Notes by the Way: Keir Hardie and the Liberals. (1932)

The Notes by the Way Column from the April 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Keir Hardie and the Liberals.

For years we pointed out that the late Keir Hardie never had an understanding of Socialism and was merely a Liberal. It is amusing to read that at a Conference of the Union of University Liberal Societies at Cambridge, a Liberal proposed that Keir Hardie should be recognised as one of them. A resolution was passed welcoming the formation of a new Radical Party, and the mover, a Mr. E. G. Sollieu, said :

“The new Party should have a left-centre inclination, and should be founded on the teaching of Keir Hardie.” (“Daily Herald,” March 23rd, 1932.)

The I.L.P. and other “left-centre Liberals” will have to bestir themselves to prevent this body-snatching.

* * *

Mr. Herbert Morrison evades the issue. 

The “Clarion” makes entertaining reading for those who wish to study the Labour Party “intellectuals” at play. A quarrel has been going on as to whether state capitalism as it exists in the Post Office is more or less socialistic than State capitalism as it exists in public utility corporations. One group stands firmly by Nationalisation, while the other group denounces this as being a nineteenth century idea, now replaced by the “new Socialism” of public utility corporations. Belonging to the public utility group is Major Attlee, former P.M.G., and advocate of a public utility for the Post Office. He admits that the Post Office (so long praised by him and his Party as being an instance of Socialism) is “the outstanding example of collective capitalism” (“New Statesman,” November 7th, 1931). Mr. Herbert Morrison is also a public utility advocate. In the “Clarion” (February, 1932) he argues, with his.tongue in his cheek, that his London Passenger Transport Bill (which guaranteed their property rights to the shareholders), is Socialism, because the shareholders would no longer have the legal right of control that they now possess. Mr. Morrison knows quite well that Socialism involves social ownership of the means of life, and that the exchange of one kind of share for another kind does not deprive the capitalist of his ownership, and is not Socialism.

All the same he knows how to sling a pretty brick in controversy. Having been told by a defender of the Post Office that a man is a Socialist or not a Socialist and that nationalisation is Socialism, Mr. Morrison replies (“Clarion” March) by pointing out that the S.P.G.B. would laugh in the face of anyone who made such a statement, and would say that such a man “is not a Socialist at all, but a mere advocate of State capitalism.”

This is true enough. But Mr. Morrison did not add that the Socialist’s objections to public utilities are precisely the same as his objections to nationalisation.

What we would like to have from Mr. Morrison is his defence of public utility capitalism against the case for Socialism.

* * *

Labour Government in action. 

The theory on which the Labour Party and I.L.P. were built up is that the spectacle of a Labour Government at work so impresses and enthuses the workers that they go on to ask for more and more “Labour” reforms of capitalism. On February 27th the Labour Party M.P.’s and candidates held a meeting to inquire into the actions of the late Labour Government. Reynolds’s Illustrated News, the Co-operative-Labour paper, reporting the meeting, says:—

“One or two speakers made a feeble and timid attempt to justify the record of the late Labour Government.” (Reynolds’s, 28th Feb.)

In other words, instead of celebrating the successful application of their theory, nobody could be found to put up a plausible defence of it.

* * *

The shrinking I.L.P.

In the six years since February 1926 the I.L.P. has lost 422 branches, almost 40 per cent. of the total. The Reports to Annual Conferences give the following total number of branches in February of the years mentioned :—

1926 1,075

1929    746

1930    748

1931    712

1932    653

It was in this situation that the I.L.P. at its Easter Conference had to decide for or against continuing affiliation with the Labour Party. Would the happy days of Parliamentary seats and Governmental Office be brought back again by remaining inside, or had the time now come for the I.L.P. to exploit working-class discontent independently? The way of the reformist vote-catcher is sometimes hard.

* * *

What will Maxton do now? 

The I.L.P. Conference delegates had before them three proposals, one for continued affiliation with the Labour Party, one for disaffiliation and a third for “conditional affiliation.” Disaffiliation was rejected by 183 votes to 144, affiliation was rejected by 214 votes to 98, and the third proposal—typical of the I.L.P. in dodging the issue—was adopted by 250 votes to 53. The resolution calls for a revision of the Standing Orders of the Labour Party and it may be assumed that the I.L.P. will remain inside. The position now is that the I.L.P. repudiates the Standing Orders, but several of its members who stood as Labour candidates at the election have accepted them, including David Kirkwood, M.P., and Mr. E. F. Wise. And what now becomes of the recent assertions by Maxton, Buchanan, and others that for reasons other than the Standing Orders it is impossible for Socialists to remain inside the Labour Party ? Doubtless they will not find it difficult to swallow their words—they have had much practice at this.

One piece of information given by the Chairman of the I.L.P., Mr. Fenner Brockway, deserves to be placed on record. The I.L.P. used to be satisfied with the Labour Party reform programme. Then a few years ago it announced that the old programme had been proved inadequate and that a new reform programme, miscalled “Socialism in Our Time,” was the only adequate programme. Now Mr. Brockway in his address from the Chair (see Daily Herald, March 28th) admits that the I.L.P. is a reformist party and that its “Socialism in Our Time” is useless. He said that, in view of the present depression,

“the gradualism of the Labour Party became pathetically inadequate; even the method of Socialism in our time became inadequate. It means that our policy must become revolutionary instead of reformist.”

And then the Conference, as if to show the hollowness of the pretence that the reformist policy is going to be dropped, voted for continued affiliation with the Labour Party, although Brockway, Maxton and others know full well that there is no place for revolutionary Labour Party Socialism inside the Labour Party.

* * *

Mr. James Douglas trips up.

It is one of the pet arguments of the journalists who serve the master class by attacking Socialism, that only capitalism can give the rewards necessary to encourage literary geniuses to do their best work. Mr. James Douglas momentarily forgot himself in an article in the Daily Express (March 5th), in which he admitted that the money incentive has had an opposite effect.

“Another book I long to write is a philosophy of literary avarice. It is a base passion which has not been thoroughly explored, even by Balzac or Bennett. The influence of avarice on literature has never been analysed. 

Avarice has destroyed more men of genius than drink or indolence. Avarice corrupts the mind. Genius without avarice is as rare as beauty without vanity.”

* * *

Why the armed forces exist.

Early in February there were rumours in Eastern Europe of various Governments massing troops for war. One of the rumours said that Poland was mobilising troops on the German frontier in Upper Silesia. This, to the newspapers was a “disturbing” rumour. But re-assurance soon came. The troops were not for the purpose of threatening the German capitalists, but for the purpose of dealing with a strike which was likely to break out. (News-Chronicle, February (5th.)

Needless to say the Polish Government was not sending troops to intimidate the employers, but to keep the workers in subjection.

* * *

Trotsky's view of Russia's future.

In an interview given to the New York Times, and republished in The Militant (New York, March 12th), Trotsky stated his views on the Five-Year Plan and the future of the Socialist movement.

“Question: Do you believe that the development of the Five-Year Plan has strengthened or weakened the possibility of building socialism in Soviet Russia alone without co-operation along similar lines in the rest of Europe ?

Answer : This raises the question about socialism in a single country. The inevitability of socialism flows historically from the fact that the present productive forces of humanity have become incompatible not only with the private property in the means of production but also with present national boundaries, especially in Europe. Just as mediaeval particularism hindered the development of capitalism in its youth, so now at the peak of its development capitalism is strangling in the limits set by the national States. Socialism cannot confine productive forces in the Procrustean bed of national States. The Socialist economy will develop on the basis of an international division of labour, the mighty foundations of which have been laid down by capitalism. The Soviet industrial construction is, in my view, a part of a future European, Asiatic and worldwide Socialistic structure, and not an independent national whole.

Question : Will Soviet Russia be compelled to come to some sort of a compromise with Western capitalism, assuming that she may not be able to pursue a Socialist policy single-handed? What form would such a compromise assume?

Answer : The “compromise” between the Soviet and the capitalist systems is not a question of the future but of the present. It is already a fact to-day, although not a very stable one. How will the interrelations between the isolated Soviet Union and world capitalism develop? Here a concrete prophecy is not easy to make, but in general I should cast the following horoscope: European capitalism is far nearer to a Socialist revolution than the Soviet Union is to a national Socialist society.”

Trotsky’s recognition of the impossibility of Socialism in Russia in the near future is late but interesting. Mr. H. G. Wells has also discovered at last that the talk of Communism in Russia is “absurd,” and that the existing system there is “State Capitalism” (Daily Telegraph, February 24th).

Edgar Hardcastle

Northern Ireland “Socialist” Party. (1933)

From the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A correspondent in Northern Ireland has sent us the Constitution and Rules of an organisation calling itself the "Northern Ireland Socialist Party," and affiliated with the Labour Party.

The Constitution is a mixture of the Constitutions of the Independent Labour Party (up to 1931) and of the Labour Party. It contains, therefore, the usual large and small inaccuracies and unsound notions cherished by those parties.

For example, the object consists of the meaningless phrase that Socialism "is that state of society in which land and capital are communally owned, and the processes of production, distribution and exchange are social functions.”

Even Mr. Maxton had to confess when his attention was drawn to it, that "capital” by its nature cannot be communally owned. Capital is not merely machines and other instruments of production; it is those things in a particular social relationship—the capitalist form of private ownership. When the means of production become the property of society as a whole, they will cease to be means of providing profit for private owners; they will no longer be capital.

Similarly, it is absurd to talk about ”exchange” under Socialism. Exchange only has a place when goods are privately owned. Under Socialism goods will be produced and distributed. There will be no process of exchange.

Again, the Constitution states that the basis of Socialism will be "the organisation of the wage and salary earners.” Actually Socialism involves the abolition of the system of wage-labour altogether. There will be no capitalist class and no working class, and, therefore, no wage and salary earners.

This so-called Socialist Party is merely another attempt to build up in Northern Ireland one of the vote-catching, reformist organisations with which we are familiar in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

It is not a Socialist Party in anything but name, and is not deserving of working-class support.

P. S.

Socialism, Vote-Catching and the I.L.P. (1958)

From the April 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Socialist Standard, March, 1958, in an article "The Same Old I.L.P.", we maintained, on the ground of the I.L.P., candidate's campaign at Kelvingrove and other current evidence, that the I.LP. is, as it has always been, a reformist organisation. In the I.LP. journal The Socialist Leader (15th March, 1958) "the political secretary of the I.L.P., Mr. Wilfred Wigham, wrote an angry denial.

What is Vote-catching?

Let us make clear what we mean by vote-catching. In essence it means the act of getting votes under false pretences. As the S.P.G.B. holds that the only solution of social problems is to revolutionise society from its present capitalist basis to a Socialist basis, and that only by the votes of Socialists can this aim be achieved, it would be blatant vote-catching if an S.P.G.B. candidate were to try to attract the votes of electors who accept capitalism and whose aim is to raise old age pensions, or introduce more nationalisation (State capitalism), or limit the horrors of war. But if a Labour Party candidate tried to attract such votes it would not be vote-catching if he genuinely believed that these reforms can be achieved, that they will be achieved by a Labour Government and that they would bring the benefits he says they will.

By the same test we really hold that the I.L.P. is not a vote-catching organisation when it seeks votes from non-Socialists and campaigns on reforms of capitalism, because its aim, as we shall show, is not Socialism. Nevertheless, the I.L.P. itself invites the charge of vote-catching when it tries to combine the two irreconcilable principles and claims, as it did at Kelvingrove, that “it will seek to convince the men and women of Kelvingrove that only by Socialism can the challenge of these stupendous times be met And it will not compromise its policy and programme to win votes ” (Socialist Leader, 1st February, 1958. (Our italics.)

The confusion arises because while the I.L.P. claims that Socialism is the only solution it really does not mean Socialism, but a reformed capitalism; and its “policy and programme*' referred to is one of reformism.

The “Socialism" of the I.L.P.

The I.L.P. claims that its aim is Socialism. It has consistently made that claim since its formation 65 years ago. But the meaning attached to the term by the LLP. is a gross misuse.

In the early days its efforts were concentrated on achieving Nationalisation or State capitalism. In the nineteen twenties it published a pamphlet under the title Socialism in Queensland. In 1932 its National Council passed a resolution describing Russia and the Russian Government as “Socialist," and affirming that “the fate of the workers is bound up with the maintenance of Russia’s freedom to pursue her Socialist development unhindered by capitalist attacks" (New Leader, 22nd April, 1932). In its issue, dated 12th February, 1932. the following declaration was made:—

"In Soviet Russia Socialism is not the music of the future. It is a reality of the present.

"During the past year the Soviet Union has completed the construction of the foundation of Socialism. By the end of the Second Five Year Plan it will have completed the construction of the Socialist Society."

In 1935 it fought the municipal elections on a reformist programme, one item of which was: "Socialised Local Services": “Abolition of restrictions on the development of public services (in conjunction, where possible, with Cooperative Societies) of bread, milk and coal. Workers control in every service” (New Leader, 25th October, 1935).

In 1954 the National Council of the I.L.P. passed a resolution calling for unity of “Socialists" and “Socialist organisations” to include the “well-meaning Socialists who are members of the political section of the Labour Party” and giving as evidence of the “Socialist” character of the latter the resolutions they moved at Labour Party Conferences (which were in fact, as we showed, resolutions solely for reforms of capitalism, including in particular nationalisation or State capitalism. See Socialist Standard, March 1954).

We ask the I.L.P. “Is Nationalisation Socialism? Was Queensland Socialist? Was Russia Socialist in 1932? Were the Local Labour Parties and their resolutions Socialist in 1954? ” The Socialist answer is “emphatically NO! ” but the I.L.P. believes that the answer is “yes.”

The I.L.P. and the Reform of Capitalism.

If the I.L.P.’s alleged adherence to Socialism is a gross misuse of the word, its attitude on the reform of capitalism is equally two-faced. On the one hand it lets it be thought that it agrees with the late James Maxton's admission (New Leader, 15th August, 1930) that reformism is futile because before the reforms gained “have been fully operative such advantages as they seemed on a superficial examination to offer were eaten up by the development of new evils or by a further extension of old ones” yet it has always devoted its efforts to securing reforms. Hence, for example, the long list of reforms on which the I.L.P. fought the Municipal Elections in 1935, including "Free baths for the unemployed,” a minimum of 20s. unemployed pay, abolition of large classes in schools, and "Freedom to hold meetings outside Labour Exchanges."

Hence also the Socialist Leader's anger at the charge made by the Labour Candidate at Kelvingrove that she was the only candidate who was opposed to the Rent Act. The editor says this was a lie, and affirms that the I.L.P. Candidate "made it clear from the beginning of the campaign that he opposed the Rent Act in all its clauses.” (Socialist Leader, 15th March, 1958.) Naturally, in conformity with the I.LP.’s reformist policy, their candidate considered that he had been fraudulently deprived of the votes of anti-Rent Act voters and that their votes ought fairly to have gone to him and not to the candidate of the Labour Party, which, he alleged "does not intend to repeal the Act if and when it is returned to power.”

And did the LLP. candidate inform the electors, as he would have done if fighting as a Socialist, that under Socialism there could be no Rent Control because there will be no rents? If not, why not?

The other main issue at Kelvingrove was the H Bomb. If the LLP. candidate had been a Socialist he would have concentrated on showing that capitalism is the cause of war and that Socialism is the only way to eliminate armaments and war from the world. Instead, he made the abolition of the H Bomb the centre of his campaign. Again, it was quite in keeping with the I.L.P.'s reformism that while nominally committed to opposing all war and all armaments the issue of the Socialist Leader for 1st March, 1958, contained an invitation to three opponents of the H Bomb who are also opponents of Socialism and present or recent supporters of war (Bertrand Russell, A. J. P. Taylor and J. B. Priestley), to go to Kelvingrove and speak on the I.L.P. candidate's platform!

Mr. Wigham’s Defence of the I.LP.

In his article in the Socialist Leader (15th March, 1958), Mr. Wigham tries to confuse the issue with a number of silly innuendoes about the S.P.G.B., in the usual dishonest form adopted by the controversialist without a case. He writes: "The S.P.G.B. . . . may advocate that Britain should continue to spend more than a thousand million pounds a year on armaments and the armed forces . . . it may advocate Britain's continued share in the cumulative production of radio-active dust from H Bomb tests . . . Or the S.P.G.B. may think those issues unimportant"; and again, "Is the S.P.G.B. in favour of Britain continuing to manufacture the H Bomb. Or is it afraid to declare itself either way?” Then, with a pathetic show of phoney indignation, "I challenge the Socialist Standard to answer.”

Of course, Mr. Wigham is being completely dishonest. He knows quite well that the SP.G.B. is not, and never has been, in favour of capitalism or capitalism's war-making or its H Bombs, or any of its armaments: unlike the I.L.P. M.P's. who did not vote against war supplies in the 1914-1918 war and the 1924 Labour Government, declared by the I.L.P. to be "To an overwhelming extent an I.L.P. Government," which carried out a programme of naval re-armament. The I.L.P. has now changed its line on that issue and pretends to think that the S.P.G.B. has abandoned its opposition to war.

How dishonest Mr. Wigham's questions are can be seen from the attitude he adopts elsewhere towards the S.P.G.B. Repeatedly (and as recently as last year) the I.L.P. has begged the S.P.GB. to unite with the I.LP. for the purpose, among others, of opposing war: now he pretends not to know the S.P.G.B.’s attitude to capitalism and war!

Continuing his pretended desire for the S.P.G.B. to declare its attitude (as if he didn't know), he asks if the SP.G.B. is “in favour of the continued use of British airfields by American bombing planes and the prospective use of British Land for NATO missile bases?"

By this piece of slickness Mr. Wigham slides away from the issue of the fatuousness of I.L.P. pleas to the British capitalist class to at once disband the armed forces, and the LLP. resolution to "deny” British bases to all other countries. He did not tell his readers what we wrote about this, in particular our question, “How do unarmed civilians deny bases to the armies occupying them? ”, and our example of the Hungarian workers who tried to turn Russian capitalism out of Hungarian bases.

By implication, however, he admits our case on the issue of disbanding the armed forces, for he now writes: “We do not think it likely that capitalist Britain will disarm.” But he goes on to justify the formulation of such demands on the plea that it is an attempt "to show up, in the eyes of the workers, militaristic, predatory Capitalist Imperialism for what it is.”

On the same propaganda plea of asking the capitalist class to do something you know they won't do, why not just ask them to introduce Socialism? And while we are on the subject, is the I.LP's, plea to capitalism to disband its armed forces at once, also directed to capitalist Russia? or is Russia still, in the view of the I.LP., the “Socialist” Society they said it was in 1932?

Keir Hardie and Maxton.

Mr. Wigham puts up another Aunt Sally in order not to deal with the point we raised about the futility of Keir Hardie's and Maxton's reformism. He says he was not surprised at us “dragging in the usual S.P.G.B. criticism of I.LP. industrial ‘reformism'—in fact, I.LP. identification with the day to day struggles of the workers. And, sure enough, it does so instancing James Keir Hardie and James Maxton as suitable forerunners of the I.L.P.” Since it was Mr. Wigham who claimed that the present I.L.P. is “the party of Keir Hardie and James Maxton,” he has no ground on which to object to us following up his lead and dealing with them. But why does Mr. Wigham not fell his readers what we wrote about those two? His readers, on the basis of what Mr. Wigham writes, will be astonished to learn that the one issue about which we said nothing at all was the struggles of the workers on the industrial field. What we did write, and which Mr. Wigham pretends was a reference to industrial action for higher wages was a bill introduced into Parliament by Maxton in 1930 for the setting up of a Government Committee to fix a minimum “living wage," after taking into account the “replacement and extension of capital ”

One I.L.P. M.P. disclaimed any intention of excluding employers from the committee which was to fix the workers' minimum wage. Another gave an assurance that the wage would not include enough for children— they were to be separately provided for. This was to meet the views of an anti-Socialist M.P. who did not want people without children to get more than their due. The I.L.P. Prime Minister would not give government backing for the Bill.

This was not industrial action, but an I.L.P. political sell-out

The I.L.P. in favour of Profit and Rent.

Mr. Wigham challenges us to say whether the S.P.G.B. is “against raising wages and reducing profits and rents: is it against a living wage for all workers? ” If Mr. Wigham were a Socialist he would know that the S.P.G.B., being Socialist, is not in favour of wages, profits and rents, but is in favour of Socialism, which involves the abolition of the wages system, and the abolition of property incomes, including all profits and rents (not, as Mr. Wigham says he is, in favour of reduced profits and rents).

On the issue of workers' action (strikes) on the industrial field, every government administering capitalism opposes strikes for higher wages, necessarily so because unless the State places a ceiling on strike demands, capitalism, depending as it does on profit, becomes unworkable. The S.P.G.B. is in favour of the workers using every effort on the industrial field to press for higher wages and to resist reductions. It is also in favour of telling the workers the truth about the limitations that capitalism places on this action and the necessity of abolishing capitalism (and with it the wages system). The S.P.G.B. also attacks the reformist I.L.P. belief that having capitalism with minimum wage legislation (as in Australia) alters the situation. In particular it reminds the workers that an I.L.P. government, saddled with the responsibility of running capitalism, behaves like any other government in opposing strikes. It was the 1924 I.L.P. dominated government which made preparations to use emergency powers against strikers on the underground railways (Daily Herald, 1st April, 1924.)

Before we leave Mr. Wigham’s reference to Keir Hardie we note that he makes no comment on Hardie's advocacy of coal nationalisation for the sake of fuelling fire Navy. Does this, too, fit into the I.L.P. conception of Socialism?

Abstract Theory and Real life.

Mr. Wigham concludes with a jibe at the alleged “abstract reasoning" of the S.P.G.B., contrasted with the I.L.P., which, he says, “continues to base its political activities on real life," and which knows "something about history."

We are not averse to accepting the term “abstract reasoning" as a description of the need for workers to study capitalism and the history of reformism in order to understand the futility of trying to reform capitalism into something different.

And we are content to leave to the reformist I.L.P., in the Keir Hardie-Maxton tradition, the task of ignoring Socialism and concentrating on the "real life" activity of a reformist organisation, of pursuing the winning of votes and members on a programme of reforms.

Editorial Committee.

Notes by the Way: Maxton and Marx. (1932)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Maxton and Marx.

Mr. Maxton’s utterances never show more than a superficial acquaintance with Marx’s writings, just sufficient to impress the average uncritical I.L.P. audience. Nevertheless, he claims on occasion that he is a Marxist, and the I.L.P. as a body is now, according to its General Secretary, on a “definitely Marxist” basis. Mr. Maxton, writing about the late John MacLean (New Leader, September 2nd), says that it was MacLean who gave him his “earliest insight into the work of Marx.” Maxton goes out of his way to praise MacLean for integrity and courage in refusing to “minimise or explain away what he had said,” on the many occasions when his activities landed him in the dock.

This is more than can be said for Maxton in his advocacy of the Marxism which he is supposed to accept. He recently reviewed Trotsky’s “History of the Russian Revolution” in the News-Chronicle (June 27th, 1932). Here was a rare and valuable opportunity for Mr. Maxton to declare himself boldly. But the News-Chronicle is the organ of Nonconformist-radicals, and Non-conformist-radicals have votes, and they strongly dislike Marxism with its materialist philosophy. So the would-be British Lenin carefully balanced himself on the fence, managing at the same time to deliver a nice back-hander in the shape of the common jibe of the capitalist apologist that Marxists are “doctrinaires.” He gave a brief statement of the Marxist case, but prefaced it with the words “the doctrinaire Marxist . . . tends to describe in hard, formal language the economic conditions, and the nature of the class struggle which is in process.” Then, instead of saying “This is the Marxian case. I accept it,” Mr. Maxton would not commit himself to anything more definite than “The Marxist says, and probably says truly, …”

There is a good word for this sort of thing— “mealy-mouthed.”

Mr. Maxton used to be a teacher. We can imagine how he taught. “Now, boys and girls, the doctrinaire mathematicians say that two and two make four. They are probably right. . . .”

The school authorities must have been glad to get rid of him.

* * *

How Dare They!

The Daily Mail is shocked. Some workers in New South Wales have “seriously” asked to be allowed to have some of the comforts of life over and above a bare subsistence. This occurred at the N.S.W. Industrial Commission. The Mail reports as follows : —

“The trade unions . . . admitted that the cost of living had fallen but tried to introduce a higher wage standard, seriously demanding allowances for tobacco, 7 pints of beer weekly, two cinemas weekly, 12 suit pressings yearly, hair shingling and cigarettes for wives. They also claimed that the children of workers should not of necessity have to wear patched trousers. . . .” (Daily Mail, 27th August.)

Who ever heard of such a thing? Not necessary for workers’ children to wear patched clothes ! What would there be to keep their mothers out of mischief in their idle hours ? Off they would go for their weekly allowance of cigarettes and hair-shingling, and heaven knows what else.

This was not far short of treason and the Industrial Commission smartly nipped it in the bud, reducing the basic wage from 82s. 6d. to 70s. for men and from 44s. 6d. to 38s. for women.

* * *

The Leopard Has Not Changed its Spots

Labour Party supporters who believe that the Labour Party has become a different party since it lost Snowden and MacDonald should ask themselves why, at the Twickenham by-election in September, the Daily Herald (September 15th) thought fit to give prominence on its front page to a declaration by the Hon. Treasurer of the Twickenham Liberal Party urging voters to vote for Mr. Holman, the Labour candidate. In the absence of a Liberal candidate this Liberal Party official found the Labour candidate deserving of Liberal support. If the Labour candidate stood for Socialism, as his party pretends, he would have received just as much opposition from the Liberals as from the Tories. Instead of which the Liberal press told their readers to vote Labour.

* * *

It is Just the Same at Home

A special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian has made a tour of inspection of the great industrial works being built in Russia. He is favourably impressed by what has already been achieved in the way of improving the productive capacity of Russian industry and is optimistic regarding future progress. But this is what he has to say about the living conditions of the workers at Magnitogorsk, a new industrial town where an enormous steel plant is under construction : —

“Perhaps the most serious and certainly the most obvious defect at Magnitogorsk is the complete absence of decent housing. The barracks where most of the workers live are over-crowded and sometimes infested with vermin ; the canalisation and water supply are most unsatisfactory. The ungainly brick structure which represents an hotel for engineers was so over-crowded at the time of my visit that people were using the bathrooms as living quarters. The administration of the factory readily admits the unsatisfactory state of the housing, but explains it by the necessity for concentrating all available labour and material on industrial construction. That this explanation is not regarded as altogether satisfactory is evident from a recent tart governmental characterisation of the situation, which begins : ‘The condition of work on the building of the city of Magnitogorsk is in an extremely unsatisfactory state, which threatens to upset the productive activity of the Magnitogorsk works. The plan of housing construction for 1932 has been fulfilled only by 10 per cent.'”

When the correspondent discovered the bad housing and the irregular food supply, etc., alongside marvellously-equipped factories and up-to-date plant and machinery, he must have felt how closely Magnitogorsk resembles any other industrial area in any other capitalist country. But then what is the use of sending correspondents abroad unless they can discover or pretend to discover some new thing ?

* * *

Asquith and the Life of the Worker

What the Manchester Guardian correspondent forgot to say about the life of the workers in England was said by the late Lord Oxford (then Mr. Asquith) in a letter written in the early nineties, and published in The Times (September 14th, 1932): —

“We all think, at least I do, a vast deal too much about ourselves and our own feelings and hopes. When I was at Oldham to-day I was standing at half-past 12 outside Platt’s works. They are the largest machine makers in the world, and employ 10,000 “hands.” The whistle sounded for the dinner hour, and suddenly the great gates were opened and there burst out an ocean of men, in such numbers that for five minutes the streets in both directions were blocked by the moving crowd. I watched them closely as they passed me—a long procession of wan-faced, grimy, tired, silent figures. They get an average of 18s. a week, and work with intervals for meals from 6 to 6. Civilisation and religion have done something for them—given them paved streets, watertight houses, Board schools, chapels, and even (in Oldham) an art gallery. But life in its real sense they have never known, and to their dying day will never know.”

Twenty years afterwards Mr. Asquith did not think that there was anything incongruous or indecent in his asking these same men to sacrifice their lives defending against the Germans the interests of the class Asquith represented, the class responsible for these conditions.

* * *

Capitalism’s Crises

Writing in the New Leader (September 16th), Mr. Maxton ridicules the possibility that capitalism may recover from the depression. Against a recent forecast of trade revival he places a number of statements from capitalist sources and says, “I could go on citing from Tory newspapers evidences in support of my belief that the industrial crisis is deepening.”

Mr. Maxton may be right about the trend of the depression at the moment (but even on that point he can be right only because he was completely wrong a year ago in announcing that the final collapse of capitalism would have occurred before February, 1932), but in general his argument is hopelessly confused and misinformed. He says:—

“Every year since 1921 one or other or several of our leading public men has announced to the world that the depression of trade is over, that the boom is in sight.”

Mr. Maxton is unaware of the fact, but nevertheless, capitalism, both in Great Britain and in the world generally, was going through a period of expansion up to the start of the present: crisis in 1929. In Great Britain the number of unemployed in 1928 and 1929 was nearly a million fewer than in 1921. The volume of production increased between 1921 and 1929 more or less continuously. According to the review of world production (1925-31), just issued by the Economic Section of the League of Nations, the world output of primary products rose 11 per cent., of industrial products possibly 30 per cent., and general trade 20 per cent. (Manchester Guardian, September 16th).

At different times Mr. Maxton has held many beliefs., most of them wrong ones. Workers who swallow his present absurd belief about the impending collapse of capitalism will have cause to regret it just as they had cause to regret swallowing Mr. Maxton’s earlier beliefs—abandoned for the time being—that the workers’ only hope was to vote for the Labour candidates, that they should put their trust in Snowden and MacDonald, that bankers alone, and not the capitalists as a whole, are exploiters, and that capitalist reforms are the way to solve working class problems.

* * *

Socialist Propaganda in Russia

The refusal of the Russian Government to allow Trotsky’s supporters to propagate his views is a reminder of the obstacles Socialist propaganda will have to overcome in that country even when the Russian workers begin to wake up to the fact that Bolshevik-administered capitalism cannot solve their problems. One of Trotsky’s adherents in Moscow writes as follows to the New York Militant (July 30th, 1932): —

“Despite the unremitting organisational raids, the Left Opposition lives. Oppositionist units and groups are disseminated everywhere, and in many places considerable Oppositionist nests are uncovered. There was hardly ever in this world at any time or anywhere such difficulty for a genuine Marxist trend to carry on its work, in the technical sense, as there is for us at present in the Soviet Union. This is one of those vicious jokes of history, on which the most expert dialectician can break his teeth. The more respectable part of the capitulators motivates its capitulation precisely in this manner, ‘it is anyway impossible to carry on illegal activities ; at any rate, it is better to serve as an honest functionary of the workers’ state.’ But it appears that the Oppositionist idea finds its channels. As regards this sphere, I, of course, am compelled to be exceedingly careful. I shall enumerate therefore only such facts as have already received a certain publicity, or to put it more exactly, which have reached the ears of the rulers.”

Imitating their Moscow masters, the British Daily Worker (August 31st) states that it will not insert letters defending Trotsky’s point of view.

* * *

Where the Communists Get Their Money

Money is not so plentiful in the Communist Party as it used to be, but even so the officially-returned expenses of the Communist candidates at the last election totalled over £2,500, not counting their 20 forfeited deposits, which total another £3,000. (See “Election Expenses,” H.M. Stationery Office, 1932. 1s. 3d.)

Of course, anyone who knows the difficulties which face small organisations with a working-class membership knows that the Communist Party, with its daily paper and lavish expenditure on publications, must be subsidised. Officially the Communist Party has never denied this—why should it?—but the ordinary members, for reasons of tactics or because they know no better, frequently maintain the contrary. There is, however, no doubt whatever that money has been and no doubt still is being received from Russia.

In 1919 Zinoviev in his Presidential Report for the Executive Committee of the Communist International dealt with the question of monetary support for parties abroad and said that the

“Russian workers . . . deemed it their proletarian duty to render . . . support to the struggling proletariat of other countries. . . . The Italian Communists, for instance, proudly declared quite openly that some of their party organisations could not have been formed except for the brotherly help of the Communist International. Similar declarations have been made by the Communist workers in other countries.” (“Editions of the Communist International,” printed in Christiana, 1920. Report by Zinoviev, P. 17.)

He said that it had been decided that the Russian Communist Party should “take upon itself the chief burden of expense of the work of the Executive Committee.”

Mr. Walton Newbold admitted, in a letter to Forward (July 10th, 1920) that his expenses when running as a Communist candidate for Parliament “were defrayed in the main from the funds of the Communist International, and originated in Moscow.”

The Communist official organ, Workers’ Life, on May 11th, 1928, issued a “Frank Statement” on “The Communist Party’s Money.” The statement contains the passage: —

“The Communist Party has never sought to disguise the fact that it is a national section of an international party, paying its financial contribution to its international headquarters and receiving assistance in return from time to time for different phases of its national work.”

This “frank” statement is, of course, decidedly the reverse of frank in contriving to disguise the fact that the money received from Russia is far in excess of the contributions to Russia. The Home Office claimed that the British Communist Party spent £27,928 in the year ended April, 1928, of which £10,330 was derived from payments of £5 Bank of England notes made by a bank in Moscow. (See Daily Telegraph, June 27th, 1930.)

There has never been any real reason why any Communists should deny something which everybody knows and to which the only objection is that it ties the Communist Party to the unsound policy of their paymasters.

* * *

The Quality of Communist Party Membership

The Communist Review (August) publishes figures of Communist membership in Great Britain since 1922. The figure given for that year is 5,116 and for January, 1932, 9,000. Comment is made on the unsatisfactory quality of the membership and on the rapidity with which recruits pass in and pass out again. The writer says that some 1,500 of the 2,700 members who joined between November, 1931, and January, 1932, had left the Party within about six months. This would make the present estimated membership about 7,500. When it is remembered how the Communist organisers rope in hundreds of members at a time, this instability is not surprising. During the cotton dispute Mr. Saklatvala was in Lancashire on behalf of the Communist Party. He sent a message from Preston to Communist Headquarters claiming that he had enrolled more than 100 strikers in one day as members of the Party. (See Manchester Guardian, September 9th, 1932.)

The writer in the Communist Review says most of the recruits at the end of 1931 “came from the ranks of the unemployed, signed application forms at mass recruiting meetings in moments of enthusiasm; many of them having no real intention of becoming members.”

* * *

Capitalists and Capitalists

Mr. Bromley, President of the Trades Union Congress, is one of those Labour leaders who encourage the false view that the workers should line up with one section of the capitalist class (the industrialists) against another (the bankers). At the Trades Union Congress on September 5th he developed this line and described the National Government as being controlled by “banking and financial interests.” If we turn to the Labour Party’s analysis of the composition of the House of Commons (see Labour Bulletin, March, 1932) we find how little warrant there is for Mr. Bromley’s assertion. Out of 691 directorships of companies held by Members of Parliament, only 11 are bank directorships, and 53 are described as “finance and land.” Among the non-financial directorships there are 29 brewery, 26 chemical, 30 coal, iron and steel, 40 electric light and power, 36 engineering, 51 insurance, 36 mining, 24 paper, printing, etc., 25 railway, 26 textile and 20 telegraph directorships.

Are we to understand from Mr. Bromley that only the banking and financial M.P.s vote for capitalism and against the workers, and that the remainder have backed the workers against the Government and capitalism ? We have not noticed this, but we do notice that the railway directors are asking for another cut in the pay of the railwaymen, including those who are members of the Union of which Mr. Bromley is General Secretary.

* * *

The Country that is Safe for the Bondholders

The Moscow Daily News, published in English, and distributed by official Russian agencies, gave prominence in a recent issue (August 15th) to some flattering remarks about Russia made by Mr. Corliss Lamont, son of Thomas W. Lamont, of J. P. Morgan & Co., the American financiers. The headline running right across the top of the front page says, “Soviet Bonds Safest says Lamont.”

The sub-headings are “Recommends them to U.S.A. investors. Big Return, Par Redemption, Defaults Unknown.” . Mr. Lamont, in an interview, said : —

“It is true that the Soviet Union offers great opportunities to American business men. … I am even more impressed, however, by the opportunities here for the average American investor. How many people in the United States know that they can invest in the Soviet Government bonds which regularly bring a return of 10 per cent. in good American dollars, and which can be redeemed at par on demand ? Backed up, as they are, by the resources of the whole Soviet Union, it would seem that there are no safer bonds in the world to-day, and few as safe.”

How happy the American investors will be to discover that they can get a safe return of 10 per cent. in good American dollars, and how lucky the Russian workers are to have this opportunity of consoling the bondholders after their recent unfortunate speculations with Mr. Kreuger, and the Insull companies.

* * *

Perhaps the visit of Mr. Lamont to Moscow and the recent suggestions of Russian approaches to New York financiers will explain the sudden cancellation of a Negro film which the Russians had planned. The Crisis (September), a Negro-American monthly, states that 22 young American negroes went to Russia at their own expense, but by invitation, to take part in a Communist propaganda film. Suddenly they were informed, late in August, that the contract was “off.” The Observer (London, September 11th) publishes a report from the Moscow correspondent to the effect that some of the negroes concerned have stated that the film was cancelled because representations were made by “an influential American who is interested in promoting closer relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.” The negroes are annoyed and denounce the Soviet Government for “making a compromise with white American imperialism at the expense of the oppressed negro proletariat.”

* * *

Censorship in Russia and Elsewhere

Dr. Edwyn Bevan writes to the Times (September 3rd) complaining because the Russian authorities held up a book of his dealing with the History of Christianity. It was returned with the note that its entry into Russia is forbidden.

Dr. Bevan is probably not aware that within the past two or three years, and possibly now also, the Socialist Standard, as well as the publications of the Communist Party, are forbidden entry into Australia. Now that we have drawn his attention to it, we wonder if he will write to the Times about it.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the October 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Maxton gives a date.

Mr. Maxton, M.P., under the false impression that it is a Marxian theory, has for years been prophesying the sudden and irretrievable collapse of capitalism. He has now given it a date. In a speech at Cowcaddens, reported in the Daily Record (August 22nd) and reprinted in Forward (September 12th), he said :—

“I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, declared Mr. James Maxton, M.P., in the Cowcaddens Ward, Glasgow, last night, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash. 

They may postpone the collapse for a month, two months, three months, six months,” he cried, forefinger pointing at his audience, and body crouched, “but collapse is sure and certain.”

Six months from August 22nd brings us to February, 1932. When that comes round, we will ask Mr. Maxton for his explanation.

* * *

Another exponent of the collapse theory, Mr. Walton Newbold, has suffered a strange transformation. In 1921, as a Communist, he. prophesied imminent collapse, and was doing his utmost, so he said, to hasten it. It did not come off, and Mr. Newbold, now in the Labour Party, is on this occasion rallying round MacDonald and Thomas to prop capitalism up again !

* * *

Letters to Mr. Hicks.

Mr. George Hicks, M.P., was asked for his comment on the letter of personal explanation which Mr. MacDonald sent to each of the Labour Party M.P.’s. Mr. Hicks sneeringly replied that it was just the sort of letter he would expect from a man like Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. Hicks was not always so minded about letters from that quarter. As recently as April of this year (see The Times, April 11th), when Mr. Hicks was Labour Party candidate at East Woolwich, he published a broadsheet called the George Hicks Herald, containing the letter sent by MacDonald, assuring the electors that Mr. Hicks is the sort of man MacDonald regarded as suitable to represent the workers of Woolwich.

* * *

The Communist-I.L.P. Alliance. 

The crisis has had the effect of throwing together the two reformist bodies, the I.L.P. and the Communist Party. On Sunday, September 6th, Communist and I.L.P. speakers addressed a joint demonstration in Hyde Park, speaking from the same platform. The Secretary of the Balham and Tooting I.L.P., in a letter to the New Leader (September 11th), described it as “a glorious sight to see a demonstration in Hyde Park in which both Parties were united.” This was just a week after the majority of the I.L.P. Labour M.P.’s had voted for the election of Mr. Henderson as leader of the Labour Party in place of Mr. MacDonald. Only five votes were cast against his election (Daily Express, August 29th). One of those who voted for Mr. Henderson was Mr. J. Beckett. M.P., and it was Mr. Beckett who was the star turn at the Hyde Park demonstration, although Mr. Beckett complained that Communists in his audience hurled abuse at the I.L.P. speakers. Mr. Beckett was so anxious not to have it thought that he voted against Henderson, that he had the Daily Express (August 31st) publish a correction of their statement including him among the five.

P. S.

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour Party as Investors' Party.

It is often alleged by Labour Party members that their party differs from the Liberals and Tories in that it is a workers’ party.

If they mean by this to claim that Liberal and Tory supporters are, in the main, not workers, the facts are against them. At least 85 per cent. of the voters are members of the working class, and since the number of Labour voters at the 1929 General Election was only two-fifths of the total number who went to the poll, it is evident that there are more workers who vote Liberal and Tory than there are who vote Labour.

The Daily Herald used to claim that it was “the workers’ paper.” Now its posters proudly proclaim that—

“’THE DAILY HERALD’ PROTECTS THE INVESTOR.”

In its City column, on March 13th, an article was published, telling a reader “how to invest £12,000.” Won’t this be good news for unemployed miners, and railwaymen whose pay has just been reduced !

The Daily Herald’s editorial on March 12th contains still more cheering news. It says :—

“The investing public is, on the whole, doing remarkably well.”

We ask readers who still support the Labour Party to think over that statement. Nearly two years after the Labour Party came into office, when the workers are suffering more than they have ever suffered, they are told as a fact that “the investing public … is doing remarkably well.”

* * *

A War-Time Curiosity. The Leeds Conference.

The following passages are extracted from a circular letter sent out on May 23rd, 1917, by those responsible for the calling of the still-born Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council which was to have been inaugurated at the Leeds Conference. It is interesting to observe that several of the signatories are now members of the Labour Government.

“To Trades Councils, Trade Unions, Local Labour Parties, Socialist Parties, Women’s Organisations, and Democratic Bodies. 

Dear Comrades,—The conference to which we invited you is already assured of a great success. It will be one of the greatest democratic gatherings ever held in this country. It will be historic; it will begin a new era of democratic power in Great Britain. It will begin to do for this country what the Russian revolution has done for Russia. …. It will be a democratic conference to establish democracy in Great Britain. Russia has called us to follow her. You must not refuse to answer that appeal. Send in your application for delegates’ cards at once, etc.”—On behalf of the United Socialist Council we remain, yours fraternally, 

H. Alexander, Chas G. Ammon, W. C. Anderson, C. Despard, E. C. Fairchild, J. Finsberg, F. W. Jowett, Geo. Lansbury, J. Ramsay MacDonald, Tom Quelch, Robert Smillie, Philip Snowden, Robert Williams.

May 23rd, 1917.”

* * *

The Daily Herald's Two Voices.

Daily Herald Editorial on December 10th, 1930:—

“The man in the street, asked what is the cause of our present troubles, would be likely to answer, “There’s not enough money about.” The man in the street would be largely right. The world is not . . . producing enough gold for its needs. . . . Shortage of gold means shortage of currency. Shortage of currency means shortage of purchasing power.”

Daily Herald Editorial, January 20th, 1931:—

“The pessimists received a further blow yesterday when a £3,000,000 issue of new debenture stock by the London Power Company was oversubscribed within a few minutes. Here is evidence in plenty that there is in this country money available for sound schemes. . . . How can it be attracted into industry again? The sure way is by increasing public confidence in our industrial future, and by persuading the ordinary consumer to buy more of the goods which are on all sides being offered at reasonable prices.”

It may be remarked that the oversubscription of public issues of shares was going on throughout the latter half of 1930. We wonder, too, whether the “ordinary consumer” who is asked to spend more includes the workers whose wages have been reduced while the Labour Government has been in office.

* * *

The Cotton Lock-Out.

It is interesting to notice that the factor which induced the employers to withdraw the lock-out notices and abandon their intention to try to impose a further 12½ per cent. reduction in pay and an increase in hours was the refusal of the locked-out men and women to give their trade union officials power to enter into negotiations. Reynolds’s Illustrated News (February 10th) says :—

“What brought about the collapse of the lock-out undoubtedly was the firmness of the rank and file of the operatives.

Right from the beginning of the dispute they have resolutely refused to give their Trade Union leaders power to negotiate with the employers, and have held our for the complete ending of the more-looms system.”

The Socialist Party has always pointed out the danger which arises from the practice of giving the officials power to negotiate in secret with the employers.

* * *

Unemployment in France.

A Blow to the Birth-Controllers.

Last year the publishers of the New Generation distributed (with the assistance of the New Leader a leaflet by G. A. Gaskell and R. B. Kerr, M.A., LL.B., showing how birth control would abolish unemployment. France, they said, was the “one country . . . which is free from unemployment.” France used to have unemployment, but birth control cured it. “Surely this is a magnificent achievement for birth control !” wrote the authors. Unfortunately for them, France hasn’t got rid of unemployment. In the August, 1930, Socialist Standard we gave the reasons why France had temporarily escaped obvious unemployment, and prophesied that unemployment would soon appear.

Now we have some definite evidence on the subject. The special correspondent in France of the News-Chronicle wrote as follows (22nd December, 1930) :—

“No reliable unemployment figures are available, though the Government admits a slow, but steady, increase. M. Lenoir, the Secretary of the Confederation Generale du Travail, declares that the situation is serious and that the number of unemployed is increasing every day. ‘It is not,’he adds, ‘seasonal unemployment. The workless are legion in the textile and metal industries of the North. . . . There is also a lot of short time everywhere.’”

Further evidence was given by Mr. H. J. Greenwall, who was in France for the Daily Express. He wrote (January 13th, 1931) :—

“There are, at the moment, about a quarter of a million unemployed in France, while those on short time bring the figures up to about half a million.”

The French representative at the recent Geneva Conference on unemployment admitted that there are in France 350,000 wholly unemployed and about 1,000,000 partly unemployed, excluding all firms employing under 100 persons (see The Times, February 7th). These figures were confirmed by the French Government. The Paris correspondent of The Times also reported that the census of 1921 showed 537,000 unemployed, and the census of 1926, 243,000. France is now faced with threatening strikes and lock-outs in several industries owing to attempts to reduce wages.

By the end of February, according to The Times March 7th, 1931), unemployment had risen to at least 650,000, with a further 1,500,000 partly unemployed.

So much for birth control as a cure for unemployment and poverty.

* * *

Mr. Maxton's acrobatics.

Mr. Maxton has often declared that the Labour Party is a capitalist party, but he always takes good care to keep inside that capitalist party, in the warm. The thought of being put out into the cold, where there are no political jobs going for the bright young men and women of the I.L.P., fills him and his supporters with the wildest alarm. He was taunted with this inconsistency at the Conference of the Scottish I.L.P. He said (Forward, January 17th) :—

“He had been told in the House of Commons that a man could not ride two horses. All I can say is that if you cannot ride two horses you have no right to be in the bloody circus. . . . 

Surely I, in the Left Wing, am entitled to my acrobatics, and to have one foot on the Labour official horse and the other on the fighting socialist horse.”

A resolution to disaffiliate from the Labour Party was defeated by 112 votes to 25. Bold Mr. Maxton, riding his two horses as usual, “said he would not speak either for or against the resolution.” This is how the “leaders” give a “lead” to their followers.

* * *

The I.L.P. drops members.

It was disclosed at the Conference of the Scottish I.L.P. that the number of Labour M.P.’s who are members of the I.L.P. has fallen to 156. A year ago, when the Party held its National Conference, it was stated in the Report to Conference that nearly 200 I.L.P. members were Labour M.P.’s. So that over 40 Labour M.P.’s have in a year decided that the I.L.P. can be of no further use as an aid to a political career. The I.L.P. still, however, counts as members a clear majority of the Labour M.P.’s.

It is interesting to notice how the membership of the I.L.P. has fallen in recent years. In February, 1925, according to the “Socialist Annual, 1925,” published by the I.L.P., there were approximately 50,000 members and 1,028 branches. At the Conference in 1930 it was stated (Manchester Guardian, April 3rd, 1930) that the branches had fallen to 748. If the membership has fallen proportionately to the fall in branches, it would have been not more than 30,000 a year ago. The income from affiliation fees fell by over 40 per cent. between 1925 and 1929.

The Report of the National Administrative Council to the 1931 Conference shows a further decline. The branches now number 712, and affiliation fees have fallen to £.1,523, as compared with £3,467 in the year ended January, 1926.

According to Mr. F. A. Ogg (“English Government and Politics,” p. 541), the I.L.P. in 1914 had 60,000 members, and in 1927, when its book membership was 50,000, the actual paid-up membership was nearer 30,000.

* * *

The Well-To-Do I.L.P.

The I.L.P. has objected to the Government’s proposed Voting Bill because it is not sufficiently democratic. The I.L.P. put down several amendments, but we observe that neither they nor the Labour Party, the Liberal Party or the Tory Party, propose to abolish the clause which compels candidates to deposit £150. To find such deposits is a hard task for a party (such as our own) dependent on the spare cash of members of the working class. It is by no means difficult for the wealthy parties referred to above. The dependence of the I.L.P. on well-to-do supporters is illustrated by their recently published appeal for funds. Four lists of subscribers have been issued up to February 20th. Out of a total amount of £1,169, no less than £709 was subscribed by only 14 persons. This included one donation of £250 and three donations of £100. Although the I.L.P. complains of dwindling funds, it is still able to count on well-to-do supporters.

* * *

Capitalism and class barriers.

Defenders of capitalism are fond of pointing out that everyone has a chance of climbing to the top. The statistical department of the German Government has just conducted an inquiry to find out how many workers’ sons have actually been able to climb into the ranks of the privileged class. An account of the inquiry was given in the News-Chronicle on December 10th, 1930.

It was found that there were only four workers’ sons among 247 bankers, stockbrokers and big business men ; two among 258 company directors ; none among 122 big property owners ; six among 203 actors, singers, theatrical managers ; none among 300 political economists, etc. ; and only about seven among 1,370 high Government and Municipal officials. 

No daughter of a working man was found to have penetrated into the learned professions or big business circles.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Look Round. (1930)

From the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party and War.

An idea which is widely held, although quite baseless, is that the Labour Party is an anti-war party. Many people have already forgotten that the Labour Party officially supported the war in 1914, engaged in recruiting, was represented in the Asquith Coalition Government by Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Roberts, and in the Lloyd George Coalition by Mr. Henderson (member of the War Cabinet), Mr. John Hodge (Minister of Labour), and Mr. Barnes (Minister of Pensions). (See 1919 Labour Year Book, pages xii and xiv.)

It was Mr. Arthur Henderson who distinguished himself by urging the deport­tion of strikers from the Clyde, including Mr. David Kirkwood, now a Labour M.P.

It is, however, often argued that the Labour Party has learned by experience, and would not repeat the “mistake” of 1914. It is therefore worth while taking particular note of the actions and declarations of Mr. Arthur Henderson, Secretary of the Labour Party, and now Foreign Secretary in the Labour Government. In 1914 Mr. Henderson supported war. Has he admitted his error, or changed his attitude? Let Mr. Henderson speak for himself.

At the 1925 Labour Party Annual Conference, Mr. Henderson spoke on behalf of the Executive Committee in opposition to a resolution asking for disarmament. At that time the French Government’s occupation of the Ruhr was still fresh in mind, and in certain circles, including the British Labour Party, feeling against France was running high. This is what Mr. Henderson said :—

“If France continued in the frame of mind she was now in, had they to overlook the possibilities of defence? They could not afford to ignore this question of defence.”—(See Conference Report. Page 232.)

Then, in 1929, Mr. Henderson was challenged about his war-time activities, and replied in a statement to the “Daily Herald” (January 10th, 1929). In that statement Mr. Henderson said “he was not in the least ashamed of his war record, and was willing that it should be investigated by any committee appointed by the Labour Party.”

Of course, Mr. Henderson was willing to have his war-time activities investigated by the Labour Parly. How could his fellow jingoes find him guilty without condemning their own anti-working class activities?

It will be noticed that Mr. Henderson retracts nothing and apologises for nothing. In 1914 it was Germany; in 1925 it was France; who will it be next time Mr. Henderson wants the working class to go to war in defence of British Capitalism?

* * *

Are the men worse than the women?

Mr. Henderson is ably supported by Miss Susan Lawrence, M.P., who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of. Health. Speaking at Friends’ House, Euston Road, on January 14th, on “Women and Peace,” Miss Lawrence said :—

“I think we must face the fact that under certain circumstances war is inevitable. I would go so far as to say that there are certain conditions which are worse than war … It is a horrible fact that there is no great nation in the world that has attained its freedom except by war.”—(“Manchester Guardian,” 15th Jan.)

Unfortunately, Miss Lawrence did not let out two intriguing secrets. She omitted to say what were the conditions worse than war, and she forgot to say which was the nation in which the working class had attained their freedom. As she went on to say that the “memories of how we attained our freedom are proud memories,” we are forced to conclude that the “we” who have attained freedom arc not the working class at all. May we ask Miss Lawrence and the I.L.P., of which we understand she is a member, why we of the working class should go to war to maintain the freedom of the Capitalist class?

* * *

Unhappy Mr Maxton.

Mr. James Maxton, Chairman of the I.L.P., has just been severely snubbed by the Scottish group of his party. At a delegate conference a resolution endorsing his recent attitude towards the Labour Government was rejected by 103 votes to 94, although the national executive supports him. In the course of his speech to the delegates, Mr. Maxton complained bitterly that the army of revolt which he thought he was leading, suddenly vanished into thin air. “You had shoved me up against the guns, and when I looked round there was nobody there.” (Reported in “Manchester Guardian,” 13th and 14th January.)

Truly an unfortunate position to be in, but one which sooner or later always overtakes those who trade in bluff. Mr Maxton’s army of revolt is composed of I.L.P. members of Parliament who owe their seats to Labour votes and Labour support. How can they then seriously oppose the Labour Party? And is Mr. Maxton himself an inspiring figure to lead revolts? He has yet to live down even among his own supporters the ghastly fiasco of the “Cook and Maxton” campaign. At the outset of that little firework display Mr. Maxton was neatly cornered on this very question of revolts.

He spoke to a crowded audience in St. Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow, on Sunday, July 7th, 1928. (Reported in “Forward” on July 14th.) He was asked the following question :—

“You have denounced Ramsay MacDonald. Are you prepared to advocate the expulsion of MacDonald from the Labour Party?”

Here was a chance for Maxton to show a bold and logical front. But this was his reply :—

“He was not prepared to advocate the expulsion of MacDonald. He did not believe in expelling anybody. He believed in having both Lefts and Rights in the Party where they could fight things out and let the Centre get on with the work. If people got expelled from the Party they got further away from the Party, and he believed in keeping them under control.”

Here you have the bold, bad office boy who puts his fingers to his nose behind the boss’s back, but “does not believe in sacking the boss because he wants to keep him under control.”

It has been truly said of Mr, Maxton that he is “one of those people who mean well, but …”

* * *

“We Band of Brothers.”

Mr. Maxton’s idea of letting “Lefts” and “Rights” fight while the “Centre” gets on with the work, brings to mind another hoary old argument used by the I.L.P. against the Socialist Party, “Why not,” they say, “let us all get together in the Labour Party and be one great, happy-band of brothers all united for Socialism?”

The answer is that only Socialists can be united for Socialism, and the Labour Party and I.L.P. are neither Socialist nor united. Mr. Maxton and the majority of the National Administrative Council of the I.L.P. are at daggers drawn with the minority and with the Scottish Group. Mr. Johnston, Mr. Wheatley, Mr. Dollan and others are carrying on a heated and abusive quarrel in the columns of “Forward,” and the Editor of the “New Leader” boasts that he is holding the balance evenly between the two sides. Mrs. Mary Hamilton, an I.L.P. member of Parliament, writes in the “New Leader” (6th December) saying that the I.L.P. is not a class party, and Mr. David Kirkwood, another I.L.P. member of Parliament, replies (13th December) that it is a class party or ought to be if it isn’t. A “branch secretary” of the I.L.P. writes as follows (“New Leader,” 27th December) :—

“Once more a position has arisen in which the I.L.P. seems hopelessly lacking in unity. Speaking as a branch official who has served the Party as boy and man for 30 years, I say quite frankly that the situation cannot long continue. It is quite impossible to maintain any semblance of work locally whilst I.L.P.’ers in Parliament continue to talk from opposite positions.”

“Branch secretary” is quite wrong in one respect. The I.L.P. from its birth has always had its members “talking from opposite positions,” and have we not just quoted Mr. Maxton’s statement that that is what he likes? That is a situation which will continue as long as workers can be found lacking Socialist knowledge, and consequently prepared to go on entrusting their thinking to leaders.

But we must confess that the horrible chaos existing inside the I.L.P. is hardly the kind of thing we want to be mixed up in. That is not what we call “unity for Socialism.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: Socialist Definitions—A Critic corrected. (1928)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Theydon Bois, Essex.

To the Editor, Socialist Standard.

Many Socialists are probably hoping fervently that the stupid, bourgeois, definitions, which crept into the report of the Maxton v. Fitzgerald debate; definitions alleged to have been proffered by Mr. Fitzgerald, were misprints or lapsus linguoe.

He is reported to have said :—

1. “By the working class is meant those who depend upon the sale of their services for their living.”
2. “By the capitalist class is meant those persons who buy the services of the workers.”
3. “Capital does not mean merely wealth used for the production of further wealth, but wealth invested for the purpose of obtaining a nett surplus, called interest.”
4. "Wealth is the product of the application of human energies to nature given material.”

These are the kind of “soppy” definitions which Marx hated and with which Maxton could easily agree because three of them were entirely wrong and the fourth was only half-true. Both 1 and 2 are quite suitable definitions to the Capitalist class simply because they hide the true nature of the labour-capital relations. “Services” are things done. The capitalists do not buy our services, they buy our power to do service—quite a different thing. This is no more pedantry or hair-splitting on my part than it was when Marx showed the difference between labour, the thing done, and labour-power, the ability to do things.

If capitalists buy service and we get paid fairly for those services we have nothing to grumble about; moreover the value of our services could only be assessed in terms of the actual things produced.

Service is work or labour done. The capitalist cannot make profit by buying labour done, and then by selling that labour, no ! he makes his profit by buying labour power or power to do service, and, by consuming that power, in the production of commodities containing embodied service or labour which he sells more or less at value. The value of the embodied service, i.e., the amount of socially necessary labour, measured in hours, in much greater than the value of the labour-power consumed, or the power to do service. The difference constitutes surplus value, from which is derived rent, interest and profit.

Definition 3 is obviously absurd because interest is only one part of the net surplus. The other parts are rent and profit. 3 implies that to abolish interest is to abolish capital, since by the definition the net surplus is interest, and capital cannot exist without its function. In volume three of “Das Kapital,” chapters 21, 22, 23 show that interest is that proportion of surplus value which an industrial capitalist pays to a money capitalist for the use of his money. The industrial capitalist borrows money, converts it into means of production and labour power, makes his surplus value and reproduces his original capital. This he converts back into money which he returns to the money lender, plus a proportion of his surplus value in the form of interest. What surplus is left is rent and profit. The rate of profit is determined by the inner laws of capitalist production, while “there is no such thing as a natural rate of interest in the sense in which the economists speak of a natural rate of profit, and a natural rate of wages” (“Das Kapital,” vol. 3), because interest is only a part of profit.

Definition 4 is self-evidently only half-true. Sweat is the “product of the application of human energies to nature given material,” but sweat is not wealth because it has no use. Similarly smoke from a factory chimney fulfils the conditions of deflation 4, but it is waste, not wealth.

Thus the definitions should run : —

1. By the working class is meant those who depend upon the sale of their labour power for their living.
2. By the capitalist class is meant those persons who buy the labour power of the workers.
3. Capital does not mean merely wealth used for the production of further wealth, but wealth invested for the purpose of obtaining a surplus, called rent, interest and profit, according to the distribution of that surplus.
4. Wealth is the useful product of human activities applied to nature given material.

Just as when the I.L.P. misleads the working class by misusing words, he cannot “get away” with the plea that the workers are not pedants nor interested in the exact knowledge of terms, so the S.P.G.B. cannot defend the first set of definitions on similar grounds.

I, personally, cannot believe that so experienced a war-horse in the class-struggle as J. Fitzgerald is, could have stumbled as these definitions suggest, as badly as any callow I.L.P.er in the throes of debate.

I look forward to the publication of this letter, and a justification or renunciation of the exceedingly anti-Communist definitions imputed to J. Fitzgerald in the Socialist Standard.

As for Maxton’s phrase “narrowed to vanishing point” it was particularly unhappy in that it is a mathematical phrase which actually means “narrowed down to as small as we like though not out of existence.” It is the essence of Gradualism, and in consequence quite anti-Socialist.

As I see it, your principles must force you to deny the definitions published in the June Socialist Standard, on page 1.

Yours for Socialism,

J. Woltz.

Reply to J. Woltz.

The condensed report of the Debate between Maxton and Fitzgerald was taken down during the debate for the purpose of appearing in the June Socialist Standard, which was already in the printer’s hands.

Under these circumstances it had to be rushed off to the printers that night and there was no time for the reporter to read the proofs before the paper appeared. This explains the appearance of one slip—not four—that Mr. Woltz has found.

To take Mr. Woltz’s four points :—

(1) Mr. Woltz says ” ‘services’ are things done.” Indeed ! By what reasoning does he reach this conclusion? The simple fact is that the word “service,” like many other words, will have a meaning depending upon its context and tense. Mr. Maxton is exceedingly fond of referring to the “manual worker.”

To meet this unscientific statement Fitzgerald pointed out its absurdity in the following words :—

“There is a good deal of cant in describing workers as “mental” and “manual” workers. The definitions are quite unsound from a scientific point of view. No manual work can take place without a mental organisation. And no mental effort can be known until it has expressed itself through some physical channel. Therefore all those who depend for their existence upon the sale of their services are members of the working class.”

Clearly the sale of one’s services means the sale of the power to perform certain operations. This may be illustrated by the common phrase “offered their services” that is their power to do certain things. The phrase as used was quite correct.

(2) The above answer disposes of Mr. Woltz’s objection to the second definition.

(3) This is the one slip made by the reporter that Mr. Woltz has found. In the debate Fitzgerald read out a definition from a celebrated capitalist economist, and then gave the following paraphrase of Marx’s statement :—

“He (Marx) points out that the process is that the capitalist uses money to purchase commodities, including labour-power, and sells the finished product and, as a result, has money at the end. But there would be no sense in simply putting money into business to draw out the same amount at the end of the process. The formula therefore becomes — money — commodities and money plus an increment. And it is this increment that distinguishes capital. Capital therefore is wealth used for the purpose of obtaining this surplus which includes profit.”

(4) Here Mr. Woltz has discovered a “mare’s-nest.” The report in the Socialist Standard, even though condensed from the statement given in the debate, is still correct. If wealth is not the product of the application of human energy to Nature-given material, will Mr. Woltz explain what it is? His own definition merely adds a word—that begs the question and itself requires explanation—to our own statement.

In conclusion, we may point out that we are not concerned to give “communist” definitions, but “Socialist” ones, and this is what was done in the debate.

Editorial Committee.