Notes By The Way: Not this Churchill (1952)

The Notes by the Way Column from the May 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not this Churchill.

Mr. W. Arnold-Forster in “The Disarmament Conference” (National Peace Council 1931, page 23) wrote:—

  “So lately as 1886 Lord Randolph Churchill resigned the Chancellorship of the Exchequer rather than stand for an armament expenditure of £31 millions. He regarded that as an indefensibly enormous expenditure in peace time.”

Whatever Winston learned from his father it certainly has not been a taste for economv in armaments and Lord Randolph seems to have held views the reverse of those now propounded by his son. In a letter to Lord Salisbury at the time of his resignation Lord Randolph wrote:—

   “The possession of a very sharp sword offers a temptation, which becomes irresistible, to demonstrate the efficiency of the weapon in a practical manner. I remember the vulnerable and scattered character of the Empire, the universality of our commerce, the peaceful tendencies of our democratic electorate, the hard times, the pressure of competition and the higher taxation now imposed and with these factors visibly before me I decline to be a party to encourage the military and militant circle of the War Office and Admiralty to join in the high and desperate stakes which other nations seem to be forced to risk."

* * *

Getting Safer and Safer.

The argument of the armament enthusiasts is that if a country is strongly armed the enemy country will fear to attack and thus peace is preserved.

The flaw in the argument is that as all countries join in the armaments race they all become stronger. If they all double their armaments their relative strengths are as they were before.

In 1886 Lord Randolph Churchill thought that something under £30 millions a year was sufficient to provide safety from attack. By 1913 the annual cost had grown to £77 [millions] and his son Winston thought that was not enough, as also in 1939 when it was £523 millions. It is now £1,377 millions, which even allowing for greatly increased prices is about 15 times as much as in 1886.

So now we all feel safe; or do we?

* * *

Engels on the 1888 War Threat.

Two years after Churchill resigned Frederick Engels was reflecting on Bismarck’s increase in German armaments and on the likelihood of a general European war. Along with some accurate and inaccurate forecasts but including the anticipation that war destruction in Europe would give American industry world supremacy, he wrote:—“I imagine . . . that the plan is not to push things to extremities, to more than a sham war. But once the first shot is fired, control ceases, the horse can take the bit between its teeth.” ((Marx Engels. Selected Correspondence, Martin Lawrence Ltd., p. 456.)

* * *

The World Textile Slump.

In a useful survey of the factors leading up to the present slump in the textile trades the Manchester Guardian (26.3.52) shows that it is world-wide, America, Japan, Belgium and other countries being hit as badly as Britain. The principal cause is stated to be the way in which the countries which formerly imported textiles are now manufacturing their own supplies and looking for external markets.

  “World demand for cotton textiles increases as population increases, but the actual volume of imported textiles is falling as more and more countries make and consume their own. .. . The process goes on; India, once Lancashire’s great market, is now a formidable exporter. Pakistan, since partition the largest potential importer, is now building up her own production, as in Burma. Other countries in Latin America, once importers, are now on the edge of becoming exporters. Hardly less important are the political changes which have shut off the Communist world from the industries of the West and of Japan. It was the great mistake of the Japanese that in rebuilding their textile industries after the war they refused to realise that theft marketing field had vastly shrunk."

In the meantime Russia is now entering the world market not only with textiles but with textile machinery, these being among the Russian products displayed at the recent International Industries Fair at Bombay (Manchester Guardian 28.1.52). It was however remarked by the Guardian's correspondent at the Fair that the Russian textiles were being offered at prices appreciably higher than those at which the Indian Mills can put textiles on the market.

* * *

Are there Too Many Textiles?

The Manchester Guardian can discern no solution for the world textile slump except that bankruptcies will thin out the competitors and, in face of falling prices and fiercer competition, the governments whose policy has been to build up their own textile industries will curtail their plans.

All of which means that British and world output of textiles would be reduced, not merely by temporary suspension of production but for a long time ahead by the reduction of manufacturing capacity.

Which would of course be a very sensible course of action if it were true that the world has too many textiles. But it is not true, as the Guardian writer could easily verify without even going farther afield than his own doorstep. Let him look round the Manchester streets and visit the workers' homes (including the unemployed cotton workers) and see if the workers and their wives really are “glutted” with shirts and sheets, and socks, suits and dresses. He would soon find firsthand evidence of a condition that exists in all countries; that the mass of the population make do with the minimum of textile goods (and those of poor quality) because their demands are limited not by need but by their wages.

As it happens the wording used in the Manchester Guardian editorial (26.3.52) is strictly accurate:—“The world’s textile industries have been over-producing; their outlets are now choked with stocks." The textile workers are not out-of-work because the world’s needs have been satisfied but because the “outlets are now choked," the outlets being determined by what people have the money to pay for.

After the last war we were told by Tory and Labour alike, and heard it often in speeches at United Nations' gatherings that never again was the world to see production being restricted while needs were unsatisfied. Capitalism is determining otherwise. When the Guardian writes:—“There is no easy ‘Socialist' remedy; there is no easy capitalist one” the correct version would read:—“There is no capitalist remedy; there is no remedy except Socialism.”

* * *

Then Let Us Increase Production.

Early in March Lieut.-General Sir Thomas Hutton, general manager of the Anglo-American Council on

Productivity spoke at a productivity conference at Leamington Spa. According to the Sunday Times (2.3.52) he “ said . . . that an overall increase of productivity of five or ten per cent. which was perfectly possible, would solve the whole problem of the crisis caused by our inability to pay our way.”

He was not talking about the textile slump but about the productivity of British industry generally, which he said is often only half to two-thirds as high as productivity in America. Had he been addressing Lancashire textile workers he might have told them that if they would increase their productivity to the American level Lancashire’s competitive position would be improved and things would be better. One wonders however what he would have said if it had been pointed out to him that American textile workers are also suffering unemployment “Of New England’s 140,000 textile workers some 62,000 were out of work.” (Manchester Guardian, 26.3.52).

* * *

The Communists and the Atom Bomb.

The logic behind Communist Party attitudes towards all issues is that whatever Russian capitalism does is right. But as this must never be admitted they are forced to put forward other arguments to justify whatever policy they are pursuing at any time. This leads them into difficulties each time Russian policy changes. The atom bomb is a case in point

When America alone had the Atom bomb they could use the simple argument of denouncing it altogether. But in 1949 the Communist Daily Worker (26.9.49) announced that Russia had then had the Atom bomb herself “for at least two years”—which means that they were working on it for years before. The Daily Worker then had to think up an argument to show that it was a bad thing for America to have the atom bomb but a good thing for Russia to have it. So in its issue of 24th September, 1949, the Daily Worker used the argument that Russia’s atom bomb “will encourage peace-loving people everywhere" because this meant that “the United States no longer possesses a monopoly of this terror weapon,” and this would “ restrain the ‘ atomaniacs.' "

So far so good. But early in 1952 the British Government announced that it too had the bomb, it having been completed under the Labour Government.

The Daily Worker, 18th February, 1952, dealt with this new situation. It pointed out that the British bomb “has been produced without the assistance of the United States of America.” But at this point the logic of the former argument no longer served. Logically on its own argument the Worker could have said that as the Russian Atom bomb made Russia safer so the British Atom bomb made Britain safer, for did it not represent a further breach in the American monopoly? Instead however of saying that peace-loving people welcomed it the Daily Worker now called it, as far as Britain is concerned, “an unmitigated curse.”

It went on to describe it as:—

“A coward’s weapon, designed for the unrestrained massacre of the civilian population. . .’’

The Daily Worker editors know as well as anyone else that all war weapons are designed to kill, maim and destroy and that in all wars the civilian population as well as the Armed Forces are the target of all war-making governments,

If the Russian government thinks fit to use its atom bombs civilians will suffer; but then of course the Daily Worker will think up some new justification to exonerate Russian capitalism.

The advance lines of the justification have already been provided by the Russian Professor Kretov who has broadcast to Russian listeners on “just” and “unjust” wars. (Reproduced in the Manchester Guardian 28.3.52.)

He names several sorts of war that are “just." “The most just, legal and holy of all wars is a war whose purpose is the defence of a country in which socialism has triumphed.”

Under this head of “socialist” countries he lists Russia and her satellites.

We can imagine the Daily Worker arguing (like all the capitalist apologists for war) that as the war is “just” so are all the “necessary” weapons for waging it.

* * *

Wages and the Cost of Living since 1939.

For various reasons all calculations of the movements of the average level of wages or of the cost of living are liable to some margin of error and should be regarded as approximations only. Even when a factor which causes error is known it may be impossible to measure it. For example wage rates indexes are based on trade union or other standard rates of pay. It is known however that in recent years of low unemployment workers in some industries have been paid more than these standard rates while in times of heavy unemployment many workers are forced to accept less than the standard rates; but nobody can know to what extent this factor operates in either direction. The index of wage rates therefore represents movements of agreed rates of pay not of the rates actually paid.

Similarly the Ministry of Labour Cost-of-Living Index showed hardly any movement between 1941 and 1947 though the cost of living was rising. This was due to the way the government used subsidies to keep down the prices of articles on which the Index was based. The cost-of-living rose but not the Index.

It also has to be remembered that the figures are “averages” and may look quite unreal to individuals whose conditions happen to be well below or well above the average. For example while on an average wage rates are more than double what they were in 1939 this average includes miners and agricultural workers whose wages are about three times the 1939 level, and also includes dock workers and lorry drivers whose increase has fallen far short of the average.

Subject to these reservations the available figures show some interesting features.

The official cost-of-living index covering the period 1939 to 1947 showed an increase of only 31 per cent. This was absurd and nobody treated it seriously. Workers making wage claims at the time soon ceased to pay any attention to it and wage rates during the same period rose by about 66 per cent.

Since June, 1947, the new official cost-of-living index, which is at least much more reliable than the old one, has shown an increase of 33 per cent.; but during this period wages have been lagging behind and have risen by only 28 per cent.

If comparison is made between August, 1939, and the present time it would seem that the average level of wage rates has about kept pace with the cost-of- living.

The official figure for wage rates (arrived at by combining the old wage rate index which ended in 1947 with the new index which started in 1947) shows an average increase since 1939 of 113 per cent. Professor Bowley’s Index of wage rates also shows 113 per cent, if coal miners are excluded, and about 120 per cent if they are included. (The technical reasons for difficulty about coal miners' wages are explained in the Times “ Review of Industry ” March, 1952).

If we took the official index figures for the cost-of-living the increase since 1939 would be only about 75 per cent. The figure is however of no value. An alternative provided by the London and Cambridge Economic Service shows an increase of about 111 per cent., i.e. a figure almost identical with that for wages. (See Times “Review of Industry” March, 1952.)

Edgar Hardcastle

Capitalism did not collapse (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Forty years ago, world capitalism was descending into one of its worst ever slumps. So severe and persistent was the depression that the idea grew up, particularly among the "left wing", that the system was about to collapse. Not for the first time the Socialist Party of Great Britain stood aside from a popular clamour. At the depths of the crisis, in February 1932, we published our pamphlet Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse. This is too long to reproduce here in full but we are publishing in the Socialist Standard an abridged version, the first part of which appears this month.

1. Our view of the crisis

Foreward

We are in the midst of a crisis that is world-wide. Every country feels its ravages. Millions and millions of workers are unemployed and in acute poverty. Everywhere there is discontent and a feeling of insecurity, and the prestige of even the strongest governments has been shaken. All sorts of emergency measures have been hastily adopted, but the depression still continues. Working men and women who usually ignore such questions, are now asking why the crisis occurred, what will be its outcome, and whether it could have been avoided. In some minds there is a fear, and in others a hope, that the industrial crisis may bring the present system of society down in ruins, and make way for another.

I. Fears that capitalism will collapse

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to show the working class the need for a complete alteration in the organisation of society. But our work has been made more difficult by the idea that Capitalism may collapse of its own accord. It is clear that if Capitalism were going to collapse under the weight of its own problems then it would be a waste of time and energy to carry on socialist propaganda and to build up a real socialist party aiming at political power. If it were true, as is claimed, that Capitalism will have broken down long before it will be possible for us to win over a majority for the capture of political power, then, indeed, it would be necessary to seek Socialism by some other means. Workers who have accepted the wrong and lazy idea of collapse have neglected many activities that are absolutely essential. They have taken up the fatalistic attitude of waiting for the system to end itself. But the system is not so obliging!

At first sight there seems to be a ground for this idea. Capitalism from time to time develops acute industrial and financial crises; and at the depth of these it does appear to many observers that there is no way out, and that society cannot continue at all unless some way out is found. Men of very different social position and political convictions have been driven to this conclusion—reactionaries and revoluionaries, bankers and merchants, employers and wage-earners.

Let us go over some of the statements made by those who have foretold collapse, and notice how much alike they are. Notice, too, how each one falsifies the preceding ones. The fact of another crisis taking place is proof enough that the earlier crises did not turn out to be insoluble—the patient cannot have more than one fatal attack.

During the 19th century there were about ten well-marked crises. One commenced in England in 1825. William Huskisson, a former President of the Board of Trade, wrote about it in a letter dated 30th December, 1839:

  I consider the country to be in a most unsatisfactory state, that some great convulsion must soon take place. . . . I hear of the distress of the agricultural, the manufactural, the commercial, the West Indian, and all trading interests. . . . I am told land can neither pay rent nor taxes nor rates, that no merchant has any legitimate business. . . . I am also told that the whole race of London shopkeepers are nearly ruined. (“Huskisson Papers.” Pub., Constable, 1931. Page 310.)

Another crisis occurred in the eighteen-eighties, and was dealt with by Lord Randolph Churchill in a speech at Blackpool, in 1884:

  We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful either among our capitalists or our artisans can discover no signs of a revival. Your iron industry is dead, dead as mutton; your coal industries, which depend greatly on the iron industries, are languishing. Your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner. Your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, gasping, struggling. Your cotton industry is seriously sick. The shipbuilding industry, which held out longest of all, is come to a standstill. Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease. (“Lord Randolph Churchill,” By Winston Churchill, M.P. Pub., MacMillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1906. Vol. I, page 291.)

There is one important thing to notice about the two statements quoted above. Huskisson wrote at a time when England was a protectionist country. He was an advocate of free-trade. Lord Randolph Churchill spoke at a time when England had long been a free-trade country. He was an advocate of protection. It is clear that neither free-trade nor protection offers a solution for trade depressions, and that the return to protection in March, 1932, will not prevent further crises.

Of late we have been asked to take a very serious view of the alleged “adverse balance of trade,” by which is meant that this country has had more imports than exports, with the consequence that debts have been incurred abroad to the extent of the excess of imports. The facts are still the subject of argument, but it is not necessary to go into that question. All that we need to remember is that the fears about the “adverse balance of trade” are not new.

In a paper read to the Royal Statistical Society on December 19th, 1876 (see “Trade, Population and Food,” by S. Bourne, pub. G. Bell and Sons), Mr. Sidney Bourne, who for many years was in the Government Service, engaged in the compilation of trade statistics, painted an alarming picture of Great Britain’s trade. He argued that serious consequences would follow if the adverse balance (which he pointed out was then in evidence) was allowed to continue. He mentioned, too, the considerable and influential body of political and public men who shared his views.

After making the adjustments he considered necessary on account of income from investments owned abroad by British subjects, and the so-called “invisible exports" (i.e., the services, such as shipping and financial services, that are paid for by foreigners, but which do not take the form of actual articles passing through British ports), he declared that there was an “adverse balance" in the years after 1872.

He said:

  In 1872 the true excess would seem to have been on the side of exports rather than imports, to the extent of nearly £4,000,000; but in the following year the imports again predominated, and have continued to do so with increasing weight up to the present moment. (Page 69.)

Mr. Bourne, like many modern observers of the course of trade, was apprehensive about the future:

   I firmly believe that Britain now stands tottering on the eminence to which she has attained, and that it rests entirely with her sons whether a further rise or a rapid fall is to mark her future history. (Page 75.)

II. The Idea of a Blind Revolt of the Workers.

The defenders of Capitalism who have been panic-stricken in times of crisis, have sought for ways to save the social system, which they believed to be in danger. On the other hand, many who desired Socialism have looked at industrial crises not with fear but with hope. They have though that in a time of great unemployment and distress the majority of workers, although not socialists would be forced by their sufferings to revolt against the capitalists and their government, and that they would place in power a government which would try to remould society on a socialist basis.

Similar ideas are held by members of the Labour Party and Independent labour Party, and they were handed down from the Social Democratic Federation to the parties that in 1920 became the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is indeed probable that the Russian Bolshevist leaders, many of whom hold these views, learned them during their exile in England round about the beginning of the century.

In the October, 1931, “Labour Monthly" (just before the General Election), Mr. Dutt, the editor, wrote in a manner indicating the utmost excitement at the likelihood of a decisive crash: “The fight is here," “the crisis marches on relentlessly,” “it is the whole basis of British Imperialism that is now beginning to crack,” “the whole system is faced with collapse,” “the hour of desperate crisis begins”; and much more to die same effect.

Mr. James Maxton, MP., putting the I.L.P. point of view, has been as confident as the communists. He made a speech at Cowcaddens on 21st August, 1931, reported as follows in the columns of the Daily Record,” 22nd August, 1931 (reprinted in “Forward” 12th September):

  I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash.

(to be concluded)

Link to Part 2

Editorial: Politics and Party Funds (1935)

From the April 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

The possession of huge funds will not alone create a movement nor will lack of funds destroy one, but money can go a long way towards achieving speedy success where conditions are otherwise ripe. Nothing shows so clearly as the inflow of funds the gulf between the Socialist movement and its many rivals, from Labour to Conservative. The S.P.G.B. is always hampered by lack of resources, and even its present limited expenditure is only met with difficulty from the small donations of workers who cannot afford more. Not so with the other parties. There is going on at the moment a revolt led by Churchill against Baldwin’s leadership of the Conservative Party. At once it is announced in the News Chronicle that “associates of a well-known millionaire are willing to spend £200,000 in forcing both the resignation of the Prime Minister and the withdrawal of the India Bill.” (News Chronicle, March 4th.) Parallel with this is the Government’s semi-official propaganda organisation managed by the Postmaster-General, Sir Kingsley Wood. When this was first announced some months ago it was widely reported that wealthy business men had supplied the necessary campaign funds.

Mr. Randolph Churchill, a member of his father’s rebel Conservative group, stated on February 24th that “he was already assured of powerful financial backing.” (Evening Standard, March 4th.) Rumour has it that Lady Houston is one of the backers, and Lord Rothermere another.

Everyone knows that Sir Oswald Mosley’s political adventures have not been financed on the subscriptions of his misguided or place-hunting followers. When he formed the New Party tens of thousands of pounds must have been spent on propaganda by poster display and on financing his short-lived journal. Mr. Tom Johnston, Lord Privy Seal in the Labour Government, said that from £30,000 to £40,000 had been spent on the poster display alone. Mosley did not offer to disclose the source of his funds, and of course neither he nor his Fascist organisation will do so now, but he promptly hit back at Mr. Johnston by pointing out that the Labour Party was in the habit of sending out a special appeal to rich men for donations to its secret fund. (Manchester Guardian, April 28th, 1931.)

The way in which wealthy men subscribed to the Liberal and Tory funds is, of course, notorious, and Hitler and the other new political Messiahs who promised a clean sweep of old-gang methods have not shown any intention of getting rid of the method of collecting big funds from, big business.

The Economic Crisis and the Workers (1931)

From the July 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is one respect at least in which the “New Party” founded by Sir Oswald Mosley is exactly like all of the older non- Socialist parties. That is in its emphasis on the trade depression as a reason for putting, aside the question of Socialism. The argument is that capitalism's in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. Ruin stares not only the worker, but also the employers, in the face. Great Britain must either take some novel and drastic steps to escape from the threatening disaster, or grave decline will follow and this country will become a third-rate power. “Let us,” say the New Party leaders; “defer the consideration of Socialism until we have stabilised capitalism once more.”

This is a very old story—as old as capitalism. In the eyes of the defenders of capitalism no time is an opportune time for the workers to interest themselves in their class interests. And many organisations engaged nominally in protecting the workers have shared the views of the capitalists on this question.

There have been at least eleven marked industrial crises in the past 100 years. Every one of them has shown the same general characteristics. Every one of them has been viewed as a sign of irretrievable ruin, and every one has been used to dissuade the workers from looking towards Socialism.

There was one great crisis during 1829, at a time, that is, when this country was strongly Protectionist. Listen to the description given by William Huskisson in a letter dated December 30th, 1829 (published in the Huskfsson Papers, p. 310):—

   I consider the country to be in a most unsatisfactory state, that some great convulsion must soon take place. . . .  I hear of the distress of the agricultural, the manufactural, the commercial, the West Indian, and all trading interests.  . . . I am told land can neither pay rent nor taxes nor rates, that no merchant has any legitimate business. . . .  I am also told that the whole race of London shopkeepers are nearly ruined.

Huskisson, sometime President of the Board of Trade, was one of those who believed that England must go over to Free Trade. The Liberal manufacturers, who had an interest in Free Trade because it meant cheap food and therefore low wages, urged the workers to neglect their own class interests and to support the demand for the abolition of the Corn Laws, which restricted the import of corn from abroad. The workers did this. They listened to the specious argument that they should only concern themselves with so-called practical, bread-and-butter questions. And the result was the building up of fabulous fortunes for the manufacturers and the continuation of poverty for themselves.

After Free Trade was introduced, the crises recurred periodically as before, although it is often represented by present-day politicians that everything was satisfactory during this period when Britain was the “workshop of the world.”

The following is Lord Randolph Churchill’s account of the crisis of 1884, in a speech at Blackpool (published in The Times, June 10th, 1931):—

    We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful, either among our capitalists or our artisans, can discover no signs of a revival. Your iron industry is dead, dead as mutton. Your coal industries, which depend greatly on the iron industries, are languishing. Your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner. Your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, gasping, struggling. Your cotton industry is seriously sick. The shipbuilding industry, which held out longest of all, is come to a standstill. Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease.

The difference between Huskisson and Churchill was that Churchill saw the remedy in a return to Protection! Large numbers of workers, seeing that Free Trade had not brought prosperity to them, were persuaded to assist this section of the employers in their campaign against Free Trade; while other workers sided with the Liberal Free Traders and supported their campaigns for the 1909 Land Tax and against the House of Lords. In the meantime working-class interests were neglected as usual.

After the War came the industrial crisis of 1921-22, which moved the Prime Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, to assert in a speech at Glasgow in December, 1922, that—

There is almost no business that is making  profits to-day.

In May, 1921, the percentage of insured workers unemployed rose to as much as 23 per cent.—higher than it has been in any subsequent month, including 1930, and 1931 to date. There were, in May, 1921, 2½ million unemployed.

The present crisis, which follows 10 years of unemployment never appreciably below the million line, is similar to the others and will take the same general course.

Industrial depressions are not evidences of capitalist poverty or capitalist. weakness They will not of themselves result in the collapse of the capitalist system, and only a misunderstanding of the nature of crises leads the workers to slacken their efforts to maintain wages at those times. Trade depression arises simply from the over-production of goods in relation to the demands of the market. The world is overloaded with goods for which purchasers cannot be found. Purchasers cannot be found because the workers, who have unsatisfied needs, have only a limited amount of money with which to buy, and the wealthiest section of the propertied class, who have the bulk of the purchasing power, have no unsatisfied needs. Once depression begins, prices are forced down and every holder of goods seeks to realise them at all costs. The consequent feeling of insecurity causes the rich to curtail even their normal expenditure, thus aggravating the depression and adding to unemployment.

Many industrial capitalists suffer a decline in their profits owing to curtailed sales, while money-lending capitalists on the whole improve their position.

The crisis is overcome simply because the manufacturers close down their factories and turn the workers out to join the unemployed. Then, when the accumulations of goods have been slowly dissipated, production begins again in response to the newly evinced demand, and the crisis is, for the time being, over.

This is a process which is prolonged by wage reductions, and made more acute by the constant improvements in productivity of industry. which increase the volume of surplus goods.

All the parties which accept the popular view of crises necessarily find themselves pursuing courses contrary to working-class interests. The Communists believe, and indeed hope, that the crises will wreck capitalism, and they therefore propagate their dangerous doctrine of waiting fatalistically for the breaking-point of capitalism, at which point they will take to the streets and challenge the armed forces. The basis of the doctrine is unsound. Crises are not the ruin of capitalism, but merely correctives to its contradictions. Capitalism and its crises can, and will, go on indefinitely until the workers take conscious steps to end the system.

The other parties — Liberal, Tory, Labour and I.L.P., and the later rivals, the Empire Free Traders and the Mosley Party—all preach the doctrine that the workers must at times of crisis take joint action with the capitalists in order to save a desperate situation. As this usually means, in practice, taking lower wages and working harder, it is not only anti-working-class, but also has the effect of prolonging the crisis.

The Socialist Party tells the workers that Socialism is the only remedy for their troubles. There is no time which is not a proper time for them to work for Socialism. This is true whatever the excuse offered by defenders of capitalism. Whether the crisis is a war crisis or a trade crisis, the Socialist Party will continue to preach Socialism. Workers who understand the working of capitalism will see through the excuses to the capitalist interests behind them, and will help us with our task.

Edgar Hardcastle