The valour of discretion. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Southend S.D.F. prefers to ape Brer Rabbit.

In our January number we referred to and answered certain charges made against the Socialist Party of Great Britain by Mr. Doody, speaking for the Southend Branch of the Social Democratic Federation. These charges were the only answer Mr. Doody appears to have been able to make to questions touching the confusing and unsatisfactory tactics of the S.D.F., which were put to him at a public meeting by our Comrade Rogers. As we were, without difficulty, able to shew, the charges were as devoid of foundation as the allegation that Mr. Doody fully understands the only logical position a Socialist Party can adopt. But as Mr. Doody proceeded to challenge our Comrade Fitzgerald to public debate (in an exuberance doubtless born of the knowledge that Fitzgerald was many miles away), we were content to leave the further presentation of our case in justification of our opposition to the S.D.F. and all other similar capitalist adjuncts in the hands of Fitzgerald, confident of his ability to supply those inhabitants of Southend interested in the matter with all the evidence they might require.

Since then, we have been endeavouring to induce the Southend S.D.F. to give effect to the challenge their champion threw out. We publish the correspondence below from which it will be seen that after much hesitation, they elected to deprive Southend of the pleasure of hearing a local character—as we understand Mr. Doody is—attempt to demolish our case. We can only assume that having some not unnatural misapprehension on this score, they sought to stave off possible catastrophe (and us) by proposing to transfer the discussion from Southend to London. But we are always glad of the opportunity a debate offers to vindicate our position to the working class, and we accepted the changed venue. Since when we can get no further communication from them.

This seems to be a case of a challenge in haste repented at leisure and we ask the workers of Southend where we are pleased to know THE SOCIALIST STANDARD has a very good circulation—to observe what manner of men our opponents are and what manner of method they pursue.

The point that Mr. Doody issued the challenge is, it will be seen, disputed, but as our Comrade Rogers sends details of the incidents leading up to the challenge and has a clear recollection of the whole matter, there seems little doubt that Mr. Doody’s memory is faulty. However, the point is probably in the minds ot the audience of the meeting referred to, and need not be laboured.

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1a. Caledonian Road, London, N.

December 27th, 1905.

Dear Comrade,

We are informed by our member Miss Laura Rogers, that a member of the Southend Branch of the Social Democratic Federation, viz., Mr. Thomas Doody, has publicly expressed his desire to meet our comrade John Fitzgerald in public debate and I shall, therefore, feel obliged if you will inform me as soon as possible, as I understand that you are the Secretary of the Southend Branch of the S.D.F., what proposals you have to make with respect to the challenge.

—Yours fraternally.

R. H. Kent. Asst. Sec.

Mr. S. Howard.

Point Loma, Cromer Road. 

Southend-on-Sea.

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la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

January 17th, 1906.

Dear Comrade,

Will you kindly favor us with an early reply to our letter of the 27th December last, respecting the public, challenge issued by your Mr. Thomas Doody to debate with our Comrade Fitzgerald. 

—Yours fraternally.

R. H. Kent. Asst. Sec.

Mr. S. Howard.

Point Loma, Cromer Road,

Southend-on-Sea.

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Point Loma, Cromer Road, Southend-on-Sea.

Jan’y 20th, 1906.

R.H. Kent,

Assist. Sec’y.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Dear Comrade,

In reply to your letter dated the 17th inst. (to hand last night), I wrote a letter to your office on the 18th inst., but not having your letter of the 27th ulto. before me, I inadvertently addressed it to “Miss Kate Hawkins” as Assistant Sec.! However, the following is a copy of it :—

“I much regret the delay in acknowledging the receipt of your letter of some days ago, with reference to a proposed debate. The question put to Mr. T. Doody by your Miss L. Rogers was, ‘Are yon prepared to defend the tactics of the S.D.F.,’ to which the reply ‘ Yes’ was given; and I am instructed to inform you that he is prepared to do so at any time, and anywhere, in London".

Yours fraternally,

S. Howard,

Branch Sec. S.D.F.

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la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

24th January, 1906.

Mr. S. Howard,

Secretary,

Southend Branch, Social-Democratic Federation,

Point Loma, Cromer Road,

Southend-on-Sea.

Dear Comrade.

I am directed by the Executive Committee to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 20th inst., and in doing so to express their very great surprise at the attempt to change the venue of the proposed debate from Southend to London. They instruct me to point out that the challenge arose out of a public meeting held at Southend under the auspices of the Southend Branch of the Social-Democratic Federation, and was accepted, by Mr. T. Doody who, we presume, was your accredited representative at that meeting.

My Executive, therefore, see no reason why the debate should not be held in Southend, and they suggest that it would not be fair to the members of the public who were present at your meeting when the challenge was given and accepted, if they were deprived of the opportunity of hearing the differences between us fully discussed.

I am accordingly instructed to make the following definite proposals to you: —

That the, debate between Mr. T. Doody, representing the Southend Branch of the Social-Democratic Federation, and our comrade J. Fitzgerald, representing the Executive Committee of this Party, should be held in a public hall at Southend at as early a date as can conveniently be arranged:

That admission to the meeting shall be free : that it shall be well advertised by means of posters and handbills ; and that the total expense shall be borne equally between yourselves and this Party.

Kindly favour me with an early reply, so that arrangements can be made without delay.

Yours fraternally,

R. H. Kent,

Asst. Sec.

_______________

Social-Democratic Federation,

Southend-on-Sea Branch,

Southehurch Road.

Feb. 1st, 1906.

Dear Comrade,

Your letter of the 24th ulto. received, and the same shall be laid before my Branch on the 7th inst.

Yours fraternally,

S. Howard,

Branch Sec.

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Social-Democratic Federation,

Southend-on-Sea Branch,

Southehurch Road. Sunday,

Feb. 18th, 1906.

The Secretary,

Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Comrade,

I reply to your communication of the 24th January. I am instructed to say that my Committee do not see that any good can be gained by having a debate here. Your Party has no branch, and under all the circumstances, if the debate is to take place, it must, as stated in a previous letter to you, be somewhere in London where you have a branch or branches.

Yours fraternally,

P. Pro Branch Committee,

J. Adams.

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la. Caledonian Road, London, N.

24th Feb., 1906.

Mr. J. Adams,

Southend-on-Sea Branch.

Social Democratic Federation, Southchurch Road,

Southend-on-Sea.

Dear Comrade,

Your letter of the 18th inst. was laid before the Executive Committee on Tuesday last, and in reply I am instructed to inform you that the correspondence will be published.

I am further directed to state that the E.C. accepts your offer to debate in London, also your offer to debate in Southend as soon as a branch of this Party is formed in Southend.

Please let us know the dates on which your Mr. Doody could come to London, in order that arrangements may be made for the debate here.

Yours fraternally,

C. Lehane,

General Secretary.

Physical Deterioration and Education. (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is frequently asserted by patrons of monopoly that the educating of the masses has been a dismal failure. The snob-employer says it resentfully when dismissing some audacious demand for wage increase, the patrician superciliously when some hireling makes him aware of the rights of men. The cleric contemplating his empty conventicle likewise laments the disastrous results of education. Each and all ascribe the lamentable condition of revolt to the dangerousness of a little learning. Viewed with capitalist eyes, if Education evokes class-consciousness it is indeed anathema, but to the Socialist the murmur of the master is a message of hope.

Is, or is not, compulsory education a waste of public funds?

Under existing conditions a vast amount of expenditure receives no ultimate return whatever. Statistics of five years back proved that 75% of the lowest class who had passed through all the standards of school had great difficulty to write legibly and read unstumblingly when the age of thirty was attained. Only this last week in discussion with an enthusiast on education who has much practical experience in slum schools and is quite anti-socialistic, the following valuable admission was made: "Nothing can be done to obtain happier results unless the surroundings of the pupils are materially altered."

This current year in one of the poorer schools an inspector contrasted the work done by children of eleven with the studies easily understood by his young daughter of nine. The elder— offspring of the picker-up of a precarious, hand-to-mouth existence—lagged far behind the junior whose childhood was unharassed by trade fluctuations. If it be true that "Where Care lodges, Sleep will not lie" verily it is daily proven that study and worry have no dealings one with another. How is it conceivable that the horrors of the home can be superseded by the joys of knowledge ? For instance, our little ones come to morning session mainly breakfast-less, certainly lacking a nourishing meal after a night of unrefreshing repose: children and adults alike occupy one bed in the vitiated atmosphere of the one room constituting their "home" situated in some airless slum—Short's Gardens, Lamb's Conduit Passage, Betterton Street, alleys in the New Cut and Canning Town. One child in the Third Standard three weeks ago awoke to find her mother dead by her side. Such shocks as these are not conducive to alertness of apprehension or retention of facts.

Again, compare the average age of scholars in higher grade and very poor schools. It is two years behind in the latter case; and then, too, the middle-class school displays no such divisions as are found in the less favoured one. Here the pupils are classified thus—An intelligent majority, who, by dint of incessant drudgery will be capable of passing up one standard every twelve months, then the obviously dull, who will be tutored in same class two or more years,— sometimes when the age-limit of fourteen is reached the child is still in the Second Standard, —thirdly, those most pathetic specimens, pupils passed on from our defective centres. Very few people have any idea of the vast expense of these little citizens to the nation !

Although the Code of Instruction is supposed to be compiled for all schools under Government there is a significant clause in it to the effect that all regulations shall be enforced "as far as circumstances will permit." After arduous attempts to adopt the full curriculum the exemption has over and over again had to be claimed, owing to the total inability of the learners to grasp more than the merest rudiments. Inspectors will discourage the ambitions of a freshly installed head-teacher who places before them for their approval a most comprehensive syllabus. One who has just retired after many years service said that it was a sheer impossibility and absurdity to seek to compel such stunted capacities to comprehend anything which required concentration of thought.

Various illustrations can be cited of teachers who have believed not these reports, but, with a faith in their own powers beautiful to behold, have made a brave fight to establish more advanced subjects,—several of such disillusioned ones are personally known to the penner,—who after strenuous struggles have abandoned the position : beating the air is a singularly disheartening process. Even in lessons such as Drill when acumen is not demanded the body-conquering is noticeable. In every class there are children too weak to take muscular exercise, and many of the others are utterly wearied by half-an-hour's training.

In conclusion, we admit the failure but do not attribute it to the causes so frequently assigned, but to the dwarfing due to semi-starvation. Reforming the methods employed, altering the requirements, or any reform whatever will be futile : the sound, healthy body and teachable mind cannot be the lot of the youth of the nation under Capitalsm.

Kate Hawkins