'Nuff said. (1915)

From the July 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard is a high explosive. It shatters error and superstition. 'Nuff said.

That Blessed Word "Freedom." (1915)

From the July 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

"But any man that walks the mead,
      In bud or bloom or flower may find,
  According as his humours I ad,
      A meaning suited to his mind "

Thus sung Tennyson; but the sage, in his more dogmatic and definite way, said bluntly that "all things are relative.” And this profound truth is also illustrated in the various meanings given by different people to some of the commonest words.

Examine that blessed word "freedom," for instance, and it is at once plain that its meaning depends solely upon the point of view. Dismissing for the moment the philosophical content of the word —which itself is an everlasting bone of contention — and noticing only the commonest meanings, what an infinite variety there is! To no two men does that word call up the same mental picture. To nearly every individual it means no more nor loss in reality than some different interference with the freedom of others to his advantage.

Throughout historical times, indeed, the freedom of the few has been the concomitant of the slavery of the many, while the idea of freedom is itself merely the inevitable reflex of the existence of slavery in some form. The very idea of freedom, therefore, is surely doomed to fade into nothingness with the disappearance of slavery from the face of the earth.

That day, however, is not yet; and at the present time, though we wonder at the reckless use of the word in situations where the content of freedom is lamentably lacking, it is perhaps just possible that the whole matter would look right to us if we could only attain to a suitable angle of vision. Therein nevertheless, one common application of the word freedom which has been tried from many view-points and studied at many different angles of vision short of deliberate squint, without being made to come right. Since the reader may think that perhaps he will be more successful, the trouble may be briefly explained.

In the ‘Daily Chronicle" of June 1st a "special correspondent," seeking the cause of the deadlock on the western front in the European war, makes the following remarks :

  "Are we, therefore, ourselves inferior ? From a moral point of view we may at once state that we are superior. Tho Frenchman is still full of ardour, and the Englishman has on his side the superiority of the man who goes voluntarily to fight—the man who has not to he forced." 

There is, of course, nothing surprising to us in the above statement. After many months of war literature it would surprise us much more not to find that sort of thing in our daily paper. We have, in fact, been innured to such sentiments from our orange box days. Even the poet Dryden told us that "Freedom, which in no other laud will thrive,
Freedom, an English subject's sole prerogative."

And we have, moreover, been exorted so frequently of late to "fight for freedom with the strength of free men" that we no longer stop to wonder what freedom is meant, or whose it is that is to he fought for.

No. The trouble is simply that in another column of the same issue o( the paper that tells of the moral superiority of the Briton who "has not to be forced," there occurs the declaration of Mr. Aubrey Llewellyn Coventry Fell, chief officer of the L. C. C.  tramways, refusing a livelihood to those men of military ago and fitness employed by him up to the time of the late strike. This is followed by a Tramway Department official's statement that

   "It is no use saying that this is a form of conscription : it is merely the application of the decision of the highway committee of last September barring the appointment of all fit men of military age."

It is quite obvious that this is not a form of conscription. It is simply an application of the decision of the master clues to persuade their wage slaves into joining the fight with the moral superiority of men who have not been forced. This is quite clear. But it only makes it all the more difficult, to say the least about it, to locate this freedom that is so much in the air of late. It has not as yet become visible to tho anxious eyes of the workers, and many pairs of spectacles are likely to be worn out in the quest for it. Perhaps some ex-tramwaymen who have evaded the necessity to voluntarily go to the fight may be able to assist.

That the action of the L.C.C. is by no means isolated is common knowledge On many sides similar action is openly boasted about. In "Country Life" of June 5th the writer of the motor notes says regarding those two big organisations known as the Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association, that

  “In view of the correspondence which has reached us, we have communicated both with the Club and the Association, and in each case we are glad to nay that we have received a categorical statement to the effect that no road guides or scouts are now employed who are eligible for enlistment. The steps taken by the two organisations are practically identical. Iu each case every man employed upon the road was in the early days of the war required to produce evidence of his unfitness for military service, either through age or physical defect, and was warned that, failing the production of this evidence he would not be retained in his employment. . . .
  "In the case of the R.A.C. the result is that over 60 per cent. are now serving their country in one form or another."

So much for tho evidence.

Now, the only clue in the above which appears to help us to got this elusive brand of freedom into the right angle of vision, or even into sight at all, is the fact that this forced voluntary service applies only to the working class. The members of the capitalist class, since their livelihood is not in the control of an employer; escape all such pressure. But even that does not help much in our search, because those drawn from this class, although it is entirely their fight, form only a very small proportion of the armies of the Empire.

Conscription, indeed, might take no greater number of the workers, but it should certainly take a much larger toll of the shirkers in the capitalist class ; therefore tho freedom of the latter, who have, nevertheless, everything to gain by the struggle, is manifest. Yet must our quest be abandoned, for to get from this small proportion of the fighting forces, because it has gone voluntarily, an angle of vision from which to see the whole of these forces covered with a mantle of superiority on that account alone, must surely require a squint of such violence as to out-squint the most introspective fakir that ever tortured himself in that way.

F. C. Watts

Editorial: Circumstances alter cases. (1915)

Editorial from the July 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Probably no newspaper carried on a more vigorous campaign against the Red Peril, a year ago, than the “Daily Express.” That the “Socialism” it attacked was, in the main, State Capitalism, is a fact which only adds piquancy to its present attitude.

Before dealing with that interesting phenomenon, however, it is necessary to point out once more that the difference between "State Socialism” and Socialism, is the difference between slavery and freedom for the workers. In the former, the elements of the new society are present, but until the workers own and control, all the benefit goes to the capitalists; overwork and poverty is the workers’ only share. Until the proletariat have fought the class war to a successful conclusion, they are still the hirelings or wage slaves of a class of parasites. That is why the class straggle is the great Socialist principle, and that is what distinguishes us from the pseudo Socialists. Thus the development of large-scale industry, whether in trust or State, is but the economic basis of Socialism. It is the means which the working class triumphant must seize and utilise for the commonweal.

The “Express," however, used to call any form of State enterprise Socialism, and it is ludicrous to find that journal advocating the very thing that it formerly branded as the end of all things.

But let it speak for itself. In dealing with the war it said on June 19th:

“All that is required is an extension of the system which was applied to the railways as soon as war broke out. The railways were immediately taken over by the State. So smoothly do things run that we probably do not realise that to day every railway employee is a State employee paid by the State, and that every passenger travels as a passenger of the State, and pays his fare to the State. . . . The same principle must be applied to every other war industry with the smallest amount of delay for the period of the war. The larger industries, such as coal and shipping and the manufacture of general munitions, and the supply of the nation’s food, must be taken over at once The smaller industries must be absorbed by the State as occasion demands— for the term of the war.”

Yet the "Express” used to say that what it now advocates was utterly impracticable, and the deadliest foe to efficiency ! It was said to be an impossibility for a government to take over and organise such vast and complex industries, yet no sooner does it become necessary to the interests of the master class than the thing is done, in the two vital industries, in the twinkling of an eye, while the “Express” barks for more. From an impracticable, hare-brained scheme it becomes an extremely practical necessity. From being a grave danger because it would inevitably foster inefficiency and cause waste, it becomes the sovereign way to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Formerly, the absence of the vivifying breath of competition was said to mean industrial death; now competition is abolished in the vital industries because co-operation alone is life. Formerly the very basis of the British Empire was individual initiative and private enterprise; now the Empire is in danger because of the chaotic inefficiency of individual initiative and the utter failure of private enterprise—and to save the Empire these very things must be abolished in the most essential industries. Truly the right about face of the capitalist Press is remarkable, even for them. But wait! perhaps they have not yet done turning.

We used also to be told that Socialism menaced the liberty of the individual and meant the regimentation, the ticketing, the registration and State surveillance of the people. Bat even so, the objector was worrying himself unnecessarily, for it is certain that this “liberty,” so far as the mass of the people are concerned, has been interned or repatriated ages ago; while with regard to the awful charge of wishing to label, control, and register men and women, well, the free born Briton has, for the past few rears, been undergoing a Prussianisation that bids fair to leave its prototype far in the rear.

The workers were classified, ticketed, and docked, suffering pains in the pocket, in that great ninepence for fourpence swindle. Then the Defence of the Realm Act hit them below the belt. Next comes the Munitions Bill to give them a farther dig in the ribs, while close on its heels follows the National Register, with its questions, its penalties, and its precious certificate that is to certify our servitude.

It would be truly carious to find out what arguments the capitalists have left even against the bogey they label as Socialism. When their interests demand it they throw their arguments to the winds and lay bare the lying hypocrisy of their assertions. Circumstances, they urge, alter cases. Undoubtedly. And in this case the circumstances have shown that the helpless inefficiency and wasteful dishonesty of their boasted private enterprise is very much worse even than their capitalist State enterprise.

And where are those damnable frauds who professed to be opposed to Socialism because it menaced the liberty which was supposed to exist in this country, and which was dearer to these frauds than life itself? We have listened in vain for the protests against the Register, etc., by the Liberty and Property Defence League or any similar body. Those doughty champions of individual liberty in the Anti-Socialist Union who never tired of assailing us on the false ground that we advocate what the Government is now doing, are now silent and acquiescent.

The sad truth is that under cover of national necessity the chains of servitude are being fastened more firmly upon the limbs of the worker. Nevertheless there is no room for pessimism. Economic development proceeds apace. The ruling class, in the pursuit of its interests, refutes its own arguments, eats its own words, and, in very truth, helps dig its own grave. Socialism is ever more clearly demonstrated to be both possible and necessary. Every fresh phase of capitalism throws into relief the antagonism of classes, and indicates the need for the working class to become masters of the State, and use its supreme economic power for the liberation of human kind from wage slavery. And the day of that liberation may come sooner than we now dare to think.