Editorial: Come On, Stump Up. (1918)

Editorial from the August 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

We haven’t got enough money yet to achieve the revolution. We haven’t even got within measurable distance of our first £1,000. Shame on us, our second month’s list actually falls a bit short of the first instead of showing an increase. This is not as it should be. Since the first list was published the need for funds has become even more imperative, for there is now a pretty general expectancy of a General Election about the end of the year, and should this materialise our part in it will be largely determined by the condition of this Fund.

The importance of this election can hardly be exaggerated. For over four years the people of this country have lain bound and gagged while almost every conceivable cruelty and outrage has been practised upon them. Their silence, enforced by brutal Acts of Parliament, has been claimed as acquiescence in and support of the orgy of slaughter upon which our masters have been spending us so lavishly. Every cry for peace has been crushed down by the bully’s bludgeon ; every manifestation of working-class international fraternity has been repressed by the hirelings of the “champions of liberty” ! Now they talk of proffering us a General Election, securely hedged around, as they think, so that no dissenting murmur against the butchery of working-class millions shall be heard in the land, and in order that on the day of reckoning they may claim that they acted in this bloody business according to the popular wishes, that no voice was raised against them when they put the question of their policy to the test of the polls, and that therefore every poor war-orphan had been robbed of its father’s care, and every war-widow of her husband’s support and protection, and every war-bereaved mother of the hope and comfort of her declining years, by the popular assent, wish, and demand.

It is up to us, who have so bitterly opposed the war from the very commencement, to frustrate this cunning design and prevent the filthy war-mongers from succeeding in this latest attempt to exploit their helpless victims. No electoral appeal to the people has been made in over four years of stupendous butchery ; we must see to it that the butchers do not snatch at the last moment an unanimous assent from their quivering victims. We owe it to our Cause to make our protest heard ; we owe it to our class to put on record at the ballot that only tyrannic repression has prevented the word of fellowship going out to all the stricken ones on those wretched battlefields.

Every endeavour should therefore be made to swell the Fund to the utmost during the next few months.

The Blood-Red General Election. (1918)

From the December 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fellow Workers,

After four and a quarter years of unparalleled slaughter of the working class; after, according to some present estimates, about 12,000,000 men have been killed, and about 60,000,000 crippled, maimed or ruined in their constitutions, the Government suddenly announces a General Election.

Why this hasty decision to consult an electorate that has been ignored for eight years ?

The Conservatives claim in the words of Lloyd George that—

"It is a moribund Parliament. . . . We must get a mandate immediately. Somebody will have to go to the Peace Conference with authority from the people of this country to speak in their name. "—"Daily Telegraph," Nov. 18th, 1918.

What cant and humbug! What "mandate" had they from the people to declare war? In whose name did they introduce D.O.R.A.—the most gigantic piece of oppressive legislation the capitalist class ever devised? By whose authority was Conscription—Military and Industrial—placed upon the working class ? 

The same speaker indulged in his old clap-trap when, referring to the recruiting statistics, he said—

"I was appalled to find there was a much higher percentage of physical unfitness in this country than in France, Germany, or any other great belligerent country."—Ibid.

Proof of the speaker's hypocrisy is shown in his previous statements. Speaking at Birmingham, on October 26th, 1906, he said:—

  "Here you have been tinkering for generations with reform, and the end of it all is slums, pauperism and great want in a land of plenty."

He then went on to say that if the Great Liberal Party did not remove these conditions in three years they deserved to go.

In 1911—two years after the Liberals should have left office on the above contention, Mr. Lloyd George speaking at Cardiff, said:—

  "To-day you have greater poverty in the aggregate in the land than you have ever had. You  have oppression of the weak by the strong. You have a more severe economic bondage than you probably ever had ; for grinding labour to-day does not always guarantee sustenance or security. At any rate, that condition of things was foreign to the barbaric regime of the darker ages." —"Christian Commonwealth," Jan. 17th, 1912.

Not only had the Liberal Party failed to remove the conditions of poverty and misery, but, as admitted by Lloyd George, these conditions had become worse. Yet this man retained his seat and office in spite of these facts.

In a preface to Mr, Rowntree's pamphlet on "The Labourer and the Land," written in May, 1914, Lloyd George stated :—

  "More than half the wage-earners in the most ancient, the most worthy, and the most vital 
of our industries, are living on wages which do not allow them and their families the same amount of nourishment which they could obtain in a workhouse or a prison."

This after eight years of Liberal Government, and five years after they should have left office according to Lloyd George.

And he has the brazen effrontery to say "he was appalled" at the amount of physical unfitness in the country after bearing witness himself to the existence of the conditions causing it. Well may the public house sign at King's Lynn of "The Honest Lawyer" show an individual with his head out off.

With equal cant and hypocrisy Mr. Asquith opened the campaign on behalf of the official Liberal Party at Caxton Hall on 18th November. Referring to the fact that, owing to the short period allowed for the Election, large numbers of soldiers will not be able to vote, while the majority of those who will be able to vote will have no opportunity of learning the candidates' views. He said :—

  "A House of Commons brought into being at such a time by an electorate so truncated and mutilated will of necessity lack the moral authority to speak and act on behalf of the nation as a whole." —"Daily News," Nov. 19th, 1918.

What "moral authority" had the Liberal Government, with Mr. Asquith as its leader, "to speak or act on behalf of the people as a whole," when they plunged this country into the most colossal war on record, places us under  D.O.R.A.,  and passed conscription ? None whatever. Later he said—

  "The restrictions upon personal liberty and the freedom of speech, or even to compulsory military service, for which I was as much responsible as any man in the country. They must come to an end." —Ibid.

When ? If he meant when Peace is signed, then his remarks are a waste of words, as the particular Acts referred to already provide for such ending. If he meant before the Election so as to allow of free expression of opinion in the contest, why did he not move in Parliament for the abolition of these restrictions ? Either case convicts him of hypocrisy, but then what else was to be expected of one who, when Home Secretary, sent soldiers to shoot the miners at Featherstone, and held office as Premier when the military were used against the workers at Llanelly, Tonypandy, Dublin, etc.

With significant unanimity Liberal and Tory papers unite in placing the responsibility for this hurried election upon Lloyd George. In this matter real "unity" has been attained. Its purpose, of course, is to conceal the real authors from view and delude the workers as to the powers operating behind the scenes. To imagine for a moment that the job-hunting lawyer from Wales possessed such power would be absurd.

Behind this mountebank marionette stands the Imperialist section of the capitalist class, composed of both Liberals and Tories, who are striving to extend their dominion and power of robbing the working class, over larger areas of the globe. It was to protect their interests that this country entered into the war. When two years ago the military situation looked serious for the Allies this section looked for a more pliant tool to take charge of the Government. One was at hand possessing a glib tongue, always ready with large and extravagant promises, quite unscrupulous, and able to sway crowds with his clap-trap. A dirty political shuffle took place and Lloyd George became Prime Minister.

Of course he wishes to retain the office. He wishes to pose as the head of "the Government that won the war," and wishes to be at its head when it "Reconstructs the Empire." He put his wishes into words at the Central Hall when he said :—

  "All the life of a nation has got to be reconstructed and reorganised for war, and I claim that if the Government could do that for war, it could do it for peace."—"Daily Telegraph," Nov. 18th, 1918.

Not his wishes, however, but the interests of the Imperialists, whose agent he is, demanded this Election. The signing of the Armistice has brought an immense relief after the long strain of the war, accompanied by a great thankfulness at the cessation of the horrible maiming and slaughter.

On this wave of feeling and relief the Imperialists hope to ride into full power, and to be able to carry out their economic schemes.

Not that they are quite sure of the result. The nervousness and anxiety of all the capitalist parties from the Conservatives to the I.L.P. is revealed in their official statements.

Despite all his swagger and bounce Lloyd George screams out for "unity of every party, every section of the community," in the Coalition.

His programme is so wide, so varied, so contradictory, that even the "Daily Mail" (18th November, 1918), usually so regardless of either logic or consistency, is afraid the fraud may be seen through, and says: —

  "The programme is just a little too comfortable. It adjusts the views of the extreme Tories and those of the advanced Liberals. It is a counterpane that covers everybody, and it does not quite carry conviction."

Mr. Asquith shows his nervousness when he declares that even if the Coalition is returned to power it will "lack moral authority"—which he so highly prizes when out of office.

At the public meeting, held at the Albert Hall, on 14th November, by the Labour Party after their decision to withdraw from the Coalition, speaker after speaker voiced the fear that the Labour Party would lose some of its seats as a result of this withdrawal—a clear confession that they hold these seats by permission of the Liberals and Tories.

Philip Snowden in the "Labour Leader" (7th November, 1918) says:—

  "The action of the Tories in taking an election in 1900 was a mild offence against public morality compared with the action of Mr. Lloyd George in forcing a General Election under existing circumstances."

The reasons for this nervousness among the capitalist parties are easy to see. Over the Continent of Europe a wave of Revolution is passing. Beginning in Russia, it has spread to Bulgaria, the Austrian Empire, and even to iron-drilled Germany. Its echoes are heard in Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, and other countries. While it is true that a Revolution seldom, if ever, occurs in a country just victorious in war, factors of unrest exist here to a degree that render the outlook distinctly uncertain. While prices of necessaries are still rising thousands of munition workers are being discharged, tens of thousands are working short time, and, according to Lord Curzon—

"In a few weeks' time there would be a million people out of work." —"Daily Telegraph," Nov. 21st, 1918.

And this is only the beginning. Further unemployment is bound to occur, while such demobilization as will be carried out will add to the number vainly seeking work. Wages will fall as a result, though prices may remain up for some time, and poverty and misery will increase as a consequence through out the land. The scandalous treatment of discharged and disabled soldiers, over 100,000 of whom have not received a penny piece in either pension or allowance, and the way in which the wives and widows of soldiers have been dealt with, add to the seething discontent and unrest now existing. These factors tend to have a cumulative effect, and there is no special virtue in the English channel that can prevent the wave of Revolution reaching here if the conditions on this side are ripe. There is at any rate the likelihood of widespread trouble, with riots, perhaps, breaking out in many parts.

It thus becomes important for the master class to have a "mandate" for the purpose of meeting the crisis. As Bonar Law put it: —

  "We are going to be faced with problems the nature of which we cannot foresee . . . and we ask you to give us authority to deal with them, not as delegates, but as representatives of the people of the country." —"Daily Telegraph," Nov. 18th, 1918.

Hence the hurry of this Election. Before the deluded workers awake to a realization of how they have been duped, despite their "victory" over Germany, the master class wish to be in possession of a "mandate" so that they can claim the allegiance of the armed forces should it be considered necessary to use these forces against the workers during troubles or disputes, as when aeroplanes were used to drop bombs on the workers in Italy when they asked for bread. One strong reason for the Coalition's expectation of being returned is the fact that, outside the ranks of the Socialists, no effective opposition is placed against their programme.

The only difference between the Coalition and the Liberal programmes is that the Coalition programme promises more than the Liberals.

Speaking at the Albert Hall on Nov. 14th, 1918, Mr. Adamson, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, stated that the first and most important plank in the Labour Party's platform was :—

  "That the men who did the fighting and are broken should be treated justly and humanely, and their wives and children should be cared for."

The Coalition programme promises this just as strongly.

Mr. Snowden, Mr. W. C. Anderson and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald have all issued manifestoes on behalf of the I.L.P. The nearest approach to a definite statement in these manifestoes—apart from the appeal for money—is that of Mr. Anderson when he says:—

  "We make war on slums, on pauperism, on poverty and slavery—on the cause of these evils—land monopoly and capitalist monopoly." —"Labour Leader," Nov. 14th, 1918.

There is here no threat of a war on Capitalism, but only on monopoly. Every Liberal is against monopoly—or says he is—while Lloyd George's Limehouse and other speeches are quite as strong a protest against "land monopoly" as Mr. Anderson's. There is no real opposition in these manifestoes to the Coalition programme.

Against all these supporters of Capitalism the Socialist Party of Great Britain wages war.

We fight to abolish the CAUSE of poverty, the CAUSE of wars, the CAUSE of our enslavement, namely, THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS OF LIFE.

While the capitalist class own these means of life the working class are their slaves. The capitalist class retain their mastery of society so long as they control the political machinery, the real instrument of their power. Once deprived of this they become themselves subject to those controlling that machinery. Hence their frantic appeals to the working class to vote them into Parliament. Look at the sinister unanimity of all these parties upon the necessity of maintaining the existence of the capitalist system. Mr. Lloyd George appeals for unity in face of the grave perils ahead. Mr. Asquith states that though he is a Liberal—

  "That will not prevent me, nor ought it to prevent anyone, from giving hearty support and fullest co-operation to any Government, by whatever name it is called, which grapples with the problem of reconstruction on progressive and democratic lines." —"Daily News," Nov. 19th, 1918. .

Mr. Ramsay MacDonald says : —

 "Now Europe has gained peace through, destruction, and the nations threaten to stagger out of war into anarchy. We are again called upon to help and save what is good in the remnants and rebuild on good foundations." —"Labour Leader," Nov. 14th, 1918.

Who is calling upon the I.L.P. ? When were they called before ? We are not told, but their avowed opposition to Revolution shows their friendship for Capitalism.

Fellow-workers. Every vote given to the candidates of these parties—Coalition, Liberal, Labour, or I.L.P.—is a vote cast for the retention and extension of Capitalism, in support of the cause of wars, and therefore of their recurrence in the future, despite all the lies told about the League of Nations. It is a vote given for the continuance of poverty, of unemployment, of want in the midst of plenty, for the working class.

The Coalition programme, the Liberal platform, the Labour Party's pronouncements, the I.L.P.'s manifestoes and President Wilson's points of peace are all schemes to steer the capitalist system safely through the stormy seas ahead. Therefore the working class should REFUSE TO VOTE for any of these candidates.

For this Election the Socialist Party are unable to put forward candidates. But the workers can still vote for Socialism if they desire it. Let the workers go to the polling booths and write "SOCIALISM" across their ballot paper as shown on our front page.

True ! this will not prevent the master class from being returned to power, but it will indicate how many are desirous of obtaining Socialism. It will surprise and wake up the scattered and unorganised Socialists to the need for joining the Socialist Party, to assist in its work, to extend its sphere and influence, and so make it possible for us to run candidates at another election.

We claim the WORLD FOR THE WORKERS and call upon you to fight for SOCIALISM.

The Executive Committee of 

The Socialist Party of Great Britain,

28, Union Street, London, W.1. 

December 1st, 1918.

By Which Means? Revolution or Evolution? (1918)

From the December 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The difference between evolution and revolution is simply a difference of time."

Thus spake a "brother" at a recent trade union branch meeting at which this scribbler was present. The fallacy shall be conscripted and made to serve a useful purpose in these columns. And it is the more welcome because it raises an important point at an opportune time.

Before we go any further it may be pointed out that the idea that evolution and revolution are one and the same thing except so far as they are differentiated by the time factor is really at the bottom of all the political activities of the "Socialist" reformists, so far, at all events, as they are not the outcome of deliberate and calculating treachery. The line of argument is, of course, that evolution being but a slower form of revolution, or as the reformists would prefer to put it, revolution being just evolution with "some move" on, "Socialism by evolution" — Socialism by reform, that is—is the line of least resistance, and therefore the correct policy to pursue.

If the premise that the only difference between revolution and evolution is a difference in time were correct the rest would be fair matter for argument; but the fact is that evolution and revolution are entirely different movements.

By social evolution we mean a gradual change in society by a process of development of the existing form. Revolution is a change by the destruction of the old social structure and the substitution of a new one. Hence it is seen that in reality the time factor does not enter into the matter at all. The difference is fundamental.

The question, then, resolves itself into this : is it possible for the present social system to evolve into another system—to pass, that is, by gradual change into a system different in all its parts ?

A social system is not a mere accidental aggregation of social customs, relations, and institutions, springing up haphazard side by side. It is a co-related whole, arising from a definite basis or foundation. Nor is this foundation a product of chance.

If we compare the present social system with say the feudal system of the Middle Ages we find a great difference in the main group of social characteristics. First, the working class of the present day sell their labour power in order to live, while the serf and peasant of mediaeval times lived by the direct application of his labour power, still under his own control, to the land and material in his own possession, and through instruments that were owned by him. Secondly, the whole of the wealth by which men live to-day is produced as objects to be sold, while under serfdom the people lived by wealth which was produced for use, and only the surplus of which was sold.

These differences in characteristics are of vital importance. The first means that the position of the worker has changed from that of the serf (and later the peasant) working for himself to that of a wage worker working for another, and therefore the whole life of the vast balk of the people has changed. The second means that the whole purpose of production has undergone a change, and instead of bread being produced to feed people, and clothes to cover them, and houses to shelter them, these things are produced for profit.

The thing I wish to emphasise is that these conditions of the respective ages are closely connected. How this comes about is easily seen. When the peasant works on his own land his first object is to produce food and clothing to satisfy his own needs ; such things are produced primarily for use, not for profit. If, now, the stage of development of the means and methods of production have not advanced sufficiently to enable the peasant to produce much more than enough for himself (as was the case in medieval times), then any extensive production for anything but use is out of the question. On the other hand, when a man pays money away as wages, he does so, in the modern world, in order that that money shall return to him plus more money. He records his action in a book, starting with the money he lays out and ending with the money he gets back. That increase is his object—it is his profit—it is that for which the wealth has been produced.

If we examine any of the main relations in present-day society we shall find that they are based upon the ownership of the means of living (land, mines, factories, machinery, railways, and the like) by some of the people. The effect of this is plain. Society must, first of all, be a society divided into classes—a propertied class and a propertyless class.

In savage society the land belongs to the whole tribe, who use it in common for hunting and seeking their wild fruits and grains. In such a society all have equal rights in the means of living, and there are no classes.

The whole character of society is thus seen to rest upon the property condition upon which it is based. Class society, with its social inequalities and class antagonisms ; production for profit, with its cut-throat competition, its swindling and sham and adulteration and shoddy produce ; wage-slavery, with its overwork and unemployment, its sordid and depressing poverty for the vast bulk of the workers ; these things make up the most important part of the social world from the workers' point of view, and they all are based upon the ownership by a class of the means of living.

We have said that in savage society the land was owned by the whole community. The reason is not far to seek. Agriculture was either not discovered or not developed. The land was only useful as a hunting ground, and therefore as the common land of the tribe.

When, however, the means of producing wealth developed, through the discovery and progress of the arts of agriculture and domesticating animals, to the point where labour was capable of yielding' a surplus of wealth beyond what was necessary for its maintenance, the way was open for chattel-slavery. Accumulated property became possible, and this forming a basis for a dominant class, the old democratic social system broke down, and class society, based on private property, made its appearance.

What we learn from this is that it is the development of the means of production that is the cause of social change. This is easily understood. As the industrial relations are the basis of society, and those industrial relations (which men enter into in making their living together) must be determined by the means which bring men together in industrial relations (the means of production), it follows that as these means develop social changes must take place. Let us see now what part evolution and-revolution play in these changes.

There are two movements to consider— first, the advance of the means of production ; secondly, the change in the social system.

As regards the first, no one will pretend that this is the outcome of any conscious effort of man striving toward social change. Improvements in the means and instruments of production, and in methods, are forced upon the controllers of industry by the competitive nature of their industrial system. This development goes on unceasingly, and is a true evolutionary process.

But mark this—however much these means and instruments of production may evolve, that evolution cannot of itself change the social system.

For instance, the unconscious development of machinery was not sufficient in itself to evolve society from a basis of peasant-proprietorship and handicraft to a basis of wage labour. Before men could be reduced to wage-slavery it was necessary to deprive them of all other means of livelihood— they had to be divorced from their holdings. In like manner, all the evolution in the world of the modern means and processes of production will not change their character of implements for the production of profit through the exploitation of wage labour. Their gradual advance may, nay does, prepare the way for their conversion into common property, but it does not shift in the least degree the ownership and control under which they exist. When these means of living ceased to belong to those who operated them they became the property of a class, and in spite of all their evolution they are still the property of that class.

No, evolution and revolution are not the same thing with a difference of time. The evolution of the technical resources of man it is true renders necessary certain changes in the structure of society, but such changes are always consciously wrought by the class which gains by them. They take the form of readjustments through revolution. As they are consciously achieved by the revolutionary class, so they are consciously opposed by the reactionary class—which means, of course, that they are realised through a class struggle.

To-day the instruments of labour have evolved to the point where they are ripe for their ownership and contrcl by society. As, generations ago, they divorced the workers from ownership, as a necessary condition of their further advance, so now they have banished their capitalist owners from all participation in the necessary operations of production. The type of capitalist to day is the shareholder— as such an absentee, a superfluity, who can be dropped out without creating any "aching void" or causing any disruption. Every operation of a productive character is performed and supervised by hirelings—members of the working class. The work of evolution as a preparatory force on the technical field is completed. Its further progress can only be coercive and educational.

At no time in history have the productive processes made an advance at all comparable to that of the past four years. The difficulties with which this is going to confront the capitalists of the world are foreshadowed by their wild clamour for a league of nations. The increased productivity of human energy resulting from the speeding-up and the tapping of lower stratas of labour-power (female, for instance) has produced a condition that fills the master class with apprehension. The surplus wealth—the product in excess of wages— which is about to be poured forth in all lands presents a problem of markets that is appalling, and from which the master class shrink in fear. So, in a frenzied attempt to escape the logical outcome of the evolution of their technical processes—war unceasing for markets —they endeavour take the step of "arrangement" through a "league of nations"—-a resource which logically leads to the regulation of industry.

As a matter of fact, along this road lies the only lengthy respite for the capitalist class. They themselves will be forced to try some method of controlling output (as for years they have done in certain directions, for example, the organised destruction of cotton by the American planters) as the alternative to war—which offers temptation to revolt. It is here that the danger of the theory that revolution and evolution differ only in time is most apparent. For the necessary accompaniment of the attempt to control production is to modify the wages system and produce a State slave system. To which end the reforms of the "evolutionists," who imagine that to "nationalise" is to socialise, are not antagonistic.

The social basis cannot evolve. To "nationalise" the railways, for example, is not to make them the property of the whole, but simply of the State—in other words, of the capitalist class. If they are run for profit, then the profit goes to relieve the master class of certain burdens which they would otherwise have to meet through taxes. If they are run on a "free service basis," then the workers, having no railway fares to pay, can work for that much less wages, and will have to. The same applies to housing. Free rent simply means that the capitalists stable their human cattle through the State instead of through the private landlord. And as with each of these "reforms" the ruling class will add some substitute for the lessened power of the whip that drives the workers into the labour market, the more of these "reforms" the "evolutionists" achieve the nearer are the workers to that State slavery in which the capitalists may attempt to find refuge from revolution.

Once again, the instruments of labour are the subjects of evolution—conscious as far as their increased productivity goes, unconscious as regards their effect on the social relations. The social edifice is, however, the conscious product of men. It is established and safeguarded consciously by the class which dominate under it, using all the forces, military and otherwise, at their disposal to delay the readjustment called for by the evolution of the means and methods of production. It becomes, therefore, a conscious struggle between classes—a class struggle between classes conscious of their interests.

What is indicated, therefore, is that the working-class fight for emancipation must be based upon the principle of the class struggle—which means that there must be no compromising, no political trading, no obscuring of the line of class cleavage. It must be based, further, upon a class-conscious proletaiiat—a working class conscious of their true interest and aim—a politically educated working class. It must take the form of a struggle for the control of the political machinery, since it is through that that the armed forces are controlled.

All these considerations point the way to the working-class voter at the ballot box. He must have nothing to do with any reform-monger. Only the accredited candidate of the Socialist Party—the man put forward and guaranteed by the political party of the working class, standing for the Socialist revolution and that alone, and asking for support on no other ground whatever—only such a candidate is any good to the workers. And no such candidate is to be found in any part of the Kingdom.

Nevertheless, every voter may cast a vote for Socialism by writing "Socialism" across his ballot
paper, and such a demand for Socialist candidates will not be made in vain,

A. E. Jacomb

Self-Convicted Thieves. (1919)

From the January 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Though the great Business War is over the sun is still shining for the "profiteer," and he is sedulously "making hay" while opportunity offers. His stereotyped reply to all expostulation is that material is scarce and wages high. Both these statements may be correct, but how any combination of them within present experience works out to the effect that two-and-half lbs of galvanised iron, wrought to the form of a common housewife's pail, at one time hanging fire at 6½d., should cost the present scribe 4s. 9d., wants a bit of understanding. But here is a little example which shows whether inflated prices are due to greater costs or to downright thieving.

During the recent election Parliamentary candidates had released to them paper, envelopes, cards ard so on. They got their permits, took them to their printers, and the latter, upon presenting them to the paper merchants, were supplied with the stuff.

But the galling part is this: the paper and other materials were released to the candidates at prices which were less than half those asked of the printer in the ordinary way. Thus paper known in the trade as "news," was released at 5½d. a lb, while the printer has to pay 11d. to 1s. 3d. for an inferior quality. (The pre-war price was about l½d. a lb.) Envelopes were released at 5s. 6d. per thousand which the printer for his ordinary business would have to pay 12s. to 17s. for.

Are the paper merchants losing on this deal? Are they themselves bearing the "great advance in the cost of materials and labour" out of gratitude to the politicians who allow them to carry on their shameless thievery with impudent impunity? They might well do so, but it is hardly likely that they are. No, nobody is losing on this reduction of prices to election candidates. That it has been done is simply a confession that the magnates of the paper trade are seizing the opportunity provided by the war to plunder on a scale they could never have dreamed of before August 1914. They boasted quite early on, when they were deliberately holding up supplies for higher prices, that they would have the price up to 1s. a lb before the war was finished. But they have long since surpassed this, and in some cases have more than doubled it. Down with the thieves ! Down with the canting humbugs who urge the workers on to butchery in the name of patriotism while they scheme in their palatial offices to wax fat on the reek of the shambles and wring loot out of the agonised needs of their war-striken victims ! The agents of these ghouls are shouting "Germany begins to pay !" It is time that we had a squaring up of accounts with the thieves nearer home.

Jacko.

The Blindness of the Workers. (1920)

From the June 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

In one of the world’s great novels, Dickens’s “David Copperfield,” occurs the following passage, the poignant significance of which appears to have been overlooked by the majority of even the most assiduous Dickensian students: “There was a beggar in the street, when I went down: and as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning : ‘ Blind ! Blind ! Blind !”

Whether Dickens realised the almost universal application of what he had written is a matter of conjecture. Probably all he had in mind was its application to the particular set of characters with which he happened at the moment to be dealing. But to the Socialist, looking around at the world as it is to-day, seeing the foolishness, the illusions, the ignorance, which go to make up the mentality of so many men and women, it would seem as though a film had fallen across the eyes of his fellow-workers, causing either what amounts to total mental blindness or to so distorted a vision as to preclude any possibility of the realities of life being seen in their true perspective.

We could adduce many facts to show how mentally blind the working-class people of the world are. At the outbreak of the late war, for example, the people of this country (and of all other belligerent countries) who up to that date had, and desired, no quarrel with their reputed enemies, were so blinded by the wave of patriotism that swept over them, originated as it had been by the training and teaching they had received in childhood and youth, encouraged as it was by the insidious propaganda instigated from press, platform, and pulpit, that thousands, hundreds of thousands, of them clamoured for permission to kill and be killed in what they thought was the interest of their country, by which they meant, one presumes, their own interest.

Needless to say, permission to so kill and be killed was graciously conceded by their masters and accepted by the poor, deluded fools who, not understanding their class position as wage-slaves, not knowing what was at the bottom of of the whole bloody business, thought in their blind folly that they were doing something noble and heroic, thought that they were fighting and dying to save for themselves and their descendants what they considered their freedom, to save their “national heritage,” their “share in the Empire,” their womenfolk and children from the bestiality and oppression which they were quite convinced would be their fate were the forces against which they were fighting to prove successful.

They could not see that the war was simply a struggle generated by rival groups of capitalists for the possession of certain favourable (from the commercial point of view) portions of the earth’s surface. They could not all see that the only freedom they, as members of the working class, possessed was the freedom either to starve or allow themselves to be exploited for profit by their employers. They could not see that their only heritage, national or otherwise, was the lifelong heritage of hard and sordid work (when they were not unemployed) nor that their “share in the Empire” had no substance in fact, but was only a magniloquent phrase very useful to politicians at election times for purposes of vote-catching. They could not see that their womenfolk and children were, and always had been, the drudges, the toys, the slaves of a system whose bestiality and oppression had never been equalled since the dawn of the world’s history. They fought, and died, and were maimed, for —what? For an illusion which had been given a semblance of reality by the vicious teaching and smart word-spinning of innumerable capitalist agents. The people fought and died in their millions and the nett result is that, from a materialist standpoint, they are still struggling to rise to the very poor level at which they stood prior to the war.

Again, when we come to examine the attitude of the workers in regard to their political representation, we find how in a similar way the blindness of the people operates. At the last General Election they were, in the main, carried away by what they considered was the need for stabilising the “fruits of victory”—one of the pet phrases of the war rhetoricians—and voted practically solid for the Coalitionists. They have since tasted some of the “fruits of victory,” and found the taste not altogether to their liking; so at the subsequent bye-elections they have largely voted in even a worse and more foolish way; that is, they have voted for the “Labour” candidates.

Doubtless exception will be taken, in some cases, to the statement that it is more foolish to vote for a Labour man than for a Coalitionist. But when one considers the confusion caused by these Labour misleaders, these advocates of reforms which they must know are useless and worse than useless to the workers, these mouthers of phrases full of the most fatuous cant and sentimentality, the writer is justified, he thinks, in his antagonism towards them and his statement as to the enormous harm they do.

All these men seem to consider is how best to get into Parliament so that by virtue of the magic letters “M.P.” after their names they may be able to draw their salaries of £400 a year, to serve (for a monetary consideration) on Committees and Commissions ; to obtain well-paid jobs on capitalist newspapers and magazines. How these activities benefit their working-class constituents it is impossible to fathom.

As a matter of fact, neither they nor anyone else can benefit the working class. The working class, as we continually reiterate, must work out its own emancipation. The veil of illusion must be torn away from before the eyes of the workers, and this will only come about as the facts of life bite deeper and still deeper into their mentality, and as the unwearied propagandist work of the Socialist Party comes more and more to fruition.

We do not blame the workers for their blindness to their own interests. Indeed, the question of blaming or praising anyone or anything does not enter into the Socialist philosophy. What we endeavour to do is to open their eyes to the facts appertaining to capitalism and the logical deductions to be drawn from such facts.

The Socialist may claim to be the oculist of the working class. His aim is to give sight to those of his fellow-workers who are wandering in the darkness of capitalist orthodoxy. So the work the Socialist Party has in hand—the work of making Socialists—must go on until a majority of the people see eye to eye with us and organise themselves with us in one united political party. Then, and not till then, we shall know that the dawn of the Socialist day is near, wherein the potentialities of life will, at last, have an opportunity of developing on sane and healthy lines instead of being forced into a groove of insane and unhealthy activities which are all the present system of capitalism can afford to its wage-slaves.

F. J. Webb

Editorial: The vote and its misuse (2018)

Editorial from the December 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The general election in Britain a hundred years ago this month was significant in a number of ways.

It was the first election to the House of Commons in which some (most but not all) women were allowed to vote and stand as a candidate. It was also the first parliamentary election in which all men had the vote, the belated achievement of the Chartist aim set out in 1838. In the war that had just ended, now presented as a war to preserve democracy, there was the ironic situation of soldiers supposedly fighting for this who didn’t have the vote (at least a third of them) lobbing shells at soldiers on the other side who did. But then, as we explained in last month’s editorial, the war was not about democracy but about conflicting imperialist aims.

Only one woman was elected – Constance Markievicz – but as she was a Sinn Feiner she did not take up her seat at Westminster but met with the other Sinn Fein MPs in Dublin in January 1919 to proclaim themselves the parliament of the Irish Republic (to be marked in Ireland by patriotic centenary celebrations next month). The IRA claimed legitimacy for its various bombing campaigns over the years on the basis that it had a mandate from the Sinn Fein MPs elected to the British Parliament in 1918, preposterously even up to eighty years later. To this day Sinn Fein MPs refuse to take their seats at Westminster as this would involve taking an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. That’s their choice though we have always said that this farcical act should not prevent a socialist MP taking their seat.

The result of the election was a landslide victory (outside Ireland) for supporters of the war-time Coalition led by Lloyd George, which the Socialist Standard of the time described as an ‘imperialist victory’. An election in France in November 1919 was to produce a similar result with a decisive victory for the war-time government – the Union sacrée – under Clemenceau. Even in Germany in elections in January 1919, with an 83 percent turnout only 5 percent voted for the breakaway Independent Social Democrats, the only party to employ an anti-capitalist rhetoric. Women there, too, were able to vote for the first time but most voted for the conservative Catholic and Protestant parties.

So Lenin was clearly (unfortunately) wrong in proclaiming that an epoch of world revolution had opened up after the end of the World War, his justification for the Bolsheviks seizing power in the name of socialism in a country that had none of its preconditions. But at least he recognised that socialism had to be world-wide.

The other lesson is that the vote is a weapon and like all weapons can be misused as well as used properly. In 1918 and 1919 workers in Europe, not to mention the United States, misused the vote to continue with capitalism and in Britain and France to return war-mongers to power. The Chartist pioneers must have been turning in their graves. In view of how the vote has been used since they still will be.

The Imperialist Victory. (1919)

From the January 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capital’s Coalition has swept the country at the election. According to reports the Coalition Unionists number 334, Co. Liberals 135 and Co. Labour 10—a total of 479 out of 706 members. The rest consists of 28 Liberals, 62 Labourites, 50 Unionists, 73 Sinn Feiners, 7 Nationalists, and, about 7 Independents. The Sinn Feiners are pledged not to take their seats, so they can be deducted, while 50 Independent Unionists may be counted on to support the Government on most occasions. By adding these to the Coalition and deducting the Sinn Feiners from the Opposition, we get 529 Coalitionists against a total combination of 104. 

Even this does not complete the tale, for several "official” Labour men like Hodge, Clynes, and O'Grady, are strong supporters of the war and the Coalition. The Coalition thus has the largest majority ever returned to Parliament.

The most striking feature of the Election is the almost complete destruction of the Liberal Party as represented by the followers of Asquith. Leader and lieutenants alike have been swept aside by the Coalition flood. To cover up this crushing defeat Liberal newspapers are claiming that the Coalition possess seats far in excess of the proportion of votes cast for their men, and that in numerous instances candidates have been elected by a minority of the votes cast. True, but when has a Liberal resigned his seat because he (as in several cases) did not obtain a majority of the votes polled?

On behalf of the Labour Party Philip Snowden and Ramsay Macdonald point jubilantly to the  great increase in the votes cast for Labour Party candidates, forgetting to mention that the number of voters on the new register is more than double that at the previous election, and secondly that a much larger number of Labour Party candidates were put forward than ever before. When allowance is made for these facts the figures lose much of their seeming significance. Nor is this all. A large number of the “Labour" votes were given by opponents of the Labour Party’s programme. During the brief campaign the “Daily News" repeatedly urged the Liberals to vote for the Labour man where the fight was between a Labourite and Coalitionist, and in constituencies where a Liberal and a Labourite were opposing a Coalitionist, to vote for the best man, irrespective of label. In some cases Liberal and Tory combined to make the Labour man a present of the seat, as in the case of Crooks, O’Grady, Clynes, Wardle, and others who were returned unopposed. “Colonel’' Will Thorne had the support of the official Liberal and Tory parties, and only had an “Independent” to fight. Hodge at Gorton, Walsh at Ince, Tyson at Westhoughton, and Wilkie at Dundee were free from official Liberal or Tory opposition. J. Jones, C. W. Bowerman, J. Sexton, F. Roberts, R. Young, J. Guest, J. Davison, W. Bromfield, A. Onions, and W. Adamson had no Liberal opposition to face, while Capt. Smith, G. Spencer, R. Richardson, W. Carter, T. Grundy, G. Hirst, J. Williams, F. Rose, C. Edwards, and W. Graham had no official Unionist candidate run against them. This absence of a straight fight against the other parties shows how little the  votes cast for these candidates can be claimed, with any justification, as Labour votes.

Neil Maclean, one time Secretary of the S.L.P., now a member of the I.L.P., owes his seat far more to his position as organiser to the Scottish Wholesale Society than to any “Labour” principles he may have professed.

To show it had no “class bias” Holland with Boston returned a “Labour” man—W. S. Royce— who twice previously had contested Spalding as a Unionist and who is a wealthy landowner in the district, though at the moment of writing it is not clear whether he had the official endorsement of the National Labour Party. Anglesey returned the first titled “Labour” man to the House in the person of Brig. Gen. Sir Owen Thomas. We are getting on! We shall have “Labour” Lords next if the “widening process” of the Labour Party succeeds.

To have secured 62 seats out of 368 contests, and that only with all this arrangement and assistance from the capitalist parties, shows how small is the influence and power of the Labour Party.

Despite its affiliation with the Labour Party the I.L.P. has done even worse, for out of 50 candidates that it claims only three were elected. Like its pal the Liberal Party it has lost all its leaders—Snowden, Macdonald, Jowett, Anderson. This shows how much the leaders depended upon Liberal votes for the seats they held.

The intense disappointment felt by them at this is shown when Macdonald declares—

  Unfortunately the Labour Party lacks in men . . who would enable it to perform the functions of an official Parliamentary Opposition.—'Manchester Guardian.’

That is adepts in Parliamentary trickery and bargaining like himself, Snowden says of the new men:

  There are amongst them some of the most reactionary of the Trade Union leaders. There are amongst them men who have been most prominent amongst the Trade Union leaders in supporting every reactionary proposal the Government put forward.—“Labour Leader,” 2.1 19.

And as the I.L.P., by its alliance with the Labour Party, has supported these men in their actions, it is clear that the real trouble is not the reactionary character of these men, but the fact that they are “in” while Snowden & Co. are “out.”

The National Socialist Party—the Hyndman-Lee section that broke away from the B.S.P. on the question of the war—claims eleven candidates, of whom six were returned. But with the exception of Dan Irving, these successful candidates were run by the official Labour parties. They are J. O’Grady, W. Thorne, J. Jones, Ben Tillett, and A. Hayday. All are prominent T.U. officials, ran as “Labour” men, and the N.S.P. had no influence whatever on their return. Irving’s long career of trickery and bargaining in Burnley has at last been rewarded. He will, of course, obey the orders of his political masters, the capitalists.

Both Liberals and I.L.P. are stating that Lloyd George did not desire so overwhelming a majority as it places him completely in the hands of the Unionists. Our Ejection Manifesto had already pointed out that he was the tool of the Imperialists and was completely in their hands before the Election, and therefore he will be only continuing in the same position in the new Parliament. The “Daily Mail” admits this when it says (31.12 18):—

  Sir George Younger Lord Downham (Mr. Hayes Fisher) and Mr. Bonar Law have manoeuvred our gallant little Welsh wizard into a position in which he is almost entirely dependent upon the votes of those whom he so vigorously denounced at Limehouse a few years ago.

No one knows this better than LI. George himself, but he hopes to persuade some people that he is independent, and repeats the trick he played in 1906 of threatening to resign if 'the "great” measures promised, are not carried through. Speaking at Carnavon on Jan. 1st he said

  If the Government did not do their best to fulfill the promises made he would no longer be head of the Government, but would go back to the people and ask for a renewal of their confidence. -“Daily News," 2.1.19.

This is just as much cant and humbug as his similar statements in 1906. The last Government broke all its pledges, but it had the vigorous support of LI. George in all its dastardly actions. The same will be true in the future. Whatever his paymasters order him to do he will carry out, no matter what promises are broken or what crimes are contemplated.

This Election has been a great victory for the Imperialists. Riding the wave of relief and excitement consequent upon the signing of the Armistice, they have regained political power with a largely increased majority, and will be able to carry out their schemes practically unhampered. The workers will presently see their new position is worse than the old one, that the masters are more strongly entrenched than ever, and that the struggle to retain the old standard of living will be intensified and more bitter than before.,

When they apply this knowledge they will set to work to return a majority of their own representatives to Parliament for the purpose of wresting power from the master class and using that power to establish the common ownership of the means of life, whereby all will be able to enjoy life in the fullest sense of the word.

Jack Fitzgerald

Editorial: "What Will He Do With It?" (1919)

Editorial from the January 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Martial Law General Election has come and gone. As was generally expected, the “Coalition” gang got there. They polled, in the United Kingdom, 5,091,528 votes, against 4,589,486 polled by the non-coalitionists. Thus they had a majority of 52 per cent of the votes cast. This astounding majority, we are seriously informed, overwhelmed David Ll. G. But, as showing how minorities fare under capitalist “democracy,” it may be remarked that this five per cent. vote majority gives the Coalition (leaving Ireland out of it) a majority of some 317 seats.

For us, of course, the election was bound to provide consolation prizes. It is sweet to observe that Butcher Asquith has got left, and it is sweeter than saccharine tablets to note that J. R. Macdonald has bitten the dust. The Liberal henchmen have proved who their masters are, alike in the defeat of men like Henderson and Macdonald who have been unfortunate enough to lose their masters’ support, and in the victory of men like Thorne who, openly flouting their “labour” crutches, clung frantically to the hand that doles them out their £400 a year, and found, if we may mix the metaphor in a good cause, that they had backed the right horse.

And now Lloyd George goes on to juggle with his promises. Pledged up to the hilt to Home Rule for Ireland, he is going to carry it with a vast Unionist majority! He is going to make a “beautiful new world” with a majority of the stoutest defenders of the old sordid and bestial working-class environment. Well, we hope the workers are about to learn a few useful lessons—and we think they are.

Another Election Lie.

At the fag end of the election campaign Lloyd George made a bid for the soldiers’ votes by declaring for rapid demobilisation and no conscription after the war. As to the first, we shall see presently what he means by that, but as for the second, he has warned us beforehand that he was simply lying.

Earlier in the campaign the wily one said that the question of Conscription depended upon the terms of the peace settlement. He was opposed to Conscription, he said, but if other countries had large armies—why, of course, and so on. He at the same time declared that Britain must retain her navy, which he said is a defensive force.

Now it must be obvious that if Britain is to retain her gigantic navy other countries are going to provide themselves with instruments of defence. The American Naval Secretary soon showed this when he declared that “It was his firm conviction that if the Versailles Conference did not result in a general agreement to put an end to naval construction the United States must bend its energies to the creation of incomparably the greatest navy in the world.” (‘"Star,” 31.12.18.)

It is sheer rubbish to talk of the Navy as being a defensive weapon. Lloyd George’s persistent claim that without the British Navy the Allies had never won the war proves that it was an offensive instrument of the first order. If it were merely a defensive weapon then it might be extinguished in a general disarmament. But Lloyd George says no, it must be retained. And Secretary Daniels, knowing that it is the factor in the control of trade routes, and therefore of.the world market, declares that America does not intend to be shut out of the world market.

And so there we are. The game is about to begin all over again—and nobody knows it better than Lloyd George. So when he says that he is in favour of no-conscription he is only lying to catch votes. He tells us the truth when he says Conscription in this country depends upon what obtains on the Continent, for that means that he is already preparing to institute it as an integral part of the “beautiful new world.”

Confirmation!

“If Germany had waited a single generation she would have had a commercial empire of the world.”

Thus spake President Wilson in Rome on Jan. 3rd. Strange, is it not, how our opponents and apologists for the war prove the correctness of our statements regarding the root cause of the conflict and belie their own beatitudes concerning the high ideals which have actuated the Allies. Can it possibly be that they find, when the bill is finally presented, and shows ten million naval and military deaths alone, to say nothing of the millions of other deaths for which the war is responsible, that the old shallow bunkum of honour and the like is really too absurdly inadequate, and that is better to rely on the truth—that it was an economic war?