Ninepence for Fourpence. (1912)

From the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Everyone does not appreciate deep economic arguments, but every workman can appreciate between getting 9d. and 4d.”

Thus spake Mr. Lloyd George—beg pardon, Lord Limehouse, the (rare and refreshing) fruit merchant, addressing a “Labour” deputation on June 20, 1911.

Mr. McKenna, not to be outdone by the load-line raiser, said : “The fundamental fact is that the workman contributes 4d. and gets 9d.”

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You are to get 9d. But turn from the official report of the aforementioned deputation (Cd. 5869.) to leaflet 2393 of the National Liberal Federation, which says :—

“Of course, this does not mean that for every 4d. paid the insured person always gets 9d. Back.”

I hope every workman “can appreciate” that. You get 9d.—but not always. A kind of three card trick. Find, the 9d. among Lloyd George’s knaves.

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It isn’t an employers’ Bill, oh, no ! Look, however, at Lloyd George’s speech to the deputation from the Chambers of Commerce (30.6.11), introduced by Lord Brassey :—

“Under the Compensation Act the workmen malinger at the expense of the employer, but under this Bill they will malinger at their own expense. If a man malingers he cannot draw more money from the State, he cannot draw more from the employer. He will have to find the deficiency out of his own pocket.” (Same report.)

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“That is a very important point for the protection of the employer which I am surprised you have overlooked. … I quite agree with Mr. Parkes [Tory M.P. for Birmingham] that the doctor is perhaps the most important and essential person in this connection, and it is also very important that he should be put in an independent position, and that is why, as far as I am concerned, I should be very glad if the House of Commons took the responsibility of placing the doctors under the local Health Committees, because, after all, the local Health Committees will be independent bodies. I have no doubt there will be employers there because there are far more employers than workmen on the county councils of the country ; the proportion of workmen is not very high.”

The workmen cannot malinger—Lloyd George has seen to that. But what about the employers ? Ever heard of masters malingering, David ? Announce that grouse shooting commences on August 12th and see how they run ! The Liberals won’t stop them malingering. A lot depends upon the doctor, says David. Workingmen with experience of the London County Council doctor in compensation cases, for instance, will agree with him. Therefore Lloyd George urged employers to get upon the Councils “because membership of the Council means lower rates.” And he went on, “he would, if he gave the benefit of his business administration to the local authority, cut down the rates and lighten enormously the charges which fell upon himself.”

To a “Labour” deputation the Chancellor preaches one tale, but to this deputation from the employers and merchants he preaches another. Listen to this :—

“I would invite the attention of employers to the way in which, we have framed this Bill, because it is framed in a way to completely protect them.” (Cd. 5869.)

This appeal to Property is equal to the one in the National Liberal Federation’s leaflet (No. 2422), which says of the employer :—

“He will be repaid partly in the increased efficiency of his workers. In good health and with a mind freed from financial worry, a man will do better work though working no harder than now. Then, again, men will be saved from the workhouse and the relieving officer, and so tho employer will have less to pay in Poor Rates.”

The “Manchester Evening News” (Liberal) of 7.8.12 reported the Clerk to the South Manchester Guardians thus :—

“The National Insurance Act will do more to prevent and eventually to eradicate pauperism than all the Poor Law Acts on the Statute Book.”

Being notified of this Mr. Lloyd George wrote:—

“I have always felt confident that its operation must have the effect of relieving the rates. . . . I was informed the other day by the Local Government Board that consumption alone costs the rates about a million and a half per annum. . . . Mr. Bloomfield is therefore perfectly right in assuming that the operation of this Act must necessarily have the direct effect of relieving taxpayers of a large proportion of the burdens which sickness now casts on their shoulders. . . . The maintenance provided in days of sickness by the Insurance Act and the institutions set up and subsidised out of its funds will be offered to the workingman as substitutes for the workhouse and workhouse infirmary—substitutes which will be consistent with ‘the honour and dignity of Labour.'”

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When this glorious Bill was introduced, Liberals pointed jubilantly to Clause 51. “There is the worker’s clause,” they declared. “Under it no landlord can levy distress for the whole period any person receives sickness benefit.” But—”there’s many a dip twixt the cup and the lip.” The Employers’ Parliamentary Council waited upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a spokesman of the Farmers’ Federation said :—

“The great bulk of our workmen are housed in cottages belonging to us, and if those cottages are not at our disposal when the workman leaves off work the whole work of the farm is stopped at once.”

To this Mr. Lloyd George replied :

“If the clause were confined to cases where life would be imperilled by the process would that satisfy you ?”

Farmers’ Representative: “Yes, I should say so.”

Mr. Lloyd George : “Then I propose doing it. I am with you entirely. I think the clause as it stands is far too wide and malingerers might take advantage of it.”

So at the behest of landlords he altered the clause, which now states that if in the opinion of a doctor the person receiving sick benefit is likely to die if distress is levied, it shall not be done. The doctor’s certificate is to be issued for a week only, but may be renewed each week up to a month by the doctor, unless the landlord has applied to the Registrar of a County Court, whose decision must be accepted without appeal.

On this point we had an item in “Reynolds’s Newspaper” (2.7.11) headed “Master of Elibank Reassures Landlords re Clause 51.” It ran as follows :—

“The Master of Elibank has written to Sir Robert Aske at Hull with reference to the Insurance Bill. In the course of his remarks he says : ‘it should not be overlooked that the provision of sick pay is likely to make the payment of rent by the working classes during sickness very much more regular than it has hitherto been, and Mr. Lloyd George has no doubt that this will far more than compensate the owners of small houses for any loss that may be suffered in the rare cases where Clause 51 becomes operative.'”

This is “rare and refreshing fruit,” indeed— for the landlords. In fact, the striking unanimity of Liberal and Tory, landlord and factory-lord, over this Bill, should convince the toiler of its fraud, The “wicked House of Lords” passed it without a murmur. The Tory party largely supported its Second Reading, and refused to vote against the Third Reading. Mr. Lloyd George eulogised prominent Tories for their support of the Bill—Mr, Charles Bathurst, Lord Henry Bentinck, and Mr. William Waldorf Astor ! The latter, a large property owner, objected to postponing the operation of the Act, and explained the large saving of rates that would result, remarking, “We must make the ratepayer realise it.”

“We are going,” said Mr. Lloyd George at Queen’s Hall, on December 31,1909, “to provide adequate insurance against unemployment to prevent the starvation of the wife and children of the man who is out of work perforce.” Under the Insurance Act the “adequate” insurance becomes seven whole bob a week. But should he be unemployed “perforce” because his Liberal or Tory employer has locked him out, then the starvation will take place through the deliberate provisions of the Insurance Act, which say that in case of a lock-out no money shall be paid to the men. if the toilers should be goaded into striking by a Liberal Devonport or a Tory Penrhyn, then, also, they get—nothing. They may have paid in pounds, but they can starve. If, also, a toiler fails to make application for benefit “in the proper form,” if he fails to come at the “required time” to the “required place” to sign on, he draws—nothing. Should he, in the eyes of the Jacks-in-office, leave work “without sufficient cause,” or lose his job through what his boss calls “misconduct,” then he gets the figure which multiplied by itself is the same. Again, should he be in arrears in his contributions through lack of work, he may look in vain for the Welsh rarebit’s “rare and refreshing fruit.”

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This idea of what is “adequate” provision seems to vary with the recipient. Baron Robson, late Sir William Robson, applied in July to the Ministry for “adequate” assistance as he waa retiring. He had been Solicitor-General at £6,000 per annum, and after a year or two became Attorney-General at £7.000 a year. Both these jobs carried with them “fees” which would be a good deal more than the salary itself. The next job Robby got was Judge of the High Court at £10,000 per annum. He stuck that for a year or two, without “malingering” more than half the time, and then retired—of course, with “just cause.” So David’s Government presented him with a pension “for the term of his natural life,” of a dollar a week—no, beg pardon, three thousand, seven hundred arid fifty pounds a year. £72 a week is “adequate” for this lawyer to malinger upon, but the sick working man is adequately provided for with seven bob.

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Every Insurance Commissioner draws twenty pounds a week, while the Chairman of Commissions gets twice that sum. Where do these huge salaries come from ?

Mr. Lloyd George won’t say. But talking to the Merchants and Bankers of the City of London just after the Bill was brought in (July, 1911; he said :

“It would be a great satisfaction to them to know that in his judgment the Insurance Bill would not add a single farthing to the taxation which had already been imposed in this country.”

They don’t come out of taxes, so where are they coming from ? The employers say they won’t come from them in any other way.

Listen to Sir Adolph Tuck, presiding at a meeting of Raphael Tuck & Sons (23.7.12) :

“I am of the firm opinion that this expenditure (on Insurance contributions) will, in the long run, prove one of the best investments which the company has been called upon to make.”

A few days previous to this Lord Ashton, the employer of 6,000 men at his Lancaster carpet and other works, said : “It is one of the grandest Acts ever passed.” On July 7th Mr. F. D. Acland (a member of the Government) told the people of St. Albans that “in Germany they could not find a big employer who would go back to the days before the Insurance Act there.” 

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As a last quotation let me give Mr. Lloyd George’s speech to the deputation from the National Farmers’ Union of England on July 4 1911 (Cd. 5869) : —

“I want the farmers to remember this, that this is going to be a tremendous relief to the Poor Law, and the casual labourer is the man who gets on the rates. It would be an enormous relief to the poor rates. Our real economic trouble is the casual labourer. We want, somehow or other, to make provision for him, and I think it is worth our while, and it is certainly worth the farmers’ while, to do so ; because the poor rate is their heavy burden, and to get the casual labourer off the rates would be a benefit to you, if you could get him off. I am very loth to keep the casual out if I can possibly help it. That is the most helpless class in the country and they become a burden on the community. IT IS FAR BETTER TO GET FOURPENCE OUT OF HIM, BECAUSE NOW YOU ARE BEARING THE WHOLE OF THE EXPENSE.”

Does this, set alongside his emphatic statement that the workers are to get “9d. for 4d.,” sufficiently prove how much of the liar and the cheat lies hidden in the unblushing hide of this little Welsh lawyer ?

Adolph Kohn

Editorial: Liberalism’s Last Ditch. (1909)

Editorial from the September 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Even from the point of view of the orthodox Liberal manufacturer, the present Budget, with its innumerable exemptions and concessions, can hardly be described otherwise than as “Much cry and little wool”; but that the “Labour” members should hail it as a great, democratic, working class Budget would be astounding were it not remembered that they owe their seats in Parliament to compacts with the Liberals, and hope to retain them at the next elections by Liberal aid. “One good turn deserves another” is their motto, and the workers should, realise this also—by turning them out.

The Government, indeed, often allows the real nature of the Finance Bill to peep through. Mr. Asquith, speaking at the City meeting on the Budget, in reference to Tory opposition said:

“Our critics and ourselves start from one common and unavoidable admission. The growing requirements of national defence, with the simultaneous increase in expenditure demanded both by the conscience and by the interests of the community for purposes of social reform, have brought about a gap in the exchequer of almost all the great nations which is beyond precedent. How that gap is to be filled is the question which at this moment is presenting itself with insistency and with urgency to the Finance Ministers of all the richest and most progressive nations of the world.”

The increase in armaments to protect the property and interests of our masters, together with the increasing cost of domestic legislation rendered inevitable by economic development and by the growing intensity of exploitation—these are the excuses for the Budget. The cost of “Dreadnoughts” is palpable and enormous ; it hits the capitalist where he lives. But the cost of social reform is humbug, for the capitalists, as a class, make a profit on it. Moreover the amount of reform is microscopic, demanded though it be by “the interests of the community”—that is, by the interests of the ruling class. Social reform, even when at what “Labour leaders” call an unprecedented rate, utterly and entirely fails to keep up with the increase of human wreckage created by capitalist industry, as the increasing misery of the workers testifies. Under the progressive exploitation of to-day, and with all the reforms passed or likely to be passed by the master class, the wage worker finds, and will continue to find, that instead of becoming happier or better off, his progress is only the more rapidly downward, in the direction of greater toil and poverty. Reforms are, in part, the inevitable counterpart of economic development, and, for the rest, an endeavour to stave off revolution. But however inevitable they may be under capitalism, they cannot, from their very nature, and from the nature of the class that enacts and administers them, retard the increasing exploitation of the working class; their aim and tendency is, indeed, to still further increase the security or profits of the capitalists. Hence it is folly in the workers to fight over reforms, for in revolution—in the capture of political power—lies their only hope. From this standpoint it is seen how great is the crime of the Labour misleaders in endeavouring to round up the workers in support of a capitalist Budget. All that there is in the much lauded taxes on “land-values” is a basis for the future raising of revenue for purely capitalist purposes. It is an alternative scheme of taxation to Tariff Reform—it is Liberalism’s last ditch. Carried out to their logical extreme, the new taxes would merely relieve the industrial capitalist at the expense of the ground landlord, leaving the worker exactly where he was. It is in fact, surprising how little the whole question of taxation affects the wage workers as a class, and the present sham fight between manufacturer and landowner again emphasises this fact. The Budget, indeed, only feebly caricatures the old hereditary conflict between the industrial capitalist and the landed interest. It hurts nobody, but it makes a lot of noise ; and although the new taxes on “values” are little more than names, they are sufficient to serve the Liberals as an effective election cry. The Liberal Party knows that the public dearly love to be humbugged, and it is giving the public a treat.

But apart from this, can there bo any doubt regarding the anti-Socialist (and consequently anti-working-class) nature of the present Finance Bill ? The leaders of Liberalism are falling over each other in their eagerness to reassure vested interests on this score. Mr. Churchill, who, to use an Irishism, often opens his mouth only to put his foot in it, nevertheless made several statements in that speech of his on July 17th, which did not need to be re-interpretated by his chief. He insisted that there was a vital distinction between Liberalism and Socialism in that the latter attacked capital. He also said:

“It was true to say that nearly three out of four persons paying income-tax would be taxed after this budget—this penal budget, this wicked, monstrous, despoilatory budget,—for income at a lower rate than they were by the late Conservative Government. (Cheers.)”

Rejoice ! ye wage slaves.

The Daily Chronicle for July 24th also indicated the anti-Socialist character of the Budget “Land Tax” by saying that

“the principle of it has been accepted by a Tory House of Commons, and by the Conservative party in the German Reichstag ; and it has been put into practice by Continental cities and British Colonies.”

Of course it has ; and wherein have the workers benefited ?

In a speech on July 22nd Mr. Asquith said that Liberalism was opposed to Conservatism, but

“On the other hand, it is equally far removed from and strongly opposed to Socialism, which would do away with the institution of property, which would cripple the individual power of initiative, which would sacrifice to a superficial equality the reality and the essence of freedom. (Cheers.)”

And speaking of the Budget in general the Premier said “prove any injustice, any inconvenience even, to the business world, and we will set it right.” While in respect to the reversion taxes in particular he asserted that “no party and no government had shown greater consideration to vested interests” than had his Government in the matter of this new taxation.

There can, therefore, be no further doubt regarding the anti-Socialist and anti-working-class policy of the so-called Labour Party and pseudo-Socialist reform organisations, when they work with the Liberal Party and actively support a class Budget which would not improve the position of the worker one jot or tittle. Thus when speaking at the Hyde Park Liberal Demonstration in support of the Budget, Mr. Keir Hardie said (we quote from Reynolds’s of July 25th last) :

“The aristocrats called the Budget a Bill of robbery and spoliation, but the proposed taxes were simply measures for compelling owners to make a restitution to the working classes whom they had robbed for ages.”

So does he and his kind deliberately attempt to mislead the workers by pretending that the masters govern for the benefit of their slaves ! Unfortunately it is the ignorance among the workers of the fundamental truths of their position that allows them to become the dupes of these political charlatans. Nevertheless economic development and Socialist propaganda are doing their work, and when the toilers grasp the essentials of the Socialist position the “Labour leader,” like Othello, will wake up to find his occupation gone. For the present it is our duty in our task of working-class enlightenment to expose the political and trade union job-hunters battening, or endeavouring to batten, on working-class ignorance. It is, moreover, no accident that so frequently brings together Labour members, Liberal manufacturers, teetotal fanatics, Suffragettes, cranks, and Bible-bangers of all sorts—they are birds of a feather. A man may be known by the company he keeps, so Asquith, Hardie and Co., associated now in their endeavours to pilot the workers on to the shoals of Liberal humbug, will find themselves associated also in the shipwreck of Liberalism that will occur in the wake of the growing Socialist consciousness of the working class.

Editorial: Raising the Wind. (1909)

Editorial from the June 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

As expected, the Budget bids fair to take up most of the time of Parliament; but given the make-up of the “representatives of the people,” one way of killing time would seem to be as good as another. The Liberal Party, with Mr. Lloyd George’s land taxation, has taken one timid little step in the direction of the purely capitalist form of taxation. Were it not that Liberal manufacturer and Tory landlord are so very much akin one could conceive even of such an “extreme” budget as would so heavily tax land as to bring Nationalisation within reach. This reform so much advocated by your pseudo-Socialist of the I.L.P. and S.D.P., were it achieved, would, however, still leave the land at the disposal of the capitalist manufacturer and capitalist farmer, because of their power to outbid the workers in the payment of State rentals, so that the pretence of “land reform” we have heard so much of lately from the Liberal Press might well go much further without changing the relative positions of capitalists and wage-workers, and consequently the proposals, after all the fuss, resolve themselves simply into the question of how to pay for Dreadnoughts and other means of destruction and of class domination.

The taxation proposals, generally, are rather cutely drawn up, and much ostentatious “fairness to all classes” is paraded. Your average non-Socialist workman, if he has for the time being to pay a bit more for his smokes, has the satisfaction of feeling that he is not robbing his master, at least, and of course duly appreciates Mr. Lloyd George’s kind consideration in not overlooking him when presenting his little bill. Judging from the protestations of the Liberal Press one must conclude that the Liberal Party is, after all, the real best friend of the brewers. Are not they to reap many millions in additional profits as a result of the new taxation ? The Daily News and the rest of them provide complicated calculations demonstrating as much and these good people should know.

Meanwhile be it noted that the Labour Party is, as might be expected, duly helping to vote the capitalist class, through the Liberal Government, the means (upkeep of armed forces, judiciary, etc.) with which to maintain its class domination. Keir Hardie and his colleagues support this “Socialistic budget” of their friends the Liberals. They would not be enjoying the opportunity and fulfilling their obligations were it not for the Liberal votes and often organised Liberal support with which they were elected to Parliament.

The Liberal Party Condemned. Lloyd-George’s Three-Year Old Judgment. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Beg to Remind You.

In the issue of the Socialist Standard for Dec. 1906, we printed a criticism of a speech—a remarkable speech— made in Birmingham on Oct. ’22nd 1906 by Mr. Lloyd-George. He said that in returning the Liberal Government to power, the people had, in effect, declared :

“We are going to give you a chance, but it is only a chance. . . . Here you have been tinkering for generations with reform, and the end of it all is slums, pauperism, and great want in the land of plenty.”

Lloyd-George declared that if the conditions which gave rise to this complaint of the people were not removed in three years, the Great Liberal Party would deserve to go, and a new movement would grew up to displace the Liberal “bunglers or rogues.” We have not quite reached the three year limit, but are within easy sight of that end, and may justifiably remind “the people” of Mr. Lloyd-George’s opinion and prophecy. The Liberal Government, the “strongest government of modern times,” has had more than three years to show their hand and to commence their endeavour to remove the “great want in the land of plenty” if they intend to do so. The political memory of “the people” is proverbially short and they may have forgotten that in the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he and his colleagues deserve to be turned out if they do not accomplish in three years what we at the time declared to be impossible.

As governments go they have been strenuous, with autumn sessions (things of such working-class importance that some working-class organisations conduct special campaigns for them) and all-night sittings. They have passed countless bills and reshaped administration in many departments ; but after all they have done we have to apply the Lloyd-George test: have they abolished the “great want in the land of plenty” ?

The item in the programme of their accomplishments we are pointed to by exultant Liberals is the one of Old Age Pensions. The criticisms of this are too numerous, and have been laboured in these columns too often, to receive a detailed examination now, but that it is calculated to save the rates by inducing old veterans of labour to keep out of the workhouse, where their maintenance will average 11s. a week, is sufficient to show the hollowness of its blessing.

A Rainbow to Chew.

The particular item in which our prophet is interested, and which comes so near the end of the three year limit, is the Budget. The flagging interest and enthusiasm of its supporters is now being lashed into renewed vigour by Ministerialists, but whether the effects of the stimulus will last, assisted though it is by the political bankruptcy of the official opposition, remains to be seen. The Budget has been labelled “Democratic” and “working man’s,” although the reason for this is not very obvious. True, the Labour Party are among its supporters, and a recent demonstration in its favour was backed by certain branches of the I.L.P. and several trade unions, but there are probably other than working-class interests involved here. The whole of the pother is about the raising of the money, but the capitalist class must pay, for the simple but sufficient reason that they cannot get blood out of a stone. We are not concerned how it is raised so much as with the way it is spent; and when we look at the factors which have necessitated the extra revenue, we are amazed at the coolness that calls the Budget “democratic.” The bulk of the extra money is for the Navy and the Army. Dreadnoughts and Territorial Armies do nothing, surely, to remedy the “great want in a land of plenty.” Soldiers are handy on cccassions such as the one at Belfast; and though Dreadnoughts might not be able to be effective at Hull or at Grimsby when the workmen become disaffected, there is no question that smaller naval fry are useful. But even this hardly justifies the term “democratic,” nor affords a reason for working-class enthusiasm.

Purely a Thieves’ Wrangle.

The most subtle political factor in the carefully simulated campaign in favour of the Budget, the item upon which it is intended to focus working-class attention, is the introdiiction of the tax upon the increase of value of urban land. The landlord, doing nothing, is able, under existing fiscal arrangements to draw a proportion of the value given to land by the accumulation of population or the erection of factories, houses, etc. The proposal of the Government which has been designated “revolutionary” is a levy on this increased value. I am not opposed to the land tax, so much as to the private possession of the land entirely ; but the position for us is simply that the disadvantages of the present arrangement falls on the industrial capitalist, while the position of the workman remains ever the same—that of “great want in the land of plenty.” While the process of the ground landlord bleeding the capitalist does not affect the working-class, for the reason that the capitalist pays the smallest wages possible all the time, so the similar process of the ground landlord bleeding the houseowner does not affect the worker, for the reason that the houseowner gets the highest rent possible all the time. But, as has been the case throughout that period of history that has seen the capitalist class question the supremacy of the landed aristocrats, the capitalists are once more prepared to use the working class for their own political ends. It is a matter of comparative ease to illustrate the injustice of the privilege enjoyed by the owners of the land, while the privilege of the ownership of capital is more completely obscured by complicated processes of exchange.

Short and Codling.

Nevertheless, there is a complete essential identity in both privileges, and while either remains, the workman is the under-dog, suffering “great want in the land of plenty.” To emphasise the idleness and the hollowness of land taxes as a solution of that poverty, it is but necessary in the first place to point to our Australasian Colonies which enjoy such taxation, but where, notwithstanding, the same social inequality prevails: in the second place it is sufficient to indicate that such inequality, arising from the distribution of wealth, the ownership of the direct processes of such production and distribution have a far greater effect than the more indirect ownership of the land ; and as between the landlord and the capitalist, the direct despoiler of the workman is the capitalist, however he, in his turn, may be despoiled of his plunder by the landlord.

The distinction sought to be urged by Liberals generally between land and capital, and more particularly with regard to the conditions of ownership, do not hold water for one moment. The perfection of the processes and the instruments of production is in no way due to the capitalist class, but is the outcome of countless ages of evolution, and represents the co-ordinated experience of the race in the methods of maintaining its existence. That development is due to the workers who operate and fashion, rather than to the idlers who merely own. The instruments of production are essentially as social and as necessary as land, and the private ownership of one can be maintained no more logically than the other. The Liberal Party in using the social necessity argument to combat the claims of the landlords, is preparing a rod for its own back when it maintains the claims of the capitalists.

The Issue Clearly Put.

The question immediately remaining to be solved is whether the workers are sufficiently conscious of their position as a class, against both the landlord and capitalist factions, to see through the latest attempt of their masters, and keep the issue to the broader, simpler one so excellently phrased by the very man who is now busy organising the new side-track, viz., why is there, after three years of Liberal Government, no diminution, of that “great want in the land of plenty ?” Once the true answer to this pregnant question, an answer which only the untrammelled voice and pen of enlightened Labour dare formulate, is understood by the workers, the new movement predicted by Lloyd-George will make short work of both Liberal and Tory “bunglers or rogues.”

R. H. Kent

The Rainy Day. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world’s arena has been somewhat crowded latterly, and he must he a singularly moribund individual who has allowed the series of recent world-happenings to drop through his cerebral filter without observing that we are on the eve of stupendous changes. Putting aside the North Pole incident, and even the question of the abolition or retention of the Censor, we think it vastly more important to consider that Japan has jumped out of feudalism into modern capitalism, and that almost within the memory of still young men. Japan hits now quite a number of well equipped, up-to-date cotton mills, with which, she is not only supplying her home demand, but is exporting to China. She is thus a new and dangerous competitor in the international race for markets. Turkey now shows signs of throwing off the sloth of ages and of joining in the scramble. Persia, too, and Egypt, are profiting by the example of their contigious neighbours and are responding to the stimulus of imported civilisation. The tremendous expansive powers of the means of production are, to the intelligent student at least, well known, and it would seem only a question of a very short time, before the countries named pass through the stages of the importation of machinery and staple products to being self-supporting, and at last to that where a surplus is produced and exportation begins. This stage once reached, and possessing a proletariat who can rub along comfortably on twopence or threepence a day, it is easy to see where the trouble will commence. Capital, that remarkably shy bird which is always “going abroad,” will have to either consider the advisability of an inter-planetary trip, or throw up the sponge. The latter process an awakened and intelligent proletariat can materially assist, and our steadily increasing membership tends to show that we are getting this.

Whilst, however, these portentous happenings are being enacted abroad, some no less interesting incidents are occupying the stage at home, in this our own, our native land. The comparatively puny event, the Budget, has been recently dealt with in our columns. Its chief purpose has been to give the Labour Party another opportunity of exhibiting their identity with the enemy, and of justifying the name that Engels applied to their particular hotch-potch of ideas, demands, etc. He called it Flunkeyism.

But to get on, what we would particularly point out is that the period of bad trade, which has been with us now for several years, has apparently developed a deep and abiding affection for us, and in spite of the newspaper predictions of “better next year,” it is still the common experience to find hundreds of applicants for one poorly remunerated job ; still one reads regularly, almost daily, of some poor devil’s suicide through want of employment. And in view of the facts first stated we feel almost justified in assuming that capitalism, at least in Great Britain, has reached that point where good and bad times cease to alternate and we get all depression, or but slight and short returns to “prosperity.” With the home market almost at a standstill owing to the inability of the worker to purchase back more than a mere fraction of his products ; with foreign markets becoming ever more restricted ; with an enormous army of unemployed always on hand and close on a million people classed as paupers: with all these meaning facts confronting them it is very evident that the “masters of the bread” are feeling far from comfortable. The “good time coming” has failed to materialise, so something must be done to quieten working-class unrest and if possible to offer a counter-attraction to the steadily increasing agitation of the wicked Socialist.

Result (1) the Budget, (2) Insurance against Unemployment. The former, as we have observed, has been dealt with in our columns already. It is of the latter we now wish to speak.

Mr. Winston Churchill, in an interview which the Daily Mail (16.8.09) claims to have had with him, was considerate enough to explain the proposed scheme to the interviewer, and in doing so exposed, not only the cloven hoof, but the goat-like haunches, the horned head and leering grin of capitalism’s patron saint, the Father of Lies. The main features of the scheme are these : It will be (1) compulsory ; (2) contributory ; (3) divided up into different sections for different trades.

"Compulsion was necessary. Voluntary schemes fail for the reason that most of those who join them are men likely to be most often unemployed."

See the beautiful and touching solicitude of our rulers for the comfort and well-being of the worker. Only those likely to benefit joined under a voluntary system. What is wanted is a membership composed of men who will only want to pay in and never draw out.

“Contributions from men and employers were also necessary. To begin with, the country could not afford to do without them ; and moreover, the idea is to increase the stability of our institutions by giving the mass of industrial workers a direct interest in maintaining them. With a ‘stake in the country’ in the form of insurance against evil days these workers will pay no attention to the vague promises of revolutionary Socialism.”

Thus Mr. Churchill. The position of the S.P.G.B. regarding palliatives is, or should be, well known, and we think the above a striking confirmation of our attitude. Social reform is the antidote to Socialism. Palliatives are the sops thrown out to keep the workers busy while the capitalists make their position more secure, and serve much the same purpose as the impedimenta thrown out by a man in a sleigh pursued by wolves.

The details of the scheme are also extremely interesting. The amount of subscription is not yet definitely fixed, but will probably be 2½d. per week from the worker, 2½d. a week from the employer, and the same from the State. Every worker is to have a card upon which stamps to the value of his own and his employer’s contribution must be stuck each week. The employer is to affix the stamp, deducting the worker’s 2½d. from his wages. The employer may to save time and trouble, send all his cards to the local labour exchange with a cheque for the amount due, and the cards will be stamped without any further trouble to him.

The labour exchanges and the insurance plan will work closely together. When a worker loses his job he is to report himself to the exchange, which immediately tries to find him work. For a week he receives nothing. It is assumed that he will have saved enough to last him a week, and in the meantime the exchange endeavours to find him a job in order to save the fund.

When the exchange hears of work likely to suit the unemployed worker he must either take it or explain to a committee of masters and men why he objects. If they consider his objection unsatisfactory he is bound to accept the job or lose his out-of-work allowance. If neither the man nor the exchange can find work, than after seven days he begins to receive the tremendous sum of eight shillings or less per week, which may go on for fifteen weeks, or more if the benefits are slightly less. If still out of work after twenty weeks he drops out of benefit, and when next he finds employment must start all over again. The second time he has to subscribe longer before he becomes entitled to claim on the funds. The original period of probation will most probably be eight months. The second will be longer and the third longer still. This will have the effect of clearing the fund of those who are habitually unemployed for long spells. The frequently out-of-work must seek relief of the distress committee : they are outside the limits of the labour exchange and insurance system, which is in no sense charitable. “It is a purely economic and mathematical business arrangement for preventing waste.”

The unemployed problem is a necessary consequence of and an indispensable adjunct to the capitalist method of wealth making. The introduction of machinery and improved methods into industry, renders an increasing number of workers superfluous. These form what Engels calls “the reserve army of labour,” a weapon for crushing the wages of those in work down to mere subsistence level, and also a store from which drafts may be drawn to meet the fluctuations in trade. But the capitalist is faced with another difficulty. The worker’s wage is crushed so near the bare subsistence level that he is unable to put anything away to tide over a spell of unemployment of even short duration. The consequence is that when the capitalist next takes him down off the shelf, he is devitalized, spiritless and out of condition generally, hence not so energetic, not so productive, as the capitalist wants. The proposed scheme of insurance will just provide a few niggardly, shillings to keep the landlord off for a week or two, and with the two or three shillings he has cheated himself out of during the probation period (eight months at least) it is hoped he will keep himself physically fit until the capitalist has need of his services again.

What a hollow sham ! What a mockery ! !

“Many of the greatest employers of labour have warmly welcomed the idea. Sir Charles McLaren, for instance, believes it will add materially to the wealth of the nation.”

Workers, beware when the enemy warmly welcomes anything affecting your relations with him ! You may be fairly sure that it is not for your benefit. When you have a dispute with him as to what constitutes a “fair” portion of your product to hand you back as wages, notice how he “warmly welcomes” the troops who go down to blow your brains out. Notice how he “warmly welcomes” the establishment of conciliation boards when a mere glance at statistics show an ever greater proportion of disputes settled, through them, in favour of the masters. Workers, how long are you going to chase the Will-o’-the-wisps the master class is never tired of contriving for your greater befoolment ? All the budgets, tariff reforms, insurance and other capitalist schemes won’t alter the fact that you have to seek the permission of the owners of the means of life, to work, as a means to live. Nothing save Socialism, the ownership by the people of those means, will change the conditions that make you hirelings, slaves, lackeys; who receive only a fragment of the wealth you alone produce, when you are fortunate enough to be graciously allowed to produce it—for someone else

If you are convinced that in Socialism alone is to be found your only escape, do not wait for someone else to join, but come in and help to build up a solid party. We are often asked how are we going to bring this better state about. Believe us, no select half-dozen are going to do it, but you, and I, and all of us, combined as a class, can do that, and anything else humanly possible that we wish.—when you join. Come in.

Wilfred.

Blogger's Note:

When 'Wilfred' writes: ". .  . The comparatively puny event, the Budget, has been recently dealt with in our columns . . . ",  he's possibly referring to the following editorials from earlier Socialist Standards:

• Jun 1909: Raising the Wind.
• July 1909: A Capitalist Budget.
• Sep 1909: Liberalism’s Last Ditch. 

Editorial: A Capitalist Budget. (1909)

Editorial from the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Judging by the noise made about the land-tax clauses in the Finance Bill, one might think that something vital were at stake, yet it is all nothing more than a squabble between sections of the capitalist class as to what share each shall bear of the cost of their class government. It has long been the policy of one section in these serio-comic scuffles, to squeal “Revolution !” “Socialism !” "Confiscation !” when called upon to pay its share by the majority for the time being; but only the ignorant are duped by it. We are also becoming accustomed to finding the Labour Party, the tail of the Liberal cur, out-doing the regular representatives of the masters in spreading confusion among the workers. And now, because there is a pretence of taxing unearned increment on land values for the support of capitalism, these “Labour members hail it as Socialistic. They ignore the fact that all taxation imposed by capitalists on themselves is a taxation of unearned increment. The masters have already squeezed the workers dry in the factory, so to pay for their new Dreadnoughts the propertied class have, perforce, to tax themselves. That, indeed, is all the budget amounts to; and in what, pray, is it Socialistic?

The Liberals still faintly echo the old conflict between the landed aristocracy and the industrial capitalist, and endeavour to place part of the cost of class rule on the landed interest; and the Labourites, like the Liberals at heart they are. must go wild with delight over it and talk as though it were a taxing of the rich for the benefit of the poor, when it is simply an attempt to lighten the taxes of the industrial capitalist. Moreover, the proceeds are to go, not to the poor, but to the support of capitalist government and to the building of ever more murderous engines of destruction.

Yet Mr. Victor Grayson said (according to the Daily Telegraph of June 23rd) that the Finance Bill contains “a good chunk” of his personal principles. Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald stated that if need be he would go into the lobby to support the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And Mr. Keir Hardie, consistent with his denial of the class struggle, said, “Labour men and Socialists would be cowards if they did not tell Mr. Lloyd George that they stood solidly behind him.”

These men, it should be remembered, are popularly supposed to be representatives of Labour. They would have the workers ignore the fact that the State of to-day is but the collective will of the exploiters; while they preach the absurdity that a futile tax on land for the benefit of the common expenses of capitalist oppression is an instalment of Socialism! Their disregard of fundamentals, their support, of the Liberals, and their tactics of confusion, all show clearly that they are not Socialists but are Socialism's worst enemies.