Daylight robbery. (1911)

 From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are frequently told by our more outspoken enemies that the workers are not robbed, and, there are members of the working class who actually believe it. But the following extract from a recent issue of the “Daily Telegraph” not only completely refutes the former, but may also enlighten the latter.

Under the heading “Census of Production” was given a list of industries concerned mainly with food, drink, and tobacco, and it was stated that the Board of Trade preliminary tables summarising the returns received in respect of those trades give the following results for twelve months:

Gross output from 13 divisions £257,215,000

Net                               „ „ „          £84,325,000

Persons employed                             407,830

The “Daily Telegraph” commented thus, upon the figures:

“The first column represents the gross output, that is the selling value or value of work done. The second shows the net sums realised after deducting the cost of the materials used. The figures denoting the net output express completely, and without duplication, the total amount by which the value of the products of the industries exceeded the value of the materials purchased from the outside, that is they represent the value added to the raw materials in the course of manufacture. This sum constitutes for any industry the fund from which wages, salaries, rents, royalties, rates, taxes, depreciation, advertisement and sales expenses, and all other similar charges, as well as profits, have to be defrayed.”

Now rents, profits, etc., are not paid to the working class, who benefit only under the item wages. On the other hand, no value can be added to raw material except by labour. It follows therefore that while the workers produce the whole of the £84,325,000 worth of wealth which figures as the net output, they are robbed of all that is not included in the term wages.

Now let us do a little sum in simple division. 

The net output, £84,000,000, divided among the 407,830 persons employed, gives over £275 per annum to each. The difference between this sum and the average wage of the workers in those trades shows the extent of the robbery as far as those particular industries are concerned. And if the average rate of wages in these industries is that of the whole country, then these workers are rolled of over three-fourths of their produce.

Criticus

Cooking the Books: Did Marx respect the rich? (2025)

The Cooking The Books column from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Even Marx respected the rich more than Reeves’ was the headline of an article by Sunday Telegraph columnist Michael Mosbacher (18 May). He accused Reeves of putting up taxes on the rich because she believes it immoral to be too rich. And quoted Marx as having written in the Communist Manifesto of 1848 that ‘the bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together’.

It is true that Marx did regard capitalism as historically necessary and, for a while, progressive. He respected – if that’s the word – the bourgeoisie not because they were rich (their opponents, the landed aristocracy, were too, even more so in fact) but for when they had played a revolutionary role. Capitalism has long since fulfilled its role of developing the material basis for a world socialist society, so capitalists are no longer revolutionary or necessary.

More generally in his analysis of capitalism, Marx regarded capitalists as essentially personifications of capital whose role was to accumulate more and more capital for re-investment and from which their life of luxury was a deviation. As he put in the Preface to the first German edition of Das Kapital:

‘I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense couleur de rose. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class-interests’.

Mosbacher went on to say about Marx:

‘Marx believed that capitalism’s overthrow would come about through its own success. The market – and this is where old Charlie got it spectacularly wrong – would eventually satiate all bourgeois demand. Overproduction, and counter-intuitively mechanisation (he was also quite wrong about this), would reduce the capitalists’ profits. Marx’s adoption of the labour theory of value – the idea that the worth of any good is determined by the amount of work put into it (…) – meant that the bourgeoisie would only have one option to maintain their riches. And that is scalping a larger share of what the workers’ labour has produced. The eventual result of the proletariat’s consequent immiseration would be world revolution’.

Did ‘Old Charlie’ hold that ‘the market… would satiate all bourgeois demand’? Mosbacher is not expressing himself very clearly here. He probably meant that production will eventually exceed what can be sold under capitalist conditions, whether to workers or capitalists, and so capitalism comes to suffer a permanent crisis of overproduction.

Marx never held that capitalism would end up in that situation. He did, however, hold that capitalism would overproduce in relation to market demand from time to time, though not for the reason Mosbacher gives. It was because, when the market was expanding, competing capitalists all plan to benefit from it and end up by producing in total more than the market can absorb. But this would not bring capitalism to an impasse, just to a temporary slump in production, which would eventually create the conditions for a recovery. It was cyclical not terminal.

Did Marx say that ‘mechanisation … would reduce the capitalists’ profits’? Here Mosbacher seems to be referring to what Marx called the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. This was connected to mechanisation insofar as mechanisation resulted in proportionately more capital being invested in machinery than in employing wage labour. This would tend to reduce the rate of profit as only the part of the capital invested in wage-labour yielded a surplus value whereas the rate of profit was calculated on total capital.

Marx called this a ‘tendency’ because there were also counter-tendencies which might prove stronger at times and pointed out that a fall in the rate of profit did not necessarily mean a fall in the amount of profits. It wasn’t the iron law that Mosbacher makes it. Capitalism is not going to break down from lack of profits any more than from lack of markets.

Full Employment? Another Labour Party Fallacy (1946)

From the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is full employment for the working class possible? What exactly does it mean? By whom is it desirable? Or is it a stunt to inspire the workers with hope and trust in our so-called Socialist Government?

 

These are not some of the questions asked in Parliament, or other public places. On the contrary, there seems to be general agreement, especially in the press, to keep up the fiction that full employment is possible, not merely for the repair of war damage, but indefinitely.

According to a leading article in the Daily Telegraph for November 16th, the Government's plan for full employment is much the same as that of the Coalition Government's in 1944. They say :—

“It differs little but in omissions and change of emphasis from the policy for maintaining 'a high and stable level of employment' which the Coalition Government set forth in 1944. That policy commanded general support as a well devised means of smoothing out booms and slumps, the main obstacles to full employment." 

Neither the Coalition Government, nor the present Labour Government, have so far explained how, by smoothing out the booms and slumps, fuller employment is obtained. Neither do they, or the Daily Telegraph, show how, when one dead level of employment has been reached, it is possible to achieve a condition of full employment. The plan is to spend on public works during the slump, leaving the booms to keep the workers busy during the few years—or months—they last. The Daily Telegraph, while hopeful of the results, is dubious of the ability of the Government and its experts to forecast the slumps, and adjust, their spending on public works accordingly.

Having once made the assertion that ''booms and slumps are the main obstacles to full employment," which is false, any deductions they make on that premise will undoubtedly be wrong. If, instead of eating all my cake to-day, I save a portion for to-morrow, obviously, nothing is added to the total.

In the same way, if a capitalist Government postpones its public works schemes to provide work during a slump, it creates no new employment. All it does is to arrange a levelling out, with little or no fluctuations.

If the unemployment figures during a boom are one million, and during a slump three million, cut out spending on public works during the boom and spread it over the slump and you get approximately two millions throughout both periods. The new arrangement is of no benefit to the workers. On the contrary, the advantage is on the side of Big Business, which has a well stocked labour market on which to draw at the very time world markets are expanding.

The Labour Government, in taking over the Capitalist bag of tricks, have taken with it its superstitions. Ever since the "South Sea bubble" there has been profound dread among capitalists of trade crises. "There's a slump on the way," or "a boom is just round the corner" were common expressions, generally spoken with superstitious awe, as though it were some great convulsion of nature. This dread impotence before the economic blizzard is still prevalent. According to the Daily Sketch (Nov. 23rd, 1945)), Mr. Dalton had said:—

"We must also arm ourselves with anti-slump powers, so that never again, as in past years, shall prices and productivity and employment all fall away through the failure of private enterprise."

The Daily Sketch leader commented as follows : —

"Even Mr. Dalton's Fabian audience must have caught their breath at the sheer ineptitude of that pronouncement, for there is no means within the capacity of man which would leave us an exception to the general experience in the event of a world slump. That will prove to be true Whether this country is run under state control or private enterprise."

For the last 30 years the workers have been unable to see much difference in the amount of unemployment during booms and slumps. They certainly do not become more prosperous during the booms. Big business, even when it gets really busy, cannot absorb more than part of the unemployed millions left over from the previous slump, Booms and slumps are no longer a mystery to all capitalists. This fact is made clear in a book by Roy Glenday, "Economic adviser to the Federation of British Industries," and entitled, "The Future of Economic Society" (Macmillan & Co., 1944).

Mr. Glenday gives facts and figures that shed much light on the subject of trade, both internal and international. In the production and marketing of motor cars, for instance, he says: The huge and complex plant necessary for standardisation and cheapness would be uneconomic without assurance of an ever expanding market. When saturation level has been reached with the ready money section, hire purchase methods are resorted to; which only puts off the evil day of partial, or even total collapse. When it is remembered that this is the normal process of big business in the production and sale of such things as radio sets, cycles and electric appliances of many kinds we can readily understand how this mad race for profits leads to crises.

Mr. Glenday has a convincing array of facts and evidence, from which he argues that Capitalism cannot survive its present crisis without some kind of adjustment in its environment. But contrary to what we should expect from an adviser to the Federation of British Industries, he envisages some form of “communism" the next step in human progress being what he calls the service state. Where, in return for security and a retiring pension, the individual will have to give up the right to choose his job, and must be prepared, not only to move from one locality to another, but also to change his job; undergoing a period of training, if necessary, to fit him for his new job. According to the Conservative press, something like this “service state” is contemplated for this country by the present Government, and already exists in Russia. They (the Conservatives) call it the servile state. But capitalism, whether British, Russian or American, means servility for the working-class always and everywhere. The right to choose his own job is of little value to the individual worker, the majority of whom consider themselves fortunate when they can find any sort of job and hold it down. Booms and slumps mean little to them.

Much depends on the point of view. From the capitalist viewpoint, it is eminently desirable that the workers should be kept busy; though not too busy in case they get independent. And not only because they are a source of profit; but also because many unemployed workers are a menace to a smoothly running system, and they have to be fed anyway.

The worker's point of view is different. He knows that the overstocked condition of the world's markets is the result of working-class energy. Of working-class efficiency combined with modern methods and machinery. The machinery itself being the result of working-class effort. In short, all the ingredients that go to make up overstocked markets are included in the phrase "human energy and the nature-given material," capitalists being excluded.

Under a rational system of society the machines would not belong to the capitalist, but to the people, and the people, while participating in the work of production and distribution, would arrange the conditions for themselves. They would do so through a real democracy worked out by themselves. The idea of finding or making work would be illogical and absurd. Under Socialism only the work necessary for the satisfaction of human needs according to an agreed standard of life and culture, would be performed. Booms and slumps would disappear along with the poverty and unemployment that spring from the wild scramble for profits.

F. E.

How the rich fare under Labour Government. (1949)

From the November 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bitter harvest (1987)

From the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Record cereal harvests in Britain and the whole Common Market were forecast at the Royal Show yesterday, foreshadowing a major budgetary headache for Brussels bureaucrats struggling desperately to keep burgeoning and costly surpluses in check.

The record. 171 million metric tons for the EEC harvest, was forecast by Mr Simon Gourlay, president of the National Farmers’ Union.

With a harvest of this size in prospect, he said, by November there would be tremendous pressure on the Brussels Commission to introduce direct measures to rationalise European cereals production at the earliest possible opportunity.

He did not speculate at Stoneleigh on what form this rationalisation might take, but today he is to have talks in Brussels on the NFU's ideas for a set-aside scheme to take excess cereal-growing land out of grain production.

(from the Daily Telegraph, 9 July 1987)

Press Exposure: Who's in Charge? (1995)

The Press Exposure column from the April 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peter Jay is regarded by many people including himself—as one of the cleverest men in Britain, if not the world or perhaps the entire history of the human race. So what part of his historically wonderful brain malfunctioned when he accepted the job of chief of staff to Robert Maxwell, who also had a pretty high opinion of his own intellect and who subjected Jay to years of harassment and humiliation?

For example: in 1989 Jay had to get Maxwell to sign a cheque, a contribution towards the support the Mirror boss had promised to the Commonwealth Games. Maxwell loved this kind of situation. "I will decide when that cheque is paid," he told his cerebral chief-of-staff, “Now fuck off out of here."

The longer Jay stayed on Maxwell's payroll the more harassed and ragged he became, the more he drank and smoked. Hardly a week went by without him having to sack some secretary, receptionist or telephonist—until it was his turn to be fired. In spite of all this he could later say about his time with Maxwell: “Nothing happened that was outside what I expected or regarded as legitimate." (At the time Maxwell was alive: after his death Jay described him as “this crazy guy".)

Sarf London boy

Flamboyant characters are what the newspaper industry is notorious for. While Maxwell was terrorising the staff at the Mirror (if he asked what time it was the wise response was "What time would you like it to be, Bob?") Kelvin Mackenzie was imposing a similar regime at the Sun, where office life was a continual turmoil of abuse, threats and humiliation. Mackenzie took a delight in playing up to his self-image as a Sarf-London-boy-made-good or -bad, depending on whether you were on the receiving end of his ranting temper. He seemed unable to speak a sentence which did not have the word "fuck" in it at least once. He seemed unable to get through a day which did not involve the ritual reduction of some hapless staff member to a trembling, stammering wreck. With all this Mackenzie turned out a newspaper whose circulation climbed up and up, far above its nearest rival. So behind the shrieking and the swearing and the abuse there was a diabolically shrewd journalist—which not everyone would regard as a compliment Mackenzie was very different from the press lords who once dominated the British newspaper industry, passing the ownership from one generation to another to protect what they thought was the highest standards of journalism. This meant (didn't it?) that newspapers always told the truth, always respected privacy, never resorted to salacious exploitation of their readers’ sadder repressions.

Screws of the world

For over 70 years, until it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch, the News of the World was owned by the Carr family. During that time the newspaper became famous, not for its reporting of international events but for its rollicking exposure of vicars (the older the better) who had affairs with their secretaries or parishioners (the younger the better). When the paper was losing so much money that it had to be sold or put to sleep Robert Maxwell tried to take it over, resisted by the editor who claimed that his tawdry conglomeration of sensationalism and juvenile smut was "as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. . . this is a British newspaper run by British people. Let’s keep it that way". But then money spoke louder than jingoism and the Carrs sold out to Murdoch, who was as Australian as a kangaroo meat barbie on Bondi Beach.

The Berry family are another lot to have been ousted in recent years—in their case from ownership of the Daily Telegraph. This paper always had a shrewd eye for its market, apart from its small ads for jobs which were combed through regularly by ambitious managers, it appealed to the tea-shop regulars in places like Cheltenham and Tunbridge Wells. This gave a certain allure to its letter columns, which were rather like a primeval mental swamp. Such a distaste for ideas meant that generally the Telegraph’s news coverage was better than average—which included regular in-depth reporting of any scandal or sexual misdemeanour, especially if they involved members of the ruling class whose behaviour had let the side down.

A bit of a con

One family to hang on has been the Harmsworths. associated with the Daily Mail whose politics, they say, have not changed for over 80 years (they must have forgotten that in the 1930s the Mail supported Mosley’s British Union of Fascists). The Daily Mail is not famous for an addiction to the truth. A few years ago they eagerly joined in the Bingo war with rivals like the Sun and the Mirror, claiming to make some lucky people Mail Millionaires. In fact the statistical chance of a millionaire emerging from playing the "game" in the Mail was once in about 400 years. This impressed even Lord Rothermere, who admitted the whole thing was "a bit of a con”.

And that really sums it up. Newspapers are not there to inform us but to be sold, to make profits for the likes of Murdoch and the Rothermeres. The important issue is what is implied by the market they operate in. Do the readers of the Sun, the Mail, the Telegraph and the rest really want nothing better than the world as presented to them in the newspapers? Reading the press should be enough to change the mind of anyone who doubts the urgent need to change society.

Ivan

Editorial: Affluence in the U.S.A. (1929)

Editorial from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comfort ! that’s what we want. And prosperity also, peace and prosperity. And what, about affluence? Ah! affluence; that is the stuff. Give us affluence, and all else follows. And to think that the problem has been solved. Yes, solved. The Daily Telegraph—a respectable and reputable organ, surely—has said so. As recently as September 18th, too. The dull business of reporting has its compensations after all, for what nominally could be duller than the reporting of luncheon and dinner speeches? There was the luncheon the other day, for instance, of the American Chamber of Commerce, at which a Mr. Thomas J. Watson let himself go. The Daily Telegraph thought it worth half a column, and headed it, attractively enough :

“MACHINE AS THE KEY TO PROSPERITY.”

“AMERICAN WORKERS’AFFLUENCE.”

“THE COMFORT AGE.”

Then followed the tale told by Mr. Thomas Watson :—

“Our experience of the application of machinery in industry,” he said, “is that it makes men dear and their products cheap.” From this he developed the usual bilge of the introduction of machinery ultimately reducing prices, resulting in wider distribution, and so on. Following which he gave a few figures. Now figures are not attractive things, and most people simply hear them or see them and rapidly glance at something more arresting. But these, in view of the headlines, are really interesting. In 1914, he said, the average annual wage was $590, roughly, we will say, £2 8s. per week.

” Adjusting the average wage for changes in the buying power of money, the worker in 1925 received at least 35 per cent. more than in 1914.”

And that is affluence. That is the Comfort Age. The equivalent of a 16s. rise on a weekly wage of £2 8s. is affluence. Save the mark !

True, Mr. Thompson did not permit himself the words comfort, prosperity and affluence. But one course we can recommend him. He should get into touch with Mr. G. De Vere, who has recently returned from a tour of U.S.A. He was telling us all about it over the radio about a fortnight ago, and just as the spectator sees most of the game, so the visitor apparently often sees more than the native. One of his first ports of call was a camp of the Y.W.C.A. in the Hudson Valley, where a delegate meeting of industrial women was in progress. Here he gathered that normal unemployment was very serious, although no reliable figures existed, and that the previous winter’s unemployment had been more serious than usual. Groups of women workers were beginning to push for better social conditions.

At a big factory near Boston he saw the conveyor-belt system in operation, and later he found few factories where the system was not in use. The workers stand or sit on either side of a moving belt, and each contributes some small operation to the article on the belt, until the finished product is delivered at the end. One can imagine joy-in-work reaching its apex in the belt system. Experiments were being conducted in changing the speed of the belt at different times of the day, and in what is called psychological study. Several foremen he interviewed regretted the early scrapping of men in the prime of life by the introduction of machinery, and also the rapid wearing out of those who were retained. In Mr. De Vere’s own words, “from twenty to twenty-five years was the average period of efficiency at fast work, after that it was generally a question of lighter or slower work, or the scrap-heap. In fast Detroit shops the period would be shorter.” Craftsmen do not earn so much as fast repetitive workers. Some Britishers he asked for a comparison of the conditions in the two countries, said the U.S.A. was a better country to earn money in, but not so good to live in. Social life as we understand it, does not exist in the U.S.A. factory towns.

In Hartford, Connecticut, he heard of some amazing increases in workers’ production by means of motion study with micro-motion pictures taken on the job. Trade-unionism generally is at a discount, the company-union being almost universal. Of course, in a land of comfort, prosperity and workers’ affluence, such social safety-valves as unemployment insurance and sickness provision would be anomalies. One worker he asked what men did when out-of-a-job, replied, “it is a case root hog or die.” Doubtless they would die rather than falsify the Telegraph’s headlines.

In a summing-up at the end of his address, De Vere said, “for the mass of the workers, I doubt whether the standard of life is much, if at all, higher than in England. Life is expensive, especially with regard to such things as rent and clothing.”

So there you have it. Either the Daily Telegraph uses its own private dictionary for everyday words, or else comfort, prosperity and affluence have aspects with which we are not acquainted. We cannot fit any of the three words to a life spent alongside a conveyor-belt, with every physical movement so studied as to eliminate every jerk of the muscles that does not spell profit. Big wages may mean anything, but it is of the nature of wages inevitably to be a reflex of social standards. Where big wages equal big rent, food and clothing bills, and little wages equal little dittoes, the words big and little cease to distinguish anything real. And when, in addition, the journey to the scrap-heap has become abbreviated to a twenty or twenty-five year period, one again wonders whether the editor of the Daily Telegraph contemplates changing his occupation for one of comfort, prosperity and affluence. Doubtless his fatal weakness for self-sacrifice will assert itself, and we shall find him denying himself the temptations of American affluence for many years yet.

Truth will out! (1959)

From the August 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

It must be well over twenty years since the Conservative press took to talking about the “Socialist party’’ and “Socialist members” instead of using the more accurate name Labour. The term “Socialist" was no doubt fostered to give me impression of a party of doctrinaire fanatics. The rose by some other name might smell less sweet. The oddity is that it should have persisted for so long, for it seems rarely to have upset Labour supporters any more than the term “Tory” upsets the Conservatives.

Now the first crack in the armour has appeared. Close readers of the Daily Telegraph will have noticed that in the last few days the term “Labour” has been substituted for “Socialist," and that is how the party is to be named in future reports. Perhaps the Daily Telegraph feels that on our sunlit Conservative upland the term “Labour” brings to mind cloth caps and smoky chimneys and will repel voters (and readers) even more than “Socialist.” Or maybe it is yet another sign that the Labour Party has become respectable. It will be interesting to see whether other “Tory” newspapers follow, the lead.

—Manchester Guardian, 6th July. 1959.

Socialists and the Press (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

We live in what is claimed to be a “free country," where there is "free expression of opinion," but this must not be taken literally. It does not mean that anyone can say or write just what he likes. The Official Secrets Act and the libel laws cut off considerable areas of expression, into which you trespass at your peril. Much greater restriction arises because we live in a money world, in which capacity to make views known depends largely on what you can afford to pay. If your resources run into hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds, you can publish the Daily Worker, Daily Herald, Daily Express, etc.: if not you may have to be content with a monthly journal. But what about the possibility of the “free” expression of varied points of view in the columns of those and other journals with the big circulations? This again is a very narrowly circumscribed possibility when it is a question of securing publicity for a minority and not popular point of view, such as that of the S.P.G.B. When daily newspapers misreport matters of concern to us, or when they refuse to publish our letters or advertisements, there is no remedy—and this notwithstanding the existence of the Press Council, which is supposed to keep an eye on the conduct of the Press.

Another approach to the Press Council

In 1956 we approached the General Council of the Press about an incorrect statement (one of many in the Beaverbrook newspapers) that occurred in the Evening Standard, followed by editorial refusal to correct it (The matter in question was the practice of the Evening Standard of describing Labour Party conferences as conferences of "The Socialist Party of Great Britain.")

The Press Council declined to interfere, on the ground that readers would not be misled. (See Socialist Standard January and March, 1956.)

In May of this year we wrote again to the Press Council about the refusal of the Daily Telegraph to publish an advertisement of the Socialist Standard, the only reason given being that there is no refusal to publish our advertisements on principle, each advertisement being dealt with on its merits.

The Press Council replied on 29th May, 1957:—

“ Dear Sir,

"I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of May 27. The question of whether a particular advertisement will be published rests entirely with the Editor, whose decision is absolutely final. It may help you to quote the statement which appears on this subject in The Times every day. It reads

" 'All orders for advertising in The Times are accepted on the express terms— (a) that they are subject to cancellation at the discretion of the Editor,' etc., etc.

"Yours faithfully,

“(Sgd.) Alan Pitt Robins, C.B.E."

Of course, we don't feel at all helped. Either the Press Council approves of newspapers refusing advertisements or it disapproves, and it doesn't add anything to be told that The Times does it as well as the Daily Telegraph.

The Royal Commission on the Press

The Press Council arose out of recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Press (1947-1949). In the report of that body the question of refusing advertisements was dealt with; though we confess we cannot be certain what exactly the Royal Commission was trying to say. The relevant passages in the Report (paragraphs 529 and 530) are as follows:—

"We consider it entirely wrong for a newspaper to boycott a particular advertiser arbitrarily and for personal reasons."

“We have received evidence that some newspapers refuse all advertisements of a particular class. This is a different matter. We consider that a newspaper has a right to refuse advertisements of any kind which is contrary to its standards or may be objectionable to its readers. This right, however, should not be exercised arbitrarily."

This statement may have the appearance of being both clear and reasonable. It is the last sentence that makes the meaning unclear. The Royal Commission appears to be saying that it would be quite right for the Daily Telegraph to refuse all advertisements from the S.P.G.B., because the S.P.G.B. is objectionable to the readers of the Telegraph, but wrong for the Daily Telegraph to decide, arbitrarily and without giving a reason, to publish some and exclude others: but that is what the Telegraph does.

By curious coincidence we received from the News-Chronicle an almost directly opposite point of view. Having written to them about a misstatement in someone else's advertisement, a member of the S.P.G.B. received a reply to the effect that of course the News-Chronicle could not possibly interfere with statements made in advertisements.

The freedom to express Socialist ideas

The fact is that the possibility of making Socialist ideas known to the population is very narrowly restricted in this country. Newspapers and periodicals almost never give space to the Socialist viewpoint, and letters are comparatively rarely published. With paid advertisements we have somewhat better results, though refusals (sometimes masquerading under “no space available") are frequent. As the Royal Commission on the Press was supposed to be concerned with "free expression of opinion and the accurate presentation of news," they might have been expected to face the issue squarely: instead they sidestepped it by the insertion of the qualifying word "important,” (Report, page 676), and considered whether “ the Press as a whole gives an opportunity for all important points of view to be effectively presented."

Is the expression of Socialist ideas important? Certainly it isn't with the Tory, Liberal, Labour and other giants of the newspaper and periodical Press.

Not that the Royal Commission found everything to be satisfactory—far from it, and they half-understood the reason. "The failure of the Press to keep pace with the requirements of society is attributable largely to die plain fact that an industry that lives by the sale of its products must give the public what the public will buy. A newspaper cannot, therefore, raise its standard far above that of its public, and may anticipate profit from lowering its standard in order to gain an advantage over a competitor." (Paragraph 680.)

Nationalisation no remedy

We say that the Royal Commission only half understood the nature of the problem. This is amply proved by the fact that they took for granted that publication can only be for the purpose of selling and making a profit—they never considered the possibility that the only way of securing "freedom of expression" is through Socialism, when the question of sale and profit would not arise.

And they are not the only ones who do not understand. A delegate at the recent conference of the Electrical Trades Union, speaking on the Press, said:—

"An end must be put to its reports of sadism, sensationalism and pornography. We shall nationalise this monopoly so that its views shall be that of the working masses for Socialism ."—{Daily Worker, 7th June, 1957.)

It is difficult to imagine anything more contrary to every experience. We are asked to believe that nationalisation would change the Press into a vehicle for enabling the workers to express Socialist ideas. Let us look at a few facts. Where the Press has passed under direct Governmental control, as in Russia, it is not only impossible to publish a journal putting Socialist ideas for a Socialist organisation, but it is legally forbidden for a Socialist political organisation to exist at all. Secondly, the broadcasting service in this country has been nationalised for 30 years after a five year life of the original British Broadcasting Company. Do we find the nationalised B.B.C. putting over Socialist propaganda? It is in fact even worse than the capitalist Press. For a quarter of a century the S.P.G.B. has tried to get the Socialist case put on the radio, but with never a single success. Not that the B.B.C. says it will on principle not let the S.P.G.B. broadcast—nothing so crude —but each time application is made the application is refused.

One of our adverts, refused by the Daily Telegraph mentioned that the S.P.G.B. is barred from the air by the B.B.C. Those who are silly enough to think that there is some essential difference between the “private enterprise” capitalist Telegraph and the State capitalist B.B.C. may wonder why the former didn’t jump at the chance of chiding the latter for its opposition to “freedom of expression.” Instead they showed their true affinity by behaving in the same way, suppressing the Socialist case.

Edgar Hardcastle

Party News Briefs (1957)

Party News from the June 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Conference proceeded this year in a very business-like fashion, the Agenda was completed by 5.30 p.m. on the Sunday afternoon. On the first day forty-four delegates were present, representing twenty branches; on Saturday and Sunday the numbers were slightly less. Although the Agenda was a full one, all the items were dealt with, despite the fact that there was no Saturday morning session this year. The dance held on the Saturday was better attended than the one held last year, and a very happy evening was enjoyed by all. On Sunday a Party Rally was held, but the audience was not a very large one, and it has been suggested that the rallies should be discontinued. However, if Comrades would like to see them continued and are prepared to muster up support for them, they can easily voice their views through the branches with a view to the continuance of the Rallies.

May Day. Full details are not yet to hand (at the time of going to press), but good meetings were held in Hyde Park, in addition to the meeting in the evening at Denison House. The Literature Sales Committee will be reporting later on the special efforts made for the sale of the Standard.

Lewisham Branch is holding two more lectures at their Branch Room, Davenport House, Davenport Road. Rushey Green. On Monday, 3rd June, Comrade Ivimey is speaking on the Rent Bill, and on Monday, 17th June, Comrade D’Arcy is speaking on “The Cost of Living." Both lectures commence at 8 p.m.

The "Daily Telegraph.” In an endeavour to get the Party’s case more widely known, advertisements are placed from time to time in various journals. It was considered that the “Personal Column” of the Daily Telegraph offered one useful medium, but both in May 1955. and again this year (the only two occasions we have approached them during recent years), they declined to accept our advertisement, thus depriving their readers of studying views which may be new to them. This is symptomatic of the difficulty of more widely spreading the Party’s case. Not only are we handicapped by lack of funds, and barred from the air by the B.B.C., but even small advertisements are liable to be banned by the consortiums which sell the news.

The advertisement they refused to accept is given below. No explanation was given, merely a curt note from the Classified Advertisement Manager (6th May, 1957): “It is regretted we are unable to accommodate the above announcement in our columns.”

 “It could be worth your while to investigate Socialism (as distinct from Labourism or Russian “Communism”). Why not send for Socialist Comment—a reprint of several outstanding articles from the Socialist Standard? 8d. post free. S.P.G.B., 52. Clapham High Street, S.W.4.”

Phyllis Howard

Letters from readers invited.

Our Annual Conference in April decided that a section of the Socialist Standard be reserved for letters from readers as a regular feature. Readers are invited to send letters of comment and criticism and questions for answer. Letters should be kept as short as possible as space is limited, and the shorter the letters the larger the number that can be printed.

Editorial Committee.

Why Economise? (1940)

From the March 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The road which we have to tread is that of stern service and sacrifice.” Thus writes the Daily Telegraph leader writer (January 10th, 1940) in amplificatory approval of Chamberlain’s Mansion House speech. ChamberIain is further quoted as stating: “We have got to do without a lot of things we shall miss very much.” Less money must be spent on sugar and butter. Approval is also given to the statement of Sir John Simon, Chancellor of the Exchequer, that “you can’t finance a great war by soaking the rich.” This prepares the way for what follows: “To tie wages to the cost of living so closely that spending can go on as in peace time will give us the vicious spiral of the last war, which ultimately benefited no-one.”

On the page following the above-mentioned article is a Harrods’ advertisement, which says: “Now, more than ever, you need bargains in wines and spirits.” You can get a dozen bottles of 1924 brandy for nine quid (usual price £9 12s.). Whisky is slightly cheaper at £8 5s., or you can get a dozen bottles of 1933 Barsac for as little as £2 16s. Cigars also are going cheap at £5 7s. 6d. the hundred.

You see, now there is a war on, even the poor rich have to economise and look around for bargains in wines and spirits.

It is possible, however, that a large number of the readers of the Daily Telegraph, in their hurry to get to the back pages, where cheap jobs are advertised, may have missed the foregoing advertisement, about which this much must be said—that experienced capitalist concerns do not spend large sums on advertising unless there is reasonable certainty of a substantial return. Hence we can well imagine Colonel Try-it-on and Major Soak-it-up over their whisky-and-splash approvingly endorsing the Chancellor’s remark that “you can’t finance a great war by soaking the rich.”

Of course, we admit that the capitalists have got a bit of a problem on in running this war. War, unfortunately for them, is an expensive business. But if the workers can be induced to lie low, and not be too troublesome about asking for more wages to meet a higher cost of living, cut down their butter and sugar, and so on, it might not prove so expensive after all. Hence the necessity of “stern service and sacrifice” in order that “freedom and justice and the dignity of human life shall not perish from the earth.” Need we say that included amongst those who share the “dignity of human life” are the “hard core”—the 240,000 workers who have been unemployed for over 12 months? The majority of these, needless to say, have been retaining their dignity, not on butter, but on margarine—and probably unvitaminised at that, as, for the information of the unsophisticated, unvitaminised marge is slightly cheaper than that containing the vital elements. The dignified “hard core,” however, are going to be looked after—”steps are to be taken by the Government to speed up their absorption into industry.”—(Daily Telegraph Industrial Correspondent, January 10th, 1940.)

Obviously, what is concerning the minds of the capitalists is that, with everybody employed, workers will be asking, insisting on, and succeeding in getting, higher wages. Hence the dim foreshadowing of some means or measure to arrest the process.

Whilst the sectional struggle between the capitalist Powers has taken on the form of armed warfare, the economic warfare between capitalists and workers, between rulers and ruled, continues from official peace time into official war time, with this difference, that when a war is on, owing to the elimination of the competition of the unemployed, the scales are weighted in favour of the workers. Hence the concern of our capitalist masters over the wages question and their attempt to drum into the ears of the workers the necessity of “doing without a lot of things they will miss very much,” and the statement that the “wealthier classes have had to make large reductions in standards of living.”

R. Milborne

The bacillus Mussolini. (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily Telegraph of October 25th seized the opportunity of Fascism’s anniversary of accession to power in Italy to review its history. The review is the more valuable in that the writer makes little effort to conceal the direction in which his sympathies lie. No time is wasted on detailing how the poor peasant boy of Romagna, the bricklayer of Lausanne, the “Socialist” agitator and journalist, fought his way to the highest position of a Capitalist State. At the commencement of the article we find him there. No mention of his horde of Dirty Shirts, with their bludgeons, stilettos and castor oil. He is there! This is a free condensation of the article (italics mine) : His first sweeping reform was to throw out of office the great army of lazy “grafters,” political protégés, etc., created by a generation of government by unscrupulous and self-seeking politicians. The higher the official, the smaller his chance of being spared. The next step was to hit out against the petty political groups. One after another the old political groupings were smashed up and obliged to pronounce themselves for or against, but mostly for, the great Conservative reaction. The Liberals, the Populars, the Socialists have all been attacked on questions of principle; their ranks have been broken and scattered. In electoral reform he preserves proportional representation, but gives to the winning party two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. As the Telegraph man naively says : “This is in order to ensure for the governing party of the day the possibility of carrying out the reforms promised in its electoral programing. The world will follow with interest the working of this experiment in practical politics.” We shall. “Mussolini has been eminently successful in bringing about social peace and the cessation of class warfare. In the beginning the means employed were physical pressure by the Fascist militia, which had recourse to very drastic means.” (Pause for fiendish laughter.) “But very soon the tendency became manifest to apply more peaceful methods. The results are excellent, and during the last twelve months there has not been a single strike in the whole of Italy. This is a fact from which even Mussolini’s detractors cannot get away.”

The gloating contributor makes a bad slip just here. They can get away, for lower down he tells us quite refreshingly, in the long run Mussolini’s foreign policy is entirely governed by the necessity of finding satisfactory outlets for Italian emigration. The country is a great reservoir of man-power which must be exported, and Mussolini is casting about for outlets.”

What a country ! What a Paradise ! What a prospect ! Having bludgeoned, hacked and castor-oiled his way to political power, he discovers he is lord of a huge reservoir of excellent, exploitable material for foreign capitalists. His message to the Italians is, “Italy is no place for you.” There is one reservation. “A new departure is the decree forbidding the emigration of doubtful characters, so as to raise the reputation of Italy abroad.” Mussolini has judged his world well. As the reservoir is emptied of all save the ”doubtful characters” (doubtless fitted up with black shirts and oil equipment), the surrounding capitalist states will warm up wonderfully. A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind. It is good to learn that in this holy business he has the blessing of the Church. To again quote in full :—

  “The ex-Socialist Prime Minister has frankly recognised and accepted the preponderating part played in Italian life by the Church. He has established a firm friendship with the Vatican, which in its turn supports him. .​ .​ . The alliance with the Vatican gives to Mussolini, not only the active support of the powerful clerical elements in the country, but also assists him to a great extent in the development of his foreign policy.”

Now read the bit about his foreign policy again. And then you will, or will not, be pleased to learn that 50,000 railwaymen have been ruthlessly sacked, in the name of economy. Presumably they are now at the gates of the reservoir. They may even be numbered with his detractors. Happy, happy country ! Surely someone will inform the wretched denizens of Old Compton Street, Greek Street, and Little Italy, of what they are missing. Perhaps they are wise after all. Why go to the expense and inconvenience of a voyage, when all these inestimable benefits will soon be brought to our doors. One reads with delight that Britain possesses at least two Fascist organisations thanks mainly engaged at the moment in squabbling over which one is the real, genuine, dyed-in-the-wool article. This question settled, and an agreement reached as to who is to sign the cheques, one can already discern the rosy flush of a new dawn. Italy, hitherto associated in our minds, with ice-cream men, opera-singers and organ-grinders, is to fill our cup of indebtedness to the brim by presenting us with the New Liberty. Our cup runneth over. Already its prophets are afoot. You will remember Earl Grey at Newcastle on February 3rd last: —

  “It is possible, under the chaos and confusion in Europe, that democratic representative government may go down for a time in favour of some other system.”

Italy, we presume, shows us an example of the ”other system.” We hope you like it.

W. T. Hopley

* * * *

Since writing the above, we read in the “Westminster Gazette” of October 26th :

  “Italy at present offers a remarkable spectacle. The country is absolutely quiescent, the people intent only on their calling, and abiding by the laws. But the Fascisti leaders and rank and file alike .​ .​ . are quarrelling among themselves, unable to resist the temptation to usurp functions and prerogatives pertaining to the Government, unable either to rid themselves of the primitive, expeditious habit and the craving to take the law ruthlessly into their own hands.”

Readers can supply their own comment. It may be useful to mention that Mussolini is referred to as the Duse. The deuce he is.

W. T. Hopley

Press cuttings (1942)

From the April 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Men and Horses

“Peterborough,” writing in the Daily Telegraph on Captain Margesson, who until recently was Secretary of State for War: —

  “Handling men seemed to come naturally to the old cavalry officer trained to handle horses.”—(Daily Telegraph, March 28th, 1942.)

* * *

Don’t Travel by Rail

“Trainers will welcome the decision to lift the ban on the transport of horses to meetings by rail from the opening of the flat-racing season on April 14th.”—(Daily Telegraph, March 18th, 1942.)

* * *

Piety and Beggary in Moscow

“As evidence that nobody hindered worshippers, I can say that the newspaper queue was nearly 100 yards long that day, and not one person in the queue even turned the head as I and others broke through it to enter the Bogoyavlensky Cathedral. It was only the beggars, the lame, the halt, and the blind, mewling their woes and thanks, who paid any attention.”— (From an article, “Moscow Crowds fill the Churches,” by Negley Farson, Daily Mail Moscow correspondent, February 28th, 1942.)

Telegraph gets it wrong (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily Telegraph ran a two-day feature last January putting forward a "cure" for unemployment. This wasn't promoted with quite the same vigour as bingo in the Sun or Mirror, but within the constraints imposed by its upper class image the Telegraph mounted a reasonable advertising campaign. The views expressed were scarcely of working-class origin, yet they are held quite widely, by workers as well as capitalists. So in offering a critique of what the Telegraph says we are in fact examining misconceptions. for it became clear after only a few lines that these articles were not going to live up to their billing, despite the 23 "experts" consulted by the three staff members who did the actual writing. An editorial in the issue of 29 January stated: "While Western Europe as a whole has succumbed to the disease known as 'Eurosclerosis', the United Kingdom has consistently done worse than its near neighbours in terms of either unemployment or inflation and for most of the 1970s in both at the same time".

The inflation question did not figure in the advance publicity and its inclusion hints that the paper's real concern is not unemployment but regret that the British capitalist economy appears to it to have lost out to its competitors over recent years. In such circumstances we can expect unemployment here to rise more sharply than elsewhere. We therefore need not be surprised to find that the solution offered (eight specific proposals were put forward) are designed to increase UK competitiveness in the hope of regaining lost markets. Even if successful in this (and to accept even this would be an act of faith) the most to be expected is a slight decrease in British unemployment at the expense of a corresponding rise elsewhere. This is no gain; the total unemployment problem has not diminished one iota. The gainers are those capitalists able to resume operations.

Reluctantly the Telegraph editorial did at least acknowledge that unemployment is currently endemic across Europe. But the use of the term "Eurosclerosis" indicates that they have not appreciated the worldwide character of the present slump. Despite overwhelming evidence, nowhere is the existence of a similar problem in America noted and part of the presentation of the 29 January entitled US Experience of Employment exaggerated minor differences between American and British economies almost to the point of suggesting that the former had "cracked it”. Similar notions were expressed by the ageing Earl of Stockton in the first televised Lords debate. These were in no way the product of his ninety-plus years for Harold Macmillan was just as confused in his economic thinking when he was in his prime as Supermac.

A further interesting Telegraph comment was that "Many people view unemployment as akin to a natural disaster — we are unwilling to accept the pessimism — unemployment. like inflation is a soluble problem". On the first point, no doubt many workers believe that unemployment is here to stay but it is barefaced cheek for the Telegraph to talk like this. From the end of World War II right up until the current recession was well developed, the Telegraph, and all of Fleet Street, supported by a host of economic "experts", told us almost daily that the “bad old days" were gone, that unemployment was a thing of the past and that we must change our ideas accordingly. Militant trade unionists were told to forget their old "class war shibboleths" and unite with the capitalist enemy to build a new paradise of prosperity, class co-operation and peace. Even in 1985, when the flimsy premises of these arguments have long since been destroyed this claptrap can still be heard and has perhaps had some success in discrediting sound ideas by branding them as out of date.

In saying "unemployment, like inflation, is a soluble problem", however, the Telegraph is right even if for entirely the wrong reasons. Unemployment is soluble, but only by abolishing the capitalist system which spawns it. Under capitalism labour power will be utilised only if more can be extracted from it than is paid out in wages — in Marxist economic terms if the surplus value embodied in the finished product can be converted to actual profit through sale. In contrast the Telegraph has found itself unable even to recognise, let alone tackle, the world wide unemployment problem. Inflation, although also a problem of capitalism — or at least of money economies is different. Inflation is caused by governments increasing the supply of inconvertible paper money (in earlier times debasing the coinage served the same end) without a corresponding change in the total value of the goods in the economy. The remedy is therefore to cease this practice, as has been done successfully on a number of occasions (one was by Lloyd George in 1919-20). The Telegraph however propagates the fairly common myth that there is a relationship between unemployment and inflation, claiming that there is a "natural rate" of unemployment which was at the 200,000-300,000 level in the 1950s and 1960s but has risen significantly since because

  welfare benefits increased by 30 per cent in real terms and the labour market rigidified under the influence of incomes policies and increasing union power.

Here the Telegraph in effect says that if unemployment is below a certain level workers are more easily able to increase real pay. This is of course often the case. However they come close to admitting that when this situation arises governments often react by deliberately increasing inflation in order to steal back these gains through higher prices. This is certainly a plausible explanation of the inflationary policies pursued by many governments, particularly since the last world war, although it is not the sole motivation. Here the reduction of real wages emerges as the main plank in the Telegraph's "solution", the argument being that if wages and other costs were lower employers would see more potential profit in expanding production. The example of America is cited, where real wages have been falling for some time and unemployment has fallen slightly. However the net effect is small, especially remembering the falling standards of those in work.

Clearly we cannot expect any sensible analysis to come from such sources, but for the record here are the Telegraph's eight suggestions. We have heard such ideas many times before and expect to hear them a few times yet. possibly as part of the 1985 Budget Speech.

1. Cutting the tax on jobs. This is merely cosmetic and very old hat.
2. Easing the Unemployment Trap. The unemployment trap means situations where the going rate is so low that the worker is nearly as well off on the dole. As the idea is to reduce real wages there are no prizes for guessing that the suggestion here is to cut "benefits". To a large extent this proposal is post-dated, as the authors themselves point out that benefits have been cut since 1979 so that the "trap" is much less common nowadays than in the 1950s or 1960s.
3. No Penalties for Part-Time Work. Yet another way to shove wages down. The idea here is to encourage the jobless to take cut rate part-time work to the disadvantage of those who still have jobs.
4. Reforming the Unions. This offers further ideas to back up those already embodied in actual or projected legislation with a view to weakening the unions' efforts to protect living standards.
5. Training to the age of 18. An extension of the old idea of raising the school leaving age. coupled with complaints that young workers' wages are too high.
6. Community Work. Another cheap labour scheme. In the 1930s a few swimming pools and similar projects were carried out at cut-price rates in this way.
7. New Work Patterns. More of the same. Wage rates to be reduced by encouraging existing trends towards part-time and more flexible working arrangements generally.
8. Profit Sharing. A hoary old chestnut. The idea this time is to cut employers' costs and make staff more profit-conscious. What will shareholders (the real ones) say about this, as there will be less profit for distribution among them.

A last example of the Telegraph's lack of perception is that they recognise only two explanations of economic crises. Firstly, the neo-classicist, where the cause is believed to be excessive real wages as seen from the employers' viewpoint as part of production costs. Secondly the Keynesian, which contends that the cause is insufficient demand and the cure increased government spending. Although the Telegraph's experts are able to point out the shortcomings of these two theories, they are quite unable to offer any alternative.

The true alternative model is the Marxist which has been in existence for about 120 years but unfortunately for the Telegraph and its allies it tells us that these problems cannot be solved within the framework of capitalism. However it also gives us genuine cause for optimism. The Marxist model also shows us how society can be re-shaped on a co-operative basis so that all the present social ills will disappear.

E. C. Edge

An Old Man in a Tub. (1922)

From the April 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "Mankind must either look for salvation from within or without. Hellenism and Christianity bid him look within. The Marxian Creed bids him look without and expect regeneration from the agency of material conditions." From Editorial, Daily Telegraph, January 7th, 1922.

Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a tub. According to the most reliable reports got from almost totally unreliable historians, that strange old man didn't want much of the stuff of the earth. In the middle of a market he would some times stand still, look blandly upon the good things of Greece, and melodramatically exclaim, "Good Lord ! how many things are there in the world of which Diogenes hath no need." Then he went again to his simple old home.

That is all I know of Diogenes, and all I care to know. He has always struck me as being a rather silly gentleman. Others seem to think him to have been a wise boy, and say (as Viscount Milner did in his address to the Classical Association, as the "Telegraph" did in its editorial comments on Milner's address) that it we were wise as he, Old Tubby, we wouldn't rush about on the earth for lamb chops and green peas and wines to wash 'em down, and clothes to keep ourselves warm, nor yet for houses . . . but instead we would get hold of a damned good book, soak our minds in sentimentality, forget almost we have bellies, and thereafter be content with plain living and high thinking.

That way of thinking won't do for us. Philosophy can help us a fair amount when we are in the thick of the natural and inevitable tragedies of life. Ordinarily, the human needs, physical needs, must be satisfied first. You may be idealistic; you may start life on oatmeal and water, and keep your pockets full of books; you may feed on an abundance of moonlight and music and a minimum of boiled rice; you may sit out the nights over Plato, Socrates, and the rest of the old crowd of chatterers; you may be Godly, Philosophic, Poetic; you may do all that and be all that—for only a short time. At the end of 12 months your anatomy will be distinct as a tree in winter. You will probably get the sack for being slow, and perhaps in the end you will have to look out for an old tub. And I think I should laugh to see the wind whistle through you as it does through a bare tree.

Far as I can see, the old man in the tub was wrong. And Milner is wrong, and even the "Telegraph" is wrong. We can't successfully ignore the facts of our place in the scheme of the universe, nor the character of our particular make-up. Before we can enjoy anything—the fresh air, the colours in skies or in fields, human companionship or any sort of books done by wise or passionate men—we must have a certain amount of flesh on our bones.

Nowadays thousands of people are far too thin. They are too thin to think. They are hungry, ragged, haggard, and full of bitterness ; but they are too thin to think. I will not now go into the sickening history of the workers. Those who suffer ought to know all about it. The awful curse of Capitalism was upon them from the first.

They have sweated in the pits and at the furnaces, and been heroic upon the seas. They have done weaving and made engines and ships. They have put numberless big buildings all over the country, and they have made some pretty good guns. But the people who have done all this are poor. And the monocled sensualist who would do anything to recover his youth, "except get up early in the morning, take exercise, or become a useful member of society," represents the class which, by its agents in Parliament, controls the guns which control you.

I haven't much more to say now.

Rub out all you have heard about politics. Try to get your second wind. If you don't, then the years will pass on as before —the shadow of Capitalism will be upon us all—the hate and sin and sorrow of this social system will go on, and millions of workers, will be needlessly crushed and treated worse than the beasts of the field. If you want to laugh then you will have to get blind drunk.

Our way is the best way. We want all people to be free and happy. Our Object and our Principles are printed plainly as possible on the back page of the "S.S." If you won't trouble to read them and thoroughly consider them, I may as well dry up, for you won't be bothered with anything I say here. If you think the "Telegraph," Milner, and the Old Man in the Tub to be right, if the affairs of the world are nothing to you, then you will let the capitalists still own and control all the wealth and all the sources of wealth.

If you think Tubby's philosophy to be wrong,

P.T.O.

TO

BACK PAGE.

H. M. M.

That aforementioned back page from April 1922.

Bread Cast Upon The Waters. (1921)

From the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the midst of the terrible want, disease, and stark misery that the workers of to-day are getting inured to, that they are generally acquiescent in as being a condition of things utterly inseparable from the existence of their class, it is interesting to notice how much money is being spent on various forms of education, and by whom it is spent.

For some time past, prominence has been given in the columns of the "Daily Telegraph" to an appeal for funds, under the patronage of the Prince of Wales, to effect general improvement in the organisation of the Boy Scout movement.

A casual glance down the lists of subscribers of sums of £5 and over, as published in the "Daily Telegraph" of Feb. 5th and 7th (to take two days at random) will reveal the fact that roughly three out of every four subscribers are large business firms.

Now this is rather startling, for it is a rare thing to find these "captains of industry" falling over each other to give money away, but astonishment evaporates when the inevitable reason for this "generosity" is disclosed.

Investigation shows that the various sums donated to this movement are, briefly, investments. They are expected to yield a profit.

No doubt a good many people would wonder how on earth a subscription to the Boy Scout movement can be called a profitable investment for these capitalists, but the words of the investors themselves, in fact the words of the Chief Scout, Baden-Powell, himself, will remove any doubts on that score.

Appealing for funds at a large gathering of business men at Manchester, "B.P." said: "We will find from experience that the boys who cultivate the ideas and habits of the Boy Scouts prove more useful to employers of labour." — ("Manchester Guardian," 1.7.14.)—A cogent and potent reason, which resulted in substantial subscriptions from those interested in increasing the "usefulness" of future workers.

To-day, nearly seven years after the meeting and speech referred to, we find the "educating" of embryonic workers through the medium of the Boy Scouts has proved so valuable to employers of labour that they "part up" with subscriptions with an alacrity positively staggering to those unacquainted with the reason for such "free-hearted" stunts.

Another kind-hearted man by the name of "The Lord Dewar" (what a smell of whisky !) delivers himself of this :

  Sir,—I have pleasure in enclosing cheque for £1,000 towards what I consider a national cause of first importance, believing, as I do, that the Boy Scout movement is a sure foundation upon which to build the best ideals of citizenship, and the best medium to inculcate into the minds of the rising generation courtesy, discipline, courage, and resource. The results of this movement will be of inestimable benefit to the British Empire in future generations.—("Daily Telegraph," 5.2.21.)

This is a letter which reads at first sight as though £1,000 was a very casual and common gift, but which is pregnant with meaning to those who care to find it.

The "best ideals of citizenship" from the point of view of this purveyor of lunatic broth combine in the worker a keen intelligence in making the wheels of production run smoothly and prolifically, an unquestioning acceptance of dire poverty when further production is stopped by the master class because it does not pay, and a deadly dull and apathetic lack of understanding of the worker's true position in society.

That Lord Dewar thoroughly appreciates the benefits that he and his class enjoy as a result of cheerful endurance and unquestioning obedience to authority on the part of the workers is shown by the magnitude of his "gift."

There is every reason to believe that the brutal plainness of expression contained in the following extract from a letter is the cause of the writer's desire to remain anonymous under the horribly suggestive and admissive pen-name of "Lone Wolf," who writes thus :

  There is only one class in the scout movement, the best. That is what makes it so enormously superior in its results to trade unions and middle-class unions and leagues of nations. And the underlying secret? It is, I honestly believe, practically the only great movement of the present time which has realised the practical necessity of subordinating the personal interests of its members to the needs of the community. . . Most people who do not want other people taught to think for themselves have some very good reason for it,—that it is easier to prey upon ignorance, for instance."—("Daily Telegraph," 5.2.21. Italics mine.)

Well, we know who the "community" is. Lliar George did his best to teach us at the times when the railwaymen and miners, besides several other combinations of workers, were doing their best to maintain the already poor standard they "enjoyed" by means of strikes. It was dinned into our ears incessantly that these men were fighting the "community."

Apparently this bare-fanged "Wolf" is one of the "community" and is desirous of having the thoughts of the rising generation trained in the way he indicates.

And yet we find that, through some tortuous and peculiarly kinked up process of "reasoning," the vast majority of workers fully believe that they are members of the "community" that the Welsh twister speaks of so glibly. The Georgian community is composed of people who matter in the present system of society, and the worker of to day who thinks that that includes him is indulging in a pretty but suicidal conceit.

Those capitalists who have not previously taken a long enough view of the enormous power that can be wielded through the Boy Scout organisation, in the manufacture of complaisant wage-slaves are shown where their interests lie in the following extract from an article published in the "Daily Telegraph" as part of the appeal for funds :

  No expression of approval is more welcome to those at the head of the Boy Scout movement than that which comes from business men (28.1.21).

Mr. Wilde, headmaster, Blakely Municipal School, Manchester—a gentleman not prone to making wild statements, writes, concerning the average Boy Scout:

  He subordinates his own desires to a sense of honour and of loyalty and obligation to authority. He perseveres, and does not slack off. . . Surely a movement that is worth developing (38.1.21).

Which is a strong recommendation—from the point of view of any exploiter of labour!

What a game !

In these days the close observer sees that no movement that is in the interest of the workers generally gets a free advertisement in the columns of the Press like this Boy Scout business does. It is not to be expected that the owners and controllers of the profit-seeking (yet "free") Press will allow any thing to appear in their columns that is in any way detrimental to the interests of themselves as a class. That things do happen, too great to be ignored, yet against the interest of the capitalist class, is true.

Then subtlety gets full play, sometimes taking the form of bare-faced distortion of truth, sometimes "damning with faint praise," again deliberately suppressing vital facts, and in ways scarcely discernible, the capitalist class guard their own interests all the time, even making their position stronger by spreading plausible misconceptions which ultimately take the aspect of absolute truth.

A worker who used his intelligence on his own behalf and has become class-conscious, that is, realises that the interests of the workers and the interests of the masters, or capitalists, are diametrically opposed, smells a rat as soon as ever he sees a thing boosted in the Press as this Boy Scout movement has been, and a short search soon discloses the object of the boost.

Penny-a-liners, journalistic place-hunters, religious and lunatic sufferers from "scribearrhoea," soon have the grim features of their works laid bare by the worker of normal mind who has used his intelligence in discovering his own true position in the present terribly cruel system of society.

Then does the Boy Scout movement, shorn of all its ribbons, badges, and sentimental trappings, stand out in its true light as a highly developed organisation for the production of wage slaves whose minds will have been moulded to such a degree of complaisant obedience to authority that the woes suffered by the capitalists of to-day (as a result of the workers trying to think for themselves in even the vague, groping, inadequate way that they do) will be entirely eliminated from their scheme of things, and labour troubles will be practically unknown.

We, as Socialists, know to our bitter chagrin what a hard task it is to dislodge ideas that have been grafted into people during their earlier years, and to day we are face to face with a most successful effort to still further influence the minds of the young against their true interests, a fact hidden from the children and their parents with unscrupulous subtlety.

The prosecution of the Boy Scout movement has in view the cultivation of all the "virtues" in the minds of the boys, but never a word is breathed to them about the abominable evil of a system that ensures the whole of their future being insecure until death.

Selim.

Peace Problems, Prices and Panics. (1920)

From the April 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

For fear that the reader should imagine that I am going into a long diatribe about the capitalist peace I hasten to disillusion him. There can be no peace for the workers so long as capitalism exists, for wars are inevitable.

Wars are the outcome of an irreconcilable clash of interests manifest in the very nature of the capitalist system of society, wherein national groups of capitalists compete with one another in order to dominate the world's markets and trade routes. In their campaigns of conquest they drag in their train workers from all parts of the world, who are pitched and tossed like the gambler's coin to fight out the issue.

We have a glaring example in the recent world war—one of those periodical crises which shake society to its foundations and entail the sacrifice of millions of working-class lives.

The effects of the four and a half years war have set the ruling class of Europe trembling. For four and a half years the people have been engaged in the work of destruction. The blind passions of mankind have been aroused and inflamed by the cries of the capitalist class urging their wage slaves to slaughter one another.

Commencing with a propaganda of hate in the shape of the alleged German atrocities published as a blue book by the English Government. Following with the tirade against the "barbarous" methods of the German war lords—which methods were shown to be quite humane when practised by the Allied war lords.

There is a particular object in recalling to mind this propaganda of hate. We were told that the Germans would never be received or recognised by the rest of civilisation again. Now, however, the capitalists want peace, but they find it a very difficult thing to obtain. The problems with which they are confronted are becoming truly terrifying to them, and as the "Daily Telegraph" (2.3.1920) puts it in an article on the findings of the Supreme Committee appointed by the Allies to deal with the economic problems of Europe :

  By some means or other the mounting prices of practically everything in everyday use, and food supplies in particular, must be checked. . . . Technically the war is over, but in fact it cannot be regarded as at an end until we have cleared up the complications which it created, and among these the rise in prices is the outstanding one.

Of course it is not surprising that while the energies of the capitalist class have been engaged for the past eighteen months at the Peace Conference in Paris in trying to come to some agreement among themselves as to the sharing of the spoils of the war, the problem of making up for the shortage of the necessaries of life caused by years of concentrated destruction, has been somewhat neglected. The fact that prices of the necessaries of life are high, and that many of them are practically unobtainable by the workers, that substitutes for our daily diet are looked upon as almost a matter of course, that the shortage of housing accommodation causes the workers to be so scandalously herded together, that there is unemployment amongst those who were never to know the pinch of poverty more—the demobbed soldiers — all these represent problems to the ruling class, and problems they are likely to remain.

It consoles the workers, however, to read about all these problems, because they still fondly imagine that their condition will be improved by listening to talk from the governing class. But that is as far as it will get. What concerns the allied capitalists of Europe at the present time is the vastly more important task of dividing up the territories taken from their late foes during the war, transferring the control of trade routes, etc. They find it a rather difficult matter, however, and this accounts for the utterance contained in the latter part of the quotation given above. But the last few words about the rise in prices being the outstanding complication are merely added as a blind—the complication being the "equitable" division of the spoils of war.

That our rulers hope some day to clear up their affairs with one another is to be gleaned from the following extract from the same authority. Here can be seen the anticipations they have for the future: 

  Germany should receive her due quota of the available supplies in raw materials, provided the neutrals be willing to finance her imports of this nature . . . with America standing out Germany's custom and business partnership, however distasteful, and righty distasteful, it may be to her war victims, become Europe a disagreeable but compelling necessity.

The vile "Hun," with whom we would never trade again under any circumstances! The cant and cunning of the Allies' war cries are clearly shown in the above frank admissions.

The attempt to place the blame on America for "standing out" is a piece of camouflage artfully designed to hide their double dealing and justify their resumption of trade relations with their late enemies.

It must be borne in mind that the capitalist class of the world are united by common interests far more powerful than those which sometimes tend to tear them asunder. This point is convincingly illustrated by the fact that their guardians the Supreme Council have arrived at the following conclusion :

  Affirming the principle of International Solidarity, the necessity of Europe being treated in certain respects as a single economic entity . . . a general understanding has been reached by virtue of which Germany is to be helped by Europe to recover something of her pristine industrial productivity. (Same article in "Daily Telegraph.")

In the above can be seen how the masters realise the common interest of their class when they talk of International Solidarity. Territorial boundaries enable governments to explode different brands of patriotic gas to fool and divide the workers and create the necessary war enthusiasm. The workers, however, are referred to as fanatics, cranks, and bloody revolutionaries when they talk of Internationalism.

The writer finishes his article in thoughtful mood, remarking :

   Furthermore, far-seeing precautions must be taken lest we reproduce in these Islands, the worst evils which exist elsewhere. . . War. famine, revolution, that is the sequence which the allies must arrest, if not for the sake of the peoples who were so recently their enemies, at least for their own salvation. . . . The principles of economy and self help in association with a spirit of co-operation and must be accepted by Europe as essential to recovery of economic heath. None too soon the council has faced a problem which must be solved if the cancer which is consuming Northern Russia is not to spread far beyond the borders of that unhappy and distraught country.

This represents a heart-cry of the capitalists of Europe. They realise the perilous position in which the result of four and a half years of war has placed them. Torn between conflicting emotions, on the one hand endeavouring without success for nearly two years to arrange among themselves the division of the spoils of war, and on the other hand their burning zeal to resume their commercial enterprises and trade relations, they are suffering the agonies of conscious impotence. Further, they are faced with the graver peril of the growing unrest of the working class of their respective territories.

The workers of the world would do well to examine the events of the last five years in relation to the attitude which this Party took up immediately on the outbreak of the war. In our manifesto published in the September 1914 issue of our Party Organ, we began by saying- —

   "Whereas the Capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the question of the control of trade routes and the world's markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political ignorance and blind passions of the working class of their respective countries in order to induce the said workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters' quarrel . . ."

and concluded with—

   "Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism. The World for the Workers."

That attitude has been vindicated and stands on record to justify our oft-repeated claim of the truth and unchallengeable soundness of our position. Compared with the confusion and treachery of the pseudo organisations of this and other countries boasting that they champion the workers and represent their interests, we enjoy the supreme confidence which invigorates our consistent and unfailing efforts in the prosecution of the class war.

The facts, therefore, which the workers have to grasp are, that under the existing social order they are wage slaves; the only thing they possess is their power to labour, which they are compelled to sell in order to live.

The workers are poor because they are robbed of the greater portion of the wealth which they produce. The necessaries of life are produced by the social labour of the workers, but the means and instruments for producing these necessaries are owned and controlled by the capitalist class. It is because of this antagonism, this contradiction, in society, i.e., social production side by side with private ownership, that we have poverty-stricken workers and idlers rolling in wealth.

The solution to the "problem" rests with the working class, who must get to understand their class position in society and enrol themselves in a political party with the object of capturing the powers of government, in order to establish Socialism. That political party already exists—it is the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Study the Object and Principles of that Party—they will be found on the last page of this paper— and if you agree with them come and join us, and fight for the only thing worth while, i.e., Socialism.

O. C. I.