The Greater War: Our Appeal For Recruits. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the members of the working class: —

For the moment the anti-Socialists have triumphed, and Europe is plunged in anarchy and bloodshed, while over the seas pillage and death have spread their wings. The much vaunted “intellectual development of society,” the great “progress of capitalist civilisation,” the “directive ability” and the “administrative powers” that the master class are supposed to monopolise, have resulted in a vile and vicious struggle between them as to which can murder most of OUR class—the WORKING CLASS.

This is your reward for trusting your enemy; for when either or both sides become exhausted in this conflict, the master class will patch up their little difference, but will continue the Greater war—the subjection and robbery of the working class.

“Peace, perfect Peace,” sing the churches; but “pieces, golden pieces,” chirp the masters, and in their fight for markets in which to realise the wealth stolen from the workers, the Christian croakers and peace praters find their answer as the bullets find their billets in the sons of God, and leading church divines draw dividends from the sale of powder.

This is the reward of those who have foolishly placed reliance on religion.

But meantime the workers have suddenly become important, and particularly the strong, young men. To them appeals are being made; threats even, and hints of probable unemployment are given; while the “superior persons” vie with each other in flattering the possible recruit to their murdering machine. “Your country is in danger, fight for it and maintain your liberties!” Such is now the cry of the masters to the young men of the working-class. Strange, is it not, that the masters should now be so concerned with our country and our liberties? The perjured, lying hypocrites! It is their own country and their own interests that are threatened.

The working class have no country (they must go where they can get a job), nor have they any liberties it would hurt them much to lose.

The lot of the working class in this and other countries is just to be allowed to exist for the convenience of the master class. The workers’ portion, in England as elsewhere, is to be ground down in the struggle to gain the pittance to eke out a miserable existence.

Under the Union Jack or other national flag the workers are the slaves of those, who own and control the means of life. Here, in times of peace, THE GREATER WAR still rages: the relentless, bitter struggle against poverty and starvation. Here we have sweating, low wages and brutalising toil, child-labour and cheap female-labour, unemployment, shoddy clothing, slum dwellings, and adulterated food.

Here we have strikes and lock-outs, and the military machine used in the interests of the masters when the workers, fighting for a living, are batoned, shot, and starved into subjection. Poverty and prostitution ever increasing—degradation ever deepening : such are the liberties, such is the system you are asked to risk your lives in defence of. But a far better thing to do is what we ask of you—that is to stay at home and think.

Realise that the only party of the workers in this country is the Socialist Party of Great Britain—all other parties have misled and betrayed you—all other parties are at present betraying you. Get to understand the economic enslavement of your class. Enlist in the army of the Social Revolution. Your OWN class needs you, let the master class see to itself.

Rouse ye!

The Executive Committee.

‘The great appear great to us because we are on our knees! Let us Rise!’ (Desmoulins)

The Idle Parsons Bless the Busy Soldiers. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I come not to send peace but a sword.—Matt. X. 34.

“Peace and goodwill towards all men” is thought, by some to be the watchword of the Christian Church. The Church which is the organisation, above all else, claiming to be the Party of peace and the promoter of better relations between man and man. Nineteen hundred years have passed since their creeds were established and yet almost the whole of “Christian” civilisation is embroiled in deadly war. Verily, it is said the Church is paid by the ruling class to do the work of the rich, for we find the parasitic parsons to-day praising and defending what is undoubtedly the most mercenary massacre which ever stained the pages of history. Every section of the Christian faith adds its blessing to this savagery.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Church, who gets £15,000 per year to preach the “Gospel of love,” said (“Standard,” August 25th):

“So far as I can see, our conscience as a Christian State and people, is as regards this war, wholly and unchallengeably clear. We might, I suppose, for a time have stayed outside the arena, but to have stayed outside at this time would, as I understand it, have been at the cost of England’s honour, at the cost of England's chivalry to weakened peoples, at the cost of England’s faithfulness to her plighted word. Could any of us for the sake of avoiding war have asked God’s blessing upon our reticence ? . . . It was not in quiet and peaceful times that Christian heroes like Henry Lawrence Havelock or Gordon bore an undying message which will live while England stands.”

The awful cant and hypocrisy about “England's honour” and “England’s chivalry” is well taken if we recall how the tiny Boer Republics were treated, the deeds of valour amongst the Indians and Egyptians and nearer home in the ” Emerald Isle.”

St. Paul’s Cathedral is the Mecca of modern Christians and the Canon of the Cathedral, therefore, was sought for his attitude. This is what Canon Alexander said (“Standard,” Aug. 25th, 1914):

“At this, one of the greatest crises of the world’s history, we could not pray for success, we could not look up in simple trust and confidence to God, unless our hands were clean, unless we were convinced that our cause is just. It is God’s leading that we are following now.

“War is the instrument through which God is working out His own purpose. It is Him we are called upon to serve and if we are faithful and loyal and true, He will bring us, in the language of the scripture, “through fire and water,” “out into a wealthy place.”

“Trust in God and keep your powder dry” was the famous charge of Oliver Cromwell to his Ironsides, and to-day Lord Kitchener has struck the same note in advising each member of the force he has sent out that “the first duty of a soldier is to fear God . . . God holds in his hands the issue. Fortunately the strikes and troubles that existed here are settled now. Classes are united. Rich and poor alike are shoulder to shoulder in a righteous cause and in this we see God working out our salvation.”

The Roman Catholic Church is, of course, in the same position as their Anglican confreres in crime. Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, states his views thus (“Standard,” August 22nd, 1914):

“War cannot itself be a sin, since God Himself has actually commanded war on many occasions and even aided His own people to obtain the victory by miraculous means. It is quite certain that God cannot at any time have done or commanded anything sinful. Moreover, in the New Testament the profession of arms ia treated as a perfectly legitimate one ; special favour was shown to the officers of the Roman army (Luke VII, 2, 10). St. John the Baptist, far from advising soldiers to abandon their calling, urged them to be careful to observe military discipline (Luke III, 14), and our Lord not only foretold the coming of war in the future (Matt XII, 36); but declared that he came “not to bring peace but a sword,” and we are told in the Apocalypse (XII, 7) that there was war even in heaven.”

Such an authority for war has rarely been surpassed by the followers of the meek and lowly Nazarene.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford also agrees as to the divine origin of the war for he says (same paper) :

“The war is the result of the sins and passions of men; it is the great scourge used by the Almighty to chastise the sins of the world.”

The Nonconformist Conscience has also been appealed to and the Pastor of Westminster Chapel, the Rev. G. Campbell-Morgan, blesses the wholesale butchery in these words (same paper):

“I preach peace at all seasons, but with regard to the course of Great Britain in the present great conflict, I have changed my views because I believe that my fellow-countrymen are pursuing the only honourable course open to them by upholding the cause of a small nation, upon which all the horrors of a ruthless invasion have been forced. … I am certain that Great Britain has been drawn into the present strife by the highest and noblest of emotions. . . We are thankful to God for the readiness of the sons of the nation to go forth upon their stern duty.”

Even the Quaker testifies for the “Fatherland and the Flag.” E. B. Sprigg, of the Society of Friends, asked by the “Standard” (19.8,14), says:

“The action of Great Britain on embarking on her present adventure in Europe is probably a righteous one.”

Westminster Abbey is the home of kings and from this shrine the voice of Canon Westlake speaks a good word for the war. His views appear in the “Standard” for August 18th:

“I cannot think there is any negation of Christian principles in a Christian people going to war … In the present instance we find Great Britain, Belgium, France and Russia resisting warlike aggression on the part of other nations, and their cause is therefore a righteous one. Great Britain could not have kept out of the conflict and retained her honour.” After quoting from the Bible he goes on to say: “This sanction of the sword by the Christian Religion is borne out by the fact that the old Bishops of the Church were warriors, and often rode into the fight with the armies. Then again, there is the blessing of flags and arms, which is a religious ceremonial, and the appointment of Chaplains of fighting regiments. This indicates that the Church gives its sanction to war.”

Cottonopolis must, of course, get its religious representative’s blessing and hence Bishop Weldon, Dean of Manchester, writes thus “Standard, August 27th, 1914):

“The soldiers of the King stand in need of prayer so that by their conduct, as by their courage, they may show themselves worthy of their Christian native land.”

The Dean of Ripon informs the “Standard” readers that “the Lord is on our side,” having undoubtedly received a private wire, uncensored.

Numerous others of the “Black Squad” could be quoted in the same strain for the Church is doing its work well.

It is, of course, quite incidental that many of the dignitaries of the Christian faith have shares in the armament firms who live on war and war scares. The Bishop of Kensington, for instance, is listed as a shareholder in the International armour plate ring known as the Harvey United Steel Co. The Bishop of Chester is a shareholder in Vickers, the International firm whose works at Fiume supplied Austria with torpedoes to be used against the marines the dear bishop blesses. The Bishop of Hexham is a shareholder in Armstrong Whitworths, which belonged to the world combine of armament manufacturers in company with Krupps. The Bishop of Newcastle is another shareholder in Vickers, whilst that bitter and outspoken enemy of Socialism, Dean Inge of St. Paul’s, is a shareholder both in Armstrong’s and Vickers. The Bishop of Newport is a shareholder in John Brown & Co., and the President of the Free Church Councils, Sir J. Compton Rickett, owns 3,200 shares in John Brown & Co., and 2,100 shares in Cammell Laird, the two famous firms in the death trade.

Rumour has it that these eminent Christian firms do not spend all their time “beating swords into ploughshares” but that report is, of course, untrue.

Space does not allow of any more names, but those given are sufficient to show the material interest of these “Ambassadors of Christ.”

Well does the Nonconformist “British Weekly” declare “United, we stand,” for the parsons and plutocrats hang together lest other things happen. When the war heat has passed away for a time, we can imagine a banquet in honour of the Church and the spokesman of Capitalism blessing it, with the words : “Well done ! thou good and faithful servant.”

Adolph Kohn

A few comparisons. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Together with the conclusions we draw from them.

It has been said that mere comparisons do not appeal to the workers in general. So accustomed are they to their poverty and the possession and display of wealth by the class that exploits them, that to merely point to such a fact, or even to draw comparisons of the extremes of wealth and poverty, conveys nothing to them. It does not appear at all extraordinary to them that a class performing none of the useful work of society should possess fabulous and ever increasing wealth, while they who produce all the wealth of society should remain always in abject poverty.

This is not because the worker lacks the power of observation or comparison; but rather because he has seen it all his life, has become accustomed to it. Just as he expects the night to follow the day or the day to follow the night, and accepts both as unalterable; in the same way he looks upon society as being of necessity made up of two classes, rich and poor. Natural and social phenomena are in the same category for him—things that have always been and always will be.

This is scarcely to be wondered at, for almost from the cradle influences have been at work shaping in his mind this idea as to the fixed character of social institutions. All those he comes in contact with show by their actions daily and hourly that they do not question the elementary rules upon which society is based, however much they may squabble over the details. The average worker, therefore, regards his class as helpless and inert, though he is himself a unit and a fair sample of all the rest. Even if he understands Socialism, or claims to, he overlooks the power that can be attained by an organised movement, and the paramount importance of maintaining such a movement by individual effort, consequently he does nothing. That, together with the incessant struggle for a bare existence, is the explanation of apathy among the working class.

The result of apathy is disastrous, not only to the working class as a whole, but to the individual. Those who are quiescent not only strengthen capitalist domination, but are continually throwing away what opportunities remain to them of becoming men and women in the real sense; for nothing can be more contemptible than to wear chains without making an effort to throw them off ; while persistence in manly actions makes men.

Socialists, like others of the working class, are compelled to sell their energy in order to live. They cannot escape from wage slavery, but they have already escaped the effects of one of capitalism’s worst weapons, the deliberate propaganda of ignorance and confusion. Without Socialist principles that make his class position clear, the worker cannot discriminate, his brain does not function as the organ of thought, but becomes the receptacle of all the ignorant twaddle that is purposely served up to him through the Press, platform, and pulpit.

Correctly speaking, ignorance is lack of knowledge, but it does not follow that ignorance is purely negative. Ignorant persons can babble, fraudulent labour leaders can make social reforms appear plausible to those who do not think for themselves. The clergy by their trained eloquence keep alive superstitions that no longer exist in the minds of intelligent men and women, because science has long ago explained their origin and growth and shown their absurdity.

Where ignorance speaks the loudest, however, is in the dissemination of falsehoods with regard to the function of capital. Those who own the most capital are everywhere extolled as the most desirable citizens. Yet when one of these desirable citizens dies, the function of the capital he leaves behind goes on without interruption, though it may be left to a child or a lunatic. Whatever that function may be it is obvious that it does not need any special ability in its owner in order to function ; an extract from “Harmsworth’s Popular Science” illustrates this.

“But many a modern shareholder of means resembles a French nobleman of the old regime. He knows personally nothing about the workmen who help to earn the dividends on which he lives. All that be knows is that when they strike for higher wages they are striking for a reduction in his income. He often knows no more about the manner in which the income on his capital is obtained than he does about the manner in which the animal from which his meat is sliced was bred and slaughtered.”

The great mass of the wealth of all capitalist countries is owned in this way by shareholders, who may know a little or a great deal about their concerns, but who certainly take no part in any of the necessary operations of production. This fact is borne out by a superficial examination. When “the heads” do come down to see us at work they are blissfully ignorant of the meaning of it all, and have to be shown round and have things explained to them. They really have no time for the understanding of things industrial or economic ; the pursuit of pleasure absorbs the whole of their useless lives, as Lady Troubridge says in an article in the “Royal Magazine.” “The pursuit of pleasure by society has been brought to a fine art, and almost every week has its own special gaiety and distraction . . . The real fact is that the London season is but the culminating point of a year’s ceaseless round of gaiety and sport, every month of which is mapped out so as to seize the greatest amount of pleasure that it is possible to obtain.” When is their boasted directive ability exercised if they chase pleasure all the year round ?

“What do these men and women know” says the same writer “of the monotony of long, grey days, broken only by tedious work and the weariness of accustomed sights. To them the glittering ballroom with its rose wreathed pillars, its haunting music, its flower-decked tables heaped with dainties, are exchanged before they have time to pall, for the white deck of a yacht, or the moors or uplands of breezy Scotland, and later on for the hunting field and the luxurious country home ; and all the time society is preparing for the great culminating burst of gaiety that comes with the flowers of May.”

On the one side is all luxury, gaiety and sport, on the other want and misery. The World’s workers are robbed of the wealth they produce and then insulted with the hoary tale that if there were no demand for luxuries poverty would be still more widespread—almost sufficient in itself to proclaim the rotteness of the capitalist system. The very fact that they have a superabundance proves that there is no need for anyone to lack the necessaries of life, but to claim indulgence as a virtue and give themselves credit for making work, is pure hypocrisy, and should cause every worker to think. In fact, on every hand we find contradictions, inconsistencies, and comparisons that should rouse the workers to thought. Modern society is full of them. Fashionable women spend incalculable sums on dress and “Swaddle their dogs in costly blankets and spray them with priceless scents,” while, according to Mr. J. J. Mallon, Secretary of the Anti-Sweating League: “The vast majority of women workers in this country earn less than ten shillings per week.” An American millionaire, Lieu. Com. Spofford, bestows one hundred pounds per week on his baby, and Mr. E. McClean’s child is known as the twenty million pound baby, while the Rev. J. E. Roberts says that in London alone 122,000 children are underfed. Mr. Lloyd George once told a large audience “that he knew twelve men whoso income during the worst days of depression would suffice to keep fifty-thousand working-class families in comfort for one month.”

These are a few comparisons taken at random for the thoughtful reader to reflect upon; they should arouse the deepest indignation and the desire to eradicate them. Those who believe in tho permanence of the capitalist system can only suggest social reforms of one kind or another, that are easily shown to be impossible or absurd. The very fact that there are no remedies possible of application within the system, proves that the system is responsible and we have to look to that for the cause.

The system of society we live under to-day differs from feudalism and chattel slavery, though like it, both these were forms of slavery. Under feudalism the worker owned the land he tilled and his took, but was forced to give up a portion of his produce and labour-time. Under chattel slavery the workers were bought and sold like cattle. Under capitalism they are stripped of everything in the nature of property and forced to sell themselves.

Under all these systems the workers produced all the wealth of society, yet may only retain, or have returned to them the barest necessaries of life. Under each of them they are forced to labour to add to the luxury of a ruling class, while they remain poor.

In Oriental countries where the needs of the workers were scanty and easily supplied, they were forced to labour to add to the luxury and grandeur of their rulers. In capitalist countries it is the same; the more thrifty and efficient the working class becomes, the greater the affluence of the master class.

The merchandise character of labour-power is also a condition that breeds and develops antagonism ; the germ of the class struggle. This struggle cannot continue indefinitely, though it is bound to go on while labour-power is merchandise ; obviously, then, the struggle will cease only when the conditions that engender it come to an end. So-called economic action is useless to this end, because in the main it agrees with the wages system by asking for more, while when it endeavours to be revolutionary it simply challenges armed forces with which it is unable to cope.

The working class have to learn that man frames his system according to the means and methods of producing and distributing wealth, and that they can and must change the system to make it harmonise with the changes that have taken place in these means and methods. That change must be from the present private and class ownership to the common ownership and democratic control of all the means of life.

This is Socialism—the only remedy for poverty in the midst of plenty. In its establishment the working class will receive no assistance from the class above ; on the contrary, every obstacle that can hinder the movement will be flung across the path of the revolutionary working class. The workers must therefore preserve their indignation and hatred of the crimes of capitalism. They must be wary of cant and hypocrisy, suspicious of social reformers, and above all, watchful and critical of those who profess to be their friends. In a word, every worker must understand Socialism for himself, then no one can deceive him.

It is part of the policy of the rulers in every country to encourage those who deceive and confuse the workers as to the meaning of Socialism. One section is telling us that Christianity is Socialism, another that the State must own the means of life, another that we must buyout the capitalists. These are easily seen through; the worst frauds are those who lull the workers into apathy by telling them Socialism will come by evolution, and that even now we are in the transition stages.

Socialism can only be established by the deliberate and conscious action of the working class utterly disregarding the interests of those who oppose them. Before they can arrange or control the details of their own lives they must own and control the means of wealth production. To gain possession of these, they must first control the physical power that protects the capitalist class in their ownership. This is only possible by means of a working-class organisation that will control the political machinery. When the armed forces, through the machinery of government, are controlled by the working class, they can enter into possession of the means of wealth production without bargaining or compensation.

Of the details of the future system we say nothing, content to leave them in the hands of those who control—the people. Lady Troubridge, in the “Royal,” says: “Truly this world is a pleasant place for the rich and the gay. . . . Those happy ones whose hearts dance to as merry a tune as the fashionable rag-time music of Cassano’s famous band.” With modern methods of production and a sane system of society, slavery and poverty would be a thing of the past, and all hearts might dance to whatever tune they pleased.

F. Foan

How Volunteers are made. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Any unmarried man who is big enough and strong enough to serve in the Army is asked to offer himself as a recruit in His Majesty’s forces. In the event of his being accepted his place in Lord Derby’s stable will be kept open for him. . . Any man who has refused to try and serve his country in this way has been discharged. I am glad to say that nearly all have shown their patriotism by enlisting.”—Hon. Geo. Lambton, in the “Daily Citizen,” 4.8.14.

The standard the workers must keep . . . (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The standard the workers must keep flying during the war is the Socialist Standard. Let us see to it that it holds its place in the forefront of the "greater war" in this time of crisis.

Again we tell you. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The average working man does not like the Socialist to tell him that he is a slave. But nevertheless he is a slave. The only freedom the worker has to day is the freedom to starve, or to change one employer for another. Even that, he finds from bitter experience, he cannot always do.

If the worker cannot find work to do he has no means to live on. It then soon dawns upon him that if he cannot find an employer to give him work, he will be forced into the workhouse, or, worse still, be compelled to steal and to become an outcast dodging the upkeepers of the capitalist laws.

We are Wage Slaves. It does not matter what class of labour we do, whether we work as navvies, clerks, or mechanics, we all come under the category of working men. The master class call us by one name: his employees.

Now we of the working class do not own the mines, factories, land, etc. We have no alternative, therefore, but to go to those that do own them, and ask them to give us permission to work. One thing is obvious: we have to work in order to live. If someone else owns the means by which we live then we are subservient to them. Are we not, therefore, slaves, when we have to ask others to let us work for them in order that we may live ?

It is only when we can make a profit for them (the masters) that we are allowed to work, so the thoughtful man can easily see that we are not considered for a moment. When the markets are glutted and our employers cannot sell the commodities we have produced, we are given the sack.

The poverty of the worker when he is working, and the nerve-wrecking fear of unemployment, makes his position as a wage slave worse than any previous form of slavery that was perpetrated upon his ancestors. The chattel slave had comparative security. We have not. The serf had security, less work, and more leisure, than we have.

The working man has no property. He can live in a house—or rooms—just so long as he can pay rent for it. He can go on paying rent for 50 years and the house is not his. His furniture ! Ah, yes ! That is his so long as he can pay the rent. If he cannot fulfil his obligations to the landlord then his furniture is taken.

To put the case in a few words, we own nothing but the power to work. As we own no property, I repeat, we are the slaves to those that do. “He owns my life who owns the means by which I live” is as true now as when Shakespeare wrote it. It will be, too, as long as we, the working class, like to keep a parasitic class upon our backs.

It is no longer necessary to do this. The capitalist class has served its purpose. It is now suffering from disorganisation and decrepit old age. The working class is the last class to achieve its freedom. We have now to carry out OUR mission. That is to take over the means of producing and distributing wealth ourselves, and use in the interests, not of a few, but of the whole community.

It should be obvious to the worker, surely, that if we control our owns means of living we will put a a end to slum dwellings and unhealthy places to work in. The majority of diseases and complaints which the worker suffers from are the result of the conditions under which he works or the unsanitary, over-crowded dwellings wherein he lives. That would be obliterated, never to show its ugly form in the future.

That is the goal before us. The ending of poverty which is the result of the private ownership of the means of life.

With the common ownership of the world’s means of production the social evils that we are faced with to-day would never occur again. That briefly is what Socialism offers. It is your place to take a firm stand one way or the other. If you do not believe that what we say is right, then fight us vigorously. But if you believe in the principles and policy which we expound, join us and help us to end such a system as can only hold out to the workers in their youth, starvation and misery as the fruits of unending and arduous toil, and in their old age, a five shilling pension or the workhouse. The means of producing wealth are now so fertile that only fools can accept poverty as a necessary condition of society to-day.

J. G. W. Stone

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October. (1914)

Party News from the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Purpose and Method of Colonisation [5] (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last issue.)

Whether the “Study of British Methods,” in which certain European capitalist politicians seem to indulge, is also responsible for the incident which initiated the ghastly human slaughter now in progress, and which incident it greatly benefits the master class of this country to use for the purpose of hiding their own mercenary objects, it is not in our province to investigate. Anyhow, in reviewing the history of the component parts of the British Empire, no one will be at a loss to find precedents enough and to spare for any violation or outrage, however infamous and however revolting, that may have been committed in Belgium. The “glory and greatness of the Empire” is in fact made up of a long series of piratical conquests in which the sole right of Might has been everywhere proclaimed from the housetops, and in which the freedom and independence of millions of people have often been respected less than “scraps of paper.”

How the “indisputable right” over some of the millions of square miles in Africa, for example, has been secured, is in living memory; although it must not be supposed that the sordid history which centres round the gold and diamond fields exhausts the resources in the art of brigandage and massacre that the British “haute finance” is capable of commanding. In such books as “With Kitchener to Khartoum,” “The Unveiling of Lhasa,” etc., etc., typical instances are abounding of how the British “protectors” impose themselves and their “culture” upon small and relatively weak nations. Says the author of the last mentioned account of a Tibetan expedition, speaking of the “strange people we fought and conquered” : “We killed several thousand of the simple, brave, and ill-armed men; I was sorry for these Tibetans. Their struggle was so hopeless; . . . Here was all the brutality of war, and none of the glory and incentive. These men were cheerful, jolly fellows—and I have seen their crops ruined, their homes burnt and shelled, the dead lying about the thresholds of what were their homes, and all for no fault of their own—only because their leaders were politically impossible.” But what matter the lives of these people, if the “freedom of trade,” or trade-routes, in short, the freedom of Capital, is at stake ? As the writer adds with regard to these leaders: “Fortunately, however, this slaughter was beginning to put the fear of God into them.”

In the face of our present daily records of what “white against white,” Christians against Christians, can do, it will easily be granted that the deeds by which resistance to British expansion by the “so much inferior coloured heathen races,” has been crushed, not only equal any tale of brutality that is to-day laid to the charge of “the enemy” with regard to Belgium, but certainly outdo the latter in cowardice when we bear in mind that the unfortunate registers of “the invincible forces of civilisation” and Christianity did not dispose of anything like the modern efficient instruments of murder.

And if those who have laid thieves’ hands on so great a part of the world’s surface and have thereby flouted the independence of millions of people in the past; if these who are responsible for such barbarities as will ever be connected with the establishment of British dominance whether in Africa, Asia, Australia, or elsewhere if those who have never tolerated any interference with the “rights of free trade” (i.e.,, free robbery) and have carried out more “punitive expeditions” and burnt more villages of innocent peoples than the rest of the coloniz­ing nations put together ; if those who could stand by, incapable of shame, when recently hundreds of unarmed men and women were done to death or wounded in the blood-stained streets of Johannesburg ; if those who range themselves now on the side of these human fiends and very embodiment of oppression and tyranny, whose crimes vary between “Bloody Sunday” and exiling of innocent men and women to the icy dungeons of Siberia : if those now accuse their Continental rivals of savagery and violating the independence of small nations, while at the same time posing as the “trustees of freedom and good conduct,” even we—knowing their achievements in hypocrisy—feel bound to admire their insolent audacity in treating the public to this masterpiece of nauseating cant.

Of course, just as the vandalism and beastly deeds, committed by order of the German military authorities, figure in the official chronicles and school-books of the Teutons as heroic achievements, so the merciless usurpations, rapes and massacres which have marked the acquisition of “our” colonial dependencies are gloried in and impressed upon the children of the Empire as examples of British manhood, pluck, and enterprise.

Although to some extent outside the present subject, the foregoing will nevertheless serve to emphasise again the fact that the acquisition of the Colonial Empire is distinguished by the application of the most brutal, up-to-date methods that the machinery of militarism, and law and order is capable of bringing into play. But let us now revert to the subsequent economic policy of our colonial pioneers of “education and native advancement,” and see what the cultural trust imposed upon the “more advanced peoples” comes to.

Authority having once gained a footing, that is to say, the Right of Might having been brought home to the “uncultured heathen,” every subsequent activity of the Colonists is subservient to the process of converting all things capable of satisfying human wants and desires into what Providence intended them to be, namely, Commodities, so that they might at last take their proper places, as holy values and sacred property, in the temple of Mammon. The extent of the success of this process is the measure of the “prosperity” and “loyalty” of the Dominions. It goes without saying, that since all things have to become marketable values, this process involves the expropriation of the natives from all nature’s gifts—which brings the first virtue : Abstinence. And it is equally plain that only when the native’s life is hedged with notices such as:

“No admittance except on business”

“Trespassers will be prosecuted,”

will they lend themselves, or rather be forced, in order to live, to sell and apply their energies in the service of Capital— which brings a further virtue: Industry. This is so self evident that we could only describe as child-like naiveté or gross stupidity, Lord Curzon’s remark that “he greatly deplored, and had tried his utmost to discourage, the settling of Europeans in an in­digenous country with the object of extracting from it the essence which should serve to the natives as means of subsistence.” But where would abstinence come in ? And what, one may ask, are the Colonists to deal in and export if not the produce they have stolen from the natives ?

When, for example, the Chartered Company, who hold immense concessions in Africa, lease (as they have done last year) 1,000,000 acres of land (selected areas to be chosen throughout Rhodesia) at the rental of 1s. an acre, to an enterprising international firm, it is obvious that the latter mean to extract and export the resources of the territory ; in other words, these resources no longer belong to their former owners, the aborigines of Rhodesia, who will shave to look to the new proprietors (their expropriators) for their means of subsistence, unless they are prepared to quit. Such transactions necessitate, consequently, the absolute disregard of the natives’ interests and customs, seeing that if their most vital custom of all were to be observed, namely, the communal ownership (as distinct from private ownership, as in Europe) of all the land, the very object of any capitalist enterprise and colonisation would naturally become illusory. Which is surely more than a Colonial enthusiast, like Lord Curzon, could wish for. Indeed, this deprived of the native of his primitive means of living and own conditions of labour, is the very basis of all colonization; it is only hypocrites of the type of Curzon or His Excellency Dernburg, who pretend to be ignorant of the fact that in first completely disinheriting the mass of the natives, or, in Dernburg’s own terminology, in first “fulfilling the cultural trust” is the key to the “great question of how the white man is to retain his hold and domination over mankind of darker colour.”

Unfortunately, the proclamation of “Protectorates” here, and the annexation of large territories there, in short, the theoretic monopoly of the land and the granting of concessions to trading firms, on the one side, does not always automatically transform the native population into full-blown, wage-workers on the other. However desirable it may be to extract the maximum of surplus-value from this “economically most valuable motive-power,” the vastness of the territories and relatively thin population (the Colonies comprising, as a rule, disproportionately larger areas than the respective mother countries), also the widely different climatic conditions—these two main factors render difficult and protract the establishment of an effective, all-embracing control over, and exploitation of, the natives. Hence, the necessity for the professional labour-recruiting agencies ; the application of direct force (slavery); the importation of foreign labour: all of which methods have been shown to be practised on a large scale at the present time, as a temporary, if unsatisfactory, solution for the annoying “labour problem.”

In the meantime, the mills of economic development are grinding ; no sections of natives, hitherto secluded, are to be deprived of the blessings of civilisation and the comforting security it affords. Railways and extensions of railways are constantly opening up new districts and announce to previously obscure tribes the arrival of—the tax-collector; an indispensable means of bringing the native idlers to their senses and to their toil. “If one considers,” says deploringly a correspondent in an East African organ, “that there are about 3½ million of people living in the district of Ruanda and Urundi, who, in consequence of the seclusion of their exceedingly rich homelands, still enjoy, at this time of day, complete freedom from tax-paying, the necessity for opening up, through a railway, will at once become obvious.” And the “Usambara Post” (27.9.13) stated in support of a railway from Tabora to the Kagaraknie, that “such a railway would open up extraordinarily valuable districts, and that the introduction of the poll-tax there would alone make the railway pay its way.”

“No doubt it will cost thousands, but it will bring in millions”—such is their assurance. Railways in particular are powerful levers of “native advancement”—hence the great activity in this direction. They not only open up, and enable the easy transport of the produce, but of the “human material” as well. The Ovambo and Amboland railways in South-West Africa, for example, were built for the specific purpose of “serving the regular and increased supply of workers for the diamond mines.” And during a discussion (4.6.13) of the Government Council in East Africa the following was pointed out: “The idea of a continuation of the North railway up to the Lake Victoria did not originate so much from the endeavour to open up the mystic country of the Squatters and to enter into competition with the Unganda railway, but rather was the plan involved by the desire to confiscate the masses of workers living in the districts of the Lake Victoria.” This does not, of course, prevent our colonisers from pretending at the same time that the railways are built in the sole interest of the travelling workers. Indeed, what would a Christian employer not do for the welfare and amenity of the native ? ” Every friend of theirs,” he says, “must advocate the building of railways, seeing that the worker is exposed to many dangers and risks while en route for weeks and months” to the elevating occupation in the death pits of the diamond mines ! In the face of the comparative scarcity of workers it would, of course, be deplorable that these arms and “hands” should meet with accidents before having been drained of the “milliard values slumbering in them.”

And so, in accordance with the law of development of capitalist production, every activity that the enterprising European traders command in the Colonies, tends to separate the means of production more and more from the native and to concentrate the scattered means more and more under a few controlling concerns, thereby gradually closing to the natives all avenues outside of, and disciplining them for,—the wage-labour market. The exacting of hut-taxes, poll taxes, grazing-dues, etc.; permits for hunting and fishing ; the enclosure of large tracks of land either for cultivation or cattle-breeding ; the construction of railways and other means of transport and communication, water and irrigation works—these are only a few of the things which supply the precious “indirect pressure” and restrict more and more the liberties of the natives, until eventually they will find no other way to live than by selling their labour-power to their foreign masters. The “labour problem” will then be solved.

Naturally enough, this transition, far from being regarded by the natives as a normal economic development, or from benefiting him, is mostly looked upon as an act of aggression, of conquest—an arbitrary charge wrung from him in bitterness, and leaves behind a deep sense of injury. This resentment has undoubtedly been the cause of most colonial wars and rebellions since the first presence of the white man there, but the fact that the “superior” whites (superior, undoubtedly, in weapons) ever emerge victorious from the fray, again proves that Might is Right.

Rudolf Frank

(To be Continued.)

The Socialist View of the German Atrocities. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present conflict between the Powers of Europe is a tragedy of the first magnitude; but like most stupendous tragedies, it has its humorous aspects for those who are not entirely led away by the superficial. One of the most laughable spectacles of the day is the universal outcry about what our innocent masters and their saintly hirelings of the Press and pulpit are pleased to call the “atrocities of the Huns.” Mark ! it is not here denied that there have been appalling outrages committed by the Kaiser’s hosts. That is not the question with which we are at the moment concerned. It is the capitalist hands upheld in horror, and the round-eyed astonishment of our good, kind masters, that engage our amused attention.

They are astounded and shocked to a marked degree at every manifestation of the rules of warfare adopted by the German military authorities, and run whining like chastised curs about the world, complaining in a childish snivel of every method that presses hardly upon themselves, but which, for various reasons, does not, for the moment, commend itself to the allies.

What the reasons for all this singsong of nauseating hypocrisy are is pretty obvious, and will be returned to later. But for the moment let us deal with the ludicrously clumsy effort of Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian author, to exploit the bestial fruits of a bestial system for the benefit of the master class of Britain, France, Russia and Belgium.

Maeterlinck is often spoken of as the “Belgian Shakespeare,” and it may be noted that the English bard himself was not above prostituting his talents in order to curry favour with the great ones of the earth. Henceforth, then, the admirers of Maeterlinck may claim for him a further point of Shakespearean resemblance, by the evidence of a very foolish article of his which was published by the “Daily Mail” and the “Evening News” (Sept. 14th).

Speaking of the atrocities Maeterlinck says:

   “It is not true that in this gigantic crime there are innocent and guilty, or degrees of guilt. They stand on one level, all those who nave taken part in it. . . . It is, very simply, the German, from one end of his country to the other, who stands revealed as a beast of prey . . . We have here no wretched slaves dragged along by a tyrant King, who alone is responsible. Nations have the government they deserve, or rather, the government they have is truly no more than the magnified and public projection of the private morality and mentality of the nation.
  “If eighty million innocent people select and support a monstrous King, those eighty million innocent people merely expose the inherent falseness and superficiality of their innocence; and it is the monster they maintain at their head who stands for all that is true in their nature . . .
   “They must be destroyed as we destroy a nest of wasps, since we know that these can never change into a nest of bees.
   “And even though individually and singly the Germans were all innocent and merely led astray, they are none the less guilty in the mass.   “This is the guilt that counts . . . because it lays bare, underneath their superficial innocence, the subconscious criminality of all.
    “No influence can prevail on the unconscious or the subconscious. It never evolves. Let there come a thousand years of civilisation, a thousand years of peace, with all possible refinements of art and of education, the subconscious element of the German spirit, which is its unvarying element, will remain absolutely the same as it is to-day; and would declare itself, when the opportunity came, under the same aspect, with the same infamy.”

This is the pronouncement of one of the “master-minds” of Europe. It is, presumably, the best this burning patriot of Belgium could do to reduce the “modern Huns” to their proper level, immeasurably below the race under King Albert. Let us see, however, if this pronouncement is logically sound, where it must inevitably lead us to.

On the West Coast of Africa is a large tract of country called the Congo Free State. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of that country it was found that in the great forests of the region there grew abundantly the trees from which rubber is obtained. As usually happens when white men discover defenceless natives in a country whose virgin forests are rich in rubber trees, the aborigines were enslaved and compelled to gather the rubber for their white masters.

The particular case of the Congo Free State formed the subject of a British enquiry by Commissioner Casement, whose report disclosed atrocities more villainous, if that were possible, than anything which has yet been charged against the Germans in Belgium.

The sickening details it is not necessary to more than touch upon. Terrorism was the foundation of the Congo system of exploitation. How the feet of natives were cut off because the amount of rubber they collected did not (as indeed, it never could) satisfy the greed of their masters; how the unfortunate blacks were suspended over slow fires and roasted to death; how a country was devastated in order to pile up wealth for foreign invaders: all this can be read elsewhere by those whose memories need refreshing.

To pile up wealth for whom? For Germans? Oh no! for Belgians. If the German “culture” found its expression in the stark outrages of the smiling plains of Belgium, Belgian “culture” asserted itself in the blood-reeking shambles of the Congo rubber fields. If the German “culture” as exemplified at Louvain and Tirlemont, was incidental to the stirring and (as our capitalist masters will have it) not ignoble romance of war, the Belgian “culture,” as displayed in the African forests, was an integral part of the noble arts of peace. So much for the merits of the respective instances.

Now how may the arguments of Maeterlinck be applied to the case of the Belgian “culture” on the Congo? The acts of violence and outrage were admittedly monstrous. The chief responsibility for them was brought home to that inhuman monster, Leopold, the late King of the Belgians, who made millions out of the death-agonies of braver, cleaner, better, and far lees savage men and women than himself. Here was a “monstrous King,” if ever there was one.

Are we to say, then, with the author of “The Blue Bird," that this “monstrous King” of the Belgians “stands [or did stand] for all that is true in their nature” ? Are we to declare that he, and those who governed with him, were “truly no more than the magnified and public projection of the private morality and mentality of the nation” ? Are we to assert that the Belgian, “from one end of his country to the other, stands revealed as a beast of prey” ? Are we to conclude that “a thousand years of civilisation, a thousand years of peace, with all possible refinements of art and of education,” would find the Belgian people so callous, so brutalised, so low in the scale of human development, that the “morality and mentality of the nation,” as exhibited, according to the arguments of Maurice Maeterlinck, on the Congo, “ would declare itself, when the opportunity came, under the same aspect, with the same infamy” ? If so, then the “modern Huns” would be performing a worthy service to humanity at large by blotting the Belgian race off the face of the earth.

It is not only the Belgians, however, who have proved themselves to be quite the equals of the Germans in the matter of perpetrating outrages that “stagger humanity.” In this respect Russia is so notorious that it is hardly necessary to do more than whisper the name. How the Press of the world rang, a decade or so ago, with the infamies that made the names of the Tzar and his Cossacks stink in the nostrils of men! The mention of Father Gapon will suffice to refresh even the memory of the sycophant Maeterlinck. The latter says: "Through the whole course of history two distinct will-powers have been noticed that would seem to be opposed, elemental manifestations of the spirit of our globe : the one seeking only evil, injustice, tyranny, and suffering, while the other strives for liberty, the right, radiance, and joy. These two powers stand once again face to face ; our opportunity now is to annihilate the one that comes from below.” How much less than “a thousand years of civilisation,”  has sufficed to evolve from “the subconscious element ” of the Russian spirit which gave us the callous butchery of the unarmed workers in St. Petersburg on “Bloody Sunday,” which has asserted itself in a never-ending stream of misery rolling its pitiful flood across the dreary waste to the appalling doom of Siberia, that has glutted its blood lust in innumerable pogroms against helpless and inoffensive Jews—how much less than “a thousand years of peace” has been sufficient to develop out of this unpromising material that “will power” which “strives for liberty, the right, radiance, and joy ”!

Of course, now that “gallant Belgium,” “democratic France,” and “upright and honest Britain" are linked with Russia in the greatest of all atrocities, we are bidden to forget all these things. More even than this, these very barbarities which Russia has inflicted upon her subject races, and particularly upon her,working class, are adduced as evidence of the “great sacrifices” Russia has made on behalf of freedom. And as if this did not achieve the very height of imaginative extravagance, a writer in the “Daily Chronicle” of September 24th coolly informs us that “Russian bureaucracy and autocracy is (sic) a legacy from Germany and German influences. Ever since the days of Peter the Great. Russia has been governed under ideas which have been supplied her by the Prussian Junkers, and now the time has come when the whole Russian people see the chance of freeing themselves from these influences for ever.”

That Germany must bear the blame for all the innocent blood that has soddened the soil of Russia since Peter the Great’s day is ludicrous enough in all conscience, but the spectacle that we are invited to gaze upon, of the Tsar and those who rule Russia “under ideas supplied by Prussian Junkers,” waging war in order to gain the freedom to govern according to the beatific traditions of Western Liberalism is too much for our sobriety. Albeit, it demonstrates with what rubbish these prostitutes of the Press are prepared to insult the intelligence of the working class in order to bolster up the case of their paymasters.

France, also—democratic, chivalric France—has her gobbeted pages of history. The Massacre of S. Bartholomew is a classic example of foul treachery and degraded brutality that will stand so long as dastardly human deeds find s recorder at all. The history of Paris, however, bristles with shameful atrocities, among which it is sufficient to instance—not the suppression, don't think it was that — but the bloody vengeance wreaked upon the workers of Paris for the Commune of 1871. After the fighting ceased 30,000 working men, women, and children of Paris were butchered in cold blood, while the conditions under which those were interned who were to be transported to New Caledonia are too revolting to be printed here. Let those who find themselves impressed with the idea that barbarity is the special attribute of the “modern Huns” read the history of the Paris Commune, and a new light will break in upon them concerning another of Britain's allies.

Nor is Britain herself above the perpetration of atrocious outrage, both at home and abroad. The Boer War furnished examples enough, in spite of official whitewash. The Boer general, Beyers, has just stated that every Boer farmer’s house was a Louvain, and Smuts, with all his fervent turn-coat patriotism, could not deny the statement he could only endeavour to draw the curtain over it

The history of the British rule in India, where famine has succeeded famine, and multitudes have sunk down in their wretched hovels and die of starvation whilst their white masters were exporting the grain Indian people had grown, puts Britain on a level with any Huns, ancient or modern.

But let us come nearer home. How many working-class butcheries have been perpetrated in these islands of recent years? Only three years ago the same military support which has now been given to capitalist France was promised and rendered to the railway magnates of England in order to enable them to force their men to continue to work for 16s and 17s. a week That ended in butchery. Tonypandy is another instance that will be fresh in the memory of many, while we have the testimony of the Liberal politician who “saved the Government” from defeat, Mr. Handel Booth, that in Dublin during a recent labour struggle, women of the working class were dragged from their homes by the hair of their heads and brutally batoned by the police. The same witness also affirmed, what was amply borne out by others, that one of the victims of the struggle was felled by a police truncheon, and then deliberately beaten to death by several policemen as he lay helpless on the ground.

How did the modern Huns of capitalist Britain meet the charge of these cowardly atrocities, committed at their behest and in their profit-mongering interests, and witnessed by one of their own politicians? By resorting to that rich product of Western Liberalism — a sham enquiry—and appointing legal bullies to bully the awkward witness out of Court.

The “Hun” in the British master class is revealed in a thousand places. At the very time that the war broke out instances were causing unpleasant attention to be turned to our masters’ methods. There was the callous butchery in Dublin, engineered by rival politicians, when four people were done to death, among whom a woman was shot dead, and a boy who was killed received a bullet wound in the back and a bayonet thrust in the thigh. The war came opportunely to divert public attention from this Irish “Louvain.” Again, when war broke out thousands of men in the building trades in London had been for many months deprived of their sole means of livelihood—condemned, together with their wives and children, to starvation because they refused to sign a degrading and economically undermining contract form. No snuffling Harold Begbie thought to ask of the starving victims of that “battle for liberty,” the ironic question : “What will you lack'. Sonny?"

British history, ancient and modern, at home and abroad, is a veritable fabric of atrocity, which can find no parallel in the history of any other race on earth. The early invaders of India may have perpetrated orgies of bloodshed that only the whole European civilisation has been able, after nineteen hundred years of Christian humbug, to surpass; the industrial magnates of America may have provided, in the piping times of peace, examples of lawless violence so open, so naked and unashamed, as to startle even us ; but for long exercised, persistent, callous brutality, which is none the less fiendish because it has evolved the cunning to mask itself with legal shams and social sophistries, one can find nothing approaching the industrial history of England.

Let those who want to whine about the atrocities of the Germans first explain away the methods by which the peasantry of feudal England were deprived of their lands and driven from the countryside to become factory slaves ; let them cleanse, if they can, the fortunes of the great cotton families of the blood and agony-drops of the thousands of working class children who were murdered to make those fortunes ; let them blot out from the memory the scores of shamble scenes from Peterloo to Dublin, in which unarmed British workers have fallen to British bullets; let them tell us what higher “culture” than that of the “modern Huns” is indicated in the preventable sacrifice of railway shunters’ lives, the raising of the load line of ships, the contemptuous ignoring of the laws of the mining Acts because the fine for launching 400 miners into eternity is only £24.

Maeterlinck and other sycophantic “intellectuals,” playing their prostitute part in the upholding of that system which gives them their “place in the sun,” may rail and rave as only they know bow, about the German atrocities, but their motives are clear enough. They desire to do two things to inflame the workers of Britain, France, Russia and Belgium against Germany, and to hide the truth.

And the truth is that atrocity is not a national attribute anywhere or at any time. On the contrary, atrocity belongs, not to nations, but to systems. It is of the very nature of all systems of plunder, and it was and is the common attribute of the Huns of Attila, the Huns of the Kaiser, and the Huns of Asquith, Penrhyn, Claude Hamilton & Co, and the Huns of Rockefeller and of Carnegie in America, Werner, Beit & Co in South Africa, Tipoo Tib in Central Africa, and White Wolf in China because all these ancient and modern Attilas were or are engaged in the robbery of their fellows.

The Maeterlincks and other lickspittles of the capitalist class hope, by their outcry against the German atrocities, to obscure the fact that THE atrocity is not Louvain or Tirlenoont or Rheims, but the war itself ; not the blood of unarmed victims spilled at the instance of German bullies of the master class, but the whole hell of horrors which has been let loose upon the world by the MASTER CLASS of Europe—Belgian, French. British, and Russian no less than German. Of this colossal atrocity, the bestial and inevitable fruits of the robbery of the working class of the world, Louvain and the other German outrages are but a part,  and a comparatively insignificant part.

Refuse, therefore, to have your mental balance upset by the squealing of those who raise the cry of “German barbarism.'' There can be nothing but barbarism in those who have launched fifteen millions of working men in the field of death in order to decide who shall control the markets where the wealth stolen from the workers may be sold. And those for whom the ; Maeterlincks speak would welcome ANY atrocities that would, by obsessing the public mind with the false idea that atrocity is a national trait of the German race, prevent the workers from realising that it is the common characteristic of the whole capitalist class, as is revealed in every mill and mine and shunting yard in Britain, in the Carnegie massacre at Pittsburg and the Rockefeller holocaust in Ludlow City, in the Italian brutalities in Morocco, in the rubber shambles of the Congo and the Putumayo, in the death-trap compounds of the Rand, in the slaughter of Socialists by the new-risen and triumphant capitalists of China and Japan, and in the uncountable acts of barbarity by which the capitalists of every country the wide world over establish and maintain their position of plundering dominance over the working class.

A. E. Jacomb

A Tooting Tootle (1914)

Party News from the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

A propaganda week has once more been carried to a successful issue by the Tooting Branch. Every night speakers addressed good audiences from the van in the Broadway. The merits of our literature were proclaimed, with gratifying results. Free discussion and open platform, as usual, ensured orderly meetings. The steady and persistent flow of propaganda carried on for a number of years in Tooting has its reflection in the branch membership, and the formation of a Wimbledon branch before the summer season ends is a probability as a result of good Saturday-night meetings held there. The fight is also carried into Balham (Ormley Rd.) on Thursdays in the presence of large and attentive audiences. Altogether five good meetings are held every week (weather permitting), which enables the branch to coach its half-a-dozen young speakers and so equip them for the lecture fist.

Newsagents in the district have been induced to stock the "S. S.,” a committee having been formed with that object. In short, the Tooting Branch is active and is growing as a consequence. But there is much to do yet. The Tooting audience with its sympathetic attitude must be got to realise that there is more satisfaction gained by joining up and entering into the fight with us; nay, more, that it is their duty to do so.

Tooty

Editorial: The Inkslinger Brigade (1914)

Editorial from the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The inky patriots, the Labour "leaders" and pseudo-Socialists, are rushing to the assistance of the capitalist class in their frantic efforts to obtain cheap recruits and, as in the past, it is left to the Socialist Party to state the working-class position on the matter.

From our platform and in our Press, in face of all opposition, we have always given the only advice that is consistent with class-conscious action.

In "piping times of peace" we have told the workers of this country that their interests are irrevocably bound up with the interests of the workers the world over, and that their enemy, the capitalist class, os one and indivisible whenever and wherever capitalist interests are in any way jeopordised  by the organised working class. In time of war, of international crisis and financial panic, we have the same story to tell, because that story is true and indisputable.

The gang of ink-slingers hired by the capitalist Press to write just what is in the interests of their paymasters, are urging the workers to fight. Their leading articles, their psalms and songs are all to the same effect. The miners who in 1912 were described as "scum" by the same leader writers; the builders' labourers who were locked out to starve for 27 weeks in an attempt to force them to sign away their right to resist the demands of the bosses; the transport workers who were so recently batoned into submission; the Irish whose relatives and friends were ruthlessly butchered in Dublin because they dared to strike; even the South African workers, scarcely recovered from the wounds received in reply to a demand for a living wage, all are now urged to fight.

"The King and Country needs them"! What a different story is now told! The "scum" are heroes. Those who, when fighting for bread for wife and child were "cowardly agitators" are now Brave Britons when appealed to to fight in defence of the landlord's property and the capitalist's trade.

Fellow workers, why is it you are so easily cajoled by such obvious twaddle as the "honour of Britain" and are still more sacred mumbo-jumbo, "the integrity of small States," so soon after the Johannesburg slaughter and the lesson of Transvaal?

You are indeed "brave boys" when you are wanted to defend the right of the "British" landlord to levy toll; to risk your lives that British capitalists may dispose of the surplus values they have robbed from you. And when master says "turn," you all turn. When it was to the interest of the boss to curse the Boers you cursed them and screeched your desire to wring the necks of Kruger and his generals. But the scene changed and Master wanted the Boers to suppress the white miners, and then—well, you obliged and you cheered the Boers. When the mad Kaiser came to this country to confab with his worthy cousin, you lined the streets and shouted yourselves hoarse with cheers for the German Emperor, while now the Kaiser and all his best are but the spawn of hell.

While yet the cries of horror resound, cries of righteous indignation at the brutal atrocities of the Congo, and "red rubber" stained with the blood of the people for the profit of Leopold, King of the Belgians; and ere the outcry against "Bloody Nick," the Tzar of all the Russias, is forgotten, you cheer the "brave Belgians" and point to the "civilising" influences of the Muscovite hosts, the gentle Cossack, our allies.

Does the secret lie in the Press? Each and all the rags that are published for the delectation of the workers tell the same tale, and so used are the workers to "putting their thinking out," that the story, with sundry trimmings and speeches of gore, garnished with sentiment and cheap melodrama, has only to be repeated times enough in order to be believed, while editors and leader writers are to be found galore, ready to sell their pens for any dirty work. "It is in your interest to kill the German worker," they reiterate, and on the other side of the Channel the same tale is being told except that it is the English worker who is to be butchered. So the German worker turns out with the rifle to meet the British worker similarly armed, and Master downs the pockets of both.

Those who turn out to think for themselves and find no honour in trade wars or glory in slaughter; who see only butchery of men and starvation of children, whose interests are not served in the "game of kings"; those who endeavour to voice and pen to rouse the working class to a sense of their responsibility; those who tell the truth as they know it because it is the truth and not because it pays; they should be suppressed, should be torn to pieces by the well-dressed hooligan mob mad with jingo fever — if the writers of the jingo Press had their way. Ah, yes! such is the freedom of the Press.

As instance "The Globe." "The Globe" is a patriotic paper and is owned by patriotic Britishers. It tells us (Aug. 28th) that it "has nothing to say against Socialists as such," a rather frank admission based, no doubt, upon the sad experience of one of its owners, Mr. Samuel Samuels, who proved that he knew nothing about Socialism in a recent debate with a member of this Party. We are further informed that "some of these detestable creatures, who have degraded and disgraced the Socialist leaders, are still haranguing small mobs in Hyde Park in language which, in times of peace, we are accustomed to pass over with contempt." That explains why Samuel "debated" with us. They could hardly have treated us with more contumely had they sent the office boy.

Then these inky patriots tells us that they "have heard of speakers who tell their audiences that they owe no allegiance to either King or Country, that they as soon be governed by the Kaiser as by King George, and that the struggle in which we are now engaged does not concern the working classes in the least." In response to this horrible doctrine we would expect the editor or the office boy at "The Globe" to tell us what the workers have to gain by war and why they should fight each other, but they don't—which goes to further prove that "they have not a word to say against the Socialist." And having no argument they resort to the gutter in a vain attempt to silence us. The dirty suggestion is that "it might perhaps be undesirable in the general in the general interests of public order that the business should be left to the crowd." It might perhaps. There is the direct incitement to rush the platform and do by numbers what they cannot do by argument. The advice has been taken and one local doctor who, judging by his intelligence, is a reader of "The Globe," attempted  to rush our platform at Hyde Park and who, when faced with a man half his size with his coat off, scuttled away like a rat.

These brave patriots are ready to sling ink by the quart, and to advise others to do the fighting: they will urge an excited crowd to pummel one with whom they disagree, but suggest that they fight, and they run like rabbits.

Where we are holding large and successful meetings the local Press and platform are being used for the same purpose: to incite a crowd to silence us by any dirty method. There is, however, but one way to silence us. They may rush our meetings with the aid of hired hooligans, but our work among the workers will still go on. They may suppress our paper, but we shall still preach Socialism. When they show our facts to be fiction and our conclusions to be false, then and then only will our voice by still.

In the meantime they may deafen the workers with the ringing of bells and blind them with the wagging of flags, but time is with us, and sooner or later the still small voice of Truth will be heard amid the babel of tongues, and the inkslingers and their like, who stir up the ignorant to assist them in their dirty work, will meet their just deserts.

The Lust of War. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wars and rumours of wars are round about,
And hell let loose, and death and dumb despair;
The groans of dying men, the victor's shout,
Mingle, befouling what was once so fair.
I feel again the old contempt arise
For men and all men's ways of greed and waste;
World-weariness lies heavy on my eyes;
The joy of life is bitter to the taste.
Is it not tragic, pitiful as well,
That men should dabble in their comrades' gore
To slake their masters' blood and money-lust;
Should suffer all the pains and pangs of hell,
Binding their fetters tighter than before,
Grinding their faces in the blood and dust.

F. J. Webb.