The Nationalisation of Railways and Other Services. (1908)

Book Review from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A copy of the most recent book on the nationalisation of railways, by Mr. A. Emil Davies (A. & C. Black, 125 pp., limp cloth, I/-), has been sent us for notice. The question is one that is again occupying considerable public attention, and some examination of the case for this and kindred reforms is therefore called for from those who regard anything less than Socialism as something approximating to a delusion and a snare from the point of view of the working class.

If, first of all, the nationalisation of the railways were as important as Mr. Davies would have us believe, we would very readily admit that Mr. Davies’ book is as handy a presentation of the case against the present system of private ownership as we have seen. It manages to compress the essential arguments of the railway nationaliser into 120 pages of easy setting, without leaving the impression of a scamped job. It is not so exhaustive an examination as that published by Mr. Clement Edwards some years back, yet the reformer will find most of what he wants in it, including matter of as recent a date as February and March of this year.

From the Socialist point of view, however, the only value the book has resides in the evidence it adduces of the incapacity of the railway capitalist to manage his own

DIRTY PROFIT-MONGERING BUSINESS,

and in the proof it provides of our continuous contention that nationalisation and municipalisation as such have nothing in them advantageous to any section of the working class that is not considerably out-balanced by the disadvantages that result from them—even if, which is at least arguable, they have any advantage at all.

The advantage, contended generally, is in the higher wages and better conditions obtainable under municipal or national control. This may result—sometimes. But it is just as probable that it won’t, seeing that the service municipalised or nationalised is still under the control of capitalist administrators, who are dominant in legislative and administrative affairs. While this condition holds, as it will while the capitalist system lasts, the paramount desideratum is the realisation of profits. It is merely an exhibition of economic stupidity to urge that these profits, used as they may be to reduce rates, go back to the pockets of the community. Even if this were true the fact remains that the profits have been realised from the labour of a section of the working class, and in going into the pockets of the community, they have gone in part into the pockets of the capitalist class that forms part of the community, and to that extent have been diverted from the rightful owners—the working-class producers. But although the argument has been extensively used by those who presumably should know better—the Clarion crowd, the I.L.P., the Fabian Society, etc.—it is simply not true that the relief of rates is a relief of the working class. If it were true, the working class of Nottingham and Glasgow, and other places where many services have been municipalised, should be in a flourishing condition, seeing that most of their public services are realising large profits. In point of fact the working class there is not one whit better off than is the working class in towns that haven’t a single municipalised undertaking, for the very simple reason that the labour-power which the workers have to sell, and must sell, in order to live, is bought like any other commodity at its average cost of production. So that, assuming such a relief of rates in any given district that a material reduction in the cost of living is effected, the cost of production of the commodity labour-power would be less, and the price of its purchase—wages—would also be less. Why is it that the

“STANDARD RATE OF WAGES”

is higher in some districts than in others if it is not because cost of living is higher in some districts than in others ? Moreover, it does not even follow that low rates will imply low rents, nor that a reduction of taxation on any other commodity will reduce the price of that commodity—although this point is not germain and has already been adequately dealt with in these columns on previous occasions.

So much for the alleged advantage of a municipalised or nationalised service. But what of the disadvantages ? The case of the railways is before us. In the chapter on “Waste,” Mr. Davies gives, inter alia, a list of things in the administration of which economies could be effected under nationalisation. The cost of the present competition is due to separate offices, separate stations, separate lines, separate engines, wagons, and carting services, light loads, unnecessary haulage, an enormous advertising and canvassing staff, a great clearing house system, and so on. Given nationalisation there follows the concentration of traffic, the closing of offices and redundant stations, the abolition of the canvassing and clearing house departments, and, to a large extent, the abolition of the advertisement department, the reduction of trains, etc., etc., etc. In short, the elimination of “waste.”

Now the working class under capitalism is not concerned with the elimination of waste. To the orthodox person such a statement is no doubt dreadful. If so, the further statement that the working class is a distinct gainer by waste must be the very devil. Yet it is obviously the case. The working class must live. To live it must sell its labour-power. Does “waste” increase the demand for labour-power ? If so, it is good for the immediate purpose of the working class. There is nothing more immediate than

THE CLAMOUR OF THE EMPTY STOMACH.

We are dealing with the railways. The elimination of “waste” there means the abolition of the clearing house rendered necessary by the conflicting interests of many private companies. The clearing house has a staff of about 3,000 clerks. The demand for the labour-power of 3,000 clerks no longer exists and—the 3,000 clerks no longer exist. The same thing holds in the case of all the other departments mentioned. The saving is effected every time at the expense of the workers who have found employment through economic “waste.”

Therefore, under capitalism “waste” is positively a good thing to the workers to the extent that it provides them with the means of living. The South African War, notwithstanding the lamentations of the “moral” Jeremiahs directed against national “waste,” created a demand for labour. If that war had not happened a large number of the workers would have had to take in their belts another hole. If the nationalisation of railways happens a great army of the workers will be without visible means of subsistence.

The railway nationaliser seems to see the difficulty as through a glass darkly. Mr. Davies. says

“It would be a great mistake to measure the advantages of State ownership solely from the point of view of the yield per cent. on the sum invested. Under an equitable, reasonable, and uniform system of rates, trade would be stimulated to an extraordinary degree, and regard would be paid to the social needs of the nation, as is done in Belgium, Germany, and other countries, so that masses of even the humbler town workers would live in the country, and the depopulation of the countryside, with all its attendant evils, would be checked.”

Hope, says the sage, is very cheap. Trade is to be stimulated to an extraordinary degree—by a reduction, to the extent of the thousands of railway workers displaced, of the demand for the commodities that “Trade” supplies !

IT’S AS EASY AS THAT !

But the prospect of regard being paid to his social needs, and of an opportunity of living in the country where the work he requires is not, must be sweet solace to the man in danger of being thrown on the unemployed market by the elimination of railway “waste.”

No, the fact must be faced that, until the working class understand the reasons why it is. in a position of dependency upon the fluctuations of trade for even a precarious living; why it must sell its labour-power for wages that represent not the value of the wealth it has produced, not even a third of that value, but the bare cost of the sheer necessities of existence ; why it must stand starving in the market places of the world at the very moment when, all the requirements of happy, healthy life are piled in riotous profusion on every hand—until the working class has understood the causes of these things and expressed its determination to remedy them by capturing the political machine, in order that the capture of the economic machinery may follow, questions of the nationalisation of this, or the municipalisation of that, undertaking, are only of interest to the extent to which the change may affect the pockets, or the stomachs of the workers immediately concerned. For the working class as a whole, there is nothing in them except danger of being sidetracked in an endeavour to get at the solution of the economic problem.

That danger still needs considerable emphasis. If any section of the workers is persuaded that in some such reform movement as the nationalisation of railways there is salvation, it will come to itself in the final reckoning, sick and sorry, with apathy bred of disappointment and despair born of withered hopes. It will be more difficult material for the Socialist leaven to work upon. It will retard the advance of the workers toward the Co-operative Commonwealth that lies at the end of our journeying. It will, until the effect of its painful experience and knowledge of its wasted energies have grown small, be a stumbling block and a rock of offence in our path.

WE DO NOT WANT STUMBLING BLOCKS.

Therefore we do not want, reform agitations. Therefore we will do what, we may to counteract the possible influence of Mr. Davies’ book by indicating the narrow limitations of its working-class potentialities, and pointing to that more excellent way—the straight, narrow way—of whole-hog, revolutionary, uncompromising demand for the working-class ownership and control of all the means of life, along which alone the party of the proletariat may march to victory.

“But,” says the earnest reformer, ”you will not be able to get control of the means of life all at once. You must walk before you can run. It’s all a matter of evolution.” The dear child ! If a man wants bread shall he assiduously pick up stones ? Shall he endeavour to gather figs from thistles ? The worker wants what Socialism alone will give him. He must therefore make for Socialism, aim at Socialism, concentrate on Socialism. Under Socialism the municipality will probably supply him with dough-nuts and hob-nails, while “blood-alleys” and commoner marbles will doubtless be available for his children. Shall he, therefore, wanting Socialism, cry aloud to-day for the municipal supply of blood-alleys and hob-nails and dough-nuts ? Why not ? Because they are not important ? Neither is a nationalised railway.

Mr. Davies points out that most of the Continental countries and nearly all “our” Colonies have nationalised railways. Wherein are the workers of those countries beneficially affected ? Who are making the demand for nationalised railways in England ? Other sections of the capitalist class. To assist the working class or expedite Socialism ? Not much. Rather to enable them to exploit the working class the more. The nationaliser of the railways of Germany was—Bismarck!

Nationalised railways will be a factor in the Socialist Republic. They will be important—then. But only important because Socialism holds. Socialism is the thing that matters. Let us go for it—and the dough-nuts and blood-alleys and hob-nails will be shied at us in the hope that, because we shall have them under Socialism, we may be stupid enough to turn aside to pick them up now. But Socialism will not be shied at us. We may have everything else at the hands of the good capitalist; hut the only thing we want—no ! The capitalist will do anything for the working class, anything—except get off its back.

If our reformer friend’s difficulty is that, unless we nationalise and municipalise as we go along, we shall be

IN A HOPELESS TANGLE

when we arrive, let him remember one little fact. The evolution of capitalism (he will like that word “evolution”) has placed the workers practically in complete control of industry. From the top to the bottom the whole process of production is managed by—wage servants. The workers are in control in fact but not in name. It’s the product they do not control. The thing necessary, therefore, and the only thing necessary, is to evolve in the minds of the workers the knowledge of the fact of their control and the means by which they may expropriate the present expropriators, so that they may be dominant in name as well as in fact, and secure for themselves the product of their own labours. That evolution of knowledge is quite as easy under private ownership as under State ownership. All that will then be required will be the capture of the political power through which the armed forces are manipulated, and—a notice to quit to the capitalist. The industry socially worked to-day, will have its product socially owned then.

But the publicly-owned service has, anyhow, a good educational effect on the working class, surely ? Perhaps—p’r’aps not. In any case there are enough of them for all educational purposes to-day. But they have been converted to publicly-owned services by representatives of the capitalist class in the interests of the capitalist class. The effect of that outstanding fact to any but the serious student who will take the trouble to dig below the surface of things, will hardly have great educational value. The casual enquirer, such as the worker unfortunately often is, will conclude either that the capitalist is willing to help the worker along the road to Socialism, or that the publicly-owned service is, Because it is a capitalist move, steered clear of completely. In both cases he would be wrong. The educational effect of the fact of Post Office sweating, Clothing Department sweating, Woolwich Arsenal sweating, London County Council-jerry building, etc., etc., ad nauseam, is also likely to be a little dubious.

Are there any other legs upon which the national cum-municipal-Liza can stand ? Probably. Our ”Liza” has as many legs as a caterpillar. But not one of them can support the argumentative superstructural body that it is hoped to stick on it. In the final analysis we come back to the incontrovertible fact that Socialism is the only hope of the workers, and that everything else is mere leather and prunella.

Alec James.

That Blessed Word : Unity ! (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

(Con)Fusion in America.

A few years ago the question of Socialist unity engaged the attention of the two “Socialist” parties in this country. Votes were taken of the rank and file and large majorities voted in favour of fusion, but as the leaders did not desire fusion they did not allow it to come to pass.

Similarly the cry for “unity” has been raised in America, and again those first in raising the cry have been the smallest of the parties concerned.

As in England a knowledge of the mental make-up of the parties enabled many to see through the fake proposal, so will similar knowledge of the American “fusionists” enable us to value their “unity” cry for what it is worth.

In 1896 the Socialist Labour Party of America declared for the “new” Trade Unionism, and started the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, a union affiliated to the Socialist Labour Party, and out to smash the “pure and simple” trade unions. This caused a “split” in the Socialist Labour Party, a large section leaving and, with the “Social-Democracy” of Eugene V. Debs, forming the Socialist Party of America.

A fight then commenced between the two, most of the fighting being done by the Socialist Labour Party, who long and loudly denounced the prominent members of the latter party— Debs, Carey, Mother Jones, Simons, and so on—as “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers,” while the Party as such was in turns termed the “Multi-cocoa Party,” the “Kangaroos,” in fact, anything but a Socialist party, and no Socialist Labour Party member was allowed on their platform except in opposition.

After some nine years of this fighting, and at the same time attempting to organise the working class in the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, the membership was found to be declining at such a rapid pace that something had to be done.

Mr. F. Bohn, organiser, visiting Chicago, found himself among the “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers” that the S.LP. and the S.T. and L.A. were fighting—Mother Jones and A. M. Simons among them—and without instruction from either the S.L.P. or the S.T. and L.A. (his paymasters), he joined with them in signing a manifesto calling for a new union to be formed. In thus proclaiming the failure of his own union Bohn was supported in the Weekly People by such writers as Olive M. Johnson and Dan. De Leon. The Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance was thus crucified, betrayed by the leaders of the S.L.P. into the hands of the “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers,” and a new union—the Industrial Workers of the World—was formed. This new union, having for its object the organising of the workers to “take and hold” what they produce, enrolled a large membership, including men of all shades of political thought and of none. Those who had been “freaks” and “fakers” now became honest and earnest comrades on the economic field ; and to hide political differences politics were relegated to the rear, economic organisation and action being given the place of prime importance, and Mr. De Leon, editor of the American Weekly People, “discovered” that Marx had in 1869, said somewhere, sometime, to some one, that “only the economic organisation could set on foot the true political .party of Labour.”

Did Mr. De Leon know this before he helped to form the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, and before he joined the Socialist Labour Party, or is it now that he is wangling ? As there is no evidence that Marx ever made such a statement, I beg to answer the latter question in the affirmative.

But in case Marx is not sufficient, Engels is dragged in, and one need not be surprised if at any time we are told that Christ talked Industrial Unionism in the Sermon on the Mount, or that even if he did not, what he did say may be “adapted to American conditions.”

When, as a result of capitalist persecution, W. D. Haywood had become the momentary idol of thousands of American workmen, and, while still in prison, was nominated by the Socialist Party as candidate for Governorship, the S.L.P. found itself in a dilemma. Haywood was member and nominee of the “rotten” Socialist Party —yet he was a member of the pure I.W.W. According to the S.L.P. rules they could not support him, but could they risk opposing the popular Haywood ? Eventually the Colorado State Executive decided to call upon every member of the S.L.P. in Colorado to withdraw from the Party until after the election, so that they could vote for Haywood ! This remarkable wangle was supported by O. M. Johnson and Mr. De Leon, and we were told the S.L.P. refused to oppose Haywood politically because they were supporting his “economic side” !

On his release from prison, however, Haywood toured America for the Socialist Party. This roused the ire of the S.L.P., who then denounced him as a coward and a craven.

Meanwhile the I.W.W., which for a time had proved a happy hunting-ground for S.L.P. literature sellers, had had a serious split. Most of its original founders had left it. E. V. Debs, had joined the staff of the Appeal to Reason, an anti-I.W.W. paper, and those who were left were largely inclined towards the Socialist Party. This not suiting the “fighting” S.L.P., who, not content with fighting the “cravens” like Haywood, outside, and the “physical force-ists” like Williams, inside, wanted a new excuse for a declaration of war on the Socialist Party, up went the cry for Socialist “unity.”

The E.C. of the S.L.P. invited the Socialist Party to consider proposals with a view to fusion, knowing they would be rejected. They were rejected, and now the S.L.P. can forget the fond embraces indulged in with the “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers” at the funeral of the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, and clears the decks anew for hostilities.

Had the “unity” proposals been accepted bj the Socialist Party and a juncture fixed up, splits would, of course, immediately have followed; but the chance would have been taken. and the S.L.P. would have been scuttled and swallowed up in a new party, with the consent and approval of its friends, as was the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance in 1905.

In either case it was a wangle on the part of the S.L.P. leaders, a case of heads I win, tails you lose, but the Socialist Party leaders declined to enter the game.

It will thus be seen that, as in Britain, so in America, the “fusion” trick is but a move in the long game practised by faction leaders at the expense of the principles they are supposed to be advocating. It is therefore, up to the rank and file, as the Americans would say, to checkmate the players, to overthrow the “leaders,” the “intellectuals,” to act on the truly Marxian dictum that “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.” When they will place principles above personalities, and understand the difference between capitalist reform and social revolution, they will find there is but one party for them. Here it is The Socialist Party of Great Britain ; in America it has yet to be born.

A. W. Pearson

Cuttings and critiques. (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Mr. Ritzema, J.P., of Blackburn, recently delivered himself of a scheme to “Nationalise and suppress the Liquor Traffic.” So impressed is he with his scheme that he has had it printed, and the Socialist Standard has received a copy. Let me say at once that I also am impressed by the scheme—in spite of the fact that it was first launched upon a long-suffering public from Paradise Church, Blackburn.

#    #    #    #

The background having been laid on with the brush of a Stiggins, incorporating the usual denunciations of drink as a greater curse than war, pestilence and famine, the cause of 80% of crime. 50% of lunacy, pauperism, etc, Mr. Ritzema talks of buying out the brewers at about 300 millions, imposing a tax of 20s. in the £ upon all intoxicants, selling them at cost to the town and county councils—who will provide public-houses and managers out of their own funds, 9-l0ths of the cost of which, and the loss on the sale of liquor, the Government would refund. Of the profits stockholders would receive 4%, and 2% would be set aside to redeem the capital. This would leave large sums for social work, such as “finding immediate work for the unemployed,” the drink traffic would be gradually extinguished under the benign influences at work, the money diverted from beer would buy the workers bread and boots, trade would be stimulated, lunacy, crime, and pauperism almost obliterated, the churches saved, and a sober, educated, and intelligent democracy would be evolved.

#    #    #    #

A beautiful scheme, savouring of the scheme for old age pensions to commence 20 or 30 years after the potential pensioner is a box of cold meat. The poverty of the proletarian is due to his exploitation at the source of production, and from that exploitation all things flow. The investigations of Chas. Booth, the Tory, show 75% of drunkenness to be due to poverty and its inseparable conditions. It is the degradation wrought by poverty that expresses itself in alcoholic excess, and the righteous Ritzema, living under the normal conditions of the lower paid worker, might find the atmosphere of Paradise Church less congenial than the mild excitement of the “Pig and Whistle.”

#    #    #    #

These morality-mongers prefer to potter with effects; yet this question must strike the stupidest in the face, if drunkenness exists why is it? What answer has the blue-ribboned army to that? It is, they say, when they are not dumb, due to the opportunities that exist for drinking. Oh, blind and sons of the blind! Abolish drink tomorrow—what then ? Happiness, they say, prosperity, joy in living. Yet the most abstemious, thrifty, careful living people in the world are the most poverty-stricken—the people of India.

#    #    #    #

No ! it won’t do. If the conditions of existence drive people into deplorable excess, that excess, that craving for excitement, for some break in the hideous monotony of their existence, must manifest itself somehow. Close all the public-houses—have you then exhausted all the media through which the craving will express itself ? No !

#    #    #    #

I wish I had space to deal with Mr. Ritzema’s little scheme. It would be interesting to try and discover how his blue horror fades to a lighter blue when it is dispensed by town council managers rather than rubicund Boniface, and how the craving for drink is to languish and die out when the liquor is served in pewters engraved with the council’s arms, and how the deep damnation of the whole business is reconciled with the payment of the authors of it (the brewers) and its continued existence under the management of a government that regards it as an. unspeakably reprehensible thing, more accursed than war, plague, or pestilence.

#    #    #    #

At the recent bye-election for Montrose Burghs a Mr. Joseph Burgess sought election, claiming to stand for Independent Labour and Socialism. In the first paragraph of his address he said, “If I have the honour to secure your suffrages I shall consider it my first duty, as the representative of all classes and industries, to do all that lies within the power of a Parliamentary representative to advance the general interests of all the Burghs and their citizens.”

#    #    #    #

By “all classes” Mr. Burgess really meant all sections of the only two classes there are—the master class and the working class. He was therefore admittedly prepared to go to the Commons to represent the master class—the landlords, employers, financiers, lawyers, the officials of the army and the civil forces!

#    #    #    #

In his next paragraph he said, “all textile trade questions would find in me a zealous and intelligent Parliamentary advocate,” and in the following, “I believe I could be helpful to all who are therein concerned, whether they be employers or operatives.” So here you have an “Independent Labour Socialist” candidate endeavouring to convince the employing class that he could be of great assistance to them. Apparently Mr. Burgess is far from accepting the impossibility of serving two masters faithfully. How he can serve the interests of the masters without opposing or neglecting the necessarily conflicting interests of the workers Mr. Burgess does not say.

#    #    #    #

Mr. Burgess would, further, nationalise all forms of industrial capital, evidently thinking it better for the workers to be exploited by Government departments than by individual capitalists or joint-stock companies. It is the same to us whether we are robbed by the Post Office, or the L.C.C. Tramway Department, or by Sir Clifton Robinson, or the National Telephone Co. It is a matter of complete indifference to us that the distraint for rent is levied in the name of some local teetotaller or Bible basher, or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or a Government Land Department. Capital is wealth used for the exploitation of labour. We do not wish to nationalise that exploitation, but to abolish it.

#    #    #    #

Mr. J. W. Benson is the Parliamentary candidate for Pudsey Division, “at the unanimous invitation of the branches of the Pudsey Division I.L.P.” He claims that he is “an earnest student of the cause of poverty” and “convinced that Socialism is the only real and permanent remedy”; that “bad trade, unemployment, and poverty at present exist under a Free Trade policy, and therefore Free Trade is no remedy for these evils.” After this avowal one would expect (not knowing these I.L.P. chaps) that Mr. Benson would point out that Socialists took no part in the fiscal controvacy, being concerned only with the abolition of poverty, through Socialism, “the only real and permanent remedy.” Not so Mr. Benson. “I am in favour,” he says, “of the continuation of Free Trade.” So there you are. The evils of bad trade, unemployment and poverty exist under Free Trade, therefore let us have some more Free Trade. Let us hoodwink the workers into believing that it matters to them whether they are robbed by Protectionist crows or Free Trade kites. Such is I.L.P’ism.

#    #    #    #

In this respect, however, the I.L.P’s vis-a-vis, the Social-Democratic Party, has nothing to shout about. In a pamphlet written by its secretary on “Social-Democracy and the Zollverein” it pointed out that the great danger was that the working class might be induced to take sides. Agreed. And yet every S.D.P. candidate, from H. M. Hyndman downwards, has endeavoured to induce them to take sides, by declaring for Free Trade as against Protection. Take its very latest wild-cat candidature, in North-West Manchester. On the front page Dan Irving declared for “no tariff barriers to make dearer the food of the people,” although in the body of his address he described the Tariff Reform agitation as “a sham, political warfare on the fiscal arrangements of the country,” after which he said, “as a Social-Democrat I am in favour of Free Trade.”

#    #    #    #

Dan’s address was funny in other respects. “Whatever party may be in power,” he said, “I shall always be found giving my support to any measure which makes for the benefit of the people,” and then, in his concluding paragraph, “Workers, remember that in all times of industrial struggle” (which, of course, means every minute of day) “the members of the master class use the power you give them in Parliament and on public authorities to compel you to submit to their will.” And it is suggested by this “worker for the Labour Movement for twenty-four years” that the master class, possessing and using the power of compelling the workers to submit to their will, will introduce measures which make “for the benefit of the people”! Really, these fellows must be abysmal idiots or—— (missing word. Suggestions invited.)

#    #    #    #

“Do not the working class pay the rates and taxes ?” is a question asked in the “Catechism of Socialism,” and Messrs. E. Belfort Bax and H. Quelch, both of the S.D.P., answer “No.” The worker, they add, has “nothing wherewith to pay taxes, and whether these be high or low, and whoever has to pay them directly, his position remains the same.” Generally speaking, they say further, the reduction of rates is of no benefit to the working class, and to devote the proceeds of municipal undertakings to the reduction of rates is simply to use them as means for making profit for the propertied class. After which Mr. Dan Irving, in his election address, “in the interests of Labour and Socialism,” declared for the “Nationalisation of Education and Poor Rates so that the financially strong may help to bear the burdens of the weak.” Very ‘OT—what ?

#    #    #    #

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Lorebrun, member of the Liberal Cabinet, said at a dinner at the Newcastle Gladstone Club on May 29th, that “The Conservatives represent the constant apprehension that change will do harm to vested interests. YOU WILL FIND, IF YOU LOOK BACK, THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO VESTED INTEREST INJURED BY ANY REFORMS THAT HAVE BEEN PASSED IN OUR DAY. You need never be afraid that things will go too fast in this country. In the last fifty years there has been an unparalleled advance in industrial progress and in the material domain of human effort, but nothing of the kind in the least degree corresponding has been done in regard to the improvement of the condition of the people.”

#    #    #    #

The Lord Chancellor has blown the gaff. No wonder that only one newspaper gave a full report of his speech. But what the frank Chancellor admits is undoubtedly true. No Socialist expects the master class to legislate against its own interests, and as we see, they do not so legislate. Hence the position of the S.P.G.B. Before the workers can get anything from the master class they must be able to take it. Therefore the work before us is to educate and organise the workers in these truths for the political supremacy of the workers. Then, and then only will the wealth producers find their burden lightened.

#    #    #    #

Mr. Ben Tillett, in an eulogy of the work of Tom Mann in Australia, writes, “the present leaders of the Labour Parties (of Australia) are blind to the revolutionary work going on apace and the trend of capitalism, falling back upon worn-out political shibboleths, fiscal fooling, sectarianism and religious intolerance and with the usual clap-trap of temperance opponents.” Well, Ben, what fooling, fiscal or other, beats your own fooling as emigration tout in England for the Australian Capitalist ? Was that fooling or something worse ?

#    #    #    #

The local Branch, S.D.P. indulges in Justice (6/6/08) in a great chuckle because they were able, by lying low and saying nothing, to secure that their nomination for the Leigh Union Board of Guardians should be the only one, so getting their man returned unopposed. They rejoice in beating Liberals and Tories at their own game, “and Lees is inside the board room, where we have not the least doubt that he will make his presence felt.” A victory for Socialism indeed—of the S.D.P. brand ! The educational effect on the workers locally must be stupendous !

Alegra.

The Old Age Pension snare. (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Pursuant to their policy of buying working-class support with spurious coin, the Liberals have added another to their list of cheap sops. They raised a “working man” to the Cabinet, and it has been counted unto them for righteousness at the ballot-box. They have given a Small Holdings Act to enable those poor devils of workers who have saved a trifle under capitalist slavery, to get back to the slavery of petty enterprise and lose it. They have announced with temerity (later overwhelmed by trepidation) a measure to save the worker sending his “soul to hell” with hops (?) and arsenic. And now they have decided to administer another dose of “The Mixture,” the antidote to Socialism, from the bottle labelled “Social Reform”—Old Age Pensions to wit.

What has led them to this act of magnanimity concerns us little here. Our business is to show how hollow is the claim that the realisation of this great item of the programs of the S.D.P., I.L.P. and other reform bodies masquerading as revolutionaries, contributes one iota to the material advantage of the working class. Well indeed can the capitalist captains quell the murmurings which the seeming waste of so much good provender calls up among the more ignorant of their own hosts with the cynical assurance: “Dear brethren, it is entirely compensative.”

Entirely compensative it certainly is from the point of view of capitalist interests, and it is because of the vital importance of the workers understanding this that this criticism is penned.

“Now to dip the test-rod in.”

Viewing the working class as a whole we see a mass of workers living by the sale of a mass labour-power for a mass of wages. This “mass” view of the workers becomes daily more imperative as the development of capitalist production daily eliminates the personal from human affairs, crushing individual opportunity, disfranchising individual skill, reducing all to the mean level on the workers’ side, as it obliterates the individual on the masters’ side, depriving capital of a personal owner, of nationality even, and making the productive machinery of the world less and less private property in the sense of separate and detached ownership, and increasingly a class possession.

Karl Marx has clearly shown the commodity nature of this labour-power, and has proved that the wage (apart from temporary fluctuations which cancel one another) is merely the equivalent of the labour-power which it purchases in respect of one quality common to both—the only quality common to both—that is, embodied necessary human labour.

Man creates nothing—he merely alters forms. He labours at the plough and in the mill, produces necessaries of life, and consumes them. And consuming them he produces latent energy, or labour-power, which he sells. And just as, when the woollen manufacturer consumes coal in his furnaces, the value of that coal lives again in the woollen fabric, so the value of the necessaries of life socially necessary to the production of labour-power is resurrected in that labour-power. Again, man labours in the gold-mines and produces gold, and this gold preserves in full—not the value of the necessaries consumed by the miner to enable him to produce his labour-power, oh, no. That was represented in the miner’s wages, and if the gold had no greater value than was paid in wages for its production there could be no profit for the employer. Between the cost of production of labour-power and its power of production—what it costs to create it and what in turn it is capable of creating—there is a vast difference. The day’s labour-power which the mine-owner bought cost only the product of a quarter of a day’s labour to produce. A quarter of a day’s labour, then, is the value of a days’ labour-power, but this labour-power expended (with utility and prevailing economy), a day’s labour-power is converted into a day’s labour, and that which reappears in its product—gold—is the same that appears in labour-power, viz., the cost of production in units of human labour time.

We see, then, that the labour-power which the workers sell and the wages they sell it for are equivalents when they exchange at par. They are equal values by virtue of the congealed labour they contain, as the two-pound loaf and the two-pound weight are equivalents by virtue of their one common quality, weight. And just as no other commodity owner can force the price of his goods (or shall we say sell them) above their value in the face of competition, so can the workers obtain for their labour-power no more than its average necessary cost of production. Less will not suffice to reproduce the requisite efficiency and maintain continuity of supply : more is debarred them by competition.

The crude statement that wages tend to sink to the level of subsistence under the prevailing “standard of comfort,” faulty though it is in view of the fact that the wages of the workers as a body are never high enough to enable them to provide subsistence—fresh air, pure food, maternal knowledge, and the like—necessary to rear more than half their children to the age of six years, is a fair shot at the truth. But the mystifying element, of course, is contained in the idea of a Standard of Comfort, for this seems to indicate a power in the human will that one can hardly credit, to defy the operation of the laws of competition. What, one asks, is this Standard of Comfort ? How is it established and how maintained’?

The Standard of Comfort is, as Karl Marx says, the creation of an historical process, but today the most potent factor in its determination is the advance of capitalist production itself. The growing intensification of labour, the increasing insecurity of livelihood, the rising tide of unemployment, the herding of vast numbers in slums, the stripping of every rational pleasure from life—all these things make stimulants and intoxicants a necessary part of the Standard of Comfort, as does the more general education demanded by modern capitalism render literary and other “refined” indulgences a part of the necessary bill of fare, and therefore a part of the necessary cost of production of labour-power, into the value of which they enter, to demand an equivalent in its price—wages.

Theoretically wages, since they are the equivalent of the necessary cost of continued production of labour-power, are paid in order that labour-power may be produced. When therefore they are spent on expensive food when cheaper would do as well, on white bread when brown would afford as much sustenance at less cost, on meat when vegetarian diet is so much more economical, on whisky which conceivably gives no sustenance at all, on maintaining the aged whose period of usefulness to the capitalist is passed, then Capital is aggrieved, and capitalists look askant and wonder why all this leakage.

Long ago they discovered that if they reduced the workers’ drink bill they lowered the cost of production of labour-power, and hence cheapened it. Now they have discovered that if they in some measure relieve the workers of the burden of their aged they once more reduce their cost of subsistence and depreciate their wages. It is entirely compensative.

The workers have to learn that so long as their labour-power remains a commodity, remains an article produced for sale in a competitive market, it can command no more than its cost of production. Indeed, they are not robbed here (except in the sense that the sale is compulsory), for it is an exchange of equivalents. (It is in the conversion of that labour-power into labour that they are robbed—robbed of the difference between the value of the one and the other, which the masters call profit.) They have to learn that all those things which the conditions they live under render necessary to the production of their labour-power, in such volume and quality as the labour market needs must be surrendered to them out of the wealth they produce. The woollen manufacturer aforesaid supplies coal for his boilers in order to get motive power, but if his engineer makes a first charge upon it for other purposes, if he takes part of it home for the kitchen grate, then the deficiency must be made up. It is a law of mechanics that we cannot get more out of a machine than we put in, and the same applies to the human machine. If the wages which are paid to the workers as a body (we are taking the “mass” view, not the individual) for the purpose of continuing the supply of labour-power is generally expended upon things which are not fundamentally, but only conditionally necessary to that purpose—on whisky, appearance, maintaining the aged and incapable, and so on—then the fuel for the labour-power still must be provided. Therefore, what does it matter to the workers as a class whether these things which circumstances make so necessary to them that they are ready to make them first charges upon their means of subsistence, are allowed to them as wages or as “State assistance”? They might be “State” housed, “State” clothed, “State” educated, “State” doctored, “State” washed, lathered, shaved and shampoo’d, but still, while the last essential—food—is withheld from them, they must fight in the labour market for work, be overworked and unemployed, hungry and anxious and toil worn, just as much for the remnant of the necessaries that they cannot exist without as for all.

Any such reforms as State Maintenance of School-children, Old Age Pensions, and so on, are mere shuffling of the cards, and can add nothing permanent whatever to the material wealth of the workers. Indeed, some of them may have the reverse effect, for under the present arrangement the teetotaler has some monetary advantage from the fact that a modicum of the cost of the generally necessary stimulants appears in the value of his labour-power, while the single man with no children outside the workhouse is the better paid because provision is made for the (capitalistically necessary) children in the general wage instead of in “State Maintenance.” Even an overwhelming Socialist majority in the House of Commons could not increase the “return to Labour” by reforms, for all the reforms still leave the competitive labour market untouched. The only way is to abolish that labour market by abolishing the property condition out of which it arises, by substituting, that is, common for private ownership in the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth. That is revolution, not reform. That is ending the capitalist system, not mending it. That alone is the object of a Socialist party and of working-class politics.

So we denounce the Old Age Pension Bill as a useless and mischievous reform measure—useless because it leaves the workers where they were, mischievous because of its power for misleading them. Unfortunately the “mind’s eye” is peculiarly subject to optical delusions. As the sun appears to travel round the earth, as the water seems to race past the ship, so to the untrained “mind’s eye” of the average worker the so-called palliatives appear to palliate. As when “General” Booth finds a job for one poor downcast wretch, it is forgotten that without his interference another would have got the job who must now be work-less, and the impression is created that unemployment has been lessened by this “invaluable agency,” whereas all that has been effected is a shifting of the suffering, so these paltry reforms, so fondly hugged and cuddled by all other parties in this country claiming to be Socialist save the S.P.G.B., seem to be ameliorative, and so seeming capture the popular fancy, revive and strengthen the working-class belief in the goodwill and magnanimity of capitalist politics, ay! serve even to lure our own from beside us, and range them, bitter and militant, against the very cause they profess to revere—Socialism.

And this is why they are such powerful instruments in the hands of the master class for diverting the gaze of the proletariat from the revolutionary proposal. Truly “social reform” is perfectly summed up in the sententious description of that astute politician, Mr. A. J. Balfour—”the antidote to Socialism.” For this reason we cry out upon all those reform parties who, falsely, describe themselves as Socialist, and denounce them for what in truth they are—misleaders of the working class, and therefore adjuncts of the capitalist parties.

A. E. Jacomb

The Capitalist Class. By Karl Kautsky (continued) (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Continued from the June 1908 issue.

Specially translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain and approved by the Author.

6.—The fall in the rate of profit.

Simultaneously with the development aforementioned, the total amount of capital which the capitalists invest in their various undertakings with the view to profit shows the tendency to growing more rapidly than does the exploitation of the workers and the amount of surplus-value produced by them.

We cannot enter here into the details of the reasons for the appearance of this phenomenon, as the comprehension of such supposes some wider knowledge of economics. An example will illustrate the above statement.

Let us take a case of most convincing character. Let us compare a hand-spinner of a hundred years ago, who, we will say, was exploited by a capitalist as a worker carrying on home industry, with a machine-spinner of to-day. How much capital there is necessary to make possible the work of the latter ; and how small comparatively the capital has been which the capitalist used for the purpose of spinning by hand. He paid the wages of the spinner and gave him the cotton or flax to spin. With regard to wages little has altered, but the machine-spinner to-day uses up perhaps a hundred times as much raw material as the hand-spinner; and what enormous buildings, motive power, spinning machinery, etc., are necessary to carry on spinning by machinery.

Yet another circumstance has to be considered : the capitalist of a hundred years ago, who employed the spinner, invested in his concern only the outlay for wages and raw material ; there was scarcely any standing capital—the spinning wheel was not to be reckoned. His capital was quickly turned over—say in three months—hence he only needed to invest and advance in his concern one quarter of the amount of capital he used in the whole year. To-day the amount of capital required for machinery and buildings of a spinning mill is enormous. Though the period of turnover of the amount of capital advanced for wages and raw material may be equal to that of a hundred years ago, the period of turnover of the other portion of the capital, which a hundred years ago scarcely existed, is a very long one.

A number of causes act in the opposite direction, as for instance, the credit system, but especially the fall in the value of products, which is a necessary consequence of the increase in the productivity of labour. But these causes are by no means able to entirely put an end to the development in question. This development proceeds in all branches of industry, in some more, in others less rapidly ; with the result that the amount of capital advanced every year and reckoned at so much per head of the industrial workers, grows rapidly.

Let us suppose that this amount of capital a hundred years ago was £5 and to-day has grown to £50 ; let us further suppose that the exploitation of the worker has increased in the proportion of five to one so that if the surplus-value which a hundred years ago he produced each year amounted to £2 10s., it would to-day, given an equal amount of wages for the year, be £12 10s. The amount of surplus-value has thus in this case, as absolute surplus-value, risen enormously ; but in proportion to the amount of capital which the capitalist invests each year, the surplus-value has fallen. A hundred years ago this proportion was 50 per cent., to-day it is only 25.

That is, of course, only an example, but the tendency explained thereby actually exists.

The total amount of surplus-value produced each year in a capitalist country is increasing continually and rapidly; but more rapidly still increases the total amount of capital invested by the capitalist class in the various capitalist undertakings over which the surplus-value is distributed. If one further bears in mind the fact, which we have already observed, that for the requirements of the State and for ground-rent an ever increasing amount comes out of the total of surplus-value produced each year, one will comprehend that the amount of surplus-value which each year, on the average, falls to a given sum of capital is ever on the decrease, although the exploitation of the worker is growing.

The profit—that is to say, that portion of surplus-value which is left to the capitalist owner of the concern—thus shows the tendency to fall in proportion to the total capital advanced by him ; or, expressed in another way, in the course of development in the capitalist mode of production as a rule, the profit falling to a given amount of capital decreases continually. A sign of this fall is the unceasing decline in the rate of interest.

While thus the exploitation of the worker has the tendency to rise, the rate of profit of the capitalist shows the tendency to fall. That is one of the most peculiar contradictions of the many with which capitalist production abounds.

From this fall in the rate of profit the conclusion has been drawn that capitalist exploitation would end by itself; that capital would finally yield so little profit that the capitalist, in a starving condition, would be seeking something to do. But such would only be the case if the rate of profit would continually fall and the total amount of capital remain the same. That is, however, by no means the fact. The total capital in the capitalist countries increases more rapidly than the rate of profit falls. The increase of capital is one of the presumed conditions of the fall in the rate of profit, and if the rate of interest falls from 5 to 4, or from 4 to 3 per cent., the income of the capitalist, whose capital has in the meantime increased from one million to two or more millions, is not reduced.

The fall in the rate of profit or interest does by no means signify a reduction in the income of the capitalist class, because the bulk of the surplus-value which they obtain increases continually ; this fall in profit reduces the incomes of those capitalists only who are not in a position to increase their capital accordingly. In the course of the economic development the limit is ever extended from which a certain amount of capital begins to suffice for the maintenance of its owner in accordance with his social position. It is an ever larger amount of income which becomes the minimum required to enable anyone, without working himself, to live upon the labour of others. What fifty years ago was still a big fortune, to-day has become relatively a mere trifle. The fall in profit and the rate of interest does not cause the extinction, but merely thte decrease in the numbers of the capitalist class. Every year small capitalists are squeezed out of their ranks and brought face to face with the same death struggle that handicraftsmen, petty dealers, and peasants have to pass through ; a death struggle of a briefer or longer duration, which, however, ends, either for them or for their children, in their merging into the proletariat. What they endeavour to do in order to escape their fate, mostly only hastens their ruin.

One wonders at the great number of stupid people who are induced by swindlers to entrust them with their money on the promise that they will receive a high rate of interest. As a rule these persons are not so stupid as they appear to be : the swindling undertaking is the straw to which they cling in their desire to obtain adequate incomes from their small means. It is not so much their greed as their fear of want that blinds them in that way.

[To be continued]

Letter: Poverty: Its Cause and Cure. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A criticism criticised.

The review of our pamphlet “Poverty: Its Cause and Cure,” which appeared in your May issue, has been brought to our notice, and as your reviewer accuses us of propounding some flagrant heresies in the name of Socialism, we would like, with your permission, to defend our position in regard to certain points he has dealt with in the review.

In the pamphlet we stated that the causes of poverty were insufficient production, waste, and unequal distribution, all of which causes were in operation in England to-day. Your reviewer differs from us here on the ground that poverty does not afflict society as a whole, but only a portion of it, and he asserts that the poverty of the working class (which appears in his opinion to be the only class afflicted with poverty) is due neither to insufficient production nor waste, but wholly and solely to unequal distribution. Now we contend that poverty afflicts society as a whole, but we are quite willing to agree with your reviewer that only a portion of the members of society feel the effects of poverty ; and the reason of this is unequal distribution. We contend, however, that if an equal distribution of necessaries could be effected, there would still be poverty because of insufficient production and waste. It was therefore in our opinion necessary to show that Socialism, besides ensuring a more equal distribution of income, would increase production and diminish waste.

Your reviewer differs from us as to the manner in which Socialism will be established. He objects to our characterising as absurd the idea that a Socialist Government would be able to socialise all industries within its term of office ; but, having regard to the enormity of the task of socialising all industries, we must confess that we fail to see how any Government, however anxious it might be to establish Socialism, could complete the task within say five or seven years. This does not imply that a majority of opinion could be in favour of capitalism, as your reviewer seems to think, but, nevertheless, we do hold that it would be possible for a majority of the people to be in favour of certain Socialistic measures and at the same time not in favour of the whole of the means of producing and distributing wealth being owned in common and democratically controlled. As we have stated in the pamphlet, there is reason for thinking that Socialism will be realised by the socialisation of such industries as are authorised to be socialised by mandate from election to election.

We are next accused of repudiating the class struggle when we say that the method of Socialism is not to try to force the will of one class upon another class. Now it seems to us impossible to find a section or class of society to which Socialism would not be beneficial, and we think that as the tendency to Socialism becomes stronger it will also become wider, and that the spirit of Socialism—the universal brotherhood of man—will extend not only to members of the working class, but to members of all classes, and unite them on a common ground in the cause of the common good.

A. E. Peters.

A. W. Kersey.

Reply:

In this reply to my criticism of their pamphlet which appeared in the May issue, it is worth noting that no position is advanced that is not contained in that pamphlet, and, moreover, no new evidence is brought forward to uphold the position there taken up. In repeating that poverty is due to insufficient production and waste in addition to unequal distribution, the authors agree “that only a portion, of the members of society feel the effects of poverty, and the reason of this is unequal distribution.” Although this practically amounts to granting me the first point of my criticism, let me state the facts. The estimated total of the wealth produced in this country varies between 1,125 millions and 1,800 millions sterling. The population is about 43 millions. Were the distribution equal the income per head would be, on the low estimate, about £26, and on the high estimate about £42; which for the average family (5 persons) would be equal to a sum of £130 per annum in the one case, and £210 per annum in the other. So far as necessaries are concerned, therefore (and all references to poverty have been references to a lack of.necessaries), the unequal distribution is sufficient to account for poverty, quite apart from waste. Regarding their references to the increase of production, and the decrease of waste, under Socialism, I am quite prepared to agree, remembering that capitalism has been called a system for preventing production rather than a system of production. That, however, was not the point.

In the pamphlet originally under notice, the authors say “the majority of the people must first be converted to Socialist ideas” and “until then, Socialism must be to the legislator not a State, but a guiding principle, and he is prepared to co-operate with any political party which will introduce measures leading in the right direction.” The explanation of this appears in the reply to my criticism, wherein it is stated that “as the tendency to Socialism becomes stronger it will also become wider . . . and will extend . . . to members of all classes.” Here it is assumed that the capitalist class will assist in the realisation of Socialism. With us the assumption is that the capitalist class will fight in defence of its position of social and economic privilege as all previous privileged classes have done, and that the working class must work out its emancipation in the teeth of the opposition of the class which enslaves them. At present the capitalist class is prepared to use any means to safeguard its position, and even if we were to assume that, when the Socialist movement is strong enough, it will, making a virtue of necessity, bow to the inevitable, even then we should be compelled to insist that the movement is primarily that of the working class towards its emancipation, and any member of any section of society must adopt the standpoint of the working class—the socially useful class—to take part in that movement.The idea of Socialism being a guide to the legislator pending the conversion of the majority to Socialism is, therefore, extremely improbable, while the contrary seems much more likely: that the legislator, being a capitalist legislator, will do all that lies in his power to strengthen the position of his class, pending that Socialist majority which will inevitably mean the abolition of the system, the class, and the legislation he stands to support. The establishment of Socialism is dependent upon the majority, when the case will be altered and the majority, through the political machine as being most convenient, will establish Socialism, and not the Government legislating “Socialistic measures” on an unconverted people.

D. K.

Editorial: Brimstone and Treacle. (1908)

Editorial from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Speaking at Leicester on May 24th, Ramsay MacDonald, in moving a vote of thanks to “General” Booth, stated (Morning Leader, 25.5.08) “I have a good many irons in the fire, but there is not a single iron that I find the Salvation Army does not hold one end of.” So much the worse for the irons of Ramsay MacDonald.

o o o

“I am sitting on the Committee dealing with the Children’s Bill, and when we get into any difficulty or want any particulars,” he went on, “below the bar sit two representatives of the ‘Army,’ and they are prepared to extricate us.” Verily the source of MacDonald’s inspiration is enough to justify any act of political lunacy he may, and frequently does, indulge in. If having so many irons in the fire compels him to rely upon officers of the Salvation Army for information on the condition of the children question, it’s certainly time he took a few irons out. It is not an edifying spectacle to see even Ramsay MacDonald burning his fingers.

This, however, may be relied upon. Directly it may safely be done, MacDonald will burn his boats at present moored to the Salvation Army pier. Therefore, “lest we forget,” we credit his political account with this laudation of the most expert sweating organisation extant.

____________________

More Labour Unity.

Will Thorne, fellow-member of the Labour Party with Ramsay MacDonald, does not agree at all with the latter’s estimate of the utility of the Salvation Army. While MacDonald (same speech) thinks that “whatever agency comes and goes, the country cannot spare one agency—and that is the Salvation Army,” Thorne expresses the hope (Reynolds’s 31.5.08) that “the Salvation Army would soon be wiped out, and all such sweating organisations.”

o o o

Credit where credit is due. Will Thorne sometimes blunders into a correct position. How it is managed, I suspect, not even William could inform us. “Act of God or the King’s enemies,” as the way-bill puts it, probably ! The Salvation Army is an absolutely anti-democratic, quasi-religious body, trading upon ignorance for its membership, working upon credulity and barbaric fear for its funds, acting as capitalist hack and agent in its administration. With unctuous ostentation it professes to be saving the souls of the poor, while all the time it is damning their bodies, wringing profit out of their necessity, kudos out of their misery, and advertisement out of their weakness.

o o o

It is a blend of Pecksniff and Gradgrind, with an infusion of the Cossack. It combines the methods of the Charity Organisation Society and the Inquisition. It is at once a fire insurance company, a sweat shop, and a black-leg purveyor. It grinds the faces of the poor in defiance of the biblical injunction. It is prepared to accept the money of the usurer who was whipped out of the temple, the Judas who sold his master, the welcher, the pimp, and the rest of the congregation fore-doomed to the lake of fire which burneth for ever—according to the book of love. Has not the “General” announced that he is ready to take contributions from anybody and sanctify them in further use ?

____________________

The Last Straw.

With the result thus acquired the Salvation Army dispenses hell and skilly to the “submerged ten” (human derelicts who, forced to choose between the devil and the deep sea, select, for some unknown reason, the former) in the proportion of a full pound of spiritual brimstone to a pennyweight of carnal flour water. Its special line, apparently, is the saving of souls from the pit by the plentiful mortification of the flesh, and—it is the sort of organisation that Ramsay MacDonald delights to honour !

o o o

All the same, I’m surprised at Thorne. If he’s not careful Ramsay will be cutting off his two hundred. He may protest that Ramsay couldn’t, but there’s no knowing what the MacDonalds and the Hendersons couldn’t work between them. There’s no knowing what they are doing. All that Thorne and Macpherson and the rest of the Labour Party know about the inside affairs of the Labour Party in Parliament is what MacDonald and Henderson tell them. Of course it will be a “dirty shame” if Bill is cut off with a shilling, but if Bill calls Henderson names in the “House” and flouts MacDonald’s opinions outside it, what can he expect ? Besides, Bill, what about that unity of purpose on all questions affecting the working class ? What about that solid front ? Where’s it gone, Bill ? Oh, Bill! you are a naughty boy!

Editorial: A Damp Squib. (1908)

Editorial from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of course we cannot expect anything better of Victor Grayson. He’s a firework, rather damped by the humid atmosphere of the Commons, but liable to little fizzles where the powder remains dry. On the occasion of the discussion of the visit of the great peacemaker (which his other name is Guelph) to Russia, when Keir Hardie, swearing he would ne’er withdraw, withdrew his references to the bloody autocracy and feudal savagery of the “Little Father,” and his bigger sisters and cousins and aunts of the Arch-Dukeries, Victor Grayson wanted to give a one-horse pyrotechnic display. He doubtless felt that he had reached a dry spot in his powder magazine and could let off a few crackers. But Henderson, who is the “Little Father” of the Labour Party (MacDonald being his wire-pulling Grand Duke), was not going to allow Grayson to break up the order of the proceedings which the “black hundred” (less ninety-eight) had decided upon in collaboration with the Government. So Grayson was promptly “closured.”

o o o

It was a decided exuberation of bad manners on the part of Grayson, who might easily have followed the example of Pete Curran. Pete, who is a model of self-restraint, found himself once up against the rules of the “House” when he wanted to do desperate things against the Government in connection with the shooting of the people at Belfast. (Russia does not entirely monopolise the institution of “Bloody Sunday.”) With an effort Pete managed to maintain the entente between the Labour Party and the Government unfractured, and relieve his feelings at the same time. In this way. Bubbling over with indignation, he went outside the “House,” and while no one was looking, exploded (under his breath) in these epoch-making and entirely original words—”Damn the Rules !” And so went back to his duties.

o o o

This is the story told, with modest restraint and with less detail perhaps, by Pete himself. It is an example of statesmanship that Grayson should have at least endeavoured to emulate. That he did not is a sign of youth—and of the fact that he does not draw his £200 from the Labour Party exchequer.

Answers To Correspondents. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

  W. L. B. (Manchester).—1. Could you give me a. good definition of Capital ? 2. I suppose Marx, when he mentions labour, includes mental and physical. 3. Will wine increase in value without labour of any kind ? Many years ago an aerolite fell in Sweden. The curator of the museum bought it for £84. Did labour create the aerolite and give it value?

Reply:

1. Perhaps the best general definition of capital is "Wealth used for the object of obtaining a profit." In the narrowest technical sense, capital is money used to obtain more money; but Marx's own formula (in "Capital," p. 133) is as simple and direct as any student could wish. Our correspondent is referred thereto.

2. Alexander Bain has shown in his "Mind and Body" that it is impossible to separate mental from physical actions, and that the two are inseparably connected. And Marx himself had already recognised this fact in "Capital," (p. 11) where he says ''different productive activities are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves and muscles, and in this sense are human labour." But it should be noted that the apologists for capitalism usually state that Marx only dealt with manual labour, and left out of consideration the organising and directive activities required in production. This is a deliberate falsification of Marx's position. (See "Capital," pp. 311, 321, 322 (Vol. I.) 

3. No. For wine to reach a given stage in ripeness or maturity, it is necessary to store it under certain conditions in specially constructed buildings, vaults, etc. This often involves a heavy initial outlay, to which there is to be added the cost of maintenance and upkeep of these places, and the various plants (machinery, etc.) used therein. To replace all these means of production a certain sum is set aside yearly, depending upon the average time these things last under normal wear and tear. Obviously the longer the wine is stored, the larger is the total amount of labour expended upon the storage, and—in general—the higher will be the price of the wine. 

4. With reference to the aerolite, there is here a confusion of price and value. Price is the amount of money given for a thing, while value is the social labour-time embodied in the thing. On the average, and taken over sufficient periods of time, price is the monetary exponent of value, but in detail "the deviations of market prices from values are continual," while, strange though it may seem, things may have a price without having value. Marx says: "Objects that in themselves are no commodities, such as conscience, honour, etc., are capable of being offered for sale by their holders and of thus acquiring, through their price, the form of commodities. Hence an object may have a price without having value." ("Capital," p. 75). Labour did not create the aerolite, nor—except for the small amount of energy expended in bringing it to the curator—did it give the aerolite value. The price paid was entirely the subjective estimate of the curator for his museum purposes.

"Which way blows the wind?" (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

  We have had occasion to lament the absence from our ranks of the intellectuals who, in other countries, have enrolled themselves under the banner of Socialism. There will soon be no occasion for any such complaint. Already some of the best known names in science, art and literature are inscribed among Socialists, and now we are able to add to their number the name of one of the most original and imaginative writers of modern times, that of H. G. Wells, who last week joined the Central Branch of the S.D.F.

Justice, 7/04/06.

  Really, Mr Wells is too funny ! Since his extraordinary self-contradictions on those Socialist questions he has essayed to tackle, nobody takes Mr Wells seriously. A young man who has achieved considerable success in the Jules Verne line of novel writing, he appears to have suddenly conceived the idea that he knows something about Socialism and practical politics, and is an inspired teacher. Instead of which he is only suffering from a rather bad attack of swelled head.

Justice, 25/04/08.

#    #    #    # 

  H. M. Hyndman, in an article entitled "Labourism and Socialism," wrote: Labourism in short is a sorry attempt to dish Socialism. It will not succeed in the long run. But in the meantime it [the Labour Party] may give us some trouble and deceive the ignorant.

Justice, 27/04/06.

  H. M. Hyndman. at the S.D.P. Conference, as stated in Justice's own report, supported the Burnley amendment to affiliate with the Labour Party.  

He thought the situation had changed.  . . . The position of Thorne at the present time was a little doubtful and invidious, and yet they were obliged to allow Thorne to run as a Labour candidate. The Labour Party resolution at Hull contained the whole object of the S.D.P. , and he thought with that in view and bearing in mind the resolutions of the last two International Congresses. we ought to accept our own resolution.

Justice, 25/4/08.

Blogger's Note:

In the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard, these quotes were formatted in such a way that they were juxtaposed next to each other to highlight the hypocrisy and opportunism of the Social Democratic Federation. Justice was the weekly newspaper of the SDF, and there's mention of a SDP conference in the second batch of quotes because the SDF relaunched itself as the SDP in 1907.

I never knew that H. G. Wells had briefly been a member of the SDF. That's a new one on me. I wonder what prompted it?

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For July. (1908)

Party News from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Echo of the Commune. (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Federation of the Seine. S.F.I.O., (French section of the Workers’ International), had issued its annual call to the Paris comrades to fall in and march in procession before the historic wall of Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where in May, 1871, many communard prisoners were shot and buried. The occasion was to be the more interesting because a memorial tablet upon the wall itself, and a monument upon the grave of Eugène Pottier, the writer of our song, the “Internationale,” were to be unveiled, and appropriate addresses delivered.

Arriving rather late at the cemetery, we found the procession slowly coming out and the avenue along which it was passing closely walled in by a line of Republican Guards infantry assisted by numerous policemen. These guardsmen, by the way (cavalry and infantry), are no easy-going two year conscripts, but are picked professional soldiers, who are maintained for the express purpose of providing a perpetual menace to the Parisian working class.

Trying another avenue by which to find the tail-end of the procession, we, with many others, found our way blocked by squads of policemen, and so decided to visit other parts of the famous cemetery, hoping to get access to the historic wall later when the crowd should have left.

But what was our surprise to find shortly, a party of soldiers, rifle on shoulder, step down from among the tombs and press us down the avenue towards the main entrance. And as we proceeded the folk gathered in the avenue bordered by the resting-places of famous men — artists, poets, statesmen, generals; while from between the tombs on either side came the rifle, cartridge-pouch, uniform, and flesh and blood within it that make up the soldier — hundreds of him. They were clearing the cemetery. Passing out and walking a few streets from the cemetery we saw a troop of Guards cavalry pass. They have no barracks in the quarter, neither do they mount guard at any public building there. Their presence could have but one meaning, namely, to remind the Parisian working class of the murderous powers at the disposal of the master class. And, indeed, what menace was there not in these rifles, swords, and trampling hoofs? What more was needed to call to mind the bloody week of May, '71, when some 35,000 men, women, and children of the working class were massacred by the army, which had been released by the German Government for that purpose?

Indeed must the master class feel its position shaky that it should think necessary such exhibitions of force! Meanwhile, for us, do not history and passing events reveal the despotic and murderous characteristics necessarily provoked in a master class? Yes! beyond all question. And therefore we must order our conduct, our teaching, and our organisation in conformity with the knowledge so acquired.

J. H. Halls

Party Notes. (1908)

Party News from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manchester Branch continues to go “great guns,” and the local S.D.P., I.LP., and other reform organisations must be heartily wishing our members with their inconvenient truths anywhere but where they are—and that is mainly where the reformers make their own public pitches. Being beaten whenever they allow themselves to be drawn into discussion upon the position and tactics of their own parties, they now refuse to answer questions from any of our speakers (following a line that has offered a way of escape elsewhere) and when forced into some recognition of the S.P.G.B., have recourse to the customary misrepresentation of our attitude, and vilification of some of our membership.

—++—

The latter course, however, does not always pay, as Mr. Watson, of the S.D.P. Executive, found when he ventured to level charges at our comrade Baritz, who at one time was secretary of the Cheetham Branch of the S.D.P. The charges related to Baritz’s conduct while acting in that capacity, as a result of which, it was alleged, he was expelled. Baritz had no difficulty in proving Watson’s statements to be untrue, and after many miserable attempts to struggle out of the difficulty his attempt to blacken our man in the eyes of his audience had landed him into, Watson was obliged to admit his “error,” and reluctantly apologised.

—++—

Apart from there brushes with the enemy, the Manchester Branch has held many meetings, with audiences running sometimes into four figures, and has effected large sales of the Party literature. More power to them.

—++—

Another branch of the Party has now been formed in Lancashire. Burnley has opened fire, and in the district specially affected with Dan-irvinism. The members may be reckoned upon to make their presence felt. So the organisation that four years ago was given three months to die in, grows. It must be very annoying to the prophets.

—++—

At Watford a round table meeting, to which members of the local S.D.P. were specially invited, was held, when Fitzgerald gave an address on the reasons for the Party opposition to the S.D.P. Several S.D.P.’ers turned up, and their principal platform member undertook the rather unhappy task of defending his organisation’s work. Whether the meeting results in any immediate conversions or not, it doubtless has had the effect of opening the eyes of some of the S.D.P. men present to the methods by which their society is run, as well as to the only attitude which a working-class party can adopt. As their presence was an indication of a desire to get at the truth, the final outcome must be to the advantage of the only Party expressing working-class interests—the S.P.G.B. It is fairly certain that if the honest, earnest member of the S.D.P., I.LP., and the rest (and there are without question, of course, many such), could be got at, and the issues squarely put and thoroughly discussed, a large proportion would, sooner or later, recognise the weakness of their position and come over. The difficulty is that the forces at work to prevent such discussion, coupled with our comparative weakness numerically, make any meeting impossible. This is unfortunate for the growth of the Socialist Party in England, perhaps, but we can only keep on with our work while keeping a watchful eye upon any opportunity that offers.

—++—

Will any member who is willing to devote any part of his holidays to provincial propaganda work communicate at once with the Head Office, giving dates and district? The biggest glutton for work can be fully satisfied. Verily, the field is great and the labourers few.

—++—

Two debates have been held with the S.L.P., one in Manchester and one in Finsbury Park. On each occasion the position of the S.P.G.B. was easily maintained against the position put up against it. By the time this appears another debate will have taken place in Islington. with F. Montague, the organiser of the I.L.P. in North London.

—++—

Not only have these debates been held by the Islington Branch with representatives of the “Labour movement," but the Liberal Party has been met on June 18th, when our comrade Fitzgerald met Mr. Theedham, of the Central Finsbury Liberal Association. Any member of any political party outside the S.P.G.B.  can always be accommodated by communicating with us.