The Essentials of Socialist Unity. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Socialist Working Class

Comrades,

In the January number of our official organ—the Socialist Standard—we addressed you concerning the International Socialist Congresses, and briefly dwelt with our reasons for declining an invitation from the Secretary of the British section at the Amsterdam Congress to take part in forming a National Committee to deal with matters arising out of the International Congress, on the grounds that it should be the task of the Socialist Party alone to deal with these questions, and that, judging by the composition of the British section at the Amsterdam Congress, the proposed Committee would consist of men who are in no sense of the word Socialists. That Committee has now been formed and its composition fully justifies the view we took of it in January last.

In accordance with our promise, we have forwarded a communication to the International Socialist Bureau, asking that, in our name, a motion be placed upon the Agenda of the next International Congress, for discussion in open Congress, embodying the following proposals:—

(a) That admission to future International Socialist Congresses shall be open only to all avowed Socialist, bodies that accept the essential principles of Socialism, i.e., socialisation of the means of production and distribution, union and international action of workers, Socialist conquest of the Public Powers by the proletariat organised as a class party recognising and proclaiming the class war, running all candidates upon this basis and adopting an attitude of hostility under all circumstances to all sections of the capitalist party.

(b) That all previous resolutions (defining the basis of admission to. the Congress) be rescinded.

(c) That all matters upon the agenda be discussed in open Congress and that the methods of discussion in Commissions be entirely abolished.

(d) That each delegate shall have one vote, but if a poll be demanded, each Party represented shall be entitled to one vote.

(e) That representation upon the Bureau shall be upon the basis of Parties represented at the Congress, each of which shall be entitled to one representative upon the Bureau.

We have further requested the Bureau to at once consider the advisability of adopting one language in which all the business of the Bureau and of the Congress shall be conducted, with the object of coming to a decision upon the matter in sufficient time for the language decided upon to be adopted as the official language of the Stuttgart Congress.

Up to now the International Socialist Congresses have not considered the composition of the Nationalities represented thereat. At Amsterdam, National matters were entered into, when a resolution was passed in favour of National Unity. If the International Movement is to be placed upon a sound revolutionary basis the Congress must enter into the character of the different National organisations which are obtaining admission to the Congresses and affiliation to the Bureau. When the Congress has, by its resolute action, eliminated all pseudo-socialist organisations, such as deny the existence of the class war, or in any way support the capitalist class or its catspaws in their respective countries, then unity of the Socialist forces in each country will be easily accomplished.

We are, Comrades,

With fraternal greetings,

The Executive Committee,

Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Head Office,

1a, Caledonian Road, London,

December 1905.

The Impending Collapse of Labourism. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the near approach of a general election the signs and portents that tell of the futility of what is at present known as the “Independent Labour Representation” movement increase and multiply. With one desire paramount in their minds—the desire to secure election—many of the candidates for whom the Labour Representation Committee is responsible, are quite ready to subordinate their independence to their election in the belief, quite honestly held doubtless in some cases, that some special virtue attaches to the right to append the letters M.P. after a name. Nor is this surprising. When men set out with the all-pervading notion that the imperative necessity of the hour is the formation of a “Labour Group” inside the House of Commons, without a very clear notion as to why there should be such a group, without being at infinite pains to understand the reasons underlying the supposed necessity, without being intimately acquainted with the only conditions upon which a Labour Group can be of utility and effect, it is not surprising if they think to proceed to their “independence” within the Commons, by very dependent methods without. It is not surprising that Mr. Richards, the L.R.C. candidate for Wolverhampton, for example, prefers not to take the chances of defeat in opposition to the Liberals when the chances of election in alliance with them are so bright. And this it would seem, on the authority of Mr. Tom Jones, representing the “Labour” side of the Liberal-Labour Conference held to make arrangements, is the position of the responsible officers of the Labour Representation Committee.

“They were satisfied that, anxious as they were to get a Labour Representative returned, it was impossible to do so on Labour lines exclusively. . . . The one object . . . which the Labour Party had was to try and replace one of the worst governments of modern times, . . . they regretted that some annoyance had been caused by individual men objecting to Liberals having anything to do with them,” and so on.

And these are the leaders of the movement that, once formed, was to march straight into the real working-class—the Socialist—camp, because forsooth, it could follow no other road. This was the assumption upon which the only argument of the I.L.P. (L.R.C. patron and sycophant) rested. And yet of the four men already in Parliament, and drawing their stipend from the L.R.C., three are quite frankly adjuncts of, and in no way distinguishable from, the capitalist Liberal party, while at the first approach of the general encounter with what are supposed to be (from the L.R.C. point of view) the forces of re-action, the political training of a life-time is too strong for their candidates, whose independence grows smaller by degrees and beautifully less. Of course. They want to get into Parliament. Many of them don’t clearly know why, and those who do have no intelligent force behind them to insist that they shall keep to the line of independence.

The I.L.P. having done all in its power to foster L.R.C’ism —mainly, it is true, for the purpose of securing monetary support for its own men naturally grows apprehensive at these indications of collapse, and protests against the Wolverhampton violation of the L.R.C. Constitution. But in the first place the L.R.C. has no constitution, and in the second the I.L.P. tactics are in the main the L.R.C. tactics, as defined by Mr. Tom Jones. At Halifax, Mr. Parker, I.L.P. candidate and member of the I.L.P. Executive, is in precisely the same position that Mr. Richards occupies, i.e., he has sold out independence and all to the Liberal Party. The I.L.P. will find difficulty enough, it seems, in keeping its own particular candidates in order, Without worrying about anything else.

The fact is, of course, that both the I.L.P. and the L.R.C. (not to mention the S.D.F.) have omitted to ponder the fact (or have deliberately blinked it) that to change a label is not to change an idea, and if from their youth up the working-class have been trained to give allegiance to Liberalism or Toryism, the return of Labour men—commonly so-called—to Parliament will not have the effect of changing their views ; while without that, change of view the Labour men returned, having no mandate and no strength at their back, are practically useless except to themselves, even when, as in the case of Crooks, Shackleton, and Henderson, they are not themselves, in everything but name, thick and thin supporters of one of the orthodox capitalist factions. Only by education, by an exacting and painstaking course of instruction in the true inwardness of the economic phenomena that affects them always to their detriment, can the working-class ideas be changed. The S.D.F., have frankly tired of this educational work, the I.L.P. were probably never able to perform it, and the L.R.C., without principles or object, and with only the most loosely defined policy, has always been nothing more than the happy hunting-ground (or perhaps we should say Tom Tiddler’s ground) for the man on the make, the political quack and charlatan. It remains, therefore, the more imperative that the S.P.G.B. should persist in its work with the determination and consistency which have characterised its efforts hitherto. To educate and organise the working-class of Great Britain into an army of irreconcilables at perpetual war with the forces of capitalism upon both the economic and the political fields, this is the purpose of the Socialist Party. And this purpose cannot be effected by compromise with capitalism, by arrangement, real or implied, by methods of confusion, by obscurantism of whatever consistency. It cannot be effected by indulging the particularly absurd hope of the Labour Leader “to unite working men of all shades of political opinion into one great Labour Party,” because a Labour Party cannot exist on any such basis, and would be useless if it could. It can only be effected by keeping essentials clear. And the first essentials are the absolute incompatibility of working-class interest with capitalist interest, and the necessity therefore, of translating the class struggle which is for ever manifesting itself on the economic field to the political field, to be waged with unceasing effort. This method may seem long and thankless, but it is the method that is sure in its results. Moreover, it is the only method.

A. James

The Pillory. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Labour party was under no delusion; for if a working-man was taken in to the Cabinet, they knew why, they knew the reason behind his being taken in.” Keir Hardie.

“It is now announced that by one of his last official acts Mr. Gerald Balfour has appointed Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald as one of the Local Government Board representatives on the committee (Central Unemployed).” I.L.P. Organ.

In what material respect would an appointment to the Central Unemployed Committee at the hands of a Tory Capitalist Minister differ from an appointment to the Local Government Board at the hands of a Liberal Capitalist Minister ? Answer Hardie. And if there is no difference may we not know the reason behind both appointments ? Is it not that the ministers know their men ?

“We find it difficult to understand the point of view of those ‘Labour men’ who have been congratulating Mr. John Burns on his acceptance of office. We naturally supposed that all would now see that he had definitely gone over to the enemy. Nevertheless it appears to some Labour members and candidates who are pledged to rigorously abstain from identifying themselves with either Liberal or Tory Party that this final act of repudiation of the Labour cause by John Burns is one upon which both he and they are to be congratulated. It passes all comprehension.” ‘Justice,’ S.D.F. Organ.

“The Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress has passed the following resolution:

That the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress heartily congratulates the Right Hon. John Burns, formerly chairman of the committee, upon his appointment to the position of President of the Local Government Board, and wishes him every success during his period of office.” Morning Leader.

“Justice” adds the situation is Gilbertian when “we have the ineffable Winston Churchill, another colleague of Mr. Burns going down to support the Liberal opponent of Mr. Alderman Bowerman, who, as a member of the Labour group on the L.C.C., signed the letter of congratulation to Mr. Burns.” Agreed. It is Gilbertian. But when Mr. Will Thorne, a very prominent member of the S.D.F., that through its organ gibes at the absurdity of Mr. Bowerman congratulating Mr. Burns himself, as a prominent member of the Parliamentary Committee, signs a similar letter of congratulation, Gilbert pales his ineffectual fires. Perhaps “Justice” will now jeer Mr. Thorne, but as Mr. Thorne constitutes a valuable asset to “Justice,” perhaps not!

“Never was the I.L.P. so great, so strong, so full of courage as it is to-day. From every corner of the land reports pour in telling of crowded halls, revival, and organisation.” J. Bruce Glasier (I.L.P. Executive).

“What was their position as a party ? If he understood it—and he knew he was speaking for the heads of the party—they wanted to see in the next House of Commons a Liberal Party big enough to do something, and to let them see what they could do. Give your votes so that they will get into the same lobby as often as possible” Jas. Parker (I.L.P. Executive).

Mr. Glasier’s remark follows immediately after an adverse criticism of Mr. Parker. The ordinary person will probably incline to the idea that the great “Independent” Labour Party is full of courage because of the encouraging reception their advances receive from the Liberal Party upon which some of them are apparently dependent. It is reported that after Mr. Parker’s speech, a prominent Liberal rose to advise his fellow Liberals to give one vote to the Liberal and one to Mr. Parker. He hoped the Labour men would reciprocate the entente cordiale !

“The Durham miners are ballotting as to which of four constituencies Mr. J. W. Taylor shall stand for at the coming election. One of the four seats which are being ballotted upon is Chester-le-street, which is represented by Sir James Joicey, and last week Mr. J. H. Wilson, at one time member for Middlesboro’, addressed several meetings in the constituency in support of Joicey.” Labour Lender.

“There was no vacant places at house dinner to Mr. Thos. Burt, M.P. (Miners, Morpeth), at the Newcastle Liberal Club last evening. Letters of regret for non-attendance were read from Sir James Joicey. Mr. Burt said . . . Liberals and Labour men were natural allies. . . . There was no conflict of interest between one and the other.” Northern Echo.

After which striking example of Miners’ consistency, it is not surprising to read in the official organ of the I.L.P. that the I.L.P. is making remarkable progress among the miners. It is. The similarity in the mental tangles of both parties’ representatives, simply stands up to strike one.

“But circumstances are telling in our favour. At home the hopeless incapacity and irreconcilable antagonisms within the two prevailing capitalist political factions unquestionably help us.”

H. M. Hyndman, S.D.F. Dec.

“In all important matters, foreign, domestic, colonial, the Liberals express themselves as being determined to carry on the policy of their predecessors.” H. Quelch. S.D.F.

“This sham fight (between Liberal and Tory.) ” Every S.D.F. Speaker.

Irreconsignable antagonisms within the two Capitalist factions ! And this from “the Father of English Social Democracy”!! O Lor!!! will someone post Mr. Hyndman the S.P.G.B. Manifesto ?

“Mr. Shackleton, speaking at Nelson recently, formulated a programme of a startling revolutionary character. . . He declared himself in favour of Home Rule, Registration Reform, Payment of Members, Taxation of Land Values, the subjection of the House of Lords to the popular chamber and Public Control of the Education and Licensing Questions. Evidently the Labour Party is taking its courage in both hands when it does not hesitate to boldly declare in favour of such a programme. Why it is almost as far as that dangerous extremist, Campbell Bannerman, would dare to go.” H. Quelch (ironically), Dec.

“These, then, are some of the chief political reforms that Socialists will do well to keep to the front (Second Ballot, Payment of Members and Election Expenses, Adult Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments and the Initiative and Referendum.” J. F. Green, S.D.F. E.C. (Seriously).

“The question I wish to bring under the notice of English Socialists … is whether the time has not arrived when they should formulate a vigorous demand for all the political measures I have indicated (Second Ballot and Payment of Members and Election Expenses).” H. W. Lee, S.D.F. Sec.

Mr. Quelch is very ironical at Mr. Shackleton’s expense, very ironical. But all the same Mr. Shackleton’s immediate demands are not so very insignificant when, contrasted with Mr. Quelch’s fellow S.D.F’ers. Mr. Quelch’s satire like other peoples curses, invariably comes home to roost—if the metaphor will bear the strain.

Blogger's Note:

The formatting of this article in the original issue of the Socialist Standard neatly puts the contradictory statements side by side (see below) to give the full impact of the ILP/SDF opportunism and double talk. Sadly, I can't do the same on the blog and, as you can see, the quality of the scan isn't the best anyway.

A Look Round. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

A comrade sends me what he describes as a “Problem for Socialists.” At an Eastern seaside town, much frequented during July, August, and September by holiday makers, there was a small piece of land near the sea, of no value, too sandy for cultivation and too shifty for house building. It was let to a few fishermen for three or four shillings a year to dry their nets upon.

* * *

One Spring, however, two men went to the landlord and offered to hire the land during the summer mouths at a rental of £4 per month, to which the landlord willingly consented. The hirers fenced the land, erected a booth and dressing-room, obtained two or three hundred chairs, and announced that, weather permitting, concerts would be given twice a day during the season. The troupe, consisting of three women and four men, soon arrived. They were successful and at the end of the season were at least £100 to the good.

* * *

In the following Spring they again went to the landlord and proposed to hire the land as before. But the “ramrod man” would not agree unless the hirers would pay £16 per month. And in that manner, without any effort on his part, the landlord was enabled to take to himself all the profit that the musical troupe, by their work, ability and persistency, could make.

* * *

“What a shameful affair. How unjust.” And my correspondent adds that the landlord was the Town Council ! He asks whether this fact made the transaction any juster, and what would occur under Socialism in similar circumstances.

* * *

Now, excepting to those persons who imagine that a municipality under capitalism is anything but a capitalist body, trading on capitalist lines with the object of making a profit out of their enterprises for the benefit of the property owners, the action of the particular municipality will evoke no surprise or condemnation. Is it not urged by land “reformers” that Public Bodies should secure and retain possession of land in order that they may obtain the “unearned increment,” which now goes to the individual landlord ?

* * *

As to what would happen in similar circumstances under Socialism, my correspondent will agree, upon reflection, that there could be no similar circumstances. Under Socialism the people will not only produce, by their own highly organised collective effort, the material wealth necessary to existence, but will also, by associated effort, provide their own amusements and pastimes, where desirable. You would not have, in the Socialist State, some folks providing amusement for others, as a speculation, depending for their sustenance upon individual contributions from pleased or pitying members of the community.

* * *

Of course, no Socialist, unless he is a very raw recruit, wastes his time putting forward any cut-and-dried scheme which he claims will be the method of detailed organisation in the Socialist State. He knows that when the necessary mental revolution which must precede the economic revolution has been accomplished, the people will be more capable of settling the details of the new society than anyone now living. The Socialist can only advocate the principles upon which he believes Society should be based and upon which he believes it will be based. Because, unless that which he thinks should happen is likely to happen, he is simply wasting himself. He claims that Socialism is scientific because he has carefully studied the history of pre-capitalist states of society and watched the developments and tendencies of the present. He can show that the tendency is towards the most economical and effective organisation of the production of wealth. But to-day this organisation is in the hands of a class, comprising the individual capitalist, the trust and the capitalist municipality, all making up the capitalist state. The interests considered are capitalist interests and the function of the Socialist is to convince the people of the advantages of this organisation being controlled by and in the interests of the wealth producers. When this is accomplished the people will establish the Socialist Republic.

* * *

It sometimes happens that municipal enterprise is uneconomical and reactionary as compared with the enterprise of the Trust and Combine and it is just a question as to whether Socialists should not oppose this form of capitalist development.

* * *

Rent is robbery. It matters not to me whether I am robbed by the ducal landlord or the municipal landlord and the extent to which municipalities claim to be enabled to reduce the rates by trading is no concern of the working-class. Rents are not reduced because rates go down. In fact, the opening up of a tramway route, by which the municipality may be enabled to reduce rates by a halfpenny or so, often causes rents to rise, by rendering more accessible districts where hitherto competition for house accommodation, which determines rents, was exceedingly restricted. Moreover, trains, tubes, etc., which are being provided everywhere, even for school children, are producing a race that cannot walk—a “born-tired” people.

* * *

If all those who have at some time or another emphasised the fact that the working-class are not affected by rates would always adhere to that position there would be less confusion of thought amongst the working-class. Here, for instance, is Mr. Will Thorne, the L.R.C. candidate for South West Ham, who has declared that it would make no difference to the working-class if the rates in West Ham were twenty shillings in the £, putting on the front-page of his election address : Nationalisation of Education, Poor Hates, Mine Rents, and Mineral Royalties. Mr. Thorne does not explain how these matters concern the poverty-stricken workers of South West Ham. In the body of his address he says he is strongly in favour of “Nationalisation of the Land, Canals, Railways, Mine Rents, and Mineral Royalties, the private ownership of which acts as the real barrier to British Industry in the Markets of the World” !

* * *

This is an interesting pronouncement for a man whom the S.D.F. claim as their candidate, although he is nothing of the sort and they are not responsible for one penny of his election expenses. As a matter of fact, admitted by the capitalist Press, British Industry has been supplanted because production naturally tends to locate itself where natural conditions are most favorable. But why concern ourselves about Britain’s position in the markets of the world ? For the capitalists, whether Free Traders or Tariff Reformers, the matter is of interest, but the concern of the Socialist is to stop the exploitation of the working-class, not to help one set of capitalists to exploit at the expense of another.

* * *

That is a capitalist struggle, like the fiscal fight. One set of capitalists say that we (i.e., British Capitalists) are losing because our fiscal system requires changing ; another set say that we hold our position because of our fiscal system and shall lose it if we change. And so their struggle continues. It is a matter of indifference to me whether I am plucked by a Free Trade Kite or a Protectionist Crow : I object to the plucking.

* * *

I am glad that some of Mr. Thorne’s friends recognise this. In last week’s “Justice” Mr. D. Carmichael writes:

“Members should insist, during the coming election, on making the workers realise that, while the fiscal question may be of interest to their masters, it is of little importance to them, and by heckling the capitalist candidates on every possible occasion expose the folly of depending on the robber class helping the robbed.”

* * *

Mr. D. Carmichael is one of the unemployed “leaders” who have been “demanding” that the robber class shall help the robbed !!!

* * *

But Mr. Will Thorne does not agree with Mr. Carmichael. He declares for “No Tariff Barriers” and is a “determined opponent of the imposition of any Tariff burdens on the food of the people.”

* * *

The whirligig of time, we are told, brings its own revenges. In “Justice” for the 16th of last month I read:

“Our veteran comrade Dadabhai Naoroji, whose services to India for more than 50 years are well known, is standing as a Liberal candidate in North Lambeth. We are no friends to Liberal candidates, and we are certainly not enamoured of the set which is supporting Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji. But we should regret, nevertheless, if he were opposed by a working man. There are exceptions to all rules and this case is that exception. Mr. Naoroji, more than any Indian living, voices the aspirations of 300,000,000 people under our rule. On that ground we hope he will be returned to the House of Commons.”

* * *

It occurred to me when I read the above that I had seen something in “Justice” to the opposite effect. I turned up my index and found the following, which appeared on the 22nd September, 1894 :

“Social-Democrats can lose the ‘Progressives’ certain London seats by mere abstention. Why shouldn’t we ? We owe the Progressives’ nothing—less than nothing. They are a miserable lot. We thought Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji one of the best of them. He owes his seat to our votes. If we abstain at the next election, he at least must go. What should we keep him in for ? He has been of no use whatever to us and of very little use to India. The Liberal Party may seem to our Parsee friend a very grand and glorious institution, but we fail to see how acting the part of a mere Liberal Hanger-on rewards Social-Democrats for the trouble they took in going to the poll for Mr. Dadabhai.”

* * *

What a virtue is consistency !

* * *

“Justice” is owned and controlled by the Twentieth. Century Press Ltd. In 1894 Mr. Naoroji held 80 shares in the Company, he now holds 280. These figures relate to the ordinary shares of 5s. 0d., not to the debentures. So that, apparently. “our Parsee friend” has paid £50 for the support of “Justice.” Let us hope he is satisfied with his bargain.

* * *

Mr. Ebenezer Howard, founder of the Garden City, presided at a meeting held last month at this very latest paradise, to consider the question of the provision of dwellings for working men. The Dean of St. Albans addressed the meeting on the desirability of proper housing for the working classes and urged the men to support a scheme for proper dwellings. Others also spoke.

* * *

Was not the Garden City one of those brand new patent schemes for solving the Housing problem ?

* * *

Mr. Isaac Mitchell, Secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions, was, as usual, unable to be present at the meeting, but, again as usual, sent his blessing by letter.

* * *

No meeting of “reformers” is now complete without a letter from Mr. Isaac Mitchell.

Jack Kent

Editorial: No change. (1906)

Editorial from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

At last ! After paltering with the destinies of an imperial race for more years than the Liberal party care to remember, Mr. Balfour has resigned and the great Unionist Party has gone out of office. At last ! After fretting in the shades of opposition for a decade, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman has assumed control of the reins of Government and the Great Liberal Party has gone into office. The most capable, the most industrious, the most earnest, the most successful Government of modern times (vide the Tory Press) and the most disgraceful, the most useless, the most fraudulent, the most shameless Government in the history of mankind (vide the Liberal Press) has decided to take a well-earned rest from its laborious endeavours (Tory Press), or has been forced by the pressure of a disgusted public opinion to vacate its position (Liberal Press), and an impossible government of mutually warring elements that cannot by any chance conduct the affairs or in any adequate way discharge the responsibilities of the English people (Tory Press), or a Government representative of the brains of the Empire, a sound and workmanlike Government that can unhesitatingly claim to voice the aspirations of every section of the nation (Liberal Press) has taken its place. The people of England may have which view they like for their ha’penny, and doubtless by far the majority of the people of England will have and unfortunately share, one or the other of them. We would it were otherwise. It would be otherwise if we could get the intelligent ear of the people of England—or the working class of England, for we are concerned with no other section. We would have the working class understand that, as a matter of fact, despite all the emphatic assurances of the Capitalist Press to the contrary, there is no real change in the Government. It is the same Government representing the same interests, aiming at the same object, actuated by the same motive. True it is a Liberal Government to-day, whereas yesterday it was a Tory Government. But that is only a change of label. It has a Bannerman at its head, vice a Balfour, a Burns at the Local Government Board, vice a second Balfour. But that is only a change of name. True also the change of name and label may involve a slight change of method. It has doubtless become necessary to make a concession to a slowly awakening working class opinion and a departure from the more usual course in the selection of a man for ministerial position who, to the slow-moving working class mind, would be regarded as a champion of working class interest, has been made. But this “Labour” representative has been carefully selected. By years of faithful service which the dirtiest of work has not affected he has demonstrated his trustworthiness and devotion to the interests of his employers. A change of names, of labels, of methods—that is all. The interest represented is still capitalist interest. The object still the retention of the means of life in the bands of the capitalist class, still the subjugation and exploitation of the working class. In no single material respect has the Government changed.

Editorial: Burns, P.C., M.P., L.G.B.., L.C.C. (1906)

Editorial from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

In regard to the appointment of Burns to the Local Government Board, we have just a few words to say, A considerable bulk of nonsense has been spoken and written on the subject by those who claim to represent Labour, mostly to the effect that it is desirable to suspend judgment on the man until he has had a chance to show what he is prepared to do. Now these Labour representatives must know quite as well as we know, why Burns has been selected for the position and the conditions of the appointment. He is selected because be is a “safe” man, because he has acted jackal to the Liberal Party for years, and because he has rarely, if ever, during the course of his Parliamentary career, raised his voice in championship of the interest of the class from which he sprang, but has, on the contrary, always been at the disposal of his capitalist friends to defend any act, even acts of palpable atrocity, committed by them. His association with that cold-blooded mediocrity, Asquith, in the murder of the Featherstone miners, and his plea for the use in such cases of the deadliest bullets obtainable, placed him for ever without the pale so far as we are concerned. But notwithstanding his record, his proletarian origin has given him a standing with the ignorant working class which the entire capitalist press has endeavoured, successfully, it must be admitted, to strengthen. To reward him with a well remunerated post was therefore to secure a large measure of working class support which the pressure of adverse economic conditions and the inability of capitalist governments to touch even the fringe of the trouble were tending to alienate. These are the reasons for Burns’ elevation. The conditions are that he shall do what may with safety be done to ensure the continued support of the working class to the Liberal Party. There is no question about this at all. Everyone who understands the working class position understands that this is the only condition upon which a capitalist government would consent to the inclusion of an ex-working man in their counsels. Knowing this we do not require to wait for what Burns may do. We know what he will do and why he will do it—just as the Tory St. James Gazette knew when, in commenting upon his appointment, they asserted that he could be relied upon to deal with the “whining wastrelism” known as the unemployed.

Answers to Correspondents. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

T.W:—The statement, like many another in the journal mentioned, is incorrect. No reference to Mr. Hyndman as “Uncle Harry” has ever been made in the Socialist Standard. Notwithstanding which we shall doubtless have it frequently brought up in evidence against us as an exhibition of bad taste. However—

W.L.D. (Leyton).—Certainly. Every contribution receives careful consideration.

Battersea Social. (1906)

Party News from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

In this, the alleged festive season, it is pleasant to find that some people enjoy themselves. Truly, on Dec. 10th, with a fog so thick without that it might have been a blind man’s holiday, it was surprising to find Sydney Hall. Battersea, teaming with such a joyous gathering.

The occasion was a tea and social arranged between the West and South West London branches of the S.P.G.B. The Battersea, Paddington, Tooting, Fulham and Peckham branches were well represented. Clerkenwell was also represented, and contributed materially (or should it be immaterially?) to the amusement of the evening.

But I am anticipating.

After the tea had been hidden from view, Comrade Leigh of Paddington was prevailed upon to take the chair, and an excellent and varied programme was gone through. It would be invidious to praise particularly, because where all were excellent none could be more, and, (let me confess it) I have forgotten many of their names.

Suffice to say, the Social was a great success, and all were of opinion that this, the first joint Social, should not be the last; for such a pleasant relaxation from the stern uphill fight against Capitalism, cannot fail to bear fruit in better knowledge of each other, in closer comradeship and increased enthusiasm for the cause we have at heart.

The fun still ran high, when the stalwarts from the outlying branches carved their way through a dense London particular to the railway station in time for the last train home, to snatch a few hours sleep before commencing another week of drudgery, brightened, however, by memories of that evening, and by hope for the time when all shall be better than well.

Bolus o’ the Ditch.

Party Notes. (1906)

Party News from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Executive Committee have dissolved all Sub-Committees and will in future meet at the Head Olfice every Tuesday at 7 p.m.

o o o

It has also been decided to abolish all Special Funds or rather to consolidate them into one General Fund.

o o o

This does not mean that the Party can do without the money hitherto raised by means of these special funds. On the contrary it can do with very much more, so that its sphere of activity may be considerably widened.

o o o

At the same time, it must be clearly understood that a member is only required by rule to pay twopence per week to the Party. But there are some who can afford more and these need only to be reminded that cheques and Postal Orders should be made payable to A. J. M. Gray.

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The Delegate Meeting will be held at the Communist Club, 107, Charlotte Street on Saturday, the 27th. inst. at 3 p.m., and a Party Reunion will take place at the same Club on Friday, the 26th inst.

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Members should apply to their Branch Secretary for their new cards without delay.

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Although the E.C. will not in future meet on Saturdays, the Socialist Standard will still be published on the first Saturday in each month and the Head Office will be kept open every Saturday until 4 p.m.

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Branches so desiring can have their supplies of the Party Organ sent by carrier direct from the printers on the Friday preceding date of publication.

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Comrade R. A. V. Morris has resigned his membership of the S.D.F. and the Secretaryship of both the Bexley and District Socialist Society and the Dartford Division Joint Unemployed Committee in order to become a member of our Party. He is endeavouring to form a Branch and will be glad to hear from readers in the district. His address is “Oxshott,” Warren Road, Bexley Heath.

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Comrade Rogers of Southend is very actively engaged in exposing the contradictory tactics of the local confusionists. On December 17th, after one Thomas Doody had spoken for the S.D.F., our comrade asked a number of questions bearing upon the difference between the preaching and the practice of that body, and why prominent members of the S.D.F. supported the defenders of capitalism. Mr. Doody, unable to satisfactorily reply, relied upon the usual side-tracking dodge, and thundered forth charges against this Party and its members. Now, if all Mr. Doody’s charges could be substantiated, if all his statements concerning us were true, the soundness or otherwise of the tactics of the S.D.F. would not be affected in the least. And when a public speaker, professing to have an open platform, to invite and to welcome criticism and opposition, ignores the criticism, shirks the questions, and makes wild charges against persons who are not there to speak for themselves, the public can easily see that his case must be a very bad one indeed.

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Friend Doody declared that the members of the S.P.G.B., “instead of staying in the S.D.F. and trying to pull it straight, left and formed a new party.” We thank Mr. Doody for the public admission that the S.D.F. is crooked and requires to be pulled straight. He is apparently unaware that most of those who came out and formed the new party in June, 1904 had been for years trying to pull the S.D.F. straight and that they only came out when they recognised that “Vested Interests” were too strong for them; in other words, that the extent to which the Twentieth Century Press Ltd., the proprietors of “Justice,” the official organ of the S.D.F., was dependent upon Trade Union officials for orders and capital and upon individual capitalist politicians for financial assistance rendered it impossible for the S.D.F. to go straight.

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If Mr. Doody will refer to the letter sent to the S.D.F. Executive in June, 1901, signed by some of the oldest and best known members of the S.D.F., asking for permission to form a Central West Ham branch, because those who signed it refused to associate themselves with the compromising policy then being pursued by the branches and members in West Ham, he will be compelled to admit that even at that time efforts were being made to “pull the S.D.F. Straight.”

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The S.D.F. Executive, well knowing the extent to which the movement had been compromised in West Ham. gave permission for the branch to be formed.

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That those who signed the letter had accurately judged the position is testified by a long communication from J. J. Terrett, who was a member of the S.D.F., which appeared in the “South Essex Mail” for December 16th last. He says :

“Most Socialists and Trade Unionists will, as they are pleased to phrase it, ‘vote for the least of two evils,’ viz., the Liberal as something better than the Tory. This has been our consistent attitude for nine years in all contests at Stratford, municipal, poor law, or national.” The italics are ours.

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We did our best, then, to pull the S.D.F. straight, but without success. On April 23rd, 1904, a meeting of London members of the S.D.F. was held at Shoreditch Town Hall to discuss the resolutions passed at the Easter Conference. At that meeting Mr. J. F. Green, a comparatively new member of the S.D.F., who, because he was a middle-class man and acquainted with large numbers of middle-class reformers, was made a member of the S.D.F. Executive and appointed to the Treasurership almost immediately he joined the body, told us if we could not agree with the policy of the S.D.F. we ought to clear out. We cleared out.

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Yes, we of the working-class, who had stood up at the street corner in defence of the revolutionary principles which the S.D.F. once promulgated, at a time when it was dangerous, physically and socially, to do so, we who had performed, in the interest of the working-class to which we belong, our full share of the hard graft which fell, and will continue to fall, to the lot of the revolutionist, were told to clear out by a middle-class man, pushed to the head of an alleged working-class organisation, if we did not agree with what he and his middle-class confreres considered was the proper policy to be pursued.

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In June, 1904, we formed The Socialist Party of Great Britain. If you desire to follow the record of our work, send a postal order for 3s. to our Head Office, and you will receive post free a bound copy of volume 1 of the Socialist Standard.

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Amongst other wild statements, Mr. Doody declared that Comrade Lehane was the editor of this journal. What that had to do with the policy of the S.D.F. cannot be seen. But the statement is not true. Lehaue has never edited the paper.

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Mr. Doody also made certain statements concerning J. Fitzgerald, but as he also offered to meet our comrade in public debate and his challenge was immediately accepted on our behalf by Comrade Rogers, these need not be dealt with here. Arrangements will be made for the debate as soon as possible, and will be duly announced.

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Ask your Branch Secretary for the Party Emblem. Twopence, or post free from Head Office for three stamps.

_____________

Readers are requested to forward copies of Election Literature, particularly that issued by S.D.F., I.L.P., and L.R.C. candidates, to the Head Office,

SPGB Meetings. (1906)

Party News from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and Darwinism. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are reproached for being revolutionists, by alleged Darwinians, (who have never studied evolution) as well as by some pseudo Socialists, who pretend to apply Darwinism to social movements. Both sections object to revolution, as unscientific. This objection can only arise from a misunderstanding of evolution, or from a deliberate attempt to switch the working-class off the revolutionary path. Socialism, as expounded by the S.P.G.B, through its official organ and its lecturers, is essentially scientific, never pandering to ignorance or prejudice, or attempting to escape from scientific truths by bowing to unscientific sentiments. This being so, and science being considered from the standpoint of evolution, we must consider the laws of evolution.

“The survival of the fittest,” is the law arising from the fact that all things constantly change. It means that an organism, out of harmony with its surroundings, must either adapt itself to the new conditions, or perish, Let us apply this law to society and see if the position taken up by the Socialist is tenable, bearing constantly in mind that man can consciously act on his environment, and thus help to bring it into harmony with his needs.

To-day capitalist society is composed of two classes, a working class producing all the wealth of society, and, a capitalist class that, as such, produces nothing. The members of the working class own none of the means of living, and are only allowed to use the means owned by the other class, on the condition that a profit is made out of their power to labour by hand or brain, which, being their only possession, they are forced to sell to obtain the necessaries of existence. This system of society has evolved from previous forms in which were other class distinctions. Just as, following the lines laid down by Darwin, we trace the evolution of man from his ape-like ancestors, so, from that stage onward, we trace his social evolution.

The Socialist deals with society, that is with man as a social being. He does not run counter to the laws which govern physiological development; rather does he find the same laws running parallel, both in biology and in sociology.

Take man as he was just a few stages ahead of his fellow animals, He lived in caves and trees; his means of subsistence were the spontaneous products of nature – roots, fruits and nuts, The development of articulate language, and the discovery of the use of fire enabled him to convert fish into an article of food, and caused a revolution in his means of securing an existence. Stationary conglomerations of individuals were transformed into migratory co-operative groups, following the shores of lakes and seas, and the courses of rivers. The numerous dangers that now confronted man, and the more easy acquirement of food by co-operative effort, caused the cementing together of various groups on a co-operative principle, holding wealth, that is, food, etc., in common. Thus the earliest known form of society was what is termed Primitive Communism, that is, a society based upon the common ownership of the means and necessaries of life, with those means used co-operatively for the benefit of all members of the community. This had its reflex in a form of government, crudely democratic, to correspond with the economic basis of that society. Thus, man carried on collectively the struggle for existence.

The next stage was common ownership within the consanguine group, i.e., within a group whose members considered themselves to be descended from a common ancestor, With the growth of chattel slavery, first of all in the Eastern hemisphere, the domestication of animals and the development of agriculture, we can trace the growth of the patriarchal system. This system was a further step from primitive communism, as, while it was still mainly a system of consanguine collectivism, it contained the beginnings of private property – other than purely personal articles, such as ear and nose rings, &c.

In other tribes property was held by the women. This, the matriarchal system, arose from the fact that the earliest known forms of property were the weapons of fighting and hunting and domestic utensils,  and, as the division of labour took place along the line of sex, the women, who had control of the domestic utensils in the first instance, continued to control other property as it came into existence, though the nature of that property had changed. This lasted throughout the earlier forms of society, down to the Greek and Roman civilisations, with the exception of the minority of tribes who had established the patriarchal system.

Even in early society, after the break-up of primitive communism, there were struggles over the ownership or non-ownership of wealth. After the discovery of the art of writing, and the ascendancy of man’s power over Nature, the struggle for existence took the form, not so much of the character of man against Nature, as class against class. Then, after generations of. development of the matriarchal and patriarchal systems, a revolution took place in some parts of Asia and Asia Minor that completely overthrew the form of society based upon a real or fictitious blood-relationship of its members, and established the system of political society based upon territory rather than kinship, the basis of modern civilisation. The various struggles that took place in the old Roman Republic are common knowledge to most students of history. The struggle for political supremacy between the holders of large and small estates, the ownership of chattel slaves, etc., continued till that form of society, a bastard form as it was, was finally overthrown and feudalism became general in Europe. The struggles that took place between the old feudal nobility and the rising merchant class that had developed out of the old guildmasters, the growth of manufacture, &c., with which all historical students are familiar, culminated in the overthrow of feudalism and the establishment of capitalism. The development of machinery and the application of steam thereto, completed the work and put the capita1ist class into supreme power. To-day the struggle proceeds between the capitalist class and the working-class.

Present day capitalist society is, therefore, seen to be the result of evolution, consisting of a series of revolutions, mainly consummated by the force of arms. Sixty years ago, in the Communist Manifesto, the evolutionary theory had been applied to society, even before Darwin’s Origin of Species had appeared. It is pointed out in that manifesto, how the economic factors develope within society until the political and social superstructure of that society prevents their further development. Society then undergoes a revolution in order to harmonise its social and political conditions with its economic foundation.

To-day the production of wealth is a social act, but the wealth is appropriated by individuals; and although man’s power of producing wealth is greater than ever it has been in the world’s history, yet we see the greatest poverty. Each class that controlled the means of living in the past, did so by virtue of controlling the political power and endeavouring to maintain the politica1 and social superstructure best suited to the maintenance of its economic power. Society only entered upon a new stage of progress when the class beneath overthrew the class above and established its own particular social and political forms. To-day the ruling class, the capitalist class, is wholly destitute of the ability to govern society. It performs no useful function; and the biological law, that when an organ or organism becomes useless, it atrophies and finally perishes, will apply here. The ring, combine, and trust have proved the capitalist class to be superfluous, while the chronic poverty of the workers in the midst of plenty, the evil of unemployment, and the thousand-and-one evils that afflict modern society, show it to be unable to control the productive forces. It must, therefore give way to a more vigorous class that shall establish a new system in consonance with the social character of production. That class can only be the working-class.

Professor R, Darwin, in delivering the first portion of his inaugural address to the British Association at Cape Town recently, stated that in applying the evolutionary method to the state, we found that the state would progress until it reached the point when it could no longer properly perform its functions; then a revolution was necessary for that progress to go on and a new state to be established. This from the son of  the man whom these pseudo-scientists and bogus Socialists would use against us! Thus after 60 years of comparative obscurity, the revolutionary scientific principles are acknowledged as correct. So will the revolutionary scientific attitude of The Socialist Party of Great Britain be acknowledged as correct, and rescued from obscurity when those ill-balanced evolutionists and bogus Socialists have been prevented from misleading the workers, and attempting to rob them of the vigour which a clear knowledge of the scientific principles of Socialism imparts,

Socialism, then, is a necessary complement to evolution. He who admits  evolution in Nature generally, but denies it to society, has grasped only half its application and cannot form a correct judgment, He who would deny that revolution is a necessary factor in social evolution, is a dangerous misleader who must be opposed on every occasion. The revolution from capitalism to Socialism can only be accomplished by a conscious act on the part of the working-class. For the workers to clearly understand their position in society and the historic role they are called upon to play, they must be educated along these lines. To educate them in these principles, and organise them on this basis, is the work of the Socialist Party. When the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class shall have been demanded by an educated intelligent proletariat, the hour of revolution will have struck. With the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth by the workers, it will have been demonstrated that the effete and corrupt capitalist class has perished – that the workers have survived. It will have been demonstrated that Socialism means “the survival of the fittest.”

E. J. B. Allen

These be Your Gods, O Israel. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

’Midst the rhetorical and literary boom of drums and clang of cymbals the long expected and suddenly happening resignation of the Tory Government takes place, and the Liberal party marches bravely forward to take up the burden, the troubles, the cares, the anxieties – and the salaries – of office. A great demonstration at Albert Hall where the Prime Minister adumbrates – as the Daily News so well puts it – the programme of the Liberal Party if it is returned to power at the election in January. The People’s advocate – Reynolds – shrieks in triumph at the Radical victory shown in the statement of the programme and denounces, beforehand, as traitors to the people, all those who either vote Tory or abstain from supporting the Liberals. This is what Republicanism appears to lead to. In addition, a clever campaign is being conducted by the Daily News on behalf of “Social Reform” versus “Tariff Reform”, that, while dishing up the ancient, hoary ideas of taxing the land and establishing small holdings, wisely refuses to have any discussion upon its proposals carried on in its columns. Some of their dupes might be enlightened even by one or two letters and that danger must be avoided. In the first article, however, it is clearly laid down that the way to remedy the evils admittedly existing – an admission forced from the Liberal Party by the Tariff Reformers – is by a series of wise and moderate measures in the direction above indicated. In face of these attempts to ensure the return of the Liberals to power in January as friends of the workers a brief survey of their career will be in order.

The names – Conservative and Liberal – were first adopted at the election of 1830. Previous to that the parties were known as Tory and Whig. Originally the Tory Party represented the Landlord class, the remains of the Feudal Barons, while the Whigs represented the new commercial class that had been steadily growing in wealth and power since the 15th century. The civil war of 1642-49 was the big outward evidence of the internal antagonism existing between these two classes, and although the ebb of the tide brought out the Restoration it could not alter or even more than modify the power the commercial class had won as a result of the struggle. Steadily the Whigs grew in power till the time of George III, when another temporary set back, followed by the American and Napoleonic Wars, took place. But it was not to last.

In 1830 the Liberals were returned to power with the largest majority on record, namely, 301, and they were in power in eight out of nine Parliaments up to 1865. The great Reform Bill of 1832 finally placed the political power in the hands of the plutocracy out of those of the aristocracy and completed the work for which the Liberal Party had existed. From this time onward the economic and social divisions between the aristocrats and plutocrats, blue bloods and traders, have been broken down, the last flickers of the struggle taking place over the Factories Acts, and to-day the trader is a peer like Lord Bass, and the aristocrat a trader like Lords Dudley, Penrhyn, Elvastone, etc. Whenever a new swindle is being floated on the Stock Markets, some titled person is asked to lend his name – for a consideration – to go upon the prospectus as a draw to the unwary or those “who love a Lord”. And this reaches high up the scale as well as low down. This combining of economic and social interests has obliterated all the real differences that at one time existed between the Conservatives and Liberals as political parties. Apart from the subsidiary struggle between the official agents of the capitalist class for the spoils of office, the only reason why the two parties are kept in existence is to gull the workers into the belief that they will materially better their conditions by returning to power – at one time, Liberals, at another, Conservatives. The advocates of Liberalism are just now detailing various actions of the Conservatives, when in power, against the workers interests – and they have plenty of material to use. For the moment, we may leave these advocates at their work while we take up the question of the claim of the Liberals to be the “Party of Progress”.

First, let us look at their record in industrial matters concerning the workers. They claim credit for having legalised combination among the workers in 1824. True! they were in office when the Act was passed, but the manner in which Mr Francis Place outside and Mr. Joseph Hume inside the House of Commons planned, intrigued and finally smuggled – there is no other word for it – the Act through Parliament, is unequalled in the annals of that edifice of trickery. In 1825, when the same Liberal Government, having woke up to what had been done, repealed the Act, the Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor stated they were unaware it had ever been passed! And we have clever politicians to-day, with not one-tenth of the ability and power of these two men, who imagine that, in circumstances vastly different, they will be able to get measures passed benefiting the workers without the capitalists recognising it!

When Lord Melbourne was returned in 1830, he appointed a Commission to enquire into the standing of the trade unions – then, of course, secret societies. The Commission consisted of W. Nassau Senior, professor of political economy at Oxford and Mr. W. M. Tomlinson, a lawyer. They advocated such terrible measures of repression that the Government did not dare to recommend them to Parliament, but put them in operation in detail. Thus, the Lancashire Miners and the Southwark Shoemakers suffered imprisonment in 1832, the Bermondsey Tanners in 1834, and in the latter year the notorious case of the Dorchester labourers also occurred when six agricultural labourers were sentenced to seven years transportation, and two of them were sold into slavery as soon as they landed in Australia. All the above for merely joining their Trade Unions! During this period a big agitation was going on among the working class against the fearful conditions of employment in the Mills and Factories, which conditions could only be described as hellish. The Liberals opposed strenuously every Factory Act that was brought forward on behalf of Women and Children, to say nothing of men. Cobden, Bright and Gladstone, deservedly the leading lights of canting hypocritical Nonconformity, turned their religion tenets to commercial account by demanding that, in the words of Jesus, the nation should suffer little children to go unto them that they might wring profit out of the hardly formed bones and tender flesh of children.

But all cant was not on their side alone. The philosophic Radicals of the Utilitarian school, while practically Atheists, were just as strong opponents of any restriction being placed upon the hours of labour of women and children, as the snuffling religious humbugs. Mr. Roebuck, for many years “Father of the House of Commons” and a member of this school, wrote to his wife in 1838 the following description of the interior of a cotton mill: –

  “The place was full of women, young, all of them; some of them large with child, and obliged to stand twelve hours each day. Their hours are from five in the morning to seven in the evening, two hours of that being for rest, so that they stand twelve clear hours. The heat was excessive in some of the rooms, the stink pestiferous and in all an atmosphere of cotton flue. I nearly fainted.”

Roebuck stood about six feet high and was well proportioned. Yet in 1844, six years after the above letter was written, he opposed the ten-and-a-half hours Bill and said the description of misery had been exaggerated, “take the women-of-all-work in London, compare them with the labouring girl in the factories and you will find that the condition of the latter is a sort of Paradise”!

Yes! the sort of Paradise in which a strong man nearly fainted upon the occasion of a short visit. And it was this sort of cant that was brought forward by the intellectual and industrial giants of the Liberal Party in opposition to the workers’ demands. The Tories, smarting under their defeat of 1832, supported the agitation for the Factories Acts, which did not directly affect them, and it was during their spell of power from 1841 to 1847 that the Act forbidding the employment of Women and Children in the Mines was passed (1842).

Not only were the Chartists prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the Law by the Liberals, but their treatment of Ernest Jones was particularly inhuman – a sample of the mercy one may expect who runs counter to the interests of the ruling class.

When the great Lock-out of the Building Trades took place in London in 1859-61, characterised by Sidney Webb as the greatest trade union struggle on record, the Liberal Government sent the Sappers to work on the Chelsea Barracks as blacklegs. The same Party opposed F. Harrison’s Bill to Legalise Trade Union Funds, but made up for laxity in this direction by sending the soldiers to Mold in Flintshire when the miners were out on strike in June, 1869, and shooting them down without even the formality of reading the Riot Act.

The Act of 1871 that was supposed to place Trade Unions upon a secure basis, was such a fraud, actually making the position of the worker worse than before, that the agitation was continued till in 1875 the Tories passed the Act that Trade Unions have existed under up to the present time. Still, something was done, as for instance the imprisonment of seven women in South Wales for shouting “Bah” after some blacklegs, and of some South London gas-stokers for merely preparing to strike. (1871.) It was during the same Government’s office that Mr. Plimsoll, who had for some years been carrying on an agitation on behalf of the Merchant Seamen, was thrown out of the House of Commons for calling certain Liberal shipowners “cold-blooded murderers” because they sent men to sea in rotten ships that could never reach their supposed destination, to gain the insurance money. The Load Line Bill – popularly known as the Plimsoll Line – was passed by the Tories in 1875.

Equally bad in the record of the “Party of Progress” in the political and intellectual as well as industrial fields. It is always claimed by the Liberals that they were the extenders of the Franchise and of intellectual liberties all round, but this is only a first-class example of the saying regarding the giving of a lie a start. A hardened old Whig like Justin McCarthy has to admit in his History of Our Own Times that the Reform Bill of 1832 “left the working classes almost altogether out of the franchise . . . It broke down the monopoly which the aristocracy and landed classes had enjoyed, and admitted the middle classes to a share in the law-making power”, and “this was all the more exasperating, because the excitement and agitation and success of the Reform Bill was brought about by working men.” Not only so, but, as stated above, the Liberals were returned to power in eight out of the nine Parliaments from 1830 to 1867, and returned upon the express promise to extend the franchise – only to show how consistently they can break promises. In 1866 Gladstone went out of office rather than accept a £6 franchise, which he said “would give the workers a majority, a thing neither he nor any of his friends ever intended to do.”

The ’cute old trickster, Disraeli, took the opportunity to score a popular triumph against the Liberals by introducing, and finally placing upon the Statute Book, a Bill for the £10 franchise which the bulk of the workers vote under to-day. The Property Qualification and Jewish Disability had been abolished under the same leadership in 1858. When Mr. Forster was piloting the Education Act through the House of Commons in 1871, he gladly accepted the help of the Tories to pass the religious clauses of the Bill, while he and his friends threw out the clauses of the Ballot Act, that provided for the payment of Election Expenses, in the same year.

Later in the ’80’s, when Bradlaugh wished to affirm, instead of taking an oath to a God he did not believe in, the Liberals threw him out of the House of Commons by physical force to show their love of intellectual freedom. Just now they are making all the capital they can out of the South African War, for which, by-the-way, they always voted supplies, but conveniently forget, that in 1882, Gladstone’s Government bombarded Alexandria and shot down the Egyptians, whom Gladstone himself described as “a people rightly struggling to be free”, in the interests of the Bondholders, whilst the worst Coercion Acts against Ireland were passed during this period.

It might be urged that all these facts are ancient history, and do not apply to present Liberals or affairs. Well! let us take the last period when the Liberals were in office, namely, from 1892 to 1895. They were returned upon John Morley’s famous “Newcastle programme”, which contained, among the items – “Old Age Pensions”, “One Man one Vote”, “Miners’ 8 Hours”, “Taxation of Land Values”, “Ending or Mending the House of Lords”, “Home rule”, “Payment of Members and Election Expenses”, etc. – a programme much more definite and “advanced” than that shadowed forth at the Albert Hall, but although in power three years, not one of these items became law. It is said, of course, that the House of Lords stood in the way, but many of the items are Budget matters which the Lords do not control, while it may be noted that Gladstone, appointed more Peers than any other Prime Minister. Moreover, when in 1871 the House of Lords threw out his Army reform Bill he took it to the Crown and had it signed and made Law in spite of them! If, with one Bill, why not with another. When Keir Hardie asked for half-a-day to discuss the Unemployed, the Liberals could not spare the time, yet shortly afterwards they spent half-a-day passing resolutions of sickening adulation to the Duke of York on his marriage. When the Tories brought in an Old Age Pensions Bill the Liberals opposed it and threw it out.

Nemesis, however, dogged their steps, and if they could not pass any of the above “Reforms” into Law, opportunities were given them to show their impartiality when called upon to take action between employer and employed.

In September, 1893, the Miners, working for the Tory, Lord Masham, at Featherstone, were on strike, and during a demonstration the soldiers were marched against them and fired upon them, killing two and wounding several others. Mr. Lowther raised the matter in the House of Commons on the question of who was to bear the expense of the troops being sent to Featherstone. In the course of his reply Mr. H.H. Asquith (Home Secretary) made the following remarks to the “Labour” M.P.’s.

 “Where are the men who made these statements? (that the soldiers had been sent to help the Employers) . . . it is a very easy thing to go about the country speaking to excited audiences where you are safe from refutation or reply; but it is a very different thing . . . to come here to the House of Commons . . . face to face with the Minister you condemn and fight the matter out. These gentlemen know as well as I do, and would admit it if they cleared their minds and tongues of cant, that there is no man in this country who would not have acted as I have done, and who would not have felt it his bounden duty to supply the Local Authorities with such a force as in their judgment was necessary to supplement the local resources at their disposal”. – Hansard, vol, 17, pages 1725-1726).

The above extract effectually disposes of the statements made by Asquith’s friends that he did not send the troops to Featherstone. His own admission should be proof enough to the most hardened Liberal. Note also that not a single “Labour” member, then or since, repudiated Asquith’s statement that anyone one of them would have sent the soldiers to Featherstone if they held office – a splendid piece of evidence as to the position they occupy.

An inquiry commission was appointed and reported in January, 1894. It was pointed out that in this report the rifles used would carry three miles and kill, and it was therefore suggested that weapons of shorter range – say 200 or 300 yards – should be used in civil disputes as innocent persons were liable to be injured.

Mr. John Burns – not the Right Honourable then – said:

  “He could not agree with the point which had been raised as to the alteration of the weapons and ammunition to be used in the cases of civil riot; that would only alter the injury caused; some people might say ‘what about shooting down innocent people?’ They must take their risk of that. If innocent people attended affairs of this sort they did so at their own risk. He did not hold the Home Office responsible in this case”. – (Hansard, vol. 20, pages 1305-1306).

And yet we hear glib queries as to why an Office, that men of wealth and influence would sell their souls – if they had any – to obtain, is given to a working engineer! Let the above answer.

The price of this act – of treachery to the workers, of faithful service to his paymasters – is a seat in the Cabinet and £2,000 a year.

Note, moreover, Burns’ attempt to shift the responsibility of sending the troops to Featherstone off the shoulders of Asquith, after the latter’s own admission of the act.

One point, however, is logically taken by the assassin’s defender. Admit the right of the capitalist to have his wage slaves slaughtered when they revolt against their miserable conditions, and then the slaughtering may just as well be done by long range as by short range guns. Innocent people – three miles away – must take their risk of attending affairs of this sort! But the very admission of this right of the capitalist explains why both Tory and Liberal Press, from the Daily Mail to the Daily News have joined together in a chorus of congratulations to “Honest John” though the adjectival noun is rather early. Burns may be said to have got “on” before, to have got “Honour” of its kind – now, but there is not the slightest possibility of his getting “Honest” either in the near or ultimate future.

During 1894, a Liberal capitalist, Mr. C. H. Wilson, M.P., of the Wilson Steamship Company, Hull, had a strike of dockers occur at his wharves and brought in blacklegs to break the strike. The obliging Home Secretary (Asquith again) sent a gunboat to the scene of action – Hull – to protect the blacklegs and shoot down the dockers if they showed signs of being troublesome.

In 1895 the Liberals were defeated on cordite and have been out of office 10 years, but can any fair-minded person pretend in face of the brief account already given of their career during the 19th Century, that there is the slightest difference between them and the Conservatives as far as the workers are concerned? I think not.

It is for the working class to study and realise that while one section of the community – the capitalist class – own the means of life of the whole community, the remainder of the community are slaves to that section. Whatever label a political party or person may wear – whether Conservative, Liberal, Radical, Reform, Labour or any other – the one question for the working-class is “do they stand for the retention of a system allowing a small section of Society to exploit the other, the working class”? If so, no matter, with what qualification or modification, if any, then they are necessarily and inevitably the enemy of the exploited and must be so branded. Fine promises avail them nothing. In the words of Wendell Phillips, “WE NEVER FORGET”, but keeping the facts clearly in front of our fellow workers’ eyes march steadily to the goal of our Emancipation.

Jack Fitzgerald

Wood Green Branch Report. (1906)

From the January 1906 Socialist Standard.

Party News from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The propaganda of the Party in the district continues, notwithstanding the weather. Some very good meetings have been held by the local comrades in fog, and rain, and wind, and all those other elements which are usually considered detrimental to out-door meetings. Whether it is that the pressure of economic conditions is beginning to have a stimulating effect on the minds of the inhabitants, or whether it is a mere curiosity to know what possesses us that we should so diligently persist in our efforts, the fact remains that there is an increasing interest shown in our work. Probably the cause is to be found in the excellent lectures that have been delivered during the past three months in Dovecote Hall. These lectures have been an unqualified success. The approaches to Socialism, when examined in detail, are intensely fascinating, and we believe that considerable impetus has been given to the study of our Propaganda by means of these lectures and the excellent discussions that follow. We most heartily recommend a visit to the Hall to anyone, especially to those whose pet objection is Socialism. We can promise such a fair field but no favour.

Dick Kent

Dirty Political Work. (1906)

From the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lest we forget Mr. H. M. Hyndman's reference to his organisation as being “wholly destitute of political aptitude” he and other prominent members of the S.D.F make a point of reminding us of the fact.

Last month we dealt with Mr Hyndman's description of a certain political compact as a “dirty dodge" although he and his friends have been guilty of similar dodges. which they have termed " tactics."

Now we have Cllr. Jack Jones standing up for "clean” politics and publicly denouncing and apologising for his fellow members of the S.D.F. for indulging in “political dirty work," to wit, moving an amendment at a public meeting called in support of a Literal candidate!

Once the S.D.F. would have considered that it was part of their legitimate work to oppose all Literals and Conservatives, but not now!

Mr. Jack Jones is doubtless well qualified to speak of “political dirty work!” Is he not the S.D.F. candidate for Camborne, opposing a Liberal candidate with money supplied by some person or persons unknown to the said Mr. Jones, as be himself has publicly admitted?

The scene of this latest exhibition of S.D.F. unity was laid at Stratford Town Hall, at a public meeting in support of the candidature of Mr. C. F. G. Masterman, Liberal, who when he last contested an election (Dulwich) was supported by Mr. J. Hunter Watts, of the S.D.F. Executive, the I.L.P. and by the local Trades Council. Early in the evening the chairman had promised to accept an amendment, and at the proper time Cllr. McAllen and a Mr. Ernest E. Hunter, whom the Stratford S.D.F. had invited for the purpose, mounted the platform to submit it. Mr. Hunter’s right to speak, he not being an elector, was challenged, and an uproar ensued. Then Cllr. Jack Jones mounted the platform and pointing to Mr. Hunter said: — "I have to apologise for the movement I belong to. I never thought they would have stooped so low as to try and get expelled members of our organisation to do dirty work at political meetings. If my Stratford comrades cannot find somebody better to do their dirty work then they bad better leave it alone.”

We are not here concerned with the quarrel between Mr. Jones and the Stratford S.D.F., but we emphasise this point, that, according to the protege of the mysterious rich man who is financing bis Camborne candidature, to move a Socialist amendment is to do “political dirty work!”

How circumstances alter cases !

When Cllr. Jack Jones, Mr. H. Quelch and other prominent members of the S.D.F. supported the recent Parliamentary candidature of Mr. J. J. Terrett, at Stratford Town Hall, without the sanction of the S.D.F. Executive, as required by the rules, was that clean or dirty political work ?

When John Burns, whom the S.D.F. now denounce as a traitor, an apostate, and the like, last stood for Battersea, was he any the less a Liberal, a traitor to the working class. an apostate, than he is now? Had not the S.D.F. previously declared that Bums was a "self seeker and a traitor to the cause of the people” and that he was “firmly caught in the nets of the Liberal Party”? When therefore the S.D.F. Executive not only instructed their Battersea branch to support Burns but permitted Cllr. Jack Jones to go to Battersea to canvass for him, was that clean or dirty political work ?

When the S.D.F. Executive gave permission to one of their number, Mr. Daniel Irving, to sign the L.R.C. Declaration, a few months after the S.D.F. Annual Conference had decided not to rejoin the L.R.C., was that clean or dirty political work ?

When six branches of the S.D.F. recently demanded that the Executive should poll the organisation as to whether W. Thorne should be repudiated as an S.D.F. candidate, because he had signed the L.R.C. Declaration at the request of the Gas Workers" Union, which is paying his expenses, and is consequently running as a "Labour" candidate, and the S.D.F. Executive broke the rules by refusing to take the poll, was that clean or dirty political work?

Jack Kent