What May-Day Means to Us. (1938)

From the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Position

For many years past thousands of working-class men and women throughout the world have claimed May-day as their own. They march in procession with flying banners, announcing Labour's rights and aspirations. In some ways this is as it should be; movement means life. Here in London, the chief site in world capitalism, the famous Hyde Park is the stage always set for their declaration of political faith. It is not without social and political significance that the richest city in the world should give rise to these May-day meetings. It provides abundant evidence of the underlying material realities which vitalise such mass demonstrations of our class.

The great contrast in riches and poverty, the immense class division, is here exhibited with almost naked brutality. It may go without saying that, just as there can be no mistake about the fabulously wealthy parts of London through which we march, so there can be no mistake about the class to which those who participate in these demonstrations belong. Any onlooker could hardly fail to understand that those who see fit to thus parade their political convictions reveal that the colossal wealth of modern times neither lines their pockets nor fills their stomachs.

But these May-days come as a happy counter-blast to all this. They mean something of immense and vital importance to men and women who are forced to work for what is little more than bread and butter. They signify a spirit of revolt against things as they are, the sentiments of a class aiming to emerge from the conditions of an age-long subjection.

This is the emotional, instinctive and intellectual yearning behind these working-class assemblies; we say this despite all their confusion of political tongues.

But why do these demonstrations have to take place? Is there no way out for the class which labours to confer riches, rights and privileges upon others, only to leave themselves in the subordinate position of publicly announcing the “wrongs" of the class to which they belong? If there is a way out where or what is it?

We of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are men and women who belong to the working class; we share the same experiences of exploitation and fear of economic insecurity; we know what all this means because we live the part. But we claim to have studied the problems of the workers' lives at their foundation. As a result we are able to declare unhesitatingly that the solution has been found. We know, and can prove our case, that the wealth of the world is produced by the workers. We know, and can prove it, that what the workers can do so efficiently for the capitalist class they can do even more effectively for themselves.

To extract from nature the food, clothing, shelter, and all other things which serve to make life worth while only two elements are essential. These we have at our disposal, namely, Mother Earth and our mental and physical capabilities. How often have we Socialists illustrated this point of view by asking whether any sane man or woman would expect coal to work itself up from the depths of the earth by merely placing money, or what is called “capital," at the top of a coal-mine. Would any of the things, apart from natural conditions that minister to human wants, exist but for the hand of labour? Can there be more than one serious answer to these questions? Yet there are many millions of our class who still cling to the belief that we cannot do without capital or the capitalist; that we cannot dispense with the power of money. Because workers living to-day have not experienced the production of goods without capital or money the really vital elements indispensable to all human existence are forgotten. That the workers are blind as to the actual truth of the position is, of course, not to be wondered at. The modern workers, the wage- slaves of civilisation, are much like the feudal serfs of the Middle Ages and the bond-slaves of old. They are largely dependent upon those who benefit from the proceeds of their exploitation for their knowledge of things. They have been taught and trained to look up to their masters as though these people owed their social position to some divine right or to some special endowment of nature. What has passed under the name of education has been in effect little more than propaganda aiming to secure the continuance of capitalist-class control of the means of life. But we Socialists have revealed the fallacy of the ideas which helped to keep capitalism going. Class domination has its roots in the possession of the ownership and control of such things as the land, mines, mills, factories, ships, railways, in fact, in all those means of producing and distributing the essentials of life. That is the basis of the class division and not any superior mental or physical power on the part of the ruling class. This class possesses money or capital to-day through the operation of historical, economic and social causes. The vast possessions of the modern capitalist class have behind them a record that is largely associated with past murder, piracy, spoliation and robbery, rather than with any mark of superior intellectual ability. In fact, the history of class divisions from very early times is directly connected with conquest, plunder and enslavement. Read its history and it will reveal the facts only too tragically.

But, to come back to our point about file meaning of capital! Those who insist that it is indispensable belie air past human history, besides actually distorting the real significance to the workers. The land and all other things, including money, which are used to-day as agents of wealth production are in themselves no more capital than the moon is green cheese. Capital is wealth, the result of past labour, used to obtain profit. This in turn is but the unpaid labour of the workers. The profit motive is behind all capitalist production. The bread we eat, the clothes we wear, the houses in which we live are not produced for their use, but for profit. Unless there is a profit, or the prospect of it, capitalist production ceases, in fact it would not be started. This will explain, apart from other considerations; why millions of our class are unemployed, are forced to a demoralising idleness: the capitalists can find no profitable use for even the goose that lays the golden eggs. Yet for thousands of years, for by far the greater part of human history, capital was unknown to the human race. Even the extensive use of the precious metals marks but a late stage in human development. The predominance of money as a factor in economic relationships is, in fact, not more than a few centuries old. The point we wish to emphasise is that there is nothing intrinsically indispensable about the great “god" money. The "yellow, glittering gold" of capitalism, apart from its various uses to the present system, is in reality of much less real use to human needs than many of the baser metals. In a really healthy and sanely-organised system of society, wherein profit was absent—could not exist, in fact—there would be no need of such things to facilitate the distribution of the products of labour. Therefore, we of the Socialist Party of Great Britain stand for the abolition of capital because we stand for the abolition of capitalism. The immense productive powers of to-day must be converted into the common property of the community; they must be democratically owned and controlled, through which they would be operated for use instead of for profit. There is no other way out for the working class. The capitalist class must be dispossessed of their control of the means of living, and this can only be done by divesting them of their political power. Those who represent the varied interests of the capitalist class in Parliament are elected there by the workers themselves. Under the guise of specious promises to effect this or that social reform the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties obtain the political support of the workers to administer capitalism. Not even the Labour Party proposes to abolish capitalism, despite its frequent use of the word “Socialism" ; it seeks to carry it on in the form of State ownership, with the capitalist receiving interest and compensation under the direction of the State. This is not Socialism, but State capitalism. Although backed by many workers, the Labour Party has proved itself in practice a supporter of the capitalist system. And this will help to explain the Labour Party’s wholehearted support of the War, 1914-1918, as well as its being pledged to support the next war. The workers must learn the fatal errors of their ways. They must get political power to smash capitalism. Until they do this there seems to be little alternative but for them to go on acclaiming resolutions, such as they usually do at these and other demonstrations, calling upon capitalist governments to do this, that, or the other thing for them; they will continue to seek the reform of their slavery and exploitation, where only its abolition will suffice.

The message of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is, therefore, that they must organise with us for Socialism. We stand for the working-class capture of political power by the only method available to-day, namely, through democratic election to Parliament to abolish capitalism and establish Socialism. This is the first and foremost plank in our programme; anything short of this will not do. We neither advocate nor ask capitalist governments for social reforms. Like millions of other workers, we would like to see the end of the means test, unemployment pay increased, schoolchildren well fed, and many other of the demands of the workers met, but the fact remains that, with things as they exist now, capitalism would still be with us, demanding removal. Working-class action must be revolutionary, not reformist. Political catch cries such as “Chamberlain must go," "Down with Hitler," and "Defend the British Empire against Fascism," are useless and dangerous to the real interests of the workers. If Chamberlain goes, who comes? Only somebody else representing the class interest to which Chamberlain belongs. The British Empire: the workers own none of it. Its existence marks the fact of their exploitation. The existence of the Hitlers and Mussolinis is largely the result of working-class inactivity and concentration on social reformist instead of Socialist revolutionary action. When the working class heeds our message it will not fail to take the necessary step to put an end, once and for all, to capitalism and all its Dictators. We picture a world free from exploitation and want, free from wars and the power of Dictators—in short, a world of our own making in which the guiding principle would be the common interest of “ associated humanity."

This is no wild Utopian dream. The material conditions of its realisation are here now, awaiting the understanding and action of the international working class.

Fellow-workers, the Socialist Party of Great Britain appeals to you to look to your own interests through Socialism.

Robert Reynolds

This Month's Quotation: Benito Mussolini (1938)

The Front Page quote from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Proletariat is anti-Patriotic by definition and by necessity . . . "

- Mussolini in 1909

Notes by the Way: The Last Stage in the Old Austria (1938)

The Notes by the Way Column from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Last Stage in the Old Austria

The last-minute resistance before the sudden collapse of Schuschnigg in face of the advance of Hitler into Austria gave a dramatic touch to that event, but also requires explanation. An article in the Nation (New York, April 2nd, 1938) provides the necessary details. It will be recalled that Schuschnigg met Hitler at Berchtesgaden and it was at once taken for granted that Austrian independence was already lost. Then, after a few days, Schuschnigg made a bold move to retrieve the situation. A plebiscite was to be taken on the maintenance of independence, and all anti-Nazi elements were called upon to rally round the Austrian Government on a policy of friendship towards Germany but no absorption. Why did the change take place? The answer is that, although Schuschnigg could get no foreign support against Hitler, an influential body of Austrian industrialists and landowners tried to organise resistance because they feared for their own position if Austria became a German province. Not sentiment but profit was their motive. The body in question included the Austrian Association of Industry and Trade, They submitted a memorandum to the Government and two of their members were promptly called into the Ministry which was to stake its existence on the fight for independence. The Nation gives lengthy extracts from the memorandum, some of which are reproduced below: —

  . . . we must defend the independence of Austria. The loss of our independence under present conditions in Germany would be disastrous for us. It would mean the extinction of large sections of Austrian industry, commerce, and the tourist trade. We have been able to reduce the restrictions dealing with foreign currency on account of the increase of exports and of income from abroad, especially from tourists. Our industries are largely dependent on exports. The German currency restrictions would endanger our exports. At the same time we could not expect to be privileged in the matter of distribution of raw materials, which are scarce in Germany. Most of our industries do not belong to those armament industries which are privileged.

The memorandum goes on to point out the interesting situation of the Austrian iron and steel industry and their opposition to absorption. The Austrian iron mines have a relatively low cost of production, iron and steel mills are near the mines, and many industrial plants have been built up on account of the cheap supply of iron and steel. All of this advantage would be lost if Austria came under the control of German iron and steel interests.

  We were opposed to attempts of the Stahlverein to close iron and steel mills which the Stahlverein controls in our country. We were and still are opposed to being subjected to the control of the German cartels and syndicates in the matter of iron and steel prices. Our machine industries will not be able to compete with German industries if we have to buy iron .and steel from the Ruhr mills. . . . Anyway we shall experience an immediate rise of iron and steel prices in the event of the Anschluss. We shall have to pay the German internal price, which always is considerably higher than the world market price or the price we have been paying. 

Austrian agriculture, like industry, would be sacrificed. Instead of buying cheap fodder abroad the Austrian farmers would have to buy dear fodder from Prussia and Pomerania.

The memorandum develops many other points, all directed to the one argument, that most Austrian industrialists and landowners were better off in an independent Austria: —

  We shall not be able to exert as strong pressure in the Prussian State Bureaucracy as can the large trusts of western and central Germany.

The Nation adds that several other industrial and handicraft organisations also sent resolutions and letters which urged Schuschnigg to refuse Hitler's pressure—"They furnish the key to Schuschnigg's surprisingly stubborn resistance—and to the necessity of Hitler's using military power to effect the Anschluss."

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The First Stage in the New Austria

In the long period after the Great War during which the Social Democrats were active and influential, Austrian industrial capitalists more or less adjusted themselves to the position of offering social reforms (largely at the expense of Austrian landowners and agricultural interests) in return for comparative industrial peace and order achieved with the help of the Social Democratic Party and trade unions.

With the world depression and consequent decline of markets the old situation no longer appealed to the weakened capitalists or to the strengthened landowners and farmers. The Social Democrats and the unions were crushed. Violent repression took the place of social reform. Dollfuss, and after him Schuschnigg, repudiated democracy and stood for the form of dictatorship known as the Corporate State.

Now a further stage begins with the entry of Hitler into Austria. German capitalist and landed interests required the crushing of their Austrian rivals and the Government they controlled. So Hitler and his lieutenants deliberately set out to placate the Austrian Social Democrats and Communists and former trade unions. Schuschnigg penalised the workers who fought for democracy in 1934, Hitler promises them reinstatement in their former jobs. Dollfuss used artillery against the blocks of low-rented flats put up by the Social- Democratic City Council of Vienna. Now the Nazis promise to go back to the programme of the Social Democrats.

General Goering, according to The Times correspondent in Vienna (The Times, April 2nd, 1938), has promised work to the Austrian unemployed, and Dr. Neubacher, the Nazi Burgomaster of Vienna, has lifted whole chunks from the former Social-Democratic programme. The Times Vienna correspondent reports him as follows:—

  Dr. Neubacher delivered a speech at the Vienna gasworks recently in which he promised big housing schemes on the lines of those which made Vienna famous under the Social-Democrats, extensive slum demolition, an extension of the municipal services, and the beginning of work on the promised Port of Vienna as soon as possible. He reinstated 80 workmen who had been dismissed because they fought with the Socialist Schutzbund against the Dollfuss Government in 1934, and declared that he did this not as an act of grace, but as a restitution of rights. 

The moral is obvious. Those who administer capitalism, whether by democratic or dictatorial methods, cannot ignore the views of the mass of the workers, but must seek their support or, at least, their tolerance of what is done. But will the workers be deceived for ever? Has Hitler discovered some new and infallible method of blinding the workers to their own class interests ? Plainly no, for, as is shown above, all that Hitler can do in Austria is to go back to the method employed during the period of influence of the Social Democratic party. The fact that he can think of no other and better method than promising the stock social reforms is proof positive that, sooner or later, the workers who have for the time being been deceived by Hitler, will see through him when they find that the promised social reforms leave capitalism unchanged.

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The Troubles of the Labour London County Council

The Labour Party majority, who control the London County Council, are in a sea of troubles. Trade Unions with members employed by the L.C.C. and the London Borough Councils complain that the joint meeting of the above bodies—dominated by Labour Councillors—curtly rejected their demand for increases of pay to compensate for the increase of prices. The Councillors, of course, are thinking of the rates. More expenditure means higher rates, and higher rates mean fewer votes for Labour candidates at the next elections.

We see masked nurses addressing meetings of nurses employed at L.C.C. hospitals, called to protest against their conditions of service. Mr. G. Vincent Evans, General Secretary of the National Union of County Officers, spoke at one such meeting, and is reported in the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post (April 6th, 1938):—

  . . . when the Nurses Charter was introduced . . . it was felt that the L.C.C. would set an example to the rest of the country.
  Instead, when the testing time came, the L.C.C. showed that such a spirit of leadership was sadly lacking. The result was the use of this inaction as a vicious and indefensible argument for defeating the Limitation of Hours Bill in the House of Commons.
  “It was left to the Middlesex County Council/' he went on, “to become the pioneers of this progressive movement of reform when it introduced the 48-hour working week. The lead was followed by many of the voluntary hospitals and other provincial county boroughs.
  "Surely the great trade unionist movement in London, and throughout the country, must feel that progress has been stultified."

Again the Rates!

Then we find tenants who are to be given the blessings of an L.C.C. housing scheme signing petitions of protest. The Daily Telegraph (March 28th) reports as follows:— . .

  Residents of Bethnal Green are protesting against a proposal by the L.C.C. to demolish their homes and to rehouse them in five-storey flats instead of in two-storey cottages, which they prefer.
  In a petition delivered recently to the King in Council, through the Home Secretary, on behalf of 4,000 persons, it was stated that the cost of the suggested five-storey blocks.would be greater than for two-storey cottages.
  “The argument that more people can be housed on a site by building blocks instead of houses has been blown sky high,” said Mr. William Catmur, on behalf of the petitioners. “The people are in revolt against flat-blocks and want houses with small gardens. Such houses can certainly be provided at no greater cost."
  The petition claims that the local authorities refuse to repair houses which could be repaired, and insist on ejecting the tenants, that they are destroying the businesses as well as the homes of many small shopkeepers, and that they are “behaving with the most outrageous disregard of the law."

In this case again, in spite of the argument used by the petitioners, it is probable that the five-storey flats are cheaper. Otherwise we must assume that the Labour Party, who are responsible for the scheme, have some abstract preference for flats, whether the workers like them or not. In any event, we can be quite certain that if the flats were like those privately-built ones available to people who can afford to pay, and if they were available at rents no higher than those paid now by the Bethnal Green tenants, the latter would raise no objection.

But the L.C.C., in spite of its Labour majority, cannot tackle the real problem—poverty caused by capitalism. All it can do is to nibble at the effects of poverty, hoping to convince the electors that this is better than leaving the L.C.C. to the Municipal Reformers. Labour leaders never learn the lesson that capitalism administered by Labour Councils is so little different that, after a few years, the electors turn again in desperation to the openly capitalist parties. So it will continue to be until the workers decide to have Socialism.

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Major Fey—A Liberal and a Communist Viewpoint

Major Fey, who committed suicide (or was perhaps murdered) when the Nazis entered Vienna, was one of those guilty of the brutal onslaught on the Viennese workers in February, 1934.

The News Chronicle correspondent in Vienna, Mr. John Segrue, was responsible for the following account, published in the News Chronicle on February 17th, 1934:—

  Vice-Chancellor Fey . . . organised the plan that goaded the workers into resistance. Last Sunday, in a speech at Stebersdors, near Vienna, he told the Heimwehr that Dr. Dollfuss was “one of them" and added that he intended to begin work in earnest against his enemies on the following day.

His “earnest work” was to mean artillery fire against workers' homes; and when the fighting was over Fey promised “scores of hangings all over Austria." It was indeed the British Government which actually intervened to stay the slaughter.

Now Fey is dead, victim of his own ambitions and perfidy (he was believed to have played false both to Dollfuss and to the Nazis).

A correspondent draws our attention to the way this event was reported in the Liberal Manchester Guardian and in the Communist Daily Worker (both dated March 17th, 1938).

In the Guardian Fey was given the headline, “Minister who Destroyed the Socialists.”

In the Daily Worker the headline ran: “Austrian Patriot Leader’s Suicide.”

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A Noble Lord on Tax-dodging

The Times recently published an article on tax-dodging, and showed how wealthy people employ the best legal brains to evade income tax and surtax. Other newspapers estimated the loss to the Treasury through this at £50 millions a year.

The Times then published a number of letters on the rights and wrongs of tax-dodging, one of the most enlightening being a letter from that representative of a very noble house, Lord Hugh Cecil. He argued that the tax-dodger is entitled to get away with anything, provided he keeps within the law. If the tax-dodger “acts openly and above board, and clearly conforms to the law, I can see no reason why he should not do anything the law allows in order to lighten the load of taxes.”

This is an ingenuous way of phrasing the claim that wealthy men are entitled to get round the plain intention of Parliament, provided that their lawyers can find the usual loophole. Such is patriotism.

The Times (April 1st, 1938) disclosed that “cases are on record in which members of the House of Commons, who have voted to impose taxes on others, have themselves resorted to evasive operations in order to avoid the very taxes to which they have consented. "

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Bernard Shaw Trips up

Bernard Shaw entertained the readers of the Daily Express (March 26th, 1938) by giving answers to eight questions on world affairs. He ridiculed national frontiers, attacked Hitler for Jew-baiting, denounced Nazi Nordic nonsense as being only an imitation of the “enormous arrogance” of the Jews in claiming to belong to God’s chosen race, expressed appreciation of Hitler’s book, "My Struggle” (“though it is a great pity that he did not read my works instead of Houston Chamberlain’s”), denied that there is any natural reason for the existence of a German Empire—or a British Empire—and thought that war between Britain and France and Germany will only break out "if Hitler loses his head, and is confronted by enemies who have not any heads to lose.”

Altogether a typical contribution. But on one point Shaw fell into a trap, as a reader of the Daily Express promptly pointed out. The question was about returning Germany’s colonies. In the course of his reply, he said: “My slogan is, ‘Africa for the Africans’.”

But it is only two years ago that Shaw was campaigning under the banner "Abyssinia for the Italians.”

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Winston Churchill has Second Thoughts on Spain

At the beginning of the Spanish War Churchill was all for Franco. He has gradually veered round until now, in the Evening Standard (April 5th, 1938), he writes gloomily of the dangers of a Franco victory for British Imperial interests, and regrets that opinion in England and France is so divided as to prevent any action being taken.

  A thoroughly Nazified Spain, retaining its German nucleus, may well be a cause of profound anxiety both to France and Britain. At any rate, it appears to be a matter upon which they should exert themselves, if indeed the faculty of action still resides among them.

It need hardly be said that Churchill’s motives never include any consideration for the exploited. He backed Franco from motives of ruling class sympathy with a dictator and now turns against him when British ruling class interests appear to be at stake.

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What British Seamen Owe to the Empire

If there were anything in the argument of the Imperialists about the advantages of belonging to a seafaring Empire, possessed of enormous naval power, surely the conditions of British seamen would demonstrate the truth or otherwise of their belief. The Times recently published some articles which showed a decidedly unattractive picture of those conditions, and on March 29th a letter was published from Lieutenant-Commander H. G. Boys-Smith, which contained the following: —

  May one who boards over a thousand ships every year (chiefly British and North European) express gratitude for the outspoken articles by your Labour Correspondent of “Ships and Men ” ?
  My opportunities for observation enable me to say, without fear of contradiction, that the accommodation provided for British crews is so much inferior to what is usually found in Scandinavian, Danish, Dutch, and German ships that it constitutes not only a grave wrong to our seamen but an equally grave reflection on British ship-owning interests.

He went on to confirm a statement made by another correspondent that shipowners’ representatives give "hints” that forecastle conditions must not be spoken of.

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Who is Father Christmas?

The Daily Herald (April 9th, 1938) reports that a certain wool merchant who recently died leaving £1,176,813, was known locally as' the Father Christmas of the textile industry, because he made generous gifts to his employees at Christmas time. It will never have occurred to this gentleman that he was only able to become a millionaire because his employees were making "generous gifts” of unpaid labour to him, not only at Christmas, but throughout the year.

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Capitalism's Welfare Work

A Mr. A. Hudson-Davies, who was formerly engaged in industrial welfare work, spoke at the Conference of Management Associations at Oxford on April 1st, 1938, about the employer’s view of welfare work. He confirmed what Socialists have always argued. The following report is taken from the Manchester Guardian (April 2nd, 1938): —

  Mr. A. Hudson-Davies said that under the present dispensation their main job as managers was undoubtedly to find profits for the shareholders, adding: “All this business about welfare activities and improving working conditions is really a matter of making profits in an enlightened way, and there is no point in making a song and dance about it because it costs only a fraction of the outgoings of the company.”

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Facts and Fiction About the Empire

The Sunday Chronicle (April 3rd, 1938) had articles by two well-known people, both of whom touched on the question of the standard of living of British workers. They flatly contradicted each other.

Sir Philip Gibbs, in “The Story of the British Empire,” said: —

  Youth in Britain to-day . . . well clothed, well fed, well housed . . . owes everything to the Pioneers of Empire.

Mr, Duncan Sandys, M.P., in “Politics from the Inside,” wrote about the Children’s Minimum Council, the aim of which is to ensure “that no child shall, by reason of the poverty of its parents, be deprived of at least the minimum of food and other requirements necessary for full health.” They gave a luncheon, the menu being based on the British Medical Association’s minimum diet necessary for health, costing, at present prices, 6s. 6d. a week per person. Mr. Sandys says: —

  . . . it is unhappily the fact that even this frugal fare is beyond the reach of every unemployed man without separate means who has a wife and children to support. What is more, very many of the lower paid wage earners are just as badly off . . . there are actually over four million people in this country who cannot afford to spend more than 4s. a week on food.

It would seem that Sir Philip Gibbs' pioneers of Empire might have been better employed putting things right at home than in extending capitalism’s evils to the unfortunate inhabitants of other countries.

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Who Makes Politics Disorderly ?

After Mr. Shinwell had slapped the face of Commander Bower in the House of Commons the latter (who, unfortunately, suffered some injury through the blow) issued a message to a Conservative Parliamentary candidate, saying that Mr. Shinwell’s action is an indication of the kind of disorder we may expect when Socialists get power. As Mr. Shinwell’s Party is the Labour Party, not the Socialist Party, and as it is committed to reforming capitalism, not abolishing it, the reference to Socialism by Commander Bower should be taken as an indication of the profound ignorance of Conservative M.P.s. But regarding the conduct of M.P.s, there are a few other things to be said.

In the first place, the Conservatives themselves have a black record. The Conservative Evening Standard (April 6th, 1938) says this: —

  Commander Bower’s taunt and Mr. Shinwell’s reply, with physical violence, were equally unjustifiable.
   It is . . . an unpleasant feature of the present huge Government majority that there are a number of Conservative members who are utterly unmannerly in their treatment of the Opposition, and who are ready to hurl any taunt, however offensive, across the floor of the House.

The News Chronicle (April 5th, 1938) recalls that. “for systematic brawling” it is necessary to go back to the early ’eighties (the Liberals, Tories and the Irish then had the House to themselves), when hardly a night in the whole session was free from "scenes,” and that the late Lord Cushenden “once threw a book at Winston Churchill and hit him in the eye.” In April, 1924, Mr. Amery hit Mr. Buchanan, and more recently Mr. Beckett (now a Fascist) ran off with the Mace.

When we turn from the Members of Parliament, who, presumably, ought to be able to set a good example to their constituents, and examine the conduct of the constituents themselves, we of the S.P.G.B. can say that behaviour of audiences at meetings is good.

But, then, the S.P.G.B. makes a point of allowing questions and opposition at propaganda meetings and the audiences appreciate the fact that no attempt is being made to fetter the expression of opinion.
It is interesting to notice the tribute paid by the Commissioner of Police for London to the workers who march in demonstrations. (See Report for 1936, Stationery Office, Is., p. 25.) He comments on the increased number of meetings in 1936 arising out of events in Abyssinia and Spain and out of the March of Unemployed, and says :

  But these meetings were in every case orderly, and the conduct of the unemployed marchers beyond reproach.

Shinwell and Bower should not be above learning from their constituents how to behave.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letters: The Labour Theory of Value (1938)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Theory of Value

P. P, M.'s P.P.S.

In the January issue we replied to a letter criticising the labour theory of value, and this has evoked a further letter from the same correspondent, the relevant paragraphs of which are given below.

To the Managing Editor,

The Socialist Standard,

42, Great Dover Street, S.E.l.

January 14th, 1938.

Dear Sir,

We now come to the third (January) issue, and again there will be much laughter, for The Socialist Standard’s reply to my contention is nothing but an exhibition of either nonsense or stupidity or evasion.

The reply says: “Why is fur, ebony, badger hair, etc., etc., scarce? Because it costs a good deal of human effort, human labour, to get it.”

What profound wisdom! !! And I, poor simpleton, always imagined that badger hair, for instance, was scarce because badgers are scarce. But now I know better. And I take it that North Poles and South Poles are scarce because it takes a good deal of human effort, human labour, to find them?

However, let me come to my real rejoinder, expressed illustratively.

When a badger is caught it is caught whole, not piecemeal. Therefore the labour (or labour-time) applying to its capture applies to the whole badger. But the hair-covering of this same badger is divided into sections. There is a comparatively small section of hair of fine quality; there is a larger section of hair of medium quality; and there is a still larger section of hair of comparatively coarse quality. All three sections are mounted in handles of exactly the same size, quality and workmanship. But the brushes made with the first-mentioned section of hair will be high priced: those with the second-mentioned section of hair will be at a less price; and those with the third-mentioned section of hair will be at a comparatively low price.

I could add to this illustration of my argument to the extent of many columns, but the given illustration alone will suffice (using The Socialist Standard language) to knock the bottom out of The Socialist Standard’s reply to my argument, and demonstrates what I stated in my previous letter, viz., that labour (or labour-time) is not the sole and exclusive determinor of value and price, as Marx and The Socialist Standard tell us.

Sincerely yours,

P.  P. M.

Reply:

We said, and we repeat, that badger hair is scarce because it costs a good deal of human labour to get it. It costs much labour because badgers are scarce. We did not, as P. P. M. implies, say anything so silly as that badgers are scarce because it costs much labour to catch them. He falls over himself by confusing badger hair and badgers. Badger hair is a commodity: the North and South Poles are not, nor are badgers—until they are caught with a view to sale. The labour theory of value does not explain the niggardliness or the bounty of Nature, it explains the value of commodities. It is the amount of labour involved in catching badgers (together with the labour in subsequent processes) which determines the value of badger hair.

The example given, intended to refute the labour theory of value, is, in fact, an illustration of it. The badger provides a larger quantity of coarse hair than fine hair. But the badger (we learn) is caught whole, not piecemeal. So it takes as long to catch the smaller quantity of finer hair as to catch the larger quantity of coarser hair, and, accordingly, the same amounts of coarse and fine hair have different values, which arc reflected in the prices of the brushes.

We must add that neither Marx nor The Socialist Standard has ever said that labour time determines value and price. Prices can be, and are, affected by other factors.

Frank Evans

Answers To Correspondents 

Mr. W. Owen (Islington). Regret delay in answering your letter. Reply will appear in our next issue. Ed. Comm.
                                                                                                                                      
"Criticism of the Object of the S.P.G.B.” (See April issue).

Mr. C. Clarke (Aberdeen) writes to say that quotations which he described as coming from Vol. I, Chapter 3 of "Capital,” actually appear in Vol. I, Part III. Ed. Comm.

How you can get new readers for "The Socialist Standard" (1938)

Party News from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Send us a sixpenny postal order and the name of someone who you think may be likely to be seriously interested in the Socialist Standard, and we will despatch our paper to them for three consecutive months.

We shall not disclose the name of the comrade who made the suggestion, and with the third copy we shall send a brief note inviting the recipient to become a subscriber.

When writing Head Office on this subject, please address your communication to the Publicity Committee.

Germany’s First Round (1938)

From the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The art of lying is one of the chief characteristics of capitalism everywhere. The main task is to present the lie in such a manner as to make it appear to be true. This, unfortunately, is easy. The working class, from childhood onwards, are trained in such manner best calculated to make it difficult for them to separate truth from falsehood. This deception is aided by the reformist movement. Clear evidence of this can be seen to-day. The capitalist' class cleverly conceal their real aims behind lofty phrases, so that to-day we hear from all quarters the words and slogans, "Peace,” “Democracy,” "Collective Security,” etc.

With these war-cries capitalism is stampeding the masses into a war atmosphere. This is made necessary by the time factor. Twenty years has not been sufficient to destroy the memories of the last world war. The Communist frothblowers, the Labour Party and their allies, having misled the workers by fallacious teaching for years, can only echo capitalism’s subtle catchwords. The Socialist has no need to do this, for he knows the cause of war and is not sidetracked.

Germany enters the arena once again to do this time (if possible) what she failed to do last time. German capitalism was rather late on the scene, and found it difficult to build up a gigantic empire in competition with Britain and France—who had got there! It is doubtful if Germany sought to challenge the world at once, but so it turned out. Factors outside Germany helped her considerably. The Franco-Russian alliance, the Entente Cordiale, the Morocco crisis, were all used by German capitalism to frighten the masses into the belief that a plot existed to encircle Germany. Militarism, the weapon of capitalists, became, in the case of Germany, its highest expression, a logical corollary of the gigantic task confronting her capitalist class. This task was not to bribe, cajole or bully a Mad Mullah, but to win a world empire in the teeth of and in competition with powerful hostile States at her door. Geographically, Germany was a land power, and her easiest way was Eastern. This reflected itself in the policy known as the “Drang Nach Osten,”—the turning to the East. It expressed itself in the grandiose project of the “Berlin to Bagdad” railway, which, if brought to fruition, would have enabled German exports to reach the Far East and India five days quicker than by the Suez Canal route, thus placing Germany in a position of great advantage.

A few moments' glance at a map of Europe will show the direction the railway would have to take. The following figures will indicate the growth of German capitalism, which necessitated it doing as Mussolini recently .said, in reference to the capitalism he serves: ”Expand or Explode.” In 1885, in Germany, 4 million tons of pig-iron were smelted; in 1913 it had risen to 15 million tons. In 1891 the output of coal was 73 million tons; in 1913 it had reached 185 millions. In 1913 she was second in the world's steamship tonnage (12 per cent.). Her export trade had reached, in 1914, no less than £500,000,000. In the first years of the present century the Kaiser declared, “Our future lies upon the water.” This observation was only made after the Kiel Canal had been completed some four years, and provided a direct German route from the Baltic to the North Sea, and signified a great addition to her naval might. The Kaiser’s telegram to Kruger caused a British squadron to be mobilised in the North Sea, and the capitalist class of Germany seized upon this for their speeches at home on “Being prepared.”

The commercial rivalry in the Eastern end of Europe was becoming bitterly keen, with Germany becoming the dominant power in Turkey. The Deutsche Bank became the real power behind the railway construction in Turkey. It operated through a syndicate known as the Anatolian Railway Co.

In 1898 the Kaiser visited Turkey and Palestine and, like all ”advance agents” seeking to advertise their wares or boost their show, he became “all things to all men,” anticipating his less ”royal” successor, Herr Hitler. Lying and hypocrisy being twin features of capitalism and its henchmen, it is not surprising to read, "At Jerusalem the Kaiser figured as the Christian knight errant, but at Damascus as the champion of the Moslem creed.” He was a successful bag-man, obtaining concessions for railways, etc., which enabled him to pose as an ally of a reviving Islam. British capitalism was being methodically undermined in Persia and the Middle East. It could not last long! It did not! It was settled in 1914-18! Was it? We shall see next month in a further article.

Lew.

Italy in Abyssinia and Britain in Arabia: A contrast in methods. (1938)

From the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

All the world has heard about the Italian conquest of Abyssinia, but few of the readers of British newspapers have heard about Britain’s acquisition of new territory in Arabia. This contrast between doing the thing openly and doing it quietly is, however, about the only difference.

Among the Annexes to the Anglo-Italian agreement (see text in Manchester Guardian, April 18th, 1938) is one which gives an Anglo-Italian guarantee of the independence and integrity of Saudi Arabia and the Yamen, warns off all other Powers from this area, and recognises British rights over certain Arab lands in South Arabia. Italy and Britain have been sparring for position in these areas, which, naturally, bodes ill for the independence of the Arabs.

Mr. H. St. John Philby, the authority on Arabia, wrote on the subject in the January issue of World Review in an article aptly called "British Bombs over Arabia." Below are some extracts:—

  In the same month (July, 1937) the British Government announced its decision to reserve a strategic position for itself at Aquaba. . . . Only four months earlier, by Order in Council, it had annexed 100,000 square miles in South Arabia to the British Empire in defiance of treaties of long standing with the various Arab rulers and princes of that territory. Italy countered by renewing her treaty with the Yamen.

He refers to stories of British bombing, and comments:—

 If it is true that the Royal Air Force at Aden has been bombing Arab tribes and villages, which cannot retaliate in the same way, that is in my opinion an atrocity. . . . The Arabs do not want to be ruled by Great Britain or any other great power. . . . That aerial bombing is freely used by the Aden administration is not denied by the Government. It is actually defended by those responsible for it as a rapid and humane method of keeping peace in the outposts of Empire.

It is true that the Arabs are warned in advance so that they can escape before their homes are destroyed, but, as Mr. St. John Philby points out, they do not want British penetration and control:—

  Their resistance is merely in defence of their liberty and independence, recognised by Great Britain until within the last 12 months. 

The desire for a strong strategic position is not the only attraction. An expedition has gone out in search of geographical and archaeological knowledge, but, as Mr. Philby adds,

   . . . it will not be alone in the field. The quest for antiquarian data will be accompanied by a quest for oil, the existence of which at Shabura and other localities has been established as the result of my. own journey to those parts last year.
  The oil expedition has not been advertised. The company responsible for it has been fortunate to obtain the exploitary rights for this interesting territory without payment. That also is a new departure. What has happened is that the British Government has given away for nothing certain rights .. . . . in territory which does not belong to it. It is conceivable that the owners of that territory may object to, or even resist, such unauthorised encroachment on their property. The aeroplanes of Aden will be there to argue the point with leaflets and bombs.

It is perhaps not surprising that Mr. St. John Philby was not able to interest the British Press in what the British Government is doing in Arabia. Their columns were too full of material on the wickedness of the Italian, German, Japanese, and other Governments.

P. S.

The Diet and Health of South African Natives (1938)

From the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cavalcade (April 2nd, 1938) publishes the statement that Dr. E. H. Culvea, of the South African Health Department, finds three-quarters of the native population underfed and that tuberculosis is rampant. Other South African doctors who have assisted in the official investigation report that the consumption of milk among natives at Port Elizabeth is about one-fifth of a pint per head; while the doctors there recommend at least a pint a day as a preventive of tuberculosis. When free distribution of milk was started two years ago they found that thousands of children, white as well as black, had never tasted it before.

Pioneers of Empire have a lot to answer for!

General Open Air Propaganda (May) (1938)

Party News from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communists Re-write Working Class History. (1938)

Book Review from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Party has issued some amazing pamphlets, but the “March of English History" (September 4th, 1936), illustrating, as it does, several sides of "Communist" mentality, calls for the consideration of all who are looking forward to working class emancipation.

The front page is adorned with fourteen "great figures of English History" and "while we bear aloft the red flag of Modern Socialism, we continue on the road trodden by the great names of England's people" (page 11). An elementary knowledge of English history will prompt the question: “What is Oliver Cromwell doing in that collection?" Two of his most noted feats were the violent expulsion of a Parliament and the bloody suppression of the "Levellers," a political party with a very substantial social and democratic outlook which threatened the triumphant squirearchy represented by Cromwell. But people who speak of the "Glorious Revolution" (1688)— without quotes—are capable of any misinterpretation of history. Up-to-date representatives of “Modern" Socialism include John Bums, Keir Hardie, and Tom Mann. One of-.these worthies is no longer with us, so we will not linger long to enquire his right of admission to Socialist ranks. On page 8 we read: "1889—Tom Mann, Ben Tillet, and John Bums . . . launch their Socialist Movement, together with William Morris, Keir Hardie, and many others."

Keir Hardie: “There is not, and cannot be, any antagonism between Christianity and the Labour movement " (Browning Settlement, December 5th, 1910). From the “Communist" point of view, of course, this "Keir Hardie transfigured into the impassioned Christian," to quote the report, certainly deserves including. Communists to-day are holding the "outstretched hand" to Catholics. (See February Labour Monthly.) J. R. Campbell (Daily Worker, February 10th, 1938) holds the "outstretched hand" to Christians, all and sundry. He outlines "a few of the issues on which Communists and Christians can easily find a basis for co-operation." . . . Enough to make the mummified remains in the Red Square at Moscow rise and walk!

John Bums, who was once denounced by the Battersea branch of the Social Democratic Federation as a renegade, is now promoted by the Communist Party (which absorbed a large part of the organisation which succeeded the S.D.F.) from the political Chamber of Horrors to take rank with Shelley and Morris. (Oh, yes; Shelley and Morris are among the fourteen: you will know now what the big intellectual “ leaders " in die Communist Party mean when they murmur " Dialectic." It would be funny if there were not a proportion of really decent young people who are taken in by the brag and bluster of the C.P.

Tom Mann is one of the star turns of the Communist Party. "May Day, 1936," issued by the Party, gives a short biography of their hero-—omitting some very significant facts. It would be interesting to know whether the very damaging account of his formation of the “Socialist Party of Victoria," given in The Socialist of May, 1909, has ever been answered. In any case, an advertisement which appeared in the official organ of the S.P. of Victoria gives some indication of the outlook of this organisation: "A white Australian uses white American 'White Rose' kerosene, because it is made by highly-paid white Labour." This will surprise no one who follows current expression of political opinion. Says Tom Mann, in January Labour Monthly, after visiting the very source and fount of "Communist" inspiration: "Over a period of many years in the movement, I have seen many demonstrations; but never, not even in Russia, had I seen anything approaching this magnificent celebration of efficiency in all departments. Of necessity, the Red Army was there, in many thousands. The great March Past was extremely impressive, every section of the fighting forces in full equipment, telling of millions of others, ready on the instant to spring to the defence of the Fatherland." (Italics our own.)

—And such a "Fatherland"! In the next issue of The Socialist Standard it is hoped to marshal a few facts (culled, many of them, from Soviet official sources) which will give a genuine picture of this “Fatherland" as it affects the gagged, deluded underdogs of the Red Fascist régime.

Meanwhile, in choirs and places where they sing, the Communist Party in this country will "raise their glasses" and join His Excellency the Soviet Ambassador (still living, lucky dog!) in drinking a toast to His Britannic Majesty.

Reginald.

Blogger's Note:

See 'Reginald's' article, 'Stepfather Stalin',  in the August 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard.

For and Against the Popular Front (1938)

Editorial from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

In spite of large votes against the Popular Front registered by conferences of the Labour Party, some of the rank and file of that party still hanker after the idea—much to the consternation of the Daily Herald and many leaders of the Labour Party. The reason why the latter oppose the proposed alliance with Liberals and Communists and “progressive” Conservatives is twofold. On the one hand they fear that Communist assistance will frighten away many more votes than it brings in, and, on the other, they fear still more that the Liberal Party—an army with more generals than soldiers—will make up its own deficiency at the expense of the Labour leaders.

Mr. Lloyd George would probably have little difficulty in stealing the allegiance of the Labour rank and file if he once got into the fold; and then there is Winston Churchill, a Conservative without a Cabinet job, who might also join up in a promising Popular Front with expectations of leading it. So, for the Labour leaders who lack the more impressive political gifts, it is better to be leaders in the Labour Party than to be thrust into the background by more popular stars.

The idea behind the Popular Front is that as the Labour Party cannot hope to get a majority on its own it should unite with others on a limited programme of social reforms and a policy of peace, anti-Fascism, and anti-war. That being the idea, one might expect the Communists to condemn it as a betrayal of independence and Socialism, and expect the Labour Party to back it on the ground that it is an idea thoroughly in line with the past policy of that organisation. But times have changed and the roles are reversed. Sir Stafford Cripps is for the Popular Front, but admits quite frankly that “Clearly, any idea of real Socialism would have to be put aside for the present” (Daily Herald, April 16th, 1938).

The Communists, too, are for the Popular Front, but, according to the Daily Herald (April 14th), in the Communist Party's 2,000-word manifesto, “the word 'Socialism' does not occur, and every single specifically Socialist measure has been dropped from the programme itself."

To add to the troubles of the Labour Party Lord Beaverbrook is giving his blessing to the Popular Front, though whether his motive is solely the one he gives or whether it is also a move in the campaign to steal readers from the Daily Herald is hard to say. Anyway, here are Lord Beaverbrook’s views, set out in the editorial column of the Daily Express on April 18th, 1938:—

   The Daily Herald, organ of the Socialist Party, declares against a Popular Front of Socialists, Liberals, Communists. Co-ops. The Socialist Party, says the Daily Herald, are the Popular Front and the alternative Government.
    That is sheer bunk. The Socialist Party alone can’t form another Government in Britain for many years. They can’t even form a decent Opposition, and that is what should concern every democratic person, party, and newspaper.
   It concerns the Daily Express, which cares very much for democratic government and hates dictatorship.
    Dictatorships go for strength in government, but democracies go for justice in government, which is a higher and a more enduring quality.
    Under present conditions in Britain, with a Government not all-powerful and an Opposition which is feeble and stupid, we get the worst of both worlds. It would be good for Britain and for the form of British government if the parties of the Left here were joined in a compact and well-defined alliance.

(It will be noticed, by the way, that Beaverbrook, who recently declared that the Labour Party is not a Socialist party, hah decided to call it one again.)

The Daily Herald, instead of giving a welcome to an attitude so reminiscent of its own past, hotly denounces it now that the Communists have adopted it, and proceeds to rend it asunder by making use of sound Socialist arguments, the very arguments we have used against the Labour Party. The editorial in the Daily Herald of April 14th contains the following remarkable statements, remarkable, that is, when they appear in the Labour Party’s official mouthpiece. The question is put as to whether it is "worth while to surrender independence and compromise Socialist in order to defeat the National Government?” The Daily Herald answers, “No!” and points out, quite correctly, that fictitious unity is not a source of strength but of friction, quarrelling and weakness. The Herald next rejects the Popular Front because it would mean dropping Socialism—as if the Labour Party had ever fought an election on anything else but a programme of vote-catching reforms. Next it argues—again quite correctly— that the advocates of a Popular Front are suffering from “a fundamental lack of faith and confidence,” and that victories are not won by such defeatists as these.

The Herald finally clinched the argument against Popular Fronts by actually quoting the last Labour Government as an awful warning of what happens to a Labour Government “without independent authority and relying upon non-Socialist support for its majority.”

Two days later, after the Chairman of the Co-operative Party, Mr. Alfred Barnes, M.P., had urged an alliance between the Labour and Cooperative Parties and “the Liberal Party, religious leaders, and a good section of the Conservatives” (Daily Herald, April 16th), the editor returned to the attack, and asked: —

    What must be the practical (and the emotional) effect of such talk upon the millions of loyal Party workers whose whole heart is set upon seeing a great instalment of the living Socialist Commonwealth in their time?

In short, the arguments used by the Labour Daily Herald to defeat those strange bedfellows, Liberals, Co-operators, Communists, followers of Stafford Cripps and progressive Conservatives, are arguments worthy of a better cause, the cause of Socialism.

A Hundred Years Since the Charter (1938)

From the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

May, 1838—May, 1938: one hundred years pregnant with profound changes in social and political development. May, 1838, saw working-class discontent and agitation for political enfranchisement reach organised expression in the production of the “Charter" from which the Chartist movement took its name. The Charter was written by William Lovett, an "uneducated" working man who was a leading figure in the London Working Men’s Association, an organisation formed to pursue agitation for Universal Suffrage. The basic demands of the Charter were: (1) Annual Parliaments, (2) Universal Suffrage, (3) Payment of Members, (4) Abolition of Property Qualification, (5) Equal Electoral Districts.

It would be simple enough to declaim on the mistakes of the Chartists, but they were the mistakes resulting from working-class immaturity. In view of the background of the movement the marvel is that it did not make more mistakes, and provide more numerous examples of unintelligent direction. The conditions out of which the Chartist movement grew are familiar to students of history. In the early nineteenth century the industrial revolution, which transformed England from an agricultural to a largely industrial country, had hardly completed itself. The transformation created a property-less working class, which formed the majority of the population. There was intense suffering and misery. Towns had sprung up over-night. Workers were huddled in barrack-like hovels called houses, with little regard for sanitation, light or air. Whole families were brutally exploited by the new propertied class, the factory owners. Hours of labour were from sixteen to twenty a day. Children of an average age of eight years, and some even as low as four or five years, were employed in degrading and revolting conditions in the mines and factories. Many who tried to run away were brought back and chains were riveted on them.

So fiendish and brutal in their lust for profit were the new factory-owning class, and so blind to the social results of their greed, that many of the more farsighted reformers of the older ruling class, the aristocracy, feared a dangerous decline of the working-class population. England seethed in a bitter class-struggle which was crystallised around the struggle for the Charter. Until 1832, the year when the Reform Act was passed, the workers had supported the new industrial capitalist class in its struggle to gain Parliamentary enfranchisement. The Reform Act achieved this, but left the workers without any say in the government of the country. Deserted and left in the air for a few years, the many separate working-class organisations throughout the country which had worked for the franchise soon found themselves welded together in support of Lovett’s Charter. The movement followed a turbulent course for about ten years and then gradually passed out.

The Charter gained considerable support from workers throughout the country. The first petition for the Charter was presented to Parliament in 1839 and was rejected by an overwhelming majority. This failure resulted in increasing support for the “physical force" section of the Chartist movement, as opposed to the “moral force” section. Attempts were made at insurrection. One effort to release a Chartist leader from prison culminated in a riot in which soldiers, firing only one round of ammunition, killed ten and wounded forty Chartists. Several leaders were executed and others transported for life.

After the failure of the first petition the movement lagged and suffered considerably from the internal disputes between its “physical" and “moral" force sections. Subsequently, the “moral force" section broke away and formed the National Charter Association, which aimed at achieving political reform through association with the Liberals. Thenceforth the “physical force" section was in the ascendant and dominant. A second petition was presented to Parliament in 1842 and was again rejected. This was followed by an abortive attempt at a general strike. In 1848, stimulated by the upheaval in France, Chartism again revived, and a third petition was presented on April 10th, this time accompanied by a march on the House of Commons by thousands of Chartists. O’Connor, leader of the “physical force" Chartists, suffered the humiliation of having to order his followers to disperse on the “advice of the police." When the petition was examined it was found that instead of having the six million signatures claimed for it there were only two million, and a great proportion of those were patent forgeries. It was the death blow for Chartism. But though it died it unquestionably left its mark on working-class politics and exerted a tremendous influence on the reform movement of the time, besides influencing the literary world, as is shown by some of the outstanding writers of those days. Though the movement was left bleeding and exhausted, it doubtless assisted the introduction of such reforms as the Child Labour Acts (1842), The Ten-Hour Day (1847) and the abolition of the stamp duty on newspapers in 1836.

The aims for which the Chartists struggled have now been achieved, with the exception of Annual Parliaments; though Universal Suffrage and the Payment of Members are relatively modern innovations, the one being introduced in 1918 and the other in 1911. The lapse of the years between the struggle for the Charter and the achievement of its objects tends to obscure the important part in working-class history played by the Chartists. The desperate nature of their struggle brought the franchise to the workers more quickly than if that struggle had not taken place. The modern working class has inherited the benefits and the accumulated experience of those struggles. The Chartists fought for democratic enfranchisement, the modern working class takes it for granted and must inevitably fight for more. Bitter experience taught the Chartists the importance of Parliament. Some saw in the acquiring of the franchise an end to all their troubles, a few saw deeper, that their poverty was due to capitalist ownership, and glimpsed the Socialist solution. Nevertheless, the democratic struggle which they fought was part of the historic struggle for Socialism, a struggle that had to be made. The ruling class feared them and their aims. It took many decades for the rulers to learn that enfranchisement for the workers did not of necessity threaten the rights of private property. The struggles for the aims of Chartists were carried on in other forms by men who came after, and partial concessions were made to the workers in 1867 and 1884, before complete enfranchisement was granted to all males over 21 in 1918 and to females in 1930. The nineteenth century capitalist took the measure of the Chartists and their successors, bitterly opposing their aims and granting concessions only when to do so diverted them, from adopting more menacing demands; the modern capitalist class has made concessions in the happy assurance of apparent safety. But are they.so safe?

The Parliamentary machine which they control has reached coercive and administrative perfection. It has reached it through centuries of struggle for dominance between the propertied sections. But to-day there is only one dominant propertied class and only one class, the working class, who can challenge its dominance. At the moment there may appear to be nothing serious to disturb the equanimity of the capitalists. But that means little. The modern working class inherits the lessons of history, half-formed ideas of. the goal towards which historic evolution is relentlessly marching shape themselves in the minds of millions of workers. The seeds of generations of propaganda have been sown, and who knows when and how events which neither capitalists nor workers can control will develop rapidly those half-formed ideas into Socialist convictions and bring to maturity the seeds sown in past generations ? Political catastrophes, like those in Nature, appear to occur suddenly, but they are not sudden to those who understand that they are the culmination of the innumerable past factors in historical development. The Chartists played their part, the modern workers play theirs. Between the two much ground has been cleared, preparing the way for the days when events will show clearly to intelligent workers that Socialism is the only logical outcome of the class struggle and the only solution for their poverty and insecurity. 

Harry Waite

Death of Moses Baritz (1938)

Obituary from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the early age of 54, Comrade Moses Baritz has passed on. The majority of those years have been spent in the Socialist movement. He was a personality in the real sense, turbulent, impatient, yet a diligent student and great scholar. A good friend and comrade but a bitter and relentless political opponent, and many political ornaments on both sides of the Atlantic have wilted under the last of his invective, which was supported by a comprehensive knowledge of Socialism.

By profession a musician he was compelled while still in his 'teens to relinquish his position as clarinet player in an orchestra on account of serious myopia.

For some years he knocked about without any settled plan. During this period he heard a Socialist holding forth in Stevenson Square, Manchester. As a Tory, he resented the speaker attacking capitalism. An argument ensued and Moses lost both the discussion and his Toryism. His temperament was such that to be beaten fairly in discussion could only have one result. He became a convert to Socialism.

Moses Baritz made more than one journey to America, where he made a reputation as a convincing speaker and a brilliant exponent of scientific Socialism. His last trip to the U.S.A. became a world tour—largely involuntary. In 1918 he was arrested and confined in the Immigration Station at Seattle, Wash. It is interesting to note in passing that the American interpretation of democracy at this period did not provide for the formulation of any charges, arrest, detention and ultimate release depending largely on the whim of a few officials.

The writer was arrested and confined in the same building. A political and personal friendship had commenced which has overcome many obstacles and has been terminated only by death.

About September, 1918, Moses was given permission to leave the U.S.A. and he sailed for the Antipodes. His reception there was marked by hostility verging on persecution, and before long he was on the move again. He discovered on his arrival in South Africa that his reputation as a Socialist propagandist had preceded him. The quantity of malicious venom levelled at him proved insurmountable and he landed in England again during the latter half of 1920.

A few years of poverty followed, during his sole income depended on the proceeds of musical lectures illustrated with gramophone records. These lectures were delivered mainly to proletarian audiences and he introduced a class of music that has survived the competition of musical shoddy.

A well-known recording company, appreciating his musical knowledge and recognising his analytical faculties, engaged his services. In the early days of broadcasting he was on the air regularly lecturing on music. Good English and a clear pronunciation were insufficient to survive the demand for an Oxford accent, and Moses bade adieu to the microphone.

His health began to deteriorate about three years ago and he passed through several severe illnesses in the meantime. Nevertheless, no call on his services were ignored and only a few months ago he made his last bow to a Socialist audience at a Bloomsbury meeting, when he concluded his lecture in a state of collapse.

The announcement of his death occasions no surprise to his friends, but it is a painful shock and a great loss. The Socialist Party and the Manchester branch in particular has lost one of its most able and sincere advocates.

T. Rimmer