SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1957)

  Party News from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1966)

Party News from the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1964)

Party News from the October 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1966)

Party News from the March 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Problem of Transport (1967)

From the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

A constant and pressing problem today, especially in a greater conurbation like London, is the problem of transport. Crowded trains, buses late or cut out, the constant whine of jet planes, dirt, noise and fumes — the list is endless.

At the heart of to-day’s transport problems is the motor-car, loved and hated to an immoderate degree, transforming the very face of the country, as a century ago the steam locomotive was transforming it. Any tenth-rate comedian can get a laugh by just saying ‘Barbara Castle’, as if a change of personality at the head of the Ministry of Transport would make an atom of difference to the problem.

In an effort to ease the jammed-up roads, pleasant gardens and tree-lined avenues are cut up for wider roads, while parks and squares are ruined to make car parks, and even the humble pub garden becomes a little asphalt desert. Motorways run like a scar across the countryside, and winding lanes are ‘improved’ out of recognition. Worst of all is the ever mounting toll of accidents.

None of this is particularly new; it is merely a change of form. That profit is the only serious consideration, with human comfort and happiness coming a very poor second, is true to-day and has been true for as long as capitalism has existed. London, and all big cities, have for centuries been very noisy places. Iron clad wheels and horses’ hooves, clattering over cobbles, made a terrible din and congestion in London was notorious.

Rowlandson, in a typically unflattering series of etchings, drew a picture of traffic chaos in the early 19th century. In the late 1850’s the London General Omnibus Company alone had about six hundred horse-buses, and horse trams appeared on the scene in the 1860’s. Congestion in the City gave rise to plans for a pedestrian bridge over Ludgate Circus, and the first underground railway (imagine the “Met” with steam engines) was put through to relieve congestion.

By the 1890’s there were over 1,700 buses and about 900 trams in central London. Over it all rode the locomotive, a smoky monster that blackened the working class districts through which it cut into London. The childish squabbles indulged in by rival railway companies, as in 1884 when the District Line chained a locomotive in a disputed siding at South Kensington Station and three Metropolitan Line engines tried to pull it out, make the snarling of motorists at traffic light to-day seem very tame.

The protests at Motorways ruining the countryside echo the protests of a century ago when the railways were doing the same thing. No, the problem hasn’t changed, but the vast increase in population, and the much greater powers of production, have made it more acute.

Now, the canals that once drove men and horses hard for greater speed and profit are pleasant, green oases in endless suburbs, and the once hated steam engine a romantic memory. It is the internal combustion engine that dominates the 20th Century.

No other modern industry has had such a profound influence on the social and economic life to-day as the motor industry. Its development has resulted in the decline of once important industries, and has given an impetus to a mass of others that were unimportant at the turn of the century. It was one of the main factors in the migration of industries, from the North of England to the South and to the Midlands, that took place between the wars.

Like the steam engine that preceded it, the internal combustion engine began its existence as a static form of power, and was later adapted for locomotion. Steam cars had been in existence since the early years of the 19th century, but they were heavy and fuel was a problem. The internal combustion engine made possible a much lighter vehicle. More important, it could be run over existing public roads, unlike the railways which had to stick to a set route; this made for greater mobility. By the beginning of the present century the motor vehicle was with us.

Its application followed existing patterns, in the various forms of road transport in existence at the time—the private carriage, the bus and the wagon. In its early days the motor-car was still a luxury reserved for the type of people who could afford a carriage. The bulk of the population travelled by public transport.

The first motor buses appeared in Britain about 1898, and by the early 1920’s they had been joined by the long distance coach.

One of the selling points used by the promoters of coach travel before the war was that coaches took you through the heart of towns and villages, and gave you a better view of the country. Today more and more coaches trail along dreary motorways and by-pass towns and villages.

Slowly the motor buses pushed the railways into the background, and drove the tramcars off the road. The swing was first from the railways to public road transport; the golden age of the bus was the 1930’s.

But now, by changed production methods and a heavy reliance on hire purchase, the private car has become available to the mass of the people. There were four times as many cars on the roads in 1964 as in 1939 and the number is still growing. Furthermore, the number of people travelling to work from a fair distance away has grown steadily over the last 100 years. The resulting chaos has brought home the importance of the railways, with their much greater carrying capacity. Without their rail systems, cities like London woud seize up in the rush hour.

Since the war a favourite pipe-dream has been an ‘integrated public transport system’, with transport used in a balanced way to its best advantage. But capitalism doesn’t work that way. If profit can be made it will be made, however pleasant or unpleasant the result may be. If, on the other hand, something like the railways no longer pays, but is considered necessary to the general interest of capitalism, then it will be subsidised, but as cheaply as possible.

The grim railway arches that overshadowed the mean terraces of south and east London were held up as examples of the inhumanity of the Victorians, but the new fly-overs that overshadow houses to-day show the same contempt for the people who live underneath. Transport has changed. It will change again, we can only guess how; but one thing is certain. If capitalism remains the new transport will be as nasty as the old.

Les Dale

Nationalism and Communism by Hugh Seton-Watson (1964)

Book Review from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nationalism and Communism, by Hugh Seton-Watson, Methuen, 36s. 

One of the minor effects of the many years of political tension between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union, that has become known as the Cold War, is a widespread ignorance of those European countries that are within the Russian bloc. Occupied by Russian troops at the end of the second world war, and kept in military and economic subjection ever since, they tend to be dismissed as of no importance.

People with extensive knowledge of West European or American politics and their economic problems, know nothing of the affairs of Eastern Europe. Only when, as in 1956 in Hungary, the scene erupts into violence, do they receive much attention. Yet a hundred million people live here in an area of nearly half a million square miles. We buy food and manufactured articles, gramophone records and books from them in ever increasing numbers, but most of us have a very scanty knowledge of the countries themselves.

Nationalism and Communism is a collection of essays written between 1946 and 1963, and first published in a wide variety of newspapers and periodicals. It contains interesting and detailed reports from the Eastern European States, of the ruthless and cynical methods used by the Communist parties of those countries to gain and hold power.

The book contains also an excellent potted history of the rise of Nationalism. The conceptions of “nation” and “race” that have played so large, and so destructive, a part in recent history, are modern.

The idea of the “nation” was largely unknown before the 18th century, and it first became a major political issue in the French Revolution. As late as 1815 Metternich and Alexander 1 of Russia regarded nationalism as a subversive idea. It was in the 19th century that nationalistic theories spread throughout the world. Not only the major powers, but economic groups seeking independence from domination by a greater power, began to build up theories about their origins to prove that they were a race apart.

Les Dale

Political Parties by Maurice Duverger (1964)

Book Review from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political Parties, by Maurice Duverger. (University Paperbacks, 16s.)

During the past few weeks we have had every opportunity to watch modern political parties in action. We have witnessed these parties using every possible method, both ancient and modern, to draw the voters to the polling booth, and to flatter, cajole or panic them into putting their crosses against the right names.

The performances of the two main parties in the last election were worth examining. They knew that scares must not be overdone and no drum must be banged for too long, less the public get bored. Because if they get bored they might not turn out to vote, and however stupid or ill-informed the voters may be, it is their vote that decides the election. The ultimate power rests in the hands of the mass of the people, the working class, and it is the tragedy of the age that they use this power—not to end their bondage, but to perpetuate it.

It is to secure the votes of the electorate, and to ensure that the power, both national and local, stays in the hands of the party caucus, that modern parties exist.

Although many of the present day parties, such as the Liberal and Conservative parties in Britain, have a long history and still retain their old names, they have changed so much in their organisation as to be really different bodies. The twentieth century party system is modern, and has little in common with the parties of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The parties that existed before universal suffrage were mere Parliamentary groupings with the object of getting a working majority in Parliament, to enable a group to operate as a government. They had little real existence outside of Parliament.

With the coming of the 19th century and a wider but still limited franchise the so-called “middle class” parties came into being. These were based on groups or caucuses, composed of influential or well-known people. Narrowly recruited and with a rather exclusive membership, they did not want the masses to join and made no effort to recruit them. Each party was very decentralised, with their local groups largely independent of the others. Often these groups centred round the leading family in an area.

Those who remember the late 1940’s will recall the frantic and, as it turned out, successful efforts of the Conservative Party to shed the last remnants of the 19th century, and to transform themselves into a modern party. Modern parties, with their mass membership, their constant drives for new members, and their high degree of centralisation, are products of a world in which the masses can no longer be ignored.

Political Parties, by Maurice Duverger, recently published as a paper back, is a very useful text-book. A trifle heavy going, it is nevertheless well worth reading. It deals with Political Parties throughout the world, and describes in detail the Parties and electoral systems of all the more highly developed countries, including totalitarian, one-party states.

Les Dale.

Obituary: Leslie Dale (2004)

Obituary from the July 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Les Dale, our friend and comrade for many years, died on 22nd May in Newport Hospital on the Isle of Wight, aged 84 years.

He and his wife Queenie joined Ealing Branch in 1952. Les accepted our case after discussion with another comrade (the late Jack Law) during their time on the land together as conscientious objectors during the Second World War. Right from the outset, he became active in the work of the branch, soon excelling at the job of literature secretary. What heady days they were, with rapidly increasing sales of the Standard plus much other literature besides. His experience was put to good use when we worked together on the production committee of the Standard in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Les had a very fine knowledge of horticulture and agriculture and was also well versed in medieval history. With his firm grasp of the materialist conception of history he wrote periodically for the Standard and gave lectures on his favoured topics to various Party branches.

Sadly, his wife died of leukaemia at the early age of 48. It was a bitter blow to all who knew her, but Les showed great courage in carrying on despite his grief. Now that he is also gone, we will miss him greatly but will cherish the memory of his erudition and his keen philosophical wit.

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1964)

Party News from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Colour mania in the past (1965)

From the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Colour prejudice, and the classification of people as “superior” or “inferior” simply because of the colour of their skin, is one of the most persistent and pernicious of fallacies. The important thing to remember is that such an attitude is completely modern. It is not something that has existed from the beginning of man’s life, and neither is it a deep-rooted human instinct.

Its origins lie a mere three or four hundred years back. No European regarded Genghis Khan or Suleiman the Magnificent as inferior beings, or worried about their colour. And they themselves were “colour-blind;” their murderous and highly efficient armies were multi-racial. The shock troops of the Turkish army, the Janissaries, contained a large number of white men in their ranks. Again, in the 15th Century when Portuguese ships were edging their way around the coast of Africa, they did not consider that the colour of the Continent's inhabitants was important. Anybody who embraced Christianity and fitted into the economic set-up was accepted into the fold. Both Mulattoes and Negroes rose to high positions in Portuguese society. They commanded Portuguese ships, and many became priests, often rising to be high dignitaries of the church. They became interpreters and advisers to native chiefs and to resident Europeans, as well as brokers and merchants. Many settled in Europe, after a successful career of moneymaking. More important still, many became slave-traders of great importance, feeling no more affinity with negro slaves than a European aristocrat felt for a European peasant.

Certainly prejudices and hatreds of one sort or another have existed for centuries. Religious bigotry, fear and suspicion of strangers, aristocratic contempt for the lower classes, hostility between cities or states, and the bitterness of the merchant classes towards the landed nobility are a few examples. The permutations were endless, but they had nothing to do with colour. The Jews were the object of bitter persecution for many centuries, but this was purely a religious matter, and not racial.

It is to the history of modern Europe that we must turn for an explanation of colour prejudice. For about 300 years Western Europe had it all its own way, and dominated the world. As Europe moved from Feudalism into Capitalism, it went through a period of intense development—technological, military, and political. This gave it an immense advantage over other areas, especially the two great continents of America and Africa, whose inhabitants were in a much earlier stage of development. Ancient empires went down before mere handfuls of Europeans, and the treasure houses of Peru and Bengal were open to these rapacious plunderers. Whole continents were colonised and exploited by these same small nations. This gave rise to ideas about the superiority of the white races. The workers of Europe, slaving away in their dark Satanic mills, were able to console themselves with the thought that they were members of a “Master Race”. This gave rise to race theorists whose ideas, suitably simplified, are still trotted out today.

Of course three hundred years is a very short time in over five thousand years of recorded history, and if you apply the test—that military or scientific ability equals superiority—to five thousand years, and not just three hundred, then the white races have come out pretty badly. Race theories are now being put forward again in this country, for example by the British National Party, who are trying to exploit immigration difficulties in Southall. They overlook the fact that the people who formed the spearhead of European expansion—Portuguese, Spaniards and Italians: men like Columbus, Cortez, Vasco da Gama, and Cabot — were members of what race theorists consider an inferior section of the white races, dubbed by Lapouge, one of the most rabid of racists, as Homo Alpinus. You may not be able to have your cake and eat it but race theorists are always trying to.

As conditions change, so we are witnessing the racists shifts in attitude. Not so long ago the Chinese were regarded in a rather patronising manner. Romantic or sinister, mysterious or comical, but definitely inferior. A popular song of the 1920’s —Limehouse Blues—describes them as “Chinkies”. That sinister lot, with their opium dens in a kind of East London hell —any schoolboy, who could afford the price of a Tuppeny Blood knew that they were up to no good. In reality the Chinese of East London were small in number and engaged in the most mundane of occupations. But China, having led the world for most of its history, had temporarily fallen behind. It was divided and militarily weak, a prey to the greed of the European powers, and overshadowed by its pushing neighbour Japan. The Chinese could be regarded with amused tolerance. Today such expressions as “Chinkies” and “Chinaman” have a strange, archaic ring, and it is difficult to realise that they were once in common usage. Today China is a major power with its foot on the nuclear ladder, and is now challenging the U.S.A. or Russia. Chinamen are no longer comical.

But of all race prejudices, one stands out above all others—that against the Negro. An American Negro folk singer summed up the position in a few bitter lines.

If you're White, alright,

If you're Brown, stick around,

But if you’re Black, get back—get back—get back.

Unbelieveable lengths have been gone to, to keep the image of the Negro as an inferior being, and to write the lie into the sub-conscious mind. One example will suffice. The great folk hero of the 20th century is the cowboy, played against a backcloth of the legendary West. For fifty years they've galloped across the screens in their thousands. One thing you will never see; a Black Cowboy. But at the time of the great cattle drives, there were estimated to be over five thousand Negroes working as cowboys. This is not surprising, as cattle droving was a dangerous and badly paid job, and Negroes, like other members of the working class including Mexicans and Chinese, worked at it.

Forty years ago in the early Western films all cowboys were Whiter than White, while Mexicans, with their nasty faces under their big hats, were the villains. Today Mexicans and Chinese cowboys are portrayed, but the Negro still must not be allowed to be a folk hero. Why does such an attitude exist? The answer lies in one word; Slavery. With the opening of the American Continent there began a gigantic forced migration. The caravels that sailed from West Africa to the New World with their tragic cargo were radically to alter the pattern of world population. They were to make the Negro races second only to Europeans in their dispersion throughout the world. Estimates vary, but certainly many millions of Negroes were transported. Chattel slavery was an ancient institution, it was one of the economic stages through which humanity had passed. But modern slavery was unique.

In slave societies slavery was accepted as part of life, just as wage labour is accepted today. Anyone of any race or religion was liable to be a slave; even a member of a ruling class could be captured in war and enslaved. Slavery was regarded as a misfortune, it was not regarded as a sign of racial inferiority. But there was an important difference about the slavery that grew up in the modern world, in that the people who practised it had long left slavery behind. Europe had passed out of slavery, through feudalism, and was emerging into Capitalism by the lime the Western slave trade got under way. The world was treated to a new spectacle — slave traders who prated of freedom. At least the slavers of ancient Rome or Baghdad had not accompanied their activities with shouts of Liberty and Equality.

After all, the logical conclusion of a belief in liberty is that all men should be free, but the slavers’ profits were far too good for that kind of logic. To struggle, and even suffer, for political freedom on one hand, and accept slavery on the other, requires the kind of attitude that can look at a modern dictatorship and call it a Peoples’ Democracy, it also needs justification, and the only way the slavers could do this was to convince themselves that the slaves were sub-human, and fit only for slavery. To achieve this end the bottom of the intellectual barrel was scraped, and the Bible as well as pseudo-science were dragged into bolster up the double talk.

But colour mania goes beyond a mere question of skin colour. Race theorists have invented divisions within the “white” races themselves, with colour of hair, eyes and the shade of skin as the “tests’’. These divisions have been given such names as the Latin, Celtic, Slav or Aryan races. In fact these divisions are purely linguistic, and extremely vague ones at that; .they have nothing whatever to do with race. Which of them is held to be inferior or superior depends largely on which group the particular theorist happens to belong to. 

Perhaps the most violent and disastrous of all these myths was that of the Aryan, Nordic or Teuton, which reached its ultimate lunacy in Nazi Germany. “Teutons" are, roughly those people living in North West Europe, mainly Germany, Scandinavia, the Low countries and England. They are, according to themselves, the finest flowering of the human race. The "true Teuton” is blond, tall and blue eyed. This is so silly, as a glance at the majority of people in these countries will show, that one would be inclined to dismiss it, if it were not for the terrible example of Nazi Germany. One has only to look at many of the Nazi leaders — including Hitler — to realise the depth of self-deception that the racists can plumb.

The definition of the “true Teuton” is interesting. Every age and civilisation has its ideal type of person, and an ideal conception of beauty. This ideal changes, often from generation to generation, as a study of advertisements, matinée idols and popular magazines over the last half century will show. These ideal types tend to be portrayed in popular literature, art or poetry, in spite of the fact that they bear little or no relationship to the vast majority of people, so that a picture of an age, taken from these sources alone, would be completely deceptive. The “ideal person ’ of the Vikings and early North Europeans appears to have been tall, blond and blue eyed. All of the ”best people” in their sagas and poems, all the gods, heroes, and nobility, are portrayed in this manner. With the rise of German and other European nationalisms these ancient writings were brought out, and it was concluded, quite incorrectly, that all early and therefore “pure” Teutons were; tall, blond and blue eyed.

Workers who profess to support the theories of the racists, should read them a little more carefully. All the race theorists —Gobineau, Lapouge, Houston Chamberlain or Nietzsche to name just a few—had another side to their theories. This was their contempt for the working class. Whatever their differences on other fields they were agreed on this one point. The mere fact of being workers, they thought, marked people out as lower human types. All the race theorists had axes to grind — German nationalism, British Imperialism, control of immigrants into the U.S.A., and above all aristocratic supremacy. They would not have been at all impressed by such slogans as Keep Brixton White, considering that Brixton, like other working class areas, was fit only for what they called “lower human types” to inhabit.

Race theorists today are unscientific, inconsistent and pernicious. In this, they arc carrying on an inglorious tradition, and perpetuating a history of cynical deception..

Les Dale

The First Age of Speed (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Short as was the hey-day of canal transport the supremacy of the “flying coaches” was even shorter, From about 1810 to the late 1830’s. The Golden Age of coaching lasted a mere generation but it has held the popular imagination for over a century.

Unlike their floating counterparts—the canal packet-boats that have been forgotten—the stage coaches are a familiar feature to people who were born long after their disappearance. They have a romantic appeal that was fostered by Victorian writers who looked back to them with nostalgia once the noisy, smoky locomotive had taken their place.

But there was nothing romantic about coach travel. It developed in an age of ruthless competition, in fact the first age of speed, when speed became important for its own sake. Men and horses were driven ruthlessly to keep to strict schedules and constant efforts were made to clip minutes off travelling times. The Comet on the London to Exeter run aimed to change horses at Hounslow near London in 30 seconds.

It was understandable, that after centuries of painfully slow travel, a smooth and swift transport system should appeal to people, but fantastic risks were taken that often resulted in accidents. Wealthy idiots would drive private carriages at break-neck speeds and would even bribe coach drivers to let them take the reins of the public coaches. But in spite of this it was still an efficient transport system that would have seemed impossible only a few years before. This system was made possible by the far reaching improvements in road construction and bridge building that had taken place at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries.

Medieval Roads
The hopeless state of the roads during the first half of the 18th century that had led to canal construction, led also to constant agitation for road improvement. One 18th century cartoon portrays a sailor with a wooden leg refusing an offer of a lift in a coach saying “No thanks I’m in a hurry.” But the problem was a complex one. Since the departure of the Romans 1300 years before no properly constructed roads had been built on any large scale. The Romans had built with great thoroughness, their roads often being five feet in depth and carried across swampy land on piles driven down to firm soil. After over a thousand years of neglect they were still the best roads in England in spite of having been robbed for stone.

The roads of Medieval Britain were, in short, little better than the farm tracks of today. Medieval man regarded a road as a right of way rather than a permanent highway. A person or vehicle had a right of passage “without let or hindrance” but no more. If the road was impassable a traveller had the right to pass along the edge of the road even through standing crops. Pack-horse trains on finding a track in a bad condition would tread out a new one alongside. In this way a number of parallel tracks would be formed, sometimes covering a hundred yards or more. This situation survives today in the public “rights of way” through the countryside where there is the right of passage from point to point but no obligation to provide, a surface to the path. Medieval man could manage with such an arrangement but a growing industrial country could not.

Turnpike Roads
By the 18th century, responsibility for the upkeep of the roads had been thrust on to the unwilling parishes. The parishes were responsible for all roads that passed through them and the work had to be done without payment. A surveyor had to be appointed for a year, to organise the work. This official was forced to accept the job and was unpaid. The inhabitants were forced to work without pay for a number of days a year and the parish had to supply all tools, materials and horses free of charge. Under these circumstances very little real work was done. At the same time the parishes were fiercely independent and resisted any attempt at a central control.

To meet this problem the Turnpike System came into being. Barriers were set up on the road and anyone passing through had to pay tolls which went to pay for the road’s upkeep. Turnpike trusts were set up to administer the system, the first Turnpike Act being passed in 1663. From the beginning there was bitter and violent opposition. The canals and the later railways were privately owned and after the necessary Act of Parliament had been obtained work could go on with little or no regard for anybody affected. But the roads were public and the idea of charging tolls for their use aroused tremendous resentment. Tollgates were destroyed, gate-keepers were attacked and sometimes murdered and their houses burned down. The Government retaliated by extending the death penalty for offences against the turnpikes. Although with the passage of time opposition died down, the system was never popular and riots would break out from time to time. This attitude was strengthened by the Turnpike trusts themselves. In the main they were corrupt and regarded the income from tolls as something to be milked, consequently road improvement was very slow. Not until late in the 18th century did the need for well-constructed and therefore expensive roads become generally accepted.

The canals had been constructed to carry heavy goods. It was to carry coal, not people that the first one had been constructed. After they were built their obvious advantages led to the development of passenger traffic. But the reasons for constructing good roads were many and various. Firstly military. The first good roads since the Roman occupation were built in the highlands of Scotland by the British army under General Wade when about 400 miles of roads were built. This was after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 and the purpose was to subdue the highlands by making troop movements easy.

It was many years after this before good roads were constructed in other parts of the country. Other reasons were the growth of the postal system, the development of the Inland Spas and later the new seaside resorts where the wealthy landowner and the rising Capitalist class went to spend the wealth that they had wrung from the "dark Satanic mills.” There was also travel for commercial reasons, which grew as industry grew.

After the roads had been built their advantages for general transport became obvious. During the later part of the century first Metcalf, then Telford and McAdam, began a great construction programme that included not only roads but bridges, docks and harbours as well as improvements to canals. The political need for easy access to Ireland gave rise to one of the most important of schemes, the London to Holyhead road which included the famous suspension bridge over the dangerous Menai Straits.

The first mail coach ran from London to Bath in 1784 and the system rapidly spread. The mail coaches were the “aristocrats” of the road and travelled free of charge. Toll gates had to be opened immediately and there were heavy fines for delaying them. Their first duty was to deliver the mail but they also carried passengers. Their fierce rivals were the stage coaches, which were privately owned public transport coaches. First class passengers travelled inside, an second class on the roof, and to meet the competition of the Mail coaches constant efforts were made to improve speeds and general conditions. In addition, there were the faster and even more expensive Post coaches that carried inside passengers only. These were for people who objected to the rowdy second class passengers on the roof. The really wealthy travelled in private carriages. All of these coaches were expensive and the lumbering broad-wheeled stage-wagons carrying both passengers and freight catered for poorer people, but even these were beyond the reach of a vast number of people. Another feature of the roads were the flocks of animals and birds being driven into the towns for food.

Steam Carriages

In the early 19th century a new and revolutionary form of travel appeared—the steam carriage. These in the early stages were noisy and cumbersome and were regarded with suspicion but they were soon showing signs of being a serious rival to the horse-drawn coaches. Services both long-distance and within cities, began and unheard of speeds were reached. But the Turnpike trusts feared the damage that they would do to the roads and imposed crippling tolls on them—as much as £3 a time. This, together with legislation restricting them to a speed of 4 miles an hour, drove the steam carriages from the roads. By their action the Turnpike trust helped, to seal their own fate for the steam locomotive, transferred to rails, was to destroy them. During their lifetime the coaches built up a vast supporting industry. In addition to over 30,000 people employed by the coach companies themselves, there were the numerous inns to cater for the needs of the traveller, the tollgate keepers and a vast army of ostlers, and road-menders needed to keep the coaches on the road. There were also such supporting industries as coach-builders and harness makers, and all the lesser fry such as shoe blacks who managed to scrape a living serving the coaches. When the crash came it was complete for unlike the canals the coaches relied mainly on passenger transport and could not survive the competition from the very much faster trains. The distress and poverty that was caused to the unfortunate workers in the industry is vividly described by Dickens.

Some of the labour force was absorbed into the new railways but many sank into increased poverty as capitalism ruthlessly advanced, creating new industries as it destroyed the old.

By 1850 the roads were deserted and becoming grass grown and the once bustling inns which had milked passengers by outrageous charges struggled on as country pubs. Toll-gate keepers who had joined with the Turnpike Trusts in taking their cut from the tolls now sold sweets and repaired boots in their crumbling and neglected lodges. It was to be half a century before the roads once again became an important feature of transport.

Les Dale

See also:

January 1960 Socialist Standard, 'Canals and the Growth of Industry' .

The Flight to Varennes (1963)

Book Review from the January 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Flight to Varennes. by Alexandre Dumas (first English Edition). Alston Books, 15s.

Alexandre Dumas, one of the most famous and prolific of nineteenth century dramatic writers, was beloved of the Victorian reader. His many novels, plays and travel books were in constant demand to while away the hours spent in travel on the new railways or during the long winter evenings, before such things as the gramophone, the radio, and more recently television appeared on the scene.

Dumas himself was a product of the railway age. An age of constant and disturbing change, of an optimistic faith in. progress, mixed with a nostalgic yearning for an idealized past. The book opens with the sentence: —

  Thanks to the railways, we unfailingly arrive at our destinations; indeed we get there quicker than ever, but we no longer travel.

Similar complaints are heard today about air travel, while we also look with nostalgia on the steam and clatter of the fast disappearing Iron Horse, just as Dumas pined for the clatter of horses' hooves on dusty roads.

Nineteenth century France, like Britain, was finally emerging as a world power and also like Britain it needed to dream up a great and heroic past. So Capitalism, with its poverty and squalor, its ruthless exploitation and bitter discontent, was clothed in the trappings of Empire, and such works as the Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo were eagerly read. Like Scott and Ainsworth in Britain, Dumas wrote well; but his style is no longer popular and his readership has declined in the last few decades. Nevertheless his books are ideal material for plays and films, and adaptations from his novels have appeared on television. Often these have little connection with the originals, apart from the title. Cops and robbers in Renaissance costume.

What is not generally known is that Dumas wrote sometimes as an historian. The Flight to Varennes, published for the first time in English by Alston Books, is one of his historical works. Published first in a weekly paper, as was much nineteenth century writing, it describes what is perhaps the most well known incident of the French Revolution; the attempt of the French Royal Family to reach the Netherlands.

Paris in the summer of 1791 was a place of confusion, unrest and brooding violence. Two years had passed since the fall of the Bastille, but the problems mounted. France had become a Constitutional Monarchy; legislation had flowed from the Constituent Assembly in a never ending stream; and the Assembly had voted the Declaration of the Rights of Man. But harvests had been bad and food prices had rocketed. Political factions struggled for power and broadsheets poured from the presses, while behind them all stood the armed bands of Paris. Meanwhile the governments of Europe, fearful lest revolutionary ideas should spread, were massing troops on the borders of France, ready for armed intervention. It was to join these forces in the Austrian Netherlands that was the aim of the attempted flight.

The venture was doomed from the start. Generations of isolation in absolute power, had produced a mentality incapable of grasping change.

  But neither the King nor the Queen realised fully how much times had changed. Marie Antoinette had had many new dresses specially made, her favourite hairdresser (the fantastic Leonard) was sent ahead to the frontier and so was her magnificent inlaid Nécessaire: and two lady's maids travelled with the Queen.
. . . and the flight was made not in light carriages, quick and inconspicuous, but in a great specially-made and luxuriously-appointed berlin, drawn by six horses and accompanied by three liveried bodyguards.

The amazing thing is that they got as far as they did.

Dumas traces the journey from its bungling start on the night of June 21st to its farcical end in Varennes, when in a melodramatic scene that could have been invented for a film, a waggon of furniture was overturned on a bridge, to prevent the fugitives from reaching the Royalist troops waiting on the other side. He also traces their return to a hostile Paris that was prevented from an explosion of mob violence with only the greatest difficulty.

A year later the insurrection of Paris, with its savage butchery, was to sweep away the monarchy and usher in the bloody dictatorship of the Jacobins.

Les Dale

Canals and the Growth of Industry (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Across the face of England, a familiar feature of the landscape, run those half-forgotten waterways, the canals. Like the railways that superseded them, and which often followed their routes, they link the vast industrial areas of the North and the Midlands with London and the seaports. They cross the lines of hills that divide river from river to make a highway from coast to coast. For many miles they are derelict and abandoned. the subject of indignant letters to the press. Weed-choked and in some cases dry, they link small towns and villages that were once centres of industry and commerce. Only between the big cities and the ports are they still busy. But even here, with their slow-moving boats and their quaint hump-backed bridges, they suggest to most people a quieter and less hectic age.

It is difficult to associate them with speed. Difficult to realise that they were once the most modern of highways. Yet for half a century the canal packet-boats were the fastest means of transport at the service of the public. Fatal accidents in the cause of speed were once quite common.

The canals were the transport system that helped to make possible the Industrial Revolution, which was under way by the middle of the 18th century. At that time the new industrial centres of the North and the Midlands were expanding fast. Liverpool, Manchester, and many other towns grew apace as the older industrial areas declined. London, Cobbett’s “Great Wen," sprawled increasingly over the market-gardens that surrounded it. The need for food to feed the growing populations, and the increased profits to be obtained from its production, resulted in new methods of farming. These methods were to be as far-reaching in their effects as the steam engine.

While water-power was still the main source of power, the infant steam-engine had arrived and needed coal. The expanding towns called out for fuel, building materials, and the manufactured goods that poured from the new factories. The factories needed raw materials, ores, timber, and a host of other things. Equally important they needed carriage for their commodities to the ports and to the markets at home.

But the roads, few and far between, were in an intolerable condition, while vast areas were covered only by tracks and bridle-ways. Inadequate for centuries, they had finally broken under the weight of heavy traffic. Difficult in summer, they were almost impassable in winter. Responsibility for their upkeep rested on parish councils and local landowners, who took a parochial view of the problem. The fact that wool, England's main export for medieval times, lent itself to carriage by pack-horse had not provided an incentive to improvement. The principal means of transport was still the pack-horse train.

From Manchester to Liverpool, a distance of only 35 miles, the journey took a whole day, from London to York a week, and from London to Edinburgh 12 days.

These conditions made transport slow, difficult and dangerous: and what was more important to the Capitalist — expensive.

Josiah Wedgwood
An enthusiastic advocate of canals was Josiah Wedgwood. Creative artist and super-salesman, Wedgwood had set up his new Etruria works near Burslem in Staffordshire. Let us glance at the problems confronting him.

The high grade pottery produced at Etruria called for china clay from Cornwall and Devon, flint from Kent and Sussex, and coal. Most important, safe and smooth transport was needed for the fragile products of Etruria. Clay was pack-horsed to Bristol, carried by ship to Liverpool, and from Liverpool transported by broad-wheeled carts along the turnpike road at a rate of two miles an hour. Flint was shipped from the ports of the South-East to Hull, carried by boat on the navigable Rivet Trent to Burton, and once again by pack-horse. Coal and lead came in by the same ancient method. One possible answer to the problem of transport was the turnpike road. But the turnpike roads were few and far between, and crudely constructed. Most of them had restrictions on heavy traffic, and insisted on broad wheels for carts. The “modern” roads of Macadam and Telford, with their fast coaches, were half a century away.

An alternative means of transport was the navigable river, which had been used from ancient times. For 150 years constant improvements had been carried out on them, but river transport had serious limitations. Currents, tides, shallows, low water in summer, and flood in winter, all hampered progress and added to the expense of transport. Mill owners and possessors of fishing rights placed weirs across rivers, which obstructed the passage of barges and caused delays. But, most important of all, rivers do not cross mountain chains or climb high ground; and Britain, being an island, has no river crossing from one side to another.

What was needed was a transport system that was free from these obstructions, and free from administrative muddle, above all, a system that would overcome natural barriers. The rivers could not supply this need, but the experience gained in their improvement and development pointed to the answer—a tideless highway, the canals.

The way of the pioneer is ever hard and the way of the canal pioneer was no exception. The Duke of Bridgewater, a wealthy landowner, who had travelled on the Continent and seen the achievements of French and Italian canal builders, was the owner of coal-mines at Warley near Manchester. He wanted a cheap and easy method of bringing coal to his nearest market, Manchester, and he decided that a canal was the answer. He secured the services of James Brindley, a millwright and an experimentalist with steam engines. Brindley, semi-literate, but with unusual ability, was to canal construction what Stevenson and Brunel were to the later railways. Work began on this project in 1759, and two years later the first coal boat sailed into Manchester. The price of coal dropped immediately from 7d. a hundredweight to 3½d. A second project to extend the canal to Liverpool began and the “Canal Age” had arrived.

Canal Mania
Before this second canal was finished a much more ambitious scheme began, the Grand Trunk Canal. Moving South from Manchester, this was to become the main trunk from which the branches were to cover the country.

When the first canal was begun capital was hard to obtain; and to finance his second—the Manchester-Liverpool canal—Bridgewater had to mortgage his first. But as the canals slowly advanced interest in them grew, and a wave of speculation culminated in the “Canal Mania ” at the end of the century, when unsound schemes, many of them doomed from the start, were given eager backing.

The construction of canals presented great problems, and the lessons learned in solving them were invaluable to the later railway and road builders. Reservoirs were needed to supply the canals with water and bridges, locks, aquaducts and extensive tunnels were made to carry the canals.

As the canal advanced, its impact on the country through which it passed was immense. Often 2,000 workers would be employed in an area, and the problem of supply was vast. These “Inland Navigators” or navvies, as they became known, were usually rough characters. and disrupted the settled life of the towns and villages in the path of the canal. When they had passed on, the silent highway that they had created had changed the country beyond recognition. Villages once isolated were now on the main highway, and grew as industry followed in its wake. New canal towns, like Stourport came into being whilst old river ports sank into obscurity.

The packet boats
Although the prime need was the transport of heavy goods, passenger transport and delivery of packages became an important part of the canal trade. The packet boats, the “expresses of the canals,” were specially constructed to enable them to travel fast on a narrow canal. They were pulled by two horses ridden by a postillion, the horses being changed at 4 to 6 miles intervals. They kept up an average speed of 8 to 10 miles an hour for many hours, had 1st and 2nd class cabins, and ran to a strict timetable. Some were heated by hot-water pipes. The packet boat had the right of passage, and all other craft had to give way. It was dangerous not to, for they tore along with complete disregard of any other traffic on the canal. One of the most famous, the “Duchess Countess,” mounted a curved knife on the bows to sever the tow rope of anything not giving way.

The decline of the canals began in the 1830's, when competition from the railways began to make itself felt. The faster and more comfortable trains rapidly drew passenger traffic away from the canals: and the packet boat, like the stage coach, disappeared in a decade. The application of steam to shipping made coastal travel quicker and safer, and this finished canals, which had been specially constructed to reduce sea travel. The decline was hastened by the canal companies themselves. For half a century they had held a monopoly, and had exploited their position in a manner common to monopolists. Like the River Navigation Boards before them, and the railway companies after, they failed to take action that could have postponed their decline.

Nothing illustrates better the headlong rush forward of Capitalism than the story of the canals. Beginning in the mid 18th century—ultra modern and with far-reaching effect—within a lifetime they were obsolete.

Les Dale

See also:

February 1960 Socialist Standard, 'The First Age of Speed' .

Past Migrations (1967)

From the August 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first thing to remember about emigration in the modern World, is that only workers emigrate. The wealthy “take up residence”, “pay a prolonged visit” or “retire abroad”. When King Edward VIII abdicated and left the country, nobody said that he had emigrated; he had gone into voluntary exile.

This is not a mere play on words. There is a world of difference between the two, the difference in fact between Capitalist and Worker. The wealthy do not need assisted passages, or National Assistance, and if they do not like a place when they get there, they can always move on. They are in no way economic rivals to the workers of the area they visit, so nobody worries about their accents or skin colour. No race-conscious worker would complain if the Aga Khan moved in next door; he would be too busy boasting about his distinguished neighbour for that. It’s the Aga Khan who would do the complaining, and not on account of race, but from an understandable reluctance to share the joys of working class life. The problems of emigration spring from the one thing that both immigrants and native workers share; their poverty.

Migrations are as old as humanity. From the beginning of their existence men have migrated. Sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently, they have moved in search of better and more fertile land, or to escape a stronger enemy, or because of over-population in their homelands. The last of the great migrations came in the centuries following the Discoveries. The whole of America and Australasia, together with large areas of Africa and northern Asia, were peopled by Europeans. Many went freely to seek their fortunes or to escape poverty and oppression at home, but millions were forcibly transported. Indentured servants, negro slaves and convicts all went to provide the cheap labour the new, expanding nations needed.

This was as cruel and bloody a chapter as any in the history of man. By the 19th century European type States had been established in these new lands, while the work of dispossessing the aboriginal inhabitants went steadily on. From then on an immigrant came into an established community as an outsider. There were still however vast unexplored areas into which pioneers could push. By the 20th century these had largely been occupied, except for something like a gold rush that could still send the adventurers on the move.

Emigrants flocked from Europe and Asia to all the new lands, but the one that gripped the imagination, then as now, was the United States. Most of the other new lands were either colonies of the very powers the emigrants were escaping from or, like South America, known dictatorships. America became the symbol of liberty and a myth amongst downtrodden peoples

Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
Th wretched refuse of your teeming shores
Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

runs the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, with more sentiment than accuracy, and into America in about hundred years went vast numbers of immigrants. It is estimated that by 1921, when the Quota Act was passed, over 35,000,000 people had entered the United States. To us in Europe today, emigration to the United States has an importance that no other emigrations have, because America is the foremost Capitalist power and its ideas spill over into the rest of the world. These include attitudes to race and colour that are grafted on to existing attitudes, like the unpleasant idiots over here who burn crosses of paraffin soaked rags in weak imitation of the Ku Klux Klan.

From the very beginning, the more capital or influence that a settler possessed the better it was for him, and the greater his chance of success. This applied equally to the later immigrants who, if they had money, could push on from the ports of dis-embarkation into the new areas. Many Swedes, Germans and Dutch had some capital and struck out into the Middle West to start farms. Land in the frontier areas was usually available to all, but money to buy tools and equipment made life easier. Many settlers had special skills and abilities, for which there was a growing demand in an expanding economy, and in this they resemble the people who leave Britain today for Canada and Australia and for Africa and New Zealand. But a vast number were poor with only their passage money and some not even that, in Britain private and public assistance boards grew up to pay the passage of poor people. In Ireland the famines of the 1840’s drove a vast number overseas, while the city of Hamburg found it cheaper to ship paupers to the United States than to provide relief for them or to jail them. The abortive revolutions of 1848 also swelled the numbers. The conditions endured on the journey in these cases are too well known to repeat.

A pattern emerged that is a familiar one today. Poor immigrants tend to settle at their points of dis-embarkation, which are usually industrial centres as well. This is found in Britain today; areas near large airports and main-line railway termini often have large immigrant populations. It is no accident that the Southall area has a large coloured population. Nearness to a point of arrival, plus industry and cheap housing, continue to produce this effect. The areas around Euston Station, the main point of arrival from Ireland, have a large Irish population. Once such a pattern becomes established, friends and relations come to join the pioneers. This happened in America, where New York, the main point of arrival, became a great immigrant centre, with vast populations of foreign origin. When an immigrant prospered, as many did, they soon moved on to pleasanter areas, but the less-fortunate stayed to swell the slum population.

In the early part of the 19th century the main stream of immigrants into America came from Western Europe—from Great Britain and Ireland, Holland, Scandinavia and Germany. Of these the main prejudice was directed against the Irish. They were anti-British, Catholic and, coming from a poor agricultural economy, tended to undercut on wages when they first arrived. The notice “No Irish" was a common sight outside factories. By the 1880’s immigrants from Western Europe were falling off and Eastern Europeans, Mediterranean and Oriental people began to flock in. These were poor, illiterate and were referred to as New Immigrants. The older immigrants, who had begun to be absorbed, treated the new arrivals with hostility and contempt. In 1877 during a slump in San Francisco an unemployed meeting ended in a two-day riot against the Chinese. A party was formed called the Working Men’s Party of California commonly known as the Sand Lot Movement. Its main plank was to get rid of cheap Chinese labour. The irony of the situation was that the party was led by Irish immigrants.

Racial prejudice is essentially irrational, and the prejudices that grew up around American immigration bore little relation to common sense. The thirteen colonies that became the nucleus of the United States were British, consequently the laws, customs and language of the new State were British. At a later stage French and Spanish areas became incorporated and much of their culture was absorbed. Nevertheless, these were subordinate to the existing pattern. At the time of the American War of Independence Americans regarded themselves as the only true Britons, and thought that the ones left behind in Britain had deteriorated and become decadent In this they resemble the Rhodesians of today.

The most desirable thing to be in 19th century America was Anglo-Saxon. The use of this name to describe anything as racially mixed up as the average Briton, is itself typical of the arrogant nonsense talked by the racial theorists of the day. The following masterpiece of idiocy was written in 1885 by Josiah Strong, a Congregational minister and secretary of the American Home Missionary Society in Ohio. In his book Our Country he claimed that Anglo-Saxons above all other races were champions of “a pure spiritual Christianity" and were being schooled for the “final completion of the races"

  Is there room for reasonable doubt that this race unless devitalised by alcohol and tobacco, is destined to dispossess many weaker races, assimilate others and mould the remainder, until in a very true and important sense it has Anglo-Saxonised mankind. (Age of Excess—Ray Ginger).

In its cool arrogance, it makes the puny efforts of our home grown racialists very tame indeed.

Scaling down from the “Anglo-Saxon" came other West Europeans, Mediterranean peoples, East Europeans, Mexicans down to Orientals, who had the additional disadvantage of being considered coloured. American official policy strove to make all immigrants into Americans, and discourage the formation of minorities. In this they had a great deal of success but real antagonisms still lay under the surface.

Until workers learn to recognise the real cause of their poverty, Capitalism, they will continue to find scapegoats, and who better for this purpose than a stranger from across the world?

Les Dale

The Aftermath (1968)

From the November 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the firing stopped on that November morning fifty years ago, and an unnatural quiet descended on a landscape pulverised beyond recognition, an armistice had been arranged but peace had certainly not arrived. Mar who woe present at the time have described the uncanny feeling as the nightmare closed, and how odd it was to be able to walk erect in places where, only a short while before, it was certain death to raise their head.

For four years the great nations of capitalism had hurled themselves at each other with deadly-effect; the butchery had been unparalleled. Now, that at least was over, but the toll of life still went on. Plague, in the form of Spanish influenza, swept the world and the blockade of Germany, with its cynical and heartless use of starvation to achieve political ends, continued.

The war had revolved around the question of Germany. The older capitalist powers had fought to contain and cripple a new, dangerous rival. Germany had tried to gain political domination in line with its expanding economic and military power. The established powers had grabbed the most profitable areas of the world as sources of raw materials and outlets for their manufactured goods; they controlled the most important strategic points such as the Suez and Panama canals.

German capitalists found themselves forced to expand under unfavourable conditions. They began to prepare to challenge their rivals. They built up a huge and efficient army, began to challenge British supremacy at sea by amassing a large navy. The whole of Germany was organised for war.

Railway systems were laid down to enable the rapid transport of troops to strike points, in case the great fear of a war on two fronts came to reality. In 1914 the time had arrived for the great throw.

The throw failed. Germany was battered, but by no means deterred. The German army was still intact and stood almost entirely on foreign soil. The tremendous offensives of the previous few months had forced them back, but failed to break them. But Germany was disintegrating behind the armies. Modern wars are fought on the factory floor, and in the food queues as well as in the front fine and Germany had had enough.

In October the German admirals decided to send the High Seas Fleet in one final "do or die" attack against the British, but the sailors had mutinied. By 3 November 1918, Kiel was in their hands; within a few days the Kaiser had gone and a Social Democrat was Chancellor.

Germany made frantic last efforts to salvage something from the wreck, but was eventually forced to accept harsh terms in which it was stripped of its colonies. These were not worth an awful lot, as the best areas had been grabbed before Germany had arrived on the scene, but they were to become a mania in the next decade and to enable the German ruling class to build up war fever again, when the time came.

Germany was disarmed, conscription was abolished, its army was limited to 100,000 men. It was allowed no air force, only a small navy, and no submarines, heavy artillery or tanks. German rivers were internationalised. But in spite of this Germany still remained intact. German industry was basically untouched and the army general staff remained. It was only a matter of time before the ambition of the German capitalist class would persuade them to try again.

The most far reaching effect of the war was the break up of Austria-Hungary. The ancient Hapsburg Empire had covered a vast area in Central Europe. Although, with the rise of the German Empire, it had been somewhat overshadowed by its pushing neighbour, it was still a powerful block. At the end of the war it disappeared as Central Europe was “balkanised”.

The German-speaking Alpine provinces of the former empire, with Vienna as the capital, became the new Austria. The rump of pre-war Hungary, stripped of 75 per cent of its territory and 60 per cent of its population, became the Republic of Hungary, with Buda-Pest as its capital. The old Kingdom of Poland was recreated more or less as it had been before the 18th century partition between Austria, Prussia and Russia. Austria Hungary’s southern provinces of Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia were joined to Serbia and Montenegro to become Yugo-Slavia.

Most important from the point of view of future development, was the creation of Czechoslovakia. This was the ancient Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia with Slovakia and Ruthenia. The outer mountainous ring of Bohemia was occupied by German speaking peoples. This was to become a flash point twenty years later.

France, conscious of its inferiority in numbers with Germany. in the next twenty years built up a system of alliances with these small nations in an effort to ring Germany and adjust the balance. This again was to become a telling point in German war propaganda.

Russia was in a state of turmoil, torn by civil war and invaded by foreign armies, its casualties from war, famine and political murder were numbered in millions. Taking advantage of its weakened state, and believing in the imminent collapse of its government, the allies helped to strip Russia of much of its more advanced areas.

Finland broke away and became an independent state. The Baltic areas, that had been some of the most industrial parts of the old Empire, became Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and Russian Poland went into the new Polish State.

But Russia came back as one of the most powerful states in the world, and its rulers showed they had nothing to learn, when it came to ruthlessness in pursuit of their aims. They were to have one new weapon that had not existed since the French Revolution—a fifth column in the shape of their supporters in many countries, the local Communist Parties.

The Great War ended after millions of workers had died, but nothing was solved, nothing could be solved. The problems of capitalism still remained. The dragon’s teeth of a new conflict were well and truly sown. What is more tragic, the working classes of the world had really learned nothing. They were to fight again in a generation.

Les Dale

Crime in our Time (1962)

Book Review from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Crime in our Time, by Josephine Bell. (Nicholas Vane, 21s.)

Crime is a subject that never seems to lose its fascination; one wonders what some of the more sensational newspapers would do without it.

Always a major topic of interest, only a political upheaval or an outstanding sporting event can keep the latest wage snatch or a particularly nasty murder out of the headlines. Many of the Sunday newspapers, as well as certain periodicals, rely on recent crime, or on highly coloured articles which dramatise the crimes of the past. And as if reality were not enough, the cinema and the television screen are there to transport us to a dream world of crime, a dream world in which the criminal is caught with monotonous regularity. One can never understand why they don't pack it up in the first reel.

At the other end of the scale, in the local papers, we find the weekly cavalcade of petty crimes. Largely unnoticed amongst the local news items and the announcements are all the dreary, and sometimes tragic, little affairs that fill the magistrates' courts.

But underneath the sensationalism and the morbid curiosity lies a real and understandable concern with a problem that touches the lives of most people. Many workers such as nightwatchmen. bank workers or postmen are quite liable to be injured or even killed in some sort of raid. Other people may be the victims of gang fights, sexual assaults or other forms of violence. None of these people can be expected to view the subject with clinical detachment. Their fears and their demands for protection are understandable. Feelings run high and find expression in hysterical demands for more violent punishments for the criminal. This is the kind of demand that has become a regular feature of Conservative Party conferences; a demand for more flogging and hanging. These punishments will solve nothing and only serve to cloud the issue even further. Books and articles on the subject are endless, and they are read with avid interest.

The book under review, Crime In Our Time, by Josephine Bell, who is better known as a writer of detective novels, is an honest and unemotional attempt to review a complicated problem. Much painstaking research has gone into its preparation, and a lot of varied information is contained within its pages. This alone makes it of considerable use to people who are studying this subject. Beginning with an account of one day's crime in London-twenty-four hours selected at random—it covers crime over the last 60 years and then surveys the criminal scene today. A great part of the book is occupied with facts and figures concerning the nature of those offences which the law knows as crimes —the diseases both physical and mental that can lead to violence and sexual abnormality and the processes of the law itself.

One aspect that is of interest to the Socialist is the growth or decline of different types of anti-social behaviour as the conditions within society change. In crime, as in the capitalist society of which it is just a part, one problem disappear only to give rise to new ones. Agricultural societies may give way to industrial, large towns may replace small, family groupings and loyalties may decline or disappear, but the basic problems of poverty and insecurity remain. This is where we must probe, if we’re to find the basic cause of crime in our time.

Les Dale