Puzzle corner (1950)

A Short Story from the June 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our problem this month is adapted from a chapter in Edward Bellamy’s book, “Equality,” entitled, “The parable of the Water Tank.” Through a certain land there flowed a clear and pleasant stream and to this stream the people came to draw their water as and when they desired. There came amongst these people those who suggested that this state of affairs was far from good. They hinted that one day the stream might dry up and, as a precaution against this possibility, they proposed the building of a water tank to hold a reserve supply. This was agreed to by the people and the proposers took charge of the operations and also control of the tank. They arranged, and enforced, a plan whereby the people should draw water from the stream in buckets and pour it into the tank. For this they were to receive one half-penny per bucket. When the people required water they would not go to the stream but to the tank where they would be supplied at the price of one penny per bucket. Those who owned and controlled the tank would be exempt from the need to assist with the filling operations but would have access to the water in store. This arrangement went on until the tank became full, when the owners cried "Halt.” The next day the people came for water with their buckets but the owners asked first for the price of one penny. The people pointed out that as they were not now allowed to put water into the tank because it was full they earned no half-pennies and, in consequence, they had no pennies to pay. But the owners sneered and turned them away without water. To protect the tank and its contents from the thirsty people, the owners engaged men to act as policemen and soldiers, they engaged economists and soothsayers to explain to the people and to pacify them, they engaged clerks and officials to measure the water and keep accounts, they engaged servants and slaves to help them to enjoy the privilege and luxury that their position entailed. They bathed in the water, they drank it, they wasted it, until the level fell. Then they cried out to the people to come with their buckets to the stream to get more water to refill the tank. So the process started over again. ½d. a bucket put in and 1d. a bucket taken out. Soon the tank was again full and the people were once more turned away thirsty because they were not allowed to earn the pennies per two buckets that would entitle them to draw one bucket out. This is the state of affairs now. The stream still flows through the land, the tank is rapidly filling again, and hundreds of people are talking, questioning and seeking a solution to the problem of a land with plenty of water and plenty of thirsty people. There is a solution, a very simple solution. We do not intend to give it here. We think the workers are wide awake enough to see it. At least, those who read the Socialist Standard should be.

W. Waters

Puzzle corner (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month we set you a different type of problem. This short item, outlining the problem, originally appeared in the Lansing Labor News, and was reprinted in The Western Socialist, organ of our companion party in the United States, in December, 1947. The solution of the problem is presented in the first column of the back page of this issue of The Socialist Standard : —

   “Man can circle the earth without touching the ground; man can kill other men many miles away; man can weigh the stars of heaven; man can drag oil from the bowels of the earth; man can compel an icy waterfall to cook his meals hundreds of miles from the stream; man can print a million newspapers in an hour; man can breed the seeds out of oranges; man can coax a hen to lay 365 eggs in a year; man can persuade dogs to smoke pipes and sea lions to play guitars. Man, in other words, is quite an ingenious and remarkable package of physical and mental machinery.

  “But when this astonishing person is confronted with one problem, he retires to his hut defeated. Show him six men without money and six loaves of bread belonging to men who cannot use it but who want money for it, and ask him how six hungry men can be put in possession of the six surplus loaves, and watch him then, it is then that man attends conferences and appoints committees and holds elections and cries out that a crisis is upon him. He does a score of useless things and then retires, leaving in the shivering twilight the tableau of six hungry men and the six unapproachable loaves.”

Get your pen, paper and envelopes ready; you may need them. When you have read the solution in column one, page 64, right through, from first word to last, from top to bottom, think it over. Then read the sentence in italics at the foot of the column. That’s when you may need the pen, paper and envelope. It’s a prize worth having.

W. Waters.

Puzzle Corner (1950)

From the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you do not know who spoke the following words of wisdom you will find the names below. Remember them when these people or others of their kind make you promises in order to enlist your support

(1) “Capitalism is now, we are told, well on the road to permanent recovery; all talk of breakdown, of impending wars and revolutions is now happily out of date; an epoch of peace and plenty is opening out before us. What are we to say to scientists who give way to such 'wishful thinking’? A dozen times now the cycle of boom, crisis, depression, recovery, boom, crisis has gone through its phases, and as each crisis has passed into depression, and then as symptoms of recovery have appeared to lighten the depression, the shallower prophets of capitalism have told us at length, but now for ever, all was well. Do they still believe it? Certainly we cannot.

  “Unfortunately, however, as we have seen, whatever else may happen upon this uncertain planet, the establishment of a planned stable and high-wage-paying Capitalism is impossible.

(2) “It is impossible for the capitalist system to give to the workers the rewards that are promised under a policy of social reform. It is impossible . . .  to carry out a policy of getting as much as we can out of Capitalism, it will lead to a fresh crisis in Capitalism as arose in 1931, and we shall find that the force of economic power still residing in the hands of the capitalists will again be called in to defeat the workers' Government.”

(3) “Unlike the investors of capital, the investors of labour cannot cash in on any accumulation of wealth they have helped to create'.

   “It is doubtful if this injustice will be remedied within a capitalist structure."

W. Waters.

Puzzle Corner Answers.

(1) Mr. John Strachey, M.P., Minister for War in the present Government, in his book “The Nature of Capitalist Crisis,” pages 19 and 354.

(2) Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking at the Labour Party Conference at Southport in 1934 (page 159 of the conference report).

(3) Mr. Arthur Deakin, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, writing in “Tribune,” May 14th, 1943.