Why Socialists Oppose Nationalisation. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Case Against Government Ownership.

The Socialist propagandist is frequently asked by opponents, and by those who sympathise but are only slightly acquainted with the Socialist case, to defend “Nationalisation.” It is usually with surprise that the enquirer learns that the Socialist Party is not in favour of, but opposed to, the many forms of State or Municipal ownership.

While a few Conservatives, considerable numbers of Liberals, the bulk of the Labour Party, and the I.L.P. are advocates of Nationalisation, the Socialist Party does not hold that the workers can usefully support this demand. Our general reason is one that lies at the back of all our principles, that is, that Nationalisation will not benefit the workers. It is a matter of complete indifference to us whether this or any other proposal is, or is not, useful to the other class, the employers.

What, then, is Nationalisation? Let us take the mining industry as an illustration. At present certain moneyed people, capitalists, invest part of their capital in the lease of coal-bearing soil, machinery, etc., and use part in employing miners and clerks and managers to carry on the various processes connected with the hewing, hauling, sale, and distribution of coal. After they have paid wages and all expenses, they expect to, and actually do, receive in the price of their coal, an amount greater than the total they have spent on getting and selling it. The difference between income and expenditure goes into the pockets of the shareholders or owners as profits or dividends, and this happens irrespective of whether those shareholders have or have not any knowledge of coal-getting, and irrespective of whether they spend the whole of their time idling and enjoying themselves, or whether they take an active interest in the concern in which their money is invested. Generally speaking, the amount of their profits depends not on their own efforts, but on the amount of capital they happen to possess.

This is the normal organisation of the capitalist system in its undeveloped or “competitive” stage, and it is objected to by us and by the advocates of Nationalisation. The agreement between us, however, does not go very far. We object to the control of the means of life being in the hands of non-workers. We object to the owners of capital being permitted to consume part of the wealth the workers have produced while they take no active part in production themselves. We hold that society can now dispense with the capitalist class, because they no longer perform any function which cannot be performed at least as well by members of the working class, by which we mean all those people who, because they do not possess property, are compelled to offer their services to those who do. We do not regard the investment of capital as a service which entitles the owner to live at the expense of those who do the work. We therefore advocate Socialism, which is a social system in which every able-bodied person will be expected to engage in wealth production before he earns the right to enjoy the use of those things which society can provide for its members. Society itself will set aside wealth in the form of machinery, etc., for the purpose of future production, instead of paying a privileged class for permission to use the results of the workers’ past labour, as is done at present. The capitalist class will cease to exist.

This is Socialism, but it is not Nationalisation. Nationalisation, or Municipalisation, is said to exist when the State or some local authority takes over or initiates an undertaking instead of leaving it in the hands of any capitalist or group of capitalists who choose to invest their money in it. Thus the railways in Germany, the Post Office and Telegraphs in Great Britain, and butchers shops, sawmills, and other concerns under Labour Governments in Australia, are nationalised. This development is a natural successor in certain industries to the early competitive stage of capitalism. For instance, the overwhelming importance to a great trading nation of efficient means of communication and transport makes it imperative that private individuals shall not be entitled to act quite irresponsibly. The result of leaving such industries in individual hands would have been a chaotic lack of organisation which, while profitable enough to the owners, would have been fatal to those industries which needed cheap and, above all, dependable and widespread transport services. In self-interest, therefore, the capitalist class as a whole, through their Governments, had to step in and either take over, or at least control, those services which had become too big and important to be left in individual hands without grave danger to the stability without which trade would be impossible. There may, of course, be other reasons for the introduction of national control. Bismarck took over the German railways partly for military purposes, partly in order to have a source of income outside the control of the German Parliament, and lastly because he hoped with centralised control to be able to deal more effectively with any attempted insurrection by the German workers. He and other Continental Ministers have used bureaucratic control to stamp out Socialist propaganda by penalising the active workers, and by denying State employees ordinary political rights. In France, State employees, like those in most Continental State concerns, have been denied the right to organise or to strike, and have been compelled to carry on blackleg services by the simple device of calling them to the colours. Sometimes in wartime and only during that emergency it becomes imperative for other industries temporarily to be put under the sole control of the Government. This happened here during the last war.

Again, it may happen that, owing to changed world conditions, new inventions or some such reason, a powerful group of capitalists may be faced with the threatened loss of the whole capital invested in an industry, as might happen, for instance, if oil fuel completely replaced coal. In such circumstances thé owners, if powerful enough, would become enthusiastic supporters of Nationalisation, in the hope that they might get compensation and pass their losses on to the State. A circular recently issued by a firm of Leicester stockbrokers to their clients, explaining why they favoured Nationalisation of the mines, may very well be dictated by a fear of this kind. (See August issue.)

There is yet another frequent explanation of capitalist enthusiasm for State control. La Follette, who is running as Third Party candidate for the U.S.A. Presidency, is an old-fashioned representative of capitalist interests who regards trusts and combines as a departure from the early “purity” of the capitalist system, and he wants the Government to intervene and, if necessary, take over certain vital industries. He is getting quite an unexpected amount of support from a host of small capitalists, manufacturers, farmers, etc., who are being slowly throttled by the banking, railway, and other rings, and who wish to put back the economic development of society. In this country we have Mr. Clynes, who believes, like La Follette, that it is better to have a large number of small capitalists than a small number of large capitalists. (Preface to the “Failure of Karl Marx.”)

Now, if you examine all the schemes put forward by these various advocates of Nationalisation you will see why it is that the Socialist opposes them. They all of them perpetuate the very feature which is essential to capitalism and which leads us to seek the abolition of the system. We do not hold that capitalism would be all right if only profits were limited to 5 per cent. or 1 per cent., or that it would be all right if trusts were abolished or prevented from charging high prices. We know very well that it is the system itself which is the cause of the chief economic evils from which the workers suffer, and these were as bad, and in some respects far worse, before trusts and combines had been heard of. We do not share the pathetic belief of the “Daily Herald” in 1923 (November 12th, 1923, and following days) that capitalism would be all right and there would be no unemployment if only wages were higher. Their unfortunate example was America, but we learn from the “Daily Herald” of October 23rd that there are now more than 5,000,000 unemployed in that country in spite of “high wages.” For the Socialist, capitalism is the enemy; not big capitalists or little capitalists, not high wages or low wages, not efficient or inefficient capitalism, but simply capitalism. And the essential feature of capitalism is reproduced in all these nationalisation proposals. IN ALL OF THEM THE CAPITALIST INVESTOR IS STILL GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO LIVE ON THE PROCEEDS OF HIS INVESTMENT. The only difference—a minor one—is that he will receive interest on Government or Municipal Bonds instead of receiving profits or dividends on ordinary company shares. He will still be able to live without working, and the system which permits this will still be the capitalist system.

The main underlying cause of the worker’s poverty is the private ownership of the means of producing material wealth. The class that lives by owning, maintains its position because it controls the political machinery and can invoke the aid of the armed forces whenever necessary. The remedy can only be the abolition of private ownership, and this can be done only in face of the opposition of the present owners. Examine Nationalisation proposals on these three claims : (1) That it solves the whole problem. (2 That it improves the workers’ position within the present system. (3) That is makes the final solution easier than it would otherwise be.

The “Daily Herald” (July 27th, 1923), under the heading “Socialism at Work,” instanced the Port of London Authority as a Socialist success. “… What Socialists propose is to set up other bodies like this very enterprising and energetic Port of London Authority.” It has on other occasions mentioned in the same connection the Post Office, and Municipal tramways, electricity undertakings, etc. Now, are these things Socialism, or do they as Socialists contend, merely alter superficially the form of the capitalist system?

First, let us take Mr. Herbert Morrison, Secretary of the London Labour Party.

  “The Port of London Authority was established by Mr. Lloyd George some years ago to enable the capitalists of the Port to have the advantages of public credit and to do for themselves collectively what they and a number of private companies had been unable to do with success individually. . . . The Port of London Authority is a capitalistic Soviet . . . the constitution of which is thoroughly objectionable from the Labour and Socialist point of view, and which has certainly not been as friendly to the workers of the Port of London as it might have been” (“Daily Herald,” July 30th, 1923).

The last remark refers, of course, to the many strikes to enforce better working conditions. We do not care to question the “Herald’s” assertion that “By the unanimous admission of the capitalist Press it works exceedingly well.” It is, however, sufficient to say that the capitalist Press does not usually describe in these terms anything which is likely to benefit the workers at the expense of their employers. Next, I am going to quote another Labour supporter, Mr. G. T. Sadler, LL.B., writing in the “Herald” on the subject of the capitalist nature of Municipal undertakings (April 2nd, 1924) :—

  “Many socialists have the idea that by municipalisation they can get rid of capitalists. May I remind such that by municipalisation you create State capitalists? This process has been long going on in all our chief towns. Take a few examples— 

The debt of—

L.C.C. £105,000,000

Lincoln £1,667,000

Liverpool £22,000,000

Manchester £31,000,000

Leicester £4,995,000 

“On all this interest is paid, say, 5 or 4 or less per cent.—to capitalists ! ”

Mr. Sadler is wrong in only one respect—in thinking that Socialists share this Labour Party idea.

To show how completely many critics of the capitalist system miss the really vital feature is well illustrated by another reform of capitalism advocated by the Labour Party. In the “Daily Herald” (October 20th, 1924), Mr. Emil Davies has an article in which he holds up for the imitation of English workers a milk-distributing co-operative society formed four years ago in Minneapolis. He says : “Those who produce and those who distribute the necessaries of life” will, in the co-operative commonwealth, “not be the wage slaves of people who allow the real workers a mere subsistence, and themselves take large profits which enable them to live in luxury.” He then goes on to tell us that this concern, employing only 400 workers, actually made £40,000 profit last year ! He admits that the workers who formed it could raise only trifling amounts of capital themselves, and it was to outsiders that they had to go to start the business. Thus they began operations with promises and actual investments totalling £23,000, and it is of course mainly to these investors that the profit goes. If this instance of intensive exploitation were really what Socialists aim at, the workers might justly detest the name of Socialism. In fact, co-operative capitalism is open to the same criticism as State capitalism or any other variant of the wages system. And. as Mr. J. A. Spender, the Liberal economist, correctly says, “the MacDonald-Webb School of Socialists . . . would disown the Marxian doctrine. . . . These men have no economic doctrine about wealth or its distribution between classes, and are more correctly called State-capitalists than Socialists” (“Weekly Westminster,” October 25th, 1924).

Even the “Herald” has been compelled on occasion to see the weakness of its own party’s position when some particularly flagrant case has come to its notice. Thus in an Editorial of April 12th, 1924, we find the following :—

  “We do not believe that there is any fundamental distinction so long as the wage system exists, between the relationship of a private employer to his workers and the relationship of a municipality or State to its workers. In each case the latter sell their labour-power, and their capacity to sell it at a fair price depends on their capacity, through their trade unions to refuse to work.”

This brings us to the second argument in favour of Nationalisation, i.e., that it improved the position of the worker within capitalism. The “Herald,” in April, 1924, thinks that it makes but little difference, and we are all familiar with the poverty and discontent among postal employees, who complain, moreover, that the Labour Government has been not better, but worse, in respect of the restrictions imposed upon Civil Servants in their political activities. There is no evidence that State employees in Germany or under Australian Labour Governments have been better off than workers in private employ doing similar work. And if, as the “Daily Herald” points out, “the price of Nationalisation were the giving up of the weapon of self-protection” (the strike), then “under capitalism a nationalised industry would actually be worse off than those left in private hands” (September 13th, 1922). Lest it be thought that there is no possibility of this right being denied, it is as well to remember that the Court of Enquiry set up by the Labour Government after the London Traffic Strike (“Daily Herald,” April 12th, 1924) recommended that there should be compulsory arbitration, which, as the Editor said, meant in practice the taking away of the right to strike. This report was signed by the Labour representative, Mr. Pugh.

There still remains the argument that Nationalisation is economically desirable because it paves the way for Socialism. If it is merely size that counts, then this argument obviously fails, because the trust has solved the problem of large-scale organisation, and in many industries the international combine has been organised across State boundaries and over a larger field than any single Government can possibly cover. Cotton and oil are instances of this. Further, from the point of view of the future, State enterprises are economically bad, because they often introduce political considerations which are less likely in the trust. As pointed out above, Bismarck, when he took over and extended Prussian railways, was influenced largely by purely military needs and not only by the question of providing an efficient means for the transport of goods. In short, the technical and organisational basis of Socialism has long been prepared, and there is no need for half-way houses. The problem before us is solely one of propagating Socialism, no less in States like Queensland, with its ten years of Labour Government, and countries with a relatively high proportion of nationalised industries, than in countries where competitive capitalism is still strong. The private property of the capitalists, which is what we desire to take for society, cannot be touched until the workers as a whole will back up such a step. Advocating Nationalisation within the capitalist system is unnecessary, because the pressure of their own problems will force the capitalists to do this in suitable industries, and its advocacy is injurious to workers because it obscures the real aim and delays its realisation.

Edgar Hardcastle

Correspondence. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thompson (Hull). The evidence for our statement of the decline of Communist membership is contained in the organ of the Communist International—“The International Press Correspondence” (August 12th, 1924). The report of C.P. of G B. membership is given as 5,116 at date of 4th International Congress, and 3,000 at date of 5th Congress (1924).

John Jacob (Alberta), F. Goulding (Manor Park), F. L. Remington (Leicester), G. F. Foster (North London)—replies will appear next issue.

Five Penny Pamphlets. A Review. (1924)

Pamphlets Review from the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of these, one, “The Condition of the English Working Classes” contains some really useful information for the Socialist. The conclusion drawn from the full particulars of money-wages, prices, and unemployment since 1900 is that there has been “from 1900 onwards, a steady lowering of the standard of life to the working classes.” An attempt is also made to estimate the effect produced by the payment of unemployment benefit.

The others, while carefully prepared, were intended chiefly for the defence of the Labour Government at the Election, and are a typical product of the disgruntled Liberal now so common in the Labour Party, the kind of people once happily described by the “Morning Post” as “Bourgeois turned sour.”

The “British Bondholders” after pointing out that the bondholders “are not the working class,” asks the workers to support the Russian Treaty, which is to force payment of interest to bondholders on old loans, and arrange a new loan on which more interest will be paid to bondholders.

“Why a Treaty with Soviet Russia?” instead of explaining why some capitalist interests support and others oppose the Russian Treaty, is based on the simple and misleading statement that “The capitalists hate Soviet Russia.” It contains a summary of the relations between the British and Russian Governments since 1905.

“Facts about the Combines” and “Who Keeps Prices High?” contain figures about the profits, and facts about the organisation, of several big trusts. They both argue in the style of the old Liberals, that capitalism would be all right if it were not for the wicked trusts which keep prices high. “Under these trusts in the last twenty-four years the condition of the working classes has become worse and worse; if the condition of the workers is to improve it will only be after they have broken the power of the capitalists who control these trusts.” One might suppose that before trusts were heard of, back in the middle of the nineteenth century, the working class (Who are these working classes?) were doing very well, instead of being actually in the same position as they are now.

These are obtainable from the Labour Research Department, 162, Buckingham Palace Road, S.W.1.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism and Religion. Reply to a Vicar. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Reply to a Vicar's attack upon our pamphlet.

  The Vicar of Watford (Herts) recently took it into his head to attack Socialism, taking as his text our pamphlet “Socialism and Religion.” A member of our Watford Branch sent a reply to the Vicar for insertion in the “West Herts Post” (the paper reporting the Vicar’s address), but this paper could not find space for it. 

   The local Labour Party were highly indignant at the attitude taken up by the Vicar, and spared no pains in the endeavour to prove that “Socialism” and “Christianity” were practically synonymous terms. They imported an East End parson to defend them against the imputation of supporting anti-Christian doctrines, and even threatened to secure the aid of the Bishop of St. Albans. 

  As the matter may perhaps be of general interest we print below the letter rejected by the “West Herts Post.”—Editorial Committee, S.S.

Under the above title the “West Herts Post” for September 25th reports an address delivered at the Watford Parish Church by the Rev. Henry Edwards, the Vicar of Watford.

In this address a pamphlet entitled “Socialism and Religion,” published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain (of which I am a member); was attacked by the Vicar, and is the immediate reason for the following criticism of his address.

In his address the Vicar claims that:

Religion is the true remedy for the ills of humanity ;

The Church is just as keen as Socialism to see a better state of things;

The working men of to-day owe to Christianity their freedom, homes, education’ and hospitals ;

Socialism is essentially immoral and advocates free-love.

The word “Religion,” as used by the Vicar, is rather confusing. The religions of the world are countless, and each sect claims that it alone holds the true philosophy of life. I take it, however, that the Vicar is not speaking on behalf of Mohammedanism, Buddhism, or Shintoism, for instance, but only on behalf of the Christian Church. I will therefore confine my remarks to the attitude and activities of this Church.

Christianity and the Workers.

The Church has enjoyed for centuries a power over the affairs of men unparalleled by any other single organisation. During part of the time it was the largest land-owner in the world, owning one-third of the entire land of Europe and controlling the bulk of the educational facilities. This period is familiarly known as the “Dark Ages,” when persecution was rife, knowledge languished and almost died, and the poor suffered from oppressive and barbarous regulations. The Church taught but little beyond the singing of hymns, the saying of prayers, and the belief in miracles. Every step made by science then, and since, has been in spite of, and in face of, the bitter opposition of the Church. Galileo was persecuted by the Church for his scientific discoveries, and only saved himself from torture and death by recanting. Giordano Bruno was burnt for teaching that the earth goes round the sun.

From the time it became a State religion until the present day Christianity has supported the oppressors against the oppressed. The barbarities of the pagan empires were outdone by the barbarities perpetrated after Christianity became the ruling religion in the Roman Empire. The subsequent history contains records of vice on the part of the clergy that would be difficult to equal, as anyone can verify by looking into “The Life and Times of Machiavelli,” by Villari, or, better still, the book the Vicar recommends us to read, “The History of European Morals,” by Lecky. Lecky’s book contains multitudes of illustrations of murder, rape, and other crimes committed by the leading figures in the Church. For instance, on page 261 of Vol. II he points out that Constantine, shortly after his conversion to Christianity, put to a violent death his son, his nephew, and his wife.

The doctrines taught by Christianity are slavish and calculated to make the slave satisfied with his oppressed condition. On this point let me quote Lecky again :—

  “Slavery was distinctly and formally recognised by Christianity, and no religion ever laboured more to encourage a habit of docility and passive obedience.” (Page 66, Vol. II.)

  

  “Christianity for the first time gave the servile virtues the foremost place in the moral type.” (Page 68, Vol. II.)

Are not “docility” and “passive obedience” the ideas most opposed to working class improvement? As long as slaves are satisfied with their lot they will submit to wage reductions and all the other oppressive conditions imposed by their masters. Acting on these ideas, the workers would not have gained the limited advantages they now possess, such as Trade Union combination, factory regulations, “limitations” of the hours of labour, and the suffrage. All these, as a matter of fact, have been obtained against the opposition of the Church.

Christianity is, therefore, proved by its own supporters (Lecky was a Protestant) to be a religion favouring the continuance of slavery.

The Church of England itself has little of which to boast. It was the offspring of the Reformation movement. The Roman Catholic religion, with its numerous holidays, feastings, and taxations for religious purposes, stood in the way of the free exploitation of the workers by the rising commercial magnates of the time. After the Reformation the holidays and feast days were abolished, the workers were driven off the green fields into the factory hells, and their fearful sufferings there—under the control of Christian employers, backed up by Christian clergy—have been recorded on many a burning page in books written by Christian and non-Christian writers. The reports of factory inspectors, Shaftesbury’s “Diary,” Gaskell’s “Machine and Industry,” Gibbin’s “Industrial History of England,” and a host of other books provide illustrations of the depth of brutality Bright, Cobden, and other Christian employers of the time, sank to in their lust after profit.

Martin Luther, the leading figure in the Reformation movement, hated the peasants, the poor people of his time, and supported the savage repression exercised by the feudal lords of Germany. He is reported to have written the following exhortation :—

  “Crush them, strangle them, and pierce them, in secret and in the sight of men, he who can even as one would strike dead a mad dog.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th Ed. article Luther.)

That his suggestion was faithfully carried out appears probable, as the ”Harmsworth Encyclopædia” states that 130,000 peasants were slaughtered during, and immediately after, the revolt (page 4623, Vol. VI).

Religion and Slavery.

The Vicar quotes Wilberforce as an example of the Church’s work for freedom, but what was Wilberforce’s attitude towards the oppressed?

In the period following the Battle of Waterloo, when industry was changing over from hand work to machine work, children from six years of age and upwards were employed for long hours in factories, and girls and boys were working up to sixteen hours a day in coal mines. Wilberforce was deaf to all appeals for assistance on their behalf, and used his influence to support the Government in savage acts of repression against the overworked and starving workers. In 1818, when a peaceful meeting of working men assembled at Peterloo to protest against oppressive regulations, a body of militia set upon them and massacred numbers. Wilberforce opposed any enquiry into the matter, and, in the same year, voted £1,000,000 to build new churches ! (See “John o’ London’s Weekly,” September 6th, 1924, and also the “Diary” of Lord Shaftesbury.)

Lord Shaftesbury struggled for years to interest influential people in the terrible plight of factory children, but he failed to enlist the Church in the support of factory legislation. Those who shed tears over the condition of the black slaves in far-away America were blind to the anguish of the tiny white slaves at their door. Here is a brief extract from Hodder’s “Life of Lord Shaftesbury,” which will give a faint idea of the horrors prevailing at the time in the coal mines of this Christian country :—

  “A very large proportion of the workers underground were less than thirteen years of age ; some of them began to toil in the pits when only four or five; many when between six and seven, and the majority when not over eight or nine—females as well as males. . . .

 

  “From the time the first coal was brought forward in the morning, until the last whirley had passed at night, that is to say for twelve or fourteen hours a day, the trapper was at his monotonous, deadening work. . . . Except on Sunday, they never saw the sun. . . .

  “It sometimes happened that the children employed in the mines were required to work ‘double shifts,’ that is to say, thirty-six hours continuously, and the work thus cruelly protracted consisted, not in tending self-acting machinery, but in the heaviest kinds of bodily fatigue, such as pushing loaded waggons.” (Pages 221-222.)

Shaftesbury complains bitterly of the indifference of the clergy to the children’s sufferings. In his diary he makes the following remarks on the clergy :—

  “I find as usual, the clergy are, in many cases, frigid ; in some few, hostile. So it has ever been with me. At first I could get none; at last I have obtained a few, but how miserable a proportion of the entire class ! The ecclesiastics, as a mass, are, perhaps, as good as they can be under any institution of things where human nature can have full swing ; but they are timid, time-serving, and great worshippers of wealth and power. I can scarcely remember an instance in which a clergyman has been found to maintain the cause of labourers in the face of pew-holders.” (Hodder’s “Life,” page 378.)

I may add that Wilberforce and other Church dignitaries who were so concerned about negro slavery raised not a murmur about the indentured white labour, which was equally as bad, if not worse, that flourished in America at the same time.

Religion and Patriotism.

The Vicar urges patriotism, and blames Socialism for being unpatriotic. We had a good illustration of the patriotism of Christianity during the war. The Christian Churches of Germany blessed the arms of the German soldiers and wished the soldiers success in their endeavour to murder their fellow-beings of other lands. The Christian Churches of England likewise blessed the English soldier and prayed that he would be successful in the slaughter. Incidentally, I may mention that the English Church had thousands of pounds invested in War Loan ! The patriotism of the Church has been dealt with by Lecky as follows :—

  “Much misapplied learning has been employed in endeavouring to extract from the Fathers a consistent doctrine concerning the relations of subjects to their sovereigns; but every impartial observer may discover that the principle on which they acted was exceedingly simple. When a sovereign was sufficiently orthodox in his opinions, and sufficiently zealous in patronising the Church and persecuting the heretics, he was extolled as an angel. When his policy was opposed to the Church he was represented as a demon.” (History of European Morals, page 261, Vol. II.)

The financial interests of the Church are bound up with the continuance of the present system of profit-making. It has millions of pounds invested in railway and other securities, from which it draws dividends, so that it stands to workers in the relation of an employer to the employed. As such, therefore, it is in favour of wage slavery and against its abolition.

Religion and Education.

And now a few words on Education.

Christianity has been the prevailing religion among Western nations for two thousand years, and yet educational facilities were not provided for the mass of the people until comparatively recently. Every step in education has been opposed by the Church. It was “infidels” like Robert Owen and William Lovett who pressed forward the movement for elementary education, and the Church flung the same charge—“immorality”—against Owen that it has flung against every innovator. When National School Boards were established, the Church saw that its resistance was futile, so the clergy fought for control of the School Boards in order that religious teaching should occupy the main part of the curriculum.

Pestalozzi, who has been called the “Founder of the Elementary School,” met with opposition and indifference in his attempt to spread education among the poor. His biographer, Gabriel Compayre, writes :

 “In every time and country, fanatics have been found to decry innovators. He was accused of countenancing anti-Christian doctrines. . . Those of his colleagues who had remained orthodox Protestants were the first to cast stones at him.” (Peslatozzi and Elementary Education, page 57.)

Religion and Family Life.

The Vicar contends that the coming of Socialism will bring immorality and destroy family life. There is no need to look into the future, the evil is here in our midst to-day, and the source of the evils is the system in which we live. The introduction of the factory system long ago dragged the father, mother, and children from the home and set them in competition with each other in industry.

The streets of every large town in this country are thronged with women who are compelled to barter their bodies in exchange for bread. They must live, and the avenues of employment are already thronged to overflow with the unsuccessful. When women are assured of their bread they will be able to spend their affections freely upon those they love, and some of them will not have to adopt the sordid refuge of the streets. But it is not only on the streets that bodies are bought. The woman that enters into a loveless marriage, in order to obtain security of livelihood, is just as much a prostitute as her sister of the streets, the only difference of account being that one sells herself for a short while and the other does so for life. The boasted morality of to-day is a sham, as the ugly facts published in the divorce columns of the daily papers bear eloquent witness.

How much home life does the average worker get? In many instances the whole family are out at work all day trying to obtain the wherewithal to keep a roof over their heads. Their home is more of a sleeping and meal-snatching place than anything else. Overwork makes them irritable with each other, and the time they have together is too brief to enable them to thoroughly understand one another. Trying to make the meagre wages cover the needs of the family, crabs and twists the minds of all. Finally, it is surely idle to speak of home life to working people nowadays, when multitudes of them cannot even find, or pay the rent of, houses to live in, and have to pack themselves into rooms under unhealthy conditions and with the fear of eviction from even these poor shelters constantly haunting them.

Religion and Submission.

That the virtues extolled by Christianity are the virtues of submission is borne out by the statements of the Founder Himself. In his celebrated “Sermon on the Mount” Christ says :—

“ Blessed are the poor in spirit. . . .

“ Blessed are the meek. . . .

“ Blessed are they that mourn. . . .

“ Blessed are the peacemakers. …”

The following out of these ideals is a passive submission to the misery and oppression of this world for the sake of the happiness to be enjoyed in a mythical world hereafter. The true Christian is exhorted to “Resist not evil,” and, therefore, must not take any action to alter the existing order of society, in which the workers are a class of poor and oppressed slaves, subject to the laws and whims of a profit-seeking class of employers.

Socialism aims at taking from the masters the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen. Its object is to raise the workers from slaves to freemen. It is therefore opposed to Christianity.

I have now shown, by a few illustrations out of the multitudes that exist, that the ideals and attitude of the Church were, and are, opposed to the interests of the workers. Any real advance the workers make will have to be made, now as in the past, against the opposition of the Church. If the workers would cast off the chains of wage slavery, then they must cast off the slavish doctrines of Christianity, which counsel them to love, honour, and obey those who oppress them.

G. McClatchie

Labour and Value. Harold Cox on Karl Marx. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (Francis H. Napier) takes exception to Mr. Harold Cox’s criticisms of the Labour Theory of Value expounded by Marx. He quotes from a series of “Daily Mail” articles by Mr. Cox as follows :—

  “… many socialists . . . even when admitting that the greater part of modern wealth is created by the machine and not by the men will try to wriggle out of the consequences of that fact by arguing that the machine itself is the product of labour, and therefore anything that it produces ought to belong to labour. This very common Socialist contention ignores the fact that the workpeople who produced the machine were all paid for the work they did. Some of them may have been underpaid; some may have been overpaid; but they all received payment. They are not entitled subsequently to claim that the machine is theirs.”

Mr. Napier correctly points out that in admitting that the machine was produced by labour, Harold Cox is also admitting the accuracy of the statement that wealth is produced by labour; but both Mr. Napier and Harold Cox misrepresent Marx in suggesting that he made this the basis of a moral claim for the labourer of the full value produced. Mr. Cox, of course, is very well aware that Marx made no such claim. We cannot deal with that point here, but with regard to the question of payment for work done it must be quite apparent that if the workers did receive the full value of the machines produced by them, then the machines, or their equivalent, would belong to the workers after the work was finished, and there would be no surplus to go as profits to the employer. That profit represents the difference between the value of the product and the value of the workers’ labour-power. The workers do receive the value of their labour-power, their wages, but they do not receive the full value of their product.

Mr. Napier goes on to ask if it is correct, as Harold Cox says, that Socialists argue that “value . . . merely depends upon the amount of labour.” He states that he was not aware that Socialists held this view, “but rather that the value of the commodity was determined by its cost of production.”

Mr. Napier has fallen into an error here through a confusion as to the meaning of terms. When Marx speaks of “cost of production” he means its cost in labour, not the cost to the manufacturer of materials, wages, etc.

Marx deals plainly and simply with this subject in “Value, Price, and Profit” (chapter 6). He writes as follows: “The relative values of commodities are, therefore, determined by the respective quantities or amounts of labour, worked up, realised, fixed in them” ; and again, “The greatness of its value . . . depends . . . on the relative mass of labour necessary for its production.”

Mr. Napier quotes further from Harold Cox a question as to whether labour spent in pulling down a house is creating value, and answers it himself by showing that if a certain plot of land is required for the building of a new house or factory, then the work of demolition is a necessary part of the new building scheme, and the labour is therefore, in the words of Marx, “socially necessary” and value creating.

He quotes also illustrations of what Harold Cox calls “wasted or non-productive labour.” Two fishing boats set out to sea, and only one of them succeeds in getting a catch. Two watchmakers make a watch, but only one of them will go. Have the unlucky boatman and the bad watchmaker created value? asks Mr. Cox.

The answer is that a certain proportion of unlucky voyages is inevitable, and this wasted labour is therefore a necessary feature of the security of the amount of fish required by society. The socially necessary labour cost of obtaining fish includes this proportion of wasted labour. Marx, as Harold Cox knows, never claimed that value “merely depends upon the amount of labour,” but on the amount which at a given time it is necessary for society to expend. If labour is wasted unnecessarily, then it is not value creating. This is the position of the watchmaker who knows so little of his trade as to make a watch which will not go.

While we are on the subject of Harold Cox, it is interesting to learn that he has only just found out that MacDonald is an anti-Marxist. After quoting from MacDonald’s writings to show that the latter has long ago repudiated Marxism, he continues :—

  “To repudiate Marx is to repudiate Socialism as well as Communism. Ramsay MacDonald may claim to have a peculiar brand of Socialism of his own manufacture, but he is not entitled to act as interpreter for other socialists when he repudiates the prophet who founded their creed.” (Saturday Review, 25th Oct.)

It is noticeable, however, that the Harold Cox of the “Saturday Review” does not agree with the Harold Cox of the “Daily Mail,” to whom MacDonald is not merely the proprietor of a “peculiar brand of Socialism of his own manufacture,” but a representative Socialist.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Brief Sketch of the Materialist Conception of History - Part 5 (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 4.

Part 5

Though slavery, as we have pointed out, was a necessary step in the development of human society, it by no means follows that it is necessary to society for all time. Slavery, or any other feature of society which may be necessary under certain historical conditions, may, and often does, become unnecessary when those conditions have passed away. This, to some extent, will explain the changes in the forms of slavery that have appeared throughout the history of class society. The chattel slavery of ancient Greece and Rome, when it no longer conformed to the requirements of society as determined in the main by economic development, was superseded by the serfdom of the middle ages, and this in turn was superseded by the wage slavery of present-day society.

So sure as slavery has its origin in the limited powers of wealth production of earlier times, and served to free a section of society to devote their time to the common business of society, which includes “the organisation of labour, the business of government, the administration of justice, art, science, etc.," it can be said to be necessary for human development. But when the means and methods of wealth production reach the stage of development of to-day, class society, with its slavery, ceases to be necessary to social advancement. In fact, it becomes a hindrance to social development. But this brings us to the question of what is useful or necessary in class society. No ruling class gives up its power of domination over the rest of society by virtue of the effects of their domination upon society, nor even for the purpose of social development. The question of whether a particular ruling class, or any of those social institutions which serve its purpose, is useful or necessary, has to be viewed relatively. What a ruling class may consider as useful or necessary may be, and generally is in the ultimate, considered by the rest of society as being useless and unnecessary. This is because the different material interests of the classes inevitably give rise to different ideas of social institutions. A ruling class will cling on to its power like grim death, and will either believe, or pretend to believe, that all that is associated with its domination is for the good of humanity as a whole. On the other hand, the rest of society must sooner or later feel the effects of domination, which involves their exploitation, and thus regard things from a different standpoint. The whole question becomes one of a contest for supremacy, which culminates in a social revolution. The statement of Marx that force is the midwife of the old society which is pregnant with the new can be regarded as a historical axiom which tells us much more than at first meets the eye. It implies that, though political force is employed in the formation of a new form of society, it can only be used for that purpose when any given form of society has reached a certain stage of economic development, when it “becomes pregnant with the new.” And this is a fact which has been impressed upon the minds of many who have taken part in movements for the establishment of a new form of society before the conditions were ripe. Further, this statement of Marx regarding class society implies that revolution is a necessary part of the whole process of evolution, and is a standing challenge to those who deny the necessity of revolution as a means of changing the form of society. A society does not change from one form to another automatically, nor do we discover any evidence of an existing ruling class forming a new form of society. As the economic development proceeds apace, ever bringing in its train fresh conditions, the more does any ruling class mould, or endeavour to mould, its domination in harmony with those conditions. The form of society is kept intact, even though concessions are made to the rest of society. The economic changes, with the changes in laws that are made from time to time by a ruling class, come within the process of evolution. But the revolution, the change in the entire form of society, must necessarily be carried out through a conflict between the classes—the dominant class using its power to retain its hold upon society, and the class seeking power endeavouring to get it by getting control of the State machinery held by the ruling class. The control of the State leads to the control of society. For it must be understood that the State, although signifying to the popular mind the whole of the people, is in reality an organ of class rule.

In the early stages of class society it became necessary to have an institution to deal with the conflicts arising from the exploitation of one class by another. As wealth accumulated on the one side and misery and wretchedness on the other, the more was society disturbed by internal conflicts. Not only this, but the wealth of individuals in that society became the cause of a systematic plundering by outside sources. Consequently, there arose the necessity for the formation of an institution which would not only protect the privately owned wealth, but would also endow that wealth “with the universal sanction of society.” “And this institution was found,” says Engels. “The State arose.” Arising from the necessity of conserving the wealth of individuals forming a class by themselves, and the desire of these to keep in check the rest of society, the State, differing in form from that of earlier times, has retained its essential character throughout, that is, a means of domination.

As Engels points out:—

   “The antique state was, therefore, the state of the slave-owners for the purpose of holding the slaves in check. The feudal state was the organ of the nobility for the suppression, of the serfs and dependent farmers. The modern representative state is the tool of the capitalist exploiters of wage labour.”—(“Origin of the Family,” page 209).

Now, as most people are aware, the State not only consists of the machinery for making laws, it also consists of the means of enforcing the observance of those laws. Obviously, there would be little use of making laws in a society where class divisions prompt people to act in defiance of them, unless some means existed to enforce action in line with the laws. The means existing for this purpose, although covered by a “code of legality,” are the armed forces.

Robert Reynolds

(To be continued.)

Link to Part 6.

The Socialist Versus the Vote Catcher. (1924)

A Short Story from the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some few years ago, in the suburb known as Battenham, there lived a poor workman . whose name was Hyam Eezi. He was poor in that his clothing was shoddy, his food coarse and adulterated, his habitation mean, inconvenient and hired by the week, his hold upon life so precarious that starvation or pauperism were ever on the horizon. He owned no land: nor anything beyond the rags upon his back and the few articles of utility with which he had furnished his hired house.

He himself lived by letting himself upon hire, the process being as follows. Being possessed of nothing material beyond the few poor articles mentioned, and driven by the stern goad of hunger, he found that he still possessed one saleable thing—his energy. He had read no history, so he did not know how he and those around him had become landless, propertyless outcasts in a land of plenty. He just took things as he found them, and imagined that thus they had ever been, and thus would remain. And so his main concern was to find some hirer of human labour, and lend his services to him for as long a time as possible and for as large a sum as possible. Unfortunately he found that so many hundreds of those around him were in like case, that the hirers were enabled to select those who would take the smallest sum, or alternatively those who could work the hardest or most skilfully. He, therefore, found that, no matter how hard he worked or at what occupation, the sum he received each week barely sufficed to keep him and his family in their poor standard of “comfort” and security. Security! Ever before him there loomed the prospect of finding in his pay envelope a little slip of paper, bearing the dread intimation that his services were no longer necessary. What puzzled him, when he really did sit down to think the matter out, was the undoubted fact that when he and his mates had worked so hard that the warehouses were overflowing with goods, then was the most likely time for the “sack,”'as they called it. Terms like "over-production,” “slump,” "glutted markets,” etc., filtered down to him, but he had but the haziest idea of what they all meant. The hunt for a master began anew. Presently he found one; or after an interval of semi-starvation the old one took him back again. The process is repeated, and so the years pass.

And then a great excitement stirs his drab life. There is an Election. Certain shiny-hatted, sleek, comfortable looking gentlemen appear, and profess to take an absorbing interest in his welfare. All his troubles, he is told, are directly traceable to Free Imports, lack of Preference, want of Stability, Foreign Competition, and the Crass Stupidity of the existing Government. The remedy is quite simple. Just put a little cross opposite the shiny-hatted gentleman’s name, and Prosperity will dawn upon all.

The next few years are spent in continuing to hire himself out when fortunate enough to find a hirer, and in wondering when the promised Prosperity will arrive, or what form it was supposed to take. Suddenly the mystery is solved. He has been betrayed, swindled, duped. How does he know that? Another gentleman is good enough to devote much of his-spare time to patiently explaining what is wrong. A rash of handbills, cards, posters, etc., has broken out, and he gathers that another Election is arranged for him. The gentleman explains that the individual who cajoled his vote from him last time is one of an unscrupulous gang of self-seekers who are bent on ruining the country. They are hypocrites, liars and fools, their sole aim being the feathering of their own nests at the expense of the honest working man. "What have they done for you,” he asks searchingly. Hyam has no difficulty in replying, “Nothing.” Fortunately the remedy is simple. This gentleman stands for Peace, Retrenchment and Reform; Economy, Progress and a Free Breakfast Table; Justice, Liberty and No Tariffs. The mellifluous flow of high-sounding words leaves Hyam slightly dazed. They are not part of his everyday vocabulary and he cannot connect them with any article of use in his daily life, unless it be the Free Breakfast Table. That sounds promising, anyhow. He can’t do less than the previous blighter, thinks Hyam, so here goes my vote for the gent that has shown him up.

It is needless to recount how the ship of prosperity again seemed to have mistaken the harbour and put into some more distant haven. The cause of this was made clear as crystal to our friend Hyam Eezi by a simple working man. The occasion was another General Election, and this man proved in the most convincing manner that the previous two gentlemen were arrant swindlers, both of them employers of labour and consequently living upon the ill-gotten wealth they sweated from the honest workers. What we wanted was a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, also pensions for mothers, also no taxes on food, also better education. What we wanted was Peace in Europe; Houses to let at low Rents; No Profiteering; No Inhabited House Duty; No Entertainment Tax; Larger Unemployment Dole; More Scholarships; Cheap Electricity; Sugar Beet Factories, and, above all, No Unemployment.

Who could resist it? Not Hyam Eezi! Here was a man of his own class, who talked his own language. Here were thing he could understand. Houses at low rents! No Profiteering! No Unemployment! These were ideas he could handle. And the remedy was so exquisitely simple. Just put a little cross opposite this honest toiler’s name and the Dawn was guaranteed visible within a few short weeks. God!. would polling day never arrive?

Alas! The months have gone by with little to distinguish them from the drab years before. Hyam still hires himself out when he can find a hirer, and starves when he can’t. The honest working man of his last choice is painfully explaining to him how the main caravan missed its way, but how grateful he should be for what has been salvaged. The capitalists of France and of Germany are on much better terms; the capitalists of England and of France are happier together; the “socialist” capitalists of Russia and the ordinary capitalists of England are in a fair way to doing business; the low-rented houses are, er— on paper; the thirty million pounds (think of it, Hyam!) a year off food taxes has reduced the cost of living, except where it has gone up; the landlord has been freed of the irritating Inhabitated House Duty;, your seat at the ”pictures” has gone down a whole penny—in some places; we have increased the pittance to ex-Servicemen whom we sent to be butchered in the War; we have—, but Hyam is bewildered.. He asks himself what all this means to him. Receiving no answer, he seeks out one of those “extremist” fellows who works in the same shop, and inquires rather irrelevantly: “Where the devil are we, mate? ”

“Mate” replies : “Look here, Hyam boy, the main thing that’s wrong is yourself. All these loquacious gentlemen have had one thing in common. They have invited you to trust them. You have done so; that is why you now find yourself ‘trussed.’ Your trouble is glaringly thrust in your face every morning, but you are so used to it, you don’t notice it. You ‘book-on,’ or 'clock-on' at a definite time, and after some hours have gone, you 'book- off.’ But you feel different,  don’t you? Something has gone from you; you are tired; you have less energy. There you have it. The firm have had so many hours of your energy—and what have they given you in exchange? A wage. And what does a wage represent? The cost of replacing the energy, plus a bit to enable you to bring up kiddies to take your place. Many factors make wages vary, but the point round which they vary is the average cost of living. So you see, Hyam, you are a thing of hire, a piece of merchandise, a commodity. In selling your energy, you sell yourself, for you are inseparable. You sell yourself—a piece at a time; and when your energy thins off, you are scrapped. Foreign Agreements don’t help you; Russian and German Loans don’t help you. You still remain a worker. The whole collection of Pensions,' Insurances, Health Benefits, etc., do not really affect you. You remain a worker. Cheap rents, cheap food, low rents, low taxes, cheap everything, do not affect you. Cheap cost of living means cheap wages. With any wages, high or low, you remain a worker. And that is the whole trouble. Palliatives do not palliate; 'benefits' do not benefit; 'something now’ means next to nothing for ever.

"The system under which we live is called Capitalism. Under it the land, factories and means by which we all live are owned by small groups of people. The workers, the great mass of the people, hire themselves out to the capitalist at so much per day, per week or per month. The result of their toil goes to the owners of the tools of production; the workers get their hire. When the capitalists cannot make a profit out of the hire of labour they stop hiring it and the labourer starves. Starving men are desperate men, so good, kind capitalism arranges a scheme of Insurance, that just sufficiently dulls the edge of desperation to secure the continuance of the system of capitalism. Your Labour party has sounded the loud trumpet over their having increased this "benefit” You can read this little lesson for yourself, can’t you.

"The Socialist says there is one problem, and one problem only, before the worker: his wage-slavery. There is one solution and one solution only for his problem; that he and his fellows must own the means whereby they all live. To do this they must capture the political machinery of society—Parliament—not by trusting to any glib-tongued orator to do something for them, but by organising in the workers’ party, the Socialist Party, to capture and use the political machinery in the interests of the whole working class. That is a very brief outline of Socialism, and if it appeals to you, don't trust any more to people who are going to bring Utopia here without the least effort on your part, but come into the Socialist Party and work for Socialism. Socialism will come when enough of you want it. Why not begin to work now, Hyam? ”

W. T. Hopley

Editorial: The Great Sham Fight at the Polls (1924)

Editorial from the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Election came too suddenly for us to be able to deal with it before the event—which saved us at least from the temptation to offer you the name and score of the winning team. Our attitude will be well known to our readers. We have but one policy, the same as at between elections. We want Socialism, and we say now, as always, that whatever the workers may get by supporting either of the three great parties, they will not get Socialism.

Workers who are so hypnotised by the promise of reforms, those patches on a rotten social structure, that they neglect to observe the rottenness of the capitalist system itself, will naturally support that party whose programme promises them most, providing that they retain enough infantile trustfulness to believe anything from the mouth of a politician. Thus the bulk of the working class voted Conservative or Liberal, and the remainder of those who voted at all gave their votes to the Labour Party. Suicidal though this is, and regrettable from the Socialist standpoint, there is no doubt that the workers who voted thus believed they were acting intelligently. Conservative policy, dictated though it is primarily in the interests of the Conservative wing of the capitalist class, may incidentally bring temporary and apparent benefit to the workers employed in certain industries. Similarly, the policy of what was the Liberal Party, and the policy of the inheritors of the Liberal tradition, the Labour Party, might bring some seeming advantage to some other sections of the workers. In a moment of panic or under the pressure of discontent any one of these parties, all of them now claiming to be “Reform" parties, might introduce measures bringing fleeting relief to the great mass of the working class, and the latter, accustomed to taking short views, vote for the reforms and forget to ask themselves why it is that this constant reform legislation is necessary, and why, in spite of it, the condition of their class grows steadily worse. We do not defend capitalism like the Liberals and Conservatives, but neither do we defend it apologetically like the. Labour Party. Mr. Wheatley, in introducing his Housing Bill, said that it was an attempt to patch up the capitalist system, in the interests of humanity. We do not believe that humanity can be served by patching up the capitalist system, but only by destroying it. If we thought otherwise we would presumably support one or other of the parties which has confidence in its ability to patch up capitalism; but we should cease to be Socialists if we shared Mr. Wheatley’s belief. He ignores the fact that every reform of this kind increases the responsibility and power of the capitalist State, and increases the stability of the capitalist system.

When the workers want Socialism they will not be deceived into believing that support of t;he non-socialist programmes of the Liberal, Conservative, and Labour Parties will give them it.

The Election, in spite of its heat, was a sham fight, not in the sense that any of the party machines was worked at less than full pressure but in the sense that there was no issue in dispute worth fighting about. The Conservatives said it was a fight against Socialism, but they left Socialism alone and concentrated their energies on mud-slinging and appeals to the most brutal and ignorant prejudices. The Liberals had no time to spare from their task of preventing a stampede among their own sheep. They raised the dear-bread cry to hedge the right wing off from the Conservatives, and the Bolshevik bogey to hold in the Liberal left wing. The result was heavy losses in both directions. The Labour Party was only too willing to take up every trivial-challenge its opponents chose to throw down, and avoid not only the question of Socialism, but also what it says are its own principles. Only one still small voice was heard to mention the Capital Levy, Nationalisation had to take a subordinate place to the Russian Treaty, nothing was mentioned this time about independence for Ireland or the native races in the Empire, and it was rare indeed to see an election address or hear a speech containing any definite attack on the fundamentals of the capitalist system. Socialism itself, even if the word may have crept in now and again to satisfy the left-wingers, was not treated as practical politics.

How often are we told by “Socialists" who join the Labour Party of the magnificent opportunities they will have of carrying on Socialist propaganda. Usually their "Socialist propaganda” consists in helping some place-hunter into the House of Commons by defending a sickening mixture of the platitudes of degenerate Christianity and the exploded nostrums of the trashy Liberal economists of the late nineteenth century, which is all the typical Labour election address contains.

As for the result, the Labour Party, while they may reasonably regret the shocking blunder Macdonald made in going to the country on an issue so difficult to explain in the bustle of an election as the Russian Treaty, they nevertheless feel pleased with the number of votes cast for their candidates. To have increased their poll by over a million was, in the circumstances, a so-called "victory" for them.

Mr. H. N. Brailsford, in the "New Leader” (October 31st), has something to say about MacDonald’s blunder and his leadership of the Labour Party which suggests that there may be considerable discontent behind the scenes :—

“We have undoubtedly paid heavily for the unlucky handling of the Campbell affair and the Zinovieff letter. We contrived to give the impression of a lack of candour. Our explanations came tardily, and when they came, they failed to remove the suspicion that something discreditable was being concealed. As we look back on these crowded weeks, the doubt increases whether we did wisely to refuse an inquiry into the Campbell affair. There was no truth whatever in the suspicion which our opponents fostered, that 'extremists' were dominating the Government. The plain fact is that it would be difficult to name a single Member in our Party who would have approved a prosecution in the Campbell case. The Party was equally solid in its support of the Russian Treaty, and all of us would have regarded the failure to complete it as a disaster. When the heat and weariness of this struggle have passed we shall have to review at leisure the record of these nine months, but our tests will not be those which our opponents use. The shortcomings which have injured us were, to our thinking, rather temperamental than intellectual. In ability and in devoted work our Front Bench did not fall short. Its leadership, however, too often lacked frankness in the House. It was too ready to treat proper questions as insults. It thought too often in terms of conspiracies and plots, and gave undue weight to electioneering tactics. It somehow failed, when the contest came, under the stress of excitement and overwork, to raise the issue to the level of reasoned debate."

The huge Conservative majority may well prove an embarrassing asset unless chance is very kind to them. They have first to fight out among their own sectional interests what their fiscal policy is to be, and; as recent experience should have taught them, unless unemployment decreases considerably a majority in the House is not for long a guarantee of support in the constituencies. For reasons beyond the control of the Government, unemployment may of course take a downward trend, but the Conservatives have no positive remedy, any more than has the Labour Party.

The Communists made themselves ridiculous, as usual. Whether the Zinovieff letter is forged or not, it accurately reproduces the ideas of these grown-up children who play at soldiers and gunpowder plots; Communist support of the Labour Party cost it many thousands of votes. This is how the Communists carry out their anti-Socialist policy of helping Labour into power. Is it possible to find anywhere else men so pitifully ignorant of the power of the State and of the ingenuity of the ruling class who control it; or so childishly innocent of the elements of political action? Such people would, if they had any influence on the workers, be a positive danger to any who followed them in their suicidal appeal to violence. Communists at Deptford were delirious with joy because Bowerman, supporter of a Bill to make Communist propaganda illegal, was returned again. If they received orders from Moscow to do so, they would hang themselves.

Conservative victories, Liberal victories, and Labour “ triumphs ” we have had before. The capitalist system continues to crush the working class, and will do so until the workers realise the fraud of these parties and their programmes. Only when the workers become Socialists will the great sham fights at the polls give place to a real political struggle between capital and the working class.