Leicester—and after. (1913)

From the August 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month we dealt briefly with the position occasioned by the bye-election at Leicester, and pointed out to the workers generally, and to the workers of Leicester in particular, the necessity for understanding their class position in society. How necessary this is has been demonstrated by the fact that a very large number of workers voted for the Liberal candidate, believing that their interests would be best looked after by the Liberal Party, and that if they abstained from voting it might be taken as “a graceless disregard of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s position.”

The refusal of the National Executive of the Labour Party to endorse the candidature of the Leicester Labour Party’s candidate can only be taken as evidence of their adoption of the “one-and-one principle.”

The truth of our contention that the Labour Party is not independent and is mainly concerned in keeping the Liberal Party in office is amply confirmed in three recent issues of the “Labour Leader.” (It is worth while to remember in this connection that it was the Liberal Government who passed the Payment of Members Bill, and, of course, £400 a year is worthy of serious consideration.)

Since the declaration of the poll we have been treated in the capitalist daily Press, and especially in the “Weekly Journal of Socialism, Trade Unionism, and Politics,” to yards of explanation from the official Labour Party.

The “Labour Leader” (July 13) says: “We all want a clearer manifestation of our independence. We all want a more vigorous denunciation of the Government’s tyranny at home and abroad.” A letter from the secretary of the Bermondsey branch of the I.L.P. appears in the same issue, in which he states, among other things, that “the Leicester business has given us a staggering blow in Bermondsey. Our members are broken and crushed. They feel they can no longer face the enemy, as they know that the criticisms levied against the ‘independence’ of the Labour Party are justified after all, and that they can no longer honestly continue to repudiate the allegations. They are sick and tired of ‘explaining’ and ‘apologising’ for the Party, and the culminating business of Leicester can neither be explained nor apologised for. It can only be condemned.”

In another issue of the “Labour Leader” we find a special article by Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, in which he tells us : “Our Parliamentary policy is exactly that which the most revolutionary Socialist Party would adopt if it had 40 members in the House of Commons in the year of grace 1913.”

This is, indeed, nonsense. When the workers become class-conscious they will reject the Labour Party for the spurious body of rogues and fools that it is. Understanding what they want, and having sent 40 members of “the most revolutionary Socialist Party” to the House of Commons, it is certain these representatives would have to carry out the instructions of the workers who had sent them there. Knowing that they were sent with specific instructions they could not play a two-handed game, and we should not witness that, sorry spectacle which the Labour Party has treated us to—a “revolutionary” party voting against their own amendments in order to save the Government.

Last year there were several bye elections, and as a result of three cornered contests the Conservative candidates in some instances managed to secure the seats. This caused much discomfiture amongst the Liberal and Labour Parties.

Why the workers should be perturbed at the loss of Liberal seats the present writer cannot understand. Are not the Liberal Party ever ready to bring out the armed forces to maim and murder the workers with as little compunction as the Tory Party ? Belfast, Llanelly, Tonypandy prove that they are. Yet this is the brutal party that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is prepared to “bargain” with. The following from “Reynolds’s Newspaper” (6.10.12) is pretty significant :—

“Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, in a speech on Wednesday last, stated that there would be no more three-cornered contests if the Liberal Party would recognise the right of the Labour Party to 80 members.”

“This would seem to indicate the readiness for a ‘deal’ on the part of the latter in view of the next election” is an editorial comment.

Independence, forsooth !

In the “Labour Leader” of July 17 appears an article by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald under the heading : “What is Independence ?” He says that his critics are “nothing more than anti-Liberal,” and asks : “If Lord Selborne had been in South Africa instead of Lord Gladstone what would have been the difference ?”

What this has to do with the “independence” of the Labour Party it is difficult to understand. The reference to Gladstone and Selborne is, of course, an admission of the truth of our contention that the Liberal and Tory parties are really one party, who are only concerned with the robbery of the working class. But if the working class are to derive any comfort from the fact that things would have been no different on the Rand had Lord Selborne been there instead of the Liberal butcher, they should find balm in the reflection that the miners would have been just as ruthlessly murdered had Mr. MacDonald been there instead of either.

A recently joined member of the I.L.P. said publicly : “After what you have done about Leicester, it seems to me that I might just as well have stayed in the Liberal Party for all the good we are doing” (“Labour Leader,” July 17.) Quite so.

Fellow workers, the only organisation worthy of your serious consideration is the Socialist Party of Great Britain, because it is the only party standing for Socialism.

S. W. T.

Letter: Unemployment and the Printing Trades. (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

We print below a letter from a correspondent, together with our reply :—

S. Hackney, E.9. 

22/9/29.

To Editor Socialist Standard.

Dear Sir,

Upon perusal of the Socialist Party’s pamphlet “Socialism,” I am prompted to write of an aspect regarding machine production and its effect on the economic relationship of the working-class. Firstly, I will draw attention to page 3, where will be found workers in practically every trade, profession, and so forth, addressing, as a body, to the working-class the object of Socialism. And amongst them is instanced printers (my italics).

On page 19 I find a reference to the linotype machine and its economic results upon the compositors. In brief, without giving the full quota­tion, this wonderful machine has displaced men; made them unemployed, but not, I will venture to say, unemployable.

Permit me to give the facts. In 1899, the Daily Mail was the first firm to instal these machines. They were then producing an 8-page news-sheet. The staff of compositors was some­ thing like fifty. Since then the paper has developed from an 8-page to a 16-page production. Remembering, too, that the linotype sets text matter only, who other than the displaced compositors does the advertisements which monopolises more of the paper than the material composed by the linotype. This position is representative of all firms who installed the machine.

Next, in 1899, when the linotype was introduced in England from America, the membership of the London Society of Compositors was 11,415, so, according to the line of thought given in “Socialism,” by now—1929—the membership should be numerically smaller. But the opposite is the case, and we find the membership of the Society stronger—14,690, to be precise, and the months of May, June and July found only an average of 16 members unemployed on the figures for those three months. How then can you reconcile these facts with that propounded in the pamphlet ?

The explanation is simple. Take another industry. Consequent on the development of the tooth-brush industry, we find the wage-standard is low. With the result of intensive machine production the markets, at periods, get over­ stocked. That is the cause, Stock ! Stock ! ! Stock ! ! ! But not so in Print. There is no stock in that industry. And that, in my opinion, is the farcical aspect or position I regard for the Socialist Party to take as an example the linotype machine. Other than that point, of course, I am in full agreement.

Yours fraternally, 

Tom.

Reply.

Our correspondent has read the Socialist Party’s pamphlet “Socialism,” and notes that in reference to the compo­sition of the organization, printers, amongst others, are enumerated (page 3). Printers, whether they be linotype or mono­type operators, or hand compositors, or machine managers, and so forth, are all members of the working class. Conse­quently there are in the ranks of the S.P.G.B. men and women of diverse occu­pations who have joined together in an endeavour to propagate the gospel of Socialism.

He is in difficulties about page 19, wherein the introduction of a linotype machine into a printing office is given as an illustra­tion of how hand-labour may be displaced by the machine. Let us quote the passage as it appears in the pamphlet:—

“This wonderful appliance, though a great labour-saver, is profitable only to a certain circle of printers—those who have a considerable amount of book or newspaper work. But many are considering the pros and cons of its adoption. A very little will decide. An extra monthly magazine—or, perhaps, putting in a machine, by saving two or three men’s room, will avoid an expensive removal to larger premises.

Now suppose wages rise, immediately the doubters are decided. They adopt the machine and each machine throws three or four composi­tors into the street.“

It is, indeed, difficult to understand the reasoning of our correspondent, for, while he writes to take exception to the passage quoted above, the significant admission of our correctness creeps in when he says, ” but not, I will venture to say, unemployable.” (Closing words of his second paragraph.) Again, later on, he asks, “who other than the displaced compositors does the advertisements ?”

Our critic then goes on to give what he considers to be the facts. He says :

“In 1899 the Daily Mail was the first firm to instal these machines. They were then producing an eight-page news-sheet. The staff of compositors was something like fifty. Since then the paper has developed from an eight-page to a sixteen-page production. Remembering, too, that the linotype sets text matter only, who, other than the displaced compositors does the advertisements, which monopolise more of the paper than the material composed by the linotype. This position is representative of all firms who installed the machine.”

We would suggest to our correspondent that before he starts “distributing” the “facts,” he should take the trouble to verify them. The Daily Mail was first published on May 1st, 1896. (See “Mystery of the Daily Mail,” page 100; or “Everyman Encyclopaedia.”) Also an agreement for machine composition was signed between representatives of the London Newspapers and Master Printers and the London Society of Compositors in July, 1896.

The facts would have been more informa­tive had they been more definite. For instance, “something like fifty” for the number of compositors employed when the production was an eight-page one, and no mention at all of those required for the sixteen-page edition does not help towards an intelligent understanding of the situation. Our critic goes on to ask, “who, other than the displaced compositor does the advertisements which monopolise more of the paper than the material composed by the linotype?” Of course, some of the displaced compositors may get a look in on the advertisements, seeing that the paper is now, on his own showing, twice its former size ; and the tendency has for a long time past been for newspapers to develop more and more into an advertising medium.

This is where our critic misunderstands our point. We do not deny that an industry can expand and even expand faster when labour is eliminated by machines. The essential point is that more work is done by relatively fewer workers. An instance of this may be taken from the Census of Production figures published in the Board of Trade Journal (21st April, 1927). Dealing with the “Printing and Publication of Newspapers and Periodicals,” it is stated :

Net output per head,      1907 … £190

        ''         ''                   1924 … £546

Persons employed,         1907 … 43,644

       ''         ''                    1924 … 56,837

Be it noted that this increase is much greater than the increase in prices between 1907 and 1924.

Because our correspondent fails to grasp these points he wants to know how we reconcile our statement with regard to the displacement of hand labour by machines when the membership of the London Society of Compositors in 1899 was 11,415 and is now 14,690?

The next statement in his letter, which says that “the months of May, June and July found only an average of sixteen members unemployed,” is incorrect. Let us take the figures as given in the London Typographical Journal:—

May 4   May 11   May 18   May 25

    25          55            92          118 

June 1   June 8     June 15    June 22   June 29

  155         151            171          147        147 

July 6    July 13    July 20     July 27 

   169         205          230         228

If our questioner will take the trouble to work these figures out, he will discover that the average for the thirteen weeks is 145 !

Again, notice should be taken that the compositors have extraordinarily good super­annuation benefits which, combined with the Contributory Pension Act, has a tendency to remove from the labour market a proportion of seekers after work. Dealing with the unemployment figures for the years 1921-1928, the Annual Report, 1928, of the L.S.C. states :—”Members do not need to be reminded that this substantial reduction has been brought about by the operation of the scheme of superannuation combined with the policy of restriction of membership.” Now this restriction of entrants and the limitation of apprentices all helps to swell the general army of unemployed.

We consider it unnecessary to follow our critic at length to the tooth-brush industry. Suffice it to say that here again he is in error in imagining that in the realm of print there is no stock. Evidently he has never heard or seen such things as receipt books, rent books, registers, to mention but a few that come to mind at once, that can be obtained for the asking.

S.W.T.