Editorial: The Cry of the Workless. (1905)

Editorial from the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the November issue of the Socialist Standard we showed that the unemployed problem could be solved only by the getting rid of the capitalist system of society, and that any attempt to solve this problem within the limits of the prevailing system of industrialism was so much wasted labour.

We offer no apology for again reverting to this question. The whole course of events since our article was written has more than borne out the strength of our contentions, and we are more than ever convinced of the uselessness of trying to combat the economic forces which make for an increase in the number of the unemployed by seeking the assistance of a capitalist government.

Unfortunately for the development of our views on this matter there exists a large number of men who, while admitting the cause of unemployment which we have adduced, viz., the development of machinery and the consequent concentration of capital in fewer hands, yet think that they can secure some amelioration of the life-condition of the workless working-men by trusting to the Government of the time.

With us they are aware that the introduction of more highly specialised machinery is permitting within the factory the liberation of many men formerly employed, and the substitution of women’s labour for men’s labour. Such a result is viewed as highly desirable by the capitalist who constantly scrutinises his wage-bill with the idea of reducing it, but for the worker the result is less desirable. For the latter it means a curtailment of his supply of food and of the other necessaries of life ot himself and his family. His wages being, on the average, limited by the cost of maintaining himself and his family, any stoppage of his wages means a stoppage in his maintenance.

The extent to which the machine has ousted the worker may be ascertained by a glance at the census returns. Comparing the figures of 1891 with those for 1901 we find that there has been a great reduction of those employed in the textile industries at the same time that there has been a great increase in output. In the cotton trade there has been a great reduction both of men and women ; so also in woollen and worsted, linen, silk; while in the lace industry an increase in the number of women has been nearly compensated by a reduction in the number of men employed. Again we must remember that, in the various trades, not only has the number of those employed diminished, but the work of those employed has become more intermittent; out-of-work and short-time workers being on the increase.

These results arise naturally from the conditions of employment to-day. The owners of property are ever on the look-out for means of augmenting their possessions. They employ their capital in industrial operations simply for the purpose of deriving from its use profit or interest. So long as they get their profits increased they care little for the conditions under which the work in their factory, in their mine, or on their railway is carried on. They never seek to know whether those working for them are living happy and contented lives. For them the worker is an abstraction—the materialisation of some portion of their capital in exactly the same way as another portion of their capital shows itself as raw material, as auxiliary material, as factory building, or as finished product. He sees the worker figuring on his periodical balance-sheet as “Wages,” and cares nothing that “Wages” means so many sentient human beings capable of thinking, loving, functioning even as he does.

Why then should he hesitate, when the markets are glutted, when his wages have been transformed into more goods than the market can consume, when goods cannot be sold because hungry men and women have not the wherewithal to buy food, when ill-clad children cannot have clothing provided for them because there is too much in the shops, to turn adrift those he no longer wishes to employ because they are no longer profitable ?

And the result is invariably that, during periods when the markets are teeming with food and clothing, the workers are sent adrift and cannot purchase the things of which they are so sorely in need.

The only solution to this state of affairs is to abolish Capitalism. The whole trend of events is in the direction of Collectivist production and the inquirer into things political and economic can see that the capitalist, having ceased to be useful, is using the whole governmental machinery to safeguard the interests of his class.

The worker must learn that he has to look to himself and his fellows to work out the emancipation of the working-class. Only by combining to capture the political machinery and to use the power thus acquired for the overthrow of Capitalism can he hope to obtain, once and for all, a full and complete solution to the unemployed problem.

What then are we to think of those who admit these facts and yet inveigh against the Government for not dealing with the unemployed ? The fact that the Government, and the class represented by the Government, have everything to gain from the existence of the unemployed ought to have prevented those people from begging for an autumn session to deal with the unemployed. By such an action they lead people to think that the unemployed problem may find its solution by trusting to parliaments composed of members of the middle-class.

This is the charge we make against those who, while pretending to lead, to organise, to direct the unemployed, believe that no solution of the problem is possible within capitalist society. They lead the workers to think that a solution is to be found without the change from Capitalism to Socialism which we have shown to be necessary. They lead them to think that Government, by holding autumn sessions to discuss the question, can take steps towards its solution. They befog the class-issue in which they pretend to believe. Mr. Keir Hardie refuses to raise the issue in the House of Commons because the Government have decided to shelve the matter by including a pious phrase in the King’s Speech.

We can only believe that those who are engaged in this so-called organisation of the unemployed are doing so in order to make political capital out of it. They have no hope or belief that the unemployed workers themselves will prove valuable recruits to their movement but they think that there are others among the employed who will mistake their efforts for the genuine zeal of those who are in earnest, and who will join their party in consequence.

We have no faith in those beliefs. We do not think the efforts for the unemployed are sincere, and we believe the efforts now made will prove as futile to-day as they have always hitherto done. The unemployed will not be converted by them. The employed will not be befooled by them. They will not gain their political capital.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain stands out as the only party which has not tried to make the unemployed believe that they must trust to parties outside themselves. The unemployed—and every worker is every day more likely to fall within that category—must look to themselves and to their fellow-workers for the redress of their ills.

The poverty of their lives, the misery in which they dwell, can only be removed by a steady effort in the direction of proving to them that the unemployed question is but a phase of the social problem, and that the social problem is to be solved by removing the cause of the poverty and the misery, and the degradation of the working-class —the class-ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth.

Workers, employed and unemployed ! Rally round The Socialist Party of Great Britain and make it your party through which the change is to be brought about which shall secure to you and yours the guarantee of health and comfort and plenty.

A Look Round. (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

“No doubt,” says a correspondent,” you have readers who are interested in the affairs of Messrs. Kidd, McAllen, Burns, Curran, etc.,but for me they are unimportant.” Well, much depends upon the point of view, and from ours they are very important.

* * *

The Socialist Standard is not issued with the object of providing a livelihood for professional journalists, or to boom certain persons who think, rightly or wrongly, that good will result if, by becoming Councillors or M.P.’s, they can enhance their reputations as “leaders” of the working-class. It would be easier, and doubtless produce better financial results, for the conductors to devote the paper to cycling, theatrical and anti-theological matters, with Socialism as a side-line. But it is the official organ of a militant Socialist Party, not existing to induce folks to believe in Socialism as a “pious opinion” but as a necessary and desirable revolution which they shall organise to accomplish. The Party holds very definite views as to the tactics of the Socialist Army and was founded because these tactics were not being pursued by any existing body.

* * *

In promulgating their views concerning the establishment of the Socialist Republic and the basis of organisation of the Socialist working-class, the members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain are inevitably brought into conflict with other bodies claiming to be Socialist as well as with capitalist politicians. It is necessary to show how not to do it, as well as how to do it. It is claimed that the L.R.C., S.D.F., and I.L.P., are examples of how not to do it, and it is therefore necessary to criticise and to oppose them, quite as much as the orthodox politicians. In this connection, however the aim has always been to be as vigorous and as critical as circumstances demand, but not caustic or abusive.

* * *

A case in point. Class-conscious Socialists must oppose capitalist candidates because the latter stand for Capitalism as against Socialism, for the perpetuation of the class war by the perpetuation of classes, for the interests of the exploiters as against those of the exploited. These reasons should always be stated on the platform and in the press. Yet only last month, at a meeting called to promote the candidature of Major Jameson for South West Ham, Councillor Davis (I.L.P.) moved, and Councillor J. Jones (S.D.F.) seconded an amendment declaring that because Major Jameson had been indifferent to his Parliamentary duties during the present Parliament, and knowing that he was elected for West Clare as an Irish Nationalist and had now changed his politics, he was not a fit and proper person to represent South West Ham. Now the reasons given here might be good ones from the point of view of one set of capitalist politicians opposing another, but they are not Socialist reasons. The policy here pursued was not a “straight” one ; the tactics were those of suppression and confusion.

* * *

It is easy to multiply instances of the contradictory and confusing tactics of the S.D.F. W. C. Steadman is the London Trades Council and Liberal candidate for Central Finsbury, vice-president of the Central Finsbury Liberal Association, president of the Stepney Liberal, Radical, Labour, and Progressive Association, and Progressive member of the L.C.C. for Stepney. At the February meeting of, the London Trades Council, presided over by H. Quelch (editor of Justice) the question of Steadman’s refusal to sign the L.R.C. constitution was raked, and Quelch pointed out that it had been understood all through that Steadman had the support of the L.T.C. His failure to conform to the rules of any other body made no difference to their attitude. They supported him before the L.R.C. was formed. Now, not only the chairman, but the secretary, and also very many of the delegates to the L.T.C. are members of the S.D.F. They are supporting Steadman, although in Justice for May 22nd, 1897, H. Quelch wrote: “The non-Socialist trade-unionist is the type of labour representative which is fashionable in the House of Commons and in other representative assemblies in the kingdom. We had better have none at all. Flunkeys and sycophants, they ape the airs of their masters, while they contemn and misrepresent the class in whose name they claim to speak” ; and in the same paper a fortnight ago Steadman was described as a “Liberal decoy-duck.” Undoubtedly he is, and as such is supported by the S.D.F.

* * *

“Is it true that Lady Warwick has become a Socialist ?” asks a comrade in Bulgaria, on a postcard written in Esperanto. The long reply which has been sent to him in the same language will give him an up-to-date idea of the condition of the Socialist movement in this country. According to her ladyship’s own statement she is now a “proud and convinced member of the S.D.F.,” but it does not follow that she is therefore a Socialist. To a representative of the Daily Chronicle she quoted details of the S.D.F. programme with which she is “wholly in agreement,” but it is not at all necessary to be a Socialist to agree with the items to which she refers. Moreover, she takes exception to the abolition of the monarchy, and it is quite evident that she has still a very great regard for the pomps and vanities connected therewith. To believe in the establishment of the Socialist Republic and object to the abolition of the monarchy is like endeavouring to make the Socialist omelet without breaking the capitalist egg.

* * *

One wonders what is the real significance of the booming of the Countess of Warwick in the capitalist press, especially since the banquet to “Labour” M.P.’s and candidates at which she told of her “little scheme.” “I have been saving up my money” she said “for ever so long, and I have bought a forty h.p. motor car to be at your service. It is to be painted red and some of us are going in it to visit every constituency for which a Labour candidate stands, from John O’Groats to Land’s End. We shall leave no stone unturned, when the great struggle comes, as come it will very soon, to put Labour members into Parliament.” The italics are ours ; so put because of the obvious attempt by “H. W. L.” in Justice to lead us to suppose that this is not the object of the tour.

* * *

Whether she understands Socialism or not, it is apparent that the Countess does not intend to “come out from among” that Society which “either bores or is bored,” “There are few sights more impressive,” says Vanity Fair, “than the entrance of the King and Queen into the House of Lords on the opening day. . . Lady Warwick was in vivid green, with her hair dressed in high Empire curls, which showed above her crown of emeralds and diamonds.” From the same journal we learn that ”the Queen had a great day on Friday. . . The meet was at Melton Mowbray, in the Countess of Wilton’s grounds.” Besides the Countess of Warwick, there were present Dukes and Duchesses, Earls and Countesses, Lords and Ladies, Baronets, and even a Marquess and a Prince. We must confess that the presence of an “avowed Socialist” at such functions as these is distasteful to us because they are outward and visible signs of the domination and degradation of the wealth-creators by the monopolists and their parasites.

* * *

No report of the Countess’s dinner to “labour” candidates appeared in Justice, although the editor himself was present !

* * *

Speaking of motor-cars, what has become of “Tattler’s” crusade against those, “infernal machines invented by the classes for the purpose of maiming and killing the masses” ?

* * *

Some branches of the I.L.P. wish to incorporate the word “Socialist” in its title. London City, diplomatic and probably inspired, wish the N.A.C. to report upon the matter at the 1906 Conference. This is the Royal Commission method. Derby would like the name to be “The Socialist Party.” The Socialist Party of Great Britain would be imitated and ought to feel flattered. With Shakespeare we can say “Who steals my purse steals trash.” As ours is the straight Socialist Party, the man with the bag is not weighed down by its ponderosity. But when it is suggested that the I.L.P. should “annex” our good name, we must protest; although we do not anticipate that the proposal will receive much support. The leaders, at any rate, prefer to keep their Socialism in the background, or to confuse it with references to Christianity and Labourism, or like the S.D.F., to support its enemies. A party must be judged by its actions, and these have proved that the I.L.P. is the enemy of uncompromising Socialism.

* * *

A Walthamstow comrade, who finds it exceedingly interesting and instructive to read back numbers of Justice and compare them with present issues expresses his surprise at the very great change that has taken place. He says that in September, 1894, the leading article declared that the object of the I.L.P., in common with that of other working-class organisations, whether they had accepted collectivist theories or not, was to secure better rations for the wage-slave, but that that was not the object of the S.D.F., which was striving for the abolition of wagedom. Seeing that the energies of the S.D.F. are now devoted to the advocacy of two palliatives, viz., relief works for the unemployed and free meals for the wage-slaves that are to be, he asks what has become of the object of 1894. As we have so often pointed out, the S.D.F. has ceased to be a revolutionary body, and is now a mere reform society, like the I.L.P. and other bodies which it so freely criticises and condemns.

* * *

This comrade calls to mind the condemnation of Tom Mann which appeared in Justice in June, 1896, for allowing a joint committee to delete from his election address the words : “I am a Socialist,” and otherwise modifying and moderating it. He questions the official announcement that the Walthamstow branch of the S.D.F. are running G. Bailey for the District Council, because the Walthamstow Trades and Labour Council are running him with others as pure and simple “Labour” candidates. In support of this he forwards a copy of Bailey’s election address. It is true that on the front page the candidate is described as of the “Navvies’ Union and S.D.F.,” but in much larger type the candidates are referred to on the same page as “the only Labour Candidates selected by the Walthamstow Trades and Labour Council.” The address itself contains no statement of the principles of Socialism and no reference thereto. It speaks of the “need of independent labour representation.” One item of the education section is purely individualistic and the whole of the programme could be subscribed to by any municipal “reformer.” In conclusion it is signed by the candidates for all the wards, and even the letters “S.D.F.” have been omitted from Bailey’s name, who is simply “Secretary, Navvies’ Union.” And our correspondent again refers to Justice of June, 1896, which stated that it was of no consequence at all to get Socialists elected unless they were elected as Socialists. That, of course, was and is the sound position. All that has changed in the policy of the S.D.F. It was because of this change that many of us, convinced that the intransigeant, uncompromising policy is the only sound and honest one, were compelled to resign our many-years’ membership of the S.D.F. “The policy of ‘no compromise’ must necessarily be defeated again and again before it wins. But when it does win it wins unconditionally, and is unhampered by restrictions, arrangements, or intrigues.” That holds good as much to-day as when it was written, in the name of the S.D.F., nearly twelve years ago; and in this country those who, having accepted the principles of Socialism, agree with the policy of “No Compromise,” agree with Wilhelm Liebknecht that “the separation of the Socialists from all other parties, this essential difference which silly opponents take as a reason or pretext for declaring us political outlaws, is our pride and our strength,” should join the only party which is organised upon these lines, The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

J. Kay

Socialists & Capitalist Hospitals. (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why “capitalist” hospitals? the non-Socialist will ask. Because the diseases and injuries there treated are caused, almost entirely by the unhealthy conditions of life of the workers, imposed upon them by the capitalist system, or negligence of the employers to provide accident preventing appliances. Because, also, as consistent Socialists have always pointed out, the patients, mostly of the working-class, are used to experiment on for the benefit of the propertied class.

“The hospitals, it should be remembered, are the training schools of the medical profession,” wrote London’s Lord Mayor in 1899, “and for that reason deserve grateful recognition and adequate support.” The treatment meted out to the “subjects” is detailed by a medical practitioner in the Grand Magazine in the course of which he declares that although medical students must learn their business, patients also have rights—but the poorer class of these, especially women, are treated as if they were destitute of human feeling. He asserts that in every hospital recognised by the Medical Council as a place of instruction for students the treatment of the patients is entirely subordinated to the instruction of those students and that it may be said with perfect truth that the girls and young women who attend the public hospitals gain the possible healing of their bodies at the expense of mortal injury to their souls. What, he asks, must be the moral effect on a modest girl who goes to a hospital complaining of some trivial ailment, and is stripped naked to the waist, and subjected to the salacious scrutiny of some dozens of youths who lay hands on her and maul her about to their hearts’ content? It is immaterial whether she complains of or has anything the matter with her chest or not. She, in common with her sisters in misfortune, is utilised as “material” for the instruction of students. At one time he saw 14 young women of ages from 12 to 25, all standing stripped in this manner. One girl, aged 18, told him she had been attending the hospital nearly every fortnight for over three years. Imagine how much modesty would he left in her after exhibiting herself in this fashion for years to many hundreds of students. There was not the slightest hope of cure or improvement, so that this girl was regularly exposed in this manner merely because she was an “interesting case.” Eighteen months ago he was the unwilling witness of an even greater atrocity. A woman was dying of malignant disease of the stomach, and the physician under whose “care” she was was delivering a clinical lecture, taking the unhappy woman as his text. In the course of his remarks he mentioned various ways of ascertaining the extent of the stomach, amongst them the method of inflating it with gas, and then by percussion mapping out its boundaries. A student inquired precisely how it was done, and the physician said he would show him. The patient was thereupon given a solution of bicarbonate of soda, and this dose was immediately followed by one of tartaric acid. The effect on the poor woman was pitiful, as one can readily understand, for the stomach was instantly distended enormously, which would have been extremely painful had it been healthy; how much more so when eaten out with cancer? She was hours recovering from the effect of this unnecessary experiment, and she died the next day. Is it fair, or just, or even reasonable that, in addition to the pain and worry of her disease, a young woman should be compelled to sacrifice her modesty by stripping herself to the gaze and handling of dozens of men? No medical man would dream of treating a private patient in such an unseemly manner. Why, then, should advantage be taken of the poverty of less fortunate women ?

Of course, there is nothing new in all this. Such practices have assisted Socialists in their opposition to attempts to persuade the workers to contribute to hospital funds, or to take part in friendly society, trades union and other like parades, and street collections. Moreover, the voting of subsidies by public bodies has, until recently been strenuously resisted. We know that this attitude is unpopular, because the workers have been bamboozled into believing that the hospitals exist for their benefit, but it is none the less the correct one for the Socialist, who sees in the failure of the capitalist-class to support them, an opportunity for the people to provide, own and control such places in the interest of and for the benefit of all.

In view of recent developments, it would be too much to expect S.D.F. members and other “labour” representatives to support such a vote-spoiling, “inopportune” attitude. On the contrary, they must “use every means” to get and keep seats. We seldom hear of the anti-hospital Sunday demonstrations we knew in the old days. We do occasionally hear of so-called Socialist councillors and other elected persons appearing at dinners organised for the purpose of raising funds for hospitals and learning to use the tooth-pick with the best of them. But it is left to an S.D.F. councillor of West Ham to propose an express speed down-hill policy in this connection by placing the following resolution upon the agenda for a recent meeting of Council. “Councillor Mayday will move: 'That the Council do approach the trustees of the West Ham hospital for the purpose of entering into an arrangement by which upon payment by the Council to the trustees of the annual sum of £1,000 the latter will, from time to time, receive into the hospital such number of sick inhabitants as may be nominated by the Council.'” As we have seen no report of its being discussed or voted upon we presume it has not been reached and stands postponed. Meanwhile the West Ham branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain have sent a letter of protest to the Council, setting forth their reasons, and we trust their action will prevent public funds being voted to private institutions where the bodies of the working-class are utilized as experimental objects for the benefit of the rich.

W.

Property and Crime. (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Nearly our whole criminal code is made up of what may be called property crimes. The jails and penitentiaries of the world are filled to overflowing with men and women who have been charged with committing crimes against property. But where is the property that has been the subject of these dire assaults ? No matter where you turn your eyes in the world, the whole property is in the hands of a chosen few, and the so-called owners of all this wealth—created by the labour of man and the bounty of nature—these so-called owners have committed no crime against property. The statement of the fact is sufficient to show the inequality of the whole system under which the fruits of the earth are kept in the possession of the few.

As a consequence of his desire for life and the means that make it certain and pleasant, man has ever turned his attention to the conquest of nature, reducing vegetable and animal life to his control. But his conquest does not end here. Ever has man enslaved his fellow : he has sought to make his own career upon earth pleasanter and more certain by compelling others to toil for him. In its more primitive stages slavery was enforced by the ownership of the man. In its later and more refined stages it is carried on by the ownership of the things from which man must live. The rulers no longer have the right to buy and sell the man, to send him here and there to suit their will. They simply have the power to dictate the terms upon which he can stand upon the earth. With the mines, the forests, the oil, the harbors, the railroads, and the really valuable productive land in the rulers’ hands, the dominance and power of man over his fellows is absolute and complete.

The rulers make penal codes for the regulation and control of the earth and all the property thereon. Not only do they make these rules for their brief, haughty lives, but they provide that it may pass from hand to hand for ever. The generations now living, or rather those that are dead and gone, fixed the status of unborn millions, and decreed that they shall have no place to live except upon such term as may be dictated by those who then controlled the earth. To retain all the means of life in the hands of the few and compel the many to do service to support these few requires the machinery of the state. It is for this that penal laws are made.

The criminal statutes forbid extortion and swindling, and yet the largest part of business is extortion, and much of the balance is swindling. Real extortion is taking for any service more than it is fairly worth by means of agencies created by the extorter to despoil his victim and this is the business of the business world. . . The law forbids swindling, at least in certain ways, and yet a large part of business consists in making the public believe that they are getting more value for what they give than the tradesman can possibly afford. . . . All our merchants and tradesmen frantically call out their lies in every form, that they may sell their wares for a larger price than they are really worth. And yet to all of this the criminal code has no word to say. The man who can buy the space of a great paper to tell the wondrous qualities of the wares he has to sell is not the sort of man to come within the meshes of the penal code.

Remove dire poverty, as could easily be done with a tithe of what is now spent on force : let organised society meet the individual, not with force, but with helpfulness and love, and the inducement to commit crime could not exist. Let society be the friend not the tyrant, the brother not the jailor, and the feeling will be repaid a thousandfold".

Clarence S. Darrow in “Resist not Evil”

Rural Poverty. (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recently published transactions of the Sociological Society in a volume of “Sociological Papers” (Macmillan, 10s. 6d.) contain an interesting addition to the investigations of Booth and Rowntree which should prove useful to the Socialist propagandist. An investigation into the conditions of “Life in an English Agricultural Village,” by Mr. Harold H. Mann, discloses a condition of life among the rural proletariat that is sufficient of itself to condemn the proposals of certain superficial reformers to solve the unemployed problem by sending the unemployed “back to the land.” The 30.1 per cent. of the population of London on or below the “poverty line ” ; the 29.8 per cent. of the population of York at or below the standard of “physical efficiency” ; and the 34.3 per cent. of the population of this typical English agricultural village of Ridgmount in Bedford in a state of “primary poverty,” present a problem that surely merits the attention of everybody, and particularly requires the consideration of the working-class who have to do all the suffering as well as all the work.

The village is a purely agricultural one, and is chosen as being most typical of the surrounding country, and almost all the population are engaged in agricultural pursuits. The Duke of Bedford is the greatest landowner house-owner, and employer in the district. Mr. Mann finds after a careful consideration of the prices of commodities in the village, that the minimum required to maintain an average family of husband, wife and three children, is 18s 4d. per week. “‘Primary Poverty’ is here taken to be that poverty caused by an insufficiency of earnings, even when most economically applied, to provide for physical efficiency. ‘Secondary Poverty’ is here taken to be that due to an uneconomical application of earnings.” Having found the minimum necessary and investigated the actual income of each family in the population, the author submits in a table the results he is driven to, as follows : —

Total population                           407

Total Working-Class Population   390

Total Families                                   127

Total Working-Class families           104

                                                                    Pr.ct. of total Pr.ct. of working-class.

Families in Primary Poverty           40        31.5                    38.5

Population in Primary Poverty 160        34.3                    41.0 

“The conclusion to which we come from a consideration of the figures, after every allowance has been made for subsidiary sources of income, is that no less than 34.3 per cent, of the population of a typical agricultural village in Bedfordshire do not obtain the necessary amount of money to enable them to remain in physical health. This percentage rises to 41.0 when the working-class alone is considered.”

Following this comes another table showing the proportion living within 2s. and 6s. of the minimum, which I will repeat, as follows :—

                                                           Pr. ct. of Wage Earners Pr. ct. of Total Population

Persons below Primary Poverty Line 160               41.0                     34.3

Less than 2s. per wk above line         213               54.6                     45.6

Less than 6s. per wk above line         284               72.8                     60.8

When this 6s. is added to the minimum it is only 24s. 4d. per week for a man, his wife, and three children, and 72.8 per cent, of the workers are below that standard of living.

Following that statement comes an investigation into the causes of Primary poverty under six different heads, and the results are submitted in a comprehensive table, as follows :– –

A detailed consideration is then given of specimen cases under each of the above heads, and if a bald statement of the normal condition is not sufficient, I will quote a few detail cases. Under head No. 2 is a case of “an old couple, the man deaf and quite incapable. The woman works at lace-making and cannot earn much more than about 2d. per day.” The rest of the small income is due to parish relief.

The author explains the absence of unemployment at that period of the year at which the investigation took place : “If these figures had been obtained a month or two earlier (than October, 1903) they would probably have shown a considerable number out of work.”

Another case merits particular notice. “A spinster makes her living entirely by lace-making, and works 10 or 12 hours per day for an income of about 3s. 6d. per week. The guardians refuse poor relief as she is a middle-aged woman ; but heavy work is impossible to her and as her sight is failing it is not likely she will be able to keep up the present close work long.”

The total deficiency works out as follows : —

                                 Secs 1-2  Sec. 4   Secs 5-6 Total

Under 16                       14     13  56           83

16-25                         1       4    7           12

25-55                         7       6   23           36

Over 55 23 4 2 29

Secondary Poverty is necessarily more limited here than in the towns, and the following are the statistics :—

Persons in Secondary Poverty                     33

Families in Secondary Poverty                     10

Percentage of Working Class Population    9.0

Percentage of Total Population                    7.1

No. of Individuals per Family                            3.3

Of the ten families in Secondary poverty, five are given as due to “the drink habit and its associated vices” ; three to bad management at home, which bad management is given as “sometimes through the overwork of the head of the household in getting a living” ; in one case to uncertainty of work; and the remaining one to the wage-earner not working regularly. The total poverty, both Primary and Secondary, is summed up as follows :—

The wage earners not in poverty are classified as follows :—

Total numbers of persons            197

Total number of families                      54

Average size of families                   3.71

Average family earnings       23s. 7½d.

Average rent                             1s. 6½d.

Per cent. of population                   42.1

The author warns you not to forget that every penny earned by every member of the household is here counted, and cases of adult sons earning full money and living at home help to bring the average up. The next table shows that the number of young wage earners living with their parents and helping to swell the family income is an important factor, and their influence in keeping the family above the poverty line can be seen as follows :—

                   

                  Primary Poverty pr.ct.   Secondary Poverty pr.ct.    Not in Poverty pr.ct.

Under 16         51.9                                   30.3                          26.0

16-25                 7.5                                   15.2                          14.2

25-55                22.5                                   39.4                                35.5                        

Over 55                18.1                                   15.2                          23.4

showing that the relative position of the family with regard to the poverty line is largely influenced by the age of the children. So powerful, indeed is this factor of the help supplied by children’s wages, that without it “a vast proportion” of those at present over the line would be below it. Out of the 54 families of the workers over the poverty line only 40 would be above it if only the head of the family were earning wages, i.e., 25.9 per cent, of this group are dependent on the supplementary wage earners.

The trading and upper classes, we are told, are well over the poverty stage. Certainly we must expect that under Capitalism, the non-producers should be rich, and that the wealth-producer, the worker, should be poor !

The average weekly wage for the labourer, according to Mr. Mann’s investigations, is 13s. 7½d., and including extras from allotments, &c., is 14s. 4d. : while if foremen and others are included who earn considerably more than the labourers, the average only rises, including extras, to 14s. 11d., a sum considerably lower than that obtained by Mr. Wilson Fox for the Agricultural Commission.

He concludes with two caustic paragraphs, which I will quote in full:—

“Taking the actual figures obtained, it appears clear that a man earning the average rate of wages and the head of a household, must descend below the Primary poverty line so soon as he has two children, unless he is able to supplement his income by an allotment, by fattening and breeding pigs, or by other means. It is also clear that he will remain below the poverty line until the eldest child leaves school and begins to earn money, and that, even if he has no more than two children, his only chance to save will be in his later life when his children are grown up and are earning money, or have left home. This is the most favourable case : if there are more children the period of poverty is longer, and the chance of saving less. In any case, during life it is a continual round of poverty. During childhood, poverty conditions are almost inevitable. As a boy grows up there are a few years intermission till, as a young man, he has two children; then poverty again till these children grow up ; and finally, at best, a penurious old age, barely lifted above the poverty line.

“I do not wish to draw conclusions in the present paper, but one thing I must say. The cry of ‘back to the land’ has a curious commentary in the results I have obtained. As at present existing, the standard of life on the land is lower than in the cities, the chances of success are less and of poverty are greater, life is less interesting, and the likelihood of the workhouse as the place of residence in old age the greater. It is evident that the cry against the depopulation of the country and the concentration of population in the towns must remain little more than a parrot cry until something is done to raise the standard of life and hence the standard of wages in our purely agricultural districts —to increase the chances of success in life, to make life more interesting, and to bring about a more attractive old age than at present, when, under existing conditions, the workhouse is apt to loom too large on the horizon of the agricultural labourer.”

I must remind the reader that this condition obtains now, when the power of wealth-production is greater than ever before, and that the conditions depicted affect that class that alone produces the wealth and makes the land fruitful. So long as the land and capital remain in the hands of a separate class, whose interests are thereby antagonised to the interests of the wage-worker ; so long as the workers are forced to compete for a wage, the tendency will naturally be for that wage to fall to the lowest subsistence level. Wages, as wages, cannot be raised by any artificial means as the author appears to suggest, and the only remedy for the poverty problem in the country, as in the town, is the restoration of the worker to the land and to the tools necessary to wealth-production, and this will necessitate the abolition of the class-ownership of the means of living and the opening up of a new era for humanity by the establishment of the Socialist Republic.

Dick Kent

Answers to Correspondents. (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

G. S. (Paddington). —It is apparent that your acquaintance with the Clarion has improved neither your Socialism nor your manners. By the regular reading of the Socialist Standard the former may in time develops; but for the latter there is no medicine in the pharmacopoeia of political economy.

Dr. E. (Vienna). —Your communication is having attention.

B.S.I. (Brussels). —Manifesto of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation received.

A. H. (Walthamstow). — Many thanks for extracts and election address. After all, Bailey, in running as a Labour candidate is only doing that which very many members of the S.D.F. do although their votes are claimed in Justice as S.D.F. votes. Recent elections in Hammersmith, Fulham, &c. are instances.

C. R. (Soham).—We are always pleased to receive intelligent comment as to our proceedings. Extract is being used, with thanks. With regard to Alderman Phillips’ letter it seems to us that a good churchman, of whatever denomination, must place his church first, and we are as much opposed to the Labour movement being captured for the greater glory of the church as to the decoy-duck business of the labour “leader.” Religious organisations are inherently pro-capitalist, and are therefore opposed to what we consider to be the interests of the working-class. We claim that Socialism without adjectives is sufficient, and only when the Socialist Republic is established will a good life be possible. Conduct is determined by economic conditions, not by theological beliefs.

Watford Branch Report. Labour Misleaders and the Local Elections. (1905)

Party News from the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since our last report two or three more labour organisations have been born, while some of the old ones have died or lapsed into moribundity. At any rate we never hear of them. Altogether we have now not more than a dozen bodies (mainly composed of very much the same people) all convinced that something really ought to be done for the working man but none very clear as to what should be done. Thus we had the organ of one body crying out upon the local Council that could not find anything better than a few hours in the gravel pits for the unemployed, and gravely suggesting that the Council ought to set them to work putting sand on frosty roads! (It is only fair to add that we have had at least 3 days upon which the roads were in a bad condition through frost).

Thus again the I.L.P. after threatening public meetings which are never held takes its courage in both hands and suddenly rushes into public life with a revolutionary proposal to obliterate the betting news in the public reading room. After which, flushed with the success of their maiden effort, they hold a public meeting upon the unemployed problem—this being the thing at the moment—and secure the services of an estimable and reverend lecturer, who admitted that he did not know much about the unemployed, or that he was expected to speak upon the unemployed, and who confined himself to relating his experiences among the poor dear fellows in the Belgium Labour Colonies or Penitentiaries—who have such a splendid time of it (according to the reverend gentleman) with their reading-rooms, smoking rooms, and other luxurious conveniences that the authorities have to dig a deep and wide trench all round the colony to prevent them running away !

And now the Trades Council are contesting the Urban Council elections and working-class support is asked for because the other candidates have no programmes worth talking about. A few short months since the Trades Council were running their candidates with no programme at all, and only adopted the present attenuated apology for a programme because their hands were forced by those who now form the Watford Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. And these are the good and earnest but ill-informed and misguided folk who believe that they are remedying the evils under which the workers suffer ! And they seem to think that in a multiplication of societies is much wisdom. Instead of which of course it is a potent cause of working-class confusion.

How can the workers understand unless the issues are kept clear ? And how can the issues be kept clear when half a score of organisations persist in poking their petty programmes between the eyes of the workers and the real cause of the workers’ condition. What the workers of this town want in common with the workers of every other town, is a plain statement of the position as it affects them and clear reasons why nothing but Socialism will suffice. And there is no organisation in this district other than the Watford Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain presenting this plain statement and these clear reasons. All the others are engaged in deluding the workers into the belief that something less than Socialism will avail.

And so we ask that those whom this paper reaches in Watford before the elections take place shall refuse support not only to the capitalist candidates of the Tradesmens’ Association, but also to the Labour candidates of the Trades Council. The former cannot help the workers and don’t propose to. The latter, with their programme (!), are equally impotent. There is nothing for the workers of Watford to do in this or any other election other than to organise their forces for the capture of the Urban Council and all other political machinery, not with the object of securing a few absolutely inadequate and entirely useless reforms, but with the object or using their power to the best advantage by concentrating directly upon the only change that will affect them, viz., the transfer of the means of life from out the hands of those who at present control them (the capitalist class) into the hands and the control of the whole people. Join the Watford Branch !

The Freedom of Slavery. (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is from the “Daily Mirror.” It snows how even the capitalist Press will speak the truth sometimes :—

“Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs receive our air, that moment they are free

So wrote the poet Cowper, and his lines summed up the feeling which Englishmen had about slavery in the days when the agitation for its abolition was going on.

"Even now the very talk of slavery arouses indignation. Yet what humbug it is! How many of us have thought out for ourselves the question whether it would not be better for thousands of people in Britain to-day to be slaves rather than free men ?

"What is the ‘freedom’ of the man who depends upon his labour and cannot find employment ? He is ‘free’ to tramp about all day looking for work; ‘free’ to see others warm and well-fed while he shivers and gnaws a crust; ‘free’ to grow weaker and weaker as cold and hunger tell upon his frame; ‘free’ to sink down beaten, ‘free’ to starve slowly, ‘free’ to die.

"Slaves, at any rate, are looked after; fed and clothed sufficiently ; given a roof over their heads. In the old slavery days it was as rare to find a man who neglected or ill-treated his human possessions as it is nowadays to come across cruel or careless owners of horses and cattle.

"Britons regard slavery with horror, but at the same time many of them treat their free workpeople far worse than they would treat slaves. If a slave dies it is a loss to his owner. If a ‘free’ worker dies there are dozens of others eager for his job. His death makes no difference to an employer at all.

"A man in the depths of despair, starving, shoeless, shattered by the misery he had gone through, wrote to us for help. At the end of his letter was a sentence which arrested our attention. Even slavery, he said, would be infinitely preferable to such a life as his.

"We have bought this man in order to show to what depths it is possible to sink in this ‘free’ country of ours, where the name of slavery is abhorred, but where enormous numbers of ‘free’ men and women fall into a state compared to which slavery would be a pleasant and easy condition of life.”

The man (whose name and address was published) was told by the “Daily Mirror” to show himself.

“A short man came, a man with a face that had once been full of intelligence and keenness, but which was now pulled out of its proper shape by misery. A man who walked with a heart-broken walk—with a walk that walks hopeless creatures to self-destruction. A hopeless man.

" ‘I am the man who wants to be a slave,’ he said.

"The bitterness of his tone was that terrible bitterness that is an amalgam of despair and nonchalance.

" ‘But are you worth buying ? What is your price ?’ he was asked.

"His square chin thrust itself out and for a moment looked like the sturdy, independent chin nature had meant it to be.

" ‘I will sell myself for £10,’ he said, ‘and victuals and shelter.’

" ‘But you are not worth £10 ; at least, why should you be worth £10 ? What can you do ?’

" ‘I don’t know anything,’ was the miserable answer.

" ‘Will you sell yourself for £2 ? ‘

" ‘Yes.’

" ‘That was how we got our slave.

"WE HAD TO BUY HIM FROM SHEER PITY.”

Two pounds ! Less than the price of a horse. Less than the price of an ass. Is the Socialist so very wrong when he asserts that hundreds of thousands of the working-class of free England would be better off, materially, in a state of chattel slavery ? Under such a condition they would at least have food and clothing and shelter, where to-day they have little of either, and can be bought as an act of charity for two pounds!

And yet the transaction of the “Daily Mirror” is not exceptional. Quite the contrary. Every member of the working-class sells himself or, which is the same thing, his power to labour, every time he can find an employer to buy him. He sells himself, generally speaking for just the amount that will keep him in working condition and enable him to reproduce his kind. He sells himself for his keep without even receiving, as in the case of the man purchased by the “Daily Mirror,” a bonus of £2. Indeed, he can sometimes be found offering a bonus of £2 to anyone who will give him information that will enable him to sell himself !

That he receives wages wherewith to buy the things necessary to the maintenance of life does not alter the fact of the sale ; does not alter the fact that he is the property, the slave, of the man who buys him.

And yet because, when he is fortunate enough to find a buyer for his labour power (himself), he receives a sum that enables him to buy what he likes within the limits of that sum, he thinks himself free— a delusion most sedulously fostered by the parsons and politicians and apologists for the present system.

He is free because he can choose how he shall spend his pitiable earnings — whether in scrag-of-mutton or corned beef ! Free because he can leave one master when he likes, although to get another—for a master he must have under present conditions if he is to live— is a task he may find it no easy matter to compass as the “Daily Mirror” slave seems to have discovered to his sorrow. Freedom ! Was ever such a travesty on words ?

Little as it was expected the “Daily Mirror” has spoken sober truth as to the advantages of chattel slavery over present-day “freedom,” for the worker’s freedom has brought him nothing but a more precarious dependency. But when this Harmsworth journal says it has bought a man and implies thereby that such a transaction is unusual, it is simply blurring the indisputable fact that every worker sells himself ; that every employer buys a slave.

When the working-class have accepted that truth, and have accepted the further truth which The Socialist Party of Great Britain exists to propagate, viz., that their condition with all its concomitant misery is directly due to the fact that the workers are separated from the means by which they live —have no control over the land and the machinery by which wealth is produced from the land and distributed, because these means are held and controlled by the employing or capitalist-class, they will be ready to appreciate the force of the contention of the Socialist Party that in the substitution of common ownership and control of the means of life for the present individual ownership, and in that alteration alone lies the remedy, a remedy that can be applied when the workers have appreciated, but not until then

G. J. Hodson

SPGB Meetings and Events. (1905)

Party News from the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

To Young Speakers. (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many of our young speakers do their best, and are still disappointed. We can give them one or two tips which, if followed, will assist them.

The very first essential to making a good speech on any question is to have an implicit belief that the side you are talking on is right. That essential is already possessed by all our speakers.

The next greatest essential is to know everything of your subject. If you can’t know everything, know all that you can. Study Socialism, read Socialism, and in order to understand Socialism study capitalism, if you want to make a good speech about Socialism. You can’t know too much about the subject; you can’t possibly know enough. Know all that you can freeze on to.

An old friend of the writer, probably the greatest Socialist speaker in America to-day, once said to him: "My boy, the Worker gets here Friday. On Friday evening when I get home from work I sit me down and read the Worker —every word in it; not the headlines only, not the articles only of news, but every line — and then I know what is doing in Socialism, and I know what to say and how to say it.”

Young speakers particularly should do this. But they should not stop there. Read a book now and then. Read a book worth the reading, and read it carefully. When you have read a chapter, stop and recall all the meat of it that you can. If there is some important part of it that you do not understand, or cannot recall clearly, go back and look it up. Learn to remember things that are worth remembering.

Not only read good books. but if you are a young speaker, read them aloud. Watch yourself. You will be surprised how many words you fail to pronounce distinctly, clearly. When you do that go back and read the sentence over again and again, as many times as may be necessary to enable you to acquire a habit of speaking in a clear tone and sounding every syllable of a word — no slurring.

If you will do these things — inform yourself on the subject, saturate yourself with it, read aloud, clearly, distinctly; read good, well-written books, so as to get the habit of speaking correctly, strongly, elegantly — do these things, and there is no reason why a young man of strength and good lungs and voice should not become not only a speaker, but an orator.

The Worker

Who can boss? (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Roosevelt will fight the Trusts! So were the American people in particular and the civilized world in general told when he was put in power. Such of the American people as had knowledge smiled, if they did not, they should have done. The Beef Trust was impeached, and found guilty of conspiracy to fix prices, secure illegal rebates from the railroads, and stifle free competition. The United States Circuit Court of Illinois granted an injunction against the Trust on the foregoing counts. But the Trust did not worry—it simply continued in the same old way. On the 31st of January, 1905, the newspapers stated their belief that criminal proceedings would be taken against the firms constituting the Trust. Speaking an the following day at Philadelphia, Mr. Roosevelt urged, among other things, more federal control of commerce and particularly of railroads. “ Neither this people nor any other free people ” he declared, "will permanently tolerate vast power conferred by vast wealth in a corporate form, that does not lodge somewhere in the Government a still higher power of seeing that this power is used for and not against the people as a whole." In New York, on the same day, a railroad Trust, believed in financial circles to be the largest of its kind, was brought into existence. Mr.W. H. Newman, president of the New York Central Line, was appointed president of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and S. Louis lines, popularly, known as the “big four.” This combination consists of nearly thirty distinct lines, and controls all the great routes from New York to Chicago, with the exception of the Pennsylvanian railway. The final aim of the Trust is to make practically one system from the Atlantic to the Pacific and to form one huge combination with a capital of seven billion dollars (£1,400,000,000). On the following day a Cotton Trust was formed, with a capital of a hundred million dollars (£20,000,000). It comprises almost all the mills in Massachusetts and some in the other New England States. The reason given for its formation was that the northern mills could not compete with the southern and they had to amalgamate in order to exist. The paragraph significantly concludes thus: “The new Trust proposes to reorganise the business of the mills it takes over, on the basis of economical production and new processes of weaving. There will be economies effected in the labour and management of the mills.” Thus the Trusts show their contempt for the powers that be. Not a President goes to the White House without their permission. As Mr. William Allen White points out in the New York “Collier’s,” “The people howl for Roosevelt and whoop it up for reform, until the railroads begin issuing passes and contributing to the campaign fund. Then these same dear patriotic people get in special trains, eat free railroad grub, corrode tneir insides with free railroad liquor, and hurrah for “the old man ” who sees the railroads run the government.”

But, says the Britisher, this is all in America and it does not follow that similar things occur or could occur in England. We have no such Trusts. Let us see. On January 30th of this year, news was published of the amalgamation of two most important cotton-spinning associations. Between them they controlled over 30,000,000 spindles, out of England’s total of 45,000,000, the world’s total being 110,000,000. In October, 1904, the Scottish and North of England Iron and Steel Masters met and arrived at an understanding, the result of which was very soon shewn in a reduction of the wages of the employees of the firms concerned. Recently the Cornish producers of china formed themselves into an Association. Even the capitalist papers refer to the London Coal Trade as “the Coal ring,” whilst that of the Billingsgate Fish merchants is well-known. The American invasion to capture the Tobacco trade taught the English manufacturers that the only way that they could fight a Trust was by forming another and the Imperial Tobacco Company was the result. The Liquor monopoly is of course a Trust, the strength of which is largely due to the policy pursued by the lopsided “Temperance” reformers. At the present moment, the “one-man grocer” as he is called, is much agitated about the statement that the Mazawattee Tea Co. is about to open 300 to 400 shops in the country for the retailing of its tea and other commodities, but it is no trade secret that the vast proportion of the retail grocery shops belong to similar mammoth concerns. The provision shops, too, are often merely distributive depots for the wholesale houses, whilst few of the “master” bakers are other than managers for, or “tied” tenants of, the millers. Then we have the Wall-Paper Trust, the Type-Writer Trust, and so on. Here, as abroad, industry after industry becomes trustified. The only way in which the capitalists of any country can hope to secure and maintain a hold upon the World’s Markets is by these large combinations of capital, with their resulting more systematic methods of organisation and “effective economies in labour and management.”

This ever extending growth of the Trusts means a more and more precarious existence for the workers. The ever-improving machinery that these large capitals can operate should prove to the workers that they have no effective weapon with which to fight them and resist their aggressions. The Trade Unions with their few thousands of pounds cannot hope to successfully fight the Trusts with their millions. The power of the machine alone will almost crush them, but the machine and the large capital combined in the Trust they cannot fight. The lesson of the class war must be brought home to them. Just as in the United States the capitalist papers admit the control of the Government by the Trusts, so will it happen here in England. The only way of salvation for the workers lies in the transformation of these Trusts into national property and the organisation of industry on a co-operative basis of production for use and not for profit. No capitalist party will legislate for this— they dare not, on the pain of self-extinction. The only party that dare go to the legislative assemblies to do this is the Socialist working-class, organised on the lines of the class war, with its tactics and policy in accord with its principle, with a clear knowledge of the fact that rent, profit, and interest exist because the workers—the wealth-creators—are robbed of the wealth they produce, whether taken from them by private capitalists or by the capitalist state or municipality. A revolutionary Socialist party alone can act in the real interests of the workers, and for the workers of this country that party is The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

E. J. B. Allen

Our Re-Union (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Re-union of members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain to celebrate the anniversary of the Paris Commune was held on Saturday, March 18th, 1905, at the "Rainbow Hotel," Newgate Street, E.C. At 7 o'clock the members began to gather in goodly numbers, and it was soon seen that they were not only bent upon having an enjoyable evening, but that they means that this, the first Re-union of members, should be a notable success. This was also anticipated by the organisers of the gathering who had provided a splendid programme of musical and elocutionary talent. Comrades Kent and Fitzgerald were expected to preside during the evening, but pending their arrival the chair was taken by Comrade Crump, who opened the proceedings. He vacated the chair on the arrival of Comrade Kent, who delivered the usual chairman's speech. Amongst those who so splendidly contributed to the evening's entertainment were: the Misses Beale, Mrs. Newlands, H. Young, D. Newlands, E. Fairbrother, T. Tarrant, H. Belsey, F. S. Leigh, T. A. Jackson. We also had a stirring address from Comrade Anderson, and the meeting terminated by singing the "International," and with cheers for the Social Revolution and for The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Over a hundred of the members of our party were present and they fully expressed the opinion that the success of the re-union would more than justify the holding of many similar functions in the near future.

O. C.

See also:

April 1905: The Commune in Paris

The Commune in Paris (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

MEETING IN LONDON.

[Specially reported THE SOCIALIST STANDARD]

The thirty-fourth anniversary of the establishment of the Paris Commune was celebrated by a well attended meeting at Sydney Hall on Sunday, 19th March. The meeting was organised by the Battersea Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, and was creditable alike to the occasion which it commemorated and to the members of the Branch responsible for its organisation.

Comrade Crump presided, and after a short opening address called upon H. Neumann to deliver the first speech.

Neumann said that in honouring the memory of the men and women who participated in the struggle in '71, they were honouring some of the bravest pioneers of the movement of the working-class. The event known to history as the Commune of Paris was one of the most glorious, if saddest, in the annals of the proletariat. It showed the heroism of which the working-class was capable, while at the same time it demonstrated the fiendish brutality, the incredible cowardice and the all pervading treachery of the dominant class. Thirty or forty years ago, of course, the workers of France were in a different position to that which obtains to-day. Then Socialism was understood but by a few, but dim as was their perception of the nature of the class-struggle, confused as were their notions as to the economic reconstruction of society, the workers who in Paris in '71 raised the red flag over the Hotel de Ville and proclaimed the rights of labour, gave unmistakable evidence of the powers that were latent in the proletariat. When, through the incompetence and treachery of the French bourgeoisie, Paris had been occupied by the Prussians, the discontent of the metropolitan populace was great, but that discontent, though great, was ill-defined. Nobody, or at any rate no considerable section of the people, knew precisely what ought to be done, but when the corrupt Thiers government sought treacherously to disarm the National Guard, that is to say the working-class of Paris, some of the doubts were solved, and the workers, in successfully baffling the attempt to steal their cannon, were first thrown on the defensive and afterwards brought to a position when they had no alternative but, on the flight of the cowardly Theirs and his minions to Versailles, to set up the Commune and assert their rights such as they understood them to be. The working-class government of Paris under the Commune lasted only a few months. It was easy enough to see now that the Commune was doomed from the outset; but though the Commune failed and was deluged in a sea of blood, the lessons to be derived from the struggle were of first importance. They had heard a lot of talk nowadays, even from some professed Socialists, about the necessity of proceeding to revolution via reform, but let them learn a lesson from the Commune. How often had the Commune sent representatives to the capitalist government at Versailles for the purpose of establishing truces or entering into negotiations for the adjustment of their differences? Did not the working-class of Paris ask brother Capital at Versailles to arbitrate ? And what was brother Capital's reply? Thiers said there was to be no negotiation: he wanted the unconditional surrender of Paris. Surely if there was any truth in the contention that reforms were to be got from the capitalist class, here was an occasion on which a great opportunity was afforded to that class of granting "palliative" measures, and avoiding bloodshed; but what occurred? The material interests of the masters were threatened by an armed section of the working-class, the class-feeling and class-hatred of the bourgeois for the proletaire were aroused, and instead of granting reforms the capitalists waded ankle deep in the blood of the Parisian workers. Let the workers prepare themselves in the school of revolution to deal with the impending collapse of capitalist society.

F. C. Watts spoke next. It was a good thing to hold these Commune meetings. To many, even. the word "Commune," meant upheaval, anarchy and bloodshed; but to Socialists the Commune signified the fight between the working-class and the capitalist-class. They acted wisely and well. Schemes were set afoot for opening the disused factories, by handing them over to be worked co-operatively by the workers, and schemes for forming communes in other parts of France were promoted, but owing to the superior force of circumstances these and other proposals did not fructify. The Commune, however, was a great example of the international solidarity of the working-class. One of the, soldiers of the Commune, while at his post on a barricade, was asked what he was dying for. "Human solidarity" was the answer. That brave worker, dying for the brotherhood of man, was an example of what the Commune stood for. The Commune showed more clearly than any other movement that when the working-class really stand for their own, when they Commune, far from implying crime, denoted the absence of crime, for while the Commune held sway, a man or woman was safer in Paris with the Communards than in Versailles with the French Government, with its forgers, swindlers, and nondescript hangers on. Crime there was, but not on the part of the workers. The charge of incendiarism had been made, but when the working-class, driven to desperation, burned the public buildings, they did so because the Versailles Government cared more for the public buildings than for the lives of the people. The difficulties the Commune had to face were hardly appreciated. They were fighting their own countrymen outside the walls, with spies and traitors within, but notwithstanding these difficulties the Paris Commune, in many respects, really menace the interests of the capitalist-class, that class will use every means to crush the working-class movement. The capitalists resolved that they would crush the canaille and wipe out the whole breed. But though they succeeded in crushing the Commune, they failed in wiping out the working-class movement, which was immeasurably stronger to-day than it was then. The working-class movement, though it vigorously asserted itself in '71, did not, of course, begin at that time, for in '48, while not near so ripe as that movement was in '71, they became troublesome to their masters, and instituted the Social Republic. A quarter of a century produced changes, for in '71 the working-class to a certain extent realised that not alone must the political machinery be controlled but that industry likewise must be controlled. They realised, moreover, not fully perhaps, but anyhow more fully than before, that the master-class and not the foreigner was the enemy. As Karl Marx had said, there must fee no truce between the working-class and the master-class of France and of every country, and as heralding that great coming struggle of classes the memory of the Commune would always be cherished by the working-class.

A. Anderson, who followed, said that viewed from the standpoint of the working-class there was no revolution in '48, nor could it be said that there was a revolution 'in,'71. The upheavals of these periods were certainly not working-class revolutions, for despite the fact that the workers took part in these movements, their objective was not the advancement of the material interest of the working-class, and the Social Revolution would be a failure unless the Socialists saw to it that they had behind them the well organised support of the working-class. To get an example of what a revolution really meant that movement which culminated in France in 1789 would have to be studied. Then the whole of society was stirred to its roots by social development acted upon by the litterateurs and champions of the rising middle-class. Prior to '89 the bourgeoisie had diffused that knowledge which was necessary to dispel the old ideas of property, and by an educational propaganda the peasants through their material interests were enlisted on the side of the new order. The peasants burned the castles and the leases of the feudal aristocracy, whose reign was speedily brought to an end. The Voltaires and the Rousseaus of the middle-class had well prepared the ground and the bourgeois revolution triumphed. With regard to the working-class, they were not a political force at all before '71, and the Commune marked the baptism of fire of the working-class in the political field. The events associated with the Commune showed clearly that the capitalist-class is the most cowardly class that ever figured in the world's history,. They fled from Paris to save their skins, while the working-class were compelled to rise and take hold of the reins of government. A great deal had been said about the shooting of hostages—it had been said there was a bloody week, a bloody month. But it took longer than a week or a month to satisfy the ferocity of the capitalist-class, for between January '71 and January '72 the number of insurgents arrested by the Thiers government was 38,578: of these 10,131 were sentenced to imprisonment, and 23,121 were shot. Let the revolutionists of to-day teach the-workers that while for their own ends the Liberal and Tory sections of the capitalist-class were playing with them, to deceive and decoy them into supporting capitalism by promises of reform here and promises of reform there, when the workers determined to fight for their own cause they would be shot down just as mercilessly as were the men and women of the Paris Commune. The Commune failed because the moment had not struck for the Social Revolution, and before that could be brought about a large amount of educational work must be done. The working-class must realise that it is not by putting men into power over their heads and imagining that in that way a revolution would be brought about from the top, that their emancipation would be accomplished. The working-class revolution must commence with the working-class itself, intelligently organised and well-disciplined. Then and now the heart of the people was sound, but revolutions were not questions of the heart, a revolution was a question of the brain. The duty of the hour was to educate the working-class into a knowledge of its power and mission, to clear away the confusions created by Liberalism and Toryism and thoroughly discredit the pretensions of spurious Labourism and alleged Socialism, The flag of the Commune was the heirloom of the working-class, and if the banner of Socialism was let fall by one organisation, another party must spring into existence to rear it aloft. The Socialist Party of Great Britain guarded the flag-in this country, and had never compromised. Let its members go forward with good cheer and carry the ensign of freedom into every town and hamlet in the land.

J. Fitzgerald then mounted the platform, and referring to the statement frequently made by capitalist writers, to wit that in establishing the Commune the workers had chosen the wrong time, said that this was a favourite argument of the upholders of capitalism. When the workers tried to better themselves, they were always told it was the wrong time. In fact never had the-workers done anything that was not done at the wrong time. In 1830 the capitalists were compelled to give the workers some political power, and in 1848 the workers had political power, and weapons to defend it. The men of property never relished the idea of seeing arms in the possession of the men of no property, and the reason was obvious. Theirs saw that if the capitalists of France were to continue as the dominant class, the working-class must no longer have arms, and it was decided that the National Guard must be disarmed. These arms were not the property of the government, as they were paid for by public subscription : and moreover at the surrender of Paris to the Prussians it was clearly stipulated that they were not to be given up. But Thiers ordered them to be seized, and in the night a detachment of the military marched on Montmartre to steal the cannon of the National Guard. The-attempted governmental theft was discovered just in time, and the Parisian working-class-refused to be disarmed. That was the beginning of the revolt. The working-class, however, had not then realised that the only people the working-class could rely upon were the working-class themselves, and so they were looking for help and counsel from some middle-class men who only succeeded in muddling matters. The establishment of the Commune came as a surprise to the rest of France, for when the Commune issued a manifesto to the other towns, the people in the provinces said they did not know the men who signed the manifesto. This in itself was sufficient evidence-that the ground had not been prepared, and even in quarters where perhaps assistance might have been expected the Paris workers were sadly disappointed. The radical left, the men who were "coming our way," were determined to help the working-class, and to-day should a crisis involving similar grave issues be prehistory would repeat itself, and the are "coming our way" would be found wanting. Let the Socialist working-class beware of these men. From the Commune many important lessons were to be derived, the first being the unreliability of any section of the capitalist-class . Secondly it showed clearly that the working-class ought to look askance at the students, the class that provided the material for future "intellectuals," for during the struggle in '71 the Latin quarter, the students' quarter, went over to Versailles, whence they heaped opprobrium on the working-class. We were told by "Social-Democratic" papers to-day that the students in Russia were aiding the working-class, but the converse would be nearer the truth. The Russian revolution now in progress was a middle-class revolution, and it was misleading to say that it was a working-class revolution. He (the speaker) found all doubts on the subject vanish when he heard that the students in Russia were in the movement. Another point to be noted in connection with Commune was the fact that the working-class had not half enough hatred nor half enough organisation. The working-class will learn yet that the class struggle is war to the knife against capitalism, a war which allows of no parleying with the enemy. Thiers demanded the unconditional surrender of Paris, and to-day in like language, The Socialist Party of Great Britain demanded the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. Organisation was of prime importance, for without a sound organisation of the working-class there would be another Commune—another wholesale slaughter of the workers. He had heard someone once say that what they ought to do is to wait for a while and then "make a rush for it." Make a rush with what ? Without organisation nothing could be done. Again, they had been told by some by worthy people, even by a man of the stamp of Morris, that the soldiers would fraternise with the people. Did the soldiers fraternise in '71 ? No, they did not do so, nor would they do it to-day, for the soldiers of capitalism are kept apart from the people, and do not sympathise with the people. The soldier as a rule only learnt to obey orders and would shoot when told. The Commune also showed the nature of the "religion" of the disciples of Christ, as the treatment of the wounded by the Sisters of "Mercy" testified. Finally, the utter uselessness of "humanity" in dealing with the foes of the working-class was shown during the Paris struggle. Let them realise that there would be no successful revolution of the working-class until that class had studied well the economic and political history of the workers; until the memory of the working-class is well stored with a knowledge of what has been done to them by the ruling-class. Cluseret, who in a manifesto told the Paris workers that without military organisation the workers could be relied upon to defeat the best strategist, was a dangerous fool. Let them beware of the of to-day, and learn above all that there was no hope from "Labourism," "bogus Socialism,", or any other manifestation of capitalist politics.

E. J. B. Allen, who spoke next, wished to draw the attention of the workers to the fact that when the Commune rose, the capitalist-class who were previously divided, united against the working-class. The French capitalist government did not kill all the working-class because then the capitalists would have to their own work. In addition to the lack of organisation shown during the Commune, there was also the fact that the working-class did not understand its mission, but if the Commune was a failure it still stood as a beacon light for the workers of to-day. Let the watchword be "No compromise," for any movement that compromised was doomed to failure. 

C. Lehane said that it was indeed fitting that at meeting held to honour the men and women of '71 should be called together in Sydney Hall, the premises of the Battersea Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Battersea would go down in the annals of the Party as the Montmartre of the Socialist movement in Great Britain. As in '71 with the attempted seizure of the guns at Montmartre the Parisian working-class had the first brush with the enemy, so in 1904, with the passage of what was known as the "Battersea resolution," at Battersea, the working-class, of London exchanged the first shot with capitalism and all the forces of reaction. Well he remembered that engagement, for he was present when Ernest Allen, the previous speaker, who commanded the Battersea Battery on the 15th of May last, fired that well directed and penetrating shell which spread such confusion among the ranks of the enemy. As a result of that shot, The Socialist Party of Great Britain sprang into existence to fight and win the battle of the working-class. It had been pointed out that when the Commune issued a manifesto to the provinces calling upon them to act, the answer came that the manifesto was signed by unknown men. The manifesto issued on behalf of the "Battersea Meeting" calling for the formation of The Socialist Party of Great Britain was also signed by "unknown men," but he, the speaker, trusted that the response to that manifesto from provincial Britain would be more cheering and more decisive than that which came to the Paris manifesto in '71. Let the Socialists in the provinces rally to the support of those who in the metropolis were doing battle on behalf of the working-class of Great Britain and of the world. At the present time they should not calculate on any chance luck or happy accident, but they should go forward steadily with the work of organisation. Depending on the soldiers' to fraternise with the people in the hour of need was trusting to chance, for it was only a chance. Let them remember the "fraternising" that took place at Mitchelstown and at Featherstone. In Ireland the military police sent their billets-doux in the shape of bullets and in England the soldiers sent their love-messages at long range. The butchers of Featherstone served the soldiers with bullets capable of cutting through 35 inches of solid elm, and the capitalists would yet have reason to believe the workers were wooden-headed if they did not recognise that in the last resort they had nothing to rely on but their own well-disciplined strength.. Let them learn the coalescence of the French and German capitalist governments against the workings-class of Paris in '71, that the "patriotism" by which reactionaries tried to keep asunder the workers of all countries, was only a snare, and let them realise that the development of the economic forces demanded international action on the part of the working-class. International solidarity to-day transcended geographical boundaries, for rivers were bridged and mountains scaled by mankind in its onward march.

The meeting, having given hearty cheers for the Commune of '71, the Social Revolution to come, and The Socialist Party of Great Britain, was brought to a conclusion by the singing of "the International."