Editorial: The strike and its leaders. (1911)

Editorial from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who has not read the Liberal rejoicings over the tremendous increase in the shipping returns? The Tariff Reformer has been continually confounded by the Liberal’s references to the progress of the shipping trade. The Free Traders have told us that British capital controls more than half the carrying trade of the world. But our good Liberal Press has changed its tune very remarkably during the past few weeks. The great majority of the shipowners are members of our Liberal party, and the ferment among the seamen they employ has met with their most vehement opposition. No longer are told about the wealthy and ever-rising shipping industry ! But we are met with the lying plea that there is depression in the trade and the granting of better terms to the men will ruin the industry.

The men are fighting one of the most brutal unions of employers that capitalism has ever known. Besides a strong organisation with great financial resources sufficient to indemnify their members for any decline in profits, the Liberal shipowners have driven the once sacred and hallowed “competition” out of their business. Line after line has amalgamated with its rivals, and alliances and agreements have made “cutting” a thing of the past, and strengthened the position of the masters against the workers.

At a time when the Liberals are claiming to be the only true friends of the working class, it is useful to notice the actual composition of this party. What are the prominent names in the shipping trade ? Russell Rea, M.P., the Cobden Club champion ; Lord Furness, the director of twenty companies ; Mark Palmer, the lord of Yarrow; the great Wilson family of Hull ; the Runciman family of immortal memory ; the Pirries ; the Phillips ; the Peases : Liberal shipowners all. They are they who pay that £5 per month for skilled men working in the modern moving infernos is outrageous.

The hypocrisy of these supporters of “the greatest democratic government of our time” is glaring. Lord Furness was one of the most prominent “opponents” of (that terminological inexactitude) “Chinese Slavery.” His protests were pathetic, and his tearful denunciation of “the greatest blot on England’s fair fame” will be remembered even when other Furnesses sit in that ever-extending chamber of horrors. But Furness & Co. believe that sentiment “in business” does not pay. That explains why the “Persiana,” of the Furness line, lying in Barry Dock, engaged Chinese firemen at £3 10s. per month in preference to firemen of other nationalities at £4 10s. An unconsidered trifle is the fact that it costs 1s. 3d. per day to keep an European, but 6d. covers the cost in the case of the celestial.

It is enlightening to learn that the seamen’s leader, Mr. J. Havelock Wilson, is a staunch supporter of the Liberal party. It is something of which a workmen’s leader should be proud. He was elected for Middlesborough in the Liberal interest, and the great foes of the workers—the Liberal shipowners—have always been pleased to contribute to his election fund. At the bye-election at Jarrow in 1910 he withdrew as seamen’s candidate because “he did not contend that Mr. Russell Rea would not make as good a representative as he would,” and “he did not want, under the circumstances, to let the Conservative in.” Of course, Mr. Wilson has been amply repaid for his help to our masters, by the presence of the mighty ones on his election platforms.

What reason can a seamen’s representative have for supporting the Liberal party ? One of the first things the beloved Lloyd George did after his appointment in 1906 was to bring in a Merchant Shipping Bill, by which he raised the load line of British vessels. Havelock Wilson knows this, for did he not tell the unemployed seamen of Jarrow (vide Manchester Guardian) that “thousands of you are so unemployed to-day because of that very alteration of the load line, for at one stroke of the pen, by the alteration of the freeboard of ships, we have added to the tonnage of our vessels nearly one million tons of shipping.”

Thus cunningly and silently did the shipowners’ champion, Lloyd George, undo the work of Samuel Plimsoll. The latter carried on an agitation in the House of Commons in the early seventies, but met with the determined opposition of Gladstone & Co. For correctly describing the Liberal shipowners as “cold-blooded murderers” they had him brutally ejected from the House. How well the Liberals display the continuity in their brutality ! When the great Liberal shipowner, Wilson, tried to break the Hull Dock Strike in 1894, by importing blacklegs, the Liberal Government despatched gun-boats to protect Wilson’s property and guard the strike-breakers.

It is to Hull that the Liberals have again sent the forces of the State. The London policemen, fresh from performing the capitalists’ coronation celebrations, have been called upon to discard their medals, white gloves, etc., and to proceed to Hull, armed with strong batons, for the purpose of enabling the Liberal shipowners to run their brutal business.

The police have already tried their practised hands on the strikers and the hospitals are busy. We may expect the soldiers to be utilised shortly, for has not Mr. Winston Churchill told us in the House of Commons (June 26) that “when a local authority borrowed police it had to pay for them, but could obtain soldiers without paying anything at all. Consequently there was an incentive to use soldiers instead of police.”

Meanwhile the men’s leaders are playing the masters’ game very well. The Union Castle and the Royal Mail lines had arranged for ships to take the plutocratic parasites to see the Naval review at Spithead. According to the Manchester Guardian of June 22, “In the morning Mr. Havelock Wilson stated in an interview that he was going to send a telegram to the owners of the Coronation ships that the Union were willing to enter into negotiations to supply crews, without any regard to other matters under dispute, in order that the coronation guests might not be inconvenienced.”

This is the strain that might be expected from a man who, in the contest in which the Labour, Liberal, and Tory parties were represented, shocked the Labourites by supporting the Liberal, who was a well known South Wales shipowner (Mr. S. H. Radcliffe).

The Union leaders are advising the men to accept terms which mean a miserable struggle to exist in the future as in the past. “Now I find,” says Havelock Wilson, “that in one or two instances where companies have recognised the Union and I have ordered a compromise, there has been reluctance to carry out my instructions.”

Mr. Wilson is far more anxious for the recognition, of the Union, in other words of the leaders, than for securing the workers a better position. He wants to become a power, and if any workman fails to do his bidding—he threatens to resign.

In the manifesto quoted above Mr. Wilson says also :

“Before war was declared a conference of the representatives of the seamen was held, and after discussing the whole of our policy it was unanimously decided that I should have full and absolute control of the movement right through the United Kingdom, with full power to modify terms and insist upon higher ones, just as the movement presented itself to me.”

So bad are the conditions of life for the dockers at Liverpool that this same leading Liberal paper (June 29) says :

“Non-union men are forcing the pace for the Union. It was non-union men who declined to unload the Glasgow boat which came in with a non-union crew, and non-union dockers, not disciplined to await a signal from recognised and authorised leaders, have been coming out elsewhere as the days have elapsed.”

And they further state that “it has been impossible to distinguish the non-union from the Union man, unless it has been that the non-union man has been the more ready to give up his job.”

Our sympathy is extended to the struggling seamen in their fight, but we would counsel them to be wary of the wiles of their leaders. They may get a concession from time to time to suit the convenience of their masters, but the battle they fight to-day will have to be continually fought, and when these battles are over they are wage-slaves still, with all the horrors of capitalism still to face.

Great changes in the ways of navigation also portend trouble for the toilers. The adoption of oil fuel instead of coal is considered a great saving by the masters. When this is more widely used the fireman will have their unemployed ranks increased.

The dockers who are striking have had lessons in this direction. Ever since the concession of the “tanner” an hour in 1889, speeding-up and hustling is a marked feature of dock life. Working with fewer men in a gang to do the work ; the use of cup and suction elevators ; the adoption of improved cranes : these are the weapons with which the dock labourers are faced, and that have resulted in so much casual employment amongst them.

The leaders of the Dockers’ Union are equally reprehensible with those of the seamen. Ben Tillett, the man who has gone up and down the country, at Trade Union Congresses, and in Liberal rags, advocating “Compulsory Arbitration”—the employers’ panacea. Tom Mann, who is trying to side-track the workers into wasting their powers in a futile chasing of “a kind of unionism known as industrial unionism.”

These are your leaders, toilers of land and sea !

Blogger's Note:

The 1910 bye-election where J. Havelock Wilson withdrew his candidacy was not Jarrow; it was South Shields.

A Socialist Survey. (1914)

From the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent writing to the “Daily Citizen” (4.6.14), gives information of a singular occurrence in a signal box on one of the main railways. The box was visited by a company of soldiers, who were admitted in batches of nine. They were accompanied by the district inspector and a plain clothes officer, who instructed them in the art of railway signalling and block working, much to the surprise and discomfort of the signalmen on duty.

Yet the “Daily Citizen” and its supporters are always howling for the nationalisation of the railways !

* * *

When the “Storstad” arrived at Montreal after her disastrous collision with the “Empress of Ireland,” she was at once seized by the sheriff and placed under arrest. When the writ was nailed to the mast Captain Andersen demanded to know: “By what authority do you board my vessel and arrest her?” The sheriff replied (probably because the “Storstad” was a “foreigner”) that his authority was “the authority of the British Empire.”

Under that authority, of course, anything could be “pinched.” That’s how Eugland became “great.”

* * *

Keir Hardie appears to believe that the emancipation of the workers is but of secondary importance. Capitalist measures should receive prior attention. He told his audience at a labour demonstration at Lesmahagow (Lanark) that the Labour Party were out to unite the working “classes,” but before this could be done the Home Rule question had to be got out of the way.

The Socialist Party, I might point out, are also out to unite the workers, but with this difference—they are out to unite them for Socialism. And of the various obstacles in the way of this unification they have had to encounter, one of the biggest is, not Home Rule, but—the Labour Party !

* * *

At a recent meeting of the Blackburn Board of Guardians it was stated that the sum spent in out-relief during 1913 was £2,000 less than that paid in respect of officials’ salaries. I am beginning to see why there is such a rush for these jobs.

* * *

Mr. Rockefeller’s millions appear to bring him endless trouble. He is now expecting to be called to give evidence before the Inter-State Commission which is investigating the affairs of the Newhaven Railroad, U.S.A. In one portion of the evidence a Mr. Millen, ex-president of this concern, said that enormous losses were made through financial trickery. He alleged that over £2,000,000 were juggled away by the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan.

We often read, in stories of the old buccaneering days of the Spanish Main, where pirates used to cheat each other out of their share of the plunder, and which invariably ended up in a fight and a lot of blood-spilling.

Similarly, to-day, the industrial pirates quarrel over their share of the booty. Whilst agreed that the manner of acquiring it is satisfactory (to them), yet, as soon as they begin to handle the loot they cheat each other mercilessly, and invariably wind up in a fight—not a bloody fight, but a legal one.

In this case blood is spilled in order to get the booty—not the blood of the pirates, but that of the toiling millions who are bludgeoned and battered into turning it over to them.

* * *

Many meetings have been held of late to protest against the employment of Chinese and other “foreigners” as seamen on board British ships. Yet one thing seems to have been left out of account. That is that “Sea Scouts” are now being shipped as deck hands on board British vessels. Possibly it is only to gain experience—but experience of what ? Is it the same experience that Boy Scouts are undergoing in connection with the military forces ?—experience that may be turned to account “should any danger threaten the Empire” from within or without ?

The scout law says : “A Scout must be loyal to his King, and to his officers, and to his parents, his country, and his employers. He must stick to them through thick and thin against anyone who is their enemy, or who even talks badly of them.” In other words the “Scouts” are there to be used as the tools of capitalism against the workers. That fact is obvious enough, at any rate. They are well organised on land ; now they are turning their attention to the sea, and the introduction of a few Scouts on board merchant ships also marks the introduction of the thin end of the wedge. Of course, there may be nothing in it, but I “hae ma doots.” It opens up possibilities.

* * *

The Rev. A. G. Waldron tells the “Daily Sketch” (12.6.14) that : “Modern Socialistic philosophy has had a bad effect on many people. They want everything done for them.” Which causes one to wonder what the reverend gent does for a living, that he can afford to talk like that. My experience of these professional medicine men is that they don’t do anything for a living. They live on the product of other people’s toil. To use this pulpit thumper’s own words, they “want everything done for them”—and thanks to the unmitigated foolishness of those workers whom “modern Socialistic philosophy” has not yet “spoiled,” they get “every­ thing done for them.”

Waldron also said that he had “tried the experiment of allowing questions to be asked after the sermon, but it was a failure. Only the fools asked questions in church.” I suppose every person who asked a question was considered a fool. Well, perhaps he was. Only fools and rogues are to be found in churches, and it is the height of a fool’s folly to question a rogue concerning his roguery.

* * *

How is this ? Have the workers of Tonypandy already forgotten the treatment they got at the hands of the capitalists’ butchers ? It would appear so, judging from a picture which was published in a recent issue of the “Daily News and Leader.”

It seems that the Prince and Princess of Teck had paid a visit to Tonypandy. Of course, they went about the mines, where their presence created great enthusiasm (which, by the way, is a very useful element, and quite necessary now-a-days to the capitalists’ game of bleeding the workers), so much so that, instead of going home, they lined up at the pit-mouth, all in their dirt and grime, just as they had come up out of the bowels of the earth, and sang with feeling and gusto, “Land of my Fathers.” This is distinctly good, only the wording of the hymn appeared to me to be inappropriate. It should have been “Land of my Masters.”

* * *

How terrifying is that oft-maligned and much misunderstood phrase, “the class war” ! How soon it will disturb the even temperament of a respectable congress ! For instance, the International Textile Workers held their congress during the second week in June at Blackpool. The congress was asked by the foreign delegates to say that the International Congress would only accept those unions for membership which stood by the principle of the class war. The English section, however, did not like the phrase, “because in England it had rather a bad repute, and was only connected with one small part of the Labour movement.” (This is where the Labour Party chuckles.)

In face of this refusal the Continental delegates were compelled to seek another expression, so they hit upon the phrase “organisations that combat the present capitalistic state of things.” This was accepted.

What surprised the Continental delegates, said one of them, was that, far from looking down upon the workmen, the English employers treated them on a fraternal footing, and with the ordinary politeness of human intercourse. That will explain the repugnance of the English section to the introduction of the class war principle. Naturally, if they are so pally with the bosses, the class war won’t exist for them.

Tom Sala

Economics Exposed: Ownership and control (1987)

The Economics Exposed column from the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The whole of human history has consisted of a series of social systems. Each of these social systems has been seen by most of the participants as a way of meeting human needs, by producing and distributing wealth. Those who have been prominent in the introduction of new types of social relationships have claimed that their movements were a step forward for humanity, a dramatic improvement in the organisation of wealth production.

In reality, however, we can now look back and understand that in each case what was really happening was that a particular class of wealth owners or would-be wealth owners were in fact pursuing their own interests, as a class, and simply dressing up this interest as being "the public interest". This was more than ever the case with the rise of the capitalist class in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At that time, the conflict was between the needs of the "modernising" mercantile and manufacturing interests on the one hand and the landed aristocracy on the other.

The key choice facing humanity in the twentieth century, in contrast, is that between capitalism and socialism as systems of society. The socialist movement is unlike all previous movements for change. It emerged over the past hundred years as an expression of the interests of the working class. And unlike all previous classes, the working class forms a vast, dispossessed majority across the world which has no interest at all in developing any "property" base of its own. Indeed, any utopian schemes to turn all workers into small-time capitalists themselves, are in fact doomed to failure for just this reason; the survival of workers within capitalism depends on selling, at the best price possible, the only resource which, by definition, a wage or salary-earner can control — our own ability to work.

The interests of the majority class in society have therefore become identified more and more obviously with the destruction of all property relationships, rather than with their perpetuation. Even after decades of reformist theory and practice from both Tory and Labour parties in post-war Britain, for example, the existence of capitalism still guarantees that wealth becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of a minority, as we shall see below.

In this column last month it was stated that this minority "possess” the working class as part of their assets. This reference to possession must, of course, be interpreted loosely, since capitalism has no use for the customs of ancient Greece and Rome, under which the wealth producers were the permanent property of slave-masters. Today, when employers invest in the productive power of wage-earners they still, like their ancient counterparts, enjoy the right of ownership over all wealth created by those wage-earners and yet they are not responsible for housing or feeding their wage-slaves outside any specific periods within which they are contracted to be employed.

What then, are the key differences between capitalism and socialism as economic systems?

1. Ownership and control

Capitalism is the dominant system of society throughout the entire world today. In every country, a minority class own and control the productive resources. Farms, factories, industrial plant and machinery, transport and communication networks; all of these are effectively in the hands of a small minority and controlled ultimately for their benefit, rather than for the free use and benefit of all. According to the official statistics published in the Social Trends survey (HMSO, 1987) the most wealthy ten per cent in Britain in 1984 owned more than half of all marketable wealth. This minority ownership and control of society's productive resources of course takes various forms. In the case of nationalised industries, the former shareholders now enjoy regular interest on the state bonds they were compensated with, so they continue to profit from the wealth created by the workers just as they did in the days when they were explicitly the owners. And in the case of Eastern-bloc style state control, or of "nationalisation without compensation". we see a new class of state bureaucrats, fulfilling the role of owning, controlling and profiting from production within that sector of the world capitalist system.

Socialism, by contrast, means the common ownership and democratic control of all productive resources. Factories and farms would then become the common heritage of all humanity, no more hived off or labelled with title-deeds than is the air we breathe, and freely accessible for the use of all.

2. The motive of production

On the socialist basis of placing these resources firmly in the hands of the human race as a whole, rather than allowing them to be owned and controlled by a minority group, it would then for the first time become possible for us to change the basis on which wealth is produced. At present, wealth production is likely to take place only if the goods and services which would result are likely to be profitably sold for cash on the world market. The level of production of everything across the world today is therefore tailored to meet market requirements rather than human needs.

Because the primary aim of production under capitalism is the generation of profit and the accumulation of capital, rather than purely to meet the needs of humanity as safely and comfortably as possible, it therefore follows that human life itself almost always comes a poor second to the pursuit of profit, as these two clash daily within the present. global social system. Examples of this abound, so here we present just one recent example, of the ironically named Herald of Free Enterprise:

Commercial pressures have prevented design changes in roll-on roll-off ships which might have saved the Townsend Thoresen ferry which sank off Zeebrugge harbour last Friday . . . Captain Nic Ruthford of the International Federation of Ships' Masters Associations, which has long expressed worries over Ro-Ro safety, said he would press for all Ro-Ros to be redesigned. He said: "The big problem is that one owner is not going to make expensive alterations that would put him at a disadvantage compared with his competitors until he absolutely has to".

(The Independent,10 March 1987)

Just like the millions who die each year of starvation or hunger-related disease while politicians dream up schemes for cutting back on production to restore profit levels, or for destroying the so-called "surpluses", likewise those who died in the ferry disaster were also sacrificed on the altar of profit.

3. The lives of the majority

One of the most important myths of capitalist economics, which must be exploded, is that workers are free-acting, independent agents, each "seeking their fortune" as best they can within the economic competition of the capitalist jungle. In fact, it is a key feature of the economic system we currently live under that the working-class majority are forced, through economic necessity, to take their own ability to work on to the labour market to be sold as a commodity. As a result of this, we are compelled to subjugate all of our human qualities of individuality and freedom. to give up our own creative needs and impulses, to cut out any individual style we may have, and present ourselves as neatly packaged and reliably productive machines for the consumption of our employers.

Consider, for example, the following passage from an official report which was attempting to persuade international employers to invest in British workers, by stressing the exploitative potential of what is on offer:

Not only does Britain's work-force perform well, its costs are remarkably low for what is one of the world's most highly developed countries. US Department of Labor figures show that British wage rates are among the lowest in the Western world. In addition, "on costs" (i.e. those labour costs which are additional to wages, such as state social security schemes and the financing of voluntary sick and pension schemes) are very low in Britain . . You will find the British work-force of today disciplined, motivated, skilled and ready for work. 

(BRITAIN, The Preferred Location, prepared by the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Central Office of Information. 1985)

It would appear, from such brazenly degrading statements, that the British ruling class believes they can talk about workers "behind our backs" without our knowledge. Perhaps they were forgetting that mass literacy has been predominant in Britain for some time.

To summarise, then. Past history has been a series of conflicts between classes, with each successive system serving the needs of a different minority class. Socialism means the total abolition of all property relationships, and is therefore the solution to the problems currently facing the working-class majority. Under capitalism, a minority own and control productive resources and production is geared to their profit. In socialism, productive resources would be owned in common by the whole of humanity and democratically controlled, so that production could be geared to human needs rather than the needs of the market. Under capitalism, the lives of the majority are dominated by the need to survive by selling our working ability on the labour market. The misery which results can only be ended by socialism, in which human beings would cooperate together consciously, to produce wealth with the sole aim of meeting human needs themselves.

Next month, we shall examine the precise mechanism by which capitalism functions, the exploitation of wage-labour.

Clifford Slapper

A Look Round. (1906)

From the August 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Loose phraseology is responsible for much misunderstanding concerning Socialism, and as it is often indulged in by professing Socialists it is small wonder that our opponents also sin.

* * *

Reynolds Newspaper often contains the statement, “A Socialist is one who advocates a more equable division of property, and a better arrangement of the social relations of mankind than one which has hitherto existed.” This could be said of almost all “social reformers” whether anti-Socialist or non-Socialist. They can and do advocate certain schemes with the object of bringing about such a change as is conveyed in be the words quoted, and yet at the same time can and usually are violent antagonists of Socialism.

* * *

I therefore suggest that Reynolds should amend its ways and reply to future querists somewhat as follows: “A Socialist is one who advocates the establishment of a system of Society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community, holding that in present-day Society the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced, is enslaved by the capitalist or master class, who own the land, factories, railways, and other means of living.”

* * *

“A more equable division of property” and “a better arrangement of the social relations of mankind” could be brought about and still the working class could be slaves of the masterclass. Profit sharing, model factories, co-operative societies, land law reform, free maintenance, a minimum wage, could all be adopted and the workers would still be dominated by the master class, still lack that freedom which Socialism alone can bring, because Socialism alone attacks the foundations of Society, and aims at the abolition of that class ownership of the means of life which gives the owning class domination over the working class.

* * *

From Reynolds to Joseph Chamberlain. Speaking at the Savoy Hotel Banquet to the 1900 Club, Joseph Chamberlain exhorted the Unionist Party to “meet Socialism by pointing out how impossible were its methods, and how much better its objects could be secured in other ways. For one thing, they could point out how far fiscal reform would carry them in that direction.”

* * *

H’m, Yes. Imagine any section of the Capitalist Party, whether of the Reynolds or Chamberlain label, helping to secure the object of Socialism, which object I have stated above ! But let the Unionist Party and the Tariff Reformers come on. Let them meet us in public debate, and point out our impossible methods, and how they could bring about the object we have in view by Tariff Reform or by any other item in their program, a program which, as Mr. Balfour has remarked, is “not merely to be distinguished from Socialism, but is the direct opposite and the most effective antidote to Socialism.”

* * *

In opposing Tariff Reform even Sir H. Campbell Bannerman was forced to admit that after 60 years of Free Trade we have 12,000,000 of our population on the verge of hunger. What reformers of all brands have to face is the indisputable fact that all over the world, no matter what political, fiscal, religious or other conditions obtain, the working class is poor and the master class is rich. Is this because there is not sufficient wealth produced to satisfy the needs of all ? No. Is it that the working class is poor because its members do not work long enough or hard enough, or because they drink ? No, for the master class drink and drinking does not them make poor ; they are rich altho’ “they toil not neither do they spin.” The universal poverty of the working class, the fact that the producers of wealth lack the necessaries and comforts of life, is due to the ownership of the wealth-producing instruments by the master class, which ownership enables them to control the disposition of the wealth produced by the working class.

* * *

The Woolwich Pioneer reports a meeting held under the auspices of the local I.L.P., at which Mr. H. S. Wishart presided and Mr. Moore Bell delivered the address. In his opening remarks Mr. Bell stated he did not see that there should be any conflict between Labour and Liberalism, because Liberalism should mean the uplifting of the working classes, justice to the workers, fair play, and a fair distribution of wealth amongst the workers who produced it. The Labour Party stood for these and therefore there should be no conflict.

* * *

In view of the compacts made by I.L.P. candidates with Liberals at the recent General Election one is not surprised at such a speech by an I.L.P. lecturer. But a protest must be entered against members of such a Party as the I.L.P. calling themselves Socialists, whilst declaring that there should be no conflict between Liberalism and Labour. And as the Labour Party stand for the same things as Liberalism, where is the necessity for the separate existence of the “Labour” Party. Let them dissemble and join the Liberals.

* * *

It may be objected that the speaker did not say that there is no difference but that there should be none. But this was either loose phraseology on his part or ignorance of Liberalism. In either case it proves his unfitness to instruct the working class.

* * *

We have to consider not what Liberalism, in the opinion of Mr. Moore Bell, should be, but what it is. Like every other phase of capitalist politics, it stands for the domination of the master class over the working class. Its philosophy and that of the Socialist are as wide asunder as the poles. The one assumes, not only now, but for as long at any rate as its exponents will live, the existence of a subject class and a dominant class, and its efforts are directed to maintaining and entrenching the dominant class in its position. Now and again, as the exigencies of the political machine demand, it makes “concessions.” But all the time it has one object and one alone in view, the strengthening of its position and the side-tracking of the working class out of the path that The Socialist Party urges it to follow.

* * *

On the other hand the philosophy of the Socialist finds expression in the belief that the working class, in the order of social evolution, will achieve its freedom from the domination of the master class, and is the last class to be emancipated. It holds that this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself, and not of the middle-class place hunters and rejected Liberal candidates who abound in the I.L.P., and it has therefore nothing in common with Liberalism or any other capitalist “ism.” It is up against them all, all the time.

* * *

The Aston Strike, the strike of workers employed at Dunlops, has collapsed, all having returned to work whom the Company would take back. The men were members of Will Thorne’s Gas Workers’ Union, but, pleading a technical offence on the part of the Strikers, the Union refused to support them. But, of course, Mr. Thorne, M.P., J.P., is now a capitalist law enforcer as well as law maker, and, naturally, is a stickler for the “law.”

* * *

Some three years ago, R. P. Houston & Co. started a line of steamers from Liverpool to Hamburg and another from Leith in order to compel the Union Castle Company to reduce freights. Houstons have now joined the Trust and, as a consequence, there has been a material all-round increase in general cargo freights.

* * *

During the past quarter the income of the London Society of Compositors, exclusive of balance brought forward, amounted to the sum of £8,865 19s. 7d., and the expenditure to £9,353 0s. 9½d. The balance in hand on April 1st was £703 0s. 11d. and on July 1st £225 19s. 8½d.

J. Kay

Editorial: Gangs and counter-gangs (2024)

Editorial from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Britain is a peace-loving country, so the claim goes. It just happens to always be at war. It can’t help it. There’s always bad people in the world, and Britain needs to fight for freedom, human rights and against an endless supply of Hitlers. So the pro-War camp from the Balkans to Iraq, to Libya, to Syria have always said. So, this time, when Britain and the United States bomb Yemen, it is refreshing to hear the powers that be say that it is to protect trade routes.

It is appropriate that this happened in the same month that General Sir Frank Kitson, GBE, KCB, MC & Bar, DL died at the age of 97: a man who effectively killed for Britain all over the world, including Malaya, Kenya and Northern Ireland. His writings on the role of military force in the modern world were clear-eyed:

‘Countries are obliged to fight where their interests demand they should, and this is not necessarily along their geographical frontiers.’

So, of course, when the flow of shipping is being re-routed away from the Red Sea, when the insurance cost of shipping is increasing by 10 percent with the consequence that everything that has been shipped will naturally cost more, it will be natural for our masters to turn to violence in order to protect their interests.

The protection, in this case, is from the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are backed by Iran, a regional power itself trying to extend its interests by asserting control of the sea lanes. The US and its allies have been seizing Iranian ships and their cargo, and this month Iran has taken to boarding ships and has recaptured the St Nikolas (formerly the Suez Rajan) laden with oil which had been taken from them last year in a US ‘sanctions’ operation that confiscated 980,000 barrels of oil.

This is the hypocritical background to the UN Security Council resolution passed to condemn the Houthi rebels that asserts as universal values the navigational rights and freedoms of merchant and commercial vessels, which, in accordance with international law, must be respected. The Security Council also affirmed the right of UN member states to defend their vessels from attacks in accordance with international law. Navigational rights and freedoms, but on terms that suit powerful groups, and ‘self defence’ meaning the right to defend property and profits at the expense of human lives.

The slogan ‘none are free until all are free’ is resonant in this situation. While the only way the world is run is through force of arms seizing and controlling wealth, no one can be free from coercion and fear of violence. This is, perhaps, best summed up in the title of one of Kitson’s books Gangs and Counter-gangs.

Socialists are opposed to gangsterism and counter-gangsterism and for the common ownership of the world’s wealth so that co-operation and creation can replace conflict and destruction.

50 Years ago: Right to strike (2010)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Patrick Neary has been released after spending six weeks in prison. He was the leader of the recent seamen’s strike, and was sent to jail because he did not comply with a court order which told him (in effect) to give up ail connection with the strike. Some newspapers have claimed that he was imprisoned not because he was a striker, but because he disobeyed the court order. This is to reject the substance and catch at the shadow. The reason Neary went to jail was because he had been elected chairman of the strike committee, and had therefore emerged as the figurehead of the strike. The shipping companies wanted to remind the seamen of the Merchant Shipping Act, under which any striking seaman can be sent to jail. As far as the mass of strikers were concerned, the companies were perhaps afraid of having them ail sent to jail, for fear of repercussions: and so decided to call in the state machine (which after all they maintain to look after their interests) only against one man, the figurehead, Neary. Therefore Neary has had to endure for six weeks the vile indignities which are the lot of anyone in jail, because he took part in a strike and was elected chairman of the committee which ran it.

And what happened to the protests which we might have expected? The last war (our leaders told us) was fought to defend democratic freedoms. The right to withhold labour is a central democratic freedom. The alternative— sending men to jail because they refuse to work on the terms offered them by the capitalists—is slavery. But our ruling class had no objection to Neary’s sentence. Their newspapers applauded it. Let us remember this the next time our rulers want our help to ” fight for freedom and democracy.”

(from News in Review, Socialist Standard, November 1960)

News in Review: Top Men (1960)

The News in Review column from the September 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Top Men

The rearrangement of Mr. Macmillan's government caused quite a storm. The appointment of a member of the House of Lords as Foreign Secretary was responsible for a lot of the criticism and several newspapers had hard things to say on some of the other changes. In America, Senator Kennedy won the Democratic nomination for the Presidential election in November, despite the fact that he is a Roman Catholic—and Catholics for a long time have been considered a poor political risk in the States. His opposite, Vice-President Nixon, also caused a stir by refusing to pander to some of the regional prejudices of the Republican Party and selecting a New Englander, Mr. Cabot Lodge, as his running mate.

Are changes at the top all that important? Certainly, at election and other times each party reviles the opponents as incompetent and unworthy whilst offering itself as benevolent and efficient. But whatever influence on events the political leaders may have, what really counts is the fact that society as a whole supports the continuance of capitalism. That, in the end, determines the policies and actions of the world's leaders. And capitalism is vicious and anarchic, whichever party is in power and whoever happens to be at the top in the parties at any particular time.

Seamen on strike

The Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, we are told, is not an anti trade union Act but just one of those pieces of legislation which are necessary because they keep the vital wheels of society turning. The fact is that on August 11th eight seamen were sentenced to one month's imprisonment because, by striking work aboard the S.S. Castilian, they had contravened one of the Act's sections by disobeying a lawful order.

There are many Acts which, under the pretence of safeguarding the community's welfare, hedge round trade unionist activity with severe restrictions. One of these is the Electricity (Supply) Act of 1919, which may be used if the power station workers come out.

One simple method of safeguarding the community's welfare, keeping the ships sailing and making everybody happy, is to grant the seamen's wage demands. As a result of the recent agreement signed by the National Union of Seamen, a steward or seaman would earn a basic wage of about £40 a month with all found. To get this up to a reasonable level, he must work a lot of overtime. When he is ashore, of course, he is much worse off.

There can be nothing but commendation for any efforts to improve the seamen's working conditions. Time was when sailors were brutal and illiterate men. Capitalism has turned them into the regimented technicians which they are today.

They are like factory workers afloat. And like any landlubber, they are forced to fight to keep their heads a respectable distance above the economic waves.

Who's crazy now?

The man who claimed at Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.A., that he had built his own Atomic bomb in the basement of his house, and that it was timed to explode in 15 hours was immediately rushed away to hospital under observation. It seems that the authorities suspected him of being mentally ill. Yet scientists, who laboured for years to produce this same bomb, and even worse horrors, in the shape of hydrogen bombs, nuclear rockets, etc., are not thought to be mentally sick—oh no—they are lauded as having made a real contribution to the knowledge of society and the “defence of peace.”

Upset Swedes

President Eisenhower upset a lot of Swedes when, in his speech to the Republican Convention, he drew attention to the high suicide rate in Sweden and held this up as a warning against supporting what he called Socialism. It was rather unwise of the President to be so selective in his evidence to support his argument. Doubtless, some other comparisons would indicate that life in Sweden is preferable to that in, say, the United States. Presumably, Eisenhower was trying to frighten the American voters off the Democratic Party by associating them with Socialism. This is just as nonsensical as his assertion that Sweden is a Socialist country.

In fact, as the Dagens Nyheter—a Swedish Liberal paper—pointed out, Sweden's suicide rate, in a world where suicide is common, is unremarkable. It is now lower than during the five years preceding World War I and less than in Japan, Austria and many other countries. If the reasons for the majority of suicides in Sweden are the same as elsewhere, then the high Swedish rate is a symptom of the capitalist set-up in that country. For most of those who put an end to their lives do so when the strain of living under capitalism becomes too much for them. Sweden, like the rest, has the desperate problems which go with a brutal social system. Perhaps the next time an American President decides to attack Socialism, he will first take the precaution of finding out what it is?

Farthings

With the beginning of 1961, the farthing will no longer be legal tender in this country. Not so long ago, this little coin could buy a pocketful of sweets. Sometimes it came as change from the artful shopkeeper whose price of, say, two and elevenpence three farthings was meant to sound much less than three shillings. Now, to use the jargon, the farthing is to be demonetised.

Many older people sigh for the days when the farthing had some use. When, for that matter, the penny and the pound were worth that much more. But there is another side to the picture. According to the Ministry of Labour indices, average weekly wage rates in 1938 were one-third of those today, whilst prices have nearly trebled.

Put in another way, the amount of real wealth which a worker’s wage commands in this country has altered very little over the past twenty years. Certainly not enough to justify the laments of the old-timers or the joy of the alright Jacks.

The fact is that a worker’s wage is generally just about large enough to buy the things he needs to reproduce himself. That situation is not altered by the revaluation of currencies, upwards or downwards. In fifty years’ time a British government may decide to demonetise the shilling or some other currency unit. And when they have done it the poverty of the working class will be as acute as before.

Salad Days

Tomato growers in certain areas of France, where the cost of living has risen, have threatened to allow their crops to rot unless they can obtain better prices for them. They will not be encouraged by the prices quoted in the Paris newspaper France Soir today.

This snippet, from The Guardian of 9th August, is another morsel of proof—if any more is needed—of the motive for production in capitalist society. Here is an example of food being grown, not to satisfy hunger or desire, but to realise a profit for the owners of the means of its production. We can offer more encouragement than France Soir. A sensible society would grow tomatoes for people to eat and would only allow them to waste when the world’s needs had been generally satisfied.

Letter: Panama canal (2007)

Letter to the Editors from the July 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

The article in last month’s issue on the Panama Canal rightly points out that the reason for the canal at this site was political. Of nineteen possible routes this was one of the worse. A more attractive one was the San Juan River/Lake Nicaragua route, but as this formed the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica would have been difficult to control.

The Panama Canal can now only be used by vessels of ‘panamax’ size, the locks being 1000ft long and 110ft wide. Very restricted for present and future use.

In the 1960s President L. B. Johnson wanted to build a seaway through the isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico using nuclear explosives. This would be maintenance-free when finished and very cheap to excavate. Fortunately he could not sell this “grand project” to the Mexicans.

The President of Nicaragua has pledged to build an all-Nicaraguan canal on the river Escondido/Lake Nicaragua route. The drive for huge profits may even see this constructed.

Fred Moore, 

Canterbury.

The Opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway (1959)

From the July 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

On April 25th last, the Canadian Government icebreaker D'Iberville moved into the locks opposite Montreal. Behind her were scores of other craft, decorated with bunting; helicopters were buzzing overhead and on the shores were hundreds of people who had got up early to watch the start of her voyage. For this was not only the end of the ice-bound winter season for Montreal; it was also the first journey into the recently completed St. Lawrence Seaway.

Opposition

At the formal opening ceremony last month, nobody wanted to mention the embarassing fact that, but for the opposition of the railroad interests in the U.S.A., the Seaway would have been built long before now. These interests, with the Canadian East Coast Ports of St. John and Halifax, feared the competition which the Seaway would offer, with its cheap transport from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. Since the 1920’s, various Canadian Governments have wanted to go ahead with the project, but could not persuade the United States to co-operate. Finally, in 1951, the Canadians declared their intention of building the Seaway on their own. This forced the hand of the United States railway lobby, who did not want the Seaway—if it had to be built—to be completely beyond the influence of Washington. Even so, they insisted that tolls should be imposed on all craft using it; something the Canadian Government, which is traditionally opposed to canal tolls, found hard to swallow. Work started in 1954.

The Seaway is designed eventually to overcome the 602 feet difference in water level between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes. Most of this is concentrated between Lake Erie and Montreal; here we have some famous rapids and falls, the most spectacular of them at Niagara. These rapids have been an obstacle since the earliest days of exploration. In 1536, Jacques Cartier (who is credited with the discovery of the St.Lawrence River) was checked by the Lachine Rapids and in 1603 Samuel De Champlain was also held up near the same point. In the 18th century a one-foot canal was dug which allowed the small trading canoes to by-pass the rapids. Over the years this was deepened until in 1821 there was five feet of water available. Towards the end of the 19th century locks were built and the canals further deepened so that vessels lying 14 feet into the water could pass.

This system stayed until work was started on the Seaway, which is a series of 27 feet deep locks and canals from Lachine to Kingston, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Most of the merchant ships afloat can use it, being lifted more than 200 feet above sea level in the process. In addition, the Seaway Authority's powers extend to the Welland Ship Canal, which connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, and by-passes the Niagara Falls. Since 1932, the Welland Canal has been at least 25 feet deep; now it has been dredged to 27 feet. As a result, ships of up to 8,000 tons can sail from the Atlantic to Lake Erie—and, when canals connecting the other Lakes have also been dredged to 27 feet, to the farthest end of Lake Superior. A number of power dams have also been built, which will supply millions of kilowatts of hydroelectric power. The total cost was about £405 million, split between the Canadian and United States Governments.

Steel and Wheat

The territory around the Great Lakes contains about 40 per cent, of the population of the United States and Canada and some of the best agricultural land and richest industry in the whole of North America. The optimists reckon on about 40 million tons of cargo a year coming from these areas through the Seaway to the Atlantic. There is evidence that the Seaway was primarily intended as an economic stimulant and not as an aid to shipping, for only one third of the total cost was spent on navigational aids, the remainder going on the hydro-electric schemes. Indeed, the Seaway should do a lot to revive the Steel industry of the Middle West, whose resources of iron ore from the nearby Mesabi Range were almost exhausted during the war. Plans were being laid to move the steel mills to the east coast, within easy reach of ore from Venezuela and the recently opened fields in Labrador. Now the ore will travel conveniently and cheaply from Labrador through the Seaway—and the Steel works should stay put. According to The Economist of 25th April, it was the steel men’s support of the Seaway which made the U.S.A. Congress realise that they would also have to agree to it.

The Wheat trade will also be affected. Up to now, grain from Fort William and Port Arthur—(at the western end of Lake Superior)—has been shipped as far east as possible by vessels called “Lakers"—which, although they could sail freely over the lakes, were prevented by the shallow canals from moving past Lake Ontario. The grain was then loaded into smaller vessels to be taken to ports nearer the Atlantic and transferred to the oceangoing steamers. Now, the ’’Lakers” may sail direct to the Labrador port of Seven Islands to unload their grain, replacing it with iron ore for the return journey. Another possibility is that the grain may be shipped direct from Port Arthur and Fort William to Europe, sailing past Buffalo, Montreal and other ports which have prospered on the traffic. The Canadian Wheat Board expects that this will reduce the cost of freight by about 5 cents a bushel; in an effort to keep the grain trade, the ports have started a programme of capital investment. Montreal alone is to spend nearly £10 million on its grain elevator system, £6 million on wharves and £1¾ million on transit sheds.

Railways and Steamships

The Canadian railway system was in part developed on the assumption that ocean going ships would never get any farther up the St. Lawrence than Montreal. As a result, an intricate railway network now links the St. Lawrence and east coast ports with the interior. Rail freight charges are high and, to capture some of the traffic, the Fjell-Oranje Line in 1932 opened a regular service of small steamers direct from Europe to such ports as Toronto and Cleveland. This line has no interest in any inland freight system in Canada, and so could concentrate on a cheap steamship service. But organisations like the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, which has large investments in both steamships and railways, could hardly be expected to promote the cheaper steamship service to the Lakes at the expense of its railroads. Development of the direct Great Lakes service was therefore neglected, whilst the railways and the east coast ports also strenuously opposed the even greater threat of the Seaway.

After the second world war however, more shipping companies began services from Europe to the Great Lakes and in 1956 the two great transatlantic companies— Cunard and Canadian Pacific—had to open their own service, with boats on charter from a German company. Now nearly 30 lines offer a regular service and without enough cargo to fill their holds, they are in fierce competition. The Seaway has sharpened the struggle; new steamers are being specially built and a freight war has broken out between the combine (they call it a “Conference”)—which includes companies like Cunard, Canadian Pacific and Furness Withy—and the rest. The Canadian and .United States railway companies have joined this war and have forecast all round reductions in freight rates. The governments may also step in with some subsidies.

Uncertain Outlook

The future, as usual, is uncertain. There is considerable congestion at some points of the Seaway, particularly the Welland Canal, which now takes nearly twice as long to navigate as it did 20 years ago. Again, the St. Lawrence River is closed by ice for about 5 months of the year — ice which can form so quickly that sometimes ocean-going ships are trapped upstream. The Seaway means that the shipping companies must maintain an organisation at the Atlantic ports for the winter and one at the Great Lakes for the Summer. Many of them fear that this will cost more than anything they might save by using the Seaway. For several years they may have to absorb considerable losses and possibly reduce their services.

If there is a general cargo boom and if the railroad and steamship companies can sort out their differences and agree on an attractive combined rate, the Seaway will certainly prosper. These are big “ifs”; the whole thing was conceived, obstructed and finally built in a tug-of-war between interests wanting to realise a profit on their investments. In this crazy world, that is the measure by which the St. Lawrence Seaway will be judged.

So They Say: Surplus to Requirements (1975)

The So They Say Column from the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Surplus to Requirements

The pollution free oil tanker is with us. The ships, very large crude carriers (VLCCs) are already in existence and extend in some cases to well over 250,000 dead weight tonnage. Furthermore the increase in world tonnage of the VLCCs is estimated to be 1 million tons per week from the present time to the end of 1977, unless immediate cancellations of orders are made. And why should such cancellations be made? — it is the same reason as that behind their being pollution free — the ships cannot be used.

The disastrous slump in demand for big tanker capacity which has dozens of 150,000-ton and 250,000-ton vessels laid up in moorings from the Hebrides to the Pacific, is no temporary aberration, the report (by one of Britain’s major oil companies) says. It will not reach bottom, even on an optimistic assumption on oil usage until 1979 or 1980.

Sunday Times, 15th June 75.

H. P. Drewery (Shipping Consultants) estimated in March that up to 40 million tons of oil tanker tonnage could be laid up by the end of 1975 (Shipping Statistics & Economics) and the writers of the recent report recommend that every VLCC “on order from the world’s shipyards — apart from those actually now being built — should be cancelled immediately” in order to avoid a “surplus to requirements” tonnage in excess of 110 millions by 1980.

So we have it: the classic solution to the classic problem. While the prospects for profit were good the owners rushed capital into the field, each desperate to claim as large a share of the market as possible, now the market is glutted they have a problem — there are no more profits to be found. The Sunday Times on 18th May referred to this “boom and bust” phenomenon as a “grotesque reversal of normality,” but we would disagree. Given the capitalist’s jungle there is nothing unusual here; What is to be condemned is that the jungle still exists.

A Sordid Indictment

The recent case of the fatal virus disease, Lassa Fever, brought into Britain has caused the authorities to build a “Close security laboratory” at the Microbiological Research Establishment in Porton Down, Wiltshire, to study the disease. This wing will also attempt to learn more about other similar diseases for which there are no known antidotes. The laboratory was formally opened on 9th May by its director Professor Robert Harris who said at the time:

Smallpox is child’s play when handling Lassa fever virus. There is no immunization and so people working with the agents are to some extent on their own.

Times, 10th May 1975.

It is certainly a tribute to the determination of science through the individual workers on the project that they are prepared to run such risks in order to overcome a potentially serious hazard to the health of others, but things are not so straightforward in class society. The newspaper report continued :

Asked about the possible military significance, Professor Harris said the question whether Lassa fever would make a good biological weapon depended on how much people wanted to commit suicide.

It is a sordid indictment of capitalism when medical men have to be asked if their researches might prove valuable for warfare. The journalist who asked the question cannot be accused of any personal perversity — if he had not asked it he would be failing in his (limited) function to find facts, or at least, newsprint. It reaches further when we consider that Professor Harris’ team would also be failing in their jobs should they refuse to make their findings known to the masters of the laboratory — the Ministry of Defence.

Not Important

The following piece appeared in the London Evening Standard on 5th June:

Technology and resources exist to produce enough food to supply developing countries up to the year 2000 and possibly for a generation beyond, Mr. Walter Pawley, director of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation said in Toronto.

“But,” he added “if you ask me whether I think production will in fact increase in accordance with the resources and technological possibilities, I must say I am pessimistic.''

It warranted 1½" of type. So much for these “united” nations.

The Capitalist Disease

J. B. Priestley the author had some profound comments to make in the Sunday Times of 15th June. Writing in the Opinion column he relieved himself of a stream of ill-reasoned verbiage. His topic was the “English Disease” — an imaginary ailment which Priestley, along with other self-righteous “thinkers” attribute to the English working class.

I mean English not British, because I am not prepared to discuss the problems of the Scots and the Welsh. (As for the Ulster folk, too many of them refuse to come out of the 17th Century.)

Although he fails to define the nature of the disease, the inference is clearly made that the English simply don’t work hard enough. His solution? — Self discipline.

In times gone by, he argues, the English (good table-thumping stuff this) were disciplined by circumstance. This he defines as “grim hard facts (which) shaped their lives.” We take it that he means working class poverty. But not any more however:

If they are slack and lazy, nobody is telling them to clear out and starve.

In his anxiety to point a finger at the offenders, without in turn offending the “decent” folk among whom he classes himself, he picks upon "the younger set.”

They are not on the way to self discipline, ready to transform themselves into sensible reliable citizens. Their freedom only entangles them with whims and fancies, silliness and self-indulgence. And it is largely they who are responsible for that malaise, that English disease . . .

We allow for the possibility that Priestley has entered the seventh age of man, but he really should be prepared to read other copy apart from his own. On page 53 of the same newspaper we leave the realms of fiction and return to the “grim hard facts” of capitalism. The following is the first paragraph from the article “Is your child heading for the dole?”

During the next few weeks 500,000 British school-leavers will get their first taste of working life. For a record number of them this will mean going straight to the end of a dole queue. When unemployment rises, the young always fare the worst. With almost worldwide recession, this summer’s crop of graduates and school-leavers face the least hopeful prospects since before the war.

A prospect guaranteed to be no less severe now that Britain has confirmed its membership of the EEC — an aim supported by “Writers for Europe” among those numbers the prim sage Priestley figured.

Alan D'Arcy

Storm over Shipping (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The most critical period of World War 2 is now but a painful memory to the members of the British and American capitalist class. The dark days of Dunkirk, of Singapore, of Pearl Harbour, are to them fast receding into history. They were indeed anxious, perilous days for them—days during which their whole economy was ruthlessly transformed and moulded, their wealth and material resources made subordinate to the needs of a struggle, the stake of which they realised, almost too late, was their very existence as major capitalist powers.

The fortunes of battle have turned. Optimism over the prospects of winning out in the struggle has given way to confidence. No longer immersed in the arduous struggle for self-preservation, they have begun to devote more of their attention to matters much more pleasing to their hearts— and, incidentally, to their pockets.

As a contrast to the airy nature of their promises of Atlantic Charters and Four Year Plans, their statements on this subject have not been marked by any lack of frankness. Recrimination and accusation have been equally indulged in by both sides. In industry after industry, particularly during this last year, has this conflict of interest made itself manifest. Some months ago controversy arose between Britain and the U.S.A. over post-war air transport. Hardly had this died down when mutual denunciation ensued over natural and the question of natural and synthetic rubber. Even more recently many hard words have been said by both parties over petroleum supplies during and after the war. On the subject of this increasing friction between the interests of British and American capitalism, the United States News (October 22nd, 1943) says the following : —

“Nationalistic suspicions are putting a new strain upon the relations between the U.S. and its British and Russian allies. They break out at every turn—over oil, bases, rubber, lend-lease supplies, shipping.”

In no industry has there been more mutual suspicion and ill-will aroused than that of shipping.

To British capitalism, a large and efficient merchant marine is an absolute and vital necessity. During the nineteenth century, when she was the “workshop of the world,” she possessed a virtual monopoly of the world’s shipping tonnage. Since 1900 that supremacy has been gradually whittled down until the proportion now owned by British shipowners amounts to but 26 per cent. of the world total.

The history of American shipping has followed a much different course. Although the end of the First Great War saw the U.S. emerge as the possessor of a large merchant fleet, the passing of high tariff laws, almost always fatal to the development of a large home shipping industry, caused the tonnage to decline rapidly. Playing in this war the same role she played in the last—that of the arsenal of her Allies—she has again been compelled to develop a large merchant marine. There is evidence, however, to show that after this war is over, she intends to maintain her maritime supremacy. It is evident that there are other motives at work besides philanthropic ones in this concern of hers for a strong mercantile marine. She sees the prospect that the conclusion of this war will witness the emergence of the U.S.A. as the dominant capitalist power of the world. From the speeches of her statesmen and businessmen, she appears to make her economic influence felt throughout the whole five continents. Already she has in some cases backed up those speeches with action—e.g., the building of air and sea bases. To the American capitalist class it is obvious that their plans to “muscle in” in the economic sphere will be far from watertight without the possession of a large merchant fleet to carry their commodities at reasonable rates. It would be economic suicide for them to produce goods to flood the markets of the world, only to find themselves held to ransom, by exorbitant freight charges in foreign vessels. They have made their intentions in the matter quite clear, witness Time (October 18th, 1943) : —

“A hoarse warning bellow tore through the fog of post-war shipping plans last week, set Britons tooting nervously. Back in Washington from a three-week visit to London, U.S. Maritime Commission’s Rear-Admiral Howard L. Vickery announced that he had told the British the U.S. ‘had become a maritime nation and intended to remain one; that we would do it by cooperation if they wanted to, but if they didn’t want to, we were going to do it anyway’. . . .”

And further :—

“The U.S. merchant fleet will be responsible almost completely for the distribution of the world’s goods immediately after, the war.” (Frank Taylor, President, American Merchant Marine Institute, Sunday Pictorial, November 21st, 1943.)

The significance of these remarks has not been lost upon British shipowners, who are themselves naturally very much concerned with their own post-war prospects and problems. The Stock Exchange Gazette (November 27th, 1943, page 1291) says, for instance: —

“Meanwhile shipowners have been able, through the General Council of British Shipping, to get down to some very important national problems, and, in this respect, will be more fitted to come to grips with actualities when the end of the war quickens the pace.”

The General Council had itself something to say in reply to Vickery’s challenging statements (Time, October 18th, 1943) : —

“Shippers have sufficient faith in American realism to believe that it will be recognised that, however important the possession of an adequate merchant marine may be to the U.S., to Britain it is a vital necessity.”

Neither British nor American representatives appear very happy about the position, however. Oscar R. Hobson, City Editor of the News Chronicle, says in this connection (October 19th, 1943) :—.

“The policy of the U.S. is to remain one of the dominant maritime powers of the world. Admiral Land, discussing the relations between the U.S. and the other maritime powers hoped that a policy of collaboration would be followed, but admitted that it would not be easy to achieve. He suggested that all the nations concerned would want a larger share of the shipping trade than the others would be willing to concede to them. Everybody, he said, wants to cut the pie, but no one wants to take a small piece. His suggestion was one which will commend itself to all right-thinking people: ‘I recommend that we bake a bigger pie.’”

In one respect, however, British and American capitalists and their economic experts are at one—neither party can put forward any solution to the problem convincing enough to bear even superficial scrutiny. The only solution which Admiral Land can advocate is “that we bake a bigger pie,” which is an argument he himself has already demolished in his own previous remarks. Whatever the size of the pie, everybody, as he himself says, wants to cut it, and no one wants a small piece.

The Stock Exchange Gazette (November 27th, 1943) is even more pessimistic : —

“It is easy, with sufficient State aid (and sufficiently complacent taxpayers) to build a mercantile marine up to any size. It is another thing to be able to use that mercantile marine, not necessarily profitably but at all, except by sailing the ships round the world in ballast. Otherwise they must be tied up at the buoys, as the unfortunate American ships were in the Hudson River and elsewhere after the last war because they were the wrong ships for such scanty post-war employment as was available.”

There it is in black and white. After the last war. the spectacle was seen of dozens—nay, hundreds—of ships lying idle in rivers, docks and other waterways, lying idle not only in the Hudson river, but in the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne; lying idle not only in Britain and the U.S.A., but in. every country possessing a merchant marine worthy of the name; hundreds of vessels rusting and rotting for lack of profitable cargoes, whilst millions of the world’s inhabitants went hungry, cold and comfortless, and this at a time when—crowning, tragic irony of all—foodstuffs were being burnt, raw materials destroyed, machines deliberately scrapped or rendered idle, and millions of human beings the whole world over, who could have set to and produced the means of human satisfaction were wasting their miserable lives away in poverty and idleness.

The stresses and strains manifest now in shipping are but the reflection of forces at work throughout the whole of industry. The struggles for economic advantage now taking place are paralleled in oil, rubber, textiles, steel, air transport; these struggles, heated and violent as they are now whilst the war is still being waged, will be nothing to the conflicts set in motion after the war has been won.

Whatever group of capitalists wins out in this economic struggle, the conditions the workers experienced before the war they will suffer again in a more aggravated form after it. Socialism still remains the only solution to their problems. Their task is still before them : to organise consciously and politically for the abolition of capitalism and all that it entails, and in its place to establish Socialism, a system in which all the world’s resources will be utilised to the full, in which production will be made subordinate, not to the will for profit of a few, but to the needs of all its inhabitants.

Stan Hampson

The Plimsoll Line. (1929)

From the September 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Only the older generation remembers the long struggle conducted by Samuel Plimsoll—to whom at last a memorial is to be erected on the Embankment Gardens—to make legal his famous safety load line, now marked on the sides of every British Ship.”—(Daily Chronicle, August 16.)

Though we do not advocate dependence on others where workers’ interests are at issue, and though we are not hero-worshippers, we can appreciate the sterling worth of men like this champion of the seamen’s cause. Inseparable from the history of Plimsoll’s struggle is the record of a dastardly deed worth recounting, inasmuch as it shows the mercenary nature of capitalist society. Plimsoll was no mere notoriety seeker, but one of the men of his day who could rise above place and pelf. He had a wholesome respect for the working class, especially that hard-working and long-suffering section who sail the seas. In his book, “Our Seamen,” he says :—

“Riches seem in so many cases to smother the manliness of their possessors . . . their sympathies are reserved for the sufferings of their own class and also the woes of their own class. They seldom tend downward, and they are far more likely to admire an act of courage than to admire the constantly exercised fortitude and the tenderness which are the daily characteristics of a British worker’s life—and of the workmen all over the world as well.”

Entering the House of Commons in 1871, Samuel Plimsoll met with bitter hostility from the vested shipping interests and was ejected from the House for denouncing the ship-owners as “cold-blooded murderers.” Hear the words of an eye-witness on the occasion :—

“Most of the house and most of the front benches were as ignorant as bull calves of the ways of the merchant service.

Mr. Plimsoll was a very quiet and quaker-like man. Perhaps there was not a fighting man in the house to back him except half-a-dozen Irishmen. Did he sit down in silent funk? Did he admit that the lives of British seamen were of no urgent importance? I can see the brave man now as I saw him then. In half-a-dozen strides he was in front of the mace at the table. With clenched fist and furious voice he threatened and he denounced, “Were the sailors to go down in coffin ships during another winter’s storms when the Bill could be passed this session. By God! It must be passed, though all the murdering insurers of rotten ships were there to stop it.” It was no use shouting, “Order, order,” or “Send for the Sergeant-at-Arms”; Samuel Plimsoll all along meant to save the sailormen and he called out to all England to have the Plimsoll mark made law.”—(Quoted by the Sphere, August 17th, 1929, from the writings of F. H. O’Donnel, 1913.)

As a result of this agitation, and the consequent feeling aroused, by one man mark you, the Government was forced to push through a temporary bill. So strongly did the vested interests resist the interference with their “right” to murder helpless seamen that it was not until 1890 that the Load Line was fixed by Act of Parliament.

And now for the dastardly deed referred to. In 1906 came the great Liberal Government, with 54 Labour members, and Lloyd George, President of the Board of Trade. Among its wealthy members and supporters were the following shipping magnates :— Lord Pirrie, director of Harland & Wolff’s, White Star Line and other shipping companies ; Lord Furness, director of six shipping concerns; Sir Owen Phillip, Mark Palmer, Lord Joicey, Lord Rendel, Sir Walter Runciman, Sir William Bowring, R. D. Holt, Lord Mulburnholme, Russel Lea, Hon. J. A. Pease, and so on, and so on, profit without end. Now will you need to ask why David Lloyd George, ambassador of God Almighty Capital, amended the Merchant Shipping Act, permitting vessels that could least afford to load deeper to do so, to the extent of 7 and 8 inches. The object was to save the ship-owners from the expense of building extra vessels, and the result was very soon apparent in the number of founderings and the consequent enornous loss of life. Numbers of ships went out to sea and were never heard of again. But in this day there was no Samuel Plimsoll, though there were 54 Labour members, who, for the most part, sat silent through it all. Greatly to their credit the late Keir Hardie and H. M. Hyndman carried on a vigorous campaign of protest, the latter even challenged Lloyd George to prosecute for the accusations he levied against him, but the Welsh lawyer was too busy “climbing.” We live in a commercial age, and the object of these lines is to call attention to the rottenness of a society in which the noble deeds of the dead can be turned to account, and even honoured, by those who batten and fatten on the living.

W. E. MacHaffie

Letter: The Plight of the Merchant Seaman (1942)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following the review of “Red Duster at War” in our June issue we received from the author a letter concerning the review. Mr. Bennett’s statement is given below, with our reviewer’s comments.

“It gave me a great deal of solid satisfaction yesterday to receive, unexpectedly, a copy of “The Socialist Standard” for June, 1942, and to read, pages 56-57, what “Ramo” has to say of my book, “The Red Duster at War.” But I want to qualify a few of his statements and criticisms, and I believe the Committee would be interested in what I have to say.

First, Ramo claims that I discuss “in a vague way” what ought to be done to improve conditions of seamen. I set myself up as a crusader, not as an authority on what lines should be followed after this war to make life at sea —and life ashore for seamen’s dependents—decent in contrast to the damnable conditions which exist even to this very day. But I have plenty of practical and 100 per cent. workable and authentic suggestions—based upon personal experience at sea and upon moves now taking place ashore behind the shipping scene—I could make. Point is, in what journal can I make those suggestions? Every newspaper and journal in Britain is scared to publicise truth, in this particular matter. Are you ?

Second, Ramo claims that I “betray no knowledge of the class divisions in society.” And how wrong he is! My God, if any unknown writer ever experienced the bitterness of class divisions, then, believe me, I have. Maybe neither the Committee nor “Ramo” is aware of what has already taken place—with Government blessing !—to affect seamen the moment the “Cease Fire” sounds? If you are in ignorance of this, and you will kindly advise me, I will tell you facts that I think will not only shock you but will convince you that my “indignation …” WILL “… find a different channel for its expression.”

Finally—although “Ramo” raises many another point I would here like to deal with, but will not—in the final sentence of the review, it is stated : ‘The only international agreement … is an agreement upon the necessity of doing away with the entire world-wide capitalist system.’ Agreed! AND IF YOU REQUIRE A PRACTICAL WRITER TO OUTLINE THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS DAMNABLE SYSTEM, SO FAR AS IT AFFECTS THE MERCHANT SEAMAN, I AM YOUR MAN. Whatever I may be invited to write for the Committee shall be written, sincerely, without any question of payment, for this is a subject very near and very dear to me.

Who am I that I should set myself up as a crusader? I am a descendant of a Dorset yeoman-farmer, who had eleven sons. One of those sons got into the habit of teaching farm-workers what was their right in life. For his pains he was arrested, tried on a charge of treason, and deported for life to Australia. Two years later there was staged the Tolpuddle affair.

I am, like the merchant seaman, neither a nitwit nor a near revolutionary. But I want to fight for Socialism. To the bitter end.

I am, Gentlemen, Sincerely,

WM. E. BENNETT.

Reply.

The author of “The Red Duster at War” disputes the statement that he betrays no knowledge of the class division of society. In making this statement, he uses the words “class divisions” (plural). Without wishing to be too academic, it must be pointed out that if a body is divided into two parts, the operation is called a division. Only when it is divided into more than two parts is it necessary to have more than one division. Hence the use of the term “divisions” seems to imply a belief in the existence of more than two classes in society. But to deal with the matter more fundamentally, a knowledge of the class division of society (we mean, of course, as understood by Socialists) implies certain things. It implies that this class division is not only one which extends throughout the whole of the capitalist world; it implies that this division of society into two classes is fundamental, transcending such temporary and artificial structures as “nations”; it implies a knowledge of the fact that governments, under capitalism, are but the executive committee of the ruling caste (the employing class), and that such governments cannot therefore be expected to act otherwise than in the interest of the employing class; it implies that while capitalism exists, there can be no hope of any permanent improvement in the lot of the workers; it implies that the only solution is to abolish capitalism with its system of wages and profits and to replace it by a classless society.

The following further quotations can be adduced from Mr. Bennett’s book : —

“Cromwell had the right idea.” (Page 180.) (This refers to the maritime laws designed to prevent the transport of goods between Britain and British possessions other than in British ships.)

“As a nation, Britain can no more afford to lose her shipbuilding industry than she can allow her shipping to be driven from the Seven Seas !” (Page 172.)

“Lord Essendon . . . seemed to hit the vital mark when he said: ‘The only way to revive British shipping and to make it profitable … is to pay due attention to the tramp-ship, which is the very foundation of the modern Mercantile Marine.’” (Page 158.)

“Or will some bright spark in some future Government suggest a plan that the Government itself makes an appearance on the oceans as shipowner? Already there has, I believe, been rather more than a hint of an official plan for a brand-new fleet of merchantmen, to be leased to shipowners for normal trading to all parts of the world on condition that the firms leasing the new, faster, more economic ships would lay up their own older vessels. Why? Why lay up any ship, so long as it can earn its salt ? I have served in antiques which provided the most pleasant returns—and surprises—for shareholders. And nobody ever runs a ship, a shop or a slop-chest merely for the fun of the thing. Or do they?” (Page 158.)

We can make no other deduction from these quotations than that the author is concerned with the increasing of British capitalistically-owned tonnage and with profits. That he may be concerned with improving the lot of the merchant seaman (which we do not dispute) is incidental. But this is not Socialism. It is typical Labourism.

It is quite possible to feel the hard knocks caused by a class division of society, without appreciating their theoretical significance or the action which should follow that appreciation, i.e., a determination to spread the knowledge which alone, when sufficiently widely diffused, will enable the workers to take the essential step of overthrowing the capitalist system in its entirety and replacing it by its logical and evolutionary successor—Socialism —a society where the whole of the means of production and distribution (including shipping) are the property of the whole of the people and operated democratically for the benefit of the whole of the people.

Nevertheless we sympathise with Mr. Bennett’s endeavours to improve the lot of the merchant seaman, and it is possible that with the greater industrialisation and combination of the shipping industry and more frequent social intercourse forced upon the merchant seamen, there will be a greater realisation of the necessity for organisation and action by the seamen to obtain better conditions. But it is still true that organisation and better conditions cannot do away with the booms and slumps which are inseparable from capitalist society, so that eventually seamen, as well as other workers, will finally reach the point of understanding that it is the system of society itself which is at fault.

Ramo.