Workers on the Defensive (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the shrewdest comments on this year’s Trades Union Congress was made by the Manchester Guardian on September 5th. Reviewing the position of the trade unions since the Labour Government came into power four years ago the article pointed out in what a world of illusion trade union supporters of the Government have been living. Their feeling was that now at last they had the power and the opportunity to reach higher standards of living, but in fact “since the fuel crisis they have been for all their power and all the old illusions of what power would bring, on the defensive: the struggle has been to prevent real wages from falling.”

The Guardian, in keeping with its political outlook, argues that it is the “country’s economic weakness” that prevents the unions from gaining higher wages, but on a proper view the present despairing situation in which the workers find themselves is a confirmation of the S.P.G.B.’s contention that there are no ways within the capitalist system of ending the resistance of the employers, backed by the Government, to working class claims. The workers have to struggle ceaselessly to protect their standards and have in the last resort only one weapon, the strike.

This is not to say that the position will be fundamentally changed if the workers do resort to strike action, for the employers and the Government still have the power and the means of seeking to achieve their over-riding aim of cheaper production in other ways. Hitherto, and this was anticipated in these columns in September, 1945, the Labour Government has chosen to offset wage increases by withdrawing subsidies and allowing the cost of living to rise, while at the same time using the trade union executives in the campaign to clamp down on wage claims as much as possible. But the time is fast approaching when the present policy of the Government will have less effect and then we may see the Government forcing a showdown with the trade unions and being prepared to make more use of the threat of unemployment as a method of compelling the workers to work harder.

From the side of the trade union officials the dangers of the present position from their own point of view have long been seen. One delegate at the T.U.C., Mr. Bryn Roberts, stated bluntly the difficulty of trying indefinitely to restrain the workers for the sake of the Government.

“He warned Congress that to pursue the policy of wage restraints indefinitely would damage the mechanism of collective bargaining, destroy the workers’ confidence in it, and bring into disrepute the machinery of arbitration. It would bring conflict within the unions and between the unions. It would transform the class struggle so that instead of being between worker and employer it would be between the trade unionist and his own executive committee. It would provide opportunities for disruptive elements.”—(Times, September 9, 1949)

Mr. Bryn Roberts may or may not realise the full implication of what he said, but what it means is what Socialists have always contended, that a Labour Government administering capitalism cannot support the working class against the capitalists. This has been brought out into the open by the way four years of Labour government have sufficed to eliminate from the speeches of Labour Leaders all the old loose talk about getting rid of profit.

Mr. Tewson, General Secretary of the T.U.C., dealing with demands that profits should be reduced to raise wages, remarked that “It had not been possible to determine what were reasonable profits and dividends.” (Times, September 9th, 1949)

For Socialists, whose aim is Socialism, the problem presents no difficulty at all, for there will be no profits; but for a Labour Government running capitalism the answer has to be as Sir Stafford Cripps put it at a meeting in Manchester last November: “If you are going to allow private enterprise to run you must allow it to run on capitalist lines.” (Manchester Guardian, November 22nd, 1948)

How rigorously the needs of the capitalist system determine the policies of governments that administer it can be seen by the way the Labour Party and the Tory Party see eye to eye on the point that cheaper production must come first and higher wages must wait until some undefined future date. Neither Party now even promises an immediate rise of working-class standards of living. Both are now content to promise that they will try to prevent a fall.

“Higher production at lower cost without reduction of living standards is the main theme of Conservative home policy set out in detail in ‘The Right Road for Britain.' ”

So speaks the Conservative Daily Telegraph (July 23rd, 1949)

And here is Prime Minister Attlee addressing the T.U.C. in almost identical phrases: —

“It is therefore vital that we should reduce costs by greater efficiency.

“I do not believe in lowering wages as a means of reducing costs. I believe that efficient work can only be got by paying adequate wages, but to reduce costs does mean that both employers and employed must seek in every way to attain the highest degree of efficiency.” (Daily Herald, September 8th, 1949)

Instead of asking themselves whether Capitalism is better under Labour Government than under Tory Government, the working class should consider how much better Socialism would be than either.

Edgar Hardcastle

Democracy undefended (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

A spectre is haunting the Trade Unions—the spectre of the Communist Party. All the powers of “Labourism” have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre; Trade Union chief and Labour leader, Deakin and Lawther, T U.C., and Labour Government.

Faced with the problem of a series of unofficial strikes, the Trade Union chiefs and prominent members of the Labour Party lay the blame at the door of “Communist agitators” and threaten a variety of disciplinary measures such as fines and expulsion from office in the unions. In October and November. 1948, the T.U.C. issued two statements in a pamphlet entitled “Defend Democracy,” and, more recently, they published a further pamphlet on the same subject entitled “The Tactics of Disruption, Communist Methods Exposed.” The Communist Party replied with a pamphlet, “Defend Trade Union Rights.”

At the Biennial Delegate Conference of the Transport and General Workers’ Union held at Scarborough in July this year, the following resolution was discussed and carried by 426 votes to 208: —

“That no member of the Communist Party shall be eligible to hold any office within the Union either as a lay member or as a permanent or full-time officer, this rule to take effect from the beginning of the 1950/1951 electoral campaign.” 

Throughout that Conference, from the address of welcome by the Mayor of Scarborough and the opening speech by the chairman. Brother E. Fryer, to the discussions on the last day around such matters as the withdrawal of British troops from Malaya, the Communists were challenged, threatened, accused and sneered at.

The 81st Trade Union Congress which opened at Bridlington on September 6th this year, continued the tirade. Sir William Lawther, this year’s Congress president, opened by accusing Communists of sabotaging the war effort and engineering recent unofficial strikes. On the second day Mr. Deakin claimed that the object of the Communists was to create chaos and confusion with a view to a coup d'etat. The attack was continued by Mr. Vincent Tewson, General Secretary of the T.U.C., and others. Even the Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, when he visited the Congress on the third day, had to have a poke.

Some of the charges levelled at the Communists are probably correct, though many of them are undoubted exaggerated. We are making no defence of either side. We see the Trade Unions being used as a battlefield in a struggle between the Labour Party and the Communist Party, and this can only work to the detriment of the Trade Union movement and the working class as a whole.

The speeches by the Labour and Trade Union chiefs at both the T. & G.W.U. Conference and at the T.U.C. show clearly that their main purpose is to convince the membership of the unions of the necessity of ensuring the return of a Labour Government at the next election and of the need to help the Government steer British Capitalism through its present crisis. Fear that the Communists may do something to prevent this is the cause of the perturbation. Added to this, of course, is the fact that the present T.U. leaders, having climbed into their jobs, some of them decidedly lucrative, by means often similar to those they now accuse the Communists of employing, are anxious to kick away the rungs of the ladder so that no rival shall climb to challenge them.

The resolution passed by the T. & G.W.U. Conference. preventing Communists from holding office in the Union, is an example of what we can expect to see develop in other unions. Support for that resolution was called for in the name of democracy, but its application will deny the membership the right to nominate and vote for whom they please when they next elect their officers. That is not democracy. Trade unions are organisations of workers which aim to improve and maintain wages and working conditions of their members. Within such organisations are men of varying shades of political opinion and members of all political parties, and of none. Their attitude to the problems that they discuss in the Trade Union branches and conferences will reflect their political ideas. When they elect an officer, it is because they think he or she is the best candidate for the job, and they have often little or no consideration for the candidate’s political attachments. Now they are to be denied this free expression of their wishes. All nominations for even the most humble of jobs will be vetted, and only selected candidates will be allowed to go to poll. And the vetted ones will not all be members of the Communist Party. The opening paragraph of this article was a paraphrase of the first sentences of Karl Marx’s and Frederick Engels’ “Communist Manifesto.” We give the next sentence just as they wrote it:

“Where is the party in opposition that has not been described as communistic by its opponents in power? Where the Opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? ”

Just so! Any opposition to the policy of the clique that is in power will be branded as communistic and the exponents will be dealt with accordingly. That is made obvious by the frequent use at the T.U.C. of the phrase, “ Communists and fellow travellers.” That “fellow travellers” can include anybody, and it will.

Thus, it is hoped, the unions wifi be purged of officials who may influence the members against the tie- up between the policies of the Labour Party and the Unions. The Trade Union chiefs declare that these “disciplinary” measures are the will of the membership, but the speeches, cheers and boos at the T.U.C. do not necessarily reflect the membership’s sympathies. Even the decision at the T. & G.W.U. conference cannot be claimed to be representative. The agenda for the conference usually contains hundreds of resolutions and amendments, and no branch of the union could possibly consider them all and mandate a delegate. Even were it possible to decide on the resolutions, the election of delegates to the conference is on a trade group basis and not from the branches. The trade group, as such, gives the delegates no definite instructions, so they go to the conference unmandated and make decisions off their own bats, which, according to Mr. Deakin, are inviolate.

Incidentally, “The Record,” official organ of the T. & G.W.U., tells us that the conference also carried a resolution to the effect that,

“. . . while recognising the economic difficulties confronting the nation, expresses concern at the absence of tax reliefs in the budget, and the increased cost of living, and re-affirming a conviction that nothing short of a policy of increasing the purchasing power of money and an increase in the real value of wages will meet the needs of the people . . . .”

Modest as this resolution is, we hope Mr. Deakin and Co. will regard it as inviolate.

The Labour Party originated from the need to make the voice of the Trade Unions heard in Parliament. From that beginning it has grown and evolved to a fully fledged party of capitalist reform. It has outgrown its parent and now dominates the working-class scene. The unions which gave it birth are now made subservient to it. Whatever pro-capitalist policy the Labour Party may adopt, the Trade Unions must be brought to heel. The Labour Party attempts to operate a system of society that cannot be operated in the interests of the working class and it comes into conflict with the workers. Trade Union leaders, in an endeavour to save the Labour Government embarrassment and to justify its anti-working class actions, must oppose the wishes of their members. They try to suppress strikes, calling them unofficial and the work of Communist disrupters. Such strikes hamper the smooth running of Capitalism, and the Labour Government wants it to have a smooth passage. To keep Capitalism going the Government wants more production at lower costs. This cuts right across working-class interests and gives rise to industrial unrest. The Trade Union chiefs, handcuffed to the Labour Party, and some of them with their eyes on £5,000 a year jobs, have got to try to subdue this unrest. With cries of “the Nation’s need before sectional interests” they plunge in to do battle with their opponents and critics within the Union’s ranks. Any man or group of men who are likely to become a rallying centre for the workers in their struggle to resist the pressure on their wages and working conditions, will be branded “Communist ” and thrust out.

The Conferences and Congress are taken up with this battle between political elements, and the outstanding factors in a worker’s life, his wages and his hours of work, get scant consideration. Listen to Mr. Deakin at Scarborough: —

“We cannot promote extravagant wage claims —or even modest ones in some of the higher paid industries. I doubt if we can get any increases at all this time, and it is not leadership to suggest that we can.”

“You can’t get a forty-hour week now. It is a luxury it would be madness to ask for.” (“The Record,” August, 1949.)

The T.U.C., like the T. & G.W.U. conference, had little time for such trivialities as wages and hours of work. The more important job of lambasting the Communists took precedence over everything else.

Unless the workers start kicking soon they will find that they have been nicely clipped in the wing and their talons have been cut so that they are helpless to resist all that is coming to them during the next few years. When we say “start kicking” we do not mean “start kicking the present leaders out and putting Communists in their places.” That will not alter the situation except that the position of the two parties will be reversed. The Communists will be just as determined to cling to the jobs and to suppress opposition as are the Labour leaders. No, we mean start getting down to the job of running their own affairs instead of leaving them to the Lawthers and Deakins, start regaining control of their own unions, start realising that they have a class interest that is opposed to the interests of their employers, whether that employer be an individual, a company or a state.

The strength of the working class is in its numbers. Its weakness is in its lack of understanding of its class interests. Remove the weakness and the workers are all-conquering—they can remodel society as they wish.

W. Waters.

Report on the press (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

In this second article dealing with the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press, we give details of some of the useful information obtained by the Commission in the course of its enquiries. It is not intended to be a comprehensive survey, but consists of various items of evidence submitted to the Commission which we think will be of some interest and value to readers of the Socialist Standard.

Ownership

One of the first tasks of the Commission was to make a survey of the ownership of the Press, with particular reference to the existence of large groups, or “chains” of newspapers. They discovered five groups which could be classified under this heading. Three of these were comparatively unimportant, their newspapers were found to be printed mainly in the provinces, most of them were “weeklies,” and in no case was the total daily circulation more than a million. The other two, however. Associated Newspapers, Ltd., and Kemsley Newspapers, Ltd., were very different and deserve more detailed treatment.

Associated Newspapers, Ltd.

This company owns the Daily Mail, London Evening News, and Sunday Dispatch. Through subsidiary companies it owns various evening and weekly papers and has minority interests in several others. It is itself a subsidiary of another company, the Daily Mail and General Trust, Ltd., of which Viscount Rothermere is chairman. He holds 21 per cent. of its Ordinary shares. There are 9,000 other Ordinary shareholders, but none of them holds more than 1 per cent. As chief shareholder and chairman he therefore has virtual control of the Mail, News, and Dispatch as well as the following provincial “dailies”—Gloucestershire Echo, Derby Evening Telegraph, Citizen (Gloucester), Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent), South Wales Evening Post, Hull Daily Mail, and Grimsby Evening Telegraph, plus various “weeklies.”

Kemsley Newspapers, Ltd.

This is the other important “chain.” It owns directly, or through subsidiary companies, the Daily Graphic, Sunday Times, Sunday Chronicle, and Sunday Graphic, as well as the following provincial “dailies”— Newcastle Journal and North Mail, Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Glasgow Daily Record and Mail, Glasgow Evening News, Aberdeen Press and Journal, Aberdeen Evening Express, Northern Daily Telegraph (Blackburn), Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, Sheffield Telegraph, Sheffield Star, Western Mail (Cardiff), South Wales Echo (Cardiff), and Yorkshire Evening Press (York). In addition, it owns numerous “weeklies” and sporting papers. Chairman of all the companies is Viscount Kemsley, and his son, Lionel Berry, is vice- chairman. His wife and two other sons are also directors, and the number of Ordinary shares held by the family amounts to almost 50 per cent., sufficient to give it complete control.

Both these “chains” have wide ramifications, but their importance should not be over-emphasised. Judged on the basis of circulation they are not outstanding—the “non-chain” Beaverbrook Press, for example, has a bigger morning circulation than either of them, and the Daily Mirror had a much bigger circulation than one and must now be running the other fairly closely. Their greatest proportion, in terms of circulation, is to be found in the evening press—here Associated Newspapers accounted for about 21 per cent. of total circulation, and Kemsley Newspapers 13 per cent. (1947 figures). On Sundays neither can touch the “non-chain” News of the World.

Other Companies

There are three other daily newspaper companies which, although they cannot be called “chains,” are similar in one respect, namely that they are controlled by an individual, or a small group of individuals. First of these is London Express Newspaper, Ltd., which owns the Daily Express, and by means of subsidiary companies also controls the Sunday Express, London Evening Standard, and the Glasgow Evening Citizen. The controlling interest in the main company is held by Lord Beaverbrook, and his son. Max Aitken, is a director of all four companies. The actual extent of Beaverbrook’s holding was not divulged to the Commission.

The Daily Telegraph, the second of this type, is controlled by members of the Camrose family, who between them own all the Ordinary shares (£1,199,997), and most of the Preference shares. By the articles of association which control the running of the company Lord Camrose may, if he so wishes, remain chairman and editor-in-chief for life.

Finally, there is the Times, owned by two people, Colonel J. J. Astor and a Mr. John Walter in the proportion of nine shares to one. The articles of association provide for a committee whose function it is to approve of any move to transfer shares to anybody other than the two present shareholders. This device, in effect, makes any change of ownership very unlikely. 

The Other" Dailies”

As far as the other well-known “ dailies ” are concerned, ownership and control cannot be linked with an individual or group. This applies to the Daily Mirror, and its companion, the Sunday Pictorial. There are more than 9,000 shareholders in the Mirror company, and 4,000 in the Pictorial. No individual in the Daily Mirror holds more than 4 per cent. of the Ordinary shares, and no one in the Sunday Pictorial has more than 1 per cent., but the Mirror holds 25 per cent. of the Ordinary shares in the Pictorial, and the Pictorial holds 22 per cent. of those in the Mirror. Each, therefore, has the controlling interest in the other. What this means in practice is that the directors of both companies can exercise absolute control.

The Daily Herald has a position all its own in that the majority of its shares are owned by Odhams Press, Ltd., which also controls the People and the “weeklies ” John Bull, News Review, and Illustrated. This peculiar state of affairs dates back to 1929 when the Herald found itself hard pushed to compete with the other big “dailies” through lack of finance, and joined forces with Odhams to get it. Thus we have the position where Odhams Press holds 51 per cent. of the shares, and nominees of the Trades Union Congress hold the rest.

The company has nine directors, five nominated by Odhams, and four by the T.U.C. The present T.U.C. nominees, by the way, are A. Conley (Tailors’ and Garment Workers’ Union), A. B. Deakin (Transport and General Workers’ Union), H. V. Tewson (Gen. Sec., T.U.C.), and F. Wolstencroft (Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers). A further interesting point is that the articles of association provide that the political policy of the paper shall be laid down by the Conferences of the Labour Party, and its industrial policy by the Conferences of the T.U.C.

The case of the Daily Worker is also rather confused and complicated. . Until 1946 it was owned, through nominees, by the Communist Party itself, but on 1st January, 1947, ownership war transferred to the People’s Press Printing Society, in order to raise more money. This society is stated to have about 29,000 shareholders, of which 756 consist of organisations (395 of them trade union branches). Shareholdings are limited to £200, and each holder is entitled to one vote, irrespective of the size of his holding. The society first elects a Committee of Management which in turn elects the Editor and a supervisory body called the Editorial Board. The Management Committee, in effect, has control of the paper. The control, however, is not absolute, as die Worker has to go every now and then to the People’s Press Fighting Fund for loans and grants, but as the trustees of the Fund (in the true Communist Party tradition) in 1947 were all, with one exception, also members of either the Management Committee or Editorial Board, or both, we think it can be considered as a purely technical point.

One national newspaper, Reynolds News, is owned by a group of co-operative societies through the Cooperative Press, Ltd. Of the 845 shareholders, all are co-operative societies except for two Trade Unions, the National Union of Railwaymen and the Union of Shop, Distributive, and Allied Workers. Management is in the hands of a Board of Directors elected by the Shareholders. None has sufficient votes to control the Board. 

Trust Ownership

Lastly, there are three well-known newspapers which are owned by Trusts. The objects of Trusts, in the words of the Commission, are one or all of the following: —

“To prevent the control of the undertaking from falling into unsuitable hands, to perpetuate the character and policy of a paper, to avoid the crippling effect of death duties, and to ensure, through the limitation or the ploughing back of profits, the preservation or the expansion of the undertaking.”

The first is the News Chronicle which, with its London evening companion, the Star, is owned by the Daily News, Ltd. The majority of this company's shares are held in turn by the Daily News Trust. Two- thirds of the trustees are members of the Cadbury family.

The other two Trusts own the Manchester Guardian and Observer respectively. The Guardian is completely in the hands of the Scott Trust, who now number eight persons, mostly members of the Scott family. The Observer Trust consists of six trustees, one of whom is Lord Astor, holder of most of the company’s shares. Each Trust is hedged in with detailed and complicated provisions, of which little need be said except that they comply with one or more of the objects mentioned by the Commission and quoted above.

The Political Weeklies

A few words should be said about the political “weeklies,” The New Statesman and Nation, Tribune, Time and Tide, and Truth.

The New Statesman is controlled by the Statesman Publishing Co., Ltd., which has a capital of about £17,500 in Ordinary shares and 436 special Management shares. Only Management shareholders are allowed to vote; they number 19, and among them are Low, Malcolm MacDonald, Kingsley Martin, and Bernard Shaw. There are six directors, G. D. H. Cole, Low, Kingsley Martin, J. B. Priestley, a Mr. J. H. Roberts, and a Mr. R. G. E. Willson; all except the last-named are also on the Board of the company that actually owns the paper. Shares in the company may. not be transferred to anyone outside if a member is willing to purchase them at a fair value.

Tribune has an issued capital of only £183, in £1 shares. No holder has more than 10; the best-known shareholders are Sir Stafford Cripps, Michael Foot, Victor Gollancz, J. F. Horrabin, Harold Laski, Jennie Lee, Ian Mikardo, and J. Platts-Mills, each with 10 shares. It was disclosed to the Commission that subsidies totalling £3,597 were received during the period between 1937 and 1946 (mainly in the early years). Most of this money was contributed by Stafford Cripps and G. R. Strauss (the present Minister of Supply).

Time and Tide is leased to Viscountess Rhondda, who holds over 90 per cent. of the shares, and is chairman and editor of the paper.

Truth has a capital of £29,000 in 2,900 £10 shares. There are three directors, one of whom is Collin Brooks. He holds 1,500 of the shares, of which 500 are as nominee for Lord Perry (of the Ford Motor Co.) and 500 for a Mr. Garfield Watson. It was disclosed that the paper received contributions of £17,000 towards expenses between 1939 and 1946, mainly from the late Lord Luke, Lord Perry, Mr. Garfield Watson, and Lord Queenborough.

Finally there is the Economist. Lord Layton (also of the News Chronicle) is its chairman, and there are four other directors, one of whom is Geoffrey Crowther, the editor; and another, Brendan Bracken. The Financial News, Ltd. (which also has interests in the Banker, Investors’ Chronicle, and Financial Times) holds 50 per cent. of the Ordinary shares, and the other 13 shareholders appoint a majority of the Board and nominate the chairman. Transfer of shares and the appointment of the chairman require the consent of four trustees, of whom Sir Charles Hambro, the banker, and Lord Beveridge are the most well known.

Stan Hampson

(To be continued.)

Problem children (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

The clouds of glory formerly trailed by children on their advent to the world have lately darkened into clouds of approbrium. The child delinquent is a problem of our age. It is symptomatic of a social disintegration which concerns socialists as closely as supporters of Capitalism.

Socialists, of course, approach the subject from a standpoint vastly different from that of the orthodox investigator, who wishes to preserve a moral code and set of standards incompatible with a modern industrial society. Socialists are glad to see them questioned, but we know that some belief and conscious purpose to change society must grow up in their place if they are discarded. Few adults have any such conscious purpose and the children in their revolt against authority are merely reflecting the behaviour of their elders who in this instance subscribe to the tenet, “ Don’t do as I do. Do as I tell you.”

We know that to abstract the delinquent from his social environment, to give him psychiatric treatment, to make him the subject of educational experiments is a waste of time. But we cannot doubt that those who do this are genuinely concerned.

Currently in progress we find a conference at County Hall called expressly for scientific investigation of child delinquency and the Child Health Section of the B.M.A. also concerned with this problem at their meetings in Harrogate. The national .and local press is full of letters from teachers, magistrates and parents, many of whom think to find the solution in a return to the old doctrine of “spare the rod and spoil the child”

At first glance some of the things that worry them may appear propitious for us. Children to-day it appears have no respect for the church, their teachers or parents, and that old bogey, the policeman, is a figure of fun. But this is merely destructive and is no basis for a conscious adult revolt against the system. The children's rebellion is not and cannot be a conscious one since the power to reason is undeveloped. Children act instinctively and imitatively. In fact they are as they always were, neither angels nor devils, but, like every human being, an inextricable mixture of qualities. Idealists believe with A. S. Neill in the inherent goodness and good sense of children but this view is just as one-sided and just as much a religious conception as the church doctrine of original sin. The goodness and badness and all the other characteristics come out in response to the external stimuli of the environment. We cannot alter the inherited personality, nor do we expect what is called a change of heart. To subject the child to a changed environment in order to effect a cure and then to return him to the same old jungle is an illogical procedure which ill accords with the scientific pretensions of the psychologists. We do not need new reform schools, but a new society.

The behaviour of all children, delinquent or not, is patterned on that of the adults with whom they come into contact and a reaction to the world as it impinges on them. Victorian children of wealthy families, restrained by fixed habits, cumbersome clothes and fear of punishment meted out by parents and teachers similarly restrained, were able to release their energy in a nursery far from the ears of Papa and Mama. The children of the new industrial working class and the agricultural labourers had no vitality to spare after their undernourished little bodies had completed a working day as long and strenuous as that of their parents. In a social pattern as complex as ours, however, there are many more colours than black and white. The old, simpler demons have gone, but so many intangible fears lie behind our everyday life that there is no security anywhere. In “Ape and Essence” Aldous Huxley says “ . . . fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which while it raises our standard of living, increases the possibility of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away with one hand even more than what it so profusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for which in our suicidal loyalty we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the great men whom we have raised, by popular acclaim, to a power which they use inevitably to murder and enslave us. Fear of the war we don’t want and yet do everything we can to bring about.” Here are some of the contradictions of our society and we can agree too that ". . . fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth . . . in the end fear casts out even a man's humanity.”

Where in all this can children find that security so necessary to their balanced development? With their parents they jeer at authority in all its forms. Living in overcrowded rooms the human frailties of the parents themselves are painfully apparent and an early model for the wrangling, spitefulness and apathy which school teachers so loudly deplore. The schools themselves are a reflection of this unbalanced society in which technical progress has so far outstripped all conception of the art of living.

Unfortunately the protest against all this has little direction. People may want a change, but they merely want the same system with themselves the possessors of power, wealth and privilege. The juvenile depredations of the delinquent child grow into the adult depredations of the spiv, the swindler and evader of the law. But always this struggle against the moral bastions of society is not to overthrow them but to get inside them. Once inside, the old lag turns copper with a vengeance and fiercely upholds what he previously flouted.

The Labour Government, by trying to plan the unplannable and to run Capitalism in the working-class interest, has made confusion worse confounded. Small wonder that most people turn aside to snatch what pleasure they can from the cinema and speedway or ballet, opera and the arts. The children educated to take their place in this ostrich society and to become mere parts in a machine, can hardly be blamed for irresponsible behaviour. But neither can we regard them hopefully since this is not the material to shape itself easily into Socialism, that most responsible of all societies.

Socialists must show that this is yet another problem which must be tackled at the root. We must conspire with events to show that a majority of people with clear understanding of what they want can be the arbiters of their fate. Then the children will respond to that adult self-discipline and restraint which springs from a sense of purpose and confidence in the dignity and ability of man.

P. T.

Blogger's Note:

Huxley's "Ape and Essence" was reviewed in the December 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard.

"Fiesta." — An essay in futility (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

A King was once injured in the loins, and as he lay in his bed, he watched his kingdom decline. It is upon this mythological theme that Ernest Hemingway based his recently republished novel, “Fiesta.” His king is an American journalist, his kingdom, vividly portrayed with neither comment nor condemnation, is the degenerate world of the reckless twenties.

Much has already been written about the political and industrial conditions of this decade. Black Friday and the general strike have been analysed and discussed, and with them the miserable failure, so far as the working class were concerned, of the first two Labour Governments; but so far as the social relativity to economic conditions is concerned, another aspect has been largely neglected.

The first world war had resounding effects upon the social set up of capitalist society. By compromise, or in many cases, by complete surrender, many members of the landed aristocracy had managed to retain a great deal of their wealth and power. Still was it largely their prerogative to send their sons to the universities and thence into the diplomatic corps, the army or the church. Still the sons of the bourgeoisie were found a place in the family business. In both cases the daughters were taught to sing or play, “ finished,” “ brought out ” and used as “ pawns ” or even “ queens ” on the social chessboard.

But the war, which introduced many scientific discoveries, with all accompanying horrors, brought a great step up in production. Thousands of pounds were made overnight. New powers rose in the land. The little fish were swallowed by the sharks. And the war had to be paid for. Taxes rose. The landed aristocracy, living upon ground rents and family fortunes, suffered at the hands of the industrial capitalists. Many of them were uprooted.

The post war world revealed social changes. School, the army, the family estate or business was a sequence broken. The school, alright—the army, too true—but then what? The family estate was now the business of the “nouveau rich” or even the National Trust, and where was the place of the “master’s” son in a vast industrial organisation?

And the position of the daughters had changed as well. This war, dwarfing its predecessors in intensity, had called for the participation to some degree of every human being. The sea barrier, crumbling all the time under capitalism, broke down almost completely. So far as the women of the working class were concerned it merely meant that they became more competition for their jobless menfolk, but for the women of the capitalist class it made them as independent as their parasitic brothers.

This collapse of tradition made their world seem hopeless. Those things that had previously existed to occupy their minds had vanished. Pleasure became their sole pursuit. The social columns were filled with details of extravagant parties. Hostesses were judged by the lavishness and originality of their balls. One achieved passing fame by ordaining that all her guests turn up in baby clothes. The rag-time band, the bottle party, the night club, the stunt, Paris, the Riviera, Eastern tours, was the fad of the layabouts. Drug addiction and immorality reached their highest peak. They dabbled in Freudian psychology and psycho-analysis. Fantastic behaviour was excused as “ self-expression,” perversion as reflexes. “The colonel’s lady and Rosy O’Grady,” as Hemingway parodies icily, “are lesbians under the skin.”

Such conditions and ideas are bound to reflect themselves in the art of the generation. New schools in literature and art portrayed the expensive futility of this generation. The harsh sexuality of D. H. Lawrence, the infathomability of James Joyce, the fatuous writings of unmourned contemporaries, the cubist, surrealistic and futuristic schools of art are all evidence of these trends. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas ”—these stark horrible words of T. S. Eliot, the era’s major poet, are typical. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"—again Eliot.

Forever seeking something new their hungry eyes turned to Russia. What was taking place there? Bolshevik propagandists spoke glibly of the intellectual, of the intelligentsia, of the new culture. Did these words not apply to them? Many of them thought so, and from this womb of jargon emerged one of the most pernicious creations of our time—the left wing intellectual who was going to lead the suffering workers by their noses to what they vaguely referred to as “emancipation.” To further this aim they founded little magazines, not to propagate understanding but to dangle cultural carrots, and under the heading of “reviews” to flatter their own authors’ uselessness.

These were the 1920’s—for the working class a period of unemployment, industrial dispute and lockout; to the capitalist class, especially its younger members, a period of re-organisation and re-settlement. The slump of 1931 put a brake on their activities. So ignorant are they of their own system of society that they were severely shaken and many of them even believed that the system which kept them idle was on the verge of collapse. Many workers, by the way, thought so too. The Socialist Party of Great Britain was not so optimistic. We pointed out that the system would not just collapse, that a force was operating within it that would not only bring about its downfall, but be ready with a new system of society to replace it; that as that force was not ready yet the system would eventually right itself. Time has proved us correct.

But in retrospect we can draw useful lessons from this age. The working class are slated by the bishops and told by the Bible bashers that their licentious habits and immoral practices are the root cause of their poverty. These people do not, or at least do not want, to recognise that it is the working class who are most obedient to the morality of this system of society. After earning or seeking to earn a living they have in the main neither the time nor the energy to do otherwise. It is only when a class is completely divorced, as were they also in ancient Rome, from all useful work that their minds turns to these excesses.

And it is the working class who by their lack of political understanding keep these people idle. Contrast this sterile opulence with your poverty and usefulness. They are linked. Ask yourselves why? The Socialist Party of Great Britain can provide the answer. This is capitalism wherein a small class own the means whereby you live. They neither toil, nor do they spin. You do that! They reap the benefits. The solution? A new system of society wherein these things are the property of all mankind. Under such a system not only would your material needs be satisfied but your culture would be a reflection of happiness instead of misery. It can come just when the working class desire it. So read, learn, realise and band with us.

Overthrow this sterile curse!

Ronald.

The Last Refuge (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

The more prominent of the political parties that are trying to cajole the workers in preparation for the next General Election, have each published a pamphlet expounding the programme for which they ask support. These programmes offer “practical” solutions to the problems that confront different sections of the community. There are cures for unemployment to intrigue the workers; promises of houses to attract the homeless; encouraging plans for industrialists; offers of help to the farmers and various inducements to draw the vote of trade unionists. There are special chapters for each of these groups, whilst other chapters are addressed to rather vague social groupings such as “The Common Man,” “The Small Man,” and “ The Consumer.”

The cover titles of these pamphlets, before we open them to read the contents, betray the line of approach to the problems that are dealt with. The Conservative Party issues “The Right Road for Britain”; the Liberal Party, “Programme for Britain” and the Labour Party, “Labour Believes in Britain.” Each proposes to solve the problems of “Britain” without addressing itself to the working class. They make it appear that unemployment, poverty, restricted political freedom, ill housing, bad health, insecurity and war, are the problems of “Britain” and not of one section of the people. If only all goes well with “Britain” we are to assume that these problems will at least be reduced to lesser proportions if not abolished altogether.

We do not expect pro-capitalist parties to view social problems from a working-class angle, but, unfortunately, many workers are confused and misled by this national approach to the evils that they would like to remedy. They live in a competitive world and accept it as inevitable. They are persuaded into a belief that they have an identical interest with everyone who classifies himself as “British,” irrespective of all economic differences. The problems of trade, of imports and exports, of international currency and diplomatic relations are regarded as the urgent affair of all who live in Britain. The proposed cures and reforms must all be regarded from the standpoint of whether “Britain” can afford it, whether the present hour of need for “Britain” will allow of this or that, whether certain steps will conform to the “British way of life.” This national approach to social problems is essentially a capitalist one. The capitalist class of the world is mainly divided into national groups, each group having its state machinery to conserve its wealth and protect its interests against its class enemies at home and its fellow-capitalist competitors abroad. Without a national state the capitalist is lost. His legal claim to property is of little use if there is no means to enforce it. When he must struggle with foreign competitors for trade, for access to raw materials, for control of land, sea and air routes for the transport of his goods, he needs the armed force of his state in his struggle. When he is faced with recalcitrant workers at home, workers who strike and lessen his profits, workers who do not do his bidding with the required alacrity, he needs his police and his judges, his jails and his warders —and, quite often—his troops. This is all part of the state machinery and around it the capitalist weaves his interest. His fortunes become the fortunes of his state, the fortunes of his state become his. He is a patriot, in the sense that he would have us use the word. He symbolises his state with a flag, a Union Jack, a Stars and Stripes or a Tri-colour. He will talk with sentiment about his country, meaning his state, meaning his interests. All those who live under the authority of his state are his countrymen, his fellow citizens. He argues that they have a common interest with him, a national interest, to preserve the country. They all have an interest in the capture of markets from foreign competitors and if necessary, they should be prepared to go to war against the adherents of some other state when such others become aggressive and threaten trade and trade routes. This imagined identity of national interest enables people to be worked up into a condition of national patriotism wherein they will slay one another in their political blindness, “for the glory of their country ” or for the preservation of their “national way of life.” It can also be used to persuade them to suffer want and misery, to work harder and cheaper and to give support to quack, self-seeking politicians and to tolerate exploitation. “Steel—record output at lower prices—for Britain’s hour of need.” Thus shouts a new poster from the hoardings around the countryside. Whilst the workers approach their problems from this angle they will find no solution—they are disarmed. The capitalist will be the foremost patriot and lover of his country, and the workers will be shorn of more and more of the wealth that they produce. It was Dr. Johnson who is reputed to have said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

The problems that are dealt with in the three pamphlets that we have mentioned, all arise from the way in which we live. When we need to make classifications in an effort to solve some problem, we do so on the basis of the problem’s cause. For a biological problem we should divide men into groups according to their biological differences. In a study of language we may have to divide into territorial groups. Economics is the study of how we produce and distribute wealth—how we live. To solve economic problems we must study and classify according to the manner in which we get our living, not according to the particular state under which we were born or which has adopted us. Classifying according to biological differences or variations of language will hinder and not help. If our livelihoods are insecure or if we are impoverished, if we are poor in a world of plenty, if we must go to war in order to be able to live in peace, then we must seek the causes in the manner in which we produce and distribute the things that we are short of or that we have to compete for. As soon as we do this we are faced with one very outstanding fact. Everyone, in any one country, does not get his livelihood in the same way, or have the same amount of the wealth produced. Some, the vast majority, in order to get a living, must seek an employer. They have no tools or instruments with which to till the soil, to weave cloth, to build houses, to get the million and one things that make up the necessities of modern life. They have only a measure of physical and mental energy and this they must sell to someone who is in a position to buy it. So, they become wage workers, or salary earners, it’s all the same. That is their way of getting a livelihood. What of the others? They, the minority, are the ones who can employ the workers. Not because they are biologically different, not because they are cleverer, not because they are of a different nationality, but simply because they are the owners of the means and instruments of production and distribution. They do not of necessity have to work. They certainly do not have to seek employment in order to live. They own the means of production and they own the wealth that is produced. AH that is surplus, when they have paid the working class, they can utilise for their own convenience. They must sell their goods in a world market in order to realise the surplus in a useful form. They must trade. They seek spheres of influence, colonies, trade agreements and all the other things that they hope will ensure them continued and favourable trade. Trade is so vital to them. If there is no trade, there are no profits. If there are no profits there is no purpose in producing. Production slows down or ceases and the workers are unemployed. To capture a market the capitalist must sell competitively. That means cheaply. It also means that goods must be produced cheaply and that means that the workers must work hard for low wages. So, it’s either unemployment or low wages. Both spell poverty. Most of the other social problems are subsidiary to the poverty one. Only a poor man will be ill-housed, under-nourished, worried about unemployment. There is no solution to the workers’ problems within the capitalist system. The only solution lies in its overthrow and the establishment of a system where wealth is produced solely for use instead of for profit.

Of course, to tell the workers to work harder, or take lower wages, or go to war in order to secure the capitalists profits, would have very poor results. But if they can be urged to accept the idea that they have a national interest with the capitalist and not a class interest against him, then their patriotism can be roused and they may be kidded to do all sorts of things that result to their detriment.

The two political champions of to-day, the Labour Party and the Tory Party, and one ex-champion, the Liberal Party, snarl at one another, but are all agreed on the maintenance of capitalism. All are prepared to focus the attention of the workers on the problems of the British capitalist class and to string the working class along behind its masters with bleatings about national unity, Britain’s hour of need, Britain’s future in the hands of the people, blah! blah! blah!

Note the following by Winston Churchill in the Conservative pamphlet (page 5): —

“We earnestly hope that what is written here may be a help to those who wish to make a right decision for the future of their country, and may strengthen their confidence that we have a glorious future and their resolve that we do not throw it away.”

From the Liberal pamphlet (page . 31): —

“If all those who care for Liberalism ‘in their hearts and not with their lips only’ will lend it their support, it can bring salvation to our country and to mankind.”

From “Labour Believes in Britain" (page 30):—

“The Labour Party does not seek place and power for its own sake. We seek the victory for great ends, not for our Party, but for our country and the world. In this document we have approached our task in the British spirit . . . unity in common purpose and of justified pride in our nation’s greatness.”

Yes, the Communist Party has also published a pamphlet, “ Communism and Labour,” being a report by Harry Pollitt. He spends a chapter on criticism of the Labour Government’s foreign trade policy, makes suggestions for improved trade, and talks about “Britain’s economic difficulties ” (page 20). Having had a good slam at the Labour Government he clarifies the issue on page 25 by stating “ . . . if no Communist is standing, we advise the people to vote Labour.”

At election time or at any other time, the issue for the working class is never “Britain versus other countries of the world.” It is always “the Working Class versus the Capitalist class.” Anyone who hides that issue is an enemy of the workers. One can be reasonably assured that he who bleats loudly about “his country” is either a fool or a knave. He is probably taking what old Dr. Johnson called “the refuge of a scoundrel.”

W. Waters.

Suffer little children (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Monday, 15th August, at King’s Cross, a crowd of irate men and women roughly handled an eighteen year old girl who was alleged to have thrown scalding water into the face of a two-year old girl. One can well understand their indignation. No one in his right mind can see a helpless child misused —or can he?

A few years ago, between the years 1939 and 1945, children were being killed, maimed and wounded by the countless hundred. True, people were indignant. They threw up their hands in horror—cursed the men whose vile duty it was to release these missiles—and went home to knit comforts for their compatriots who were performing the same deeds upon children of another country.

And when the war was over, hundreds of children on the continent of Europe, orphaned or completely divorced from their families by the war, lived like wild animals in bombed cities. Their world was a jungle. They learned that scrounging and stealing, sharp practice and prostitution were their only means of livelihood. Italy supported many such misfits. Who can see the film “Sciuscià” or read Giussepe Berto’s “The Sky is Red”—of young boys locked in barrack-like prisons, or of girls, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen or even less, selling their immature bodies for a handful of food or a bar of soap—without wanting to weep or vomit?

Into these conditions come the mealy mouthed social workers. A recent “March of Time” film proudly announced that several hundred of these children had been reclaimed “ in the glory of God.” For what? To learn the virtues of hard work and honesty, of religion and cant: to be convinced that it is both righteous and correct that at some time in the future they shall be the instruments by which a further generation is pitched into the degradation from which they themselves have risen.

But is there really need to look to the exceptional circumstances of war? Take a stroll round the mean streets of any industrial area and view those grim three-storied buildings that masquerade as schools. Listen to the lessons imparted therein. How are kids to know that French workers are more than sub-humans living upon snails and filthy postcards; that the Germans (or are they Russians to-day ?) do other things besides rob, plunder and devour their young? How are kids to realise that when mother says “she can’t afford it” to their simplest demand, it is an indirect result of the humility and toleration that they themselves are taught? An ageing schoolmaster once told the writer that when he came down from college he too had high ideals, but “you’re beating your heads against a brick wall.” He did not recognise that just like a miner or a factory hand he is employed to train children as cheaply as possible.

Education! The word itself derives from the verb “educe,” which means to “draw out.” The teacher’s job is not to draw out potentialities but to cram in— to cram in the bare amount of facts and the abundance of fantasy that will keep the worker fit and happy in his position of slavery.

And when school is over for the day, what then? Football in a side street, a game of cricket in the park, or down the market with Mum learning how to save a penny here and there and how to ask for two separate pounds of potatoes to get a double “ turn of the scale.” Of course, there are some wonderful institutions for kids. They can join a youth club and learn “citizenship” or the Air and Army Cadets and learn how to kill. Yes, truly wonderful institutions!

Suffer little children! Whether it be individually at the hands of some poor warped mind or en masse as the children of a subjected class, suffer they must in this system of society, whether the conditions be boom, slump, war or peace—and the road of escape will not be found in the classroom. The experiences of the factory, the dole queue, the army, the battlefields provide your education. The world is your university. Wake up and use it!

Ronald.

Editorial: A black future for the miners (1949)

Editorial from the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the mines were nationalised there were widespread rejoicings among the miners. They had been told for 40 years that nationalisation would bring great benefits and in particular that it would end the wage-slave position of the workers. At the T.U.C. in 1946 Mr. Shinwell, who was at that time Minister of Fuel and Power, confessed that it was he who “had the privilege of preparing the Nationalisation of the Coal Industry Bill.” He claimed that the miners “through their elected representatives and, indeed, many of them in a direct fashion, will play a much larger part in the administration of the industry than ever they have done before. We are thus offered an opportunity of raising the status of those employed in the nationalised industries and setting an example which must have a profound bearing on the position of the workers in general.” (T.U.C. Report, 1946, Page 366.)

Of course nothing of the kind has happened and the miners are now sadly disappointed. This year the T.U.C. asked the unions for their views on the working of the boards of nationalised industries. Here are two comments from the National Union of Mineworkers: — 

“Complaints from various areas include the fact that no functional change has taken place between management and workers from sitting together on consultative committees; advice by the workers' side is insufficiently regarded; the work of committees is impeded by lack of vital information ” (Manchester Guardian, August 22nd, 1949.)

“After more than two years of nationalisation, while relationships have to some extent improved, there still remains a good deal of dissatisfaction. The goodwill that has been built up so laboriously since vesting day is being replaced by cynicism." (Daily Telegraph, August, 22nd, 1949.)

Mr. Arthur Horner, Communist General Secretary of the Miners’ Union, in a speech at the T.U.C. went further still towards a recognition of the fact that nationalisation leaves the workers’ position unchanged. The Daily Worker reported him as follows: —

“ Nationalisation still presents us with the factor that the Boards of nationalised industries in relation to the workers are the buyers of what we sell.

“The nationalised Boards, in negotiating wages and conditions, are in fact buying labour as a commodity and we, as trade unions, are seeking to sell it under the best possible conditions.

“So although the basic relationship as between the workers and the nationalised Boards may have been modified, the fundamental difference between buyer and seller still remains after an industry has been nationalised.

“The Coal Boards must function as employers.

“We have had experience of three distinguished persons connected with this Congress— Lord Citrine, Mr. Ebby Edwards, and Sir Joseph Hallsworth.

“We have no complaint against the manner in which they have endeavoured to interpret their trade union principles, as functioning members of the National Coal Board.

“But, in spite of their desire to be of service to the miners, they, in the last analysis, are the employers, and, in relation to us, have an entirely different function from what we are called upon to perform.

“Nationalised industry in a country such as ours is not a free agent.

“You cannot place the nationalised industries in isolation. They are surrounded by a world of privately-owned industries.

“We find to a large extent that the nationalised industry is conditioned and circumscribed by limitations set upon it by reason of what takes place in the 80 per cent. of privately-owned industries.” (Daily Worker, September 8th, 1949.) 

When the mines were nationalised there was much talk by Ministers and miners’ leaders of plans to expand the industry, get more men into the pits, instal more efficient machinery and boost up output. At that time, with many continental mines out of action, the planners were able to forget that sooner or later the problem to be faced would not be that of producing more millions of tons of coal for export, but of finding buyers for it. Now the world situation has changed and the prospect no longer looks the same. Speaking at the British Association on September 5th, Dr. A. Beacham, Professor of Industrial Relations at University College, Cardiff, outlined the future as it looks to him. He pointed out that it was planned to increase output to 230 million tons in 1951 and to an even higher figure in later years. With each miner giving a larger output he estimates that this could be done with only a trifling increase of the number of men employed. But what happens then?—

“All the emphasis now was on increased output, but when the output became available adjustment might be severe. If the Board’s reorganisation scheme successfully raised production per man then labour would be redundant. . . . The Board must trim its sails before the storm, he advised, and press the Government for lower targets, quicken the elimination of uneconomic mines, and steadily reduce the labour force. (Manchester Guardian, September 6th, 1949.)

And to give point to the problem, the Miners’ Union got the delegates to pass a resolution demanding the calling of a conference of all the coal-producing countries to draw up an international coal plan. The Industrial Correspondent of the News Chronicle (September 7th, 1949) reported this as follows: —

“This means, in effect, an international governmental coal cartel, with power to regulate production, exports, prices and selling conditions all over the world. Moving the resolution, Mr. Ernest Jones, secretary of the Yorkshire miners, said Poland was seeking to re-establish itself in export markets and create a monopoly in Scandinavian countries. This, he said, would have a serious effect on the Durham, Northumberland and South Wales coalfields.”

Thus does Capitalism make nonsense of planning, for after the British, Polish and other planners have planned to increase coal production, the only way the British miners can see of avoiding the consequences of “over-production” is to establish an international body to regulate (that is, to restrict) production and exports once more.

Notes by the Way: Labour Party Chairman on Tory Nationalisation (1949)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour Party Chairman on Tory Nationalisation

Mr. Maurice Webb, M.P., Chairman of the Labour Party, is on his way from Canada to U.S.A. to answer “gross misrepresentations” about the Labour Government. Before he left he gave an interview to reporters: 

“ Much of the misinformation being spread in the United States is done by British people and they ought to be ashamed of themselves. They blame all Britain’s troubles on Socialism, forgetting that only about 20 per cent, of the economy has been nationalised and the rest is private enterprise. And about 12 per cent. of the 20 per cent. was initiated by the previous Government.” (Manchester Guardian, September 10th, 1949.)

While he is clearing up misrepresentations he might start with himself and stop calling Nationalisation “Socialism.”

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Can Yon live on 92s. 6d. a Week?

The Conciliation Board has rejected the railwaymen’s claim for a 10s. increase, also rejected the contention that 92s. 6d. a week is too little to live on.

“The Board cannot accept the contention that earnings, as apart from rates, should be excluded when assessing the adequacy of basic rates, nor is it satisfied that the minimum rate of 92s. 6d. is below the figure necessary to maintain the minimum standard of human needs.” (Times, September 9th, 1949.) 

It has been estimated by the Oxford University Institute of Statistics (“Bulletin,” July-August, 1949) that working-class cost of living has increased by 79 per cent. since before the war. If we make allowance for this increase of prices a present wage of 92s. 6d. is equal to a pre-war wage of about 51s. 8d. Actually the minimum wage fixed for porters in October, 1939, was 47s., 48s., or 50s., according to area, but the Railway Union complained that it was much too low, and no Trade Union official or Labour Leader would have defended 51s. 8d. a week.

Yet after nationalisation and four years of Labour Government a present minimum wage, which will buy no more than 51s. 8d. bought before the war, is defended as adequate by the Conciliation Board!

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Is There a Shortage of Money?

The following needs no comment: —

“Application lists for the £6,500,000 offer of shares in W. H. Smith & Son (Holdings), the newsagents and booksellers, were open for only five minutes in the City yesterday morning. Even before the lists opened at 10 a.m. the brokers handling the issue had received applications from the public covering the amount offered by a large margin.

“By yesterday evening, although the count had not been completed, the public’s response was estimated at over £20 million.” (Daily Telegraph. September 2nd, 1949.)

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Mr. Morrison’s Duty to his Country

At a press conference in Strasbourg on August 26th Mr. Herbert Morrison uttered a few words “before leaving for a three-week holiday in the South of France.” This is what he said:—

“ It is my duty to my country to get a holiday. It is merely an elementary duty of public service.” (Manchester Guardian, August 27th, 1949.)

The comment of the Guardian's Diplomatic Correspondent is, “ No one doubted it, but why so pompous about it?”

If a miner thought that it was his duty or pleasure and if he had the money to go to the South of France for three weeks, he would be charged with inexcusable absenteeism.

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Production and Consumption, by Sir Stafford Cripps

In a speech at Washington, Sir Stafford Cripps gave the following information about production and consumption in Great Britain:—

“Industrial production in Britain is to-day at an all-time high, about 25 per cent. above the immediate pre-war level. Industrial productivity is rising steadily. In the first half of 1949 output per man was 4 to 5 per cent. higher than a year earlier and well above the pre-war figure. The average working week to-day is just over 45 hours. The volume of exports in the first half of this year was 51 per cent. greater than in 1938, the volume of imports 15 per cent. less. . . . In spite of the great increase in production, personal consumption has risen by only 4 per cent. over the past three years. The reason is that the extra output has been used partly to boost exports, partly to support the largest capital investment programme in our history which is currently absorbing more than one-fifth of the whole national output.” (Manchester Guardian, September 10th, 1949.)

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“ Nobody Knew the Difference ”

Some American politicians affect to believe that Britain has been revolutionised by the Labour Government’s nationalisation schemes, though they are not all so ill-informed. Mr. Hoffman, Marshall Plan Administrator, speaking at a Press Conference in Washington on August 29th was asked about this, and replied:—

“The coal mines in Britain were no better and no worse for having been nationalised. The same was true of the railways, and though the Bank of England was also nationalised, nobody knew the difference. (Times, August 30th, 1949.)

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The German Elections

The general election in Western Germany, held in the middle of August, made the Social Democrats the second largest party in the new Parliament with 131 seats out of 402. Their total vote, 6,932,000, represented 33 per cent. of the votes as against 35 per cent. given to the Christian Democratic Union and 13 per cent given to the next largest party, the Free Democratic Union. The new Government is a coalition dominated by the Christian Democratic Union.

The results are an answer to those who thought that with the disappearance of the Hitler Dictatorship the electorate would give their votes to the Social Democrats, a party much like the British Labour Party.

The German Social Democrats, in spite of their reformist and strongly nationalist programme and policy designed to capture all sections of the population (except those who stand for Socialism), are thus shown to have made little headway. Their voting strength compares unfavourably with what it was 30 and more years ago. As long ago as 1912 they received 35 per cent. of the votes (“Labour Year Book,” 1916, P. 411). Then at the elections in January, 1919, after the setting up of the Republic, the Social Democrats were by far the largest party with nearly 40 per cent. of the votes (45 per cent. if the "Independent Socialists” are added), and remained the largest party until 1932. Their vote had, however, been falling and at the 1930 election was down to 25 per cent. of the total.

The Communists, who in 1930 obtained 13 per cent. of the votes, fared badly in the elections in August last, receiving 1,360,000 votes, about 4 per cent of the total.

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The Faith of a “Christian Communist"

In accordance with the policy of getting the support of anyone no matter what his understanding of Socialism may be, the Communist Party accepts into its ranks people whose religious beliefs are quite incompatible with Marxism and with the views expressed by Lenin.

The following are extracts from an article,44 Why I Became a Communist,” by the Reverend W. E. Allen, published in the Daily Worker (August 31st, 1949): —

“ In the three years I have been a member of the Communist Party I have found in the fellowship of the local branch a comradeship, a sense of service to the people, and an intellectual honesty which I feel are truly Christian.”

"What Jesus expressed in religious symbols, Marx saw in scientific terms. Communism has much to give Christianity, and Christianity much to give Communism.”

It is odd that the Rev. W. E. Allen should find "intellectual honesty” in the Communist Party. In three years of membership and in his reading of Marx, which, he says, benefited his understanding, he must surely by now have discovered that the Communists are professed accepters of the materialist conception of history and he can hardly have escaped coming across their former use of the phrase from Marx: "Religion is the opium of the people.”

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Communists Who Live in Glasshouses

The Daily Worker (August 19th, 1949) finds it very diverting that an American critic of the Labour Government should accuse them of aiming to "equalise incomes so that everybody will be approximately on the same financial level.”

The Worker says: —

“This is not only ‘news’ for Americans. Workers in Britain’s nationalised industries contemplating the salaries of the heads of the nationalised boards will find it strange, exciting and untrue.”

Bu who are the Communists to throw stones at the Labour Government? True the latter have forgotten their old advocacy of equality of incomes, but what about the Russian workers who can contrast the high salaries and incomes from investment in State bonds in Russia, with Lenin's declaration that as soon as they got power the Communists in Russia would likewise bring all incomes to approximately the level of pay of the workers?

Very appropriately at this moment comes the statement of one of the admirers of Russia, Professor Bernal. He visited Russia again last month, 15 years after ah earlier trip, and on his return he commented: "How they have changed! The standard of living of the better-paid workers is higher than here. The shops are filled and there are no queues.” (Daily Express, November 10th, 1949.)

We are asked to admire “Socialist” Russia because the "higher paid workers,” not the workers as a whole, are better off than are workers in capitalist Britain!

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A Labour Prophet has a Fall

At the Labour Party Conference in May, 1940, when the Labour Party decided to enter the Churchill Government, Mr. Arthur Greenwood, M.P., made a prophecy about the outcome of the war:—

"We shall have a trembling capitalist system which can never recover again. We shall have broken the back of the vested interests, and we can build a socialist commonwealth which will be a powerful factor in the world.” (Daily Herald, May 14th, 1940.)

On the 10th anniversary of the outbreak of war Mr. Greenwood gave a message to the Daily Mail (September 3rd, 1949) which included the following: — 

“This peace has not yet been won, and Britain’s effort to-day must be directed towards the fullest use of all human and material resources, so as to play our part in the reshaping of the whole world.”

British Capitalism is indeed in a bad way, but what the Labour Government is now doing is to direct all their efforts to trying to put it on its feet again while urging the workers to refrain from making demands that would stand in the way of British capitalist recovery. The Labour Party’s latest pronouncement of policy is appropriately called "Labour Believes in Britain,” not “ Labour Believes in Socialism.”

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Why no Celebration?

By a curious oversight the Daily Worker on August 23rd, 1949, forgot to celebrate a great occasion in Communist Party history; yet when the event occurred ten years ago they claimed that it was a "Victory for Peace and Socialism.” (Daily Worker, August 23rd, 1939.) The event in question was the Pact of Friendship between Stalin and Hitler. Can it be that they now wish to forget that "Socialist” victory?

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Education and the Standard Oil Co. of America

"The Lamp,” a periodical published by the Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey), U.S.A., reproduced in its issue for November, 1947, an address by Frank W. Abrams, Chairman of the Board of Directors, on "The Stake of Business in American Education.” Some of the points made by him are interesting as indicating how big business regards education. His first main point is that the better educated the population are the more they earn and therefore the more money they have to spend on such things as books, newspapers, houses, and, of course, motor cars. His next point was that education increases the workers’ output—"business depends upon education not only to provide more profitable markets but to provide more productive manpower.”

"As every foreman knows, a worker who has had some practice in learning at school usually turns out to be better at learning in a factory. He catches on more quickly not only to the how of his job, but the why of it. His training takes less time. He has a quicker and better grasp of problems and ideas. He is more apt to think about what he is doing and to come up with useful suggestions concerning it. If he has gone through college, he has had an opportunity to acquire the broader perspective and the capacity to think in terms of ideas and trends, which are indispensable in the higher management levels.”

"If business and industry could not draw upon a large reservoir of educated man-power, they would be handicapped in every phase of their operations. American education does a job for business and industry. If our hope of an advancing American economy involves reducing costs, increasing individual productivity, and devising better ways of doing things, we must consider that we have a major interest in helping American education and educators in their work.”

On the financial side he mentions that "many corporations underwrite the expense of research projects in college and university laboratories which they feel will be valuable to their operations. Others grant scholarships.”

He thinks, however, that more should be done in the direction of providing money for endowed educational institutions.

Mr. Abrams also thinks that education makes for political security for the existing social system.

"The experts in this field are convinced that education produces not only a difference in the volume of opinion, but also a difference in the kind of opinion. People with information are inclined to have moderate opinions, whereas those without information are apt to be extremists.”

Of course it all depends on the kind of information. What Mr. Abrams is saying to his fellow big business men is that if they put up the money they can influence the kind of information supplied by the educational institutions and thus help to make America safe for Capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Party News Briefs (1949)

Party News from the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow Branch is getting into its pre-election stride. Vote catching has been commenced by the Parliamentary hopefuls, and Glasgovians are feeling the urge to attend political meetings. Glasgow Branch is catering for this urge in a big way. There are two outdoor platforms on the go, and literature sales are steadily increasing. A speakers’ class, held during the winter months, has borne fruit and the branch now has another half dozen young and enthusiastic speakers who are more than able to deal with any opposition. Plans are well advanced for what appears will be the most active winter season that Glasgow has yet experienced. These plans include a venture to prove that Socialists are indeed sociable. Details will be published in The Socialist Standard at a later date. The branch meetings are well attended and a high standard of discussion is maintained. A discussion is held, after routine branch business, to which all workers are invited. Any reader of The Socialist Standard in Glasgow should pay a visit to the Workers’ Open Forum in Renfrew Street any Wednesday evening. Glasgow members extend a cordial invitation to all to visit their meetings.

A Dance Band must be hired whenever we hold an evening social and dance. Although our social affairs are never a financial loss these days, we might still save a few pounds for other projects if we could produce our own music. There must be quite a number of members and friends who are capable instrumentalists. If we can only get them together, there is no reason why a good dance band for our own use should not be formed. The Social Committee will welcome information on this matter. If you can play any instrument please write to Head Office to let the committee know.

Motor Cyclists also take note. We have received suggestions that we should form a motor cyclists’ group with the object of arranging day or week-end runs to provincial towns where propaganda meetings can be held. The rationing of petrol will prevent any ambitious schemes at the moment, but it may be useful if members who have motor cycles get together to talk over the proposition with a view to setting up some sort of organisation before next spring. Will those who are interested send their name and address to W. Waters at Head Office.

Kingston Branch has continued the meetings at Castle Street, Kingston, with the same success as during the previous season. The Communist Party, which attempted a series of opposition meetings during the 1948 season, has not put in an appearance this year. The most noticeable opposition has come from young Conservatives, but it has been of very poor calibre. With the approach of the shorter and colder evenings, those who have attended the meetings at Castle Street are invited to come and sit by the fire in the Kingston Branch room at 9, Vicarage Road, Kingston, to continue the discussions that have been held from the outdoor platform. The entrance to the branch room is in Wood Street, opposite Bentall’s store, and meetings are on Thursday evenings at 8 o’clock.

Dublin Branch of the Socialist Party of Ireland is meeting with many difficulties and much hostile opposition from various quarters. We reported in the August issue of The Socialist Standard how the Dublin comrades’ meeting on July 3rd had to be discontinued owing to a hostile dement in the audience and to the failure of the police to intervene until a serious breach of the peace was threatened. The following extracts are from The Irish Democrat, published in London by the Connolly Association, and which is obviously Communist controlled. (August, 1949, issue.) “Belts and knuckledusters were used by bands of organised hooligans who marched six abreast to break up the Irish Workers’ League weekly meeting in O’Connell Street on the 17th July.” (Page 1.) “On Sunday, July 24th, a crowd some thousands strong gathered in Abbey Street hoping to see a repeat performance, but no meeting was held . . . ” “Little known aspect of the pogrom background is the work of a handful of Dublin Trotskyites who held a meeting at Abbey Street on July 3rd, which was broken up.” "It is believed that the reactionary elements which attacked the Workers’ League would not have been successful in drawing together their forces if it had not been for the precedent set by these obscure but pernicious political elements.”

The Irish Workers’ League is the organisation in which the Irish communists work, it is, in fact, a Communist organisation, although this is frequently denied. The “Trotskyites” referred to are, of course, our Dublin Comrades. This accusation by The Irish Democrat fails to take into account that the Irish Communists have been attacked in a similar manner before July 17th of this year, before there was a Dublin Branch of the S.P.I., before there was even a Dublin Socialist Group. The Dublin Headquarters of the Irish C.P. were once burned down in one of these disturbances. The argument presupposes that if the Dublin Socialists had not held their meeting on July 3rd, then the future Workers’ League meetings would have been peaceful. Which is nonsense. A Dublin comrade writes: —

“Actually, what is grieving them (the Communists) is the fact that we stole whatever thunder they may have possessed. We came out as revolutionaries, with the red lettering on a white background of our platform reading ‘ Socialist Party of Ireland.’ That’s what got them. They—the Marxists, the dialecticians, the tacticians!! Tactics! Trying to hide under an alias—and sending condolences to the Bulgarian C.P. on the death of Dimitrov! With known Communists like Nolan, O’Riordan, etc., in their ranks, yet trying to maintain that they are not the Communist Party! Why, these people were smelt out long ago, before we held our outdoor meeting, long before.”

As for the “obscure but pernicious political elements.” It’s amusing. Our Comrade Cullen has been propagating Socialism in Ireland for 40 years and is known to everybody who has political connections with the Irish Workers. And “pernicious.” On at least three occasions, the secretary of the Dublin Branch S.P.I. and other members went to see J. Nolan, secretary of the Workers' League, at bis bookshop in Pearce Street to try to arrange an amicable agreement re the allocation of dates for the meetings of each organisation at what appears to be the only official meeting spot in Dublin. But no! They were going to lead the revolution. They were the only revolutionaries. So they have only themselves to blame. The tragedy is that there is now much talk in official circles, including Dail Eireann, about banning public meetings. In the Sunday Independent (Ireland) a printer asks the editor to publicise a statement that no more Communist literature will be printed at his works, “in response to numerous requests.” That will probably raise another problem for our Irish comrades when their manifesto, which is almost completed, is ready for print. Anyway, they are getting ready for a winter campaign. They have arranged a series of lectures the first four of which will be addressed by Comrades Walsh, Fahy, Lynch and Courtney in that order. Further details will appear in the Dublin Mail, editor permitting.

The Week-end Summer School and the Autumn Delegate Meeting will be reported in the next issue.

Our General Secretary, Comrade C. C. Groves has given notice of his intention to resign from that post on the grounds of ill-health. Comrade Groves has held the post of General Secretary for seven years. We are sorry to lose his services, and hope he will soon be well enough to resume them.

Leyton Branch lectures held each second and fourth Monday each month continue to go well, with increasing attendance of members and visitors. The new station opened at “ Elms,” Leytonstone, early this season, is now established, and meetings have been held every Saturday during the propaganda season.

W. Waters