Editorial: The Printers’ Strike. (1911)

Editorial from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the past few weeks the equanimity of London Printingdom has been disturbed by a strike of some magnitude on the question of hours. The men have taken action in support of a demand for a 48 hour week, and though at the time of writing the strike is not at an end, it looks very much as if the employees will succeed in obtaining the demand they put forward as a compromise: 50 hours immediately, and a future consideration of the 48 hours question.

Now the attitude of the orthodox Press toward this strike is full of significance. Silence can be more eloquent than speech, and their silence carries an important testimony as to the reality of the class struggle to those that have ears to hear. But of more significance than this, and of infinitely greater importance, is the attitude taken up by the men’s leaders, and reflected in the organ of the movement, the Daily Herald.

We have said that silence can be more eloquent than speech. This paper which the printers have founded to be their mouthpiece in the struggle, no less than the silence of the men’s leaders, is further evidence of that.

The dumb capitalist Press by its very silence proclaims in thunder tones the class struggle, while the quiet tongues of the strike leaders, and the still columns of their organ are vehement charges of treachery and cowardice against those who do know the true position, and a pathetic index of the ignorance of those who do not.

In every quarrel between masters and men, we take up the position that, as between masters and men, the latter can never be wrong. But in the matter of their conduct of the fight, we have seldom found a British trade union in the right—and the present strike affords no welcome exception.

Granted, in the first place, that workingmen must, however little it may affect their class position, struggle continuously to secure the best price and conditions for their labour-power, granted also that at the moment trade unions may be the most effective means to that end, still the vital thing has not been said.

After all, where does trade union effort land the workers ? After each “famous victory,” after the most famous victory that any trade unionist, as such, and under the affliction of the most violent form of palpitation of that imagination, ever dared dream of, where do the victors stand ? They may have held their own ; they may have recovered a little of what was their own. “Simply that, and nothing more.”

This much is confessed by the men’s leaders when they admit that they have been driven to the present action by the great increase of unemployment consequent upon the advance of machinery and the general speeding-up that has taken place in all branches of the printing trade. For if that is so, it is an admission that all they can hope for from victory is the regaining of some of the ground lost of recent years.

Of course, as far as the men’s action goes it is sound enough. Everyone who has anything to sell must fight for the best terms—that is a presupposed condition of the competitive market—and those who have only their labour-power to sell are no exception. But if after each battle the workers have only regained something of what they have lost, or let us even say all that they have lost; if each succeeding conflict is to find and leave them in the same state of mental torpor, with, the same paralyzing faith in the union and the strike as their economic salvation, and no outlook beyond a stronger position as sellers of labour-power, then indeed Hope may sit down by the wayside and turn her eyes backward over the way we have come—for there is nothing to gladden them in the way we are going.

For, think ! These men demanded a reduction of 4½ hours per week, and the limitations of their union are shown by their compromising, in the midst of a “winning fight,” for a 2½ hours reduction. That is less than 5 per cent. of the week’s hours. Those who know anything of the printing trade do not need to be told that this 5 per cent. reduction does not anything like counterbalance the increased output per head which has taken place in the decade or so that has slipped away since the last reduction of hours. The speeding-up and the development of, machinery in all departments have been astounding, and new processes are discovered almost daily.

In the composing department there are the Linotype and other machines, for which it is claimed that the output per man is six times that of the hand compositor. In the machine room speed has been enormously increased, and in addition mechanical contrivances are pushing the workers aside. In the case of cylinder machines, first the “flyers” got rid of the taker-off, now automatic feeders make the layer-on a superfluity. With regard to platen machines the same tale is to tell—first self-delivery, now self-feed. In newspaper production, you give the Hoe Double Octuple press half a ton of ink and a few miles of paper, and it will deliver to you 192,000 8-page papers, folded, per hour.

Magazines and the like are trimmed on all three sides simultaneously at a fearsome rate ; in the stereoing department equal strides have been made ; the process block has banished the old pictorial wood engraver so that not one of his kind now practises in this country. Even the artist and designer, who was wont to comport himself with a leisurely dignity, as one whom mechanical contrivances could not touch, has been brought to a chastened frame of mind by the camera, and may be seen plying the air-brash like a man in a mighty hurry.

In face of all this who will dare to assert that trade unionism, in winning a 5 percent. reduction in a decade, has maintained the workers’ position ? At the very moment of the strike there enters the market a new composing machine of improved form at £200 less cost ! Meanwhile the older machine develops new capabilities which enable it to eat its way into the jobbing offices. And one City firm has in position on one of its printing machines, at present under cover, lock, and key, an American automatic feeder that is going to strike consternation into the hearts of the men.

In the past this development has cheapened production and increased demand. It has given us the halfpenny morning paper—which we all read nowadays—and extended the use of advertising matter. Else had the effect of machinery been even more severely felt. But there are limits in this direction, for few of us can read two papers at once, and it is not wise to count on the abnormal increase of the cross-eyed, even to keep trade unionists in work.

And it must not be lost sight of that it is the machine the workers have to compete with. Machinery is adopted because it is cheaper; hence the very fact that this shortening of hours raises the cost of labour-power must give a fillip to the development of machinery. There is a circle of profitableness to every grade of machinery. On the fringe of that circle stand the doubters, who hesitate to adopt it. But raise the cost of labour-power and they are decided—the circle takes on a larger circumference, and the advance of machinery tumbles men out into the streets to starve.

While this in no way lessens the fact that the workers (it applies to all trades) must continually struggle against the encroachments of the masters, it shows them that the struggle is a hopeless one, and that they must look elsewhere for the true remedy for their troubles. There are among their leaders men who know this—why do they not say so ? There are among those producing their daily newspaper, men who are well aware that Socialism alone is the only hope—why, then, is no mention of the fact made ?

One reason is this—the constituencies are not ripe yet to return Socialists to Parliament, and should enlightened trade unionists demand that their officials run as Socialists, they would surely lose place and pelf.

Printers, when you have won your strike your advantage will immediately begin to slip from your hands. Socialism is the only remedy for working-class ills. We earnestly invitc you, therefore, to study Socialism.

The Bread that Perishes and Those who Make it. (1908)

From the December 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like Pouring Water in a Sieve.

Far back in the last century the Baker’s Union was formed, and although it has never enjoyed the confidence of a majority of the men engaged in bread-making, or, with the single exception of the ’89 agitation, has it contained more than a remnant within its ranks, yet probably 95 per cent. of the London bakers have been members at one time or another. They have entered its ranks, paid one or two quarters’ subscription, then, generally through disgust with the internal management, have gone to swell the lapsed, and been lost. The remnant who remain in the union recognise it for what it really is—a provident society—though they do not all understand that, in the final analysis, it operates in the interests of the master class.

The capitalist, in permitting trades unions to have a legal status, demands that they shall serve him further than the mere friendly society. This is done by all trade unions guaranteeing that their members shall not strike spontaneously, thus giving the capitalist time to prepare himself for any eventuality. The bakers do even better. In every district they have a house of call, where the unemployed foregather and await the masters’ convenience. As journeymen bakers invariably go in to work on Sunday evenings with curses on their lips, and as that is the time usually chosen to give the rack another twist, it sometimes happens that a spontaneous strike takes place. When this occurs the master rushes off to the nearest club house, where he can obtain all the men he wants. Thus trade unionists are always available to break the strike of non-union or union men. The most stoney-eyed can see how useful this is to the masters.

Putting Their Faith in the Enemy.

It is necessary for the officials of trade unions, in order to maintain their positions, to advertise themselves, and to prevent the dry rot of apathy among their followers putting a period to their existence as leaders, to invent at intervals a new slogan, such as the “All Grades Movement,” “Abolition of Night Work,” etc. The latter has been the rallying cry of the Bakers for several years past, and the pence diverted from the semi-starved wives and children of the operatives, have been spent in organising public meetings to force the bill for the abolition of night work and the limitation of the hours of labour through the Imperial Parliament, and also to pay the expenses of delegates to the House of Commons. These genuflected before Liberal, Lib-Lab and Lab-Lib M.P.s, humbly beseeching their help in pushing the “Charter of Emancipation” through. At the public meetings the men were assured by hired speakers that no compromise would be considered. The damnable system of night work was to cease. The abominable slavery of 80 to 100 hours a week was to be kicked into the limbo of the past. Many arguments were advanced to show the sweet reasonableness of their “demands,” the most nauseating being the cant of the “Christian Socialists.” Everything was working up for the final onslaught, when, as invariably happens in trade union agitations, as the hour of deliverance was about to strike, there came the anti-climax.

Dilly, Dilly Come and be Killed.

A cold douche quenched any hopes that might be still, flicking in the breasts of the oft-deluded operatives in the form of a circular letter to the branches of the union. This letter ran as follows :

“I am directed by my Committee to ask your members to approve of the proposed alteration in the Eight Hours Bill.

We consider that the Bill stands an infinitely better chance of passing with the clause deleted and personally I believe that even if the Bill in its present form was to pass its second reading that particular clause would come out in committee. By deleting it we at once disarm three-fourths of the opposition to the measure which has hitherto been based largely upon the alleged impossibility (if the Bill were passed) of supplying the early morning roll and restaurant trade.

Factory bakery proprietors say, not without reason, that it would handicap them in competing with the small shops, and some of the larger shops object on the score of the very large amount of capital they would have to spend in building additional bake houses.

Some of the Liberal M.P.s whom we recently interviewed expressed the opinion that as a matter of policy there is no doubt that it would be far and away the best to make the issue a clear and straight one of Long Hours v. Short Hours, and not to give the employers the opportunity of going off on a side issue.

Of course, the districts which have day work would still be able to retain it by trade union action, and others might regain it by the same method.

Yours very truly,

Louis A. Hill,

29 May, 1908.”

Absurdity can go No Further.

Can anyone conceive of a document drafted with a more tender solicitude for the welfare of the enemy, the capitalist wolves? It abandons the main position under cover of presenting a straight issue. The one clause that did stand a dog’s chance of getting on to the statute book, and being enforced when there, was the night work clause, for the very cogent reason that an overwhelming case could be made out to prove that it is necessary in order to ensure that foodstuffs should be produced under wholesome conditions. Many bakers have collected ample materials to prove that bakeries, not only the catacomb bakeries, but some of the more modern factories, are centres for the propagation and dissemination of loathsome infections and contagious diseases, and that this state of affairs is the lowering of the vitality, and consequent disease among the operatives caused by night work and the long hours which are possible only under that system.

Let Criticism Begin At Home.

That, and the question of wholesome ingredients, must be dealt with from a Socialist workman’s point of view. When I have leisure, and as I am fast approaching the “scrapping age,” it shall be done. Once get the howling pack of Christian profit-hunters, who shriek anathemas at Leopold the Amorous from our garden city suburbs for the atrocities perpetrated in the collection of “red rubber” on the Congo, and who view with callous indifference the cruel slaughter of their compatriots in the production of white bread, to realise that this system re-acts against their material interests, the only chord to which they respond, that these flagrant outrages against the laws of Nature spell for them, too, impaired health, disease, and its consequent loss of treasure, and your precious reform is accomplished, nay, is forced on you, willy-nilly, and you would not be consulted on the matter.*

As regards the straight issue, Long v. Short Hours, the veriest political tyro knows the powerful interests which oppose the principle of limiting men’s labour by legal enactment, knows that the bell-wethers of the miners, those “gaseous vertibrates,” called labour leaders, cannot lead their followers to victory. Miners number many more thousands than bakers do tens, are splendidly organised from a trade union point of view, and have been “demanding” the eight hours’ day for twenty-five years, If the miners are in such a parlous state what chance do the poor bakers stand, except by frightening the capitalist parties through their stomachs ?

Twenty Four Hour Day Not Sufficient.

The peremptory stoppage of night work would automatically curtail the hours of labour, as is well known to the masters’ spokesmen. If a man started work at 6 a.m. and wrought till midnight he would only then have completed an eighteen hours’ day, whereas it is not uncommon for a baker to see the clock round twice at the week-end. Every baker knows that it breaks a master’s heart to see his men go home at ten o’clock in the morning, after having done twelve hours slogging. The day is at its busiest, and under a score of pretexts first one hour then another is added to the night’s work until one night is driven into the next, and the baker is robbed of all that makes life endurable. He comes out late in the day completely exhausted, his eyes are dazzled by the daylight; and if he takes one “half ale” he is fuddled, two and he is “blindo.” The nasty, drunken beast !

The last sentence in Mr. Hill’s letter is comic in view of the position of the cotton operatives, the awful plight of the railway men, and the utter rout of “the most powerful and the most perfect type of trade union in the world,” the engineers. The fact is the bakers can obtain nothing by trade union organisation, nor could they if 95 per cent. were organised. Their position has gradually become worse, their skill is fast becoming needless, they are being reduced to the status of the unskilled labourers, who can, and are, taking their places as machine tenders. They are a diminishing number, owing to the introduction of machinery doubling and redoubling the output per man in what is a limited trade, and while their nominal wages have risen slightly, their real wages have gone down considerably, for they have lost their allowance of bread and flour, sack money (which at one time amounted to several shillings weekly), yeast money, millers’ Xmas boxes, and other extras, and by mid-week many of them are “broke to the world,” as they phrase it—yet they never spend any money. Their jobs are more precarious, and they are “scrapped” at an earlier age as regular hands and become jobbers—especially now they are so inconsiderate as to lie down and die in the bake-house, or drop down in the street as they wend homeward.

No reform or series of reforms can touch that position. No trade union can act even as a brake to steady the downward rush. As the years roll by capital gets more aggressive, more relentless and its engines of death act with more deadly precision. The trade union is a spent force: capital can no longer be fought with the velvet glove. The only effective means is an economic revolution. The issue has too long been obscured by the thousands of tricky liars who prostitute their talents for grub. None have done it so effectively, or so cheaply to the capitalist, as those who have posed as labour leaders and dissipated the energies of the working class by focussing their attention on this or that trumpery reform that does not matter, while pumping an income from the stomachs of the starving women and children of the proletariat. Signs are manifold that their baneful influence is at last waning. We are now face to face with the fact that the class ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth, in the final analysis, spells, not “race suicide,” but race murder. There is no other name for it. There is no social problem to the Socialist. He has the key to the situation. He alone recognises with joy that society is in the melting-pot of the Social Revolution, and that the issue will be—must be—Socialism or annihilation.

J. Smith.

* Since this was written Mr. Haldane has said (Ladybank, Sept 26) that the Government “had to deal with the prevention of diseases among the poor, in the interest not merely of the individual, but of the State.”

The Shorter Working Week in Australia: What it means to the workers (1933)

From the October 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the present time, throughout the world, there is much talk about the shorter working week. Mussolini has made some suggestions to the League of Nations .on the question; President Roosevelt has intimated that he intends taking steps to reduce the working week in the United States; the Australian Trade Union Congress carried resolutions calling upon workers to organise to bring about a reduction in hours so that unemployment might be decreased. Recently the workers in Queensland applied to the State authorities for a forty-hour week.

In addition to the above the Communists have been agitating for a thirty-hour week of five days. In a pamphlet issued by the Communist Party of Australia, in 1931, entitled “The Communist way out of the Crisis," we find the following: —

By introducing the seven-hour day and the five-day week, and by raising the purchasing power of the masses, we will abolish unemployment. (Page 6.)

The shallowness of the Communist Party's economics is revealed here; even the Trades Union Congress did not propose to abolish unemployment with its thirty-hour week.

Less Hours—More Wealth

The history of capitalism shows that the introduction of a shorter working week does not mean the absorption of more workers to keep up the output. When the factory system began there were few regulations governing the length of time a worker could be kept on the job. Sixteen and eighteen hours per day in English factories was a common occurrence; workers were worked even longer, and such conditions exist in many workshops in Japan to-day.

In England the twelve-hour day became general and, subsequently, by legislative enactment, the ten-hour day was introduced. In Australia, for many years, there has been a legally-fixed eight-hour working day, and it is a proud boast of many old-timers that they participated in the fight for eight hours’ work, eight hours’ recreation, and eight hours’ rest. In some individual workshops such as Lever Bros., Port Sunlight, there is a six-hour working day.

Recently, in Sydney, New South Wales, the Industrial Commission inquired into the question of the working week. The Government desired to restore the forty-eight instead of the existing forty-four-hour week. The President of the Trade Union Secretaries’ Association presented the following remarkable facts at the inquiry:—

“The productive capacity of the industries of this State was greater than those in Victoria before the introduction of the 44-hour week in New South Wales, and was greater since the introduction of the shorter working week; also that for a given amount of goods the percentage outlay on wages in New South Wales was less than in Victoria (48-hour week) and the margin available for profit and interest was greater in New South Wales than in Victoria prior to and during the operation of the 44-hour week.

“A table of statistics from official sources showed that the percentage of wages to value of output in 1930-31 was 21.7 in New South Wales, and 22.86 in Victoria. The average value of production per employee was: 

"The average production in New South Wales had been considerably higher in this period, which included the depression year, than in Victoria. In the years 1926-7 to 1929-80, when the 44-hour Act was enforced in New South Wales, the production per employee rose by £21 in New South Wales and by £3 in Victoria—SEVEN TIMES GREATER.

"These figures demonstrated that a reduction in standard hours not only maintained but improved the productive capacity of employees”

(Labour Daily, 17/3/33.) 

Yet, in the same issue of the Labour Daily, Alderman J. S. Garden, of Sydney City Council, Secretary of the Trades Hall Council, prominent member of the Australian Labour Party, and one of Mr Lang’s foremost boosters, while speaking on unemployment, stated: —

“ . . .  the people who were advocating 'complete socialism or nothing’ were talking absolute nonsense. . . . The basis on which the forthcoming campaign is to be waged will be a thirty-hour working week, restoration of wage cuts, etc. . .

(Labour Daily, 17/3/33.) 

The knowledge that the “forthcoming campaign” will be based upon the advocacy of a shorter working week will bring little consolation to the workless after they glance through the statistics set out above.

These statistics reflect the result of the application of more up-to-date machinery to the productive process. The employers invariably find ways and means of adjusting their plant and methods when such concessions are forced from them. When we point this out we are not to be taken as being against the introduction of a shorter working week; we merely stress its ineffectiveness as a solution for unemployment.

As long as the means of production are owned and controlled by the capitalist class, that class will reap the benefits of the increased application of machinery. They own the products and decide how they will be distributed.

The lesson to be learned is that if the workers, as a class, are to gain from improvements in the means of production, they must organise on a class basis for the conquest of political power to bring about the common ownership of the means of wealth production. This is the aim of the Socialist Party. What about falling into line with us, fellow-workers?

W. J. Clarke,

Socialist Party of Australia, Melbourne.

Who are the Impossibilists? (1908)

From the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is obvious that the revolutionary attitude of the S.P.G.B. is making headway within the ranks of the S.D.P. It is recognised by many members of the latter organisation that the advocacy of reforms is not the work of a Socialist.

The Duty of a Socialist

(in his capacity as propagandist) is to explain briefly and lucidly the position the working class occupy to-day. He must bring the worker to understand that he is a wage slave, compelled by dire necessity to sell his labour-power in return for wages. He must teach the worker to recognise that he belongs to a class who are— and will be—kept in economic bondage until the arrival and institution of the Socialist Republic. This method of propaganda—certainly the correct one—adopted by the S.P.G.B. is growing with such rapidity that the wire-pullers of the S.D.P. can no longer pursue a policy of ignoring methods.

Some time has elapsed since Harry Quelch announced his intention of dealing with “impossibilism,” and of proving the necessity of the advocacy of certain reforms beneficial to the working-class. Behold, now, the long promised article (Justice, June 13/08). The article was a reply to the following letter submitted to “Tattler” :—

“I have also had the following letter handed to me by the Editor :—

“Dear Comrade,—Will you clear up for me the following point—viz., the position of our organisation towards impossibilism ? The controversy between the impossibilists and the S.D.P. I am unable to clear up to my own satisfaction. Socialism teaches that there is an iron law of wages which drags down wages to the level of subsistence. If this is a fact, how can any reform alter the operation of this law ? In other words, is not a poverty-stricken working class a necessity under capitalism ? In reference to unemployment, if unemployment is a necessity of the ruling class, what is the use of appealing to that class for the right to work ? I have heard our comrade Hyndman say that the provision of work for the unemployed would mean the collapse of capitalism. But capitalism being the cause of unemployment, to abolish unemployment is it not necessary to first abolish capitalism ? Dear comrade, if you will solve this problem for me you will earn my gratitude.”

Our organisation is opposed to “impossibilism” because it is impossibilism, and we are Social-Democrats, not impossibilists. The impossibilist position may be summed up as follows: The emancipation of the working-class can only be achieved by the working-class themselves. In order for the working class to achieve its emancipation it is necessary that the workers should be educated, organised and class-conscious. But no reforms of any advantage to the workers are possible under capitalism ; therefore the workers cannot become educated, etc., until they have emancipated themselves; yet they cannot emancipate themselves until they are educated.”

“Tattler’s” summing up of the impossibilist position contains some truth, and we recognise its truth because the italicised passages may be used against the reform-mongering parties like the S.D.P. and the I.L.P., i.e., “We do not preach pure Socialism to the workers because they do not understand it, and they do not understand it because we preach reforms instead,” say these parties.

The argument from our point of view turns upon

What is Meant by Education.

If “Tattler” takes education in its narrowest sense, then the educated class and snobocracy of the universities should be revolutionary to the core. That such is not the case, however, even “Tattler” knows. Does education necessarily mean a knowledge of the higher mathematics, Greek, and chemistry ? No ! Education from the Socialist point of view is a recognition of that class antagonism prevalent in society to-day, and a consciousness that the workers as a class must combine in opposition to the capitalist class and its supporters for the purpose of taking, holding, and controlling the political machine, and subsequently the means of life, in their own interest.

The full recognition of this basic principle of Socialist propaganda and of the uncompromising action necessary to the attainment of the above object is absolutely essential from our point of view, and the moment the individual unit of society recognises this and acts accordingly, he is, from the Socialist view-point, educated.

Unless the workers are educated in this sense all efforts at emancipation will be as futile as those already attempted. And that is why “they cannot emancipate themselves until they are educated.”

The administration of education at present lies in the hands of the capitalist class, who will take care that only those subjects tending to keep the workers in subjection, and to make them

More Efficient Producers

shall be taught. The education in Socialist principles takes place after the worker has had his mind chloriformed by the paid agents of the capitalist class.

But before leaving this we may point out that the S.D.P., whilst believing in the class war, has many prominent members of its organisation who state that, in the struggle for working-class emancipation the workers will be led and guided by members of the middle class. They are, apparently, ignorant of the fact that Socialism will not arrive until the class war has reached its most acute stage. It will then be a struggle between two classes—the working class and the capitalist class. It is difficult to discern where another class comes in.

“Tattler” admits that “as long as capitalism lasts there will be unemployed,” which admission proves the futility and fatuity of approaching the capitalist class for measures of alleviation. Such being the case, it should be the duty of the S.D.P.—instead of advocating the “Right to Work”—to teach the worker that demands a large margin of unemployed in order to keep down wages and the standard of living, and to give an increase in profits. Instead, the S.D.P. have for 25 years marched battalions of unemployed from one end of the country to the other, gulling, defrauding, and deceiving the industrial outcasts by telling them this, that and the other Bill will help them. The S.D.P. know perfectly well that the capitalist class will not, in fact, dare not, tamper with the unemployed problem. That is the rock upon which capitalism rests. Take it away and your whole system is abolished. Do the S.D.P. think the capitalist class are going to interfere, knowingly, with their own interests ?

If remedial measures were of any good, how is it that to-day there are

A Larger Number of Unemployed

than ever. Frederick Engels wrote in 1886 the following : “Meanwhile each succeeding winter brings up afresh the great question ‘what to do with the unemployed ‘; but while the number of the unemployed keep swelling from year to year, there is no answer to that question.” Since that date the number of unemployed has increased. Industrial development and the perfection of machinery grows apace ; with that goes the displacement of human labour arid consequently an increase of the unemployed. Karl Marx states in “Das Capital,” “Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital . . . grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation ; but with this grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself.”

Along with the exploitation of the working class grows the increasing intelligence of the workers, who are being organised in order that when the inevitable collapse of the present system takes place, they, the workers, will be competent to deal with the new method and state of society. We, as Socialists, must point out that Socialism is the only hope. That is our aim. That is our sole object. The S.D.P. do not do so, but waste their time deluding the working class into believing that some reforms are good. The “impossibilist” method will not prevent reforms being given by the capitalist class, nor can we avoid accepting reform measures passed by the governing class when it suits their interest to do so. What does matter is the wasting of energies and activities upon the advocacy of reforms, the splitting up of the forces of the workers into opposing factions, each desirous of seeing its own particular pet and paltry palliative pushed persistently and prominently before all others. In these circumstances the workers are necessarily lacking in the one common principle to which all could give allegiance.

The S.D.P. have 48 palliatives down for immediate enactment.

Note the Confusion

existing in that organisation. Harry Quelch’s principle desire is to see a “Citizen Army” in existence. Hyndman says that Payment of Members’ Election Expenses is the most important. Mrs. Bridges Adams and “Comrade” Warwick insist on the agitation for the Feeding of School Children being the first object of S.D.P. propagandists. Some advocate Old Age Pensions at an age when the majority of the workers are dead; others say that an important reform is the Municipalisation of the Pawnshops, while Mr. J. F. Green says the Eight Hour Day is a measure that he “would like to see in the forefront.” We anticipate being told that these are but individual members, but each of them has his own particular coterie of supporters, and further, each, of the reforms advocated by them and their following is on the list of “immediate reforms” wanted by the S.D.P. It must be borne in mind that while these reforms are being advocated Socialism is being neglected and put in the background. If this is not so then reform and Socialism are synonymous terms, according to the S.D.P.

But then “Tattler” again disagrees and says “There are two directions in which reforms at the present moment could materially benefit the worker,” viz., by a reduction of the hours of labour and, the better housing of the poor. With reference to the first of these it must be remembered that the shorter working day generally means a greater intensity of labour during the time the worker is employed, the

Increased Strain

being met by the greater period for recuperation.

Many instances have been cited in the Socialist Standard where a reduction in the hours of labour has led to an increase of unemployed in the particular trade affected. Such increase of production with fewer working hours causes the market to become overstocked owing to the non-effective demand for the commodities produced to excess. During these periods of glutted markets the workers who were employed producing the goods are either placed on short time or cease work until those stocks are depleted.

“Tattler” tells us that it is because the hours of labour devoted to the production of surplus-value are decreased that capitalists always fight against any reduction of the working day. There may be some exceptions to the rule, but very few capitalists revert to a ten hour day after trying one of eight hours. Messrs. Lever Bros., Mather & Platts, Allaij & Co., Brunner Mond, and other firms have not built up their great businesses on a system detrimental to their own interests.

Says “Tattler” (same article) :—

“Granted that a certain proportion of the day’s labour is necessary labour, it is quite clear that the amount of exploitation and of surplus value is in direct proportion to the prolongation of the working day. Thus, given a day of ten hours, four of which represent necessary labour, there are six hours devoted to the production of surplus value. The worker works, then, four hours for himself and six for the capitalist. If the hours are reduced to eight, everything else remaining equal, the worker then only works four hours for the capitalist instead of six. That is certainly a material advantage, and it is quite easy to understand, therefore, the vehemence with which the capitalists always fight against any reduction of the working-day.”

“Everything else remaining equal” Mr. Quelch (or “Tattler,” or the Editor of Justice— they are all the same chap) may have a case. It is precisely because everything else doesn’t remain equal that he has none. It must be recognised that if the workers obtain any

Material Advantage

it can only be taken from the capitalist class, who lose thereby. All statistics in connection with the production of wealth prove conclusively that, in spite of the reduction of the hours of labour, the workers (who produce all the wealth) are becoming poorer and poorer, whilst the idle and luxurious capitalist class get richer. Marx has pointed out that, in connection with the reduction of the hours from 12 to 10 per day, “The denser hour of the 10 hours working-day contains more labour—i.e., expended labour power, than the more porous hour of the 12 hour working day. The product, therefore, of one of the former hours has as much or more value than the product of one and one-fifth of the latter hours. Apart from the increased yield of relative surplus-value through the heightened productiveness of labour, the same mass of value is now produced for the capitalist say by three and one-third hours of surplus labour and six and two thirds of necessary labour, as was previously produced by four hours of surplus labour and eight hours of necessary labour.”

The worthy “Tattler” has manufactured a premis not of fact in order to justify a specious argument. Knock away the premis and the bottom is out of the case. By the “Tattler” method anything can be proven. From the Socialist point of view his position on Housing is also wrong. Houses to-day are erected, not for living in, but for the purpose of making profit. If the habitations in the “garden cities” produce more profit than those in the slums, it is reasonable to assume the gradual disappearance and demolition of Slumdom. The wages in Bournville, Port Sunlight, Ancoats and Whitechapel are in each case determined by the cost of subsistence. The “garden cities” mentioned naturally produce better and more efficient wage slaves than those in the slums.

No matter how we turn, no matter what reform is instituted, there the capitalist class, controlling political power and holding the wires of the administrative machinery, are able to use the same to their own advantage.

“Tattler” then concludes :

“At the same time it must be borne in mind that the tendency is always, not only to keep wages down to the subsistence level, but also to lower the level by reducing the standard of comfort.”

These remarks prove

The Logical Position

of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Because the tendency is always on the downward grade, notwithstanding the remedial measures advocated by the S.D.P. and other reform organisations, reform is absolutely useless, as it cannot, on “Tattler’s” own admission, prevent the downward grade. It is evident, then, that the education of the working class must proceed on lines identical with the policy of the S.P.G.B. Whatever the party, the workers can only achieve their emancipation on such lines. Socialism itself implies a scientific organisation of industry, and this can only be realised by class-conscious Socialists.

—CONCILIO ET LABORE

International Notes. (1908)

From the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Interesting Experiment

Paul Grados, in the May Day number of the Guesdist organ, states that in the course of an address at Limoges in 1892, Dr. Napias – who was later appointed chief of the Assistance Publique – recalled an experiment by Pattenkofer and Voit on the degree of resistance of the human organism to bodily fatigue.

A vigorous workman was selected who could take a normal repose, and who received a substantial nourishment; then, said Dr. Napias, he was made to exert a muscular effort that was calculated mathematically and which corresponded to the expenditure of average labour – and that during nine hours.

Well, it was ascertained that at the end of twenty-four hours his organism had a deficit of 192 grammes of oxygen which he had had to borrow from his own tissues. Neither the rest that he had taken nor the food that had been given him had sufficed to completely repair the tissues used up during nine hours’ work.

It is therefore shown scientifically that nine hours of daily labour exceed the forces of the human economy. This is doubtless mainly responsible for the much shorter duration of the lives of working men as compared with the longevity of members of the leisured class. The movement toward a lessening of the working day that is favoured by many capitalists is therefore not surprising. Its object, indeed, is simply to extort the maximum of effort – from the human machine.

#    #    #    #

The Fetish of Unity.

To the gushing sentimentalist the word Unity is as the Ark of the Covenant. Insistence upon the necessity for agreement on principles, on methods, and above all on the object in view, is scorned as sectarianism and as heresy against most holy Unity by such worshippers of empty forms. True unity is a means to an end. First of all the essentials regarding the end to be sought and the means to that end must be agreed upon, for “unity”without this is unity in impotence, being without everything that makes unity useful, namely, common principles, methods, and aims. Unity under any other conditions than that of agreement on the essentials of aims and methods is like tying cats together by their tails.

Our French comrades are finding this out. Rappoport, after a word in praise of what he calls international discipline, lets the cats out of the bag when he says in Le Socialisme: “Besides, unity is not a restriction. It does not hinder even those who pine for the old ‘dangerous alliances’, and of the false households of three with the ‘Democracy’. It does not even prevent certain members of the party from calumniating fraternally their ‘dear comrades’, and from persecuting them with their deadly hate. Unity is therefore an excellent thing from every point of view, especially if, as we hope, American comrades will not inflict anarchists and those with anarchist methods upon themselves as companions of the road – the false road.”

Ch. Bonnier, in a later issue of the same journal, also confesses that “the great trouble with the French Parti Socialiste is that it falls continually from the fever of anarchism into the heat-sickness of radicalism; never can it grasp its true class policy, never can it understand that it is entirely apart, and that it has not to do the work of the others. How many times has not the spook of reaction caused it to fall into the arms of its born exploiters – the radicals?”

In short, the only unity worth worrying about is Socialist unity, and most of those who gush about the words have still to realise what they mean.

F. C. Watts

The Workers’ Share. (1908)

From the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Morning Advertiser, commenting upon the unemployed problem, said : —

“It is an old fallacy that shortening the hours of labour of those who have work will enable those who have no work to find it. If, indeed, it were the case that the shortening of his hours increased the efficiency, and therefore the productiveness, of the worker, such an effect might be produced. But there are probably very few cases in which this would be so; and of those the Socialists were certainly not thinking. They mean by shortening the man’s hours to reduce the product of his day’s work. The result would be diminished wealth, and consequently diminished opportunities for employment.”

Socialists do, indeed, realise that in the reduction of unemployment the reduction of hours is only of use in so far as it necessitates the employment of more wage workers. The wily Advertiser scents the danger of a knowledge of this antagonism of interests, and hastens to assure its readers that the reduction of hours could only alleviate unemployment if it increased the efficiency and output of labour, and so, as it certainly would, enabled more work to be done by fewer men ! True, the Advertiser did not say which unemployed. One can quite understand an improvement in the lot of the wealthy unemployed following upon a decrease in in their wages bill and an increase in their wealth.

The interests of that class demand greater efficiency and productivity on the part of the workers, together with a reduction in that portion of the total wealth spent in wages. And the organ of Bung so puts the matter as to convey the idea (which is greedily swallowed by the Labourites who do not realise, or do not want to realise, the fact of the class antagonism) that capital and labour are brothers sharing proportionately out of the bowl into which the total produce of labour is poured. The labourer, however, is a hireling and not a partner. Out of the total wealth his labour produces he gets but his keep while lucky enough to be employed. The more he produces and the quicker the demand of the market is met, the less of his fellows are employed, the sooner is he thrown out of work, and the smaller in proportion is the aggregate share the workers obtain out of the total wealth produced.

It is not, then, as the Advertiser would have it, a question of the increase or decrease in the total wealth, but rather a question of the increase in the number of workers that the master class needs to employ and pay in the production of that wealth. It is a question, in other words, of the share of the total product which the workers obtain, not of its total amount.

The Socialist realises that out of the total product of labour the more the workers get the less remains for the idlers. The worker’s interests under capitalism are rather in the direction of promoting the waste of wealth than in promoting its increase. Not overflowing warehouses, stores and shops and glutted markets, but the destruction of accumulated stocks of commodities and of all kinds of property that must be replaced is the worker’s desire under capitalism, so that he and his fellows may have plenty of work, and of wages sufficient to live upon. It is, therefore, idle for the Advertiser to pretend that the workers’ share cannot increase unless the total produce is increased. Such, however, is the normal capitalist view of things. But, to paraphrase Marx, it is forgotten that the bowl from which the workmen eat is filled with the whole produce of labour, and what prevents them fetching more out is neither the narrowness of the bowl nor the scantiness of its contents, but only the smallness of their spoons.

While capitalism endures the share of the “national” wealth that is obtained by the workers is determined not by the amount of the total wealth but by the condition of the labour market and the strength of the workers in their struggle against the possessing class. Not in the increase of the “national” wealth, but in the increase of their share in it, is the wage-slave class primarily concerned. It is, indeed, the very impotence of the workers in their attempts to increase their share of the total produce of their labour, so long as capitalism is, that must compel them to realise at last, the only way ; and that is through the overthrow of capitalist rule and in social production for themselves.

F. C. Watts

Economic laws in operation. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Economic laws are as exacting as any other laws, and if violated they enforced penalties.”

So said Mr. Meredith Whittaker at the conference between masters and men during the printers’ strike, over which he presided last January.

The forty-eight hour week proposal was, of course, tha main subject discussed. The men’s argument was that a reduction of hours must of necessity lessen unemployment, but Mr. Whittaker took quite another view. By the process of, as he termed it, “dipping into” official figures on the subject, he appeared to give incontrovertible proof that the reduction of printers’ hours in the past had hardly effected such a highly desirable result.

“We contest the assertion,” Mr. Whittaker said, “that the shortening of hours reduces the number of unemployed. You secured in 1901 a reduction of 1½ hours per week, nearly 3 percent. the average ; and you sought this largely—you pressed for it—because you said you would solve the unemployment question within your own area or your own society. You got a reduction of hours equivalent to 3 per cent. If the same amount of work had been done it would have necessitated the employment of 3 per cent. more of your members. What was the effect ? The average unemployment in the London Society of Compositors for the five years before 1901 was 2.8 per cent. You were going to wipe that out and have no unemployment in view. You got a reduction in hours, but the panacea did not cure the complaint. It was the wrong medicine. The average for unemployment for the five years after 1901 was 4.4 per cent. When you were working 54 hours your unemployment was 2.58 per cent. The hours were reduced to 52½ and your unemployment percentage leaped up to 4.4.”

The above is an extract from “The Organiser,” issued in May last. The opening statement should be borne in mind by the working class when they are extorted by their leaders to chase airy nothings in the shape of eight hours bills and other capitalist reforms as a remedy for unemployment.

Whenever a reduction of hours takes place either by or against the will of the masters, economic laws sooner or later assert themselves, and the workers are no better off than before. The shortened working time is amply compensated for by the introduction of more efficient machinery and a general all-round “hustle.” Mr. Whittaker said that unemployment is a national question. We go further and say it is international, for wherever the modern industrial system holds sway unemployment exists, and the average condition of the workers of all nations is the same, i.e., they work hard and are poor.

So we have it in plain language from a representative of the master class, that “palliatives” do not tend to abolish unemployment in the least—naturally he did not attempt to show that there could be a remedy.

We Socialists point out the fact that unemployment is inherent in capitalist society, and can only be abolished by abolishing the system of society which gives rise to it. To this end, in spite of the seeming tallness of the order, the working class must organise themselves into a political party conscious of their interest at all times. Then, and then only, will any progress be made. The nucleus of this great party, we say, is the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and if you are class-conscious, join it now.

A. J. G.

Editorial: The Eight Hour Day. (1908)

Editorial from the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Eight Hour Day.

The speeding up of the workman, the ever-growing intensity of the labour exacted from him, renders imperative a longer repose so that he may recuperate his working strength and maintain his maximum productivity. Hence flows the modern tendency toward shorter hours so that the profitableness of the worker to the capitalist may increase. It is the necessary and inevitable outcome of modern industrial conditions even from the capitalist point of view, and is by no means a sign of victory over the ruling class.

If the champions of the eight hour day were to confine themselves to stating the truth about their pet reform there would be little need to quarrel with them, but when they claim as one of the virtues of the eight hour day that it will abolish or greatly reduce unemployment, we join issue. It is rankest charlatanism to foist a piece of some necessary capitalistic patchwork upon the slow-minded as the remedy for the workers’ greatest ill, yet, unfortunately, it is the characteristic procedure of the labour leader.

In the present instance, if the reduction of working hours is to bring about more employment, it could only be by decreasing the output per man, and providing more work by causing the employment of more men to produce the same amount as before. But would it have any such effect ? So far as positive evidence goes it is directly against any presumption of a lessening of the output per man. Even past masters in the art of red-herring trailing give themselves away at times. Thus Sidney Webb and Harold Cox in their book, “The Eight Hour Day,” state in considering the result of a general reduction of the hours of labour in all trades that—

“The successive reductions of the hours of labour which this century has witnessed have been attended, after a very short interval, by a positive general increase in individual productivity. In many cases it has been found that the workers did more in ten hours than their predecessors in twelve. The effort to get more than a certain amount of work out of a man defeats itself.”

__________

The question that matters.

Instance after instance is given of the increase in efficiency and output that follows the reduction of the working day, showing how chimerical is the idea that a slight reduction in hours will put the unemployed in work.

Even as recently as the opening of the Mining Exhibition at Olympia on July 11th evidence was given of the normal result of a shortening of hours. Thus Lord Airedale of Gledhow: —

“In regard to the question of an Eight Hour Day, and of the consequent restriction of the hours of labour in mines, and the question of the increased cost that they were threatened with by mine owners, owing to the difficulties arising from the limitation of hours, he ventured to think that from what they saw that day of coal machinery, the mining engineers of that country would rise to the situation, and by the application of technical knowledge, he believed the threatened crisis would really not arise. It was cheering to note by such exhibitions that mechanical invention knew no end, and if it paid to use machinery when increased cost of labour came in, they might be assured that the difficulty would be successfully dealt with.”

It should be clear, then, that however necessary to capitalist development the reduction of the hours of labour may be, and however useful it may be in other respects, yet it most certainly is not the panacea for the great and growing evil of unemployment that its champions would have us believe. Besides, the question which overshadows all others in the eyes of the worker conscious of his position is not the paltry juggle with hours of labour, but rather the vital question of to whom shall the product of these working hours go ?

The workers, indeed, instead of wasting precious time and energy discussing and petitioning as to the particular sauce with which they are to be eaten, should at last awaken to the fact that it is not necessary that they should be eaten at all, and should take their stand with us accordingly.

50 Years Ago: Shorter Hours No Cure for Unemployment (1982)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Various Labour leaders, having therefore rejected the idea of shorter hours with reduced wages, have stood firmly by the notion that the problem can be solved if hours are reduced and wages left unchanged. The Transport and General Workers’ Union have made much of an agreement fixed up with Mander Brothers, paint manufacturers, of Wolverhampton, under which hours are reduced from 47 to 40 without reduction of the minimum rates of pay. The agreement may or may not be a satisfactory one in other respects, but it certainly does not show a way of remedying unemployment, for the change is accompanied by a reorganisation of the works and the introduction of a new system of piece-rates winch will increase the output per head of the workers and will result in eventual dismissal of redundant staff. The only guarantee is that no dismissals shall take place for six months and that the dismissed men will then receive some “compensation.” In the meantime, the increased output at smaller costs will enable Manders to undersell their competitors and throw their workers into the ranks of the unemployed.

[From an editorial in the Socialist Standard December 1932]

A Look Round. (1906)

From the December 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the National Anti-sweating Conference held recently at the Guildhall, and opened by the Lord Mayor, Mr. Stephen Walsh, M.P., declared that, despite their powerful organisation, the Lancashire miners are in a worse condition to-day than they were in eighteen years ago !

* * *

During the Conference Mr. D. J. Shackleton, M.P., vigorously defended child labour, and appealed to the delegates to let Socialism alone and concentrate their energies upon “something practical.”

* * *

Mr. Shackleton is vice-chairman of the Labour Party in the House of Commons, lately called the L.R.C. Under its auspices various members of the S.D.F. and I.L.P. have run as “Labour” candidates, in order to get the financial support of affiliated trade unionists.

* * *

The Workmen’s National Housing Council, judging by its Seventh Annual Report, seems to be in a jubilant mood. There are affiliated sixty trade unions, without counting branches, forty-three trades councils, with a few other bodies. During the general election it issued a simple test question to all candidates and received a very large harvest of replies, many of them being very encouraging. Still more encouraging, we are told, is the fact that after persistent attention from the Council lavished on those members who promised to get financial aid for housing from the Imperial Exchequer, and the constant stirring up of ministers, the Government are now committed to the principle, and promise for rural England, Scotland, and Wales, something similar to the Irish Labourers’ Bill— cheap money and plenty of it—4¼ millions at 3¼ per cent. for inclusive money charges. This will be of great assistance when it is fulfilled, and the Council are on the point of asking far the moral support of every affiliated body to keep the Government up to the scratch next session ! That’s progress !

* * *

It will take something more than “moral pressure” to induce the capitalist class to do the only thing that will benefit the working class, viz., get off the workers’ backs.

* * *

The “test questions for candidates” is a favorite game of the reform politicians. Obviously if any body of men submit certain questions to candidates they must support the candidates who reply favorably and oppose those who do not. Thus we have the S.D.F. and I.L.P., through their affiliation to the National Workmen’s Housing Council, supporting capitalist candidates, whilst “in another place” declaring those candidates to be working class enemies.

* * *

The S.P.G.B. is out for the abolition of the capitalist system, not its patching up. It therefore wastes no time on so-called reforms, but aims straight for revolution.

* * *

In dealing with a complaint that tramway men often found their day of ten hours was spread over fifteen, Captain Hemphill at the L.C.C. said the facts were not as stated, but that the question was receiving the very careful attention of the Committee, who hoped to bring up a report at an early date. This really means, reading between the lines, that the “ten hours’ day” for tramway employees is another Progressive lie.

* * *

Captain Hemphill also said that the Council had recently spent a sum of £1,500 a year more than had been spent by the old companies, with a view of reducing inconvenience to the men.

* * *

Improvements in the means of transit tend to increase the ratio of exploitation of the workers, whether employed by the private trust, or the public monopoly form of capitalism. Drivers and conductors of modern electric tramcars are subject to a very much greater menial and physical strain than were those of the old horse cars, but their wages are practically the same, and even when higher, the increase is in no sense proportionate to their extra wear and tear. The same applies to motor bus and railway workers.

* * *

Mr. R. Bell, M.P., emphasised this in his Annual Report to the recently held Congress at Cardiff. During 1905, he said, the goods train mileage decreased by 400,000 miles in spite of an increase of 11,300,000 tons in goods carried. To have carried the goods traffic of 1905 under the conditions of 1900 would have required over 2,500 more engines and sets of men. Calculating four men to each engine—driver, fireman, cleaner, and guard—this would have meant an increased staff of at least 10,000 men in the running department alone. Instead of this he calculates that this increase in the volume of traffic has been conveyed with some 1,200 less engines and sets of men, for, as different railway chairmen have stated at half-yearly meetings, they have been enabled to take many of their older locomotives out of traffic, and the full number shown to be owned by the companies were not actually working. Thus the mental and physical responsibilities of the men generally have been vastly increased, and the firemen particularly, who have to shovel nearly double the quantity of coal on the large engines without any extra pay at all.

* * *

There was another paragraph in the Report which should be interesting to readers of the Socialist Standard. It relates to the men employed on the North Eastern Railway, and reads as follows:

“This movement on behalf of all grades was sanctioned by the Executive Committee in September, 1903, and the programme adopted by the men at a conference held at Darlington was duly forwarded to the company. Not much progress was made, however, until 1905, when as a result of interviews in March and July a few concessions were obtained for men working large engines and with heavy trains, together with an increased bonus for the East Coast men.

“The programme was still pressed, but further delay arose in consequence of changes in the chairmanship and managership. In April and May, however, the committee of the movement and myself had a ten days’ conference with the general manager and chief officials, and .also another day’s discussion with the general superintendent. The programme was fully discussed, in addition to a large number of grievances, resulting in substantial concessions being obtained for the men. The men’s delegate meeting, however, would not take the responsibility of accepting the terms offered, and decided to refer the matter to the branches concerned. The Executive Committee, therefore, requested the branches to arrange special meetings at which the North Eastern members should vote for or against accepting the terms. The result showed a majority of 802 against the terms, but as only a very small proportion of the men had voted the Executive Committee decided to accept the terms for the men, and to suggest to the company that, a conciliation board be formed. The company have this proposal under consideration at the present time.”

* * *

The italics are ours.

* * *

In the November issue of the “Journeymen Bakers’ Magazine” Mr. L. A. Hill returns to the subject of the Union’s 48 Hours Bill, which was dealt with in our October number. He said it was most essential that this Bill should be passed into law. Machinery had displaced and would continue to displace large numbers of men. Whereas there would be before the introduction of machinery work for five men, there was now only work for three. If the Bill was passed he estimated that it would find employment for some 5,000 men, and that it would be in a measure, a way of solving the unemployed question in the baking trade.

* * *

As we pointed out in October, the effect of a compulsory 8 hours’ day for bakers, however secured, would be to kill the small bakers and drive the trade into the machine bakeries, where the 8 hours’ day already obtains. It would thus tend to displace 2 men out of every 5, to use Mr. Hill’s figures, and would intensify instead of solving the unemployed question in the baking trade.

* * *

The “Daily Express” continues to expose the Fraud of Capitalism. In connection with Mr. Lever’s Soap Trust (I beg pardon—”economic amalgamation”) it said,

“The grocer of to-day is almost as much ‘tied’ as the publican who is managing a ‘tied’ house for a firm of brewers.

“He has practically ceased to be a free agent, and is becoming more and more of an automaton who is forced to hand out over the counter the ready weighed articles supplied by great trusts and powerful owners of proprietary articles.

“He has little or no share in the selection of the articles he is to sell, and can control neither the price he pays for them nor the price to the customer. He does not even have a chance to see the quality of the goods he sells or to weigh them. Certain sealed packets come to him and automatically he hands them over the counter.

“Acting on the instructions of one or other of the great firms who have selected him to sell their goods, he has occasionally to say that a certain article is ‘just as good’ as a different one desired by a customer, and to see that a customer does not buy the goods he first wanted.

“Twenty years ago a grocer was able to give his customers all they required, but now certain goods are pushed on him, and he in his turn has to force them on the public.”

* * *

Coming back to the “Daily Express,” this organ of Tariff Reform, which recently declared that the American workers, owing to protection, were exceedingly prosperous, made the following admissions in its issue of November 12, last:

“In spite of the wonderful surface prosperity, America is seething with discontent, and the party of the ‘have nots’ is a very real danger.

“The power of the trusts and the great business combinations has been growing rapidly. The small business man has been driven into the Bankruptcy Court in ever increasing numbers, and has considered himself lucky if he could secure a place as a salaried employee of the trust which absorbed his business. A generation ago most of the dwellers in American cities owned their own homes or looked forward to owning them. Now, they would laugh at the suggestion, and they bitterly resent the prospect of a lifetime as a rent-payer to some millionaire or real estate corporation.

“The working men, in spite of their nominally high wages, are bitterly discontented. Wages are not so high as they seem. The bricklayer who earns 24s. a day cannot depend on more than six months work in the year, as there are periods of two or three months in New York when no building can be done on account of the severe weather. The same rule applies to all the building trades, and to the lake and river transportation trades, and to those employed on the railways fed by the lakes and rivers. 

“In spite of all the nominal prosperity, New York has its unemployed problem every winter—not so acute as London’s problem, perhaps, but still a very serious problem.”

* * *

As we have so often pointed out, the working class is poor and the master class is rich all over the world, no matter what fiscal or other conditions obtain.

J. Kay

Why Some Employers Favour a Forty-Hour Week (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

More and more State and enlightened employers are realising that a shorter working week is needed if they are to hold their own in the world’s markets, and continue to reap profits from the labour of their workpeople.

In an article which appeared in the Daily Herald dated July 31st, 1944, entitled “Forty Hours Shalt Thou Labour,” George Thomas stated : “The standard working week in most industries within five years would be forty hours instead of the present 47 or 48 hours.” He also said: “They (the employers) know that in a highly mechanised industry it is much more important to get full employment for one’s costly machines than to get long hours of work from the individual workers.” Amongst other things a shorter working day will save the employer light and power, which mean more ease and comfort for them and additional profits into the bargain.

The writer continued : “Long before the war, one of the chiefs of a great Midland engineering firm told me we could introduce a four-hour working day here without difficulty and without any real (money) sacrifice by our men.” A more recent statement by another Midland factory chief, Mr. H. M. Crankshaw, this year’s president of the Birmingham Exchange : “As a practical industrialist I am perfectly satisfied that if every one really worked on an efficient basis for four days a week, we could keep the world going and have three days a week for recreation.” A shorter working week would be a real benefit to the workers if other things remained the same, but they do not. Herbert Tracey, writing in the “Labour Press Service” for June 28th, 1944. shows that the reduction in working hours increased production in a number of factories engaged on war production. On the workers’ side it is true they will have more time off, but this will be counter-balanced by the fact that they will be speeded up and will need more rest to recover from their tiredness.

As a machine minder in the bedding trade, I have realised by experience that I get tired more quickly tending a machine than, say, ripping a remakes by hand or filling mattresses by hand. The introduction of machinery has the effect of continually reducing the number of people needed to produce a given amount of wealth. Every advance of machinery at the same time makes greater the difference between what the worker produces and what he buys back (because his product increases while his wages remain stationary). The result is that production increases more rapidly than demand in the established trades, and consequently the workers find their labour-power unsaleable.

Machinery being introduced in the factory is not an evil in itself : it is because this machinery is privately owned by the employers, whilst the workers own nothing but their labour power. When articles are produced solely for use instead of for profit, when all are workers and there are no idlers, when wealth can be turned out quicker, shorter hours will be a real benefit to society as a whole instead of what we have to-day—two warring groups in the capitalists who want more profit, and the workers who want more wages.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” So when the workers decide to abolish the wages system, they will destroy once and for all time the last stage of human slavery, and introduce for the first time in history human happiness and freedom for all. Speed the day for classless society!

J. E. Roe

50 Years Ago: Shorter Working Hours and Unemployed (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The speeding up of the workman, the ever-growing intensity of the labour exacted from him, renders imperative a longer repose so that he may recuperate his working strength and maintain his maximum productivity. Hence flows the modern tendency toward shorter hours so that the profitableness of the worker to the capitalist may increase. It is the necessary and inevitable outcome of modern industrial conditions, even from the capitalist point of view, and is by no means a sign of victory over the ruling class. If the champions of the eight-hour day were to confine themselves to stating the truth about their pet reform there would be little need to quarrel with them, but when they claim as one of the virtues of the eight-hour day that it will abolish or greatly reduce unemployment, we join issue . . . 

In the present instance, if the reduction of working class hours is to bring about more employment, it could only be by decreasing the output per man, and providing work by causing the employment of more men to produce the same amount as before. But would it have very much effect? So far as positive evidence goes, it is directly against any presumption of a lessening of the present output per man. Even past masters of the art of red herring trailing give themselves away at times. Thus Sidney Webb and Harold Cox in the book, The Eight Hours Day, state in considering the result of a general reduction of the hours of labour in all trades that

“The successive reductions of the hours of labour which this century has witnessed have been attended, after a very short interval, by a positive general increase in individual productivity. In many cases it has been found that the workers did more in ten hours than their predecessors in twelve. The effort to get more than a certain amount of work out of a man defeats itself."

[From the Socialist Standard, September, 1908.]

Editorial: The Printing Dispute (1959)

Editorial from the August 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the ordinary trade union point of view of a struggle to enforce more pay and shorter hours, the printers' strike seems to have been well conceived and executed and well timed.

The claim was for a 10 per cent. increase of pay and a reduction of 3½ hours, from 43½ to 40. After lengthy negotiations the employers offered 2½ per cent. and 1 hour, but tied up the offer with a long list of demands for the reorganisation of the industry to increase production. The Unions rejected this offer and rejected also the employers manoeuvre of trying to get them to take the claim to arbitration. Having taken a ballot of their members the printing unions came out on strike on June 17th, over 100,000 men and women being involved. The dispute affected the Newspaper Society and the British Federation of Master Printers, but not the Newspaper Proprietors' Association or the Scottish Daily Newspaper Society, so while the Provincial newspapers, the magazines and periodicals and general printers were brought to a standstill the national and Sunday papers and London evening papers carried on, as did a certain number of firms which accepted the Unions' demands. A second dispute affecting printing ink threatened to stop the other papers, but this was avoided.

The timing was favourable for the workers because trade was recovering from the depression, unemployment was falling and the imminence of a general election made the employers, the Government and the big political parties worried lest a long-drawn out strike should hold up the very big volume of literature of various kinds needed for the election.

In the third week of the strike, discussions started under the chairmanship of Lord Birkett. Towards the end of July, at our time of going to press, the employers made an improved offer, of 3½ per cent. increase of pay, and a reduction of 1½ hours. The unions rejected this. They considered that the substantial concessions they were prepared to make to make to increase productivity justified more than 3½ per cent. on pay and at least an undertaking of a further reduction of hours at a later date. Settlement was then Expected at 4½ per cent. proposed by Lord Birkett.

The Sanctimonious “Guardian”

The dispute produced several surprising, diverting and instructive incidents. As was to be expected the Manchester Guardian led the Press in its sanctimonious comment of June 13th, laying down the usual employers' line that everyone believes in the right of the workers to strike so long as they never exercise the right:

The right to strike is a fundamental human freedom, but its exercise ought to be justified by some great cause. There is no great cause in the printing dispute—it is a piece of market bargaining over money.

Can anyone remember the Manchester Guardian ever supporting a strike (except a strike of foreign workers)? The Guardian editor’s further remark was equally hypocritical.

In the nineteenth century, when Britain had few industrial rivals, and when the main domestic industries had well-hedged fields to themselves, a strike or lock-out did not matter much, except in terms of personal suffering.

If some diligent student were to study the Guardian’s attitude to strikes in the nineteenth century, we do not doubt that he would find that the Guardian always managed to find overwhelming reasons for condemning those strikers too.

Lord Sourgrapes

It might have been expected that the newspapers that continued to be published would have solidly defended the employers, though Labour Party supporters doubtless hoped that their two mouthpieces, the official Daily Herald and the unofficial Daily Mirror, would line up with the workers against the employers. It turned out otherwise and some of the liveliest abuse during the strike was to be found in a fierce battle between the Daily Express and the other two. Beaverbrook’s Daily Express roundly accused the big magazine combines of having precipitated an unnecessary strike by their "tough and unaccommodating attitude," and said (4th July) that the provincial newspapers were the “victims of the tycoons of the magazine trade. They are paying a heavy price for their association with these richer more powerful and more belligerent allies." The biggest printing union, NATSOPA, promptly endorsed the charge. The Mirror and. Odhams (the latter owns the People and the Herald) are the “magazine tycoons" referred to, and they angrily denied the accusation. The Mirror of July 6th, in a slashing leader headed “ Lord Sourgrapes—and the drop of poison," explained that Beaverbrook has no magazines except “a couple of inconspicuous comics," called it a “smear campaign,” and passed the buck to the smaller printing firms and smaller newspapers who feared that the Unions' demands would put them out of business. The People (July 5th) blamed the Unions for not having let the claim go to arbitration in the first place. The Herald itself tried to ride both horses. It held that the men have a good case for their original demands, but that the employers “think they have a good case for insisting on increased productivity as a condition of any wage rise" (June 19th). It tried to escape its dilemma by blaming the Government for not immediately setting up a court of inquiry, which, of course, the Unions did not want, anyway.

The “Principle” of Shorter Hours

A weakness of the trade union position (to be found in many other industries as well) is the ambiguous attitude to shorter hours. Mr. Willis, one of the Union leaders and Chairman of the T.U.C., declared at the conference of the Miners' Union that the printers were striking “in support of the principle for which every trade unionist would fight, the shorter week." (News Chronicle, July 8th.) But what are the facts? Though the standard hours are now about four less than in 1938 the actual hours worked in industry are no lower than they were then. The claims for shorter hours have turned into claims for more overtime pay. In 1946 printing hours were reduced by 1½ to 43½, but within a few years the actual average hours of male workers in the paper and printing trade were higher than they were before, and in 1957 were 47 a week.

Confusion about Arbitration and Impartiality

The trade unions are in a muddle about arbitration. The printing unions consistently opposed it on the ground that it would not be “impartial,” but later in the dispute they were asking that Lord Monckton be invited—though he declined the invitation—to preside over the negotiations “to advise, guide and control” the discussions, but not to have power to be final arbiter. Lord Monckton was for four years Tory Minister of Labour (described by the General Secretary of the railwaymen in 1955 as “a very able friend of the N.U.R.! ”) and is now chairman of the Midland Bank, which refuse; to recognise the union of bank employees! Arbitration is established by the Government to settle industrial disputes and it cannot be impartial in the sense of deciding the merits of a case on some abstract principle of humanity. No such principles are laid down for the present court or the one abolished last year. The job of the arbitrators is to find a basis on which the workers can be persuaded to carry on working and the employers can keep in business—with, as an inescapable background, the continuation of Capitalism.

To illustrate the general confusion in the trade union movement it has only to be recalled that last year the T.U.C. and many trade union leaders were deriding the Government for abolishing the arbitration tribunal, which other unions declare they will not have anyway. The Daily Herald then (October 24h, 1958) called it a move to help the employers by abolishing the “referee to see fair play.”

And in the present dispute Mr. Willis, in the matter of strike pickets, was calling on the Government to observe “strict impartiality” (Times, June 26th), as if a government committed to keeping Capitalism going (as all governments must be that take on the administration of Capitalism) could “impartially” stand aside and not defend the property rights of the propertied class.

The International Aspect

The fact is that the trade union movement still broadly accepts Capitalism though prepared to strike against the Capitalists. This was clearly shown by the attitude of the printing unions. They belong to the printing workers Trade Union International, the International Graphical Federation, and some at least of the continental unions acceded to the request that they should advise their members not to do “black” work sent abroad during the strike. But in the middle of the strike NATSOPA released a plan it had drawn up suggesting a deal between the British unions and the British employers. If the latter would concede the demands on hours and wages, in return the unions would cooperate on a joint productivity council: “ The essence of the plan is that the prosperous big groups with stable and profitable home markets will help the small and medium printers, and particularly the printing concerns working on export printing. The plan should make British printers highly competitive in markets abroad.” (News Chronicle, June 23rd, 1959.)

So the unions, while fighting the employers, are quite prepared to collaborate with them to capture foreign markets—where, of course, they will clash with foreign printers who. again with the collaboration of the workers, will be resisting the invasion and trying to counter attack. This, of course, makes nonsense of the object of the printers' trade union international: “To safeguard the economic, occupational and general interests of graphical workers in all countries and to promote their solidarity.” (Our italics.)

In the nineteenth century Socialist critics of the trade union movement used to ridicule the illogicality of workers fighting the employers in the industrial field and electing the same people to Parliament and supporting them nationally. The present outlook of the trade unions shows that they have still a long way to go before they realise that the workers’ interest demands real international working class solidarity against the employers—and for Socialism.