voice the aspirations of every section of the nation (Liberal Press) has taken its place. The people of England may have which view they like for their ha’penny, and doubtless by far the majority of the people of England will have and unfortunately share, one or the other of them. We would it were otherwise. It would be otherwise if we could get the intelligent ear of the people of England—or the working class of England, for we are concerned with no other section. We would have the working class understand that, as a matter of fact, despite all the emphatic assurances of the Capitalist Press to the contrary, there is no real change in the Government. It is the same Government representing the same interests, aiming at the same object, actuated by the same motive. True it is a Liberal Government to-day, whereas yesterday it was a Tory Government. But that is only a change of label. It has a Bannerman at its head, vice a Balfour, a Burns at the Local Government Board, vice a second Balfour. But that is only a change of name. True also the change of name and label may involve a slight change of method. It has doubtless become necessary to make a concession to a slowly awakening working class opinion and a departure from the more usual course in the selection of a man for ministerial position who, to the slow-moving working class mind, would be regarded as a champion of working class interest, has been made. But this “Labour” representative has been carefully selected. By years of faithful service which the dirtiest of work has not affected he has demonstrated his trustworthiness and devotion to the interests of his employers. A change of names, of labels, of methods—that is all. The interest represented is still capitalist interest. The object still the retention of the means of life in the bands of the capitalist class, still the subjugation and exploitation of the working class. In no single material respect has the Government changed.

Editorial: Impotence or Impudence? (1905)

Editorial from the December 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The working-class may well pray to be delivered from their friends, for those “friends” are evidently determined that, so far as it is possible for them to compass it, the working-class shall remain in that condition of mental darkness and confusion to which is traceable their present inertia and indifference to those prime and fundamental causes of proletarian misery upon which we who form The Socialist Party of Great Britain are endeavouring to focus their attention as the indispensable preliminary to that Social Revolution which alone can effect any material and lasting benefit for them. The month of November seems to have been particularly favourable to the production of astounding examples of muddled reasoning on the part of these “friends” who, because the working-class are largely ignorant, have been permitted to foist themselves into the position of leaders. Of themselves these exhibitions of fatuous baffle-headedness or calculated deception and treachery—whichever it is—would only invoke hilarity or contempt, but unfortunately their authors have secured a standing of considerable prominence, so that it becomes necessary for those who know the truth and who are earnestly desirous that the working-class should awaken to an appreciation of their powers and opportunities, to dissociate themselves as forcefully as possible from such utterances and actions, and to expose their impotence and impudence.

Consider the case of the women’s deputation to Balfour, that event which recently attracted so much notice. These unhappy women of the working-class in their “looped and windowed” raggedness are prevailed upon to parade their pathetic poverty, not be it noted in menace, but in order that the pitiable pathos of their position may move the hearts of those who batten upon their misery and whose very existence is dependent upon the continuance of an impoverished proletariat. And these women are inspired to depute a number of their fellows to wait upon a capitalist minister to beg that something he done for them lest they utterly perish. Yet the leaders of this deputation subsequently confess their full knowledge of the futility of such an appeal !

It is true that one at least of them has endeavoured to justify the action on the ground that otherwise the workers would not believe that nothing can he obtained from the capitalist class. But this same leader at the same time admits that he has headed similar deputations for 20 years ! How many more years then will he be content to follow such methods ? Surely he has sense enough to see that the working-class are hardly more alive to the fact he wishes to impress upon them than they ever were. And surely his knowledge is not so limited that he cannot understand that this continued ignorance is to some considerable extent due to the fact that he and his fellow misleaders have omitted to tell the whole truth in the past. Then by what name shall we call him if he is prepared to inflict still further pain and disappointment upon those whose misery is even now greater than they can hear ?

If those who, knowing the truth, have failed to speak it ; if those who should have educated the workers have occupied their time mainly in deluding them, it is small wonder if the ignorance is as great and the working-class conditions as bad as they have ever been. How many more years we ask will these leaders be content to play the game of the fool ? Or is it that they are afraid of the consequences of telling the truth after having told other than the truth for so long ?

It is small wonder, we repeat, that the working-class mind is muddled when we have, to take another horrible example, a member of the highly cultured middle class (as he describes himself) like Mr. Hyndman, who, while urging that Socialists should do all the harm they possibly can to Liberalism, affirms that Socialists are prepared to support Liberals in their efforts to put on the statute books certain reform measures which, in the next breath, Mr. Hyndman himself admits will not affect the working-class in whose interests he claims he is working. If this is an example of Mr. Hyndmau’s high culture, we can do without it, just as we can do without the logic of a Robert Blatchford, who, while rightly condemning the absurdity of the action of the unemployed leaders in arranging deputations which it is foreknown must be fruitless, argues that the thing to do is to ensure the return of a large number of labour members to the House of Commons at the next election. Mr. Blatchford knows quite well that the Labour members already elected to the House of Commons are precisely the persons who are concerned with the arrangement of absurd deputations—men like Mr. W. Crooks, a rump Radical, who holds that because certain monied persons are contributing infinitesimal fractions of the wealth they have robbed the working-class of to relief funds for the unemployed, the rich and the poor are beginning to work hand-in-hand ; or like Mr. Keir Hardie, who, while denying the existence of a class war and preaching, for the mollification of the conscience of non-conformity, and for his own election to political position, the necessity of the gospel of love as the only method by which happiness may be ensured to all, argues in another connection and for another purpose, that the working-class must inspire the capitalist-class with fear, must compel them by sheer terrorism to let go their grip before they can hope to achieve their purpose.

These are some of the men and some of the influences we have to combat in order that the clear issue may be presented to the working-class to which we belong. And whatever epithet of opprobrium these men or others may coin to belittle our efforts and to retard the spread of our views, we shall persist with our propaganda by all the means at our disposal, in the full confidence that ultimately our class must adopt our attitude if they would work out their own emancipation from the thraldom imposed by capitalist and landlord domination.

Greasy Pole: Looking forward to 2004 – in 1904 (2004)

The Greasy Pole column from the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Almost nine years have passed since Oscar Wilde was sent to prison at the Old Bailey for the offence of sodomy. He and his friends were not alone in their disappointment at the sentence because the judge, before waving the famous dramatist down to the Court cells, gave voice to his frustration that he was restricted to a sentence of only two years hard labour which was, he snarled, “totally inadequate” for “the worst case I have ever tried . . . a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men”.

    

The judge did not bother himself that to criminalise homosexuality as “hideous corruption” is a symptom of capitalism’s inhumanity. Nor did he muse on the corruption that was partly responsible for Wilde being in the dock before him. The dismay among Wilde’s supporters at his sentence was aggravated by the well-founded suspicion that he had been sacrificed – arrested, charged, tried, sentenced – to divert attention from somebody  else. It was obvious that the beneficiary must have been someone the authorities were anxious to protect from exposure. Among what was then known as the uranian community it was an open secret that Lord Rosebery was as active a homosexual as Wilde. In fact the Marquess of Queensbury, who had obsessively persecuted Wilde in retaliation for his relationship with his son, had made it quite clear that if Wilde was not prosecuted he, Queensbury, would ruin Rosebery by denouncing him as another sodomite.

Suicidal

The nub of the problem was that Rosebery was not just a peer of the realm and therefore an aristocrat who was supposed nobly to set an example to the rest of us, but the Prime Minister in the Liberal government. Before Wilde’s trial the blackmailing pressure from Queensbury was so fierce that Rosebery – said to be brilliant, erratic and unpredictable but obviously also a mite fragile – was fearful and depressed to the point of being suicidal. Soon after Wilde was safely behind the cell door at Pentonville and Queensbury’s fire had been quenched, Rosebery’s health miraculously improved and, benefiting from the corruption endemic in capitalist politics, he could continue contentedly being Prime Minister along with his other distractions. It was his bad luck that he did not enjoy coincidental good health and high office for long because a month after Wilde’s trial the Liberal government was out of power.

    

There would not have been the same concerns about the man who – a couple of years ago – succeeded to the job of Prime Minister, once held so tenuously by Rosebery. Arthur Balfour is another with a reputation for unusual brilliance but he has never shown the slightest interest in attaching himself to a female or a male. So on that score, if not on others which should be of more interest to the working class, he is safe.  Balfour is known as an aloof, self-satisfied man who is more comfortable in discussion of remote philosophical and religious abstractions – the less relevant the better – than in confronting the real world of poverty, disease, international conflicts. At Cambridge he spent what was called a “scandalous” amount of time watching or playing tennis and industriously built a reputation for idleness and for intolerance of anything he assessed as ignorance – but which may have been the very reality which he protected himself from.

Contemptuous

To behave like that it helps to be an aristocrat with the proper blue-blooded connections. Balfour went to Eton, his father and his grandfather were Conservative MPs and, even more to the point, he was the nephew of the late Lord Salisbury, who succeeded to the Prime Ministership when Rosebery’s Liberal government was defeated in 1895. Some years before that Salisbury, while taking an avuncular lunch with Balfour, broached the subject of politics as a career for him along with watching tennis and taking part in pointless arguments. At the time it just so happened that there was a vacancy at Hertford, a parliamentary constituency where the selection of the MP was controlled by Salisbury because he owned the place. Balfour regards politics as a kind of amusing game – clearly overlooking the unamusing, devastating effect which political decisions can have on the lives of the useful, non-aristocratic, working people in society. He was sure he could fit in attending the Commons with his other strenuous activities so yes, he would give it a try. In due course he was elected as the Honourable Member for Hertford. Thus Balfour was another who has reason to be grateful for the power of political corruption.

    

That when it comes to the ruling class blood is thicker than water was demonstrated in 1878 when Salisbury, who was then Foreign Secretary, made Balfour his private secretary. In 1885 Balfour was elected as MP for East Manchester; a week spent among his supporters there he described as “loathsome but necessary”, which perhaps meant that he had to spend some time in the slums of Ancoats or Salford. This contemptuous attitude, which he usually managed to hide beneath a mask of elaborate courtesy, surfaced again when he sneered at the rising suburban and provincial Tories “with their vineries and pineries” and in his comment that an industrialist who had what he considered “civilised” tastes was “a rare avis”.  All of this has been ammunition for those critics of Balfour who see him as a pretend politician who makes elegant speeches which do not contribute much to the question at issue – not that it mattered if they did. It fits in with the impression that he is an MP simply because it was the thing for a blue-blooded Old Etonian to do.

Poverty

But in spite of his affected langour and detachment Balfour has handled some weighty ministries, so that not too many of his Conservative colleagues were offended when, as his uncle Salisbury ceased to be Prime Minister in 1902, Balfour moved smoothly into the job. It will not be the last time a politician has cloaked their rampant ambition beneath a show of disinterest. Edward VII had just been crowned and the South African War, with its nasty shocks for the British military, was at an end. In some senses it was an abrasive conjunction of events as the crowning of a new king encouraged some of the customarily stupid jingoism at a time when the Boer farmers had uncovered evidence suggestive that the global power of the British ruling class is in decline. On the Continent Germany is overtaking Britain, for example accounting for about 22 percent of world production of steel compared to Britain’s 15 percent. In manufacture the respective shares are 17 percent and 19 percent. How long will it be, before British capitalism regards Germany as a competitor too threatening to be assuaged by mere diplomacy?  We are told that the Entente Cordiale, settled in April this year, is an instrument for peace as it re-assures France that there is a buffer against the ambitions of Germany. Another way of putting this is that the treaty lays out some of the issues over which the next war will be fought.

    

At home the work of Rowntree and Booth has illuminated the fact that the workers who cheered the coronation of the new king often did so from the depths of poverty. Booth’s study of the people in the East End of London found about 30 percent of them living below what he set as a ‘poverty line’. These are people whose means are barely sufficient for a decent independent life or, even worse, are actually insufficient for that life. Rowntree’s report on the people of York came to much the same conclusion; nearly ten percent of the people were found to be in ‘primary poverty’, with means insufficient to maintain merely physical efficiency, and another 18 percent are in the slightly more manageable ‘secondary poverty’. Unemployment, which is an aggravating factor in poverty, stands at ten percent of the working population.  These problems, with the suffering they cause to the class who produce everything but own nothing of any consequence, are the very stuff of capitalism and Balfour, for all his supposed effortless intellectualism, has been powerless to affect them.

    

How long will capitalism endure? If it is still here in a hundred years, what will the socialists of the year 2004 look back on? They will review a century in which millions will have died in wars or through hunger or avoidable diseases. A century in which the contrasts of riches and impoverishment remain as stark as ever. Whatever progress will be made in the technologies of communication and production will have gone to further enrich the ruling class while merely reshaping the poverty of the workers. And all of this will have been governed by political leaders notable in history for only their corruption, deceit and impotence.

Ivan

Editorial: The Folly of Fools. (1905)

Editorial from the November 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

In common with most other London and Suburban districts, Poplar has an unemployed problem—somewhat more acute, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of Poplar, but the same problem that afflicts every industrial centre of every capitalist country in the world, and, because capitalism is impossible without this out-of-work army, that will continue to afflict until production is organised for the use of the producer as distinguished from the profit of the non-producer, as at present. But the affairs of Poplar, being in the hands of progressive gentlemen—practically Socialists as we are informed—it follows that, in real or feigned ignorance of the inevitability of unemployment, the public progressive persons of Poplar are making efforts to solve the, under present conditions, insolvable. Their methods as compared with those of other borough councillors are, however, sensational. They want, and in this respect they are just ordinary, Mr. Balfour to call a special Parliamentary session to deal with the question—although what that amiable apostle of culture could do is not clear. Mr. Balfour, apparently, is not inclined to do anything of the sort. Whereupon our Poplar worthies spring into a great notoriety by asking that the King himself shall hear their requisition, the which the “little father,” being a moderately wideawake gentleman, agrees to. The humble and loyal representations are duly made and most graciously received (the little mother smiling sympathetically the while) and—passed back to the amiable Balfour ! Whereat Poplar is delighted, Mr. and Mrs. Crooks are photographed in the act of smiling their pleasure, the Mayor walks on his heels, bearing himself proudly, and the unemployed take in their belts another hole and look hopelessly and shudderingly ahead to the rigors of a winter that threatens to be even longer and more bitter than usual. 

Well, it is useless to bemoan the abysmal ignorance that will forever follow in the wake of folly. We can only proclaim to those whom our voices will reach and who have ears to hear, that there is no hope for the working-class until they cease appealing and appealing and appealing for what they may take when they will. We can only repeat and repeat and repeat that there is no hope for the working-class until they have understood and have themselves taken over the means by which they may produce the things necessary to their life and happiness. It may seem a cold and comfortless answer to give the appeal of huddled misery crying aloud for “something now.” But it is not. It is a message charged with hope and a great possibility—if only the workers will listen. It is a message that will bring the “something now”—if only the workers will listen. For, as we have so often urged, and as every indication goes to show, “something now” is never conceded except out of the fear of the possessing class. And no greater fear can be bred in their hearts than that of an intelligent working-class after the means of life upon the ownership of which the power of the capitalist depends. At present the workers are asking for crumbs as a charity, and they got the equivalent of nothing. Let them demand the whole loaf as a right and show behind their demand a determination that will not be denied and the “something now” will surely materialize. The message of the S.P.G.B. indicates the only path that can be followed for the attainment of the “something now” or the whole loaf of presently.

50 Years Ago: Liberals and Socialism (1959)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dr. Macnamara, in a strong speech, declared that Radicalism was irrevocably opposed to the principles on which Socialism was based.  — Daily Chronicle (21.10.1909)

#    #    #    #

"The people are beginning to discover that Socialism and social reform are two entirely different things. In this respect I adopt entirely the definition of the two things given by Mr. Balfour in Birmingham in 1907: -

  Socialism has one meaning and one meaning only. Socialism means, and can mean, nothing less, that the community is to take all the means of production into its own hands, and that private enterprise and private property is to come to an end. That is Socialism and nothing else is Socialism.
  Social Reform is when the State, based on private enterprise and based on private property—recognises that the result can only be obtained by respecting private property and encouraging private enterprise, asks men to contribute towards great national, social and public objects. That is social reform.

I contend that our proposals [the Liberal Government's Budget, 1909] fall under the latter description and not under the former.”—Mr. Alexander Ure, the Lord Advocate, quoted in Daily Chronicle (1.10.1909).

[From the December 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard.]

Wolf and Lamb. (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Queer Partnership.

“In the chair was Mr. Shackleton, M.P., one of the most conspicuous Labour members in the present House of Commons; the chief address was delivered by Mr. A. J. Balfour, in his capacity as president; and the vote of thanks to the ex-Premier was presented to a crowded audience by three gentlemen representative of widely apart walks of life, namely, Sir Christopher Furness, M.P., one of the great captains of industry in the country ; Professor A. C. Pigou, Lecturer in Economics at Cambridge University; and Mr. Amos Mann, who has for years been associated with the Labour Co-Partnership movement, particularly in the Midlands. Hardly less notable than the group of speakers was the numerous company of ladies and gentlemen who supported them on the platform—employers and employed. Labour men and co-operators, philanthropists and Parliamentarians. Of members of the House of Commons there must have been at least three-score present, representing practically every shade of opinion in that Assembly. Mr. Maddison, M.P., put this unpolitical character of the gathering in a nutshell when, in speaking to one of the business resolutions towards the close of the proceedings, be declared that the annual meeting of the association furnished one of the few occasions when it was possible, without the risk of subsequent criticism, to stand on the same platform with men with whom one might disagree on every other conceivable subject but the one that had brought them together. —Daily Telegraph, 2.12.08.

And what is the object of this rare occasion when it is possible for this collection of such seemingly bitter and irreconcilable foes to stand upon the same platform ? Let Mr. Balfour, the chief spokesman, answer:—

  “He advocated the movement, he said, not simply because it might minimise strikes, and incite to a larger output of work, but rather because it would give the workman a wider and deeper interest in his work and give him greater knowledge of the difficulties of the employer. 'Nothing can be better for the country,’ he added, ‘than that the artisan classes of the community should have the closest and most intimate knowledge possible of business methods, business difficulties, and business risks, as well as business profits.’ ”—Ibid.

Here, then, is the description of the movement, gently named Labour Co-Partnership, by one of the prominent official representatives of the employing class. The occasion is when arrangements are to be made—or attempted to be made—not only for minimising strikes and inciting to larger output (matters of great importance from the view-point of the employers’ interests), but also for initiating the workers into knowledge of business difficulties and business risks.

What are business risks ? Properly speaking, of course, the reference is to business man's risk in the commercial competition.

Not only in the home market, but also in the foreign and neutral markets of the world, the “business men” of England find themselves face to face with the ever-growing competition of their foreign rivals. To hold their own in the markets or to increase their share of these markets it is necessary that they sell cheaper than their competitors. But to sell cheaper they must produce, or have produced for them, cheaper than before.

How may this be done ?

Here the truth of Marx’s analysis of capitalism is at once admitted in practice, if denied in theory.

According to Marx the value of an article is fixed by the average time taken under the prevailing conditions of society to produce it. And every representative of capitalism, from the Trust magnate to the Co-Partner, agrees with this. Hence the incitement to a larger output of work and a minimising of strikes. Hence, also, the other statement of Mr. Balfour’s, that “Every arrangement which softened or obliterated the division between employer and employed, between owner and occupier, was to them welcome.’’ In other words, the employers adopt various methods for reducing the time required to produce articles, admitting that this is a reduction in the value of these articles, which can then be sold at a lower price.

But certain difficulties present themselves.

When trade is “booming," and the employer is making larger profits than usual, the “ungrateful” workman, despite the fact that be may be enjoying “plenty of work,” sometimes takes it into his head that he would like a slightly larger share of the wealth he has produced so abundantly, and taking a "mean advaniage” of the employer, he threatens to strike unless his demands are granted. To have a strike to contend with means stoppage of production, and therefore the losing of the opportunity of making those larger profits. The employer grates his teeth. Under his breath he curses the “wicked workers” who were not content—despite all the P.S.A. addresses delivered by various “Labour” leaders—to remain in the position in which capitalism had placed them. For the time being the master may yield to the men’s demands, but always with the intention of finding some way out of the difficulty in the future. This, however, is no easy task, far, as Sir Christopher Furness said in a speech at the meeting mentioned above, “Knowing hew thoroughly the strike habit was ingrained in the artizan classes, Business co-partnery would have bad no chance whatever unless the possibility of striking had been entirely removed.”

Here, then, are the two difficulties facing the capitalist—to get the “lazy” worker to speed up, and to prevent strikes taking place at awkward moments—awkward, that is, for the capitalist’s profits. Labour Co-Partnership meets both these points in a splendid way for the exploiter.

The employee is compulsorily “allowed” to take up shares in the business. Sometimes, When the employer has been seized with an extra acute attack of “regard for the worker,” the latter is even allowed to be present at some of the Directors’ Meetings, where he may listen with bated breath and awe-struck mien while the “superman” Directors wrestle with the “business difficulties and business risks, as well as the business profits,” and tell him how the concern should be run. It is pointed out to the worker that unless he strains every nerve and muscle to produce as cheaply as possible, his rivals will get the trade and the workers in the Co-Partnership concern will not only lose their dividends (often amounting to fabulous sums), but may even lose their jobs, in spite of the fact that they are co-partners. And thus one point is gained.

Then as for striking, why, that would be absurd. Are not they “interested” in the firm ? Are they not “part owners” ? And would you expect a man to strike against his own interests and property ? Certainly not. Then hurrah! for what is probably the most successful of the detail swindles perpetrated upon the working class. And cheer for the Labourite, Lib-Lab, and philanthropists who graced this meeting with their presence. Whether Shackleton (late chairman of the Labour Party), Maddison (member of the Liberal Party), H. Vivian (member of the T.U. Group), Balfour (late Tory Prime Minister) or Furness (Liberal steelmaster and shipowner), they all agree upon this fundamental

point—that the workers must be driven harder, bound in still tighter servitude, exploited more ruthlessly than ever, for the benefit of the employing class. “Birds of a feather flock together,” and the fact, so often pointed out in our columns, that these so-called Labour Leaders are merely the agents of the employers, receives additional and overwhelming evidence from the gathering under notice.

“Nonsense!” we will be told. "Do not the men share in the profits ? Are not huge sums disbursed yearly among, for instance, the employees in the South Metropolitan Gas Works ?” Our answer is NO! The workers not only do not share in the profits, but they have produced increased profits for the employers while suffering an actual decrease of wages. For it is the fact that since the inauguration of this scheme at the South Metropolitan Gas Works, profits have gone up by leaps and bounds, and the cost of producing gas has considerably decreased. While under the old system the men worked eight hours a day, under the new they work twelve! Not only this, but even with the longer hours the speed has been increased to such an extent that more in produced now per man per hour than under the old scheme. The few shillings “dividend" the worker annually receives is based upon the fact that production must be brought to a certain level before any "dividend" is awarded. Thus the work is increased in intensity and the working day in length, and out of the vast surplus thus created the worker receives a miserable mite, far below what his ordinary wages, taken over the increased time of his toil, would have amounted to.

The much lauded Co-Partnership scheme is thus seen to be but another contrivance and a most excellent and successful one from any but a working-class point of view—whereby the capitalist is enabled to pick cleaner the bones of the worker lamb, and it is interesting to note with what accord the “Labour” leaders lend themselves to the machination.

Jack Fitzgerald