SPGB Meetings (1957)

  Party News from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Background to Joe Thomas and the Workers' League is available at the following link.

SPGB Meetings (1938)

Party News from the October 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1937)

Party News from the August 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Pill For The Public (1938)

Book Review from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

“ Patent Medicines,” by Professor A. J. Clark (Fact, May, 1938).

The select committee set up by H.M. Government in 1914 to "consider and enquire into the question of the sale of patent and proprietary medicines” expressed the hope that the National Insurance Act would curtail the business in secret remedies. Their optimism has been far from justified, and the N.H.I. Act, having failed to put an end to illness, fanned the belief, already widespread, that health could be obtained from a bottle. A number of capitalists, more perspicacious than H.M. Commissioners, were well aware of this. They sank money in the production of patent medicines, and by one device or another encouraged the belief. The sick public, uninformed and receptive, swallowed thousands of panaceas from almost plain water to poisonous drugs, and paid well for the privilege. The proprietors, on the other hand, waxed prosperous.

Prof. A. J. Clark has set out the details in the Fact for May. Let us say here that the monograph is not written from a working-class angle, and that this entails a certain criticism, to which we shall allude later. But, subject to these limits, practically every aspect is covered in a simple and straightforward manner. We think that Prof. Clark might have detailed some of the huge profits made in the trade—for instance, Beecham’s Pills, Ltd., which markets many well-known proprietaries, such as Germolene, Iron Jelloids, Veno’s, Amami shampoos and the like, and has a capital of about two and a half million pounds, declared this year a profit of over £600,000 and a dividend of 85 per cent.

All sections of the community take patent medicines (the expression “Patent Medicine” only strictly applies to those registered under letters patent, of which there are actually very few). The volume of retail trade is, therefore, very large — possibly between £20 and £30 millions annually. The Government takes a rake-off in the shape of medicine stamp duty, which amounted in 1928-9 to one and one-third million pounds, since when it has declined by 44 per cent. Manufacturers found that by slightly altering the composition and printing on the package a pseudo-scientific formula, meaningless to the man in the street, they were legally exempt from paying the duty and pocketed the difference. We know of no case in which the price to the public was afterwards reduced. The law relating to patent medicines is, in fact, a confused jumble of statutes and regulations dating from 1787. It is still possible to use bogus testimonials from fictitious physicians, and perhaps even real physicians! There is a law of the most severe character against the supply of abortifacients; but under cover of wording which is well understood a loophole exists for the business to go on, a business for the most part in either useless or dangerous and always expensive drugs.

Various committees of enquiry have been set up, notably that of 1914, referred to above. Their report was devastating in its revelations and indictment of the patent medicine trade. “Naturally, however, it attracted no attention whatever at the time of its appearance and was allowed rapidly to pass out of print and is now very difficult to obtain. The reasons for its rapid disappearance are unknown” (page 29). The publications of certain analyses carried out by the British Medical Association vanished in an equally mysterious manner. The interests concerned were quite averse to anything being done, and it was pot until 1920 that a “Proprietary Measures Bill" based on the 1914 report, was introduced into the Lords, but “was allowed to perish for lack of Parliamentary facilities.” There' were further Acts in 1931 and 1936, both of which failed to become law. In 1936, however, the Government became alarmed at the decline in revenue, and a committee was set up to. consider this aspect alone. Their report, published in 1937, suggested a much wider basis of taxation, and “a Bill was promptly prepared in accordance with the recommendations of the select committee of 1937; it did not attempt any reform of the secret remedies fraud, but was simply designed to increase revenue by extending the scope of the incidence of the Medicine Duties. . . . The Bill perished chiefly because it proposed to tax cosmetics, a reasonable but highly unpopular proposal” (page 2$). As a matter of fact, there was much internal opposition to the bill, in particular from chemists, who would have lost certain privileges by its provisions and been placed on the same footing as grocers and other traders. No attempt whatever was made to protect the consumer at any stage.

Patent medicine proprietors are able to exercise a considerable pull over the Press, as the biggest single group of advertisers. One firm stated that it spent one-quarter million pounds in 1937 on publicity, largely in the Press. One of the effects of this expenditure is a virtual censorship of anything likely to endanger the patent medicine interests. Millions of people every year, who from malnutrition, bad housing, and overwork fall ill, succumb readily to the clever propaganda of the big advertising, often handled by firms which specialise in this work. And the more readily since the occasional exposures of danger and fraud rarely creep into the popular Press. These dangers and fraud are very real. A certain check is provided by recent poison regulations, but only this year 73 people in the U.S.A. were killed by a preparation before supplies were stopped. And there would have been no legal restriction on its sale in Great Britain. There is no account, of course, of those drugs which only kill if taken in time, or of the false inducement of security and hope. It is also certain that many workers afford patent remedies by cutting the purchase of vital necessities.

Prof. Clark suggests measures for dealing with the problem. It may be that for a variety of reasons a Government will one day be persuaded to frame new laws. They may even be operated. But the real trouble is that people are ill, and the problem one of preventing it—an impossibility while capitalism lasts. The patent medicine proprietors are in business for profit and indifferent to the harm and suffering they may inflict. Capitalist governments have already had 24 years since the first commission’s report to demonstrate their care for the working class. And the last Bill presented to the House was an attempt to increase revenue from the industry! Is it unlikely that any advantage to the workers from future enactments will only be incidental? There can be few grosser instances of the evil workings of the profit system than the patent medicine industry.

Kilner.

General Open Air Propaganda (1938)

Party News from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1946)

Party News from the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1955)

Party News from the November 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1956)

Party News from the November 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Noted:

'R. Coster' was the Party name for Robert Barltrop during his first stint of membership of the SPGB. The ILPer debating Coster/Barltrop, Frank Maitland, was an interesting political figure. It's worth checking out his obituary from the Revolutionary History website.

SPGB Meetings (1938)

Party News from the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

General Open Air Propaganda, August. (1938)

Party News from the August 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1943)

Party News from the October 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christianity's Diminishing Returns (1939)

From the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Thy Kingdom Stands, nor Falls for ever.”—(Well-known hymn.)

Thirty-five years ago, when the S.P.G.B. was founded, religion was an issue in debate. To-day the churches are trying to recapture their failing interest, and preserve what is left. A year or two ago the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others, loudly announced a Recall to Religion. The promoters of a united faith have been busy. At the world conference on “Faith and Order,” in August, 1937, the Scottish Roman Catholic Archbishops departed from a long-established practice, and sent observers with a watching brief. On the one hand, growing scientific knowledge has lowered the Church’s stock. The pundits thought they could find refuge in the  writings of the oracles of modern physics. But they found none among recent discoveries in other fields, and especially in psychology. These latter were much more intelligible to most people, equally exciting, and widely read. On the other hand, week-end amusement, ready to hand in the shape of cheap transport, radio and cinema, has eclipsed the churches in their appeal. Even the cheap-jackery of advertisement fails to fill many a parson’s empty pews. God is on diminishing returns.

One of the attempts to weld together the faithful appeared in the form of a report on “Doctrine” last January. Ostensibly, the Committee was set up in 1922, by the late Dr. Davidson, then Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of York, to—

  Consider the nature and grounds of Christian doctrine with a view to demonstrating the extent of existing agreement within the Church of England, and with a view to investigating how far it is possible to remove or diminish existing differences.” —(Page 55, Manchester Guardian Weekly, January 21st, 1937.)

but it is patently an attempt (adapting the words of the Manchester Guardian at the time) “to make the acceptance of the traditional doctrine of the Church easier for men of modern ways of thinking.”

The Committee was prepared to modify what were once thought to be central tenets of the Anglican faith in order to make adherence less exacting. (For instance, they no longer demanded belief in the Virgin-Birth. Some were prepared to grant the “symbolism” of the creeds and the miracles. They were, likewise, not prepared to insist upon the historicity of the Gospel accounts, but were willing to accept a wide variation of opinion on the character of the Sacraments.) They practically omitted to deal with more fundamental matters, on the ground that these lay outside the terms of reference. As a matter of fact, to face the issue squarely in the light of modern knowledge, would be filing a petition of Christian bankruptcy.

True, as the report sometimes states, even members of the Commission were not always unanimous—a circumstance which they bore with greater composure than the history of the Church would have led one to expect.

But even though unification may be achieved, religion is rapidly losing its claim on the people. C. E. M. Joad wrote two articles in the New Statesman and Nation (January 22nd, January 29th, 1938), in which he analysed the losses on various flanks. Between 1906 and 1936 the Anglican and Free Church schools lost over three and a half million scholars—about fifty per cent. The number of clergymen active in the Church of England has also halved during the same period. An analysis carried on in churches and chapels shows a drop during this time of over seventy-five per cent, in attendances. This drew one resentful letter from a cleric, who tried unsuccessfully to discount the facts. There is also a shortage of candidates for Dedication. A memorial submitted to the Archbishops (December 13th, 1937) proposed to combat this by a number of simple devices. One of these was to urge celibacy as a less expensive mode of life, which would enable the ministers to live on a more meagre salary: —

   The memorial deals with the changes in the social aspects of country districts. Fewer sons of the wealthier classes are being ordained, it is stated; fewer ordinands have any private means. Filling country livings becomes increasingly difficult.

   The remedy at present sought is the amalgamation of benefices, very unpopular in the parishes. This, says the memorial, is surely wrong. The remedy is for the priest to live not in the big glebe house but in a cottage, like his humble parishioners.”—(Daily Telegraph, December 13th. 1937.)

The growth of the poorly-paid element in the Church has been partly responsible for a new outlook, especially in the great cities. In the words of the New Statesman and Nation (January 22nd, 1938): "The Church of England, once the backbone of Conservatism, has become increasingly sympathetic to the more moderate aspirations of Labour ” (p. 107).

But now that working-class demands and actions are a factor in the life of the nation, the Church has had to trim its sails accordingly. The working class will find little support, however, from the classical upholders of privilege and wealth. The Bishop of Durham's letter to The Times (September 24th, 1935) is quoted because, typically, it hides under a cloak of apparent devotion to the miner’s interest a deep antagonism:—

   As matters stand with us in England, I am fully persuaded that strikes and lock-outs are not only widely calamitous to those directly concerned, but unfair to the nation as a whole, and, in the true sense of the word, immoral. It has been my experience to live through two great strikes in this Diocese, and I am unable to see that any other result came from them than suffering, economic confusion, and lamentable social embitterment

   Therefore, in the interest of the whole community, and therein specially of the miners, the clergy cannot, in my judgment, rightly or wisely associate themselves with movements which contemplate, and logically result in, open conflict.

But, to confine ourselves to exposing the religious sham would be a sterile undertaking. Belfort Bax wrote in 1902, in ”The Religion of Socialism ”: —

  There is a party who think to overthrow the current theology by disputation and ridicule. They fail to see that the theology they detest is so closely entwined with the current mode of production that the two must stand or fall together . . .

And that, indeed, is the truth. Religion has slavishly adapted itself to the needs of the hour, and can in these latter days even court the working class. The Kingdom of God has been proven a myth. The Church is no longer militant. Religion serves no ethical, moral or social purpose other than that which corresponds to the need of a privileged class, who take little further stock in it. And the sooner the workers get rid of both, the better; and so much the quicker find a more prosperous state than they are likely to get from the declining ministry upon earth.

C. J. Kilner.

The German Drive Through Central Europe (1938)

From the April 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The collapse of Germany at the end of the World War was completed by an economic blow delivered, with crushing vigour, by the Allied Powers at Versailles in 1919. Valuable sources of raw material, such as the Ruhr basin, Silesia and Alsace-Lorraine, were stripped away. Her erstwhile allies, Austria and Hungary, were reduced to unimportant geographical areas, and their territory made over to the new states of Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia. The whole trend, therefore, of German policy has been to obtain a reversal of this crippling verdict. Hitler has merely given it fresh impetus and new direction.

One of the first tasks for the German ruling class under the Dictatorship was to find allies in a Europe of rapidly changing orientations. With this in view, a ten-year pact of non-aggression was concluded with Poland in 1934. The way then became clear for the “Drang nach Osten,” the much proclaimed “Drive to the East." This is nothing more than an attempt to control important sources of raw materials, embodying ideologically the vision of a great Germanic Empire. So one of the first tasks was to wean Austria from French and Italian influence. The culmination of this process was on February 12th last, when Dr. Schuschnigg met Herr Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountain home near the Austrian frontier. An ultimatum was presented to the Austrian Chancellor, while German troops were massed on the frontier.

On the morning of February 16th it was announced that pro-Germans had been appointed to key positions in the Austrian Government and police. At the same time, Austrian Nazis undergoing sentence were released from jail. Germany's complete control of Austria was merely a matter of days.

As a bar to further progress stands the opposition of Czechoslovakia. Here the problem is different. With a population of 15 million and an area of 55,000 square miles it was formed at the end of the Great War out of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The districts of Bohemia and Moravia in the north-west were originally Austrian; while Slovakia and Ruthenia were Hungarian. There is also a small but important part of Upper Silesia ceded by Germany. Bohemia projects like a bastion into Germany. Mountain ranges form a strong natural barrier, broken by the valleys of the Eger, Elbe and Oder, which provide the only practical entrances into Czechoslovakia from Germany. On the south the “Moravian gateway" admits access from Austria.

If Germany, with the aid of Austria, were by a pincer-like military movement enabled to nip off this region, the remainder of Czechoslovakia, which is agricultural, but otherwise poor and resourceless, would be easily reduced. The Bohemian basin around Pilsen, Brno and Silesia is rich in coal and iron—commodities very necessary to German capitalists, whose present sources of supply are insufficient for their needs. Moreover, Bohemia and Moravia have great and profitable textile, boot, glass, steel and armament industries. In order to resist such an invasion from Germany the Czechoslovakian Government has created a large army and air force, well organised and equipped. In addition, the frontiers are strongly fortified and defended at assailable points. In return for a loan to build armaments, Rumania was asked to guarantee that the Czernowitz railway, from Russian Ukraine to Czechoslovakia, would be completed in order to ensure a ready transit of troops and goods in time of war.

German attempts to awaken pro-Nazi sympathies among the dissident minority have proved less fruitful than in Austria. The Sudeten Germans are a racial group chiefly clustered along the German frontier. The Government has repeatedly refused them minority rights, such as the Slovaks enjoy; and in spite of frequent appeals to the League of Nations they have received little satisfaction. The movement in 1933 was unified under Konrad Henlein into the Sudeten Deutsche Party, and possibly received financial support from Germany. But there are considerable differences of opinion within the minority and only a few demand complete alliance with the Third Reich. Moreover, attempts have been made by the Government in the scheme of frontier defence to stiffen the nationalist morale of these minorities.

Against this must be put the fact that Czechoslovakian frontiers are land-locked. Her outlets to the sea are the rivers Elbe and Oder, both through Germany. There are railway exits to Italian ports of Trieste and Fiume on the Adriatic, and to Danzig on the Baltic. There is only one other route to the sea, via the traffic-laden Danube through the plains of Hungary, Jugoslavia and Rumania. Moreover, the encirclement of Czechoslovakia by unfriendly powers is nearly complete. Hungary, on the south, hopes that the outcome of a successful war would be the return of the large estates handed over to Czechoslovakia in 1919. German diplomacy has the task of converting this “ unfriendliness ” into, at least, passive hostility. The circle is incomplete by the absence of Rumania. At this juncture, it is hardly likely that Germany will risk the hazards of war, which would certainly invite the opposition of France, Great Britain and the U.S.S.R. It is worth noticing in this connection that the fall of M. Goga’s Government in Rumania on February 10th, which undoubtedly had pro-German sympathies, was occasioned by pressure from Moscow, Prague and Paris.

It may be that fresh alignments of the capitalist powers of the world may alter this outlook, even in the near future. Nothing, however, is so likely as that eventually, when they are unable to prosecute the struggle for markets and cheap sources of essential supplies by diplomatic means, they will turn to war. To the working class of the countries concerned the conflict will be presented as one to preserve democracy and individual rights (Czechoslovakia claims to be the most democratic of the Central European countries); or to maintain the Germanic ideal against Bolshevism, World Jewry and “bastardised negroidisation." This is the delicate language of “Mein Kampf."

No Socialist could take exception to the struggle of the workers to preserve a democratic platform. On the other hand, we cannot support any movement which encourages workers to sacrifice themselves in defence of capitalist wealth. If working class history has any meaning for those who wage the struggle to-day, it is that the association of workers with capitalist movements has led only to their division and confusion. The clearest presentation of the class struggle leads to another conclusion; that every movement of the workers must be waged on the basis of unity with their fellows and of fundamental opposition to the capitalist class. If in Czechoslovakia, and other countries, where minority movements obscure the final issue, thousands of workers were fighting for Socialism, then the minority movements would collapse overnight. There is one thing the Czechoslovakian capitalists fear more than racial dissidence or German invasion; that is the growing understanding and rising power of the working class.

K. Devereux.

C. J. Kilner.

"Bedaux" and the Workers (1937)

From the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charles E. Bedaux is the inventor of the high-pressure system which bears his name. For many years the system has been well known among workers, who mistrust and detest it. Recently, Mr. Bedaux was to have "managed” a tour by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to U.S.A. On November 3rd, the Baltimore branch of the American Federation of Labour passed a resolution strongly condemning the tour, and this was followed by other resolutions. In 1916 a company, was formed to exploit the Bedaux system, with headquarters in New York and branches throughout the world. The company pays a highly respectable dividend. Bedaux, who began life as a semi-skilled worker, now employs a large income in extravagant and expensive tastes.

According to the official account, the “ Bedaux” principle is a means of measuring human power in terms of a common unit. This unit is christened “B,” and equals so many seconds of work and so many seconds of rest, always totaling one minute. The “rest” is by no means actual but only that natural relaxation of effort which, as part of a process, allows work to proceed. The completion of a certain job requires so much “work and rest,” i.e., a certain number of B’s. Sixty B’s per hour is regarded as normal, and Bedaux engineers calculate from observations of factory conditions how much work and rest on an average would make up one B in order that there may be sixty B’s per hour.

The method by which the investigators manage their computation is, however, a closely guarded secret. The Trades Union Congress, in their inquiry, remark:—

   As regards the assessment of the B.’s. it must be said that in the opinion of experts in industrial psychology the task undertaken by the Bedaux engineers is an impossible one. There is no known method of calculating the unit of work (in this sense) scientifically. It is not a question of merely measuring physical effort. It is rather a problem of measuring physical and mental effort undertaken in complex and varying circumstances. It is impossible to evaluate such a unit scientifically, and the Bedaux claim in this respect must be dismissed as unsound."—(“Bedaux,” Trades Union Congress, page 11.)

One thing is certain, that such a unit will be chosen as will in practice reduce running costs, and substantiate Bedaux’s claims to the capitalist. The “ expert "engineers" are sometimes unaware of the specific factory conditions, and the times set are difficult or unworkable; with the result that workers complain or resist. When their opposition is successful, a lower “B” unit is set up after “investigation." The high-flown claims of the system to scientific accuracy become, therefore, nothing more than mere trial and error carried out at the expense of the workers; the usual factory practice of finding out just how much the workers will stand. Moreover, since the Bedaux engineers are highly paid, the management is anxious to hurry the job, which increases the inaccuracy. In recent years the engineers have also advised on factory management, etc., with a view to higher efficiency and speeding-up.

Wages are based on a basic hourly rate. The Bedaux system is said to guarantee to workers this rate based on sixty B's per hour. But it is obvious that once a “norm" has been established, any workers who fall below that productive level are not retained. Those who do more than sixty B's per hour receive a bonus, but only seventy-five per cent, of the normal rate. The remaining twenty-five per cent, is paid to indirect labour— partly foremen and overseers, who thus have a direct incentive to speeding-up.

It is plain that, when applied in the workshop, the system becomes deeply intricate. Usually (unless as sometimes occurs, a worker is trained specially to check up the pay sheets) the staff are dependent on the employer’s good faith. This is the worker’s first and most natural resentment— that the, system is unintelligible. The boss may be “doing” him. A deeper grievance is in the nature of the intensive speeding-up, required by the maintenance of a normal rate. Not only does this increase the strain, mental and physical, endured by the worker, so that only the youngest and fittest survive, but also sets up a sense of conflict between workers themselves.

On November 6th the Daily Express reported a visit to an East End factory. One of the workers, aged twenty, said to their correspondent: “The Bedaux system is all right in some ways. But we were more contented before. Now we are always arguing with one another over little things. We work so quickly that small things upset us.”

Another worker in the same factory said: ”. . . I would sooner work as we did before. It seems to make the time go quickly, but we are not all friends any more. We were always laughing and singing and happy-go-lucky. Now we have time for nothing—but cross words.” This rosy view of the past is perhaps exaggerated; but both workers reveal what Bedaux means to the workers in nervous weariness and strain.

Workers become more than ever before cogs in a machine. There is no room here for a worker taking pride in his work. He will probably be discharged as too slow, and increase the number of those whom reorganisation has already thrown out of work. Bedaux claims that employment is increased by its introduction. This may apply to a particular worker, or even factory, but it is patently untrue over industry as a whole. This, of course, applies equally to every other. “efficiency” system.

A number of cases are quoted in the T.U.C. pamphlet referred to above, in which trades unions opposed the introduction to Bedaux, and in many cases concessions were obtained. The pamphlet adds, however: “It is not suggested that in those cases where the system thus modified has been accepted that there is any enthusiasm or even approval for this method of wage payment."

The reaction of the trades unions in U.S.A. to a tour organised by Charles E. Bedaux is therefore understandable. In England, where the system has sold less well, there have been strikes against its introduction at Norwich, Wolverhampton, Acton, Leicester, Silvertown, Birmingham, and elsewhere.

Essentially the Bedaux system, apart from certain special features, is a piece-work system, concealed behind a complicated theoretical structure. Its attractiveness to certain capitalists is in the results achieved. Productivity per worker, according to the Bedaux Co., Ltd., has risen in many cases from fifty to-seventy-five per cent., and sometimes to over 100 per cent. Workers' earnings, however, lag behind with an increase of ten to twenty per cent. (New Statesman and Nation, November 13th, 1937). The system is plainly one in which high organisation plays the part of additional labour-saving machinery, exploiting the worker more fully than would otherwise be possible. In the meantime, British Bedaux, Ltd., with a capital of £300,000, makes profits averaging nearly £50,000 a year. First and foremost, Messrs. Bedaux, Ltd., is a business house engaged in making profits for the shareholders.

By holding out to workers the inducement of higher-wages it saps their health and energies in an orgy of production. Labour laws and agreements, notwithstanding, the capitalist has succeeded, by methods more subtle than ever before, in extracting the last ounce from the worker before he is scrapped, no longer able to keep up the pace.

C. Kilner