“Labour’s” tragic triumph in Australia. (1911)

From the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Labour” Prime Ministers and “Labour” leaders of Australia have been prominent in Great Britain of late, owing to the Imperial Conference and the Coronation. They have fraternised with the Lords of Capitalism and rejoiced at the progress of the “greatest Empire (read vampire) the world has ever seen.” All the enemies of Labour have gathered together to do honour to “these men who have risen from the plough.” Amidst the eulogies of Asquith, Balfour, and the rest of the holy capitalist family, they have toured the country urging the propertyless wage slaves to emigrate to the scene of “Labour’s triumphs,” and so escape from the suffering they encounter here.

 

The fact that a “Labour” Party controls the “Commonwealth,” and is supreme in at least two States, has misled some into following their advice. But these unfortunate workers will have a rude and rapid awakening.

 

The Labour Government in the Australian Privatewealth have a platform which includes the conversion of trusts into State monopolies. Already in the Antipodes, although the population is sparse and the land to a great extent uncultivated, the great industries and services are becoming trustified. That is eloquent of the speed with which the newer lands ore influenced by developments in the old.

The State ownership of such services as are already nationalised has been a mixed blessing to the toilers. New South Wales is the State of Labourism’s greatest advance, yet the capital (Sydney) will be remembered as the centre of the great strike of State employed tramway men for “a living wage.”  State ownership is the refuge of the business men being crushed by the trusts.

 

“A White Australia” is another plank in the Labour platform. They have always had a particular preference for “White Slavery” as opposed to other hues. Yet a “White Australia” hasn’t saved the workers from the ills that affect them in “open door” countries. Sydney, for instance, boasts of slums as hideous as the classic ones of the East End of London. The homeworkers of Sydney are a frightful example of how capitalism crushes women, as well as men, “in the land beyond the seas.”

Employment in “White Australia” is precarious. The "Sydney Daily Telegraph" of May 26 contains the following news:

 “Mr. A Rickard, of Messrs. Arthur Rickard & Co., admits he received a surprise yesterday morning. He advertised for forty-one general labourers in the Telegraph, and before noon he had several hundred applicants. When the office opened at nine o’clock there were dozens waiting and the number increased rapidly; they ran over the premises inside and jammed the door outside. Judging the men as a whole they were of the average hard-working type, and were mostly eager to accept the offered 8s. a day. We engaged 59 men and could have had as many more had we wanted them.”

 This in a country where the cost of living is more than double that in Britain, and where the rise in prices in the last decade bas been phenomenal and is still advancing.

 

The Taxation of Land Values is a prominent feature of the Labour programme. Its existence in the Commonwealth has led to it being boomed here, and in view of Australia being the pet example of the “good” effects of land taxes, it would be well to show their real character and influence.

The great merit of land taxes is said to be the releasing of the land and bringing it within the means of the poor man. But the Labour Premier, Mr. Andrew Fisher, told a deputation from the London Chamber of Commerce that “land sold at prices quite as high as, if not higher than, those realised before the tax was passed,” and the report (Manchester Guardian, 14.6.11) goes on to say that “he asserted that since the tax was passed Australian credit had been higher than for many years before.” In face of the criticism of land financiers he “denied that the tax was intended to he vindictive against anybody.” Plaintively he asked: “Could anything be more offensive than to charge his Government with class legislation?”

 

Whether offensive or not, it is but true to charge them with legislation benefiting the capitalist class. Their tax on land values been warmly welcomed by the merchants and store keepers of Australia (for it means a reduction of taxation to them), whilst the capitalist nature of their rule has been shown to all by their institution of compulsory military service to protect the property of Australian plutocrats from seizure by other nations. Conscription! How well it makes for the liberty of the worker in the “land of the free”! Liberty for the employer but continued slavery for the employed – that is the guiding principle of the Labour policy.

The brutal attitude they adopt towards workmen on strike is an instance of this. The Labour Party have control of the State legislature in S. Australia, and they have had many opportunities to show how they stand toward struggling Labour. At the present time down at Renmark, in the agricultural portion of the State, a fight is being waged by the fruit pickers in the endeavour to make their wages cover the increased cost of living. They have been met with the most bitter opposition of the Growers’ Association – the organisation of the masters. The Government have helped the blacklegs and sent down armed police to protect them. The Adelaide Advertiser published an interview on May 11 with Mr. Verran, the Labour Premier, who said: “There is no doubt whatever about the policy of our Government regarding industrial disputes. We stand straight for Compulsory Arbitration. We have no sympathy with Unions that profess a revolutionary tactical policy. Labour in our State has said the strike is a barbarous, out-of-date method of deciding differences between employers and employees”.

 

“Then what are you going to do to prevent trouble like that being experienced at Renmark just now?” he was asked.

 

“Unfortunately we have no power now,” was the reply. “But since the Federal Referenda have decided that local disputes are to be a State matter, my Government has decided to introduce a Compulsory Arbitration Bill. The principal provision of the measure will be to make every union and every association of employers register under the new law, and the Wages Board’s decision must bet be observed, just as any other law is abided by. Once the two Houses of Parliament say all industrial disputes must be decided by law the striker will be treated as any other law breaker.”

“What about the Right to Strike?” “There is no Right to Strike recognised,” said Mr. Verran. “When a Labour Government is in power it is just as necessary to have law and order observed as at any other time.”

“Then why does not your Government prevent lawlessness at Renmark?”

“We have taken every precaution to see that the law as we find it is carried out. It is not true that we hesitated regarding action at Renmark. The police authorities there have not asked for additional help. Indeed, they have reported that the police are sufficient to cope with any trouble. In spite of that, when we heard that there was likely to be something special happening there on a certain date, we sent two additional mounted police to Renmark. We do not fear any legitimate unionism, but the leaders in the Renmark strike are men with revolutionary intentions, who make no secret of their opposition to Labour. We have no necessity to pander to them in any way and we attack them openly. This class of opposition causes us no embarrassment.”

In the same paper Mr. J. Murphy, the men’s union organiser, says: “The police action is the result of bias against the workers. Ever since the Hon. J. P. Wilson  (Labour Minister) took up his well-known attitude against the workers and the Hon. C. Vaughan (Labour Treasurer) backed him up, the Growers (masters) and ‘scabs’ have been very aggressive, as they know the Government are behind them.” Speaking of the suppression of the men’s meetings he said: “Our men are prepared to continue holding meetings of protest there against what we regard as the Russian tyranny of the Labour Government over this Free Speech question.”

The employers’ representative (Mr. R. Young), interviewed, said: “In future the employers’ association will not employ any but non-union men or free labourers, as they are called. It appears to me that the Growers can get plenty of non unionist hands. My impression is that the Renmark Growers will always win, as they have won three times already, easily beating all opposition.”

The damning indictment of Labourism these facts contain should make the workers ponder over the actions of the British Labour Party. The latter’s praise of their Australian colleagues, in spite of their open hostility to struggling toilers, is but another of their many crimes. The workers of Australia are in the same abject condition that the English toilers stood in in the time of the Tolpuddle martyrs – the days before the Combination Acts.

The Labour Parliament offer the workers Compulsory Arbitration – a method by which the capitalist arbitrator lets the wage-slaves down every time. Compulsory Arbitration is such an overt fraud that the miners of Broken Hill and Newcastle (Australia) suffered imprisonment rather than agree to it.

The lesson for the working class is well pointed by these facts. They can hope for little while means of living are owned by the capitalist class and controlled by their henchmen, “Labour” or otherwise. At the 1911 Annual Conference of the Political Labour Leagues of New South Wales Mr. Verran (who attended) voiced the following sentiment :

“They must be exceedingly careful not to be intoxicated by their own success, and to remember that they were pledged to carry on the same social order as had developed up to the present time”.

A. Cleveland

More about savages (1951)

Down to Drink by Parnell Dempster, 1949

From the April 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

An art exhibition of a remarkably high standard was held in London recently. It consisted of pencil and crayon drawings, abstract patterns and nature-study notes, the work of seven to fourteen year old children of Western Australia. Not European children but black fellows’ offspring. To use one writer’s phrase “the flotsam and jetsam of one of the most backward races in the world, living under desperately miserable conditions, absolutely untaught.” A group of human beings shunned socially and ill-treated physically by their "superior” white brothers.

It would appear at this stage to be simply a picture of little geniuses producing works of art in spite of awful conditions. Reminiscent of the English species starving in garrets. But what of the contradiction the picture points? Man surely only responds to some stimulus, and excels in those things to which he has access. And Aborigines are no exception.

Precisely. These children have come under the influence of two Europeans who treat them kindly, an experience previously unknown to the native Australian. And of greater importance is the fact that they approached the children as teachers, not preachers. Over a period of four years they taught what they could. For conditions were appalling. Very few materials, cowed pupils, and severe climate being only three adverse items. But striving against all this they progressed, concentrating on art needlework and nature-study. The last mentioned was very fruitful for the school was set in land where animals abounded.

As the work progressed, the children’s response became evident. The note-books of eight year-olds would equal the average standard of many London fourteen year-olds. The drawings are really lovely—some are so adult as to almost cause doubt of origin. Perspective of incredible truth and delicate colours are common to all the pictures, as is also, the animated portrayal of kangaroos and men.

It is essentially an intelligent response. Work is balanced, clean and beautiful, the calligraphy amazingly clear and even. When asked by visitors to produce a picture, the children settled to the task with great concentration for as long as two hours. Nor looked up from their desks when people came round and watched them.

Another point of special interest, was the non-acquisitive attitude of these children. Given chalks and paper as presents, they left them in the schoolroom, when going home. It was explained to them that these were personal gifts but this they were unable to appreciate. No doubt as capitalism engulfs these simple creatures, this pleasant trait will quickly disappear.

Opponents might here utter the time-worn argument that conditions and poverty do not affect capacity, that they are no barrier to brilliance. But as socialists maintain, results occur only under suitable conditions. This article tries to show that the experiment in the dry-wastes of Western Australia backs up this contention. Possibly the only pleasant things in life to the Aborigine are the trees and sun and leaping animals, and it is these things about which ideas are expressed in simple pictures and patterns. To express it differently these people respond to a limited environment, sans books, sans houses, sans machinery, sans practically everything, in an intelligent, though limited way. A man who can tell by the appearance of leaves, how long since a kangaroo passed by, is not a cretin, as is proved by the performance of his children when in school.

Evidence has yet to be found of a division of Homo Sapiens which is congenitally backward.

M. L. Brown

Blogger's Note:

An unfortunate choice of title for an article that is arguing against supposed racial difference, which was the order of the day in polite society. Did a bit of digging, and my educated guess is that the article refers to an Art Exhibition/tour that originated out of the Carrolup Native Settlement in Western Australia. More details on the background of these young artists and this stain on Australian history can be found at the following links:

• The Carrolup Story
• Carrolup child artists

Stalin at the Gates of India (1939)

From the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British Empire is in the throes of a metamorphosis, and what is emerging we cannot even dimly discern, our masters are in the same fix as ourselves, the forces of capitalism are far stronger than their puny minds; the British Commonwealth of Nations may shortly assume a form not altogether to the liking of those who live by exploitation, though it may be more in accord with the aspirations of those who at present carry the ball and chain of wage slavery.

The Dominions are now a power in the Imperial sphere: the mother country no longer dictates; she tries to keep harmony in the family, but the rapid growth of her numerous offspring, together with the fetters which capitalism places on production, results in developments which are not perhaps strictly to her liking but which she must accept.

No sooner was war declared than the cry of "Dominion status” was raised in India: the rising capitalist class of India saw their opportunity and seized it. Great Britain finds herself on the horns of a dilemma; to refuse the demands of the dusky inhabitants of this portion of the Imperial domain would be to alienate the sympathy of millions at a time when it is necessary for all to pull together; to grant them would foster the ambitions of those who want India to break away; the Hindoos may get their demands acceded to, with a string attached to them.

Economic evolution in Asia has been rapidly unsettling the social order surviving from unnumbered years. The consequences of the fundamental changes that are now proceeding are looked upon by the Conservative element as the work of the passionate agitator, who gives voice to the discomfort of the masses ruthlessly shifted from their accustomed environment.

The dissolution of the self-contained village communities brought about by the stealthy penetration of exchange economy is bringing results similar to those capitalist development brought in Europe.

Mass production has invaded Asia and set millions of peasants on the move; they are trying to get rich and losing their land; as they come tumbling into wage-slavery and inquire as to the why and wherefore the spies of Stalin orient them to the mecca of Moscow, which becomes more and more their inspiration and their hope.

Moscow has for many years had amongst its many inhabitants those told off to educate the visitors from the Orient; it is interesting to observe in the one-time throne room of the czars how patiently the delegates listen to the remarks of a Hindoo, Malay or Chinaman, and how the Mahommedan visitor is carefully piloted along the path that leads him into the labyrinth of Soviet diplomacy.

Elphinstone wrote in 1819: “If we can manage our native army and keep out the Russians, I see nothing to threaten the safety of our Empire—until the natives become enlightened under our tuition, and a separation becomes desirable to both parties."

In 1824 another Indian official wrote to the same effect: "We should look upon India, not as a temporary possession, but as one that is to be maintained permanently until the natives shall, in some future age, have abandoned most of their superstitions and prejudices and become sufficiently enlightened to frame a regular government for themselves and to conduct and preserve it. Whenever such a time shall arrive it will probably be best for both countries that the British control over India should gradually be withdrawn. That the desirable change may, in some future age, be effected in India there is no cause to despair. Such a change was at one time in Britain at least as hopeless as it is here. We shall in time so far improve the character of our Indian subjects as to enable them to govern and protect themselves.”

The air of detached superiority pervading such statements enables one to understand why a sensitive people refused to co-operate with those so anxious about their "improvement.”

The intentions of well-meaning men are often fruitless when formulated with an air of condescension; the exploitation of India was undertaken, not for the good of the inhabitants of the country, but in order to benefit the ruling class of Imperial Britain; in spite of this, however, it must be admitted that, of all the conquerors of India, Britain has consciously or unconsciously proved the best from the standpoint of India’s future; the culture upon which British rule has been based and the novelties adopted in the enforcement of the law have put India into the way of ruling itself. Britain has shepherded India into the orbit of modern nations; capitalist development let loose an economic force, the social institutions now being created are to some extent shaped from the ideas generated by British influence.

The reader may form the opinion that the apparently hide-bound caste system would retard or prevent altogether those changes necessary to enable India’s proletariat to get in step with their Western brethren, but this is not altogether as formidable an obstacle as is generally supposed. The caste system does not operate entirely as the Western observer might expect; in some ways it is curiously democratic. Each caste is internally a self-governing and self-ordering community, rather like a guild in mediaeval Europe. It imposes on itself, without the assistance or intervention of the State, its own laws through its own committees and councils, on which each member has a vote. The caste is, moreover, a kind of brotherhood, often stretching over wide areas, within which all caste-fellows are equal, regardless of wealth or position in life. The caste also performs charitable functions, and is bound together by common reverence for the caste deity. And, curiously enough, the whole system, despite its antiquity, is remarkably flexible and adjustable to new conditions. Some castes were originally purely occupational, such as goldsmiths, grain merchants and (lower in the scale) weavers. Still other occupations, such as leather working, are considered degrading; and those who practise them are outside the caste system altogether. The economic factor can be seen working changes in the caste system similar to that which may have taken place in the trade unions; for instance, in some parts of India chauffeurs and electricians are now forming something like a caste, and, true to the old principle of specialisation, are relegating certain duties, regarded as menial, to other incipient but inferior castes. Also, if a caste abandons an occupation which carries some social stigma and adopts another, it tends to rise in popular estimation. An increase in the wealth of a particular caste, due to some change in economic conditions, may also raise its prestige, and it then tends to adopt the social practices of higher castes. Enough has been said to indicate it will not take capitalism long to cause the Hindoos to adapt their caste system to the exigencies of modern wage slavery with its snobbery, etc.—they haven’t even as much to learn, as many people would have us believe, to make them good commodity producers—caste consciousness may be a long way from class consciousness, but the remorseless march of the machine will eventually cause the one to evolve into the other. Before 1918 no trade unions as such existed in India, to-day there are probably a million members of organised trade unions in the country. In the present scramble Indian labour will make its presence felt and in the days to come its voice will be decisive. The revolutionists of India in exile came into contact with the Socialists of other countries and the movement has been enriched by the literature which these Reds have from time to time contributed; students and travellers have also played their part; the one-time Dominion Secretary of the Socialist Party of Canada, a Hindoo named Rahim, proved himself an able and faithful comrade during a trying period; Socialism is at work in India, and although at present confined to a few, conditions are becoming favourable for its growth.

India’s workers have not been allowed to emigrate and settle in the Dominions on the same terms as their white brothers, and this has been one of the causes of friction between the wage slaves of India and the other countries of the Empire. Stalin and Co. have not been slow to take advantage of the situation; the Labour movement of India, as a consequence, is not controlled from London so much as from Moscow; ignorance of this fact by the workers themselves does not detract from its truth.

Many motives induced the demand for a White Australia, but, unquestionably, in addition to racial prejudice there operated most powerfully the economic motive. At the Imperial Conference of 1911 Lord Crewe denounced the attempt of New Zealand to exclude the employment of Indians on any vessels trading to the ports of that Dominion. "There is nothing morally wrong,” he argued, “in a man being a vegetarian and a teetotaller, and his wife and family also, and being able to live very much more cheaply than people who adopt the European standard of comfort. . . . If a man is content to live on rice and water, and does not require pork, beef and rum, he naturally is able to support his family on a very much lower scale.” He wanted cheap labour for his class. The belief that Asiatic workers in general either force out the white workers or compel the latter to adopt the Indian scale is widespread, and in large measure it is justified.

How fervently the belief in the policy of a White Australia is held is proved conclusively by the fact that any hint of the mere possibility of opening up the Northern Territory to Asiatic immigration is deeply resented and the deliberate policy of the Commonwealth is to postpone exploitation and development indefinitely rather than in the slightest relax the strictness of the exclusion principle.

In New Zealand the movement against Asiatic immigration, directed against Chinese and Japanese, and only in a minor degree Indians, was contemporaneous with that in the Australian Commonwealth. Public opinion is unanimous in opposition to Indian immigration. No country has been so anxious to build high standards for their workers as New Zealand, and it is thought that the pressure of competition from Indians would tend to minimise progress in this direction.

Canada has had an unfortunate record in her dealings with the problems. Freda M. Houlston and B. P. L. Bede, in their book, “India Analysed,” point out that it was Chinese and Japanese penetration into British Columbia which aroused the keen anxiety of the people on the Pacific coast. The motive again was predominantly economic. In the lines of occupation taken up by them the white population of the province soon found itself unable to compete, and, great as was the economic advantage to the country as a whole of these busy and effective workers, it has long waged war with the end of extinguishing the competition they create. As against the Chinese, though the trouble is not over, the province has in the main been victorious, for China has no treaty with Canada to impose restrictions on Canadian federal or provincial action. As regards the Japanese, the matter is different, for Canadian need for trade outlets has rendered it necessary to secure Japanese goodwill, and the stationing of a Canadian Minister at Tokyo and the reception of an envoy from Japan at Ottawa are significant proofs of the deep concern of Canada with maintenance of friendly relations. Japan, for her part, has acquiesced in the decision of Canada that immigration on any large scale is banned. A limited number of Japanese can enter the Dominion each year, the whole matter being regulated by the grant of Japanese passports duly visaed by the Canadian representative at Tokyo.

Hindoos in Canada have fared worse than Japanese, although the former are British subjects. It was in part the recognition that the immigration regulations under the Act of 1910 were more unfavourable to British Indians than to Japanese that prompted the effort to coerce Canada into admitting the shipload of would-be immigrants in the “Komagata Maru” about 1914. The result was not wholly favourable to the position of Indians in the Dominions, nor, of course, did it in the least effect the purpose of compelling the Dominion to facilitate entrance. At the Imperial Conferences the attitude of Canada has been at once courteous and conciliatory in tone, but in action it has been adamant against concession of the right of immigration, save in the case of wives and children of de facto monogamous marriages of Indians themselves lawfully resident in the Dominion. Nor has the Federal Government succeeded in persuading the legislature of British Columbia to abandon the needless exclusion of Indians from the right to acquire the franchise. The retention of this attitude cannot be regarded as compatible with the good feeling requisite between parts of the Empire.

While the small number of Hindoos in Canada render the issue one of academic rather than of practical importance, the issue in South Africa involves large numbers of people whose original home was India and deeply affects inter-imperial relations. In Natal the Indian population was deliberately introduced to build up the prosperity of the country by the use of indentured labour at a time when no other form of labour was available, and that by now the Indians of Natal are largely descendants of those who stayed on with the permission of the Natal Government after the expiration of their indentured service. In the Transvaal the problem assumed another form, which space forbids me to elucidate. Certain concessions were made as regards the proposed setting aside of areas for Indians and a promise made to consider on equitable grounds any cases where hardship would be caused by enforcing the clauses of the Gold Law prohibiting the presence of Asiatics in certain areas.

The right of Indians is denied unless they determine to reach Western standards of living. Competition by Indians with lower standards of living has proved the difficulty for certain classes of Europeans to make a living, and it is hoped to eliminate this pressure by the removal of those Indians whose competition would be formidable.

I have dealt with this phase of the subject at length: the sellers of labour-power compete with one another: the cheapest commands the sale: the discrimination against the Hindoo worker by his white brother has not prevented the development of capitalism or retarded the downward trend: race antagonism has undoubtedly interfered with the movement for class unity, but both brands of labour- power are being forced by bitter experience to recognise that the exploiter can only be successfully opposed when fought from the basis of the class struggle.

The robotisation of Russia has enabled that country to move rapidly along capitalist lines, but the bureaucracy finds itself unable to compete successfully with its opponents of the Western world. It is all very well for its devotees to talk about one-sixth of the earth’s surface being under a Socialist government, these understand neither geography nor Socialism. Most of the Russian rivers run the wrong way; her natural resources, although vast, are not conveniently placed. The rulers of Russia know what they are up against if their dupes do not. It is to be noticed that those industries that enable armaments to be produced have been those that have been principally fostered and developed. From the very first, expansion has been aimed at, the object being to plunder under the banner of Communism those countries to which they could gain access. The tools of the Russian Czar, Stalin, and his Grand Duke commissars have been used to organise groups in all countries that could be penetrated; bodies that would implicitly obey the instructions of the Moscow Mogul. India has been the object of Russia’s ambitions for more than a century, and Stalin is making a bid to carry out the aspirations of his predecessors.

Capitalist Britain is the enemy of Russia. Stalin’s group have for years been busily at work undermining the power of their foe. In the great diplomatic game of the past few years, Stalin and Co. fell victims to the illusion that they had fooled the British ruling class as to their intentions.

Britain was apparently blind to what Russia was doing in Singkiang or even in Canada and every part of the Empire; Communists were apparently allowed every opportunity to get their work in. They did not realise they were being headed off—not until it was too late. Russia strove desperately to get Britain involved in Spain; if only the Western countries were tied up Russia could have a free hand in Asia. Britain did not bite. The Front Populaire failed to function at the critical moment. The French Government was wise, too. Austria and Czechoslovakia were allowed to pass under Hitler’s control, but suddenly, when Poland was invaded, Germany’s bluff was called, and so also was the bluff of Russia. There was hurrying to and fro, consultations, threats and moves in the Baltic. Britain and France countered with the treaty with Turkey. Russia is now desperately striving to obtain defensive and offensive positions in the Baltic, and her dupes in the Far East are commanded to compel Chiang-Kai-Shek to use all his forces immediately against the Japanese, otherwise he will be deposed by Moscow.

Singapore is completed. Britain, Holland and France stand ready. The bear will, for a while, ride rough-shod over certain parts of Eastern Europe. He may even retake Bessarabia, but he will find himself in a jackpot when the revolution in Germany, now within measurable distance, isolates him. Need is compelling Russia to show her hand, to disclose to the observing proletariat of the Western world what she really is. In the Near East and across Asia, through Iran, Irak and in Afghanistan, her spies and agents are actively at work teaching “Communism”; in reality building up an Imperial Russian organisation against Imperial Britain.

Russia is compelled to act now she perceives her enemy has anticipated every move she made, and she fears, unless she strikes now, it may be too late.

The discussion going on re Indian status is apparently outside what I have dealt with above, but it is vitally connected with it. Stalin and his group plan to place themselves at the head of 1,000 million Asiatics and make a bid for control of Asia and the world. In spite of the courage and tenacity of his Chinese Communists, China is still China, and refuses to be Stalinised, and if Russia eventually marches to the gates of India it may be that Britain, by giving the hope of Dominion status and the vision of independence to India has caused Stalin to be opposed, not alone by the armies of Imperial, Britain, but by those whom he was planning to bring under the hammer and sickle.

How fascinating it is to watch the loom of time turning out history! It is good to be alive and to know and feel the full meaning of what is unfolding.

Capitalism is approaching its death agony: the proletariat of the world are gathering around its death-bed.

Charles Lestor

A Letter From An Australian Reader. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrades,

As we have just recently got over an election, it would be interesting to you to have a few words in connection with this important event in the lives of the Free Australian Workers.

The employing class won again or, rather, the workers here handed the political machinery over to the representatives of their masters to do with as they may. The Bruce Nationalist Government got a majority, but only with the aid of the Country Party, and although the so-called Labour Party is the largest individual party in the House, they have to take a back seat owing to the pact between the Country Party and the Nats.

As usual, during the campaign we had the old cries trotted out. The most emphasised was that of "Law and order,” which was trumpeted through all the agencies of the master class. The Nationalists accused the Labourites of wanting to subvert the constitution of the country to the "Communist-revolutionary-disloyal-bolshevik-moscovian-red” policy of the extremists, and the Labourites just as emphatically denied the charge. Just how revolutionary the Labour proposals were can be gauged by the fact that the Federal Treasurer accused the Labour Party of stealing the Nationalist’s Party’s policy, and the Labour leader, Mr. Scullin, threw the charge back in his teeth with the accusation that the Nats, had stolen Labour’s programme.

Comparing the two policies, one is hard put to it to find a great deal of difference. Of course, both are straight out for Capitalism, but each have certain little peculiarities which are probably inserted for the purpose of making a noticeable distinction for the benefit of the electors. Both parties contained the following proposals in their programmes:—

• Retention of the White Australian Policy.
• Loyalty to the British Empire.
• Industrial Peace.
• Law and Order.
• Interests of the Community.

While they are prating about the White Australian Policy, the Nationalist Federal Government is allowing Coolie Labour to discharge ships on which White Australians refused to work for reduced pay which a constitutional Arbitration Court has forced upon them. And the Coolie Labour is being protected by State Police under a Labour Government. This is the same State Government (Queensland) which dismissed 11,000 railway men because they refused to blackleg last year on the sugar workers. They also stopped the unemployment dole during the strike on the excuse that there was plenty of work on the wharves.

As far as the British Empire goes, when Bruce (Nat.) accused Scullin (Lab.) of not being loyal because he never mentioned the Empire in his political speech, Scullin replied that as he thought that everybody knew how unswerving his loyalty was, he did not think it necessary to stress the point.

As for industrial peace, what they are going to do in this regard is almost beyond comprehension. Mond will be jealous. Havelock Wilson will jump with joy when he hears how his gospel of Industrial Peace is permeating the intellectual pates of our Capitalist apologists. The Labour Party say that Bruce (Nat.) has had his chance for six years to bring about Industrial Peace but he has failed. Consequently, they ought to be given an opportunity to show just how they can do the job. All the Labour politicians gave it out that “Labour” is the only party that can usher in this Peaceful Industrial Era. And they are right, too. If they cannot quieten the workers, then nobody can. Has not Premier McCormack fought against the workers on every opportunity? He has allowed seamen to be jailed for refusing to sail in ships loaded by blacklegs. He has allowed the police to be used to protect Italian workers who, owing to their ignorance of local affairs, have been used to break strikes, and to reduce the standard of living.

During the recent water-front strike, the Victorian State so-called Labour Government allowed the police to shoot down wharf-labourers (dockers) who were kicking against reductions in wages and worsening of conditions.

Just prior to the dissolution of the last Parliament, the Nationalist Government passed an Amended Arbitration Bill. All the Labour Pollies designated the Bill as a Union-smashing medium, attacked the Government for introducing it, and held public meetings telling the workers not to submit to this dastardly piece of iniquitous legislation, etc., etc., and yet when the Waterside Workers repudiated an award given under this very Bill, they were told to get back to work by the most loud-mouthed denunciators of the Bill. But then, it is not expedient for the workers to strike at election times, as it reacts on the Labour Party or, at least, the Labourites say it does. The most flagrant betrayals of the workers of this country have taken place during election times when the slaves are told that if they do anything “It will jeopardise the Labour Party at the elections.” To this political dirge the conditions of the workers are allowed to be broken down almost without protest in many cases.

Another sop the Labour Party dished up for the workers was the Leg-puller for the Ladies, namely, Child-Endowment. This has been a great election cry for Labour for a long time now. But a few years ago the Labour Party got into Power in New South Wales, and Mr. Lang introduced this wonderful “humane” legislation. This is what their own supporters said about it in the “Australian Worker” (Sydney, 28/10/27):—

  . . . . As a matter of fact, the Family Endowment Act—for which, in its present form, the Nationalist Members in the N.S.W. Upper House are entirely responsible—is “manna from Heaven" for the employers.
  It is now common knowledge that if the N.S.W. basic wage had been increased, in accordance with the increase in the cost of living, the increase would have been 12s. per week, or approximately an addition to the wages bill of the State of something like £13,000,000. Under the Family Endowment Act the employers' contributions amount to £3,000,000 per annum—equal, as Industrial Commissioner Piddington pointed out, to an increase of 3s. per week in the basic wage.
  It is plain that, because of the adoption of Child Endowment, the employers in New South Wales have been made a present of something like £10,000,000 per annum, which they would have had to pay if the basic wage had been computed on the old basis. Industry in New South Wales can hardly be said to be unduly penalised when, as a matter of fact, the employers are actually saving £10,000,000 per annum because of the change in the method of computing wages . . .

The excuse that the Nationalist Members of the Upper House are responsible for the Bill “in its present form" is a sly get out. Prior to this, Labour Premier Lang had flooded the Upper House with Labour Members with a view to abolishing that Chamber. Unfortunately, the appointed ones were so true to Labour that they could not forsake its old policy of twist and turn, with the result that when they were appointed, they ratted on the Party and the Chamber is still in existence.

The election result has rather a "Gilbertian" touch about it. Although the Nationalists lost several seats, and Labour did not get the Governmental Benches, both parties expressed the greatest of pleasure when the number went up.

Several commercial papers were counting on Labour getting in; in fact, were hoping that Labour would do the trick with a view to getting Theodore, ex-Premier of Queensland, in a position where he would be able to use his “administrative ability" in the interests of the Australian manufacturers. Knowing his record in Queensland, they had the greatest faith in him to look after the welfare of the “community." However, they slipped, and they will have to wait another three years for Ted unless he goes the way of all (Labour) flesh, that is, into the ranks of the Nationalists.

Film Review: ‘Utopia’ by John Pilger (2014)

Film Review from the March 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Utopia by John Pilger

John Pilger’s recent film Utopia about the Aboriginal ‘Nation’ (the ‘First Australians’) is an emotional and unrelenting look at ‘apartheid’ in Australia today with graphic footage of police tasering and brutalising young black Australian men in custody. The shocking racism in modern Australia is in stark contrast to the sympathetic and positive portrayal of the Aborigines in such films as Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout and Wim Wenders Until the End of the World.

Pilger identifies the huge inequality between the rich whites and poor Aborigines by contrasting the affluent suburb of Barton in Canberra with the township of Utopia 200 km from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory which is home to the ‘First Australians’ . Barton was named after Australia’s first Prime Minister Edmund Barton who declared in 1901 ‘The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to [apply to] those not British and white-skinned.’ The Aboriginal peoples live with sub-standard sanitation, shelter, public transport, water, light, and serious eye disease in children, and one third of Aboriginal people die before the age of 45. Pilger states that ‘Black Australians are the most imprisoned people on earth’. He recounts how in Western Australia in 2008 an Aborigine man ‘cooked to death’ in a police van, how a new all-Aboriginal prison is being built and how the treatment of the Aborigines is a ‘punishing of the poor, a punishing of indigenous difference.’

Pilger identifies capitalism as the major factor in the racist brutalisation of the First Australians. The Aboriginal Land Rights movement was subjected to a vicious TV campaign funded by the Mining companies and would lead eventually to Prime Minister Bob Hawke dropping Land Rights legislation. Mining capitalist Lang Hancock stated ‘Nothing should be sacred from mining whether it’s your ground, my ground, the black fellow’s ground or anybody else’s. So the question of Aboriginal Land Rights and things of this nature shouldn’t exist’. Pilger shows a 1984 television interview where Hancock advocates the sterilisation of Aborigine people.

Pilger discusses the 2007 Northern Territory National Emergency Response known as ‘The Intervention’ where on the pretext that there were widespread paedophile gangs operating in Aboriginal communities, the Australian Federal Government sent troops in, suspended the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act and introduced ‘special measures’, and there was ‘compulsory acquisition of townships currently held under the title provisions of the Native Title Act.’ The ‘Intervention’ was a Trojan Horse in order that the Federal Government could regain control over disputed land and then grant mining concessions to the capitalist class. In the same period the mining capitalists ensured the Federal Government’s Mineral Resource Rent Tax would not take too much of their profits, in fact the Mining companies saved 60 billion Australian dollars. The United Nations said that ‘the Intervention’ was racially discriminating and infringed the human rights of aboriginal peoples.

Pilger believes there is a beacon of hope by concluding with the ‘hidden history of aboriginal resistance’ with accounts of the 1966 Gurindji strike at Wave Hill and the 1973 cotton chippers strike at Wee Waa. Utopia is a grim catalogue of crimes against a people but when it comes to the insatiable lust for profit in the mining of bauxite, iron ore, and uranium nothing can stand in the way of capitalism.

The Aboriginal people believe the earth and people are one but capitalism cannot understand such a concept. Only socialism can realise the Aboriginal ‘Dreamtime’ when ‘the earth is made a common treasury’ for all peoples.

Steve Clayton

The Poverties of Capitalism (1991)

From the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader has sent us the following observations arising from a recent trip to India and Australia.

Last year I had the misfortune to be offered employment. I say “misfortune" since, in common with most workers, I had little or no choice over the terms of my contract or the social consequences of my labour. I had the "choice" of taking up employment or being in the dole queue. In fact, once offered a post, I didn’t even have those options, since if I rejected the offer I would no longer be eligible for dole money.

In October last year I took time off from my post in order to go travelling to various countries around the world with a friend. Our first destination was Bombay in India, where the friend of a friend who put us up was lucky enough to be a multi-millionaire. It would have been impossible from any political standpoint not be be taken aback by the absolute difference of conditions faced in daily life by our host as against the vast majority of his fellow humans in the surrounding city. The abject poverty of the many would make the standard of living of the average British worker seem like a Utopian dream. When I asked my host how he felt about all the abject poverty surrounding him, he explained it in one word: “overpopulation".

Further on in my travels in India I frequently heard this explanation for the prevailing conditions of the majority. However, this time it was the ordinary people themselves explaining their plight. After hearing it so many times that I almost believed it myself, I stood outside this “argument of the senses” to exercise my brain in order to analyse the validity of blaming overpopulation as the cause of poverty. I call it the "argument of the senses”, since if one merely sees all the people on the street starving, one would be forgiven for assuming it’s because there are simply too many people to feed. Under capitalism, of course, this is the case, but that is only if one accepts as unalterable the doctrine of the present system that goods are only produced with the object of making a profit, regardless of human needs. These people are starving because they can’t afford to buy enough food and so there is no profit in producing it for them, not because there are too many people in India. After all, I had just experienced the abundance of my capitalist host and he was certainly not suffering the consequences of some "overpopulation”.

Later on in my trip I arrived in Australia, where I spent five months or so. Not surprisingly, in a country roughly the size of the United States, minus Alaska, with a population of only about 17 million, overpopulation was not used as the scapegoat for poverty in the way it had been in India. In Australia there are wide open spaces where one won’t see any sign of human habitation, and not just in desert areas.

Riches and poverty
According to the theorists of overpopulation, I should not have been able to find any poverty in Australia, but, of course, this was not the case. Poverty is inevitable when the peoples of the world are divided into two classes: those who own the means of production and those who must sell their labour power in order to live. But poverty, like richness, is a relative term and cannot be determined by any given amount of wealth. I may earn £10,000 this year, and even £50,000 next year, but still be living in poverty. This is because poverty relates to the proportion of wealth available to the individual as against that created by society as a whole. My £50,000 would certainly be an increase on the £10,000 of the previous year, but, as any major share-holder in a multi-national company would tell you. £50,000 per annum is still abject poverty.

So back to my experiences in Australia. Obviously, under the definition of poverty outlined above, most Australians are living in poverty. To illustrate the point about poverty not being defined by any fixed sum of wealth, whether it be measured in pecuniary terms or in terms of choice, experience, creativity or whatever, I will take the Aboriginal population as a whole. Under capitalism most aboriginals certainly live in poverty. Even people who wish to define poverty through welfare handouts would be forced to concede this fact. However, if we were able to travel back in time to before the European conquest of the continent, we would find the aboriginal population living outside the clutches of poverty. Certainly in physical, material terms they might be considered better off now than before, but in terms of their share of what society could, at that time, produce, they are now much poorer. Before European conquest, they enjoyed free access to everything that their society could provide.

The tragedy of our age is that although we, as inhabitants of this planet, could live much more comfortably and fearlessly than the undiscovered aboriginals ever did, relatively we live much more impoverished lives. Instead, in our “enlightened age”, so-called educated people of no doubt good intention, debate the "biological reasons” why alcohol makes aboriginals dissatisfied with their lot, or why they can’t adapt to the advantages of capitalism. Ask any capitalist to adapt to the advantages of being a worker in capitalism and they will show the same “biological” frailties as any aboriginal.

Eventually, of course, all good things in capitalism are forced to come to an end. My money ran dry and I was forced to return to England in order to sell my labour power once more. However, nine months is a long time in capitalism. “Circumstances beyond our control” prevented my employer from offering me what I had been led to believe was a certain promotion. The recession had deepened.

J. C.