Editorial: Newcastle. (1908)

Editorial from the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hartley’s programme in the Newcastle election had one advantage over Burrows’ in Haggerston. It was rather less windy. But it was not more sensible because of that. Said Hartley, “First, last, and all the time I am a Socialist; knowing that Socialism is the only hope of the workers, and the only escape from your present difficulties.”

That was good enough for us. But Hartley continued, “The first and most important question is that of unemployment. I am in favour of public provision of useful work for the unemployed at not less than trades union rates of wages.” And there the fatuous baffle-headedness of the reformer came in.

The fact is that you cannot have “public provision of useful work for the unemployed “at trade union or any other rate of wages, while the capitalist is in control. The unemployed are an inevitability under capitalism, and a necessity. Socialism alone will solve the unemployed problem, and then the question of wages will not arise.

What, then, was Hartley’s duty if “first, last and all the time” he was a Socialist ? Clearly to emphasise the fact that “the first and most important question” must remain unanswered until the workers answered it themselves by securing control of the means of life ; and that if they wanted something now they simply couldn’t have it, except to the extent that by organisation they gave unequivocal expression to their determination to be after nothing less than Socialism. To that extent they would find the capitalist class prepared to make concessions in the way of work for the unemployed and other forms of doles.

___________

The old, old Folly.

In unimportant matters such as womans' Suffrage, the Quelches and Hartleys and the rest of the “whole hoggers” point out against the “limited” Suffragettes that the measure of the demand for votes will be the measure of the concessions made; that even if the “limited” Bill was a good thing, the best method to secure it was to set up a fight for the complete measure. The governing class was bound to make as large a deduction from the total demand as possible, so that in asking for the lot and backing it up with organised determination, there was far more likelihood of getting approximately the total of the ”limited” measure than if the sum of the demand was no more than the “limited” measure embraces.

Yet when it comes to the vastly more important question of the unemployed, we have the same Quelch-Hartleys falling back upon the despised methods of the “limited” suffragists, and for the purposes of their pose as practical politicians, disguising the cold and brutal facts of the unemployed problem lest they lose votes thereby (what other explanation fits the circumstances than this ?) what time they talk of half loaves and other pseudo-remedial piffle, to meet immediate requirements.

They are more preposterous than the “limited” suffragists. The “limited” Bill, even the adult suffrage measure, may easily be obtained under present conditions—a very certain indication of the unimportance of both. But Hartley knows that this half loaf of his for the immediate consumption of the unemployed, cannot be secured at all under present conditions. Either he knows this or it is time he left the platform and did a little reading. Why then does he put this in the forefront of his programme ? The only answer that occurs is that he knows his audience will probably not take the trouble to worry the thing out for themselves, and that while they are content to take his word for it, the thing looks feasible and within the range of “practical” politics. In other words Hartley, like Burrows, trades upon ignorance to capture votes. If he has any other explanation to offer we shall be glad to hear of it.

___________

Another Sale.

The Newcastle election, however, did one good thing. It set in the strongest relief the fact that we have emphasised for years—and been sneered at for our pains. The “Labour” Party has sold itself, lock, stock, and barrel, to the Liberalism it professes to stand absolutely independent of. Even Joseph Burgess, to whose work the present position is admittedly largely due, breaks out in vehement protest against the “unholy compact between Liberalism and Labour” which has resulted in the Star Chamber (consisting of Henderson and MacDonald), which directs the “Labour” Party, frankly declining to contest Newcastle against the Liberal for fear of imperilling Hudson’s seat, and invoking reprisals in other double-barrelled constituencies, from which the “Labour” member obtains his seat by collaboration with the Liberals.

Well, Burgess and the rest of them may howl. The murder was out for us long ago. The particulars we published in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD immediately following the general election left no sort of misapprehension as to the position, in the minds of anyone capable of weighing evidence. To-day the “Labour” Party stands confessed as a pitiable appendage of capitalist Liberalism, worse than useless from a working-class point of view, and only concerned to save the worthless carcasses of the members from being cast into the outer darkness that lies beyond the walls of St. Stephens, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, because of the lost two hundred dirty pieces of gold (as Burns, the capitalist tout and working-class harpy, once unkindly called them) and all the kudos and the potentialities thereof, that attach to the position of a member of Parliament.

__________

How Long?

Just how long the trade unions will be prepared to find the money to keep this wretched gang in position is a moot point. It will depend, of course, absolutely upon the spread of Socialist thought amongst the union workers. Our part is to propagate the principles of Socialism on every available opportunity, to the end that a Socialist group under the direction and control of Socialist constituencies, shall appear for the first time in the Parliament to displace the alleged Labour group, put an end to the sham divisions between Liberal and Conservative capitalists, force them all into one camp in open antagonism to working-class interests (they will go soon enough when faced with direct issues) and give expression to the proletarian revolt without by ceaseless, irreconcilable struggle within until the capture of political power has been accomplished in the name of the workers of the world.

The guarantee that the shameless sale of working-class interests which it is now obvious to anybody the “Labour” group has been party to, cannot be repeated by a Socialist group, consists in the fact that a Socialist member of Parliament is unthinkable apart from a Socialist constituency. A Socialist constituency instructs its Parliamentary delegate, and removes him incontinently if he departs from his instructions. He is, and must remain, servant, never master, never anything else than delegate. Given a Socialist constituency, therefore, “deals” are impossible. Without the Socialist constituency, the Socialist member is impossible.

Well, comrades, let us get at it. The barometer of our success will be the rise of the storm of indignation which the awakening workers will direct against the Parliamentary “Labour” misleaders who have gone over to the enemy, as well as against that band of hope— the misleaders who are still awaiting the chance of “getting in”—who have aided and abetted the treachery.

___________

The Price of a “Labour” Member.

Arising out of the Newcastle discussion, Mr. Frank Rose (Clarion, Oct 2), replying to the charge that the “Labour” members are more concerned with the safety of their own seats than with the “bigger, bolder, and better policy” which he (Rose) would like to see adopted, says “Why should they not look after their seats ? . . . The critical Simon Pures who have not got seats to lose might act differently if they had seats. On the other hand, they might not. I want a bigger, bolder, and better policy, but I do not expect one for a farthing a week.”

This is as frank as we shall get it. If those who pay the wages of the “Labour” members want better value they must pay a bigger price. You cannot expect a big, bold policy on £200 a year. Presumably, Rose would have taken the exact opposite of the action the Executive of the Labour Party took, but you cannot get big, bold action like that for the present price paid. All you can expect is that the “Labour” members shall look after their seats and their paltry £200 a year. The £200 a year is clearly due to them for the worry and trouble they are caused in keeping those seats !

A very big, bold gospel; a very precious gospel, this. Now if we had said that the “Labour” members were primarily after their salaries and were prepared to sell out their convictions as to the necessity for a big, bold policy, because they only received a paltry £4 a week and required £5 or more before they would move further than they do move, what in the way of base calumniators should we have been according to Rose & Co. ? And yet that is, in effect, precisely what Rose would have us understand in this connection. Well, Frank Rose is in the running for a job at the regulation salary. He holds that a bigger, bolder policy is necessary. He holds that the workers can’t have that policy at the price. So, presumably, he will, if he gets the job, go in for the policy that is useless—even as the other “Labour” members.

What other attitude should he adopt ? It would certainly seem to us as “impossibilists” and “vulgar persons,” that the only action possible to a man holding Rose’s views is to retire from candidature altogether or until such time as the money, upon which alone a big and useful policy can be pursued, is forthcoming. But then Mr. Rose is not a Simon Pure.

However, for the present the workers are to understand that they must raise their members’ screw if they want anything more than a receipt: for the money, or, although the alternative does not seem to strike Mr. Rose, they may sack their present employees and get representatives instead of job-hunters. When they understand they surely will. Meanwhile their leaders do not intend to show them the way to the bigger, bolder and better policy. They are not paid to !

Blogger's Note:

For more background on the aforementioned Haggerston bye-election, the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard covered it in some detail. 

SPGB Meetings. (1931)

Party News from the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reluctant anarchists (1987)

Party News from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

In January our Newcastle Branch invited the local Anarcho-Syndicalist group to take part in one of a series of debates and forums, with a title on the lines of "Socialism or Anarcho-Syndicalism: How Can Workers Achieve Freedom?" The branch pointed out that as a democratic, leaderless socialist group they are committed to the free exchange of ideas with others who are interested in changing society. The invitation was sent after a member of the Syndicalists' editorial group had attended several of the Branch meetings, had taken part in lengthy discussions and claimed to share our aim of a classless, moneyless society based on common ownership.

This was how the Anarcho-Syndicalists replied:

Dear SPGB.
 
  I have been asked to inform you that the Syndicalist does not wish to take part in the type of public debate as you propose. While believing that public meetings are a major part in the growth of revolutionary ideas we do not, as anarcho-syndicalists, wish to take part in the political power struggle of the left vanguardist parties and have no intention, either now or in the future of participating in the type of political competition to see which theoretical and "politically correct" ideas will prevail under such circumstances. 

  We are however willing to discuss our ideas with any member, or any of your associates, that are interested in the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism on a personal level. If you would wish to further this conversation as we have stated please contact us at the above address. 

  Due to the short amount of time you gave for a reply this decision was reached at an Editorial Group meting and will be put to our Full Business Meeting in March. Though the decision will most certainly stand.

As our Newcastle group comments, the reply shows the Anarcho-Syndicalists' complete lack of willingness to be open about their political ideas in a forum of members of the working class. This lack no doubt leads to their undemocratic practices in decision making, as evidenced in the final paragraph of their letter. Notwithstanding, the Newcastle Branch will continue their propaganda work, including regular challenges to their opponents.

Party News Briefs (1959)

Party News from the March 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Annual Conference. March 27th, 28th and 29th are the dates for Annual Conference this year, earlier than is usual, but as Conference is an interesting and pleasant occasion for Comrades, it is hardly likely that the dates will be overlooked. Conference should be particularly interesting, there are many items on the agenda which call for constructive discussion. An election in the offing, with Hackney Branch and the Parliamentary Committee well prepared, with the aid of Comrades, to see that the campaign goes well. A resume of the past year’s work which has shown wider activity on the part of Branches, who in London and the Provinces have held many propaganda meetings throughout the year. In addition to the work done at Conference, there is the get-together of Comrades, an always happy occasion, the Social and Dance on the Saturday, which if last year is a guide, should be a really jolly occasion. A Rally is being organised by the Propaganda Committee, and details of these two latter items are given fully elsewhere in this issue.

Head Office Film Lectures. The last two "fixtures” for this season are being held on March 1st and 8th. No plans have been made for the 15th March as Paddington Branch are holding their well-planned meeting at Denison House that evening.

Ireland. Our Comrades in Dublin are very active these days; they have rented the Boiler Makers’ Hall for one evening a week, meeting every Wednesday. One of the items to which they are giving urgency, is their policy and approach to propaganda. They have six or seven “contacts” wishing to join the Party and with these proposed new members, they look forward to extending their work generally. It is hoped that within the next month or so, a much fuller report of their progress will be forthcoming.

Hackney Branch and the Election. Details of a public meeting on April 13th and a list of canvassing dates and meeting spots are given in this issue. Hackney Branch stress that in order to achieve a successful campaign, the participation of members of other branches is absolutely essential. This reminder should not be necessary, of course, as the decision to contest the election is one taken by the Party as a whole and therefore must be a Party effort. Comrades who are not near at hand to give direct assistance can help by spreading the news of our programme and seeking contributions to the necessary additional funds needed.

“No Useful Purpose Would Be Served.” Islington Branch report that Comrade J. McGuinness, the Branch Organiser, is temporarily working in Newcastle, and although there is no Party Branch in the vicinity to which he could direct his lively energy, he continues to be as active as ever on behalf of the Party. In correspondence with his Branch, he tells of two letters published in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle which he wrote attacking the policy of the Social Credit Political League which is active in Newcastle. Com. McGuinness was successful in getting the S.P.G.B.’s case clearly stated.

More recently, he wrote to the N.E. District Branch of the Communist Party in Newcastle, inviting them to a debate with the S.P.G.B. True to form, the offer was rejected by their Secretary whose reply contained the phrase which appears to be reserved for the Socialist Party . . .  “ My Committee have decided that no useful purpose would be served by having any debate with your organisation”

Paddington Branch Meeting at Denison House on Sunday. March 15th. Much preliminary work has gone into the arrangements for this meeting, and by now members will have seen full details elsewhere in this issue, also the earlier notices in the January and February issues. The Branch made these earlier announcements in order to stimulate interest and enable members to advertise the meeting date and ensure that as many members and sympathisers (and others) were aware of the meeting and, we hope, prepared to support it.

The Socialist Party. From time to time our Publicity organiser and the Editorial Committee have endeavoured to obtain recognition in the Press that the Socialist Party of Great Britain is THE Socialist Party. Despite this, the Beaverbrook Press in its Evening Standard Style Book for “ guidance of Editorial, Reading and Composing Departments” quotes: —

  “The Labour Party will be described as Socialist, but where occasion makes the use of the word Labour necessary, the abbreviation will be Lab.”

The above information is sent to us from an American Comrade.

Phyllis Howard

Branch News (1963)

Party News from the May 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Annual Conference is over and now is the time when outdoor propaganda really starts, and what better aid for success in this field is to have available a big and well-produced Socialist Standard to help spread the word of Socialism. This May issue has been prepared with this end in view and if everyone who normally takes one or two copies each month, at least doubled that quantity we should have sold the whole issue. A well worth achievement!

Glasgow Branch is contesting the Municipal Election in Woodside during May and the Branch members with their usual enthusiasm have been busy canvassing and holding many indoor and outdoor meetings. It is hoped that this issue of the Standard will help them in their task.

The Mid-Herts Group founded last year has been holding meetings at intervals in homes of members. A regular meeting place has been obtained and a programme of lectures and discussions is planned. This summer, some members of the Group intend to help Paddington Branch in the running of outdoor meetings at Stevenage. An “Any Questions” meeting was held by the Group at Welwyn on April 3rd. This was well attended and very successful. Good literature sales and collection resulted.

The third meeting of the three-branch effort (Paddington, Bloomsbury and Ealing) takes place at the small Conway Hall, Red Lion Square on Monday, May 13th at 7.30. There is ample room and again the meeting will be Any Questions. It is hoped that refreshments will be available. Bloomsbury Branch is organising this meeting.

Please note the May Day meetings (on May 1st and May 5th), good support by members will mean good meetings. Members please co-operate and support the speakers.

The severe winter curtailed Wembley Branch Socialist Standard canvassing efforts, but with the better weather, the recent sluggishness and inertia have given way to renewed activity. The May Socialist Standard will have special attention, and several evening canvasses have been planned in addition to the usual ones at weekends. Again, in support of the Special number we have arranged a public meeting at Barham Park on May 20th. Subject—of course— “Housing”. Every branch member is asked to support this very important meeting and see that it is well publicised. There will at least be leaflets, distributed well in advance, and the usual local press adverts.

Other events in the offing are two propaganda trips to Southsea in June and August, a film show, and the opening of outdoor meetings at Earls Court alternate Fridays, commencing June. Full details will be announced as they are known. Watch the Socialist Standard for these, also for the dates and titles of future branch discussions and lectures (suspended recently to make way for Annual Conference business). Finally, well designed posters advertising the branch's regular meetings are still displayed prominently on two of the Wembley Railway Stations and we shall try to keep them there for as long as we can. Who knows, perhaps some of our many visitors will in future be disgruntled victims of Dr. Beeching’s axe.

We are receiving a number of enquiries from readers in North East England, and have also received two applications for membership. It has been suggested by members of Central Branch, living in the Newcastle-on-Tyne vicinity that a Discussion Group might be established. Would readers and sympathisers, interested in forming such a Group, please submit their name and address to the Central Organiser at H.O. so that the matter can be considered.

Phyllis Howard

Action Replay: Colin Veitch – Pioneer Football Trade Unionist (2016)

Colin Veitch (22 May 1881 – 26 August 1938)

The Action Replay column from the October 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July Bobby Moore was honoured with an English Heritage blue plaque, but he is not the first footballer to be recognised in this way. In 2013, Heaton History Group ran a successful campaign to have Colin Veitch awarded a Newcastle City Council black plaque on his house.

Colin Veitch was born in Heaton in Newcastle in 1881. He captained Newcastle Schools in 1895. At Rutherford College, where he studied after leaving school, he played for their football team, then regarded as one of the finest amateur sides in the North East, attracting the attention of Newcastle United for whom he played as an amateur before turning professional in 1899. 

He was a versatile and talented football player who captained Newcastle United during their Edwardian heyday when the team won three Football League Championships (1905, 1907 and1909), the FA Cup in 1910 and finalists five times between 1905 -1912. A one-time schoolteacher, he introduced the idea of using a blackboard to illustrate and develop tactics diagrams in pre-match planning and post match analyses.

He was an activist in the Association Football Players Union (AFPU) set up in 1907. In November 1908 Thompson’s Weekly News announced that several leaders of AFPU including Colin Veitch would write regular articles for the paper, providing a forum for the union’s views. The AFPU began negotiations with the Football Association but in April 1909 these ended without agreement. The union threatened a strike and in June the FA ordered all players to leave the AFPU, and warned that if they did not by 1 July, their registrations as professionals would be cancelled.

Veitch resigned from the AFPU in order to carry on negotiations with the FA and led the struggle to have players reinstated. In August 1909, the FA agreed that professional players could be members of the AFPU and the dispute ended. Veitch was later the chairman of the AFPU, now the Professional Footballers Association, for a number of years. In politics he was a leftwinger and had once been asked to stand as a Labour candidate but turned this down.

He died in 1938 after contracting pneumonia while recuperating on holiday in Bern in Switzerland at the age of only 57. He is still remembered in Newcastle as one of their greatest players.

Kevin Parkin

Monument of Confusion (1987)

From the July 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every Saturday at the Earl Grey Monument in Newcastle city centre, a crowd of eager young paper sellers practically trip up innocent passers-by, in their efforts to unload their latest offerings of ''revolutionary" wisdom. A whole range of groups calling themselves "socialist" will bark at bored shoppers and brandish high in the air the papers which they each claim to be the only true word of Karl Marx.

Who are all of these groups, and what evidence is there that any of their papers are any more revolutionary than the local Evening Chronicle? Apart from the Socialist Standard there are three papers/parties in particular which may be spotted at the Monument. All three are Trotskyist groups. They owe their origins to post-war doubts on the left about continuing to support the Russian dictatorship. The Socialist Standard, in contrast, had exposed from the time of the Russian revolution itself the fact that Russia was — in Lenin 's own words — state capitalist, and that the Bolshevik model of revolution was bound to lead to dictatorship, because it was not based on democratic participation.

First, there is Militant, which is supposedly produced by the Militant Tendency, but is in fact produced by a manipulative sect called the Revolutionary Socialist League, so called because it is neither revolutionary nor socialist. The Militant idea of "socialism" can be found in their proposal to "nationalise the top 200 companies". Quite apart from the problem of what happens to the 201st, this is a blueprint for state capitalism. Miners, steel workers and others in nationalised industries know only too well that the priority is still profit rather than human needs, even if the profit goes to the state boss rather than the private boss. Like other groups on the left, Militant persists in the naive view that if only we could get the "right leaders", a Labour government could humanise capitalism.

The Next Step is the paper of the Revolutionary Communist Party and follows Lenin's false theory (taken from the English Liberal, Hobson, in 1916) that the world divides neatly into countries which are "imperialist" and those which are not. According to the dangerous assumption that the enemy of an enemy must be a friend (known in the jargon as "revolutionary defeatism") this means that British workers must support any "smaller" country which the British state happens to be at war with. So during the Falklands war in 1982, the RCP produced a pamphlet urging us to support Galtieri and his fascist-type junta; and during the crisis surrounding the bombing of Tripoli in 1986 they produced a leaflet stating "Britain backs Reagan; We back Gaddafi". No doubt the Libyan dictator was very pleased to hear about this.

The Socialist Workers' Party offer the Socialist Worker as the paper which has really got the capitalist system sussed. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that it is spreading confusion about what socialism is and how to get it. In giving examples of contradictions within the pages of Socialist Worker we are spoilt for choice, for there are dozens. In their issue of 11 May 1985. the following two statements both appear:

1. "We believe a future Labour government will not act in the interests of the working class. On the contrary, it will act like every previous Labour government — in the interests of the bosses' class"
2. "Our attitude is clear. We are for a Labour government".

This year the SWP is again urging workers to vote Labour. The way Socialist Worker tries to justify such a contradictory stance is by referring (politely, of course) to the supposed inability of workers to understand socialism. The self-appointed vanguard of the SWP realise the limitations of Labour government, but the idea of simply stating this to workers is apparently far too straight for them. Instead workers, presumably including SWP members themselves, have to be dragooned into electing yet another capitalist government. in order to "learn from their mistakes” — which the SWP has told them to make.

Why does the Socialist Party claim to be different from the other groups who peddle their wares at the "socialist" bazaar every Saturday?

• The Socialist Party has put a clear and consistent case for socialism at all times. Unlike all the other so-called "socialist" groups, we have never supported futile attempts to patch up the profit system. By its very nature the profit system will always put the profits of the few before the needs of the majority.

   Earl Grey's Monument itself was built in 1932 to mark "a century of civil peace" (!) and carries an inscription that "the people renew their gratitude to the author of the Great Reform Bill". This is ironic, as the groups who sell around it are still caught up in the same ridiculous attempt to reform capitalism in the interests of workers, with for example the SWP's "Right to Work" campaign or the recent RCP "demand"" for "a living wage”.

• The Socialist Party has never held up the Russian régime or any of the other state dictatorships as examples of "socialism". Socialism means a world-wide, democratic system of society. Productive resources would be owned in common and production would be for direct, free use — not profit or sale. There would be free access to wealth. Although the groups referred to above halfheartedly criticise present-day Russia, their idea of socialism is in fact a model for state dictatorship of the same kind. Take for example Socialist Worker, 6 September 1986, which says that in socialism there will be a militia "in charge of everyday law and order", that the party will form the government and that “there will not be complete universal suffrage'". The Socialist Party, in contrast, has always stated that socialism means the end of government and "law and order”, and the beginnings of people controlling their own lives democratically.

• Finally, The Socialist Party has never posed as a "vanguard" or leadership for workers to follow or be " organised"" by. We are simply a tool or vehicle to be used by workers wishing to take political action to end capitalism. Likewise, within The Socialist Party there is no leadership, no "instructions from the Central Committee" such as you will find in the Trotskyist groups. The movement for a democratic society must clearly be democratic itself, based on shared understanding and principles, rather than on leaders and their sheep. As socialist understanding spreads among workers, these self- appointed “revolutionary vanguards" will be seen increasingly as irrelevant to the struggle for socialism. Common ownership and democratic control of the world's resources will come about through a socialist majority, transforming society by democratic means. Only then can universal suffrage be, as Karl Marx put it a century ago, "transformed from the instrument of trickery which it has been up till now. into an instrument of emancipation" (1880 Programme of FPSWF).

The Socialist Party is an active and growing political force in the North East, and throughout the country. If you are interested in these ideas, why not send for a free sample of our literature?

Clifford Slapper

Jack Common and Working Class Writing (1991)

From the October 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

It could easily have escaped your notice that Jack Common is back in print. Jack who? Here is a write whose life was dogged by bad luck, never receiving the recognition he deserved. Passed over by the literary and academic world, his writings have been highly acclaimed by a small group of admirers, the most famous being George Orwell. Reviewing Common's Freedom of the Streets in 1938, Orwell wrote that "this is the authentic voice of the ordinary man, the man who might infuse a new decency into he control of affairs if only he could get there, but who in practice never seems to get much further than the trenches, the sweatshop and the jail."

So who was Jack Common? He was born in 1903 and grew up in the back streets of Heaton, a working class suburb of Newcastle. His father worked on the railways and his mother in the home. Common received a basic education and picked up some office skills at a local college. His working life was punctuated by a variety of jobs such as clerk, mechanic, labourer, museum caretaker and film scriptwriter. He was to use these experiences in his writings. A prolonged period of unemployment led Common to move to London in 1928 in search of work.

Some of his early essays impressed Middleton-Murry and he was given a job as a circulation pusher on the left-wing literary magazine the Adelphi. Common progressed quickly, contributing more articles and obtaining editorial responsibilities. It was here that he met and became a close friend of Orwell. While Common continued to write for a range of newspapers and journals he had to take labouring jobs to support his family financially. During the 1950s, writing against a backdrop of poverty and house evictions, he produced two important biographical novels. His death in 1968 went largely unnoticed and his writings slipped out of print.

Common's literary output over a period of 40 years was rather small and can be divided into two phases. Firstly, in the 1930s there were the social and political essays he wrote for Adelphi, Tribune, New Statesman, Manchester Guardian, etc. In these he explored various aspects of working class culture, an area which was just beginning to attract attention. Writing in the Adelphi in December 1934, he provides a map of the side of town which interests him:

" . . . the queer half-lit geography familiar to the proletarian, an affair of boozers, boxing halls, fried fish-saloons, corner-ends where meetings are held, missions, secular society rooms, spiritualist haunts, odd debating societies and Labour Halls." (Christmas Carol)

Amongst these articles are sketches of street life, factory work and the life on the dole. There are also discussions about politics, religion, unions and schools. This is how he describes the experience of signing on the dole:

"What a day! An invalid's wife with daily attendance at a hospital for financial incurables, maddening in every restriction, because normal good health with its healthy wants is beating in the blood. A day to be endured, to be got through, like all those who come till the luck changes." ('Why Work?', Manchester Guardian, 27/10/1930)

Common was ahead of this time in exposing the role played by the mass media, advertising and consumerism in maintaining capitalism. Ken Worpole described him as "perhaps one of the most original political and cultural commentators of the 1930s" (New Society, 14/8/1980).

The selection of writings, Jack Common's Revolt Against An 'Age of Plenty' (1980) compiled by Benyon and Hutchinson is out of print but the good news is that another small book of essays, Freedom of the Streets (1980), is available from People's Publications. One of the concerns found here and elsewhere is that the working class have not got many books which express their own views and experiences. They are what Grey has aptly called the "silent majority" in his study (1973). In his essay The Silent Majority: A Study of the Working Class in Post-War British Fiction'How Proletarian Are You?', Common Writes:

"Glance into any library and you'll come across acres of accurate and lively descriptions of life amongst the bourgeoisie. The proletarian, though, has few books to his name, and those fumbling ones. He's no hero, that's why. He's a something-something, poor fellow, busy trying to spell it out and make it come different this time."

One practical way Common tried to give the working class a voice is found in Seven Shifts (1938), a collection of short accounts of working-class life he edited, introduced and inspired. In the Preface he writes:

"My friends include members of the literary bourgeoisie and lads from the un-printed proletariat. Both parties talk well, and you'd probably enjoy a crack with them as much as I do. But here's the pity. The bourgeois ones get published right and left, especially left; the others are mute as far as print goes, though exceedingly vocal in public houses."

He continues:

"Well, here is the result: seven narratives in which workingmen describe their jobs, their conditions, and some of their reactions to the life they lead. They are not highly literary compositions, yet the lads can write, as you'll see."

The second part of Common's writing career involved two autobiographical novels: Kiddar's Luck and The Ampersand. These books were published in the 1950s before the upsurge of interest in working class writing. He was a forerunner of such writers as Braine, Barstow and Sillitoe. Kiddar's Luck (available from Bloodaxe Books, 1990) has rightly been described as a small masterpiece. Common draws upon personal memories of his childhood and youth to produce a highly authentic yet entertaining picture of working class life at the turn of the century. The writer Sid Chaplin described Common as "perhaps the finest chronicler of the English working class to follow Robert Tressell" ('A Wry Smile from Tyneside', Sunday Times, 12 May 1968).

The narrative traces the relative freedom enjoyed by Willie Kiddar on the streets with his friends and the increasing constraints and limitations imposed by the prospects of a life of mundane labour and wage-slavery. Common's sting-in-the-tail technique of writing allows him to deal with this is a self-mockingly humorous way. Take the marvellous use of irony in the opening passages where Kiddar (in the form of his genes) reflects on is bad luck on being born into the working class and missing all of the opportunities going on the night of his conception:

"I at once came under the minus sign which society had already placed upon my parents. They were of no account, not even overdrawn or marked 'R.D.', people who have worked for a living and got just that, who had a home so long as they paid the weekly rent and who could provide for offspring by the simple method of doing without themselves".

He continues:

"Naturally, there were some bad fairies gathered round the bed at such a conception. One, somewhat like a tramp, chalked upon the bedstead the sign which means 'no handouts here'. Another, four-belted as a ghostly navvy, swung his pick in promise of future hard work; a blear-eyed one, faintly lit up, lifted the bottle and one looking like a magistrate made a bitter mouth over the syllables of unspoken 'Borstal'".

Common used his childhood in Kiddar's Luck as a means of reworking many of the ideas and concerns found in his earlier writings like the Freedom of the Streets. For example, the self-taught uncle who introduces Kiddar to radical books and ideas is one of the most "unhonoured intellectuals" debating on the street corners in the essay 'Great Men of the Gutter'. A passing reference is made to the SPGB in this context. Common was opposed to capitalism and the way it limited and thwarted working class potential. One of the institutions involved in preparing children for the world of work is the school. In the Freedom of the Streets, he explains that school:

" . . . is in origin quite alien to working class life. It does not grow from that life: it is not 'our' school, in the sense in which in other schools can be spoken of by the folk of other classes".

This critique is taken up in chapter five of Kiddar's Luck:

"I had acquired the one faculty with which every school infallibly endows its pupils - that of being bored. It is very important, of course, that every child should in the course of time becomes fitted up with this negative capability. If they didn't have it, they'd never put up with the jobs they are going to get, most of them, on leaving school. Boredom, or the ability to endure it, is the hub on which the whole universe of work turns".

Sociological studies, such as P Willis's Learning to Labour (1977), show this is still the case. Kiddar's Luck ends in 1917 when Kiddar is fourteen and about to apply or work. The sequel, The Ampersand (which is out of print) continues the adventures of Kiddar, although her is renamed Clart. These autobiographical novels are not simply about Common or Kiddar/Clart; the experience and fate are intended to be representative of others in similar circumstances. Kiddar, as the name suggests, is a typical product of the environment. Returning to the opening passage:

"I had picked the bottom rung of the ladder with a vengeance . . . A sad mistake. Though millions make it, I think it still deserves a mourning wreath."These books show working class writing at its best. They are full of witty observations and interesting insights from one born under a minus sign".

Common did not belong to any political party and was highly critical of those left-wing organisations that claimed to speak for and lead the working class. He ends Freedom of the Streets with:

"No conclusions, then. You can work them out yourself, and its odd's on you'll get at least as good an answer as I should. The things I've been talking about hit you as hard as they do me, mate, and that's a fact. I'll leave it to you, then - all the best."

Common's own highly individualistic "socialism" is often confused and confusing. However, whilst you will find plenty of things to argue with in these books they do help to show the potential ordinary people have themselves to change society. Get hold of these books while you can, because knowing Kiddar's luck, they will be out of print before you can say Jack . . .

Brian Rubin