A Look Round. (1908)

From the January 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to “Bradstreet’s” there were 964 business failures in America in October, with assets 124 million dollars and liabilities 139 million dollars. In October, 1893, the failures were 1,753 with assets 36 million dollars and liabilities 55 million dollars. Thus in 1893 the average liabilities per failure were 31,375 dollars and in 1907 they were 144,200 dollars. But of the latter twenty failures account for 114 million dollars, leaving only 25 million dollars for the remaining 944.

* * *

The S.D.F., I.L.P., and the Labour Party were well represented in the signatures to the Memorial, relating to the employment of barmaids, submitted to the Chancellor of the Exchequer last month. They included Miss Margaret Bondfield, Rev. R. J. Campbell, A. H. Gill, M.P., A. Henderson, M.P., J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., and D. J. Shackleton, M.P. The memorialists claim that from the advertisements in the trade papers it is evident that the great majority of barmaids are engaged on account of their attractiveness to men customers, whilst the record of the magistrates and other courts gives convincing statistical proof that the career of the disproportionate number of barmaids ends in drunkenness, immorality, misery and frequently suicide.

* * *

Now, if public houses are such demoralising and terrible places as these people would have us believe, why do not they take up a logical position and advocate their immediate suppression ? And why do they suggest that the wives and daughters of publicans should be permitted to continue to work in “surroundings which carry with them special dangers and temptations” ? Do they consider the publican has a right of private property in his wife and daughters so inviolable that he is to be permitted to employ them in a career that “ends in drunkenness, immorality, misery, and frequently suicide” ?

* * *

But the memorialists would even permit barmaids now employed to continue in what they consider such vile surroundings provided they have a licence from the Government. They would “protect the young girls of the nation” but those who have already entered upon this horrible career are to be permitted to go down to their end “in drunkenness, immorality, misery, and frequently suicide” if they have taken out a licence !

* * *

The Government is to place it on record that public houses are places where no decent woman should work. The publican’s wife and daughters are not to count. I suppose the worst surroundings are too good for them, according to the ideas of the memorialists. Licences are therefore to be granted to other men’s wives and daughters, and no doubt the fortunate holder of such a badge of slavery will be regarded as one who has either proved herself able to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, or is so low and depraved that it does not matter what happens to her.

* * *

No one denies that the barmaid’s lot could be improved, particularly in regard to her hours of labour, but in many respects it is vastly superior to that of other women workers. As a rule, she gets plenty of food and good food, which is more than can be said of the girls employed in such highly respectable occupations as millinery and dressmaking, often working for nothing and usually for only a few shillings a week. If they live at home the financial effort required for clothing prevents them from being otherwise than semi-starved all the time, and many of them exist in a condition of chronic anaemia which in due course has its effect upon their offspring. If they “live in”—well, Miss Bondfield, who wishes to abolish the barmaids, being an official of the Shop Assistants Union, has time after time denounced the system. And it is said that there are large establishments in the shopping centres of London where the girls who live in are allowed to stay out all night, provided they pay a fine of ten shillings in the morning. Such a system cannot be charged against the publicans. And as to the alleged immorality, it must be admitted that there is nothing drives women on the streets so much as inability to obtain food and clothing for themselves and their dependents. The barmaid, at any rate, is secured against this.

* * *

Again, the atmosphere of thousands of coffee shops is much more immoral than the bar of a public house is ever likely to be, and the girls employed have no protection. Customers may use vile language concerning the food (as it is called) supplied in these places, and this language the waitress has to listen to. A remonstrance on her part to her employer would probably result in her getting “the sack,” as the competition is too keen, and the profits too small, particularly in the poorer districts, for the “guvner” to be able to afford to quarrel with his customers. But if a customer in a wicked public house uses vile language to a barmaid and the manager or proprietor overhears or it is reported to him, the culprit is either warned, or put out and sometimes forbidden the house altogether. And the conditions of the girls in these coffee shops, as to hours, wages, and food, are certainly much inferior to those of the majority of barmaids.

* * *

Of course the S.D.F. and the I.L.P., through their members who signed the memorial, are being made the tools of the most bigoted section of that nonconformist conscience which they have so often denounced. These pharasaical humbugs really wish to prohibit the sale of alcoholic liquors, but lack the courage to openly declare themselves.

* * *

According to the Daily Chronicle’s Rome correspondent between 50,000 and 60,000 Neapolitans have formed a passive resistance movement, and for six months have refused to pay rent or quit their tenements. The Government are taking the usual course. Controlling, as they do, the armed forces of the nation, which armed forces they will continue to control so long as they are politically dominant, they are using those forces against the workers. In the early part of December ten thousand troops from various cities had been despatched to reinforce the Naples Garrison preparatory to evicting the working-class families concerned.

* * *

Once more “the impracticability of the Socialist schemes” has been demonstrated, this time by a Mr. Moreton Frewen. He says that the total accumulated capital in the country is estimated at £9,000,000,000, which invested at 3½ per cent. would bring in about 5d. a day per person. The total income from all sources Mr. Frewen estimates at £1,500,000,000 annually, equal to about 14s. per head per week. “Thus,” says our oracle, “the Socialist ideal of happiness would result in every individual in the country being possessed of a revenue of 16s. 11d. per week.” And Mr. Frewen adds that this would not be “a very prosperous state of affairs.”

* * *

16s. 11d. per head per week, says Mr. Frewen, will be the income under Socialism. It is computed that the average family consists of five persons, so that each family would receive £4 4s. 7d. per week. But it is known that the working class have larger families than the well-to-do section of the population, and the amount would therefore be increased for working-class families. And this “would not be a very prosperous state of affairs” !

* * *

Well, if Socialism really meant dividing up what is known as the National Income, it would mean the trebling, at least, of the income of the mass of the working class. Chas. Booth has shown that 1,250,000 of the population of London are in receipt of a wage of one guinea or less per week per family, and in commenting on the Railway dispute the Daily Telegraph pointed out that, in the event of a strike, an enormous number of men would be willing to blackleg at £1 per week. “Twenty shillings a week is no luxurious wage we admit,” said the Daily Telegraph, “but it is better, alas, than many thousands of workmen in both, town and country can secure.” So that the “prosperity” of the working class under capitalism is represented by one-sixth or less of what, according to Mr, Frewen, they would receive under Socialism, And this proves “the impracticability of the Socialist schemes ” !

* * *

It is not surprising that opponents get the idea that Socialism merely means the equalisation of income or wages when those professing: to be Socialists endeavour to popularise the same idea. Recently I heard a Mr. Dean, on the I.L.P. platform in East Ham, inform a questioner that “of course, it would be quite possible for anyone to save up his money under Socialism, if he preferred not to spend the wages paid to him each week by the State. But he would not be able to employ anyone else with the money so saved. He would be a capitalist, but unable to use his capital.” And after delivering himself of this he read the titles of pamphlets which he advised the audience to buy and study, some of which explained that the wages system would be abolished with the abolition of the capitalist system and the establishment of Socialism.

* * *

This misconception of Socialism arises largely out of the advocacy of palliatives by both the I.L.P. and the S.D.F. So obscured is the issue, even to members of these bodies, by their talk of the “right to work,” “better wages for the working class,” “free maintenance for children” etc., that they appear unable to conceive of any system where the hooter shall not sound the time for commencing and leaving work, and where the people shall not be the wage-receiving slaves of the machine industry that they are to-day. They would merely “humanise” the conditions of employment.

J. Kay

Review—”Our Towns—A Close-up” (1943)

Book Review from the September 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Within two weeks of the evacuation scheme being put into operation at the beginning of the war, the habits and general behaviour of the evacuees had been reported in both national and local press and had been discussed in Parliament. Charges were made against the evacuees that many were irresponsible, dirty and generally slovenly in their habits; that they “over-indulged in alcohol,” smoked too much, and spent their money “wrongly” in many other ways. One of the results of the publicity was an investigation by the Hygiene Committee of the Women’s Group on Public Welfare into these charges, and an examination by them of the conditions of life of thousands of town dwellers. They published their findings in a study, “Our Towns—A Close-up” (Oxford University Press, 5s.), and in the introductory comment : “This book is a thinly disguised report” ; exactly, a report of bitter poverty,

To obtain a knowledge of the social conditions prevailing prior to the war, they studied reports of local authorities, works by Titmuss, Sir John Boyd-Orr and others, and also interviewed witnesses such as Health Visitors, Teachers, and Local Government Servants. The information presented here in a most compact and useful form gives a deplorable picture of the conditions then prevalent. The authors made an examination of the complaints against the background of poverty and bad living conditions that many evacuees endured. They also submit recommendations as measures likely to help in the solution of the problems.

We shall not spend much time dealing with the charge of “wrong spending” on drink, tobacco and different forms of money clubs. Should the workers spend nothing on these things they would still be poor; in fact, the expression “wrong spending” applied to the workers comes within the category of a bad joke. It is shown that in 1937, “one-third of her (Britain’s) families had breadwinners earning less than £2 10s. a week” (page 111).

One of the main charges was that of bad feeding habits and a failure to choose the most nutritious foods. Here the authors give sufficient evidence to show the close connection between malnutrition, illness and poverty. An extract from the Report of the Medical Officer, City of Birmingham, 1938, is given. He stated that:

“During the year 1938, 43,507 children were examined at routine inspections at the schools and their nutritional state was classified as follows :

A (excellent nutrition)……………..   2.3%

B (normal nutrition)………………   86.9%

C (slightly sub-normal nutrition)….    9.4%

D (bad nutrition)……………………..1.4%

—(Page 117).”

While poverty is regarded as the major cause of bad nutrition, it is later suggested in this Report that there are other factors equally important underlying malnutrition as a whole. The facts from the Annual Report, 1933, of Dr. Spence, Medical Officer for Newcastle-on-Tyne, indicate however that the basis of malnutrition and illness is poverty. The facts require no emphasis—they appear on page 35 : —

“In a comparison between a group of children from one to five years of age from the city’s poorest streets and a group of similar age from families of the professional class:

124 children of the professional class had had : Pneumonia 2; Pleurisy 1; Chronic and recurrent cough 2; Measles 6.

125 children from the pooreset streets had had : Pneumouia 17 ; Chronic or recurrent bronchitis 32 ; Measles 46 ; Recurrent Diarrhoea 0; Abscesses, septic skin infectious frequent.”

That poverty is the basis of these evils is also clearly indicated in the following statement : —

“The importance of poverty as a root cause is illustrated by a striking table in which Titmuss (‘Poverty and Population,’ pages 304/5) shows that Durham and Northumberland have as compared with all other regions of England, a very low income level, particularly in Durham, where it appears to be the lowest of any county. The highest overcrowding rate. The highest death rate and infantile mortality rate. The highest death rate for children up to 4 years of age, with a heavy excess of death from respiratory diseases.” (Page 103.)

The charges relating to skin diseases and prevalence of lice were also investigated. It is shown that in ten of the large towns 40 per cent. of the poorer child population were infested with head lice. Although the authors are highly critical of many families, even suggesting that it is a matter of indifference to some, they do show that skin diseases and the presence of vermin are “fostered by overcrowding,” and that thousands of working-class families are free from it, “but in the conditions of poverty this is achieved at the cost of unremitting vigilance and toil.”

There is ample evidence to show the insanitary conditions under which people lived, and how these conditions affect the habits of those who have to endure them indefinitely. Extracts are given from an enquiry, “Growing Up in Shoreditch,” published by the Shoreditch Housing Association in 1938. This enquiry into the home circumstances of some 400 Shoreditch L.C.C. schoolchildren showed : “that in 381 cases only the 93 who lived in flats and 11 others had an indoor closet, and in 206 cases out of 390 the closet was shared by a number of families ranging from two to seven. In 22 per cent. of cases the closet was shared by three or more households, and in 5 per cent. by four or more.” (Page 88.) Also facts are given on the bad water supply and poor heating arrangements in many homes. Only 56 per cent. of 365 cases investigated had a private water supply. In 57 cases the supply was shared by three families or more.

These are only a few examples of the environment and conditions of life of thousands of working class families. Many more are given in this work. We have no space to examine in detail the recommendations; they are confined to reforms within capitalism. Margaret Bondfield, in her preface, suggests that there is a need for “a co-ordinated structure of services which leaves no gap,” and states that a weakness of reformist efforts is that: “it is patchwork reform, and so often the pieces do not fit.” We will add—reform is patchwork and can be nothing more. The need for to-day is not a multiplicity of reforms but a social revolution from Capitalism to Socialism. That alone will guarantee ending the horror portrayed in this book.

The work has the merit of giving in a condensed form information that generally speaking is hidden away in local authorities’ reports. Definitely a useful weapon for the Socialist propagandist

Lew Jones

The Order of St. Catherine. (1921)

From the September 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

On July 22nd, the "Daily News" published the report of an interview with Professor Patrick Geddes, in the course of which he said: "A coming discount of women is imminently threatened, and is indeed in accelerating progress."

The same newspaper then asked Miss Margaret Bondfield, Secretary to the Federation of Women Workers, for her views on Professor Geddes' remarks. Miss Bondfield confirmed them and proceeded to show where she believes the remedies lie. "To perpetuate the idea that marriage is the sole aim of woman's life," she said, " is to court disaster. Many hundreds of thousands of women must make up their minds that there can be no marriage at the end for them. They must, therefore, be trained to take a real interest in their career. There need be no disaster if their instincts can only find a wholesome way out.'' (Quotations are from "Daily News" of July 23rd.)

Miss Bondfield suggests "social work" as the outlet, particularising child welfare, maternity work, and administration.

This is her way of meeting the emotional case. For the economic:

"One thing is vital—our young people must be sent back to school to learn discipline. The wickedest crime of the Government has been the shutting down of educational facilities and the curtailing of continuation school education at the present time, especially when unemployment is so bad. These young women are thus thrown upon the world unprepared. If it costs millions, they must be got back to school. The machinery is all ready. The Central Committee for Women's Training and Employment" (of which Miss Bondfield is a member) "has done wonderful work; it has handled many thousands of cases, and given training varying from six months to five years in different cases. The instrument is at hand, if the Government will only use it."

To which the "Daily News" adds this explanatory note: 

"The Committee to which Miss Bondfield refers was set up last year. It was allowed £500,000 from the National Relief Fund and £100,000 left over from the Queen's Work for Women Fund. It includes such names as Miss Mary Macarthur, Miss Violet Markham, Miss R. E. Lawrence, and Dr. Marion Phillips; and its function is to arrange for the training of women whose capacity of earning a livelihood has been injured or handicapped by conditions produced in the war. Application forms can be had at any Labour Exchange."

Now it is true that even in a society where no outside impediment existed, not even an inequality in the numbers of the male and female populations, every woman would not marry. Many in whom the inclination is strong are not so happy as to find the husband to please them: and in the chances of human sentiment it often happens that when the desired mate is found he is not to be won. There are, besides such disappointed women, others (as there are men) whose energies are bent upon the pursuit of an exceptional purpose, and who are not at all concerned with the business of sex and parenthood. The artist is the type of these. The world's history records the names of many such who are immortal. Miss Bondfield is right in thinking it neither possible nor desirable that women should make marriage their only goal.

Reference has often been made in these columns to the early scenes in mankind's social life, where arose the idea that women's only proper vocation was domestic. There, social production did not require women's labour; their service became a private service within, the family.

But modern industry has a use for the labour-power of women, and the view of what is suitable work for them has been much modified. Hitherto in the history of capitalism employers have encouraged the presence of women in the labour market : they constituted an abundant supply of cheap labour-power. But with the rising wages of women consequent upon improving organisation, and the falling wages of men resultant from widespread unemployment, the preference is rapidly being transferred to men.

And what value have Miss Bondfield's remedies ?

Suppose the fullest use of her Committee : what can it accomplish ? It can ensure that women shall compete on equal terms with men for such posts as are to be filled. But since in its normal workings capitalist production, never needs all the labour-power that offers itself, and since what it does need is relatively a diminishing quantity, all that the Committee can do is to change the personnel of the army of unemployed: substitute some hungry men for hungry women, incidentally providing the master class with better-trained, more serviceable material. And even of this excellent thing one can have too much, the employers think: do they need Miss Bondfield to point out the virtue of the "instrument at hand" ? Since it would appear that there is no lack of workers sufficiently well trained to do what is required of them, and no near prospect of such a lack, the shutting down of educational facilities is a measure of praiseworthy economy, from the capitalist point of view. And surely Miss Bondfield knows better than to expect another point of view from any Government? Whoever heard of a commercial concern spending millions to obtain a brand of commodity of which a sufficient supply was already to hand?

The awakened woman worker has a different word to say. It is this: That her only sure way to a happier life lies with the men of her class : that she does not benefit by readjustments of the common burden of subjection: that the only action for her is that which shall remove the burden altogether. And such is Socialist action. Suppose that triumphant, you have a world where no man is compelled to celibacy by want of means to maintain a family, and a woman need be neither man's huntress nor his rival.

May we suggest to Miss Bondfield that here is the cause to claim the devotion of working women. The poverty and degeneration which move the compassionate to throw themselves into "social work," are allied to the sordid snatching of one another's bread. They are features of the same evil system of social life. And the ameliorative measures which Miss Bondfield would like to see women administrating, being concerned only with isolated features, leave untouched such a sea of misery as must make a thinking "social worker" despair. To sweep away the source of it all: that alone is the work for the clear of sight.

A. Leslie

50 Years Ago: The Problem of Unemployed Women (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

On July 22 the Daily News published the report of an interview with Professor Patrick Geddes, in the course of which he said, "a coming discount of women is imminently threatened, and is indeed in accelerating progress”.

The same newspaper then asked Miss Margaret Bondfield, Secretary to the Federation of Women Workers, for her views on Professor Geddes’ remarks. Miss Bondfield confirmed them and proceeded to show where she believes the remedies lie. "To perpetuate the idea that marriage is the sole aim of woman's life”, she said, "is to court disaster. Many hundreds of thousands of women must make up their minds that there can be no marriage at the end for them. They must therefore be trained to take a real interest in their career”.

#    #    #    #

Miss Bondfield suggests “social work” as an outlet, particularising child welfare, maternity work and administration. This is her way of meeting the emotional case. For the economic: “One thing is vital—our young people must be sent back to school to learn discipline. The wickedest crime of the government has been the shutting down of educational facilities and the curtailing of continuation school education at the present time, especially when unempolyment is so bad. These young women are thus thrown upon the world unprepared. If it costs millions they must be sent back to school”.

#    #    #    #

Hitherto in the history of capitalism employers have encouraged the presence of women in the labour market; they constituted an abundant supply of cheap labour-power. But with the rising wages of women consequent upon improving organisation, and the falling wages of men resultant from widespread unemployment, the preference is rapidly being transferred to men.

#    #    #    #

And what value have Miss Bondfield’s remedies? Suppose the fullest use of her Committee what can it accomplish? It can ensure that women shall compete on equal terms with men for such jobs as are to be filled. But since in its normal workings capitalist production never needs all the labour-power that offers itself, and since what it does need is relatively a diminishing quantity, all that the Committee can do is to change the personnel of the army of unemployed: substitute some hungry men for some hungry women, incidentally providing the master-class with better trained, more serviceable material and even of this excellent thing one can have too much, the employers think: do they need Miss Bondfield to point out the virtue of 'instrument at hand'? Since it would appear that there is no lack of workers sufficiently well trained to do what is required of them, and no near prospect of such a lack, the shutting down of educational facilities is a measure of praiseworthy economy, from the capitalist point of view.

(From an article ‘The Order of St. Catherine" by A. Leslie, Socialist Standard September 1921).

Workers' Responsibilities (1925)

From the February 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the end of 1918 there have been numerous appeals by our masters and their agents through the columns of the daily Press to the working class to cease waging a struggle on the industrial field for improved conditions. Have they not told us of their grave difficulties through the world economic crisis, and their endeavour on our behalf to obtain contracts—even at a loss— in order to give us work?

They have reminded us of the “brotherly” feeling prevalent during the war and in the trenches, and exhorted us to live it all over again in the “piping times of peace."

Objections are sometimes raised that the Socialist Party is too destructive in its criticisms of the part played by the officials of the Trade Union movement and the leaders of the Parliamentary Labour Party, but any worker recognising the conflict of interests between the capitalist class and the workers realises there can be no community of interests between the robber and the robbed. Trade Union officials who urge the working class to consider the interests of the exploiters are without doubt the enemies of the exploited.

Just recently a small journal was handed to the writer, from which he extracts the following:—

"In addressing a meeting of women workers at York, Miss Margaret Bondfield, M.P. (Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour), gave such good advice that we are printing it for the advantage of our readers.

"She said, as a trade unionist, she must urge them to take a full share in the responsibility for the success of the business. The times in which we lived were times of great seriousness to business people. In that factory they had an opportunity of sharing, through their Works Council, in the responsibility for the success of the business. It was a matter of definitely making up their minds to give a certain amount of thought to their work. Their employers desired to make the business a great contributing fact to the welfare of the country, and were trying to get away front the old idea that the only justification for business was to make money for certain members of the firm.

"Then there was the tremendously important matter of their own personal development. It was not merely a question of how to earn their daily bread, but how to use their leisure time. Personally, she liked a good novel and a cowboy film. But that must not be all. She found that what was most interesting was to read about the lives of clever and important people and the biographies of people who had made their mark in the world. They must cultivate a taste so that they could open the doors of literature and so get access to the whole world. In this cultivation of personal character they must seek to serve their generation, and think less about themselves.” 

The National Amalgamated Monthly, Aug. 1924.

There, now. Grumble no more. See Tom Mix at the movies, read of clever and important people, such as Horatio Bottomley and Lloyd George, who have made their mark in the world. Cultivate a taste for the literature of a Nat Gould, and all will be well.

The Settler.