Editorial: A Few Words on the Atlantic Charter (1941)

Editorial from the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Atlantic Charter drafted by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill lays down the principles of the post-war international settlement as viewed by the U.S.A. and Britain. It has now received the general support of Russia and of the small Powers allied against Germany. It suggests obvious comparisons with the attempt to settle world affairs after the last war and with the scheme the German Government has put forward for enforcement if they are the victors. If it were as easy to dispose of awkward problems as it is to draft fine sounding proclamations we could perhaps agree about the superiority of the Atlantic Charter over the Versailles settlement and over the German plan. There is this to be said for the Atlantic Charter, that it is phrased in terms which do not envisage dividing up the spoils of world trade for the benefit of the victors. In Point 4 it pledges Great Britain and the U.S.A. that they will endeavour, “with due respect for their existing obligations” (more about this later) “to further enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.”

This has been compared with the third of President Wilson’s 14 points drafted in 1918, which promised similar equality of trade conditions, but only “among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.” In other words, Germany and her allies were in effect barred.

Similarly it may be compared with the plan for world settlement recently elaborated by one of the leading Nazi economists, Werner Daitz. This was summarised in the Times (September 10th, 1941); under this plan the world is to be divided into six groups, the East-Asiatic, the Indo-Malay, the European, the African, the North American and the South American. The European, which is to take in all Western Russia and Great Britain, is to be under German dominance and according to Daitz it will have complete control over Africa, and there is to be no nonsense of equal trading conditions: —

“Europe will exercise a dominating power over the world. She will need much less food and raw materials from oversea than heretofore, but she will remain the greatest selling market for the countries producing rawstuffs. Consequently, she will be able to dictate the terms on which she buys. What will happen to Australia if Germany refuses her wool ? Or to the Argentine if she declines her beef ? Or to the United States if she will have no cotton? Europe will be able to use the fact that she is the world’s greatest consumer and the world’s intensest centre of industrial production as a political lever to control the other Lebensraume.”

Promise and Performance

But while the words and sentiments differ, what about the prospect of fulfilment? It will not be forgotten that when President Wilson had been disposed of other men and other interests actually dominated the settlement, and paid not even lip-service to the liberal sentiments expressed by Wilson in others of his 14 Points.

Already there has been questioning about that innocent little clause in the Atlantic Charter which reads: “With due respect for their existing obligations.” At the meeting of the nine allied Governments held in London, on September 24th, the representative of the Dutch Government raised objection and said “it was the view of his Government that this reservation might diminish the beneficial effect of the whole clause.”—(News-Chronicle, September 25th, 1941.)

The City Editor of the same journal supported the Dutch Government’s protest though pointing out that that Government too is asking preferential treatment for its own interest. He added: —

“Politicians, business men and leading civil servants are already busily engaged in explaining away Point 4. Some of them are even reported to have argued with scant tact; in the United States that we must maintain exchange control and trade bilateralism as permanent features of our economic set-up, since we “cannot afford” to do without them.

Bilateralism is the system of trade which says, “I won’t buy from you unless you buy as much from me.” That system is in direct and irreconcilable conflict with the equal access principle, which says, “I submit to no conditions from those to whom I sell and impose no conditions on those from whom I buy.”

If Point 4 of the Atlantic Charter means anything at all, it means adherence to the latter, “multilateral,” system of trade, and it is disquieting to find even distinguished economists setting at defiance both our signature to the Atlantic Charter and the most elementary doctrines of their own science”.— (News Chronicle, September 25th, 1941.)

So already it is plain that Clause 4 is going to have a rough passage and if its opponents have their way, to quote the News-Chronicle, “all that in practice is likely to be left of a fine principle is a fine phrase.”

Who will Slay the Capitalist Giants?

All the emphasis in the Atlantic Charter is laid on the relations between nations, but what about the great capitalist combines at home? The Atlantic Charter sees the need to protect the small nations against dominance by the larger ones if they are to trade and have access to raw materials on equal terms. But if capitalism is to continue, as Roosevelt and Churchill take for granted that it will, how is this to be done? How will they deal with the great capitalist concerns like Unilever, Imperial Chemical Industries and similar concerns in other lands? Who is going to slay these giant international semi-monopolies which are the real dominators of world trade? What is the use of saying that trade is on equal terms, a fair field and no favour, when these octopus organisations are left with their tentacles sprawling across the globe, not to mention the fact that they will naturally seek to use their great influence with governments to advance their interests.

This is the acid test of the talk of putting capitalist trade on a better basis. Is there any intention among the upholders of capitalism of reversing a half century of development towards bigger and bigger monopolies? Some twenty years ago a Labour leader, Mr. J. R. Clynes, said that his party thought it better to have a large number of small capitalists than a small number of large ones. Would Mr. Clynes or any other Labour leader say that to-day? Indeed, how could they when they are committed to a programme of amalgamation and formation of great public utility corporations ?

Is Agriculture to be Destroyed by Cheap Foreign Imports ?

There is another awkward fact to be faced by those who think that fine words about equal trade conditions are a contribution to settling the world’s problems. Are any countries to be allowed to impose protective tariffs or give subsidies to agriculture or other industries in order to save them from bankruptcy in face of a flood of cheaper products from abroad ? The News-Chronicle, true to its free-trade doctrines, says that the Atlantic Charter rules out these practices, as it logically does, but where do the Conservative Party and the Labour Party stand ? The Conservatives and many individuals in the Labour Party are already committed to a policy of protecting agriculture in Britain against a flood of imports from countries able to grow food more cheaply. What do they understand by Clause 4? And if they demand protective measures or subsidies for agriculture how will they object to Germany and other countries following a similar line for various industries ? In short, how will the trade scramble after this war be any different from that before the war’?

Twenty odd years ago the Labour Party had an answer. They were prepared to take the free trade line and let agriculture or any other industry sink or swim without aid. In their 1918 “Labour and the new social order,” they said “we ourselves object to all Protective Customs Tariffs,” and on the question of agriculture they said specifically that nothing must be done which would raise the price of foodstuffs here above the price level of foodstuffs imported from abroad.

They would no doubt give a somewhat different answer now but change is not necessarily progress, and the task of making capitalism work harmoniously is at least as difficult now as it was then. Socialists have no doubt about their attitude. Capitalism cannot be made to work satisfactorily. It must be abolished. Those who think differently, and this includes all those who have hastened to applaud the sentiments of the Atlantic Charter, should at least face up to these problems and decide where they stand.

Will Family Allowances Cure Poverty? (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the last war perhaps the most popular reform proposal and one that was most attractive to the workers was the plan to have a national minimum wage below which no worker should be paid. The Labour Party supported it and the Independent Labour Party carried on much propaganda for a more elaborate scheme called “The Living Income.” It lost its popularity particularly after the Labour Government would have nothing to do with it. Now its place has been taken by the growing popularity of “family allowances,” the payment of grants by employers or the State to help support the children of working class families. Since it is popularised in the form of an addition to existing wages it has a specious attractiveness. Every mother who thinks that she will have more to spend on her children is inclined to support the scheme. Indeed it may be conceded that if it were introduced at least some families with a very small income might be better off, at least for a time. But what of the wider aspects ? Will it raise or help to raise the working class as a whole out of poverty ? Will it even be a permanent gain for those who are better off at first ? Will it mean an addition to the wages of the working class or only a redistribution of the total amount of wages among the workers, so that some gain and others lose? Will it strengthen the trade union efforts of the workers in their struggle against the employers or will it weaken them by setting the married against the single ?

We can get an answer from the actual experience of capitalism and from the more candid admissions of the advocates of the scheme.

The broad answer is that any change which lowers the cost of living for the workers immediately produces a tendency for wages to come down accordingly and experience of family allowance schemes show that they are no exception. Vibart in his “Family Allowances in Practice” quotes the statements of continental trade union officials based on their experience. He writes : —

“All these statements tend to suggest that the allowances have been and are regarded as a part of labour’s remuneration and that the idea of “more allowance, less wage,” was familiar to many of the employers and was carried into practice by some of them.”

Mr. L. Ross, of the Australian Labour Party, using the experience of family allowances in Australia, wrote that—

“The new South Wales Scheme instead of redistributing wealth actually meant a reshuffling of wages between single and married men”.—(Socialist Review, December, 1928.)

When the advocates of family allowances gave evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service in London in 1930 they were quite prepared to consider providing the allowances “by a small reduction in the salaries either of men or women.” The question Socialists would put to all of the advocates of family allowances is this: If the object of the allowances is to abolish the poverty of a section of the workers, as it is claimed to be, and since Socialism alone will abolish poverty entirely, why are they opposed to Socialism? To the workers in general we say : “Which do you prefer, capitalism plus the palliative of family allowances or Socialism under which all such palliatives will be unnecessary ?”

Mr. Keynes Goes to the Bank of England (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The news that Mr. J. M. Keynes, the “rebel against financial orthodoxy,” has become a director of the Bank of England and may in due course become governor when Mr. Montague Norman retires, inspires great hopes among his admirers in the Labour Party, but it will not cause even the slightest flutter of excitement among Socialists. His admirers may congratulate themselves at his appointment because he opposed the return to the gold standard in 1925 and advocated “unorthodox” proposals such as a managed currency and State control of interest rates, but they should remember his own words: “My trouble has been that orthodoxy has always caught up with me.” In other words, his quarrel with the administrators of capitalist finance has always been at bottom that they did not know their job properly, and should take some tips from him. He has never been concerned with our job of getting rid of capitalism.

It will be recalled that Mr. Keynes was active early in the war with his scheme for “compulsory savings,” the idea being that a proportion of every wage should be deducted and paid to the Government for war expenditure, and that the amount should be repaid after the war. The scheme is now applied in a modified form to income tax payments, part of which will be returned later on. Mr. Keynes may claim to have provided the Government with a shrewd scheme for the painless extraction of part of wages but it would be interesting if he could be induced to explain exactly how the workers are going to get it back after the war. Of course they will receive the money, but what exactly will be the real result in terms of work and articles of consumption ?

The first point to notice is that the labour and materials which go into shells and bombs and guns and are destroyed in the war no longer exist. They cannot be brought back. So that if, during wartime, the workers spend only part of their wages on food, clothing, etc., and forego other consumption in order that shells may be produced and destroyed they have in effect and for the time being suffered a reduction of wages.

But, say Mr. Keynes and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the workers have given up during the war will be made up to them afterwards. In other words if, during a war a nominal wage of say £5 a week was reduced to £4 a week, a nominal wage of £4 after the war will be brought up to £5 by these payments. (These figures are not actual ones but are merely taken for illustration.) But after the war (as always) it will be the working class who will be producing the articles which all the nation consumes. Then (as always) the wealth the workers produce will belong to the capitalist class, and what the workers get out of the total will be their wages. If they are to get a larger amount it can be in two ways, either by reducing the share that goes to the propertied class or by working harder and producing a larger total. Remembering what happened after the last war (the great “work harder, produce more” campaign, carried on by the Government and by a group of Labour leaders and economists) we may well anticipate that the workers will be told that the great destruction of the war has to be made good and will be asked to provide their own “bonuses” by working harder. If they don’t, they will certainly be told by employers that there isn’t enough to go round and wages must be reduced. Do Mr. Keynes and the Government intend to rack their brains finding some cast-iron scheme for preventing wages from being reduced (and prices from rising), and for preventing employers from dismissing workers, in short a scheme for forcing an all-round reduction of the wealth of the propertied class in order to raise the standard of living of the workers?

An illustration may help to show the essence of the matter. There was once a tenant who worked some acres of land on condition that he surrendered half his crop to the landlord. Then came war and the landlord said we shall each have to hand over some of our share to feed the troops, but your loss will be put right for you later on. When later on came, the landlord said, “Now that the destruction of the war has to be made good, I am afraid I still can’t let you have more than half the crop, but the promise will be kept. You shall have a larger amount, for I will let you work harder and produce a, bigger crop. Thus your half will be larger and you will be repaid for what you gave up.” And the tenant, while not very clear about the matter, had a feeling that there was something wrong somewhere.

It would certainly be interesting to have the shrewd Mr. Keynes explain the second part of the trick of turning your butter into guns and getting the butter back afterwards.

P. S.

The S.L.P. and the Formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920 (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard 

In a long and angry statement headed ‘The ‘Truthful’ S.P.G.B.” the Socialist, organ of the Socialist Labour Party of Great Britain, charges us with downright lying in the following passage which appeared in the Socialist Standard of July, 1941, in the article, “A Comparison” : —

“Mention must be made, also, of one of the most remarkable developments of the post-war world, viz., the formation of the Communist Party, by the fusion of the British Socialist Party, Workers’ Socialist Federation, South Wales Socialist Society, and the Socialist Labour Party.”

The gist of the complaint made by the Socialist is that the above statement is untrue, and that the writer of it could easily have verified the facts if he had wanted to do so. In particular the Socialist says:—

“Never in the whole of its history has the Socialist Labour Party fused, united, federated nor anything of the sort with any other Party whatsoever. It has never had the slightest association with the C.P.G.B. except that of antagonist. It has never even had under consideration any question of fusion with the Communist Party.”

The writer adds that the statement published in the Socialist Standard is also false as regards the other organisations mentioned. He states that there were three bodies formed calling themselves the Communist Party: —

“The first Communist Party (for there have been several) was formed by the unity of the Workers’ Socialist Federation with the South Wales Socialist Society under the patronage of Sylvia Pankhurst and Eden and Cedar Paul. It contained no member of the S.L.P. and so far as records go, not even an ex-member of the Party. Some time later the next Communist Party was formed consisting of the B.S.P. together with some odds and ends from various quarters, amongst which were some ex-members who had been thrown out of the S.L.P. earlier, and also some ex-members of the S.P.G.B.

At the time the above events took place, the present Communist Party was as yet unborn. The C.P.G.B. was the third Communist Party to be formed.”

Now as far as we are concerned the only question that matters is the actual facts of the case, and if these are to be arrived at the writer in the Socialist could have helped by being less heated and abusive and by giving the full facts himself. As it is he leaves unexplained the circumstances surrounding the formation of the third Communist Party, the one now in existence. Also, although he several times says that the facts could easily have been verified he does not say where this could have been done and does not mention that the statement made in the Socialist Standard, though possibly inaccurate, is an account which has been accepted and has found its way into print in a number of quarters.

For example, Mr. Allen Hutt, a Communist writer, in his “The Post-War History of the British Working Class,” says: —

“At a convention in London over the week-end of July 31st-August 1st, 1920, the C.P.G.B. was formed as a fusion of the B.S.P. with the main part of the S.L.P. and with the South Wales Socialist Society.” —(Page 53.)

Similarly, Mr. G. D. H. Cole, in the Encyclopædia Britannica (Twelfth Edition, Vol. 32, 1922) says of the S.L.P. that

“Most of its more active members, however, passed over to the Communist Party in 1920”.—(Page 507.)

These two gentlemen may of course be mistaken and we certainly do not question the statement that neither the S.L.P. nor any other organisation can be held responsible for the actions of its ex-members.

To put the matter in proper order we suggest that the Socialist might usefully deal with Mr. Hutt’s assertion that “the main part of the S.L.P.” entered the Communist Party. If the Editor of the Socialist likes to send a brief letter containing his version of the facts we shall, of course, be willing to publish it.

Editorial Committee.

From the “Socialist Standard,” Sept. and Oct. 1904 (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard is now in its 38th year of publication, the first issue being published in September, 1904. That is a long time in the history of the Socialist movement, long enough for many popular and instructive movements and events to have been forgotten. For the information of our readers and in order to encourage an interest in these forgotten events it is proposed each month to publish brief extracts from early issues of the Socialist Standard. The extracts below are taken from the two issues, September, 1904, and October, 1904: —

1. From our first editorial: —

“In dealing with all questions affecting the welfare of the working-class our standpoint will be frankly revolutionary. We shall show that the misery, the poverty, and the degradation caused by capitalism grows far more rapidly than does the enacting of palliative legislation for its removal. The adequate alleviation of these ills can be brought about only by a political party having Socialism for its object. So long as the powers of administration are controlled by the capitalist class so long can that class render nugatory any legislation they consider to unduly favour the workers.”—(S.S., September, 1904.)

2. “Coventry Cycle Trade: Female Wage-Slaves Oust Males.”

“More men are out of work in Coventry at present than for many years past, having been displaced by female employees, who have even been set to work upon small capstan lathes and wheel building. . . . The amount of unskilled male labour in the cycle trade has been reduced to a few hands. The skilled mechanics are now feeling the pinch, many having been out of work all this year. . . Girl’s average wage is 15s., and as the watch and silk trades have greatly fallen off, girls are plentiful.” (From a newspaper, August 31st, 1904, reproduced in S.S., September, 1904.)

3. “The Bogey of the Taxes.”

“Whether he is living in a country whose fiscal policy is based on Free Trade or in one in which it is based on Protection; whether the country is highly taxed or otherwise; whether the district he lives in is highly rated or the reverse, makes little difference; the worker finds that whatever of the above conditions he may be under, a subsistence is all that upon an average he obtains.” (S.S., October, 1904.)

4. “The Futility of Reform.”

“We have, therefore, to recognise all the time that it is only possible to secure any real benefit for the people when the people themselves become class conscious, when behind the Socialists in Parliament and on other bodies there stands a solid phalanx of men clear in their knowledge of Socialism and clear in their knowledge that the only way to secure the Socialist Commonwealth of the future is to depend only upon the efforts of themselves and those who have the same class conscious opinions. Therefore we have no palliative programme. The only palliative we shall ever secure is the Socialist society of the future gained by fighting uncompromisingly at all times and in every season.”—(S.S., October, 1904.)

5. The Increase of Lunacy.

“According to the Daily Express, it is an unpleasant and appalling fact that lunacy is steadily increasing in England and Wales, and it is startling to find that whereas one person in every 327 was certified as insane in 1894, the figures for 1904 are one in 288. But to the Socialist there is nothing startling in the fact. As the struggle for existence becomes more intense, as we speed up, as the raging, tearing, hurrying and scurrying possess us, and as the position of the worker becomes more precarious, we must expect that the mental equilibrium will be disturbed.”—(S.S., October, 1904.)

(The position appears to have worsened since 1904. According to the Statistical Abstract, 1939, the number of persons registered as insane in England and Wales in 1938 was 157,353, equivalent to one person in every 263. Expressing the figures in another way, out of every 10,000 of the population the number registered as insane was 33 in 1894, 35 in 1905, 37 in 1914. In 1920 it had declined to 31, but since then it has steadily risen until in 1938 it was 38 in every 10,000 of the population.)

Unity After The War. The Repeal of the Trade Disputes Act (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a recent pronouncement, “The War and the Peace,” which was adopted at the last Labour Party Annual Conference, the Labour Party outlines its views on reconstruction after the war. It is based on an assumption which all experience shows to be an illusion, the assumption that the struggle between the classes will be absent after the war. It states that “war has taught us that without Socialist principles there can be no security,” and in another passage it assumes that there is agreement between the capitalists and the workers about reconstruction: —

“We note that all classes in our society, as at no time in our history, are united to assure to ordinary men and women the full implications of that victory for Freedom and Democracy for which we are fighting.”

If we bring these two passages together and ask if war has really taught the Conservative Party and its supporters that Socialism is a necessity, the answer is obvious.

We do not need to wait till the war is over to see that the defenders of capitalism have not changed their aim or their methods. Reference was made in these columns recently to an article in the Sunday Dispatch (June 8th, 1941) by Mr. F. C. Hooper, “one of the biggest business men in the Midlands and North.” The article was called “The Cranks who want to Change Britain,” and its one argument is that in the main pre-war Britain was all right and should not be changed. A similar view appears in an appeal for funds issued by Sir Thomas Barlow, Treasurer of the Manchester Conservative and Unionist Association, reproduced in the Daily Herald (August 27th, 1941). Sir Thomas takes the Labour Party to task for seeming to have the idea “that the war is being fought to save trade unionism,” and goes on to insist that “the fundamental rights of freedom and particularly of private ownership must be maintained in any new order of society, and there can be no surer safeguard of this than a strong and virile Conservative Party emerging from the war.”

So while it is true that all kinds of people may agree on the loose phrase “victory for freedom and democracy,” when it comes to translating the phrase into concrete terms Sir Thomas Barlow means no interference with private property.

How little the war-time suspension of the party conflict really means in relation to reconstruction is shown further by the fact that the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the Labour Party have each set up their own committee to consider and make recommendations on reconstruction. If there were really unity why the separate committees?

A test case is the question of the repeal of the Trade Disputes Act of 1927 which imposed restrictions on trade unions. The Prime Minister has told the T.U.C. that any change must wait until after the war because a request for the repeal or even modification of the Act would start a discussion that would hamper the war effort (Daily Herald, September 4th, 1941)

.

Meetings are at present taking place of representatives of the Conservative Party and representatives of the T.U.C. to consider possible amendments of the Act, but the Daily Telegraph (September 16th) reports that “feeling against concessions is growing among Conservative M.P.s, who will watch the progress of the talks closely.” It is worth recalling in this matter that the present legal position of the trade unions as a result of the 1927 Act is worse than it was before the last war in spite of similar prophecies of social unity that were made by the Labour Party while that war was in progress.

P. S

Tit-Bits from the Press (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The American Navy.

“When the day of Hitler’s defeat comes, sea-power will again be dominant, and the centre of it will not be in London but in Washington, D.C. Never again will we permit even the British to excel us in sea-power.”—(From a speech by Mr. Knox, Secretary to the U.S. Navy, quoted in Life, March 10th, 1941.)

* * * *

One Suit since the War.

Lord Dulverton, chairman of the Imperial Tobacco Company, is quoted in the Daily Telegraph, of July 15th, as stating that he had bought only one new suit of clothes since the war broke out. If the non-purchase of suits is a measure of patriotism, the writer of these notes can score one off Lord Dulverton, because he hasn’t bought a single suit since the war started. In his case, however, the reason is different. He couldn’t afford it.

Ramo.

This Month's Quotation: Lewis Henry Morgan (1941)

The Front Page quote from the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

   “The Human Race is gradually learning the simple lesson, that the People as a whole are wiser for the Public Good and the Public Prosperity, than any privileged class of men, however refined and cultivated, have ever been, or by any possibility, can ever become."

Lewis H. Morgan ("Ancient Society")

Reconstruction: A Lesson from the Last War (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The act of putting ideas into words should be a means of achieving greater clarity and understanding, for writer as well as reader. It should help to clear the way for action, but often smooth words and rounded phrases serve only as a brake on action. If anyone doubts this he has only to read again some of the optimistic plans for a new world which were being drafted in great number a quarter of a century ago. They promised a world without war, without want and without insecurity. Little or nothing came of it all. Precious years were wasted while the world drifted to another war and now a new generation of sentimental (or sometimes cynical) planners are at work who have seemingly learned nothing and forgotten everything. In international affairs it is only necessary to recall the League of Nations. Hardly a hand is raised in its defence now and the Atlantic Charter drafted by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill did not trouble to mention it.

In the matter of social reconstruction compare the Labour Party’s recent pronouncement, “The War and the Peace," adopted by 2,430,000 votes to 19,000 at the Labour Party’s annual Conference at Whitsuntide, 1941, with an earlier Report, "Labour and the New Social Order," adopted by the Labour Party in 1918. The comparison brings out many interesting points. Much of the new document reproduces the arguments and assumptions of the old. Other parts are different but the difference often reflects not an advance of thought towards Socialism but an adaptation to new trends in capitalism.

The New Order, 1918

The Labour Party’s 1918 plan, "The New Social Order,’’ suffered from three fatal defects. It started off from a wrong belief that the year 1918 was witnessing if not the death, “at any rate the culmination and collapse" of capitalism. “The individualist system of capitalist production," said the Report, “may, we hope, indeed have received a death-blow." Its second error was in assuming that the battle for a new order was already more than half won, based on a belief that one of the main pillars of the Labour programme (called “The Universal Enforcement of a National Minimum") “had already gained the support of the enlightened statesmen and economists of the world" (page 6). This belief was buttressed by a curious confidence that a plan was bound to be accepted if it could be proved that it was based on the teachings of “political' science. " Time and time again this idea crops up in the 20 pages of the Report.

The third defect was that the Labour Party had not a practical alternative to offer to capitalism and one that would be understood and accepted by the electorate. The Report was so worded as to imply in a rather guarded way that the remedy was Socialism. Thus it opened with the statement that “what has to be reconstructed after the war is not this or that Government Department, or this or that piece of social machinery; but, so far as Britain is concerned, society itself," and on page 4 is a reference to the “socialisation of industry." But in the rest of the Report it was clearly shown that the Labour Party was far from being finished with capitalism. It desired to control but not to abolish it; hence, for example, the remark in connection with taxation, “we are at one with the manufacturer, the farmer, and the trader in objecting to taxes interfering with production or commerce, or hammering transport and communications" (page 10). They could hardly be at one with these sections of the capitalist class if their intention was to eliminate them.

All of these assumptions were groundless. Capitalism was not dead. Once the war was over it resumed its course, not much different from what it had been in 1914. The employers, and of course their “enlightened statesmen and economists," soon showed what they thought of the plan and of its detailed proposals when the post-war unrest had to be dealt with. Nor would the Labour Party’s proposals stand serious criticism. They did no doubt appeal to a large number of electors and this enabled the Labour Party to take office in 1923-1924 and again in 1929-1931, but those two Governments found that the administration of capitalism left them no time or inclination to introduce the main parts of their own programme. The Labour Party had by then forgotten its pledge of 1918 that it would “certainly lend no hand" to the revival of capitalism.

It is a melancholy thought that in 1941 most of these assumptions can still be cherished by the Labour Party.

“The Four Pillars of Reconstruction"

The “four pillars" of the 1918 plan were (a) The Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum; (b) the Democratic control of industry; (c) the Revolution in National Finance; and (d) the Surplus Wealth for the Common Good.

There was to be a national minimum wage of 30s. a week (to be revised according to the level of prices), and this was also to be the basis of payment to the unemployed, the sick, the aged, and the victims of industrial accidents.

Industry and the land were to be nationalised, starting immediately with the mines, the railways and electric power, followed by the “expropriation" of the insurance companies. There was to be democracy in industry as well as in Government, with “the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist" (page 12).

Taxation was to be changed and a capital levy introduced, both based on the principle of a very high levy on the highest incomes. The phrasing of these proposals throws light on the outlook of those who drafted the Report and of the delegates who accepted it. Taxation was to rise “up to 16s. or even 19s. in the pound on the highest income of the millionaires," and the capital levy was likewise to start at a small deduction from the wealth of people owning more than £1,000 “and a very much larger percentage from the. millionaires." There seems to have been an idea here that while the very rich must be “soaked" they must not be extinguished, and this presumably is what was meant by the aim defined as “a systematic approach towards a healthy equality" (page 4). Evidently “healthy equality" was a roundabout way of retaining a fairly large measure of inequality of wealth and income though nowhere was there an attempt to explain or justify this.

Among the specific demands were the retention of war-time Government control of industry and of the minimum wage of miners and land workers, “equal pay for men and women," an extended scheme of unemployment insurance, educational reforms and a school leaving age of 16, “complete abolition of the House of Lords," various extensions of the franchise, and the organisation of schemes of public work to even out and to reduce the amount of unemployment.

Among a very large number of other proposals was one for a League of Nations and the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations, and another for the development of international trade.

Nothing Came Of It

It will be seen that hardly any of the proposals came to anything, and those that were adopted have left capitalism essentially unchanged and unregenerate. It is true that the franchise was extended, unemployment insurance was made general, and the League of Nations was set up, but apart from these and a few social reforms neither the Labour Governments nor the Tory and National Governments did anything to carry out the plans. The House of Lords is still with us, enriched by some Labour peers, unemployment has been greater than ever before, taxation on the rich has been increased but without any marked effect on the production of new millionaires, there has been no national minimum and the war-time Minimum Wage Acts for miners and landworkers were soon repealed after the war. No industries have been nationalised.

The inequality of wealth, the national minimum wage and nationalisation of industry are three questions worth a little more attention. Here are two statements on inequality, one from the 1918 Labour Party Report, the other from an article by a prominent Labour Party supporter in World Digest, June, 1941. They show how little capitalism changed.

  Meanwhile innumerable new private fortunes are being heaped up by those who have taken advantage of the nation’s needs; and the one-tenth of the population which owns nine-tenths of the riches of the United Kingdom, far from being made poorer, will find itself, in the aggregate, as a result of the war, drawing in rent and interest and dividends a larger nominal income than before.—(1918 Report, page 19.) 

That was 1918; now for 1941:— .

In Britain on the eve of this war for democratic principles, nearly half the total national income went to 10 per cent, of the people; 80 per cent. of the total capital belonged to less than 6 per cent. of the community. . . .  At one end of the social scale twelve million people earned less than 50s. a week. At the other end there were many thousands with incomes of over £200 a week and some with incomes of over £1,000 a week.—(Mr. Francis Williams, former editor, Daily Herald., World Digest, June, 1941.)

The National Minimum Wage and Nationalisation

In 1918 the Labour Party demanded a national minimum wage for everyone. They thought it had the support of “the enlightened statesmen and economists of the world." On August 18th, 1919, the Lloyd George Government introduced a Bill to set up a Royal Commission “to inquire into legal minimum time-rates of wages," but the Bill was not proceeded with. Then on March 4th, 1924, when the first Labour Government was in office, a Labour motion was put down and carried that “in view of the practically universal acceptance of the principle that a living wage for all workers should be the first charge upon industry . . . this House urges the Government to proceed without delay with the Bill introduced by the Government of the day in 1919, constituting a Commission to inquire into and report upon legal minimum time-rates of wages."

The Labour Government whole-heartedly accepted the principle of the resolution but pleaded pressure of business which would have to be cleared away before anything could be done. The opportunity did not arise before the Labour Government was defeated and left office. Nor was it done in the second Labour Government, and when on March 31st, 1931, Mr. Kirkwood asked the Minister of Labour, Miss M. Bondfield, if it was the intention of the Labour Government to introduce legislation for a minimum wage in mining, steel, textile, engineering, agriculture and other industries and in the railway and other services, her reply was a blunt “ No, sir."

At the present time the idea is given little attention in Labour circles, and minimum wage schemes seem to have been replaced by schemes to pay allowances to families with children.

Then there was the idea of nationalisation, on the lines of the Post Office. It was urgently demanded in 1918 but was pressed with less and less enthusiasm until in 1930 it was quietly allowed to die. In its place came the demand for public utility corporations like the London Passenger Transport Board. This was due not so much to a change of heart but to the recognition that capitalism was moving in a different direction. As has been pointed out by Mr. Geoffrey Crowther, editor of the Economist—

The choice now is not between individual competitive enterprise and centralised organisation by the State; it is between centralised control by the State and by private trust.—(World Digest, September, 1941.)

The Lesson to he Learned

One or two lessons should be plain. Even from the narrow point of view of trying to do the best possible for the workers within the framework of capitalism the 1918 Labour. Programme was wrongly conceived and far too ambitious. If instead of aiming to legislate on everything it had concentrated on a few simple social reform demands it would obviously have had a better chance of achieving some results. Instead, it dissipated interest and energy on all kinds of impracticable projects for reorganising industry when it ought to have realised that any Government facing the post-war troubles of capitalism would be far too busy to want to risk its position by a policy of troublesome and not very popular interference with existing arrangements.

From the wider standpoint of solving the social problems instead of trying to patch things up the Labour Party was in a false position. It wanted to be drastic but had not the understanding or desire to come out for Socialism. Neither the leaders nor the rank and file understood the limitations of their position. They were not prepared to face the fact that there could be no Socialism until the hard and long task of winning over a majority to Socialism had been completed but equally they were not prepared to struggle for those limited things that a non-Socialist majority might have supported. They needed the support of Liberal and Tory and unattached workers if they were to be at all effective but they were forced by their own vague desires for the drastic reform of capitalism to put forward demands which only antagonised large groups of capitalists and groups of workers in the industries affected. They confused two different conceptions, that of a working class struggling to maintain and improve its standards under capitalism and that of a Party aiming to take over the reins of Government and administer things on a different principle. They forgot that capitalism if it is to work at all forces the hands of those who think to control it. Then as now the only alternative to capitalism run on capitalist lines is Socialism, there is no tenable half-way position.

Edgar Hardcastle

An Open Letter to the "Elementary" Teacher (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thirty-five years ago I ventured to address an Open Letter to my " Elementary” colleagues. At that time, old age prospects were dreary; pensions were yet in a foggy offing. The deadening system of “Payment by results” had only been recently lifted; official bullying from Whitehall and local "Boards" meekly borne and too often crudely reproduced by the heads of the "Three Departments" for their unhappy staffs. The drab degradation of the earlier days of "Elementary” education for all concerned (often accentuated in rural districts by clerical tyranny) has yet to be adequately portrayed.

Yes, there has been some amelioration since those bad old days; there has been a marked change for instance, in the relation between teacher and pupil—the free use of Christian name for the latter is significant. But let us not lay the flattering unction to our souls, that the humane teachers and their unions have been the main instrument in salutary changes. Relative amelioration in all directions have followed profound movements rooted in economic soil. The heyday of a lusty, brutal Industrial Revolution period had perforce to give way to a milder, a more cunning, exploitation of the worker, lest the goose that laid the golden egg perish from sheer inanition. A lessening of the awful gap that yawned between inspectors and school staff, improvement in financial position, a more generous curriculum were found by the more farseeing members of the dominant class to be necessary if the rival and formidable Robber Gang across the German Ocean were to be adequately met in the world market. A tamely contented army of "elementaries” was as essential as the “theirs but to do and die" red-coats; one would automatically follow the other. The Iron Duke, reviewing recruits who all stood a first-rate chance of military flogging in a near future, dryly remarked: "I don’t know what the enemy will think of these troops. They frighten me." . . .  It paid the hirers of cannon-fodder to abolish flogging (Bishops protesting), to introduce reforms which produced a Kipling Tommy for the sorry ruffian who stormed Badajos and stood up to Napoleon at Waterloo. It pays the exploiters of the working class (of whom we are members, sweet colleagues) to assist in organising a "loyal" flag-wagging, religious Education Service.

In 1906, Lord Rosebery was referring to the members of our craft as "Captains and Guides of the Democracy." A young man of that year wrote in the Socialist Standard : "The declared reason for the existence of the National Union of Teachers is a furtherance of the interests of the child. Is there not a danger that it may become the happy hunting ground of the eloquent Party man in a hurry to round his own life into a success?" Unfortunately, long intervening years have effected little to make the query out of date. Captains arid guides help to push their paid servants into first-rate political jobs, Macnamara yesterday— some persistent heckler to-day?

The outlook of captains and guides to-day gives small hope of an awakening to stark realities which will face the worker after the war. To exemplify: —

The London Teacher, organ of the Big Unit of the mother Union, only recently, on the occasion of the Tercentenary of the English translation of the Bible, indited enthusiastic and uninformed blurbs on our "precious heritage." Nine-tenths of the Book is, like the ill-gotten grapes of Mark Twain’s Innocents, "quietly but firmly dropped" by high dignitaries of a National Church which is now putting across by broadcast a devitalised and gutless hash which should infuriate the Roman Catholics no less than the genuine Hot Gospeller. I have always understood that the official policy of the N.U.T. is Secular Education. At the present time, trading on the inevitable upsurge of superstition which has always accompanied threat of dire calamity, a determined effort is being made to insinuate definite "Christian" teaching into the elementary schools . . . if only the Soviet Union would substitute a National Day of Prayer for Big Tanks, Kiev might yet be saved! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_County_CouncilI strongly appeal to the big body of "indifferents" to aid in stemming the new clerical offensive. Vigilance is required, as an event clearly showed when "agreed syllabuses" were in the air. The facts are these: The Head Teachers’ Association, unknown to the rank and file, were approached by a Roman Catholic member of the L.C.C. with a view to gaining a measure of support for the scheme. A general meeting passed certain resolutions (it was a hard and bitter fight), whose main intent was to nip the pretty little plot in the bud. Instructions were given to the chairman to forward resolutions to specified persons. The vigilance of a member discovered that the resolutions as passed had been emasculated by the chairman, who pleaded necessity for not offending any religious susceptibilities in high quarters.

As an example of clerical intolerance, and of Union feebleness (or worse), I invite you to ponder an incident which happened during this war.

The Folkestone Education Authority (dominated by Church interests) dismissed a young teacher who had gained exemption from military service on C.O. grounds. He asked his "Captain" for a testimonial which might enable him to continue his job under another authority. The testimonial writer went out of his way to state that "the teacher was a C.O. but as far as he knew, no conscious attempt had been made to influence pupils." The young man appealed to his Union (the National Association of Schoolmasters, engaged in the noble work, as you are probably aware, of preventing a woman from teaching in boys’ schools, incidentally fighting "equal pay" tooth and nail). As might have been expected, the affair was shilly-shallied out of existence.

In 1913, said: "What a bad bargain we are making in allowing children not properly furnished physically to attend schools which are set up at great expense to the country; such children are not being trained into useful citizens and useful industrial machines." Here you have it, plain and plump. Go to it, comrades of the Chalk and Duster Brigade. Help to manufacture the pliable tool, for great will be his reward of Pie in the Sky when the not too Silver Bowl is broken.

Make no mistake. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is keenly interested in Education. It is at the present juncture practically an educational body. Propagandist and educationist are substantially parallel terms in the long run. Superior methods in instruction, in pedagogical technique, are recognised and welcomed by the Party, but in the realm of education for life, we insist upon the vital necessity of giving every scope for free thought; we regard dogmatic teaching, whether it touch the divinity of a shadowy Carpenter, or whether it embraces fulsome and unthinking homage to a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Winston Churchill, as a thing which menaces the indispensable values held by “Democrats," let alone Socialists.

Noble educational aspirations cannot be implemented within Capitalism. Who can gainsay the penetration of much that Wordsworth wrote on the subject in the Third Book of “The Prelude," where he saw

"Blind Authority beating with his staff
    The Child that might have led him "?

Let me end on a sober note:

I put it to my colleagues that it is meet, right, and their bounden duty as teachers to make an effort to grasp the essentials of all big movements. Why will you continue to be cheated into the belief that the various varieties of State Capitalism advocated by Labour Leaders, by “Communists" (from the grip of the O.G.P.U. good Lord deliver us!) by fluffy and well-meaning I.L.P.-ers, worshipping at the shrine of Saint Hardie, that all these are Socialism. Study our "eight points." Ponder them. Challenge them. We will reply.

With kind regards to all evacuated colleagues who are finding it desperately hard to keep the financial end up, and in the fervent hope that a second appeal of a more than ever convinced member of the S.P.G.B. will prove more fruitful than the first appeal of the young enthusiast of 1906,

             

I am, yours for the Child,

A. Reginald