SPGB Meetings and Lectures. (1926)

Party News from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party activities. (1926)

Party News from the October 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

During recent months we have been able to open three new branches (Becontree, Hull, and Paddington), and there is every prospect that in several other new and old centres branches will be opened in the near future. An active campaign is being carried on in Yorkshire to make the literature of the Party more widely known. Sympathisers in Sheffield and Derby who would like to co-operate in the eventual formation of branches are urged to communicate with us. Members and sympathisers living in other districts where branches do not yet exist should consult us as to possibilities of increasing our sales of literature. Conditions now are in many respects particularly favourable, and with the active support of all members we may hope to see further gratifying results of our work in past years. It is hoped that branches which have recently not been able to maintain their former degree of activity will be encouraged to further efforts. We would again point out that the more rapid spread of our influence is continually impeded by lack of funds. London readers are reminded that Sunday evening discussions will be held regularly at the Emily Davison Club Rooms, 144, High Holborn, W.C., commencing October 3rd, at 7.30 p.m.

Death of A. E. Jacomb (1946)

Obituary from the November 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to inform readers of the death of A. E. Jacomb, who had suffered from heart trouble for many years. He was an active member of the Social Democratic Federation at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, and was a member of the group which came out of that organisation to form the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904, helping to shape the Party’s fundamental principles and policy. He was a compositor by trade and in the early years of the Party, in fact up to the beginning of the ’twenties, he was responsible for the printing of the Socialist Standard and pamphlets. In this work he was a tower of strength, for the job was certainly not a sinecure. Often enough there were not sufficient articles to fill the paper and Jacomb had to make up the rest, under various pseudonyms, as he was doing the composing.

For many years, up to the end of the first Great War, Jacomb was a member of the Executive Committee and the Editorial Committee. He was a fine writer with a keen and caustic humour, contributing many excellent articles to the Socialist Standard. He also drafted two of the Party pamphlets : “Socialism” and "The Socialist Party: Its Principles and Policy.” He gave the best he could do to the Party although his life was one long struggle against financial difficulties.

It was a pitiful business that, towards the end of his life, Jacomb found himself in opposition to the Party about his attitude to the Spanish upheaval and to the last Great War, which led him to make a number of extravagant statements in the heat of controversy. But although he believed the policy of the Party was wrong, he still held fast to his fundamental socialist convictions. The vehemence of his criticism was due to his belief that the Party was on a wrong and fatal track, and to his anxiety to put it back again on what he thought was the right track.

Jacomb was a very fine character; simple and sincere, and a genuine and earnest champion of socialist principles for the whole of his long life. The good that he has done will live long after him.

Why Not Join Us? (1927)

From the March 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are readers of the Socialist Standard and supporters of the party in the districts around London and in the Provinces who feel too far from any centre of party activity to think it worth while joining us. There are others again who, while agreeing with us, yet have a fancy that we are “intellectuals” or “too tolerant." To such I address the following few lines:

Those who are waiting until the party grows in strength in different places would be wise to remember that not only must there be a beginning with someone, but also there may be quite a number like themselves in a district just waiting for someone else to get going. If all those who agree with us join up, we can put members in a given district in touch with each other in order to form a branch. It is much more interesting and useful to work in harness with others than in isolation.

There is no mystery about the principles, policy or internal organisation of our party; there are no cliques or job-hunters. The party’s methods are too democratic to allow of that. We are a group of working men and women who have laid down a set of principles and a policy that are clear and definite, and are carried out by methods that leave no room for the crafty to achieve either position or pelf. All our meetings are open to the public, because we have nothing to hide and no wire-pulling to take part in.

We are not “intellectuals”; we just know what we want and are determined to get it. We are neither intolerant nor bitter towards our fellow workers. We know that the mass of those who support the Labour Party, the Communist Party and others, are honest, sincere, and self-sacrificing in their efforts. It is the foundation and policy of the other parties that is wrong, and that allows groups of self-seekers to climb on the backs of their fellows and to twist the enthusiasm of the workers to their own private ends.

There are "Labour Leaders” who are sincere though misguided, but, in the main, it is the trickster who flourishes in the “Labour Movement ” and forms close corporations for the sharing of offices and emoluments. We are only intolerant and bitterly opposed to the existing order of society and the shams in which it cloaks its fierce oppression.

Where a few members are congregated in a district they have the many advantages organisation confers. For instance, bundles of specimen copies of the “S.S.”—back numbers—can be sent to help them in their propagandist efforts.

Recently, workers in Paddington, in Becontree and in Hull have been enrolled in the party and joined into branches which have enabled them not only to take advantage of the benefits of organisation, but also to get in close touch with us all and to see how democratic and above board the internal work of the party is.

We are steadily growing in strength, and hope soon to be able to record new branches in other places, such as Reading and Sheffield, Woolwich and Sittingbourne. Here and there throughout the world we have associates of a similar outlook to ourselves who are endeavouring to form parties abroad on similar lines to our own.

Now reader and fellow-worker, what about joining up with us and helping on the good work? We offer you, among other things, our comradeship in a cause that is worth your best efforts and enthusiasm.

Gilmac.