Industry and the Banks: Wicked Bankers and Kind Captains of Industry. (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Owing to high interest rates in New York and Berlin, and the consequent transfers of balances from London to those centres, the Bank-rate on September 26th, was increased from 5½ per cent. to 6½ per cent. At once the Press and the platform became a fierce battle-ground between those who charged the wicked bankers with “throttling industry,” and the apologists who explained that this process, although painful, was in the best interests of the patient. The Times assured its readers on September 14th, when a rise was already being proposed, that failure to take this step would result in an increase in the cost of living. Lord Melchett (formerly Sir Alfred Mond) wrote in the Sunday Express on September 29th, under the title “Unemployed—by Order of the Bank,” pointing out that if the Times policy were carried out, industrial activity would be slowed down and unemployment would grow. What Lord Melchett said he wanted was that—

“some of the hundreds of thousands of workers to-day walking the streets, idle, searching for employment, should be placed into productive industry, to increase the national wealth.“

Mr. Philip Gee, speaking for the coal-owners, said (Daily News, 27th September) :—

“This rise is very unfortunate, coming at the present time, when many collieries are faced with the necessity of borrowing money for development, rationalisation, and mechanisation, and when many collieries already have large overdrafts at the bank. It will restrict development.“

Seventeen manufacturers’ associations and sixty individual company directors combined to send a memorandum to the Government demanding a fundamental change in financial policy “if Great Britain is to retain her industrial importance” (Daily Express, October 8th). They protested that an increase of 1 per cent. in the rate of interest meant an additional burden of £25 million. Among the signatories were the Master Cotton Spinners’ Associations, the British Wool Federation, and the National Union of Manufacturers.

Mr. E. G. Pretyman, President of the Land Union, added the protests of the farmers and landowners. He told the Daily Herald (October 8th) that “nearly all farmers and most landowners had bank overdrafts, and the usurious interest of 7½ per cent. had to be paid now on these overdrafts.”

Added to the clamour were the voices of the trade union officials, the Daily Herald, and the Independent Labour Party, all demanding prompt and drastic action against the villains of this piece—the financiers.

On the trade union side the oratorical laurels belong to Mr. Ben Tillett. He told an audience of trade unionists at Bristol on September 29th that “our financiers and usurers had contrived to put millions of the world’s population under their heel.” . . . “Our National Debt was an octopus, bleeding white the British nation.” …“The banks were squeezing the life-blood out of British industry.” (See Daily Herald, September 30th.)

According to the Manchester Guardian’s report of the same speech, Mr. Tillett denounced these wicked men as “dragons of usury” exhibiting the “sardonic malignity of the sordid dogs in the mangers of British commerce, banking and usury.”

A week later he became really angry. Then he said (Times, 4th October) :—-

“If Mr. Montagu Norman were tried by Court-Martial he would be shot for raising the bank rate to 6½%. He should thank God that we were more merciful. He (Mr. Tillett) would let him off with a caution—and sack him.“

Mr. James Maxton, M.P. and Chairman of the I.L.P., also had something to contribute to the discussion. He recalled

“the period of the war when banks and financiers had manipulated credit and gold to enrich themselves, heedless of the consequences to the workers.“ (Daily Herald, September 30.)

In face of this show of heat it is not surprising that many workers who know little of the ways of the banks should have concluded that here was a matter of very great concern to them. Let us then consider the whole question, and start at the beginning by asking ourselves what are the banks and what is industry.

The banks are companies, owned by their shareholders, which receive the money of people who have a surplus, pay them interest on it, and lend it out to industrial and commercial concerns which are willing to pay a higher rate of interest for the use of the money than the banks pay to the depositors. Industry, the mines, the railways, the cotton factories, etc., also consists of companies owned by private individuals or bodies of shareholders. In both cases the shareholders put their money into these concerns with a view to making a profit. The bank depositors, whose money is lent out by the banks, are in effect investing it in industry in a roundabout way. The chief difference is that the person who deposits money in a bank can, at any time or at short notice, resume possession of the amount which he originally deposited, whereas the shareholders in a company may possibly find it difficult to sell his shares at a given moment except at some loss. On the other hand, the latter stands the chance of selling his shares at a profit and of re­ceiving a much larger return than the banks find it necessary to pay their depositors. In brief, some investors desire a rela­tively higher degree of security and want to have their money easily accessible and therefore allow all or part of it to remain in the possession of a bank.

What it is important to notice is that the people who own and control industry and the people who own the money which the banks lend to the controllers of industry are similar in the important respect that they are in the main propertied people, members of the capitalist class, able, because of their ownership, to live without working. On the other hand, the people who do the work of industry and of the banks, from the coal miner and the bank clerk to the mine manager and bank manager, are in the great majority of cases members of the working class. They do not own sufficient property to be able to live without working and must therefore sell their power to labour to the property owners or their agents. The amount they get as wages or salary is roughly speaking the amount which is sufficient to keep them alive and efficient and to enable them to bring up their families. What that amount is will vary, of course, from place to place and from one occupation to another, and will necessarily change according as prices rise or fall. It also involves a number of other factors. It is, however, prevented from rising much above the actual cost of living by the constant pressure of the unemployed who are able and willing to take the place of the employed man.

Having purchased the mental and physical powers of the workers for a day, a week, or a month, the employers then set them to work producing articles for sale. In general the value of the articles, after making all necessary deductions for cost of materials, wear and tear of machinery and other incidental expenses, is far above the amount paid in wages and salaries. It is out of that difference, that surplus, that the whole capitalist class derives its income.

It is customary, in this country at least, for the capitalist who invests his money in a factory or a mine or other business to have to rent the land from a landlord. It is also usual for him to depend to some extent on loans from a bank or loans from other investors who are prepared to lend in the form of debentures at a fixed rate of interest. The industrial capitalist is compelled, therefore, to hand over some share of the surplus to other capitalists who have invested in land or who lend money direct or through a bank. Naturally these three types of capitalist are continually trying to increase their respective shares at the expense of the others. If rents go up, one or both of the other two parties has to suffer. If interest rates go up the industrial capi­talist or the landlord has to foot the bill.

The most obvious way in which these groups try to gain an advantage is by controlling or influencing the Government. The political party in power looks after the interests of its friends. The group whose friends are not in power just as naturally tries to force the ruling faction to make concessions, the final deciding factor being the possibility of gaining the support of the electorate. It would, of course, be fatal for the capitalists in an industry to ask the electors to support the introduction of a protective tariff, or a reduction of a tax on the article in which they were interested, and to put forward their real reason, i.e., that they were merely trying to get larger profits. What they do is to try to persuade the voters that these measures are desirable “for the good of the country,” or that they will “make work for the unemployed” or will “encourage trade.” Any excuse serves so long as a sufficient number of voters can be induced to believe it. As a matter of course other sections of the capitalist class will resist these demands because they know that if any section gets an advantage one or other of the various sections of the capitalist class will have to pay for it, directly or indirectly, through increased taxation or through higher prices leading to higher wages, or in some other way. This is the great game of politics as played by the capitalist parties.

An excellent illustration was seen in the Derating Act passed by the last Government. Lord Melchett stated at the 1929 annual meeting of the Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. that the company gained £200,000 a year relief from rates through that piece of legislation passed by the political friends of a group of industrial capitalists. (See report in The Times, 19th April, 1929.) Mr. Lloyd George, it may be remarked, estimated the figure at no less than £600,000, but Lord Melchett denied its accuracy.

For a like reason we have the industrialist capitalists demanding that the present Government take steps to compel the money-lending capitalists (the banks and their depositors) to lower the rate of interest. And it explains why industrialist capitalists like Lord Melchett’s fellow director, Mr. Szarvasy, and Sir J. P. Benn, the evangelist of “individualism,” are in favour of the nationalisation of the coal royalties, and the nationalisation of land respectively. (See Manchester Guardian, 18th September, 1928, and Times, 24th July, 1925.) In each case we see the industrial capitalist seeking to use political power for the purpose of helping himself at the expense of the capitalist who has put his money into coal-bearing or agricultural or building land.

In the present controversy the issues are just as plain. Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. and other branches of industry are busy introducing new and expensive plant and machinery in order to meet intensifying competition from their foreign rivals. This process is a long one (Lord Melchett at the meeting referred to above stated that in some branches of his concerns it will take two years), and while it goes on high rates of interest have to be paid on very large sums of money borrowed from the banks or raised in the form of debentures. That is what all the fuss is about. As Sir E. W. Fetter, of Fetters Ltd., explained in a letter to The Times (9th October), these in­creased charges “cannot be passed on to the customer” (foreign competition will prevent that) and “must be paid out of the manufacturer’s profits.”

That is why Lord Melchett is so solicitous about the troubles of the unemployed; and why the Times is so deeply concerned lest your cost of living be raised. Lord Melchett is trying to get working class voters to back him up in a policy which will help him against the money-lending capitalists ; and the Times, no more disinterested than he, tries to secure, by its reference to the cost of living, your support for a policy which is in the interests of the bankers, and against that of the industrial capitalists.

The whole question is one of the conflicting interests of sections of the capitalist class. It does not affect the workers’ interests. They are robbed by the whole capitalist class, and the way in which the capitalists divide the spoils between themselves makes no difference whatever to the workers. When Lord Melchett talks about his desire to see the unemployed placed in productive industry “to increase the national wealth,” and when Mr. Tillett laments that the bankers are upsetting “even the wonderful miracle of the mechanisation of industry (Manchester Guardian, September 30th), they are both misrepresenting the real line of industrial development. Lord Melchett and his associates are concerned primarily not with making work or with increasing the national wealth, but with securing the maximum profit. Lord Melchett is a keen supporter of what is called rationalisation, and he has himself defined it, not as a policy of increasing production, but as

“the adjustment of production to consumption in any commodity. Basically it is simply the rational control of industry to ensure that, as far as possible, you do not produce more than your market can absorb.“ (Daily Telegraph, Jan. 14th, 1929.)

Mr. Tillett’s “miracle of the mechanisation of industry” is the process which every worker knows and fears, the creation of more unemployment through the introduction of labour-saving machinery. Lord Melchett needs loans because his concerns are carrying out a costly reorganisation scheme to secure greater productivity per head of his workers; not more production, but cheaper production.

There is another factor which complicates this question of industry and the banks, but again a factor which does not concern the workers. The banks, being called upon to lend larger and larger sums of money to industrial and commercial concerns, are able more and more to insist that they or their nominees shall be given some share in the control of the borrowing companies. This they do partly to influence policy in order to safeguard their interests as lenders and to secure a greater share in the earnings of the company, and partly to use the connection as a means of securing new banking business at the expense of competing banks. But it is plain enough that this change in control, while naturally resented by the industrial capitalists, does not lead to any change in the position of the workers either for better or for worse. It will also be noticed that this struggle has no direct connection with the question of a high or low bank rate.

As against the policy of Mr. Tillett and Mr. Maxton and their respective parties which leads the workers to throw themselves into the fray on the side of the industrial capitalists, the Socialist Party points out that the whole question is of no concern except to the capitalists themselves. The Labour Research Department (Monthly Circular, July) estimates the 1928 profit of Lord Melchett’s “Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd.” as equal to £113 per head of the workers employed. But what does it matter to us whether that profit, totalling £6 million, goes wholly to the shareholders, or partly to the bank depositors? What does it matter to the workers whether their lives are controlled by Lord Melchett, “captain of industry,” or some new master, a “king of finance”?

When Mr. Maxton singles out the bankers as having enriched themselves during the war “heedless of the consequences to the workers” he forgets the cotton mill owners, the shipping owners, the coal-owners, the iron and steel interests, and all the other commercial and industrial capitalists who were striving with greater or less success to do the same. That is the object of all capitalists both during war and peace.

And who should know this better than Mr. Tillett? In 1929 he wants to shoot Mr. Montague Norman—banker. Many years ago he earned great hatred and great popularity by calling upon God to strike dead Lord Devonport, starver of dockers. Yet Lord Devonport was no banker, but head of a great trading firm.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: Unemployment and the Printing Trades. (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

We print below a letter from a correspondent, together with our reply :—

S. Hackney, E.9. 

22/9/29.

To Editor Socialist Standard.

Dear Sir,

Upon perusal of the Socialist Party’s pamphlet “Socialism,” I am prompted to write of an aspect regarding machine production and its effect on the economic relationship of the working-class. Firstly, I will draw attention to page 3, where will be found workers in practically every trade, profession, and so forth, addressing, as a body, to the working-class the object of Socialism. And amongst them is instanced printers (my italics).

On page 19 I find a reference to the linotype machine and its economic results upon the compositors. In brief, without giving the full quota­tion, this wonderful machine has displaced men; made them unemployed, but not, I will venture to say, unemployable.

Permit me to give the facts. In 1899, the Daily Mail was the first firm to instal these machines. They were then producing an 8-page news-sheet. The staff of compositors was some­ thing like fifty. Since then the paper has developed from an 8-page to a 16-page production. Remembering, too, that the linotype sets text matter only, who other than the displaced compositors does the advertisements which monopolises more of the paper than the material composed by the linotype. This position is representative of all firms who installed the machine.

Next, in 1899, when the linotype was introduced in England from America, the membership of the London Society of Compositors was 11,415, so, according to the line of thought given in “Socialism,” by now—1929—the membership should be numerically smaller. But the opposite is the case, and we find the membership of the Society stronger—14,690, to be precise, and the months of May, June and July found only an average of 16 members unemployed on the figures for those three months. How then can you reconcile these facts with that propounded in the pamphlet ?

The explanation is simple. Take another industry. Consequent on the development of the tooth-brush industry, we find the wage-standard is low. With the result of intensive machine production the markets, at periods, get over­ stocked. That is the cause, Stock ! Stock ! ! Stock ! ! ! But not so in Print. There is no stock in that industry. And that, in my opinion, is the farcical aspect or position I regard for the Socialist Party to take as an example the linotype machine. Other than that point, of course, I am in full agreement.

Yours fraternally, 

Tom.

Reply.

Our correspondent has read the Socialist Party’s pamphlet “Socialism,” and notes that in reference to the compo­sition of the organization, printers, amongst others, are enumerated (page 3). Printers, whether they be linotype or mono­type operators, or hand compositors, or machine managers, and so forth, are all members of the working class. Conse­quently there are in the ranks of the S.P.G.B. men and women of diverse occu­pations who have joined together in an endeavour to propagate the gospel of Socialism.

He is in difficulties about page 19, wherein the introduction of a linotype machine into a printing office is given as an illustra­tion of how hand-labour may be displaced by the machine. Let us quote the passage as it appears in the pamphlet:—

“This wonderful appliance, though a great labour-saver, is profitable only to a certain circle of printers—those who have a considerable amount of book or newspaper work. But many are considering the pros and cons of its adoption. A very little will decide. An extra monthly magazine—or, perhaps, putting in a machine, by saving two or three men’s room, will avoid an expensive removal to larger premises.

Now suppose wages rise, immediately the doubters are decided. They adopt the machine and each machine throws three or four composi­tors into the street.“

It is, indeed, difficult to understand the reasoning of our correspondent, for, while he writes to take exception to the passage quoted above, the significant admission of our correctness creeps in when he says, ” but not, I will venture to say, unemployable.” (Closing words of his second paragraph.) Again, later on, he asks, “who other than the displaced compositors does the advertisements ?”

Our critic then goes on to give what he considers to be the facts. He says :

“In 1899 the Daily Mail was the first firm to instal these machines. They were then producing an eight-page news-sheet. The staff of compositors was something like fifty. Since then the paper has developed from an eight-page to a sixteen-page production. Remembering, too, that the linotype sets text matter only, who, other than the displaced compositors does the advertisements, which monopolise more of the paper than the material composed by the linotype. This position is representative of all firms who installed the machine.”

We would suggest to our correspondent that before he starts “distributing” the “facts,” he should take the trouble to verify them. The Daily Mail was first published on May 1st, 1896. (See “Mystery of the Daily Mail,” page 100; or “Everyman Encyclopaedia.”) Also an agreement for machine composition was signed between representatives of the London Newspapers and Master Printers and the London Society of Compositors in July, 1896.

The facts would have been more informa­tive had they been more definite. For instance, “something like fifty” for the number of compositors employed when the production was an eight-page one, and no mention at all of those required for the sixteen-page edition does not help towards an intelligent understanding of the situation. Our critic goes on to ask, “who, other than the displaced compositor does the advertisements which monopolise more of the paper than the material composed by the linotype?” Of course, some of the displaced compositors may get a look in on the advertisements, seeing that the paper is now, on his own showing, twice its former size ; and the tendency has for a long time past been for newspapers to develop more and more into an advertising medium.

This is where our critic misunderstands our point. We do not deny that an industry can expand and even expand faster when labour is eliminated by machines. The essential point is that more work is done by relatively fewer workers. An instance of this may be taken from the Census of Production figures published in the Board of Trade Journal (21st April, 1927). Dealing with the “Printing and Publication of Newspapers and Periodicals,” it is stated :

Net output per head,      1907 … £190

        ''         ''                   1924 … £546

Persons employed,         1907 … 43,644

       ''         ''                    1924 … 56,837

Be it noted that this increase is much greater than the increase in prices between 1907 and 1924.

Because our correspondent fails to grasp these points he wants to know how we reconcile our statement with regard to the displacement of hand labour by machines when the membership of the London Society of Compositors in 1899 was 11,415 and is now 14,690?

The next statement in his letter, which says that “the months of May, June and July found only an average of sixteen members unemployed,” is incorrect. Let us take the figures as given in the London Typographical Journal:—

May 4   May 11   May 18   May 25

    25          55            92          118 

June 1   June 8     June 15    June 22   June 29

  155         151            171          147        147 

July 6    July 13    July 20     July 27 

   169         205          230         228

If our questioner will take the trouble to work these figures out, he will discover that the average for the thirteen weeks is 145 !

Again, notice should be taken that the compositors have extraordinarily good super­annuation benefits which, combined with the Contributory Pension Act, has a tendency to remove from the labour market a proportion of seekers after work. Dealing with the unemployment figures for the years 1921-1928, the Annual Report, 1928, of the L.S.C. states :—”Members do not need to be reminded that this substantial reduction has been brought about by the operation of the scheme of superannuation combined with the policy of restriction of membership.” Now this restriction of entrants and the limitation of apprentices all helps to swell the general army of unemployed.

We consider it unnecessary to follow our critic at length to the tooth-brush industry. Suffice it to say that here again he is in error in imagining that in the realm of print there is no stock. Evidently he has never heard or seen such things as receipt books, rent books, registers, to mention but a few that come to mind at once, that can be obtained for the asking.

S.W.T.

Aspects of the “Woman Question.” (Part 5) (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 4.

(Based on Notes of a series of Lectures on "The Sexes in Evolution.”)

Many have contended that the work of propaganda among women requires essentially different methods than are used among men. Woman is dependent upon man—yes, that is true, at least of the majority. But what is man dependent on? A wage, which in turn depends on a job. Who owns the job ? Not always the man who does it. So that woman’s dependence and man’s dependence are all of a piece— it is all part of the same problem. Where women have gone into industry they have shifted, to some extent, their economic dependence from husband or father, to that of an employer. But even so, it has only made her problem more identical with that of the working man.

I am unable at the moment to give the latest figures of the number of women employed, but this is relatively unimportant. Their actual industrial position is reflected by the amount of wages received by them. Here again actual figures are lacking, but the crucial point is this—the Capitalist system finds in the huge body of unemployed a source of strength in that they compete with each other in the labour market. Women further intensify this competition by the fact that they can be compelled to accept a lower wage than a man. The minimum wage of all labour being determined by the amount on which a man can live, it is taken for granted that this must be higher for a man than for a woman. Woman, whether true or not, is looked upon as having no dependents, and her known ability to live more cheaply than man is undoubtedly taken into account.

The same laws of competition, over-supply, etc., hold with the labourer, whether man or woman. There is no difference whatever in the way in which Capitalism exploits men and women. In the economic fight it has been the one who endeavoured to maintain life on the barest necessities, and who possessed at the same time the least power of resistance, who has been pushed to the wall—whether man or woman. As pointed out by J. A. Hobson —”It is not the difference of sex which is the chief factor in determining the industrial position of woman. Machinery knows neither age nor sex, but chooses the labour embodied in man, woman or child which is the cheapest in relation to the degree of its efficiency.”

Women, also, are badly organised—they are not good trade unionists. Possibly this is partly because she is by training domestic, and that such things as trade unions, politics, etc., have not come within her purview. Partly too, because she hopes that her entry into industry will not be permanent. . . .

As regards home and family life, even the most superficial observer will agree that the prevailing system exerts a harmful effect.

Take the case of marriage. It is a prevailing impression that marriages are based on the love and mutual respect of two persons for each other. So they are in many cases, but often with consequences of economic disaster. In a large number of cases, however, there is not the slightest doubt that girls enter into marriage for the express purpose of escaping from a life of toil in the office or factory. The marriages and social affairs of the idle rich we can leave out of account—their carryings-on would take volumes to describe. So that from this standpoint alone we can see that it is not remarkable that when economic trouble arises domestic life is directly affected. A good deal of the existing unhappiness in working-class homes is traceable to this source. We all know of the misery entailed through couples being unable either to furnish or buy a house. Either there is a shortage of houses to let or a shortage of money to buy one. After so influencing the structure of family life as to make it conform to its requirements, and then helping to undermine the very foundations of this structure by its degrading conditions, Capitalism goes yet further and displays complete indifference to the fact that for thousands there are no homes at all ! So cheaply is human life regarded. And yet if any lapse from the path of moral rectitude occurs, we are taught to look on it as a shame or a disgrace—that is unless one belongs to the upper ten. The more we look into it, the more do we see the necessity for the closer co-operation of men and women in the fight for the conquest of political power. Many advocates of women suffrage have only sought and worked for sex emancipation, quite failing to realise that its full significance lies in a full social and political education for both sexes before its value can be fully utilized.

Tom Sala

(To be continued)

Socialist Standard: Back Numbers. (1929)

Party News from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Owing to difficulties of storage, it has been decided to dispose of a large number of Socialist Standards issued between September, 1904, and August, 1914. All who want copies are therefore asked to apply to the Literature Secretary, at Head Office, at an early date. While it is impossible to supply complete sets for each year of issue during the period mentioned, particularly the earlier years, every effort will be made to supply series of copies for those who wish to complete their sets. Copies will be supplied at the price of 1d. each. A reduction will be made to members buying quantities.

Editorial: Affluence in the U.S.A. (1929)

Editorial from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comfort ! that’s what we want. And prosperity also, peace and prosperity. And what, about affluence? Ah! affluence; that is the stuff. Give us affluence, and all else follows. And to think that the problem has been solved. Yes, solved. The Daily Telegraph—a respectable and reputable organ, surely—has said so. As recently as September 18th, too. The dull business of reporting has its compensations after all, for what nominally could be duller than the reporting of luncheon and dinner speeches? There was the luncheon the other day, for instance, of the American Chamber of Commerce, at which a Mr. Thomas J. Watson let himself go. The Daily Telegraph thought it worth half a column, and headed it, attractively enough :

“MACHINE AS THE KEY TO PROSPERITY.”

“AMERICAN WORKERS’AFFLUENCE.”

“THE COMFORT AGE.”

Then followed the tale told by Mr. Thomas Watson :—

“Our experience of the application of machinery in industry,” he said, “is that it makes men dear and their products cheap.” From this he developed the usual bilge of the introduction of machinery ultimately reducing prices, resulting in wider distribution, and so on. Following which he gave a few figures. Now figures are not attractive things, and most people simply hear them or see them and rapidly glance at something more arresting. But these, in view of the headlines, are really interesting. In 1914, he said, the average annual wage was $590, roughly, we will say, £2 8s. per week.

” Adjusting the average wage for changes in the buying power of money, the worker in 1925 received at least 35 per cent. more than in 1914.”

And that is affluence. That is the Comfort Age. The equivalent of a 16s. rise on a weekly wage of £2 8s. is affluence. Save the mark !

True, Mr. Thompson did not permit himself the words comfort, prosperity and affluence. But one course we can recommend him. He should get into touch with Mr. G. De Vere, who has recently returned from a tour of U.S.A. He was telling us all about it over the radio about a fortnight ago, and just as the spectator sees most of the game, so the visitor apparently often sees more than the native. One of his first ports of call was a camp of the Y.W.C.A. in the Hudson Valley, where a delegate meeting of industrial women was in progress. Here he gathered that normal unemployment was very serious, although no reliable figures existed, and that the previous winter’s unemployment had been more serious than usual. Groups of women workers were beginning to push for better social conditions.

At a big factory near Boston he saw the conveyor-belt system in operation, and later he found few factories where the system was not in use. The workers stand or sit on either side of a moving belt, and each contributes some small operation to the article on the belt, until the finished product is delivered at the end. One can imagine joy-in-work reaching its apex in the belt system. Experiments were being conducted in changing the speed of the belt at different times of the day, and in what is called psychological study. Several foremen he interviewed regretted the early scrapping of men in the prime of life by the introduction of machinery, and also the rapid wearing out of those who were retained. In Mr. De Vere’s own words, “from twenty to twenty-five years was the average period of efficiency at fast work, after that it was generally a question of lighter or slower work, or the scrap-heap. In fast Detroit shops the period would be shorter.” Craftsmen do not earn so much as fast repetitive workers. Some Britishers he asked for a comparison of the conditions in the two countries, said the U.S.A. was a better country to earn money in, but not so good to live in. Social life as we understand it, does not exist in the U.S.A. factory towns.

In Hartford, Connecticut, he heard of some amazing increases in workers’ production by means of motion study with micro-motion pictures taken on the job. Trade-unionism generally is at a discount, the company-union being almost universal. Of course, in a land of comfort, prosperity and workers’ affluence, such social safety-valves as unemployment insurance and sickness provision would be anomalies. One worker he asked what men did when out-of-a-job, replied, “it is a case root hog or die.” Doubtless they would die rather than falsify the Telegraph’s headlines.

In a summing-up at the end of his address, De Vere said, “for the mass of the workers, I doubt whether the standard of life is much, if at all, higher than in England. Life is expensive, especially with regard to such things as rent and clothing.”

So there you have it. Either the Daily Telegraph uses its own private dictionary for everyday words, or else comfort, prosperity and affluence have aspects with which we are not acquainted. We cannot fit any of the three words to a life spent alongside a conveyor-belt, with every physical movement so studied as to eliminate every jerk of the muscles that does not spell profit. Big wages may mean anything, but it is of the nature of wages inevitably to be a reflex of social standards. Where big wages equal big rent, food and clothing bills, and little wages equal little dittoes, the words big and little cease to distinguish anything real. And when, in addition, the journey to the scrap-heap has become abbreviated to a twenty or twenty-five year period, one again wonders whether the editor of the Daily Telegraph contemplates changing his occupation for one of comfort, prosperity and affluence. Doubtless his fatal weakness for self-sacrifice will assert itself, and we shall find him denying himself the temptations of American affluence for many years yet.

“Work for All.” (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Sunday Pictorial, October 6th, 1929, gives prominence to an article by Mr. G. Ward Price, who, according to the headlines, “shows that industry is suffering from several definite ailments. If it were “rationalised and brought up to date, we should not have a capable worker unemployed.”

“There is no mystery about what is wrong with the great British export trades,” says Mr. Price. “Their costs of production are too high.”

Further, he says, “There are only two “remedies for unemployment. . . . One is the compulsory rationalisation of our big industries on lines of which America and Germany furnish the example, and the other is the reduction of Trade Union restriction.”

See how great minds work ! The problem of unemployment has baffled each succeeding Government since Governments realised there was unemployment; yet Mr. Price—in his spare time—has placed the whole question—ailment, cause and cure— within the understanding of the least intelligent.

The ailment : cost of production too high. The cause : failure to adopt up-to-date methods, and Trade Union restrictions on output. The cure : limit the latter and rationalise industry.

Mr. Price may be guilty of some slight exaggeration when he says the result will be jobs for every capable worker. That fulness of employment has not yet been reached by America or Germany, although, he says, they furnish examples of rationalisation we might copy.

Every capitalist knows—even if he doesn’t know what his capital is invested in—that reduced cost of production is necessary if markets are to be extended. Every modern concern is run on that basis, even the most backward concerns believe in forcing the biggest return for every penny spent in wages. There is no question with the capitalist about reducing unemployment. So far as he is concerned he desires to increase it. If he rationalises his concern he reduces the number of workers employed while increasing the amount of the product. He may not, it is true, reduce the number of workers in his own factory, but workers must be displaced somewhere if he succeeds in capturing markets previously held by his competitors. For, despite all the bunkum talked and written about new markets, no-one has yet discovered how to unload commodities on some planet across the ether.

Markets are the chief concern of capitalists. Melchett, Ford, and all the rest of the self-advertising industrial magnates are constantly proclaiming industrial warfare against competitors in every country. They carry on the fight by reducing the cost of production ; by reducing the number of workers employed. The huge modern concerns, linked together—often across national boundaries—with the set purpose of achieving world monopoly, organise, train and eliminate until they have the pick of the labour market working at top speed ; with the aid of the latest machinery. An army of workers, trained like athletes to smash, by the cheapness of their products, those concerns opposed to their masters. According to their degree of success the unemployed millions increase. There is no escape from this reasoning. The world’s markets are limited. As a rule what is gained by one concern is lost by others. The markets that are won by England, if we can speak of nations when capital is international, are lost by Germany, France, or some other country.

Mr. Price’s cure for unemployment is, therefore, merely a statement of capitalist method for the benefit of capitalists. It means for the working-class not less unemployment, but more. It means division of the workers into groups and industrial armies straining every nerve to capture world markets for their masters by cheapening their products. Each worker in mad competition with his neighbour to keep his job, and organised on a grand scale to throw men out of work across the seas or the national boundaries.

Trade Union restrictions on output are mere pills for an earthquake, in this collossal industrial struggle. Canute commanding the tides was scarcely more ludicrous than Trade Unionists who imagine they can slow the march of capitalism by going slow themselves.

The working-class forms the great bulk of society. They produce all wealth. Instead of owning the wealth themselves they allow the capitalist class to own and market it. Born and educated in a capitalist world, it is hard for them to conceive of any method of distributing wealth other than by exchange.

The capitalist method is ownership of the means of wealth production by the capitalist class ; enslavement of the working-class by compelling them to sell their energy for wages, and setting them to the production of commodities to be sold on the world’s markets. It is this method, this system, that causes unemployment and poverty, not the high cost of production and Trade Union restrictions, and the only cure is the removal of the cause; the abolition of capitalism.

All workers organised in the mad competitive struggle for markets, as well as the millions of unemployed should learn the truth about capitalism. They should organise with the Socialist Party for its overthrow, and for the establishment of a system where production and distribution will be carried on for the people by the people themselves.

Class ownership of the means of life is the cause of working-class misery. Substitute ownership by the people, production and distribution by the people—leaving out the cash basis—and unemployment will no longer be the name with which we shall designate the long periods when our labour is not required. Modern methods of production can satisfy all our needs and leave us with ample leisure for enjoyment.

F. Foan

Lewis Henry Morgan. (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Morgan was undoubtedly the greatest sociologist of the past century, and in his monumental work (1871) laid a solid foundation for the study of the family and kinship systems; he formulated a scheme of the evolution of the family, based on a study of the classificatory system of relationships, of which he was the discoverer.” 

A. C. Haddon, “History of Anthropology.”

To Our Readers in Reading. (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Toilers and moilers who live in Reading you have every reason for getting thoroughly infuriated. It is unfortunate that one of your shopkeepers should have been so mysteriously murdered. It has made your town notorious for a while.

For this notoriety you are primarily indebted to the stunt press, ever ready to seize upon tragedy as a means to increase the profits of their shareholders.

What have you to say, however, to the way in which that respectable sheet, the Times, describes your behaviour when the news came out that Mr. Drew, the actor and suspect, was acquitted? Let us quote their comment : —

“An unbalanced rabble has also treated him as a hero. To observers at a distance, as no doubt to the more judicious citizens of Reading, this exhibition of popular hysteria on so serious an occasion as an inquest on a murder must be thoroughly repugnant.” (Times, Oct. 11th, 1929.)

We regret that it is difficult for us to influence your behaviour—the subscribers to our official organ, the Socialist Standard, being relatively small. In this respect the Times will probably share our complaint, comparing its sales with those of the penny papers. We can call to mind, however, that in August, 1914, a Serbian prince was murdered. The whole of the organised rabble on this occasion tumbled over themselves in their attempts to make heroes and corpses of every mother’s son throughout the world. Several, no doubt, came from Reading.

You were not even consulted about the honour which was then thrust upon you.

The history of that colossal tragedy may well be brought to mind.

That the joyless nature of existence which the working class are forced to lead under Capitalism should make them so regardless of murdering one another in Capitalist wars, is also to be regretted. Such conduct, however, is explained by the conditions of Capitalist society, with its permanent unemployment, its poverty, its monotonous drudgery and insecurity of life. To many workers in 1914 war appeared almost as a relief. It could not, they thought, be much worse than the ills they knew. The part which the Capitalist Press plays in time of war is too well known.

For them—the Times among the number —no act was too low in vile cunning; no scheme too diabolical and murderous to secure the approbation of those whose business it is to send “dumb heroes up the line to death.”

We Socialists in 1914 did not join the Times in its support of that mad, murderous slaughter. We did not ask that the world should be made a graveyard to satisfy the money lusts of the class which the Times champions.

Then as now, we appeal to you to try and catch the inspiration of our message. At present men and women are hardened and embittered by the needless competition for employment which is an essential feature of Capitalism. They are, moreover, when Capitalist interests demand it, perfected in the arts of mass murder. Then, finally, they are denounced by their masters’ Press because they exhibit in 1929 some of the qualities which the Times found so laudable fifteen years ago.

In contrast with the preaching of the Times, consistent only in the respect that it always serves Capitalism, we offer the message that you should organise with us for Socialism, a system of society in which production would be carried on co-operatively in the interests of the whole of society, not for the profit of a few, as it is to-day.

Billy Iles

Politics International, National or Local? (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

On which of these three fronts should the revolutionary party of the workers concentrate their efforts ? This question is a common one at Socialist meetings.

Our reply is, that conditions must always determine policy. The Socialist Party can go no faster than the desires and understanding of the workers. Our mission is to extend that understanding along all three fronts. But which should be given preference? comes the follow-up question. The answer is that our activities will be guided by the resources at our disposal. At present these resources are small. There are hardly any districts in London, for example, where Socialists are in sufficient numbers to make possible at present the election of Socialists at Local Council elections.

Certainly if it were now the case that any district or locality displayed a sufficient desire for Socialism and candidates were elected, our propaganda would be broadcasted from a “louder sounding-board.”

This in itself is of considerable value in making more widely known the general principles of Socialism. It is to propaganda on a wide and scattered front—here and abroad, wherever our word penetrates, that our energies are devoted.

Unlike the Communist Party, dominated by the rulers of Russia, we do not think that the workers will rally to our side merely because we call upon then to do so. If in the future history of Socialist Politics one geographical area becomes stronger than another in its desire for Socialism, unlike the Bolshevik policy in Russia, the Socialist policy would depend upon the forces of the Socialist Party in other countries.

The revolutionary workers’ party will not try to go faster than its abilities to travel —those abilities being dependent on understanding of our class and their organisation.

Therefore, at the November Council Elections we shall indulge in no wild outbursts of activity on the fields of local politics. Our policy will be, as in the past, to continue to proclaim the principles of Socialism.

Our ability to do this is determined by the support we receive from those who want Socialism.

Should these lines meet the eye of any of those many friends that we are continually meeting, who tell us, “I have been a Socialist for — years,” whilst still remaining outside the ranks of the Socialist Party—may we once again ask them to consider the desirability of enjoying the unique pleasure—in these days when docile placidity appears to reign supreme—of exercising the courage of their convictions. Activity in a Socialist organisation gives such an opportunity.

Billy Iles

The Labour Party Conference. (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the chairmanship of Mr. Herbert Morrison, M.P., the 29th Annual Conference of the Labour Party was held at Brighton during early October.

The Conference was the first to be held during the lifetime of a Labour Government, and the criticisms, therefore, were levelled at their own colleagues.

Mr. Herbert Morrison, in his opening address, reviewed the “record of success” of the Government, particularly in relation to foreign affairs, to which a great part of the time was devoted. He was received with satisfied applause from the whole of the delegates. Mr. A. Henderson, Mr. Philip Snowden, and Mr. J. H. Thomas were each allowed a day in which to state their respective parts in the “success.” Mr. Morrison was guilty of a lapse that was strange in one who recently announced that the Government (in which he is Minister of Transport) were the “friends of the business man.” He said (Daily Herald, October 1st, 1929):—

  We go forward to make material wealth the servant of mankind and not the master of mankind. . . . We aim at a new society—the Socialist Commonwealth—not as an end in itself but as a stepping-stone to the mental and spiritual regeneration of mankind. . . .  It is a great change we seek, it can only be secured if the hearts as well as the minds of the people are elevated.

Such misty stuff might as easily have come from any parson or most of those politicians who sing the praises of the Capitalist system, save for the use of the words “Socialist Commonwealth.” Material wealth is the servant of “mankind.” The obstacle preventing the majority of mankind, that is the workers, from enjoying it is that the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth are owned and controlled by a small section of “mankind”—the Master Class. From this ownership all the economic evils which afflict the working-class arise: poverty, insecurity, and a social existence that is limited to the production of wealth and the reproduction of themselves as wealth producers serving only to pile up wealth for their masters. We seek to change this by transferring ownership of the means of living from private hands to society as a whole. What is the change of heart necessary for this simple procedure? This tale of making yourselves fit for a new Society is the equivalent of the Christian doctrine of being good now in the hope of a reward in the sweet bye and bye.

An I.L.P. Bogey.

Miss Dorothy Jewson was responsible for resurrecting the latest side-tracking reform endorsed by the I.L.P.—family allowance. She moved a resolution calling upon the Government to introduce

   increasing taxation of the wealthy to provide for a wide development of the social services, including an effective system of children’s allowances. (Daily Herald, Oct. 2nd, 1920.)

The debate on this question was a long one, and the remarkable feature about it was that most of the delegates were of the opinion that such a measure would be effective in permanently improving the conditions of the workers.

But would it?

The price of the workers’ labour power on an average covers the cost of keeping himself and his family. If a worker receives from the State an allowance which covers the cost of keeping his children, then the wages he receives from the employers will fall to a level which will cover the cost of his and his wife’s keep only. Where and when such a scheme has been introduced it has been of benefit chiefly to the capitalists. The working class as a whole gain nothing from it.

On the appeal of Mr. A. Henderson to refer the question to next year’s conference, the resolution was lost on a card vote, the votes being cast in proportions of about 3 to 2.

Unemployment.

Mr. J. H. Thomas related his difficulties in trying to find work for the unemployed. He stated that

   unemployment could not be solved by merely pouring out money, but by finding new markets for our goods.
   The heads of railways, harbours, docks, and electrical undertakings, etc., had been invited by the Government to private discussion on providing employment by making machinery efficient.

(Daily Herald, Oct, 2nd, 1929.)

The process was not explained. Mr. Wheatley’s contribution to the debate was to the effect that Mr. J. H. Thomas was wasting his time. "While Capitalism remains there would also remain the victims of unemployment,” which was rather unkind of Mr. Wheatley, and also inconsistent with his own support of Capitalism and the Labour Party which administers it.

Jimmie, after all, was doing his best. And doesn’t he get £5,000 a year for trying so hard? Doubtless Mr. Wheatley is sore because he has lost the Ministerial job he had in 1924.

The debate showed that the delegates believed that the “problem of unemployment” could not be solved. Their main plank was that the administration of unemployment insurance by the officials of the Ministry of Labour was inhuman. It must be “humanised,” they said. Hell, humanise cancer or remove it!

It is surprising with what gusto and indignation the Labour Party will shout and make a great noise about effects while accepting their causes. Truly, “much ado about nothing.”

Disarmament.

Dealing with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s visit to the U.S.A. and the question of the reduction in the number of warships in the fleets of Great Britain and the U.S.A. respectively, Mr. Henderson “outlined his hopes for an early world conference and disarmament.” He said:—

  If that conference comes up to our expectations we shall have opened up an era in which we may see the vast sums hitherto spent on armaments put to better purposes. (Daily Herald, Oct. 3rd, 1929.)

What does that mean? Nothing! On being called upon to answer a question put by a woman delegate concerning complete disarmament, Mr. Henderson said that “he only wished those who held the questioner's views would say what they meant by total or complete disarmament. If they thought the problem out they would see they were asking what was impossible. What they must get down to was reasonable police-forcing.”

Precisely, Mr. Henderson, and you are administrating the Capitalist System, and whilst it exists the interests of the different national groups of capitalists can be defended, in the last resort, only by force. But why the cant and humbug about disarmament and world’s peace. In the circumstances Mr. MacDonald’s visit to America is not a “mission of peace” or a question concerning “disarmament.” In the past, the bow and arrow, the sword, the musket, and many other primitive weapons have in their time been very efficient and up-to-date means of warfare. But as new methods are developed and introduced, so the older methods are relegated to the scrap heap as useless. To-day aerial and gas warfare has developed so rapidly that many comparatively new cruisers are as obsolete as the bow and arrow as a means of destruction. Aeroplanes loaded with the necessary implements could spread desolation and disease, and almost raze to the ground large towns and industrial centres in a few days. It is noteworthy that politicians are never heard proposing the abolition of aerial warfare and the instruments of it. A “war in the air” would be much cheaper than war fought under the older methods, and how easily civil aircraft can be quickly transformed into fighting planes. The way to abolish war lies not in painstaking attempts to get the capitalist class to disarm, but in the abolition of the capitalist system.

Similarly with our economic problems; if all the schemes of new bridges and roads; making the machinery of production more efficient; the “humanising of the dole”; earlier old age pensions, family allowances, etc., are put into operation, the workers would still be faced with the problems of Capitalism as they are at present. The only solution is its abolition and the establishment of Socialism.

The conference ended with the singing of the “Red Flag” to an accompaniment of a violin played by a Cabinet Minister (F. O. Roberts, Minister of Pensions).

Did they sing the third verse?

“It suits to-day the Meek and Base, Whose thoughts are fixed on Pelf and Place,
To cringe before the Rich Man’s frown,
And haul the sacred colour down.” 

Apparently they did not.

It might have disturbed their happy and contented frame of mind. For Mr. George Lansbury, on being asked by a Daily Herald reporter, “What he thought of the conference,” replied:

“Fine, everyone is going home happy, and what more could you want.” (Daily Herald, 5/10/1929.)

Comment on that statement could only be made in words as lurid as Mr. Lansbury’s are placid.

Harry Waite

Mr. Belloc and the Servile State. (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our October issue we quoted from the Co-operative News (September 7th), the following passage from their report of an address by Mr. Hilaire Belloc:—

Under Socialism all men were to be in the servile state. There were to be no free men ordering other men about, but the politicians were to do that instead.

We invited Mr. Belloc to defend his mention of Socialism in connection with the Servile State.

We have received from him the following letter, from which it will be seen that Mr. Belloc was mis-reported:—

                                                          “Kings Land,
                                                             “Shipley, Horsham,
                                                                  “October 8th, 1929.

          “The Editor, The Socialist Standard,

“Dear Sir,
     “I don’t know who wrote that sentence as being mine. I never said it or wrote it. The Servile State does not mean the Socialist State: it means a State in which the larger number are compelled directly by law—not indirectly, by economic pressure —to work for the benefit of the rest. In my book, the “Servile State,” I show how the tendency of which such a condition would be the final result, has now been established and is increasing in force.
                                         “Very faithfully yours,
                                                       “ H. BELLOC.”

Labour's Man of Destiny. (1929)

Book Review from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

James Ramsay MacDonald: Labour's Man of Destiny. By H. Hessell Tiltman. (Jarrold’s. 352 pages. 21s.)

This is a book about James Ramsay MacDonald, P.C., M.P. It is also as much a sketch of the Labour Party, of which he is held to have been the creator.

Ramsay MacDonald is portrayed as a man of great strength of character, who by sheer eloquence and intellectual ability is able to dominate and discipline the Labour Party, in spite of the I.L.P. “ginger” group of unruly schoolboys. An example is given (page 164) of an unofficial gathering of responsible Labour leaders who in 1924 met to discuss whether it was expedient to form a Government with the support of considerably less than a third of the number of seats in the House of Commons. They decided unanimously that it was not expedient. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald arrived upon the scene, and having listened to their arguments, proceeded to riddle them. In a very short time every man there was in agreement with him that they should take office. In contrast, we are presented with another side of his character, his "aloofness” and reserve, his love of the country and of quiet family life, and his having forsaken an academic career to which he is naturally inclined. Mr. Tiltman almost gives the impression that, but for this sacrifice by Mr. MacDonald of his liking for the academic life, the Labour Party would not have existed.

There are many people who hold the opinion that the Labour Party and the I.L.P. in the past were “more socialist” and "more revolutionary ” than they are to-day.

Mr. Tiltman’s book dispels the illusion. The policy of the Labour Party and its affiliated bodies, right from its inception, was reformist. The term socialism when it is used, is defined as being synonymous with municipal tramways, waterworks, and other Government services. Abundant material in support of this is reproduced from speeches and articles, and from local and parliamentary election programmes.

After the General Election of 1906, 29 Labour M.P.’s found their way to the House of Commons. (In the preceding Parliament there had been only four.) This was largely due to "compacts” and "understandings” with the Liberals. According to Mr. MacDonald one very important factor was the discontent that set in after the Boer War, which made their propaganda, which included a "criticism” of that campaign, acceptable to a larger percentage of the electorate. (See appendix, page 287.)

The author leads us up to the war. The Labour Party, after having drawn up a resolution in opposition to the Government’s "policy which had produced the war,” deserted MacDonald after the debate in the House of Commons, almost to a man. It must, however, always be remembered that Mr. MacDonald’s stand on the war was never based upon the Socialist refusal to defend the interests of the national groups of the capitalist class, but upon opposition to the Government’s foreign policy. He was of the opinion that, when "we were in it, it had to go on." Several speeches, articles, and letters (including the recruiting letter sent to the Mayor of Leicester) are reproduced in this book.

To those who lay great stress upon the fact that Ramsay MacDonald risked political suicide because of his war policy it may also be pointed out that Mr. MacDonald did not imagine that he was permanently destroying his career. He made a speech in the House of Commons on August 3rd, 1914 (see appendix C, page 285), and said : "I not only know, but I feel that the feeling of the House is against us. I have been through this before, and 1906 came as part recompense.” As indicated above, the 1906 elections showed a tremendous comparative increase of seats in the Labour Party’s favour. Far from anticipating political suicide it would seem that Mr. MacDonald expected his policy of criticism to capitalise in an eventual increase in the Labour Party’s representation in the House of Commons.

Mr. MacDonald is an astute politician, but he seems to have made some miscalculations in 1914—as, indeed, did many others.

For the rest, the book is sketchy and makes somewhat tedious reading. The author is too anxious to show Mr. MacDonald as a "great” man. That MacDonald has broken down the obstacles of a humble start in life, has been a good husband and a father may be very true. But how "great” would he have been had he preached Socialism, instead of preaching the advanced Liberal doctrines on which the Labour Party is built? Like others, he would have lived in comparative obscurity, his qualities unnoticed because they did not bear the hall mark of success as estimated in a capitalist world.

Harry Waite