The Armed Nation. (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The jingo spirit—commonly known as patriotism—always latent in the bosom of the unthinking worker, ready to be fanned to flame by the wiles of the pressman or orator, the strains of a brass band or sight of a bright uniform, the verse of the poet or the doggerel song of the music-hall artiste, is being aroused for the purpose of saving Secretary Haldane’s “Territorial Forces” scheme.

The beatific unanimity with which all sections of the capitalist platform and Press, from the belted earl to the sainted layman, from the Daily News to the Daily Mail, unite in the good work of persuading the propertyless that their interest, is to defend the propertied and their property—”on the cheap”—is touching in the extreme.

There is one spot of green in the wilderness, however, one oasis in the desert, and that is—the S.D.P. Through the mouths of Harry Quelch, H. M. Hyndman, Will Thorne, Sergt.-Mjr. R. Edmonson, and the columns of our “revolutionary” contemporary, Justice, we are given to understand that there is one alternative between Haldane and conscription, and that is the citizen army, as embodied in a Bill to be promoted by that sole result of 26 years of S.D.P. wirepulling, intrigue and compromise—Will Thorne, M.P.

Between the downright Tory idea of conscription, and the Liberal idea of voluntarism, there is now this difference—the first stands for open coercion, the second for insidious compulsion, as witness Haldane’s high appreciation of the “patriotic spirit” displayed by Rothschild in connection with the Alliance Assurance Company, which has adopted a rule requiring all clerks entering the service to join the Territorial Forces. But when this Bill of Bill’s is examined it is difficult to determine which it approaches the nearer.

There is a pamphlet written by the latest star turn of the S.D.P., Sergt.-Mjr. Edmonson, entitled “The National Citizen Force Bill of Mr. Will Thorue, M.P. : An Appreciation and Explanation.” The writer’s knowledge of army matters is assuredly greater than his knowledge of economics, or his service in the army was, even from a military point of view, a lamentable waste. From amidst a fanfare of trumpets and a dazzling array of ”credentials” at the beginning we gather that a standing army is “an expensive toy for the ruling class.” From the working-class point of view this is a matter of no concern, but no doubt the capitalist class are grateful for the information, and will act upon it. Well, the Sergt.-Mjr. has examined Will Thorne’s Bill, and has failed to put his finger “on any bad or doubtful points it may contain.” That’s unequivocal ! But maybe others can succeed where the gallant soldier fails.

The first clause, which proposes that, subject to certain exemptions, every man “shall be liable to military training” appears to leave room for revision—out of existence. The worker has no property to defend, therefore military training to fit him for defending that which he has not is rather superfluous—but where would Bill’s Bill be then ? This same clause “gives Ireland a chance of proving its patriotism,” and “enables Irish youth to take up arms in defence of the United Kingdom.” The Irish working man who thinks enough of the United Kingdom to put himself out to defend it must be a psychological phenomenon.

The information regarding the composition of the Administrative Council, in clause 2, is interesting, but as borough councillors and the like will not necessarily be altered to suit, this does not carry far.

We now “come to the more serious parts of the Bill,” but don’t be alarmed, ye braves ! as long as “we succeed in viewing it in an intelligent, patriotic light,” and make up our minds that “if a foreign foe attack us,” every male worthy the name of man would do all in his power to drive that foe “back from where he came,” our glorious Empire, of which we workers hold so large a share, will be safe.

And now for the call to the “aristocracy of labour.” “Trades-Unionist, you have something to defend and you know it.” So let your bosoms swell with pride, ye proud Britons, for ye have something to defend—the Sergeant says so.

The 6th clause is illuminating. “One of the duties of the National Citizen Force will be the protection of railways and rolling stock,” the other “chief duties,” presumably, will be the protection of the rest of the property of the capitalist class. That amongst other conditions should, according to the writer, “meet with universal approval.” Surely so ! Millions of working men and women have held railway stocks—or tickets—therefore every man must approve of a condition which gives him scope for the defence of his seat—or standing-room —in a third-class cattle truck.

After further elucidations the information is to hand that the labourer is worthy of his hire. That is a truism ; but when the Sergt. Mjr. informs his reader that “the soldier is very much a labourer,” that is a statement needing a great deal of qualification. The soldier performing no function necessary in an organised system of production and distribution, living, as he does, on the labour of others to whom he renders no compensating service, is to be numbered amongst the parasitic section of the community, however true it may be that he is recruited from the ranks of the working class.

There is apparently so much difference between the “free services of free men” and the “servile obedience” accorded by the rank and file to officers under the old regime, that under the proposed scheme, refusal to accord “free service” on the part of the “free men” is to be rewarded by as much as one year’s hard labour. The method of appointing officers under the Bill is by a ballot of the men, but no one shall be appointed who has not the approval of the Central Administrative Board. Consequently, the men may choose their officer, and the Board may exclude him by the conditions they impose. Staff officers shall be appointed by officers. These two rules strike our friend as democratic, and he opines that they will abolish “distinctions of class.” Proof as to how that or any other clause in the Bill can accomplish any such result is not forthcoming.

Will Thorne is thanked for his endeavours in the following terms. “Thank you, Mr. Thorne, for your brave and patriotic attempt to knock the present military law on the head in time of peace.” As to whether it would have been more or less patriotic in time of war we are not informed.

Clause 23 (and last) deals with the saving to be effected by the reduction of permanent expenses, and this is stated by the writer to be “a most important clause for the taxpayer . . . as well as from the democratic point of view.”

Now it is easy to understand the confusion of thought which has characterised the whole pamphlet. The “General” has tried to square the Bill with the interests of the working class and those of the capitalist class, seemingly in utter ignorance of the diametric opposition of those two class interests, and, naturally, he has fallen between the two stools.

The concluding paragraphs painfully accentuate this confusion, as the working class is alluded to as the “working classes” and “the masses,” and the capitalist class as “the classes” and the “dominant class,” all within one paragraph.

The tit-bit of all is the affirmation that “the National Citizen Force is the only salvation of labour.” This, coupled with a remark in an article in Justice, of February 6th, entitled “War Inevitable” by the same writer, to the following effect, is immense. “However, we are of opinion that he (the working man) would not be adverse to training under civil law, . . . but this would be too democratic for a capitalist Government to try.” If the leaders of the S.D.P. have any sense of the ridiculous they will retire, and thus remove a factor which is potent for the production of confusion in the working-class mind.

It is evident that if the citizen army is the only “salvation of labour,” Socialism cannot be so as well, therefore the S.D.P. can dispense with its affected object. Also, if it is “too democratic for a capitalist Government to try,” why does the S.D.P. accord its support to Will Thorne, and sanction the appearance of articles on the subject in Justice ?

The “War Inevitable” lucubration did not, as might have been supposed, consist of exclusive information in the possession of the T.C.P. or the writer. It was the heading of a full-page criticism of a sensational novel by one Alan H. Burgoyne, entitled “The War Inevitable,” which title, minus the article, figured in large type on the contents bills of that issue of Justice, for the obvious purpose of stimulating sales, in the typical catchpenny style of “yellow” journalism. Such enterprise should cause the Clarion and the Daily Mail to look to their laurels.

There are some curious examples of erudition in the article, amongst them being a statement that wars are sometimes set on foot for the purpose of diverting the workers from the real issue, and incidentally, of “killing off a few thousands.” This cannot be described as anything but balderdash ! The capitalist class have no need to resort to such catastrophic measures for diverting the workers : old age pensions are cheaper and more convenient, and as to ”killing off a few thousands,” from the point of view of that section of the community, the more the merrier. Besides, wars are expensive, and must imply, for a time, an excess of wages to the wage-earning class. This is not the policy of the wage-paying class—elimination of waste, not the opposite, is recognised as more to the point, as witness the growth of trusts.

Thus may one occupy the anomalous position of having as an objective, the extinction of waste, and yet of recognising that in society as at present constituted, the more waste the less want. War is instigated through the economic interests of the capitalist class of one nation or group of nations clashing with those of another. It may be engineered, partly, by a group of financiers interested in the production of stores and munitions of war,—instance, Boer War—but this alone would not be sufficient.

The working class has to clearly understand that the taking up of arms against other nations means the straining of the bond between the workers of the respective countries. The foundation of Socialism, which must rest upon the international solidarity of Labour, cannot be built up on citizen armies, neither can it have part or parcel with any scheme of armed nations.

Let there be no misapprehension on the subject of the “Armed Nation,” be it called by that or any other name. Armed forces are maintained for the purpose of holding the property and position of the robber against the robbed.

When the workers are able to dictate to the master class as to whether, or upon what terms, they shall serve in the army, then will the Social Revolution be at hand ; until that day Socialists must concentrate upon Socialism, and leave soup-kitchens and army reforms to those who, no matter what their protestations, are in the enemy’s camp.

D.W.F.

The drive to war (2001)

From the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

A member from Ireland who was in the USA on 11 September records the atmosphere there

I wasn’t alive during the summer of 1914 but I think I may have got a sense of what it felt like as a result of my recent holiday in the United States. We were staying with a relation in Los Angeles when we were awoken by him on the morning of Tuesday the 11 September to the continuous coverage on all the TV and radio channels of the terrorist bombing in New York or “Attack on America” as the news anchormen quickly deemed it. It was shocking to see the footage of those planes crashing into the World Trade Center and to imagine the gruesome deaths that so many on the planes and in the buildings must have suffered.

What was particularly upsetting was the sight of people forced to jump off the building to their deaths rather than tolerate the fireball. For me though as a socialist, what was most dispiriting, that in addition to the knowledge of so many innocent dead, was the whole way that the media and the establishment in general so quickly took control of how the incident should be interpreted. It was a powerful example of the socialist critique of what’s called liberal or parliamentary democracy; although we elect our leaders by periodical mass voting the context in which they operate and their agenda somehow seem to be set by others beyond our control.

Even before President Bush made his first announcement “today we saw an attack on freedom”, and only a number of hours after the suicide bombings, grief for the victims and hope for the survivors was already being pushed aside by talk of retribution and revenge. Almost instantaneously an endless series of retired State Department and Pentagon officials from the Reagan and Bush (Senior) era, together with innumerable academics, (styling themselves as “terrorism experts”) were paraded across the screens offering their two-pence worth on who was behind it and what form the military response should take. It was evident that a large number of these were aching for a war with Iraq/Iran/Libya etc. and any other ‘rogue state’ that could be tied into the conspiracy.

The papers were just as bad and the coverage even in supposedly liberal papers such as the New York and Los Angeles Times was equally strident. They carried stories on the role that the “Special Forces” would undertake which read like the worst excesses of tabloid jingoism that we’ve come to expect from the Murdoch Sun. It wasn’t just the media who were uncritical in their judgements. The Friday after the bombings had been designated as an official “Day of Mourning” for the country. The President and a number of ex-Presidents plus the leaders of Congress all gathered in the National Cathedral in Washington for “prayer”. Representatives of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim faiths (in that order!) duly said their piece to be followed immediately by the President on the podium. Bush’s warlike comments on the actions that the US would undertake were clearly at variance with the supposedly religious ethos of the service though unsurprisingly provoked no adverse comments from the clerics present. Indeed the whole affair ended with a stirring rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic by a Marine choir.

The effect of this on public opinion was quickly apparent. The ‘Stars and Stripes’ flew everywhere. Reputable billboards in Shopping Malls carried the slogan “God Bless America” while their more uncouth cousins (located close to offices of the National Rifle Association or similar organisations) promised all sorts of unprintable vengeance to Osama bin Laden. On the radio talk shows people wanted the borders closed, immigration halted, “racial profiling of people of Middle Eastern appearance” and a multitude of other measures. For some even this wasn’t enough; “it was time this country got serious” and the mass expulsion or detention of Arab-Americans was the only solution. This provoked a response and “helpful” listeners rang in and urged Arab-Americans to place the US flag prominently on their houses to demonstrate to their neighbours where their true loyalties lay.

Of course Wall Street wasn’t going to take the attack lying down; radio and newspaper advertisements, sponsored by the major banks and investment houses, soon appeared urging Americans to buy shares as it was their patriotic duty to push the Dow Jones index up. In a vague way it was suggested that the World Trade Center was singled out because as a symbol of capitalism it captured America’s true spirit. Hollywood too (where correctly sensing the public mood and identifying with it is a key requirement for success) went to war and a “galaxy” of A-list celebrities hosted a “Tribute to Heroes” television special. Raising money for the victims of the atrocity is an entirely praiseworthy event of course; the irony that some of the big names involved such as Sylvester Stallone had made films in the 1980s extolling the Mujaheddin as freedom fighters will register with some of us.

Very importantly though it must be pointed out though that not all American workers were taken in by this frenzy; within days after the event I passed small groups of anti-war protestors in different towns who were pointing out the fallacy of equating justice with revenge. It took some courage to do so in that heated environment. Their small stand highlighted the complete absence in the mainstream media of any attempt to ask the question of why this attack took place and what the suicide bombers intended to achieve by their act. The role of the US in the Middle East in terms of its support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinian Authority and its propping up of autocratic, reactionary states in the Gulf was not referred to. While the Taliban regime in Kabul owe their origin and rise to power to a complex series of events in Afghanistan’s recent history, the not-so-covert actions of the CIA in supplying the Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation with a plentiful supply of weaponry cannot be glossed over. George Bush now has a 90 percent popularity rating in the polls and may find himself in the trap that unless forthcoming US deeds match his rhetoric then his credibility and re-election hopes will be damaged. It may be that many more people across South Asia will join the 5,000-plus fatalities in New York and Washington as victims of 11 September.

Kevin Cronin

Socialist Sonnet No. 202: SS Great Britain (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

SS Great Britain

The ship is sinking. ‘I know what to do!’

One of those who would be captain said,

‘This vessel will float if we paint it red.’

‘Nonsense!’ The paint job just has to be blue.’

A second declared. Then a third fellow,

Decided he had better intervene,

Insisting it would be better yellow.

But, a fourth politely suggested, ‘Green!’

Finally, a shrill jingoistic old lag

Spoke out, ‘It really would be best, I think,

To cover the hole with the Union Flag.’

However, the ship continued to sink.

The crew had the answer, ‘We’ve had a vote;

We’re going to build a completely new boat.’

D. A.

Imperialism! (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

When a certain Imperialist was dead, his friends, who had forgotten all about him when he was starving, thought his great love of the Empire should be fittingly memorialised, so they clubbed together to raise upon his grave a chaste headstone, upon which was inscribed the following beautiful legend:—

HERE LIE

the mortal remains of

JOHN SMITH,

who worked hard and died poor, supported

through all the trials and vicissitudes of life by

THE REFLECTION

that 

HE WAS THE PROUD INHERITOR

of a share

IN THE GLORIOUS EMPIRE UPON 

WHICH THE SUN NEVER SETS.

At his death 

he was placed in this grave,

and his share of 

THE GLORIOUS EMPIRE

was 

reverently shovelled in on top of him,

so that he

came by his own in

THE END.

—Stockton Bulletin

Cant and culture. (1914)

From the November 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rheins, Louvain, Statuary and Architecture! Art, Science, and Culture! How extremely interested our masters are in the defence of art! And what interest, too, the workers have evinced in these remarkable relies of medieval craft!

Lives are being lost—workers’ lives. Blood and tears are being shed—the blood of working men and the tears of working women. Children cry for bread; deep despair numbs the brain of wife and sweetheart; hospitals are filled with the maimed and the crippled, but we must steal oar hearts to such things as these, for such is the toll of war.

But “our” churches and “oar” cathedrals are being destroyed and desecrated by the unholy hand of the hated Hun. The German has dared to eat his filthy sausage from the sacred altar, and to use the statue of the Holy Virgin as a peg upon which to hang the washing.

This is indeed s matter to call for the immediate attention of the working class. We can stand the lose of life—there are plenty more workers. The bereavement of the husband can be borne (there are others). The loss of a limb—well, there are crutches, and, as in the past, our generous masters will come forward to our aid with a licence to sell matches. With calm and philosophic mind we can tighten our belts when we are hungry, but rob us of our art treasures, and like enraged tigers we, the working men of Britain, will slay the despoilers, or, as at Deptford recently, break the windows sod smash the furniture of peaceful civilians whom the authorities have taken the precaution previously to disarm. The workers are, above all, lovers of art.

There are works of art in London, and it is surprising how few of these lovers of art visit them. Some, it is true, attract attention if well advertised —the crown jewels for instance, the greatest pleasure from which is derived by estimates as to how much they are worth. Certain palatial buildings, too, are visited mainly because they belong to the King, or possibly did belong to some other royal gentleman; and such artistic delights in architecture as the bank of England will hold in awe the twenty-four-bob a-week toiler because of the gold in its vaults. But of the real art treasures and rare buildings in London, how many are known to the average worker? Of the proletarian visitors to the Abbey, St. Pauls, the Galleries and Museums, how many can appreciate their beauties ?

Why should we, and if honest, how can we, generate a feeling of indignation at the destruction of those things that, however beautiful they may have been, we would never have seen, and possibly would not have appreciated if we had seen ? Why join in the howl of holy horror at their destruction, while dumb to the greater crime ever being perpetrated upon the toilers by the destruction of their powers of appreciation? Have the toilers time to develop culture?

The German, we are told, lacks culture. Perhaps this is true, but have we “anything to write home about" in that matter? Is the smashing of windows and the looting of shops a sign of culture?

Rolls of toilet paper are bring sold in the streets of London, upon each slip of which is a photo of the Kaiser, and the hawker’s cry of: “ What to do with the Kaiser,” raises a grin on the faces of passers-by. Is this culture ? or is the cry of “German Kultur” just cant?

The Socialist deplores the uncultivated mind of the worker, and is conscious of the intellectual satisfaction lost thereby; but who are we to blame for the loss?

The monuments of art and skilled craftmanship in this country stand untouched by the hands of the destroyer, but they might as well be a heap of ruins as for as the average worker is concerned. Our board-school education stopped at the “three r’s,” with the possible extension to some technical training that would be of use to our masters. So soon as the child of the toiler is old enough to learn and understand he is hauled off to the field and factory to sweat for an employer. He is “educated" enough to pull a lever so many times a minute, to label jam jars or work s machine to stamp oat blacking tins, until he becomes exhausted; or maybe he views London architecture fourteen hours a day while hanging on to a strap behind a carrier's cart. And the magnificent wage of seven shillings per week does not allow him to cultivate his mind by trips to the Continent of Europe in search of “old masters."

In short, the horrible grind from morn till night, with occasional intervals of “rest," seeking for a master; the constant petty worries as to how to make ends meet on twenty-four bob a week, banishes for the working man all desire for intellectual advancement, and the few standing out from the rest find little encouragement in the surroundings and conditions of a toiler's life.

To talk to the worker of saving art treasures is as intelligent as to expatiate to the deaf on the beauties of music. The labourer who at a meeting held to debate the question of whether the earth is spherical or flat, sized up the situation when he said: “Let us get hold of the world first, and then it might be interesting to know whether it is round or not” That labourer was wise. The world is not the workers' world, neither are art treasures for the workers. Their domain is the factory and the slum. Their art is the poster hoarding and the prints in the ½d. illustrated or “Pears Annual”. How can we get excited about art treasures ?

And as to culture, how is the following as a specimen; this too, in times of peace? It is from the report of Roger Casement, British Consul in the Congo, and relates to the “Domains de la Couronne,” Belgian Congo, published 1904.

“I asked them (the natives) why they had left their homes . . . All, when the question was put, women as well as men, shouted: ’On account of the rubber tax levied by the [Belgian] Government posts.’ . . . ‘ How much pay did you get?’ ‘We got no pay. We got nothing. It used to take ten days to get twenty baskets of rubber (twenty baskets of rubber had to be delivered four times a month). We were always in the forest, and when we were late we were killed. We had to go further and further into the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens. Then we starved . . . When we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came up to our towns and shot us. Many were shot; some had their ears cut off . . . Our chiefs were hanged . . . The white men [Brave Belgians] told their soldiers ‘You kill only women: you cannot kill men.’ So when the soldiers killed us’ (here he stopped and hesitated and then, pointing to the private parts of my bulldog—it was lying asleep at my feet) he said, ‘then they cut off those things and took them to the white men, who said’: ‘It is true you have killed men.’ ‘You mean to tell me that any white man ordered your bodies to be mutilated like that, and those parts of yon carried to them?' (All shouting) ‘Yes. many whits men.’ ‘You say this is true? Were many of you so treated after being shot?’ (All shouting) ‘Ukoto! Ukoto!’ (Very many; very many.)”

German, British, and Belgian “culture” are much the same pattern when profits are at stake. Atrocities are denounced when committed by the enemy, but the foul and fiendish slaughter of the worker in the Congo, and the equally bloody murder by British capital in Peru; the Russian butchery on the Lena Goldfields in 1912; the outrages of Paris in 1871; the many and various deeds of shame and brutality perpetrated by the Capitalists of all countries when profit is to be made or territory to be annexed, when property is to be defended or stolen: all these things are to be forgotten, and we, the workers, upon whom fall all the evils and horrors of modem mass murder—we are to cheer and wave our sweaty caps, and shake the bloodstained fiat of the erstwhile allies of our slave-drivers.

The Socialist cannot do it if he would. He remembers that these deeds have been done in the interest of the Governments of the various countries. Governments representing the interests of the master-class, our enemy. He- keeps in mind the Class Struggle, and is determined to fight it to the bitter end.

Twel.

The Greater War: Our Appeal For Recruits. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the members of the working class: —

For the moment the anti-Socialists have triumphed, and Europe is plunged in anarchy and bloodshed, while over the seas pillage and death have spread their wings. The much vaunted “intellectual development of society,” the great “progress of capitalist civilisation,” the “directive ability” and the “administrative powers” that the master class are supposed to monopolise, have resulted in a vile and vicious struggle between them as to which can murder most of OUR class—the WORKING CLASS.

This is your reward for trusting your enemy; for when either or both sides become exhausted in this conflict, the master class will patch up their little difference, but will continue the Greater war—the subjection and robbery of the working class.

“Peace, perfect Peace,” sing the churches; but “pieces, golden pieces,” chirp the masters, and in their fight for markets in which to realise the wealth stolen from the workers, the Christian croakers and peace praters find their answer as the bullets find their billets in the sons of God, and leading church divines draw dividends from the sale of powder.

This is the reward of those who have foolishly placed reliance on religion.

But meantime the workers have suddenly become important, and particularly the strong, young men. To them appeals are being made; threats even, and hints of probable unemployment are given; while the “superior persons” vie with each other in flattering the possible recruit to their murdering machine. “Your country is in danger, fight for it and maintain your liberties!” Such is now the cry of the masters to the young men of the working-class. Strange, is it not, that the masters should now be so concerned with our country and our liberties? The perjured, lying hypocrites! It is their own country and their own interests that are threatened.

The working class have no country (they must go where they can get a job), nor have they any liberties it would hurt them much to lose.

The lot of the working class in this and other countries is just to be allowed to exist for the convenience of the master class. The workers’ portion, in England as elsewhere, is to be ground down in the struggle to gain the pittance to eke out a miserable existence.

Under the Union Jack or other national flag the workers are the slaves of those, who own and control the means of life. Here, in times of peace, THE GREATER WAR still rages: the relentless, bitter struggle against poverty and starvation. Here we have sweating, low wages and brutalising toil, child-labour and cheap female-labour, unemployment, shoddy clothing, slum dwellings, and adulterated food.

Here we have strikes and lock-outs, and the military machine used in the interests of the masters when the workers, fighting for a living, are batoned, shot, and starved into subjection. Poverty and prostitution ever increasing—degradation ever deepening : such are the liberties, such is the system you are asked to risk your lives in defence of. But a far better thing to do is what we ask of you—that is to stay at home and think.

Realise that the only party of the workers in this country is the Socialist Party of Great Britain—all other parties have misled and betrayed you—all other parties are at present betraying you. Get to understand the economic enslavement of your class. Enlist in the army of the Social Revolution. Your OWN class needs you, let the master class see to itself.

Rouse ye!

The Executive Committee.

‘The great appear great to us because we are on our knees! Let us Rise!’ (Desmoulins)

Dad Tells Sonny. The Tale of the Twelve, (1917)

A Short Story from the June 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

“An inquisitive child soon demonstrates the shallowness of a parent’s knowledge.”

– Someone or other.

“What, are you reading, Dad?”

“Just a pamphlet some kind-hearted, benevolent soul has left for my enlightenment, my son.”

“And what does the design at the top mean with the two large letters N.S. either side?”

“The lady with the angel’s wings and the tea tray represents Victory, and the two mystic letters represent quite a number of things.”

“Such as—”

“Nettleford’s Screws, Never Sweat, Noodles Swindled — ”

“Yes, but, Dad, be serious. What do they say the letters stand for ?”

“The heading is National Service, my son.”

“And what does that mean ?”

“It means, mon enfant, that in punishing the wicked and unspeakable Hun for the unpardonable crime of getting his wack in first, thousands upon thousands of Englishmen have been battered into pulp. Further thousands are required to undergo the same delicate process, the idea being that in the human pulping competition, we can just about lick the horrid Hun. The residue will be an ‘After the War Problem.’ Now then, these potential thousands of sacrifices are at present shivering, with glassy eyes and clammy hands, in whatever shoes they have managed to get into, hoping against hope that Murder will overlook them. This is where N.S. comes in. N.S. will say to the Man in a Small Way, ‘put up the shutters, you’re unessential.’ The Man in a Small Way will say, ‘but what about my busi­ness ? It’s essential to me, anyhow.’ To which N.S. will answer, ‘No Sauce, and No Shirking. Your business, if there’s any left after the National Sweatshops, Ltd. have done with it, will be an After the War Problem. Then he and his porter, his ox and his ass, his manservant and his maidservant, are pushed into the service of some big fat brother, possibly a competitor ; or into ploughing, aeroplane construction, quarrying, or other similar soft jobs, for which they are as suitable as a pickaxe is for painting landscapes, the result being that more of the country’s youth is made available for gory pulp. See ?”

“Yes, Dad. But surely they don’t put it like that, do they? ”

“Listen ! ‘Twelve good reasons why every able-bodied man should enrol for National Service.’ And then in brackets, ‘Read these reasons carefully and see if you can deny any one of them.’ So you see, my son, they explicitly invite my opinion. They ask me if I can deny any one of them.”

“And can you, Dad ?”

“I can, but I’m not going through the whole dozen for you or anybody else. For one thing life’s too precious, and for another it’s past your bedtime.”

“Oh, come, Dad, don’t be mean. Have a go at some of them at any rate.”

“Well, number one says the war is reaching its climax. Right ! Leave it at that. Number two says victory will mean the preservation of of our homes, our lives, our liberties, and all we hold dear, while defeat means the opposite. Now, son, where is Jones the greengrocer’s son ? ”

“You know he was killed at Festubert, Dad.”

“And did he join the British Army as a free man ?”

“No, Dad ! As a conscript. He loathed the Army.”

“And what has become of his home ?”

“Why, his wife had to sell most of it and go and live with her mother.”

“So that his liberty was the first thing to go, his life next, followed by his home and all he held dear.”

“Yes, Dad. But supposing the Germans had got over here ?”

“Well, son, could much worse have happened to him ? And further, mine infant, do you have to deprive a person of liberty before he will fight for it ? Take an illustration. Do I first have to undress you in order to make you clothe yourself ? Silly, isn’t it ? Now, son, I could say much more to you under the heading of liberty, but one of the present British liberties is that I mustn’t say it. Now for number three. This starts thusly :

“‘Because—having passed laws to compel men of certain ages to fight—it is the bounden duty … of every man to see that the Army and the Navy are provided with every­thing they need to secure Victory.’

“Notice, my little sonlet, there is still some little honour amongst politicians. ‘Having passed laws.’ Not ‘The nation having passed laws,’ or ‘The Forces of Fat having passed laws,’ or you ‘The Government having, etc.” So, for ought that appears to the contrary, we might say, ‘Mrs. Northcliffe having passed laws,’ or ‘The Forces of Fat having passed laws, it is the bounden duty of every man to do as he is told.’ Yours not to reason why ; yours but to do or die. In happier times we might permit ourselves to style this brazen effrontery, or we might give the faculty of wonder an airing by trying to reconcile the bringing of compulsion into a community revelling in liberty. But, my child, liberty is what you will know when you get older as an abstraction ; that is, it has no separate existence. That’s why it’s so popular in England, where the worship of the non-existent is as old as the hills.”

“That is a bit beyond me, Dad, but I suppose it’s all right. Now for the number four, old chap.”

“I told you before I’m not going to waste time on twelve chunks of fatuity when I might be reading Anatole France or sowing parsnip seed.”

“What does Anatole France say, Dad?”

“Oh, lots of things. For instance : ‘Wars are a hereditary evil and a lascivious return to savage life ; they are a criminal puerility.’ ‘Even now the white races communicate with the black and yellow ones only with the intention of subjecting or massacring them.’ ”

“He doesn’t flatter us, Dad, does he ?”

“No, son. This sounds prophetic, doesn’t it ? ‘The peace conference of the Hague, con­vened in the very midst of barbarism, contributed but little towards the maintenance of peace.’ ”

“When was that written ?” 

“I don’t know, but the volume in which I have it is five years old.”

“Hm ! I suppose ‘in the midst of barbarism ‘menus civilisation as we know it.”

“Got it. He says in another place: ‘what we call civilisation is nothing else than the present state of our customs and what we call barbarism is the state of the past.’ ”

“Dad, why are parsons exempted from Army Service ?”

“That’s nothing to do with Anatole France.”

“But doesn’t he say something that fits in anywhere ? ”

(After a search) “Well I’m jiggered ! Listen to this. ‘In telling the nations that one must suffer in this world in order to be happy in the next, religious tradition has obtained from them that pitiful resignation to all oppressions and iniquities.’ ”

“That seems to score a bull’s-eye, Dad.”

“Yes, pitiful resignation seems to fill the bill, exactly. Remember how the people took Conscription. Now the parsons are booming National Servitude.”

“I wonder what Anatole France would say if he had read the ‘Twelve Reasons.’ “

“I don’t know. Possibly, ‘it is his reasonable conversation which mostly frightens us in a madman.’ ”

“Dad, why did you say N.S. stood for Nettlefold’s Screws ?”

“Simply a passing fancy of mine, son. Nettlefold’s Screws are useful little articles and have provided several politicians with enough to keep them out of the Union.”

“What are they used for, Dad ? ”

“Oh, lots of purposes. But one use they have invariably.”

“And that is?”

“Screwing down corpses.”

“Good night, Dad !”

“Good night, son ! ”

Prospero.

Editorial: Nineteen eighty-two . . . (1983)

Editorial from the January 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

However 1982 is remembered, it will not be as a time when the human race progressed towards a resolution of any of its problems. It opened, as does every year, to a fanfare of wishes and prayers that it might be a period of prosperity, peace and happiness. It closed, as does every year, leaving memories of only poverty, fear and misery.

It was the year when unemployment in Great Britain topped the three million mark. There are very few politicians now who are eager to offer the Norman Tebbit explanation for unemployment — that it is nourished by the workers’ lack of will to find an employer. In that total of three million are young people fresh out of school or college, trained and conditioned to take their place in the galleys of wage slavery. To them, viewing their prospects, life on the dole is now as natural as life in employment is to their parents. Unless, that is, their parents are also out of work. The three million include a significant and growing number who have abandoned all expectation of ever again finding a job. Many have accumulated an impressive library of letters of rejection. The conclusion they draw, along with those economists who, mistakenly, argue that high unemployment is structural to capitalism, is that they will spend the rest of their life scrimping a miserable existence on the dole.

It is however important not to lose sight of the reality of this sorry situation. Unemployment is not the scandal which so many ambitious politicians, for example in the Labour Party, would have us believe. It is not some unnatural curse, to be exorcised by the high priests in a future Labour government. It is in fact quite natural to capitalism, a part of the system’s anarchic-cycle of boom and slump. Labour’s record in this is no better than that of the Tories; they have been no more successful in ordering the chaos of capitalist society.

The Labour Party’s present campaign on the issue seeks to gain from the popular belief that plentiful employment means security and prosperity. This belief is a long way wide of reality. Workers suffer poverty of varying intensity throughout their lives; it is an inescapable feature of their social status as members of the class which needs to sell labour power in order to live. There are times when this is easier than at others — in the heyday of a boom, for example, workers can exert more effective pressure in wage negotiations. At other times wages may be forced down, as is happening in many cases now, under the pressure of unemployment in a recession. But all such variations, up or down, do not affect the basic standing of the working class.

1982 was the year of the Falklands war— the year when anyone who thought that the bigotries, the bombast and the phraseology of Victorian imperialism were dead, fit subjects only for the satirist, had to readjust their ideas. The mindless jingoism which the government, supported by the official spokespeople of the Labour Party in parliament, was able to stimulate was soberly instructive to anyone who looks for signs of a developing enlightenment among the working class. The Falklands war showed that the crasser notions which prop capitalism up are alive and well and at their noxious business.

And by crass we do not just refer to the jingoism of Thatcher and her crew. The bombers were at work in Great Britain again in 1982, provoking a response as nasty and illogical as the theories which energise the bombers. The Irish nationalists, in their outdated bigotry and historical redundancy, are a prime example of those who, ignoring all reality and reason, insist that capitalist society would be more tolerable if some slight adjustments were made to it. In their case, Irish workers are recruited to kill and terrorise other members of their class in order to persuade the British government to withdraw their troops and to help organise Ireland into a single capitalist state. No working class interests are involved in such conflicts, although it is workers who pay for them with their blood.

There was, lest we forget, one event in 1982 which, we were informed by the media, was positively joyous. While millions throughout the world starved, two famous members of the parasite class, having first got married, together produced yet another parasite. Expensive doctors were there to ease the parasite into life and the great organs of public opinion (for such they like to regard themselves) rolled out their carpets of words in frantic celebration of the event. Socialists stand aside from all this; the birth of this new prince emphasised the class divisions of capitalism, the superiority in riches of the one class and the humiliation in poverty of the other.

And how, in 1982, did those humiliated workers react to the poverty, the fear and the degradations of capitalism? When they gave their verdict, it was depressingly hopeless. At each by-election there was solid support for the system to continue. The votes may have been redistributed a little from one capitalist party to another — from Conservative to Labour or Scottish Nationalist with the SDP picking up a few thousand from people under the delusion that they were voting for a fresh, original approach to politics. But the votes never threatened the theory that the society of class ownership of the means of life is logical, essential, efficient and therefore eternal. The security of the ruling class remained untouched.

Disappointing though this is, it does not weaken the socialists’ resolve to struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a social system based on the communal ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. We work for this not because we are blind optimists nor because we are inspired with a religious faith in an Armageddon of the intellect. The case for socialism rests on the evidence of history, that people bring social systems to an end as they outlive their historical purpose. Typically, the events of 1982 gave much support to the socialist case that capitalism is no longer of use in the process of social evolution and is now a bar to human progress. It is time for the revolution to establish socialism and the need grows more urgent with each passing day.

Patriotism – a politician’s refuge (2006)

From the November 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gordon Brown wants us to “embrace” the Union Jack and to ape the sillier patriots in America by displaying it in our front gardens. But why do they want us to be patriotistic?

It was not so long ago – certainly within the tormented, frustrated memories of masses of under-educated children – that we were taught British history began with the arrival in these isles of the Romans. Well at least that made it easier for the people who needed to be known as teachers; rather than work at any seismographic-type research or presentation they need only instruct their famished pupils to open the allocated history book and begin to recite from Page One. A corollary of this careless policy was the assumption that history began in Britain because it was a special place, where special people were bred. Telling those kids they should be grateful to be British elevated them from their hopeless, infested poverty through a belief that to be British was best and that all other peoples of the world should be treated with sympathy – respect could be allowed to intrude only if the others kept to their place in the anthropological order of things. It worked alright – as witnessed by the pupils’ daily salute of the classroom portrait of the king and queen.

One whose portrait did not hang in the classroom, but whom the kids were often reminded of as an icon of British superiority, was Captain Scott the naval officer who led the 1910 expedition to Antarctica. Scott’s previous experience there taught him a lot about the perils in setting foot in the place and about the need for detailed, meticulous planning. He was ready to go back and this time, apart from certain scientific operations, there was no doubt about the intention of the expedition. The brochure aimed at potential sponsors put it: “The main object of this expedition is to reach the South Pole, and to secure for the British Empire the honour of that achievement”. Scott himself saw it as “. . . an empire expedition . . . by a set of men who will represent the hardihood and energy of our race”. Implicit in these declarations was that Scott’s men would be the first to get to the Pole but when he stopped off at Melbourne on the way to Antarctica he learned that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen would be in competition with him.

Scott

After landing and setting up camp at Cape Evans Scott’s men experienced a succession of emergencies which, while no lives were lost, were a grim foretaste of what was to come. The Pole party – Scott and four others – set out on 1 November 1911. They arrived at the Pole on 16 January 1912, after a journey which had all but drained them of all their resources, to find that Amundsen had got there a month before them; a black flag was there, fixed to a sledge. “Well we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition with some feelings, and must face our 800 miles of solid dragging – and goodbye to most of the day dreams” wrote Scott. But it turned out to be worse than that. Battered by savage weather and malnourished, the five men were simply unable to get back to Cape Evans. The first to die was Taffy Evans, whose reputation was as one of the strongest in the expedition. He collapsed on 17 February and died quietly in the tent that night. The rest of them pressed on; Titus Oates could hardly walk and Scott’s feet were so damaged that he thought amputation was the best he could hope for. They had no choice but to shelter, as best they could, in the tent until the blizzard blew itself out but there was no let up in the weather.

It was then that Oates went out into the storm to die and the three others – Scott, Wilson and Bowers – stayed to die together, on or about 23 March 1912, eleven miles from the depot where they had left the food which should have saved their lives. “We shall stick it out to the end, but we are weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far” wrote Scott in his diary. Their bodies were found by a search party eight months later.

Decline

That was not the time for any useful appraisal of Scott and his expedition – of the mistakes, the miscalculations, the flawed equipment. That would come later. Meanwhile, on 14 February 1913 there was a short memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral in which, according to the Daily Sketch, the keynote was “ . . .  a song of thankfulness for that these sons of our common country had died as they had lived, in the spirit which is the noblest heritage of Englishmen”. During the service thousands of captive schoolchildren throughout the country were subjected to “. . . the true story of five of the bravest and best men who have ever lived on the earth since the world began. You are English boys and girls, and you must often have heard England spoken of as the greatest country in the world, or perhaps you have been told that the British Empire . . . is the greatest Empire that the world has ever seen . . .” How many of those schoolchildren, or readers of the Daily Sketch, thought back to a year before, to another service at that same cathedral centred on the victims of the Titanic disaster, when the destruction of the unsinkable liner had said something about the decline in British power, as had the humiliation of the British army by the Boers. In the near future was the 1914/18 war, the traumas of the naval battle of Jutland (when a British admiral wondered out loud whether there was “something wrong with our bloody ships”) and the slaughter on the first day of the Somme offensive, which re-aligned British military history. Scott’s tragedy was cynically used to blanket the reality of what was happening to British capitalism and to its people.

Falklands

On the way southwards to Antarctica lie the Falkland Islands, which hardly anyone apart from stamp collectors had heard of before 1982 when they were briefly occupied by Argentine forces until they were ejected by a British Task Force. This victory in a far away place was remarkable for its effect on the British political scene. Since the end of the war British armed forces had not enjoyed a string of unqualified successes; among their most stressful experiences was the Suez campaign in 1956, which was little short of humiliation for British interests in the Middle East. At home the 1970s were notable as a time of economic decline, with unemployment reaching three million. In this situation the effects of a British military victory reached far beyond the battle zone, encouraging workers to believe that although they were on the dole there was still something to be said for being able to call themselves British. In 1982 this particular delusion was called the “Falklands Factor”. According to Thatcher, “it is no exaggeration to say that the outcome of the Falklands War transformed the British political scene . . . but the so-called Falklands Factor was real enough. I could feel the impact of the victory wherever I went”. One of the places she went to was Cheltenham Racecourse, to address a Tory party rally, where she exulted that after the Falklands victory “. . . we rejoice that Britain has re-kindled that spirit which has fired her for generations past and which today has begun to burn as brightly as before”. To encourage the mood and flavour it with a bit of Battle of Britain memories, Vera Lynn was recruited to sing The White Cliffs of Dover at the victory parade.

Strikes

But in the same speech Thatcher stated what she meant by the impact of the Falklands factor and the re-kindled spirit. As the troopships returning from the Falklands sailed into Portsmouth harbour a banner hung from the sides of one of them, with advice for striking railway workers: “Call Off The Rail Strike Or We’ll Call Down An Air Strike”. This referred to a strike called by the National Union of Railwaymen (as it then was) which, Thatcher said, “. . . just didn’t fit – didn’t match the spirit of these times . . .” The strike leaders were “ . . . misunderstanding the new mood of the nation”. Another dispute involved the ancillary workers in the NHS; it had been rumbling on for some time but Thatcher was not impressed: “There is a limit to what every employer can afford to pay out in wages”; clearly, the new spirit did not involve any appreciation of the value of low paid workers doing jobs which were vital to the welfare of patients. Partly through the Falklands Factor, the Tories swept to a massive victory in the 1983 election, which gave Thatcher all the encouragement she needed to take on the trade unions – in particular the miners. It was an example of how patriotic hysteria is used directly against the working class.

Brown

One who has obviously absorbed the necessary lesson in this is Gordon Brown. Addressing the Fabian Society last January, in what was heralded as his first major speech of 2006 – which did not leave us breathless about what else was to come from him before the year was out – he declared that it was time for the “modern” Labour Party and its supporters to be “unashamedly patriotic as, for too long, such feelings have been caricatured as being tied up with right wing beliefs, when in fact they encompass progressive ideas of liberty, fairness and responsibility”. He also raved about what he saw as the need to “embrace” the Union Flag and to ape the sillier patriots in America by displaying it in our front gardens. Brown was “absolutely right” about this, said ex-Tory Prime Minister John Major, whose concept of an ideal Britain encompassed warm beer and elderly ladies cycling through country lanes to get to evensong at some ancient village church. It was not known whether Brown was comfortable to receive support from such a quarter; in any case he is probably accustomed by now to dealing with the fact that his party is indistinguishable from the Tories, especially in the matter of showing up as flag-waving, mindless patriots.

Malignant

Patriotism has run through politics like a malignant fault. It did not represent progressive ideas when, in the case of Scott, it was applied to persuade millions of workers that they should endure the terror of the trenches and all the other miseries of that war. The same was true when it was used by the Thatcher government, in the wake of the Falklands victory, to push through measures which damaged the trade unions and so increased the vulnerability of the working class in relation to their employers. It is not a progressive idea now, when the Blair government wields it to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with all they mean in terms of destruction and murder. Enormous damage has been done, throughout the world, by the notion that one country and its people are superior to the others. A truly progressive policy – socialism – recognises the essential unity of the human race and the urgent need to celebrate it by building society on that basis.

Ivan

Between the Lines: Land of Dopes and Tories (1990)

The Between the Lines column from the October 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Land of Dopes and Tories

Three cheers for Mark Elder, the conductor who refused to include Rule Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory in The Last Night of the Proms (shown on BBC1 and BBC2 on 15 September) Elder was of the view that:

"the words of those songs come from an age that was able and happy to celebrate Britain's irresistible march across the world. Now if we are actually engaged in combat I would not be happy to proceed. It would seem callous in the extreme. "

The Guardian 8 September

The BBC's response to Elder's sensitivity was in the best tradition of imperial callousness. They sacked him.

Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory, the words of which express English imperial arrogance in all of its declining folly, was first promoted by the British ruling class as workers were being slaughtered during tho First World War. At the time Elgar had issued a Manifesto of National Service which called for an:

"organised effort to carry on the war. Every fit man must be made available . . . for the fighting line or . . . for National Service at home."

Elgar himself spent tho war living in his mansion in Hampstoad, while at the same time German and Austrian musicians were being persecuted by the British state.

The Last Night at the Proms is a ridiculous, anachronistic celebration of a Great Britain, which was a land of no hope and little glory for the vast majority in its finest hour, and is now an appendage of American imperial foreign policy.

'The horror . . . the horror.'

Speaking of Dopes . . .

What is the most popular TV programme in Britain today? The twice daily Neighbours (BBC1. 1.35 pm and 5.35pm) which is brought to us by one Reg Watson, the man who 'created' Crossroads. It is staggeringly bad: awful acting, incredible plots, cliched scripts, a disgusting view of what human beings are all about. Millions of workers love to watch it. The BBC celebrated its one thousandth episode last month (BBC1 13 September).

It has been argued that Neighbours represents a poor man's wish for what it would be like to live in a real community, rather than the alienated heaps in which most of us find ourselves; a sort of late capitalist News From Nowhere. Others argue that the programme's success is the fresh good looks of its actors. Or maybe its success is thanks to its popularity with the under-twelves who regard it as truly great drama. Who knows?

But has anyone thought that a period of cultural history which will be remembered for the acting of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan is not one in which songs celebrating hope and glory are appropriate?

Speaking of Tories . . . 

By far the funniest TV moment of the last month was watching Enoch Powell (Talking to Myself, BBC2, 10.20pm. 7.9.90). This new series allows famous people to both ask and answer the questions in a ten-minute interview. Powell sounded like a dishwasher on the blink having a pompous talk with an air-raid siren Of course, he is not to be blamed for his strangely whining voice, even if it is hideously full of affectations.

One Powell is a slightly barmy fanatic in the cause of capitalism. Two Powells are totally round the bend. Powell told Powell that the greatest moment in his life had been when he had been asked to join the British army and give unqualified and unquestioning loyalty to the British Empire. We know what Powell will have been doing on The Last Night of the Proms — singing Rule Britannia! as a duet.

Speaking of Dopey Tories . . .

There are times when video machines come in very handy. A politician says something and you can't quite believe that anyone can be that stupid. And then you play it back and the wonder of technology allows you to see that you were wrong to doubt.

Such a moment came in The Walden Interview (ITV. 1pm. 9 September) when Walden asked William Waldergrave. the British Foreign Office Minister, when the government would consider that Iraq had been defeated.

The first requirement, said Waldergrave. is that "liberty must be restored in Kuwait". It was the "restored" that led my finger to the play-back button. Since when has there been "liberty" in Kuwait?

It is a country ruled by unelected, semi-feudal dictators, put in power by the British. It is a country where only 60,000 people out of a population of 2 million have the vote. It is a country where women have no political rights, including voting. Is that the "liberty" which Waldergrave seeks to restore? Is that why British and American workers in uniform will die? Land of hope and glory? Hang your heads in shame, those who have been foolish enough to fall for the absurdities of nationalism.

Steve Coleman

Classic Reprint: Under Martial Law. (1954)

A Classic Reprint from the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Those of our friends who lend support to our outdoor propaganda meetings will be aware that for the past week or two those meetings have been suspended. Also, readers of this issue will notice that the Lecture List which until this date has appeared on the back page of this our official organ, has now been withdrawn. These occurrences demand some few words of explanation, which are offered here.

"When the war broke out in August the Socialist Party unfalteringly proclaimed the Socialist position in relation to it. From our platforms and, at the first opportunity, in the columns of our organ we took up the clear and definite attitude dictated by Socialist principles and working-class politics. This attitude, it is quite needless to say, was neither popular nor free from peril. It drew down upon us on the one hand the hostility of the rampant jingo hooligans of the streets, and on the other hand the “patriotic” fury of certain parasites “dressed in a little brief authority.”

"Our object was not to bid defiance to a world gone mad, but to place on record the fact that in this country the Socialist position was faithfully maintained by the Socialists. With this object in view we placed our backs against the wall and fought. Our platforms were smashed up and our members injured by mobs egged on by bourgeois cowards who, as usual, had not the spunk to do their own fighting for themselves. Not this only : one of our speakers was arrested and imprisoned, while others were dragged before the magistrates and “bound over to keep the peace.” In some instances the proceedings were rounded off by the victims being discharged from their employment by their “good, kind masters” for daring to hold political opinions of their own.

"We fought this fight long enough to achieve our purpose. In the columns of the last four issues of the Socialist Standard stand recorded our actions in this crisis, showing to the working class of the world that the Socialist Party in this country, acting in accordance with its declared principles, kept its hands clean in this, the most momentous crisis of its history. That is an asset to carry forward to the time when the war is finished.

"But now we are faced with a new situation. On the 28th of November last were issued Orders in Council (Defence of the Realm [Consolidation] Regulations) which render the prosecution of our propaganda a work of extreme peril. The following extracts from the Regulations will serve to show the nature of the impediment we are up against.

"27. No person shall by word of mouth or in writing or in any newspaper, periodical, book, circular, or other printed publication spread false reports or make false statements or reports or statements likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty or to interfere with the success His Majesty’s forces by land or sea or to prejudice His Majesty’s relations with foreign powers, or spread reports or make statements likely to prejudice the recruiting, training, discipline, or administration of any of His Majesty’s forces, and if any person contravenes this provision he shall be guilty of an offence against these regulations.

"57. A person found guilty of an offence against these regulations by a court-martial shall be liable to be sentenced to penal servitude for life or any less punishment."

"In face of these restrictions and penalties the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party decided to suspend propaganda meetings for the time being, and called a meeting of Party members, at which meeting their action was endorsed.

"We are aware, of course, that we lost an unique opportunity of indulging in heroics. We shall be told, perhaps, that we ought to have gone on in defiance of the powers that be till we went down in a blaze of fireworks. Our view, however, was the sane one dictated by our avowed principles. We have always held that the supreme power is in the hands of those who control the political machine. The most we could hope for by going on was to prove that contention. But it is not for us to prove our contentions by acting in opposition to them.

"There was no question of fighting for Socialism or Socialist principles. The Regulations were not, as far as we could judge, in the nature of anti-Socialist legislation. They were merely the precautions ordinarily resorted to by countries embroiled in a serious war. For this very reason we had nothing to gain by running counter to the Regulations, for just as the temper of the working class is, at the moment, such as to prevent them benefiting from our propaganda, so it would prevent them learning anything from our victimisation or martyrdom. Clearly, then, it was our tactics to place ourselves in such a position that only by the Regulations being strained to the point where they would become obviously anti-Socialist could we fall victims to them. These tactics demanded, in view of the risk of having our spoken words twisted and distorted in the Courts, that we suspend propaganda meetings for the time, and confine our activities to such forms of propaganda as would secure us from any attack that did not reveal the deliberate intention of our opponents to crush us under the cloak of the present situation."

(The above article appeared on the front page of the Socialist Standard for January 1915.)

A Look Round. (1905)

From the March 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The people of this country always forget and forgive and the capitalist politicians can do and say anything without troubling whether they are acting consistently. Ofttimes they deliberately contradict themselves. It is part of the game.

* * *

Our fearful misgovernment of the Indian Empire has produced one of the most appalling famines on record, yet the English conquerors seem generally indifferent to the sufferings of the victims. … In face of these manifold wrongs the alleged Liberal leaders are silent. What a contemptible gang! … It was very amusing to hear Sir H. C. Bannerman say that the nation was “thunderstruck” at the revelations of Mr. Burdett-Coutts. Had he read “Reynold’s Newspaper” he would have found during the last six months numerous letters from soldiers containing these exact charges. It shows how well he is qualified for leadership, being unaware of the exposures which we have made.

W. M. T., in “Reynold’s,” July 8th, 1904.

* * *

We have no hesitation in saying that any Liberal member who, publicly or privately, intrigues to prevent Sir H. Campbell Bannerman from being the next Liberal premier, ought to be regarded as an enemy to the party of progress. The votes of the Radical Democrats ought to go to the Tory rather than to such a traitor to the decencies of public life in this couutry.

W. M. T., in “Reynold’s,” Feb. 12th, 1905.

* * *

For obvious reasons, lawyers, in particular, require good memories.

* * *

In a recent issue of the “Clarion,” Mr. R. B Suthers waxes indignant at the “raging, tearing, jingoistic screeching” of the “Daily Mail” because that journal perpetrated a provocative headline to a report of a certain rabid speech by a minor member of the Government surnamed Lee. The objectional headline read “Our Naval Eye on Germany,” and was calculated, says Mr. Southers, “to foment hatred between us and Germany” and was therefore “wicked and criminal.” Yet we do not remember to have read a similar condemnation of the “raging, tearing, jingoistic screeching” of Mr. Robert Blatchford, also of the “Clarion,” who, a few weeks back, was so strenuously urging that we should keep our Military Eye on Germany because he thought he could see Germany’s Naval Eye on us, and who was so anxious that we should be in a position to blow Germany out of he North Sea. Mr. Suthers’ just and righteous indignation would be more effective if he had first given some indication of his desire to set his own house in order. As it is, his protest falls flat because it does not ring true and he lays himself open to the retort discourteous of the “Daily Mail.”

* * *

He was going the next day with other comrades to meet the Prime Minister. (A voice: “What’s the good ?”) He did not think it would be much good but if the proposals they laid before him were carried out he believed it would be the means of remedying for the time being some of the misery which they saw around them.

W. Thorne, at Canning Town, Feb. 6th, 1905.

* * *

All the money coming into West Ham had hindered them from carrying on the fight so vigorously as they might otherwise have done, for when they had wiped out a little of the misery the workers had become the more contented and drifted back into the old conditions.

A. Hayday, at the same meeting.

* * *

“What’s the good” of raising false hopes in the hearts of the people and encouraging them to look to the capitalist party to deal with the unemployed problem ? What’s the good of neglecting revolutionary propaganda in order to distribute relief tickets ? Is there not a sufficient number of charity-mongers to do this propping up of the capitalist system ? Hayday, Jack Jones, McAllen, Mercer and others could surely find more useful employment, from a Socialist standpoint, than that of appealing to the exploiters to “lull the cry of toil and spare a trifle from the spoil.”

* * *

Hodge is a poor patient plodder, who lives his monotonous life driving horses and waggons, toiling in damp fields, and drinking in village ale-houses, with sage and onions hanging from the rafters and sawdust strewn over the floors. … He jogs out his plodding, patient, uncomplaining existence until, rheumatic-ridden, he inevitably seeks aid from the rural guardians, to be questioned sharply by the chairman, with the white waistcoat and the double chin, as to his sinful remissness in neglecting to provide for himself in old age. Provide for old age out of 10s. a week and a cottage!—something less than the price of a bottle of champagne squandered by his “better ” in a flash London bar any night.—LONDON OPINION.

* * *

“As Artemus Ward held that an occasional joke improved a comic paper, I hold that a Socialist paper should contain some Socialism,” says Mr. R. Blatchford in the “Clarion.” After this avowal we shall look forward to future issues of that journal with great expectations.

* * *

We greatly regret that Councillor Ewell McAllen, of the S.D.F., is pursuing a line of conduct which is not only calculated to bring that body into disrepute, but also to discredit the Socialist movement in general. At a meeting of the West Ham Town Council last month he ”let himself go” with the following choice interruptions : “Dirty Crow, black Crow!” “You paralysed parasite ! You greasy reptile ! You miserable liar!” “Sit down, monkey face !” “Withdraw, you cur. Monkey face, withdraw. You cur !” Any person of average intelligence can acquire a sufficient knowledge of the Socialist position to be enabled to crush his opponents by irrefutable arguments, without recourse to mere abuse. If Councillor McAllen does not recognise this or has not sufficiently studied Socialism to place himself in a position to argue with its antagonists, then he should surely resign his public position until, by study and reflection, he has become a really “fit and proper person” to champion the Cause.

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The Saturday evening editions of the “King’s Lynn News” have contained some caustic comments on the recent actions of Mr. J. J. Kidd who has suggested that £25 should be raised for the purpose of contesting Lynn, in order to “teach the Liberal Party a few lessons.” We think those who read the letters which we printed in our last issue will agree that this shining light of the S.D.F. Executive should learn the elementary principles of Socialist policy before attempting to instruct the Liberals.

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By the way, this party which is to be “taught lessons,” has been described in the Critical, but not always careful, Chronicle of “Justice” as “having become entirely and hopelessly demoralised, without leaders, without a policy, or principles, or enthusiasm, or initiative, or vigour” and as “absolutely dead and done for.” Why, then, should the S.D.F. worry about it ?

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The “King’s Lynn News” reprints the greater portion of our comments on the Jermyn-Kidd incident and thinks that our “drastic language” is “calculated to make Mr. Kidd throw a flower pot at the neighbour’s cat.” No one more deeply regrets than we the necessity for such “drastic language,” although, of course the S.D.F. will not consider that anything wrong was done. That Body officially supports Liberal candidates and permits its members to do so. Mr. Kidd, therefore, only did that which the Body has already sanctioned.

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In one respect, however, it is necessary to correct the “King’s Lynn News.” It says “Mr. Kidd gets it hot and strong from the official organ of his own party.” Let it be distinctly understood that Mr. Kidd is in no way connected with The Socialist Party of Great Britain. He is, as we have already stated, a member of the Executive Council of the Social-Democratic Federation, which declares that between Liberalism and Socialism there is not only opposition of tactics, but also antagonism of principle, which it is impossible to get over. Therefore to pretend to be on good terms with people who are not going their way and have no intention of travelling in their direction would be to hamper the action of Socialism in regard to matter which they deem crucial. This position was stated by H. M. Hyndman at Holborn Town Hall, on April 9th, 1899. But the S.D.F. has long since ceased to practise that which it preaches, hence the recent split and the founding of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. As a member of the S.D.F., even as one of the Executive of that body, Mr. Kidd did nothing extraordinary in supporting a Liberal, although his methods were somewhat clumsy. No member of The Socialist Party of Great Britain would be permitted to support a Liberal or any other non-Socialist. As will be seen by the Declaration of Principles on page 7, the Party enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist. It is definite in policy as well as principle and for that reason the working-class will, sooner or later, recognise that it is the only party worthy of their confidence and support.

J. Kay

The Way of Peace. (1922)

From the October 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

Such was the alluring title of an article published in the Daily News, dated July 31st, 1922, in which the writer showed a subtle ability of propounding views which help to keep the workers from grasping the real significance of hero worship. To contend that they who demonstrated at the Cenotaph in Whitehall by dipping their banners as they passed, or laid flowers at the base of the monument, were actuated by the desire to pay homage to the fallen in war; and to describe it as a ”silent and impressive pledge to the dead,” is but sentimental humbug ; for those to whom the pledge is stated to have been made, care nothing for such promises, and certainly will in nowise be offended if they are not carried into effect. The eyes of the dead are closed for ever, and weary not for the hypocritical promises made in their name. However easy it is to escape the responsibility of a promise to the dead, you cannot deceive them; but it is possible to deceive the living by lugubrious protestations over the dead and impress them that some benefit may be derived from their mournful pretensions.

Sorrow for departed friends will always persist, and people will continue to demonstrate their regret in various ways long after their friends decease. Those who went to the Cenotaph with honest motives were of this kind, and relieved their emotions publicly because ”knowing not where they have laid him” they cannot do so privately as they would if death had been the result of disease and been followed by an ordinary funeral, and the remains deposited in a place easy of access. Others were there who totally lacked that spirit of thoroughness which we call principle, indifferent to all else except spectacular effect, who would sooner see a man dive to death from the top of St. Paul’s, than go to the poll and vote their slavery away.

But a more sinister motive lies behind these officially organised demonstrations of pretended reverence for those who fell in the war; and that is to inculcate and keep alive the thought that they died in a glorious struggle to ensure eternal peace to posterity and willingly made the supreme sacrifice. Once get that idea into the noddles of those who are maturing unto military age, how much easier it will be to recruit the forces required by the capitalists for the next last great war to end war.

Already on to-night’s placards I find they are calling ’em up.

It may be useful to remember that during the great war of 1914-1918, the workers who were drawn into that bloody orgie wanted nothing more than to be allowed to remain in their native land, and to be provided with a constant means of obtaining a living by the sale of their labour power to the masterclass. That is the high watermark of their intelligence, which socialists so much deplore; but to say nations are torn with suspicions of each other, or secretly preparing war-like plans of self-aggrandisement, etc., is a travesty of facts, or the result of lamentable ignorance. It is not the nations, but the greedy capitalist class whose sectional interests compel them to regard each other suspiciously and who are secretly preparing to commit another terrible crime against humanity.

The great mass of the world’s workers know nothing of these plans, and instead of suspicion there is an ever-growing sympathy springing up between them : a sympathy born of the knowledge that there is only one enemy they have to face the wide world over :—the capitalist class who alone are responsible for the present economic chaos, and the sum of human misery and suffering entailed thereby.

Many workers of all nationalities who have passed through worse than death, now realise that the cult of nationalism is indeed a tragic futility so far as the working-class are concerned ; and the spirit of international co-operation and solidarity, though slowly, is surely growing up amongst them, born of the knowledge that they are poor because the greater part of the wealth they bring into existence is robbed from them by the capitalist-class.

To his everlasting credit, Karl Marx made this clear, and explained the process of the robbery in Capital, in which the true nature of capitalism is revealed as resting upon the exploitation of the working-class through individual or private ownership of the means of producing the necessaries of life.

This divides society into two distinct classes whose interests are as widely opposed as the two poles of – the earth : one a propertyless class having nothing to sell but its power to labour; the other a wealthy class owning the means of wealth production.

Amongst the latter there is continual friction arising out of the competition for markets for the sale of commodifies, each section trying to oust the other. World-wide territories are examined, trade routes determined, and all the machinery put into operation to secure a profitable sale; and a very watchful eye is kept by their respective governments upon the interests of those whom they represent. When these interests are threatened by trade rivalry of another state, bombing machines, gun-boats and troops are hurried to Tom Tiddler’s ground to administer a gentle admonition to the offending party. All of which goes to prove there can be no peace, in either a military or economic sense, while goods are made for profit instead of use, and exploitation of the working-class forms the basis of society.

I once heard the House of Commons described as the Thieves’ Kitchen, and in my opinion that term is not less applicable to the League of Nations to which the Daily News pins its faith ; for what else is it, but a consultative body of capitalists which meets for the purpose of determining the most economical way of appropriating the results of working-class effort and apportioning shares of the spoil to the various capitalist sections whom they represent.

It follows then, as the day follows night, that if we would do away with war, we must destroy the conditions from which it arisen. Not patch up or reform the old structure, but change the system entirely by doing away with wagedom and capitalism, and substitute a system of society in which the whole of the means of social production is commonly owned and democratically controlled in the interest of all. Then it will be impossible for anyone to deprive another of existence by withholding the means of satisfying his requirements.

In this way alone lies the path to peace. After all it is not in the power of statesmen to end war as they belong to the class to whom war is necessary and inevitable, and cannot but desire a continuance of a system that gives them such ease and enjoyment.

The workers alone can alter the circumstances that bring such untold misery and ruin to their homes, by organising for the complete overthrow of the wage system. Then only can there be Peace throughout the world. How this is to be done will be found in our Declaration of Principles on the back of this paper. Read, mark and inwardly digest them.

W. W. F.

Blogger's Note:

There is a strong chance that the author of this article, W. W. F., was the longstanding SPGB member, Walter Ford. He is the only member that I am aware of from that period who had the initials, W.W.F.

Walter Ford died a party member at the age of 94 in November 1957. His obituary appeared in the January 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard.