To the Death. (1907)

From the November 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are going, dear friends, to have a very hot time. We shall soon, we understand, be fighting for our very lives. So far we have had an easy time of it. Up to now we have been left severely alone. The “Constitutional” forces have held their hand. We have been allowed plenty of rope. We have enjoyed unfettered liberty; unrestrained license. And we have used our opportunities. We have insinuated our delusive doctrine into the working-class mind. We have inoculated the working class with the poison of our principles. We have preached an unreasonable discontent with things as they are. We have sown dissension between master and man. We have upset the harmony between Capital and Labour. We have dammed up the river of progress. We have throttled industry. We have choked the breath of life out of enterprise. And, if we may loan the chaste expression of the ”Constitutional” poet, Kipling, we have played hell generally.

But now we are to be taken in hand very severely. Our pernicious propaganda is to be scotched. Our license is to be endorsed. Reason, my friends, is to be re-seated on its throne, and gems of knowledge will be scattered broad-cast as chaff before the wind. The confidence of the “working classes” is to be restored. They will no longer go abroad with the canker of Socialism gnawing at their vitals. Fear for the safety of their little hoards will no longer haunt them. The millions in the Post Office Savings Bank will be rescued from danger of the avaricious maw of the professional agitator. Trade will return from the exile to which we have banished it. There will be plenty of work. Bellies that to-day are filled with the East wind will then be soft and sleek and with fat capon lined. And sweet Peace and happy Content will brood o’er the smiling land of “Wiggin” and “Snellin” and “Owdam” and Manchester, and may even, although this would be expecting too much, come as far South as London and Watford !

So, if we are to maintain our hold on the people; if we are not to be deprived of our comfortable jobs; it we are to continue in the enjoyment of our riotous debauchery; if we want to batten upon the credulity of the workers in the future as now and heretofore, it behoves us to re-organise the forces of brigandage, to look to the joints of our devilish harness, to sharpen our swords and test our bucklers ; to strengthen our outworks and our outposts, so as to be ready when the slogan of the “British Constitution Association ” and the shrieks of the Shanghai Press herald the imminent attack.

Verily the outlook is dark and full of fearsome portend. But, thank God! the Daily News is still to be relied upon. It is going to stand by us in the hour of trial. “And who shall say at close of day which side will have to mourn” while our weakness is voluntarily augmented by its strength ? It gives us heart, this chivalrous offer of the noble News. We have no words wherewith to frame our thanks—so, on the whole it will be well not to attempt it. But we take courage knowing what we have behind us in Fleet Street, and feel as if we might, much daring, even venture to open the attack. And indeed, that course would, haply, be the best. It would bring our waiting suspense to the issue of action. Yes—we will chance it. We will risk our all on this hazard. We will enter the lists. We will pick up the gauntlet—if it has been thrown. We will throw it ourselves if it hasn’t. We will. Now! Up ! herald. Hang our banner on the outer wall. And you there, you with the trumpets, blow! you beggars, blow !

So. ‘Tis done. And now, soft, while our champion speaks. Sh-s-ss—

To the Lord Balfour of Burleigh, President of the “British Constitution Association,” the Lord Northdiffe (of the Daily Mail), the Lord Burnham (of the Daily Telegraph), the potential Lord Pearson (of the Daily Express), and all others whom it may concern; give ear. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, the head and front of that which stands to you for offence; the only party in this land that fights consistently and unwaveringly for Socialism; the party that preaches relentless war upon the capitalism for which you stand ; the party that is organising the working class of this country to the end that shall spell the extermination of the capitalist; the party that is inciting the worker to revolt; that is urging him to seize the control of the political machine in his own interest so that he may the more surely capture and hold the factory and the railway and the workshop against the power of the employer ; this Socialist Party of Great Britain gives you defiance and bids you select your champion—the mightiest man amongst you—so that he may do battle in the lists of rhetoric on your behalf and in your defence. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, will meet you in hall or street or Press ; its champions will combat yours one at a time or—or all at once ! They will take you on seriatim—one down t’other come on—or en bloc. They will oppose a working man to the most skilful of your professors, in the largest hall or the smallest, in London or the provinces, on Sunday or any other time, in season or out of season, on any question that will bring to a direct issue the relationship of the working class to the capitalist class. Name your man or men, my lords, or if their valour is out weighed by their discretion, come on yourselves. You will receive the warmest of welcome, but—your case will be slaughtered to make a working-class holiday. The god of Capital help you in that day, my lords, for verily, you will want it.

AGRA.

_______________

Since writing the foregoing the Daily Express (October 10th, 1907), the exponent of what may fairly be called the “bad-egg and flour-bag” method of argument, has come out with a woefully frank, and, for the Daily Express, an amazingly honest expression of the importance of the British Constitution Association and the anti-Socialist propagandist generally. Says Pearson’s Pride—

ANTI-SOCIALIST TACTICS.

The anti-Socialist winter campaign is again in full swing, and the battle will shortly be joined all along the line. There is one tactical feature of the Socialist plan of campaign which is worthy of close attention. It is now the order of the day in the enemy’s ranks to issue challenges to anti-Socialist speakers to take part in joint public debates. The motive of this particular procedure is well defined, and, from our opponents’ point of view the result is likely to be profitable to the movement. 

To accept these challenges—except in special cases and for particular reasons—would be to play into the enemy’s hands. What anti-Socialists want is to put Socialism on its own defence. It behoves us, therefore, to point out quite candidly that, as matters now stand, the average Socialist speaker is better primed on Socialism than the average anti-Socialist. The London Municipal Society will probably make a point of organising a department whose duty it will be to provide text-books as well as speakers to meet the Socialists on their own ground. When that is accomplished we shall probably hear no more of Socialist challenges.”— Daily Express, 8/10/07.

Tlie italics are our own.

Observe, “the battle” is to be “joined all along the line,” but—the join must not be made too effectively. The enemy must be engaged—at a respectful distance. Socialism must be put upon its trial, but for heaven’s sake don’t let the trial take place upon a B.C.A. platform unless the prisoner is muzzled and gagged ! If you do it will surely be to the advantage of the Socialist Movement, because, don’t you see, the Socialist has the facts and the Constitutionalist hasn’t. The Socialist, of course, is all wrong. He hasn’t a leg to stand on. He hasn’t a shred of evidence to support his case. His objective is a chimera. His principles are an outrage on common sense. His methods are fanatical and dangerous to the well known peace and prosperity of this our land. He is a fool where he isn’t a fraud. Put upon its trial Socialism must fail upon every count, but whatever you do, don’t let its champions defend themselves upon your platforms. And don’t get upon the Socialist platform. That would be quite as bad—in fact worse. Join “the battle all along the line,” but—caution, eager hearts ! the Socialist is an artful person and you are artless. When you get that text book you will be all right, but until then put Socialism on its trial—and may the spirit of stern resolve and lofty purpose that animated our Drakes and Whitaker Wrights and Nelsons, Lord Cowleys and the rest of our Empire builders strengthen your arms and direct your aims so that your flour and eggs and other such arguments may speed true. As it is, as it will be until the arrival of that text book, the B.C.A. gentlemen are on the clear confession of the enlightened Express, without even the means of combatting the ‘”absurdities,” “illogical sophistries,” evidence-less postulates and reasonless conclusions, of that danger to the Constitooshion, the Socialist. Did ever army march out to join “the battle all along the line” with such rotten equipment ?

AGRA.

On Co-operators and “Divi”. (1907)

From the May 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “In Focus” paragraphist of the Co-operators monthly, The Wheatsheaf, deplores in the March issue the fact that “Some co-operators care nothing about . . beauty and fragrance and expansion of life” which, it seems, are as nothing beside a 3s. “divi.” “What” be goes on deprecatingly “if quality is reduced or prices advanced or wages kept low or depreciations and reserve funds neglected, or stocks inflated or expenses carried forward,or educational committees thwarted, or the poor kept out of the movement ?—dazzling ‘divi’ makes amends for all.”

Why, certainly. If the Wheatsheaf writer thought to find it otherwise he is very much out of focus. What does he suppose co-operators take up their shares for?—”beauty and fragrance and expansion of life” ? Not much—not, that is, unless “beauty and fragrance and expansion of life” are secured for the individual co-operators through their dividends. They are in the business for precisely the same reason that the shareholder is in any other joint-stock concern—for what they can get out of it.

If it were asserted that 99 per cent. of co-operators were such first and foremost for dividends, it would probably be an understatement. I am not, of course, concerned to deny that “beauty and fragrance” and a few other odds and ends are tucked away in the. lumber rooms of their co-operative being. And I doubt not that upon show days the contemplation of these musty virtues and worm-eaten ideals is most grateful and comforting. But that any of these qualities enter into the effective every-day calculations of the average co-operator no one who knows the average co-operator on his every-day side will be prepared to assert.

What is the attraction held out by the average society—by every society of my knowledge—to induce outsiders to take up shares ? High dividends. What the bait in which the hook is imbedded ? Large profits. What is the virtue extolled above all other virtues by the great men of the co-operative movement like Holyoake ? Self-help and thrift and a house of your own out of the profits of the store, and so on. In the circumstances the really surprising thing to me is that anybody professing knowledge of the real inwardness of the movement should give expression to such hopelessly antiquated views as those of the “In Focus” writer.

I say hopelessly antiquated because at one time it was the correct thing to emphasize the idealistic side of the movement. But that was many moons agone. To-day co-operation is frankly a business, and the only ideal known to business is larger profits. Of course there is nothing against the “co-op” working its way to any success possible as a business, in the same way that any other capitalist concern works. The objection I raise is against the attempt of some of its apologists to cant about its moral effects as a progressive, enlightening, uplifting force as against the immoral effects of profit-mongering capitalism, while all the time they prate their societies are dangling “large profits” carrot-wise in front of the noses of the proletariat.

I suppose the soft and gentle co-operator—if he is very soft—believes that there is some special virtue in his business which relieves his “divi” of the coarse and vulgar stigma of robbery which attaches to all other forms of profit. I suppose it is inconceivable to him that his quarterly or annual “share-out” is derived from precisely that same method of exploitation of the working-class producer which he deplores on special occasions with such lachrymose lamentation. I suppose he lays the flattering unction to his soul that the mere fact of being employed in the elevating atmosphere of a co-operative store is sufficient compensation for the happy shop assistant he employs, whose conditions in other respects differ in no material degree from those of most other shop-assistants. Or is it because our co-operator has to pay in excess of outside prices for so many things of inferior quality that he thinks he has made sufficient sacrifice for the movement, and cannot be expected to pay high wages or provide better conditions, particularly when his employees are receiving as good a wage as he (the co-operator) is himself getting from his own capitalist employer.

However that may be, the outstanding fact remains that the co-operative movement is a business dependent for its success upon its ability to enter the capitalist arena in effective competition with capitalist, undertakings for trade. It may provide for the workers employed slightly better conditions in some respects than obtain in some other capitalist concerns. But it will do this, as capitalist Cadbury has done it, primarily because it has been shown to pay and only afterwards, and only then perhaps, for the sake of “beauty and fragrance and expansion of life.” But it will always, because it must maintain its essentially capitalist basis—there is no such thing as a Socialistic oasis in a capitalistic desert. Its dividends will always represent labour exploitation—there is no such thing as profits dissociated from robbery. And altho’ perchance it may exude a little something recognisable to its members as “beauty and fragrance and expansion of life,” there is no hope in it at all for the working-class until they have attained that level of mental development by which alone they will be able to appreciate their position and their power and give expression to that appreciation by taking over in their own interests as producers the whole of the means by which they are able to create and distribute the wealth of the world.

To that end it is merely folly to allege present day co-operative societies contribute. All they do is to bring into existence a class of petty capitalists whose interests as such, clashing with their interests as members of the working class, must tend to maintain that condition of muddled thought upon which the continued domination of the capitalist absolutely depends. For the reasons, therefore, (1) that the co-operative movement enlists its membership largely from the wage-earning class upon an anti-working class appeal; because (2) the ignorance manifested in the response is, so far as possible, maintained inside the movement; because (3) working-class ignorance is the one barrier which we as a Socialist party have to break down before we, in common with, the rest of our class, can move forward to our freedom; for briefly these three reasons we are and must always be opposed to the co-operative movement.

Agra.

On Personalities. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

A standing objection to us and our method of propaganda in press and on platform is that we are too personal. When all other criticism has been reasoned down, we can generally rely that our opponent for the time being will fling at us as the last word in the category of the objectionables—too personal. Generally, also, we get this dialectical missile hurtled at us as our worthy critic hastens without the reach of any reply we may wish to make—which provokes in what I endeavour shall be my exceedingly charitable mind, the thought that the objector is more concerned with scoring a point at our expense than with urging an argument for the sake of truth.

Nevertheless, I am aware that the same objection seriously influences some number of persons to regard us unfavourably, so that it may be worth while to occupy a little space in an enquiry into the validity and the value of the objection.

My endeavour will be to shew, not that we do not use what is called personalities, but that such personal references as we make are entirely unobjectionable and are, indeed, absolutely indispensable to the elucidation of the problems and the discussion of the questions we direct our attention to as a Socialist Party. Not, of course, that the use of personalities is peculiar to a Socialist Party. Every other body of propagandists, from the occupants of professional chairs dilating upon the wonders of a universe, to the denizens of a pot-house dilating upon the virtues of a particular brand of four ale ; from men of the standing of Ernst Haeckel to men of the lying of say, Dr. Torrey, all make the personal appeal, the personal reference, use the personal illustration. Even our friend the anti-personality man commits what he regards as the unpardonable sin in illustrating his objection by personal references to us. There is no subject under high heaven that can be discussed without personalities of one sort or another. We can hardly talk of the law of gravity without reference to Newton and without pointing our remarks upon the operation of the law by the illustration of the unfortunate men who have fallen out of balloons. Nor can we dissociate Darwin from evolution, Marx from the theory of value, Armour and Co. from the recently disclosed horrors of embalmed beef, “Labour” Leaders from political impotency and the cause of working-class confusion and so on. These are all personal references and should be, if our objector’s case is a good one, taboo. Does our objector agree ? So far as the first four cases are concerned probably he does, but he disagrees about the last mentioned. Which means that he is in favor of some personalities sometimes. Then where does he draw his line ? How does he discriminate ?

If I know my honest objector well (as I think I do), his protest is not against the use of personalities at all. It is against the unfair and the unnecessary use of them. And his idea of the unfair and unnecessary personality is that one which for certain reasons is distasteful to him. He is an admirer say of Will Crooks or John Burns. He thinks they are good men who are striving whole-heartedly for the benefit of the working class. And when we lump them together among the crowd of working-class enemies, he is indignant and declaims our use of personalities. But when in our examination of the workings of Capitalism we make denunciatory references to the pork packers of Chicago who are prepared to poison the proletariat for personal profit, he says “hear, hear,” and applauds vociferously.

Now why is this ? It is in the one case because he can appreciate enough of the facts to know that our personal references to Armour and Co. are fair and necessary and serve as a forceful illustration of our argument, while in the other the references are not fair or necessary, because he has not appreciated the facts. Yet we are continually placing on record facts in proof of our arguments against Burns and Crooks, who we hold are poisoning the minds of the proletariat. We make our personal references to them serve as illustrations in just the same way as our personal references to the poisoned pork packers.

Why does not our friend appreciate the facts as much in the one case as in the other ? Because in the case of Crooks or Burns he starts prejudiced in their favour and either will not listen to the facts at all, or dismisses them as personalities. Which simply means that he is in favor only of the personalities of approval so far as they are concerned and is in favor of the personalities of disapproval so far as we are concerned, because he usually stigmatizes us as “personality” purveyors of an objectionable type. But be it observed he approves the use of personalities in any case.

The same thing applies to our references to the I.L.P., the S.D.F. and similar bodies or members of similar bodies. It is frequently urged that we may and should go on our way preaching our gospel, regardless entirely of such men and organisations. But this is just as impossible as the omission of references to the individuals whose names are inextricably intermixed with such subjects as Evolution would be, were we discussing those subjects. As a Socialist Party, we have to face and deal with a doleful mass of working-class ignorance. To do so we have to face and deal with what we regard as contributing factors to working-class ignorance such as the organizations and individuals named. In their case we have the greater incentive because their existence is known of in every district that we can reach in our national propaganda work and we are, therefore, the more urgently called upon to shew cause why we, making for the goal which they too are ostensibly working toward, are yet dissociated from them. Moreover, even if it were possible to drop them from our consideration entirely, we should be discarding the potent illuminating force to be obtained from personal reference. Anything that may be fairly used to illustrate our argument and emphasise our attitude, should be utilised. We should be failing in our duty to our class were we to omit to do so. We should most certainly be voluntarily weakening ourselves as propagandists and to that extent should be defeating our own purposes. Incidentally we should be laying ourselves open also to the charge of cowardice from those who, knowing of the existence of these other bodies, observe that we studiously avoid tackling them.

Very well. The position narrows itself to this : personalities, so far from being objectionable, are proper and necessary, so long as they are fair. A fair personality is one which expresses that which can be substantiated as true. If any objector thinks he has a case against us he must, therefore, shew that our personal references are unfair because they are untrue. If he can find any such and will point them out to us and so prove his objection, we, for our part will be very ready to withdraw and apologise. So far as I am aware, no such unfair reference has been made by members of this Party. If it has, I am quite confident that the Party will immediately repudiate it. We are out to speak the truth as we know it to the end that the working class knowing the truth may organize upon a sound basis and proceed along right lines towards their emancipation.

That is our business. Simply that and nothing more, and if in the process we come full tilt against the words or the deeds of the heroes of our good friend the conscientious objector to personalities, I hope that, before he stultifies himself by launching the personality of opprobrium against us, he will carefully weigh with what of calm, cool dispassionate discrimination he may, the facts and the argument which we adduce in support of our attitude. Then he will be the better able to judge whether we deserve dismissal from his or any other’s consideration. In any case, I am sure a fair attention to this little screed will induce him to regard his objection to the use of personalities with rather less favor than at present.

Agra.

The Appeal to Dives. (1906)

From the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the glory of the Daily News and the increase of its circulation, a “Sweating Exhibition” was opened in the early days of last month, under the distinguished patronage of certain serene or royal highnesses who were graciously pleased to express their heartfelt sympathy with the condition of the victims of the system which their royal highnesses are also pleased to uphold, and of which they are the more or less picturesque figure-heads. We read that when she saw these brave workers Princess Henry was moved several times to say, “Oh, terrible ! terrible ! terrible !” and again “Shocking ! shocking ! shocking !” And these ejaculations seem to have so greatly affected the Daily News gentlemen that they forgot to reject the advertisement which has appeared at intervals in their journal check by jowl with the lavishly worded reports of the proceedings of their Sweating Exhibition—a large displayed advertisement which sets out the advantages of somebody’s suits at 21s.

All through the month of May the exhibition has, with the assistance of a weirdly polyglot committee of high church dignitaries, low church ecclesiastics, broad church clerics, non-conformist church pillars and a host of laymen of every church and no church—a committee ranging from my lord bishop to plain Harry Quelch—kept its doors open. The well-to-do folk in goodly numbers have followed the lead of the royal personages and passed through the tastefully arranged hall and after closely inspecting; the horrors of sweating with all the horrors carefully eliminated, have passed out again having remarked “oh, terrible ! terrible” and also “dreadful! dreadful !” which it seems is the proper thing to say in the circumstances. And the soul of the Daily News has been much gratified thereat; and the sweated workers on exhibition have (vide the Daily News) been equally gratified ; and the columns of the Daily News have been filled with much good “copy;” and a firm has written expressing their great indignation that the boxes used by them should have been discovered in process of manufacture under sweating conditions and has donated a sum to the exhibition ; and the Daily News has secured a wide and valuable advertisement out of the undertaking; and what with one thing and another it has been most excellent good business.

It was a great idea to fix upon the West End for the show. It was done purposely to attract the well-to-do. All that the well-to-do wanted was to have their consciences shaken up a little. Once effect that, and something was bound to happen. It was useless going to a poor neighbourhood as had been proven by the lack of success of the previous exhibition which had been holden in the East End. The conscience of England, rich England, that is not poor England which does not matter, could not be reached from the East End. Certainly much interest was aroused by the East End Exhibition. Representatives of large firms unable to understand how their trade rivals could undersell them, came and were astounded at what they saw. It cleared the air for them and they went away no longer seeing as through a glass darkly. Yet the sweating did not stop. On the contrary, it seemed to increase. Perhaps it was that the City firms, knowing their rivals’ secret, had been forced to adopt their methods. Its a poor Exhibition out of which nobody gets a wrinkle.

Therefore, the Daily News show came to the West End in order to lash the moral consciences of the rich and if a West End conscience expresses itself under the lash in “shockings” and “terribles” the show has done it. The Daily News people at any rate have no doubt about it. Their Exhibition “has rendered a great service to humanity;” it has successfully appealed to the moral conscience of England and has raised such a storm of indignation that, if the land is not filled with fugitive sweaters hastening without the revengeful reach of relentless wrath, it clearly ought to be.

Nevertheless, the truth compels the admission that sweating still continues and must continue so long as the worker is compelled to sell his or her labour-power on the market as a commodity and has no control over the disposal of the wealth which the labour of the worker alone produces. Just because it is inevitable that the exigences of profit manufacture,—the necessary accompaniment of capitalism,—should demand that a large proportion of labour should be redundant on the market; just because, that is, capitalist production would be impossible without an army of unemployed to keep wages down, it is inevitable that the pressure of want should force numbers of these workers to sell their labour-power at starvation prices. Not all the waves of indignation and “moral feeling” that can be conjured out of a community, can affect that result even though the community were ten thousand times more susceptible to “moral” appeals than English people are. Given capitalism, there is no escape from the mind-blunting, heart-racking misery which the annals of toil shew as their dominant and most persistent feature.

Exhibitions such as the Daily News has organised are useless—worse than useless, because the only effect they have or can have is to temporarily stimulate the flow of ludicrously impotent driblets of charity to the end that the evil plight of those unhappy persons whose condition has been brought under notice, may be in some measure palliated, and the time when drastic and adequate action may be taken, delayed. To delay that time may or may not be the deliberate intention of charity dispensers and their following, but it is indisputable that their action contributes to the dissemination of the idea that there exists a “moral conscience” which when occasion demands, can take on tangible soup-and-blanket expression sufficient to satisfy the immediate demands of the acutely impoverished. In other words, the response of the charitable is the excuse for Governmental indifference to the poverty problem, is the force that blunts the agitation of those concerned to press that problem upon a reluctant public attention and, what is of far greater importance from our point of view, helps to obscure that class issue which it is our business as a Socialist Party to keep boldly defined, and so fosters confusion in the minds of the working class. As against the Daily News and its circulation raising sensationalism, we urge that nothing short of the overthrow of capitalism itself and the establishment of Socialism can effect the eradication of poverty and all its attendant horrors. Only when the working class understand that they are poor because they have no control over the machinery of wealth production and, therefore, have no control over the wealth which they alone produce ; only when they have recognised that fact and appreciated the unalterable antagonism existing between themselves and the capitalist class in control of the machinery of wealth production, which that fact necessarily connotes, only then will they understand that by organisation on class lines and by waging unceasing war upon the dominant class until they have achieved complete victory and secured possession of political power and through that the possession also of the means of life can they ensure for themselves freedom from the possibility always present with them to-day, of reduction to the ranks of the sweated and even below. Until then, the fear of abject poverty will haunt them perpetually. Until then, sweating, as even a Daily News writer has been obliged to confess, will continue. The leopard cannot change its spots nor the Ethiopian his skin. An appeal to either to do so would not be more preposterous than the appeal to capitalism to abolish sweating is,

Agra.

Blogger's Note:

There's an interesting post which gives more background on the “Sweating Exhibition” at the following link.

Matters Parliamentary. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

That “zeal for reform” commented upon in last month’s Socialist Standard continues to actuate our legislative assembly. That parliamentary passion for progress still inflames the minds and ennobles the purpose of our faithful commons. We still make headway “with sledgehammer strokes.” Privilege and Corruption are like the notorious aunt of the celebrated Charley, “still running,” and hot foot upon their trail comes a press of stern, relentless champions of truth, righteousness, peace and political purity, with souls illumined by the vision of what might be and with minds revolted by the knowledge of what is. We are having a time.

* * *

And it’s all due to the “Labour” Party and their policy of independence. Straight from the forge and the bench and the coal seam (or nearly straight), they have come to fan the smouldering embers of reform into a fierce white heat once more. There they sit, a small but solidly welded phalanx, splendid in their isolation, unswerving in their determination, yet radiating a warm and genial glow that suffuses the whole house and “with new fervour fills the hearts of men.” Already this has borne wonderful fruit. Flogging has been abolished in the Navy—for an experimental twelve months to see whether the Captains can manage to rub along without it. This is a victory for humanitarianism ! The Chinese Labour Ordinance has been shewn to be not such a bad affair after all—certainly not slavery—and the Government’s decision not to interfere for the present has been upheld. This is a victory for truth ! Then the expenditure on armaments is not to be reduced which, although not a victory for retrenchment may be reckoned a victory for efficiency ! Also the fiscal status quo has been affirmed and the ghost of Protection has been laid—-a victory for industrial freedom this !

* * *

Three separate and distinct resolutions have been passed in favour of payment of members, payment of election expenses, and old age pensions subject to certain necessary precautions as to when they shall be put into operation and the scope of their application which are left to the decision of the Government. This is not exactly a victory for anything as the Government has laid it down that the time was never more inopportune for increased expenditure. The Government has a passion for economy in these directions. Yet whole-souled reformers need not be despondent. All in good time we shall have payment of members and in the interval doubtless public and private subscriptions will come to the aid of the poor but honest and honourable member for Stoke whose gallant struggle with adversity has done so much to force this (to him) pressing question upon the attention of a sympathetic house. In these matters we must, of course, make haste slowly lest financial disaster overtake us. Mr. Ward will understand this and although he is not attached to the Parliamentary “Labour” Party per se and is therefore not “independent,” he will, with Mr. Roberts who does belong to the “Labour Party” and is ” independent,” repose his perfect confidence in the intentions of the Government and will refuse to embarrass it. It is this spirit of sweet reasonableness which has endeared the “Labour” members to their capitalist fellow-workers and enabled them to achieve in so short a time so many magnificent triumphs. Which shews how, when Capital and Labour work hand-in-hand, apparently insurmountable difficulties may be overcome ! We should all be very grateful.

* * *

Nevertheless, and at the risk of incurring the opprobrium of those who rejoice in the work of the “Labour” members, we are not grateful. We find no consolation in such victories. Such exhibitions of sweet reasonableness do not appeal to us. We have no confidence in the intentions of the Government because we know the Government and its intentions. It is a capitalist government and its intentions are to maintain capitalist domination. Capitalist domination means continued working-class enslavement; working-class poverty and unhappiness. It intends to maintain the power of the class it represents by a carefully simulated sympathy for the wishes of those who claim to voice working-class requirements. That is its game. It will kill the working-class agitation with kindness.

* * *

It will accept any number of reform resolutions of the payment of members order. Why not ? They are not dangerous. On the contrary, they are advantageous to capitalist interests because they obscure the class line, they blur the antagonism existing between Capital and Labour. They convey the idea of a common concern, a common progress towards a mutual objective. If necessary the Government may even translate the resolution into practice without trepidation. It will if pressed. Yet the position of the working class will not even then be affected. How can it be ? Such legislative enactments simply do not touch the problem of poverty. But the Government is not pressed even on such immaterial matters as these. The Government accepts the resolutions on the understanding that it will fix its own time to introduce a bill and impose its own limits upon the scope of the measure. It could accept a resolution for the socialization of the means of production upon such terms.

* * *

And the “Labour” members accept these conditions without protest and have faith in the intentions of the Government ! Such sweet reasonableness ? Such damnable stupidity rather. What are such victories worth? What is the independence of the “Labour Party” worth? What are the members of the “Labour Party” worth ? And these are the men we are asked to support. These are the methods we are asked to approve. These are the individuals who swell with indignation when their actions are adversely criticised. Why, ordinary hack Liberals have more determination. The boasted “progress” they recognise and proclaim as little short of flummery. They are waiting, they say, for the curtain to rise upon a stage set for what they consider will be serious business. Some of them are prepared to move resolutions against their own party and persist, against the appeals of their own chief, to a division. But the “Labour” members are loyal to their chief. And their chief is mightily concerned because he thinks he heard another honourable member say “damn”—while political refugees are being deported back to Russia and there, on the authority of a Rothschild, shot out of hand ; and the working-class slave and die waiting in their ignorance for the men who claim to be fighting on their behalf, to act.

* * *

If they had any grit, if they had half the courage of the professions some of them have made outside the House of Commons, the “Labour ” M.P.’s would break through every form and custom of Parliament to force the hands of the Government on behalf of their class. In the past men of determination have single-handed achieved their purpose in the teeth of the whole 670 representatives of capitalism. And there are a score and ten “Labour” representatives; and they have confidence in the intentions of the Government and decline to embarrass it ! “They have no intention of pressing the Government” (Keir Hardie, 19.3.06); and their views on the land question are identical with those of the Minister of Agriculture (W. Crooks, 17.3.06) ; and they are so interested in the prolongation of the life of the present administration that Crooks, Shackleton, Snowden and others vote for the Government and against a reduction in the land forces moved by a Liberal against his Party. These men of peace and progress ; these men who are the new force in politics; these “leaders” of working-class thought; these champions of independence; these harbingers of a new era—faugh ! An ounce of civet good Mr. Apothecary while Mr. Thorne and Mr. Crooks act as advertisement touts for works on the hire-purchase system.

* * *

Outside the House, however, addressing audiences who believe in them and upon whom they rely for their standing (and their salaries), they can change their tactics. Some of them can wax quite truculent. The talk of their fellow M.P.’s they deride as piffle and the forms of the House are childish and silly. Inside the House they make slavish conformation to the childish forms, and valuable contribution to the derisive piffle. They are clothed with respectability and obsessed by desire to create favorable impressions. But outside the “whispering humbleness” can be shed. They are only anxious to drop the cackle and get to business. And as for confidence in the intentions of the Government, why—! They have no delusions as to what their reception will be when they demand substantial concessions.

* * *

“The moment,” says Mr. Keir Hardie at Swansea on the 17th ulto., “it became known that the Labour Representation Committee meant encroachment on privilege and monopoly, the fight against it would become earnest” and —

* * *

“There has been no contempt shewn in the treatment of Labour so far. Contemptuous treatment can only be extended with safety to those who are not successful and Labour has now succeeded. Vigorous and determined opposition will, no doubt, be offered to the claims of Labour WHEN its advocates demand the substantial concessions and changes which ALONE can benefit the class which the Labour Party has been specially created to give FIRST assistance to,” says Mr. J. R. Clynes in the “Labour Record.’

* * *

Then why hasn’t it become known that the L.R.C. means encroachment upon privilege? And when will “Labour’s” advocates demand those substantial concessions which alone can benefit the workers ? And why, it the Labour Party has been specially created to give first attention to these substantial concessions, haven’t they been given first attention ? What are they fooling about ? Why don’t they drop the cackle and get to business? We are tired of their damnable faces and their smug conceits and their oppressive respectability.

* * *

They would not matter were it not for the unfortunate fact that a considerable section of the working class who sit in darkness, are content to pin their hopes of beneficial change to these gentlemen. To us it is all important that the working class should understand why they are poor. Until they do, they cannot take effective action. And the only way by which that may be accomplished is by the consistent and emphatic declaration of the class struggle. The class struggle is submerged by the Parliamentary pirouettes of the Labour Party marrionettes and the working class mind is confused by their vacillations and quick changes. That is why we protest more particularly against the actions of the “Labour” M.P’s. It is our business to hit as hard as possible those individuals whose work is most calculated to keep the workers in darkness. Just as the most dangerous enemy is the false friend, so the most dangerous working class leader is he who, attached to the working class by birth and breeding, leads that class into an intellectual morass while ostensibly helping them in the direction of their desires. Labour, said Mr. Clynes, has now succeeded. It has—in raising another obstacle to its own progress.

Agra.

The Discomfiture of Lawler Wilson. (1908)

Party News from the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fine debate at Battersea.

On the 3rd ulto, the debate arranged between J. Fitzgerald of the S.P.G.B., and Lawler Wilson, probably the ablest platform opponent of Socialism, duly came off. The proposition discussed was—

Does the Capitalist Class live upon the robbery of the Working Class?

The Battersea Town Hall, capable of holding 1,700 people, was packed, and the arguments of the disputants were followed with the closest interest.

Although Mr. Wilson came with something of a reputation for sustaining his case against representatives of various bodies claiming to be Socialist, Fitzgerald had no difficulty in tearing that case to tatters. As the S.P.G.B., according to the most generous allowance of Mr. Quelch, and others who are concerned to belittle the Party upon the score of its numerical weakness, consists of no more than a dozen or two members; and as 1,700 doesn't go many times into a dozen or two; and as a large proportion of the audience frequently gave expression to its endorsement of the Socialist position as set out by Fitzgerald, it follows that our view of the result of the debate is not shared among ourselves alone. After the comparatively easy task that, according to report and to his own statement, Lawler Wilson had in previous bouts with alleged Socialist champions, it is probable that he is himself a little surprised at his failure to convince his audience in Battersea.

The reason for our easy victory consists, of course, in the fact that our representative stood upon the impregnable rock of Marxian economics, understood the exact position of the working class, as a class, in the economy of capitalist production, and was not to be shifted a hair's breadth from the direct issue of the inevitability of the exploitation of labour — given private ownership of the means of life — by any manipulation of figures, however dexterous, that his opponent thought proper to indulge in. To our man, the question of immediate moment was not as to the extent of the robbery of the workers, but the establishment of the fact of the robbery. Once that was fixed, Lawler Wilson's case went to the winds, and Lawler Wilson knew it none better. Therefore we had most entertaining feats of high-class jugglery, of intellectual gymnastics of a quite amazing order, and all the other artifices by which a clever debater may sometimes cover his discomfiture and divert attention from the material point in dispute, which, to face directly and frankly, would mean his inevitable defeat.

To do Mr. Wilson bare justice, it has to be confessed that he is a red-herring trailer of the very first class. Which is the reason for the measure of success he has achieved in his discussions with those other champions of Socialism whose equipment, unfortunately, consisted, as to nine parts, of good intentions, and as to one part only of Socialist science. Even in the case of champions of wider knowledge attached to one or other of the parties misnamed Socialist, Mr. Wilson, being an exceedingly 'cute and ready-witted person, is able to easily score debating points based upon the vacillating policy and general political ineptitude of their organisations. So he is able to require of them that they shall defend the multitudinous inconsistencies of their parties' actions to the confusion of the pivot issue.

Up against the S.P.G.B., however, he found himself robbed of his thunder. The obscurantisms and political thimble rigging of the other parties are the subject of our consistent denunciation. We had to be dealt with, therefore, on our own record, which was unfortunate seeing that our record does not lend itself either to odious comparison or gibing criticism. Clearly it was a case with us of facing the issue, or—verbal pyrotechnics in conjunction with expert figure-fuddling. Mr. Wilson did his best in the latter department, but his pyrotechnics were very damp and sorry squibs, while in the end he as unhappily for himself, obliged to swallow his own political hotch-potch.

Fitzgerald gave no rope. He nailed his opponent down upon the fact of working-class robbery first, and then proceeded to an examination of the celebrated figures. It is notable that Mr. Wilson, grown hold by the inability of other opponents to deal with them, had written to Justice daring the S.D.P. to prove these figures false. It is not less notable that the S.D.P. through Justice made no endeavour to do so, Fitzgerald flatly refused to accept the figures and denied their authenticity. Time and time again he challenged Mr. Wilson to name his authorities. But the wily Wilson evaded the challenge, as he had endeavoured to evade the central issue. In the last speech of the debate, however, relying upon the fact that his opponent would have no opportunity of further reply, or goaded by the stinging irony of Fitzgerald's last speech, he proceeded with sublime effrontery, to quote his authorities. The result was an effect of quite dramatic intensity.

Mr. Fitzgerald, he said, has asserted that I will not give you my authorities. I will do so. They are the "Statistical Abstract of the Board of Trade," the Fabian "Facts for Socialists," Chiozza Money's "Riches and Poverty" — Here Fitzgerald leaped to his feet. Mr. Chairman, he shouted, here (producing the books) is the "Statistical Abstract," here are the "Facts for Socialists," here is Money's "Riches and Poverty." With these in my hand I again challenge Mr. Wilson to justify his figures. He got no further. The audience rose at him with a great roar of cheering, and the famous figures went the way of the anti-Socialist case. Notwithstanding cries from all parts of the hall, Mr. Wilson preferred to accept the discomfiture of the denouement rather than touch the books flung on the table before him.

Altogether the debate was most successful from the Party point of view and will doubtless be productive of much good. The Battersea boys are to be congratulated upon their organisation of the meeting, and have the satisfaction of knowing that their work, by making the meeting possible, contributed largely to the result.

Agra.