The Party System. And why the workers received the franchise. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Necessity for the Party System.

“In every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organisation necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch.”

The frequency with which working-class questions are brought before Parliament to-day goes far to prove this scientific truth, so far as its political application is concerned. Industrial questions and disputes occupy an increasing amount of Parliamentary time. Working-class problems as they affect the capitalist, become more insistent and call for more attention from their representatives on the executive body. How to deal with the growing “unrest” is fast becoming the chief problem before Parliament, and mere party questions sink into insignificance beside it.

The inability of politicians to work up issues that will obscure the line of cleavage between the two classes in society, becomes more apparent daily.

Without friction the party system must necessarily be a failure. For although every party question ends in a compromise, both sides carry on the sham fight as though complete victory were of vital importance to them. The working class have to be deluded into the belief that the fight is real, and that they are concerned in it. A compromise effected, a new Act or Budget passed, without being first staged, without the “exciting scenes, noisy incidents and protracted debates”, would be an opportunity lost of deluding the workers. Without friction and agitation the workers cannot be divided to ensure their united support for capitalism – but one of the many inherent contradictions of capitalist society.

“Politics”, says Edward Jenks, “is the business of government”. In other words, politics is the art of keeping a slave class in subjection.

This business of government is really more of an art than most people imagine. The most arbitrary rulers of the Middle Ages could not rule exactly as they chose. Slaves, no matter how docile, hold fast to ideas and customs which their rulers are, in the main, compelled to recognise

Increasing Difficulties of the Capitalist Class.

When a system advances toward its disintegration, the forces encountered by the ruling class demand greater cunning, resource, and courage to cope with them – just the qualities they have allowed to decay while revelling in fancied security. The revolution of the capitalist class in England and France against the monarchy and nobility found the latter muddled and weak – the result of generations of vice and debauchery.

In like manner, the capitalist class to-day cannot supply the brains to carry on the business of government. They have to breed or encourage professional politicians from the class beneath them. The days of their “directing ability” passed with the manufacturing period. The introduction of power-driven machinery, and the growth of limited companies stripped them of their last economic function, and left them without the necessity to struggle. That they are forced to requisition fresh blood from outside their class to fight against the awakening working class proclaims the rapid progress of their senile decay.

The ruling class of our day is a parasitic organism devouring the substance produced by the working class. It is an organism within an organism, and is compelled to adapt itself to its surroundings. It rules, and yet is governed by its environment, and restricted by the limitations of the system it imposes, and the principles it is compelled to adopt.

Compelled to Confer the Franchise.

How the capitalist class were compelled to confer the franchise, and must continually extend it, is shown by the position in Russia during the past few years, where the constitutional question is not even yet fought out. There is no pretence of giving the workers the vote because it is their right, or because it will benefit them. It is given merely because it means an improved form of government. M. Shingareff in the Budget debate said: “Our Government is strangely opposing itself to the all-powerful spirit of the times. It has no organic union with the country, and with its own hands is digging an abyss between the population and the administration”.

Stability is the object to be attained, and the capitalists of Russia look with envy on the English form of government because it possesses that quality in a greater degree than their own government by oligarchy.

Those Ministers and politicians here who realise the value of the party system, speak their minds when it is in any way threatened. When, in 1910, a Liberal finance bill was in danger of mutilation by the House of Lords, Mr. Lloyd George told the opposition they were not playing the game, and that “If the party system were destroyed, the class line must become the line of demarcation”.

Again, in 1909 he said: “Is it not a real advantage to the country that there should be two great parties, each capable in turn of providing responsible administration for the service of the Crown? How much better our system of government, as worked upon this balance, than in those countries where there is a permanent governing class, with all those interests of wealth and privilege massed around them, keeping the rest of their fellow-countrymen in sullen subjection by force of arms”.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Lord Haldane, at the Royal Academy Banquet, referred to the growing education of the working class and the danger of allowing affairs to drift: the crisis could be forestalled by broadening the basis of the Constitution so as to give it stability.

How our masters yearn for stability as their “cheap and nasty” system evolves! But the sands are shifting beneath their feet – the Rock of Ages is not only cleft, but barren.

Party politics are like the murky fluid ejected by certain denizens of the deep – they only conceal for a time. When capitalist interests are threatened by the workers both parties reveal themselves as one class.

That one man should have formulated the principles for both sides in the Parliamentary game is significant, and strengthens the conviction that it is but a game – mutually arranged – after all.

Edmund Burke, says Trevelyan, quoting from Moore’s Life of Sheridan, “has left behind him two separate and distinct armouries of opinion, from which both Whig and Tory may furnish themselves with weapons, the most splendid, if not the most highly tempered, that ever genius and eloquence have condescended to bequeath to party”.

His genius was needed. Capitalist domination was scarcely established before it was in difficulties; Burke, according to Lecky, was its saviour. In vol. III, History of the Eighteenth Century, he says: “It was necessary, in the face of the mass of discontent which was smouldering in the nation, and the growing corruption and inefficiency of Parliament, that each party should have a distinct line of policy. As time went on, these lines, as we shall see, became clearer, and the writings of Burke probably contributed more than any other single influence to define them.”

An Old Fraud with a New Face.

It is the continual boast of modern politicians that we live in a democratic State. When they say “we” they mean, of course, the ruling class. They see to it that neither King, lords, nor demagogues filch their “democratic” rights. But the so-called democracy conferred on the working class is not a semblance even of the real thing. Two thousand years ago Athens boasted in similar fashion of the democratic State, and the chief principle of the Athenians was that while there existed one man in the community who suffered in justice through the operation of the State laws, the others should not rest until his wrongs had been righted. An injury to one held possibilities of injury to all. But beneath this free and high-principled class was another class, chattel-slaves to them, who had no rights but what were willed to them by their owners.

This same description applies to the working class of to-day. They are driven into the workshops of the capitalist by hunger. They must sell their labour-power for what it costs them to live. When the capitalist has no market for the products of their labour they are driven out again – to starve. The over-crowded labour market is the spur to increased activity inside the workshops; greater concentration and efficiency are called for by the masters and easily obtained. Competition and unemployment haunt the modern worker like a nightmare, and every year bring him more helplessly under the control of the capitalist, who dictates all the hum-drum details that go to make up the wage slave’s wretched existence.

Liberal or Tory – what a choice for those who are robbed by both alike and left poor under either! This, they say, is democracy! It is the limit in impudence; the last word in bare-faced hypocrisy. “Millions of workers are stripped of everything but the bare necessities of life”, says Winston Churchill; of what use is a vote to these, when they can only give it back to those who gave it them – the capitalists?

The vote they were compelled to give, though they made a virtue out of necessity and said they gave it because they loved the principles of democracy. But no matter how they got them, the workers have far more votes than their masters. With the knowledge of their slave-position and the courage to organise, these votes can be used as the means to their emancipation. The capitalist class cannot abjure what they have established. The vote was given to secure their own domination; if they discard it they lose control and have no sanction to govern.

By constitutional methods the workers can win their freedom; they have no need to go outside the Constitution until they finally destroy it. So the party system together with the franchise – established because they promised stability – pave the way for working-class victory.

Real democracy will come with Socialism; when the game of party bluff has been played for the last time to unresponsive workers – when the latter are busy with their own interests, determined to enjoy the full results of their labour. The party system will be exposed as a fraud, consciously practised by the ruling class in their own interest. Its records will go down to posterity as curiosities, and future generations may read them and marvel that a working class, sunk in poverty and anarchy, could forget, even for a moment, their own wretchedness, while they voted this way or that on questions that concerned their masters alone.

F. Foan

Blogger's Note:

The quote at the top of the article is from Engels' introduction to the 1888 English edition of the Communist Manifesto.

Socialism in Debate. Part 2. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard 

As mentioned in our April issue, it was brought to our notice that Mr. G. W. Daw, Conservative agent for Wandsworth, had stated publicly that Socialists are reluctant to open the columns of their journals to pronounced opponents. We therefore offered Mr. Daw space in this journal for three months to set out his case. The following is the outcome.

Link to Part 1. 

The Case Against Socialism. 

Mr. Daw’s Second Contribution.

The statement in the opening paragraph of the reply to my previous contribution may claim to be the key-stone to the Socialist case, viz., that all existing wealth “is produced by the application of human labour-power to nature-given materials.” It has probably gained more adherents to Socialism than any other argument advanced by propagandists. No defender of Capitalism, we are assured, has been able to show a flaw in the statement. Nevertheless, we shall find on examination that this invulnerable argument is based on a partial suppression of relevant facts.

Existing wealth owes its origin not to two, but four primary agencies. (1) The nature-given material. (2) Machinery propelled by steam or electricity. (3) Labour. (4) Invention and Design. The Socialist argues that without labour, the material would be useless, but pursuing this method of deductive reasoning, we may contend that without demand there would be no value, for as Marx himself admits, “nothing can have value without being an object of utility,” and the same writer, referring to nature’s gifts, says “We see, then, that labour is not the only source of wealth.” It is obvious that labour without material is valueless, for labour creates nothing of itself, but merely shapes or changes the form of matter already existing.

We have now three sources of wealth recognised. It is when we come to machinery and design as wealth producers that the contention arises. Machinery is the most important item because it is the multiplier of wealth, to which we are indebted for that surplus value which Socialists use to dazzle the eyes of the proletariat.

“This wealth is all produced by your labour-power” the Socialist says in effect, “and is appropriated by the capitalists. They are robbers and you are the victims.” If this wealth was all produced by human labour-power, such a statement would be just, but it is not true. Machinery effected an industrial revolution which largely supplanted human skill, and steam power reduced human labour-power in the process of manufacture to such an insignificant part that the early manufacturers who first availed themselves of its agency, dispensed with men and—to their lasting disgrace—employed children of tender age to attend the same. But these employers of Lancashire and Yorkshire were not aristocrats, but all self-made men. A writer in “Justice” (9.12.1905) “estimated that of all work done by this country, an average of 84 per cent. was done by steam power.” To day it is not the workman that employs the instrument of labour, but the instrument of labour that employs the workman. When we examine the part steam power and machinery take in distribution, this is more plain. In past ages haulage was done by man. He carried produce on his back. To day the steam engine carries tons of merchandise and the workmen are driver and stoker.

Now let us examine the claim of the designer to be considered as a contributor to wealth. If I desire to become a ship owner I must utilise materials, labour, machinery, capital, and an architect to design the vessel. The material may be the best that can be obtained, the labour the most skilled, both human and mechanical, but when the ship is launched it has such a heavy list that it is condemned as unseaworthy and therefore useless. Labour and material alone, unaided by a competent designer, fail to produce wealth. As with the ship, so we shall find on examination, design, in one form or another, play an all-important part in wealth production. Two men start life with the same opportunities, the same capital and equipment, yet whilst one amasses a fortune, the other lands in the Bankruptcy Court. The different results are not due to the labour employed by each—both being equal—but owing to the inequality of business capacity on the part of the two men.

It is, however, when we come to the inventor and the machinery he has designed that the absurdity of the Socialist claim becomes most apparent. For centuries human labour-power plodded along, turning out with no appreciable variation, the same amount of goods per man. Of production in those times it might be said with truth that wealth was due to human labour, plus material ; but it was comparative poverty. WE ARE INDEBTED TO THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY, AND THE SUBSTITUTION OF STEAM-POWER FOR HUMAN LABOUR-POWER, FOR THE ENORMOUS SURPLUS WEALTH OF TODAY. These are facts which cannot be gainsaid, and to read the futile attempts of Marx and his followers to evade this fatal flaw in their argument provides amusement which is seldom found in the pages of professed economic works.

The contention of Marxists is that the use of machinery is to exploit labour, and of itself creates no value. “The surplus-value comes from unpaid labour only.” This surplus-value is said to be the difference between the cost of the labour-power to the capitalist and the amount of labour-power he is able to extract from his work people. This is Marx as interpreted by Bax and Quelch in their “New Catechism of Socialism.”

Then how stupid the capitalist employers must be to spend millions on the installation of steam power and machinery, which “create no value” and reduce the number and quantity of human labour power, from which alone profit is produced !

Of course, all Marxists do not take this view. For instance, Mr. H. M. Hyndman informs us in “England for all,” that “the riches due to machinery have gone to the few.” That the rich alone have benefitted is not true, but even if wholly accurate, I would emphasise the admission that this wealth is the result of the exploitation of machinery, and not men.

I have often met with the retort on the platform that the machinery was made by the workers. My reply is that it was designed by the few, and violently opposed by the industrial classes because they recognised that the machinery was a substitute for human muscle power, in fact, it was doing their work. The capitalists had discovered a substitute for human labour-power and skill, which was able to produce wealth in far greater abundance. The old hand-loom weavers became machine-minders. Bearing on this I ask, if labour makes the machinery, how can capitalists maintain an exclusive monopoly ? There is sufficient capital in the hands of the employed to acquire their own instruments of production.

If the workers are robbed of two-thirds of what they produce, they would, by setting up as their own masters, reap enormous profits, which would enable them to drive all competitive capitalist employers out of the market. The capitalists have no monopoly of human labour-power, or of the market—viz., the consumers. Anyone with capital can buy land, material, and machinery.

I should like, if space permitted, to have dealt in some detail with Chapter XV. of Marx’s “Capitalist Production,” showing how, whilst indulging in a long diatribe on “Machinery and Modern Industry,” he shuffles over the question. [We have pleasure in offering Mr. Daw additional space for this specific purpose. Ed. Com. “S.S.”] I will give one example of his sophistry for my critics to ponder over. He says (p. 405) machinery “being constant capital, does not produce surplus-value.” This platitude is as puerile and irrelevant as if he had written: “An overcoat bought on the instalment system produces no warmth.”

G. W. Daw.

————————————

The Socialist Reply.

Practically the whole of our opponent’s second contribution is taken up with one point, viz., the one emphasized in his sixth paragraph that “We are indebted to the introduction of machinery, and the substitution of steam for human labour-power, for the, enormous surplus wealth of to-day,” and according to Mr. Daw, this is another “fatal flaw” in our argument.

Now even if this statement were true, as it is put by Mr. Daw, it would still leave our case untouched. All the various ringing of the changes, in words, about the same point can be met with two answers, so simple that only an opponent of Socialism fails to see them.

Firstly, machinery and steam-power are quite useless and incapable of producing a single atom of wealth until labour-power is applied in starting, running, and controlling that machinery and power. Hence these factors are still dependent upon the human element—labour-power—for their operation.

Secondly, the machinery and engines themselves are manufactured by the working class and the capitalists do nothing in the introduction or manipulation of this machinery and power, yet they own both the means and results of wealth production, thus enslaving the rest of society.

If we take our opponent’s variations upon the one theme, we will find the same answers fitting them every time, though amplification may be useful on some of them.

Thus we are told in paragraph (2) there are four primary agencies in wealth production instead of the two given in the brief statement of our case. But what is machinery itself except the result of labour-power applied to the nature-given materials ? We thus see at once that it is no new factor but simply a portion of the previously stated ones.

Again, are not Invention and Design the application of human energy upon certain materials in the endeavour to obtain a given result ? Then we are still left with but two primary agencies, labour-power and natural resources.

In paragraph (3) we read that “Machinery is the most important multiplier of wealth, to which we are indebted for that surplus-value which Socialists use to dazzle the eyes of the proletariat.” It would be interesting to know how this statement opposes Socialism. As shown above, machinery can do nothing without labour-power.

That various discoveries and the general growth of knowledge increase our powers of production is a point in favour of, not against, Socialism, though it contradicts Mr. Daw’s statement in his previous contribution that we can never supply the needs of our growing population. He even now admits that there is a “surplus value,” a thing not usually conceded by our opponents.

It is quite informing to know that the “early manufacturers” “to their lasting disgrace, employed children of tender age to attend” their machinery. The later and present manufacturers, who still employ children, are free, we suppose, from any such imputation upon their characters.

The reference to the part taken by steam-power and machinery in distribution is fully met by our first answer.

Paragraph (5) would be laughable were it not swallowed by so many working men when they hear it expounded by one of their masters or his agents. Our second answer meets this point, but a little extension may be useful.

The first point to note, and one that overshadows all else here, is that it it not the capitalist who is the designer. The latter is employed to do his portion, as the others are to do theirs.

Leaving out the entirely baseless assumption that “labour the most skilled” couid not design a seaworthy vessel, we may just point out that for thousands of years various branches of the human race built seaworthy ships with no other “designers” than those who constructed them. In this as in other branches of production and distribution, it is only when “division of labour” reaches a certain stage in its development, that the “designer” becomes a separate person with a single function to perform. That he is, sometimes, better paid than the ordinary craftsman, makes him none the less one of those employed by the capitalist.

Then we come to the “fatal flaw” with our old friend the “inventor.”

What was the greatest discovery mankind has made? According to the greatest ethnologist that ever lived, Lewis H. Morgan, it was the discovery of iron and how to smelt it. But certainly as great, if not greater, was the discovery of how to control fire, as without this factor iron could not be smelted. Did the capitalists discover these two great factors in human progress? Or have they discovered any such factor? What machine did they invent? What power did they discover the control of? The answer is, not one. Yet they own the results of all these discoveries. In the vast majority of cases no individual “inventor” is known. And of the others, nearly all died in poverty, while the capitalists stole their inventions. It is the working class who “invent” the machinery and discover how to control various forces in nature as well as manipulate these things in the production and distribution of wealth.

The attempted argument in paragraph (9) is utterly unhistorical, incorrect, and fallacious. What “few” invented the wheel, the inclined plane, and the lever? Yet every machine is a combination of such powers.

It is true that those who may be displaced by machinery sometimes—not always—oppose its introduction for the simple reason that under the chaos called Capitalism, we have the utterly insane absurdity that every new means of increasing production means increased poverty and misery for the workers. Hence the cure for such a position is obviously for the workers to own the machinery they invent and operate, as well as its results.

And note the question, childlike and bland, “if labour makes the machinery, how can the capitalists maintain an exclusive monopoly?” Even Mr. Daw dares not attempt to maintain that the capitalists make machinery, so he takes refuge behind his question.

The answer is well known to Mr. Daw. Let any body of workers attempt to take hold of any machinery—or any other commodity—they have produced, and what would happen? Mr. Daw knows quite as well as any Socialist that the legal machinery, backed by the armed forces of the nation, would be used to protect the “masters’ property” and prevent any workers possessing it. This machinery and force is used for the masters’ interests because they control the political powers, dominating and directing these forces, such powers being placed in the masters’ hands by the working class when they vote Tory, Liberal, or Labour candidates into Parliament.

And where is the “sufficient capital in the hands of the employed to acquire their own instruments of production”? It must be in some secret place for, as workers ourselves, we haven’t the faintest inkling of its existence.

The capitalist pays the worker, on the average, a wage that will buy such necessaries of life as will keep him in a condition to continue working. To meet the various ills that afflict the worker, even if in work, he sometimes scrapes a few pence together in a Friendly Society against serious illness (he cannot afford to stay away from work for a slight illness), or in a Trade Union against a lock-out or a strike. But it would be an insult to Mr. Daw’s intelligence to pretend that he is referring to these small sums scattered over so large a number.

One remark he makes, however, is generally true. “Anyone with capital can buy land, material, and machinery.” May we add “and labour-power.” As the working class have no capital they obviously are unable to buy any of these things.

Ed. Com.

Editorial: The Passing of De Leon. (1914)

Editorial from the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The death of Daniel De Leon in America recalls the controversy over so-called Direct Action by the working class. Joining the S.L.P. when it was nominally, as well as actually, a reform party, De Leon also affiliated with the corrupt Knights of Labour, and as a result of the secession of some elements the Socialist Trades and Labour Alliance was formed to act in co-operation with the S.L.P. But a union of opposing elements could not succeed. In spite of the claim that by economic unity political unity would also be established, a split soon took place, and the Socialist (!) Party of America was formed.

In 1905 “Industrial Unity” was again the cry, and once more it was urged that by uniting economically, political harmony would be secured.

De Leon, Debs and other political enemies came together in the I.W.W., which taught that Industrial Unionism would establish Socialism. Politics was but a reflex or an afterthought, so to speak. Anarchists as well as “Socialists”, reformers as well as others, came together in the Industrial Workers of the World. Some of them believed in politics, while others did not.

Such fictitious unity could not last, and soon it was found that, instead of uniting, it made those it embraced more divided than ever. It was not long before Debs and his “Socialist” Party friends were outside the I.W.W. Soon arose the question of what Industrial Unionism meant, some contending that politics were unnecessary and others that they might be useful, and so on.

The arrival of Wm. Haywood from jail soon caused a split among the unity-hunters of the I.W.W., and we were faced with two I.W.W.’s – one forced to give some vague recognition of the value of political action, and the other, embracing Haywood, Bohn, Ettor and Giovannitti, yearning for sabotage, physical force, and such moonshine.

The closing years of De Leon’s life were practically a sea of troubles on this “industrial action” question. One after another his lieutenants went over to the so-called Socialist party, or to the rival I.W.W. Frank Bohn, James Connolly, Trautmann (who has now come home to the I.W.W. fold), and even his own son, Solon De Leon, making tracks for that ark of confusion, the S.P. of A.

Verily the Industrialist rubbish spelt Nemesis for the S.L.P.

There is a lesson for the workers on this side of the Atlantic to leave the suicidal policy of Industrial Unionism severely alone.

The Purpose and Method of Colonisation. [1] (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some time ago the Bishop of Hull, speaking on the relation of Christianity to Social problems, referred to the decision of the Japanese people, not to make Christianity their national religion, and said:

“This was because the shrewd Japanese had known too much about the lives of professing Christians. During the time when the present Archbishop of York was labouring in Stepney, a Japanese traveller called upon him and asked to be put in the way of seeing the real inner life of the people of the East-end. The clergyman did not refuse, bat he said he could only pray that the Japanese visitor might forget as soon as possible many of the things he saw . . . The Japanese could not fail to perceive that as a people we were hopelessly divided, class against class . . . squalid poverty at the one end of the scale and stupid luxury at the other.”

It would appear that even the Bishop felt that Christianity was not playing a very creditable part in the sordid tragedy of this much belauded civilisation, although we have no doubt that he would not publicly endorse the charge of the Socialist that religion is always to be found on the side, and, indeed, is the active ally of the forces of oppression.

In the face of the hideousness and injustice of the social conditions obtaining in Christian countries—”the terrible social difficulties,” as one eminent prelate said—the purpose of missionary societies, who go to great efforts and spend enormous sums in bringing this 20th Century civilisation to the “heathen,” might well puzzle those who, although not Socialists, will readily agree that the conditions of existence in modern society not only leave much to be desired, but are in fact paradoxical in the extreme.

The all too apparent and ever increasing poverty of the great mass of the people, which means their shortage not only of those means, opportunities and healthful environment which afford culture and minister to a high development of one’s physique and intellect—the only guarantee for the real enjoyment of life and therefore the road to happiness—but their shortage even of the barest and crudest necessities of existence, side by side with undisputed abundance of all those things, or “unparalleled prosperity.” The paradox of increasing insecurity and harder toil, owing, not as one might suspect, to the failure or misunderstanding of nature, or the difficulty of producing the means of subsistence, but in spite of or contrary to the continuous advance in understanding, mastering and utilising the forces of nature, and more insecurity and harder toil as the result of ever greater facilities to produce.

Neither of the above mentioned instances of glaring inconsistencies and cruel ironies, which could, of course, easily be multiplied, will be denied. Nor is there, so far as the non Socialist is concerned, any remedy for, or any escape from, that condition of things. It is easy to get their admission that unemployment with all its attendant evils is inevitable, and that it exists side by side with excessive toil oa the part of those “in work.” It is common knowledge, “but cannot be altered,” that overcrowding, slums, homeless and shelterless exist side by side with spacious, comfortable and healthy empty and half empty houses; it is equally common knowledge, “but cannot be altered,” that there is preposterous waste of all sorts of commodities side by side with the most pressing and bitter want. Foodstuffs, especially of easily deteriorating nature, such as vegetables, meat, fish, etc. are rotting and perishing in markets and stores in enormous quantities, while uncounted workers with their families are suffering the pangs of hunger. Fuel, such as coal for instance, is being uselessly destroyed to an incredible extent alone in keeping battle ships continually “prepared,” while in cold days the lack of the same precious fuel accentuates the gloom and squalor of innumerable dreary habitations and causes sickness and death due to insufficient warmth.

Anyone reading, for example, the records of such institutions as the Salvation Army, or the Church Army, Dr. Barnardo’s “homes,” etc., etc., the signposts of “civilisation,” or their soul stirring appeals on behalf of the thousands of destitute men, women and children reduced to implore the humiliating, degrading and demoralising help of such charities ; or anyone having perused the facts in Seebohm Rowntree’s “Poverty: A Study of Town Life,” or “How the Labourer Lives,” or Sir Charles Booth’s “The Life and Labour of the People of London,” or Dr. Wallace’s “Social Environment,” or the eloquent comparisons in Chiozza Money’s “Riches and Poverty,” or any other of the numerous similar enquiries, again might fail to detect the reason for the enthusiasm of missionary organisations in transplanting a system such as produces the crying evils and glaring inconsistencies surrounding us.

“In London”—so ran a whole page appeal in the “Daily Telegraph” in the cold month of February—”at this moment there are thousands to whom each degree’s fall in the thermometer is so much additional agony. Men and women feel it keenly, acutely, and to the hapless children it means suffering untold. Think for a moment of some of its phases. There is no money to buy coal, the grate is fireless, . . . and there is nothing but a bit of hard, dry bread. Even the solace of a cup of tea becomes impossible then . . . the pangs of hunger are felt with tenfold force, and the emaciated mother and the shivering children huddle together in the gloom of their bare room. . . . The poor, thin rags that serve as an apology for clothes; the broken boots, through which toes and heels protrude, no warm blankets at night. . . . You cannot—you dare not say you do not see these sufferings. No one can go a walk or drive of half-a-mile in London without passing them:

Women, children, young and old,

Groan from pain and weep from cold;

From the haunts of daily life,

Where is waged the daily strife,

With common wants and common cares

Which sow the human heart with tares.

For we know the long drawn-out misery is there—on our right hand and on our left in this great, proud, wealthy Capital of the Empire.”

“No food, no fire, no home.” “Work for starving women,” etc., etc. Such are other head lines to advertisements in the Daily Press of civilised Christian countries !

Besides this, eloquent figures can be quoted from capitalist economists and statesmen, and a long row of Bluebooks produced, which go a long way to explain a good many of the social anomalies surrounding us.

1,400,000 persons in the United Kingdom, for instance, appropriate between them some £634,000,000 whilst 39,000,000 other people share between them £935,000,000. 30,000,000 people of the United Kingdom own no land, whilst 7 landlords draw £14,640,000 per annum in ground rent!

Is it a wonder that there are 13,000,000 continually on the verge of hunger and that the great majority of the people are at the mercy of a small minority ? And is it a wonder that this stupid disproportion of wealth-distribution should produce anarchy ?

And the same tale of chronic poverty and consequent degradation can be told of the overwhelming majority of the peoples of Germany, Austria, France, America, and the rest of those countries where His Majesty King Capital reigns supreme, and where, consequently, Their Worships Profit and Prostitution, male and female, are the pillars of civilisation. Any native from an “uncivilised” land who had been shown through the factory hells of Continental or American industrial centres and brought into contact with the “life” of the workers there and their “homes,” might well be excused if not rewarded, for bringing to an abrupt end the career of the missionary babbling to him about the blessings of civilisation.

Chronic strikes, bread riots, sordid tragedies of strife, misery and want, police and military brutalities, are evidence that there, as here, millions do not receive a “living wage,” and that there, as here, they are, as the Bishop said, hopelessly divided—class against class.

If then, as can be done, overwhelming evidence can be brought that the system of human co-existence in the so-called civilised Christian countries is “rotten from top to bottom”—as one great apologist for the system has put it—if besides, the worst that can be said by the Socialist is being repeatedly admitted and substantiated by capitalist economists and statesmen, and if, in spite of the struggle with nature having been won by “civilised” men, the great majority of them have still to live from hand to mouth and, not having any property, have to eke out this existence of perpetual penury and insecurity with the spectre of starvation haunting them, it would certainly seem strange that the contamination of the pure atmosphere of the “uncivilised” with our system and institutions should tend to produce there something different from what it produces here—that is, anarchy and social idiocies.

Rudolf Frank

(To be Continued.)

A Useful Volume Reviewed. (1914)

Book Review from the June 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour in Irish History. By James Connolly. Paper covers, 1s net. Published by Maunsel & Co. Ltd., 96, Mid Abbey St., Dublin.

Home Rule and Carsonism are filling the columns of newspapers. Wild and furious threats, accompanied by more or less genuine spasms of gun-running, are thrown out as to what will happen if Home Rule is established, and thousands of workers both in England and Ireland are quite excited as to the result of the conflict.

At such a time much good may be done by drawing attention to certain historical evidences for the fundamental facts so important for the workers’ consideration.

And this book will largely help in such a desirable end.

Written by one who has made some study of the Marxian analysis of society, it cuts through the sham superficialities of the struggle between Home Ruler and Ulsterite, Catholic and Protestant, and shows how in Ireland, as everywhere else where classes exist, the real fight, the fundamental antagonism, is between those who own the means of life and those who have nothing but the sale of their labour-power to depend upon for an existence.

The development of the worker in Ireland is traced from the days of the Williamite wars to the present day, after a short account has been given of the previous conditions.

A particularly useful part of the book, in face of the many romances dealing with the time, is the description of the period preceding and covering the “Act of Union” between England and Ireland. The analysis of the various “revolutionary” leaders and their movements, with the exposure of frauds like Grattan, Flood, and O’Connell, is well worthy of study. Above all the fear and hatred of the working class by the wealth owners is shown by their slimy scheming to disarm the volunteers at that time.

These consisted of three sections—the Liberty Corps—working class; the Merchants’ Corps—capitalist class; and the Lawyers’ Corps—members of the legal profession.

As the author puts it:

“The Government [Irish Government bear in mind] had to use force to seize    the arms of the working men, but the capitalists gave up theirs secretly as the     result of a private bargain . . . and the lawyers privately handed their guns over     to the enemies of the people.”

    

“The working men fought, the capitalists sold out, and the lawyers bluffed.”    (p. 58).

An interesting account of a co-operative colony founded at Ralahine, County Clare, in 1831 is given, but the reader will tend to gather the impression that it is by such means the workers will emancipate themselves—an impression distinctly reactionary in face of the growth of the Social forces and the power needed for their economic manipulation.

There is one part of the work, however, to which distinct exception can be taken. This is the section dealing with the first Irish Socialist. One is here curiously reminded of the same attitude taken up by Miss Beatrice Potter (now Mrs Sidney Webb) in her book on "Co-operation".

The attitude is one of suggesting a thing without actually saying it.

The author claims that the great forerunner of Marx—standing between the Utopians and the latter—was an Irishman named William Thompson, who, among numerous notable statements, laid bare the source of value in his work entitled, An Inquiry into the Principles of Wealth most conducive to Human Happiness, etc, published 1824, where it is laid down that all labour can be reduced to unskilled labour of the average kind at a given time.

Miss Potter says Marx took his notion of “homogenous human labour” from Thompson and incorporated it in Capital.

The author says “In the English speaking world the work of this Irish thinker is practically unknown, but on the Continent of Europe his position has long been established” (p. 115).

Now what is common to both Connolly and Miss Potter is the curious fact that neither of them state who established Thompson’s position and made him known on the Continent. The uninstructed reader may learn with surprise that the person responsible was—Karl Marx!

Many years ago Dr Aveling pointed out in a little book called Darwin Made Easy, that the various “objections” by ignorant Christians and parsons to Darwin’s work were all first formulated by Darwin himself in the Origin of Species, and no opponent had ever brought forward any other. So with Marx. All the opponents of Marx who are so loud in their claims to have discovered “forerunners” of his work and ideas are all of them—German, English and Irish alike—indebted to Marx, who first discovered and gave full credit to them in his various works, particularly in the Poverty of Philosophy and the Critique of Political Economy.

And among others he points out that Benjamin Franklin had already in 1721 stumbled on the secret of undifferentiated labour as the source of value, though he (Franklin) did not work the idea out to any extent.

However, it is the fashion to-day among the shallow critics of scientific Socialism who are unable to refute the case or show a flaw in the arguments of Marx to pretend to demolish that genius by finding someone who “anticipated” him, and keeping “gradely dark” the fact that the very person they are indebted to for such discovery is Marx himself.

Jack Fitzgerald

A Socialist Survey. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lloyd George’s Budget certainly got the welcome he knew it would get from the “Labour” movement. The only feature to be regretted, from their point of view, is the forgetfulness of the Chancellor to acknowledge its source. Apart from that, it is hailed as being “on the right lines,” “a step on the way,” etc. Although Mr. Lloyd George doesn’t see his way clear to “relieve the working classes of the amount of taxation which they were called upon to bear” (vide Mr. Philip Snowden), it yet was comforting to know that a beginning was to be made in the way of doing something to relieve the heavy burden on local rates!.

* * *

On somewhat similar lines is the election manifesto of Mr. Jas. Martin, Labour candidate for N.E. Derbyshire. He goes “straight for the abolition of food taxes.” He favours also the “nationalisation of the mines and railways, which would not only cheapen coal and travel, but [mark this] provide revenue for the Exchequer” !

As if that was not enough to stamp Mr. Martin as a full-blown Liberal, he proceeds to give us the full Liberal programme with all its trimmings. He believes in Free Trade, Home Rule, and Land Reform—in fact, all that a respectable Liberal stands for. Strangely enough, he is opposed by another Liberal candidate. This, I believe, is due to some misunderstanding which has caused a split in the “Progressive forces.” Mr. Martin’s candidature is endorsed by the Miners’ Federation and the Labour Party. Though he was standing with the assent of the Derbyshire Miners’ Association, yet a large proportion of delegates at the adoption of the orthodox Liberal were members of that body. I don’t blame them : they couldn’t tell t’other from which.

The Labour election agent, Mr. A. Peters, declares that the miners have spent £10,000 within the last few years in order to maintain their position in the county. Can you wonder ?

* * *

One thing stands out clear in the diverse reports that reach us concerning the trouble in Mexico. That is that both General Huerta and General Carranza have given assurances that oil wells shall be protected during the fighting. Why ? Because these wells are chiefly the cause of the trouble. Ask Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust. Ask any of the greedy sharks in this country whose eyes are glued on Mexico. Huerta, representing Mexican interests, wants to preserve the oil wells for Mexico; Carranza, representing British and American capitalists, wants them for his masters.

Mexico is one of the richest mineral countries in the world—that is why all the world wants it. When oil was discovered during the Diaz regime, it was not long before the far-off nostrils of the capitalist wolves scented it. Then commenced the trouble. Diaz wouldn’t “sell out,” so means were adopted to make him “get out.” His successor looks like traversing the same road. Thus are the “rights” of capital vindicated.

Smug respectability, sitting at home in England, wonders what it is all about. “Why the devil don’t these fellows set to work instead of fighting each other, and let us earn our dividends ? This sort of thing lowers the rate, don’t you know !”

* * *

Yes, we know. In Colorado, for instance, it is lowering the rate—of the population. They call it “Rockefeller’s war.” It is a typical industrial war—all one-sided. The capitalists have the full forces of the country at their disposal. The miners—only dogged determination and what few arms they are able to get hold of. Men, women, and children have been shot or sabred that shareholders may have their dividends. Women and children, have had to tramp the streets because their homes had been burned over their heads, in order that investors should have a “fair return” on their capital. And we are told there is no class war !

* * *

May Day in this country seems to have resolved itself into a sort of rounding-up of recalcitrant and other sheep, into the Labour fold. As usual, the Labour Party were out in full force. Everywhere the same note was struck—emphasis on the importance of joining a trade union, electing leaders, sending them to Parliament, but, above all, being “loyal” to them. You see, the more members the bigger the unions ; the bigger the unions the more “leaders” required, and incidentally, the more soft jobs for the professional spongers.

We, on the other hand, don’t believe in making a hullaballoo once every twelve months. Instead, we engage in a steady, persistent propaganda of Socialist principles on every day in the year. One can understand these job-hunters not liking us and our work. Whereas they believe in the retention of the capitalist system, we work for its abolition. Its abolition would put them out of business.

* * *

Old Age Pensions have proved a grand thing—for the capitalists. Recent returns relating to pauperism in England and Wales issued by the Local Government Board show that since 1909 there has been a decrease of more than 200,000. That this is due in a large measure to the introduction of Old Age Pensions is proved by the fact that in 1906 the number of paupers over 70 years of age was 229,474, whereas at the beginning of 1913 the number had fallen to 56,770.

This means that whilst formerly it just about 13s. 8d. per head to keep paupers inside a workhouse, they can now get them completely off their hands for the modest sum of five shillings. On this the pensioners have to subsist as best they can—usually with assistance from friends and relations, thus contributing directly to the further impoverishment of those who are already poor.

Old Age Pensions having fulfilled their mission of getting the aged people off the hands of the capitalists, the Poor Law authorities are now looking round for some device to rid themselves of those under 70. The Lambeth Board of Guardians have, so far, been the most successful. The experiment they tried was to send the inmates to look for work ! All they had to do was to go out and get a job, come back for the missus and kids, and—there you are ! Goodbye ! Simple, isn’t it ? At this rate there soon won’t be any Poor Law for Mr. Sidney Webb to worry about.

* * *

Here is an example of the effect the above system has upon people who try to remain outside the Poor Law. It was brought to light at a Westminster inquest recently, and showed the hopeless struggle of an aged couple who tried to live on 12s. a week, of which 4s. 6d. had to go for rent. The victim of this hellish system was Mary Ann Russell, aged 72, of Pimlico, who was found with her throat cut.

Her husband, a grey-haired labourer of 67, said he had been out of work for thirteen weeks, and his wife had been much depressed in consequence. Their income consisted of 7s. from his National Insurance payments (which expired the week after the inquest) and 5s. her Old Age Pension. They owed rent, and it was more than the old lady could face. “We lived very happily together, sir,” said the old man, with tears streaming down his face, “but it’s too much to bear.”

Tom Sala

En passant. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

An editorial in the “Daily Sketch” of May 7th runs as follows: “But a more dangerous sort of interference with parental authority will be confirmed by the passing of the Defective and Epileptic Children Bill. Defective children (of the poor people) are to be sent to residential schools, and Mr. Josiah Wedgwood moved an amendment for the purpose of making it clear that such children should not be removed from their homes without the consent of their parents. The amendment was negatived by a decisive vote.”

Leaflet No. 45 of the Anti-Socialist Union bears the following bright gem :

Infant Gatherer [who is the State Nurse existing under an impossible Socialist State]: “I’ve called to take your baby to the State Children’s Home.”

Mother : “But you will let him say ‘good-bye’ to his father ? ”

Infant Gatherer : “Father! There are no fathers now. The State’s his father.”

It has often been pointed out to the intellectuals of the Anti-Socialist Union that the bogey they attack is not Socialism but State capitalism. But it is easy to apologise for not hearing after you have stuffed your ears.

Today, under capitalism—”the best of all possible systems in the best of all possible worlds”—you must not be born without the State knowing; you must not “shuffle off this mortal coil” without the State being informed of the fact; if you are on the panel you cannot be ill without the State being aware of your malady. Under tyrannical Socialism the only added danger could be that the privacy of the bath-room might be invaded.

* * *

To turn from the Anti-Socialist Union to members of an Anti-Socialist Party, the appended statements are enlightening.

Mr. Philip Snowden, in the “Labour Leader” of April 30th: “If we take the Liberal Party at its best to-day and accept its professions at their apparent value, and if we compare its programme with that of a labour party which is not Socialist, then there is no doubt that Mr. Asquith’s statement that the differences are trivial and unimportant represents the actual facts.”

Mr. Jowett, in the “Labour Leader,” April 16th : “On one occasion the Labour Party had declined to introduce an Unemployment motion because the Government had to be kept in office, and often it had been difficult to defend the votes which the Labour members had given.”

Two minds with but a single thought; two mouths that bleat as one.

These extracts may be used as supporting an argument in re Philip sober. P. Snowden, “Labour Leader” 30.4.14.: “The irony of Social Reform within the present economic order is that every reform which improves the health and intelligence of the workers benefits the capitalist still more.”

The same Snowden—the summit of conceit— in the House of Commons (7.5 14), on Mr. L. George’s Budget: “The taxes on the rich provided revenue to be used for social reform purposes and must economically benefit the landlord and the employing class.”

Yet again, the same Philip, in the same speech: “If the Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to continue to use taxation not merely as a means of raising revenue but as a potent, if incomplete, method of social reform, he would be prepared to give him support.”

There, what base knave dare deny that one Philip, of Blackburn, is a Socialist. To all anti-Socialists he is a revolutionary of the most rabid type, because they do not understand Socialism.

* * *

This extract is not from an old file of the “Socialist Standard.” Mr. Arnold White writes a weekly article for the “Daily Express” entitled “Looking Round.” Sometimes he squints and sees “wisions,” yet on other occasions he sees things in their true perspective. In the issue of that organ of mal-education for 11 5.14, he says “Mr. Lloyd George’s scheme to provide aid from taxation for the feeding of necessitous school children appeals to warm hearts and soft heads. The plan is as old as Rome. To make the community help manufacturers to pay wages necessarily implied reduction of wages the limit to the fall of wages is automatically determined by the cost of bare maintenance of the labourer and his family. If the average subsistence rate of the lowest form of slum worker is £1 a week, and the average number of children is three, the labourer must be paid a pound a week, since he cannot exist on less. If, on the the other hand, the State steps in and helps to feed the children of unorganised labourers, the cost of subsistence will be less. Being subjected to unrestricted competition, the labourer, if he can live on less than £l a week, will take less.'” A Socialist could improve that very little.

Some people have heard of the London City Mission, a body, presumably of human beings, which held its 79th Annual Meeting on May 8th. During the course of the meeting, the Rev. T. S. Hutchison, M.A., must have felt relieved when he got the following off his chest: “Socialism, of a godless type, was said to be spreading rapidly among the working men, even to some extent among employees where the cooperative system had long existed, and where, but for the agitators, the men would be happy and contented. The result was the growth of discontent and unrest.” Dear readers, please shudder to oblige our dearly beloved vicar. Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the columns of the “Times,” that we, the feeble band, the few, are the cause of the great totality of wretchedness and discontent at present existent. Sir George Askwith is wrong when he attempts to settle strikes (in the masters’ interest) by haggling over wages and hours of labour. How much could he not learn, would he only sit at the feet of this far seeing disciple of the Prince of Peace ?

* * *

You have a working man earning a quid a week, and he is satisfied. His town house in Stepney and his country seat in Victoria Park provide delightful changes of scenery and atmosphere, guaranteed to revitalise any constitution accidentally undermined by the pure air of the sweat shop. So I could continue to describe the idyllic existence of the working man. To suggest any improvement would be to attempt to paint the lily. But stay, into the picture of contentment, slyly creeps the strife stirring Socialist. Without him all would be well. He can even surmount the protective barriers of co-operation and co-partnership. He seems all-powerful and he is of the godless type. If he believed in a god or worshipped a tram-ticket he might be tolerated. As he is, he is anathema.

Christian, Ragtime “Reynolds” here comes in useful. In its issue for 1.2.14 it said : “We should have thought that no man capable of two consecutive minutes’ thought still held the antiquated notion that strikes are due to the ‘agitator.’ The whole of the British unrest of the past three years has shown that the agitator is powerless where men have not genuine grievances.”

The missioner’s speech prompts me to ask, what was the cause of discontent before the godless Socialism existed? I could continue with questions, but the harrowing of Hutchison is too pitiful to contemplate. Besides, I might trouble him and make him discontented. And, I am a godless Socialist. Grrrh !

* * *

The manufacturer threw a belligerent chest. “arrest ’em,” he said. “If I had my way, I’d arrest every blighted Labour agitator.”

A gaunt figure, with a skull in place of the head, rose exultantly. “Then arrest me,” it cackled, capering. “I am the original stirrer up of those who do hard labour. I am the ancient breeder of discontent, the father of Socialists, the agitator of agitators. Arrest me.”

“But who are you?”

“I am Hunger.”

“Tut! tut!” said the manufacturer pleasantly, “Why should I arrest my best and chiefest Labour agent?”

Poor Hutch!

A. L. Cox.

A snippet. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

It ain't only a barrer that wants pushing; the "Socialist Standard" for instance. Not 'arf.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For June. (1914)

Party News from the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mind Your Own Business. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

A remark one hears very often is: “Mind your own business.” The Socialist Party of Great Britain is out to teach the working class to do this, but the workers are unconscious of their slavery; they prefer to look after their masters’ business rather than their own.

The business of the proletarian is merely to understand his class position in society. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is frequently explaining this on the platform. The workers to day produce all wealth in society, but, for their noble efforts, receive back from the capitalist class —the shirking class—just sufficient to enable them to exist, with a view to turning out more profit.

Why is it necessary for the working class to become conscious of their position in society? Firstly, because they would be minding their own business. Secondly, because, under the present system of society, no worker can claim that he has the right to work—which is the only way he is able to exist—for that right is in the hands of the master class. Thirdly, because no work is given to the worker unless the master can make a profit out of his labour. Fourthly, because, with the destruction of the capitalist system and the establishment of Socialism, every worker will be producing wealth in the interest of the whole community.

The worker does not mind his own business when he concerns himself about rates and taxes; talks of “our own trams,” or “our Dreadnoughts,” because he is spoofed by the agents of the capitalist class, who are continually misleading the dull and unconscious worker. Why, the workers do not get sufficient wages to buy good, wholesome food, let alone pay rates and taxes! Such things as these are no business of the working class, as the rates and taxes are paid by the property-owning class; and, since the working class own nothing but their labour-power, why not mind your own business?

The worker of to day can be compared somewhat to a motor car. He is given just sufficient petrol (food) to enable him to continue production. When he is not wanted he can stand still, but unlike the motor car, which loses nothing when not wanted, the worker is physically deteriorating by starvation.

Why are the workers worse off? Because they do not mind their own business. Imagine an intelligent working class able to produce all the wealth in society, and after all the energy is pumped out of them, politically ignorant enough to allow masters to rob them of the fruits of their labour.

What good has the capitalist done to the workers? No good at all, in fact, the very system produces misery, degradation, and disease.

Now, the question is. how are you going to alter it? Firstly, by understanding what Socialism means -THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A SYSTEM OF SOCIETY BASED UPON THE COMMON OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF THE MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS FOR PRODUCING AND DISTRIBUTING WEALTH BY AND IN THE INTEREST OF THE WHOLE COMMUNITY. When the working class understand this they must organise in the S.P.G.B., the only Socialist party, for the capture of the political machinery which controls the force that keeps them in subjection to-day

Therefore, workers, wake up and start to-day to Mind your own Business !

Jack.

How It Will Come About. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Socialist meetings one may very often hear the interjection: “You have said a great deal about Socialism and what a good thing it will be, but tell us how it will come about."

Maybe the request is a reasonable one, but oh! if those who prefer it were only as reasonable. However, they are not: they seem always to expect to receive a curt, cut-and-dried answer.

Before the Socialist has had time to answer the first question the second arrives : "How long will it be before Socialism is here?"

Now, before we can commence to discuss these questions it is of the utmost importance that we understand what Socialism really means. To-day, under capitalism, we are allowed to live (!) under hellish and murderous conditions. Let me deal with that system—the system wherein men, women, and children starve in the midst of plenty.

The whole production of wealth to-day is organised purely with a view to making a profit. It may seem strange to those who have not thought this question out, but the clothes we wear, the food we eat, are not made for us to wear and eat, but are produced in order that a profit may be obtained by the manufacturer.

Do you suppose that the master baker or the master builder, in having bread made or houses constructed, would ask if the bread was pure and wholesome or the houses dry and healthy ? No, they would simply ask : “ Shall I be able to I make a profit out of it?"

This was clearly shown at the enquiry held into a fatal accident that occurred during the erection of a building in High Holborn some time last year. A chain broke and a worker was done to death. The coroner ask the representative of the firm who made the chain whether, after testing a chain, they went over it to see if there were any cracks, and the answer was:

"No, the profits will not allow of it."

The master class do not care if the chains break and you are killed; they do not care if you eat bad food or live in death-dealing, insanitary houses: You can perish and rot so long as their profits come rolling in.

You, the workers, produce all economic wealth. All such wealth is produced for profit, and that profit, that wealth which is made but which is filched from you, goes to overstock the markets, and then you are shown the door. You produce all wealth, and then you starve.

All we ask you to do is to look round at all the good things of life that you have created, and then ask yourselves why you are poor. We only ask you to sit down and seriously try to find out the cause of your poverty. For when you have discovered this the only remedy, obviously, is to abolish that cause.

Now we Socialists claim that the cause of poverty and of all the evils which arise from it lies in the fact that all the means whereby you live are owned and controlled by a section of society. These people not only own the factories, ships, mines, etc., but, by virtue of this fact, own your very lives. You are slaves—aye, worse! For you are doomed to watch your wives and children starve.

You are allowed, not to live, but merely to exist as profit making machines, because all the methods of getting a living are taken from you except that of placing yourself on the labour market. You are forced to sell your energies. So you go to the factory gate, the pit-head, or the office door in order to sell your labour power to the owner.

You ask for work, and when "hands'' are wanted  you are informed that you can go inside, you can use the machinery, and you can produce wealth—all on the condition that the wealth you produce belongs to the owners of the means and instruments by which you produce it. This is where the robbery takes place; this is the cause of poverty.

You receive only a fraction—from one-eighth to one third of what you yourselves have produced, which, generally speaking, is a bare sufficiency to keep you in a condition to continue to work.

Now it should be very plain that the cause of poverty is that you do not own the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution and are denied free access to them. Your masters, the owners, do not allow you to work except when they can make a profit out of you.

The cause of your poverty being the robbery by the master class of the wealth produced by the workers, the only remedy is to abolish that property condition which gives the master class the power to rob you—the private ownership of the means of living —and to introduce ownership by the whole people; to establish Socialism and produce wealth, not for the profit of a few useless "ladies and gentlemen” who would probably drop down dead if you were to tell them that to morrow they must start work, but for use—bread to feed you, houses to shelter you, and clothes to cover your bodies.

As to the second question—"How long will it be before Socialism is here?"—that rests with the working class themselves. They are the obstacle. When they have come to realise the need for Socialism, and to see that the road lies through the capture of the political machinery by an organised and class-conscious working class, when they have organised themselves in the political party of the workers—the Socialist Party—for the capture of this political machinery, then Socialism will be at hand.

N. E. Gwynn.

The Canadian "Homesteader." :A Reply To W. Searle. (1914)

Letters to the Editors from the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

W. Searle writes from Sask., Canada, " I am a class conscious slave of the farm, having taken up a so called free homestead from the Government . . . If there existed the least suspicion of ‘justice’ in the present system, the homesteader would be highly compensated instead of being charged a ‘filing fee’ for bringing 160 acres of ‘God’s green earth’ under cultivation . . . I should like your assistance in explaining the farmer’s true position as a wage worker. I know that the farmer in selling his wheat sells it at its value I would like to know in what particular manner he is being robbed.”

The answer to this is quite simple. The farmer, in selling his wheat at its value, is not being robbed. The explanation of the (pioneer) farmer's “true position" is to he sought in our correspondent’s remark that be should be compensated for bringing 160 acres of land into cultivation. In this country farmers are robbed by the landowner, for though a few are prosperous men, in general it pans out so that anything and everything the farmer may secure as the result of his own efforts, or may squeeze out of these he employs, goes to the parasite who owns the land he (the farmer) tills.

In our correspondent's case, however, the process is rather different, though the result is very much the same. The man who enters upon the proposition of a “free” homestead is robbed of opportunity. He is driven, through the monopoly in land, to apply his labour-power in such circumstances as render it impossible for it to be rewarded with the ordinary social rate of productivity. To sell his wheat and other produce at its value, therefore, by no means gives him an adequate return for the enormous amount of labour which he in his particular circumstances, has been forced to embody in it. True, if the lonely years do not break his heart, and the Herculean labour does not break his health, and the extortions of a capitalist government do not bleed him to death, he may find himself, in the fulness of time, in possession of a freehold of considerable extent if of little value. It is only this hope, deferred until after years of arduous toil and lonely living, that extracts the "filing fee” from the homesteader’s pocket for the benefit of a capitalist government, and induces him to slave unceasingly for the benefit of elevator companies and railway trusts. These get their picking, whatever befalls the victims they lure into the lonely West.

A. E. Jacomb

The Need For Action. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are quite a number of people claiming to agree with the principles of Socialism who imagine that all that is necessary for the cause is to understand something of the subject, to get some idea of the future state of society, and then patiently wait for the day of emancipation to arrive.

Some are of the opinion that it is quite unnecessary to preach Socialism, believing that the purely economic conditions alone will suffice to convert the working class to our doctrines. They arrive at this erroneous conclusion from the fact that the material conditions ultimately determine the ideas prevalent in society.

But economic conditions produced the electric railway and had each individual been left to discover that by stepping on to the “live" rail be would have been electrocuted the acquisition of his knowledge would undoubtedly have proved most disastrous to him. We therefore propagate the knowledge we have already acquired and so warn people of the dangers of electricity.

The present writer recently heard one who claims to be a Socialist lecturing under the auspices of the Secular Society, of whose principles be is a prominent platform exponent. He drew attention to the fact, that an enormous amount of time and energy was being wasted in the discussion of religion, and claimed that if only people would discontinue these religious controversies they would have all that time to devote to other things. He referred to what he termed an "old chestnut” that was often put to him by Socialists: Why did he waste his time and energy lecturing for the Secular Society?- for even if the working class got the god idea out of their beads, and rejected religion as worthless, they would still have the masterclass to contend with, and the social evils confronting them; and they claimed he should devote his time to the propaganda of Socialism.

With those he did not agree and claimed to be doing good work for humanity by trying to eliminate the god idea from the minds of the people, thus preventing them from wasting their time in religious controversies, and leaving them time and energy for social improvements.

That the people who are now devoting so much time and energy in discussing these trivial religious questions are wasting their time is quite true. But simply showing people that they are on the wrong road does not necessarily put them on the right one. If there were only two roads from which to choose, then the position would not be difficult. But, unfortunately, there are many paths that may be taken, yet only one that leads in the right direction; and the chances are very remote that our mental traveller will immediately alight on the right road, while dozens of political cul de sacs may be traversed and examined before our seeker after social salvation is fully convinced that the only way is in the path of Socialism. How many become weary in their search, and abandon the task in despair!

It behoves us, then, and all those who understand Socialism, to point the way and do our utmost to guide the seeker after true freedom along the path which we know to he right, for surely there is no better way of proving to people that they are wasting their time and energy plodding the wrong road than by convincing them that another is the only way.

Let us all, then, try and do SOMETHING, no matter how small that something may be, to enlighten our fellow workers. Everyone who understands Socialism can do something. If unable to address a meeting, take the chair, write an article for the official organ or publicly sell literature at propaganda meetings, then other means are open to him. He may know of some friend who has never read a copy of the Socialist Standard; let him, then, hand him a copy and extract from him a promise to read it; or he could leave a copy where it would be likely to be read. He may be in a position to assist financially, to quietly or openly distribute leaflets or handbills, or to advertise the useful pamphlets when opportunity affords.

There is not a single Socialist but could do something to assist in making another convert; and if this view was generally adopted and practised, then the membership of the organisation would be speedily doubled.

Let us try.

H. A. Young

Editorial: Ten Years of Struggle. (1914)

Editorial from the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the 12th June of this year the Socialist Party completes ten years of effort in the service of the working class. Of course it is mere sentiment to say that therefore the 12th of June is any more important than the 11th, but, after all, sentiment is a very real attribute of the human make-up, and has its uses. So we will indulge it to the extent of calling the day auspicious, if for no better purpose than that of doing a little stock-taking.

It has become a matter of history how a band of stalwarts, weary of struggling with the reactionary and traitorous elements in the S.D.F., and hopeless of being able to place that decrepit organisation on a sound basis, came out of it, and with a few others formed a revolutionary political working-class party.

There were prophets in those days, and the prognostications of those gifted with second sight concerning the period which would elapse before the "new party" went to pieces would make interesting reading now, in view of how it has fared with us and what has happened to them. But the "new party" was born with a strong constitution, and it survived—and even flourished.

The reason for this comes out with startling clearness after ten years of battle. It is simply that it is founded upon fundamental principles.

Ten years have been a sufficient time for these principles to be thoroughly tested, and they have been so tested. They have been tested by the undesirables who came into the Party at its inception, and by those who have crept in since. But as always they have enabled the Party to purge itself clean and healthy. But they have been further tested by the inroads which time has made upon the roll of the founders. For while the membership of the Party is seven times as great as at its formation, the band of founders is sadly reduced in number. Yet our Declaration of Principles has proved, in other hands than those who framed them, a sufficient instrument for their revolutionary purpose. We know therefore that it will suffice to the end.