J. Hunter Watts Explains His Vote for Masterman. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The General Secretary of The Socialist Party of Great Britain has received the following communication :

94 Grove Park, Denmark Hill,

15th Jan 1905.

Dear Comrade,—”A lie that is half a truth is the worst lie of all” and it is a half truth to which the Socialist Standard gives currency this month when it says that I voted for a Liberal candidate for the constituency in which I reside and advised other members of the S.D.F. to do the same. A Jameson raider offered himself for election, and as I shall never either forget or forgive any instrument of the iniquity which robbed another of the little peoples of its national freedom I did my best to thwart the ambition of Rutherford Harris. As there is no way of voting against a man other than voting for his opponent I “supported” Masterman, though I know no more of the man than I know of the one who is said to reside in the moon. I shall repeat the offence at the next election even if the raider’s opponent is a circus clown.

Yours fraternally,

J. Hunter Watts.

* * *

Comrade C. Lehane,

Communist Club, 

107, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, W.C.”

The note to which Mr. J. Hunter Watts referred was as follows :

“In our last issue we dealt with the S.D.F., I.L.P., and L.R.C. members being induced to support the Liberal faction of the Capitalist Party at “Free Trade” meetings and we notice that H. Kirby deals with matter in “Justice.” He describes Mr. Masterman, the Liberal candidate for North West Ham, as “an adept at trailing Liberal red herrings before the workers’ noses.” But we would remind Mr. Kirby that when Masterman contested Dulwich, one of the best known members of the S.D.F., J. Hunter Watts, voted for him and urged other Social-Democrats to go and do likewise. Now, if Masterman was advanced enough for such a leading revolutionary Social-Democrat as Hunter Watts, surely smaller fry should follow such a good example ? Perhaps one of these days the S.D.F. will endeavour to pursue a consistent policy, but we are afraid it will then be too late for them to regain the public confidence,”

We now print a letter written by Mr. J. Hunter Watts to the then Secretary of the Peckham Branch S.D.F. during the election referred to.

“94 Grove Park,, Denmark Hill,

13th December, 1903.

Dear Comrade, Till after Christmas I have so many business claims on my attention (last Wednesday I was obliged to travel to Manchester and shall probably have to return this week) would you kindly intimate to the members of the Elocution Class that we will start work the first Wednesday in January. If convenient to them I would rather hold the class here because all my books etc. will be ready to hand but I leave it to their choice and I will come to the Branch Room if they prefer that rendezvous.

Though it goes very much against the grain to vote for a Liberal, it seems to me a duty to do one’s level best to prevent a Jameson Raider being sent to Parliament as our Parliamentary Representative so I intend to vote for Masterman on Tuesday, Would you kindly ask the members of our Branch to consider tomorrow night whether as individuals they can adopt the same policy though collectively it might be unwise to support Masterman. On Harris’s head rests some of the blood of the peasant farmers slain in defence of their national independence.

We cannot forget this !

Yours fraternally,

J. Hunter Watts.

The Secy. Peckham Branch S.D.F.”

We have no desire to misrepresent anyone, and we publish the whole of the correspondence in order that our readers may see that there is no foundation for Mr. Hunter Watts’ suggestion (or “half truth”) that we were not strictly accurate in our statement that he “voted for Masterman and urged other Social-Democrats to go and do likewise.” As a member of the S.D.F. Mr. Hunter Watts is supposed to believe that there is no difference between the various sections of the capitalist politicians, but by exhibiting a preference for one capitalist candidate he claims to know no more than about the man in the moon, but who, according to another S.D.F. member, is “an adept at trailing Liberal red herrings before the workers’ noses” against another whom he knows as an open enemy of the people, he shows that he recognises a difference, and that there are occasions when he thinks that the workers should vote for their class-enemies.

If Masterman was worthy of S.D.F. votes in Dulwich he is equally so in North West Ham. Here Ernest Gray, Conservative member and candidate, has supported Rutherford Harris and his friends fearlessly and openly, from the Jameson Raid to the Chinese Labour Ordinance. If individuals are to be singled out then “some of the blood of the peasant farmers” rests upon Ernest Gray’s head and he should be kept out of the House of Commons. The S.D.F. should vote against him by voting for Masterman. The blood of the murdered Featherstone miners is upon the head of Mr. Asquith, and the S.D.F. should try to keep him out of the House of Commons by voting for his Tory opponent. But Masterman as a member of the Liberal faction must support his leaders, of whom Mr. Asquith is one. And candidates who support the person responsible for that cruel and cold-blooded butchery should be kept out of the House of Commons, therefore, the S. D. F. should vote against Masterman.

Mr. Hunter Watts says that he will repeat the offence at the next election even if the raider’s opponent is a circus clown. Supposing Mr. Asquith is the opponent, Mr. Hunter Watts will vote for him and show that he considers the South African war more important than the class war here at home.

If particular incidents connected with the capitalist attitude towards the people are to be taken into consideration and capitalist candidates voted for or against because of them, where will it lead ?

Mr. Hunter Watts is apparently aware that there is neither wisdom nor logic in his attitude because he expresses the opinion that it would not be wise for the S.D.F. to do collectively that which he advises the members to do individually. But electoral action which the Body cannot take wisely and logically does not become wise or logical when taken by individual members.

The position is as illogical and contradictory as is that of the S.D.F. towards the L.R.C. Although the Body withdraw because it “might be committed to the support of candidates whom, by its rules, it was bound to oppose ; while it could not honestly accept aid for its own candidates unless it supported those favoured by the majority of the delegates” it yet allows its members all over the country to act as delegates to the L.R.C., and to do precisely that which the S.D.F. says it cannot do.

Mr. Hunter Watts, like many others, has allowed his emotions to get the better of his convictions. He may be unable to forget or forgive any instrument of the iniquity referred to, but neither the defeat of Harris nor the return of Masterman would restore freedom to the Boers any more than the defeat of Asquith would bring back to life the murdered miners. The instruments of both iniquities were the capitalist-class, acting in the interests of their class and against the interests of the common people, here and abroad. Capitalist politicians cannot be considered individually, but only as “all the rest, Tories, Unionists, Whigs, Liberals and Radicals who form a part of that hateful army of parasites which is permanently quartered on you and your children” (see S.D.F. Manifesto, General Election, 1895). Speaking at Canning Town last month Mr. D. Irving, also a member of the S.D.F. Executive, declared that “it does not matter a brass farthing whether Balfour or Campbell Bannerman reign at Westminster.” We agree. Let us be able to assert that neither shall do so by the votes of Socialists.

Editorial Committee.

A British Trust Gets Bigger. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Distillers’ Company, Edinburgh, have intimated that they have concluded an agreement with United Distillers (Limited) of Belfast, whereby one-half of their shares will pass to the Distillers’ Company and make a further issue of capital to meet the purchase price. The United Distillers (Limited) belongs to three of the largest grain distillers in Ireland, and the purchase has been made by the Scottish company to complete their control of the production of raw grain whisky. The Distillers’ Company practically control the world’s markets now for this class of whisky, which is chiefly used by blenders. The existing capital of the Distillers’ Company is £1,920,000, and the new capital will make it £2,100,000.

_______________

The baking of bread by electricity should find considerable favour, not only on account of its economy and cleanliness, but because it would afford a rational means of utilising the electric power of a town at a time when it would not be required for lighting purposes—between midnight and midday. Should the process become general, it would be possible to abolish night-work for bakers.—”Commercial Intelligence.”

_______________

Inverary Castle, and the extensive shootings attached, have been sublet by Mr. A. F. B. Cresswell, with the consent of the Duke of Argyll, to Mr. E. D. Jordan, of Boston, an American millionaire, who comes into occupation this summer. Thus the aristocrat succumbs to the power of the almighty dollar, and the plutocrat reigns in his stead.

_______________

Last Monday it was announced from Middlesborough that there will be a reduction of 3d. per ton on the puddling, and 2½ per cent. on other wages in the North of England iron and steel trades during the months of February and March.

Party Notes. (1905)

Party News from the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

During February there will be two meetings of the Executive Committee, viz., Saturday 4th, at 3 p. m. and Tuesday 21st. at 7 p. m. The attendance of Party members to witness the proceedings of the Executive has been good so far, but there is accommodation for more. In no better way can members become conversant with the working of the organisation than by assisting at these meetings.

* * *

The following letter has been received from Comrade Phillips:—

“17th January, 1905.

Dear Comrade.—Herewith I have pleasure in enclosing £5. donation to the Socialist Party of Great Britain. I had originally intended to contribute the sum to the S. D. F. War Chest, but fate in the shape of Burnley intervened.

Yours fraternally,

H. C. Phillips.”

* * *

If there are others who would like to invest their spare cash in the advancement of the Revolution, let them emulate the example of our Comrade Phillips. And remember that a thousand farthings spent in spreading the principles of revolutionary Socialism are worth more than a thousand pounds given to any reform party.

* * *

The first Quarterly Delegate Meeting was held on Saturday, 21st January, at the Communist Club. F. C. Watts was unanimously elected Chairman, and the report of the Credentials Committee showed there were twenty delegates present, representing eleven Branches, as follows:— Battersea: H. T. Davey, A. Jones, Edmonton : R. Kenny, A. Pearson. Fulham : E. J. B. Allen. Islington: W. L. Augur, J. McNicol. Paddington : F. G. Thompson, F. C. Watts. Peckham : W. G. Killick, H. Martin. Tooting : F. Reid. Tottenham : L. Boyne, W. Robertson. Watford: G. T. H. King, D. R. Newlands. West Ham: G. C. H. Carter, W. Gifford. Wood Green : R. H. Kent, H. Crump.

* * *

The business of the meeting was “to receive the Quarterly Report of the Executive Committee, and to deal with same.” The Executive report showed that two new Branches had been formed, the Romford Division and the Tottenham Branch, bringing the number of Branches on the list up to sixteen. With the exception of Southwark, all were in a state of activity, but the Clerkenwell and East London Branches required some strengthening.

* * *

The Edmonton Branch topped the list as regards increase of membership. This result was due to the vigorous propaganda conducted by the local members, and it was to the efforts of the Edmonton comrades that the establishment of the Tottenham Branch was mainly attributable.

* * *

The Treasurer’s statement indicated that the Party finances were in a sound condition. Our members, like the rest of the working-class, have been affected by the extraordinary wave of unemployment passing over the country, and the natural result has been that our revenue from the sale of dues stamps has fallen considerably, the actual decrease as compared with the previous quarter being 50 per cent.

* * *

The Socialist Standard has been published regularly, its circulation being well maintained during the winter, but to put the Party Organ on a self-supporting basis a considerably larger circulation would be needed. When the propaganda season opened, however, a greater sale would be achieved, and the regular holding of meetings, together with a thoroughly organised distribution, would, the Executive hoped, in necessitate the printing of twice the present quantity.

* * *

Hitherto our organising efforts had been devoted mainly to the metropolis, but this year new ground should be broken, and the Party brought to the knowledge of the workers in various provincial centres. The lack of the necessary funds was a great obstacle in this as well as in many other directions, but the Executive were considering the problem of removing that barrier in the way of the growth of the Party.

* * *

Generally, considering that we were in the winter months when propaganda is necessarily restricted, and in view of the fact that the Party Organ had been maintained, bearing also in mind that the position of The Socialist Party of Great Britain as a factor in national and international politics had steadily and materially advanced since its inception, the Executive believed they were justified in stating that a successful quarter’s work had been accomplished.

* * *

This was, apparently, the view of the delegates also, for having discussed the report, point by point, they adopted it by 17 votes to 0.

Con Lehane

Correspondence. (1905)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir,—I write for information upon three points which perhaps you will think it worth while to deal with, or which you may not be averse to having discussed, through your columns. I believe my difficulties are shared by many others who, like myself, are trying to feel their way to a safe—because sound— position. I will, with your permission, set out the points as briefly as may be.

I.—The Bogey of the Taxes.

On this matter I have read with interest the article published over the name of J. Fitzgerald, but confess I cannot yet follow the argument as to the workers being unaffected by taxation.

I can see that competitive conditions cause wages to revolve around the cost of subsistence of the labourer, but I must concede that, in the main, the present standard of comfort of the labourer is above the bare subsistence level. That is to say that, in perhaps the majority of cases, there is a margin—small enough, it may be, but still a margin—between what the labourer receives in wages and the amount necessary to defray his bare cost of living; between what he does live on and what he could live on.

Granting this, I do not clearly see why an increase in the cost of living resulting from taxation should not affect the labourer to his detriment. Suppose a necessity of life—say bread—to cost sixpence per loaf, and suppose a tax equal to one penny per loaf is put upon grain. The labourer must have bread and he must now pay sevenpence where formerly sixpence served. Would not that increase mean a reduction in his reserve or margin ; a hardening of his conditions of life? And does not that mean that he is affected by taxation ?

The same argument would apply in the case of an increase in the cost of a luxury—say tobacco or tea. The labourer would have to content himself with less of either, or both. Anyhow he would suffer.

Of course, a small increase in taxation would not necessarily imply a rise in price. But in the case of increases that do, is it not fair to conclude that the workers’ position would be so much the worse ? Certainly it seems to me that, although the tendency may be for wages to rise in the proportion of the increase in price, the tendency would not be apparent immediately—would not perhaps manifest itself at all—and in the interval between the rise and the time when the wages would balance the extra expenditure, the worker would be worse off. Would that be the case or not ? If so, are the workers affected by taxes or not ? And if not why not ?

II.—Is Socialist Propaganda necessary?

This is my second difficulty. I have heard it contended that the ignorance and apathy of the workers of this country are due to the effect of adverse economic conditions which militate against any desire for study they may have started out with, and which too often crush out the aptitude for learning completely. Ignorance and apathy, it is said, are but the reflex of material conditions. The remedy is the alteration of those conditions.

On the other hand, it is urged that no material improvement is possible in the present position of the worker unless the worker himself awakes to an understanding of his position and the reasons for it, and has taken over the means of production, &c., in his own interests. Hence the Socialist propagandist.

Here is the rub. The intelligence of the worker can only expand as a result of the alteration of his present conditions. Yet the alteration of the conditions is dependent upon the expansion of the working-class intelligence. The latter must precede the former, yet the former must precede the latter !

It occurs to me, of course, that the present form of production and distribution must, by the laws of its development, change. But will that alteration tend to produce enlightenment and dispel apathy in the worker? At present the effect seems to be the other way about. If, however, this is not so, if the intellectual development of the worker keeps even pace with his economic development, what is the use exactly of the Socialist propagandist ?

III.—On Municipal Enterprise.

My last difficulty has to do with municipalism. I cannot see that the municipalisation of any public service can be other than a gain to the people.

It has been stated that the small capitalist class favour such enterprises because they (the enterprises) conserve their (the small capitalists’) interests. I do not follow that. Municipal stock may provide the small capitalists with safe investments, but only, it seems to me, while the loan remains unpaid. When the cost of the enterprise has been defrayed, that concern becomes public property—the property of the whole people. The capitalist has lost his gilt-edged security.

Why cannot municipalism be regarded as a step—and a considerable step—towards the goal of the Co-operative Commonwealth? Why should it not indeed be regarded as an expression of the necessary and inevitable development of a sense of citizenship in the worker?

In conclusion, Sir, I ask that you will not think these questions are put idly, or with any other than a desire for information. The questions are knotty ones to me. I know they are knotty to many others also. To deal with them would, I feel convinced, be good propaganda work. To have a “Doubts and Difficulties” column would be good business, and most helpful to little thinkers stumbling in the dark. I submit the notion to your kind consideration, and am, Sir, yours, &c.,

“Ignoramus.”

Reply:

[We shall be pleased to have the comments of our readers upon the points raised in our correspondent’s letter, and should any of our readers have any “Doubts or Difficulties” on any question bearing, however distantly, upon Socialism, we shall endeavour to remove them. If a sufficient number of questions are asked we shall be very pleased to devote the necessary space to their answer.—Editorial. Committee.]

Wilhelm Liebknecht quote. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

“For our party, and for our party tactics, there is but one valid basis: the basis of the class struggle, out of which the Socialist Party has sprung up, and out of which alone it can draw the necessary strength to bid defiance to every storm and to all its enemies. . . . We may not do as other parties, because we are not like the others. We are—and this cannot be too often repeated—separated from all other parties by an insurmountable barrier, a barrier that any individual can easily surmount; but once on the other side of it, and he is no Socialist. . . . Just in this fact lies our strength, that we are not like the others, and that we are not only not like the others, and that we are not simply different from the others, but that we are their deadly enemy, who have sworn to storm the Bastille of Capitalism, whose defenders all those others are. Therefore we are only strong when we are alone.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht

SPGB Meetings and Notices. (1905)

Party News from the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Look Round. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month we called attention to the action of J. Hunter Watts, member of the Executive Council of the S.D.F. in voting for a Liberal Candidate, and our comment has drawn forth a letter from him, which is dealt with elsewhere in this issue. This month it is our painful duty to refer to the sad case of Mr. J. J. Kidd, who is also a member of the S.D.F. Executive.

So that we may not be charged with telling a half truth we print Mr. Kidd’s interesting and incriminating letter in full. It is addressed to Mr. Alfred Jermyn, Liberal Candidate for the South Ward at the recent municipal elections at King’s Lynn.

#    #    #    #

Oct 20. 1904.

Dear Mr. Jermyn,

I am writing this to tell you that I sincerely hope you may be at the head of the poll on November 1st. Although I am now in another political camp, I remember with a great deal of gratitude the many sacrifices you have made for the cause of progress, how many times you have, almost single-handed, pioneered the Liberal cause in Lynn. I had the pleasure and privilege to work with you for some years and I always had some feelings of admiration for your work in those times, the up-hill task you often had. There is one sore place in my memory, and that is your opposition to the “housing” scheme; but there, I will not bring up grievances. I am only too glad that neither my desire, nor circumstances, have brought me out as a candidate in this ward this year, thereby risking you the loss of some few votes. I hope I may never be the means of defeating one who I feel deserves more at his fellows’ hands than he has yet received (I mean, of course, appreciation). I hope all earnest and sincere Liberals like yourself will one day realise that the political arena of the future will be Labour v. Capitalism, the struggle between the possessors and the dispossessed and then you will throw unqualified energy in the workers’ movements. If all those Liberals who realise this would cut themselves adrift from all that hampers this movement irrespective of party claims, there would not be so much division in the Progressive ranks as there is today.

I hope you will appreciate my good wishes and pardon my presumption, but I feel that you are entitled to both. I shall give my vote to you on the day of the poll from a sense of duty and pleasure.

You will, however, regard this as strictly private and confidential.—Yours faithfully,

(Signed) J. J. Kidd.

#    #    #    #

It is apparent from Mr. Kidd’s desire that his letter should be regarded as “strictly private and confidential” that he saw the impossibility of reconciling his action with the policy to which he was pledged as a member of the S.D.F., and which, when appointed to the Executive of that body last year, he undertook to enforce.

Will it be believed that three weeks after Mr. Kidd wrote this letter, upon a casual vacancy being declared in the same ward, he appeared as a candidate in opposition to Mr. Jermyn. We quote from “The Lynn News and County Press,” whose leading article contained the following comment:

  “If Mr. Kidd had been consistent in his opposition to Mr. Jermyn, we should have put it down to his loyalty towards his comrades of the S.D.F., and, while regretting his course of procedure, should have felt bound to admire his allegiance to principle. But we are in a position to state that during the recent fight Mr. Kidd actually went out of his way to give support to Mr. Jermyn, and expressed himself as the last man to wish to prevent Mr. Jermyn’s return to the Council! What do Mr. Kidd’s comrades think of this ? What do they think of a man who, but a week or two ago, was earnestly in favour of Mr. Jermyn when a mere Labour candidate was running, and expressed thorough approval of his municipal policy, but now turns round and opposes him tooth and nail ? It is on our own initiative that we make these accusations against Mr. Kidd’s fidelity as a public man; if the Socialists of the South Ward desire further information let them ask Mr. Kidd for a copy of the letter he wrote to Mr. Jermyn just prior to November 1st. We know, as a matter of fact, that Mr. Jermyn has written to Mr. Kidd, asking leave to publish this letter—a document which we are sure would absolutely destroy the Socialists’ confidence in Mr. Kidd; but Mr. Kidd has seen Mr. Jermyn and personally begged the Progressive candidate not to publish it. Mr. Jermyn’s hands are therefore tied, because the letter was marked ‘private and confidential’; but if Mr. Jennyn cannot succeed in dragging it into the light of day, perhaps Mr. Kidd’s deluded supporters may be more successful. In any case we think it well to give them a glimpse of their idol’s clay feet! “

#    #    #    #

After this well-merited attack Mr. Kidd wrote a further letter to Mr. Jermyn, in which he said “I have prepared a leaflet for publication which will cause you pain and annoyance.” Mr. Jermyn at once published all the correspondence, and it can well be imagined who suffered the “pain and annoyance.”

#    #    #    #

Let us never forget that, as Liebknecht says, the class war is the basis of Socialism, and that those who do not accept this, however friendly they may be to us personally, are socially and politically our enemies, says “Justice.” If the Executive members of the S.D.F. forget it, what can be expected of the rank and file ?

#    #    #    #

There are very many of these social and political enemies whom probably we shall never convert, but we shall certainly gain their respect if we adhere steadfastly to principle and pursue a consistent policy which shall intelligently interpret our principles. On the other hand, actions like those of J. J. Kidd not only justify our opponents in despising the actors, but bring the Socialist Cause into disrepute and make a laughing-stock of the members of any organisation permitting such conduct.

#    #    #    #

It is nearly five years since H. M. Hyndman wrote that the S.D.F. was “wholly destitute of political aptitude.” Conduct such as Kidd’s proves that it still is so. The least that can be said of it is that it is like the Peace of God.

#    #    #    #

To those who imagine that no contentment or decency can exist otherwise than in a dtate of capitalism-cum-Christianity, the following extract from a letter which appears in the “Mill Hill (Leeds) Chapel Record,” written by Rev. C. Hargrove, from the Tutuila Island, Samoa, under date 28th October last, may not be altogether unpalatable reading:

  “The decency of this half-naked people surprises me. I have been to and fro among the villages and have never seen anything dirty or offensive on the part of man, woman or child. They seem possessed of an innate sense of propriety and cleanliness.
  “They have no idea of saving or private ownership; if a man earns a few dollars his is paid and help him to spend it. Food in especial is common property, and no native would think of refusing another a share of whatever he has. ‘No better than a foreigner’ is their contemptuous description of the man who tries to save. One consequence of this practical communism is that labour is scarce and dear. Why should a man work hard for a wage which will not profit him? So the Government has had to import labourers from less fortunate islands to do the toilsome work of excavating and road-making, which has been needed to make a harbour and wharf and coaling-station. They will no doubt learn our ways in time, and each look after his own family and accumulate a bit of money by hard work, and take to petty theft, now almost or altogether unknown among them. They will be more serviceable to the stranger. Will they be as happy or as good or even as Christian as they are now?”

#    #    #    #

According to the chief organ of “Tariff Reform,” the “Daily Express,” the German miners on strike demanded 4s. 6d. per day! Yet they tell us that wages are so high in protected countries!

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A Public Meeting was held at the Finsbury Town Hall last Tuesday evening, under the auspices of the Central Finsbury Liberal and Radical Association, to hear an address by John Burns. According to the bill the chairman was supported by W. C. Steadman, Alderman C. W. Bowerman, Alderman Isaac Mitchell, G. Dew, B. Cooper, H. Gosling, H. R. Taylor, C. Jesson, and other Labour “Leaders.” How these people like to hang on to the tail of the capitalist politicians!

#    #    #    #

Mr. Andrew Johnston, J.P., C.C., says that as long as the nation pours a half a million down its throat every day of the year we shall have the unemployed problem. We are prepared to prove, in debate with this gentleman, that the unemployed problem does not exist because people drink, and that it could be solved even though more drink was consumed than at present.

J. Kay

A Plain Statement. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

This article is intended to explain why it is that The Socialist Party of Great Britain has come into existence.

We ask you to read carefully what we have to say, because the matter concerns you intimately. You may not think so at present, but we are convinced that, if we could meet you to talk the matter over with you at length and in detail, dealing with your points of objection as they arose, we should be able to convince you that our side is your side, and that if you are concerned with the betterment of your present condition and of the condition of your class, your proper position is with us, and your attitude the attitude which we adopt.

We cannot do this in a brief article. But we will gladly arrange to meet you and endeavour to make clear anything that is not clear.

Now what is the difference between The Socialist Party of Great Britain and other bodies claiming to be Socialist ? But first of all, what is the view of the Socialist regarding the position of the working-class ?

You know well enough that at best you only receive sufficient to supply you with the barest necessaries of life. Only the very fortunate have any margin for extra comforts. At the best you are always dependent upon the employer for a chance to work so that you may live. You cannot even demand to work. At the present time great numbers are walking about absolutely unable to find a master to employ them. That number will increase. And when you have work you are never sure of its continuance. You have always the insecurity of it hanging over you.

That is the best view. At the worst, when you are worn and grey hairs show, when you give the slightest sign of age or physical weakening, your place is on the labour scrap-heap. Abject misery, appalling poverty, an outlook black as the mouth of hell.

This is no picture of the fancy. It is the bare fact. We are of the working-class. We know what we write. You know that we speak truly.

And yet labour is the source of all wealth. There are few to deny that today. Then why is it that the recompense of labour is miserable and inadequate at the best ?

The Socialist claims to know. It is because the land and factories and the railways—all the means that is by which necessary things are produced and distributed—are in the hands of comparatively few people. It doesn’t matter for the moment how they got them. It is sufficient that they are there. It is the explanation, and the only explanation of why the worker is cap in hand, a pitiable beggar. He has no property. He has no access to the means of life. He has nothing but his power to work. And he sells that for what he can get.

There are thousands of him available. All want to live. All must work to live. But to such perfection has machinery been developed that all the things for which there is any demand can be produced in an astonishingly short time. There are not sufficient vacancies for all the men available. There is not enough work to go round!

And so the men compete for what jobs there are. That is why the wages of the workers are on the average just sufficient to keep them in bare necessities. Competition for work prevents the wages rising.

The private ownership of the means of life then is the cause of the miserable condition of the workers. The remedy is, and can only be, the abolition of such private ownership and the substitution of ownership and control by the whole people.

That is a drastic change. Your Tory and Liberal politicians will tell you that the change can never be wrought.

They will also talk about the injustice of taking away from the people who own them, the land and machinery, etc. which they say are theirs. The injustice of taking away from them the power to live upon the labour of others! The wrongfulness of taking away from them for the benefit of the whole people the things they have taken from the whole people for their own individual benefit!

Pay no attention to the Liberals and Tories. They want the basis of the present arrangement to remain as it is. They may under some circumstances agree to make some alteration that will affect some of the results of the arrangement.

But it is the basis that is wrong.

Can the workers effect the change? We answer yes. Just so soon as they grip the Socialist position ; just so soon as they thoroughly understand the real cause of their misery and the only remedy, they can effect the change.

But not a moment before then.

What does the understanding of the Socialist position involve? Please try to follow us closely here because it is just here that we part company with the other bodies claiming to be Socialist.

An understanding of the Socialist position involves a recognition of the fact that the interests of those who own and control the means of life (the capitalist-class) are absolutely opposed to the interests of those who own nothing but their power to work (the working-class). The first are concerned to make a profit out of the labour of the second. The second are battling for the best conditions they can get. If the second are successful to any degree to that degree the first are losers. To the extent that the first are able to use their power to coin wealth out of the labour of the second, to that extent are the second the losers.

Is that clear ?

Don’t be put off the track by good capitalists. We are not concerned to deny that some members of the capitalist-class are genuinely sorry that the condition of the working-class is so bad and would prefer it otherwise. That is not the point. The point is that as a class their interests are opposed absolutely to the interests of the class they exploit — the working-class — and under no circumstance whatever can that conflict of interest be avoided.

It does not matter whether the working-class are conscious of it or not. The conflict is inevitable and unceasing. The Socialist calls it the class-struggle.

Some of those who claim to be Socialists — members of the Independent Labour Party particularly,— cannot see that this class-struggle exists and must exist. Which shows that they do not thoroughly understand the position. And those who do not thoroughly understand the position cannot be relied upon. They cannot instruct the workers in what they themselves do not understand. The blind make bad leaders of the blind although they are probably very sympathetic.

Now if we are agreed so far, (and we trust you will not hesitate to let us know if we are not,) what is the first step the working-class must take to effect that change in the ownership and control of the means of life which is necessary to the material and permanent betterment of working-class conditions ; upon what must their efforts be concentrated ?

Upon the capture of the political machine. That is to say they must organise and direct their forces with the object of securing control of the legislative and administrative bodies (the House of Commons, County, Urban and Rural Councils, Boards of Guardians, etc.) Why ?

Because these bodies are strongholds of the capitalist party. They form their most important line of attack and defence.

Through them the laws are made and administered that secure them in their position. Through them the armed forces of the nation are at their disposal to assist, among other things, in keeping the workers in subjection at those times when their conditions become more than usually intolerable.

The ignorance of the workers in the past has enabled the capitalists to possess themselves of the political machine. The workers all unwittingly have made the rod that is now applied to their backs. But what working-class ignorance has clone working-class enlightenment can undo.

But the working-class must thoroughly understand what they are about. There must be no confusion as to what it all means. And that is why The Socialist Party of Great Britain is in the field. We are ourselves of the working-class. The lot of the workers—our own lot— cannot be improved materially or permanently until the workers themselves have understood their position, the reasons for it and the remedy, and have themselves struck the blow which shall free them from the domination of the capitalist.

We are anxious, therefore, that the workers shall know the whole truth, shall take no leap in the dark, make no move in ignorance. Because the capitalist is very wide awake and very quick to seize any advantage that will help him to retain his power. And so to us it is absolutely necessary that the workers shall see every step of the way clearly before they take it.

Which may mean a slow advance, but it will certainly mean a sure advance.

We know that if the workers follow the lead of men who have not recognised and understood the meaning of the existence of the class-struggle they will go wrong.

If they follow leaders who are prepared to make working-class confusion worse confounded by allying themselves with capitalist parties for the realisation of reforms that cannot by any chance solve the poverty problem, they will go wrong.

If they follow any except those who are at open and perpetual war with the capitalist-class ; who will make no compromise or arrangement, either temporarily or permanently, with them, because to do so would only confuse the issues in the minds of the workers, and, by concentrating their attention upon matters of minor importance, divert them from the consideration of the real problem ; who combat ignorance wherever it is found, even when it is found in a “Labour Leader ;” who steadfastly pursue an undeviating path straight to the Socialist Republic, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, and bearing their flag aloft to be seen of all men : if the workers follow any but these they will go wrong.

The workers’ ignorance is in the way of their advance. They want enlightenment. And to us it seems that the way to enlighten them is not to present a confused issue. They want a plain issue, clear cut, boldly defined.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain presents the plain issue. They say the ownership by a few people of the means of life is the cause of working-class misery. They say the only remedy lies in the common ownership and control (ownership and control by the whole people) of these means of life. Which is Socialism.

They say that while the basis of Society remains as at present, that is while Society is based upon the private ownership of the means of life, the worker’s position must always remain the same in its principal features ; that municipal enterprise affects him in the mass, not at all ; that political reforms or what not leave him always the exploited, always the under dog.

They point out that these reforms are never achieved except at great effort ; that they are never achieved at all (except they benefit some section of the capitalist class) unless and until the workers have set on foot such a determined agitation that their demands cannot with safety be longer disregarded, as a glance at industrial history will show.

They point out that, notwithstanding the expenditure of great effort on the part of the workers in the past, one third of the populaton of the United Kingdom (about 13 millions) are either on or below the poverty line, despite the fact that the wealth of the country, all produced by labour, has increased enormously ; that, in. brief, relative to the wealth of the country, the position of the working-class is not only no better than it ever was, but as a matter of fact is worse. They say that this result is due to the ignorance of the workers, who, because they have not understood their position as a class, have, under the leadership of men equally ignorant, concentrated their efforts tipou securing some alteration in what are really effects of the private ownership of the means of life, and have not gone to the root of the matter at all.

They say finally that the results must always be the same until the workers have fully realised where their real interests lie (have become class-conscious), and have organised their forces specifically for the complete overthrow of the present system of production and the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth ; have refused to longer waste their energies upon securing reforms, and have determined to substitute ownership and control of the means of life by the whole people for the present private or individual ownership and control.

That is the plain issue that The Socialist Party of Great Britain presents. Is it clear ? Do you see your way ?

Alec J. M. Gray

The Social Problem and Its Solution by Jules Guesde (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link To Part 1

II – Solution

The solution of the social problem is to be found in the problem itself, such as I have just given in a short exposition. The greatest socio-economic evil of today consists in the ever more complete divorce of the two factors in production, labour and property or capital, and consequently the remedy can be found only in their unification.

Under what form ought this unification to be effected?

It cannot be carried out by making the individual worker proprietor of his tool since this would exclude production on a large scale, and the system of labour having become collective consequent upon the introduction of steam and electricity, there can be but collective ownership to go hand in hand with collective labour.

Outside a Count de Mun, hypnotised by the arts and crafts of the middle ages and counting on a miracle for their re-establishment, there are only the anarchists, dreaming of natural rights and an ideal State of nature, who would retrogressively push their Utopia to such an extent as to establish a system of sharing out, of dismemberment and individualisation of modern machinery:

The engine to the driver,
And the dome to the builder,

as they sing in what is for them their “Marseillaise”.

The only possible form, I repeat, is that which is imposed by the modern conditions of production and exchange, not even communal or guild, but social. The mines whose dark caverns are hollowed out beneath the crust of many counties, the railways that stretch their iron tentacles over entire continents, commercial establishments like the Louvre and Bon Marché disposing of the lives of thousands of workers, do not, not one of them, lend themselves to communalisation, no more than the other machinery of production, distribution, or transport. Consequent upon the transmission of force by means of electricity, the waterfalls to-day and the tides tomorrow can be converted into motive powers. With this fact in mind, how is it possible to consider seriously, for one moment, the notion of the monopolisation – I had nearly said confiscation – of these natural powers, now become the condition of all industry, by some localities to the detriment of others?

The guild form is likewise brought into collision with other impossibilities of a similar nature. In fact, both forms, by the competition which would be kept up between the various productive groups, here guild, there communal, would bring in their train the same murderous anarchy as exists to-day under capitalist society.

It is only collectively that the workers, comprising the entire nation, can and ought to possess the means of wealth (mines, railways, canals, factories, etc.) socially operated. Capitalist evolution itself supplies the necessary elements, material and intellectual, of this APPROPRIATION and of this PRODUCTION BY AND FOR SOCIEY now become a vast co-operative commonwealth.

MATERIAL ELEMENTS: The concentration of capital that is effected every day in the spheres of industry, commerce and agriculture—the great manufactories just as the no less great commerce and agriculture of to-day being impelled to swallow up the middle capitalists in the same way as the smaller ones have been already swallowed. From 1870 to 1880, when in the United States the number of spindles increased from 7,131,818 to 10,678,526 and the number of spinners from 157,310 to 227,156 with an increased value of from 562,825,164 francs to 831,127,472 francs, the cotton manufactories fell from 959 to 751. It is the function of finance, by continually absorbing the surplus incomes, to hurry on this accumulation under the pretext of democratising capital.

INTELLECTUAL ELEMENTS: The concentration of all physical and mental activities in the non-possessing class or proletariat from the fireman and greaser of the wheels to the scientist such as Claude Bernard, including chemists, engineers, managers, etc. The organisation of labour: the entire army of labour, officers and men, comprising all outside the capitalist class, is already encamped in complete order on the patrimony of mankind which alone is to be exploited — in the technical sense of the word — and it is now only a question of the complete restitution to society by the very same process which has served for its dispossession, namely: by expropriation.

It is well to understand that we Socialists have by no means invented the classes and their destructive class-war than we have invented the process of expropriation, which is the law of all human progress.

It was by the expropriation of the artisan from his tools at first, from this technical skill after, then from his domestic hearth, despoiled of wife and child, that private or capitalist property was established, to say nothing about the expropriation of the product of his toil which is accomplished daily by the operation of the law of wages. The expropriators will themselves in their turn be expropriated—it is as Gambetta would say, “imminent justice” — and they will all the more easily be expropriated under the company and share-holding system of to-day, they having become so completely estranged from all direct interference in production that their total severance might take place tomorrow without a perceptible check to industry.

This economic expropriation — which would allow to the expropriated full participation in the benefits accruing from social appropriation — must be preceded by a political expropriation, the establishment of the Socialist Republic being only realisable by a proletariat master of the State and acting in conformity with the law, since it itself will be and make the law.

It now only remains for me to point out the principal consequences which will result from this transformation of capitalist property into social property.

(1) There will be an end to all class distinction and consequently an end to the class-war. The workers are for the future their own capitalists, or to put it better, all the members of society are at once and with equal title co-proprietors and co-producers. The State, in the oppressive sense of the word, will cease to exist, it being nothing more than a means of maintaining artificially, by force, order that a system of society, founded on the antagonism of interests would naturally give birth to. The government of men gives place to the administration of things. It is the reign of social peace, daughter of universal harmony.

(2) Commercial production of exchange-values with an end to realising profit will disappear, and be replaced by the co-operative production of use-values for consumption with a view to satisfying social wants. In place of robbing and exploiting one another, we will all help one another. Homo domini Deus, “Man is a god to man”.

(3) Liberty, which until now has been but a word for the great majority of mankind, is henceforth a great and living reality, this liberty of which Socialism, according to our enemies, was to have been the tomb, will, on the contrary, blossom forth into the fullest perfection when reared in the uncontaminated atmosphere of the Socialist State. Liberty provides the means of accomplishing our will and therefore of satisfying our wants. These means will from now forward exist for all, multiplied by social labour, which, in point of productivity, stands in the same relation to modern capitalist industry as this does to small primitive industry. At the same time the effort to be made by each member will be reduced to a minimum.

The socially necessary labour-time to be furnished by each capable member of the Socialist State will likewise be reduced:

(a) By the suppression of slack seasons, which are the rule to-day in some many trades during periods from three to six months per year, as well as stoppages which doom to enforced idleness hundreds of thousands of workers, men and women, giving them over to the bitter pangs of starvation. These slack seasons and stoppages are the result, as Prof. Durkheim of Bordeaux very well puts it, of “this too great diffusion of the economic functions which under Socialism will be transferred to the organised community”.

(b) By the disappearance of the parasitical class, and not only of that alone but also of the sub-parasites who live on this class. In France there are more than two million persons of both sexes employed in domestic pursuits, without counting the numbers of prostitutes and parsons, police, magistrates, and soldiers;

(c) By the employment in work of a socially necessary character of all the human and technical forces now used in works of a destructive nature (cannon, guns, torpedoes, etc.) or socially useless (in superfluous display, or even of simple journeying of capital from the pocket of Peter into that of Paul);

(d) By the utilisation of all the energy at present wasted, lost, or reduced to nothing in the midst of unbridled competition;

(e) By perfecting “automatising”, the machine which each one will be interested in developing as far as he can, since it will be so much the more leisure or well-being realised both for himself and the community in general.

Even to-day when no one of these conditions is either fulfilled or capable of being so, an English statistician, quoted by Domela Nieuwenhuis in his pamphlet on the First of May, has calculated that with the machine at its actual stage of development and taking into consideration the point we have reached in technical skill, one hour and twenty minutes of daily labour would suffice to provide for the material wants of all.

One more fruit of Socialist society and I have done: that is the end of religious or supernatural idea current amongst men. The religious idea, far from vanishing before the forward development of modern science, has taken a new flight. Thus it is that in the age which has seen the prolific genius of Lavoisier, Laplace, Darwin, and Edison, we have witnessed the birth of new religions. Why? Because other and still more complex phenomena have arisen in the place of natural phenomena already explained and controlled once and for all by man. The phenomena of which I speak belong to the economic order which in the individualist atmosphere of to-day escape from man’s control and dominate him. God, chased out by one door, the door of nature, has re-entered by another, the social door. Therefore, as long as the productive forces which crush us individually will not have been mastered in the only way that they can be: by bringing them within the administration of society, man, a prey to misery, the plaything of chance, will bow low before the “unknown” – and will deify it.

It is only when the economic elements have been tamed as have been the natural elements, when society has become a providence for each one of its members, then and then alone will men cease to search for a providence beyond the skies, because then – contrary to the christian legend of God becoming man – man will have become God.

Translated from the French of Jules Guesde by P. J. Tobin

From Our Branches. (1905)

Party News from the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peckham

In Peckham we have not been lacking in energy, our Branch meetings continue to be well attended.

We have had to give up outdoor meetings on account of the weather, but we intend to hold indoor meetings if we can manage to get the use of a school-room or any convenient place.

The Liberals have had another meeting in the Peckham Tabernacle, a hall that holds between three and four hundred people, but it received very little support, as there were only about one hundred persons present. They had a special speaker sent down by the Liberal Party, a Mr. Paul, who was assisted by Lord Monkswell, and others. 

The meeting was in support of the candidature of Mr. Goddard Clarke, a candidate by Devine right, who told the meeting that it cost him £5 more a week in sugar, and that it was time he entered Parliament as a Liberal. We fear, however, that it is not cheap sugar, but the sweets of office the Liberals want.

About a dozen of our members turned up, and made it very uncomfortable for Messrs. Paul, Monkswell, Clarke & Co. with questions; so that they closed the meeting in a hurry, or, perhaps, the meeting was not quite sweet enough for them, in spite of sugar.

Our Friday evening discussions still take place, and we shall be glad to welcome any comrades at them.

We also have a Tea and Social on the first Sunday in every month, at which we enjoy ourselves, and trust all comrades who can will come and enjoy themselves with us.

Walter Russell.

Marx As Humorist. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The papers left by Karl Marx, which Engels had the intention to publish as fourth book of "Capital," were, after Engels' death, entrusted to Karl Kautsky, who is now about to commence their publication.

It has been recognised, however, that these notes could not be made a continuation of the unfinished "Capital." They will be issued as a study on the Theories of Surplus Value, in three volumes, the first of which has just appeared. 

We translate a passage therefrom, not, let it be understood, as being one of the most important, but to give our readers, as well as ourselves, the pleasure of again enjoying that caustic and cruelly paradoxical irony which is to be found in the notes to the first volume of "Capital." There Marx answers in this humoristic fashion, by a reductio ad absurdum, the common-place vapourings of bourgeois economy about the "intellectual production" intended to extol the services rendered to the "national wealth" by the luxury and "intellectual labour" of the capitalist,

  "A philosopher produces ideas, a poet verses, a preacher sermons, a professor text-books, etc. A criminal produces crimes. If we consider more in detail the relation which this last branch of production bears to Society as a whole, many prejudices will be removed. 

  "The criminal produces not alone crimes, but also criminal law, and thence the professor who gives lectures thereon, together with the inevitable text-books in which this very same professor throws his discourses in the quality of 'goods,' on the world market. Thus is an increase of the national wealth produced, without counting the individual joy which, according to a competent witness, Prof. Roscher, the manuscript of the text-book affords to the author himself. 

  "Moreover, the criminal produces all correctional and criminal justice, the police, judges, hangmen, juries, etc., as well as the various branches of industry, which form just as many categories of the division of social labour, develope different faculties of the human mind, create new wants, and new means of satisfying them. Torture more than anything else has given place to the most ingenious mechanical inventions, and employs in the production of its machines quite an army of honest artizans. 

  "The criminal produces an impression, good or bad, as the case may be, and thus renders a "service" to the movement of the moral and esthetic sentiments of the public. He produces not only text-books on criminal law, not only the penal law and thereby the legislators of the penal law,
 but also art, literature, novels, and even tragedies, as is proved by the Faute of Müllner, the Brigands of Schiller, and even by OEdipe and Richard III. The criminal breaks the monotony and daily security of bourgeois life, and thus guarantees it against stagnation and arouses that excitement and restlessness without which even the spur of competition would be blunted. In this manner he furnishes a stimulant to the productive forces. While crime withdraws from the labour market a part of the superfluous population, thus diminishing competition among the workers, and preventing to a certain degree the fall of wages below the minimum, the war against crime absorbs another part of the same population. Thus it is that criminal intervenes as a natural leveller, which restores a just equilibrium and opens up a new prospect of branches of 'useful' occupations. 

  "The influence of the criminal on the development of the productive forces can be shown even in detail. Would the locksmiths have arrived at their perfection were there no burglars ? Would the making of bank-notes have reached its present perfection if there were no forgers ? Would the microscope have found its way in certain commercial spheres (see Babbage) without the existence of fraud in trade? Does not practical chemistry owe as much to the adulteration of goods, and to the efforts made for its detection, as to the noble zeal for production? Crime, by ever new means of attack against property, calls into being equally new means to defend it, and thus exercises an influence quite as productive as strikes on the invention of machines. 

  "And, if we leave aside consideration of individual crime, would the world market have existed without national crime, would even the national market have existed ? Is it not the tree of sin which is, at the same time, since Adam, the tree of science? 

  "Mandeville, in his "Fable of the Bees" (1708), had already demonstrated the productivity of all classes of trade in England, etc., and shows in general the tendency of all this reasoning: 'What we call evil in this world, the moral evil as well as natural evil, is the grand principle which makes of us social beings, is the solid foundation, the life and support of all industries and professions, without exception; it is there we should search for the true origin of all the arts, and all the sciences; and the moment that evil ceases to be. then Society will necessarily become corrupt, and dissolve completely.' 

  "But Mandeville is far bolder, and more straight forward than the narrow-minded apologists of middle-class Society."

*Theorien über den Mehrwert, aus dem nachgelassenen Manuskript Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie von Karl Marx herausgegeben von Karl Kautsky. – Die Anfänge der Theorie vom Mehrwert bis Adam Smith – Stuttgart, J. W. H. Dietz Nachf, 1905.

Editorial: Russia: Revolution and after. (1905)

Editorial from the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The entry of Russia into the stage of machine production and international commercial inter-communication made it essential that there should be a limitation of the aristocracy which had hitherto dominated that empire. To engage in competition for foreign and neutral markets with other commercial countries rendered it necessary that the press should be removed from the censorship of the ruling class, so that the widest publicity should be given to matters concerning commerce; that education should become more general, so that the worker might become a more efficient machine minder; that freedom of contract should be exhibited in all trade relations between merchants and manufacturers, so as to secure equality of competition.

With an autocracy interfering in all matters, private or public, these freedoms desired by the middle-class could not be secured, so that it was but a question of time how soon the growing middle-class would seek to secure political power for itself. This could only be obtained by the establishment of a constitutional government, either of the republican or of the monarchical form.

Against this desire the autocracy exercised all its powers. The knout, the mines, Siberia – these were some of the powers they used, and used mercilessly. As a result the agitation of the middle-class was driven below the surface. Secret societies, Nihilists societies were but the expression of the objects of the middle-class. True! they sometimes had the support of working men, but it was nevertheless a middle-class movement. The members were mainly from the commercial class, the professions, the students at the universities. These formed the centre of the movement. Any support they received from the landed aristocracy, or from the uneducated working masses, was of minor import.

At the same time that this movement was going on, taxation in Russia was excessive. The autocracy, knowing that its only hope for the maintenance of its stability was imperial aggrandisement, carried on wars against the weak and incoherent races of Asia, built railways at immense cost for the furtherance of those warlike designs. The ruling class, financially corrupt, and financially bankrupt, carrying on their schemes with borrowed money, found it necessary to levy heavy taxes to pay such portion of the interest of such borrowed money as was not itself paid with the borrowed money.

The result was great distress among many of the trading sections of the community, and among many of the members of the agricultural communes. The Mir, instead of being a commune carried on for the benefit of its members, was maintained as a machine for facilitating the collecting of taxes.

The distress was greatly augmented by the war with Japan, and recently hardly a week has passed without hearing of men mutilating themselves to prevent their being taken as soldiers, of wholesale emigration from Russia, of murders of governors of towns and provinces.

The working-class, too, – that class which has to carry on the battles of its masters – began to manifest signs of unrest. Strike has followed strike in all parts of Russia. The desires expressed have been for economic and political reform on the part of the workers, for political reform on the part of the middle-class.

In order to gain those desires a large number of the discontented wished to make a peaceful demonstration before the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg. These were no revolutionists! They did not belong to Socialist Societies, nor did they believe in Socialist principles! They were but unlettered working men with middle-class leaders, who believed that the Czar – the father of his people – had but to learn of their wrongs to redress them.

Poor misguided workers! Foolish you, to believe that you could gain redress except from among yourselves. A ruling class whose interests are opposed unto yours will do nothing for YOU. You must emancipate yourselves.

This lesson taught the workers in many countries, had yet to be learnt by the Russian working-class. They had not sufficiently learnt that in other countries the military was a weapon used to quell strikes. Men and women shot down in Milan and Turin during the grain riots, when Leiter tried to corner the world’s supply of wheat; men struck down in the recent general strike in Italy; innocent men shot down in Featherstone; gunboats sent to Hull during the dock strike, and to Grimsby, and soldiers to Penrhyn during the strike there; martial law declared in Colorado; men tortured to death in the Monjuich Prison at Barcelona; Pinkertons used to shoot down the strikers at the steel works of Carnegie at Homestead; strikers bludgeoned in the streets of Rosario. Everywhere the same civilised methods have been used, and will be used, when the workers strive to endanger the stability of commercial society by securing a greater quantity of the products of their own labour for their own consumption.

Now this lesson is being taught in autocratic Russia, as it has been taught in Monarchical England and Republican France. Hundreds of men, women and children have been butchered in the streets of St. Petersburg. In other centres, too, a like answer has been given to the demands of the workers. The class struggle manifests itself clearly, and what will be the result in Russia? We fear that the result will be but the victory of the middle-class. The Constitutionalists in Russia in 1905 will, like the Liberals in England in 1831, and the French middle-class in 1789, 1830, and 1848, use the working-class for their own ends, and then throw them over. The Russian worker is, we fear, too illiterate to understand clearly his own class interest, and will, therefore, need years of education before he takes his place with the vanguard of the international working-class revolution.

We think the result will be the disruption of the Russian empire into middle-class republics. Although to-day the revolutionaries in Finland will join with those in Poland, or Lithuania, and in the other Russian provinces in the same way as middle-class and working-class will combine in opposition to the ruling class, yet no sooner will they have achieved their victory, and desire to carry on the constructive work of government then all the disharmony of jarring interests will be manifested. Then, too, one section of the vast empire will be found more advanced than another, and agreement will be obtained only by separation.

Be this as it may, it is for the Russian Socialist, as for the Socialist everywhere, to recognise that it is for him to carry on his propaganda. He must use every phase of the movement for the furtherance of his ideal, always remembering that neither the rule of the Zemstovs, nor of any other middle-class government, will mean emancipation for him from his economic bondage. His hope must be in propagating his principles, in making capital out of every mistake of his enemies, in organising the workers to seize hold of the reigns of government, in teaching them how best to use that government when they have it in their possession.

Whether this should be now, or should be later, they should clearly recognise that the best wishes of the international Socialist movement is with them, for the victory of the Socialist movement in Russia will be a victory for it everywhere, and would lend fresh hopes, and give fresh incentive to their comrades throughout the world. The interests of the workers of all countries are the same – the establishment of the Socialist Republic.

Physical Deterioration and Education. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is frequently asserted by patrons of monopoly that the educating of the masses has been a dismal failure. The snob-employer says it resentfully when dismissing some audacious demand for wage increase, the patrician superciliously when some hireling makes him aware of the rights of men. The cleric contemplating his empty conventicle likewise laments the disastrous results of education. Each and all ascribe the lamentable condition of revolt to the dangerousness of a little learning. Viewed with capitalist eyes, if Education evokes class-consciousness it is indeed anathema, but to the Socialist the murmur of the master is a message of hope.

Is, or is not, compulsory education a waste of public funds?

Under existing conditions a vast amount of expenditure receives no ultimate return whatever. Statistics of five years back proved that 75% of the lowest class who had passed through all the standards of school had great difficulty to write legibly and read unstumblingly when the age of thirty was attained. Only this last week in discussion with an enthusiast on education who has much practical experience in slum schools and is quite anti-socialistic, the following valuable admission was made: "Nothing can be done to obtain happier results unless the surroundings of the pupils are materially altered."

This current year in one of the poorer schools an inspector contrasted the work done by children of eleven with the studies easily understood by his young daughter of nine. The elder— offspring of the picker-up of a precarious, hand-to-mouth existence—lagged far behind the junior whose childhood was unharassed by trade fluctuations. If it be true that "Where Care lodges, Sleep will not lie" verily it is daily proven that study and worry have no dealings one with another. How is it conceivable that the horrors of the home can be superseded by the joys of knowledge ? For instance, our little ones come to morning session mainly breakfast-less, certainly lacking a nourishing meal after a night of unrefreshing repose: children and adults alike occupy one bed in the vitiated atmosphere of the one room constituting their "home" situated in some airless slum—Short's Gardens, Lamb's Conduit Passage, Betterton Street, alleys in the New Cut and Canning Town. One child in the Third Standard three weeks ago awoke to find her mother dead by her side. Such shocks as these are not conducive to alertness of apprehension or retention of facts.

Again, compare the average age of scholars in higher grade and very poor schools. It is two years behind in the latter case; and then, too, the middle-class school displays no such divisions as are found in the less favoured one. Here the pupils are classified thus—An intelligent majority, who, by dint of incessant drudgery will be capable of passing up one standard every twelve months, then the obviously dull, who will be tutored in same class two or more years,— sometimes when the age-limit of fourteen is reached the child is still in the Second Standard, —thirdly, those most pathetic specimens, pupils passed on from our defective centres. Very few people have any idea of the vast expense of these little citizens to the nation !

Although the Code of Instruction is supposed to be compiled for all schools under Government there is a significant clause in it to the effect that all regulations shall be enforced "as far as circumstances will permit." After arduous attempts to adopt the full curriculum the exemption has over and over again had to be claimed, owing to the total inability of the learners to grasp more than the merest rudiments. Inspectors will discourage the ambitions of a freshly installed head-teacher who places before them for their approval a most comprehensive syllabus. One who has just retired after many years service said that it was a sheer impossibility and absurdity to seek to compel such stunted capacities to comprehend anything which required concentration of thought.

Various illustrations can be cited of teachers who have believed not these reports, but, with a faith in their own powers beautiful to behold, have made a brave fight to establish more advanced subjects,—several of such disillusioned ones are personally known to the penner,—who after strenuous struggles have abandoned the position : beating the air is a singularly disheartening process. Even in lessons such as Drill when acumen is not demanded the body-conquering is noticeable. In every class there are children too weak to take muscular exercise, and many of the others are utterly wearied by half-an-hour's training.

In conclusion, we admit the failure but do not attribute it to the causes so frequently assigned, but to the dwarfing due to semi-starvation. Reforming the methods employed, altering the requirements, or any reform whatever will be futile : the sound, healthy body and teachable mind cannot be the lot of the youth of the nation under Capitalsm.

Kate Hawkins

Answers To Correspondents. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

• F. Meyer (Luxemburg).—Thanks for congratulations. We shall do our best to hold aloft the flag here.
• J. E. (Kirkintilloch).—Back numbers have been sent and your request with regard to future issues shall be complied with.
• Fr. M. (Hamburg).—If you will state wherein we differ as to the tactics to be pursued by the Socialist Party, we shall be glad to discuss the matter with you. We shall welcome the notes promised. The historical sketches showing the development of free thought in this country would of course be of good educational value, and your suggestion will be borne in mind, but The Socialist Standard functions purely as a Socialist propagandist journal, and the calls on our limited space are too great already. When we can afford an enlarged issue the scope of our observations can be extended.
• H. J. H. (Euston).—Business communications should be addressed as per official notice on page 4.
• M. F. (Vienna).—Your request has been attended to. 
• J. H. W. (Denmark Hill).—Your communication is dealt with separately in this issue.
• A. S. (Prague).—Remittances need not be crossed. We have not yet opened a banking account.
• Peckham Branch.—Thanks for sight of document. It is being returned. Please inform your Branch Correspondent that reports should be sent to 5, Arvon Road, Highbury, N. A delay of one week has occurred in the receipt of the last communication owing to this instruction not being observed.
• J. H. K. (Ilford), J. P. W. (Dulwich), and others.—. Matter received.