Editorial: Capitalism cant about strikes (1951)

Editorial from the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

During 1950 over 1,300 industrial disputes were reported to the Ministry of Labour. Almost all of them were “unofficial," because declared in defiance of the 1940 Conditions of Employment and National Arbitration Order, and the majority took place in nationalised industries. In the coal industry alone there were 863. The Labour government and the capitalist Press join in condemning strikes on the grounds that they are unpatriotic, unnecessary, and useless but they part company about the cause. While the government spokesmen and trade union officials put most emphasis on alleged Communist incitement some of the newspapers prefer to believe that the chief cause is the cumbersome machinery of the nationalised industries and the big trade unions, and the too close association of the latter with the government.

This makes it possible for some newspapers to shed crocodile tears over the workers' grievances while sermonising over the wickedness and futility of striking to redress them. Thus on 21 February the Daily Mail editorial found it “wrong than an engine-driver should get only £6 18s. 0d. a week, or that the lowest-paid should receive less than £5," and on the same day the editor of the Manchester Guardian had this to say:—

“There is general sympathy for the individual railwaymen’s case for better conditions. The lowest paid man's £4 16s. 0d. a week is not enough to meet today's living costs, and there is some validity in the trade union argument that men should not be forced to rely on overtime and Sunday work to make ends meet.”

But sympathy for the individual railwaymen turns into hostility at the idea of the individuals getting together and doing something to enforce their demands after long drawn-out negotiations have failed. For alternative remedy the Guardian slides off into a demand for radical reorganisation of the railways, while the Mail preaches the need for all to work together ‘‘in these desperate times,” and laments that “the community is ruled by force and not by justice.”

All the critics of strikes-in-practice profess to believe in the abstract right to strike. Thus the Daily Mail—“Every man has the right to withhold his labour —and we stand by that"; and, “The strike weapon is a legitimate part of our industrial machinery.”

We wonder however when the Daily Mail ever supported men on strike!

Mr. Francis Williams (News Chronicle, 22/2/51) put the usual case of the Labour Party that “in these days ” (as if they were any different from what capitalism has always been) strikes are obsolete because “everyone concerned knows that it is in fact only through negotiation that a settlement capable of advancing die interests both of the community and individual workers can be secured."

Mr. Williams was particularly incensed with Mr. Figgins, general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, on account of his refusal to appeal to railwaymen not to strike during the negotiations. Mr. Figgins, warned by the intense discontent of the members of his union, took the line that “negotiations and strikes could take place at the same time," and he pointed out that “in 1911 we held an unofficial strike and there were negotiations very quickly."

On this issue Mr. Figgins is obviously right and the critics of strikes are wrong. Arbitration and negotiation have no meaning apart from the pressure the workers can exercise by being willing to strike. And the pretence that the strikes under Labour government play no part in securing wage increases is mere hypocrisy, as there is plenty of evidence to show. After long refusals and discussions many railwaymen struck and then the Railway Executive came out on 20 February with its willingness to offer £9,250,000 wage increases instead of £7,000,000. Later they increased it to £12,000,000.

Can anyone doubt that the unofficial strikes of miners helped to induce the Coal Board to agree to further wage increases in January, 1951, only three months after the increases granted in October last year?

The Irish Bank Clerks who held up the banks for a month can certainly claim that it brought results.

Then there is the interesting case of the electricians on the Festival of Britain site who struck for an additional 2d an hour and got it. After the strike had been going oh for weeks the Minister of Labour appointed a Committee of Inquiry. They met on Saturday, 10 February, and reported immediately in favour of the increase. The employers’ association opposed it, refused to accept the Committee’s findings, and complained that they would pay it only “under severe protest" and that it had been granted under pressure from the government. The explanation doubtless is that the government were very much concerned about the possibility of the Festival buildings not being ready in time for the official opening date.

The secretary of the employers’ National Federated Electrical Association, is reported in the Daily Telegraph (14/2/51) as saying that the increase would be paid in view of “the extreme pressure which has been exerted through the Ministry of Labour and in other directions”

“... as the government has decided that it be paid, there is nothing else for us to do but to pay it.” 

When Labour leaders say that strikes are not necessary under Labour Government and Nationalisation, and when capitalist newspapers plead for “justice” instead of “force” they are crying for the moon. Capitalism has not changed and class struggle is inherent in it. Capitalists oppose wage demands to defend their profits and the Boards of Nationalised industries are doing the same though not quite so obviously. The government by law lays on the Boards the obligation of making enough profit to pay the interest on the compensation stocks held by the former owners. If the members of the Boards fail to do their job they will get the sack, to be replaced by more ruthless directors.

In conclusion we must not overlook another group who, along with low-paid railwaymen, earn the sympathy of the Daily Mail leader-writer. These are the company shareholders whose “dividends are expected to remain frozen” under government policy. They too, according to the Mail, are being “shabbily treated.”' Perhaps if this goes on the Mail will lose patience and advise then “to withdraw their labour” like the unofficial strikers.

The Festival of Britain (1951)

Exhibition Review from the July 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1947 the British Government decided to inaugurate a series of celebrations and displays to commemorate the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The various entertainments and exhibitions spread over Great Britain all through the centre months of this year are the result. The centrepiece of this festival is the exhibition now staged on the south bank of the River Thames at Waterloo, London. The guide book to The South Bank Exhibition, issued by H.M. Stationery Office, claims that this exhibition is “neither a museum of British culture nor a trade show of British wares." It would be more true to say that it is not an ordinary museum and not apparently a trade show. Actually this exhibition is a super museum, systematically arranged in a pleasant setting. Its main attraction is that it presents, in a very interesting form, the story of man's evolution, both biological and social. Notices informing visitors that they can obtain information about the goods exhibited, belie the statement that it is not a trade show.

In the centre of the exhibition ground is a building aptly named “The Dome of Discovery." Here is laid out a massive collection of instruments, tools, charts, pictures, models, products, reconstructions, etc., depicting man's discoveries, not only in the remote corners of the earth, but under the sea, in the stratosphere, in the bowels of the earth and in the many fields of scientific investigation. Embryology, physics, chemistry, biology, polar exploration, cartography, plastics, water engineering, pest control, genetics—all have their place.

Many of the displays should be of extreme interest to workers who visit the exhibition. For instance, the section of the “Dome of Discovery" labelled “The Living World." Here are diagrams and models illustrating the work of early British naturalists such as John Ray, Robert Brown and Gilbert White who made classifications of plants and animals, mostly based on incorrect notions, but which were of immense help to their successors. The work of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace is illustrated and Darwin's evolutionary theories simply and interestingly portrayed. Johann Mendel although not a Briton, is mentioned, together with his work on plant hybridisation from which have developed most of the ideas of the modern geneticists, examples of whose researches are also shown.

In other buildings under names like, “Power and Production,” “Transport,” “Minerals of the Island” and “Sea and Ships” are exhibitions of modern tools, instruments and machinery. In these, the visitor who can for a moment cease to wonder at all the marvels of man’s ingenuity, may give thought to the social consequences of this mass of modern invention. No longer does the miner need his pick nor the farmer his pitchfork. There are mechanically operated machines for almost every job. Not only a machine for each separate job, but machines that do a whole series of jobs converting raw materials to finished products. One is struck by the fact that the workers in attendance on these machines do little, if anything at all, in the productive process that is afoot. Their time and effort is devoted to caring for the machine, removing dust and waste, and tidying up around and about. There are machines for testing the accuracy of other machines and the qualities of the goods produced by them. There are machines to switch-on, drive and switch-off and the whole process of production tends to become automatic. One can realise that with the further development of the study of electronics and its application to industry, there will be less and less for the worker to do.

The architecture of some of the exhibition buildings conforms to the modern factory style. No longer the grim and solid brick built factory made to house many workers working in rows at their respective taste, now a light utilitarian structure designed as a shell to protect the delicate and costly machine from the elements.

If only all the wonders displayed at this exhibition could be put into operation for the service of mankind and not for the purpose of profit making for the owners of industry, what delightful changes could be made in the world. Not only could all people have more of the wealth that they produce but the hours spent in its production could be so much shortened. Not only could the tasks be so much easier but the conditions under which they are performed could be made enjoyable. There need be no “dirty work," much less industrial disease, and so much more time for leisure to enjoy the arts, amusements and entertainments that are displayed throughout the length and breadth of Britain during this festival period.

The thoughtful worker will wonder why, when there is such machinery to use, that men in huge areas of the world still use primitive tools and transport; why, when wealth can be produced so plentifully, that so many people are in need of the absolute necessities of life; why, when there is so much labour-saving machinery, that multitudes of people are overworked.

A lot of these machines are not the result of recent inventions but are refinements and improvements of inventions of generations post. It cannot be that the principles applied in these machines are of such recent discovery that there has been no time to produce sufficient numbers of them to solve many of the social problems that exist today. In 1939 H.M. Stationery Office published a book by H. T. Pledge, B.A., entitled “Science Since 1500." This book, with minor corrections was reprinted in 1947, and it shows that many of the inventions that are thought to be of recent origin are really derived from the researches of men over a hundred years ago.

There are a number of reasons why new inventions do not get taken up and utilised immediately they are made. One reason, probably the most effective, is that a new invention will cut across the interests of existing capitalist companies. We can remember the opposition that the turnpike and stagecoach companies put up against the early railways. The whale-oil companies fought against the use of gas for lighting, and later the gas companies fought against the use of electric light. The telegraph companies put up bitter opposition to the telephone and to radio telegraphy and the telegraph, telephone and radio telegraph companies fought against the radio telephone. All these instances are of opposition that may have delayed the application of new inventions but failed to prevent it. There must be many, many cases where the opposition was successful and we have never heard of the invention at all.

One of the American New Deal publications, “Technological Trends," states on page 53,

   "Changes within the electric industry have been retarded by the buying and suppressing of patents by the large corporations which dominate the field . . . A superior electric lamp, which it is estimated will save electric light users $10,000,000 a year, has been invented but has not been put on the market.” 

and on page 353,

   “The author knows of one metallurgist who made his own safety-razor blade, sharpened it, and nitrided it. It has been used daily, without re-sharpening, for 2 years. Naturally the razor-blade manufacturers are not interested"

Sir Alexander Oibb in his presidential address to the Engineering Section of the British Association in 1937, said,

      " . . .  the greater the success of research the more immediate and drastic the effect on existing plant and equipment. That is where the rub sometimes lies . . . and many valuable inventions have been bought up by vested interests and suppressed. . . . " (Report of the British Association 1937, pp. 158-159.)

Two other factors that retard development are, first, the difficulty of finding a profitable market for goods that are in plentiful supply. We quote again from “ Technological Trends ” page 58.

   “Fear of overproduction with consequent shattering of price levels, and a dramatic displacement of cotton pickers, is deterring the introduction of the automatic cotton picker invented by the Rust brothers . . . ."

This automatic cotton picker can pick as much cotton in hours as a first rate hand picker can pick in weeks. The labourers required for cotton picking could be reduced by 75 per cent, if this machine was brought into use. Furthermore, the first patent for a mechanical cotton picker dates from 1850. Secondly, by depressing wages to a low level it is often cheaper to use a number of workers to do a task than to install an expensive machine that will displace them.

All this adds up to the fact that the existing system of production is now a fetter on social progress. No matter how fine a display the festival designers can create,

   “. . .  so that this country and the world could pause to review British contributions to world civilisation in the arts of peace.” (South Bank Exhibition Guide, page 6)

there are still greater contributions that could be displayed were it not for the retarding effect of capitalism.

One thing we failed to find in the South Bank Exhibition was any display or even reference to the work of those Britons who have spent much of their time in research into the causes of social change. Such a display would have shown that the changes in the tools of production, so well depicted, were the cause of the changes in the social structure that is splendidly illustrated. It would also have shown that this mass of wonder-inspiring machinery and all these mechanical marvels must, in their turn, cause yet other social changes.

If the full force of the benefits of all these things displayed, is to accrue to mankind, then the capitalist mode of production must be abolished. “The Land" depicted at the exhibition with its wealth of resources together with all these labour and time saving machines must be commonly owned so that the wealth produced may be available to all. The production of goods for a market in order to make a profit must end. It is clogging the wheels of social progress, it is causing suffering and misery, poverty and unhappiness, ill-health and insecurity, all of which can end when the workers take the means of production from the existing owners and use them for the common good.

The exhibition at South Bank is not the Festival, but it is the core. There are other exhibitions, there are pageants, Eisteddfods, festivals of art and music, pleasure gardens, gatherings of the clans and other attractions throughout Great Britain. Towns and villages are having their own little “do’s" to celebrate the occasion. But all these pleasures and entertainments are subject to the system of production. The means that man employs to get the necessities of life will be reflected in his arts, his entertainments and his amusements. So the exhibitions are not only the core of the festival, they are the key to the understanding of it.

W. Waters