Fifty Years of “Progress”. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist Examination of a Capitalist Statement.

Flights of Fancy.

The Daily Chronicle could scarcely find words to give expression to its admiration of the Blue Book recently published by the Local Government Board, wherein, we are told, the great prosperity of the worker since the introduction of Free Trade, is clearly shown. Wages have risen, prices have fallen, and that great social sore, pauperism, has decreased. In fact, after a perusal of the figures we are almost led to believe that within the next few years all the social evils that now afflict us will have been entirely eliminated, almost, that is, unless we happen to be in possession of further facts and figures.

We are informed by the Daily Chronicle that since 1849 the percentage of paupers to the population has decreased.

Now the total number of persons in receipt of poor relief during the year 1906-7 was 2,076,316. Every day during the year, taking the average, 25.1 per thousand of the population were in receipt of relief. While there has been a decrease since 1850 in the number of outdoor paupers, the number of indoor paupers has almost doubled. When referring to this question the Press were very careful to avoid giving an explanation of the decrease of outdoor pauperism. The cause was fully explained by “F. C. W.” in the issue of March ’06 Socialist Standard, wherein he says

“The Poor Law was further strengthened by the Amendment Act of 1844, but it was not (says the “Encyclopedia Britannica”) until 1867 that the local administration bodies took the matter up with much enthusiasm. The Pauper Inmate Act of 1871, and the Casual Poor Act of 1882, made conditions of relief more onerous by increasing the compulsory stay of vagrants and by other means. Ashcroft and Preston Thomas say in their work ‘The English Poor Law System’ p. 285, ‘The marked increase of indoor paupers (accompanied of course by a still more marked decrease of outdoor paupers until recently) is due to the movement beginning about 1865 in favour of the workhouse principle. It is clear that in the case of this class of paupers (able-bodied adults) it was mainly by the rigid enforcement of the workhouse test that this improvement was secured.’ ”

The Return to Naked Fact.

There are now many other ways by which the workhouses are being relieved, such as, for instance, the Church Army and Salvation Army Homes, and Dr. Barnado’s Homes (which boast of having 8,000 children always under its care) and the rest of the 1,800 charitable institutions dispensing funds to the amount of ten million pounds per annum.

When the Pauper Inmate Act and the Casual Poor Act had been in operation some time, there was another large increase in pauperism. The “Twelfth Abstract of Labour Statistics” issued by the Board of Trade states that

“on every day throughout the year 1892 the average number of persons in receipt of poor relief was 953,719, this number rising steadily each year with but very slight fluctuation to 1,103,724 in 1906, being an increase not only in the number but also relatively to the increase of population.”

If the Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission is adopted and the suggested alterations in the Poor Law are enacted, then we shall again be told that pauperism is decreasing, while as a matter of fact the relief of the poor will have been transferred from public institutions to private charity, which we are told can be so developed and organised that out-door relief will become unnecessary.

Turning from the question of pauperism our attention is diverted to “the record of rising wages under Free Trade,” as the Daily Chronicle has it.

Two sides to the story.

Now it is true that there has been an increase in the rate of money wages, but that is no criterion of an actual rise in wages or of an increase in the purchasing power of the wages received. Turning again to the “Twelfth Abstract of Labour Statistics” we find that since 1895 (the first year for which comparative tables are given) the increase in the retail prices of the necessaries of life, apart from the increase of house rent, which is by far the most important factor in the expenditure of the workers, has kept pace with the increase in the rate of wages, which is in many cases based upon the price paid per hour. But the same publication informs us that the number of hours worked per week have been greatly reduced, to say nothing of the increase of unemployment. So when we take all the facts into consideration we find instead of an increase in wages we have an absolute decrease.

The Daily News makes a very poor attempt to minimise the extent of the unemployed problem by attributing the great increase during 1908 to the engineering and ship-building disputes, and this in spite of the fact that the Board of Trade and Labour Gazette tells us in every issue, that persons on strike or locked out, sick or superannuated, are excluded from the figures.

The health of the workers is the next subject that confronts us. We are reminded that the number of cases arising from such diseases as enteric fever, diptheria, small-pox, etc., have been greatly reduced, in fact some of them have actually been stamped out. If, then, there has been such a large decrease in this class of disease, we must ask the reason for the alarm of the friendly societies at the “enormous increase in the number of applicants for sick pay.”

Unemployment brings Sickness–

The Evening News of June 3rd asks “Are modern conditions of life undermining the general health of the working people of this country ? Mere warnings of medical men,” it continues, “unsupported by statistics, do not count as evidence, but the testimony of the great friendly societies which are in close and constant touch with the workers is a more weighty matter.”

On this question Mr. J. Luther Green, president of the Hearts of Oak Benefit Society, says,

“The matter is most serious and is causing the greatest concern to all friendly societies. . . . The causes of the alarming increase in sickness liabilities are probably to be found in the changed industrial conditions, the constancy of the evil of unemployment, the operation of the Compensation Act, and the increased pace and pressure of life. . . Distress arising from unemployment has been especially noticeable during the past year. Cases have come under the notice of the committee where the sickness has been solely the result of unemployment. Distress is followed by privation and health must of necessity be impaired.”

It appears that while the membership of the above society has increased, since 1903, 12½ per cent., the number of claims for sick pay has increased 24 per cent., and the amount paid in sick benefit by over 33 per cent., in spite of the adoption of more stringent methods to eliminate the fraudulent “invalids.”

But the Hearts of Oak is only one of the many benefit societies, so we must take a broader view of the subject. Reviewing the returns of the 14 leading benefit societies we find an almost corresponding increase in sickness, and we agree with the president of the H.O.O. that the great increase is due to insufficient nourishment and the increased pace and pressure on the life of the worker. Every worker knows that the pace and pressure in the factories, workshops and offices is far greater to-day than it was even a few years ago, while the age at which he is thrown upon the industrial scrap-heap, when his vitality and energy have degenerated, is earlier; and so witnesses the record, in the Blue Book, of the great decrease in the number of persons employed over the age of 65.

Employment Wounds and Death.

With the speeding up of machinery and increasing pressure upon the worker grows the the increase of sickness, insanity and the “accidents” upon the industrial field, the number of the latter in 1907 reaching the enormous total of 160,731, being almost double the figure for 1898. The number of fatal “accidents” rose from 3,810 in 1898 to 4,453 in 1907, and the number of non-fatal accidents increased from 79,633 in the former year to 156,278 in the latter ! a total far in excess of the combined British and Boer casualties in the late South African war.

The increasing development of capitalism renders it far more difficult for the worker to raise himself from the ranks of the wage-slaves until now it has become almost an impossibility even in individual cases.

The increase in unemployment and the longer period the worker is in the labour market, makes life ever more insecure. While in employment he is compelled, where possible, to deprive himself and family of many of the necessaries of life in order to accumulate a little to tide over the ever-expected period of “out-o’-work,” an attempt that more often than not ends in failure. 

In conclusion, then, and taking into consideration all the facts attending the position of the workers, we can safely say that instead of enjoying greater prosperity, their position in society continues on the downward grade, Liberal and Tory reformers notwithstanding. And so their only hope is in the complete change, the Revolution, i.e., Socialism.

H. A. Young

An “Industrialist” Rout. (1909)

Party News from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Thursday, May 27th, at the Latchmere Baths, Battersea, J. Fitzgerald and E. J. B. Allen debated as to the correctness of the position taken up by their respective organisations in compassing the end to which both are pledged, viz., the abolition of the present system of society and the substitution of the Socialist Commonwealth.

The debate was conducted in a splendid spirit, and followed by a large audience with an attention which demonstrated their recognition of the importance of the issue raised.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain feels more than justified in giving the above title to the following short account of the debate, where the representative of the Industrialist League cleverly defended a position which, under the stern bombardment of Fitzgerald became hopelessly untenable, ultimately presenting a picture of “looped and windowed raggedness” which must have been apparent even to the adherents of, and sympathisers with, that organisation.

Mr. H. B. Rogers was in the chair. After a few opening remarks he called upon Allen to hold the fort for half an hour.

E. J. B. Allen acknowledged the oneness of aim of the two organisations. The question was:

HOW WAS THE WORKING CLASS TO GAIN CONTROL ?

On the political field we saw the waste of time and energy in the quarrels between the various political parties, while in those places where revolutionary unionism existed you had a revolutionary working class. The class struggle was manifested mainly in the factory, field and workshop. There the revolutionary organisation must be built up. Street-corner propaganda was useless, unless backed up by revolutionary tactics in every-day life. In the political field you had your Burns’s, Vivianis, Millerands, and Briands taking sides with the capitalists because they had been placed in a false position through political action. The franchise can, it has been, it may be, monkeyed with. What weapon then, had the S.P.G.B. to fall back upon? The “political” Socialist was quick to point out failures of strikes ; he seemed to shut his eyes to electoral failures with the consequent waste of time, money and energy. The Revolutionary Union would be prepared to take political action to dispossess the capitalist of power. They would use the weapon of the Strike up to the partial and complete General Strike. The French Postal workers had used this weapon with success. It looked as though after all the S.P.G.B. would have to follow the methods it denounced as impracticable, viz., the nationalisation of industries piecemeal. To-day the Parliament did not control the Army, for the Army Council was not under the control of any elected body. Along with Industrial Unionism there must be an

ANTI-MILITARIST PROPAGANDA.

There are not wanting signs that the times are ripe for such a movement. The soldiers at Featherstone killed three. Had they shot as ordered they could have killed three hundred. The capitalist class had built up their economic power before they overthrew the absolute monarchy. The recent Postal strike in Paris illustrated the fact that a worker of whatever political colour could act solid with his class in the workshop. A Radical operator held up wires from Rome which would have facilitated work of the masters. Therefore he answered, “Yes,” his organisation would accept even members of the I.L.P. It would accept anyone willing to act solid with his class. Once in the organisation the lesson of Socialism could be driven home by the Socialist already in the ranks. Besides a man would act straight as a worker who may be hopelessly befogged as a politician. The S.P.G.B. had run municipal candidates. They did not bar Parliamentary candidature. What would their representative do if elected ? He could but

SUPPORT PALLIATIVES

as the elected representatives of the I.L.P. etc. did.

J. Fitzgerald in his all too brief half hour’s reply, said that he intended, before answering his adversary’s points directly, to state briefly, the position of his Party. A mere statement of that position would refute much that had been said in opposition. What were the main obstacles to the goal ? Two. The first corporeal, measurable, gross to sight, viz., the armed forces and other political machinery ; the second, alas ! incorporeal, immeasurable, unseen but real, vague but potent, heavy with the heaviness of Death—

WORKING-CLASS IGNORANCE.

That ignorance it is the duty of every Socialist to dispel. With regard to the first obstacle he noticed that the Industrialist League had added a new item to its programme since the inception of Industrial Unionism, when they argued they could “lock out the capitalist class,” viz., Anti-Militarism. Not that he attached much importance to that particular form of propaganda, except that it clearly demonstrated that the Industrialist League had learnt from the S.P.G.B. the imperative necessity of reckoning with the armed forces instead of ignoring, Anarchist fashion, the political machinery. Did not this fact of itself show, however, that the “neutral,” telescope-to-the-blind-eye attitude of the Industrial Leaguists as far as “politics” were concerned, was officially capable of expression as a pious belief, but ludicrously impossible as practical tactics?

Allen had stated that Revolutionary Industrial organisations had made the French, Spanish, and Italian workers “more revolutionary.” Had they? Is that why they continue to send representatives of the master class to their exploiters’ grand committees for the conservation of class privilege and the preservation of class oppression ?

With regard to the second obstacle—working-class ignorance—Allen and himself were both agreed as to the vital need of teaching. It was alleged that such teaching would be most effective on the spot where the worker found himself face to face with class exploitation. As a matter of fact the workers are more split on the economic field, where they have over 1,000 organisations, than on the political, where they have less than 100. Must he bring his opponent back to the solid ground of fact by reminding him that the present system

FORCES TWO INDUSTRIALISTS TO FIGHT

for a job ? Political leaders “sell out! ” Do economic leaders never do so ? “Strikesmasher” Barnes, “Arbitration” Bell, “Mabon,” etc., never “sell out” ! Oh no ! He would remind him of Frank Rose’s sinister declaration in the Clarion of 18th September, 1908 : “They (the masters) bribe away the best and most knowing of the operatives’ officials by giving them better jobs and bigger salaries, and the internal working of the operatives’ unions are open books lo them.

“IT IS A GHASTLY BUSINESS.”

Regarding the General Strike, the ablest writer on the subject, Arnold Roller, showed the absurdity of the Industrialists’ statement that the workers could continue to carry on production for themselves and starve out the capitalists, for he says : “It is evident in such a struggle the ruling class would pay no sentimental regard to law and would simply seize the provisions of the proletariat for themselves and their army.”

What became of the talk about “taking and holding” ? Moreover, the statement completely knocked the bottom out of the case for the General Strike. What had the French Postal workers got by this weapon ? Six hundred had got— the sack !

It was not true that the Army Council was not under the control of any elected body, for it was appointed by the Cabinet, that was in its turn appointed by Parliament, which was an elected body and had ultimate control. With regard to Anti-Militarism, it were wise, especially while the Party was small, to direct their energies to most likely material for conversion. His opponent could judge of the relative accessibility to Socialist thought of soldiers and civilians, hedged in as the former were by every influence, positive and negative, tending to stupification of the thinking faculties. The gist of Hervé’s teaching consisted of calling upon the workers to resist conscription and to be shot rather than join the army ! We had been told, as an instance of the success of Herve’s propaganda, that the 71st Regiment of the line in France had mutinied when called on to fire upon the wine growers in the South, but the truth was this regiment was recruited from that very district, and it was this very fact of being called upon to fire at their own relatives—in some cases their own fathers and mothers—that caused the mutiny, and not the propaganda of Anti Militarism.

In answer to the question as to the attitude of elected representatives on public bodies, his reply was, no! they will not bolster up palliatives; they will be there to speak from the wider platform as revolutionary propagandists; essentially they can but continue the propaganda while in the minority.

Allen in his 20 minutes reply reiterated several of his former points. He said that Marx himself had declared (in his “Eighteenth Brumaire” ) that politicians would mar any movement. Suppose a majority of Socialists elected to the House. Would reactionary army officers etc. yield at the word of a majority ? No ! The means of production must be made ready for seizing by previous revolutionary work in the factories, etc. As far as education was concerned, contesting elections simply meant educating the worker in the divineness of capitalist “law and order” ; whereas

DIRECT ACTION

implies the contrary. The political movement is not a class movement, for capitalists and “intellectuals” may join, while the I.U. only admitting workers, was a class movement. In Warsaw during the late troubles, the workers struck and drove out the capitalists, who had to ask to be allowed to come back and take the works again. He again asked how the S.P.G.B. intended “seizing the political machinery” without the necessary force to seize it.

Fitzgerald in his 20 minutes reply pointed out that “revolutionary” speeches and actions born of more excitable temperaments, easily carried on waves of enthusiasm and as easily correspondingly depressed, did not constitute revolutionary tactics. The Confederation General du Travail (C.G.T.) had been referred to. Let it be clearly understood that that body was a loose conglomeration, controlled by a small body of Anarchists, who showed their individualistic proclivities with their accompanying thimble-rigging and wire-pulling, by insisting upon “one group, one vote,” which means that a precious “group” of about six carried equal weight with a genuine association of a thousand. Truly, this showed the close relationship and connection of the I.U. with the avowed Anarchists.

The C.G.T. had cal1ed a “general strike” every May Day for the last three years, and the Industrialist said they were promised one this year. All of them had been miserable fiascos and the only “revolutionary” action that took place this year was the singing of “L’Internationale” by some men while marching

TO WORK ! !

The whole tenor of C.G.T. thought is “leadership,” and “leadership” had meant, and will mean, a shambles for the workers. Organisers charged to carry out intelligently the democratic will? Yes! The S.P.G.B. stands by that. “Leaders,” in the sense of the bourgeoisie, of the I.L.P., of the S.D.P., looking meekly for direction and guidance to their middle-class tin gods ? A thousand times No !

THERE IS NO ROOM

for the “middle”-class “intellectual” on the make, if the movement was truly democratic and therefore clean. On the “Industrialist” basis Marx and Engels would have been kept out of the movement. Marx had been quoted to bolster up the “non-political” character of Industrialism. Let his opponent read that brilliant monograph and cease to drag the lustrous name of Marx in the mire. “Parliamentary idiotcy” was a disease attaching to the “pure and simple” politician. In the case of the coup-d’état of 1851, it refers more particularly to the action of the fatuous “Party of Order” in calling Napoleon the Little to “concentrate the whole executive power in his own person” (pp. 50-51). Reference by any fair-minded person to the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B. would dispel any illusion to the effect that his Party could be charged with such “idiotcy,” as it distinctly states that the workers must obtain control of the fighting forces. And then as to Warsaw. What a specimen of “revolutionary” education ! When the capitalists “asked ” they were allowed to go back and recommence exploiting those who had turned them out!

Allen in his ten minutes round averred that the strong minority must lead the majority. History proved his contention. As for Parliamentary action, did not “Pride’s Purge” demonstrate the uselessness of that? Members were expelled ruthlessly by the soldiers. The Parliament did not control the militia, for when Charles went to Nottingham the majority of the trained bands followed him. As to the C.G.T., could it be denied that an organisation claiming to be out for the expropriation of the capitalist class was revolutionary ? The General Strike implied a revolutionary upheaval, animated by sheer unconstitutionalism, ignoring individual safety in looking for the salvation of the whole. It was minorities made all movements. They started the idea and dinned it into the heads of the others.

Fitzgerald, reviewing the whole situation in his last ten minutes, rammed home by apt quotation and scathing humour several points previously touched upon. The mention of “Pride’s Purge ” by Allen was peculiarly unfortunate. Above all things that event showed the enormous leverage which the seizure of political power gave. In the struggle between sections of the bourgeosie which “Pride’s Purge” illustrated, the victory was to that section effectively controlling the army as part of the political machinery. The North v. South slave struggle of 1861 in America illustrated the same point. Temporary and brilliant successes of Southern generals were bound to be rendered nugatory in the long run by the political force wielded by the North. As for the trained bands going to Charles, according to Gardiner, when the first call was made by Parliament in London, 40,000 fully armed and 100,000 lesser armed men responded—a splendid start for the Parliament. A final word as to “agitation in the workshop,” which is claimed to be so educationally efficient. Why ? In these days of speeding up, when is this propaganda to go forward? From a sheer common-sense point of view, surely, in his hours of leisure, however scant, the workman is more accessible to Socialist thought and teaching. At any rate the task-master won’t be immediately present.

The General Strike and minorities being right—well, let us see again what Roller has to say. Judge for yourselves the discrepancy between Roller’s picture and that drawn by Allen. “The immense advantage of the General Strike is that it begins

ENTIRELY LAWFULLY

and without any danger to the workers, and for this reason thousands will take part who would never have thought of taking part in a revolution, but would have stayed at home behind the grate.” What sort of “revolutionaries” are these ? Directly action in revolutionary lines was needed they would disappear and leave the others to be crushed. Is the ”General Strike” the last word of “Industrial Leagism” ? It stands self condemned.

A few harmless humourosities from the chairman closed the proceedings. That some “Industrialists” went away sadder if not wiser men is the firm hope, not to say conviction, of

REGINALD.

Drink and the child. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Board of Education have now made the teaching of teetotalism a normal part of the elementary school curriculum by the issuing of a comprehensive syllabus of lessons on the subject. Now if this were a disinterested endeavour to promote the well-being of the child it would be welcome, but, as in all capitalist “education,” the cloven hoof is visible. The chief object of this latest move is, as will be seen, not humanity, but more profit. Of course, from the professions of bourgeois spokesmen this fact could not be gathered. According to them the capitalist is in business solely for the benefit of the working class. He makes a profit only in order that the workers may get wages. He lives in debauchery and spends huge sums in luxury only to provide work for the lower orders. Indeed, his attitude is summed up in Marx’s ironical phrase, “the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the benefit of the working class.”

So, in the matter of education this humbug is perpetuated; and the insincerity of the master class is as plain in its temperance proposals as elsewhere. Drink is only a curse to-day because of the capitalist conditions which make for its excessive use and poisonous adulteration. But to remove the economic conditions which engender alcoholic abuse would be to strike a blow at capitalist interests. Instead, therefore, of abolishing the wretched conditions of proletarian life that lay at the root of much of the craving for drink, the capitalists hypocritically try to minimise effects by puritanical legislation, or they try to train the tender sapling during the brief school hours in the fond hope that industrial conditions in later life will not bend it in an opposite direction.

Many eminent men have placed on record the fact that bad air, bad food, monotony and overwork, are prominent among the influences that lead to excessive drinking. Prof. Konig expresses a common view of German physiologists when he says that:

“Taken in moderate quantities in such forms as cognac, brandy, beer, and other beverages, alcohol is likewise an important stimulant to digestion. Brandy, whiskey, sherry, and the like, are therefore favourite remedies in disturbances of the bowels and stomach, and this helps to explain why the poorer classes, who often live upon a wretched diet of the less digestible foods, such as coarse bread and potatoes, have a craving for strong and stimulating alcoholic drinks.”

In few questions, moreover, has the perversion of truth been more effectively organised than in that of the use of alcohol. The noisy and well organised teetotalers have for long, with damnable iteration, dinned exaggerated or lying statements into the public ear on this, matter, particularly in discussing its economic aspects. And now the education authority itself enters more thoroughly into its work of hypnotising the masses by means of early and persistent suggestion of the employer’s side of the case. From the standpoint of economics the teetotal twaddle admits of easy refutation; but even, from the physiological point of view, though, opinions differ among Socialists as to the benefits or otherwise to be derived from a moderate use of stimulants, it is well to remember that the evidence is by no means solely on the side of abstinence.

The Lancet manifesto in favour of the moderate use of alcoholic liquors, which was extensively signed by eminent medical men, will still be fresh in the mind of the reader. At the meeting. of the International Physiological Congress, held at Cambridge in September 1898, an attempt was made to obtain the opinion of leading physiologists regarding this particular subject, and the following statement drawn up by Sir Michael Foster, the president of the Congress, was presented for signature:

“The physiological effects of alcohol, taken in a diluted form, in small doses, as indicated by the popular phrase “moderate use of alcohol,” in spite of the continued study of past years, have not as yet been clearly and completely made out. Very much remains to be done, but, thus far, the results of careful experiments show that alcohol, so taken, is oxidised within the body, and so supplies energy like common articles of food, and that it is physiologically incorrect to designate it as a poison—that is, a substance which can only do harm and never good to the body. Briefly, none of the exact results hitherto gained can be appealed to as contradicting, from a purely physiological point of view, the conclusions which some persons have drawn from their daily common experience, that alcohol so used may be beneficial to their health.”

The occasion was particularly favourable, for some of the most celebrated physiologists of the world and many well-known investigators were present. A very few objected to the phraseology, and one, although believing it to be correct, refused to sign because he feared it might be misused by “the trade.” A large proportion of those to whom it was submitted expressed their approval by their signatures. And, says Mr. W. O. Atwater (Harper's, No. DCVI.) the number and character of the signers are such as warrant the acceptance of the statement as the opinion of the leading physiologists of the day.

But even if the excessive use of alcohol were to cease, and it were clearly proved that the sum of human happiness was increased by its moderate use, the capitalists’ objection would not cease. The real basis of their objection is that it is not a necessary but a luxury, and that if the worker could be got to do without it he could live more cheaply and work for less wages. Macaulay once said that the Puritans “hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.” And the modern Puritan looks upon working-class pleasures in exactly the same spirit, particularly when they appear to stand in the way of bigger profits. This, indeed, underlies the whole of the Education syllabus as explained by the Daily News. Pleasure is a thing to which the workers have apparently no right. In choosing their food and drink they must allow no considerations of enjoyment to influence them. Thus the syllabus and notes are quoted by Cadbury’s organ as follow.

“Neither tea nor coffee is good for children ; they should have milk or cocoa instead. Cocoa is better for children than tea or coffee because it is less stimulating and contains a little more real food substance.

“It is true that there is a certain amount of nourishment in beer. There is, for example, a little sugar, and there is a small quantity of the food substance found in meat. To obtain enough food from beer really to benefit the body, however, it would be necessary to take an extremely large quantity. For this reason the good that might be done by the nourishing part of the beer would be more than counterbalanced by the harm done by the alcohol contained in so large a quantity.”

It will be seen that no weight is given to psychological considerations: the amount of nourishment is treated as the only factor, while beer is condemned, apparently, because it would be injurious to subsist solely upon it ! But it is also true that man cannot live by bread alone ; and when the percentages of protein and carbohydrates in an aliment have been found by analysis, the last word has by no means been said on its value. On some people, particularly those in depressing health or circumstances, the pleasure afforded by a small amount of alcoholic stimulant may have a beneficial effect—even from the dietetic point of view—far more important than the amount of actual nourishment imparted. No food-value has yet been ascribed to a hearty laugh, but there is much truth in the popular saying, “Laugh and grow fat.” Indeed, no discussion of the value of alcohol as an aliment can be adequate that does not take the psychological factor into account; and it is, moreover, doubtful, to say the least, if a merely attenuated existence is the life most worth living in any case.

Now, however, we come to what is after all the gist of the whole matter. It is that the capitalist has, rightly or wrongly, become convinced that the abstainer does more work, and the following striking statements are made by the Board of Education.

“Experiments were made by Dr. Parkes with two gangs of soldiers doing equally hard muscular work (mowing), one gang alternately taking beer during the work and the other not. In every case it was shown that although men taking beer might for a short time might gain on the others, yet they soon dropped behind, and at the end of the day the total work they had accomplished was less than that done by those who had no alcohol.

“Mr. Brassey (“Work and Wages”) says: ‘Some of the most powerful of the navvies have been teetotalers. On the Great Northern Railway there was a celebrated gang of navvies who did more work in a day than any other gang on the line, and always left off work an hour or an hour and a half earlier than any other men. Every navvy in this powerful gang was a teetotaler.'”

That is the point. The capitalist believes that the teetotaler can do more work for the same wages. He can live more cheaply, and so soon as abstinence is general, competition on the labour market will make him do more work for a lower wage, thus fitting, according to economic law, the price of his labour-power to his reduced average cost of subsistence. As though to emphasise the fact that it is the profitableness of the wage worker that is the chief care of the education authority, there follows the usual teetotal panegyric on thrift. It is worth quoting.

“The expenditure of £160,000,000, or more, on intoxicating liquors every year is a drain on the resources of the nation and the direct cause of not a little national poverty. It must be remembered how vastly large is this sum, which, it is estimated, is equal to all the rents of all the houses, farms, shops, hotels, etc., in the United Kingdom, so that the amount spent on drink alone would be enough to enable everybody to live rent free.”

The quotation has its amusing side, but how sad are the full facts from the workers’ point of view ? And what a condemnation of the present system it is that the thrift, sobriety and higher efficiency of the workers, while they swell the profits of the masters, simply intensify competition on the labour market, increase the toil of those in work, and augment the number of unemployed ! The net result of the labourer’s “virtue” while the labourer is a hireling under capitalism is a worsening of his economic condition. This side of the medal is not shown to the children. On the contrary, the impression is given to the worker’s child that he and not the employer will receive all the benefit of general thrift and abstemiousness, and that hunger will cease from troubling and the landlord lie at rest. Yet the facts, which the syllabus does not give, are that thrift, if general, means a reduction of the demand for goods, and is consequently a restriction of the market and of the employment for labour ; that increased efficiency on the part of the workers does not increase the demand for products but decreases the number of men the masters need employ to supply the market; and finally, that the less it costs the average worker to live, the lower will competition force down wages. But all this does not matter, for though the worker gets less wages and less employment, the capitalist will get more profit—and that is the real aim of State education to-day. Truly we have much to thank the ruling class for in these matters. The workers schooling is a training for wage-slavery ; no more, no less. The propertyless are taught to revere and defend the interests, the flag, and the Empire of their masters. The supreme aim of it all is the making of docile instruments of profit; and the temperance lessons, stripped of their humbug, are of a piece with the rest. For after all it is capitalism that creates the drink problem, and, in spite of their hypocritical preaching, the masters decline to attack it at its source. They are ever deaf to the appeal of humanity when profit beckons them on. But all their wiles cannot for ever obscure the fact that it is not drink but capitalism that causes the poverty of the workers, and that class rule makes thrift, temperance, and efficiency so many weapons against the latter in the hands of their exploiters. Indeed, no greater condemnation of a system is than that it makes right living a means of increasing the hardships of those who produce. It is the very kernel of the capitalist system that is at fault, and no mere reform can alter it. By Socialism only can these things be changed, for the conquest of capitalist society by the toilers must take place before they can secure the fruits of their industry and the elements of a full and healthy life. Then it will be discovered that intemperance has ceased to be a problem, while the object of public education will at last be the making, not of cheap wage-slaves but, of better men and women.

F. C. Watts

Points from the Factory Inspector’s Report. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The report for 1908 of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops contains some interesting facts illustrating and sufficiently condemning capitalist industry and pretended reform.

Here are a few (we quote from Lloyds News, 30.5.09).

“The passing is noted of the White Phosphorus Matches Prohibition Act of 1908, the provisions of which will come into force next January, after which date no white phosphorus matches may be made or imported. All the match factories in the United Kingdom, with one notable exception, remained free from any case of necrosis as in the three previous years; ‘but in that one factory a further case occurred in 1908 and two other attacks have been reported in the first quarter of 1909.'”

The above mentioned Act is rather typical of capitalist “palliative” legislation and is characterised by the usual hypocrisy. ‘Tis clear that the evil complained of has, in this country at least, been reduced to a minimum by the progress of the match industry itself. For have not the superiority and cheapness of the non-white-phosphorus matches almost driven the more noxious kind out of the market ? The Liberal party and its Labour supporters are thus able to point to a further important advance in social reform at mighty little cost to themselves—cost in votes and contributions to the party funds. For practically no capitalist interests are touched, since the evil against which the Act is directed (according to the Report) scarcely exists.

* * *

“Lead poisoning shows, on the other hand, a lamentable increase, the number of cases of all kinds being 646 against 578, the greatest increase being in connection with the smelting of metals—from twenty-eight to seventy. The new inspector for the Potteries district expresses his dissatisfaction with the manner in which the special rules are being observed.”

There is, however, no mention of a law against the use of lead in the pottery industry, although its use, according to the Report, is attended by much greater injury. Why ? Because its use is still profitable, and to propose a law against its use would be to attack real, live, capitalist interests.

It is worth while noting, too, that there are great numbers of workers, for example plumbers and painters, whose cases are never reported.

* * *

Lady Inspector Miss Vines describes amongst others, the following pitiful case: it shows “what capitalism has done for the worker” (pace ‘”Anti-Socialist”) and is doing for the mother and the mistress of the “Englishman’s castle.”

“Mrs. B., a celeste paintress, aged thirty-eight, was a colour duster eight years ago, when she had a severe attack of lead poisoning, never properly well since, but has been employed as celeste paintress at the same factory for several years. Was very ill with colic, sickness, wrist and finger drop of both hands. Could not dress herself, could not grip. Had been married fifteen years, had nine dead and one living child, which was ill all its life and never walked dying under three years of age. Her husband was injured in the South African war, and had been an invalid ever since. Both lived with the husband’s old widowed mother, and latterly the wife had partially kept both mother and husband with her earnings. Mrs. B.’s employers refused compensation, and it was not till the case was taken into court that compensation was obtained.”

Incidentally the reward of “Tommy,” one of “Our Empire’s brave defenders,” should not be overlooked.

* * *

But the Report contains other pretty items.

“In certain parts of the Swansea and Cardiff districts houses suitable for the working classes are so scarce that men sleep in three relays of eight hours each in the same bed, and kitchens are being used as sleeping apartments.”

We wonder if there are some Territorial “home” defenders among the said men.

* * *

While this one tersely delineates the condition of the olten anaemic, forewoman cursed, bun and tea starved stitchers who clothe in rich raiment the female parasites of the capitalist class :

“‘Gentility’ and high rents are the curse of the West End dressmaking establishments. The workers must be hidden away in basement workrooms, or at the back and top of high houses, in order that they may not disturb or worry the sensibilities of the client, who cares not under what conditions clothes are made.”

And yet withal, these, the other potential happy home-makers, when they (not all by any means) reach the desired haven or “home,” find in how many cases, that they have but exchanged the frying-pan for the fire. Such is the age.

* * *

Our next and last shows how hopelessly ineffectual the inspection often is and how employers are able to brow-beat and intimidate those whom the capitalist Press pretend are free citizens. The case cited is a test of truth as between the “free citizen” delusion and the enlightening Socialist axiom that capitalist employment is wage-slavery.

“Another lady inspector, Miss Martindale, gives some startling details as to how the Truck Act is evaded. In one case in Ireland declarations were obtained by her from men who swore that their wages were kept back in payment for their father’s long-standing debts. Proceedings were taken, but the lady inspector’s witnesses went back on their declarations, and swore that they received their wages in coin. The case, of course, was dismissed. Yet Miss Martindale was told immediately afterwards that the employer had paid wages in goods from ‘time immemorial,’ and that everyone in court knew it.”

Did the employee witnesses go “back on their declarations” because they enjoyed bearing false witness, or was it not rather that they feared the “sack” and inability to give their children bread ? Answer, ye anti-Socialist working men and women. Are ye truly “free citizens” or are ye not verily wage-slaves ? If the latter, come where ye belong, in the ranks of the wage-slaves’ party—the S.P.G.B., and battle with us for your emancipation.

John H. Halls

The Romance of Modern Trade. (1909)

A Short Story from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A recent issue of the Storekeepers’ Journal contained a paragraph with the heading printed above. It stated that the writer was sanguine enough to believe that storekeepers throughout the country would, without exception, join in the chorus of congratulations that had been showered upon Sir Timeous Skipton at the honour so recently conferred upon him by His Majesty the King, an honour which was not merely a personal one, but was shared by the whole trade of which Sir Timeous is so shining a light. It recalled the now well-known fact that Sir Timeous started storekeeping in a very humble way in the South only a few years ago, and by his industry, pluck, and keenness has become one of the largest of the successful produce distributors of modern times. As head of the international concern with which he is associated, his name has become a household word. Such a career, concluded the writer, is a complete answer to the croakers who say there is no scope to-day for the enterprising man, and that the opportunity for the individual to succeed no longer exists. Let such remember and act upon the Scriptural injunction, “Go thou and do likewise.”

I showed the paragraph in question to a friend whose commercial affairs bring him into contact with many who fail as shopkeepers, and he told me the following life story. He called it

THE TRAGEDY OF MODERN TRADE.

Many years ago. long before the advent of the “Merchant Storekeepers,” “Multipule Traders,” and the like, a young married couple, whom we will call Mr. and Mrs. Jones, opened a grocery and provision shop in a fairly large town in the Midlands. They both worked in the business, rarely took a holiday, regularly paid their wholesale houses and thus remained on good terms with them, brought up their children healthily and educated them as circumstances permitted. As they grew up the sons assisted in the business and looked forward to ultimately taking it over, whilst the daughters cheerfully performed the household duties. They had no idea of trouble—at any rate, business trouble—ever coming their way. The town’s population grew, and Mr. Jones, being widely known and greatly respected, increased his turnover until it reached nearly five figures per annum, and his devoted, unassuming wife and himself were looking forward to shortly retiring upon a sufficiency to ensure their freedom from anxiety during their final steps in the journey of life. One day, however, a neighbouring house owner, in view of the development of the town, converted a number of houses adjoining the Jones’ shop into shop premises, and a few weeks after the one next door to Mr. Jones was opened as the local branch of Skipton’s Limited. The Jones were not greatly perturbed at first, although they began to talk among themselves when at the new shop cheese could be purchased at one penny per pound cheaper than Mr. Jones could buy it wholesale. Others of the shops were taken and opened by the Jampress Tea Co. (which the travellers who called upon Mr. Jones hinted was really being run by Skiptons Ltd. under an assumed name), the World’s Dairy Co., the Grey Mole Tea Co., the Inter-colonial Butter Co., and others, all attempting by methods quite foreign to Mr. Jones’ idea of legitimate business, to capture his trade, in which they ultimately succeeded. His customers gradually deserted him. His turnover dropped in a few years from nearly ten to about two thousand pounds, and at last the crash came. He called a meeting of his creditors, and they, realising that the old chap had been “broke” by the irresistible march of capitalist development (“unfair competition” he called it), generously presented him with the furniture to which they were legally entitled, and accepted their eight shillings in the £,, some of them reflecting that it was not the old chap, honest, sober, industrious, aye, and Nonconformist and Liberal as he was, who had succeeded in life, but that, despite all these virtues he had “gone under,” largely through the successful efforts of the “Merchant Storekeeper” who had been so recently honoured by His Majesty.

As for the sons, one of them became a machine-like manager of a “multiple” shop at a “salary” of thirty-two shillings and sixpence per week, out of which princely sum all shortages of stock were deducted, and before being appointed signed an agreement not to accept a position in a similar business within a radius of fifty miles for a period of ten years. He gave up attending chapel and went, instead to the Sunday meetings of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. After hearing the speakers trace the ruthless development of industry and trading to the Trust stage now existing, and realising, in view of their teaching and his own bitter experience, that the day of the small man and the small concern was passed, he eventually joined their ranks and worked for the realisation of the only system wherein the individual will have the opportunity to lead a full and free life. The operations of Sir Timeous Skipton had prepared his mind to receive the truth, as they are preparing that of many another man.

The other son “went to the dogs,” was arrested for sleeping on the Embankment and was sentenced by Alderman Sir Timeous Skipton to imprisonment with hard labour for being a “rogue and a vagabond.”

X. Y. Z.

Jottings. (1909)

The Jottings Column from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. A. D. Steel-Maitland and Miss Rose Squire were appointed to investigate the relationship of industrial and sanitary conditions to pauperism. Their report to the Poor Law Commission is issued as a Blue Book. Their summing up gives the following conditions as being contributory to pauperism in the order given.

1. Casual and Irregular Employment.

2. Bad Housing Conditions.

3. Seasonal Fluctuations in Trade.

4. Unhealthy Trades and Insanitary Conditions of Work Places.

5. Earnings Habitually Below what are required for Healthy Subsistence.

6. Dangerous Trades.

7. Excessive Hours of Work.

Regarding cause 2 the investigators say ”These contribute to pauperism through disease and demoralisation. They are important causes of Pauperism, but less so than the first.”

The Socialist is well aware that the bad housing conditions are consequent upon (or effects of) the irregular employment under existing conditions. Shortness of wages compels the wage worker to accept a slum dwelling.

Some of the slums are the result of “improvements,” it is pointed out.

“Improvements in towns, accompanying the increase of wealth, by the demolition of badly built quarters, the erection of palaces for banks, warehouses, etc., the widening of streets for business traffic, for the carriages of luxury, and for the introduction of tramways, etc., drive the poor into worse and more crowded hiding places.”—” Capital,” Vol. I, p. 674.

This shows clearly that the palliative of better housing does not palliate the real evil of the present system at all, but this by the way.

* * *

With reference to No. 7, “Excessive Hours of Work,” the comment of the investigators is “We have been unable to trace any connection between long hours of work and pauperism.”

Whilst, however, they cannot trace “any connection between long hours of work and pauperism,” they tell us that drink is one of the principal causes of pauperism, but for the most part it is the effect of causes such as dangerous and unhealthy conditions of work, excessive hours, low wages and bad housing. So showing drink to be a cause of pauperism and excessive hours to be a cause of drinking habits, these blind tools of capitalist hypocrits cannot (?) trace any connection between long hours and pauperism.

* * *

The June issue of the Pioneer, the organ of the “Labour and Socialist” movement in Burnley and edited from the S.D.P. club in that town, contains an article on the Budget by Robinson Graham.

The sixpenny super-tax is hailed gladly by the writer of the article. He goes on to say “we Socialists (!) are determined that the working class shall be reminded that this Liberal tax is a tax which has been advocated by Socialists on the platform and in the Press since the inception of the Socialist movement.” Again, “the Government has merely embodied the public wish formed by the Socialist agitator.” Quite unconsciously Mr. Graham belittles the “Socialist” effort alluded to above and points out that “ten Budgets like this one would make little or no difference to the lives of the working classes.”

As the item advocated since the inception of the “Socialist” movement is contained in the Budget, those “Socialists” who advocated it stand condemned, on their own admission, for side-tracking the workers, in so far as time has been wasted on a useless measure.

There is some sound advice in the concluding paragraph of Mr. Graham’s article, which the workers of Burnley and elsewhere (and Mr. Graham himself) should take to heart. They are urged to “direct their attention to ways and means of overthrowing the capitalist system which makes poverty the common experience of the great majority of our people,” and since it is admitted that the Liberal Government have brought in this Budget with a view “to restoring the confidence of the British workmen” in themselves, it should be a lesson to the workers to fight shy of even S.D.P. agitation for super-taxes and the like, which can be used for the restoration of confidence in a capitalist Government.r

Socialism is the only remedy, and that alone, for our social evils. Super-taxes will not make any alteration whatever in the basis of society, in fact, they presuppose exploitation in order that the taxes may be levied and realised.

Those who, claiming to be working-class leaders, direct working-class political activity against anything except the capitalist system must be swept away.

* * *

We are informed by the Baker’s Record, that the S.D.P. have convened a meeting to consider the food supply of the nation, at which they propose to put forward a resolution urging the Government to purchase large reserve stores of corn with money invested in the Post Office Savings Bank. This all very fine as an example of revolutionary daring, but it isn’t to be supposed that the capitalist class are going to put up for ever with the revolutionary (!) plots that are hatched at Mooney’s bar. One of these fine days the S.D.P. will find itself suppressed, unless some particularly funny turn so excites the hilarity of the police as to prevent them executing their duty. Moreover, they are in for a “rough-and-tumble” with the I.L.P., for I hear that the latter have long ago ear-marked “the money in the Post Office Savings Bank” for the capitalists to buy themselves out with.

JAYBEE.

By The Way. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

“But for Blatchford’s valiant roaring there would have been no I.L.P. to-day, no Old Age Pensions, and no ‘Socialistic Budget,'” says A. M. Thompson in the Clarion in the course of an attack on Wells of the swelled head. It is not everyone who would have boasted of these things. Many, indeed, are ready to blame the ignorance of the worker and the wiles of the capitalist for the existence of these frauds. But one never knows. Perhaps we misunderstand the Clarion. It may be that its phenomenal modesty and excessive zeal for fair play have induced it to take all the blame upon itself. Or it may be that the echoes of ignorance that compose the Clarion staff are under the illusion that they are giants of intellect and therefore the great moving forces of the “movement” which they do not even understand. Evidently Mr. Wells is not the only sufferer from “swelled head.”

"The World For The Workers." (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Copies of the above four-part song S., A, T,. B. — complete with pianoforte accompaniment and Tonic-Solfa setting may be obtained, price 3d., or post free 3½d., through the branches or from the Head Office.

Blogger's Note:

The lyrics for Hans Neumann's party song were reproduced in the April 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Self-made! (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent signing himself A Listener writes :

“Having participated as a humble listener in many discussions on Socialism, I have frequently heard your speakers say that no man can make his own fortune by himself alone. Would you kindly answer through the columns of your paper, the undermentioned questions?

“Now I know a man (a friend of mine) who went abroad, took a piece of land, his object being to discover gold, and fortunately it proved a success. Now this land was worked up by himself alone. 

“Do you not consider him to be a man that has made his own fortune by himself alone ?”

No, good “Listener,” your friend did not make his fortune “by himself alone.” By a fortune we understand such an accumulation of wealth as, through the control of other men’s labour that it gives, enables its owner to live without labouring himself.

In the first place there is the outstanding fact, that apart from property-founded society, wherein wealth monopoly gives some men control and mastery over the labour of other men, there can exist no fortune. Its main characteristic, the power of dominion that it imparts, is obviously conditional upon the existence of other men (and producers at that). Without these there can be no fortune.

In the second place, your friend had to be carried to the gold-bearing land, and so required the help of the steamship and railway workers and all the craftsmen and labourers who contribute to the construction of the means of transportation. He needed tools to work the land and, not less, the knowledge of where and how to get out the gold.

Thirdly, so soon as your gold-mining fortune-hunter had won a surplus over and above the amount required to purchase his means of subsistence, he doubtless, being wise in his generation, banked or otherwise invested it. That is to say, he put it to such use as entailed the exploitation of the wage workers. In the normal course of commerce, then, his property would grow by the accumulation of rent, interest or dividends, regardless of any exertion upon his part.

And so it stands demonstrated, that even in the exceptional case of your friend, the acquiring of his fortune was assisted and alone made possible, not only by the very existence and labour of countless other men, but by the accumulations of knowledge and implements made by the numberless generations of men who have preceded us. In other words, wealth accumulates to-day as a result of social activity without which the individual is utterly impotent. This is more easily seen than ever in modern industrial society, with which the Socialist is more particularly concerned when he says that no man makes (creates) his own fortune.

John H. Halls

Canon Scott Holland on the Home. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The tradition of the English home, dear to all hearts, said Canon Scott Holland, in a sermon at St. Paul’s, yesterday, to a congregation of the delegates of the International Women’s Suffrage Conference, was crumbling and perishing all about us.

At both ends of society alike disaster was being enacted. At the one extreme wealth and luxury were dissolving and corrupting the discipline that knitted the family together in a mutual interchange of serviceable functions; there were no functions left for anybody, and the services were all hired or farmed out; there was only one intelligible desire, and that was to have a good time.

Then at the other extremity the terrible pressure of competitive industry was more and more laying women under the dire necessity of becoming the bread-winners of the household. They could do it cheaper than the men they displaced, therefore every year we found heavier burdens on the backs of women.

If we desired to alter this we had got to reconsider the entire method of our industry.

Morning Leader, 3.5.09.

Editorial: Justified by Our Enemies. (1909)

Editorial from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The German Social Democrats are complaining that Messrs. Snowden, Barnes, MacDonald and other “Labour” members went to Germany and associated at dinners and upon the public platform with notorious enemies of Socialism. Of course, there is nothing new in this. It is merely extending to foreign countries their common practice at home—and there is nothing illogical or inconsistent in that. It is true that it has been the custom of these gentlemen when travelling on the Continent, at all events about the time of the recurrence of the International Socialist (!) Congress, to affirm the class struggle which they deny on this side of the Channel, but we here point out to our German comrades, and incidentally also to those compatriots whose “qualities of heart” so far outweigh their qualities of head as to render them at once the support and prey of these “Labour” cannibals, that the deduction to be drawn from this triennial acknowledgement of the class struggle and the acts complained of is that these so-called Labour leaders are conscious of the existence of the class struggle, and are deliberately fighting on the side of the master class. This is the view we tried in vain to convey to our German comrades when, just after the General Election of 1906, August Bebel wrote to Reynolds' Newspaper a letter congratulating the British electors upon having sent so many Liberals and Labour men to the House of Commons. Now that our British mumpers on the labour movement are taking to transferring their treacherous practices to German soil, the Social Democrats of that country would seem to have discovered that they were gambolling on an inclined plane when they in 1906 congratulated the British electors on sending these very men to Parliament.

Editorial: A Capitalist Budget. (1909)

Editorial from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Judging by the noise made about the land-tax clauses in the Finance Bill, one might think that something vital were at stake, yet it is all nothing more than a squabble between sections of the capitalist class as to what share each shall bear of the cost of their class government. It has long been the policy of one section in these serio-comic scuffles, to squeal “Revolution !” “Socialism !” "Confiscation !” when called upon to pay its share by the majority for the time being; but only the ignorant are duped by it. We are also becoming accustomed to finding the Labour Party, the tail of the Liberal cur, out-doing the regular representatives of the masters in spreading confusion among the workers. And now, because there is a pretence of taxing unearned increment on land values for the support of capitalism, these “Labour members hail it as Socialistic. They ignore the fact that all taxation imposed by capitalists on themselves is a taxation of unearned increment. The masters have already squeezed the workers dry in the factory, so to pay for their new Dreadnoughts the propertied class have, perforce, to tax themselves. That, indeed, is all the budget amounts to; and in what, pray, is it Socialistic?

The Liberals still faintly echo the old conflict between the landed aristocracy and the industrial capitalist, and endeavour to place part of the cost of class rule on the landed interest; and the Labourites, like the Liberals at heart they are. must go wild with delight over it and talk as though it were a taxing of the rich for the benefit of the poor, when it is simply an attempt to lighten the taxes of the industrial capitalist. Moreover, the proceeds are to go, not to the poor, but to the support of capitalist government and to the building of ever more murderous engines of destruction.

Yet Mr. Victor Grayson said (according to the Daily Telegraph of June 23rd) that the Finance Bill contains “a good chunk” of his personal principles. Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald stated that if need be he would go into the lobby to support the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And Mr. Keir Hardie, consistent with his denial of the class struggle, said, “Labour men and Socialists would be cowards if they did not tell Mr. Lloyd George that they stood solidly behind him.”

These men, it should be remembered, are popularly supposed to be representatives of Labour. They would have the workers ignore the fact that the State of to-day is but the collective will of the exploiters; while they preach the absurdity that a futile tax on land for the benefit of the common expenses of capitalist oppression is an instalment of Socialism! Their disregard of fundamentals, their support, of the Liberals, and their tactics of confusion, all show clearly that they are not Socialists but are Socialism's worst enemies.

Editorial: Our Fifth Anniversary. (1909)

Editorial from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904, many were prepared to prophesy our speedy demise, in fact, six months was the time given in which the Party would die and be forgotten. Nevertheless, despite the assistance they have rendered to the consummation of this, their wish, by the application to us of the boycott, of slander, abuse and opposition, we are still alive, and the Twelfth of June last registered the close of our Fifth Year of strenuous and consistent work for Socialism.

Five years is a goodly time in which to put us to the test, to “nip us in the bud,” and we have triumphed — we have grown. Assailed on all sides by the agents of capitalist confusions and the mental dyspeptics of capitalist reforms, our Party has remained loyal to the cause of the working class. Neither the “New Theology” nor the “new economics,” the “General Strike” nor the war scare, have succeeded in side-tracking us, even for a moment, from the task of working-class enlightenment and organisation for the conquest of political power in order to abolish capitalism.

Thus in the political arena our Candidates have fought for Socialism and Socialism alone. The columns of the Socialist Standard have been utilised for nothing else, while in law court and police court, in the Press and on the platform, in debate and in discussion, our comrades have courageously vindicated the revolutionary attitude of the Party. The result—after five years—is that we are very much alive and stronger because of increased numbers and experience. Strong enough to have effectually repelled the reformers who would have strangled us, to have frozen out the would-be-bosses and job-hunters, and to have gained the respect of the enemy who has realised that he cannot use us. We may be a small party but we are a Socialist one, and, the only Socialist party in Great Britain.

Amid the “Babel of tongues” of the profit-mongering-political-and-economie-misleaders of Labour, the Party’s voice has rung out clear, calm and confident, nor has one false note been struck. Events so far have justified its every warning and advice, and while collapsing capitalism is reflected in the hesitating uncertainty and vacillation of so-called Socialist parties, the Socialist Party of Great Britain stands solid and unshakeable.

Entering our sixth year of voluntary effort on behalf of our fellow wage slaves, building up and perfecting the mechanism by which we may emancipate ourselves, we can look back on the past with satisfaction, and. in the light of our Socialist convictions, apply the experience gained to the present, confident that the future is ours.

The Parable of the Table. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Being a further extract from the speech of Gustave Hervé of his trial (vide June S.S.) translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain by Fritz..]

Ah! I know that I wound your conscience, gentlemen of the jury. Your conscience pricks you all the more because you feel that I am speaking the truth. I feel sure that when I say this I wound the universal conscience which the Paris Bar with its eloquence, knows so well how to interpret.

But do you believe that Voltaire, Diderot and the rest of the encyclopaedists were able to avoid treading on people’s corns?

It is a lamentable fact that every time a new form of society is about to come forth from the womb of one on the point of death, it always does so by a long and painful child-birth, producing in every family, and in every heart, trouble and anguish; suffering that every innovator would fain spare those whose convictions he hurts.

As for us revolutionary Socialists, we have discarded the folds of this flag on which the names of so many deeds of butchery are displayed in letters of gold.

Flags are but emblems; and are worth something only in so far as they represent something worthy. What, after all, is one’s native country? Or what, in actual fact, do all these “fatherlands” consist?

Allow me, if you please, gentlemen of the jury, to draw for you a mental picture, to speak if I may a kind of parable, which will the better help you to understand what our feelings are. One’s native land, every country, no matter under what form of government it be masked, is made up of two groups of men, consisting on the one hand of a quite small number, on the other including the immense majority of people.

The first of these is seated round a well furnished table where nothing is lacking. At the head of this table, in the seat of honour, you find the great financiers; some, perhaps, are Jews, others Catholics or Protestants, or it may be even Freethinkers. It is possible for them to be in entire disagreement on questions of religion or philosophy, and even on questions affecting their individual interests, but as against the mass of the people, they are as thick as thieves.

Seated on their right and left hand you have Cabinet Ministers, high officials of every department of civil, religious or military administration. Paymasters-general with salaries of 30, 40, and 60 thousand francs a year: a little further off fully fledged barristers, by their unanimity glorious interpreters of the “Universal Conscience” – the whole Bench and Bar, not forgetting their precious assistants, the solicitors, notaries and ushers.

Large shareholders in mines, factories, railways, steamship companies and big shops: manorial magnates, big landed proprietors; all are seated at this table: everybody that has two-pence is there too, but at the foot. These latter are the small fry, who have for that matter, all the prejudices, all the conservative instincts, of the big capitalists.

Ah! gentlemen of the jury, I wish that you may be of the number of these privileged ones seated around this festive board. Verily, you are not so badly off there, after all, you know. In return for a little work – when you have any work at all – work I say which is oft-times intelligent, occasionally agreeable, which always leaves you with some spare time for yourself, directive work that flatters your pride and vanity – in return for this you can enjoy a life of plenty, made pleasant by every comfort, every luxury that the progress of science has placed at the service of Fortune’s favoured ones.

Far from the table I see a great herd of beasts of burden doomed to repulsive, squalid, dangerous, unintelligent toil, without truce or rest, and above all without security for the morrow; petty shop-keepers chained to their counters, Sundays and holidays, more and more crushed by the competition of the big shops; small industrial employers, ground down by the competition of the big factory owners; small peasant proprietors, brutalised by a sixteen to eighteen hours day, who only toil that they may enrich the big middlemen: millers, wine factors, sugar refiners. At a still greater distance from this table of the happy ones of this world, I see the crowd of proletarians who have but their strength of arm or their brain for sole fortune, factory hands, men and women exposed to long periods of unemployment, petty officials and shop-assistants forced to bow and scrape and hide their opinions, domestic servants of both sexes, labouring flesh, cannon fodder, matériel of “pleasure”.

There are your beloved countries! Your country to-day is made up of this monstrous social inequality, this horrible exploitation of man by man.

When the proletarians doff their hats to the flag as it passes by, it is to this that they uncover. They in effect say: “What a splendid country is ours! How free, kind and just is she!”

How! how you must laugh, Mr. Attorney-General, when you hear them sing:

“ah! glorious is death indeed,
When for our native land – for liberty – we bleed!”

S.P.G.B. Lecture List and Meetings For July. (1909)

Party News from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party Pars. (1909)

Party News from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Walthamstow Branch has been formed and its propaganda promises well. The new East Ham Branch is entering into the work with vigour, not only in their district, but in West Ham also, where assistance has been greatly needed.

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Paddington Comrades seem destined for particular police attention. Hitherto all attempts of the local snobocracy to discredit the Party and stop our meetings there have failed, and now the police are being used against us. There may be developments. Meanwhile our comrades are going strong. An extra meeting place has been opened at Victoria Road, Kilburn, where excellent work is being done every Wednesday, and a debate with a representative of the Anti-Socialist Union will take place there soon.

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The attention of comrades and friends is drawn to the fact that more money is needed at the Head Office. Three new pamphlets and a fourth edition of the now famous "Manifesto," as well as four new leaflets, are now "on the way." and doubtless the printer will want a little on account. Therefore "IT'S YOUR MONEY WE WANT.”

Copies of "Socialism v. Social Reform " can can still be had, and comrades "at large” as well as Branches should secure supplies and scatter wide.

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Those travelling showmen of the Clarion have been engaging the attention of some of our comrades. A Woolwich one writes "Lord almighty vanner Hick has visited us and, being compelled to admit the truth of our position, advised the working ‘classes’ to join the S.P.G.B.! He will be joining the unemployed presently, unless he changes again." At Tottenham Mr. Muir Watson, who was well received by a few Liberals, looked anything but comfortable when tackled by our men. In answer to questions he claimed that "it does not really matter whether there is a class war or not.” He "would not say nationalisation was Socialism, at least, not in Tottenham ” Asked to allow opposition he replied, "No Socialist is allowed on the van — only anti-Socialists," thus naively explaining his presence thereon.

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Expose the bounders !

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Mr. Harrison's questions will be answered in our next issue. The growing demands upon our space make it increasingly difficult to meet all requirements.

My Friend Jones. (1909)

A Short Story from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like the printer in Ibsen’s “Enemy of Society," I am a man of discreet moderation and of moderate discretion. I disclaim and abhor violence. I am one who is prepared to compromise with the enemy to obtain part of what I desire. When agitating for a specific loaf l am ready to accept either half the loaf or the promise of a quarter at some early future. Society is not composed of blacks and whites, or clear-cut classes of workers and shirkers, like my friend Jones imagines. I once thought that as he grew out of youth he would cast aside his perverse, impossible spirit. Society is an organism, a growth, a whole of which we humans are interdependent cells; and my politics and economics are not rigid, cut and dried doctrines, but flexible and fluid habits of mind. Let me give you a few examples of his ridiculous rigidity.

Our town boasts a successful debating society. Many of my Labour comrades entered this society with the avowed aim of cunningly permeating the debaters with a moderate, calm Socialism. Whatever the subject matter of the debate was we astutely endeavoured to show its relation to Socialism. Especially when the orthodox subject of State Socialism was dealt with by the enemy in the orthodox manner did we try our level best to show the society that the essayist was attacking a noxious and antiquated chimera. We were slowly compelling by superior logic, even our opponents to see that the old, rigid, unemotional, cataclysmic, class-struggle Socialism was un-English—Continental, in fact—and is now entirely discredited. I personally played a prominent part in showing how we attain Socialism step by step, now by the abolition of barmaids, now by Sunday closing of drinking dens, now by finite but ever increasing taxes on the value of land. The old view of the coming of Socialism, the expropriation of the expropriators, the stubborn opposition of the plutocracy, the determined democracy, the blood-red dawn of the Socialist Monday morning—all this I ruthlessly exposed by explaining how all successful modern exponents of Socialism believed in such a peaceful, pellucid transition to Socialism that no one would be able to say that here at a definite stage capitalism capitulated, and here the Socialist Commonwealth was born.

Then up rose my friend Jones and to the very evident glee of the enemy attacked my moderate, permeating Socialism after the manner of his kind, brazenly, vigourously, and with the self- confidence peculiar to him. He poked fun at my “organic social movements” and substituted his hair-raising class war; he declared that the fantastic analogies of all the “philosophers" from Spencer to Macdonald were no adequate equivalent for the clear-drawn illustrations of the Marxian class struggle. He had no faith in the crux of our creed, that the social instincts of the plutocracy will prove more powerful than their class interests. He attacked bluntly every institution of any note whether political, charitable, or charitable-theological, from the Fabian Society to the Emigration Army. The Liberal leaders who would meet us half way were humbugs, the Labour leaders had been humbugged. Palliatives postponed Socialism. Socialism spelt revolution, the deliberate, conscious overthrow of capitalism; the working class organised politically, with their representatives in Parliament, economically, in enlightened Socialist Trade Unions. In short, the work of months was undone. The society no longer accepts our assertion that revolutionary Socialism is cremated. We have, through the impulsive Jones, the onerous task of defending not simply a minimum wage, a minimum of education, a minimum of leisure and the conduct of the Labour Party, but even now Socialism itself. I am afraid that we shall be compelled to cancel Jones’ speaking engagements with our local Labour Representation Committee.

But the climax of my friend’s political career came when he was our candidate at a municipal election. His election address was unpractical and doctrinaire; it lacked constructional spirit; it was brusque in dealing with some of the chief planks on our programme, viz., that we should have better railway facilities in one of our wards, and that the recreation ground was in want of repairs. And when but three days from the poll he rashly alienated the Nonconformist and Salvation Army votes. “General” Booth had just previously passed through the town on a tour, and Jones took advantage of the occasion to make a badly timed attack on what he termed “Salvation Syrup.’’ But the Nonconformist incident was typical of the impossibilist spirit. My friend’s election committee had invited a very popular and influential dissenting minister to address a meeting for the people’s cause. At the great risk of offending his congregation the minister accepted. He was a new convert to Socialism. I just forget the particular organisation of which he was a member—a “League of Progressive Thought’’ or something of that kind. But certainly it was a Socialistic organisation. Jones.was glum and saturnine when informed about his new comrade, but nothing he said prepared us for his unwise and precipitate action at the meeting.

It was certainly a great meeting. The council school was full and cheers greeted the plucky young minister when he arose to give hie address—or sermon, as Jones said. I thought his speech splendid. He declared himself in favour of an eight hours day for railway workers, endowment of motherhood, and a Minister of Labour. He also spoke well in an appeal for the cultivation of the best sort of Socialism, the improvement of individual character, the care of the Soul: for was not the regeneration of the individual the aim alike of the Church and of Socialism ? He showed how Martin Luther and John Wesley each had dim but unmistakable premonitions of the Socialist idea; and with his fine tenor voice moved his audience to tears by an earnest condemnation of contemporary society as a mingling of blank and blatant Atheism and the most unrighteous materialism.

Then Jones spoke. He almost sneered at the minister's vivid denunciation of the slum. Flat and plain he said that had he been aware of the minister's ideas he would never have occupied a platform by his side, and that if the reverend gentleman wanted regeneration and abolition of blatant Atheism he would discover suitable allies amongst the Primitive Methodists.

The election was not won. Jones is not yet councillor or member of Parliament. His latest freak is to join a small and noisy gang of impossibilists. These men are such a body of troublesome revolutionaries, that the cultured and elegant editor of the Socialist Review tells us that they are driving our sensitive Labour leaders into the arms of the Liberal party. They heckle our lecturers, demand debating engagements, and frighten the life out of our young speakers. They forget that the English working man is not built after the fashion of bis French and German compeers: he is definitely conservative, with a defendable love for venerable traditions and ancient institutions. So we must humour him and organise a Labour party without a programme, for as our comrade Wardle, who is a member of Parliament — a body which is the Will of All, the general active Will of the nation — as our comrade has shown, a pregramme was the means of wrecking the historic Liberal party, and will be the destruction of the Labour Party if it is so forgetful of its constructive spirit as to adopt one.

John A. Dawson