Notes by the Way: Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution (1936)

The Notes by the Way Column from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution

The Daily Worker of June 16th published in full the new Constitution of Soviet Russia. It is a lengthy document containing much that will interest those who wish to follow developments in that country. Two small paragraphs, however, will tell Socialists almost as much as the rest of the Constitution. They are articles 12 and 118. The first contains the statement: —

In the U.S.S.R. the principle of Socialism is being realised: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

The second says that “Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work—the right to receive guaranteed work with payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality.” 

Those who know nothing of Socialist principles and who (like the Daily Worker) can see nothing strange in describing the Labour Party as "socialist,” will find these principles in no way remarkable; payment in accordance with the quantity and quality of work is, after all, the declared principle of every capitalist undertaking. Socialists, however, can only be amazed at the impudence of the Communists in trying to pass off as a principle of Socialism "to each according to the quantity and quality of his work.”

We have heard of another, quite different, principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Perhaps the Daily Worker will tell us why they have produced this corrupted version and on what ground they describe it as socialist.

Pigs “Better Housed and Fed” than Proletarians

Sir Benjamin Dawson, Bt., Chairman of the Bradford Central Division Conservative Association, recently alarmed his political associates by making a speech on the condition of the workers in Bradford. It happened thus: he read an advertisement asking for “coals for the poor and aged,” and he was surprised that such things could be necessary in view of the progress we are supposed to have made in the past forty years. So he made a tour of inspection.

“When I had finished my tour, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my country, thoroughly ashamed of the National Government, and thoroughly ashamed of the Conservative Party.

“The pigs on my farm are better housed and fed than some of the people I saw that day.’’—(From a pamphlet reproducing the speech.)

Sir Benjamin, as a mark of his sincerity, rushed off to the Conservative Association, told them what he had seen and what he felt, and offered to resign his chairmanship.

He went on to make some other pertinent remarks about the fact that poverty exists in the midst of plenty, and that those who have money can get what they want and where they want it— on top of Mount Snowdon if they so desire.

Nevertheless. Sir B. Dawson makes a common error in saying that "the cause of these terrible conditions is poverty, and poverty arises from unemployment.''

For years the S.P.G.B. has combated the false doctrine that only the unemployed are poor. Poverty exists for the employed worker as well. Consequently, Sir B. Dawson's remedy—shorter hours, so that the unemployed can be absorbed into employment—is no remedy at all, even if it achieved its first purpose of removing unemployment. Even if all the workers were got back to work, they would still be poor. Moreover, capitalism would continue to create more unemployment by introducing still more labour-displacing machinery.

A Hero of the Home Front

Mr. J. H. Thomas, war-supporter, did all of his fighting on the home-front, which gives an odd flavour to a remark in the Times editorial on the passing of Thomas: “He faced the emergency of war without flinching . . ." (Times, June 3rd, 1936.)

Quite a lot of us can face other people's wars without flinching.

A Question to a Labour Councillor

Speaking at a Conference of the Socialist League on June 1st, a Mr. F. R. Levy, of Stepney, said that he is a member of a council with sixty-five Labour members out of seventy.

The majority of them do not know the first little thing about Socialism or what it stands for. They are either out for a career or are there because some friend of theirs wants a job.—(Manchester Guardian, June 2nd, 1936.)

Mr. Levy went on to urge greater care in the selection of Labour candidates, which misses the most important point about the whole matter, that is, the character of the vote behind the elected delegate. There will be no progress towards the conquest of power for Socialism until the electorate is Socialist, when it will give a mandate for Socialism. If Mr. Levy desired to help Socialism on he could begin now by fighting elections on one demand only—Socialism. We know it is safe to say that the whole of the Labour candidates, at Stepney and elsewhere, do nothing of the kind. Instead they solicit votes on a programme of reforms of capitalism, thus delaying the day when the workers will realise that their only salvation is in Socialism.

Mr. Chamberlain*s Understanding of Capitalism

Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech in Parliament on May 20th, made two admissions of interest to Socialists. The first was an admission that capitalism will in due course produce another trade depression.

. . . . I accept the broad principle that these things do work in cycles, and I have to look forward to the time when we may expect in the natural course of things that trade activity will diminish instead of increase.—(Hansard, col. 1266, May 20th, 1936.)

(It is worth noticing how Mr. Chamberlain unconsciously identifies capitalism with nature, and says “in the natural course of things" when he should say “in the capitalist course of things.")

The second point (col. 1,263) discloses the way in which a capitalist financial expert views expenditure on old-age pensions, unemployment, etc. Another M.P. had said, “Why not raise wages and scrap the expenditure on the social services ?" Mr. Chamberlain replied as follows:—

I did not quite apprehend how my hon. Friend thought it would be possible to provide that the rise in the wages of the workers could be so general, widespread and universal as to give them the equivalent for the social services they would lose.

Mr. Chamberlain here admits the Socialist contention that social services are an alternative to wage increases, and his references to "spreading" explain why the capitalists prefer the method of social services. A wage increase will be largely spent by the workers on satisfying the immediate needs of themselves and their families, and still leave the capitalists to provide for the destitute and for the big increase of unemployment during times of crisis. In other words, the social service method is cheaper.

French Capitalists Provide German Armaments

The following is taken from an article in the American Industrial Worker (April 18th, 1936), written by Pierre van Paassen: —

France is arming Germany! Her munitions makers, like those of other lands, know no fatherland but profit.

If Herr Hitler felt strong enough March 7th to defy the world, tear the Locarno Treaty to shreds and install himself on the Rhine with heavy artillery, monster tanks, mobile forts of steel and bombing planes, this was made possible by the French mining trusts.

Seventy-five per cent. of the steel in Germany’s artillery and other war equipment comes from France. Seventy-five per cent, of the shells and bullets which are going to kill French soldiers or the soldiers of nations allied with France in an eventual war with Germany are of French origin.

An average of 60 freight trains loaded with iron ore left France every day in 1933, 1934, and 1935 for Germany. The rate of export is even higher in 1936.

An expert, Paul Allard, has figured out that of every two shells Germany fires off in the next war, one will be of French origin. That is to say, one out of every two shells fired by Germans to kill Frenchmen in the next war will represent a profit to the Comite des Forges, the great French steel trust.

The Co-Operative Movement Admits Defeat

The Co-operative movement is not only fundamentally different from the conceptions of such pioneers as Robert Owen, but even the restricted aims it set itself are now seen to be unattainable. The latter-day notion was that the co-operative trading and manufacturing organisations could beat the private capitalist traders on their own field and thus gradually drive them out of business.

The controllers of the movement now know that this is impossible. At the recent congress of the Co-operative Union a delegate stated that “after ninety years of co-operation they still had only ten per cent. of the retail trade in the country and only half of that trade was placed with the Cooperative Wholesale Society. Only one-third of that was manufactured in their own factories." (Daily Herald, June 4th, 1936.)

A still more amazing confession of failure is an advertisement issued by the C.W.S. itself, in the June issue of The Clerk. It is an appeal to readers when shopping at Co-operative stores to insist that articles purchased came originally from the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and not from a private wholesaler or manufacturer. In other words, the retail Co-operative stores are refusing to buy Co-operative goods themselves, doubtless to a great extent because they can make a bigger profit by handling the better-known products of private manufacturers.

Illusions about Russia, Sweden and France

For years the Bolsheviks complained, with good reason, that the capitalist Press was filled with reckless or deliberately lying statements about conditions in Russia. It would appear that many Communists decided that the best answer to one lie is another. Consider, for example, the following utterly untrue assertion about Russia, which appeared in the Daily Worker (June 1st, 1936), from their own Moscow correspondent: —

In the U.S.S.R. Socialist society has been built.

This is untrue, and the Daily Worker knows it.

Another ridiculous statement, this time about Sweden, was made by the City Editor of the Daily Herald on June 8th, 1936. Mr. Francis Williams there tells us that the administration of capitalism in Sweden by a Labour Government is an instance of “ Socialism in action."

There is this difference between Mr. Williams and the Daily Worker, that Mr. Williams just does not know any better.

A third statement, about France, was made by Major Attlee, leader of the Labour Party. Writing in the Daily Herald (June 15th, 1936), he said: —

There are many people who have maintained until now that Socialism could not be introduced without bloodshed. The French Government is showing that it can.

All three statements are entirely without foundation, and such lies or ignorance do untold harm to Socialism.

The Friends of J. H. Thomas

The Daily Worker (May 25th, 1936) celebrates the eclipse of Mr. J. H. Thomas by telling us that they always knew he was a friend of the ruling class and an enemy of the workers, right back to 1926, 1921, 1919 and 1911—the dates of various noteworthy betrayals.

All of this may be true, but will the Communists now tell us why they persisted in playing Thomas’s game by telling the workers he was a fit and proper person to have their votes and represent their interests in Parliament after 1911, after 1919, after 1921 and after 1926? Even after the General Strike the Communists continued this policy, and mentioned J. H. Thomas by name as one of the Labour M.P.s they would not oppose. (See Communist Review, February, 1928.)

Saving the Girls from Vice

Reynolds' News, advocate of the stupid policy of trying to improve capitalism with reforms instead of abolishing it, neatly gave its whole case away in its issue of May 17th, 1936. It published an article on “Soho’s Vice Racketeers,” and demanded instant action to stop landlords from drawing high rents from brothels. This is how the article ends: —

Fifty years have passed since W. T. Stead aroused the sleeping conscience of the nation by his Pall Mall revelations of “The Maiden Tribute." The M.P. who takes the lid off Soho now will startle the British nation even more.

So fifty years after one reformer reformed London, the position is more startling than ever. So let’s pretend to reform it again.

In reformist circles this is known as progress! 

The Half-Brotherhood of the Sea

The building of luxury liners for plutocrats, while the bulk of the population is underfed and miserably housed and clothed, is a mark of the rottenness of capitalist civilisation, and the way the reformists from Labour to Fascist have rushed in to praise it is a mark of their essentially reactionary attitude. The maiden voyage of the “Queen Mary” led the Daily Herald to publish a sticky editorial about the “comradeship of the sea which transcends national boundaries.” (May 28th, 1936.)

So little does the sea differ from the other i fields of competitive profit-seeking that the very next day the Herald published a fierce attack on the Russian Government for carrying timber in Russian and other non-British ships, "in which wages are lower than those of the British and Scandinavian ships which used 'to handle most of the trade.” (Daily Herald, May 29th, 1936.) The Herald calls it “blacklegging on British shipping and undermining its wage standards,” and adds that it “is not going to be quietly tolerated.”

Surely this is not comradely language to use towards fellow seafarers?

And while we are on the subject, what about the T.U.C.’s policy of excluding coloured seamen from British ships, even coloured seamen who are British subjects? The Indian Labour movement has long protested against this still less comradely attitude.

This Jewish Business

The attempt by German Nazis and British Fascists to explain everything under the sun by reference to the 400,000 Jews in Germany and the 350,000 in Britain (fewer than one per cent. of the population) leads them into curious situations. The German doctrine of a pure, noble, non-Jewish, Nordic race, made even Mussolini laugh. He pointed out that the originators of the idea of a “chosen race” were the Jews themselves. Mussolini has never hesitated to employ Jews as his Ministers and assistants. In Austria, where he finances and controls the "Heimwehr,” a Fascist movement, one of his principal allies and friends is Otto Mandl, who is also political adviser to Fascist Prince Starhemberg and owner of the great Hirtenberg Arms Factory. Mandl is a Jew. (See Evening Standard, October 21st, 1935.) Not for that reason, but because he is a typical capitalist, he supplied arms and munitions both to the Nazis and to the Heimwehr, although they were fighting each other.

In England, Sir Oswald Mosley’s organisation attacks the Jews, and is in turn attacked by Lieut.-Col. Hutchison’s organisation for being the friend of Jews. Truth, published by Hutchison's “National Workers’ Party of Great Britain,” shows a photograph of Mosley speaking at Birmingham Town Hall on September 25th, 1931, at a meeting of the New Party. “ On Mosley’s left is Kid Lewis, Jew boxer. . . . Forming a trio, arm-in-arm, is Mr. W. E. D. Allen, son of David and Sarah Allen, nephew of Samuel Allen; some time M.P. for Belfast. . . . Behind Allen is Peter Cheney, another Jew. . . . The lawyer employed by Sir Oswald Mosley and the Blackshirts is Mr. St. John Hutchinson, whose daughter, in 1935, was converted to Judaism, and married a Rothschild.”

One of the queer errors into which such nonsense betrays its adherents was illustrated in a recent issue of the Blackshirt, which saw fit to comment on The Socialist Standard being sold at a meeting by an individual in whose features the sharp-eyed Fascist thought he discerned Jewish characteristics. As it happens, the individual in question is indeed of mixed stock—pure British “aryan” mixed with Italian; not a trace of Jewish  blood!

But enough of all this rubbish. Individuals are the product of a variety of moulding forces, and the environment of a segregated Jewish group doubtless plays an important part, but dominating all sectional environments is capitalism, with its class divisions and the exploitation of one class by another. The struggles of the exploited to compete with each other for employment, and at the same time to resist the employers, are more important in determining the individual’s conduct than the fact of being Jewish or Gentile.

The only really useful contribution towards ridding society of the unpleasant characteristics of exploiters and exploited is to strive for the abolition of class ownership of the means of production and distribution, and this the Fascists are not doing. What they are doing is to provide a political cloak (or rather, a shirt) under which individuals can promote private vendettas and commercial rivalries against Jews. Most of the anti-Jewish activity is' of the kind mentioned by the Manchester Guardian's Warsaw correspondent: “Many peasants attack Jews merely for looting their shops rather than for other reasons." (Manchester Guardian, February 10th, 1936.) The remainder is mainly blind discontent with capitalism misdirected by Fascists into these useless channels.

Edgar Hardcastle

Here and There: A Labour Party Trumpeter (1936)

The Here and There column from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Labour Party Trumpeter

Mr. Herbert Morrison has been on a lecture tour in the United States of America. His object was to interest American audiences in the League of Nations and the policy of the British Labour Party. According to a report in the Chicago Daily News for April 24th, he said: —

I think there is misunderstanding about the British Labour Party, because you haven’t had many visitors who represent average official opinion of this Party; more of your visitors have represented the extreme Left Wing of the Party or else the Independent Labour Party, which fights us. A British Labour Government would be well fitted to co-operate with your country whether it has a Republican or Democratic Government.

In effect, Mr. Morrison is saying that the Labour Party is “well fitted" to administer the capitalist system. As Socialists we do not need to be assured of this. We have said so for thirty years and more. Members and supporters of the Labour Party who have denied it, might, however, ponder the point again.

 

I.L.P Confusion and Hysteria

The above quotation from the Chicago Daily News was reproduced and unfavourably commented upon in the New Leader for May 29th, in a column headed "This is Capitalism." The I.L.P. boasted for many years that the Labour Party was its child. And a proud parent it was, too. But after thirty years of telling the workers that the Labour Party was “Socialist," the I.L.P. discovered that it was not. After taking so long to discover that the Labour Party is not a Socialist party, it could reasonably be assumed that it would not easily be forgotten. Let us see. The New Leader for May 22nd discusses the various proposals for a "United Front." It dismissed the idea of a "People's Front," such as exists in France and Spain, and which includes Liberals, as unsupportable because of its capital character. The I.L.P. argues for a "Workers' Front."

It is a united Working Class Front without any alliance or compromise with the Liberal and League capitalists.

It is a united Working Class Front between the Labour Party, the Co-operative Party, the I.L.P., and the Communist Party on a maximum agreed programme, with liberty of criticism and action beyond this programme.

It is common action between them on a Federal basis—an alliance of partners, not a rigid and unreal unity such as affiliation to the Labour Party would involve—in order to join forces against our common enemy the capitalist class and its political parties, and to realise common aims.

It will be noticed that the I.L.P. refuses to enter an “alliance or compromise with the Liberal and League capitalists," but will enter a “United Front" with the Labour Party (which it denounces as a capitalist party) "in order to join forces against our common enemy, the capitalist class and its political parties, and to realise common aims." Join with capitalist parties to fight the capitalist class “to realise our common aims." Phew!

Again, in the New Leader, May 29th, Mr. John McGovern, M.P., in a letter to the Editor, complains that the Editor of the I.L.P. inter-party journal, Controversy, deleted a statement from an article by him (McGovern) that C. A. Smith, Fenner Brockway and C. L. R. James had stated that they “would bear arms and join the army if they were in Abyssinia . . .  on behalf of the Emperor."

In his reply, C. A. Smith rises to noble heights: ". . .  I now repeat that had I been in Abyssinia only conflicting duties or sheer cowardice would have prevented my fighting against the Fascist invaders." Twenty years ago the capitalist class persuaded millions of workers to fight in war for capitalist interests with the cry of “Defend poor little Belgium." To-day, Mr. C. A. Smith, a leader in the self-styled revolutionary I.L.P., has let himself into a similar trap. Poor Abyssinia! Drive out the Fascist invaders! For whom and for what end?

Communists and the Labour Party

The Communist Party has applied to the Labour Party for affiliation. The correspondence relating to the application has been published in a penny pamphlet by the Communist Party. In one letter to the Secretary of the Labour Party, Mr. Pollitt says: “The Communist Party, if affiliated to the Labour Party, would certainly work, as many of your most energetic and sincere members are now working, to strengthen the policy and principles of the Labour Party for the achievement of Socialism, in accordance with the democratic principles provided in the Labour Party constitution, and would at the same time in the daily struggle loyally carry out all agreed upon decisions and mobilise all upon whom it has influence to take part."

Mr. Pollitt goes on to speak approvingly of the “People's Front" as it exists in France. He asks of the Secretary of the Labour Party: “Is it not a fact that the United Front has saved France from Fascism ? Is it not a fact that so profound has this experience been that the United Front has broadened out into the People's Front, embracing large sections of the middle class and all who fear Fascism and war."

Notice "embracing large sections of the middle classes." Even Mr. Pollitt, accustomed as he is to right-about-face changes in Communist Party policy, hesitates to point out that a People's Front on the French model means an alliance with the Liberals. Workers whose memories are not so conveniently short as Mr. Pollitt's will remember that not so long ago the Labour Party was referred to in communist journals as "traitorous," “Social-Fascist" and "war-mongering." The Labour Party has not forgotten, and there seems no prospect of a " United Front " just yet! It is an amusing thought, though, that we may yet see the erstwhile advocates of the violent overthrow of capitalism reproaching the Labour Party for being “too extreme." It is really very confusing.

Poverty, Health and Housing

In a review of a book called Poverty and Public Health, by G. C. M'Gonigle and J. Kirby (Gollancz, 6s.), the News Chronicle (June 8th, 1936) gives some interesting figures on malnutrition and housing.

The close connection between wages and health can be seen from the following table: —

Wages 25s. to 35s., death rate 25.96 per 1,000.

"          35s   "  45s.      "      "    19.34  "       "

"          45s   "  55s.      "      "    19.23  "       "

"          55s   "  65s.      "      "    15.13  "       "

"          65s   "  75s.      "      "    13.51  "       "

"          75s   and up,.    "      "    11.52  "       "

The death rate among workers whose wages are less than two pounds a week is therefore nearly twice as high as among workers whose wages are between three and four pounds a week.

Other interesting facts are mentioned. Far example, an investigation carried out in Stockton revealed that a slum population, after being moved to a new housing estate, was showing a death rate of 33.55 per thousand instead of the expected rate of 8.12 per thousand. That is to say, four times as many deaths as should have occurred were occurring among these ex-slum dwellers now living under “ ideal ** conditions. The plight of unemployed workers on new housing estates is particularly appalling. On one such estate it was found that the amount of money available for four was 2s. 10½d. a week per man. Contrast this with the cost of the British Medical Association's minimum diet, which in 1932 was 4s. 10½d., and which to-day. Dr. M'Gonigle says, is 7s. Our reformers, if they face these awkward facts at all, will doubtless advocate more reforms; reforms catch votes anyway.

Wage-Slaves and Health

Labour Management for February has an interesting article called “ One-Day Absenteeism,*' by Dr. Garland, the medical officer at a large factory which employs thousands of women workers. The doctor argues for greater tolerance for the worker who takes an occasional day off from work. The occasional day off would have a “tonic" and “stimulating" effect on return to work. Workers at the factory where Dr. Garland is employed are shut out for the day, and lose the day's wages, if they are not within the factory gates when the hooter blows. On the other hand, if the worker is away on account of sickness for one day or more, she (or he) does not lose her wages. The result is, according to Dr. Garland, that many workers who are absent because of being shut out in the morning, produce medical certificates to explain their absence for the day. Some of these certificates are for complaints that would lay the average person low for several weeks. The panel doctor in working-class districts apparently cannot afford to risk unpopularity by refusing certificates. His income from medical certificates, at one shilling each, even on a small panel of only 1,000 patients, means an addition to his income, according to Dr. Garland, of probably one hundred pounds a year. On the other hand, says the doctor, “The average worker is rarely feeling so fit and sound that he or she hasn’t an odd pain or ache somewhere that can be magnified into gastritis, enteritis, tonsilitis, or some other ‘ itis ' . . . ."

A curious mix-up which reveals how dependent is the position of the medical practitioner and how near many workers are to working no longer in this life.

Changes in Russia

The U.S.S.R. is introducing a parliamentary regime, or at least some of it. The much-vaunted Soviet system of “pure proletarian democracy" is to be replaced by a parliamentary form of government, which, until recently, was looked upon with withering and pitying contempt by the fervent communist. There are to be two chambers, direct voting, the abolition of plural votes (the town workers, under the Soviet constitution, had proportionately more votes than the peasants), the secret ballot, and much of the paraphernalia of western parliamentary government. Any organised group of citizens, we are told, will be able to include names in the list of candidates for parliamentary seats. Louis Fischer tells us in Reynolds News (May 31st, 1936), “The new Constitution contains numerous provisions sensational in their significance. For instance, an interesting declaration will be made about private property."

That declaration should be interesting.

Something else is interesting too. The Russian Government is seeking pacts and alliances with the western parliamentary countries. Shall we yet see another "War to Save Democracy" ?

The Passing of the Crisis

The Ministry of Labour returns issued at the end of May make interesting reading. The number of people at work reached the figure of 10,831,000, which is the highest in the history of unemployed insurance, and excludes the recent inclusion of agricultural workers in unemployment insurance. The number of unemployed was 1,703,941, as against nearly three million, three or four years ago. The facts are significant. Capitalism, once having reached the lowest pitch in the slump, recovered, and is now, once again, going through a period of expansion. There is nothing new in this; it has been the course in every industrial crisis for the past one hundred and fifty years. The pendulum in capitalist production having swung back must, by its very nature, swing forward again. But where are the shoddy economists, capitalist and self-styled Socialist alike, who only yesterday were telling the world that the end of the capitalist system was at hand? Have they relegated the end to an uncertain future date, as the Christians have the second coming of Christ ? The chances are that if the workers allow capitalism to continue long enough to have another crisis they will be prophesying as wrongly, dismally and noisily as ever.

It is curious how events can upset flimsy minds. The New Leader published articles about eight years ago eulogising American mass production methods. Henry Ford, we were told, had shown Marx to be wrong. The New Leader has since discovered many new “lines.” Others talked glibly of the crisis which had lasted since the last war—the mere fact of there being unemployment continuously since then was evidence enough, for them, of a continuous crisis. A little knowledge would show how capitalism really works. The recurring periods of depression and expansion, with the consequent increase and decrease in unemployment, are the very essence of capitalism. These in themselves will not bring it to an end. This will only be done when the.workers understand that the appalling poverty and insecurity which exist side by side with immense wealth in periods of depression and expansion alike, can be abolished by the social ownership of the means of life.

 

The Passing of a Labour Leader

Bruce Clavering has an article in the Sunday Referee (May 24th, 1936), about the life of J. H. Thomas. Certain facts stand out and emphasise how useful he has been to the capitalist class. In 1911, the article says, "the railwaymen wanted to strike. Thomas saw Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He launched an impassioned appeal, but Lloyd George was unmoved.  "I, too, am a Welshman/ said L.G.”

“Then the Chancellor made his own appeal. He pointed out that the Kaiser had issued a virtual ultimatum over Morocco, banking on the trouble in England keeping Britain’s hands tied. Thomas responded to the appeal and called off the strike.” 

"During the war he swelled the army with more recruits than almost any other single man. As an Englishman he was a patriot . . . . he achieved the best for his country and for himself.” 

Trotsky’s verdict on Thomas was, “This incredible lackey.”

Whether J. H. Thomas was sincere, insincere, rogue or fool does not interest us. He served the master-class faithfully and well, and in doing so was supported enthusiastically by the railway workers. His usefulness to the master-class and, to some extent, his popularity with them, was because he could command an enormous working-class following.

His life aptly illustrates the perils for the working-class in “leadership” and the need for the working-class to have knowledge of Socialist principles.

Harry Waite

Political Notes: It’s an honour (1983)

The Political Notes Column from the August 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s an honour

There has never been any reason to believe that Harold Wilson had designs to abolish himself so there must be some other explanation for the fact that, although when he was prime minister he announced that no more hereditary peers would be created, now that he is out of parliament he is reported to have accepted — to have wanted — such an honour for himself.

Of course this may be yet another — if especially obscure — example of Labour Party gradualism, of the theory that capitalism will eventually find itself ended through a succession of near-imperceptible steps. It is something over fifty years since the Labour Party announced that one such step would be the abolition of the House of Lords and Wilson's stated preference for the creation of life, as opposed to hereditary, lords was greeted as a gradualist move in the process of abolition sometime.

This enthusiasm — Labour supporters starved of real progress, have had to learn to exist on such contemptible crumbs — must have been dented when the police began to take a deep interest in several of the eminences so recently ennobled by Wilson.

Capitalism can do very nicely — as it does in places like America, France and Russia — without the tradition of dressing people up in funny clothes, pinning bits of ribbon and metal on them and giving them funny titles. Which is not to say that the system does not have some picturesque rewards for those who have given it special service.

Harold Wilson was one of these. He came to power through a skilfully worded pledge that working class problems could easily be conjured away through something called the technological revolution; that the micro chip would alter the basic nature of capitalism. Predictably, he and his government were soon bogged down in crisis. Their fine promises were forgotten as they grappled to deplete workers’ living standards. When they lost power they were thoroughly exposed and discredited and since then no more is heard of the harvest to be reaped from the white hot technological revolution. By any standards, a notable achievement by Wilson. He fully deserves his honour; capitalism has looked on him and found him to be good.

Head count

The debate over the restoration of the death penalty was loaded with moral considerations and much talk about the ethics of the judicial taking of life and the right of society to respond to a murder by itself murdering the killer. Almost everyone who took part agreed that this was a very important issue because with human lives at stake a careful and informed discussion was necessary. When it was over and the votes had been counted everyone could go home congratulating themselves for playing their part in such a highly charged occasion with full regard to their grave responsibility.

But what sort of problem were they talking about? If the death penally is restored so that it applies as it did before the Homicide Act of 1957 — before the introduction of degrees of murder — there will be about one execution a week in Britain. If a Bill goes through in this form, something like 60 people will die who would otherwise survive to serve a life sentence.

Now there is no denying that the death penalty is a disfiguring barbarity. There is no denying that the vast majority of murders can be said to be some sort of response to the inhumanities which capitalism imposes on its people, and which it expects them to survive with patience and conformity. But in comparison to the tens of millions who die each year through the simple fact that capitalism can’t meet the needs of the human race, the numbers who might be despatched by the hangman in Britain are insignificant. If MPs. and others who were convinced that they were arguing about moral issues, about the sanctity of human life, were sincere why are they so consistently able to ignore this massively greater death toll?

The answer is simple. The apologists for capitalism can discuss an issue like the death penalty, with its strictly limited scope, without ever needing to consider the wider and deeper responsibility of this social system for the problem. The whole thing can be talked out in terms of ethics, religion, insignificant reforms; when it is over capitalism is left undisturbed.

This is a much more comfortable way of approaching an issue, than one which might call into question the basics of society, their effect on people and the fact that this social system must degrade the people who keep it in existence. As so often happens, the debate on the death penalty was really about granting capitalism yet another reprieve.

Up school

Margaret Thatcher has not made her name as a political tactician of historic subtlety so perhaps she was unaware that, by sacking Francis Pym, she was depriving some of her opponents of one of their most cherished illusions. Pym's departure from the government meant that, with the exception of the increasingly ridiculous Lord Hailsham, there is now not one Old Etonian in the Cabinet — to say the least, an unusual situation for a Tory government and one to cause consternation in London's clubland.

It has always been a favourite left-wing pastime to tot up the numbers of Tory ministers who spent their schooldays at Eton and Harrow and to produce the result as proof that a Conservative government is in the hands of a small, privileged, self-perpetuating clique. At times, there seemed to be something to be said for this theory. Harold Macmillan, for example, seemed to go out of his way to give some top jobs, not just to Old Etonians but to those who were related to him. The lesson we were invited by the left wing to draw from this was that a government full of such high born people could not possibly understand, and deal with, the problems of the “ordinary” people and that we should therefore vote for a party with a less exclusive background.

Unhappily for this theory, we had the experience of Labour governments, many of whose ministers had not only not been to public school but had sometimes had very little formal schooling at all. Some of them were fond of reminding us of this, by applying an eccentric pronunciation which removed aitches from where they should be and stuck them back on where they should not be.

Jimmy Thomas was one such eminence; another was Ernie Bevin. Their place in political history is assured; they were zealous workers for the interests of the British capitalist class at no matter what cost to the class of their origin, the class which can't send its children to Eton or Roedean and which suffers the effects of the social system which Thomas and Bevin helped to administer.

Thomas, after a spell drunkenly contemplating the deepening misery of British workers in the slump of the late twenties, saved his miserable skin by joining the National government with the Tories and the Liberals. His aristocratic friends were much amused by his comical terminology. Bevin, among his many other achievements, saw British workers committed to the slaughter of the Korean war and the start of the British nuclear weapon programme.

The familial and social beginnings of the people who run capitalism is of absolutely no account. It is working class acquiescence in the system which is important. Without that the leaders would be impotent and redundant and we would have a society free of conflict and privilege.

Blogger's Note:

On the subject of capital punishment, this issue of the Socialist Standard also had a longer article on the subject: British rope trick

Notes by the Way: Are the Labour voters Socialists? (1930)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are the Labour voters Socialists? 

Dr. A. Salter, Labour M.P., stated in an article in the Daily Herald (May 2nd), that not 10 per cent. of the electors are Socialist. He said :—

“Labour candidates polled only 36 per cent. of the total votes at the last election, and of that 36 per cent. how many were those of convinced Socialists? I wish I could believe that 10 per cent. of the people of this country desire the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth !”

Dr. Salter correctly concludes that in face of this the Government has no mandate to introduce Socialism. But in that case, why are they in office, and why is Dr. Salter in Parliament?

* * *

A Labour paradise.

Bermondsey has long had a Labour majority on the Council. The uselessenss of the Labour Party’s policy of reforming capitalism is well illustrated by the following facts about Bermondsey, submitted in evidence to the Licensing Commission by Dr. Salter, M.P. :—

“One in seven of its residents is in receipt of Poor Law Relief. The population is homogeneous in the sense that there are no social strata as in most townships. The middle classes have long since removed from the district, and, owing to obvious residential disadvantages, a steady efflux has been going on for years of all those who could afford to remove to a more open and more desirable neightbourhood. Clerks and artizans have gone, and to-day the people left are almost wholly belonging to the unskilled and casual waterside labour classes. The middle class element is represented only by a small handful of clergy and doctors. There is no resident solicitor or barrister, no civil engineer, architect, or accountant. Most of the non-conformist ministers live outside the borough, and there is no cab-rank or bookshop.”

“Wages are very low, and the average figure for regularly employed adult male workers is well under £3 a week. At the end of 1928 and beginning of 1929 I made an investigation into the wages of 860 successive male panel patients, seen by me with regard to wage rates. I found that the average wage of those in regular employment amounted to £2 16s. 4d. per week.”

“Parts of the borough are very densely covered with a network of small, closely-packed streets and alleyways, while in other districts there are acres of high block dwellings of five or six stories, where the density of the population amounts to between 400 and 500 per acre.”

* * *

Railwaymen's leaders win a "victory" in the Irish Free State.

The officials of the National Union of Railwaymen have won a great “victory,” having obtained recognition from the Irish Omnibus Co. As is usual in such cases what the members have gained is not obvious.

The Great Southern Railway recently bought out the road transport companies which were robbing them of their best paying traffic. They promptly celebrated that move by attacking the wages and conditions of the workers in their road transport concern, the Irish Omnibus Company. The men struck work in April and succeeded eventually in getting the railwaymen to come to their assistance.

The N.U.R. officials had resisted a strike movement among their Irish Free State railway members, but were compelled to recognise the railway strike after it had begun. They then threatened a general strike for Tuesday, July 22nd.

A meeting took place—in secret—between the two companies and the N.U.R. leaders. It was followed by Mr. Cramp’s announcement of a great victory. The terms were that the railway strike was called off, all railway strikers were reinstated, and the N.U.R. was granted official recognition by the Irish Omnibus Co. No guarantee was given for the immediate or ultimate re-instatement of all the ‘bus company strikers, and nothing is said about the wage and other questions which led to the ‘bus strike in the first instance.

As we have often pointed out, the only saieguard against this kind of thing is that the workers on strike should keep the negotiations under their own control, and not entrust them to leaders to conduct in secret with power to accept whatever terms they think fit.

It need hardly be added that the Irish Free State Government, the Government for which misguided Irish workers fought helped the employers just as the British Government used to do before the Irish Free State became “free.”

* * *

St. Thomas the Martyr!

What the Labour Government has done for the Unemployed

Mr. J. H. Thomas, addressing the Conference of the National Union of Railwaymen, in July, 1929, said :

“I have been entrusted with the responsibility of seeing how far within the limits of our Parliamentary traditions and our resources of the State—and accepting the present order of society—how far it is possible to mobilise, organise, institute, and get going useful works for those now unemployed.” (“Daily Herald,” 6th July.— Italics ours.)

Three months later Mr. Thomas had done nothing, but had gained more confidence. In a speech at the Labour Party Conference at Brighton, on Tuesday, October 1st, he told the delegates :—

“I am confident that when February comes our figures will be better than the figures of the late Government.” (“Daily Herald,” 2nd October.)

When February came the figures had gone not down but up—by hundreds of thousands, which drew from his defender, Mr. John S. Clarke, M.P. (who used to worship De Leon, then Lenin, then MacDonald), the explanation that Thomas really knew all the time that unemployment would not fall, he knew that the

“world depression . . . was bound to increase before it showed signs of lifting ; that there was and is no permanent cure for unemployment under a system of private control.” (“Forward,” 31st May, 1930.)

Mr. Thomas, it appears, was really a noble fellow, “suffering a distressing martyrdom without complaint,” and lying for the sake of you and me. Anyway, Mr. Thomas’ luck was out, and in due course he transferred his £5,000 a year martyrdom to another Cabinet ministership. Now the number of unemployed on the register is over 2,000,000, which is the highest figure since the national coal strike in 1921, and represents an increase of 900,000 during the period of the office of the Labour Government.

* * *

Dean Inge studies Socialism.

Not long ago, Dean Inge was presented with a copy of out pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion.” We see that he has been profiting by it. In the course of a lecture at the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at Leeds on July 18th, he spoke about Socialism and Religion and put very plainly the fundamental antagonism between them. He rejected the possibility of Christ having been a Socialist, and the claim that Socialism is based upon New Testament teaching. Speaking of Christ, he said :— (Manchester Guardian, July 19th).

“It is hardly necessary to say that even if He had wished to lay clown a scheme of Socialism, and such an idea never occurred to Him, the conditions of Palestine under Pontius Pilate and Herod would have put it out of the question. His travelling missionaries were to live on alms like begging friars, but this proves nothing. His own little band seems to have carried a bag with money in it, and to have bought food when they needed it. Christ was a prophet, not a legislator.

Some people reject Christianity because they do not understand it; others because they do understand it. To the latter class unquestionably belong the disciples of Karl Marx, for what excites their passionate hatred of Christianity is precisely that idealistic standard of values which cuts the ground from under the feet of their savage and vindictive materialism. If Christ is right, Marx is utterly wrong.”

Except that materialists are almost always less savage and vindictive than idealists, this is just what we point out in our pamphlet. We are, however, startled by Dean Inge’s association of Rousseau and Marx, and by his statement that had there been no Rousseau there would perhaps have been no Marx and no Socialist doctrine.

Dean Inge goes on to repeat a statement he has often made, and which, in spite of being challenged, he does not attempt to prove. That is his assertion that communist-administered capitalism in Russia is the result of applying Marxian theories. It is one of the privileges of being a Dean that statements which are sound sense and statements which are clotted nonsense are alike accepted without question by nine people out of ten. This is bad for the nine people, and has a most demoralising effect on Deans.

P. R.

“Labour” Fails, Why Not Try Socialism? (1929)

From the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Had the Labour Government been prepared with schemes dealing effectively with unemployment they could not have set the stage and billed Mr. Thomas’ performance with greater assurance than they did for the drab fiasco that resulted.

All parties criticise his schemes for their inadequacy. His own party were not the least dissatisfied and critical. The “New Leader” pretended to see in his refusal to call himself a Socialist the real cause of his failure. That journal said (8th November) :

“The fault is not his entirely. Upon the Cabinet itself rests a very considerable measure of responsibility. Where, for instance, is the National Economic Committee of which such a great feature was made in “Labour and the Nation”? Where is the Employment and Development Board which was to take a lead in scientifically developing the National estate? Where are there signs of the harnessing to the State of the great Civil Servants who had such invaluable experience of mobilising the nation’s resources during the war?

But provided all this is remedied, Mr. Thomas must still fail unless he tackles the problem far more fundamentally than there is any indication of his doing at present.”

Because unemployment is fundamentally necessary to capitalism it must of necessity be dealt with fundamentally. Because it is the working-class that suffers from unemployment, only that class can deal with it fundamentally.

Because Mr. Thomas has no mandate from the workers to interfere with the basis of capitalism he can only attempt to palliate the evil. What is the difference between him and his friends of the “New Leader“? Merely a difference in the kind and the number of reforms.

Mr. Thomas, in order to pose as the friend of the unemployed, provides work for some of them out of the arrears of his predecessors in office. A system of fast and heavy motor traffic has been allowed to grow up on roads totally unsuited for it. The ever-mounting total of casualties has already forced Governments to act, but in a sluggish and inadequate fashion. Mr. Thomas has made a virtue of necessity; more than half the work he is so ingeniously (?) providing would have been done years ago but that capitalists and capitalist governments lack foresight and directive ability—the very qualities they boast of possessing.

“Mr. Thomas,” says the “New Leader,” “during the next few months may put some 50,000 people into employment— but at the same time rationalisation is putting others out of employment with increasing rapidity. Poor Mr. Thomas is like a man pouring water into a pail without a bottom.”

This is putting it mildly. Labour-saving machinery, new methods and rationalisation are all utilised in Mr. Thomas’ schemes, as well as the world over. Their effect is such that all the reforms conceived by the I.L.P., plus the good will of the capitalists—if that were possible—could not prevent unemployment increasing. What of other reforms? A Minimum Wage ! Capitalists will always pay that and no more without compulsion. Increase the Dole ! Then it is still a dole and must remain inadequate. Children’s Allowances ! On top of present wages ? Not at all likely while capitalists pay wages. These and many other reforms advocated by the I.L.P. have been exposed in the columns of the Socialist Standard.

Careful examination by the workers would prove their worthlessness. Those who advocate them do so with the ultimate object of doing what Mr. Thomas is doing : pouring water into a pail with no bottom, for a Minister’s salary and a place in the limelight.

The “Daily News” (14/11/29), commenting on Mr. Thomas’ failure, says :

“What the vast mass of the electors are thinking about all the time, however they may vote and however they may pray, is how they are to get work, how they are to keep it, or how they are to bear the burdens, which in one form or another the existence of a vast army of unemployed people imposes upon them.”

What is the natural deduction? That the vast mass of the workers are deeply concerned in a solution of unemployment. Not merely in some temporary expedient that will tide them over a winter, or bring the figures back to pre-war level. The need of the capitalist class is a normal army of unemployed, to drive their wage-slaves in the mad race for markets through the cheapening of commodities. The need of the workers is release from the nightmare of unemployment and assurance of the necessaries of life.

Capitalism in its competitive struggle shortens the labour-time required to produce all commodities; with the twin results of increasing unemployment and perpetual surfeiting of markets.

But unemployment is only one of the evils of modern society. Alongside it is a shortage, throughout the working-class, of all those things necessary to human well-being : houses, clothes, pure food, time and opportunities for recreation and enjoyment, etc.

This is the greatest contradiction in the history of human society. The vast mass of the people are in perpetual anxiety about their necessaries of life, or actually deprived of them. Yet millions all over the world are forced to remain idle and unprovided for when their labour, applied to the nature-given materials, could more than supply all needs.

It is no wonder that Mr. Thomas has failed. No one man, no government can remove, or even permanently remedy, unemployment. The problem is an indication of the underlying poverty and insecurity of the whole working-class. All are affected. The call for a conference of parties can only result in more water being poured into a pail without a bottom.

As all are affected, all must interest themselves. The need is great. It is for a working-class movement, intelligent, organized, and consciously directed towards controlling governmental powers, that the means of life may be owned by the people and controlled by them. Only by this means can unemployment be removed and only by the work ing class can it be achieved.

F. Foan

The nationalisation fraud. (1927)

From the November 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

While the workers are separated from their means of life, dependant upon the masters for work in order to live, all economies in doing that work mean fewer required. Nationalisation is one of those capitalist economies, and wherever it operates, as on certain railways, or over whole industries as in Australia, its effects have been detrimental to the workers. The capitalist class in control of political power will decide when and where privately run industries will serve their class better as State capitalist concerns, such as the Post Office. Despite empty phrases of Communist and Labour reformers, the workers will have no control what the masters own. “Forward” (13/8/-27), the Scottish organ of the I.L.P., says: “The whole of the Labour programme for the reconstruction of our two basic industries is based on the practicability of Nationalisation.” True, the Labour Party, with its lords, viscounts, parsons and capitalist financial support, require a programme that will win the votes of those who are tired of the orthodox parties, but it must appear to be one different from those parties. It must contain issues over which they appear to fight the capitalists, issues over which the workers can win a “great victory,” but which will still leave them workers as of yore. At the moment the Trade Union Bill and Nationalisation serve the purpose, as Home Rule, Free Trade, Votes for Women, etc., have done in the past—served to divert your attention from your slavery. But a problem confronts the Labour Party. With office and power looming in the distance, to make Nationalisation an issue would, with power conferred upon them, imply the necessity of introducing legislation to make it a fact : What would be the result? They would first lose a vote-catching stunt that has served them well when power seemed remote, but more important, its worsening’ effects upon the workers’ conditions would eventually disillusion those members of the working class who support capitalism masquerading as Labourism. J. H. Thomas, ambassador of class docility, sees this. Addressing an international gathering of school teachers on the subject of the practicability of Nationalisation, he told them plainly that as a Labour Party measure it is not practical now.

“Forward” (Ibid) quotes his statement from the “Manchester Guardian” (9/8/27), and appears to express astonishment. Say they : ”In the light of this, Mr. Thomas is surely entitled to give us an explanation of his statements at the Teachers’ Conference.” But stay! There is a gentleman whose photo appears on the same page as this request, from whom “surely” an explanation is due also. He is the Great God (capitals, please) of the I.L.P., Ramsay MacDonald. He saw the light sooner than J. H. Thomas, so is entitled to the first explanation. He has said : “I should not be doing justice to you or to myself if I told you that Nationalisation was going to get you out of your present difficulties; you know that I should be lying if I tried to spoof you in that way.” “Times,” (27 7/25). Here is a dilemma. According to this idol of the I.L.P., both they and the Labour Party, whose programme is based on the “practicability of Nationalisation” are lying and spoofing to you. Shall we be told it is not true because “we are only a small party,” or is it true because these more far-seeing leaders realise that things are only practical to them while they serve as vote-catching expedients.

W. E. MacHaffie

How we civilise the ‘heathen.' (1927)

From the February 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks for authoritative evidence to refute the suggestion that the introduction of Christianity and western civilisation into “backward” countries provides the benefit of a higher moral code. Our correspondent realises with us that this aspect is relatively a minor one subordinate always to the dominating fact that the lust which took white traders and factory owners to the lands of the black and yellow races is the same as that which governs their relations with white workers at home—the lust to exploit. The results, though they may vary in certain respects, are much the same and include in both cases the use of the whip of poverty to compel working-class women to sell their bodies for the pleasure of their masters.

During 1924 a question was raised on many occasions in the House of Commons as to the system of maintaining officially registered brothels in Hong Kong. Thus in reply to Lady Astor the Colonial Secretary, Mr. J. H. Thomas, stated (Hansard, July 15th, 1924) “the total number of registered brothels in 1923 was 296, but I am not aware of the dates at which any of them were opened.”

Earlier in the year (Hansard, March 17th), Mr. Snell asked Mr. Thomas “whether he is aware that it is part of the duties of a Government official in Hong Kong to pass young girls into the various classes of brothels in that colony ; and whether he proposes taking any action in the matter?”

To this plain question Mr. J. H. Thomas returned the following evasive answer : “The object of the practice to which my Hon. Friend refers is purely protective,” and on March 24th when again asked if he would abolish the system Mr. Thomas replied “We have to deal with it in a commonsense way.” On that day he also disclosed the fact that our Government carried on the same State enterprise in Malaya.

It is an old story but perhaps in this connection it may not be out of place to refer to the activities in this direction of the late Lord Roberts of infamous memory.

In 1886 he sent out to every quartermaster in the Indian army a circular memorandum containing the following instructions :—

“In the regimental bazaars it is necessary to have a sufficient number of women, to take care they are sufficiently attractive, to provide them with proper houses, and above all to insist upon means of ablution being always available.

“If young soldiers are carefully advised in regard to the advantage of ablution and recognise that convenient arrangements exist in the regimental bazaar they may be expected to avoid the risks involved in association with women who are not recognised by the regimental authorities.”

(It may be remarked in passing that the results for the young soldiers were almost as deadly as for the unfortunate women.)

Full particulars of this practice in India are contained in “The Queen’s Daughters in India,” from which the above and the following quotations are taken :—

“The orders specified were faithfully carried out under the supervision of commanding officers, and were to this effect. The commanding officer gave orders to his quartermaster to arrange with the regimental official to take two policemen (without uniform) and go into the villages and take from the houses of these poor people their daughters from fourteen years upward, about 12 to 15 girls at a time. They were to select the best looking. Next morning they were all put in front of the colonel and quartermaster. The former made his selection of the number required. They were then presented with a pass or licence and then made over to the old woman in charge of this house of vice under the Government. The women already there who were found diseased had their passes taken away from them and were then removed by the police out of the cantonment and these fresh, innocent girls put in their places—to go the same way home.”

In conclusion it only needs to be pointed out that this particular expression of the higher Christian morality is not the monopoly of Great Britain.

Edgar Hardcastle

Lord Hailsham, J. H. Thomas and King Canute (1963)

From the April 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

What connecting link is there between these three worthies, two dead and one living? The two first-named are easily bracketed. Lord Hailsham, Minister in a Tory Government is dealing with unemployment problems, thus re-enacting the role that J. H. Thomas took on for the Labour Government under Ramsay MacDonald in June, 1929. As Lord Privy Seal and Minister of Unemployment he was aided by Sir Oswald Mosley, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and George Lansbury, First Commissioner of Works: both of whom seem to have held the opinion that J. H. Thomas and other members of the Government were problems as difficult as unemployment.

The story is told in the biography, The Right Honourable, by H. R. S. Phillpot, published in 1932, in a chapter suitably called “Beaten by Unemployment.”

Unemployment was already a serious problem before the Labour Government was formed. Thomas and other Labour Party leaders had been campaigning up and down the country denouncing the apathy and callousness of Prime Minister Baldwin and promising to put things right if returned at the election. Thomas concentrated on unemployment, “made it his speciality, worked at it, talked of it and helped to devise plans to arrest its dreadful progress”

He argued that it would be a good idea to pay 10s. or 15s. a week to workers over 65 to get them to retire and make room for younger workers. He attacked armaments. Europe, he said, was like an armed camp. The nations were spending millions on armaments which, if they spent on production, would help to solve the problem of unemployment.”

Can he really not have noticed that this would simultaneously create unemployment among armament workers and soldiers? There are plenty of people as muddled today, so perhaps it was beyond him.

He favoured building the Channel Tunnel, and raising the school-leaving age to get 400,000 teenagers off the labour market, and when he became Minister he went travelling in Canada to pick up markets for British exports—in Canada he can hardly have failed to notice that there were other gentlemen trying to solve their own unemployment problem. He discussed the problem with spokesmen of the employers and the trade unions.

Some of his oratorial efforts read remarkably like statements made today: "Curing unemployment, he argued, would cost money, but no cost could be too great if by incurring it the progress of demoralisation could be stopped.”

But two years later as a member of the National Government he was supporting government economy measures to cut down the spending of money.

He and the Labour Government rejected the rival schemes for curing unemployment put forward by Lloyd George and the Liberals. Lloyd George (advised by Keynes, among others) favoured the idea of the Government raising big loans and spending the money on the schemes which would create jobs.

Thomas argued that this could only be a temporary measure, whereas what was wanted was something lasting: a complete overhaul and modernisation of the depressed industries to make them competitive.

But he didn’t get any results either short-term or long-term.

His biographer wrote: “The special duty entrusted to Mr. Thomas was that of curing unemployment. It was, of course, an impossible duty. Whether he realised how impossible it was nobody knows, but he undertook the task which eventually proved too much for him.”

When Thomas took on the job of wiping out unemployment it stood at 1,164,000. Six months later it had jumped to 1,344,000 and in 12 months, to 1,911,000. Two years from the start it exceeded 2,700,000.

Which brings us to King Canute. The legend credits him with the modest desire to convince his courtiers that even a crowned head could not command the tide to recede. If he had been a modern politician he would have ordered things differently. He need only have taken up position at high tide, just before the turn, and he could have got away with it.

The story is that that is just what J. H. Thomas thought he was doing. He is said to have consulted a well-known economic expert before taking on the job. and only took it on being assured that the economic tide was about to turn and unemployment would fall.

Perhaps Lord Hailsham will he luckier in his timing.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Survival of the Fittest. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as consequently there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, it vary however slightly, in any manner profitable to itself under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life will have a higher chance of surviving and will thus be ‘naturally selected.'” Introduction to “The Origin of Species,” C. Darwin.

This generalization in Darwin’s epoch-making work, the result of a lifetime of study of the evolution of organic life, can with equal force be applied to the evolution of the organism known as Society. Modern capitalist society—the outcome of many thousands of years of development—depends upon the individual and collective effort of the workers. The sum total of all these efforts results in the production and distribution of all those things which provide the comforts and wants of modern civilization.

The millions of unemployed workers throughout the world are perfectly conscious of a desire to use their energies, their manifold capabilities, to this end, but they are unable to find a suitable opportunity. It is obvious that, in order to live, mankind is forced to make such efforts as will wrest from mother earth those things which will satisfy his needs. The earth is ready to hand—but !—and there’s the rub—the unemployed worker finds himself obstructed by a code of laws and regulations which says, in effect, that the land belongs to various individuals—a distinct and separate class in society. It is the nature of this legal code, this property right in the private ownership and control of the source of the means of life which the workers have to enquire into. It comes to this, therefore, that by a generalization similar to the one made by Darwin quoted above, the organism known as society can be divided, in the main, into two classes :—

1. The class who possess but do not produce—the property-owning master class, and

2. Those who produce but do not possess—the propertyless working class.

The socialist, therefore, may be said to vary from the rest of the members of his class, as a result of a consciousness of this division of society into classes. Let us now examine in what way such variation makes for ultimate survival of himself and his class.

The socialist, being class-conscious, recognises that there is a constant struggle going on between the two classes referred to. He probes into the nature of this struggle, and as a result of his study of the economic conditions and the political history of capitalism, is forced to the conclusion that it is through their control of the political machinery of the state that the master class—the owners of the means of life—are able to subject the working class to their wage-slavery position.

The long history of the struggle which has taken place between these two classes is admirably expressed in the life-long labours of Karl Marx, in whose writings is revealed the nature of the struggle and the historical mission which confronts the working class, so far as the future reorganisation of society is concerned.

Inherent in the capitalist system is an antagonism, a conflict of interests—the class struggle. Leaving aside for the moment periods of trade depression, when such conflicts of interests between the workers and the masters is glaring and needs little illustration, let us examine the conditions when so-called peace prevails. Even then the struggle still goes on; the struggle on the part of the worker to obtain as much by the sale of his labour power as he can get, and the struggle on the part of the master to buy that labour power at the lowest possible rate. Employers of labour compete for the world’s markets. To do this successfully, up-to-date machinery, the very latest equipment and industrial organisation, efficient workers, are essential for this success.

Further, the workers also compete with one another for jobs. Non-unionists, blacklegs, the introduction of women and juveniles into industry, all tend to keep the workers’ wages, in the aggregate, down to the bare cost of subsistence.

Despite all these obvious facts, we have the Rt. Hon. J. H. Thomas, the railwaymen’s leader, making the following observations in a speech on the occasion of the opening of the Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire at the Guildhall. London :—

”Cheap labour is bad, but while we demand the best, we should be in a position to give the best in return. That can only be done by sweeping away that absurd and dangerous doctrine that the Empire belongs to one class or section of the community. Nothing is more dangerous than that doctrine of class hatred” (Daily Herald, 2nd July, 1924).

If the worker will compare the above with our brief analysis of the workers’ position, he can only come to one of two conclusions, either that Mr. J. H. Thomas is a fool or a deliberate distorter of the facts of every-day working-class experience.

Utterances like these are typical of modern labour leaders. They are attempts to blind the minds of a credulous working-class following, in the hope of reward from the ruling class, when the plums of office are being distributed. By such servile conduct do labour leaders endeavour to prove their fitness to survive—at the expense of the working class.

It would be interesting, however, to know why J. H. Thomas considers the doctrine of “class hatred” so dangerous. He and his kind conveniently forget to explain their reasons. On the other hand, is it likely that a recognition by the workers of their class position tends to make them love the system which crushes all their aspirations? Of course not. The more the workers become convinced of the nature of the class struggle, so will their respect and reverence for their “betters” dwindle, and to that extent will their worship of trade union and political leaders diminish.

In conclusion, therefore, we repeat that the fundamental principle of Socialism is based on the recognition of the class struggle. The workers will prove their fitness to survive by associating themselves with the work of the Socialist Party. That work consists in resolutely organising for the dethronement of Capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. Naturally this work falls upon those who will benefit therefrom, i.e., the working class.

Help to prove the fitness of your class to survive ! “Eat or be eaten” ; that is the issue.

O. C. I.

"What We Want and Why." (1922)

Book Review from the December 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

The above is the title of an attempt on the part of six leading lights of the Trade Union world to hide their lack of any common definite object, save that of misleading the workers from the road to emancipation. We are obliged to tell the publishers [Collins] frankly that they have issued a rather expensive 7s. 6d. article. None of the contributors are particularly clear as to what they want, while as to why they want it, they are vaguer still.

The ambitions of Mr. J. H. Thomas would, apparently, be satisfied with an efficient railway service, to be secured, presumably, by “nationalisation.” He is very keen on convincing his readers that he is not out for “aggression.” “Peace and economy” are his watchwords. The interests of the railway servants take second place with him, even if they can be said to have a place at all. He shows the waste going on under such relics of the competitive system as exist, but fails to show how the elimination of that waste would assist the employee ; and keeps dark the fact that economy under capitalism simply means getting the same amount of work done with fewer men. The concentration of the railways in the hands of a capitalist State is only a means to the accomplishment of that end. For this reason it is somewhat difficult to follow Mr. Thomas when he asserts that, “with State ownership we could see a possibility of improving the general condition of the worker” (p. 17). As he himself points out (p. 24), where State ownership exists, as in several countries on the Continent, the chief beneficiaries are the business firms who obtain concessions.

Mr. Thomas attaches very great importance to the machinery of conciliation between the workers and the bosses, yet on page 26 we are told that “no machinery can have the slightest value unless it is operated with good-will on the part of both interests.” Why should good-will obtain between parties whose interests are diametrically opposed to one another? To that question Mr. Thomas provides no answer.

He shows that the workers by strict observance of the companies’ rules could practically “stop the service” (p. 28), but “I should personally never favour such action.” He leaves it to his colleague Bromley to point out that the companies are not so squeamish. They have no hesitation in using their rules to send a man to prison if it suits their purpose (p. 176). It is the old story. The workers are advised to be peaceful and to leave their case to their leaders what time the bosses do as they like. And this is the gentleman who poses, and is accepted by the workers, as their champion !

Robert Williams, of the Transport Workers’ Federation, would have us believe that he is a Socialist, yet does not condescend in the space afforded by fifty pages to give us a clear definition of Socialism, nor any hint as to how it is to be brought about. He appears to be much more concerned to excuse and justify the treacherous activity of the leaders of the Triple Alliance, on the ground of trade depression and increasing unemployment. Although the workers were organised in much greater numbers than ever before, and he admits that the need for militancy was just as great as it ever had been, he pretends that the rout has been nothing more than an inevitable retreat carried out in an orderly manner. He fails to show that the real cause of the trouble has been the lack of understanding and mental solidarity on the part of the workers themselves; for which he, Robert Williams, and his colleagues are, in view of their opportunities, largely responsible by default. Williams advances some timid criticism of the Labour Party’s association with the Coalition during the war, and attributes their defeat at the General Election (1918) to this cause. The logical process by which he arrives at this conclusion is somewhat obscure. In any case, the Labour Party’s policy from the date of its inception has never been guided by any intelligible principle, so that Mr. Williams has only himself to blame if he has been disappointed in it. If he really wanted Socialism he would abandon the Labour Party to its inevitable fate, dishonour and disruption !

Tom Mann, in “The Case for the Engineers,” provides a little variety, inasmuch as he makes some pretence at analysing the existing order and offering an alternative ; yet here, again, the alternative is not defined with any degree of clarity. “Economic change” is mentioned, but its precise character is not stated; while as to the means whereby it is to be accomplished, we are referred vaguely to “industrial action.”

“The Politicians,” by whom, presumably, Mann means the Labour Party, are superficially criticised. Their faith in Parliament and constitutional methods is attacked, but their political treachery and duplicity are not mentioned. Mann appears to be utterly oblivious of the fact that Parliament controls the armed forces of the nation and is not likely to stand meekly by while the “men in the workshop” do as they like. The political machine is the only means whereby the workers can give public and effective expression to any common aim and purpose which they may develop as a class. For that reason the Socialist advocates its use. To leave it in the hands of the masters is sheer criminal stupidity !

Coming back to the engineers, Mann endeavours to illustrate the power of industrial action by instancing the hopelessness of asking for a rise in wages from Parliament. He fails to see that the same workers who are asking for a rise have sent their enemies to the seat of government. Are people in such a mental condition ready to emancipate themselves by any action, industrial or otherwise? Further, how can struggles on the industrial field over wages, hours, etc., lead to freedom from wage-slavery? Mann appears to hold that the industrial organisations will gradually assume control of the worshops and pay all wages, etc. Are the masters, therefore, going to surrender their profits. And, if not, what advantage will the worker obtain by drawing the price of slavery through his branch secretary?

Real control centres in the possession of the means of production, and the fight for that possession must take the form of political action. Capitalist property will exist just so long as the capitalist class are left in control of forces which protect that property.

Mr. Noah Ablett illustrates from details of his own experiences the destructive conditions under which the miners toil. When, however, he deals with remedies he becomes extremely confused. He condemns private ownership on account of the antagonism of interests which it involves, and yet advocates a programme of reforms which will become meaningless as soon as private ownership is dispensed with. One is thus driven to the conclusion that by the elimination of private ownership he simply means “nationalisation,” which, for reasons already stated, can offer no gain to the workers. In order to make this clearer, let us proceed to Mr. Bromley’s article.

Mr. Bromley covers much the same ground as J. H. Thomas, but gives a more definite description of what “nationalisation” amounts to. On pages 186-7 we read, “two unions very carefully drafted a Bill for the complete nationalisation of the railways. . . . It proposes the purchase of railways stocks and shares through the medium of Government Stock . . . charged on the State railway undertaking and the Consolidated Fund, which shall bear such a rate of interest as would enable it at the time of issue to be realised at par.” Thus “nationalisation” simply transforms the capitalists . . . concerned from shareholders in a private concern into Government Stock holders still living on the workers by means of the rate of interest !

Mrs. P. Snowden deals with the competition existing between the sexes in the working class. Her “ultimate ideal” is the “payment for work, irrespective of sex, of such a wage as no man or woman would be afraid or ashamed to accept” (p. 214). Albeit, she has previously pointed out that the existing “industrial system does not scruple to play off women against men in attempts to lessen the costs of production by reducing the wages bill” (p. 212). She wants the capitalist system minus one of its principal and essential features, the subsistence level of wages. Curiously enough, on page 261, discussing the necessity of finding work for an ever-increasing number of women, she says that “This can only be done satisfactorily when the social system of the present has given place to a new order, in which all the instruments of labour are in the hands of the community as a whole.” The force and significance of this admission do not appear to strike her, however, as she proceeds on the next page to propose all sorts of ameliorations in the worker’s lot without the slightest hint as to how they are to be accomplished. Further, she advocates the technical education of women and girls, apparently blind to the fact that hundreds of technically trained men are at the present moment searching in vain for a purchaser of their labour power. She fails to point out that the women, no less than the men, of the working class need to realise that they are slaves. This is the essential preliminary to any improvement.

So long as the capitalist class control the means of life, every economy and every improvement in the education, health, and technical ability of the workers, male and female, only results in their becoming more productive slaves. The fruits of their increased productivity go to the masters and not to themselves. This is the central fact ignored or obscured by these so-called leaders of labour.

Whether the workers follow the Labour Party “to nationalisation” plus reforms, or the Industrialist leaders to “workshop control” plus reforms, they are doomed to disappointment. The only road to emancipation is the conversion of the means of life into the property of the whole people. To this end we call upon the workers to organise consciously, and politically for the capture of the machinery of government.

Socialism, undiluted and unadulterated, is what the Socialist Party wants. As to why we want it, only look around you. Millions of willing producers are compelled to be idle while they need food, clothing, housing, etc., and the means exist ready to hand whereby they can produce them ! Generations of workers have put their faith in legislative reforms and strikes, but we are as far away as ever from economic security. 

The Social Revolution offers the only way out. Muster, then, under our banner, with a view to its speedy accomplishment.

Eric Boden