Bradlaugh’s Slanders on Marx (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Secularists Condone Murder of the Communards
In his superficial and prejudiced life of Marx (“ Karl Marx : A Study in Fanaticism," reviewed in our July issue), Mr. E. H. Carr attempted to escape responsibility for his inadequate knowledge and preparation by pleading the inaccessibility of documents. He complained of his inability to get hold of periodicals containing “Marx's letters and lesser-known writings," and wrote: —

  To quote one example, I have been completely unable to trace in this country any copy of a short-lived journal called the “Eastern Post," which contained in 1871 a spirited controversy between Marx and Bradlaugh on the Paris Commune.

Why Mr. Carr was “completely unable to trace" the “Eastern Post" is hard to explain, except on the assumption that he did not seriously try. So far from being short-lived, the “Eastern Post" is still in existence, and has been since its first issue on October 18th, 1868. Mr. Carr could have found this out with surpassing ease, and at the British Museum he could have gleaned all the information he required instantly. However, we can be grateful to Mr. Carr's negligence since it has led the present writer to look up the interesting controversy referred to. Here we see Marx, the mental giant, at grips with Bradlaugh and others of the individualists, who, while asserting their loyalty to the cause of “freedom," were enemies of the working-class movement. These men, Bradlaugh, G. J. Holyoake, and G. W. Foote were the personification of bourgeois reaction.

Marx’s “Civil War in France.”
The cause of the dispute between Bradlaugh and Marx was Marx's “Address on the Civil War in France." After the suppression of the Commune in 1871, “Republicans" and “Secularists” fell over one another to express their sympathy for the victims of the cold-blooded slaughter, carried out by the French Government, but while G. W. Foote, for example (“National Reformer," June 11th, 1871, page 378) was condemning the Communards for having endeavoured “forcibly to organise a regular Government in the name of a new social order," it was in reality the idea of the new social order itself—the idea of Socialism, to which they were opposed.

Marx delivered his address, and it was ordered to be published by the General Council of the International Working Men's Association. It described the terror; the slaughter of defenceless women and children in their thousands, so horrifying, in fact, that the correspondents of the English Press exposed the actions of the “government" of France. “The Times," “Daily News,” and other papers, were condemnatory in every way against the butchers of the workers. Marx, in his address, singled out—one of several instances— the bloody guilt of Jules Favre, the Foreign Minister in the Thiers Government—which was, by the way, sanctioned by Bismarck. The Government left Paris, but due to an oversight, some of the private correspondence that passed between the Ministers was overlooked. Favre, in a private letter to Gambetta, admitted that they were NOT defending Paris from the Prussian soldiers, but against the working class, this after his public assertion that we “will not cede an inch of your territory, nor a stone of your fortresses." As a consequence of the seizure of these letters, M. Milliere published a series of legal documents proving that Jules Favre, “living in concubinage with the wife of a drunkard resident in Algiers, had, by a most daring concoction of forgeries, spread over many years, contrived to grasp in the name of the children of his adultery, a large succession, which made him a rich man, and that, in a lawsuit undertaken by the legitimate heirs, he only escaped exposure by the connivance of the Bonapartist tribunals." When Favre returned to Paris after the suppression of the Commune, Milliere was shot!

On July 9th, 1871, on page 1 of the “National Reformer," Charles Bradlaugh, in a review of Marx*s address,

  Deeply regretted that a strong case had been weakened, as we believe it to be, by the introduction into the address of coarse and useless personalities. Surely the reference to Jules Favre’s domestic relations can have but. . ., etc.

In the following issue of the “National Reformer" a reply appeared from George Harris, Joint Secretary of the “ International," in which Harris said: —

  Now, sir, I hold ... it was of the highest importance and imperatively necessary to refer to Jules Favre’s domestic relations, because without such reference his forgery and crime could not have been exposed. Therefore, instead of repeating the real burden of Dr. Marx’s charge, Mr. Bradlaugh simply misleads his readers by speaking only of “reference to Jules Favre’s domestic relations.” Is “forgery,” I would ask, a domestic relation?

This attack produced neither apology nor reply from Bradlaugh. Nothing else was to be expected from him, for his attitude throughout the Commune—and after—was that of a steady supporter of the vile and treacherous Jules Favre. Bradlaugh tried to get out of this mess by saying it was a terrible thing, and asked for pity for the murderer, Favre. He attempted, under the guise of being a "lover of freedom," to protect Favre, who, apart from arranging the cold-blooded murder of Milliere, betrayed the Parisians to Bismarck, carried out Bismarck's instructions, and was also responsible for the massacre of thousands of women and children. This was Favre's friend! No wonder Bradlaugh—after the Franco-Prussian War —hated Marx. Marx had exposed his (Bradlaugh's) friends.

Bradlaugh, no doubt, realised the growing power of the International in European affairs, and the increasing importance of Marx. Bradlaugh had lived on his reputation as a reformer, and saw how his “Republican" propaganda was fizzling out. He therefore began attacking the International and Marx.

Hales, who was Corresponding Secretary of the International, also replied to Bradlaugh. A week later the latter notified his friends through the “National Reformer" (September 30th, 1871), that he was not a member of the International, and that the organisation had few members, and had little influence.

During the second week in December Bradlaugh again attacked the Communards. He protested against class government; he wanted an aristocracy of intellect! On December 16th, 1871, in the “Eastern Post," Bradlaugh, replying to a charge of poking his nose into the private domestic circumstances of a lady refugee from Paris, sought to obscure the issue by ending his letter as follows: —

  I feel indebted to Karl Marx for his enmity. If I were one of his own countrymen he might betray me to his government, here he can only calumniate.

As this letter has never been issued in any work on Marx we take pleasure in giving it the necessary publicity. (Perhaps the Director of Marx/Engels/Lenin/Stalin Institute will note and see to it that the index of the "Karl Marx; Chronik Seines Lebens" is altered accordingly?) Marx replied as follows: —

   Sir,—In his last epistle to you, Mr. Charles Bradlaugh makes the report of the sitting of the General Council of December 12th—a sitting from which I was absent in consequence of illness—the pretext for discharging on me his ruffianism. He says, “I feel indebted to Karl Marx for his enmity.” My enmity to Mr. Charles Bradlaugh! Ever since the publication of the “Address on the Civil War in France” Mr. Bradlaugh’s voice has chimed in with world-wide chorus of slander against the “International” and myself. I treated him like the other revilers, with contemptuous silence. This was more than the grotesque vanity of that huge self-idolator could stand. I “calumniated” him because I took no notice of his calumnies. My silence drove him mad; in a public meeting he denounced me as a Bonapartist because in the “Address on the Civil War” I had forsooth laid bare the historic circumstances that gave birth to the Second Empire. He now goes a step further and transforms me into a police agent of Bismarck. Poor man! He must needs show that the lessons he has recently received at Paris from the infamous Emile de Gerardin and his clique are not lost upon him. For the present, I shall “betray him” to the German public by giving the greatest possible circulation to his epistle. If he is kind enough to clothe his libels in a more tangible shape I shall “betray him” to an English law court.

I am, Sir,

Yours obediently,

Karl Marx.

John Hales, Secretary of the International, supplemented this letter with another: —

  With reference to Mr. Bradlaugh’s insinuation against Dr. Marx, I say that it is as lying as it is malicious, and with that I leave the matter, knowing that Dr. Marx needs no vindicator. But I would make one remark about Mr. Bradlaugh, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” Mr. Bradlaugh has been on one or two missions to Paris lately. I know of no workmen’s organisations which employ secret emissaries, and as Mr. Bradlaugh has not a reputation for working for nothing, I would ask whether there was any connection between his visits and the recent Bonapartist intrigues. Dirty tools are usually employed to do dirty work, and it is well known that the Bonapartists are not particular as to what instruments they use.

Bradlaugh’s Hostility towards Socialism.

A few days later, on December 19th, Marx was present at a meeting of the International, and called attention to these facts, and also the fact that Bradlaugh, to “prove” a case against Marx, had stripped a quotation from its context. This falsification, said Marx, “was deliberate and intentional.” Marx pointed out that when in Paris, Bradlaugh resorted and dined with the most infamous men in France. Referring to Bradlaugh’s political attitude, Marx said: —

   He could understand the secret of the man’s malignity; he was opposed to a labour movement; he only wished to see a little shuffling of the cards, a little re-distribution of political power, just sufficient to enable him to rise to a higher position, and that he knew he (Marx) represented the labour struggle, a struggle that would effect the emancipation of the people by abolishing classes and class distinctions; that was not what Bradlaugh wanted; hence his opposition.

Following this, "Le Soir,” the reactionary Parisian paper, deemed it necessary to aid Bradlaugh, and circulated a feeble apology for him, as he was a contributor to its columns. The attitude of Bradlaugh’s friends in Paris might be understood when the reader is reminded that when Victor Hugo stood as candidate he demanded a political amnesty for the Communards. Victor Hugo polled 93,423 votes. Bradlaugh’s paper, “Le Soir," opposed Hugo solely on the grounds that he favoured the amnesty. The voters were called “brigands and assassins” by “Le Soir.” 

Marx, on January 20th, 1872, enters the lists once more, and writes to the Editor of the “Eastern Post” : —

   Sir,—In the- “National Reformer” of January 10th, Mr. Bradlaugh says : “We only meant to allege that Dr. Marx had, in former times, given information to his own Government.”
    I simply declare that is calumny as ridiculous as it is infamous. I call upon Mr. Bradlaugh to publish any fact that could afford him even the slightest pretext for his statement. For his personal tranquillity I add that he shall not be challenged 

                                                                                                                Yours, etc.,

January 16th, 1872.                                                                                 Karl Marx.

Bradlaugh realised the trouncing he had received and was anxious to call off the hostilities, and on January 22nd, 1872, was desirous of “submitting the whole question between myself on the one hand and Dr. Marx and the International on the other to a Council of Honour. . . .”

Marx’s final word after the request of Bradlaugh was as follows : —

To the Editor of the “Eastern Post,” February 3rd, 1872.
Sir,
   [Owing to printing errors the opening is omitted.] . . . lous as it is infamous. I did so in order not to justify myself, but to expose him. With the low cunning of a solicitor’s clerk he tries to escape this liability by inviting me to a “ Court of Honour.” Does he really fancy that a Bradlaugh or the editors of the Paris demi-monde Press, or those of the Bismarckian papers at Berlin, or the “Tages Presse” at Vienna, or the “ Kriminal Zeitung” at New York, or the “ Moscow Gazette,” have only to slander me, in order to make me amenable to clear my public character, and even do so before a “Council of Honour ” of which the friends of these “ honourable ” gentlemen must form part.
  I have done with Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, and leave him to all the comforts he may derive from the quite contemplation of his own self.

I am,

Yours obediently,

Karl Marx.

So ended the heroics of the “great” Bradlaugh. We need only add in conclusion a word about one of his supporters, another trickster—George Jacob Holyoake, who, because of Marx’s address, repudiated and attacked the International in a letter to “The Daily News.” This was after Holyoake had tried to enter the organisation, but the General Council refused him membership. This Holyoake denied, but the minutes proved the truth. Weston, who moved the acceptance of Holyoake’s membership, was compelled to withdraw it, and Holyoake was so informed by Weston himself.

Moses Baritz

The Chief Task of our Times (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

In these times of fast communications and well-organised news services, with airmen hopping half-way round the earth in a few days, we are given the advantages of knowing fully and almost at once what the other half of the world is thinking. We find that they are thinking very much the same as we are. They are thinking that life is very hard, and the outlook very cheerless, for the human race. If they are workers they are wondering why it is so difficult to get and to keep employment; why there is food and the means of producing food alongside idle men who lack a sufficiency of it; why it is that work is so drab, tedious and exhausting when obviously it could be made very much more agreeable; why the ingenuity of craftsmen, scientists, inventors and so on is being devoted so largely to producing and perfecting weapons of destruction; why the world’s statesmen all proclaim their brotherly sentiments, but cannot translate them into the practical form of abolishing or reducing the armed forces.

These and many other questions flow through the minds of the world’s workers as they set off to or return from their employers’ factory, mine or office, or line up at the Labour Exchange or its equivalent, in New York, in London, in Tokyo and in Berlin.

Members of the propertied classes worry their heads, too. They have their own doubts and difficulties. They wonder why the working-class animal is such a difficult, unaccountable creature. Why it will not accept all the soothing answers given to it by those in control. They wonder, too, why foreigners must keep on thrusting themselves into the markets, territories and investment areas in which capitalist interests are centred. If they are British they wonder whether to open the door to Sir Oswald Mosley, who is knocking at it, or whether they can safely slam it in his face. They wonder whether the next election may bring a Labour majority; whether that will be very disastrous for them or whether they had not better accept it, lest worse befall.

And everyone, capitalist and worker alike, Socialist and non-Socialist, bears in mind the possibility that international rivalries may sooner or later culminate in a world war more deadly than the last.

These cheerless signs are not novel, but they are more depressing for most people because many of the accustomed opiates have been taken away. It gets harder every year for an intelligent person to believe that he can safely leave the world’s intricate problems to the experts, politicians, journalists and so on. There was a time when, for the average man or woman, it was comforting, and not outrageous, to stifle doubts with the thought that the leaders know all about it—leave it to them. But now? Will anyone confidently leave it to MacDonald and Thomas, the lost leaders of the Labour Party, or to the other leaders who ran away from the application of measures they had already agreed to? Or the statesmen who drowned the world in blood, and who now confess that they none of them want war, but do not know how to prevent it? The statesmen who say that capitalism is the best of all possible systems, but who do not know what crises are or how they arise, let alone how they can be prevented? Shall they trust their war lords of land and sea, their Haigs of Passchendaele, and their muddlers of Mesopotamia? Shall they trust their Bottomleys and Kruegers, Hatries and Insulls, or the non-criminal, but equally fatal, bankers and business men, politicians and newspaper proprietors, churchmen and lawyers, who have led them into the present stupefying chaos?

Confidence is a somewhat shop-soiled commodity these days, but those who set great store by it are now at a loss which way to turn. They would still like to believe, but there are too many awkward memories.

The Socialist Message of Hope.
Socialists alone can look at the world without pessimism or despair. Socialists never built up false hopes, and have not been disillusioned. Seeing the world as it is we know how great the task is, but we know what can be done by determined, organised work towards a clearly-outlined goal. The world is out of joint because the social system is faulty at the foundation. The private ownership of the means of production and distribution is no longer necessary or desirable. It produces the evils of poverty, unemployment, competition, war and class hatred. It has got to be abolished. Instead of an anarchistic war of private owners seeking profit and permitting the workers to produce wealth only when profit is to be obtained by so doing, the social system needs to be refashioned on the new basis of common ownership. Society must assume possession of its means of life. The private owners must be dispossessed. Their private interests and their class privilege must not be allowed to stand in the way of social progress and the welfare of the whole community. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has taken on the great task of organising for that end. We concentrate on the one vital question, capitalism to be replaced by Socialism, private ownership to give place to common ownership, privilege to give place to equality.

Our aim is one to which the workers of the whole world can rally, "without distinction of race or sex.” The Socialist movement is the one movement in the van of social progress, able to face the present world troubles with understanding and confidence.

Edgar Hardcastle

Are You a Slave? (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the question at the head of this article be put to people to-day most of them will reply emphatically that they are not slaves; that apart from a few places abroad, slavery was abolished long years ago.

Book after book has been written denouncing or explaining the slavery of antiquity and of the Southern States of America during the last century, all with the implication that slavery has now practically disappeared.

Books are still being written and societies organised to abolish the chattel slavery that still exists in outlying parts on the ground that it is a shameful thing and a moral blot upon civilisation.

On the last point one or two preliminary remarks may perhaps be useful to illustrate a general and curious example of defective mental eyesight. The evils that exist thousands of miles away stir up the passionate indignation of people who daily pass the human wrecks of 'the modem industrial system without giving them a thought. People who contribute pounds to societies for the alleviation of the hardships of native peoples often would not dream of contributing a penny towards the alleviation of the poverty of the toilworn workers by means of whom they obtain their own incomes. It is easier to see the mote in a neighbour's eye than the beam in one’s own.

The chattel slave was unquestionably a slave: upon that everyone is agreed. These slaves were owned just in the same way that horses and cattle are owned. They were well looked after or worked to death according to which of the two methods was most profitable to their owners. The important thing that distinguished the slaves from the owners was the fact that the slaves depended for their living upon the will of another person or class, for slaves were owned sometimes by individuals, sometimes by groups and sometimes by the privileged class as a whole. For instance, the policemen in ancient Athens, owned by the State, were Scythian slaves.

One can therefore define a slave as one who depends for his living wholly or mainly on the will of another person or class.

The chattel slaves of times gone by were employed in a variety of occupations covering the whole field of the production and distribution of the means of life of the times both as overseers and as workmen. Some even occupied at times governmental posts on behalf of the privileged. It is well known that there were Emperors of Rome who were in origin slaves, and, as such, climbed to places of influence under the patronage of their masters or mistresses. In the Southern States of America during the Civil War, the slaves carried on all the work of the plantations while the planters were away fighting.

A well-known American economist, Professor Seligman, defines slavery as “an institution designed to secure the services of others by force.” While he says that this applies entirely to the chattel slave, and in a less degree to the bond worker, he looks upon all who form the citizens of modern states as outside the application of his definition.

Finally it may be pointed out that the people of chattel slaves States were split into two main groups. At the top was a relatively small, privileged class having control of Society and of the means of production. At the bottom was the mass of the people (the bulk of whom were chattel slaves) engaged in industry—whatever had to do directly with the work of getting a livelihood.

Let us now examine modern society in the light of the foregoing remarks.

Here we again find a privileged group at the top owning the means of production and possessed of the control of government. Underneath is the mass of the population, the working class, dependent on the owning class for their means of living.

In order to live the worker must find a buyer for his manual and mental energy. It does not matter what the nature of his working capacity may be, he must find employment for it in order to live. With few exceptions this is the lot of the worker from early years until old age.

To whom does the worker apply for a job? To the masters individually or collectively. It is true that it is not to the masters in person that the worker applies for a job as a rule, because nowadays the masters are usually hidden behind a company, a trust or a state concern. It is to a paid representative of these concerns that the worker must apply.

All the while the worker is at work he is haunted by the fear that he may lose his job and perhaps not get another one, or be thrown among the wreckage of the industrial system. Consequently he humbles himself in ways that sometimes make him squirm. He is respectful and subservient to those above him and to the wealthy class in general. He fears and jumps to the call of “the guv’nor.” Like the chattel slave he depends for his living on the will and the whim of another. Consequently he is a slave. It is true the worker is personally free, which the chattel slave is not, but this is cold comfort when the hooter goes, calling him to his daily toil.

The capitalists as a class own the means of production, and are therefore in a position to determine when, where and how the worker shall live. There is no escape from the shackles under present conditions apart from death. The worker depends on the wage he receives in order to get the necessaries of life, and he is rightly described as a wage slave to distinguish him from other kinds of slaves.

Hypocrisy is a leading characteristic of modern times, and one often reads remarks of satisfaction over the fact that slavery is long since dead and that freedom is the right of all people to-day. Unfortunately the victims of the system are themselves only too ready to accept this view, even though they occupy abominable slums, hurry in harassed and turgid streams over the bridges in the morning, haunted by the fear of being late on the job.

Within the ranks of the working class itself there are many who suffer from the illusion that they are in a class apart from and above the common worker; in fact that their interests are identical with those of the masters as against the rest of the workers. Amongst these are scientists, managers and salaried workers of various kinds.

These types of workers would be under no delusion if they would apply to their condition the test of a slave. On what do they depend for their living? Are they dependent wholly or mainly on selling their energies for wages or salaries in order to live? If this fits their economic condition then they are members of the working class, slaves, always in fear of losing their jobs and suffering accordingly.

The point always to be borne in mind is the frailty of the hold upon that on which the living depends, and the ease and swiftness of operation of the power of the job-controllers. Many in exalted positions have had this very cruelly impressed upon them, and although they scorn the suggestion that they are enslaved, yet they take good care to placate and dance to the tune of those responsible for the salaries.

There is no escape, therefore, from the conclusion that the fundamental interest of all who depend upon wages or salaries is identical, and is opposed to the interest of those who own the means of production and pay their slaves wages or salaries. It is a slave interest opposed to an ownership interest.

The slaves of old tried to release themselves from their bonds by bloody revolts, which, however, were always suppressed, because the masters controlled the political machinery, the instrument of power. The slaves of to-day have had passed over to them the means to obtain control of the political machinery. Thus they are able to mould society to suit their needs when they know what those needs are and how they can be satisfied.

Gilmac.

Attacks on Religion (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (G. M., Mildmay Park) writes complaining that at a meeting of this Party he heard the speaker, instead of expounding the case for Socialism, making abusive and insulting remarks about religion. We can assure the reader in question that abusive and insulting remarks addressed to opponents, whether religious or political, have no part in the propaganda of Socialism, and are discouraged by the S.P.G.B. The Party defines its attitude towards other political parties and towards religion in its pamphlets and in the Socialist Standard, making the reason for our disagreement clear. With regard to the particular complaint, inquiries have failed to discover the speaker whose attitude was objected to.

Editorial Committee

Russian "Gold Rush." (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following throws light on Russian development as a power, with the orthodox capitalist interest in world trade. The present position may be contrasted with Lenin’s view as to what the Bolsheviks would do if they were victorious on a world scale, as in the early days they confidently expected to be.

From the “Manchester Guardian’s” Moscow correspondent: —

  A "gold rush” in the Soviet goldfields by farmers become prospectors is envisaged by A. Serebrovski, president of the Gold Administration, in to-day’s “Izvestia.”
   After the harvest the Government is stocking shops in the gold regions with a profusion of goods for fair exchange for miners’ nuggets and dust, for the Government recently reversed its policy of confining prospecting to State trusts, and freelances have already played a considerable part in the year’s sharp rise in gold output. Serebrovski, indeed, emphasises the necessity of encouraging them in every way. (“Manchester Guardian,” September 13th.)

Lenin on Gold : —

  When we conquer on a world scale we shall, I think, use gold for making public lavatories in the streets of the great cities of the world. That would be the most “just” and graphically edifying use of gold for the generations which have not forgotten that for gold ten million people were massacred and thirty million crippled in the “great liberation” war of 1914-1918. (Quoted in “Lenin,” by Ralph Fox.)

The Reward of Genius (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is claimed on behalf of capitalism that the most important part played in the production of wealth is that of outstanding men who made possible the highly-developed civilisation of to-day. Inventors, painters and literary men are held up as examples of this, the implication being that the present capitalists or their forefathers were of this select band.

On previous occasions we have shown the baselessness of these assertions and in general have pointed out how each generation simply adds its little bit to the achievements of the past, and the discovery or production put to the credit of one individual exaggerates his part in the business. Briefly, the position is similar to that of a footrace. Society or production sets a problem and one of the participants gets there first.

We do not propose going into the matter any further at the moment, but it may be interesting to give a short list of outstanding figures in various walks of life who are accepted as having made considerable contributions to the wealth and the happiness of modern society. At the same time it may also be interesting ta show how capitalism has rewarded its “men of genius."

John Kay.—A weaver and mechanic. Inventor of the fly shuttle, one of the most important inventions in the textile industry, as well as other inventions. He took his case to the courts in the endeavour to obtain recognition and recompense for his work: was beggared by litigation, and starved to death in France.

Joseph Marie Jacquard.—Inventor of the silk-weaving loom that brought about a revolution in the art of weaving. He could obtain no recognition until he was an old man. He sacrificed all he possessed to carry on his inventions, and became a labourer and a soldier.

Henry Cort.—Invented “puddling" process for converting pig-iron into malleable metal, as well as other inventions. He patented his inventions and became involved in law suits—like so many of his kind. He was eventually utterly ruined. The Government took up his invention and granted him a pension of £200.

James Hargreaves.—A carpenter. Invented the spinning jenny, but died a poor man. He suffered from dishonest manufacturers.

Samuel Crompton.—A cotton spinner, combined the old water frame and spinning jenny into the mule, and is considered to have been practically the organiser of modern industry. He died in poverty.

Richard Roberts.—Inventor of the self-acting mule: was left to fight poverty in his old age.

Richard Trevithick.—Inventor of high pressure d the steam locomotive; died in poverty.

Gutenberg.—Inventor of printing: was in financial difficulties all his life.

Bernard Palissy.—A French potter. Discovered the process for manufacture of enamel. Struggled for sixteen years in the lowest depths of poverty, having to burn his furniture to keep his fires alight. He was arrested, and died in the Bastille.

John Harrison.—A mechanic. Invented the marine chronometer. He was in necessitous circumstances all his life. Struggled for years to obtain the reward that had been offered for such an invention, and after considerable difficulty finally obtained it when eighty years old.

Frederick Koenig.—Inventor of the steam printing-machine. Had his patents infringed. After a long struggle and illnesses he died in poor circumstances.

Eugen Turpin.—Inventor of melenite and over forty other inventions: was always in poor circumstances.

General Shrapnel.—Inventor of the explosive that bears his name and that helped to build up many rich armament firms, as well as blowing thousands to eternity: died in 1842, a poor and bitter old man.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier.—Described as the father of modern chemistry: had to accept a position as tax-farmer in order to carry on his experiments, and perished under the guillotine.

Rev. Hannibal Goodwin.—Invented film photography, and after a long fight obtained a patent in 1898. When he was about to put the film on the market, he died in 1900. His widow formed a company and carried on a fight with the powerful interests opposed to her, and finally obtained a judgment in the United States Supreme Court in 1914 that the Goodwin patent was the basis of film photography. Success, however, came too late, for Mrs. Goodwin was 81 and in failing health.

Franz Schubert.—A schoolmaster, whose musical compositions have delighted myriads of people and whose life has provided material for films. “Left the world," as one biographer puts it, "a rich heritage of considerably more than a thousand works of extreme brilliance, and who received in return £575 as the sum total of his life's earnings "! !

Count de Chardonet.—Inventor of artificial silk: died a poor man. In 1928 M. Heriot unveiled a statue to him at Lyons. No doubt he would have preferred a little more bread while he was alive!

Horace van Ruith.—A famous artist, who painted a study of Nurse Cavell that was greatly admired. At the age of 80, when living in poverty, an exhibition of his works was held covering a period of nearly 70 years, and he pathetically expressed the hope that some of them would find purchasers and so allow him to spend his last days without depending on friends.

Henrick Heine.—Germany’s leading lyrical poet: had a struggle for existence all his life.

Herbert Spencer.—The philosopher of individualism: could only complete his Synthetic Philosophy by means of the subscriptions of friends.

Linnteus.— Described as the father of modern botany: had to work his way to the Universities of Lund and Upsala, living on £8 a year, and making his own boots from the bark of trees. Had he not attracted the notice of a man of similar tastes, the famous Classification of the Animal and Vegetable Kingdom might have had to find another author.

The above are only a few of the illustrations picked out of a large field and placed in a handy form for reference.

There was one inventor, however, who realised fame and fortune while his brothers struggled and starved. That one was Sir Richard Arkwright, sometime barber and horse-dealer, to whom is attributed the invention of the water-frame, which he patented in 1767. But Arkwright has the unique distinction of not having invented the contrivance that bears his name. The invention in question was actually the work of Thomas Highs, who built a spinning machine in 1767 at the village of Leigh. This was known to Arkwright, who had married a woman from Leigh. The case was fought through the courts, and Arkwright never produced any satisfactory evidence of the origin of his invention. When the case was tried in 1785 Arkwright’s patent was declared lapsed. However, he died in 1792, a knight, a high sheriff of the County of Derby, and left half a million pounds!

A full account of this case will be found in Mantoux’s “Industrial Revolution” for those who are interested.

Just a word of warning before concluding. The writer is not concerned with whether all the inventions named above were in fact the work of those to whom they are ascribed. The point is the inventions in question are ascribed to them by the capitalists and their paid writers, and the reward such pillars of modern society received for their work was, in the main, worry, toil and misery, while those who owned the means of production profited by their work and amassed fortunes.

Gilmac.

Debate: Labour Party and S.P.G.B. (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Debate was held at the Working Men's Club, Holborn, on Friday, October 19th, on the question: "Which Party is working for Socialism, the Labour Party or the S.P.G.B.? There was an audience of 500.

The Case for the Labour Party

For the Labour Party, Mr. G. H. Loman, prospective Labour candidate for Kingston, first congratulated the S.P.G.B. on their analysis of the social system and the class struggle, which was the most clear, lucid, and logical which he had ever read. The Labour Party had the same object—Socialism. Its express aims were peace, freedom and justice among the nations; equal opportunity for all men and women for a healthy, self-respecting existence; and to convert industry run for private profit into a planned national economy.

Industry, however, could be socialised in all sorts of ways, he said—by confiscation or compensation. And the Labour Party had said it will pay compensation, so as to prevent inequities as between different sections of the community, and to avoid antagonising foreign Powers. We want Socialism introduced in as humane a manner as possible, and not to bring starvation in the place of poverty.

Now, said Mr. Loman, the S.P.G.B. says Parliament us the seat of power, but we believe you must first take over the financial machinery—the Bank of England. If the House of Lords were obstructive, we should abolish it as a legislative chamber. And, having a mandate from the people, we should use the armed forces to put down opposition.

Mr. Loman said that he expected his opponent to deal with the Labour Party's past. But it is not fair to quote the words or actions of leaders who have been repudiated by the solid rank and fie of the Labour Party. We have done with the reformism of the past. We are going to the electorate to tell them we are out to introduce Socialism, and to convince them that Socialism is a practical alternative to the present system. We agree that only the working class can achieve the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, and the Labour Party will not accept office unless it has a majority of votes for Socialism throughout the country. But the S.P.G.B. is being idealistic when it  says that the mass of the workers must first understand Socialism. The social conditions—starvation in the midst of plenty—will demand Socialism long before the workers are educated for it.

The theoretical principles of the S.P.G.B. are excellent, but it is not surprising that that Party is so small, since they oppose all other Parties—condemn the Labour Party for administering capitalism; condemn the Russian experiment as State capitalism; condemn the I.L.P., the Co-operative movement, the Communists and the Fascists. The S.P.G.B. may not have much of a past, and they do not seem to have much of a future. If you are going to get the sympathy of the workers you must first find a point of contact. The Labour Party tells the workers what Socialism means in terms of concrete domestic measures.

The Case for the S.P.G.B.

For the Socialist Party of Great Britain, "Robertus" first defined its object as "the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community."

Socialism is necessary because everywhere we are faced with the contrast between untold wealth for a few and a very much-told poverty for the many. Three-fifths of the total income of this country, for instance, is shared by one-tenth of the people, whilst only two-fifths is left to be shared among the other nine-tenths. This contrast is only possible because one class, the capitalists, own the means of production; and the only remedy, therefore, for the poverty of the workers is to convert the means of life into the common property of society as a whole.

To do this, the working class must organise, consciously and as a class, to obtain control of the political machinery (which includes the armed forces). And this task is the task of the working class itself, without regard to leaders of lords (some of them created by the Labour Party!). For the successful termination of the class struggle involves the overthrow of the capitalist class and the establishment of a classless society.

Now let us compare this clearly-defined position with that of the Labour Party. Far from having abandoned their reform programme, they have apparently coined some of the S.P.G.B. phraseology, whilst still attempting to tinker with the effects capitalism—with profiteering, rents, slums, "peace"(!), public utilities—like all the other capitalist and reformist Parties. They call the recognition of the class struggle, "a narrow, class appeal, as all men and women of goodwill should rally . . . . etc." The Labour Party has grown by marrying its old reformist intentions to the unsound ideas of the workers, by studying and manipulating their ignorance. As Mr. Salter, a Labour M.P., has said in the "New Leader":

"There is not a single constituency in the country where there is a majority of convinced Socialist electors. We have plenty of districts, such as Bermondsey, where there is a Labour majority, but it is a delusion to think that the greater number of these people understand what we mean by Socialism. They neither understand it nor want it." 

No wonder the shipping magnate, Lord Inchcape, could say of the first Labour Government, "You have no need to dear these people."

Now, since Socialism is necessarily international in character, the question of foreign antagonisms does not arise. Nor is there any question, for the S.P.G.B., of either compensation or confiscation: it is a matter of restitution. Restitution to the workers of the world of the wealth which they alone produce. The records of history will testify that the rise of the capitalist class to power was made in complete disregard of compensation.

Here we have, world-wide, the private ownership of the means of life, and the consequent poverty and insecurity of the workers of the world. The Socialist Party of Great Britain declare that there is one remedy—Socialism—the working class must organise themselves as a class to obtain control of the political machinery (through which social power is wielded), and establish the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by and in the interest of the whole of human society.

F. E.