S.P.G.B. Lecture List For January. (London District.) (1910)

Party News from the January 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

For more information on some of the SPGB speakers listed above, click on these posts for more background.

• December 1910
• December 1912

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For December. (London District.) (1910)

Party News from the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

 

Blogger's Note:

Once again, I don't have enough room in the label section to include all the listed speakers, so some brief information on a few of the speakers missing from the sidebar is posted below. You can also check out these older posts which covers the same ground:

• F. Dawkins was a member of the Romford Branch of the SPGB, joining in August 1905. His wiki page goes into extensive detail on his background and on his political journey from Methodism (and the ILP) to Marxism (and the SPGB). Later in life he was a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in the Hampstead constituency at the 1929 General Election.
• J. Kelly was a member of the Tottenham branch of the SPGB. There were two 'J. Kellys' in the Tottenham Branch of the SPGB (father and son?), both joining the Party in late August 1909.
• F. Leigh was Fred Leigh. He was a founder member of the SPGB. His membership lapsed from the Paddington Branch of the SPGB in January 1914.
• R. Fox was R. M. Fox. He joined the SPGB in Tottenham in September 1906. Better known after he left the SPGB, his 1937 autobiography, Smoky Crusade, sticks the boot into his old SPGB comrades. He should the offending excerpts from his book on the blog some time.
• G. Holmes was probably Johnny Holmes, who joined the Earlsfield Branch of the Party in August 1909, and who subsequently rejoined the SPGB (Tooting Branch) in April 1921.
• R. Kenny was Robert Kenny. Though not a founder member of the SPGB, he joined the Edmonton Branch of the Party on the 26th June 1904. That was two weeks to the day after the SPGB  was founded. His membership lapsed in late August 1914, but he rejoined Edmonton Branch in October 1916. He resigned his party membership in December 1931 on the grounds that he felt "he was too old to be active".
• J. Kemble was possibly John Kemble. He joined Earlsfield Branch of the SPGB in November 1907. There's no details of when he left - or why - but a John Kemble joined the Tooting Branch of the SPGB in January 1918, lapsing his membership in July 1923.
• H. Cooper was H.J. Cooper. He joined Earlsfield Branch of the SPGB in September 1908, and his membership was lapsed in December 1915.
• A. Jacobs was Alf Jacobs. There is more detailed background on him in this feature which appeared in the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Battersea Branch. (1908)

Party News from the December 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For December. (1908)

Party News from the December 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1908)

Party News from the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For November. (1908)

Party News from the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October. (1908)

Party News from the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Book Review: Is Revolution ahead? (1915)

Book Review from the August 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Social Problem by Chas. A. Ellwood, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology in the University of Minnesota. New York: Macmillan Co. 235 pp. 5/6 net.

“Nothing can prevent a war throughout Western civilization between the possessors and the dispossessed—a war infinitely more horrible than the present one—nothing except the dominance in the mass of individuals, or at least in the leaders of both classes, of intelligence and of the ideals of peace and brotherhood.” (p. 223.)

This is the burden of the book in a nutshell. The “Social Problem” according to the author, is to harmonise the warring factors that are wrecking civilization. Of these factors he claims that the one to be relied upon is the “spiritual.” He says:

“If the governing class will keep in touch with all classes; if those in authority in law, in industry, in education, in religion will seek first the public good ; if all classes will seek to keep open the means of understanding and sympathy with all other classes, there will be no more need of revolution as a means of social progress than there is of children’s diseases in individual development.” (p. 231.)

We have it, on the best authority that there is much virtue in your “if.” And the professor has by no means exhausted its possibilities. For example, if———, But why go on? The labouring man is learning in bitterness how utterly futile is the expectation that those in authority in industry, law and all the rest, will ever “seek first the public good.” Therefore from the facts upon which the learned professor bases his case we know that revolution is inevitable. Not only is it inevitable, but the professor himself tells us that it is also justifiable, for he says (p. 100) :

“The sacrifice of life through industrial accidents and disease, through overwork and underpay, through unsanitary dwellings, through commercialized pandering to men’s vicious appetites, we must cease to tolerate among us if we are to progress either morally or physically. The evils of war are great, but they are no greater than these evils of peace which we have tolerated too long.”

It appears, however, that it is not so much the evils of today which move the professor, as the fear of revolution. He indicates with apprehension (p. 83) that the industrial system generates class antagonism ; that class conflicts increase ; that class interest has become a war cry ; that class hatred grows ; and that a gulf, in social conditions as well as in feeling, develops between the fortunate and the less fortunate: “a gulf which the sympathy and understanding necessary for social solidarity finds it difficult to bridge,”

And how does the author set about his diffi­cult task ? In the first place by defining the social problem as “the problem of humans living together.” The definition is significant. It implies that a means is to be found of softening the antagonisms so that capitalist and labourer can peacefully live together. It leads him naturally to a gospel of social harmony by means of reform and mutual concession. Above all he abhors revolution. It is the end of all things. Like practically all of capitalism’s salaried intellectuals, he fears the working class far more than he dislikes his present masters ; and there is nothing he dreads more than a working-class dictatorship. Like most of his brethren, also, he agrees with all progressive thought—to a certain extent, and there are few advanced movements that do not get a kind word from him. But what he thinks the world really needs is a “new soul,” even more than a new economic system.

On the professor’s own showing, however there is little hope for his solution. He acknowledges that the gulf between the classes widens ; that the rulers are deaf to humanity ; and that the workers are without “soul.” He laments that the machinery for national and social peace inevitably breaks down, Yet he hopes by religion, by moral education, and by social reform to reform that growing social antagonism which these things have not only failed to arrest, but have tended to foster.

He grants that material conditions mould at least the framework of “our” civilization, and that these conditions tend to sharpen social contrasts and defeat his aims ; yet he claims, in effect, that out cf the minds of trained leaders, despite the hostile influences of economic forces as a whole, an intellectual force will be made to flow which will check these dangerous influences and divert them into harmonious streams.

Thus Professor Ellwood finds it necessary to reject the materialist conception of history and seek help from a dualism which relies mainly on the idea of free will, the immortal soul, and that god-given moral force by which any man can rise superior to, and dominate, his circumstances whenever he cares to exercise the will to do so. In short, the writer of the book takes sides with the priest, the Christian-scientist, the charlatan, the ignoramus and the metaphysician, on this important issue. Since, however, few will take up a logical position on that side owing to the very obviousness of most of the facts against them, a refuge is sought in a catholic eclecticism, the confusion of which makes it extremely difficult to nail down the basic error.

The professor is, nevertheless, for all his eclecticism, clear-headed enough to see where the chief danger to his position lies. He devotes considerable space to a discussion of the materialist conception of history. He admits practically all that is contended for in that philosophy ; but since he must find some way of escape, he does so by misunderstanding or misrepresentation. He

“cordially acknowledges the complete dependence of civilized man upon the economic system under which he lives ”

and goes on to say that

“the dependence of man upon economic conditions increases as civilization advances “But,” he adds, “when we have conceded that modern industry has shaped the main outlines of our civilization, that is not sufficient warrant for concluding that our industrial system determines every thing in our social life. On the contrary, it needs but little investigation to show that there are many intimate personal relations which are very far from being determined by the economic system under which we live. Men still think and feel and act in these intimate relations not so differently from what they did long before the present economic system was born. Many of the ideas, ideals and values by which men live, in other words, far antedate our present economic system, and will probably survive it long after it is dead. It is not true, therefore, that the spiritual elements in life, and especially not those contained in moral, religious and artistic ideas and ideals, are determined by methods of producing and distributing wealth.”

In other words, because all men’s ideas and acts are not entirely explicable from the present economic system alone, therefore the materialist conception of history is an error. The professor’s misrepresentation is obvious. Whence come those ideas for which the present system cannot account ? They do not come from God. They cannot be uncaused. We know them to be accounted for by past social conditions. Many intimate acts and relations of men antedate all historical forms of society, They are the outcome of the primitive struggle for survival over other animals. Other customs and ideas originate at various economic stages in mankind’s advance towards what is called civilization. It has never been said that the existing system alone accounted for everything in man’s ideas and acts. That is a fiction of the professor’s, and shows to what he is reduced in order to make a case. Ideas that are the outcome of past social conditions tend to persist, and are altered or modified where they come into conflict with succeeding social orders. This is notoriously the case, as shown in the pamphlet published by the Socialist Party, in the matter of religion to which the professor refers. The modifications that have taken place in this phase of ideology reflect in an obvious way the changing needs of changing social conditions.

For the rest, as the author of the book under review rightly surmises, revolution is inevitable in the event of the failure of his panacea. Neither in the working class nor in the ruling class can the soulful humanitarian ideals upon which he relies become dominant. Our social circumstances destroy them. Present economic conditions sow hate, not love. Figs cannot grow on thistles. If it were necessary to wait for a complete moral regeneration of the working class ; if the mass had first to overflow with love and charity for our oppressors, our case as well as the professor’s, would be utterly helpless. Fortunately it is not so. Economic development is with us. On it our essential case rests. The propaganda of revolutionary socialism is a direct effect of existing social conditions. Capitalist conditions indelibly stamp the ruling class with the selfish, cruel and hypocritical qualities of the exploiter ; and we know what a little part sentiment plays in the struggle. Therefore are we undismayed, even at the prospect of a ruthless and hate-inflamed proletariat battling desperately for the destruction of the present hellish system in order to make at last possible that development of society which shall, through social co-operation and mutuality of interest make realisable for the first time since primitive communism, the ideals of social harmony and human brotherhood.

F, C. Watts

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For August. (1909)

 Party News from the August 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

As you can see, my copy of the August 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard is not exactly in tip-top condition. Interesting to see Harry Martin in amongst the speakers. 

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For August. (1908)

Party News from the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

International Notes. (1908)

From the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Interesting Experiment

Paul Grados, in the May Day number of the Guesdist organ, states that in the course of an address at Limoges in 1892, Dr. Napias – who was later appointed chief of the Assistance Publique – recalled an experiment by Pattenkofer and Voit on the degree of resistance of the human organism to bodily fatigue.

A vigorous workman was selected who could take a normal repose, and who received a substantial nourishment; then, said Dr. Napias, he was made to exert a muscular effort that was calculated mathematically and which corresponded to the expenditure of average labour – and that during nine hours.

Well, it was ascertained that at the end of twenty-four hours his organism had a deficit of 192 grammes of oxygen which he had had to borrow from his own tissues. Neither the rest that he had taken nor the food that had been given him had sufficed to completely repair the tissues used up during nine hours’ work.

It is therefore shown scientifically that nine hours of daily labour exceed the forces of the human economy. This is doubtless mainly responsible for the much shorter duration of the lives of working men as compared with the longevity of members of the leisured class. The movement toward a lessening of the working day that is favoured by many capitalists is therefore not surprising. Its object, indeed, is simply to extort the maximum of effort – from the human machine.

#    #    #    #

The Fetish of Unity.

To the gushing sentimentalist the word Unity is as the Ark of the Covenant. Insistence upon the necessity for agreement on principles, on methods, and above all on the object in view, is scorned as sectarianism and as heresy against most holy Unity by such worshippers of empty forms. True unity is a means to an end. First of all the essentials regarding the end to be sought and the means to that end must be agreed upon, for “unity”without this is unity in impotence, being without everything that makes unity useful, namely, common principles, methods, and aims. Unity under any other conditions than that of agreement on the essentials of aims and methods is like tying cats together by their tails.

Our French comrades are finding this out. Rappoport, after a word in praise of what he calls international discipline, lets the cats out of the bag when he says in Le Socialisme: “Besides, unity is not a restriction. It does not hinder even those who pine for the old ‘dangerous alliances’, and of the false households of three with the ‘Democracy’. It does not even prevent certain members of the party from calumniating fraternally their ‘dear comrades’, and from persecuting them with their deadly hate. Unity is therefore an excellent thing from every point of view, especially if, as we hope, American comrades will not inflict anarchists and those with anarchist methods upon themselves as companions of the road – the false road.”

Ch. Bonnier, in a later issue of the same journal, also confesses that “the great trouble with the French Parti Socialiste is that it falls continually from the fever of anarchism into the heat-sickness of radicalism; never can it grasp its true class policy, never can it understand that it is entirely apart, and that it has not to do the work of the others. How many times has not the spook of reaction caused it to fall into the arms of its born exploiters – the radicals?”

In short, the only unity worth worrying about is Socialist unity, and most of those who gush about the words have still to realise what they mean.

F. C. Watts

Suffragette Humbug. (1908)

From the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not long ago the hoardings of London startled the man in the street with ugly black and white posters asserting that women were poor, that women were sweated, that women walked the streets, and that misery and vice stalked in our midst, all because women had not the vote. Those statements, issued by the Suffragettes, were and are unblushing falsehoods, unsustained and unsustainable by any shred of evidence.

The Socialist is in no quandary as to why the many are poor. It is not because propertied women have not the vote, nor even because women in general are not electors—it is because the many are robbed. And the stopping of this robbery depends not upon a mere all round increase in the number of votes, but upon the intelligence of the workers and the correct use of the vote in their hands.

Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to an end; and for us that end is Socialism. And were the workers to understand rightly their position and their policy, the political freedom they now possess would enable them to achieve their emancipation irrespective of sex. 

It is, moreover, not a sex war that  exists in Society but a class war, but the Suffragettes endeavour to blur this class issue by screeching qualifications.

What are the facts regarding the Suffragettes? Under the pretence of sex equality they are buttressing class privilege. Under the guise of democracy they are endeavouring to strengthen the political power of property. They plausibly propose that women be admitted to the franchise on the same terms as men, and since all Socialists want sex equality this looks attractive. But wait. What does it really mean? Men vote at present under the £10 franchise. The suffrage is thus upon a property basis with plural voting for the wealthy. Therefore, according to the proposals of the women Suffragists, only those women having the necessary property qualifications are to be allowed to vote. This excludes not only all those single working women unable to qualify because of their poverty, but it also bars practically the whole of the married women of the working class who have no property qualifications apart from their husbands’. Further, it increases enormously the voting power of the well-to-do, since the head of the wealthy household can always impart the necessary qualifications to all the women of his house, while the working-man, through his poverty, is entirely unable to do so.

The limited suffrage movement is consequently only a means of providing votes for the propertied women of the middle class, and faggot votes for the wealthy; possibly tipping the balance of votes against the workers—men and women. Yet the Suffragettes pretend that this is a movement for the benefit of working women! The huge sums spent in this agitation prove that it is not a workers’ movement. It is a movement by women of the wealthy and middle class to open up for themselves more fully careers of exploitation, and to share in the flesh-pots of political office, to get sinecures, position and emoluments among the governing caste.

In their cry for “equality” do not their methods betray them? Every move on their part is an appeal not to sex equality but to sex fetishism. Their tactics rely upon and appeal to the worship of sex. They know that their sex gives them privileges before the magistrate and protects them from the usual police brutality, and that any strong measures against them would immediately raise a storm in their favour amongst the sex worshippers. Hence their peculiar tactics, which have no other explanation. Let anyone compare mentally the treatment that would be meted out to working men did they pursue a similar policy to these Suffragettes. Let them compare the way the suffragist invasions of Downing Street or the House of Commons were dealt with, with that which would follow persistent forcible entries of the Commons by bands of unemployed. Broken heads, bullets, and long terms of imprisonment—and not in the second division—would be their lot, and instead of hysteric sympathy being created for the ill-treated unemployed, horror at their audacity and a determination to repress them brutally would take its place. And the middle class examples of sex arrogance rely upon this very woman worship and sex inequality to further their demands.

The Suffragette movement is upon all counts but a bulwark of capitalism. It is directly opposed to the interests of the working class—women as well as men, and the Independent Labour Party shows its capitalistic nature when it supports that movement in strengthening the political power of the propertied against the propertyless.

Both sexes of the workers are exploited and suffer. Both are  victims of those who live by the ownership of the means of life. Therefore the salvation of working class women lies in the emancipation of their class from this wage-slavery. Their interests are identical with those of working men, and the women of the middle class do but attempt to lure them with false phrases to desert their fellows and to aid the propertied enemies of their class.

The duty of working women is to refuse to allow themselves to be used as catspaws of the wealthy, and to join with their fellows in The Socialist Party, the organisation of their class; thus working for the emancipation of the toilers as a whole, irrespective of sex. Sex-equality cannot be the fruit of the Suffragette humbug, it can only come through economic equality—and economic equality is impossible except through Socialism.

F. C. Watts

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For June. (1908)

Party News from the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For May. (1908)

Party News from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: "Municipal Politics." (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Suspicions arising as to the genuineness of the following letter, a communication was sent to the address given. It was returned through the post marked "Not known." Though it is unusual to take notice of anonymous correspondence, an exception is made in this case since the matter may be of some interest to our readers.

"Municipal Politics."

Jan. 18th, 08. 

Socialist Party of Great Britain,

Gentlemen,—In The Socialist Standard for January an article appeared under the heading “Municipal Politics." In regard to a candidate becoming elected to a municipal body you state that he will of course work to wrest from the capitalist class any possible present amelioration although he did not seek suffrages for this, but for Socialism. Since amelioration is of no use whatever to the working class as long as the exploiting class remain in power, why should he waste time on this since he did not seek votes to obtain amelioration, but to bring about Socialism? Also since he was appointed by a class- conscious electorate one would think that they would not expect any reforms to be advocated by him. Hoping to see a reply to this in your next month's issue, I remain.

Yours fraternally,

J. R. Smith.

409, Oldham Rd., Manchester.

Reply:

To say, as does our correspondent, that “amelioration of any kind is of no use to the working class so long as the exploiting class remain in power” is entirely absurd. It is saying that an amelioration is at the same time not an amelioration. It implies that the workers if able to obtain a rise in wages should refuse to take it on the ground that it would be of no use to them!

The only point upon which there can be intelligent discussion is, not whether an amelioration is of use, but whether or how any amelioration is obtainable under capitalism; and if Mr. Smith had used the whole and not a half of a sentence he would have seen that the other half states that neither the Socialist member nor his "electors are under any illusions on this head, for he has made plain how little is to be hoped for from the enemy while entrenched in power."

If Mr. Smith will read the article in question he will see that its whole burden is that any wide spread or important amelioration is impossible under capitalism, and that to obtain even any partial or temporary benefits that may be obtainable as sops from the master class, the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism is the only effective way. And in this struggle for Socialism the workers will take all they can get, and will use every coign of vantage, not to patch up a rotten system, but to strengthen, educate, and organise the working class army in the task of abolishing capitalist exploitation.

As distinct from the reformers who adapt themselves to bourgeois interests, the Socialists must always—as stated in the article—formulate working-class interests and so make clearer in contrast with capitalist interests the polar antagonism that exists and which can only be dissolved by Socialism. Nothing can be considered by a Socialist as being in working class interests that helps to perpetuate a system of oppression, but everything will be welcomed that can be used effectively as a weapon by the Socialist army in ending the capitalist system.

When the Socialist workers control a municipal council, are they, as according to Mr. Smith, to do nothing because they cannot do all? Limited though the local powers are, yet, obviously, they must be used to the utmost. It would, indeed, be folly to contest a local election if the workers were not prepared when in a majority to use the organisation of the municipality as a base of operations in the revolutionary struggle, by aiding and strengthening the workers in revolt against the system. While to refrain from using the electoral machinery where such can be of use to the Socialist workers would be treachery.

Social reformers seek votes in order to patch up the present system, but the Socialist seeks only the conscious co-operation of the workers for its abolition. Hence with the Socialist all else is subordinate to this end, and is only of use in so far as it is a means thereto. By revolution alone can permanent and substantial benefit accrue to the workers. Consequently, even for substantial and lasting amelioration, the first and essential step is, as stated in the article to which Mr. Smith refers, "the control by the workers nationally and locally, and this must be made plain ; and when the workers are the ruling class, lists of reforms suited to the continuance of capitalism become stupid, and entirely different revolutionary measures of transition become the order of the day. Thus reform programmes not only scatter and render mutually antagonistic the workers' efforts, but they obscure and prevent concentration upon the essential step."

So, Mr. Smith, we do not advocate reforms.

We may, then, conclude by further quoting for our correspondent’s benefit from the article in question, whose contents he seems to have unaccountably overlooked :

"It must, therefore, be clearly understood, (1st) that any reform worthy the name from a working-class standpoint involves the conscious taking from the capitalist class of, at least, part of the power and proceeds of robbery, and thus genuine reform is conditional on working-class supremacy. (2nd) That to wield in the workers' interest even the limited and paltry powers allowed by the central government to the local bodies it is first necessary to control the local bodies by a Socialist majority."

"Consequently to promise ‘immediate reforms' that cannot be granted until the revolutionary step has been taken leads to confusion, disappointment and apathy, while it means a vote worthless for Socialism followed by desertion. But to insist upon the futility of reform, and the primary necessity of capturing political power, means a sound vote, a solid backing, and a sure and steady growth of the class-conscious and revolutionary army."

And that, Mr. Smith, is why we do not advocate reforms.

F. C. Watts

Can a Socialist be a Christian? (1908)

Pamphlet Review from the March 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism, Atheism and Christianity. By C. Cohen. London. The Pioneer Press, 2 Newcastle St., E.C. 16 pp., 1d.

Mr Cohen does not take up the cudgels on behalf of Socialism. His position is simply that “Socialism is fundamentally Atheistic in the sense that it is without the belief in God”. That Socialism traces all the phenomena with which it concerns itself to natural causes, and relies on purely secular forces for its realisation; while “Christianity cannot combine with any system in which the belief in God does not rank as an essential feature”.

And there is good ground for this. If such a person as a consistent Christian ever existed, he could only regard this “vale of tears” as an essential part of God’s plan, to be accounted for only through God, and to be modified only through His pleasure. He could only regard those who sought the explanation of social conditions in purely natural causes, to the tacit exclusion of God, and also sought to take advantage of the natural development in order to turn this “vale of tears” into a pleasant garden, as men who denied by their acts the very basis of his faith.

Socialism is the application of science to the relations between men, and will infallibly drive superstition from this its last ditch. Socialism, as the science of Society, is an essential part of a scientific view of all phenomena regarded as an interdependent whole; and such a Monistic view of the universe, with each part in inseparable causal relation to the rest, can leave no nook or cranny for God.

The consistent Socialist, therefore, cannot be a Christian, and although (as Mr. Cohen justly complains) many “Socialists” keep their views on religion in the background in the belief that it is irrelevant to their propaganda, yet that Socialism implies the rejection of superstition cannot be disputed.

Our author, however, has come across the “Labour” politicians angling for middle-class votes, and uses his cudgels to some effect in belabouring such pandars to the cant and hypocrisy known as the “Nonconformist Conscience”. In this scramble for votes it has been said that Socialism is profoundly religious! And Mr. Cohen quotes Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s statement that the Socialist finds in the Gospels “a marvellous support for his economic and political proposals”. This and other statements by the same shifty politician are effectively riddled in the pamphlet under review.

Nor has Mr. Cohen failed to indicate the material basis of the religious ardour that has infected many Labour M.P.s. Commenting upon a passage of a work by Mr. MacDonald, our authors says:

“The striking thing about this passage is its almost obtrusively party political character. At present the Parliamentary Labour Party is in a state of pseudo-alliance with a Liberal Government that relies on Nonconformists. Many Nonconformists are also – since the return of thirty Labour M.P.s – patronising “Socialism” and professing it from the pulpit. For these reasons Mr. MacDonald leaves the Bible – the Nonconformist fetish – alone, while attacking the Prayer Book . . . It is texts and quotations from the Prayer Book that were used – as though texts and quotations from the Bible were not used as frequently, and as though plenty of texts might not be quoted from the New Testament as to the blessings of poverty, the virtues of non-resistance, the lawfulness of slavery, and the duty of obeying constituted authority, with a threat of damnation against all in rebellion. In the same way, it is the Established Church parson who is singled out for attack, while the middle-class manufacturer, with his mouthpiece, the Nonconformist minister, escapes scot free. Yet all Socialists are aware that it is from this class that the greatest enemies of Socialism have been drawn.”

Nothing, indeed, is more typically middle class than Nonconformity, and the servile truckling to that section, characteristic of certain Labour candidates, has already been commented upon by other writers in these columns. No P.S.A. is nowadays complete without a Labour M.P. on show. And in the present connection, the mere fact that the falsely so-called “Socialism” of the Labour M.P.’s is acceptable to large sections of the reactionary Nonconformist middle class, is in itself sufficient to prove its incompatibility with working-class interests rightly understood.

The religious appeal betrays the shoddy politician. To attempt to stir the workers into an electoral activity by the disinterment of decomposing religious sentiment is to play the game of the enemy. Those whose standpoint is that of the welfare of the working class can make no appeal on the grounds of religion; for religion is an instrument of domination which cannot be used as an agent of emancipation at this stage of social development. The great theoretic weapon of the workers in their fight for emancipation is science, not religion; and religion and science are as incompatible as fire and water.

The working class, moreover, though not as yet hostile to religion, are nevertheless becoming increasingly indifferent to it. This is so partly because the workers never find religion, when put to the test, to be on their side. It is also and chiefly due to the fact that the workers are daily in contact with the hard realities of life; and, in spite of their lack of learning, the mass of them find little basis for belief in divine interference, and little reason for doubting that the inevitable warp and woof of cause and effect seen in all industrial processes extends unremittingly over the whole universe. The worker learns in the factory that the most awful natural forces are regular, explicable, and controllable; while the feelings of helplessness before natural forces, and the obscurity and incomprehensibility of these to man, recede before the lessons of man-made productive forces rivalling nature in their giant strength and rational complexity. In technical processes all is reduced to system based on belief in the uninterrupted sequence of cause and effect, and all mysteries are made to yield to persistent effort. Upon such a foundation religion cannot firmly stand. As Lafargue says: “the practice of a modern factory teaches scientific determinism to the wage-worker without him having to pass through the theoretic study of the sciences.” Nature, indeed, appears ruthless, inevitable, and cruelly precise to the workers, and their materialistic experience of life provides a less and less fertile soil for superstition.

And the worker who becomes a Socialist finds there also a belief in the supernatural logically excluded. He discovers that the study of man and Society is, in effect, a branch of natural history.

Nor is there hope for religion in the future. The matter has been put in a nutshell. In the deeply philosophical chapter on “Commodities” in Capital, Marx says: –

“The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only then finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men and to nature.

“The life process of Society, which is based on the process of material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. 

“This, however, demands for Society a certain material groundwork or set of conditions of existence which in their turn are the spontaneous product of a long and painful process of development.”

From this it becomes obvious that Mr. Cohen’s position is completely justified when he maintains, in opposition to Mr. J. R. MacDonald, that such a great social change as Socialism must profoundly affect religious beliefs.

The natural history of religion is a deeply interesting subject, for the association of certain phases of religion with certain political interests is by no means accidental. Doubtless this aspect of the matter did not come within the plan of the pamphlet, while the tail end of a review is no place for the discussion of so big a theme. The general principles of the religious reflex of social life are, however, easily grasped in the light of the Marx-Morgan conception of Society, while occasion may be had to revert in greater detail to this aspect of the subject at a later date.

As a belief, religion is a manifestation of man’s ignorance of Nature’s working, and of the mastery which the uncomprehended natural and social forces have over man. As rites and ceremonies it is a legacy of the relatively changeless forms of ancient society, and of the supreme importance of mysterious and venerable custom to the existence of the primitive community. By the inertia of the mind religion tends to live on through newer conditions in so far as it serves some interest. So the successive modifications of religion have been the reflexes of changed conditions and interests, although it has ever been attempted to pour the new wine into old bottles.

This evolution of religion, if such it may be called, is curious in that it is an evolution into thin air. Religious change has usually been more remarkable in what was abandoned than in what was added or retained; and religion from being inextricably bound up with the whole social life of a people, becomes a more and more insignificant reflex of the remaining dark corners of that life.

In primitive societies the non-observance of the ancient, sacred, and mysterious customs meant the break up of social life. What was old was tried, venerated and holy; what was new meant disorder and strife. The innovator was slain. In modern society the methods of producing the means of life are no longer invariable and upon ancient model and precedent, but are in the process of great and continued change. What is old is now often synonymous with antiquated, outworn and useless; what is new is hailed as advance and improvement, and novelty is always in demand. The inventor is less frequently slain. Following lamely after this change the old religious forms crumble slowly and tardily away in spite of the frantic efforts of the priestly interest at restoration or readaptation.

As Mr. Cohen points out vigorously and clearly in the concluding portion of his pamphlet, Christianity has ever been the tool of rapacity and tyranny. From the dawn of civilisation religion has been a weapon of political domination. But to continue to be so used, religion must retain a hold upon the people, and if the capitalist class institute secular education it will only be because the growing irreligion of the proletariat compels the master class to rely solely on their other instruments of domination over the workers. But that time is not yet.

To abolish religion is not to end exploitation. The workers have, above all, to dislodge the exploiting class from power, and all else is secondary to this. Not that it is sought to belittle the specifically anti-religious fight, for many a Socialist has received from the actively materialist propaganda of the secularists the spark that brightened later into an illuminating, scientific light upon Society and led him to Socialism.

The supreme aim of the workers, however, must be their emancipation from wage-slavery, and the fight against superstition is but one phase of this great fight. But it must never be forgotten that since religion is ever used as a weapon by the ruling class against the workers, no Socialist in the struggle for working class emancipation can honestly avoid the religious conflict.

F. C. Watts

The Workers’ Share. (1908)

From the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Morning Advertiser, commenting upon the unemployed problem, said : —

“It is an old fallacy that shortening the hours of labour of those who have work will enable those who have no work to find it. If, indeed, it were the case that the shortening of his hours increased the efficiency, and therefore the productiveness, of the worker, such an effect might be produced. But there are probably very few cases in which this would be so; and of those the Socialists were certainly not thinking. They mean by shortening the man’s hours to reduce the product of his day’s work. The result would be diminished wealth, and consequently diminished opportunities for employment.”

Socialists do, indeed, realise that in the reduction of unemployment the reduction of hours is only of use in so far as it necessitates the employment of more wage workers. The wily Advertiser scents the danger of a knowledge of this antagonism of interests, and hastens to assure its readers that the reduction of hours could only alleviate unemployment if it increased the efficiency and output of labour, and so, as it certainly would, enabled more work to be done by fewer men ! True, the Advertiser did not say which unemployed. One can quite understand an improvement in the lot of the wealthy unemployed following upon a decrease in in their wages bill and an increase in their wealth.

The interests of that class demand greater efficiency and productivity on the part of the workers, together with a reduction in that portion of the total wealth spent in wages. And the organ of Bung so puts the matter as to convey the idea (which is greedily swallowed by the Labourites who do not realise, or do not want to realise, the fact of the class antagonism) that capital and labour are brothers sharing proportionately out of the bowl into which the total produce of labour is poured. The labourer, however, is a hireling and not a partner. Out of the total wealth his labour produces he gets but his keep while lucky enough to be employed. The more he produces and the quicker the demand of the market is met, the less of his fellows are employed, the sooner is he thrown out of work, and the smaller in proportion is the aggregate share the workers obtain out of the total wealth produced.

It is not, then, as the Advertiser would have it, a question of the increase or decrease in the total wealth, but rather a question of the increase in the number of workers that the master class needs to employ and pay in the production of that wealth. It is a question, in other words, of the share of the total product which the workers obtain, not of its total amount.

The Socialist realises that out of the total product of labour the more the workers get the less remains for the idlers. The worker’s interests under capitalism are rather in the direction of promoting the waste of wealth than in promoting its increase. Not overflowing warehouses, stores and shops and glutted markets, but the destruction of accumulated stocks of commodities and of all kinds of property that must be replaced is the worker’s desire under capitalism, so that he and his fellows may have plenty of work, and of wages sufficient to live upon. It is, therefore, idle for the Advertiser to pretend that the workers’ share cannot increase unless the total produce is increased. Such, however, is the normal capitalist view of things. But, to paraphrase Marx, it is forgotten that the bowl from which the workmen eat is filled with the whole produce of labour, and what prevents them fetching more out is neither the narrowness of the bowl nor the scantiness of its contents, but only the smallness of their spoons.

While capitalism endures the share of the “national” wealth that is obtained by the workers is determined not by the amount of the total wealth but by the condition of the labour market and the strength of the workers in their struggle against the possessing class. Not in the increase of the “national” wealth, but in the increase of their share in it, is the wage-slave class primarily concerned. It is, indeed, the very impotence of the workers in their attempts to increase their share of the total produce of their labour, so long as capitalism is, that must compel them to realise at last, the only way ; and that is through the overthrow of capitalist rule and in social production for themselves.

F. C. Watts

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For January. (1908)

Party News from the January 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: The Socialist Party and Reforms. (1911)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party and Reforms.

[To The Editor.]

Forest Gate, Essex.

Sir,—Recognising your Party’s hostility toward reforms, and being, for the most part, in sympathy with your standpoint in this respect, I still remain without any knowledge as to how such reforms as the following can be considered as being detrimental to working-class interest, and some comment on the matter may, therefore, elucidate your unswerving attitude in regard to any reform whatsoever:

(1) Educational reform (already conceded).

(2) Male suffrage (ditto)

(3) The feeding of school children, from the point of view that it is impossible for children to be effectively educated unless well fed. If they are well fed, therefore, it would follow that as a result of their education they would better understand their position in life than they would if they were ill-fed and mal-educated. Therefore why oppose this reform ?

(4) Secular education— the advantages of which need no comment.—Yours, etc.,

L. A. Bostock

 

Reply:

The S.P.G.B., as distinguished from every other organisation in this country, is the party with Socialism, and nothing but Socialism, as its object. It is, consequently, not to be side-tracked into raising mere hostility to reform or the reverse—into equal importance with its object. Its guiding principle is not hostility to reforms but hostility to capitalism ; and since its aim is Socialism its whole policy in regard to reforms is dictated solely by the exigencies of the class struggle for Socialism, and must continue to he so dictated, whatever changes in the conditions of the fight may intervene.

Wherever needful for its object the Party must, therefore, make use of, ignore, or resist, any reform as determined by the particular circumstances. Consequently it cannot seek support for or advocate any policy of reform or anti-reform, for such must always be sacrificed upon occasion for its object, while such policies might—as seen in other organisations—attract those who do not accept the object of the Party, thus weakening its definite aim. All such matters are considered by it as worthy of attention only in so far as they bear distinctly on the question of working-class emancipation.

This subordination of all means to one end, and of all issues to the supreme one of the conquest of the State for Socialism, is the only logical policy for the Socialist Party. Without it, indeed, the party could not be Socialist.

Mr. Bostock is, therefore, completely in error in assuming that in showing the unsatisfactory nature of reforms in themselves, and their utter futility as solutions of what is called the “Social Problem,” the S.P.G.B. is necessarily hostile toward all reforms, and considers them as being in every case inevitably “detrimental to working-class interest.”

Even were the capitalists omniscient and of one opinion on. every point, it would still remain a fact that they are compelled by economic development to weaken their stronghold. Our enemies are forced, as it were, to dig their own graves, and it is by no means our policy to prevent them doing so. We should, indeed, be traitors to our cause did we not endeavour to make it profit by every mistake and every point of weakness of the enemy. There is danger only in allowing any consideration whatever to influence the policy of the party other than its object and the conditions of the struggle necessary to its attainment. Socialists, in short, must beware of being scared or cajoled either to the right or the left of the scientific way to Socialism.

With regard to the reforms enumerated by our correspondent, our attitude results inevitably from the position outlined above. All of them have been dealt with in these columns. Let us, however, briefly notice them here.

(1) The Education Acts were not motived (despite declarations to the contrary) by any wish on the part of the ruling class as a whole to benefit the workers, but to benefit themselves and to obtain cheap and efficient wage workers. It should be noted that the paltry measures of working-class “education” now in force stop short even of this despicable ideal. Therefore the Socialist has certainly no feeling whatever of gratitude toward his exploiters when he takes the fullest advantage of this reform for the furtherance of the workers’ cause.

(2) Male suffrage does not exist. We take the greatest useful advantage of the present property suffrage, and would not consider Adult Suffrage “detrimental to working-class interest.” Socialism is the interest of the many, not of the few ; its method, therefore, is that of democracy. But since Socialism is greater than all means, we would not bargain with our enemies, or bate one jot or tittle of our object or principles for any extension of the franchise, much less for a more promise. We have, moreover, seen the dismal folly of supporting an individual or a party that is utterly opposed to us on every vital point because of some minor point of utility. The grain of good is overwhelmed by a flood of harm.

(3) We do not oppose, and never have opposed, the feeding of school children. We have adversely criticised certain proposals for State maintenance, which would mean the taking of children from their parents to be reared in barracks by the State, pithed with anti-working-class ideas, and given the mentality of the flunkey. We have further pointed out the economic effects of such a measure on the labour market, where feeding here, is often counterbalanced by more misery there, and where, owing to the worsening trend of economic pressure, every attempt short of Socialism to stem the tide of increasing working-class poverty must fail. And we have pointed the inevitable Socialist moral.

It is, further, a fallacy to assume that the class-consciousness of the worker has any definite relation to the amount of food he gets. The flunkeys are probably the best fed and the least class-conscious. The slum-proletariat is the worst fed, and is hardly more class-conscious than the wage-slaves of flunkeydom. We rely neither on feeding nor on starving, but upon ripening economic conditions, together with sound Socialist propaganda.

(4) As to Secular Education under Capitalism, it may well prove a mare’s nest. Its advantages may possibly be non-existent. Only when religion has lost its efficacy as a working-class drug will it be abandoned by the ruling class in the schools. But what will take its place ? A scientific curriculum ! Or superstition in even worse forms, such as cunningly devised capitalist ethics, or a deadlier patriotism ? Hence the peculiar wisdom of the classic phrase “Wait and see! ”

Reforms usually take away with the left hand what they offer with the right, and the last state of the reformed is often worse than, his first. There is a vast difference between the vague proposal and the final measure. The latter may in its own. cunning clauses more than neutralise the grain of good originally proposed. Let the capitalist class, therefore, take entire responsibility for its handiwork. Our lack of enthusiasm and severely critical attitude toward all reforms of whatever colour is, inconsequence, fully justified. Not only do we regard them as mere minor and relatively insignificant incidents in the class war, but we know them to be, in the main, fraudulent in themselves.

SOCIALISM can no more come by an accumulation of reforms than a new and up-to-date boiler can result from an accumulation of patches on an ancient one. It presupposes the conquest of. political power by the Socialist working class —the SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

A program of reforms is not only superfluous, Its existence proves that the party possessing it has taken reform for its object instead of Socialism. It is, moreover, a fraud upon the toilers, for until they are supreme their party can pass no reforms —these are grants by the capitalist class, to be considered only in so far as they can be made use of for the cause—and when the working class is triumphant reforms will be entirely redundant, for Socialism will be here.

W.

Drink and the child. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Board of Education have now made the teaching of teetotalism a normal part of the elementary school curriculum by the issuing of a comprehensive syllabus of lessons on the subject. Now if this were a disinterested endeavour to promote the well-being of the child it would be welcome, but, as in all capitalist “education,” the cloven hoof is visible. The chief object of this latest move is, as will be seen, not humanity, but more profit. Of course, from the professions of bourgeois spokesmen this fact could not be gathered. According to them the capitalist is in business solely for the benefit of the working class. He makes a profit only in order that the workers may get wages. He lives in debauchery and spends huge sums in luxury only to provide work for the lower orders. Indeed, his attitude is summed up in Marx’s ironical phrase, “the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the benefit of the working class.”

So, in the matter of education this humbug is perpetuated; and the insincerity of the master class is as plain in its temperance proposals as elsewhere. Drink is only a curse to-day because of the capitalist conditions which make for its excessive use and poisonous adulteration. But to remove the economic conditions which engender alcoholic abuse would be to strike a blow at capitalist interests. Instead, therefore, of abolishing the wretched conditions of proletarian life that lay at the root of much of the craving for drink, the capitalists hypocritically try to minimise effects by puritanical legislation, or they try to train the tender sapling during the brief school hours in the fond hope that industrial conditions in later life will not bend it in an opposite direction.

Many eminent men have placed on record the fact that bad air, bad food, monotony and overwork, are prominent among the influences that lead to excessive drinking. Prof. Konig expresses a common view of German physiologists when he says that:

“Taken in moderate quantities in such forms as cognac, brandy, beer, and other beverages, alcohol is likewise an important stimulant to digestion. Brandy, whiskey, sherry, and the like, are therefore favourite remedies in disturbances of the bowels and stomach, and this helps to explain why the poorer classes, who often live upon a wretched diet of the less digestible foods, such as coarse bread and potatoes, have a craving for strong and stimulating alcoholic drinks.”

In few questions, moreover, has the perversion of truth been more effectively organised than in that of the use of alcohol. The noisy and well organised teetotalers have for long, with damnable iteration, dinned exaggerated or lying statements into the public ear on this, matter, particularly in discussing its economic aspects. And now the education authority itself enters more thoroughly into its work of hypnotising the masses by means of early and persistent suggestion of the employer’s side of the case. From the standpoint of economics the teetotal twaddle admits of easy refutation; but even, from the physiological point of view, though, opinions differ among Socialists as to the benefits or otherwise to be derived from a moderate use of stimulants, it is well to remember that the evidence is by no means solely on the side of abstinence.

The Lancet manifesto in favour of the moderate use of alcoholic liquors, which was extensively signed by eminent medical men, will still be fresh in the mind of the reader. At the meeting. of the International Physiological Congress, held at Cambridge in September 1898, an attempt was made to obtain the opinion of leading physiologists regarding this particular subject, and the following statement drawn up by Sir Michael Foster, the president of the Congress, was presented for signature:

“The physiological effects of alcohol, taken in a diluted form, in small doses, as indicated by the popular phrase “moderate use of alcohol,” in spite of the continued study of past years, have not as yet been clearly and completely made out. Very much remains to be done, but, thus far, the results of careful experiments show that alcohol, so taken, is oxidised within the body, and so supplies energy like common articles of food, and that it is physiologically incorrect to designate it as a poison—that is, a substance which can only do harm and never good to the body. Briefly, none of the exact results hitherto gained can be appealed to as contradicting, from a purely physiological point of view, the conclusions which some persons have drawn from their daily common experience, that alcohol so used may be beneficial to their health.”

The occasion was particularly favourable, for some of the most celebrated physiologists of the world and many well-known investigators were present. A very few objected to the phraseology, and one, although believing it to be correct, refused to sign because he feared it might be misused by “the trade.” A large proportion of those to whom it was submitted expressed their approval by their signatures. And, says Mr. W. O. Atwater (Harper's, No. DCVI.) the number and character of the signers are such as warrant the acceptance of the statement as the opinion of the leading physiologists of the day.

But even if the excessive use of alcohol were to cease, and it were clearly proved that the sum of human happiness was increased by its moderate use, the capitalists’ objection would not cease. The real basis of their objection is that it is not a necessary but a luxury, and that if the worker could be got to do without it he could live more cheaply and work for less wages. Macaulay once said that the Puritans “hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.” And the modern Puritan looks upon working-class pleasures in exactly the same spirit, particularly when they appear to stand in the way of bigger profits. This, indeed, underlies the whole of the Education syllabus as explained by the Daily News. Pleasure is a thing to which the workers have apparently no right. In choosing their food and drink they must allow no considerations of enjoyment to influence them. Thus the syllabus and notes are quoted by Cadbury’s organ as follow.

“Neither tea nor coffee is good for children ; they should have milk or cocoa instead. Cocoa is better for children than tea or coffee because it is less stimulating and contains a little more real food substance.

“It is true that there is a certain amount of nourishment in beer. There is, for example, a little sugar, and there is a small quantity of the food substance found in meat. To obtain enough food from beer really to benefit the body, however, it would be necessary to take an extremely large quantity. For this reason the good that might be done by the nourishing part of the beer would be more than counterbalanced by the harm done by the alcohol contained in so large a quantity.”

It will be seen that no weight is given to psychological considerations: the amount of nourishment is treated as the only factor, while beer is condemned, apparently, because it would be injurious to subsist solely upon it ! But it is also true that man cannot live by bread alone ; and when the percentages of protein and carbohydrates in an aliment have been found by analysis, the last word has by no means been said on its value. On some people, particularly those in depressing health or circumstances, the pleasure afforded by a small amount of alcoholic stimulant may have a beneficial effect—even from the dietetic point of view—far more important than the amount of actual nourishment imparted. No food-value has yet been ascribed to a hearty laugh, but there is much truth in the popular saying, “Laugh and grow fat.” Indeed, no discussion of the value of alcohol as an aliment can be adequate that does not take the psychological factor into account; and it is, moreover, doubtful, to say the least, if a merely attenuated existence is the life most worth living in any case.

Now, however, we come to what is after all the gist of the whole matter. It is that the capitalist has, rightly or wrongly, become convinced that the abstainer does more work, and the following striking statements are made by the Board of Education.

“Experiments were made by Dr. Parkes with two gangs of soldiers doing equally hard muscular work (mowing), one gang alternately taking beer during the work and the other not. In every case it was shown that although men taking beer might for a short time might gain on the others, yet they soon dropped behind, and at the end of the day the total work they had accomplished was less than that done by those who had no alcohol.

“Mr. Brassey (“Work and Wages”) says: ‘Some of the most powerful of the navvies have been teetotalers. On the Great Northern Railway there was a celebrated gang of navvies who did more work in a day than any other gang on the line, and always left off work an hour or an hour and a half earlier than any other men. Every navvy in this powerful gang was a teetotaler.'”

That is the point. The capitalist believes that the teetotaler can do more work for the same wages. He can live more cheaply, and so soon as abstinence is general, competition on the labour market will make him do more work for a lower wage, thus fitting, according to economic law, the price of his labour-power to his reduced average cost of subsistence. As though to emphasise the fact that it is the profitableness of the wage worker that is the chief care of the education authority, there follows the usual teetotal panegyric on thrift. It is worth quoting.

“The expenditure of £160,000,000, or more, on intoxicating liquors every year is a drain on the resources of the nation and the direct cause of not a little national poverty. It must be remembered how vastly large is this sum, which, it is estimated, is equal to all the rents of all the houses, farms, shops, hotels, etc., in the United Kingdom, so that the amount spent on drink alone would be enough to enable everybody to live rent free.”

The quotation has its amusing side, but how sad are the full facts from the workers’ point of view ? And what a condemnation of the present system it is that the thrift, sobriety and higher efficiency of the workers, while they swell the profits of the masters, simply intensify competition on the labour market, increase the toil of those in work, and augment the number of unemployed ! The net result of the labourer’s “virtue” while the labourer is a hireling under capitalism is a worsening of his economic condition. This side of the medal is not shown to the children. On the contrary, the impression is given to the worker’s child that he and not the employer will receive all the benefit of general thrift and abstemiousness, and that hunger will cease from troubling and the landlord lie at rest. Yet the facts, which the syllabus does not give, are that thrift, if general, means a reduction of the demand for goods, and is consequently a restriction of the market and of the employment for labour ; that increased efficiency on the part of the workers does not increase the demand for products but decreases the number of men the masters need employ to supply the market; and finally, that the less it costs the average worker to live, the lower will competition force down wages. But all this does not matter, for though the worker gets less wages and less employment, the capitalist will get more profit—and that is the real aim of State education to-day. Truly we have much to thank the ruling class for in these matters. The workers schooling is a training for wage-slavery ; no more, no less. The propertyless are taught to revere and defend the interests, the flag, and the Empire of their masters. The supreme aim of it all is the making of docile instruments of profit; and the temperance lessons, stripped of their humbug, are of a piece with the rest. For after all it is capitalism that creates the drink problem, and, in spite of their hypocritical preaching, the masters decline to attack it at its source. They are ever deaf to the appeal of humanity when profit beckons them on. But all their wiles cannot for ever obscure the fact that it is not drink but capitalism that causes the poverty of the workers, and that class rule makes thrift, temperance, and efficiency so many weapons against the latter in the hands of their exploiters. Indeed, no greater condemnation of a system is than that it makes right living a means of increasing the hardships of those who produce. It is the very kernel of the capitalist system that is at fault, and no mere reform can alter it. By Socialism only can these things be changed, for the conquest of capitalist society by the toilers must take place before they can secure the fruits of their industry and the elements of a full and healthy life. Then it will be discovered that intemperance has ceased to be a problem, while the object of public education will at last be the making, not of cheap wage-slaves but, of better men and women.

F. C. Watts