A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the June 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Can a Catholic be a Socialist?

Pope Pius XI, addressing a gathering of “pilgrims” on Friday, May 15th, declared that “no good Catholic can be a good Socialist.” This is, of course, the familiar and natural view of the Catholic Church, and one with which the Socialist fully agrees.

The Pope’s words were reported in all of the London daily papers on May 16th, with one exception—the Daily Herald. The reason for this deliberate omission of a piece of news is obvious. The Labour Party has a large number of Catholic supporters whom it does not wish to offend, but at the same time it does not wish to make a formal declaration of opposition to Socialism. The Herald’s line, therefore, is to pretend that Socialism and Catholicism are not incompatible. On a previous occasion when the Socialist Party’s attitude on the question had been misrepresented by the Editor of the Herald, he declined to allow us to state our position in his columns. The Herald under its new Editor and new proprietors evidently follows the same policy of avoiding discussion.

But although the Herald did not publish the Pope’s statement at the time when it was made, they published some comments on it. On May 22nd their Rome correspondent sent a reassuring message, in which he quoted the Pope’s Under-Secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs as saying that the Pope quite understood the position of the British Labour Party and had no intention of attacking them. The Under-Secretary said :—

“For instance, we know there are bishops and many Catholics in England who belong to the Labour Party.

This fact may be easily explained by the special situation of the Labour Party, many points of whose programme coincide with those of Catholic Syndicates, and which also admits in the political field class collaboration, as is proved by the present Government.”

In other words, the Catholic Church is not opposed to the Labour Party because that party is not a Socialist party. This point of view received confirmation from Sir James Sexton, a Labour M.P. who is also a Catholic. He explained (Daily Telegraph, May 18th) that the Labour Party’s aim is not Socialism, but “what I might call the nationalisation of essential commodities, such as water, gas, the railways, mines, and so on.”

It is because Socialists do not want nationalisation or state capitalism that they do not support the Labour Party. For the same reason, Catholics who are opposed to Socialism can, and do, join the Labour Party. Readers who are interested in the whole question should read our pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion.”

* * *

The Bank Rate and the Workers. 

On September 26th, 1929, the bank rate was raised from 5½ to 6½ per cent. This meant that the industrial capitalists who had to borrow money from the banks would have to pay a higher rate of interest, and it was only to be expected that they should howl with rage. By pretending that the question was one that concerned the workers, they were able to get many influential members of the Labour Party and the I.L.P. to join the chorus of protest. Maxton and Tillett were two of the decoy ducks; and the late Lord Melchett was particularly vociferous among the employers. The protest was based on the claim that a high bank rate would mean more unemployment and less money for wages. If the theory were a sound one from a working-class standpoint, a fall in the bank rate ought to cause a reduction in unemployment and an increase in wages. It has not caused either.

The bank rate was reduced on May 1st, 1930, to 3 per cent., and on May 1st, 1931, to 2½ per cent., but unemployment, instead of going down during 1930 and the early part of 1931, mounted up to 2½ millions—upwards of a million more than it was when the bank rate was at 5½ or 6½. The same period has witnessed a rapidly growing volume of wage reductions. One case is of special interest. The late Lord Melchett was chairman, and his son (the present Lord Melchett) a director, of Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries, Ltd. This company, helped, no doubt, by the fall in the bank rate, increased its profit from £289,000 in 1929 to £443,000 in 1930. Did it then increase the wages of the miners it employs? On the contrary, it reduced their pay, in keeping with the lowered pay of South Wales miners generally. What have Messrs. Maxton and Tillett to say to that?

Another point of interest is that the present 2½ per cent. rate is the lowest since 1909. Was unemployment low in 1909, and were the workers well off? On the contrary, the rate of unemployment in 1909 was 7.7 per cent., which (except for 1908, when the unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent.) was the highest rate of unemployment since 1886, and was higher than in any succeeding year until 1921. It was also about this time that Mr. Lloyd George endorsed the statement that about a third of the population were in a state of perpetual poverty.

The bank rate is a question which matters a great deal to the industrial and financial capitalists in their mutual relations, but one which matters nothing to the workers, who by one section of the capitalists no more and no less than by other sections.

* * *

The pot calls the kettle. 

The Labour Party’s Secret Funds.

For years the Labour Party has denounced the Liberals and Tories for having secret funds and for soliciting donations from wealthy men. As soon as the Mosley Party was launched, some of the Labour Party ministers used this line of attack against Sir Oswald Mosley. Mr. Tom Johnston, Lord Privy Seal, said that the Mosley Party had spent from £30,000 to £40,000 on a poster display, and that the money came from secret sources. But while Johnston is only a recent recruit to the inner circle of the Labour Party, and possibly did not know very much about its affairs, Mosley is an old hand, and promptly replied with a similar attack on the Labour Party. Speaking in the Drill Hall, Ashton, on Monday, April 27th, he said (Manchester Guardian, April 28th) :—

"Now I am going to say something about the cant and humbug talked by the Labour party. They say I refuse to publish a list of my individual subscribers. I do, and the Labour party also refuses to publish their list. I refuse because if I published it subscribers might be subject to intimidation.

Would you like to see the appeal sent to me and other rich men by the Labour party for their secret funds? It is sent out to rich men, and rich men alone. That private and secret fund is never published. I don’t blame the Labour party for it, but I do blame them for coming on the platform and pretending they get their funds only from the workers.”

The Labour Party has not replied to Mosley on this point.

The political correspondent of the Daily Mail wrote as follows (April 29th, 1931) :—

“Socialist leaders are unwilling to reply to an allegation made by Sir Oswald Mosley in a speech at Ashton-under-Lyne that the party has a secret political fund which is replenished by subscriptions obtained from rich men, and details of which are never published.

Why should we advertise that man? was the only reply of one leader, when asked to confirm or deny the statement.

The late Mr. Bernhard Baron, the tobacco millionaire, was a regular and generous contributor to Socialist election funds. Wealthy and titled members of the party also make substantial gifts.

In the Lobby yesterday the absence of a reply to the direct charge was accepted as confirmation of a general suspicion that, like other parties, the Socialist party in office is not so hard up as it used to be when in opposition.”

Of course., when the Daily Mail writes “Socialist” it means the Labour Party.

* * *

The value of insurance shares. 

In the midst of the investors’ complaints about the hard times they are going through, the Economist (May 2nd) publishes a list showing the current values of the shares of 25 insurance companies.

£1,000 invested in insurance company ordinary shares in 1913, after receiving high rates of dividend in the intervening period, would now, if sold, fetch, on the average, £3,207, i.e., more than three times the original sum invested. One thousand pounds invested in the General Accident Insurance Co. would now fetch £8,000 ! In the company whose shares have risen least of all, the original investor could sell out and receive more than 30s. for every £1 invested in 1913.

* * *

Religion is the opium of the people.

Did Kingsley Forestall Marx?

A writer in the Freethinker (March 22nd, 1931) claims that the Reverend Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, preceded Marx in describing religion as the opium of the people. The writer in the Freethinker appears to be mistaken.

This is the passage in which Kingsley deals with the subject :—

“We have used the Bible as if it were an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded–a mere book to keep the poor in order.”

The above occurs in “Politics for the People,” published in 1848.

Marx’s famous phrase was published four or five years earlier. It was as follows :—

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

This passage is taken from an article entitled “Introduction to a Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right,” published in 1844 in the “Franco-German Year Book.” The translation is by Eden and Cedar Paul, and is given on pages 57 and 58 of “Karl Marx,” by Otto Ruhle (Allen & Unwin).

It will be noticed that the two writers, Marx and Kingsley, used the same telling comparison, but in rather different senses. Kingsley appears to be protesting against the use to which religion has been put; while Marx was accounting for the hold that religion has on the minds of the oppressed.

* * *

Miss Jennie Lee on the uses of trade unions. 

Miss Jennie Lee, M.P. at the I.L.P. Annual Conference at Scarborough on April 5th, spoke against a resolution which proposed that the I.L.P. should leave the Labour Party. The Labour Government, she said (Times, April 6th), “stood for Imperialism and capitalism, and rested on an amalgamation of Conservative and Liberal elements,” and she was “sick and tired of being entangled in Liberalism and compromise” (Manchester Guardian, April 6th). Yet, in face of that, she thought that the I.L.P. ought to keep in with the party of Imperialism and capitalism and go on making her sick and tired, because “at present the Labour movement had strong Trade Union backing, and they (the I.L.P.) had not” (Manchester Guardian, April 6th).

It is, of course, very noble of Miss Lee to go on sacrificing her feelings in this way, but it is not entirely irrelevant to point out that Miss Lee is very much dependent in her constituency on the support of the Miners’ Federation. If she were to oppose the capitalist programme of the Labour Party and lose its support and that of the Miners’ Federation, she would have to say good-bye to her Parliamentary seat and her present prospects of a political career. But it is no new thing for Miss Lee to oppose Socialism for the sake of cadging votes and support. She had chosen that path when first she set eyes on Westminster. When she was elected at North Lanark in March, 1929, her election address contained no reference whatever, direct or indirect, to Socialism. It even contained no mention that she was the nominee of the I.L.P. She fought as official Labour Party candidate and gave prominence to the fact that she accepted the programme of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, thus committing herself, incidentally, to the queer doctrine that while the royalty-owning capitalist is an exploiter, his brother capitalist who invests in mining shares is not ! She backed all of the silly—and in some cases harmful—reforms of the Labour Party, and it was admitted by one of her prominent supporters that there was little to choose between her programme and that of her Liberal opponent. Mr. P. J. Dollan, of the I.L.P. National Administrative Council, writing up the election campaign in the New Leader on March 15th, 1929, said of the Liberal candidate (also a woman), “She is advocating a Radical programme which would have horrified the late Lord Oxford because of its similarity to most of the Labour reforms now commonly advocated.” What, in fact, won Miss Lee the election was the backing of the Miners’ Federation. Hence Miss Lee’s determination to “sacrifice” herself by staying in the Labour Party, with the Trade Union votes and Trade Union funds, rather than oppose the party of “Imperialism and capitalism” and lose her seat in Parliament.

The delegates at the I.L.P. Conference overwhelmingly endorsed the official policy, urged by all sections of their National Administrative Council, of staying in the Labour Party. The motion to disaffiliate was rejected by 173 to 37 (see News-Chronicle, April 6th).

* * *

The Over-Population Myth.

Professor T. E. Gregory gave an address at Manchester University on February 2nd, 1931, on the subject of population and production. The following extracts are from a report published on February 3rd by the Manchester Guardian : —

“He pointed out that up to the war we had all been largely influenced by the teaching of Malthus, and had feared that our era of prosperity could not last if the population continued to increase. In 1920, after the war, this pessimism had greatly increased. “I confess,” he said, “I was a “pessimist of that kind myself. Indeed, we were all pessimists in those days, from Mr. Keynes to the editor of the Manchester Guardian.”

But since 1920 there had been a curious alteration in theory and in the facts. Great importance as a social factor could be placed upon the birth control movement and its increasing recognition. Again we were clearly caught up in a phase of expanding production. Production was increasing more rapidly than the population of the world. Between 1913 and 1928 the world’s population increased by about 10 per cent., the world’s production of food-stuffs by 16 per cent., and the world’s production of raw materials by no less than 40 per cent. Thirdly, there was every chance that the population of this and other European countries would become stationary and even decline. We were, approaching the ideal postulated by John Stuart Mill—the ideal of a stationary state in which there would be no further increase in population”

The Editor of the Manchester Guardian made the belatedly wise comment that the “more production” campaign engineered after the War by the Government, the employers, and the Labour leaders, was apparently unnecessary.

We would draw particular attention to the fact that while all the economists and newspapers and politicians, including Professor Gregory, were flatly wrong on the question of over-population and the need for more production, the Socialist Party, correctly guided by its Marxian theories, ridiculed the Malthusian nonsense over 20 years ago and showed up at the time the true nature of the post-war campaign to get the workers to work harder.

Just to show that experience does not teach him anything, the Editor of the Guardian complacently dismisses capitalism’s constant over-production in relation to the demands of the market as “growing pains”!

Edgar Hardcastle

SPGB Meetings. (1931)

Party News from the June 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

There is a report of the debate with the New Party in the July 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard. The SPGB representative in the debate was Edgar Hardcastle ('E. Hardy'). The representative for the New Party was Stuart Barr. 

According to the historian Matthew Worley in his book, Oswald Mosley and the New Party, before joining the New Party, James Stuart Barr was an active member of the ILP and was one of a number of members of that organisation who went with Mosley when the latter resigned from the Labour Party to form the New Party. Barr was the New Party's parliamentary candidate in Gateshead at the 1931 General Election, receiving 1.86% of the vote. (Ernest Bevin was the losing Labour Party candidate in that election.)

There is no mention in Worley's book of whether or not Barr followed Mosley down the fascist route into the British Union of Fascists.

Correspondence: Ought We to Back the “Left-Wing” Labour Leaders? (1931)

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Case of Mr. W. J. Brown, Ex-M.P.

A correspondent (“Robbo”) asks an interesting question. He writes : —

“If an opportunity occurs to support a man like W. J. Brown, who though not an S.P.G.B.’er, has done much to expose the hypocrisy of Labour Party leaders, would it not be advisable to do so?”

On the face of it the question probably implies rather more than our correspondent intended, for it suggests that we should support all who expose the Labour Party leaders, which would mean supporting Liberals and Tories. We are therefore no doubt safe in assuming that our correspondent selects Mr. W. J. Brown because he considers the latter’s criticisms to be essentially different from those of Liberal and Conservative opponents of the Labour Party. In other words, we are asked to believe that Mr. W. J. Brown speaks from a Socialist standpoint. Let us examine this.

It is true that Mr. W. J. Brown has often spoken harshly of some of the Labour Leaders, and has urged what he has called a Socialist policy. But obviously that alone is not enough, for there is hardly a single Labour M.P. who has not done the same. Let us probe more deeply. Does Mr. Brown expose the: Labour Leaders and their policy consistently, or only on rare and obscure occasions when it suits him? Does he show up the uselessness of the Labour Party programme? And does he do this from the standpoint of Socialism?

What is his political history? In 1923 and 1924 he fought West Wolverhampton as Labour Party candidate. But there was no criticism then of those who now draw his fire. On the contrary, in 1924 he had Mr. MacDonald on his platform during the election, soliciting votes for him. It was after the general strike that Mr. Brown launched out on his career of “left-wing” criticism of his leaders. In 1928 at the Labour Party Conference he vigorously assailed the programme “Labour and the Nation,” which was under discussion. Much of what he said was true and might have come from a Socialist. Listen to this : —

“I would say this, that if the whole of this document were carried into effect—and that will not be done by one government or many governments—the result would he, not Socialism, but a State-subsidised Capitalism, which is an entirely different thing.

My advice to the Conference would be … above all to make this clear—that we are in earnest about Socialism, not as a thing for subsequent generations, not as a thing for perorations for our speakers, not as a thing for the dim and distant future, but for this generation to achieve.” (Conference Report, p. 207.)

Mr. Brown’s speech showed, that he had a fairly clear grasp of the nature of the Labour Party programme, and was fully aware what the game was the Labour Leaders were playing. He saw, and said, that they were using the discontent of the workers as a means of getting into office, without any intention whatever of doing other than try to patch up the capitalist system. But to what use did he put his knowledge, his undoubted charm of manner, and his gifts of oratory? The subsequent general election, in 1929, shows only too clearly. Instead of using the election to denounce the Labour Leaders and their capitalist programme, he played exactly the same game as they did. Instead of showing that he was “in earnest about Socialism” by fighting on a Socialist programme, he fought on the very programme he had denounced. His election address boldly displayed the announcement that he was the “Labour Candidate,” committed, therefore, to “Labour and the Nation” and “state-subsidised capitalism.” It was full of all the usual capitalist reforms.

Did he expose the Labour Party Leaders? Not at all. A passage of considerable length was devoted to the wonderful things Mr. MacDonald was supposed to have done for disarmament, describing him as the “Peace Leader of the World.” Did he advocate Socialism in his address? Not by a single word. The only reference to anything other than reforms is the smug phrase, “The Labour Party stands for a new and more Christian and Social Order,” intended obviously to catch the religious vote. The dominant note of the whole address is the emphasised assertion, “Labour is the only alternative to another 5 years of Conservative misrule.”

During the subsequent Labour Government Mr. Brown, as General Secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Association, came into conflict with the Labour Ministers owing to the repeated reductions in Civil Service pay. So he resigned from the Parliamentary Labour Party, but not from the Wolverhampton Labour Party, or from the I.L.P. But was it in order to support Socialism against the Labour Leaders? Again No. It was to join Mosley’s Party, whose Manifesto he helped to draft, and to which he added his signature. (Published early this year under the title “A National Policy.”) This document expressly excludes from consideration the very question about which Socialists are concerned; “Questions of the ultimate goal of society arc excluded by the very urgency of the problem which confronts us ” (page 6). It was not an appeal to Socialists to work for Socialism, but an appeal to “employers and workers” to “meet the emergency by a common effort.” Underlying it throughout was the policy of workers and employers uniting to attack one section of the exploiting class, the bankers. That policy of uniting with the capitalists would on any ground be dangerous for the workers, but Mr. Brown goes further and preaches the deadly doctrine that workers and employers have interests in common. This, if accepted, would destroy the basis of all working-class organisation.

Having had second thoughts about the expediency of joining the Mosley Party, we next find Mr. Brown, in August of this year, associating with prominent Liberals, Tories, and Fascists to issue a document, “The World Crisis and Unemployment,” on behalf of the “Financial Freedom Committee.” It contains nothing whatever about Socialism, but preaches salvation by means of currency juggling.

“The world’s industrial plight can be relieved within a few weeks if the Governments of all nations agree to destroy the Money Monopoly. . . The Government should nationalise the Bank of England and and put an end to the circulation of the present independent promissory notes and substitute for them Treasurv notes which are backed by the whole wealth of the nation.”

So speak the quacks. And with them Mr. Brown. Can Mr. Brown deny that his associates are frankly determined that what they are pleased to miscall “the national wealth” shall never on any account cease to be what it is now, i.e., private property? In other words, that they are open enemies of Socialism?

On August 22nd, in a speech at Wolverhampton, reported in the “Times” (24th August), Mr. Brown was attacking the Labour Government and still demanding a united front of employers and workers against “the parasites who prey upon both” ; a false but plausible device for misleading the workers.

So far we have not seen Mr. Brown’s 1931 election address, but he repeatedly stated that he intended to fight as an “independent” candidate, as indeed he did, “on the same programme as I fought at the last election.”

The Socialist Party stands for Socialism. Nothing but confusion would result from supporting Mr. Brown or any other of the ambitious politicians who delude the workers into the belief that the social problem can be solved without Socialism.

Besides, if we ought to support Mr. Brown because he exposes the Labour Party Leaders, we should also have to support them for exposing Mr, Brown.

P. S.

The Socialist Party versus the New Party (1931)

Party News from the July 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

An audience of over 500 listened to a public debate on Sunday evening, June 14th, at the Stratford Town Hall, between the New (Mosley) Party and the Socialist Party of Great Britain, on the question which of the two parties should be supported by the working class.

Mr. Stuart Barr (who spoke second) represented the New Party. He said it was not his business to defend the capitalist system or to enter into academic discussion on Socialism, capitalism, or any other "ism." He believed that affairs in this country and all over the world had reached a stage of crisis when it was the soundest realism to enter into the New Party's immediate policy to do something now to give the workers, not Socialism, which everyone admits they do not want, but work, wages, and economic security. Disaster could be avoided only by all classes sinking their immediate differences and pulling together to organise national resources in such a way that no one section had undue power over any other.

First, Parliament must be converted from a talkshop into a workshop, one section to deal with social and political matters, and the other exclusively with economic matters. This section would establish Import Boards to decide what tariffs were necessary to enable British industries to compete with all the other countries by tariff walls, to put the manufacturer on his feet, and so enable the workers' standard of living to be raised.

The workers should support the New Party because it has a policy which can be applied now, immediately. All sections must co-operate to control the economic forces of capitalism and to guide the ship of State away from imminent disaster.

The case for the Socialist Party, presented by Comrade E. Hardy, was based on the irreconcilable conflict of interests between the working class, who produce all wealth, and the capitalist class, who own the instruments of production and the wealth produced. It was shown in 1904 by Mr. Leo Money, M.P. (now Sir Leo Money) that nearly one-half of the national income was enjoyed by but one-ninth of the population. In other words, out of every £1 of wealth produced by the workers, one capitalist keeps nearly 10s., and 8 workers divide the remaining 10s. between them, receiving just about enough to maintain them as efficient workers. Professor Henry Clay in 1925 showed a like inequality still in being.

The problem of the capitalists was to sell their goods in limited markets. Competition among them led to the adoption of labour-saving machinery (and unemployment), to periodical over-production crises, and to recurrent danger of war.

All the will-o'-the-wisp reforms of the other political parties tried out during the last 100 years were futile to deal with the evils rooted in a profit-making social system based on the exploitation of one class by another. The only remedy was for society to own and democratically control the means of production, to produce for use and not for profit.

The New Party's talk about the "national resources" and about improving trade does not touch the problems of the workers. The so-called "national resources" are the private property of the capitalist class. It would be the capitalists who would reap the benefit of any improvement of trade. In Germany, while trade was booming last year, wages were being reduced still further.

Nor was capitalism a "sinking ship." The figures given in the Economist showed that profits had not suffered appreciably during the "depression." Depressions and crises come and go, but capitalism will remain just so long as the workers continue to send back to Parliament the agents of the master class. Leaders of the New Party openly declared they did not oppose capitalism, but aimed to put the industrial capitalists "on their feet." This means opposing the interests of the working class.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain alone of all Parties had consistently maintained, amidst the confusion of capitalist parties old and "new," that the only hope of the workers is Socialism.

The collection of £3 12s. more than covered expenses, and literature to the value of 32s. was sold.

F. E.

Morrison's Ten New Points For Socialists (1950)

From the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a lengthy article in the News Chronicle on June 9th last, Morrison’s ten new points for Socialists were enumerated. The point system for rationing has nearly been abolished, but now Socialism is going on the points, special points of the Morrison variety, the first ten of which have already been issued.

As most readers of this journal will be interested in Socialism, they will doubtless want to know if they can learn anything about it from Morrison.

The article above referred to starts with a definition, which is as well, especially when discussing Socialism. Morrison defines Socialism as “The assertion of social responsibility for matters which are properly of social concern.” This elastic definition permits Tories, Liberals, Labourites, and even Communist Party supporters, to be socialists. In fact everybody in the country could endorse it. The only snag is “what is properly of social concern?” Morrison of course makes no effort to tell us. Perhaps this is one of the things for which he is paid £10,000 a year to know and understand. He was careful enough to inform us that he has coined this definition of socialism “in the light of experience in Labour Government since 1945, and in relation to the facts of mid-twentieth-century life and economic experience” So Morrison might have quite another definition for Socialism five years hence, especially if he is interested in “social responsibility for matters of social concern”

Speaking on Socialism to-day at Perth, the Lord President (to give Erb Morrison his “socialist title ”), said that “Socialist principles must be adapted to changes in conditions, facts and experience, if they were to survive and prosper” This looks as if Socialism is one thing at one time, and another thing at another time, and that anything was or is capable of becoming socialism! It is all things to all men, and not part of the time, but all of the time. Dialectics isn’t in it, it is diabolical.

So much for the definition, which we agree is very important, especially when dealing with one who makes his own definitions, with or without the endorsement of his party. Now let us come to his ten points, here they are. .

1. Public ownership in suitable form.
2. Town and country planning.
3. Municipal housing for rental, aided by the Government—“essentially socialistic” (Morrison’s words).
4. Social services including social insurance and health services.
5. Economic planning and the wise exercise of economic controls for social ends and full employment.
6. Assisting and stimulating private enterprise to be enterprising and expansive.
7. Development councils for appropriate industries in research, expansion, progress and enterprise.
8. The assertion and provision for ventilation of consumers’ rights and the protection of their interests whether as against public or private industry.
9. Co-operation between farmers, farm workers, and the community for healthy and vigorous development of agriculture production with fairness to all.
10. The U.K. playing its full part in economic political and social co-operation between the nations for the purpose of evolving a peaceful and happy world.

The first five points are too well known to merit discussion here, and they have long been the backbone of Labour Party programmes.

Point 6 is a little strange, and should please those who are alarmed that socialism means the end of private enterprise. We suggest that it is given to soften some of their antagonism.

Point 7 is a hang over from Mosley’s “Commodity Boards” in the good old days of the New Party, which incidentally was good enough for Cabinet Minister Strachey.

Mosley got it from Mussolini, and it is the dream of all democratic capitalist organisers to bring workers and management together (with no class struggle and strike nonsense).

Point 8 was also capitalised by Mosley. Who are these consumers anyway? Presumably anybody who consumes anything. In this case everybody is a consumer. Capitalist, worker or unemployed are going to be given an opportunity to ventilate their rights.

Point 9 means the end of the class struggle between farmer and farm worker, and perhaps less dung heaps, or scented ones for all.

Point 10 is probably added to make double figures, or because of a cherished belief which Morrison has for decimalisation. There is still another suggestion, and that is that the opposition might claim that Labour has no foreign policy. However, nobody could object to peace (except those who make profits from war). The one thing which we have noticed in this respect, is that whenever the Labour Party has had to face some international affair, it acts as the Tories and Liberals did previously.

We in the Socialist Party do not have such a loose definition of Socialism, and 10 points which include everything and everybody and mean nothing to anybody. We laid down our definition and principles, based on our understanding of capitalism, which is fundamentally the same to-day as it was in 1904. We don’t want new definitions which will please all comers and principles which won’t offend those who believe in expanding private enterprise. Our case against Morrison is that he does not understand Socialism, or he deliberately falsifies it. Socialism is to him the above ten points, at least that is to-day, for to-morrow he may want to formulate another ten points.

Horace Jarvis

The Mosley Party. Old Fallacies Re-Furbished. (1931)

From the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

One cannot but sympathise with the exasperation of Labour Party members who were promised something new and striking when their party came into office, and now find themselves not even in the position of defending the Government’s actions against criticism, because the Government has, for all practical purposes, not committed any actions. It has just sat tight, apparently paralysed with fear of the consequences should it try to put its programme into operation. As Lady Cynthia Mosley complains, they have had to listen to the Liberal Party smugly reproving the Government for being unprogressive and for allowing itself to be scared into inactivity by the Conservative opposition. If the Liberal demand for action was bluff, as the MacDonald Ministry maintains, why not, she asks, call their bluff? Sir Oswald Mosley, who was a member of the Government, tried to goad .them into adopting his scheme for tackling unemployment. Having failed, he has finally taken the step of forming the “New Party.”

The Origin of the New Party.

In the Leader on March 10th, 1931, Sir Oswald Mosley tells the story of the Party’s formation :—

  A year ago I and many other of the younger men began to see the economic crisis which has since struck this country. I was then a Minister, and I submitted a memorandum to the Cabinet showing this, and outlining an active policy to deal with it. What response did I get? I and my friends were laughed at as alarmists, who were always crying “ Wolf.”
  We were told we were young men in a hurry, that there was no economic crisis, that trade would soon mend of itself, that it was silly and unnecessary to take any special emergency measures to deal with the situation. Not once, but again and again, Mr. Snowden, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, told us all that trade would mend; sometimes he said within a year, sometimes within six months.
  Well, the year has gone by, and what do we see? This same Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer, comes down to the House of Commons, and in a panic speech announces a crisis. All of a. sudden he has been converted to our view, and calls for sacrifices from all.
  What does this phrase, “sacrifices from all," mean in plain language? It means simply wage reductions, reductions in all the so-called social services, it means less money for everybody. This is his way of dealing with the crisis.

The Mosley Programme.

Sir Oswald Mosley, in the article referred to above, and in the pamphlet, “A National Policy” (Macmillan’s, 6d.), sets out the principal points in the policy of his party.

Their first demand is for the reform of Parliamentary procedure:—

“Nothing can be done with that creaking, broken-down, antiquated old machine at Westminster.”

Secondly, they propose a National Economic Planning Council which would rationalise production and marketing with a view to eliminating waste, overlapping and inefficiency.

Thirdly, there would be Commodity Boards to control the importation of foreign goods which under-sold any home industry. The object of restricting the entry of cheap foreign goods would be to enable the home industry to be re-organised. Protected industries would have to pay an adequate wage; how much, he does not say.

There is to be “economic partnership with the Dominions and Colonies,” and trade agreements with foreign countries that are willing to help this country’s export trade.

Is Parliament Too Slow?

Sir Oswald Mosley’s first error is his.supposition that Parliament’s failure to do certain things is due to the machinery being out-of-date. The real explanation is that those who control Parliament are, on the whole, very well satisfied with things as they are, and do not want to make any fundamental change. And in this they accurately reflect the insufficient knowledge, lack of purpose and lack of agreement among the electors. If the electors, or a majority of them, wanted something done, the machinery of Parliament would not stand in the way. In 1912 an occasion arose when capitalist interests required a more stringent Official Secrets Act in order to make preparations for the coming war with Germany. The Speaker of the House said it would be contrary to every Parliamentary. precedent to put the Bill through as quickly as the promoters desired. Nevertheless, the Bill was pushed through the whole of the stages of the House of Commons procedure and given the Reyal Assent all within 24 hours. General Seeley tells the full story in his book, “Adventure.”

Rationalisation and Unemployment.

The new Party’s next proposal is merely a new version of the century-old demand for increased efficiency as a means of solving capitalism’s problems. Sir Oswald Mosley and his lieutenants do not so much as refer to the vital working-class objection to such schemes. Under capitalism the proceeds of the work of the working class do not belong to them. The products of the labour of farm workers and mill hands, railwaymen, clerks, sailors and others are the property of the employing class. Any increase in those products, however it may be obtained, is also the property of the employing class. It does not follow, either in theory or in practice, that the workers will have all or any of the increase in the amount of wealth which may be produced. In addition, rationalisation means the introduction of labour-displacing machinery and devices, with consequent growth in unemployment. (Sir Oswald Mosley promises to “rebuild the trade of this country,” but overlooks the fact that his schemes of rationalisation would enable still more wealth to be produced by fewer workers. Unless society is re-organised on a Socialist basis, the fruits of economy and greater efficiency will continue to be enjoyed by the propertied class. The Workers, when employed, will continue to get as their share wages based roughly on their cost of living.

There Is No Grave Crisis For Capitalism.

The new Party, in common with all the “old gangs” whom it criticises, accepts the fallacious doctrines that the workers are poor and many of them unemployed because of foreign competition, and that the decline in exports in recent years has left capitalist industry unable to afford higher wages.

The workers are poor because the capitalist class own the machinery of production and because they retain and consume a vast amount of the wealth produced.

The volume of imports and exports passing between capitalist countries is related to the total amount of wealth in those countries only in the same way that the exchange of goods between, say, London and Manchester is related to the wealth of the people living in those two cities. The fact that a Manchester firm may lose its London market owing to the opening of a London firm selling the same line of goods, and that a London firm producing some other article may lose its Manchester market to a new Manchester firm, does not mean necessarily that Manchester and London become poorer. If the change has been due to the utilisation of more efficient machinery and methods of production, the amount of wealth produced, and still more the amount capable of being produced, will be greater than before in both areas. But the workers may get none of the increase.

During the years since the war the exports from this country have heavily declined in value, due in part to technical developments in industry and agriculture which have made it more profitable for the capitalists of this and other countries to employ workers on the production of certain articles at home, instead of importing them. Imports and exports have fallen, but the wealth of this country has been increasing.

Mosley, like the Empire Free Traders, points to the fact that there are farmers in the Dominions who cannot sell their grain, and factory owners here who cannot sell their industrial products. He asks, Why not bring the two together? But what about the farmers here who cannot sell their grain, and the factory owners in the Dominions who cannot sell their industrial goods?

When Sir Oswald Mosley says that the position of the industrial capitalist “becomes daily more impossible," and that there is now a crisis which will smash Great Britain unless something drastic is done about it, he is talking nonsense. The capitalists' average rate of profit has remained remarkably stable since tire war at a level well above the pre-war average. (For figures, see March Socialist Standard.) The present two and a half million unemployed is no higher than the number recorded during the Lloyd George Coalition Government’s term of office. It is merely a sign of the periodical accumulation of goods which cannot be sold because the employing class have satisfied all their wants, although they still have vast purchasing power available. Now that production has been severely curtailed, the accumulation is being got rid of. In due course sales will revive and unemployment will fall to a lower figure. The Labour Government went into office gambling that unemployment would decrease. They backed the wrong' horse at that time. Mosley now appears to be gambling that it will continue to increase heavily. He looks like being disappointed.

The Mosley Party A Capitalist Party.

The Mosley Party may make headway among disappointed members of the existing parties, but it seems obvious that, in spite of a lavish expenditure of money on meetings and posters and talk of 400 candidates at the next election, they cannot hope to be in a position to apply their programme except by joining with some other party.

But even if Mosley did manage to get Governmental power, his programme would not solve the problems of the workers. The chief promoters of the Party have every appearance of muddle-headed sincerity, but they have explicitly ruled out the only solution of the workers’ problems, i.e., the abolition of capitalism. In “A National Policy” occurs the following declaration :—

   Questions of the ultimate goal of society are excluded by the urgency of the problem which confronts us. (Page 6.)

Moreover, not only do they exclude questions of the ultimate goal of society, but they do not even admit Socialism—that is, common ownership of the machinery of production and distribution—as being a question at all. For them the question of the ultimate goal of society is merely the issue of State capitalism versus private capitalism—an issue of no concern to Socialists.

Mr. W. E. D. Allen, the Conservative M.P. for West Belfast, who has joined the Party, confesses that his object in joining it is "the adjustment of the capitalist system to the economic needs of the nation as a whole” (Star, March 9th), and he further says that his action is no offence against the "broad principles of Ulster Unionism ” (Manchester Guardian, March 3rd).

The Mosley Party and the Labour Party.

Most of the original support for the new programme came from Labour M.P.’s, the majority of whom, however, deserted Mosley when he actually formed the new Party. Those who went right through with it—Lady Cynthia Mosley, Mr. Strachey and Dr. Forgan—have all defended their action on the ground that it is not they, but the Labour Party which has deserted the Labour programme. They have stated explicitly that they still stand by "Labour and the Nation,” the programme on which they were elected. They also maintain that they are Socialists.

Mr. W. J. Brown, M.P., who left the Labour Party, but now declines to join the Mosley Party, although his name appears as one of the writers of "A National Policy,” and although he was billed to speak at meetings of the new Party, takes up a quite different attitude.

Although he also was elected as a Labour Party candidate on "Labour and the Nation,” he declares that "Labour and the Nation” is a programme of capitalism. This he did in a speech at the 1928 Labour Party Conference (see Conference Report, page 207). He said that its application would give  "not Socialism, but a State-subsidised capitalism.”

From this speech and from Mr. Brown’s subsequent actions, two things emerge. The first is that in his view he and the other Mosleyites, as well as all the Labour M.P.’s, were elected on a capitalist programme. The second is that, whereas in 1928 he rejected "Labour and the Nation” and said he wanted in its place Socialism, he has since changed his mind. He still rejects “Labour and the Nation,” but, in common with the Mosleyites, he wants a different kind of capitalist programme, i.e., the Mosley programme which he helped to draft.

The Angry I.L.P.

The I.L.P. are furious with Mosley, not because the new Party is a capitalist party, but because it threatens to queer the pitch of the Labour Party and the I.L.P.

The I.L.P. are amazed, no doubts at the Mosleyites leaving the Labour Party. Seeing that the Labour Party are acting as "caretakers of capitalism" (as it was put by the prominent member of the I.L.P., Mr. Campbell Stephen, M.P., in the New Leader on March 13th), why go outside and form another party of caretakers of capitalism? The I.L.P. Members of Parliament, who form a majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party, are quite prepared to go on acting as caretakers of capitalism, but they strongly resent the action of the Mosley group who were, apparently, honest enough to leave the Labour Party when they found themselves no longer in agreement with it. The action of the Mosley group shows up the Maxtonites for what they are—a body of dishonest and cowardly time-servers, pretending to condemn the Labour programme as a programme of capitalism, but themselves seeking election on it, and painfully careful never to translate their words into deeds.

The Old “New Party.”

It would be a pity not to refer to a very cruel blow delivered at the new Party by a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. He points out the marked resemblance between the new programme and the writings of Bishop Berkeley. Mr. John Strachey, M.P., a member of the Mosley group, confesses that Bishop Berkeley was one of his father’s favourite authors, and that the new Party is indeed indebted to the Bishop. But he asks (Manchester Guardian, February 28th), "Why should we deny it?" "Because a man lived 200 years ago, is he necessarily wrong?” We would ourselves like to ask the Mosley Party what reason they can urge against trying Socialism, especially in view of the great age of their own policy?

Edgar Hardcastle

The Economic Crisis and the Workers (1931)

From the July 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is one respect at least in which the “New Party” founded by Sir Oswald Mosley is exactly like all of the older non- Socialist parties. That is in its emphasis on the trade depression as a reason for putting, aside the question of Socialism. The argument is that capitalism's in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. Ruin stares not only the worker, but also the employers, in the face. Great Britain must either take some novel and drastic steps to escape from the threatening disaster, or grave decline will follow and this country will become a third-rate power. “Let us,” say the New Party leaders; “defer the consideration of Socialism until we have stabilised capitalism once more.”

This is a very old story—as old as capitalism. In the eyes of the defenders of capitalism no time is an opportune time for the workers to interest themselves in their class interests. And many organisations engaged nominally in protecting the workers have shared the views of the capitalists on this question.

There have been at least eleven marked industrial crises in the past 100 years. Every one of them has shown the same general characteristics. Every one of them has been viewed as a sign of irretrievable ruin, and every one has been used to dissuade the workers from looking towards Socialism.

There was one great crisis during 1829, at a time, that is, when this country was strongly Protectionist. Listen to the description given by William Huskisson in a letter dated December 30th, 1829 (published in the Huskfsson Papers, p. 310):—

   I consider the country to be in a most unsatisfactory state, that some great convulsion must soon take place. . . .  I hear of the distress of the agricultural, the manufactural, the commercial, the West Indian, and all trading interests.  . . . I am told land can neither pay rent nor taxes nor rates, that no merchant has any legitimate business. . . .  I am also told that the whole race of London shopkeepers are nearly ruined.

Huskisson, sometime President of the Board of Trade, was one of those who believed that England must go over to Free Trade. The Liberal manufacturers, who had an interest in Free Trade because it meant cheap food and therefore low wages, urged the workers to neglect their own class interests and to support the demand for the abolition of the Corn Laws, which restricted the import of corn from abroad. The workers did this. They listened to the specious argument that they should only concern themselves with so-called practical, bread-and-butter questions. And the result was the building up of fabulous fortunes for the manufacturers and the continuation of poverty for themselves.

After Free Trade was introduced, the crises recurred periodically as before, although it is often represented by present-day politicians that everything was satisfactory during this period when Britain was the “workshop of the world.”

The following is Lord Randolph Churchill’s account of the crisis of 1884, in a speech at Blackpool (published in The Times, June 10th, 1931):—

    We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful, either among our capitalists or our artisans, can discover no signs of a revival. Your iron industry is dead, dead as mutton. Your coal industries, which depend greatly on the iron industries, are languishing. Your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner. Your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, gasping, struggling. Your cotton industry is seriously sick. The shipbuilding industry, which held out longest of all, is come to a standstill. Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease.

The difference between Huskisson and Churchill was that Churchill saw the remedy in a return to Protection! Large numbers of workers, seeing that Free Trade had not brought prosperity to them, were persuaded to assist this section of the employers in their campaign against Free Trade; while other workers sided with the Liberal Free Traders and supported their campaigns for the 1909 Land Tax and against the House of Lords. In the meantime working-class interests were neglected as usual.

After the War came the industrial crisis of 1921-22, which moved the Prime Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, to assert in a speech at Glasgow in December, 1922, that—

There is almost no business that is making  profits to-day.

In May, 1921, the percentage of insured workers unemployed rose to as much as 23 per cent.—higher than it has been in any subsequent month, including 1930, and 1931 to date. There were, in May, 1921, 2½ million unemployed.

The present crisis, which follows 10 years of unemployment never appreciably below the million line, is similar to the others and will take the same general course.

Industrial depressions are not evidences of capitalist poverty or capitalist. weakness They will not of themselves result in the collapse of the capitalist system, and only a misunderstanding of the nature of crises leads the workers to slacken their efforts to maintain wages at those times. Trade depression arises simply from the over-production of goods in relation to the demands of the market. The world is overloaded with goods for which purchasers cannot be found. Purchasers cannot be found because the workers, who have unsatisfied needs, have only a limited amount of money with which to buy, and the wealthiest section of the propertied class, who have the bulk of the purchasing power, have no unsatisfied needs. Once depression begins, prices are forced down and every holder of goods seeks to realise them at all costs. The consequent feeling of insecurity causes the rich to curtail even their normal expenditure, thus aggravating the depression and adding to unemployment.

Many industrial capitalists suffer a decline in their profits owing to curtailed sales, while money-lending capitalists on the whole improve their position.

The crisis is overcome simply because the manufacturers close down their factories and turn the workers out to join the unemployed. Then, when the accumulations of goods have been slowly dissipated, production begins again in response to the newly evinced demand, and the crisis is, for the time being, over.

This is a process which is prolonged by wage reductions, and made more acute by the constant improvements in productivity of industry. which increase the volume of surplus goods.

All the parties which accept the popular view of crises necessarily find themselves pursuing courses contrary to working-class interests. The Communists believe, and indeed hope, that the crises will wreck capitalism, and they therefore propagate their dangerous doctrine of waiting fatalistically for the breaking-point of capitalism, at which point they will take to the streets and challenge the armed forces. The basis of the doctrine is unsound. Crises are not the ruin of capitalism, but merely correctives to its contradictions. Capitalism and its crises can, and will, go on indefinitely until the workers take conscious steps to end the system.

The other parties — Liberal, Tory, Labour and I.L.P., and the later rivals, the Empire Free Traders and the Mosley Party—all preach the doctrine that the workers must at times of crisis take joint action with the capitalists in order to save a desperate situation. As this usually means, in practice, taking lower wages and working harder, it is not only anti-working-class, but also has the effect of prolonging the crisis.

The Socialist Party tells the workers that Socialism is the only remedy for their troubles. There is no time which is not a proper time for them to work for Socialism. This is true whatever the excuse offered by defenders of capitalism. Whether the crisis is a war crisis or a trade crisis, the Socialist Party will continue to preach Socialism. Workers who understand the working of capitalism will see through the excuses to the capitalist interests behind them, and will help us with our task.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Postscript on Mosley (1944)

Editorial from the January 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a demonstration that working-class sentiment is against Fascism, the outcry over the release of Mosley is welcome—but sentiment alone never won any permanent achievements for the working class, and the socialist movement, and the linking up of the agitation with acceptance of the Defence Regulations which give the Home Secretary power to arrest without trial is a dangerous feature. No ruling class has ever been deeply attached to democratic and constitutional methods for their, own sake, and if a time comes when our rulers want to use Regulation 18b to incarcerate without trial men and women active in the working-class movement, some of those who want Mosley sent back under powers given by that Regulation may see their mistake.

Though we are opposed to that and similar regulations and restrictions, we have no tears to shed over Mosley, whose British Union of Fascists was in favour of suppressing the propaganda of its opponents, though this aim was phrased in the contradictory declaration that "free speech" should be “regulated and controlled."—("Fascist Week," January 5—11, 1934.)

Mosley the Fascist denounces Parliamentary Government, and years before, when he was in the I.L.P. and Labour Party, he was advocating the use of Emergency Powers in order to get speedy action free from parliamentary "obstruction." In 1926 the Labour Party at first declined to endorse his candidature at Smethwick where he was put forward by the I.L.P., and the "New Leader" (December 3, 1926) said that one of the rumoured objections to Mosley was that at the I.L.P. Summer School he had “advocated the socialist use of the Emergency Powers Act.” It is ironical that Mosley owed his detention in 1940 to the Government's use of the kind of emergency powers he himself had advocated, and that he now owes his release to the fact that Parliament, which he despises, endorsed the action of the Home Secretary. It is interesting to recall that Sir Stafford Cripps, as well as many other members of the Labour Party and I.L.P., used also to advocate the use of emergency powers. Sir Stafford Cripps wrote in 1933: "The first measure to come before Parliament under a Labour Government should be the Enabling Act to deal with the emergency by Orders in Council." ("Where Stands Socialism To-day?" p. 39.)

On the other hand, many of those who for years denounced the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, and demanded its repeal (among them the Communists), and who opposed Regulation 18b when it was introduced in 1939, have completely changed their attitude. Yet the E.P. Act was a far less powerful weapon in the hands of the ruling class than are the present war-time Acts and Regulations. In particular that earlier Act excluded "any form of compulsory military service or industrial conscription"—but now its erstwhile opponents are favouring both the latter measures.

Much more important than the question whether Mosley should be in or out is the question how such people as Mosley come to be a force in politics at all. Among those who now oppose him are many who rapturously supported him when he left the Tory Party, flirted with the Liberals, joined the labour Party and I.L.P. (1924), went on to form the New Party (1931) and became Fascist (1932). Yet Mosley and the ideas he stood for were always a danger to the workers not merely when he donned a black shirt. Mosley was the flamboyant, rich and ambitious demagogue who offered to lead the workers to the promised land while carving out for himself a career in politics. He would never have amounted to anything if there had not been sycophantic hangers-on in the Labour Party and I.L.P. who helped to build him up so that at one time he was spoken of as the future leader of the Labour Party. He had hardly joined that party five minutes before it was reported that he had been offered the choice of 80 seats as Labour candidate. That such a thing could happen was due to the attitude of mind of the working class; not understanding Socialism they could then, and do now, believe in the dangerous illusion that leaders can bring them emancipation.

Writing years afterwards, “Reynold's News" had this to say about him:—

    “It should not be forgotten . . . that the Democratic movement 'spoiled' Sir Oswald on his 'conversion’ from Toryism. Its leaders feted and flattered him. Even the I.L.P., archapostle of discipline, broke its constitution to endorse his candidature in a Smethwick by-election."—(“Reynold's [News]," July 26, 1931.)

Mosley, on his entry to the Labour Party, quickly mastered the oratory of the Labour leaders and learned how to win votes by giving the workers the soothing phrases they wanted to hear. A typical oratorical effort was the following, delivered after the defeat of the General Strike:—

      " . . . Without exerting anything approaching the full power of Labour, they had beaten the boss class. With one hand behind their backs they had whipped the Government. They were there to celebrate one of the greatest events in the history of the world. . . . They had shown that with industrial power alone they could beat the boss class. . . . Let them not forget this was a great workers' victory.—("Birmingham Post," May 17,1926.)

Though in April, 1931, "The Labour Magazine," organ of the T.U.C. and Labour Party, could publish an article saying that nobody "could have doubted the genuineness of Mosley's Socialism at that time" (i.e., 1929), the truth is that Mosley was never at any time a socialist—but neither were those who supported him. What they called Socialism was merely the advocacy of planning, State control, a "living wage," investment boards, etc., and this accounts for the fact that Mosley was able to take over many of the planks in the I.L.P. and Labour Programme into his new party. The “New Leader" wrote (November 7, 1930), "in the ideas of the I.L.P. group and the smaller Mosley group there is a good deal in common."

Mosley’s wealth and title, his friendship with MacDonald, his influential friends, and his fiery oratory all helped to give him a following in the Labour movement, though finally his arrogance and impatience robbed him of leadership when it appeared to be within his grasp. He quarrelled with the Labour Government in 1930 because it rejected his schemes for dealing with unemployment, and broke away with n considerable group of Labour M.P.s, most of whom, however, left him before he formed the New Party in 1931, or soon afterwards. Among those who in 1931 helped to draft Mosley’s manifesto, “A National Policy," were Aneurin Bevan, M.P., W. J. Brown, M.P., and John Strachey. Among his admirers at that period was the late Ben Tillett, who, according to A. J. Cummings ("News Chronicle," March 10, 1934), had declared that Mosley would one day become "the Solomon of a great philosophy of statesmanship." Earlier the communists had been among his admirers, and at the General Elections of 1923 and 1924 the Communist Party backed all the Labour candidates including, of course, MacDonald. J. H. Thomas, and Mosley. (The Communist Party has not changed in, that respect and doubtless a year or two ahead they will be denouncing as " fascist" the Tory M.P.s they have been backing in elections during the past two years.)

After Mosley, had been built up by his Labour admirers and had then gone Fascist he found new supporters who thought that he might be useful as a tool for anti-working-class measures. He claimed ("News Chronicle, October 19, 1936) that a number of industrialists in the North of England had been giving him secret support and the late Lord Rothermere backed him openly in the "Daily Mail." It was one of Rothermere's star journalists. Mr. G. Ward Price, who declared ("Daily Mail," April 23, 1934) that Mosley had proved himself at his Albert Hall demonstration to be "the paramount political personality in Britain."

Mr. Ward Price wrote this about a Fascist rally at Birmingham:—

    "The hold which Blackshirt ideas have upon the best elements of British life was manifested by the rapt attention with which each step of the technical argumentation was followed" (Italics ours.) — ("Daily Mail." January 22. 1934.)

The demand has been made that Mosley should be brought to trial, though on what precise charge is not stated. (It would be funny if the Communists wanted Mosley to be charged with sedition, for at one time they were campaigning for the abolition of the Sedition Laws "Workers' Weekly," October 10, 1924). If he were brought to trial it can be imagined that he would cause a good deal of embarrassment in very distinguished quarters by naming the men who backed him or who, like him, professed their admiration for Hitler and Mussolini before the present war.

One rather nauseating feature of Labour denunciation of Mosley now is the charge that he used his wealth to further his political aims.

A case in point is an article, "The Mosley Moneybags" by Mr. Will Nally, in "Reynold's News" (November 28, 1943). Mosley's Labour admirers never talked like that when he was in the Labour Party. Mosley declared, And it was never contradicted, that in those days he and other rich men were privately appealed to by the Labour Party for donations to their secret funds. ("Manchester Guardian" April 28, 1931.)

The moral of Mosley’s career is that the working-class movement should concern itself with the spread of socialist knowledge and with principles, not personalities. If the workers continue to put their trust in leaders and cherish the ever-renewed hope that at last they have found the inspired political Moses, who will lead them out of the wilderness, they do so at their peril.

The Bleak Afterthoughts of a Labour Critic (1947)

From the April 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE CURIOUS HISTORY OF MR. W. J. BROWN. M.P. 

Mr. W. J. Brown, Independent M.P. for Rugby, who writes a political column in the Evening Standard has added a further page to his curious history. In the issue for February 20th, 1947, he declared that one good thing that may come out of the crisis is that it will teach us to have done with shibboleths and get down to dealing with the situation. His line is that “ the great issue for years ahead is not Socialism but Survival. Nothing but an immense increase in production will save us.” If we fail to do this, says Mr. Brown, there will be a "general crisis” and the economy cuts imposed after the last war and in 1931 "will be nothing to the retrenchments we shall be compelled to make then. They may well involve a reduction in our already inadequate standard of life of 30 or 40 per cent.”

First let us look at the labels Mr. Brown has worn over the years. Now he is Independent, before that for a very brief span he endorsed Mosley’s New Party (before Mosley went Fascist), and before that he was a Labour M.P. until he resigned from the Labour Party in disgust.

In the beginning he called himself a Socialist, by which he meant that he subscribed to the Labour Party programme. In 1931 he resigned from the Labour Party on the ground that the Labour Government instead of being a Socialist Party had determined "that its role was to be that of the Caretaker of Capitalism.” (“My Political Position.” W. J. Brown, 1931.) Mr. Brown objected to this role as he had also objected to the ‘‘economy cuts” of 1931. Declaring “I am a Socialist,” he warned us that “unless the next Labour Government goes all out for Socialism, it will fail.” It must “have done with petty tinkering:,” and must "risk all in the effort to chancre the order of society.” 

Very strangely, in view of the above demand, he signed at about the same time or a little earlier, the Mosley New Party Manifesto which, it was said, he had helped to draft, and which ruled out Socialism for just the same kind of reason as that given now bv Mr. Brown in his Evening Standard article. It said that "Questions of the ultimate goal of society are excluded by the very urgency of the problem which confronts us,” and went on to appeal to employers and workers  (as again does his present article) to get together to "meet the emergency by common effort.”

Finally, in 1941 (‘‘What Have I to Lose?”) he renounced his early claim to be a Socialist: "In earlier days I described myself as a Socialist. Except in a very generalised sense, I should hesitate to so describe myself today.”

It will be seen that Mr. Brown is very hard to please. When the 1931 crisis (caused by Capitalism) was gathering, he wanted the Labour Government to risk all for Socialism and not be a Caretaker of the Capitalist system. Now that there is another Labour Government and another crisis, he demands that Socialism be ruled out for years ahead. He can hardly deny that the present Government is trying to be a caretaker for Capitalism, but now he wants it to be a more careful caretaker.

So much for Mr. Brown’s uncertain views over the years; hut what of the policy itself?

If we do not take care of capitalism, we are warned that our standard of living will drop 30 or 40 per cent. In 1931 (in the anti-MacDonald phase, not the New Party phase), Mr. Brown was preaching the necessity of Socialism and the uselessness of caretaking. Mr. J. R. MacDonald, who rejected Mr. Brown’s advice, decided to go in for caretaking in a thorough way as Prime Minister of the Coalition Government with the Tories. What was the result? Wages and unemployment benefit were cut and unemployment rose to nearly 2,500,000. What possible reason can Mr. Brown advance for supposing that more of the same kind of caretaking will have a different result? The only difference we can see is that Mr. Brown has changed sides, but important though that may seem to Mr. Brown, it does not alter the nature of the Capitalist system, which breeds War, Want and Crises, no matter what Government is in charge.

Years ago a critic of the Socialist Party of Great Britain told us that it would be a good thing if we supported Mr. Brown. If we had we would certainly have been tied un in some pretty knots; and what sort of progress would have been or will be made by the workers if they all supported Mr. Brown? They would have wasted a quarter of a century getting periodic bouts of aggravated hardship in crises, on top of the continuing hardships of Capitalism in its “prosperous” times, and all Mr. Brown can now offer is the choice between “our already inadequate standard of life ” and 30 or 40 per cent, less even than that. What a prospect! and what a blind guide!

The history of the past 25 years, and the history of Mr. Brown strengthen the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s conviction that for the workers of this and all other countries the only cure for the evils of Capitalism is to get rid of it, including the form known as State Capitalism that the present caretakers believe to be an improvement, and which we find no more attractive than, as it happens, does Mr. Brown.

Edgar Hardcastle