Editorial: The struggle for oil (1948)

Editorial from the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The countries of the world are faced with the vital problem of obtaining sufficient oil to meet the expanding demands of transport, industry and mechanised agriculture. Oil is also needed in vast quantities for armies, navies and air forces, and the problem is not only that of obtaining sufficient in peace time but of knowing that the supply will continue in time of war. During the second world war Germany obtained the bulk of her supplies by developing chemical processes for producing oil from coal. Mr. A. D. Cummings, M.Sc., writing in “Discovery” (February, 1948), states that none of the known processes can yet compete commercially with natural oil.

“As now used, these processes are not an economically successful solution to the problem . . . the petrol obtained from them still costs at least twice as much as the natural oil, which has been refined and transported to its destination. Using hard coal it takes nearly 5 tons of coal to make a ton of petrol; using brown coal it takes 17 tons of raw coal from the mine; moreover, the capital cost of oil-from-coal plants is enormous. Only a country whose need was desperate would contemplate using them in the present circumstances. The processes have no future until natural oil resources dwindle even more rapidly than they are doing at present.”

A small amount of synthetic oil was being produced in this country before the war, but according to Mr. Cummings the British Government decided then against developing it for the needs of the coming war, preferring to rely on supplies of natural oil from abroad. Efforts are now being made to improve the processes and it is of course possible that they may become competitors with natural oil if oil prices continue to rise.

In the meantime consumption of petrol is increasing by leaps and bounds, and the problem of securing increased production and of controlling the petroleum regions becomes more acute. U.S.A. is still by far the greatest producer. In 1947 the United States oil wells produced nearly two-thirds of total world production, but so great is the consumption that the U.S. is now an importer of oil.

According to figures published in the last annual report of the Shell Transport and Trading Co., United States production in 1947 was about 2,000 million barrels. Next comes Venezuela with 435 million, the Russia with 200 million, Iran 155 million, Arabia 90 million and Mexico 56 million.

It will be observed that Russia, with a population greater than that of U.S.A., produces only one-tenth as much petrol. Even if production in Rumania, Hungary and other countries on Russia’s western border is added to Russia’s own resources, the total is still only about 240 million barrels compared with U.S.A.’s 2,000 million. It is true that in Russia very little is used in private motoring, and that every effort is made to develop coal and hydro-electric schemes and thus reduce the demand for petrol, but notwithstanding these alternatives Russia’s need of oil is acute and growing; which explains their anxiety to gain control of further supplies in Iran and other countries. But America too is vitally interested in oil from the Middle East. it is not merely that America needs more oil at home, but that American capital invested in Arabia, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East calls for “protection,” and that the American Navy in Mediterranean, waters requires local supplies. In December, 1946, when American interests were negotiating for oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, it was stated that the major part of the oil produced in Arabia by the Arabian-American Oil. Co. “is going directly to the United States Navy” (Daily Telegraph, 12/12/46).

Western European countries, including Britain, are more than ever dependant on Middle East oil. As Elizabeth Monroe states in the Observer (11/7/48), “the chief interest of Western Europe is no longer the Suez Canal. The main post-war interests of the Western Powers lie further east. The prime one is to preserve the great oil fields on the Persian Gulf and Tigris from falling into hands that would deny their output to Westerners.”

The “hands” in question are of course those of Russia.

In passing it is, however, interesting to note a report from New York “that the United States is negotiating for the purchase of a substantial shareholding in the Suez Canal Co.” (Daily Telegraph, 25/6/48.)

Russia’s interest in trying to prevent American-British domination of Middle East oil resources is obvious. While Middle East production as a whole is still only about 10 per cent. of total world production and only about one-seventh of production in the United States, it is rapidly expanding. If Russia could get into that area, even if Russian activity were to be confined to Northern Iran, her oil problem would be greatly eased. Looking further ahead, there is the certainty that the Middle East will in a few years have doubled or trebled its output.

There have from, time to time been forecasts of the early exhaustion of oil reserves, particularly in U.S.A. According to Sir F. Godber, Chairman of the Shell Co., there is no present danger. Speaking at the annual meeting he said that in the past 20 years continuous discoveries have led to an increase in established world resources, from 23,000 million barrels which was the estimate in 1928, to 72,000 million which is the latest estimate. Even in U.S.A. there is no danger of reserves soon being exhausted. Sir F. Godber says that ” the most conservative estimates of the American Petroleum Institute show that in the United States, in spite, of the constantly increasing rate of consumption, the ratio of reserves to current production is being maintained.” (Financial Times, 22/6/48.)

Nevertheless the Middle Eastern countries, with their enormous undeveloped oil reserves, their cheapness of production, are destined to be a centre of acute, Imperial rivalries for many years to come.

The over-population myth (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

In orthodox economics the population theory of Malthus, British Economist, 1766-1834, has long played the role of “The fat boy.” With certain modifications successive generations of economists have sought to “make our flesh creep” from the dismal conclusions he drew from it. To-day there are still many who would seek to give us Malthusian goose-pimples.

The substance of Malthus’ “Essay on Population” was a shameless plagiarism of earlier writers like Townsend and Dr. Wallace. He contended that population always tended to increase faster than food supply. This created a vicious circle. Increased wealth only brought even greater increases in population. Too many people meant too little food. Famine and a high death rate then came automatically into operation. As a result population sank below the level of food supply: then the cycle began all over again.

Malthus’ remedies for this alleged population “evil” was small families, late marriages and abolition of all forms of public assistance.

In view of all this his controversy with Ricardo in which he defended the consumption of the wealthy land-lord class on the grounds that it offset the effects of capital accumulation and thus helped to prevent gluts is not without certain sardonic implications.

Incidentally his “Essay” was an attack on the proposed Poor Law reform of Pitt whereby the Tories were attempting to cope with the dislocation arising from the passing of feudal society and the emergence of a new social order. It was also shrewdly aimed at the Utopian thinkers who under the stimulus of the French Revolution had carried to its most optimistic conclusions the doctrine of utilitarianism—“The greatest happiness of the greatest number,” by an advocacy of an ideal based upon equality of property and sex.

To say that increases in population tend to out-run food-supply is of course the merest of truisms. It would only have force if the productive powers of society were themselves incapable of progressive improvements. Such has not been the case: Indeed since Malthus lived all evidence has gone to show that wealth has tended to increase at a faster rate than population.

Ironically enough it has been these very increases in population which Malthus apparently dreaded so much that have contributed so decisively to making large-scale production, and the enormous increases in wealth production that went with it, possible. For it is clear that only when population has reached a certain level can that co-operation of mass aggregates of labour-power, working and organised for a given end, take place. It is in fact, as Marx points out, this very form of large-scale co-operation basic to capitalism that brings in a new economic force, the social productive power of collective labour. “When the labourer co-operates systematically with others he strips off the fetters of his individuality and develops the capabilities of his specie.” “Capital” (Vol. 1, p. 319, Kerr Edition.)

At the same time this large-scale power-motivated form of production has produced its own type of inventiveness and specialised forms of scientific application and technical skill. Moreover the capitalist greed for more and more surplus value has acted as a perpetual spur to increase the productivity of workers by seeking to constantly revolutionize technically the existing means of production. Such things of course would be impossible in a smaller society based upon agriculture and handicraft.

For Malthus, however, and those who followed him, poverty and pauperisation were simply the product of a growing population which provided more mouths than could be fed from the extant cultivated soil.

The shallowness of the contention that overpopulation is exclusively a cause of poverty and pauperisation is evidenced by the fact that the pauperisation and proletarianisation of large sections of the English population were taking place at a rapid rate during those centuries when the population was relatively static or at least increasing very slowly.

In Malthus’ time forcible evictions due to land enclosures reached a peak never before attained in the long history of land enclosures in England. It was the elimination of the peasant and small-holding section of the community, coupled with the ruin of the handicraft workers in face of the superior productive powers of industrial capitalism, that the condition indispensable for modern capitalism was fulfilled. The latter half of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century were the culmination of that long historic process which divorces the labourer from his productive means and converts his working energies into a commodity—labour-power. It was these large masses of the dispossessed which formed the “surplus” population which provided the human raw material for a rapidly expanding capitalism.

Although the population during the industrial revolution was many times greater than that in the Tudor period yet such was the demand by employers for ever fresh layers of labour-power that women and children, lunatics and paupers, plus heavy emigration from Ireland, were means by which the capitalist sought to increase the working population.

Density of population is of course no proof of over-population. One country may be densely populated, yet in no sense could it be said to be over-populated. On the other hand another country could have a sparse population without being under-populated. Note also that Ireland has suffered heavy depopulation due to a high rate of emigration. Yet there is extreme poverty in Ireland and also a surplus agricultural population.

Professor Carr Saunders, in “World Population” (p. 142) says that Germany and Italy have approximately the same density of population. There was, however, before the war a vast difference in wealth producing capacity between them. Obviously the possession of essential raw materials and the scope and efficiency of their respective industrial organisation, both economic factors, were responsible for this. In the same book (p. 142) Professor Carr Saunders says that there is no proof that the industrialised countries of Western Europe are over-populated.

Increases in population have never occurred in the absurd way Malthus suggested they did. Modern research points rather to the fact that increases in population since the latter half of the 18th century have been due to a declining death rate rather than any absolute increase in fertility.

History has also dealt Malthus and the neo Malthusians a shattering blow. Before the war it was rather a question of Malthusianism reverse. Then publicists, politicians and newspapers were prognosticating gloomily not on the dangers of a rising rate of population, but on a falling one. Many are still prognosticating gloomily about it to-day. In fact they assure us that if the population decline continues the optimum level of population will be seriously disturbed, i.e., according to them the best possible level of population which at a given time is most efficient for maximising wealth production. As a result they say productivity might decline, there would be less opportunities for capital investment, the standard of living lowered and unemployment possibly intensified.

Marx rejected the Malthusian doctrine in toto. He called it a libel on the human race. For Marx “Each specific mode of production had its own special law of population historically valid within its own limits.”

Capitalism, as Marx says, has a law of population peculiar to its mode of production. It is this law of population which reveals that poverty and unemployment exist, not because human labour is unable to wrest a sufficiency from nature-given materials, but because exploitation in the form of wage employment extracts unpaid labour or surplus value.

To put it simply, the capitalists are concerned with reducing costs of production. The most potent method of achieving this is to economise on the wages bill by the introduction of labour-saving machinery. This leads to the discharging of redundant workers. The net result of all employers seeking to do this is large-scale dismissals. Thus a relative surplus population comes into being. Should, however, an acceleration in production be such as to warrant additional supplies of labour power, then this surplus population, or as Marx terms it, ” reserve army of labour,” becomes a source of recruitment for the capitalist. Thus the expansion and contraction of employment is but a corollary and consequence of the expansion and contraction of the productive forces of capitalism. Added to this is the effect of crises which, because profit anticipation is lowered or threatened, leads to a sharp decline in productive activity and precipitates wholesale and widespread unemployment.

It is then this surplus population which, because of its active competition in the labour market, serves as a continuous downward pressure on the wage level.

In this way Marx indicated the mechanism which operates to keep wages in check and thus guarantees the appropriation of surplus value to continue and capitalist accumulation to go on.

Thus is the Malthusian population myth exploded. There is no “surplus” population in the sense that it is unable to contribute to wealth production. There is only a relative surplus population, relative, that is, to the needs and requirements of capitalist production itself.

The Marxian law of population remains then the most fruitful way of looking at the population problem, not from the restrictive standpoint of population growth as such, hut from the standpoint of sufficient increases in the working population to sustain and maintain the growth of capitalist accumulation.

It can also be shown then that the Marxian law of population is independent of the postulates of various population theories. Should the natural increases of population be such as to make labour-power relatively plentiful and cheap there will be less stimulus for the capitalists to introduce labour-saving machinery. On the other hand, should a decline in population rates bring about a diminution of the available, labour-force then there will be a strong incentive for the capitalists to replace men by machines, and so help to restore a situation more favourable to themselves. As a result of a diminished labour-force the acceleration of labour-saving devices will intensify the contradictions inherent in capitalism. Over-production, under-consumption, crises and unemployment will still be normal and recurring features of capitalist society. Marx’s law of population can then be shown to work with the same validity in an increasing or declining population.

The existence of unemployment is not in any way a test of over-population. In the first place the growth of population can be shown to have been steadily ascending. On the other hand unemployment has occurred in sharp and violent fluctuations. It is obvious then that there is no sign of any relationship between population growth and the appearance of a labour reserve army. Anyone who thinks that periods of continued and widespread unemployment are due to excessive numbers in the Malthusian sense must hold that this and other capitalist countries have been over-populated every few years. Following the same logic we must also conclude that in times of boom, when there is a demand for labour-power, they are under-populated.

Again in the U.S.A. there arc only 50 persons per square mile as against 700 in England. What is more the United States is highly favoured over its capitalist rivals in natural resources and geographical location. There cannot be any question of over-population in America. Yet unemployment has in recent years been more severe in America than anywhere else in the world. It is obvious that only the Marxian law of population can adequately account for this phenomenon.

Recently Sir John Boyd Orr told us that soil erosion and exhaustion and the waste of labour and materials on armaments threatens the world with famine. This then is due not to the niggardliness of nature but to the colossal misdirection of human effort, which because of capitalist imperialist rivalries is building up a mighty war machine instead of “applying,” as Boyd Orr said, “the world’s steel and industrial production to conserving the land.” Clearly it is capitalism and not nature that threatens the world with, famine and destruction. Clearly it is capitalism that must go if we are to remove that threat for ever. Alike in agriculture as well as industry, capitalism sows its dragon’s teeth. It is the peoples of the world who will reap its grim harvest.

Ted Wilmott

Roundabouts (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Roll up! Roll up! All the fun of the fair! Who can resist the call of the jingling mechanical music, the raucous voices, the gaudy colours, the light-hearted throng of people, the crack of the wooden ball at the “coconut shy,” or, – for the unlucky – the dull thud on the dingy sheet behind the serried ranks. Yes—these are the places to cure the misanthrope, delude the unwary, or entertain the pleasure seekers. How much senseless joy there is in the roundabout ride. On we get, pay our tanner, and away we go.

On the move, faster and faster, the sea of onlookers becomes a hazy mist arid we may indulge in dreamy thoughts of riding through glorious fairylands as though in a magic carpet. The barrel organ blaring at the hub, the weird animal shapes, the pagan designs in gaudy paint all foster our illusions. But, alas! Our sixpennorth is done. Grinding to a stop we find ourselves back where we started!

Back where we started. Ah, yes—that reminds us of politics.

As after the 1914-18 war, there is an opinion gaining support in the minds of numbers of workers that if only they could get back to pre-war years they would be much happier and contented. We do not pretend to be psychologists, but we assume that this frame of mind must spring from man’s fear of the unknown,

The future is unknown and insecure; the past is known and the insecurities of the years forming it are forgotten.

Compared with the instability apparent to-day in economic affairs the years immediately preceding 1939 must seem quite stable to those people who have the happy knack of having a very short memory for the unpleasant realities of a worker’s life under capitalism.

Such a one is Mr. Ernest Bevin, at present Foreign Secretary in a Labour Government. According to The Star (28th May, 1948) Mr. Bevin, speaking at a conference of women trade unionists, said that after four years of Marshall Aid Britain would be back to 1938 standards of living.

“When we emerge from those four years,” he added, “we shall have so closed the gap that we shall have brought up the standard of living not only here but in the 16 or 17 European nations involved.”

So far as the ordinary worker is concerned, with little or no knowledge of the economics of his everyday existence, we can understand his thinking how nice it would be to be transported back to an era of 1938 prices with his pocket containing 1948 wages! But no such illusion should mar Mr. Bevin’s judgment.

For the benefit of our fellow workers (not for Mr. Bevin’s, for at the time he was General Secretary of the T. & G.W.U., and surely must remember the facts) let us re-quote the following: —

“Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, who estimates that at present prices, it is impossible for a family of man, wife and three children to live decently under 55s. a week in a provincial town, estimates that ‘more than 40 per cent. of the adult urban male workers earn less than 55s. per week and over 33 per cent. earn less than 50s’.” (News Chronicle, March 16th, 1938).”

Mr. Rowntree dealt, of course, with workers who had a job—let us not forget those without a job of whom there were approximately 1¾ millions in the middle -of 1938. No one will disagree that there was little difference between conditions in 1937 and 1938, so let us also re-quote from the Socialist Standard (July, 1938) which said when dealing with some aspects of the Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board for 1937 that “half the male applicants declared normal wages of less than 50s. per week,” and also drew attention to the astounding fact that some applicants for unemployment assistance were better off when out of a job !

In four years’ time, with the aid of dollars from capitalist America, the standard of living in “Socialist” Britain will be raised to that of the halcyon days of 1938. “Let us Face the Future” (Labour Party Election Manifesto, 1945) certainly never promised the workers a prospect so, rosy—it certainly looks as though the workers will have something to face in 1952, after seven years of the “future” have elapsed.

It is rather strange that Mr. Bevin should wish to go back to 1938. If we put the roundabout in reverse for a while we land back in 1938 to find a National Government with a large Tory majority in the House of Commons. Strange that Mr. Bevin should want to return to the standard of living provided by a Tory controlled capitalism !

If he wants to send the roundabout gyrating backwards why doesn’t he go back to the Labour debacle of 1929-31 ‘or the “Labour-in-office-but-not-in-power” days of 1924? Surely these times would be much preferable to Mr. Bevin, or—perish the thought—can he believe that by 1952 the Tories will be in power again to provide the workers with his much boosted 1938 standard?

Following most peculiarly on The Star’s report mentioned above came next morning the Daily Herald’s version of Mr Bevin’s address to the women trade unionists.

According to the Herald he told them that “they should keep before the rising generation the knowledge of what things were like between the two wars.” By this, according to the headline over the report, he meant, “Tell the children of the hard times.”

The Star omits mention of this advice on the education of the children to the horrors of the inter-war years, and the Herald blows no trumpets regarding the return to the promised land of 1938. What are we to make of these contradictory reports?

Let us look at Bevin’s second proposition stated in the Herald. Having said that the rising generation should know what things where like between 1918 and 1939 we think he, or the Herald, might have devoted some time and space to this important matter and given us some information. But no, apparently we must seek this for ourselves, if we are interested.

Here again surely it would have been mentioned that between the two wars there was one Labour Government in 1924, and another in 1929/31, followed by a National Government with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister with a coalition cabinet until 1935. These Labour Governments during their periods of office led the workers through such prosperous and happy times that on each occasion when next they had an opportunity to vote they sacked the Labourites, and reinstated the Tories! This story of the hard times suffered by the workers in between the two wars because of Tory mismanagement of affairs is a line of Labourite propaganda churned out with much repetition and emphasis. It must, however, not be forgotten that for three of these years Labour Governments were in office and for a further four years (1931-1935) the Prime Minister was J. R. MacDonald, the former chosen leader of the Labour Party. He and other ex-Labour Ministers, including Snowden, claimed that they were carrying out Labour Party policy as far as the crisis would allow a plea that the present Government echoes.

Between the two wars the workers have been for many rides on the political roundabout. The man in charge may have been a Labourite at one time and a Tory at another, but the workers have still been taken for the same ride on the same roundabout and every time they have come back to the place from which they started. During the last, war they were still riding on the same roundabout although the hobby horses had given way to tanks and aeroplanes. Now that it has been repainted and the tanks and aeroplanes largely replaced by the old hobby horses again they are still being taken for a ride! What a fascination this roundabout of capitalism has for the workers.

Just as the visitor to the fair is inveigled by the showman to enjoy a ride, so the showmen of capitalism entice the workers to continue supporting them. When the political roundabout stops at election times the music blares forth in the shape of flowery phrases from the lips of demagogues and the gaudy paint bestowed on the capitalist economic machine distracts the eye from its cheap crudity and ramshackle construction likely to result in a breakdown at any moment.

Why, fellow workers, do you find such enjoyment in this deceitful monster? Think, for one moment, that if you walk the other way, away from the dusty and noisy fair ground, along the road to the country there you will find the cool forest glades, the green meadows, or the pleasant river banks. Here is no harshness, no gaudiness, no deceit, no unhappiness; here is happiness and honesty, beauty and serenity.

So, fellow workers, you can turn your back on the rotten, sordid ugliness of capitalism and make your way to the happiness, security and beauty that is Socialism.

Remember next time you cast your vote—will it be for another ride on the roundabout or will it be a sane gesture for a complete change—a real journey under your own initiative, following your own path in the joyful company of fellow Socialists, to a land where things will be produced not for the profit of the few but to satisfy the needs of all, where all shall be free and none be slaves.

N. S.

Foreign trade and the workers (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

On every conceivable occasion the Labour Government has urged the workers to work harder to wipe out the gap between imports and exports. “When this gap has been closed,” says the Government, “Britain will again be prosperous; there will be plenty to buy in the shops, and the workers will no longer suffer the shortages and restrictions of the present day.”

A glance at history is sufficient to show the fallacy of these claims as far as better working-class conditions are concerned.

The closing years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth found British capitalism enjoying unparallelled prosperity. Exports, profits on shipping, and returns on foreign investments more than balanced the value of imports. Looked upon as “the workshop of the world” Britain had rich and plentiful rewards for those who invested in her industries. An idea of the wealth being acquired by the British capitalists at that time can be gained by a glance at the estates upon which death duties were levied in 1903. According to the “Daily Mail Year Book” for 1904 (page 270) five millionaires left estates totalling nearly eight million pounds, whilst two hundred and nineteen further members of the comparatively small capitalist class left a total of nearly forty-nine million pounds.

Yes! England was certainly a, rich country at that time—yet, for the workers, where was the freedom from shortage which, according to the Labour Government, comes with this national prosperity?

Let us refer to a writer of the time, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet. Imbued with immense but ill-founded optimism, Mrs. Bosanquet and other philanthropists mistakenly imagined that help from the rich could reduce the poverty of the workers. Yet, so bad were working-class conditions, that even Mrs. Bosanquet’s great optimism became depleted and we find her writing in her hook, “Rich and Poor” (published 1896) : —

“Of other charities it would take too long to speak. The parish is beset with them at certain seasons of the year; and money is flung in amongst us much as nuts are flung to boys to scramble for. Soup-kitchens, philanthropic societies, country holiday funds, ragged school funds, funds from all the enterprising newspapers, and funds from all the political clubs in the district; church funds and chapel funds, missions and mothers’ meetings, all are engaged in pouring money into a slough of poverty which swallows it up and leaves no trace of improvement.” (Page 37.) (Our italics.)

Let us revert to the “Daily Mail Year Book” for 1904. On page 141 we find that the number of people seeking poor relief in the year 1900 was 1,882,000, and when referring to the unemployed in 1903 Mrs. Bosanquet said :

“They seem to increase year by year, and the next trade depression will probably show them in formidable numbers.” (Page 9.)

Page 246 tells us that a Professor Vort gave the minimum cost of the diet required by an average working man, his wife and three children as twelve shillings to thirteen shillings and sixpence per week. This diet was so stringent that it did not allow for tea or cocoa—only water. Looking then at the wages of agricultural workers (same page) we are informed that in England the average weekly pay was 17s. 1d., whilst in Wales and Scotland the averages were 16s. 5d. and 18s. 2d. respectively.

Eighteen shillings per week in wages when the weekly cost of the barest food necessities for a man, wife and three children was round about thirteen shillings. Five shillings left over for the provision of rent, clothing, insurances, etc. ! And what of those married workers who had more than three children to support?

The “Twelfth Abstract of Labour Statistics,” issued forty years ago by the Board of Trade, gives us further information. It states that “on every day throughout the year 1892 the average number of persons in receipt of poor relief was 953,719, this number rising steadily each year with but very slight fluctuation to 1,103,724 in 1906, being an increase not only in the number, but also relatively to the increase of population.”

Such was the prosperity of many workers during the Golden Age of British Capitalism when the export trade was said to be in a highly flourishing condition.

Experience shows that whilst the capitalist class is endeavouring to sate the world’s markets it will keep wages as low as possible, for only by doing this can commodities be produced at a price that will allow the undercutting of rival competitors.

On the other hand, as soon as the markets are filled and commodities can no longer be sold profitably, production is curtailed and large numbers of workers are thrown out of work. The capitalist class does not employ workers out of benevolence, but for the express purpose of amassing profits from products that will sell. When commodities cannot be sold it is useless, as far as the capitalist class is concerned, to retain workers in commodity production.

Thus it is seen that whether trade is balanced, or whether there is a gap between imports and exports, the lot of the workers, as a class, remains much the same.

Only Socialism will end commodity production with its wage-cutting;, “sweating,” unemployment, and wars over markets, etc. Only Socialism, wherein the means of production and distribution will be commonly owned, will bring production for use and not for sale. Only within Socialism will production bring plenty to every man, woman and child.

F. W. Hawkins

Letter: Mitres and Miracles (1948)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received a further letter from Lord Amwell. The letter and our contributor’s reply are set out below. The original article was published in February, and Lord Amwell’s first criticism in June.— Ed. Comm.

The Editor, Socialist Standard.

Dear Sir,—I must thank you for the generous amount of space you were good enough to allow me. If I am entitled to a short come-back I would make the following one or two comments on F.F.’s reply.

F.F. says that the only statement in his original article which corresponded to the postulate that matter is force was in quotes and was made by Dr. Blunt. On the contrary. The sentence “Matter and force are merely two names for one and the same thing” was two paragraphs away from the quotation from Dr. Blunt and was not in quotes. In any event, it is modern physics, and if it doesn’t fit in with the stern and unbending prejudices of the S.P.G.B., that’s just too bad.

Again, F.F. says that it was I and not he who gave the details about atoms and electrons. Wrong again; I took them word for word from the Socialist Standard. Why this anxiety to hedge in face of printed evidence?

Next; “It is an elementary principle of correct thinking that ‘all knowledge begins with the senses’.” Quite so. That’s what the senses are for. Presumably in order to show how incapable Christians are of thinking correctly, F.F. calls to the witness-box if you please the greatest Catholic theologian of all time, Thomas Aquinas, to prove just that! As I have said, F.F. doesn’t know what educated Christians believe. He really doesn’t!

The picture of scientists deliriously seeking to abstract force from matter so as to leave a residue, or to “draw oft energy and bottle it,” is hardly up to Heath Robinson’s level, but is of that category. It exposes the limitation of F.F.’s mind on scientific matters or else his idee fixe on the subject of what Engels said in 1848.

Finally, ” . . . if we know the qualities of a thing, we know the thing in itself,” so Kant (dear me !) is ignored by serious thinkers. That verbal quibble was disposed of by serious thinkers in the 90’s. If by the word “of” is meant “belong to” it is palpably incorrect, since nothing can “belong to” nothing. If what is meant is that when we know all about a thing we know all about it, the formula is a piece of redundant verbiage. “Take away all the qualities and you’ve nothing left” goes without saying if by “qualities” we define all that can be said about anything. But, “who’s a denying of it, Betsy?” Not an Atheneum full of Bishops, believe me. The trouble is that only the cheapest public forum atheist knows all about anything.

If I had more space than I could have the face to ask for I could convict F.F. of contradictions enough to hang him—intellectually, of course. My main contention stands. It is bad enough to clutter up Socialism with metaphysical logic-chopping on either side; it is worse to attempt to do so without the requisite philosophical and scientific training. I apply that to myself too; but I am not the original culprit.

On the other band, if Socialists have all got to think alike on all matters, exchange some of those dog-eared pamphlets of a past age for up-to-date stuff, if only to know what, the present state of affairs looks like.

Yours sincerely,

Amwell.

Reply:

In his previous letter Lord Amwell asserted that I defined matter as force. I pointed out to him that it was Dr. Blunt who raised the question of the non-existence of matter. He now quotes my actual words, “matter and force are merely two names for one and the same thing,” but in fact this was intended as a paraphrase of what Dr. Blunt said.

Regarding Amwell’s charge of hedging. He could hardly have thought I was referring to him as the scientist responsible for all the information on atoms and electrons that I used in my original article. In using his name I was addressing him personally. He is hereby absolved from any imputation on my part that be is the source of any scientific knowledge I may possess.

His reference to Aquinas is rather unfortunate for him. He jeeringly suggested in his first reply that “Tommy Aquinas and Karl Marx would make an interesting combination.” I countered with one thing on which they might be in agreement. Though Aquinas was an idealist and Marx a materialist, Amwell failed to see the connection because it was not specifically pointed out to him. Aquinas’ dictum on the senses seems a small matter to-day; until we remember that the trustworthiness of the senses had been disputed by philosophers and theologians since 300 years B.C. During an age of metaphysical speculation this constituted a decided step towards clear thinking, in spite of the dualistic beliefs of its originator.

But why the “educated” Christians? Are their beliefs different from those of their congregations? There is no evidence to induce anyone to think so. On the contrary, the constant repetition throughout a long life of the crude dogmas they learned in their Bible classes become firmly embedded in the grey matter of their brains, and what is good enough for the sheep is good enough for the shepherd. The feeble efforts of Dr. Blunt to put up a case for miracles is not only evidence that there is no case, but also of the stultifying effects that religious dogma has on the mind. Dr. Barnes, on the other hand, realising the growing indifference and decreasing credulity of the masses, does his best to preserve Church and jobs by discarding the miracles while retaining God. Well, it’s for Christians, educated and uneducated, to decide. Gods only exist in the mind, and the individual is free to believe, but he does so with no single shred of evidence. He pays the parson and takes his choice.

Lord Amwell seems incapable of dealing with any argument in a straightforward manner. He suggests that I pictured scientists deliriously trying to separate matter and force. There was no suggestion on my part that scientists, deliriously or otherwise, were trying to do so; I am tempted to suggest he must have seen that picture in one of those mediumistic trances of which he boasted in the House of Lords on the 17th of June of this year. The plain fact is that matter and force have never been separated. And that goes for the living organism, with all its organs and functions. Thinking is not the brain, it is a function of that organ; just as digestion is a function of the abdominal organs. The mind consists of thoughts, the result of impressions received through the senses. Does Lord Amwell deny that mind is a function? No, he simply expresses his intense dislike of the thought. Anyway, why eternal life for mind and not for digestion? Sheep’s brains and tripe are equally messy things when exposed for sale on a butcher’s slab.

Still more misrepresentation. It was not Kant, but one of his ideas that had been ignored. Lord Amwell has become so muddled over this question that he is uncertain whether he is on the side of the bishops or the materialists. Kant’s assertion was: “When we know all the qualities of a thing we still don’t know the thing in itself.” My statement that we do not know is a direct negative. Further if we eliminate all the qualities there is nothing left does make sense. Which is more than can he said for his meaningless transformation. Pity he is unable to tell us how it was disposed of in the 90’s.

What are the implications of Kant’s doctrine? Our senses and reason fail to give us a true picture of the world. Underlying all phenomena—like the modern theologian’s idea of God, present in every smallest particle, is the thing in. itself—”noumenon.” The idea is a fantastic speculation on what is called the ultimate nature of existence. Of course serious thinkers ignored it. They were too busy with observation, theory and experiment, adding to the fund of general knowledge that deals with realities. They were slowly but surely adding to the sciences that explain how the universe works. How all living things have evolved, and, what is perhaps the most important discovery of all: the fact that human society itself is subject to evolution. Its laws can be ascertained and man himself can take a hand in that evolution for his own well-being.

The S.P.G.B. is always willing to accord space or platform time to opponents. It is a pity, however, that Amwell did not frame his objections in a straightforward manner that could have been easily understood, instead of cloaking them under literary attempts to be facetious.

“Mitres and Miracles” was an effort, subject to limitations of space to present the Socialist attitude towards both religion and science. With every opportunity afforded him, Amwell has failed to show a single contradiction or unsound reasoning.

His objection to cluttering up Socialism with metaphysical logic-chopping, and his plea that he was not the original culprit, shows, on his side, a failing memory or ignorance of metaphysics. When he wrote that ”attraction and response were the questions begged,” he was postulating a mystical something beyond experience. If he did not realise it he is ignorant of metaphysics. If he did he is the first culprit, and further is self-convicted of a deliberate attempt to throw a spanner into the works.

Regarding philosophical and scientific training before voicing opinions on those subjects, a general knowledge of science can be acquired without special training—which is only needed by specialists making a career such as chemists, etc. Reliable works are available on all the sciences. There is a constant flow of articles in magazines and press, together with radio talks that are highly informative. Any man of average intelligence having once acquired this general knowledge, and most socialists have done so, is qualified to speak on any subject of general interest.

About “those dog-eared pamphlets of a past age.” They at any rate accurately forecast what the present state of affairs would be like. They told of increasing-competition for a limited world market, world crises, unemployment and war, and much else that is rotten. S.P.G.B. pamphlets to-day deal with phases of political and economic conditions as they affect the working-class of the world. If the old ones were dog-eared these have a thousand tongues and speak earnestly of the urgent need for all workers to learn the cause of their wretchedness and fear of the future.

Finally we only expect socialists to think alike on the principles governing their organisation. Socialist principles and action are based on the facts of social life. There is no mystery about the relationship of capitalist and wage-worker.

“Society as at present constituted is based on the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master-class, and the consequent enslavement of the working-class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.”

There is only one solution to this enslavement: The establishment of Socialism by the working-class, consciously organized for that purpose alone.

F. F.

Christianity and Capitalism (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Occasionally, when we pick up a newspaper, we are confronted with the reported utterance of some representative of the Church.

At this stage of scientific and industrial development the Church is very little thought about. It no longer commands the attention of large masses of the community. In fact it is continually seeking new methods of enticing people back into the light of the Lord and out of the darkness of barbaric superstition.

The priesthood now dabbles in such things as foreign policy, economics and politics generally. We read, at intervals, that another ecclesiastic has voiced his inexpert views on some aspect of everyday life.

Recently it was reported that an attack has been made by the Church of England Youth Council upon the discipline in post-war factories.

“What happens,” asks their report, “to the boy who leaves school for factory believing in the dignity of labour and in a fair return for a fair wage? ”

It supplies its own answer quoted from an observer in a London engineering factory:—-

“The boy finds that everything about the factory contradicts his belief. Everybody expects him to dodge work as much as possible. If he works steadily he is regarded as an oddity, a despised master’s man, toadying to the bosses. “The foreman winks at slackness. It is unknown for anyone to work voluntarily for one minute after the hooter has gone unless on official overtime.” (Daily Express, 11th June, 1947.)

The whole wording of the report is familiar. It is of the same type as other reports made from time to time by the supporters of the capitalist system. In the first sentence we have the foolish reference lo the “dignity of labour.” A man who has worked in an engineering factory for a number of years has no reason to think of his daily routine as dignified. It usually consists of being awakened by an alarm-clock before his sleep has completed its proper function, dressing himself in his dirty, smelly garments, bolting his breakfast (if any) and rushing to the factory to clock-on. He is afraid of being a few minutes late in case he should have the equivalent of a quarter of an hour deducted from his wages. This latter is the procedure at such times as the present when engineers are required to bolster the export trade. In times of economic depression the loss of a minute would furnish the master with sufficient excuse to dispense with the wage-slave’s services altogether. During the war, when it was necessary for the worker to supply the materials necessary for maintaining the supremacy of British capitalism, it was possible to be hours late. No notice was taken.

When the worker has performed all these degrading formalities he then proceeds to his bench or machine where he goes through the depressing and monotonous actions from the point where he left off the previous evening. All this in an environment of dirt and discomfort, but above all one of extreme monotony. In an atmosphere like this the officers of the Church expect a boy, fresh from school, to preserve a pure and righteous outlook presupposing, apparently, that he entered the factory in this condition in the first place. It would be interesting to discover the source of supply of these miraculous youths.

Let us examine the position as it really is through the eyes of a worker instead of through the eyes of a religious observer. The boys to whom the report refers are of the working-class. They may enter the engineering trade, through inclination, but being workers it is obvious that they must sell their mental and physical energies somewhere in order to live. Very few boys who take up engineering like this do so because of their intense interest in mechanical matters. They do it because, due to the specialised training required, they can, when fully qualified tradesmen, obtain a higher wage than a boy who has started life as an errand-boy.

In the days before mass-production the wages paid to engineers were relatively much higher compared with those paid to other types of labour than they are now, the reason being that capitalist competition has become so intense that many operations have become universally simplified to such an extent that no great skill is required to perform them.

Apprenticeships are of much less value now, and since much less training is required, it follows that this type of labour-power is more plentiful, more competition exists between workers, and wages therefore tend to suffer in comparison with other branches of industry.

Perhaps the reader who is not familiar with the subject will now understand the tendency towards work-dodging.

If we accept the fact that the boy enters the factory because of economic necessity and he finds his environment to be one of monotony and drudgery, there is little cause for wonder that he rebels against these conditions. He does all he can to compensate for his unhappy position.

The report did not mention that production is carried on primarily for the profit of the capitalists, nor that this is inseparable from capitalism. Profits are made by the exploitation of the working-class. Surely this vital point ought not to have been missed by those who drew up the report! The report also ignores the constant drive by the employers to capture markets and maintain profits by trying to get the workers to turn out more commodities in a given time than they were able to before.

It requires very little imagination on the part of the reader to understand the effect which this speeding-up has upon the worker. He becomes mentally and physically exhausted and develops a tendency to dodge work as much as possible. In factories where supervision is very strict work-dodging becomes practically impossible. Hence the increase in the number of thugs, spivs and gangsters. If there is any possibility of making a living easily and unlawfully the modern working-class youth has every incentive to try it.

The report goes on to say: “The boy may have been taught in church, home and school to respect other people’s property, but at work he finds that scrounging is almost universal.” This, presumably, refers to the practice of removing small quantities of the master’s plant and material either for sale or personal use. It is by no means a novelty from the point of view of the managements. They employ uniformed men to stand at the gates of the factory to look out for suspicious bundles and bulges underneath the coats of the workers. As the report says, this is commonly understood and is brought about by the conflict of interests between employer and employee. One owns the means of wealth production and distribution and the other owns nothing but his ability to work.

Towards the end of the column there is a paragraph which says: “In general everything about the atmosphere of the works, other than the friendliness of the people, conflicts with everything which a normal young Christian boy or girl has been taught.” This statement is quite correct. The friendliness of the workshop is not to be denied, but it is a friendship arising from human beings who, subconsciously at my rate, are aware of the, conflict of interests. The pilfering is one-sided arid rarely takes place between worker and worker.

The Church could hardly he expected to appreciate the day-to-day struggle of the workers. It is too much out of contact with reality, and the solution which it offers is not acceptable to intelligent men and women.

The object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is to point out to the working-class the nature of the class-struggle and the only way in which workers can solve their problems. Study our case and compare it with those, of other political parties. Socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, is the, only solution.

Rid the world of capitalism and society will rid itself of the evils of capitalism, including war, unemployment, poverty, thugs and parsons.

Chester.

Party News Briefs (1948)

Party News from the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Autumn Delegate Meeting takes place on Sunday morning and afternoon, September 26th, at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, W.C.1. It will be followed in the evening by a mass rally at the same hall. The Executive Committee’s report on the first six months of 1948 is now in the hands of branches. Among other things it shows that our propaganda has been more extensive during the six months than for a considerable number of years, even including 1945 when we fought a General Election campaign. The Central Organiser considers that the prospects of the party are now brighter than ever before. The sales of the Socialist Standard have also increased recently after a dull period during the winter. We are still, however, facing difficulties owing to a shortage of competent writers for the Socialist Standard. These difficulties may be solved by the Head Office Tutorial Class, which now has a sufficient nucleus of tutors to go ahead as a general introductory class for new members, and as a means of finding out the aptitude of members for speaking, writing and teaching. In the section of the report devoted to overseas contacts the question is raised of socialists living in countries where no socialist parties exist, and who wish to maintain ties with a socialist party. Financially our position is still a difficult one, although it improved at the beginning of the year but deteriorated afterwards. Delegates will probably give this item serious consideration, particularly in view of the Executive Committee’s decision to contest at least one constituency, North Paddington, at the next General Election. The total membership of the party at the end of June was 1,008, yet another increase. The Delegate Meeting will be interesting and stimulating, and we will give a report of it in the November Socialist Standard.


Hackney Branch commence their weekly Friday evening winter lecture course at the Bethnal Green Public Library, Cambridge Heath Road, on October 1st. at 8 o’clock, when A. Turner will speak on “ Our hostility to other parties.” On October 8th C. Groves speaks on “Nationalisation,” and October 15th S. Cash speaks on “ Socialism in our time.”


Islington Branch appeal to all their members to support their outdoor meetings, with which they are having difficulties owing to tack of branch support. The co-operation of members is urgently required.


Two New Branches have just been formed, one at St. Pancras and the other at Fulham. These two areas are ripe for party development and it is gratifying to have party units established there.


“Collected Socialist Pamphlets," the bound volume of party pamphlets is now ready. This is a limited special Library edition, 307 pages, strongly bound in quarter blue calf, with gold lettering along the back. The price is 8s. 6d. nett. It is available to public and university libraries only, and until the supply is exhausted, all librarians who apply for a copy can be supplied. Several public libraries in Lancashire and Yorkshire have already applied for copies. Party members are urged to put this book on the “Suggestion Slips” at their local libraries. Remember the title— “Collected Socialist Pamphlets.” Publishers—The Socialist Party of Great Britain.


A Fuller Report of the Debate with Christopher Hollis (Conservative) at Ealing Town Hall has now been received. H. Young opened the debate by defining a class as a body of people united by a common economic interest: the existence of one class presupposed the existence of at least one other and consequently a conflict of interests or a class struggle.

He wound up his first session by tracing the development of classes and the class struggle and by defining the class division.of society to-day.

Hollis stated that he agreed with Young’s definition of a class.

Although Marx had had some “horse sense” and although his "economic determinism” was fundamentally correct, his psychology was behind the times —Young was stating a case which may have been all very well in 1848 but was hardly applicable to-day: capitalism was now nearly dead, nevertheless it had succeeded during its lifetime, by the development of the world’s productive resources in improving the condition of the working-class and had not, as Marx had predicted, merely increased their misery.

To-day in England, as a result of a diffusion of ownership, there were more capitalists than working men.

The people with real power to-day were not the capitalists, but the rising managerial class, who were neither capitalists nor workers.

One might well ask then, is there not a class-struggle on this basis? The answer he would give was that at present there was not, but that one may develop in the future.

As for the socialist revolution: there was every indication that it would follow the pattern of revolutions in the past—that despite the equalitarian promises of its advocates, a new ruling class would arise from it. Young, in his second period, repeated his definition of classes.

If Hollis was right, and the majority of people were capitalists, there would still be a minority class.

William Beveridge (and many other prominent statisticians agreed with him) had stated that 9 per cent. of the total population owned 91 per cent. of the total wealth—this indicated a vast gulf between two classes in society and this view was sustained by the proof of the large amounts of money left in the wills published daily in the newspapers.

When Marx spoke of the increasing poverty of the workers he was relating their position to that of their masters, poverty and riches being relative, one presupposing the other.

Managers were not capitalists, and capitalists did not need any special capabilities of knowledge to attain their superior social position.

Young wound up his second period by describing Socialism and the means by which it was to be achieved.

Hollis opened his second period by repeating that Marx was an economic determinist.

Society, he said, contained an infinite variety of classes—some people were capitalists and workers in varying degrees.

He did not deny that there were rich and poor but did deny that riches in any way necessarily gave power: a large number of very powerful people were without riches.

There was a conflict between the managerial class and the capitalists—society would undoubtedly change, but not as Marx and the S.P.G.B. envisaged.

Young stated that it was futile for Hollis to look back to past conditions when considering present-day poverty—this did not explain anything nor did it in any way help to solve the problem.

It was very strange that despite the privileged position which Hollis stated to be the lot of the managers, no capitalist wanted to suffer the social fall to a manager, but many managers wanted to rise to capitalists.

Socialism could not be established by a minority, even a Marxist minority: it must be the work of the working-class themselves. Hollis replied that Young had been speaking in the past—his contentions were out of date, since the face of capitalism Had changed.

Marx had not meant relative poverty, but actual poverty.

The main fault with Marxism and the S.P.G.B. case was that one could not solve the problems of 1948 with solutions which were propounded in 1848. Young wound up the debate by pointing out that Hollis had agreed that there was a class-struggle and had now passed on to a discussion of Socialism.

It may be that the face of capitalism had changed, but the ugly body remained the same.

He finished by stressing the necessity for the working-class first understanding and desiring Socialism before that system of society could be established.

Kingston Branch is preparing for a season of winter activity in Malden, Surrey district. The local Labour Party in this area was challenged to debate, but has replied with the usual “no useful purpose would be served by such a debate at the present time.” The success of the outdoor meetings at Castle Street, Kingston, on Saturday evenings has prompted the branch to hold meetings at the same place on Friday evenings. ‘‘The Fountain” at New Malden is now being considered as a further outdoor station as a preliminary to a series of indoor meetings in that locality later in the year.

The Overseas Secretary reports that the recently formed Dublin Socialist Group is progressing very satisfactorily. Meetings held at the hall at 33, Lower Gardiner Street, on Sunday evenings are a stimulating success. The subjects cover a wide range and each meeting is reported, and future ones announced, in the Dublin Evening Mail. Readers of the Socialist Standard in any part of Eire are invited to contact the group through M. Cullen, 34, Lower Buckingham Street, Dublin. We have received a collection of news cuttings taken from Dublin daily and evening papers which show that the group is making itself known in that city.

The International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, which lost most of its journals and periodicals during the war, is now re-collecting material and is being supplied with Party literature.

Attempts are being made to link up a number of ex-members and friends in Africa in order that their socialist activities may be co-ordinated.

The World Socialist Party of U.S.A. have sent us the report of the 1948 National Conference held in Boston on May 30th and 31st. Some of the problems' discussed by the delegates are problems that beset our own Party or have had to be thrashed out by us in the past. In particular is the ever present problem of maintaining a sufficient financial income to continue socialist activities. The finances of a Socialist Party, dependant upon the shallow pockets of its working-class members and friends, are always a source of headaches.

Another common problem to both our organisations is to find ways and means to increase the circulation of our literature. The W.S.P. conference discussed a number of projects With this object in view, the result of which we may soon see embodied in their journal, “The Western Socialist”

We note with interest that a $1,000 drive is to be instituted in an effort to put their full-time National Organiser back in the field.

Also discussed was the suggestion that some form of organisation be established to embrace socialists who reside in parts of the world where no Socialist Party exists, and who desire to keep in touch with the socialist movement in an organised manner.

Next year's conference venue will be Detroit.

Greetings are sent to all comrades in Great Britain.

C. C. Groves,

General Secretary. 

Note On Nationalisation (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the various methods employed by the Government when fixing the compensation to be paid to the shareholders when their industries are nationalised some groups of shareholders do better than others. It looks as if the shareholders of McNamara & Co., the transport contractors who have for a hundred years carried mails for the Post Office, do not do so badly. It is reported in the Evening News (13th August, 1948) that the purchase price paid by the British Transport Commission will work out at about 33s. for the 12s. stock units. Nevertheless the shareholders were expecting more and the same paper reports that when this purchase price was announced the market price of the shares dropped from their recent high level of 33s. 9d. But, says the Evening News, the shares were selling at only 23s. 6d. last October when the negotiations began. 

Another interesting note was published in the Sunday Express (15th August, 1948) on the possibility of the Government nationalising the tobacco industry. Some stockbroker has been calculating how much the shareholders of the Imperial Tobacco Co. might expect to get if nationalisation takes place. If the compensation were to be worked out on the same basis as that applied to road haulage nationalisation the compensation would be 119s. 7d. per share. If the basis is that applied to the coal maines it would be 114s., and if the Government paid the market price of the shares before the General Election it would be 160s. As the shares are now standing at 101s. 3d., the Sunday Express sees that nationalisation on either of the three bases would be a good thing for the shareholders and “it’s bad luck for shareholders that there is no talk of nationalisation yet.” !

Edgar Hardcastle

Churchill on War (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Surely this is the supreme question which should engage the thoughts of mankind. Compared with it all other human interests are petty and other topics trivial. Nearly all the countries and most of the people in every country desire above all things to prevent war, and no wonder, since except for a few handfuls of ferocious romanticists, or sordid would-be profiteers, war spells nothing but toil, waste, sorrow and torment to the vast mass of ordinary folk in every land. Why should this horror, which they dread and loathe, be forced upon them? How is it that they have not got the sense and manhood to stop it? Nowadays the masses have the power in all democratic countries.”—(“Step by Step,” p.37, by Winston Churchill. Published by Thornton Butterworth, Ltd.).

War and Secret Diplomacy (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a fine bold air as of someone daring to tell the truth in face of popular prejudice the editor of the “New Statesman” (31/7/48) declares that “the first necessity is to get back to secret diplomacy.” But immediately his courage failed him, and he hastened to add, as if to excuse his boldness, that “no sane advocate of open diplomacy ever urged that difficult and detailed discussions between great Powers should be carried on in public.” Whether it is sane or not in the eyes of Mr. Kingsley Martin, there certainly have been and are plenty of people who hold that secrecy only serves the interests of the ruling class groups of the world and not the interests of the working class. Even in the ranks of the rulers there have been some who on occasion have declared for the abolition of secrecy. The well-known “Fourteen Points,” proclaimed by President Wilson during the first World War as a basis for reaching peace included as point number one, ‘‘Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.”

It happened to be the view of the President at that time that America had no interest in seeking to enforce the secret treaties made by Britain, France and Russia for the dismemberment of Germany and Turkey, but the Second World War showed that America like the other Powers was quite prepared to enter into secret treaties of her own.

Another and more telling example of the avoidance of secrecy was the declaration of the Russian Bolsheviks when they got power in 1917, that they too would have nothing to do with secret diplomacy. They backed up their words by insisting that the negotiations between Russia and Germany in 1918 should be carried on in the open. But here again there was a reason why the Bolsheviks favoured open negotiations then but have since reverted to the traditional secrecy of diplomacy. In the Proclamation addressed to the peoples and governments on 29th December, 1917, on behalf of the Russian Government, Trotsky declared that “in these negotiations, with the condition that there should be complete publicity, the Russian Delegation would continue to defend the programme of International Socialist Democracy as opposed to the Imperialistic programme of the Governments, Allied and enemy alike” (“Documents and Statements Relating to Peace Proposals and War Aims,” 1916—1918. Pub. Allen & Unwin, p. 107).

At that time the Russian Bolsheviks were hoping to get much support from the war-weary workers of all countries, and therefore had everything to gain by exposing the sordid imperialist aims of the governments on both sides. They had no imperialist aims themselves at the time and were therefore not afraid to make all their declarations about war and peace in the full light of day. By the same token the present Russian Government with troops in half-a-dozen countries beyond its borders, and cherishing the same imperialist designs as every other Power, has, like Kingsley Martin, been converted back to the belief in secret diplomacy—one set of declarations published openly for purpose of propaganda and another set for the secret archives.

War between the Powers in a capitalist world is not caused by secret diplomacy or by open diplomacy but by the clash of economic interests. Only those, therefore, who, in Trotsky's words, are defending “international socialistic Democracy” can afford to put all their cards on the table. It is in the interest of the world working class, though not in the interest of their masters, that all negotiations should be in the open, but overshadowing the secondary question of open or secret diplomacy it is in the interest of the working class that they should repudiate capitalism and its aims and methods at home and abroad, and seek emancipation and peace by organising to achieve Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle