Socialism V. Religion. (1908)

From the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr H. M. Hyndman, having been badly mangled (by his brother Rothstein and others) on the German war scare issue which, in conjunction with brother Blatchford, he was good enough to offer the general Press as an excellent subject for a silly season discussion, has broken out in a fresh place. We have now to beware of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestantism has been played out “by the growth of popular science and freethought,” but apparently the same growth is playing in the power of the Pope, or the religious organisation the Pope is the figurehead of. Really, H. M. H. has mistaken his vocation. He should be where positive genius for “scare heads” would be appreciated. He is the silly season writer par excellence. He can provide an acceptable substitute for the great gooseberry every time.

Clericalism, high church, low church, Roman church, “Labour” church, and tin Bethelism of any calibre, are all in the ruck of reaction. Their power for evil depends, so far as we are concerned, upon the measure of working-class ignorance prevailing. Given that change in social conditions that will free men economically, the religious forms and influences which have been built up and maintained upon economic subjection, must go. Our business, therefore, is to direct the working-class mind toward that change of social conditions.

But does not the influence of the churches tell against our efforts ? It does where it can, of course, but its effect is not one to be troubled about, and very far indeed from being strong enough to warrant our departure from the course mapped out for us. The forces that affect the stomach are on our side. The armies of mankind move upon their stomachs. A starving man, offered the bread that perishes or the water of life, grabs at the bread every time—naturally.

The evolution of industry creates the starving man. We show him the way by which alone he may find the full satisfaction of his needs. The churches pretend to show him the way to heaven. The hollowness of the pretence may not appeal to him. The emptiness of the offer does. Hence the dilemma of the churches and their efforts to compromise on blankets and coal tickets. But it won’t do. The futility of charitable schemes and the offence of charitable schemes are alike too palpable. The Socialist alone holds the field. He alone can show the reason for the starving man. He alone can show the starving man the road to the ever full dinner pail.

Therefore we need not trouble about the churches. If they get too near our path we may give them a passing thump with the club of our argument. We can do that in our stride. As for concentrating upon the iniquity of “the Holy Catholic Church,” or turning out of our path to engage it, that is sheer Hyndmaniacal nonsense. The Holy Catholic Church may go hang. When we have nothing more important to do it might well be possible to amuse ourselves by crumpling it up. But we have a long way to go before we can afford the time.

Alegra.

The Trade Union Congress. (1908)

 

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Union Congress opened at Nottingham with a notable address from the chairman. Let the Daily News speak :—

”Mr. Shackleton’s address was largely occupied with the great social problems of the country at large—the drink question, the education question, the care of old age, and even dangers in foreign policy. On all of these joints he took a strong and definitely Liberal position.”

And that’s all that requires to be said for it. Mr. Shackleton made it quite clear that he had not a glimmer of an idea of the working-class position in relation to any of the questions touched upon. Either that, or he was concerned to obscure his knowledge. Mr. Shackleton, we are constantly informed, is the “strong man” of the Labour movement. He is. His strength lies in the definitely Liberal, and therefore pro-capitalist, and therefore anti-working-class, position he may be relied upon to occupy.

For example :

Mr. Shackleton thought the fact that Trade Unions’ returns shewed 8.2 per cent. of skilled workers unemployed in July of this year as compared with 3.7 last year, was one—calling “for the serious consideration of the Government” ! He affirmed that “the great political and social measure of the Session was undoubtedly the Licensing Bill” ; that the great question which is on everybody’s lips is what will the House of Lords do “when the Bill came before it” ; and that “Labour was prepared to fight the Lords on the Drink evil.”

But—

“The outstanding feature of a notable speech was the appeal to the Government to convene in London an international conference on labour.

He cited the precedent set by the German Emperor eighteen years ago. Since then the spread of the international character of the labour movement had been the most striking feature in the Trade Union world, and the time had come for another conference.”—Daily News.

Verily a strong man. A man head and shoulders above all the hosts of Israel. He would refer the unemployed problem to a government of capitalists who depend upon the maintenance of the unemployed problem. His most important Bill of the Session is the Licensing Bill which doesn’t matter a brass farthing to the working class. And the scintillating darling of his genius for statesmanship is an 18 years old proposal of that earnest and far-sighted labour leader, the German Emperor of that day, for an international conference on labour, to “include representatives of the European and United States (capitalist) Governments” who are opposed by the nature of their interests to the interests of the working class !

Evidently the fraternal delegates from America were impressed. “When Mr. Shackleton was in America,” said Mr. Creamer, “he described Mr. Gompers as a, ‘grand old man.’ I cannot do better than describe Mr. Shackleton as a ‘grand young man.'” Mr. Creamer doubtless meant that Mr. Shackleton was following in Mr. Gompers’ footsteps. Those who know Mr. Gompers as the chief labour lieutenant of the capitalist class in America, and know the work of Mr. Shackleton in England, will doubtless agree that Mr. Creamer “could do no better” in the way of accurate description. Mr. Gompers is at present actively engaged in assisting Mr. Bryan, capitalist candidate for the Presidency.

The same Mr. J. J. Creamer in the course of his address said: “In the Southern States the movement against child labour was growing and he hoped ultimately that all children and married women would be excluded from the mills.” He continued: “I want to congratulate this Congress . . . particularly on its president” (Mr. Shackleton). It is not recorded that Mr. Shackleton, the champion of child labour in mills, blushed noticeably. This is a real test of greatness !

With such a brilliant lead from such a brilliant leader the Congress settled down to its work, and notwithstanding the difficulties of the position, managed to follow the line marked out for it, with wonderful restraint, if not lamb-like docility. There was a full week of dull and stodgy talking, only lightened here and there by the contributions of such advanced thinkers as Mr. Harvey, M.P. Speaking on the motion that the Congress do all in its power to restrict Sunday labour, in the future, to the narrowest possible limits, this worthy person said : “Working men are not wholly free from blame. They are too much inclined to ask for Sunday excursions. I believe that the strength of our family and national life lies in the keeping of the Divine commandments.”

These selfish, luxury-loving working men, spending their substance in riotous living, and rushing about the four corners of the globe on a Sunday, instead of remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy ! But who is this cheerful Harvey and who let him out of the museum of Mediaevialities ?

Once or twice proceedings threatened to grow stormy, as when somebody wanted a public enquiry into the methods of the Salvation Army’s “elevator” work, but as the Salvation Army is the one institution we cannot do without (according to Mr. MacDonald); the organisation upon which the “Labour” Party in the House relies for its information on working-class affairs, “the tumult and the shouting” died down into an agreement to leave the matter in the hands of the Parliamentary Committee.

Against this one organisation that the “Labour” Party cannot do without, shameless and unblushing sweating, undercutting and black-legging, have been alleged and proven to the satisfaction of most men outside the Salvation Army’s own ranks. (In the ranks, probably, lying to the glory of God, is pardonable and permissible). The Parliamentary Committee will “deal” with this ; but the supply of blacklegs through other agencies, to fill the places of Continental workers on strike, is a matter reflecting upon the international credit of an imperial race—and so forth.

With these occasional breaks in the monotony everything went through “swimmingly,” and everybody appears to have been satisfied. Sheaves of resolutions were disposed of in a “business-like” way by talking on them for an hour or so and finally referring them to the Government who won’t do anything, or to the Parliamentary Committee who can’t. This, of course, is of no great consequence, as nine-tenths of the resolutions didn’t matter, and those that did the delegates seemed quite incapable of handling.

Such, incapacity is quite understandable when it is remembered that the delegates are, unfortunately, representatives of constituencies of ignorance. While that ignorance persists, we shall have the mortification of witnessing our own class annually wasting its money and its strength in Congress meetings, that do nothing quite as well as they demonstrate to the world of capitalism that the day when the profit-monger shall fear for his hoard is not yet.

For ourselves, there is nothing we can do except that which we have consistently done from our inception until now,—point out the futility of anything less than Socialism and urge the necessity for working-class organisation in industry as in politics, for the establishment of Socialism. That is the message our men have to carry to they who sit in darkness inside and outside Trade Unions—anywhere in fact where the workers do most congregate. In order to do it we must expose fraud or foolery, even though it is expressed through the workers’ most revered leaders.

That is a thankless task for which we shall probably continue to reap for some time more kicks than ha’pence. But as there is no other party in the country to do it, and as it must be done, we are not deterred by present contumely or indifference. Sooner or later the policy of the Socialist Party of Great Britain must win. We are in the Party that cannot lose ; working for the cause that cannot fail. If the workers or their leaders don’t like the truth we cannot help it. Children don’t like medicine, but when their case gets parlous they have to take it. The truth about the present Trade Union Congress is that it is a ghastly farce, a waste of time and money, and only of advantage to the delegates who, through it, get an annual junket at the workers’ expense.

Alegra.

Sans ceremony. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The effect of the recent decision of Mr. Justice Neville in the case where action was taken against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants by one of its own members, on the ground that contributions by the Society to the funds of the Labour Party were illegal, is that any association of the working class has a right to do what it likes with its own. According to Lord Wolverhampton (Daily Chronicle, 21/7/08) “the whole complicated machinery of civilisation is carried on by the working class,” “upon whom society depends.”

***

The whole of society depends upon the work of the working class. The working class is entitled to do what it likes with its own—the wealth it produces as a result of its work. Therefore it is established that the working class may legally proceed to expropriate Lord Wolverhampton and the rest of the dependent capitalists who, without legal title, annex anything between two-thirds and four-fifths of the wealth produced by the workers.

***

As law-abiding and right-respecting citizens, Lord Wolverhampton and his fellow capitalists will, of course, cheerfully resign themselves to the process—I don’t think !

***

Much outcry has recently been raised by “humanitarians” against the method of feeding pythons in the Zoological Gardens with live kids. The Socialist outcry is against the capitalist python feeding upon live children. “Humanitariamsm,” when distinguished from Socialism, is cant or ignorance.

***

Mr. Vanderlyn, F.Z.S., claims against the “Humanitarians” that the feeding of the Zoological pythons is a satisfaction of Nature’s demands which has for its result “the survival of the fittest.” The anti-Socialist “Humanitarians” in the field of human effort make the same claim.

***

The survival of the fittest is an expression of a natural law operating under all conditions. The conditions prevailing at any given time determine the character of the product of the law. Under conditions of exploitation the biggest robber survives. Under conditions conducive to the production of muddle-headedness, the “Humanitarian,” the “Ethicist,” and the rest of them survive. Under Socialism the workers survive. Natural law justifies nothing. It explains many things.

***

Mr. Th. Rothstein, S.D.P. Executive, quotes (Justice, 11/7/08) from the organ of Bronterre O’Brien, this passage: “Oh, Baring, Baring! (Baring was the Chancellor of the Exchequer of those days) many a better man than you was hanged at the lamp-post; and our sincere prayer is that no Englishman may ever again suffer for burglary or sheep stealing so long as enormous culprits like you cheat the gallows of its due.”

***

We have a weakness in the Socialist Standard for downright language. Our delight is to call spades, spades, but when we do, we are, according to Mr. Rothstein’s fellow members of the S.D.P., merely abusive. Nevertheless, Mr. Rothstein properly applauds the “robust fashion” of Bronterre O’Brien’s criticism, and thinks it a “sickly generation” that is too respectable to emulate it. I hope now, that Mr. Rothstein will lead the S.D.P. to see that we are doing them a power of good by shewing them in “robust fashion” the error of their ways. Because they are still miles out of the proper track, and not being a “sickly generation” we shall not be too respectable to tell them a lot more unpleasant truths before we are through. I should be glad to know they are in a mind to appreciate the force of our criticism. Perhaps Mr. Rothstein will drop me a line when the conversion is complete.

Alegra.

Fiscal fatuity. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Chiozza Money is a ‘cute man ; but he nods at least as often as Homer. Just now he is engaged in making “One Hundred Points for Free Trade,” or rather, one hundred points against Protection, in the Daily News. This is one of them :

“The Protectionist theory is that imports, especially imports of manufactures, cause want, unemployment, and pauperism.

Well, every year India imports large quantities of manufactured goods, and nearly all of them are imported from the United Kingdom.”

***

Mr. Money might have found—it would have been a difficult job, but he might have found—a happier example. In India the people die literally like flies from “want, unemployment, and pauperism” and their results. The onus is on the Free Trader to explain the absolute unredeemed impotency of Free Trade in “our great dependency.”

***

The Protectionist is of course in no better case. He has to explain why “want, unemployment and pauperism” are rampant in every industrial country where his pet nostrum is in operation. Protectionist and Free Trader are alike unable to face the facts. They have to resort to all sorts of mean and pitiable dodges to escape facing facts. From a working-class standpoint there isn’t the worth of a tinker’s anathema between them or their precious systems.

***

Poverty is the result of certain definitely ascertained causes. Fiscal schemes do not remotely affect those causes. The workers are poor because they have no control of the product of their labour and are, therefore, robbed of the great proportion of it. Free Trade or Protection may, in certain cases and under certain conditions, result in a particular trade or trades receiving a fillip. To that extent there might be more work available. But that would also necessarily mean more robbery. And the workers are poor because they are robbed.

***

Besides, the fillip must in the nature of capitalist things die down. Supply would overtake and outstrip available demand. There is not a single commodity in general requisition that the present machinery of production could not satisfy the effective demand for several times (often hundreds of times) over. Given the fillip and competitive machinery would be working at breakneck speed to be first in the market with the goods. Result : overproduction, slump, unemployment, starvation and the miseries necessarily attendant thereon.

***

The process is characteristic of free trade and protected countries indifferently. If the worker is employed he is robbed. That is the unalterable condition of his employment. He must make a profit for his master. If he is not employed he starves. In either case he is no more than a pawn in the competitive game. He is dependent upon the fluctuations of the market—upon the employer who works him at top speed until he has produced too much, and then throws him off until the surplus is exhausted.

***

The waste, necessarily the accompaniment of this competitive game, is only obviated under capitalism through monopoly. With one source of supply the output may be regulated to the demand. But Free Trader and Protectionist alike shriek (publicly) against monopoly, and howl dismally against waste. They are just mean dodgers or abnormal ignoramuses—they want to eat their cake and have it. The trust (monopoly) is the perfection of production. The trust stage is inevitable. It will produce most economically. It will save labour. It will mean more unemployment. And it is inevitable—Free Trade or Protection notwithstanding.

***

Mr. Money’s note has lured me into an article. I am sorry ; but I am a victim of circumstances. I intended no more than a par. But the fiscal folly of the Free Trade Moneys and the Zollverein Wilsons always cause me to curse privately and slam publicly. They are so dam silly ! The whole point is that “want and unemployment and pauperism” are inevitable under capitalism ; that although Free Trade or Protection may conceivably give an impetus to a certain trade it cannot absorb the available labour, and even if it could, labour would still be robbed ; that there is no explanation of the poverty problem other than that given by the Socialist; that there is no solution other than that offered by the Socialist.

***

The working class of every capitalist country in the world is in a state of chronic “want, unemployment, and pauperism” because it does not own the wealth it alone produces. It doesn’t own the wealth because the land and machinery of production are owned by the capitalist class. It never will own its product until it owns and controls this land and machinery. And it never will own and control the land and machinery until it thoroughly understands its own position and the conditions of change, and has organised its forces for the specific object of effecting that change.

***

The work of the Socialist Party as against Tariff Reformer, Social Reformer, Fiscal Laissez Faireian, or what not, is, therefore, the education and organisation of the working class for the overthrow of capitalism through the capture of the powers of government in order to secure the product of labour from being annexed by the capitalist class. Virtually the working class is in possession of the machinery of production since the whole process from top to bottom is in working-class hands. The workers now require to assert their possession and secure it, and at the same time the result of their toil, by the control of the fighting arms through political conquest. Simply that.

Alegra.

The Only Way for Clerks. (1908)

From the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Word to the National Union.

.

Mr. Herbert H. Elvin is a hard-shelled Baptist—or so it would seem from his biographical notes, which appear (with portrait) in the March issue of The Clerk. He is also the General Secretary of the National Union of Clerks. In the capacity of Baptist he is after souls, and is still, we learn, “in great demand as a local preacher.” As the secretary of the N.U.C. he is concerned with the salvation of bodies. In both departments his methods are the same. He builds temples to Ignorance and invites the unregenerate to come in and worship in order that they may be saved. His success as a Baptist church-builder may be unquestionable—I neither know nor care. But we of the S.P.G.B. are concerned with the measure of his success in the politico-economic sphere—meaning by success in this connection, the extent to which he may be able to induce clerical workers to regard his economic and political temple as a sanctuary from the deep damnation of their servitude.

Clerks have generally been regarded, not without reason, as amongst

THE MOST DESPERATE OF ALL THE DULLARDS

of the working class. The pathetic intensity of their passion for respectability, and the affectation of aloofness from the “corduroy brigade” which, as members of a “profession,” they have, in the past particularly, displayed, have made their organisation a distinctly difficult task. Not even such an eminently respectable society as the N.U.C. seems to be, could have inspired in them any other than a feeling of lofty disdain had it not been that the operations of a highly organised capitalist system, ruthless in its working, and certainly entirely regardless of any suppositious differences between owners of stovepipe hats and smokers of the black cutty, have crushed the clerk into some sort of recognition of the fact that, in common with all other working-class members, he is no more than a commodity in the labour market—and a very redundant commodity at that. Having, however, reached the point where he is beginning to see that his interests are, after all, bound up with those of the horny-handed sons of labour, it is of all things undesirable that he should have his devolopment warped by being put upon a polltico-economic dietry which, while it may be good enough for the sustenance of crustacean Baptists, is absolutely starvation fare for a healthy member of the working class.

Of course, Mr. Elvin cannot help being merely silly in the position of advisor to the clerks,

HIS BIBLICAL EXEMPLARS

and his contemporary religious mentors are hardly likely to guide him in the path that is economically right; and when a young man has been brought up to regard these as the embodiment of all the virtues, it is not surprising if he gives off “views” that are only notable for their, shall we say, absurdity. I sympathise with him in his unhappy position, but I must, all the same, baste his precious views. This one, for an example—

“We should not allow our branches to become mere debating societies to discuss the good and the ill of Toryism, Liberalism, Socialism, or any other ism outside trade unionism. To effect any great reform in the condition of the clerk we must first of all weld all clerks into a powerful organisation, and, knowing what I do of the temperament of the clerk, I am fully satisfied that we shall never be able to accomplish this if members try to bring the Union under the control of some political party, rather than work disinterestedly for the benefit of clerks as a whole.”

Now I will defy Ramsay MacDonald, Robert Blatchford, Bruce Glasier, or any other accepted exponent of the art, to crowd more undiluted piffle into so small a compass. Toryism, Liberalism, and Socialism are taboo in the Union. The clerks are to regard Socialism as on a par with Toryism and Liberalism so far as the realisation of their “great reform” is concerned. It is of no consequence that Liberalism and Toryism are the political expressions of the interests of the master class against which the clerks are to organise themselves. It is of no account that these masters are in politics simply in order to maintain their economic supremacy and the continued enslavement of the clerk. It does not matter that the Socialist Party stands in irreconcilable antagonism to the capitalist parties and is the only party through which the clerks and other workers may achieve any material improvement in their conditions. This is outside the purview of the trade-unionised clerk. He may come in, be he Tory or Liberal or nothing. He is to

KEEP MUM UPON EVERYTHING

except the increase of the strength of the trade union, the payment of his dues, and other matters appertaining to the union, until there is a sufficient body “organised” to warrant a move being made toward that “great reform” and then—well, we will make a move !

I wonder whether Mr. Elvin has any definite notion of what that move must be toward, and how the N.U.C. is to proceed. I understand he does not favour strikes. He is opposed to discussion that may have the effect of opening the eyes of the politically blind. Does he, then, hope to peacefully persuade the masters to concede the “great reform”—whatever that may be ? Surely even a Baptist is sufficiently awake to know the futility of that hope. How then ?

Mr. Elvin seems to see, rather mistily, that he is up against a dead wall. And he takes refuge in “pothry.” It’s an old dodge, and rather a favourite with those who are faced at the end of their argumentative tether with an irrepressible note of interrogation. Mr. Elvin’s refuge is Whittier, who exhorts the reader thus—

Perish party, perish clan,

Strike together while ye can.

and finishes

Let your hearts together be

  As the heart of one.

which is all doubtless very nice and inspiriting, but doesn’t get us much “forrarder,” seeing that we don’t know yet what we are to strike at, or how we are to strike. We cannot strike economically because strikes are taboo. We cannot hope to induce the masters to give us our “great reform.” Much more powerful organisations of much more highly skilled workers, e.g., the engineers, have failed dismally in that direction. And we cannot strike politically because, being at

POLITICAL SIXES AND SEVENS

(owing, in part, probably, to political discussion being barred in the Union) we cannot “strike together” as exhorted by the poet. On the whole it would seem easier to “Let our hearts together beat as the heart of one” !

But to do Mr. Elvin justice, he is not quite done yet. He seems to be, although he does not say so directly, in favour of the move toward the “great reform” being made if all else fails, through the medium of the Labour Party. After all the “no politics in the Union” ukase, this seems to be a little confusing. Therefore Mr. Elvin hastens to assure us that the Labour Party is not a political party “in the general usage of the term.” It is only a party taking political action. If that also is not clear perhaps this will be. “It” (the Labour Party) “is a conglomeration of the political parties. It is a union of those who are divided on questions like Home Rule, Education (sectarian or secular), Disestablishment of the Church; but are of one mind on matters affecting the interests of the workers.”

Accept this for the fact it is not. Apparently Mr. Elvin believes that political parties “in the general usage of the term,” are only concerned with questions like Home Rule, Disestablishment, etc. He doesn’t seem to have an inkling of the truth that just as (according to him) the Labour Party is of one mind on matters affecting the interests of the workers, so the other parties are of one mind on matters affecting the interests of the capitalists. If the Labour Party was of one mind on questions of real working-class interest, if it was a political party “in the general usage of the term,” it would not be the conglomeration of pettifogging palliative-mongers purveying preposterous pills for economic earthquakes that it is. It is as hopeless as the poet, as futile as Mr. Elvin’s creed. It cannot effect any material improvement in the position of the working class.

But even if it could, how is it possible to secure the adhesion of Liberal and Tory clerks in the N.U.C. to the Labour Party if discussion of party politics is not allowed ? To talk as Mr. Elvin talks about the difference between politics and party politics is simply more piffle. Political questions are broadly associated with political parties. Essential working-class politics are the politics of the party that is in irreconcilable opposition to the political parties of the capitalist class. That working-class party is not the Labour Party. It is the Socialist Party. Yet Mr. Elvin puts

SOCIALISM IN THE CART

with Liberalism and Toryism and hauls them all outside his precious Union.

All this “baffle-headedness” and positively paralysing stupidity may come of being a Baptist, or it may not. We of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are not concerned with the Baptist or greatly with Mr. Elvin. But when Mr. Elvin the Baptist, takes up the position of an instructor of the working class and pours out the vials of his drivel upon the heads of those of our class who have in their ignorance elected him to their chieftainship, we step in to show the folly of the position and the disastrous results that must accrue. If Mr. Elvin is honest (and we have no reason for the present for supposing him otherwise), let him reconsider himself and see if he cannot fit himself adequately for the post of working-class advisor—if that is what he desires to be. If, however, his union members prefer to follow his present lead ; if their action is not guided in the future by a clearer apprehension of the position they occupy as clerks in the working-class movement than their secretary seems to possess, they are in for some extremely painful experiences. But if they will take every opportunity of discussing the political situation in the light of the information the Socialist has; if they will study Socialism and let their actions be guided by Socialist science, they will go out to the fight—it will be a fight, sure enough—with no delusions about the capitulation of the opposing forces, with no misapprehensions on the score of the advantages to be derived from this or that big or little reform. They will know that there is no reform worth much more than a tinker’s anathema from the working-class point of view. They will know that the only thing worth organising for, striving for, if needs be, dying for, is the control of the means by which they live. Without this control they have no voice in the disposal of the product of labour. They are slaves without the security that the chattel slave possessed. Their position is always precarious, always one of unhappy struggle ; a position which is not, nor can be, altered in any single important aspect by any reform whatever. But given ownership and control of the means of living, and they have the guarantee of all the material things of life.

THE SLAVE HAS CEASED ;

the master of slaves has ceased. One hundred per cent. of the produce goes to the producer. The struggle for bread is done.

How may this control be secured ? Through organisation on class-conscious lines in the workshop and office and factory ; and in the political party (in the common usage of that term) that is out specifically to wrest political power from the representatives of the capitalist class in the legislature, in order that control of the machinery of production may be secured by the working class without danger of being blown to the Baptists’ devil by the armed forces, which are, of course, under the direction of the dominant power in Parliament.

The Socialist economic organisation has yet to be evolved. But the political party that answers all requirements, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, is here. The Socialist Party is the political party that the stupidity of Mr. Elvin places outside the union in company with the Liberal and Tory Parties, yet it is none the less the party the clerical workers must join sooner or later. Therefore it behoves them to treat as cavalierly as they think fit their secretarial exhortation, and discuss political action—party politics—to the top of their bent, particularly the politics of the Socialist Party.

If they require further information or literature a line to the office of the Party will bring it. Or if Mr. Elvin would like to defend his position or attack ours, we will give him all the rope he wants. And if the worst happens, his blood be on his own head !

Alegra.

Random Notes. (1907)

From the May 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bernard Shaw has a three column article in the Clarion upon “the moral of the L.C.C. elections,” one column and a half of which is devoted to his showing, mainly on the evidence of the return of Sidney Webb and Frank Smith, that the results of those elections do not spell defeat for Socialism. The other column and a half is mainly devoted to supporting the contention of Robert Blatchford, that the results of the elections do spell defeat for Socialism ! And yet we are urged by the quidnunc and the cognoscente to believe that Shaw is not merely the farceur he has been represented, but, on the contrary, is a desperately earnest person.

o o o

The Tribune (April 1st) quotes this from the report of the Executive of the S.D.F. to their annual conference :—

“It is necessary here to call attention to the conduct of Mr. John Burns, who, as President of the Local Government Board, has now gone back entirely upon his former opinions, and the most hypocritical employer of sweated labour, with a predilection for conventional Sunday-school morality, might well envy the power of glib pharisaical cant which the “man with the red flag” can now always bring to bear upon the unemployed question.”

o o o

and this is the S.D.F. conception of correct tactics on the unemployed question :—

“This conference further calls upon the Government at once to amend the existing Unemployed Workmen Act to such an extent as to provide useful and remunerative work for unemployed men, and to make sufficient grants from the Imperial Exchequer to local authorities to enable them to give employment to all citizens in need of it.”

o o o

And then reflect that Burns is at the head of the Governmental department which must deal with the call “to provide useful and remunerative work,” etc. And that the Government is, according to the S.D.F., representative of capitalist interests. And that, also according to the S.D.F., capitalist interests absolutely rely upon continued labour redundancy. So, we will call upon the capitalist Government to put into operation the pharisaical cant of their obedient servant, the ex-“man with the red flag,” in order that the unemployed upon whom capitalist interests depend, may obtain the work that the capitalist Government cannot provide !

o o o

Sweet, isn’t it ? Likely to have an exceedingly enlightening effect upon the working class the S.D.F. allege they are educating—what? Don’t tell the unemployed that the capitalist Government can do nothing for them. That would be the truth, of course, but it wouldn’t be good “tactics.” Therefore we will lead them to suppose that the Government can do something for them, and we will call upon the Government to do that something which they cannot ! So will our reputation as practical politicians grow.

o o o

May the beneficent fates turn the hungry eyes of the uneducated working-class unemployed away from such tactic-struck educators. And may the same beneficent fates turn the brains of those well-intentioned S.D.F. rank-and-filers in order that they may see their own stupidity in following with such pathetic fidelity the fatuous leading of their purblind—or is it pharisaical—captains. We offer the beneficent fates aforementioned, the columns of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD as a medium for the expression of their powers. Indeed, the S.D.F. man may rightly regard these columns as the instrument which the fates are using to divert his path from that abyss of political impotence toward which his unthinking steps are being urged by the tactical grotesques he hails as leaders. If he will not so regard these columns, he must needs gang his ain gait (I hope that’s good Scots) and suffer the penalty which “baffle-headedness” always invokes. And he may count himself a fortunate fellow if he awakes from his somnambulistic perambulations before he finds himself up to his neck in a slough of despond, being pelted by the objurgatory brickbats of a long-suffering working class.

o o o

At the annual dinner of the athletic club of Messrs. J. Lyons & Go’s employees, the chairman (Mr. Isidore Gluckstein) in responding to the vote of thanks to the directors of the Company for the support they had given the club, remarked that they were pleased to encourage athletics among their staff because “outdoor sports not only bettered a man physically but enabled him to do his indoor work all the better.” So. Scratch the benevolent director and you find the hungry capitalist. It is good for the men that they should be physically robust. It is also good business for the employer. And the greatest of these (to the employer) is the good business.

o o o

The Paris Herald reports the death, in Pittsburg, of John Brislin, the inventor of modern rolling mill machinery. John was a boyhood friend of Andrew Carnegie, and John thought, when, in conjunction with Anton Vinnac, he perfected his patent, that his old pal, Andrew, who was in the steel business, would see him through all right. Instead of which, John and Anton had to take action against the Carnegie Steel Company for stealing and working their patent. They estimated their invention to be worth 40,000,000 dollars. Andrew’s company offered them 100,000 dollars. They refused and the States District Court gave a verdict in their favour. Then old pal Andrew’s company took the case to the Federal Court of Appeal which, being a court of commercial justice and Andrew’s company easily having the most money, naturally reversed the order of the lower court. Having no more money to fight, Anton died of grief and John lost his eyesight and Andrew by the grace of God and the poverty of his old pal, waxed fat upon the invention that didn’t belong to him and began to make a name as a philanthropist and library purveyor. Recently John received a letter from Andrew in which Andrew seems to have held out some hope that Jobn might expect some justice soon and John was so shocked that he died of heart failure.

o o o

Under Socialism of course, it will be impossible for genius to reap the reward due to it. It is only under capitalism that genius can hope to secure adequate recognition. All the same I don’t marvel that John died.

o o o

“There is no other movement in the world, unless perhaps the Christian Church, which numbers among its professed followers so many who fail to understand or appreciate, the meaning and application of its fundamental teachings, as does Socialism in England. This is the more remarkable as the points in dispute are scientific facts, capable of the fullest and most complete demonstration.”

E. J. Lamel in “Justice,” 6.4.07.

Many a true word spoken even in Justice. We entirely agree with Mr. Lamel, but cannot allow the exception which he makes in favour of the S.D.F., to which he belongs.

o o o

Our objection to the S.D.F. is quite as strong as Mr. Lamel’s objection to the pseudo-Socialists who will have none of the S.D.F. because that organisation refuses “to accept an anaemic, milk-and-water ‘Socialism’ as the genuine, full-blooded article.” And our objection to the S.D.F. is for very much the same reason. S.D.F. “Socialism” is anaemic and milk-and-water as Mr. Lamel will find if he will peruse fairly the statement of the position set out in the Manifesto of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (price Id.)

o o o

It is curious, too, to find a writer like Mr. Lamel, who seems to pose as an exponent of the scientific view, making reference to the private ownership of land and capital, as though the common ownership of capital, like the common ownership of land, was conceivable. He speaks of the predictions of Marx with the air of one who has Marx at his finger-tips. But if he really knew his Marx he would not confuse (as he appears to do) capital with wealth.

o o o

Nor would he fall into the error common among those unscientific persons whom he so vigorously trounces, that the working class which “suffered the most” in prosecuting the South African War, “now has, directly or indirectly, to pay the piper.” As a matter of fact the working class temporarily benefited by the industrial incentive which the war gave. And if it is true, as Mr. Lamel states (a statement in which the “scientific Socialist” will concur), that the working class “has to rely for its livelihood upon the proceeds of its labour” (read labour-power) “sold as a ware,” it will be interesting to know how the working class can ”pay the piper,” having regard to the fact, accepted by all “scientific Socialists,” that competition for work reduces the average working-class return to a bare subsistence level.

o o o

These points are urged, not with a view of scoring off Mr. Lamel’s ignorance, but rather with the idea of suggesting to Mr. Lamel and those who stand with him, that just as the S.P.G.B. has been at pains to establish itself on what Mr. Lamel may regard as the minutiae of Marxian economics, so it has been at pains to discover the error of the pseudo-Socialist Parties in order that it might, by dissociating itself from such error, and the confusion which it must inevitably work, present a clear issue to the working class.

o o o

This clear issue is absolutely necessary to enable the working class to begin to build up that organisation upon which it must rely in the struggle of the future. That is essential to class-conscious action—the only action that can effect working-class emancipation. Wherefore, to Mr. Lamel and all those whose desire it is to do all that men may to forward the revolution, we throw out the challenge to show us wherein our position is unsound. Failing that—and in the three years of our existence it has not been done once—we insist that the S.P.G.B. is the only Party of the workers, and that in it all Socialists (the term connotes a scientific appreciation of all the facts of the economic situation and needs no qualification) should be organised for the purpose of giving effective assistance in the working-class struggle for freedom.

o o o

At the meeting of the London Central Unemployed Committee (April 5th)—

“Mr. Lansbury said he thought it was time the Body seriously considered their position. THEY HAD FOOLED THE UNEMPLOYED LAST WINTER. They had the amusing spectacle of Parliament voting £200,000 and setting up in London elaborate and costly machinery, and yet they had not been able to spend that money in providing work.

They had registered the unemployed, investigated their birth, and “inquested” them up and down London, and the result had been that a petty few thousand had received a few weeks’ employment. He protested against the way in which things were being managed and against the man at the head of affairs and the whole of his wretched department.

He protested against the return of £90,000 to the Treasury and against the man who was doing it. The Liberal Government was fooling the unemployed.”

o o o

And this is the organisation brought into existence by the Government measure for which the S.D.F. claimed credit ! This is the abortion which was hailed by “Labour” members, (and those who want to be “Labour” members,) as something very like a revolution. For the first time, we were told, Parliament had recognised its duty towards the out-of-work. For the first time the legislature had admitted its moral obligation—and so on. We pointed out at the time that the thing was a fraud—must be a fraud and could not by any chance be any other. And now Lansbury comes along to say that the unemployed has been “inquested” and “fooled” and that practically nothing had been done or could be done,

o o o

What now ? Well, if the unemployed are not sick to death of the dreary business ; if they are content to believe that their self-styled representatives in the House are doing everything needful or possible ; if they can still manage to find spiritual sustenance from the faith that is in them—faith in others doing what they require—if these things still are, then the next step will be the step that was taken last. And it will be productive of the same result. But if the unemployed recognise the futility of starving and insist for themselves upon the right to the things which are life, then, although the unemployed problem will not be solved, they will not be hungry.

o o o

There is no solution for the unemployed problem short of Socialism. The working class sooner or later must recognise that and organise accordingly for the overthrow of capitalist domination. But in the meantime? Well, in the meantime they will get the equivalent of nothing unless they evince a determination to refuse to starve quietly—unless, in short, they constitute themselves a menace to the peace of mind of the master class. We are no advocates of rioting because an unarmed mob versus a well disciplined, well armed force means immediate defeat for the rioters. The most powerful menace to official complacency is the growth of a class-conscious working-class organisation. Given that and a refusal to be satisfied with promises or with anything short of the extirpation of capitalism, and doles will come tumbling down as manna from heaven. Take the doles in your stride but do not allow them to divert you from your purpose a hair’s breadth. Concentrate upon THE WORLD for the working class and, as the scriptures have it, all other things shall be added unto you.

Alegra.

All “Socialists” Now. (1907)

From the February 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the last issue I gave a few examples of the many brands of “Socialism” made up to suit the political complexions of the various class (and no class) organisations whose members are anxious not to be out of touch with the fashion. As indicative of the growth of the fashion, I notice that in addition to Shaw’s “Socialist” plays at the Court Theatre, the Stage Society recently put on that “Socialist” drama, “The Weavers” ; also Nelly Neil, the principal character in the musical comedy of that name, is a “Socialist.” At the Haymarket in the curtain raiser “Her Grace the Reformer” we have another “Socialist” as the leading part. That well-known “Socialist” mummer, Mr. Jas. Welch is shortly to appear in a new role, while a “Socialist” lady sustains the chief feminine interest in “The Bondman,” the author of which is that well-known “Socialist,” Mr. Hall Caine.

o o o

In good truth we are all “Socialists” now and we, who for so many years were as voices crying in the wilderness, ought to be overjoyed to know that we are now “the thing don’t you know.” We have been “taken up.” We bask in the smiles of the queens of “Society” and count the peerage and the stage (which perhaps are not quite the same thing—yet) among our “comrades.” In such circumstances it ill becomes a man to cavil. And yet it seems somewhat incumbent upon me to suggest that there is some little possibility of the undiscriminative failing to locate the wood for the obscuring trees. There are so many “Socialists” to contend with that the wayfaring man is in imminent danger of missing the Socialism he is searching for.

o o o

And probably that is one at least of the ideas lying behind some of this seeming enthusiasm for the “Socialist” cult. With so many brands of “Socialism” on the market and so many “Socialist” connoisseurs of those brands, it is no easy matter for the common workman to distinguish between the true and the false. The effect upon his mind must be of a confusion worse confounded. And it becomes an increasingly difficult thing to keep the class line clearly defined while there is, apparently, so much sympathy for working-class ideals existing among the representatives of the class whose interests (according to the exponents of the class struggle) are in such diametrical opposition to the interests of the workers.

o o o

There may easily, therefore, be more in this matter than meets the eye. Undoubtedly it is a concern for one’s own material interests that lies at the root of all our actions, however unconscious we may be of it. And with the pressure of economic conditions ever tending to impel the working class toward action in their own protection, it becomes obvious to the capitalist class that the workers, upon whose labour they maintain their useless and luxurious lives, must soon awaken to the real causes of poverty. With this awakening must surely come the downfall of capitalism. Wherefore—the dust of a simulated sympathy is stirred into a cloud in the hope that the attention of the workers may be diverted from the real issue.

o o o

The more reason for us to renew our efforts to combat the work and influence of the agents of capitalism in whatever guise they come. The more reason for us to shout our message from the house-tops; to persistently give emphatic voice to our warnings ; to stand always pointing the way along which our class must march to their emancipation. Of one thing we are certain : economic development cannot be retarded. And because that is so the confusing work of the representatives of capitalism, however successful it may be to-day, cannot endure. Sooner or later capitalism must definitely and irrevocably take its stand in naked antagonism to the workers. It is our business to do that which other organisations professing Socialism have not done, viz., to insist upon Socialism as the only hope of our class ; to show in what Socialism essentially consists ; to make clear and keep clear the class division; to demonstrate the real meaning of most of the sympathetic protestations of what are actually anti-working class bodies; in fine, to make of our education work an insistence upon essentials and the clearance of non-essentials to the end that the time may be hastened when capitalism shall shed its pretences and stand out for what it is. It will do that when it finds itself without the power to hoodwink or cajole, when its Carnegies and Burnses can no longer be relied upon to deceive or delude—when, that is, the working class have understood their position and their power. And just as surely as capitalism finds itself in that condition and is obliged to decide that the time has come when it must organise its forces openly and avowedly against the army of the workers, will the workers be on the eve of their emancipation. There is no doubt of the issue of the contest.. Nothing can prevent the defeat and extermination of capitalism; nothing can prevent the victory and development of Labour. We may hasten or retard the day of final struggle but we cannot affect the result, just as we cannot prevent the ultimate dawn of the day itself. But because we can hasten it by marching straight and speaking true and calling things by their right names we have come together to do it. Wherefore The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Alegra.

At Random. (1907)

From the January 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Justice (24/11/06) is bitterly disappointed with the “Labour” members. They have never, it says, “risen to the level of their opportunities.” “We have not had a single Socialist speech in the House since Parliament opened last February.” They (the “Labour” members) have “perfectly acquired the House of Commons manner . . . and have quite the air of statesmen and legislators. But that is not quite what they were elected for. If they have got hold of the idea that a Labour Party is to he a second-rate imitation of the Liberal or Tory Party, they have quite mistaken their mission.” And more of the same sort.

***

All very smart and all very nasty. If the Socialist Standard had said the same thing it would have been abusive and blackguardly. However, as Justice has introduced the matter, I hope I may not be thought too forward if I enquire as to Justice’s and the S.D.F.’s own particular member. I mean, of course, Will Thorne. What’s he doing? And if he isn’t now to be distinguished from the rest of the “Labour” members and the “Labour” members are not to be distinguished except by their awkwardness from the members who are not “Labour,” what’s the S.D.F. doing ?

***

There were times when the S.D.F. plumed itself upon the hold it kept upon members elected to public bodies. Why hasn’t it kept a hold on Will Thorne? Is it because it fears to estrange Will by criticism? Is it because it fears the loss of its only member? Is it because Thorne is not the S.D.F.’s member and therefore not amenable to S.D.F. influence ?

***

The reply I give is an affirmative to all the questions. The S.D.F. cannot afford to lose Thorne or Thorne’s influence. Thorne is not amenable to S.D.F. instruction although a member of the S.D.F. Thorne was elected as the L.R.C. candidate and is paid as such. The S.D.F.’s claim on Thorne is only persevered in because the S.D.F. only has Thorne’s M.P.-ship to swagger with. It makes an important thing of its very remote association with Thorne so as to make the most it can for itself out of Thorne’s electoral success. It’s pitiable but there it is.

***

And now it displays the fraudulent nature of its claim by showing that it has no claim on, and is without influence over, its own alleged member. It means just that ; or this – the S.D.F. has lost the last excuse for its existence. By which I mean to say that if S.D.F. members are so little educated upon the duties and responsibilities, the organisation and the discipline which the acceptance of Socialism involves that they do not insist upon their fellow members, into whatever public position they may go, following closely the line marked out by the Party as a whole, then there is no purpose in the organisation and it may as well be dead. If the Party has not insisted because it has no clearly defined line to follow, then again it may as well be dead in name as it is in fact.

***

John Burns, according to the German Press, has declared that he is not a State Socialist. I agree. Whatever else he’ is—and I could suggest quite a number of names that would fairly fit—he is not a Socialist, State or otherwise.

***

John has since stated that he has no recollection of saying anything of the sort, but he will not contradict the newspaper report because he never contradicts anything that is said about him. I disagree. John’s memory is statesmanlike—and short. He would contradict fast enough if it paid.

***

Preaching in Westminster Abbey recently, the Rev. A. Taylor, M.A., said that the elevation of womanhood in all lands was due to the teaching of the Bible ! Is this merely the ordinary ignorance of “culture” or has the pronouncement anything to do with the fact that the reverend gentleman is the Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society ?

***

Another ecclesiastical dignitary, the celebrated Father Bernard Vaughan, has replied to another Bernard, yclept, Shaw. In his reply the worthy Father has well maintained his reputation for sensationalism in three statements. (1) That in Shaw’s lecture on religion he was “unable to detect a shadow of scientific thought.” (2) That the prayer that rose to his lips after reading it was “Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he does,” and (3) that Shaw would find “eminently satisfactory results” from an enquiry into “the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church.”

***

I did not know that the father’s investigation into “Smart Set” morals qualified him to pronounce authoritatively upon scientific thought. Moreover, as he has so well pointed out, the tenets of the church to which he belongs are eminently satisfactory to—those who know not what they do ! and it would seem, only those. However, statements one and two are all right—a coincidence in the circumstances quite sensational.

***

After “Rocks Ahead,” “Another Political Wreck.” Should the third effort not be entitled “Saved from the Sea” ? I throw out the suggestion for what it may be worth. If the drama is to be well rounded we must have a coming to. The villain might then stand a chance of retrieving his fortunes by playing rescuer and even getting applause at the fall of the curtain. However. I have it on good authority that the reason for the selection of nautical titles has nothing to do with the author being at sea.

***

Herbert Burrows thinks that his comrade Askew is not worth discussing with ; he thinks Askew has deliberately insinuated things against him (Burrows) which are maliciously false ; and he holds that if Askew has a spark of decency in him he ought to be ashamed of himself and apologise.

***

This is distinctly the Burrovian method. If anyone disagrees with Herbert and says so, and particularly if he goes so far as to give good reason for his disagreement, he is (pace Herbert) a fellow of no decency, not to say a thorough paced scoundrel. Herbert, of course, is a gentleman, never uses language that is ungentlemanly and anybody who has known him and his Socialism will admit at once that the Socialist movement ought to be proud of its Burrows. Herbert says so and Herbert ought to know.

***

I am glad to find Herbert ragging more members of the S.D.F. because to me that is prima facie evidence that these members are waking up. When anything of the kind happens, and particularly if in the process the position of Herbert and what I may call the official S.D.F. comes under sharp criticism (as it must) Mr. Burrows can always be relied upon to start in with the “slang.” And it will always be found that the safest and surest sign that he hasn’t the rockiest leg to stand upon is when he falls back upon his “past record.” I will, when I get time, turn up some of that record and I think I can surprise the Burrowsite (if there is any such misguided person alive) with a reproduction of some of the gentlemanly language that ethical Herbert has given off.

***

In the same paper for December 15th, Mr. H. M. Hyndman has an article on the same subject, from which I extract the following :

“No pluck whatever has been displayed. Nothing meaner or more contemptible has ever been done, even by our scurviest enemies, the Liberals, than the wholesale discharges of men from Woolwich Arsenal and elsewhere. What has the Labour Party had to say about this infamous conduct ? So far as I know, nothing. Worse still, when Mr. John Burns turned the whole unemployed question, which made his personal and pecuniary fortune, into a farce, who was it who jumped up in haste to thank him for his fine speech and flatter him to his face for his valuable proposal ? No less conspicuous a person than the Chairman at the time of the Independent Labour Party and the Whip of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. Yet not a single man of the whole group dared rise and publicly repudiate such mean talk as utterly unworthy of themselves and their constituents.”

***

In these last days everybody is mightily concerned to manufacture a particular brand of what is called Socialism to meet the requirements of some particular group of individuals. Every brand requires a distinctive label, and every label demands a separate organisation to push it upon public attention. During the last few days I have come across a “Socialism” for millionaires (this is a strictly proprietary brand, placed on the market as was fit and proper, by that “mad-hatter” of the “advanced” movement who owns the Fabian Society), the Guild of St. Matthew brand of “Socialism”; “Socialism for the ‘educated middle class'” ; Tory “Socialism” (!),; I.L.P. “Socialism” (which is realised when land and Capital are nationalised), S.D.F. “Socialism,”— which Mr. H. M. Hyndman says is to be achieved for the working class by the class above, and so on.

***

Amid the din of so many pedlars crying their wares it is grateful to come across a small body of propagandists who advance just a plain, unqualified Socialism as the solution for the problem of poverty which affects one class only—the working class ; a Socialism which they preach as members of the working class to members of the working class only on the ground that only the working class matter. At any rate I am grateful to these, The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

***

Professor Oliver Lodge has given us his articles of faith. He holds that the two greatest requirements of life are companionship and affection. But what about food ?

***

“We are told that our women friends who are agitating for the Limited Bill, are in favour of Adult Suffrage. Then why don’t they agitate for it instead of for the smaller measure ? I have always held that the best way to get part is to ask for the whole, and that if you ask for part you won’t even get that.”

***

Hear ! Hear !! Hear !!! Precisely what we are always pointing out to those who, while professing to want Socialism, prefer to ask for unemployed relief, payment of members and—a citizen army ! And one of the men who call us “Impossiblists” therefore, is—the writer of the foregoing extract, H. Quelch!

***

Messrs. Quelch & Co. are most vehement opponents of those who urge in connection with this “Votes for Women” agitation that the best way to secure complete adult suffrage is to get the right of women to the vote conceded ; that the only way indeed to the ultimate goal is to proceed by short stages. Mr. Quelch says in effect, and I quite agree with him, that if we must proceed by stages we will at any rate endeavour to make those stages as few as possible, and the best way to do that is not to concentrate upon a stage, because that stage is thereby made, for all practical purposes, the ultimate goal, with the result that progress toward it is again made in stages, but rather to demand the whole so that when a concession is wrung out of the ruling class (and if the concession is material it will have to to be wrung anyhow) it will be as substantial a concession as possible. Mr. Quelch says this, at any rate, upon the question of votes for women,—and anything else that suits his purpose at the moment, for that matter. Yet when we apply the same process of reasoning to the position taken up by Mr. Quelch and his friends in connection with their palliative proposals, we are quite impossible !

***

The question of the unemployed is in point. Mr. Quelch knows that only Socialism will solve the unemployed problem—and sometimes says so. Mr. Quelch knows that the capitalist class cannot solve the unemployed problem it they would and would not it they could and sometimes says so. Yet Mr. Quelch heads deputations to the capitalist class who cannot and will not solve the unemployed problem, to ask for relief for some of the unemployed. The result is a farcical drop of relief to a vast ocean of misery, the drop to be administered in homeopathic doses by a contemptible capitalist hack.

***

And this is not the only result, as Mr. Quelch knows. He knows that the miserable labour derelicts who follow his lead are being deluded by his agitation even as the “suffragettes” are being (as he says) deluded. They are not organised for, or concentrated upon, the ultimate goal. They are not demanding the whole. They are only asking for what Mr. Quelch implies it is absurd to ask for, viz., a very small part of what they want, with the result that they don’t “even get that.” And because they don’t understand that the whole is their right ; because the leaders of the agitation by their cap-in-hand deputations convey the impression that the little they are asking for is the most they ought to expect; because of this they induce the belief in the working class that the capitalists who finally give the bit of relief are excellent good fellows who are doing their best and who deserve to be supported. In other words the class struggle is obscured, and instead of having advanced a stage in the direction of the ultimate goal, they have at the best remained where they were, and at the very probable worst, have actually retreated a stage.

***

Therefore it is not in the mouth of Mr. Quelch & Co. to talk down at the “Suffragettes” who are but doing what Mr. Quelch himself does. It is notoriously unwise for the occupants of glass houses to exercise with catapaults and it is proverbially grotesque for the man with a beam in his own eye to labour in the endeavour to pluck the mote out of the eye of his—sister ! The only safe place from which Mr. Quelch may criticise the one-step-at-a-timer is in the ranks of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. If he has determined to be consistent for the future I invite him to apply for membership.

***

Try the quality of the “Labour Leader’s” parliamentary writer with me. He is referring to the number of ladies in purple and fine linen who are escorted about the precincts of the House of Parliamentary Gallants and goes on : “The Labour members stand and wonder at it all. Some of them—Barnes, Will Thorne and some others sternly leave the lobby” ! . . . Why—if a plain person may ask the question—do they leave the lobby ? And how do they do it sternly ? Does the sight of the lovely ladies with whom they may not mix give them the waterbrash ? Or what ? And who are these others who prefer not to leave the lobby ? Why do they stay ? Is it on the chance of a tete-a-tete? In any case are we to conclude that they also serve who only stand and wonder?

***

Try again. They (the Balfours, etc.) “are very nonplussed by the presence of the Labour men. It is not that our men interrupt them . . . but they make them feel they are there. Just as they are going to utter their most unreal sentiment they happen to make a half turn, and then—they get a full broadside from the eyes of Keir Hardie.” Dear ! Dear ! How very dreadful ! Especially when you are not expecting it. But why doesn’t Keir Hardie sit on the other side of the House ? He could then fix his man every time, and his man couldn’t say a word. Perhaps those eyes would impel the victim to speak the truth. You never can tell. As it is Hardie has to wait for the half turn before he can operate. Surely it cannot be that love of compromise and half measures has led the “Labour” Group to prefer half turns when they might get a full turn for the same effort. A half loaf may be better than no bread, but, I have never heard that a half turn is better than a whole stare !

***

These are examples of the strong meat the Labour Leader regales its readers with. It’s the sort of literary wash that may serve to satisfy the unhealthy cravings of some of the I.L.P. now that the novelty of the “Labour” Group has worn so thin that the capitalist Press cannot work good “copy” out of it, but it will scarcely do more than impel a sensation of hilarity (or perhaps of nausea) in sober and serious students of working-class politics. The Labour Leader, taking its cue from the “Labour” leaders, is playing down to the weakest headed of its following. Which, being interpreted, is to say that the Labour Leader is playing it as low and as sloppily as it can well do.

Alegra.

The New Mrs. Caudle. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Right Honourable the Member for Battersea still pursues the tenor of his strenuous way and may with some degree of confidence be expected to attain to the ideal which he seems to have set before him, of going down to posterity as the possessor of lecturing talents, not less efficient than those which the notorious Mrs. Caudle exercised with such effect upon her unfortunate spouse. And, indeed, the resemblance between the celebrated lady mentioned and our “Honest John” rests upon more than that idiosyncratic volubility which has impelled both characters to erupt into torrential verbosity with little or no provocation. The substance of their disquisitions is almost identical — the same relentless logic, the same elegance of diction, the same charm of style, the same irrepressible argumentativeness, the same measure of applicability of their observations to the subject addressed. If Mrs. Caudle were alive to-day, she would be jealous indeed of her reputation now challenged so persistently by her great nude prototype. It is true she might argue with justice that Mr. Burns is afforded facilities she never had. She lived in the ante-women’s suffrage days and probably was never able to get even so close to the sounding-board of the Empire as the ladies’ gallery of the House of Commons, whereas John has his feet on the floor of the House right beneath the sounding board itself. But, then, John could retort that he started heavily handicapped, in as much as he could not commence in the nature of things as an old woman. But, however that may be, John is making palpable progress which his elevation to the proud dignity of heavily fee’d jackal to the Liberal Capitalist Party has only served to fillip. He is simply insatiable, rushing to every point of the him instruction, and who certainly have little or nothing to learn from him. Overweening, bumptious and arrogant he always was. as those who knew him intimately in the days that are past, were aware. To these undesirable qualities are added to-day a cringing servility before his paymasters and a passion for giving unsolicited advice to all and sundry, often absurdly inapplicable to the moment; when that is not so, coming with little decency from an individual of Burns’ record. A sense of humour, which he seems to entirely lack, would save him from many n ludicrous situation; a little less superficial knowledge would enable him to pose with a little more reason and a little more success in that character of Tribune of the People which he so loves to affect. And if to both were added a little more courtesy, a little more discrimination, and it were possible to subtract something of the pimp and the bully, he might conceivably become a fairly tolerable person. As it is, we fear that he is altogether intolerable, that his advice is an impertinence and his lectures an infliction, and we take solace from the knowledge that, unlike the unfortunate Mr. Caudle, who was apparently quite unable to rid himself of the incubus of his bedmate and her lectures, he will surely awake one day to find himself discovered as the vainglorious pedagogue he is, and cast off by those upon whose ignorance he relies for his success as champion curtain-lecturer. The day that witnesses the consummation of that desirable act will witness also his fall from his present high estate; for the one thing that is quite certain is that it is only by virtue of his ability to gull and hector the working class that the capitalist Liberal Party consent to fee him so liberally and invest him with a little brief authority.

John Burns as seen by the Punch cartoonist Harry Furniss.

compass in order, cuckoo-like, to find another nest in which to deposit his curtain-lecture egg. He makes surprise visits to workhouses and turns off upon the pauper inmates his famous exhortation to abstemious living and thrift. He attends temperance meetings to emphasise the folly of working men wasting their substance (which they have not got) upon four-ale and other delectable draughts. He sternly lectures the “Labour” members of the House of Commons, whose one concern is to conform to the rules of that august assembly, upon the enormity of any departure from orthodox Parliamentary procedure, and lays it down with crushing vocal inflection to the same men obsessed by the necessity for the establishment of an unquestioned reputation for respectability, that proper deportment is a personal condition to he striven for single-mindedly. He lectures tariff reformers upon the stupidity of quoting, without examination, figures relating to pauperism, and corrects their information with more figures which he has had supplied to him. and which he has never examined. He lectures women demonstrators upon their lack of self-control, and is seized with an uncontrollable desire to slap them but dare not. He attends the distribution of prizes at a girls' gymnastic school, and lectures the unfortunate pupils about the urgency of a knowledge of washing and ironing. And so on. And so on.

Always careering about fully caparisoned with bundles of lectures and packets of gratuitous advice for persons who, generally speaking, are better qualified to give

We trust John Burns may find sufficient grace to peruse in chastened mood these few plain words. We trust too, they may have the effect of causing him to reconsider himself.

However that may be, it will surely not be hurtful to him if he will desist for a few moments from trying to force his opinions upon others as though they were things of value and hearken with what respect he may to the opinion that some of the others desire for his own good to offer him.

Alegra.