Hard Coal and Soft Soap. (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to Professor Harebrain, the cause of the trouble in the mining industry is a very simple one. The miners eat too much, far too much. If they would only cut their animal needs down to, say, two meals a day, later to be reduced to one or less, their industry would flourish as of yore. Consequently, as their meals decreased, the need for wages would diminish, and when they had learned to dispense with meals altogether, wages could be brought down nearly to zero. Clothing they have already reduced to the minimum, and as for shelter, well, the roof of the mine is usually sufficient. An example so infectious could not fail to impress the railwaymen, who bring the coal from the pithead to the consumer. Working above ground, they would, doubtless, feel the need for more clothing than the miner, but even now, their benevolent employers insist upon supplying their needs in this direction. With only shelter to concern them, their wages would not be so near absolute zero as the miners, but obviously the room for an economic wage would be enormous. Then, look at the tremendous repercussion of these conditions on the rest of industry, and on the world. With coal at fivepence halfpenny a ton and rail carriage about the same, we could undersell and bankrupt the whole of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Australia and Bardsey Island. Doubtless, this would injure our foreign trade, but, as the Professor says, “damn foreign trade, anyway.” Food we should have dispensed with : clothing would become unnecessary; for with coal so ridiculously cheap, we would have huge fires all the year round. As for shelter—well, in the last analysis, all the population could enter the coal mines and so render even that superfluous. The eminent Professor realised that at this point the question arises—with the whole population safely stowed in the mines, why produce coal at all? Exactly ! Well, possibly the last man in will take a few dynamite cartridges in his pocket, and having cut the cage rope will set alight to himself and so solve the problem for all time.

It is easy to see that Professor Harebrain is a bit muddled. It should be just as easy to see that all the other well-meaning people who are just now tendering advice as to how the mining industry should be run are equally muddled. Some say that if the mines were grouped into areas all would be well. Others that only nationalisation will save the situation. Some suggest that the erection of super-power stations at the pithead will bring prosperity; others, again, the hydrogenation of coal into oil.

We will be paradoxical; we will take a wider, and, at the same time, a narrower view. The bulk of this nation is composed of workers. The nation has no existence apart from them. We therefore take their view. Nothing can be wider than that. It, therefore, narrows the issue down to the question of their interests alone, for whoever is not a worker is living at their expense. The mining industry, like all industries under capitalism, contains two living elements : a vast number of workers and a small number of owners. The workers, not yet having adopted Prof. Harebrain’s advice, are periodically hungry, cold, and in need of shelter. They are, as a class, destitute of all save the capacity for work. Bone, brain and brawn are all they possess. They are reservoirs of energy; an energy singularly valuable, for it has the magical quality of giving more than it gets. It can convert the worthless into the valuable. It can take coal, for instance, from the recesses of the earth’s crust, where it has lain for untold millions of years, and convert it into a desirable and useful article. Left where Nature placed it, it is worthless, one with the dried mud which encloses it. Operated upon by human bone and sinew, it becomes a thing of value. Looked at with a microscope, the coal at the pithead differs in no respect from the coal in the seam. But it is different, nevertheless. It contains something it did not possess before. It is human labour. Invisibly crystallised in every shining lump is the blood and sweat of the miner. Daily the miner enters the pit, fresh and vigorous, and daily he returns (if he has not been unlucky) tired and jaded. But his energy has not vanished into thin air. It is embodied in the coal. It can be measured. It is measured. This process is realised when the coal is confronted with an equivalent on the market. A thousand tons of coal may be worth a country estate, or a steam yacht. They are, therefore, exchanged, and the owner of 1,000 tons of coal becomes the owner of a house or yacht. If he were of a confiding, candid nature, he would call his workers together one afternoon and address them thusly :

“Brave lads ! You have worked hard and well. The day before yesterday, 1,000 tons of coal reposed in Stygian blackness in my mine. According to my son, late of Balliol, it had lain where you found it two hundred million years. He may be a few years out, but that need not detain us. Suffice it to say that you have got it out to the light of day for me, and as I had no possible use for such a quantity, I have exchanged it for a steam yacht. In this I propose to visit the Mediterranean during the ensuing winter, and you, my faithful friends can carry on with the good work. You have had an exhausting time, but, after all, you are used to it, and someone has to do it, anyway. My private opinion is that you like it, for look at the years you have been doing it. Before you so kindly presented me with my thousand tons, you had been doing similarly with other owners in the neighbourhood. They tell me that your patience is exemplary, but that, like a docile horse, there are moments when even you jib. But also like the domestic animal, you never get rid of your driver. This seems to me one of your most excellent characteristics. The newspapers call it your inherent good sense. Without doubt, it is a most excellent arrangement, and so long as you are prepared to do the working, I shall be happy to go on owning. (Interruption.) What’s that? Where do you come in ? I am glad you asked that question. I clearly recognise that, after all, you are human beings; you get hungry, cold and exposed to our inclement weather. I can see that your energy is in constant need of replenishment; that if you do not get the minimum of animal needs you will die. And as I could not extract 1,000 tons of coal from the earth myself, I should be hard put to it to escape a like fate, and might even be reduced to the necessity of working myself. This, or rather these catastrophies can be avoided, and, as a reasonable man, I propose to allow each of you a sum that will enable you to support life and renew the energy of which you are so prodigal. Obviously, I cannot do this unless you first make it for me (unless I borrow it), so that you will see the necessity for hard work (on your part) and huge output. True, in spite of all our efforts, I may not be able to sell the coal you have dragged up for me, and you may have to suffer great privation for having produced more wealth than is needed, but this is a state of things unfortunate but inevitable. My brother, who owns a newspaper, has repeatedly explained this regrettable feature of our system to you, and I am sure, having read it so often, you must agree with him that unemployment is a deplorable but necessary and inevitable evil, past the wit of man to remedy. I remember we talked over it quite a lot whilst we were wintering in Egypt last season. Rest assured that if the problem has not been solved, it is not from want of thought. If you only knew the amount of thought devoted to this problem alone on the Riviera, at the Casino, the Cote d’Azur, Aix les Bains, the Tyrol, Switzerland and numbers of other educational centres, you would be astonished. The principal adviser you must shun is the Socialist. He will tell you that I am unnecessary and useless; that, even if I were to stop in the Mediterranean, or drop in the Mediterranean, you could still get along without me. He will tell you that as the mines are vital to the people, the people should own them. He will contend that what is for the common good should be communally owned and worked for the benefit of all. He will ask you to vote your representatives into Parliament, in order to take my mine away from me, the railways and factories from their owners, the land from its owners, and so on. What fustian ! Does he realise that he will abolish the rich; that I and several hundreds like me will be reduced to the necessity of working like everyone else ? What crazy stuff ! Why everyone knows that it is the rich that supply the poor with work. And hard work is beneficial—at least for the great majority of people. So set to, my lads. Scientists say there is enough coal to last us two hundred years yet, so wire in and win it. Drop this talk of ending the present system, abolishing poverty, overwork and unemployment. Drop this short hours and high wages stunt and concentrate on hard work. There is nothing like it. When, in the Spring, I return from my voyage, I want to see every man-jack of you working like Trojans, and stacks and stacks of coal selling like hot cakes. I shall then get the deer forest I have been after, and you—well, you will be getting your wages, won’t you. Good-bye, my lads ! To it with a will. Good-bye!” (Loud and prolonged cheering.)

W. T Hopley

Letter: The Anti-Fascists again. (1925)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Union for Combating Fascism has at last replied to the criticisms of them which appeared in the April Standard. Their reply is dealt with below. Before they sent their reply, the N.U.C.F. forwarded part of an article taken from the July issue of their paper, the Clear Light, and asked us to print it. As it did not mention us and contained no reference whatever to our criticism we naturally assumed that it had been sent in error. We wrote pointing this out and asked for their reply to our “April” article. It arrived too late for our August issue.

Mr. Holdsworth’s letter is given in full :—

Comrades,—In your last issue you charged the National Union for Combating Fascism with being an anti-working class organisation. I could only conclude that you knew nothing about the N.U.C.F., so I forwarded a statement outlining the outlook and aims of the organisation. Your reply took the form of a sarcastic rejoinder through the post, thus proving to me that I had little to expect from the “precarious indulgence of that abstraction you call Ed. Com.” I am prompted to go further into the matter only by the fact that the British Fascisti have seized on your charge and are now using yourselves wherewith to check our attacks on them—a splendid commentary on the N.U.C.F. slogan that sectional bickering, faced with organised counter-revolution, is fiddling whilst Freedom burns.

But you say that you have produced evidence that the N.U.C.F. is certainly an anti-working class organisation. I want your readers to note the nature of the evidence itself. I give it as quoted and misquoted by yourselves.

1. That we reject the British Communists, but accept their anti-Marxist theory that capitalism will in some mysterious way collapse. (A misrepresentation of our position.)
2. That an individual writer in The Clear Light has spoken of the need to organise the workers to overthrow the capitalist system. (He has as much right to express his opinion thus as Bax has to say that no man can tell how Socialism will come.)
3. That we have said there are hundreds of thousands of revolutionary socialists in Great Britain. (Jack London put the figure at 100,000 as far back as 1905.)
4. That the editors are apparently not of the working-class. (Compare Marx and Engels. One editor and a wage slave.)
5. That we advocate the simple, clean, direct, open fight, without hesitation and without compromise. (We most certainly do—and what a crime against the working class.)
6. That we call on all Socialists to unite. (Don’t you?)
7. That we provide a rallying point for the progressives of all shades of Labour, Communist and Anarchist opinion. (And have been successful, so far.)

On these points you have arraigned us as enemies of the working class. Let your readers judge—or tell them, straight out, that the way of the S.P.G.B. is the one and only way, and that the N.L.P., the I.L.P., the S.D.F., the C.P., the A.P.C.F,, the S.L.P., the N.U.C.F., the C.L.C., and the anarchist groups are, the lot of them, enemies of the working class. You might also explain to them how Marxians arrive at the conclusion that organised counter-revolution is a “red-herring” unworthy of consideration, (I make bold to say that, within two years’ time, unless the Labour Movement takes a hand in checking it, that herring will be a whale, and a black one at that.)

I now challenge your own position, and meet me, if you can, without knocking the bottom out of your own vituperative malice against an organisation, all workers and all of them members of some one of the organisations above-mentioned, seeking to awaken the Movement to the fact that counter-revolution is in the saddle.

The present formation of the N.U.C.F. began as the old S.D.F. began—that school of scientific Socialists—it began, as Bax puts it, “an executive without a tail.” Are we to be dubbed “anti-working class” on that account? Then dub the old S.D.F. likewise—the forerunner of yourselves.

We apply principles to tendencies. Marx did likewise. But we are not fossilised Marxians. We are not a select circle of intellectuals mouthing a bunch of formulae whilst Counter-revolution organises itself. If we were, then you could, with some justification, call us enemies of the working class.

Now let me enlighten you a little further. The N.U.C.F. was not formed or initiated by those at present active in it, but by some other, Socialists likewise, who, finding it uphill work, dumped their burden on ourselves. But we carried on. And we shall carry on. And as soon as ever it is possible, a conference will be held, and we, personally, shall be relieved of the suspicion cast on us by such as yourselves, which, after all, was cast on no man more foully than on Karl Marx.

Fraternally,

Alfred Holdsworth,

Editor, The Clear Light.

Our Reply.

For convenience we will use numbered paragraphs as above.

(1) We can only repeat what we wrote in April. On page 1 of the February Clear Light we are told that “The day is dawning when the onus of choice will be flung upon the masses …”, but on page 2 we find that the workers “must be prepared …to overthrow the existing order.” No one explains why the workers need organise to overthrow something which is going to collapse from its own weakness, which is sinking “by its own weight.”

(2) A journal or a party which has one official policy but allows individuals to remain members while expressing their belief that that policy is unsound, is confusing the minds of the workers. One policy or the other must be wrong. It is, of course, necessary for the workers to organise to overthrow capitalism, but this is inconsistent with the N.U.C.F. Communist belief that capitalism will “collapse” through its own weakness. What on earth Mr. Bax has to do with us or with the point at issue, Mr. Holdsworth unfortunately does not explain.

(3) The N.U.C.F. claims (without offering a shadow of evidence) that there are “hundreds of thousands of revolutionary Socialists” in Great Britain. Asked for proof, they can only protest that Jack London in 1905 suffered from the same vice as themselves of mistaking hopes for facts. Jack London may have had some excuse in 1905, and was probably mislead through accepting the idle chatter of the Mr. Holdsworths of those days. We repeat that the assertion is idiotic, and again ask Mr. Holdsworth if he will turn a Clear Light upon the mysterious failure of these hundreds of thousands (if they exist) to organise into a Socialist Party, and if he will explain why they refrain from expressing their views at the ballot box.

(4) Marx and Engels did not talk as does the N.U.C.F. about the necessity for “us” to “prepare the masses, the poor victims of the old order” as if “the masses” were to be mere cannon fodder in the hands of “us” generals of the Revolutionary Army. On the contrary, they recognised that emancipation must be the work of the workers themselves.

(5) A simple, direct open fight is just what the N.U.C.F. does not and could not wage. Not to do so is a crime against the working class. We charge them with that crime. Rallying “the progressives of all shades of Labour, Socialist, Communist and Anarchist opinion …” precludes the possibility of carrying on a “simple, direct” fight for or against anything whatever. The idea of such a weird collection of persons fighting for Socialism is ludicrous.

(6) Mr. Holdsworth now talks about calling on “all Socialists to unite.” In April we criticised Aim number 1 as printed in their February issue. It read as follows :— “To provide a rallying point for the progressives of all shades of Labour, Socialist, Communist and Anarchist opinion …”This we said was nonsense. In the next issue of The Clear Light (April-May) and in subsequent issues the words “Labour,” “Communist,” and “Anarchist” are omitted. Was this because Mr. Holdsworth had to recognise that our criticism was justified and that this aim was indefensible? But even now the N.U.C.F.’s actions belie their claim. We call on Socialists to unite and fight for Socialism. The N.U.C.F. calls on Socialists to join with various kinds of anti-Socialists in supporting the Labour Party and other definitely anti-Socialist bodies.

(7) If the N.U.C.F. has been successful in rallying Communists, Anarchists, etc., why did it alter its aim to exclude them?

Mr. Holdsworth, somewhat late in the day, challenges us to tell the workers “straight out that the way of the S.P.G.B. is the one and only way,” and that a long list of organisations are “the lot of them enemies of the working class.” If he had ever troubled to read our literature or even one issue of the Socialist Standard, he would know that this is just what we do and have always done. Never by word or deed have we supported the Labour Party or any other political party. We advocate our policy because we believe it to be the correct policy for the workers of Great Britain. We do not, like Mr. Holdsworth, belong to one organisation because we believe its policy to be wrong, and that half-a-dozen other contrary policies are just as, good (or bad). We do not mislead by pretending that the question of aims and methods does not matter.

To note one incident only, we observe that not one of the political parties he mentions took up a Socialist attitude to the war in 1914. Those who supported that war were “enemies of the working class.” Let Mr. Holdsworth dispute it if he can.

We do not say that “organised counter-revolution” is an impossibility. We recognised the possibility 20 years ago. What we do say is that our way is the best method of dealing with it. We are, however, not given to working out plans for the future based on the remote possibility of “red herrings” turning into “black whales.”

We meet Mr. Holdsworth’s challenge by asking how the N.U.C.F. can be other than anti-working class since it gives support to and allows members to belong to the political bodies he mentions?

We do, and, since our formation, always have, dubbed the S.D.F. anti-working class. Did it not support the war, and does it not still advocate the reform of the capitalist system? We want the abolition of that system.

We broke away from the S.D.F. because we thought them wrong, not because we thought them right.

It is interesting to note that the N.U.C.F. has never had a conference, and presumably, therefore, has no kind of democratic control by the members. (By the way, who authorised the alteration in the aims?) Mr. Holdsworth has still not told us that the N.U.C.F. is willing to open all its meetings freely to the public. If it were democratic, “simple and direct,” etc., it would have nothing to hide from us or from the Fascisti, and could then not complain that the latter were using our statements against the N.U.C.F.

Undemocratic and secret societies are dangerous only to the working class.—Ed. Com.

The men of science and their “religion”. (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The subject of the history of the conflict between science and religion, is one which provides its students with an interest from more than one point of view. Not only does it reveal how, with the advance of scentific knowledge, religion has been compelled to either abandon or modify its teachings, it also shows how accommodating some scientists can be when dealing with religion.

That the positive outcome of science spells death to religion is a fact which some scientists either attempt to conceal or avoid in their own peculiar way. Like certain of the leading lights of the Church, who pretend that the findings of modern science can be harmonised with religion, some “scientists” are not averse to trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Readers of Herbert Spencer will recall his celebrated attempt in this direction, as given in the first part of his work, “First Principles.” In that work, Spencer speaks of all things, including the universe, as having proceeded from “an infinite and Eternal Energy.” But, said Spencer, about this “Infinite and Eternal Energy” we neither know nor can know anything; it being “an inscrutable mystery.”

This “Unknowable,” Spencer declared, belongs to the sphere of religion, whilst all that is known or is knowable belongs to the domain of science. Therefore, to follow Spencer, since religion and science are totally independent of each other, the one concerned with “The Unknowable,” the other with the knowable, both should keep within their own province and be “reconciled.” In reality, this was Spencer’s way of performing a feat of mental gymnastics. For surely there could be no stranger reconciliation. Religion is made to give up to science all that is knowable, and to rest contented with absolutely nothing to live upon. The humour of the position is delightful, although, apparently, the humour was not intended by Spencer. His so-called reconciliation reminds one of the man who agreed to being with his mother-in-law on condition that she committed suicide.

However, there was little need for surprise when it was learned that Spencer himself found it necessary to state in his “Autobiography” that he regarded his work on “The Unknowable” as being “relatively unimportant.” In fact, he agreed that it had no direct bearing on his general scientific works. Nevertheless, “The Unknowable” has comforted many poor souls who must have an abstraction of some kind to worship.

The fatal mistake made by Spencer rested on his treating religion and science as though they are absolutely exclusive subjects. And the same thing is done by certain of the present day scientists. But while this position may be a very convenient one to those who desire to avoid an “awkward” situation, it is none the less unscientific and absurd. For, fundamentally, religion and science are not as the poles apart in the sense laid down by Spencer. Both are concerned with explaining the world around us. Religion claims to explain the universe in terms of the supernatural, everything, to the religionist, even when he claims to accept the doctrine of evolution, is the outcome of “God Almighty.” Science, on the other hand, explains everything, as far as actual knowledge goes, along lines of natural causation, and finds no need for the “hypothesis of God” to explain anything. Thus, since religion and science are seen to be fundamentally opposed in their explanations of natural phenomena, the conflict between them is inevitable and irreparable. Nevertheless, not all scientists are prepared to indicate the logical outcome of their own work in the field of science; some prefer to pander to the prejudices of the religionists. To give a case in point : In connection with the recent trial in America, where a teacher was charged with “breaking the law” by teaching evolution, Professor J. Arthur Thomson contributed an article to the Daily News on “Evolution and the Bible.”

In that article Professor Thomson quite easily disposed of those people who rely upon Bible teachings to refute the principle of evolution. He reminded his readers that the evolution doctrine is the only scientific account yet advanced to show how living things came to be as they are. He also pointed out that, while there is unanimity among scientists regarding the fact of evolution, there is a considerable difference of opinion among them regarding the “factors of evolution.” Further, the Professor well describes the doctrine of evolution as “a piece of naturalistic historical description.” But, as the old saying goes, after the Lord Mayor’s Show comes the dust cart—instead of showing how all this conflicted with religion, the Professor attempted to “square the circle” in the following manner :—

“It should be noted, however, that the fundamentalist reaction and obscurantism may be partly due to a lack of carefulness in the scientific presentation of evolutionism. Thus the evolution theory has often been presented as if it necessarily implied an acceptance of a mechanistic or materialistic philosophy; and man’s affiliation with mammals has often been stated in a manner so crude that it has obscured his apartness. There is no reason in the world, as far as we know, why a sound evolutionist should not have a religious philosophy. Rather there is, we think, every reason in the world for being both evolutionist and religious.”—Daily News, July 14th, 1925.

Now, it would have proved interesting had the Professor explained what he meant by “a materialistic philosophy,” and how an evolutionist could embrace religion. As they stand, these statements may mean anything and everything but the right thing. Anyhow, there is good ground for believing that Professor Thomson has a special reason for slighting materialism. Materialists have long been the butt of misrepresentation and abuse. As Engels once said of certain of the opponents of materialism, they represent it to mean “gluttony, drunkenness, carnal lust, and fraudulent speculation.” In fact, materialism has been charged with every conceivable vice. Hence the desire of certain “scientists” to repudiate materialism. Nevertheless, the fact is that the doctrine of evolution and science in general, does logically imply a materialistic philosophy, Professor Thomson and other scientists notwithstanding. For that philosophy is simply a view of nature founded upon the facts established by modern science. As Professor Sir Ray Lankester says :—

“The history of scientific discoveries is a history of materialistic successes : for no scientific discovery has ever been made that is not based upon materialism and mechanism.”

Some scientists may disown materialism, but, as another writer has observed, “it lies at the basis of all their efforts.” No matter in which department of science a scientist may be engaged, whether as Astronomer, Geologist, Biologist or Sociologist, his business consists of ascertaining positive knowledge of nature’s workings. And one of the outstanding facts of modern science is, that there is no break or gap in the continuity of natural phenomena. Where gaps exist, the scientist explains that they are only in our knowledge, and not in the “framework of things.” An isolated happening in nature is a myth, for cause and effect is seen to be the rule operating throughout. From this it follows then that the idea of supernatural interference is a figment of the imagination. Science has rendered “God” not only unemployed, but unemployable, without even the power to draw the “dole.” 

When Professor Thomson tells us that an evolutionist may have a religion, we are prompted to suspect that he associates a meaning with religion which it will not logically bear. Nowadays religion has come to mean all sorts of things, and thus we hear of “the religion of ethics,” “the religion of humanity,” and even “the religion of Socialism.” But this is all so much a matter of confusing the issue. Historically, religion has meant the belief in and worship of supernatural beings, and this is its essential meaning to-day; it cannot be separated from the god idea. As Engels has said : “If religion can exist without God, then alchemy can exist without its philosopher’s stone.”

Scientific investigation has revealed that religion first took form in primitive times through the ignorance of primitive men concerning the world around them. Fear and ignorance gave primitive man his gods, and Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is really no more than the gods of the savage transformed under the pressure of a continuous social development. Thus, “religious philosophy,” to use Professor Thomson’s phrase, necessarily implies a belief in this “God” and implies the acceptance of the story of creation.

The evolutionist who can harmonise the myth of “Divine creation” with the principle of evolution may be regarded as sincere, but only at the expense of his sanity. If the Professor, in his capacity of biologist, attempted to explain the differences between man and the anthropoids by saying, “God created them,” he knows he would be ridiculed by his brother biologists. And well deserved such ridicule would be.

Robert Reynolds

Economics and ideas. Their influence on political institutions (part 6) (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last month).

The workers demand the franchise.

But the revolt of the workers though it could be repressed could not be destroyed. In spite of all opposition their Trade Unions, though declared illegal by the Combination Acts, persisted and waged a never-ceasing war of resistance against low wages, the extension of the working day and intolerable conditions of labour.

Side by side with the industrial struggle went on a ferment of political ideas at length issuing in demands that were the outcome of the antagonism between the social relations of capitalist economy— fostering ideas of “equal rights” and “individual liberty”—and the actual oligarchic form of the state with its assumption of unequal rights and of different grades of social status.

At first the workers’ aspirations for political and legal rights were inarticulate and unorganised, but the spread of workers’ associations, of discussion and reading and the growing ease of communication facilitated the growth of an organised movement. Political groups aiming at constitutional reform sprang up in the cities and these, though dominated by intellectuals and bourgeois radicals had considerable influence amongst sections of the working class. One of the earliest was the London Corresponding Society, founded in 1797 by Hardy, a bootmaker. With it Paine and Godwin were associated. Its leaders nearly all suffered imprisonment or transportation. At a later date Cobbett carried on a vigorous agitation amongst the workers :

“When he reduced ‘The Weekly Political Register’ from a shilling and a halfpenny to twopence, 50,000 copies were scattered over the country, and everywhere men gathered in clubs to hear the paper read by one of them who had schooling” (Green’s “Short History,” p. 846).

But the great political movement of the period was that of the industrial bourgeoisie. Their struggle for the Reform Bill was undoubtedly instrumental in rallying masses of the workers. But the political demands of the working men had roots independent from and antagonistic to the basis of the bourgeois movement. To them electoral reform was primarily a means of alleviating their economic miseries. At the same time it is impossible to separate, in the stimulus behind their demands, the economic discontent that was the chief spur to action, from the force of the political ideas which gave their discontent expression in aspirations towards political democracy and demands which spoke eloquently of the extent to which they had moved from their old confirmed belief in the necessity of “status” and the inevitability of political privilege.

The details of the Reform Movement need not detain us, but it was a severe and a bloody struggle in which the workers bore the brunt of the fight. After forming the backbone of the struggle for the Reform Bill of 1832 which enfranchised the new capitalists but excluded themselves, the exasperated workers threw their strength into their own Chartist movement and carried on the conflict afresh. Again we may note that, though the Chartist working men meant political reform as a means to economic ends, the purely political demands of the Charter—manhood-suffrage, vote by ballot, etc.—indicate how widespread “democratic” and “libertarian” ideas had become.

Though the Chartist movement broke down and its demands were resisted, the concepts that it had done so much to popularise were now permanently rooted and could not be eradicated. But for a period the agitation for political reform died down. After the worst excesses of the factory-system had been alleviated by the Factory Acts, after a period of comparative prosperity due to the rapid extension of British production and its supremacy in the World Market and to the rising strength of their Unions, the workers had become reconciled to the system. Their Trades Unions, now tacitly recognised by the masters, became benefit societies and means of diplomatic negotiations with the employers. Their leaders declared the common interests of Capital and Labour, and counselled conciliation and mutual good-will between the classes.

But in the “sixties” events revealed the legal insecurity of the Unions and their funds, and a strong demand ensued for their definite legalisation. Along with this movement began an active revival of the agitation for the franchise. Reform Leagues sprang up spontaneously all over the country. The “International,” founded in 1864 and led by Marx, actively supported the new movement.

“All through the autumn and winter (1866-7) great meetings were held in the great towns and cities to promote the cause of reform. A most significant feature of these demonstrations was the part taken by the organised trades associations of working men.” (McCarthy— “Our Own Times.”)

At length, as Engels says, “the workers’ claims to the franchise gradually became irresistible,” and the ruling class gave way.

Significantly enough, it was the Tories who passed the second Reform Bill of 1867, which enfranchised a great mass of the town workers, thus demonstrating that even the most traditionally, cautious party of the master class had seen “the writing on the wall,” and were convinced that working-class suffrage was inevitable. In 1872 the secret ballot was instituted, and in 1885 the vote was further extended to the counties and the agricultural workers.

The ruling-class had made in 1867 what Lord Derby called a “leap in the dark,” but, to their relief—though this must have been half-expected — the plunge proved harmless. It was soon overwhelmingly apparent that the working-class — though jealous enough in the defence of their immediate interests—had no thoughts of disrespect to or revolt from the “rights of property,” and that they believed and acted on the assumption that “capital” and “wages” were eternal categories, and the only practical basis of social life.

Before this, in America and in France, the workers had already achieved the franchise, and since then all over the capitalist world an enfranchised working-class has been recognised as the indispensable basis of stability in the State.

The Great Illusion.

With the vote, with his Unions legalised (1871 in England) and other legal rights established, the workers seemed to have achieved what bourgeois historians regard the be-all and end-all of social evolution—full “civic rights and liberties.” They had in actuality reached the very fullest “freedom” as a class that they could achieve or even conceive so long as their ideas and aspirations kept within the bounds of the capitalist system. The facts of law and politics now no longer seemed in contradiction with the “liberty” and “individualism” of economic life. Did not the “people” now “rule the country,” did not they decide the fate of statesmen and governments, did not the politician plead and struggle for their support and tremble at their indecision? At last, the son of toil seemed truly a free man, and he could sing “Britons never, never, never !” with never a twinge of conscience.

That the overworked, ill-fed slave of the factory-blast can live in the same city with the gilded drones who live in luxurious leisure upon the product of his toil— and yet believe in the reality of his freedom— in liberty of contract and the reward of enterprise seems a ghastly joke. Yet the positive reality of the belief is a fact to which anyone who knows the workers can testify.

The wage-slave does not perceive that the unequal distribution of property into which he is born exercises as compelling a tyrannical control over his destiny as any law that the State can make. He is blind to the fact that freedom for property means slavery for those who possess none. He explains the inequality of wealth op the theory that the rich have been “lucky” or particularly clever. The man who has “got on” he admires, and he lives in the shadowy hope of following in his steps. His hero is the “self-made man.”

It is essential to clearly understand that the resignation of the average worker to the capitalist system and, indeed, his active support of it arises directly from the fact that he accepts private property in the means of life without question. Once this basis is granted, the support of the whole system follows of necessity. The worker may and does desire economic security, but this only results from control of the means of life. In the early, days of the system the workers did endeavour to return to the measure of such control that the hand-tool period allowed them. They fought the machines and tried to turn back the wheels of history. But with the generations that had grown up amongst and known nothing other than the machine system, such aspirations could have no place. The means of production were now giant mechanisms jointly operated —no one worker used them. So long as the traditions of individual ownership persisted, therefore, the workers could not own or even with sense think of owning the instruments they operated. The social productive mechanisms of modern society can only be owned by the users in common —and the idea of social ownership had not yet taken wide and deep root.

But the impossibility of security for the workers did not prevent them continuing to seek for it—but as they accepted the system they had also to accept the only method of aiming at security that the system offers — increase of income, through collective bargaining largely, but also through—if only as a vague but persistent aspiration—”getting on,” if possible, accumulating property—processes that naturally foster the outlook of individualism.

R. W. Housley

(To be continued.)

Publications Fund Acknowledgments. (1925)

Party News from the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Answers to correspondents. (1925)

Letters to the Editors from the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

T. Mosley (Notts).—We have no trace of a previous letter asking about trade unionism. Your suggestion that the weakness of our position lies in our aloofness from the trade union movement is not supported by any evidence. The aim of trade unions is not Socialism and, therefore, the principles and policy of The Socialist Party is quite distinct from those of trade unions.

Trade unions are organised within capitalism to “collectively bargain” with employers terms of wage slavery. The Socialist Party’s aim is to abolish wage slavery and establish Socialism.

We recognise the necessity of trade unions under capitalism, and, therefore, endeavour to make them more effective by urging the workers to recognise the class struggle and its implications. The spread of Socialist knowledge is the best antidote to the poison of “labour-leaders,” and is the only policy to hasten the abolition of wage slavery which trade unions are powerless to accomplish.

—Ed. Com.

W. C. E. (Leyton).—Your question : “What is the relative economic position of the worker compared to 50 years ago?” will be dealt with in an article at an early date.

S. Warr (Southend) asks the following-question :-—

“As value is determined by social necessary labour power or time, what then would be the value of gold as means of exchange if its production were unrestricted and of great volume ?

“I ask this as the machinery, science and organisation of mines to-day has very greatly increased the production of gold; also the knowledge of its location.”

(Answer).—The effect of the reduction of the value of gold due to less labour being required to produce it is that more gold has to be given in exchange for other articles. In other words, there is a general rise in prices. If gold could be produced with relatively very little labour, it would make it less suitable as a medium of exchange. It still contains, however, a large value in a small compass and, therefore, serves the purpose of a medium of exchange better than any other commodity.

—Ed. Com.

H. G. Wells’ idealism and the working class (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has often been said that the ideal society will be one in which its members consciously direct their efforts for common good. In the moment when every man will promote the interests of his fellow men regardless of his own individual preferences, so soon will the highest conceivable stage of social progress have been reached. This popular view is also upheld by “pseudo-Socialists.” H. G. Wells, in his “Outline of History,” states

“that the impulse to devotion, to universal service and to a complete escape from self . . . which ebbed so perceptibly during the prosperity, laxity, disillusionment and scepticism of the past seventy or eighty years will re-appear again, stripped and plain, as the recognised structural impulse in human society.”

This Christian sentiment, so lofty and admirable as it appears at first sight, devolves into a very mischievous doctrine—a common consequence of Christian ethics. Here we are led to imagine society as being an undivided mass of individuals each one being capable of a free-will offering to the common prosperity. The idea implies that poverty and all social inequalities can be accounted for by a lack of certain tender feelings on the part of the richer individuals. Mr. Wells has discovered that they have not sufficiently exercised their “impulse to devotion, universal service, etc.” Then what is the remedy? Surely, to convince these misguided wrong-doers of the errors of their ways and persuade them in the Wellsian manner—whatever that may be—to pay more regard in future to the interests of their poorer neighbours. Presumably, they are required to part with a portion of their wealth and distribute it among the unfortunate beings who somehow managed to combine a Christian heart with an empty pocket. It was with exactly this end in view that the Labour Party launched their scheme for a Capital Levy. This was indeed a brilliant idea, concealed in the Gospel of Christ, obscured for nineteen hundred years of misery and want, and re-discovered at last by Mr. Pethick Lawrence under the inspiration of Mr. Wells ! There is but to allow for a Labour Government to give practical application to the divine plan and behold, labour shall cease its awful strife with capital and both shall for ever go arm in arm together. But in the meantime, let us repair to the churches to solicit the spiritual aid of Jesus Christ and Mr. Wells, his prophet !

The Capital Levy might satisfy the Labour Party but it offers no solution to the economic problem. So long as Capitalists own the means of life, so long will the workers be enslaved as wage-earners and poverty prevail. They must concede to the condition that their portion of the wealth produced by his labour—whether paid in the form of wages, salary or otherwise—shall be reduced to something like a living minimum. If he declines this condition, his labour-power is not purchased and he is left to starve into submission. The worker’s prospects under the present system are, therefore, in general entirely hopeless and the Capital Levy can have no effect whatever upon his economic status. The only logical solution to the worker’s problem is to grapple with its roots. The secret of the Capitalists’ power is the fact that they own the means of production, giving them illimitable authority over the whole social system. The worker’s aim, therefore, must be to capture the means of production. This is a task in which the solemn worship of divinity in any form will avail nothing. It will be accomplished only when a workers’ class-conscious majority has achieved political power and wields it in the communal interest. This being established, social progress enters upon a new lease of life which is the only Socialism.

To the sentimental advocates of “complete escape from self,” there is one unmistakable reply—it is unhuman. It does not conform with man’s mental make-up. We have to admit that the first, greatest and happiest effort of the individual is to consider his own welfare. But in human society—and possibly among the higher animals—there is a conscious co-operation between individuals for the purpose of facilitating the struggle for existence. This combination of effort occurs only in the presence of a common enemy, whose defeat can better be secured by social rather than by individual effort. In other words, “mutual aid “—as this co-operative practice is called—is adopted under pressure of necessity when the individual welfare is being threatened. Apart from the union of similar egoistic ambitions, it has no existence; it rests, not on any moral basis, but only on one of utility.

The truth of this interpretation of “mutual aid” is borne out in the facts of modern industrial history. The workers are to-day expressing dissatisfaction with their standard of living. This discontent is manifested in the Trade Unions in which each member aims at promoting his own individual interest, or rather, we should say, apparent interest. To do this more effectively, he is obliged, often against his immediate desire, to unite with his fellow-workers and employ the machinery of the Trade Union to fulfil the common collective demands of the whole body of workers. In order to benefit individually, the workers must act collectively; it is a condition forced upon them by the very magnitude of the modern economic system. They, therefore, employ “mutual aid” but essentially to further the apparent interests of the individual, that is to say, an improvement in the standard of living. For no other cause will they co-operate than for this egoistic purpose.

But this process, as practised to-day by the Trade Unions and the Labour Party, is confused with an element of ignorance. The workers are being educated into the false view that their economic emancipation lies at the far end of a series of steadily improving scale of wages. All that the workers are taught is to strive for a slightly larger share of the wealth they produce. They seek only to gratify their immediate and apparent interests. The result of this policy has been the ever-increasing poverty by which the present society is distinguished.

The Socialist Party, based upon a thorough understanding of the Capitalist mode of exploitation, makes full use of this experience. Under the present economic system the worker receives only a small fraction of the wealth he produces. His scale of wages is determined, on the average, by the cost of his subsistence and the reproduction of his kind. An increased wage scale is, therefore, only of temporary benefit to the workers. The solution of the Socialist Party, briefly stated, is to secure, not a larger fraction of the wealth produced, but actually the whole value of the productions. It is the one indispensable condition by which Capitalist exploitation will definitely cease to exist and for which the class war, as the collective endeavour of individuals, must be waged.

Socialism, therefore, far from advocating “escape from self” really preaches the doctrine of self-interest as the essential feature of a contented community. It is the ideal by the attainment of which the emancipation of the working class and, with it, of society at large will be established. The workers must learn to cease being satisfied with the crumbs which fall from the richly spread table of Capitalism, Nor is it enough that when the crumbs cease to fall, they beg like Oliver Twist for more. They must stimulate their individual interests to the fullest limit and vote for Socialism, i.e., the collective ownership of the means of life It is a simple doctrine, but an all-engaging one. Any ideal short of this may very aptly conform to the reactionary elements of Christianity. But it is not Socialism and will lead society to anything but complete emancipation.

“THOUSANDS”

The meaning of the Pensions Bill (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

“I submit that this scheme is a social insurance scheme in more than one sense. It is a good scheme of insurance for the poor, and it safeguards them against some of the risks and anxieties of life, but it is also a good insurance scheme for the rich. The rich should pay up and so avoid the dangers of the social revolution.” Speech of Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (Hansard, 19/5/25, Column 354).

How they make their money. (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

You do not know Mrs. Scarfe, of course. That is unfortunate. Probably, as one of the wealthiest women in Australia, she and you have had little chance of meeting. The Daily News, August 20th, informs us she has just arrived in London. “ My money?” she said to that journal’s interviewer. “ Oh, the Scarfe money was made by hard work, and hardware—pots and pans, that is!”

Possibly a doubt assailed the interviewer as to the proportion in which the hard work and the hardware were allocated. Presumably he asked if the making or managing of so much money was a strenuous occupation. One is delighted to find a refreshing candour. “Oh, no! I don’t ‘manage’ my money—I just take my share of the dividends.”

O, Simple Simon, wake up !

W. T. Hopley

Editorial: The Blackness of "Red" Friday (1925)

Editorial from the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Miners' Leaders and the Labour Press have hailed the outcome of the mining dispute as a tremendous victory for the Miners.

The Daily Herald, in large letters, blazoned it forth as “the greatest victory in Labour’s history.” Mr. Cook described it as “a great victory” and Mr. Purcell added that it was the greatest victory for trade unions in 25 years.

Black Friday compensated for by "Red” Friday is the style of jubilation quite common in "labour” papers.

When we seek the nature of the victory we find that it is a victory for the mine-owners.

The Government have agreed to secure the profits of the mine-owners by subsidising them to the tune of 20 odd millions. The miners are to continue working at the old rate of wages for nine months pending reports of a Committee of Enquiry appointed by the Government.

Mr. Cook’s colleagues in the minority movement announced during the dispute that "The miners’ officials have promised to fight for the 1914 standard of wages plus cost of living increases. They must be kept to that promise and the whole Trade Union movement must support' them.” (The Worker, Aug. 1.)

The "Great Victory,” however, means that the miners are to work at a wage 10 or 15 per cent. below that of 1914 and under conditions where there are 300,000 miners workless depending on insurance benefits or poor law doles when they can get them.

This happens in an industry where Mr. Cook admits the owners have made admitted profits of over 58 millions since 1921. So what the miners have won are wages (when they can get a job) far less than the 1914 level of poverty.

The long-continued demand of the miners for higher wages was swept upon one side by the owners insisting upon a reduction and the result of all the negotiations is that the miners will get no increase for at least nine months. The employers will get the profits they asked for. An inquiry will be held by "reliable gentlemen” and their report will be binding upon nobody. In the meantime the coal will be accumulated by mine-owners who can afford to wait till it is disposed of. During the nine months the Governing Class can make all preparations to deal forcibly with a strike on a large scale.

What can the miners prepare! At the very best they can arrange to entirely stop work and face the almost empty exchequer of the Union. Strike pay would last a very short time for in these days of reduced wages and unemployment the unions' funds are heavily depleted. Faced by want and menaced by force the miners’ outlook will be a black one.

Even with practically an industrial union like the Miners’ Federation and threatened by few blacklegs, their ability to cope with the worsening effect of capitalism has been nil. With all the experience of years of struggle the Miners' Leaders understand little of the situation they are in and so they are unable to advance the only remedy.

How little they appreciate the class struggle is shown by the speech of the President of the Miners’ Federation at the Scarboro' Conference. The Sunday Worker (July 19) gives the following report:—

  Mr. Herbert Smith, who presided, in his opening remarks, declared that the present crisis in the industry was largely due to the fact that the mine-owners had not attempted to take the miners into their confidence.   Whether or not the country believed in nationalisation, he said, it would be driven to adopt that as the only way to save the mining industry.
   He hoped the owners’ attempt to lower wages and lengthen hours would be opposed by the whole trade union movement.
   Continuing, Mr. Smith said that more than one in every four of the miners were unemployed, and two out of every three were earning less than £2 a week (italics ours).

The idea that the conflict between owners and workers is caused by the workers not being taken into confidence by the owners is a stupid one. What are the mine-owners to confide to the workers ? This is the old idea of conciliation between robbers and robbed and those who preach it are blind to the facts of economic life.

Mr. Smith’s foolish notion of nationalisation “as the only way to save the mining industry” is another idea that is injurious to the workers’ welfare and its advocacy by the leaders, including Mr. Cook, and supported by the Communists, shows how little they have learned of the system.

The demand the miners' leaders make that the mines be re-organised and made more efficient is one that all capitalists can support.

All the demands the miners can make upon the system will leave their position fundamentally the same. The shortening of hours, upon which they banked so much, has been accomplished, the 12-hour day has become 7, and there are infinitely more miners unemployed than ever before. Their past victories and the mining legislation have left them with wages that mean hopeless poverty and a greater struggle to make both ends meet than in the past.

The very efficiency of re-organisation of the mining industry will mean that fewer miners are required to get the same quantity of coal. Therefore, more unemployment.

Nationalisation will be a boon to owners of many mines, but to the workers it will mean a stabilising of their poverty with no greater chance for work than now. Actually, less workers will be required, because the wasteful methods under competition that labour leaders criticise will be abolished and with their abolition the men who do this wasteful work will be eliminated.

Examine these schemes and plans of the Miners’ Leaders ! Do they touch these causes of the miners’ present position? The stronger position of the owners due to combination of firms and rings; the development of substitutes for coal reducing the number of miners required; the markets abroad absorbing reparation coal under the Versailles and Dawes schemes, supported or arranged by Labour Leaders; and, above all these, the fundamental cause, the dependence of the miner upon the owners for permission to work with the resulting robbery of the worker.

Trade Unions, financially bankrupt, are faced to-day by the wealthy owners, made wealthier by the enormous surplus wrung from labour in the years of “good trade." The miners, like other workers, may “gain” some sudden concession in a competitive system by striking when there is a danger of losing trade to competitors. But in the long run the fact remains, as Marx put it 60 years ago in Value, Price and Profit, that on the economic field labour fights where capital is strongest. Trade Union leaders ignore the economic development of the system which, by its concentration of wealth and evolution of industry, makes all real and lasting improvement for the workers impossible within capitalism.

Instead of preaching nostrums such as conciliation and nationalisation, Socialists teach the working class to understand the class struggle and the causes of their slavery with the object of organising them as a class for the abolition of capital, and the establishment of Socialism.

Not the “Mines for the Miners” but the World for the Workers.

The Illusions of Anti-Militarists (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the workers outside the Army, Navy, etc., are opposed to Socialist ideas, is it likely that those inside the armed forces will be more sympathetic to revolutionary influences? The answer is emphatically, no. The powerful influence of capitalist tuition on the civil population is plain. And the more powerful effect of capitalist tuition on those in the “forces" is plainer still.

In spite of this, Pacifists and “Communists,” who have never adopted a policy of educating the workers in Socialism, think it will be possible to permeate the armed forces with their ideas. Communists who talk about general strikes to seize power and direct action as the only way, suddenly decide that these policies are not sufficient. They now declare that the Army must be with the workers. If economic action to tie up industry and “starve the bosses" is the policy they believe in, why bother about the Army. They sometimes think that the armed forces will be starved by a general strike and that no Army can be moved because of a railway strike. But they drop all this moonshine suddenly and get the notion that the Army and Navy can be converted. The very same persons who loudly proclaim that the mass of the workers cannot be educated into Socialism tell us that the Army, being composed of workers, can be won for our ideas.

The dictatorship diehards who affirm that only a minority of the workers under capitalism can escape from mental slavery to the capitalist, these are the very same people who believe that those in armed camps can have their capitalistic education dispelled.

This “short cut" to Revolution is full of illusions. Take the position of a soldier. He is isolated in barracks and camps and there mentally drilled to obey orders. He is carefully segregated from the influences which might weaken the mental hold of capitalist tuition. He is given a security of food, clothing and shelter, which is denied in industrial life, and where unemployment is frequent. All the carefully arranged plans and codes of training mould the member of the armed forces so well, that of all the working class he is the least likely recruit to revolutionary ideas, especially in the leading capitalist countries.

Socialists, therefore, direct their attention chiefly to the civil population, regarding them as the most likely recruits to Socialism. Without the bulk of the working class being won for Socialism, its establishment is impossible.

When the masses are converted to Socialist ideas and organised, and in control of the political machine, the armed forces will be under their control. While Socialists welcome the acceptance of Socialism by any and every member of the working class, we do not delude ourselves with the notion that any rapid or widespread conversion of the Army and Navy is possible. Soldiers may tire of prolonged war or be driven to stop fighting by lack of food, But that is not a conversion to the revolutionary policy of Socialism.

Anti-militarism does not denote an acceptance of Socialism. Pacifists and Liberals, Anarchists and Quakers, may all be antimilitarists, opposed to all wars, sighing for perfect peace, yearning for brotherly love, but they are dreamers and ignore the nature of the system under which we live. Armed forces are required by ruling classes to keep the subject class in slavery and wars are inseparable from a system of private property.

Socialists, therefore, go to the roots of the matter. The system depends upon the ignorance of the masses of workers and therefore until the workers obtain real knowledge of the causes of their conditions and organise in agreement with that knowledge—there is no possibility of abolishing the effects of the system.

The lurid appeal of the Communist, Workers' Weekly, asking the Labour Party to stop the soldiers being used against workers is another sign of Communist Party stupidity. With all the experience of the Labour Party as a Government and their willingness to use armed forces and pass Coercion Acts and support wars, no Socialist would ever expect them to assist the workers.

Adolph Kohn