General Election, 1931. (1931)

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

[The announcement that the General Election was to be held came too late for us to publish a statement of our views in the October issue. For the information of new readers and for purposes of record we reproduce below the leaflet which we distributed during the election.]

You are baffled and confused. You are asked to vote, but you do not know what to do. You have voted before and have waited in vain for results. You had faith in your leaders, and you believed them when they told you that you were on the eve of better days. You have been deceived, not once but many times. Government after government has come and gone, but they have failed to improve our conditions. Again and again you have been assured that the remedies were being applied, but all to no purpose. Your pressing problems are still unsolved. When you are in work your health and vitality are sapped by overstrain, the happiness of your dependants is marred by poverty. Your peace of mind is fretted away by the fear that you will be the next to lose your job. You had faith in the integrity of Baldwin, the ability of Lloyd George, or the loyalty of MacDonald. But experience has taught you that none of them can give you what you seek. In the days before the War the Liberals failed utterly to keep their promise to abolish want from this land of plenty. You have had years of suffering under Tory governments. But you reaped your most bitter disillusionment when the Labour Government, instead of easing, aggravated your distress. You then realised that the Labour leaders and the Labour Party are no better than their predecessors. Now you are getting mistrustful of parties and politicians. In your disappointment you ask whether there is any road left that is worth travelling.

The Problem Stated.

There is no lack of statesmen, journalists, and business men telling you the cause of your troubles. But their explanations do not ring true. They tell you things that in your own knowledge and observation you recognise to be false. You have lived under Free Trade and you know that it does not mean “peace and plenty.” You or your parents can recall the pitiable poverty of the years before the War. You can assert, therefore, that the workers’ troubles did not begin with the War and the War debt. You have read of the huge armies of unemployed in the tariff countries such as Germany and the United States. You have been told that industrial efficiency and rationalisation are the cure for unemployment and low wages ; but your own experience teaches you that “labour-saving” machinery does not give you ease and prosperity. Again, during recent weeks, you have been asked to believe that “going off the gold standard” will bring you relief. But when you recall the wage-reductions, the trade disputes, and the heavy unemployment of the years between the Armistice and 1925—years when, we are told, we were “off the gold standard”—you will see through that deception. You must go more deeply into the question if you wish to understand what is wrong. There is something rotten at the root of things. It is that the greater number of us have no “stake in the land of our birth.” In this country that we call ours, the fields, the factories and work shops in which we toil, the railways and steamships, even the places of amusement and recreation, are not ours at all. They do not belong to the workers who constructed them and work them. Nor do they belong to society as a whole. They are—stop and consider the importance of this—they are private property under the private control of a small class of people. Because of that our lives are not our own. We produce wealth for others. We produce it in abundance so that the world groans under the burden of what is called overproduction. But all that we get out of industry is a wage just sufficient to provide a working-class family with the cheapest food, cramped quarters, and the least attractive clothes. After paying all the expenses of production, the goods left in the hands of the propertied class are in quantities so vast that they can not all be disposed of at a profit. The workers have not the money to buy more than a modest amount, and the rich, living in luxury, yet spend only part of their enormous incomes. The result is stagnant trade, closed factories, idle shipping, abandoned mines, neglected farms, and everywhere strife and instability. For millions the consequence is semi-starvation and unemployment.

There is only one remedy for this chaotic and avoidable state of affairs. The means by which we all live must belong to society as a whole; to be used and controlled democratically for the common good. Production for use, not for the profit of a propertied class.

The Labour Party is not a Socialist Party.

One popular error must be corrected at this point. Nationalisation, or State-controlled capitalism is not Socialism. The Labour Party is not a Socialist Party. Whether in this country or abroad Labour Governments have always and everywhere failed to justify themselves. In the 1929 General Election the Labour Party roused your hopes with promises of better times. In office they did not redeem their promise. On the contrary they brought ridicule upon themselves and destroyed the enthusiasm of their supporters. Propped up on Liberal votes in the House of Commons, for two years they staggered from one political crisis to another. Reluctant to give up office they prolonged the miserable life of their Ministry by secret bargaining with the Liberal Party. Instead of using Parliament as an arena in which to wage a fight for the workers, they earned by their spineless conduct the contemptuous sneer of Winston Churchill that there was “no fight” in progress, “only a lot of politicians leaning up against each other.”

In the present election the Labour Party have the support of the notorious anti-socialist, Mr. Lloyd George ; again showing that they do not intend any fundamental social change. Mr. Henderson had a private meeting with the Liberal leader on Saturday, October 10th (“Reynolds’s,” October 11th), and the Carnarvon Boroughs Labour Party has decided not to oppose his candidature.

The “Daily Herald” (October 10th) says :—

“Mr. Lloyd George’s manifesto gives a lead to Liberals to vote Labour.”

The Labour Government failed to stop wage reductions in the textile mills, on the railways and farms, and in the co-operative stores. They reduced still further the miserable pittance of their own lower-grade post office and other employees. While they were in control unemployment rose to a record figure. Finally, when there developed one of the periodic crises which are the inevitable outcome of our present social system, they rushed into the economy campaign which the National Government has carried on. Except for the 10 per cent. reduction in unemployment pay, against which a minority of the Labour Cabinet made a belated stand, the whole of the National Government’s economy programme had been agreed to “provisionally” by the Labour Government. In 1929 they promised the workers improved social services; in 1931 they were demanding “sacrifices.”

That ignominious collapse was not merely the failure of individuals. It was the Labour Party and its programme which had been tried and found wanting. They claimed to make capitalism run smoothly and in the interests of the workers; but capitalism can not be made to run smoothly. Socialist policy is the direct opposite. The Socialist Party of Great Britain stands for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. Not to patch or prop up capitalism, but to abolish it.

The National Parties—Defenders of Capitalism.

The parties led by Mr. MacDonald stand frankly as defenders of capitalism. They say that they represent the forces of order and stability, and Mr. Snowden has inferred that all those who oppose the National Government are parties of destruction and disorder. That is not true of the Socialist Party. Just as the capitalist parties claim to stand for capitalism, conducted as well as they know how, so the Socialist Party stands for a speedy but ordered change-over to a new system on the basis of common ownership. Mr. MacDonald is asking for a free hand for any measures, including tariffs, that the National Government may decide are necessary. But there are no measures that can solve the problem of the workers except measures to establish Socialism. Do you suppose that the politicians and parties which separately have let you down will serve you better in combination?

The Road to Socialism.

There can be no Socialism until a majority of the electors have been won over. The workers form the great majority of the population. Organised in the Socialist Party they have but to use their votes in order to place themselves in control of the machinery of government and of the armed forces by which society is dominated. The urgent task of to-day is to spread knowledge of Socialist principles so that the workers may fit themselves for the winning of power and for Socialism. There is no other way. The Labour Party has preached the policy of pleading for social reforms as steps towards Socialism. But recent events have shown that that road leads only to failure and despair.

To achieve Socialism, elections must be fought, not on a programme of reforms to catch non-socialist votes, as is the practice of the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and Communists, but on the simple, straightforward issue of Socialism versus Capitalism. Beware, then, of those, like Mr. Maxton, who condemn the Labour Party and its programme of reforms of capitalism, but who for years have told you to put your faith in the Labour Party candidates. They told you to trust MacDonald. Now they advise you to trust Mr. Henderson, one of the men who betrayed the workers’ interests in the Great War. They are asking you to enter on a further period of wasted effort and lost time, leading surely to yet another betrayal.

Dangerous advice is given by the Communists. They contest elections but tell you that Parliament is futile. They preach disorder and advocate, armed revolt, thus playing into the hands of the most reactionary section of the ruling class. For their own ends they exploit the miseries of the unemployed. Yet eight years ago they were compelled to admit the ineffectiveness of their mass demonstrations. The “Workers’ Weekly,” the official organ of the Communist Party, wrote as follows in 1923 :—

“The unemployed have done all they can, and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians. They have attended innumerable meetings and have been told to be ‘solid.’ They have marched to London, enduring terrific hardships . . .

“All this has led nowhere.“

—”Workers’ Weekly,” February 10th, 1923. (Italics ours.)

Remember that it is only a few years since the Communists, too, were telling you to vote for MacDonald !

What to do with your vote.

If you support one or other of the parties of capitalism, including those parties of reform, the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and the Communists, you will help to prolong your troubles. If you are convinced of the truth of the Socialist case you will not vote for any of these parties. You will realise that the SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN is the only party in this country that works on sound lines for the emancipation of the workers. Consistently since its formation in 1904, the Socialist Party has maintained the straight fight for Socialism, at all times giving our present warning that the parties of reform block the road to Socialism.

Unfortunately there are not yet a sufficient number of the working class who desire Socialism, to make it possible for us to run candidates in this election. We call, therefore, upon all those who want Socialism to express their determination by going to the poll and writing “Socialism” across the voting paper. Among other things this will help to advertise the number of those who have made the final decision to have done with capitalism and its defenders. The use of the vote to support any of the candidates in the present election is a vote for capitalism.

Study Socialism. Become Socialists. Resolve that you will help to make the Socialist Party strong enough to run candidates at the next election.

The Executive Committee,

The Socialist Party of Great Britain,

42 Great Dover Street, London, S.E.1.

October, 1931.

Editorial: Sound and Fury. The Election and the Workers. (1931)

Editorial from the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The general election has come and gone, and nothing fundamental has been changed. The workers were asked to give a mandate for the continuance of the social system that enslaves them, and in their blindness they have done so.

The National Government supporters just prior to the election numbered 327. They return to office with about 560 supporters, of whom 170 are Conservatives; 70 are Liberals; and 13 are members of the MacDonald Labour Group. The opposition consists of 52 Labour and I.L.P. M.P.s and four Lloyd George Liberals. The total is made up by a few Independents and Irish Nationalists. The Labour Party is now reduced in size approximately to the number elected in 1918.

At the last election, in 1929, the Conservatives polled 8,656,173 votes and won 260 seats. This time they have polled 12,000,000 votes. The Labour vote in 1929 was 8,389,512, and they won 289 seats, many of them on minority votes. The Liberals, in 1929 won only 58 seats, although their vote was 5,308,510. This time the Labour vote has fallen to about 6,650,000, while their seats have dropped far more. They are now less numerous than the Liberals, although the Liberal vote on this occasion is less than 2,500,000. The MacDonald Labour M.P.s polled only 338,000. In the 1929 Parliament there were over 200 Labour M.P.s who, although elected as Labour candidates, were also members of the I.L.P. There were no Communists in the last Parliament, nor are there any in the new one. The Mosley candidates all failed.

Since 1929 the electorate has grown from 28,850,000 to 30,159,000. The number of electors who did not vote for any candidate increased considerably. So much for the figures.

What were they fighting for?

Many observers, both at home and abroad, some of whom ought to have known better, accepted the rash claim, made for electioneering purposes, that the election was a clear-cut struggle between Capitalism and Socialism. This is a grotesque misreading of the situation. On the one side the Government parties under MacDonald were asking for “a free hand, nothing ruled out,” although most of their candidates construed “nothing ruled out” as meaning “tariffs ruled in” ; in spite of the fact that by far their most formidable standard bearer in the fight was Mr. Snowden, who is a staunch free-trader.

On the other side were the Labour Party and the group of free-trade Liberals under Mr. Lloyd George. The Labour programme gave prominence to free-trade, to the restoration of the cuts in wages and unemployment pay, and to the nationalisation of the banks. Mr. Lloyd George told his followers that the last of the three chief Labour aims need not be taken seriously, and that Liberals ought to vote for the free-trade Labour candidates. Mr. Snowden, until recently an advocate of bank nationalisation, now opposed it. He also pointed out that the Labour leaders’ enthusiasm for free trade was as suspect as their repudiation of the cuts they had approved when in office. In a letter to the Press (see “Daily Telegraph,” 22nd October) he made the following illuminating and unanswered statement about his late colleagues in the Labour Government :

“Mr. Graham put the case for the tariff. He told us a tax of 10 per cent. on imported manufactured and semi-manufactured goods would raise £25,000,000 a year, and a tax on all imports £60,000,000 a year.

We took two votes. The first was whether we should adopt the proposal of a 10 per cent. tax on manufactured and semi-manufactured imports. Fifteen members, including Mr. Graham, voted for that, and five against. Then the question of a duty on all imports was put, including food and raw materials. Mr. Graham and four others voted for that, and fifteen against.

It was only after these votes, when it was seen that we could not get unanimity, that the proposal was dropped, because, as Mr. Henderson put it, if it had been persisted with it would have broken up the Cabinet.”

This discussion in the Labour Cabinet took place towards the end of August, and was reported in the “Daily Herald” at the time. On August 20th the Herald had a bold headline across the front page—”Tariffs in the balance.” The report goes on to say that in the Cabinet :

“There was a tense debate on the proposal for a revenue tariff on imports.”

The day before the “Herald” had said :

“the proposal for a revenue tariff will receive support from ministers who have hitherto been rigid free-traders.”

On August 22nd the “Herald” brought the Trades Union Congress into the picture :

“There is keen division in the T.U.C. on the subject of a tariff for revenue purposes, but the majority would be in favour of such a proposal as an alternative to any cuts in unemployment benefit.”

But, it may be asked, if the Labour Party leaders were prepared, even reluctantly, to support the economies and a revenue tariff, why did they oppose the National Government, most of whose members also wanted those things? The answer is, of course, that the party leaders on both sides were doling what they and their predecessors have always done; they were fighting for office. Faced with the National Coalition, the Labour Party grabbed for the Liberal free-trade vote. Mr. Henderson (a few days later than Mr. MacDonald) journeyed to see the Liberal leader, Mr. Lloyd George, on his sick bed. They had a “cordial” but secret talk. The local Labour Parties withdrew their candidates who were opposing Lloyd George and his son and daughter. He, in his broadcast, and in an interview given to the “Daily Herald,” and the “Manchester Guardian,” and other Liberal papers in their editorials, gave a plain lead to the Liberal voters to vote Labour. During the week before polling day the “Herald” printed column after column of reports of Liberal speakers, Liberal money, and Liberal Party machinery being placed at the disposal of the Labour candidates. All the past bitter condemnation of Lloyd George and his party was forgotten in the twinkling of an eye when the chance of office and the security of seats were at stake. Forgotten was the admission, so frequent in recent years from Labour leaders, that the issue of free-trade versus protection was of no importance to the workers. No longer was Lloyd George the “coiner of purple phrases and breaker of promises,” as the Herald had so happily described him in their special “Lloyd George Number” of December 1st, 1923. No longer was he to be shunned as the man who always wreaks “incredible destruction,” the “shoddy salesman” of politics, the “two-faced” politician who “tricked the miners with Sankey Commissions, Duckham Reports, and so on, until the coal-owners had all ready for their bitter attack on the Federation.” Then “A vote for Lloyd George is a vote for the enemies of the workers and the foes of democracy”; now Lloyd George Liberals and Labourites were all together, fighting the battle of “progress” !

These are the depths to which the reformers have dragged the name Socialism. On the one side MacDonald with his, “I am still a Socialist,” leading the Tory army in their fight for tariffs, and on the other side Henderson and Labour Party, attaching the word socialism to their programme of reforms behind which Lloyd George could muster his free-trade capitalist “enemies of the workers.”

The utter shamelessness of the Labour leaders can be seen from their plea that they were fighting to defend the workers against the high prices which would follow tariffs. In all the years up to 1929 they had proclaimed themselves the party of low prices. Suddenly, when they came into office in that year they discovered that prices were falling heavily, the thing they had promised to bring about. Promptly they swallowed their low-price theory, and told their disappointed followers that falling prices were the cause of all the trouble. The “Daily Herald,” now so strong for cheapness, then carried on for months a campaign for inflation and higher prices. The following is from the “Herald” editorial on July 14th, 1931 :—

“It is urgent—imperatively urgent—that without delay the necessary steps be taken so to regulate currency and credit as first to raise and then stabilise prices…..Inflation—and it is folly to be frightened by a word—is the only possible remedy.”

Three months later, when it was “imperatively urgent” to catch the Liberal free-trade vote, they were back on their old platform of low prices.

The I.L.P. and the Communists.

In this election, for the first time, the I.L.P. ran its own candidates without the endorsement of the Labour Party, the endorsement being withheld because the I.L.P. would not undertake always to vote with the Labour Party. In two of the nineteen constituencies which the I.L.P. fought (Peckham and Shettleston) there was also an official Labour Party candidate, while in Stockport (a double member constituency) where the Labour man has hitherto run in double harness with a Liberal, the Labour Party refused to back the I.L.P. interloper who threatened to spoil the arrangement with the Liberals.

The result is interesting. In 1929 the total Labour vote in these nineteen constituencies was 332,413, and they won thirteen seats. This time the I.L.P. polled 260,344 and gained only three seats. They held Shettleston against the official Labour man, and in Peckham their candidate received many times the vote of his official Labour opponent. In Peckham, the official Labour man and the MacDonald Labour man both forfeited their deposits.

The I.L.P. parliamentary group is now, therefore, reduced to three members, and their chairman is outside the House.

Just before the election, their chairman, Mr. Fenner Brockway, writing in the “New Leader” (2nd October), confessed the uselessness of reforms which have been the I.L.P.’s sole stock-in-trade for nearly forty years :

“The system of capitalism is failing so obviously that the policy of reforms within capitalism must be rejected. We must concentrate on winning power of such nature that we can proceed boldly with the transition to socialism all along the line.”

In spite of which the I.L.P. candidates fought as usual on a programme of reforms. Three years ago Mr. Maxton described the Labour Party programme, “Labour and the Nation,” as a programme of capitalism. The 1931 programme, was, he said, “even more reactionary” (“Evening Standard,” 1st October). Yet the I.L.P. allowed a large number of its members to fight as official Labour Party candidates, and endorsed Mr. J. Beckett, as I.L.P. candidate at Peckham after he had declared his “whole-hearted support” of the Labour election programme (South London Press, 9th October). The I.L.P., although much reduced in size, has not altered in its quality. It is still the same body of vote-catching reformists, maintaining a precarious existence on the backs of the trade unions and the Labour Party.

The Communists ran 25 candidates, the same number as in 1920. In 1929 they obtained their aggregate vote of 50,617. This time, on a somewhat larger electorate, their aggregate vote was 70,844. In the ten constituencies which they fought on both occasions their vote was, in 1929, 39,283, and in 1931 48,612. They did best where they were fighting only one candidate, a Labour Party candidate.

They, too, fought on a reform programme of about twenty “demands” (“Daily Worker,” 14th October). In practise their policy is always determined by the actions of the other reformist parties. They run yapping at the heels of the Labour Party, and where the Labour Party goes they go, too. As the Labour Party, at the eleventh hour decided to be a free-trade party, the Communists had to follow suit. So one of their “demands” was “No taxes or tariffs which raise the price of food and clothing for the workers.” On Sunday, October 11th, a Communist Party demonstration in Hyde Park marched behind a banner with the “revolutionary” slogan, “No Taxes on the People’s Food.”

In this general election for the first time the official communist advice to the voters did not, so far as our knowledge goes, include a recommendation to vote for all or even some of the Labour Party candidates.

The Future.

The election changes nothing except the persons who shall occupy office, and some questions of capitalist trade and finance, of interest to sections of the capitalists in their mutual antagonisms. Capitalism is now sunk in one of its periodic crises of overproduction. In due course it will stagger back to “normal,” before falling again into yet other crises. This process will continue until the workers understand socialism and organise in the Socialist Party to achieve it. The votes for the Tory-Labour-Liberal Party under MacDonald, and for the Labour-Liberal Party under Henderson and Lloyd George, are votes for capitalism and reforms of one kind and another. They are not votes for socialism. This is proved by the alternating fortunes of the parties at succeeding elections. We are not prophets, but one thing seems certain—that the Labour Party will never obtain, and do not really want, an independent majority. They may, perhaps, again reach office, but only with Liberal support in the House and in the constituencies. The Leaders understand this, hence the efforts they made at the Labour Party Conference in October to secure the rejectIon of a resolution which, if it had been passed, would have committed them never to accept office as a minority. What we have long pointed out is now becoming clear for all to see. It is impossible to unite the workers on reform programmes. Each reform antagonises as many workers as it attracts. Reform programmes, as we can see before our eyes, split the workers into half a dozen warring sections. Another illusion has also been dispelled. We were told that after voting Labour workers would then vote for Socialism ; instead of which, as we foretold, they have returned to Conservatism. Only the simple demand for socialism will eventually hold the workers.

Those who have patiently waited, bearing all disappointments, but trusting in the Labour Party until such time as it had an independent majority will do well to ponder the prospect of a “Labour” Party tied permanently to Liberal votes, and limited to a programme approved by Mr. Lloyd George and his capitalist free-trade backers.

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

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P. S.

The Gold Standard and the crisis. (1931)

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Each of the periodic economic crises brings its own particular explanation. Publicists, orthodox economists, and politicians of every shade of opinion, are agreed that on this occasion the nigger in the wood-pile is the “gold standard,” or rather the failure of France and the U.K.A. to operate that standard “according to the rules of the game.” But despite their unanimity our scepticism is reasonable when it is recalled that there have been 16 crises during the past 150 years, and that a different explanation has been forthcoming each time. All of those crises, including the present one, have exhibited, in greater or less degree, the same features, viz., an accumulation of stocks of all commodities, a decline in production owing to the inability to sell the products of agriculture and industry at a profit, bankruptcies and banking difficulties as a consequence of the general fall of prices, falling money wages, growing unemployment, and for the mass of the population want in a time of superabundance.

This general similarity between one crisis and another points to there being a general explanation for all of them. Instead of which the explanations are always changing. This time we are told that the trouble has been caused by the attempt to operate the gold standard in a world split up by tariff walls and burdened by war debts. Can this explanation be accepted? To answer the question it is necessary to consider what the gold standard is and what its history has been.

First of ail it must be noticed that while the gold standard implies a monetary systen based on gold, it does not require that gold coins shall actually circulate. For all practical purposes there is no difference between a country whose monetary unit consists of a gold coin which circulates and is used as money in ordinary commercial transactions, and a country in which there is a paper currency convertible into gold. Both are on the gold standard. Before the war this country had, as its monetary unit, the sovereign, which passed freely from hand to hand in every-day transactions. Between 1925 and September of this year monetary settlements were effected in paper pounds which (above a minimum value of £1,700) were exchangeable into gold at a fixed rate. At both periods Great Britain was on the gold standard. What is necessary for a country to be on the gold standard is, then, not that there should actually be gold coins circulating, but that the unit of currency must, if it is a paper unit, be exchangeable on demand at some central institution, whether a bank, mint, or Government department, without charge to the holder, for a known and fixed amount of gold. Conversely any holder of gold must have the right to exchange it for currency, either coin or paper, at the same rate. Finally free importation and exportation of gold must be permitted so that a holder of currency who has to settle a debt abroad may do so by exporting gold obtained at the central institution in exchange for his currency at the fixed rate; while anyone having funds abroad must be able to convert them into the currency of his own country by importing gold and exchanging it for the currency of his own country at the central institution. In order to avoid complicating the question later it should be pointed our that free importation and exportation of gold is not necessary for this purpose provided that the central institution is compelled by law to buy and sell gold-backed foreign exchange, i.e., the currencies of other gold standard countries, at fixed rates corresponding to the amount of gold in the monetary units of the respective gold standard countries.

Given that these conditions are observed the country is on the gold standard, the significance of which is twofold. The first is that the value of the currency is the same as, and is dependent on, the value of gold. In other words, the amount of commodities that can be bought with £1 will be determined by the amount of commodities that will exchange for 113 grains weight of gold, that being the amount of gold for which £1 can by law be exchanged. Movements in the value of gold will be accompanied by corresponding changes in the purchasing power of the currency unit. As the value of currency reflects itself in the form of prices this is the same as saying that, under the gold standard, if the value of gold falls, prices will rise, and the amount of commodities which can be purchased with a £1 will diminish. Conversely if the value of gold rises, prices will fall. The second significant feature about the gold standard is that the general level of prices in two gold standard countries must be in equilibrium. This follows from the fact that, as has been pointed out, gold moves freely between the two countries. The price levels will not be exactly the same in the two countries for reasons which, however, are of no importance from the point of view of the present article and can therefore be ignored. The two price levels will tend to move up or down together, in accordance with changes in the value of gold.

So much for the value of a currency in terms of commodities, i.e., its internal value. Now let us consider the value of one currency in terms of another, usually referred to as its external value. Under the gold standard the value of one currency in terms of another, expressed in what is known as the foreign exchange rate, is fixed within narrow limits. For example, when this country was on the gold standard £1 was exchangeable by law for 113 grains of gold, and the American dollar was exchangeable by law for 23.22 grains. If 113 is divided by 23.22 the result is approximately 4.86. So that, apart from certain small variations that can be ignored here, the value of £1 was automatically fixed at 4.86 dollars. The exchange rate with francs, marks, etc., was similarly fixed.

To sum up the argument to this point we see the following consequences of an international gold standard :—

1. The value of the currencies of all gold standard countries is determined by, and fluctuates with, the value of gold.

2. Prices in all gold standard countries tend to move up or down together.

3. Exchange rates between gold standard countries remain stable.

After this brief survey of the principles of the gold standard now let us turn to its history.

As soon as division of labour resulted in individuals and social groups ceasing themselves to produce all the articles they consumed, a system for exchanging the products of various forms of human activity became necessary. In the first place recourse was had to simple barter. Cattle, for example, would be exchanged direct for corn or some other article. In the course of time direct barter became too cumbersome and a “universal equivalent” was evolved for the purpose of effecting exchanges. For a variety of reasons the universal equivalent that ultimately came to be generally adopted was a given weight of metal. In Western Europe this metal was silver. It soon came to be realised that it was more convenient to have coins of a known weight of metal instead of having to measure out quantities of the metal for each transaction. Gold coins were introduced in the 15th century, and finally this country led the world in making gold the basis of its currency, relegating silver coins to the position of “token” money, their value being fixed by law as a proportion of that of the gold coin. During the second half of the 19th century most of the leading countries of the world also abandoned the silver standard, and reorganised their currencies on a gold basis. When the war broke out in 1914 all the leading commercial countries were on the gold standard, and their currencies were gold coins winch actually circulated. At the same time there were in circulation bank notes which were redeemable into gold coin or bullion. The war saw the collapse of the old gold standard and the replacement of gold coins, as circulating media, by paper money. After the war, when the gold standard came to be restored, certain countries, including Great Britain, did not restore gold coins to circulation. Instead they retained their paper currencies, but made them convertible into gold, and permitted the export of gold. The notes, therefore, had the character of gold.

Another significant difference between the post-war and pre-war systems was that after the war certain countries did not revert to the simple gold standard, but to a developed standard known as the “gold exchange standard.” Under the pre-war system it had been the rule for each country to keep its own separate gold reserve for cashing notes. Under the gold exchange standard a country—Austria is an actual example— keeps part of its reserves not in the form of actual gold in the vaults of its own Central Bank, but in the form of balances with the Central Banks in other gold standard countries. As these balances could always be withdrawn in gold and taken back to the country of origin, it was thought that they were “as good as gold”; as indeed they were, so long as conditions remained normal. But the system had one important consequence. Gold deposited, say, by the Austrian National Bank with the Bank of England, was not only the basis of currency issued in Austria, but also provided the Bank of England with funds which it proceeded to utilise in this country. Under the pre-war system the withdrawal of gold from the Austrian National Bank would only have affected, directly, that bank. But under the new system the Bank of England would aiso be affected. In other words, under the “gold exchange system” events affecting the credit situation in one country would be likely to have immediate consequences in other countries, because the credit structure of more than one country had come to be based on the one lot of gold.

There remains another aspect of the post-war situation to be examined. The gold standard was never intended, as is so frequently alleged, to provide for the liquidation of an adverse balance of payments between two countries by the shipment of gold. Under the gold standard the function of gold shipments is to produce conditions in which an adverse balance of payments is eliminated. To reduce the matter to its simplest terms, the position can be explained as follows :—If people in country A are buying more goods and services from country B than B is buying from A, it must be because commodities are cheaper in B than in A. As the currencies of both countries are based on gold this is equivalent to saying that the purchasing power of gold is lower in A than in B. Consequently, gold will be sent from A to B. The gold for shipment will be obtained by changing notes into gold in A, and sending it to B. When it reaches B this gold will be converted into the currency of that country. The result will be to cause monetary stringency and a probable rise in the bank-rate in A, thereby lowering prices there. While in B the monetary situation will be eased and prices will rise. This will tend to discourage people in A from buying goods in B, and will encourage people in B to buy goods in A. This will continue to the point where A’s exports are increased and its imports diminished, sufficiently to eliminate the former adverse balance. From the foregoing it will be seen that under the gold standard the function of gold shipments is to cause adjustment of prices in the countries between which gold shipments take place, such that their international payments and receipts shall balance by the exchange of goods and services.

Owing to conditions arising out of the war gold shipments in recent years have been resorted to for the purpose of adjusting unfavourable balances of payments. What these conditions were can only be referred to here very briefly. Among the more important are the post-war system of tariffs, particularly in America, which prevented debtor countries from liquidating their indebtedness in goods, and compelled them to pay in gold; the flow of international payments in one direction, principally to U.S.A. and France, owing to Reparations, etc. ; and finally deliberate action by Central Banks to neutralise the effects that gold shipments would otherwise have had on the credit structure and the price levels. So that the adjustment of adverse trade balances by means of goods and services, in the manner discussed earlier, was impeded. In Great Britain, for example, the Bank of England consistently counterbalanced withdrawals of gold by what is known as its “open market” policy. In other words, when gold was withdrawn, and credit as a consequence became scarce, the Bank of England restored the position by buying securities, so that the funds that the money market lost as a result of the gold shipments were restored to it by the payments made by the Bank of England for the securities it bought. One of the main reasons why the Bank of England did this was probably that it was seeking to keep interest rates as low as possible in order that the Treasury should not have to pay more interest on its large floating debt. Whatever the reason may have been, the important fact is that Central Bank action frequently operated to make gold shipments of no avail, so far as concerns the adjustment of international balance of payments, by means of alterations in the relative amount of commodity imports and exports. This means that the gold standard in recent years was called upon to achieve purposes it was never designed to fulfil and which it was incapable of achieving; gold was used to liquidate adverse balances instead of operating to promote conditions in which adverse balances would disappear. Finally the inevitable happened. The gold standard broke down.

What will happen in the future to the gold standard need not be discussed here. For us the problem is, “Was the crisis caused by the failure of the gold standard ? Can it be overcome and economic welfare assured to all by a re-establishment of the gold standard, as we have known it or in some revised form, or by its supersession by some other currency system?” The answer to both questions is an emphatic “No.” The reasons for this answer must be reserved for a later article. Here it will suffice to point out that the recent acute world depression started, and has been most pronounced, in U.S.A. If gold is the cause of all the trouble this is rather strange seeing that U.S.A. was crammed with gold. Secondly, it is hard to see how the world in general,, and the working-class in particular, would have benefited if, before the crisis, there had been another £100 million, or even £1,000 million, of gold available in the world. What could have been done with it that would have overcome the fact that world stocks of all kinds, and especially of raw materials, were so high tthat they could not be disposed of at prices which would yield a profit ? The plain truth is that capitalism had again run up against its permanent and insoluble problem of being unable to distribute all the goods produced, because capitalist production is for sale at a profit and not for use. Therein is the cause of this, as of every other economic crisis of the past 150 years.

B. S.

SPGB Meetings. (1931)

Party News from the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Correction. (1931)

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the article "The Founding of the Socialist Party" in the October issue it was stated that the inaugural meeting took place in the Painters' Hall. This should have been the Printers' Hall, Bartlett's Passage, Fetter Lane, E.C.

Correspondence: Socialism for Great Britain only. (1931)

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (W. Langham, W. Ealing) asks how this country will obtain food supplies from abroad after the establishment of Socialism here. It is, of course, inconceivable that Socialism could exist in Great Britain alone while the rest of the world remained capitalist. But this presents no special problem, since it is equally inconceivable that capitalist development and Socialist propaganda could convert a majority to Socialism in this country without comparable progress having been made in the rest of the capitalist world.

When Socialism has been established on an international basis, the problem of producing and distributing goods will naturally call for organisation, and society will set up administrative machinery for that purpose. The organisation of production and distribution will not be fettered by the present national frontiers, and the problem of moving goods from one country or continent to another will not be different in kind from the problem of distribution within these areas. The world already shows many instances of smoothly-working international machinery, such, for example, as the Universal Postal Union, which co-ordinates the international transport of postal matter.

Editorial Committee.

Do We Need A Five-Year Plan? (1931)

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Practical Importance of Theory.

It is no uncommon thing for Socialists to be met with the charge that they are only mystics, airy philosophers destitute of any practical notions of how to carry on the society which they propose to establish. The present writer readily confesses to having been struck dumb in his youth by a querulous critic who demanded to know, “Who is going to get the best joints of meat under Socialism?” and proceeded to hint darkly at the possible fate, under such a system, of obstinate wives who refused to sleep with their husbands. What struck me dumb was my amazement that such questions should seriously worry one whose choice of the food he consumed at cheap restaurants during the week was practically nil, and who, as a result of his closely-confined occupation, looked as capable of healthy sex relationships as of knocking out Carnera.

The charge of mysticism was recently made against Socialists by a contributor to a discussion on the Russian Five-Year Plan in the economics section of the (British Association Conference. The suggestion is not new. Max Eastman made it in his “Marx, Lenin and Revolution.” H. G. Wells put it forward in the first volume of “William Clissold"; and Marx himself had to meet similar attempts at criticism after the publication of his work on “Capital.” His reply to this is contained in his preface to the second edition.

Marx owed a debt to the German philosopher, Hegel, which he readily admitted; but he frankly abandoned Hegel’s idealistic standpoint and treated material conditions as the real basis of human society. He saw that these conditions changed and new forms of society arose as a result. He criticised capitalist society from this point of view, and demonstrated that it must give way to Socialism; but he never spent his time in mystical contemplation of the future. He left to others the task of writing out the menus for the Utopian equivalent of Lyons’ cafés.

It is, of course, not surprising that this critical and revolutionary attitude fails to appeal to professional builders of “New Worlds for Old.” They get their living partly by writing about plans for the future, which are pushed aside by events which they fail to foresee. It is only to be expected that they should fall foul of a scientifically cautious mind, and remain apparently unconscious of the absurdity of denouncing Marx for mysticism in one breath and for failing to act as a prophet in the next. Such critics can be left to stew in their own juice.

Of more concern to us are those of our readers who allow themselves to be impressed by such bombast, and write to us complaining of our “destructive criticism” and our failure to propose “measures of reconstruction.” One reader, for example, wants a “Ten Years’ Plan formulated now! in order that the workers can be familiarised with Socialism as a practical rather than a theoretical proposition.” Our correspondent then proceeds to outline in quite a general way the “immediate measures” he considers necessary, and to propose certain “new departments” of administration, including one of “Co-ordination.” This proposal shows how easy it is to allow oneself to be hypnotised by important sounding words. Co-ordination is the special function of a general administrative body and not of a department.

The establishment of Socialism is essentially a practical proposition. It is the definite object of the Socialist Party, the goal of our activity. If the workers do not show any enthusiasm for this object that is not because it is "theoretical," but because they do not understand the need for it. They are quite prepared to accept their slave-status (are indeed unaware that they are slaves), and gladly leave planning to their leaders and masters.

The Socialist Party is not in any doubt as to what it has to do when it has conquered political power. Its job will be to convert the means of living into the common property of Society.

To be sure, that is only a brief statement of our "general, line," and our critic wants details. To his mind it is shirking the question to suggest that particular measures depend upon particular conditions. "Most of us," he says, "do not like to buy a pig in a poke.” Who does he mean by us? Unfortunately the majority of the workers are only too ready to buy a political pig in a poke. Any general election provides ample proof. What political party has ever tied itself down to matters of detail before election? The National Government asks for a "free hand" and cannot tell us even a month ahead what it proposes to do. Leading members of the Labour Party disagree considerably as to the form their measures of nationalisation or "public control" are going to take.

The Communist Party, it is true, has an elaborately detailed programme—which has not a ghost of a chance of securing political victory for the Communist Party. If the S.P.G.B. is still out in the cold, therefore, it is certainly not because the Party’s object is too vague for the practical disposition of the workers.

The political actions of the workers may, as our correspondent suggests, be "more powerfully affected by the emotions than by the intellect,” but that does them no good. The people who benefit are the ones who use their intellects to play upon the workers’ emotions, i.e., the master class. Our correspondent confesses that his "imagination reels" when he contemplates the possibilities of planning. Can the Socialist Party afford to enter the political arena with a reeling mind? On the contrary, we need all the concentration of which we are capable to think out the most effective way of getting our "destructive criticism" into the minds of our fellow-workers here and now. They need it.

When they wake up to the fact that they are slaves and that a change in the basis of .society is necessary, they will also realise that in future they have got to do the planning as they march along the road to their emancipation. They will not look to leaders to plan for them. On the other hand, there is no necessity for a small minority of the working class (such as the Socialist Party is at the moment) to anticipate the decisions of the majority which it will one day become. Certainly "there is no harm in speculation,” so long as it is recognised as such, and so long as the speculators do not attempt to force their speculations upon us as a necessary programme. Discuss, by all means (if and when you have nothing better to do) just what is going to happen in twenty or thirty years' time; but do not forget the fate of the practical programme drawn up by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto eighty-three years ago. In twenty-five years it had, in its authors' own words, become somewhat "antiquated” owing to the rapid pace of industrial development. The pace is even more rapid to-day. That is the main reason why the Socialist Party steers clear of so-called plans and programmes.

A further reason is that outsiders have a fatal knack of confusing a programme which, at its best, can only be a means to an end, with the end itself; or, to put it another way, the "programme" and not the object (i.e., Socialism) occupies first place in their minds. The result can be seen in the fate of the old Social Democratic Parties in this and other countries. Numbers were attracted into these organisations by the immediate programme, the sound Socialist element was swamped, and these parties eventually degenerated into step-ladders for political job-hunters, who in turn operated as tools for the master-class. The preference of the Socialist Party for scientific principles rather than for speculative programmes is thus not a mere foible, it is based upon bitter experience.

No substitute has yet been discovered for Socialist education. It is a slow job and not so exciting or remunerative as that of sweeping the un-class-conscious workers off their feet with stirring "practical measures”; but it has its compensations. There is a certain element of humour in the spectacle of the most practical politicians taking hedges in faultless style, only to land in the mud on the other side. The workers who have prided themselves on their practical commonsense, their superiority to the theorists of the S.P.G.B., are apt to view the situation rather tragically at the moment, having put their savings upon these much-advertised hurdle-jumpers in quite a literal sense. We have confidence that they will recover their balance and treat Socialist principles a little more respectfully in future.

When they have eventually overcome their prejudices in this direction the time will then arrive for practical programmes to take on a new and revolutionary character. Informed with the necessary fundamental knowledge derived from an effort to understand their experience, the workers will address themselves, with much greater energy and immensely superior organisation, to the necessary task of social reconstruction. We may guess at the plans they will make and some of our guesses may turn out to be accurate, but it is more satisfactory and immediately profitable to get on with the job of making Socialists.

Eric Boden

A Word To Sympathisers. (1931)

Party News from the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

During and immediately before the General Election we distributed free of charge 170,000 copies of two leaflets, one on the fall of the Labour Government, and the other on the election issues. To do so we used up the fund we had earmarked for that purpose and in addition we have incurred a heavy debt. Now we have to replace that money in order to be able to issue further leaflets as occasion arises, particularly bearing in mind that another General Election may not be long delayed. We need money for other purposes. We are out-of-stock of certain pamphlets, and we have in preparation a new pamphlet on the Socialist Party and its principles. If only half of the readers of the Socialist Standard would contribute one shilling a month to our funds we could quickly clear off our debt and would have in hand, before the end of the winter, a substantial part of the money needed for the new pamphlet. We address this appeal especially to non-members because we realise that there are many who sympathise with the Party’s position but are unable, for one reason or another, to join up or take an active part in propaganda. We ask you to remember that the Socialist Party, unlike other political parties, receives no financial support from the trade unions or from wealthy individuals. The burden on our members is, therefore, a heavy one.

Send your donations to the Treasurer, 42, Great Dover Street, London, S.E.1. Acknowledgment will be made by post and in these columns.