Storm over Shipping (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The most critical period of World War 2 is now but a painful memory to the members of the British and American capitalist class. The dark days of Dunkirk, of Singapore, of Pearl Harbour, are to them fast receding into history. They were indeed anxious, perilous days for them—days during which their whole economy was ruthlessly transformed and moulded, their wealth and material resources made subordinate to the needs of a struggle, the stake of which they realised, almost too late, was their very existence as major capitalist powers.

The fortunes of battle have turned. Optimism over the prospects of winning out in the struggle has given way to confidence. No longer immersed in the arduous struggle for self-preservation, they have begun to devote more of their attention to matters much more pleasing to their hearts— and, incidentally, to their pockets.

As a contrast to the airy nature of their promises of Atlantic Charters and Four Year Plans, their statements on this subject have not been marked by any lack of frankness. Recrimination and accusation have been equally indulged in by both sides. In industry after industry, particularly during this last year, has this conflict of interest made itself manifest. Some months ago controversy arose between Britain and the U.S.A. over post-war air transport. Hardly had this died down when mutual denunciation ensued over natural and the question of natural and synthetic rubber. Even more recently many hard words have been said by both parties over petroleum supplies during and after the war. On the subject of this increasing friction between the interests of British and American capitalism, the United States News (October 22nd, 1943) says the following : —

“Nationalistic suspicions are putting a new strain upon the relations between the U.S. and its British and Russian allies. They break out at every turn—over oil, bases, rubber, lend-lease supplies, shipping.”

In no industry has there been more mutual suspicion and ill-will aroused than that of shipping.

To British capitalism, a large and efficient merchant marine is an absolute and vital necessity. During the nineteenth century, when she was the “workshop of the world,” she possessed a virtual monopoly of the world’s shipping tonnage. Since 1900 that supremacy has been gradually whittled down until the proportion now owned by British shipowners amounts to but 26 per cent. of the world total.

The history of American shipping has followed a much different course. Although the end of the First Great War saw the U.S. emerge as the possessor of a large merchant fleet, the passing of high tariff laws, almost always fatal to the development of a large home shipping industry, caused the tonnage to decline rapidly. Playing in this war the same role she played in the last—that of the arsenal of her Allies—she has again been compelled to develop a large merchant marine. There is evidence, however, to show that after this war is over, she intends to maintain her maritime supremacy. It is evident that there are other motives at work besides philanthropic ones in this concern of hers for a strong mercantile marine. She sees the prospect that the conclusion of this war will witness the emergence of the U.S.A. as the dominant capitalist power of the world. From the speeches of her statesmen and businessmen, she appears to make her economic influence felt throughout the whole five continents. Already she has in some cases backed up those speeches with action—e.g., the building of air and sea bases. To the American capitalist class it is obvious that their plans to “muscle in” in the economic sphere will be far from watertight without the possession of a large merchant fleet to carry their commodities at reasonable rates. It would be economic suicide for them to produce goods to flood the markets of the world, only to find themselves held to ransom, by exorbitant freight charges in foreign vessels. They have made their intentions in the matter quite clear, witness Time (October 18th, 1943) : —

“A hoarse warning bellow tore through the fog of post-war shipping plans last week, set Britons tooting nervously. Back in Washington from a three-week visit to London, U.S. Maritime Commission’s Rear-Admiral Howard L. Vickery announced that he had told the British the U.S. ‘had become a maritime nation and intended to remain one; that we would do it by cooperation if they wanted to, but if they didn’t want to, we were going to do it anyway’. . . .”

And further :—

“The U.S. merchant fleet will be responsible almost completely for the distribution of the world’s goods immediately after, the war.” (Frank Taylor, President, American Merchant Marine Institute, Sunday Pictorial, November 21st, 1943.)

The significance of these remarks has not been lost upon British shipowners, who are themselves naturally very much concerned with their own post-war prospects and problems. The Stock Exchange Gazette (November 27th, 1943, page 1291) says, for instance: —

“Meanwhile shipowners have been able, through the General Council of British Shipping, to get down to some very important national problems, and, in this respect, will be more fitted to come to grips with actualities when the end of the war quickens the pace.”

The General Council had itself something to say in reply to Vickery’s challenging statements (Time, October 18th, 1943) : —

“Shippers have sufficient faith in American realism to believe that it will be recognised that, however important the possession of an adequate merchant marine may be to the U.S., to Britain it is a vital necessity.”

Neither British nor American representatives appear very happy about the position, however. Oscar R. Hobson, City Editor of the News Chronicle, says in this connection (October 19th, 1943) :—.

“The policy of the U.S. is to remain one of the dominant maritime powers of the world. Admiral Land, discussing the relations between the U.S. and the other maritime powers hoped that a policy of collaboration would be followed, but admitted that it would not be easy to achieve. He suggested that all the nations concerned would want a larger share of the shipping trade than the others would be willing to concede to them. Everybody, he said, wants to cut the pie, but no one wants to take a small piece. His suggestion was one which will commend itself to all right-thinking people: ‘I recommend that we bake a bigger pie.’”

In one respect, however, British and American capitalists and their economic experts are at one—neither party can put forward any solution to the problem convincing enough to bear even superficial scrutiny. The only solution which Admiral Land can advocate is “that we bake a bigger pie,” which is an argument he himself has already demolished in his own previous remarks. Whatever the size of the pie, everybody, as he himself says, wants to cut it, and no one wants a small piece.

The Stock Exchange Gazette (November 27th, 1943) is even more pessimistic : —

“It is easy, with sufficient State aid (and sufficiently complacent taxpayers) to build a mercantile marine up to any size. It is another thing to be able to use that mercantile marine, not necessarily profitably but at all, except by sailing the ships round the world in ballast. Otherwise they must be tied up at the buoys, as the unfortunate American ships were in the Hudson River and elsewhere after the last war because they were the wrong ships for such scanty post-war employment as was available.”

There it is in black and white. After the last war. the spectacle was seen of dozens—nay, hundreds—of ships lying idle in rivers, docks and other waterways, lying idle not only in the Hudson river, but in the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne; lying idle not only in Britain and the U.S.A., but in. every country possessing a merchant marine worthy of the name; hundreds of vessels rusting and rotting for lack of profitable cargoes, whilst millions of the world’s inhabitants went hungry, cold and comfortless, and this at a time when—crowning, tragic irony of all—foodstuffs were being burnt, raw materials destroyed, machines deliberately scrapped or rendered idle, and millions of human beings the whole world over, who could have set to and produced the means of human satisfaction were wasting their miserable lives away in poverty and idleness.

The stresses and strains manifest now in shipping are but the reflection of forces at work throughout the whole of industry. The struggles for economic advantage now taking place are paralleled in oil, rubber, textiles, steel, air transport; these struggles, heated and violent as they are now whilst the war is still being waged, will be nothing to the conflicts set in motion after the war has been won.

Whatever group of capitalists wins out in this economic struggle, the conditions the workers experienced before the war they will suffer again in a more aggravated form after it. Socialism still remains the only solution to their problems. Their task is still before them : to organise consciously and politically for the abolition of capitalism and all that it entails, and in its place to establish Socialism, a system in which all the world’s resources will be utilised to the full, in which production will be made subordinate, not to the will for profit of a few, but to the needs of all its inhabitants.

Stan Hampson

Compromise leads to Catastrophe (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nothing that has occurred in working-class history has weakened our view that the most important task to-day is that of making Socialists. We cannot have Socialism until a majority of the workers are Socialists, also as Socialist knowledge animates large numbers of the workers, so will recede the possibility of dictatorship and war. The alternative task to propagating Socialism is that of advocating reformist policies and getting support from workers on the basis of those reforms. Having obtained support, the reformist parties have the task of administering capitalism, a task which immediately brings them into conflict with working-class interests, however sincere their efforts. The Labour Governments of 1924 and 1929 discovered this, but they “heeded not the warning,” and in 1940 some of their leaders joined the Government at the invitation of the ruling class. Inevitably disputes have arisen over reforms, and during many recent debates Labour M.P.s have criticised the seemingly complacent or compromising attitude of these leaders. Mr. Morrison, for example, was described as a “backstair, Tammany-Hall politician” during the debate on Workmen’s Compensation.

Mr. Woodburn, Labour M.P., is seldom amongst the critics. His articles appear in “Forward” defending the Labour Party chiefly on the grounds that they are engaging in the practical politics of to-day and they are obtaining some improvements for workers; and if some of the concessions are smaller than Mr. Woodburn would like them to be, he still supports them because of “quarter of a loaf being better than none.” So is the proverbial crumb. A dispute in “Forward” finished with Mr. Woodburn chiding those whom he calls “the romantic school of Socialists,” who “people the world with villains called capitalists and heroic martyrs called workers.” Actually, and we are indebted to Mr. Woodburn for reviving this profound truth, “there are good and bad in all classes” (“Forward,” October 9, 1943). We are not following him into the ethics of the social classes: we are faced with a serious problem. How can the working-class establish Socialism ? Let us first glance at the economic division in society.

The people in the world are divided into two classes : the capitalist class, who own the means of producing wealth, and who live on the surplus value derived from this ownership; and the working class, who are compelled, in order to live, to sell their energies to the owners for wages. Between these classes there is a class struggle which manifests itself both on the industrial and political fields. Politically it is a struggle over the ownership of the means of wealth production. This is a revolutionary struggle. When Woodburn commends the work of Bevin, Morrison and “others under Clem Attlee” for “creating new methods of running social life” as though these new methods were a development towards Socialism, and infers (without definitely saying so) that the alternative to these activities is catastrophic change, he is merely supporting popular misconceptions of Socialism and revolution. He states : “Socialism is not a catastrophic change from capitalism, but a development out of and on the basis of capitalism. Capitalism is indeed the mother of Socialism. . . . Socialism is approaching us every day in economic development.” (“Forward,” October 9, 1943). In the same issue he commends working with those who are Liberals and Tories—we are not to spurn them because of their label as “our aim is to make Socialists not enemies of our opponents.”

The Labour leaders are not in the Cabinet to establish Socialism; they were allowed in to help in the work of prosecuting the war. Their help in the task of conscripting workers is invaluable to the capitalists; Conservative ministers would have been unable to put into operation so easily such measures as the Essential Work Order and other restrictive orders. These are new methods of coercing the worker, methods of tieing him to his job—in short, they are new methods of running capitalism. They have brought a degree of security to the worker—convict security. Mr. Woodburn, of course, knows that. Where are the Socialist measures or achievements of the Labour leaders? There have been various reforms, approved by a Cabinet predominantly Conservative, such as the Catering Bill and the Pensions Bill and other measures which will alleviate some distress. They are reforms considered to be necessary for the smooth running of capitalism. They have effected no general improvement in working-class life; the capitalism that we knew in 1939, with its slums, poverty, miserable pensions and doles, still persists.

Merely to state that Socialism is approaching, without any clue as to the nature of the change to Socialism, except that it is not catastrophic, is valueless; it conveys nothing to the reader. Two of the necessary conditions for Socialism are a socially-operated, highly-developed industrial system and a working-class capable of controlling and running the system. In this sense, in every country in the world, including Nazi Germany, we are approaching Socialism, but the change to Socialism requires something more than that. It requires a working-class that understands and desires Socialism, and organises politically for the conquest of political power in order to establish Socialism. Having gained political power, they will effect a change in the basis of society from private to common ownership of the means of producing wealth. This is not catastrophic, but it is not simply a progressive economic development from capitalism; it is a revolutionary change in the basis of society.

Past experience has shown that the danger of catastrophe arises from collaborating with the representatives of the ruling class. Bewildered by the broken promises of the Labour parties and their changes in policy, workers have been swept into support of reactionary movements. In 1931, after two and a half years of Labour Government, millions of workers registered their opposition to what they falsely imagined to be Socialism, and voted into power a Government that openly advocated severe wage-cuts and economies. In Germany the Social Democrats had held power or participated in coalition governments for 15 years. In 1933 the Nazis and their allies were voted into power; the reformist efforts of the Social Democrats had the effect of making Nazis. The considered opinion of a small group of German workers, who in 1933 secretly published a book, “Neu Beginnen,” is worth recording: —

“The disappointment of the workers in their own organisations is the fundamental cause of their indifference and inactivity in face of the Fascist advance and even of the partial sympathy which they show towards it.” (Page 36, “Socialism’s New Start,” N.C.L.C. Translation.)

Compromise and reforms had brought, not Socialism, but “National Socialism.” Working with the German counterparts to our Liberals and Tories had not made them Socialists, it had not even brought lasting support from their own members. Bitter experience had shown these workers the truth, that “repeated and disgraceful failures of these parties (the Socialist Labour organisations),” had led to indifference and even opposition to Socialist ideas. These failures were inevitable—capitalism cannot be run in the interest of the workers—but the opposition to Socialist ideas is not inevitable.

The contrasts of wealth and poverty impress workers and make them ready to discuss and accept the Socialist solution. We claim that in order to make them Socialists it is necessary to show most clearly the difference between reforms of capitalism and revolution. History has shown that our claim is true. Workers ignore the class struggle at their peril; no compromise should be their guide in the difficult situations that war and peace have yet to bring.

L. J.

Malthus to Hitler—or Marx (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist View of Population Theories

The Government is very worried and has appointed a Commission of sixteen members on Population. “Their main task will be to examine the present population trends in Britain, investigate their causes and consider their probable consequences, and recommend measures to influence the future trend of population.” (News Chronicle, March 3rd.)

The newspapers are solemnly featuring splash stories of the number of children various members of the Commission have, like the News Chronicle, which gives the list of members complete with size of family.

Thus the Earl of Cranbrook qualifies with five children, although why the mother of the Heanor quads has not been asked to serve, we can’t think !

After all, she’s only just started, and got four already; while the father of the quads is surely more qualified than Lady Dollan, who is quite mature and only has one child.

There is actually a “Biological” Sub-committee presided over by a professor—to investigate the reason for the poor response to the Government’s population appeals.

The Evening Standard (March 1st), in an editorial, “From Malthus to Hitler,” declares that “population statistics are notoriously the most uncertain and dangerous field of economic study.”

After summarily dismissing the Reverend Malthus, who, in his notorious “Principles of Population,” reached the conclusion that the only solution was continence by the working class, the editor of the Evening Standard goes on to consider the findings of Mr. Berle, of the U.S. State Department.

“He foresees the future of the nations in terms of rising and falling populations.”

Germany will decline from 69 millions to 64. Britain from 46 millions to 42. U.S.A., with 135,000,000, will slowly increase. Brazil has doubled her population, and “has every chance to become a great nation.” “Russia’s population is likely to rise to 222,000,000.”

“The advantage from these calculations,” says our Editor, “lies heavily on the side of the United Nations.” We have an idea that is the main reason they were made.

But even the Evening Standard smells a rat. “We cannot be content, . . . the economists should be set to work until they have produced a set and recognisable theory.”

There is no need to set “economists” (?) to work. One great economist has already said all that need be said on the subject.

The first point is that there is no such thing as a general abstract law of population—”every special historic mode of production has its own special laws of population, historically valid within its limits alone.” (“Capital,” K. Marx. Kerr Edition, Vol. I, p. 693.)

What we are concerned with therefore is the law of population of the capitalist system. This is a rather complicated business, as everyone who has read Marx’s exposition in “Capital” knows. It depends very largely on the organic composition of capital—or, in other words, on the proportion of machinery to human labour. Thus, in highly developed industries, the. proportion of human labour is low, the amount of machinery high.

With every technical improvement this proportion increases, so that—

“The labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, the means by which itself is made relatively superfluous, is turned into a relative surplus population; and it does this to an always increasing extent. This is a law of population peculiar to the capitalist mode of production.” (“Capital,” Vol. 1. Kerr Edition, p. 692.)

Marx exploded the fallacy that population rises and falls with wages, showing by the example of England from 1849 to 1859 how a rise in agricultural wages, accompanied by a fall in the price of corn (consequent upon the construction of railroads, war, and the exodus of agricultural population to the new factories), placed the farmers in a difficult position.

“What did the farmers do now ? Did they wait until, in consequence of this brilliant remuneration, the agricultural labourers had so increased and multiplied that their wages must fall again, as prescribed by the dogmatic economic brain ? They introduced more machinery, and in a moment the labourers were redundant again in a proportion satisfactory even to the farmers. There was now ‘more capital’ laid out in agriculture than before, and in a more productive form. With this the demand for labour fell, not only relatively, but absolutely.” (“Capital,” p. 700, Vol. I.)

The same applied on a national scale to the United States of America.

The important point to remember, therefore, is that capitalists can always compensate shortage of labour by increasing machinery.

If Mr. Berle had anything, China would be the ruling nation of the earth, with India a close second.

What is important is the degree of development of the constant capital (machinery) to variable (human labour), which is highest in the United States, Britain and Germany.

“Capital works on both sides at the same time. If its accumulation, on the one hand, increases the demand for labour, it increases on the other the supply of labourers by the setting free of them, whilst at the same time the pressure of the unemployed compels those that are employed to furnish more labour, and therefore makes the supply of labour, to a certain extent, independent of the supply of labourers.” (“Capital,” Vol. I., p. 702.)

“But … as soon as (in the colonies, e.g.), adverse circumstances prevent the creation of an industrial reserve army, and with it the absolute dependence of the working class on the capitalist class, capital, along with its common place Sancho Panza, rebels against the ‘sacred’ law of supply and demand, and tries to check its inconvenient action by forcible means and State interference.” (“Capital,” Vol. I., p. 703.)

Horatio

“The Transition From War to Peace” (1944)

Book Review from the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Transition From War to Peace by A. G Pigou. (Oxford University Press, 6d.)

We have received the above for review. Professor Pigou deals almost solely with the post-war problem of the difficulty in finding employment for large masses of workers, who will find themselves out of a job when peace arrives. In various parts of the pamphlet he records accurately the facts and figures of the labour market after the last war, and on page 6 says:—

“The transition from war to peace, throwing as it must do, vast numbers of men and women out of direct and indirect forms of war work, is bound to create, as it did create in 1919, an assembly of persons, less vast indeed, but nevertheless large, for the moment deprived of employment and anxiously seeking after it in one or another civilian occupation.”

With regard to the immediate post-war situation, he remarks that “a vast process of re-stocking will be called for.” During this time—six months or so after the war, he estimates—it is probable that the problems will arise in the transfer of workers from one job to another and not in the actual finding of work.

He makes an important point with regard to this “period of transfer and adjustment” on page 9 when he says:-—

“With the large number of persons that must be then suddenly thrown on the labour market, there is a risk that wage earners, at all events in some occupations, will find themselves at a disadvantage in bargaining and so may be forced to accept large reductions in. rates of pay.”

To obviate this after the last war the Government passed Temporary Wage Regulation Acts in 1918 which were extended to 1920. He mentions that it would be sound policy for the Government to do this again after the present war—presumably for the same purpose of preventing unrest amongst the workers who come back from the battle fronts eagerly searching for the “Four Freedoms” or signs of the already moribund “Atlantic Charter.”

Manifesting in no uncertain fashion the character of post-war “reconstruction/’ the pamphlet continues (page 11) :

“The transition is bound to be a long drawn out affair, of which the first year or so of peace constitutes only the initial phase . . . Thus we should expect a second phase following the first—a phase of relatively contracted demand, in which a number of would-be workers may well find themselves without a job—a delayed post-war depression linked with and partly caused by the high activity of immediate post-war days.”

Here again he draws upon the history of the period following 1918 depicting clearly the catastrophic nature of the slump of 1920 and the years following, when prices came tumbling down, and wages following after.

Pigou (who, by the way, is a Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge) states, however, that “it is not inevitable that at the end of the present war these events should repeat themselves.” He says : “The moral of this history is fairly plain. After the war of 1914-18 money got out of hand.” (Page 17.) This is his explanation of the economic phenomena of slump and boom—his solution being that if money is kept in hand by the retention of certain war-time controls these things will not occur.

But the fact that slumps and booms can be controlled or abolished by controlling the movements of money is given the lie by Professor Pigou himself on page 15, where he points out that this boom broke in 1920, not as “a consequence of deflation by the banks, in the sense of a contraction of the quantity of money in existence.”

“It was a consequence of the decisions by business men not to use their money.” (Pigou’s emphasis.)

Why didn’t the capitalists wish to use their money and keep production going? Or, to put the question another way, why from 1918-20 did the capitalists want to use their money to the greatest possible extent, but not afterwards? Obviously we must seek the solution not in the movements of money but in the factors that cause capitalists at one period to wish to use their money in production, and at some other period not to do so. In other words, we must have recourse to the motive of capitalists in engaging in production. Knowing that, under capitalism, goods are produced with the intention of their being sold at a profit, it is easily seen that when the prospects of profit are great the capitalist will jump in on production and when the prospects of profit are very doubtful he will jump out again.

Applying this to the situation in 1918 it is clear that the capitalists fell over themselves to get in first during the “re-stocking” period when demand exceeded supply, prices were high and profits good. As soon as the markets by about 1920 had readjusted themselves (by means of the “healthy competition of private enterprise”) and the normal chaos of capitalist production had its effect, numerous industries were faced with declining demand for their products. Prices slumped, and the prospects of profit disappeared. Then the capitalists were forced to think more than twice about putting their money into further production.

This pamphlet, like others in the series of “Oxford Pamphlets on Home Affairs,” offers a good deal of sound factual information, but fails to offer a correct explanation or adequate solution of the problem with which it deals.

So long as capitalism exists with its private ownership of the means of production and its scramble for markets, so long will exist the economic phenomena of crises and booms, together with all the other problems which face the working-class, such as poverty, mass unemployment and wars.

No! The solution does not lie in the control of movements of money, but in the abolition of a system of society based on private ownership with its consequent need of money and the establishment of a system of society based on the common ownership of the means of wealth production where the need for money will disappear.

N. S.

World Trade Plans (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under this heading the Manchester Guardian for February 8th, 1944, does some rather effective debunking of the scheme sponsored by Sir Edgar Jones, known as the World Trade Alliance.

We suppose it is a good sign when an influential organ like the “M.G.” saves us Socialists the trouble of proving that capitalist production for an unknown arbitrary market cannot be “planned.”

Briefly, the idea of the “World Trade Alliance,” which has received the blessing of the Council of the Trades Union Congress, and the sympathy of the Federation of British Industries, is “that the producers of the world’s chief export commodities should form production committees to fix prices and agree on the quantities which each national group should export.”

“A Central Clearing Bureau is expected to see to it that each country balances its exports and imports, and a World Development Commission would provide additional outlets for ‘surplus’ production by placing it cheaply or gratis in needy parts of the world.”

After pointing out that something like this has actually been tried in the “World Wheat Agreement,” the Guardian goes on to say : —

“What is proposed is that the market mechanism should be entirely replaced by quantitative regulation . . . the principle itself is based on a fallacy. . . Sir Edgar Jones speaks highly of the pre-war cartels for aluminium, rubber, tin and other raw materials. . . . Now, some of these schemes had all the restrictive vices of the textbook monopoly. . . . Few trades hold a monopoly for long and few agreements between producers survive large changes in relative costs. This scheme could work only in a world where costs of production did not change. . . . The danger lies in holding out the promise of stability to an economy like ours, which, more than almost any other in the world, must change or decay. . . . But in a moving world we can no more stop demand from changing than we can stop a tree from growing, or. at any rate, only by the same means.”

What the Guardian does NOT say is that this not merely applies to the World Trade Alliance, but also to the Atlantic Charter and the “brave new post-war world.”

Horatio.

The Beveridge Plan—for Saving Capitalism (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Why the Churchill Government did not immediately seize upon the Beveridge Report as a gift from the gods and as a splendid idea for saving and insuring the capitalist system and giving some reality to stand for national unity will probably puzzle future historians of our time.” (From “Forward,” 25th December, 1943.)

“It can be said, however, that Beveridge has performed a competent piece of work for the capitalists, and that he has shown them how the complex problems of distributing the very barest necessities to the more unfortunate members of the working-class can be organised in accordance with the best modern methods of business efficiency.“ (From “Beveridge Reorganises Poverty “ S.P.G.B., 3d. Post free 4d.)

SPGB Outdoor Meetings (1944)

Party News from the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Miners and Leaders (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain wishes to express its deepest sympathy with our miner fellow-workers. By the time this article appears, the struggle in South Wales will no doubt have been “settled.” Even in the extremely improbable granting of the strikers' full demands, the miner will remain one of the worst victims of capitalism. We speak as worker to worker. All of us in varying degrees have tasted the bitter pill of poverty and been under the harrow of callous employers.

We rejoice that the miner has not been driven so low as to be indifferent to the taste of the dirt of life offered by his masters, and explained away by his pastors.

The Daily Herald has offered you advice. It bids you “Go back to work; Trust your Leaders .”

The S.P.G.B. begs its comrades of the pit to review their history, especially in the light of this advice.

We appeal especially to those who are old enough to remember that staggering upper-cut delivered to the worker generally, and the miner in particular, in 1926 by Baldwin and “our beloved Prime Minister.” Never was the rottenness of the “Trust” advice more vividly shown up than by the General Strike.

The Daily Herald of May 30th, 1926, gave precisely the same advice, in the same words, “Trust your leaders.”

J. H. Thomas and others on the General Council were only too glad to seize on the previous “Samuel Report” (as useful as the “Porter Award”) to sound a retreat. Your own Arthur Horner (now slavishly toeing the line to the Government) wrote at the time, "The General Council betrayed the miners.

Six hundred years ago a youthful king promised an insurgent mob of peasants that he “would be their leader"; the history books your children read at school seldom mention the array of gallows which succeeded this promise.

Roman history relates how an aristocratic and privileged class bade the underdog of that time “trust their leaders,” though it was shown that the people's leaders were all too ready to act as the tools of the governing clique.

Consider the case of Ramsay MacDonald; fulsome adulation was accorded him by “Labour.” The S.P.G.B. alone saw the hollowness of the idol; it would be an unfortunate piece of history if there is likely to be a repetition to-day of something in the same line. Herbert Morrison (one of MacDonald's former supporters) is exhibiting the same vagueness of phrasing as characterised MacDonald—an astuter man than MacDonald, he may prove a real menace to the working class.

The News Chronicle has a cartoon (9/3/44). “Underground” workers are depicted listening in; one exclaims, “So the Comrades in Wales are letting us down?” We hear precious little about the owners who are “letting us down.” There is a clear way out to end the trouble. Accede to the strikers' terms. It is safe to say that the diminution of profits to owners would still leave that class sufficient to continue to live at a scale which would not entail the deprivation of a fur coat for the women folk. It outrages decency to know that the pitiably small increase to the miner would still be a matter of real relief to the heroic miner’s wife. Colliery companies are doing well. “Labour Research” (February, 1944) states that out of 32 colliery companies chosen at random, 27 paid higher dividends in the last five years than in the period 1934-38. Yet the Government, as it admits, is concerned to prevent miners’ wages and all wages from rising, on the specious plea of preventing inflation.

When the rank and file of the Unions cease to be gulled by the “leader” who too frequently is seeking to round his own life into a success, when a secretary becomes a servant and not a boss, the Trade Unions will be a big factor in assisting at the birth of SOCIALISM.

Fellow-workers of the pit: In Socialism alone can your degradation be liquidated. Don’t be misled as to what constitutes “Socialism?" Study the eight points of our “Declaration of Principles,” and be assured that our “Object” is no pious expression of impossible attainment. In the politically instructed worker lies the future hope of all mankind.

Reginald.

Editorial: Where Common Wealth Stands (1944)

Editorial from the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Richard Acland's Common Wealth is a party of small membership, substantial funds, big ideas and monumental confusion. Formed in July, 1942, it had a membership at the end of that year of 5,000 (1943 Conference Report, page 18), though by April, 1943, it claimed nearly 10,000. Its income from subscriptions and donations in its first nine months was £7,000, of which only about half Was in amounts of under £50. Two individuals. Sir R. Acland and Mr. Alan Good, a wealthy Midlands business man, guaranteed between them £1,000 a month for two years (page 6). For 1943 the Party budgeted for an expenditure of £22,000, and plans to put up candidates in 120 constituencies (News Chronicle, February 16th, 1944). The latest move was to call a meeting of Labour, Liberal, I.L.P. and Independent M.P.s and others with the intention of starting a "Socialist Unity Campaign," which was to bring together members of the Labour Party, Common Wealth, I.L.P., Communist Party and Liberals in the "Radical Action" group to secure a Parliamentary majority at the next general election (Manchester Guardian, March 8th, 1944.) The meeting, according to the Daily Telegraph (March 9th) failed to bring any Labour M.P.s, though the I.L.P. was there in strength, including its M.P.s, its General Secretary, Mr. J. McNair, and Mr. F. A. Ridley. It can hardly be called a success. A cleavage developed between Acland, who is all out for winning the war, and some of the I.L.P. contingent, who adopt a more or less anti-war attitude. It is typical of Common Wealth's attitude of being all things to all men that it should imagine this strange mixture, including loyal Liberals, could be interested in "Socialist" unity. The same confusion is apparent in all its activities. It makes a special point of its religious inspiration and at the Skipton by-election, where its candidate was successful, a voter informed the News Chronicle (January 11th, 1944) that she supported Common Wealth because “ it was the only political party which emphasised the Christian point of view"—yet "Question and Answer" one of its publications, insists that it is open to Christians, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, and Atheists (page 59), and one of its first rebuffs was an announcement that it was to be boycotted by Catholics on the ground that "it has rejected Christianity" (Daily Herald, August 8th, 1942). In view of the infamies committed by politicians of all the capitalist parties, who almost invariably claim to be religious and acting in accordance with religious teachings, this emphasis on religion is hardly a recommendation. Moreover, Sir R. Acland has himself unwittingly exposed how little it means. In a letter to the Times (October 15th, 1943) he claimed for his party that "it is probably more concerned . . . with the inter-relations between religion and politics than any political organisation since the Labour Party as it was in the days of Keir Hardie." If a religious outlook is as Sir R. Acland seems to think, a guarantee that a party will prove a fit instrument for the achievement of Socialism, why did it not prove to be so for the Labour Party? And why is Common Wealth so critical of the present Labour Party, the child of the party of Keir Hardie's day?

Common Wealth will find that the nearer it gets to power (if ever it does), the more its actions will be determined by the economic and class factors imposed by its acceptance of State capitalism. Its religions inspiration will count for nothing, and like many other trimmings, will be dropped or disregarded in the rough and tumble of electoral vote-catching. How little its methods differ from those of the older parties of capitalist reform is indicated by statements made to the News Chronicle (January 11th, 1944) by voters who supported Common Wealth at Skipton. One local councillor gave as his reason, “I am a Gladstonian Liberal with a progressive mind. Common Wealth is the closest approach to what I want." Another voter was concerned with protecting his little business against the combines; a third, a co-operator thought Common Wealth approached her "ideal of Socialism," and a fourth voted "as her husband voted. It is a good thing to get younger people in Parliament—and to have old-age pensions at 30s. a week."

The one outstanding feature of Common Wealth's activities is its opposition to supporters of the political truce, and this is the real reason why it has been able to send what has been dubbed its "travelling circus" roaring successfully into by-election campaigns. The first fine careless rapture of the coalition government has worn off. Labour Party official speakers who had to go to West Derbyshire and support the Tory, Lord Hartington, were plainly ill-at-ease in face of criticism from Labour voters. Common Wealth is capitalising this dissatisfaction. While the electoral truce lasts it can hope to do well, though already its monopoly is being challenged by the Liberal and Communist parties, both of which are veering towards a course which will relieve them of having to support Tories. When the political truce ends and the Labour Party fights on its own against Tory candidates. Common Wealth will have to make the choice either to remain a small independent group or to merge in or ally itself with the Labour Party where it naturally belongs.

What chiefly concerns us, however, is the fantastic claim that Common Wealth is a Socialist organisation.

Those who do not look closely at the programmes and activities of the political parties they support notice that Common Wealth claims to stand for Socialism and "common ownership," as does the S.P.G.B., and they wonder therefore why the S.P.G.B. is opposed to the Common Wealth Party. The explanation is that, in spite of the words it uses, Acland's party does not stand for Socialism or common ownership; it is merely using the words in the same loose way as the Labour Party. Common Wealth has actually taken over its phrases, from the Constitution of the Labour Party, in which appears the declaration that the Labour Party stands for "the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange." Every Socialist will at once recognise that the inclusion of the word "exchange" in the declared aim, both of the Labour Party and of Common Wealth, is itself an unmistakable proof that they are not aiming at Socialism, under which, of course, there will be no need for the capitalist mechanism of buying and selling. Goods will not be produced for sale or exchange but solely for use. Common Wealth is little more than a "ginger" group trying to stir up the Labour Party and at the same time to attract elements in the Liberal and Tory parties and voters outside all parties. In their own words, "We are not against the Labour Party. We regard as our friends and allies all those within the Labour Party who are seeking to promote a more inspiring leadership." (Common Wealth, Bristol, Publication No. 2.)

Socialists are not at all concerned with the qualities of leadership displayed by .the Labour Party or any other party. Socialists do not need leadership; and leaders cannot lead non-socialists to Socialism.

What is the outstanding problem of to-day? It is not the choice between backing the Beveridge plan and backing the Churchill supporters' promise of "something better than Beveridge"; nor is it the choice between capitalism run by competitive private groups and capitalism run by private monopolies or under State control—this despite Mr. Herbert Morrison's shrewd view that “ for some time after the war Britain will be working out a form of partnership between the State and big business" (Sunday Express, March 5th, 1944). The vital question for the working class is one of ownership. Sir William Beveridge—who is not in favour of ending the state of affairs he mentions—-has admitted that “nearly 80 per cent, of the private wealth of the country was owned by 7 per cent of the people " (Times, November 30th,. 1948). This is the workers' real problem. Shall this capitalist ownership of the means of production and distribution be ended, and replaced by ownership and democratic control by the whole community, with its necessary accompaniment—the ending of all incomes from property and the ending of the wages system, or shall capitalism continue. This is the issue between Socialists on the one side and all who are prepared to carry on capitalism, whether in the form of private monopolies or in the form of State capitalism. Common Wealth, behind its muddled ideas and fancy schemes, is not aiming at Socialism. Like the Labour Party (which it chides for lukewarmness about its own programme), Common Wealth aims merely at nationalisation or State capitalism.

There is no room for doubt about where Common Wealth stands on this issue. Their "Manifesto" demands "the nationalisation of the mines and of the biggest arms factories at once " (page 9), and ultimately wants the land, the banks, fuel and poorer, transport, etc., "wholly transferred to common ownership." There is to be "reasonable compensation on a sliding scale to existing owners, starting with 100 per cent, compensation to the smallest owners, and falling to some quite small percentage in the case of the largest" (page 8).

Socialists would ask why the talk of compensation? Are capitalists to be compensated for relinquishing the right to exploit the workers? And if so, how can they be compensated except by allowing them to continue the exploitation-— as, indeed, Common Wealth proposes. How will these schemes of State capitalism solve the workers' problem', and how can banks, which are nothing but instruments of capitalist industry and trade, be "commonly, owned"? What function could they serve under Socialism? The pamphlet continues :—-

Under common' ownership, as in the Soviet Union to-day, the functions of money are: To allocate to individuals groups and industries within the community their appropriate total share in the goods and services of the community. . . .

Here we have Sir B. Acland's Party's real aim, of promoting State capitalism on the basis of a structure of vast and growing inequality (" as in the Soviet Union to-day "), between the fortunate managerial groups and others with their great incomes and investments in State bonds, and the unfortunate hewers of wood and drawers of water on the poverty line, all under the smooth sounding principle of allocating to each "their appropriate total share."

Have we not nationalisation already here, in the Post Office, and near-nationalisation in the Public Utility Corporations? And do not those responsible proclaim that each individual, from the bus-driver to the £12,500 head of London Passenger Transport, and from the low-paid and often unpensioned thousands in tho Post Office up to the £3,000 a year Director-General, all get "their appropriate share"? Yet the fact remains that the "appropriate" share at the top of nationalised concerns, here and in Russia, can be thirty, fifty or more times the amount paid to the workers at the bottom. Well might the Chairman of the Union of Post Office Workers say, "Post Office workers knew that at present there was very little difference between their conditions in a nationalised industry and those of workers outside" (Daily Herald, May 4th, 1943).

Common Wealth is merely carrying on in the long tradition of those who blindly or wilfully confuse the capitalist problem of nationalising the control of certain industries and services, in the interest of capitalist efficiency, with the workers' problem of ending capitalist ownership. A Tory Government in 1868 nationalised the Telegraphs. A Tory Government began and a Liberal Government completed Telephone nationalisation between 1905 and 1912. Liberals set up the Port of London Authority in 1908, and Tories established the Metropolitan Water Board in 1902, and the Central Electricity Board in 1926. Mr. Herbert Morrison began the move to establish the London Passenger Transport Board in 1931, and it was completed under the National Government in 1933. A move in the opposite direction was the handing over of Post Office Beam Wireless and Government cables to the Cable-Wireless merger. It was begun in 1924, and actually the last formal step was completed after the advent of the Labour Government in 1929. None of this has any bearing on the Socialist problem of ending capitalism and establishing Socialism; but because of the prevailing confusion of ideas, Mr. Herbert Morrison could naturally tell the boys at Malvern School that "more Socialism was done by the Conservative Party, which opposed it, than by the Labour Party, which was in favour of it" (Times, February 12th, 1944). Common Wealth is stepping in to do what it thinks the Labour Party is neglecting. Meanwhile the real problem remains untouched, and Common Wealth is not going to do anything about it.

One or two incidental features of its programme deserve notice. While all in favour of nationalisation, the party is warily avoiding having to defend actual operation by Government departments; thus following Mr. Herbert Morrison's lead. Common Wealth does not propose handing over industry “to the present civil service. Let the managers and technicians who are actually doing the job have a free hand to go all-out for production and efficiency" (C. W., Bristol, Publication No. 2). Letting managers and technicians have a free hand recalls the anti-democratic propaganda of those who want industry controlled by a new group of dictatorial "experts," It does not sound much like the "democracy in industry" that Sir B. Acland holds out as a bait to trade unionist voters. Nor is it much altered by the supposedly enticing carrot of Production Councils promised in the Common Wealth Manifesto (page 6);—

Production Councils for war purposes, even working within the limits allowed by private ownership, have shown how workers could share responsibility for the running of factories and industries with technicians and production management.

Workers know very well that behind the camouflage of joint councils, Whitley Committees and so on, effective control still rests with the capitalist owners or the capitalist State. Common Wealth, however, can see that while it offers "security and equality" to the low-paid workers, it can make a separate appeal to the managerial and technical group of the working class by promising them more authority and of course larger incomes. (Despite "equality for all citizens" on page 2, on page 6 is the promise of "higher wages and salaries to men who do skilled and responsible jobs.") Whereas it took the Bolshevists some years to drop Lenin's plea for equal pay for all workers from top to bottom. Common Wealth is managing to combine the promise and the repudiation of equality in the same pamphlet. It need only be repeated, to remove possible confusion, that Socialism involves the abolition of the wages system in its entirety— another proof that Common Wealth does not understand or aim at Socialism.

We shall be surprised if Common Wealth survives the ending of the political truce. We doubt if either the capitalist class or the non-socialist workers will have any use for this new conglomeration of old reforms preached by new reformers. We are, however, quite safe in prophesying that, whether Common Wealth eventually gets crushed between the millstones of Tory and Labour, or whether it survives to reach office, it will not solve the problem of the workers, and it has already—by its confusion-mongering—helped to postpone the day when the workers will understand and demand Socialism.