A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is British Capitalism played out? 

Since the War, politicians from Conservative to Communist have joined with business men and economic experts to harp on the theme that British capitalism was on the verge of collapse. They pointed to growing unemployment and the decline in the volume of exports and imports as proof that the industries of this country were being strangled. The Communists assured us that the end was only a matter of time. They repeatedly prophesied the early outbreak of the revolution at the “psychological moment.” Like Bottomley, who always promised that the War would be over by Christmas, the Communists pinned their faith each year to the cold weather which would drive the unemployed to desperation when winter came. In the meantime they went on sharpening up the knuckle-dusters with which they were going to attack the armed forces. We of the Socialist Party said all along that the “facts” on which they based their case were largely fiction, and that their theories were all nonsense. A consideration of the growth of the total income of the country year by year, side by side with declining exports, shows in unmistakable fashion that we were right.

The figures in Column (1) are taken from the Economist Budget Supplement of April. 18th, 1931. It may be remarked, however, that, according to a rough estimate by Professor Bowley, communicated in a letter to The Times written by Sir Herbert Samuel (Dec. 1st, 1930), the 1930 National Income might be as much, as £100,000,000 above the 1924 level; at the worst, it would not fall below 1921 by more than £200 millions.

The figures in Columns (2) and (3) are taken from the Statistical Abstract, 74th number, 1931, page 312. The figure for 1930 is taken from an official summary published in The Times, Feb. 26th, 1931.

It will be observed that although exports are now down to the pre-war level (after having been well above it owing to the increase in prices), the total national income is not far short of double the amount it was in 1914. During the last two or three years, especially in 1930, the volume of goods and services represented by the national income has grown larger without the money value growing proportionately, this being due to the heavy fall in prices. Sir Walter Layton, Editor of the Economist, says that the national production increased nearly 12 per cent. between 1924 and 1929 (Times, March 31st, 1931).

It is evident that technical changes and new tariff policies in the different countries have altered the conditions of world trade. The mistake the Communists made was in assuming that the British and other capitalists would not be able to adjust their industries accordingly. They have made the adjustments and, in this country at least, are richer than ever they have been, and still securely fixed in the saddle. Capitalism has its problems now, just as it had them before the War, but so long as the workers are content to put up with the capitalist system and go on voting the control of the political machinery into the hands of the parties which will use that control for the purpose of guarding capitalism, just so long will capitalism continue in being. Even had the Communists been right about the decline of the British capitalists, they overlooked the fact that the decline of Britain as a capitalist power would only mean the rise of other capitalist powers in its place. So lacking in a correct understanding were the Communists, that they helped to make that alternative more likely by lending their aid to the capitalist movements in India, China, Egypt, and elsewhere, under the mistaken impression that the native capitalists who control the “nationalist” movements desire to work or can be compelled to work for Socialism.

* * *

Mr. Hicks solves the unemployment problem.

In his election address (see Daily Herald, April 1st), Mr. George Hicks, the successful Labour candidate at the recent by-election in East Woolwich, claimed with pride that the Labour Government are employing more men at the Arsenal than had been employed there by the Tory Government ! But it is disclosed that this “increase” had been achieved simply by having more Government work done at the Arsenal, and less done at private yards. So that the employment of more men in one place will have been balanced by the dismissal of a similar number elsewhere. Mr. Hicks’s solution for unemployment is in line with the Cabinet’s attempt last year to boost the sale of cotton fabrics (at the expense of artificial silk), and the suggestion that the over-production of wheat can be met by persuading Orientals to eat more wheat (and less rice).

If the reports of his speeches in the Daily Herald are to be believed, Mr. Hicks talked more nonsense than one is accustomed to receive even from the most ill-informed or insincere of Labour candidates. In view of the fact that Mr. Hicks (once a member of the S.P.G.B.) claimed in public debate with a Communist, in 1921, that he still accepted the principles of this Party, it would be instructive if we could be told what events have sufficed since 1921 to cause Mr. Hicks to abandon the position he then held. There is a vast gulf between the belief that only Socialism can solve the workers’ problems, and Mr. Hicks’s present desire “to maintain the high traditions set by Will Crooks” (Daily Herald, April 1st). Perhaps Mr. Hicks was combining the serious personal business of getting into Parliament at all costs with a misplaced April fool joke at the expense of the electorate.

* * *

Getting with the masses.

The Communists have always talked a great deal about the necessity of getting with the masses, and have criticised the Socialist Party because, as they truly allege, we have attached more importance to the preaching of sound principles than to attracting the support of non-Socialists. It is instructive to learn from one of their prominent members, Mr. Arthur Horner, that the Communist tactics secure for them not the approval, but the hostility of the workers. Horner, in a letter to Moscow (see Daily Worker, March 10, 1931), states that the setting up of Communist strike committees during the recent mining dispute in South Wales resulted “only in our isolation,” the miners preferring their own elected officials and committees. He says that the Communist movement showed itself, both nationally and in South Wales, “effectively bankrupt from every angle.” Horner was called sharply to order, and it was at first reported that he and Mr. J. Tanner were to form a new Communist Party, less given to wrecking tactics. It now appears that they are to be received back into the Communist Party.

* * *

Comic relief at the I.L.P. Conference.

The National Council of the I.L.P. decided that their members must not belong to the Mosley Party, and the Conference passed a resolution rejecting “with disdain the quack remedies of the Labour Government and Messrs. Lloyd George and Oswald Mosley” (Manchester Guardian, April 7th). Yet Mr. John Paton, Secretary of the I.L.P., writing to the New Statesman about a fortnight earlier, said that the Mosley programme had been borrowed to a large extent from the living wage programme of the I.L.P. At least three of the M.P.’s who drafted the Mosley programme were members of the I.L.P. at the time. And although the I.L.P. Conference thus repudiates the quack remedies of the Labour Government and of Mr. Lloyd George, it is I.L.P. members in the House of Commons who form a majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party and permit these “quack remedies,” and permit the holding of office on terms satisfactory to Lloyd George.

One of the funniest incidents was a protest by a delegate (Mr. Southall) against Gandhi entering into negotiations “with the Imperialist leaders whilst still leaving so many of the Indian leaders in prison” (Manchester Guardian, April 8th). The joke of it is that the “Imperialist leaders” are all of them the nominees of the Labour Government, which is kept in office by I.L.P. members in Parliament. The Secretary for India, Mr. Wedgwood Benn, is one of the I.L.P.’s own M.P.’s. How was Mr. Gandhi to know that Mr. Southall did not want him to enter into negotiations with the people who are elected to Parliament with the assistance of Mr. Southall and his party?

* * *

Forward and the S.P.G.B.

Mr. Emrys Hughes, who edits the Scottish I.L.P. journal, Forward, has been warning the I.L.P. to avoid becoming “an anti everybody and everything organisation like the S.P.G.B.” Mr. Hughes has fallen into error through taking a superficial view of things. He notices that we oppose the Liberals and Tories, the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and the Communists, but he has not noticed that one reason applies to each of these parties. We do not pretend that they are alike in all respects, but we do claim that each of them is prepared to retain capitalism, either as it now is or reformed to a greater or less degree. Since each of the three so-called Labour organisations find themselves advocating similar reforms and voting at elections for the same candidates, our opposition to one naturally involves our opposition to the others also. We have only one object, which is the replacement of capitalism by Socialism.

If Mr. Hughes would study the question further from another angle, he would recall one or two respects in which our capacity for being anti-everything falls short of the I.L.P.’s capacities in the same direction. For example, the S.P.G.B. has not achieved the distinction of being opposed to itself, whereas Mr. Hughes is constantly pointing out to his own opponents inside his own party that it is absurd for them to go on denouncing the Labour Government (including the I.L.P. members of it) and yet remain affiliated. He has also ridiculed the absurdity of there being three I.L.P. Parliamentary parties—first the group of 140 I.L.P. members in Parliament, then the group of about 30 M.P.’s for whom the I.L.P. was responsible at the last election, and lastly the group of about a dozen who have consented to accept the rulings of the Maxtonites. Mr. Hughes would recall that the S.P.G.B. remained Socialist during the War, instead of following MacDonald, Keir Hardie, and other prominent members of the I.L.P. into the anti-German recruiting campaign. Mr. Hughes will remember, too, that readers of Forward during the War were treated to the entertaining spectacle week by week of fervid anti-German articles from one jingoistic regular contributor, while the Editor attacked him and apologised for him in other columns.

Lastly, we would remind Mr. Hughes that, however anti-everything we may be, Forward has taken care that its readers shall not learn in its columns our justification for attacks we make. On July 14th, 1928, Forward described as “nonsense” our assertion that Keir Hardie boasted in 1914 of the number of recruits he had enrolled for the capitalist war. We promptly asked Forward to allow us space to give our evidence for the assertion. We are still waiting for Forward’s reply.

* * *

The promise of Empire Free Trade.

It is worth recording that the destitution which now exists in Protectionist America is what the Empire Free Traders promise to copy.

Viscount Rothermere, writing in the Sunday Dispatch on February 23rd, 1930, gave an undertaking that five years after the achievement of Empire Free Trade, “Great Britain will be as prosperous as the Unites States.”

On December 17th, 1929, the Evening News, Rothermere’s paper, in an editorial said :—

“The world has never been without poverty . . . in the U.S.A., to-day, the richest nation in material wealth that the world has ever known, there is plenty of it—not relative poverty merely, but want and destitution.”

On February 2nd, 1931, the Telegraph’s special correspondent in New York, Mr. Percy S. Bullen, gave a review of unemployment in U.S.A. He said :—

“In all my experience I have never seen such want as exists here to-day. . . There is more misery to the square mile to-day in the great American Metropolis than in any city abroad.”

He thought 9,000,000 unemployed an exaggeration, but put it at between 4 million and 6 million.

He quoted Senator T. H. Caraway as saying that 1,000 persons die of starvation every day in the U.S.A.

* * *

The co-operators set an example.

We are often told that the Co-operative dividend hunters set an example to the other employers. This is true. The Co-operative Societies in the North-Western Area are asking for the following alterations in their agreements with their 20,000 employees : —

Ten percent. reduction for juniors.

Five per cent. reduction for adults.

A still heavier lowering of the minimum for branch managers.

Alteration of the period of payment for sickness from three weeks on full pay and three weeks on half pay to two weeks on full pay and two weeks on half pay in one full year.

Co-operative Societies in the North-Eastern Area, employing nearly another 10,000 workpeople, have also asked for the termination of the existing agreement.

The report is taken from the Daily Herald, April 10th. It will be recalled that Mr. Maxton wants the Co-operators to have a share in fixing a “living wage” for the workers.

* * *

Straws in the wind.

The Daily Herald, has lately begun the practice of describing Lloyd George and his Party as “Radicals,” instead of “Liberals.” Is it that an alliance with the Liberal Party is intolerable, while an alliance with the same party under another name is more likely to be accepted by the Labour rank and file?

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

The mention in the column that the ex-SPGBer, George Hicks, stated as late as 1921 " . . .  in public debate with a Communist . . .  that he still accepted the principles of this Party" is referred to — and expanded upon — in this passage from an article in the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard:

"George Hicks, after leaving the SPGB became an official of a building workers union and was President of the TUC in 1927. He also joined the Labour Party and remained in it for the rest of his life. In spite of this he continued to take an interest in the SPGB and on occasions declared that he still agreed with the SPGB case. Early in the 1920's he debated with Palme Dutt and not only put the SPGB case against the Communist Party but frankly stated that it was the SPGB case he was putting."

" . . . as late as 1921" because Hicks actually finally left the SPGB in 1910.

The ILPer Southall who is mentioned in the column could have been the famous painter, Joseph Southall. I can't be 100% certain. Just an educated guess at my end.

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the June 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Can a Catholic be a Socialist?

Pope Pius XI, addressing a gathering of “pilgrims” on Friday, May 15th, declared that “no good Catholic can be a good Socialist.” This is, of course, the familiar and natural view of the Catholic Church, and one with which the Socialist fully agrees.

The Pope’s words were reported in all of the London daily papers on May 16th, with one exception—the Daily Herald. The reason for this deliberate omission of a piece of news is obvious. The Labour Party has a large number of Catholic supporters whom it does not wish to offend, but at the same time it does not wish to make a formal declaration of opposition to Socialism. The Herald’s line, therefore, is to pretend that Socialism and Catholicism are not incompatible. On a previous occasion when the Socialist Party’s attitude on the question had been misrepresented by the Editor of the Herald, he declined to allow us to state our position in his columns. The Herald under its new Editor and new proprietors evidently follows the same policy of avoiding discussion.

But although the Herald did not publish the Pope’s statement at the time when it was made, they published some comments on it. On May 22nd their Rome correspondent sent a reassuring message, in which he quoted the Pope’s Under-Secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs as saying that the Pope quite understood the position of the British Labour Party and had no intention of attacking them. The Under-Secretary said :—

“For instance, we know there are bishops and many Catholics in England who belong to the Labour Party.

This fact may be easily explained by the special situation of the Labour Party, many points of whose programme coincide with those of Catholic Syndicates, and which also admits in the political field class collaboration, as is proved by the present Government.”

In other words, the Catholic Church is not opposed to the Labour Party because that party is not a Socialist party. This point of view received confirmation from Sir James Sexton, a Labour M.P. who is also a Catholic. He explained (Daily Telegraph, May 18th) that the Labour Party’s aim is not Socialism, but “what I might call the nationalisation of essential commodities, such as water, gas, the railways, mines, and so on.”

It is because Socialists do not want nationalisation or state capitalism that they do not support the Labour Party. For the same reason, Catholics who are opposed to Socialism can, and do, join the Labour Party. Readers who are interested in the whole question should read our pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion.”

* * *

The Bank Rate and the Workers. 

On September 26th, 1929, the bank rate was raised from 5½ to 6½ per cent. This meant that the industrial capitalists who had to borrow money from the banks would have to pay a higher rate of interest, and it was only to be expected that they should howl with rage. By pretending that the question was one that concerned the workers, they were able to get many influential members of the Labour Party and the I.L.P. to join the chorus of protest. Maxton and Tillett were two of the decoy ducks; and the late Lord Melchett was particularly vociferous among the employers. The protest was based on the claim that a high bank rate would mean more unemployment and less money for wages. If the theory were a sound one from a working-class standpoint, a fall in the bank rate ought to cause a reduction in unemployment and an increase in wages. It has not caused either.

The bank rate was reduced on May 1st, 1930, to 3 per cent., and on May 1st, 1931, to 2½ per cent., but unemployment, instead of going down during 1930 and the early part of 1931, mounted up to 2½ millions—upwards of a million more than it was when the bank rate was at 5½ or 6½. The same period has witnessed a rapidly growing volume of wage reductions. One case is of special interest. The late Lord Melchett was chairman, and his son (the present Lord Melchett) a director, of Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries, Ltd. This company, helped, no doubt, by the fall in the bank rate, increased its profit from £289,000 in 1929 to £443,000 in 1930. Did it then increase the wages of the miners it employs? On the contrary, it reduced their pay, in keeping with the lowered pay of South Wales miners generally. What have Messrs. Maxton and Tillett to say to that?

Another point of interest is that the present 2½ per cent. rate is the lowest since 1909. Was unemployment low in 1909, and were the workers well off? On the contrary, the rate of unemployment in 1909 was 7.7 per cent., which (except for 1908, when the unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent.) was the highest rate of unemployment since 1886, and was higher than in any succeeding year until 1921. It was also about this time that Mr. Lloyd George endorsed the statement that about a third of the population were in a state of perpetual poverty.

The bank rate is a question which matters a great deal to the industrial and financial capitalists in their mutual relations, but one which matters nothing to the workers, who by one section of the capitalists no more and no less than by other sections.

* * *

The pot calls the kettle. 

The Labour Party’s Secret Funds.

For years the Labour Party has denounced the Liberals and Tories for having secret funds and for soliciting donations from wealthy men. As soon as the Mosley Party was launched, some of the Labour Party ministers used this line of attack against Sir Oswald Mosley. Mr. Tom Johnston, Lord Privy Seal, said that the Mosley Party had spent from £30,000 to £40,000 on a poster display, and that the money came from secret sources. But while Johnston is only a recent recruit to the inner circle of the Labour Party, and possibly did not know very much about its affairs, Mosley is an old hand, and promptly replied with a similar attack on the Labour Party. Speaking in the Drill Hall, Ashton, on Monday, April 27th, he said (Manchester Guardian, April 28th) :—

"Now I am going to say something about the cant and humbug talked by the Labour party. They say I refuse to publish a list of my individual subscribers. I do, and the Labour party also refuses to publish their list. I refuse because if I published it subscribers might be subject to intimidation.

Would you like to see the appeal sent to me and other rich men by the Labour party for their secret funds? It is sent out to rich men, and rich men alone. That private and secret fund is never published. I don’t blame the Labour party for it, but I do blame them for coming on the platform and pretending they get their funds only from the workers.”

The Labour Party has not replied to Mosley on this point.

The political correspondent of the Daily Mail wrote as follows (April 29th, 1931) :—

“Socialist leaders are unwilling to reply to an allegation made by Sir Oswald Mosley in a speech at Ashton-under-Lyne that the party has a secret political fund which is replenished by subscriptions obtained from rich men, and details of which are never published.

Why should we advertise that man? was the only reply of one leader, when asked to confirm or deny the statement.

The late Mr. Bernhard Baron, the tobacco millionaire, was a regular and generous contributor to Socialist election funds. Wealthy and titled members of the party also make substantial gifts.

In the Lobby yesterday the absence of a reply to the direct charge was accepted as confirmation of a general suspicion that, like other parties, the Socialist party in office is not so hard up as it used to be when in opposition.”

Of course., when the Daily Mail writes “Socialist” it means the Labour Party.

* * *

The value of insurance shares. 

In the midst of the investors’ complaints about the hard times they are going through, the Economist (May 2nd) publishes a list showing the current values of the shares of 25 insurance companies.

£1,000 invested in insurance company ordinary shares in 1913, after receiving high rates of dividend in the intervening period, would now, if sold, fetch, on the average, £3,207, i.e., more than three times the original sum invested. One thousand pounds invested in the General Accident Insurance Co. would now fetch £8,000 ! In the company whose shares have risen least of all, the original investor could sell out and receive more than 30s. for every £1 invested in 1913.

* * *

Religion is the opium of the people.

Did Kingsley Forestall Marx?

A writer in the Freethinker (March 22nd, 1931) claims that the Reverend Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, preceded Marx in describing religion as the opium of the people. The writer in the Freethinker appears to be mistaken.

This is the passage in which Kingsley deals with the subject :—

“We have used the Bible as if it were an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded–a mere book to keep the poor in order.”

The above occurs in “Politics for the People,” published in 1848.

Marx’s famous phrase was published four or five years earlier. It was as follows :—

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

This passage is taken from an article entitled “Introduction to a Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right,” published in 1844 in the “Franco-German Year Book.” The translation is by Eden and Cedar Paul, and is given on pages 57 and 58 of “Karl Marx,” by Otto Ruhle (Allen & Unwin).

It will be noticed that the two writers, Marx and Kingsley, used the same telling comparison, but in rather different senses. Kingsley appears to be protesting against the use to which religion has been put; while Marx was accounting for the hold that religion has on the minds of the oppressed.

* * *

Miss Jennie Lee on the uses of trade unions. 

Miss Jennie Lee, M.P. at the I.L.P. Annual Conference at Scarborough on April 5th, spoke against a resolution which proposed that the I.L.P. should leave the Labour Party. The Labour Government, she said (Times, April 6th), “stood for Imperialism and capitalism, and rested on an amalgamation of Conservative and Liberal elements,” and she was “sick and tired of being entangled in Liberalism and compromise” (Manchester Guardian, April 6th). Yet, in face of that, she thought that the I.L.P. ought to keep in with the party of Imperialism and capitalism and go on making her sick and tired, because “at present the Labour movement had strong Trade Union backing, and they (the I.L.P.) had not” (Manchester Guardian, April 6th).

It is, of course, very noble of Miss Lee to go on sacrificing her feelings in this way, but it is not entirely irrelevant to point out that Miss Lee is very much dependent in her constituency on the support of the Miners’ Federation. If she were to oppose the capitalist programme of the Labour Party and lose its support and that of the Miners’ Federation, she would have to say good-bye to her Parliamentary seat and her present prospects of a political career. But it is no new thing for Miss Lee to oppose Socialism for the sake of cadging votes and support. She had chosen that path when first she set eyes on Westminster. When she was elected at North Lanark in March, 1929, her election address contained no reference whatever, direct or indirect, to Socialism. It even contained no mention that she was the nominee of the I.L.P. She fought as official Labour Party candidate and gave prominence to the fact that she accepted the programme of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, thus committing herself, incidentally, to the queer doctrine that while the royalty-owning capitalist is an exploiter, his brother capitalist who invests in mining shares is not ! She backed all of the silly—and in some cases harmful—reforms of the Labour Party, and it was admitted by one of her prominent supporters that there was little to choose between her programme and that of her Liberal opponent. Mr. P. J. Dollan, of the I.L.P. National Administrative Council, writing up the election campaign in the New Leader on March 15th, 1929, said of the Liberal candidate (also a woman), “She is advocating a Radical programme which would have horrified the late Lord Oxford because of its similarity to most of the Labour reforms now commonly advocated.” What, in fact, won Miss Lee the election was the backing of the Miners’ Federation. Hence Miss Lee’s determination to “sacrifice” herself by staying in the Labour Party, with the Trade Union votes and Trade Union funds, rather than oppose the party of “Imperialism and capitalism” and lose her seat in Parliament.

The delegates at the I.L.P. Conference overwhelmingly endorsed the official policy, urged by all sections of their National Administrative Council, of staying in the Labour Party. The motion to disaffiliate was rejected by 173 to 37 (see News-Chronicle, April 6th).

* * *

The Over-Population Myth.

Professor T. E. Gregory gave an address at Manchester University on February 2nd, 1931, on the subject of population and production. The following extracts are from a report published on February 3rd by the Manchester Guardian : —

“He pointed out that up to the war we had all been largely influenced by the teaching of Malthus, and had feared that our era of prosperity could not last if the population continued to increase. In 1920, after the war, this pessimism had greatly increased. “I confess,” he said, “I was a “pessimist of that kind myself. Indeed, we were all pessimists in those days, from Mr. Keynes to the editor of the Manchester Guardian.”

But since 1920 there had been a curious alteration in theory and in the facts. Great importance as a social factor could be placed upon the birth control movement and its increasing recognition. Again we were clearly caught up in a phase of expanding production. Production was increasing more rapidly than the population of the world. Between 1913 and 1928 the world’s population increased by about 10 per cent., the world’s production of food-stuffs by 16 per cent., and the world’s production of raw materials by no less than 40 per cent. Thirdly, there was every chance that the population of this and other European countries would become stationary and even decline. We were, approaching the ideal postulated by John Stuart Mill—the ideal of a stationary state in which there would be no further increase in population”

The Editor of the Manchester Guardian made the belatedly wise comment that the “more production” campaign engineered after the War by the Government, the employers, and the Labour leaders, was apparently unnecessary.

We would draw particular attention to the fact that while all the economists and newspapers and politicians, including Professor Gregory, were flatly wrong on the question of over-population and the need for more production, the Socialist Party, correctly guided by its Marxian theories, ridiculed the Malthusian nonsense over 20 years ago and showed up at the time the true nature of the post-war campaign to get the workers to work harder.

Just to show that experience does not teach him anything, the Editor of the Guardian complacently dismisses capitalism’s constant over-production in relation to the demands of the market as “growing pains”!

Edgar Hardcastle

A Socialist Searchlight. (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

An “intellectual” on Marx.

“To avoid any confusion in the reader’s mind it must be explained that at the time when this Manifesto was given to the world, what we know to-day as Socialism, was generally referred to as Communism. Karl Marx was therefore attempting to forecast the evolution of Socialism towards world power. That being so, and considering his confident prediction of class conflict, how can anyone honestly uphold Marxism while in the next breath accepting the theory of Parliamentary evolution as opposed not only to revolution but also to direct action in any form.

It is true that the ballot-box and the doctrines of Marx do not mix very well together.” (H. H. Tiltman, in his Life of Ramsay MacDonald, p. 31.)

Such a mass of confusion in one paragraph shows the shallowness and stupidity of Marx’s “critics.” Class conflicts didn’t happen, but Marx predicted them ! This from a writer who spends many pages dealing with the miners’ lock-out and the General Strike ! Mr. Tiltman, full of regard for the sanity of MacDonald, scorns Karl Marx. He does it by erecting a bogey. Any reader of the Communist Manifesto can read Marx’s own statement, that the first step in the emancipation of the working-class is the conquest of political power—the winning of the battle of democracy. MacDonald’s biographer does not tell us where Marx opposed the use of “the ballot box”—because he can’t.

The insinuation that Marx was the apostle of “direct action” clearly shows how little Ramsay’s admirer knows of Marx’s conflict with Bakunin and the other believers in direct action. Mr. Tiltman evidently conceives of revolution as a drama of knives, noise, fireworks and barricades. The use of Parliament by revolutionaries is unknown to these men who “make their own history.”

* * *

How Great Men don't make revolutions.

THE BLOKE IN THE SIDE STREET. 

“The course of revolution, like the course of true love, never did run smooth. All revolutions have some features in common. They are born, not made. They never run to programme, and they can he led down a side street hy a great man. It is never possible to have the mass so drilled or imbued by common ideals that a combined push for an agreed goal can be made.”

This picturesque view of history, more like a six-reel film than actuality, appears in “Forward,” the I.L.P. paper (July 19th). It is the brain wave of John P. Hay, M.A., of the I.L.P., and Workers’ Educational Association. Picture the revolution being led down the alley by the great man ! These people think every attempted uprising is a revolution. They never explain why leaders are able to shepherd their ignorant flock ; nor do they explain why this great man fades out and another supplants him. Our “great man” philosopher wrote the above while reviewing the situation in China. He tells us that “the revolution happened too soon,” and refers to “the frequent splits and divisions among the revolutionaries” there. The great men who make history, according to the hero-worshippers, surely ought not to let little things like starting in advance of the conditions, or meeting with other great men, stand in their way.

Mr. Hay, who always likes to sneer at the Marxist, supplies the knock-out to his own theories in the same article.

FACTORS IN SOCIAL CHANGE.

“The Manchu dynasty fell, not on account of a powerful push from the rear, but simply because it could stand no longer. The use of telephone, telegraph, and railway, foreign pressure from the international money lenders, were factors which induced an increase in the number of Chinese with an outlook on the fate of their country. The return of foreign educated Chinese with ideas of the run of history and economics in the West, gave a powerful impulse to the searchings of heart among the thoughtful.”

That’s what comes of being an opponent of the materialist conception of history. No powerful push by a great man lurking in the rear, but all the factors of modern development are brought in to explain the rise of revolt.

He next tells us that “the lump of national go-as-you-please was too big to be leavened for the economic change.” The “great men” could not lop off the “lump,” to use the scientific language of our Master of Arts. Sun Yat Sen, he tells us, had to teach economics in order to win support for his policy. Economics comes in, you see, even with the gift of being able to lead revolutions down side streets. Borodin, the Russian Communist, Mr. Hay tells us, could not work a Russian pattern into the Chinese material, conditions again defeating leaders making plans for coups and triumphs.

Mr. Hay, M.A., presents just as sad a picture trying to upset Marx’s Materialism as he does when trying to upset Marx’s Economics.

* * *

The German Fascists.

It is interesting to notice how the German Fascists, led by Hitler, outmanoeuvred the reformist parties, the Labour Party and the Communists, by promising reforms of capitalism more drastic than either of them had thought of.

According to the News Chronicle and Star (17th October), Hitler’s programme, now embodied in Bills before Parliament, includes the following reforms : Limitation of interest rate to 5 per cent., of which 1 per cent. is to be taken in taxes ; incomes of company directors to be drastically reduced ; and all banks be taken over by the State without compensation to the shareholders.

Hitler’s attempt to outbid the reformists was so successful that some of his most spectacular successes were in working class constituencies, where formerly the Labour Party or the Communists had been strong. So much for the Labour-Communist theory about leading the workers to Socialism by dangling reforms like carrots in front of their noses. They overlook two things of importance, first, that the workers occasionally want to bite the carrot, and, second, that rival reformists can always step in with sweeter-looking carrots.

Adolph Kohn

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the October 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Maxton gives a date.

Mr. Maxton, M.P., under the false impression that it is a Marxian theory, has for years been prophesying the sudden and irretrievable collapse of capitalism. He has now given it a date. In a speech at Cowcaddens, reported in the Daily Record (August 22nd) and reprinted in Forward (September 12th), he said :—

“I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, declared Mr. James Maxton, M.P., in the Cowcaddens Ward, Glasgow, last night, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash. 

They may postpone the collapse for a month, two months, three months, six months,” he cried, forefinger pointing at his audience, and body crouched, “but collapse is sure and certain.”

Six months from August 22nd brings us to February, 1932. When that comes round, we will ask Mr. Maxton for his explanation.

* * *

Another exponent of the collapse theory, Mr. Walton Newbold, has suffered a strange transformation. In 1921, as a Communist, he. prophesied imminent collapse, and was doing his utmost, so he said, to hasten it. It did not come off, and Mr. Newbold, now in the Labour Party, is on this occasion rallying round MacDonald and Thomas to prop capitalism up again !

* * *

Letters to Mr. Hicks.

Mr. George Hicks, M.P., was asked for his comment on the letter of personal explanation which Mr. MacDonald sent to each of the Labour Party M.P.’s. Mr. Hicks sneeringly replied that it was just the sort of letter he would expect from a man like Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. Hicks was not always so minded about letters from that quarter. As recently as April of this year (see The Times, April 11th), when Mr. Hicks was Labour Party candidate at East Woolwich, he published a broadsheet called the George Hicks Herald, containing the letter sent by MacDonald, assuring the electors that Mr. Hicks is the sort of man MacDonald regarded as suitable to represent the workers of Woolwich.

* * *

The Communist-I.L.P. Alliance. 

The crisis has had the effect of throwing together the two reformist bodies, the I.L.P. and the Communist Party. On Sunday, September 6th, Communist and I.L.P. speakers addressed a joint demonstration in Hyde Park, speaking from the same platform. The Secretary of the Balham and Tooting I.L.P., in a letter to the New Leader (September 11th), described it as “a glorious sight to see a demonstration in Hyde Park in which both Parties were united.” This was just a week after the majority of the I.L.P. Labour M.P.’s had voted for the election of Mr. Henderson as leader of the Labour Party in place of Mr. MacDonald. Only five votes were cast against his election (Daily Express, August 29th). One of those who voted for Mr. Henderson was Mr. J. Beckett. M.P., and it was Mr. Beckett who was the star turn at the Hyde Park demonstration, although Mr. Beckett complained that Communists in his audience hurled abuse at the I.L.P. speakers. Mr. Beckett was so anxious not to have it thought that he voted against Henderson, that he had the Daily Express (August 31st) publish a correction of their statement including him among the five.

P. S.

A Socialist Searchlight: No More Class War (1930)

From the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

No More Class War

“During the last twenty-five years, he said, thousands of rich people had come to see that the host thing they could do in life was to share in the great task of improving conditions of the community. 

The time, he believed, was not far distant when rich and poor would co-operate in serving the community.”

No, it was not Mr. Churchill who said that, but Mr. George Lansbury, at Rotherham (“Daily Herald,” July 21st).

This First Commissioner of Works, and Christian Evangelist, visited Russia a few years ago, and in his book, “What I Saw in Russia,” grew lyrical over “the achievements of Russia,” compared with the miserable efforts of Capitalism at home.

Although the rich have been helping’ the poor so much here, there are faint rumours that for many years past the employers have been busy reducing wages and smashing strikes. The kind-hearted employers who are going to co-operate with the poor, are still very active in keeping a system going which produces poverty for the worker and profits for the idler. What better evidence do you want than Lans-bury’s speech, to prove how the Labour Party serve Capitalism? Don’t struggle, but love each other. Lansbury used to say at the Mission that only the love of Christ could save us, but now the rich have taken on Christ’s work. That is what has made Bow and Bromley such a paradise.

* * *

The Bankers’ Friends

Labour in office shows how it practices continuity in capitalist policy “The Times” complimented “Labour” on effecting’ such a close relation between finance and industry when they got the Banks to agree to rationalize the factories. The Bankers, with Labour’s approval, formed the National Industrial Development Co., Ltd. Montagu Norman, of the Bank of England ; Sir Guy Granet, Railway Director, and of Higginson & Co., World Financiers; Baron Schroeder, famous in the Ruhr Steel Combines, and of Schroeder’s, the New York Bankers; Peacock, of Baring Brothers; and Wagg, the Finance Merchant—these became the directors of the new concern to buy up and rationalize the profitable industries. Once Labour screamed about the Bankers’ power ! That was only when out of office. Now they have earned the affection of “finance” by encouraging Bankers’ control over production more than ever.

While “Labour” cried out that their schemes were being shelved because local bodies were sabotaging them, they appointed a Public Loans Board to advise what loans should be made to local authorities. They appointed the same board of Bankers the Conservatives had selected five years before. Then a few backbenchers objected to Lord Hunsdon being on it, because he said the miners should be starved into surrender in 1926. The Labour Government have drawn fulsome praise from the poisonous Newspaper Press by squashing their own members and getting Lord Hunsdon reappointed with Liberal and Tory support in Parliament.

Yet there are still workers who tell us that Labour is opposed to the Capitalists ! Let them learn from such practices as the above how well the Labour servants obey their masters. When the workers become Socialist, and control the Parliaments for Socialism the Labour politicians will be able to seek solace with their friends, the Bankers, and they can take the Mace with them to where people want entertainment, instead of a sane social system.

* * *

The Confessions of a Clyde "Red.

    “The only time in my life that I have allied myself with the enemies of the workers has been since I came to the House of Commons, and that is by the order of the Labour Government. Almost every time I go into the Division Lobby I join such tried and trusted friends of the Labour Party as Lloyd George, his daughter, Sir Herbert Samuel, etc. They are keeping the Labour Party in office on condition that the workers and the Labour Party programme are deserted.”

Thus writes the Labour M.P. for Shettleston (“Forward,” August 2nd). He was, however, the official Labour candidate, and stood for the official Labour Party Programme. He was attacked during the election by another Labourite, Mr. C. Diamond, who has been on three occasions official Labour candidate, and who stated that he has supported the Labour Party because it is not committed to Socialism.

The Party that the Member for Shettleston—McGovern—stands for, is not out for the working class. Read his own words: –

 “There is no danger of chasing away the Liberal votes, as they have all joined us at Westminster. The Labour Cabinet coddle them too much to drive them away, and are more concerned about them than about the working class.”

He became the official Labour Candidate—because it’s the best way to get elected. “Getting in” —that’s the game, even if it means going into the Lobby to vote against the programme he ran on.

The little conflict between the “wings” has now been settled at a joint meeting of the Labour Party and I.L.P., and the following terms were agreed upon: –

1. That the I.L.P. accepts the Labour Party Annual Conference as the supreme authority of the organised political movement of the workers.
2. That the I.L.P. wishes to remain in affiliation with the Labour Party. (Forward, Aug. 2.)

So, now Lloyd George, the I.L.P., and the Labour Party may continue their united front—in the same Lobby.

C.

Blogger's Note:

The Confessions of A Clyde 'Red' had previously appeared on the blog as a separate piece. I'm guessing I cherry picked it at the time 'cos it was about John McGovern and because of the location of his parliamentary constituency.

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the July 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Monthly and the S.P.G.B. 

It has for many years been the childish policy of the Communists to attack the S.P.G.B., but never to mention us by name. The Acting Editor of the Labour Monthly, in a letter to a reader, has now offered an explanation for this policy. The following is an extract from the letter, which is dated April 23rd :—

“We do not take notice of the Socialist Party of Great Britain as an organization, because as such it plays no part in the struggle of the working class. Individual members of it may be active in the movement, but the body itself is in the fullest sense a sect, which proclaims as its first principle that it is cut off from every other party. That is to say it is concerned only with a certain set of principles and not with taking part in a movement and taking part in the struggle which goes on outside it. 

The strength of the Communist movement lies not least in that it is part of the working class and merely represents the most advanced part of it. The very fact that the Marxism of the S.P.G.B. is divorced from application, and that it stands outside the Communist International, condemns it as a mere propaganda body, which does not reflect the immediate problems before workers or show in any way how they are being being tackled.”

The letter deserves some comment, although it has to be remembered that the Labour Monthly is not an official Communist organ, and represents nobody but the Editor. He is, however, a Communist and is, or was, on the Party Executive.

It is true that the S.P.G.B. stands by a certain set of principles which it tries to get the workers to accept and act upon. What is the alternative which the Communists and the Labour Party have both in their different ways followed? They say, in effect, “If we cannot get the workers to accept Socialism, then let us put up a programme which they will accept.” So they have both put forward their long and frequently changed programmes of capitalist reforms. So little did the two parties’ programmes differ, that for years the Communists and the Labour Party were found supporting the same candidates at elections, and the Communists will be voting Labour again just so soon as Moscow in its tricky stupidity orders them or permits them to do so.

And what has come of it ? For the Labour Party leaders the reward has been the plums of office. For the Communists there has been no reward whatever. They are more ineffective, more despised, more unpopular and. more ridiculous than at any time in their history.

As regards industrial disputes, the Communist Party, as a party, is just as much a mere propaganda body as we are. It controls no single Trade Union. There is no important Union in which its members are a majority or even influential. The chief difference between the Communists and ourselves is that the Communists pretend to believe that the issuing of a “call to action” to the few thousand readers of its daily paper, a call which they are completely impotent to respond to, is “action,” whereas it is in fact not only mere words, but words which are misleading and are intended to be misleading. The S.P.G.B., being an independent and democratic party, has no need or wish to carry on deception for the purpose of getting money from the Russian Government.

The Acting Editor of the Labour Monthly criticises us because we cut ourselves off from every other party. This refers, presumably, to the Communist Party’s former electoral allies, the Labour Party. Since when, we would like to know, has a willingness to co-operate with a party of capitalism been the hall-mark of a Socialist party?

* * *

Is this working-class education? 

In his “Portrait of Oxford,” Mr. J. G. Sinclair has the following sidelight on Ruskin College, where working-class students acquire “culture” and learn how to climb out of the ranks of their class :—

“A week or two after their arrival the working class students are indistinguishable in appearance from the conventional undergraduate. . . . 

As soon as a RUSKIN COLLEGE student “feels the atmosphere” he discards his colliery trousers, or, as the case may be, his porter’s cap. He is no longer a working man. He is “up at Oxford.” As quickly as possible he gets into a pair of flannel trousers ; walks the “Corn” bareheaded ; and shapes his tongue with all available speed to the twang of the ‘Varsity. He receives invitations from rich ladies, and influential hosts, to tea, to talk over “the condition of the working classes.” If he is clever, the dons know how to flatter him. His ambitions are greatly encouraged. And he soon learns how to balance the two sides of every question in Balfourian style ! 

The RUSKIN COLLEGE student sets the ‘eights which “Jimmy” Thomas and Frank Hodges have so successfully scaled. (Do not lives of Great Men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime !) No more colliery trousers ; no more porters’ caps. It is personal, rather than communal, uplift that RUSKIN COLLEGE student seeks now.”

* * *

The Land Workers' "Living Wage." 

Agricultural workers are supposed by law to be entitled to the minimum wage fixed by the Wages Committees. The Labour Government introduced the Act in 1924, and since coming into office for the second time has appointed more inspectors to enforce it and to inquire into cases of non-payment of the minimum. Like all such reforms, the Act cannot alter the conditions which determine the workers’ position in the capitalist system. Low as the minimum wages are, thousands of workers dare not ask for them, for fear of losing their jobs and their cottages. According to Reynolds’s Illustrated News (April 12th, 1931), in 1930, 4,523 farms were inspected, as a result of which there were 1,630 claims for arrears of wages. Reynolds’s Agricultural Correspondent estimates that “one farmer in four throughout the country is violating the law.” This estimate is based on official inspections over a number of years in every part of the country.

When it is remembered that the minimum rates are so low that a large number of agricultural workers would have received as much, or more, had there been no Wages Act, the small value of such reforms is obvious. In Scotland the land workers’ union refused the “benefits” of such regulation of wages. They preferred to depend upon ordinary Trade Union bargaining.

* * *

Sir Josiah Stamp on Wages. 

Sir Josiah Stampj who constantly advises lower wages as a means of improving trade (and, incidentally, the employers’ profits), and who is paid many thousands of pounds a year by his employers, the L.M.S. Railway, for so doing, says, in his book, “Criticism and Other Addresses” (Ernest Benn, 15s.) :—

“You cannot permanently have the unsheltered engineer, receiving 50s. per week from work in a tram-car, at the front of which his less skilled colleague, as driver, works less hard for £4.”

Sir Josiah Stamp does not explain how lowering tramwaymen’s wages will help the engineer, nor does he explain why you must permanently have an investing class living on its investments without the need to work at all. And what are his thoughts when he rides behind an engine-driver on the L.M.S. Railway who receives as wages perhaps one-twentieth of the amount paid to Stamp?

Sir Josiah Stamp cannot even claim that as an economist he is efficient. As Mr. J. H. Thomas feelingly pointed out recently, Stamp failed to foresee the present depression. Had he done so, Mr. Thomas might not have so lightheartedly taken on the job of tackling unemployment, and might thus have saved his reputation.

* * *

Why the Railwaymen are apathetic. 

Mr. C. T. Cramp, General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, stated recently in the Railway Review (quoted in The Times, April 9th) that the railwaymen are apathetic about nationalisation of the railways. Why should they be otherwise than apathetic? Did not Mr. Cramp, when giving evidence in favour of nationalisation before the Royal Commission on Transport, reply to the question, Would nationalisation of the railways lead to higher wages? with “Certainly not”? (see Daily Telegraph, January 17th, 1929). Taking all things into consideration, the position of the workers is just as unfavourable in State concerns as in private ones. The pay of Government employees is consciously based on rates of pay outside, and Mr. Snowden recently told the Civil Service that they ought not to expect their pay to be kept up, in view of the low pay of miners and others. The pay of Underground railwaymen has, in fact, recently been quoted by Post Office workers, before the Civil Service Commission, as an instance of higher levels of pay in a comparable private company.

For the employers, nationalisation has certain attractions, especially at a time when the future course of railway profits is obscure owing to the competition of road transport. So we learn from the Parliamentary Correspondent of the Daily Express that “powerful support for nationalisation will come from the owners’ side, though two of the groups are said to be unconvinced and hostile” (Daily Express, May 20th).

Of course, the rigging up of nominal opposition to a scheme of nationalisation has often been used with great success as a means of getting better terms.

The Government are now considering the advisability of electrifying the main line railways, as recommended in the Report of the Weir Committee. Railwaymen will be interested to learn that the Committee estimate securing great savings, in running costs, including a saving of £10 millions a year on the wages of drivers and other train staffs.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour Party as Investors' Party.

It is often alleged by Labour Party members that their party differs from the Liberals and Tories in that it is a workers’ party.

If they mean by this to claim that Liberal and Tory supporters are, in the main, not workers, the facts are against them. At least 85 per cent. of the voters are members of the working class, and since the number of Labour voters at the 1929 General Election was only two-fifths of the total number who went to the poll, it is evident that there are more workers who vote Liberal and Tory than there are who vote Labour.

The Daily Herald used to claim that it was “the workers’ paper.” Now its posters proudly proclaim that—

“’THE DAILY HERALD’ PROTECTS THE INVESTOR.”

In its City column, on March 13th, an article was published, telling a reader “how to invest £12,000.” Won’t this be good news for unemployed miners, and railwaymen whose pay has just been reduced !

The Daily Herald’s editorial on March 12th contains still more cheering news. It says :—

“The investing public is, on the whole, doing remarkably well.”

We ask readers who still support the Labour Party to think over that statement. Nearly two years after the Labour Party came into office, when the workers are suffering more than they have ever suffered, they are told as a fact that “the investing public … is doing remarkably well.”

* * *

A War-Time Curiosity. The Leeds Conference.

The following passages are extracted from a circular letter sent out on May 23rd, 1917, by those responsible for the calling of the still-born Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council which was to have been inaugurated at the Leeds Conference. It is interesting to observe that several of the signatories are now members of the Labour Government.

“To Trades Councils, Trade Unions, Local Labour Parties, Socialist Parties, Women’s Organisations, and Democratic Bodies. 

Dear Comrades,—The conference to which we invited you is already assured of a great success. It will be one of the greatest democratic gatherings ever held in this country. It will be historic; it will begin a new era of democratic power in Great Britain. It will begin to do for this country what the Russian revolution has done for Russia. …. It will be a democratic conference to establish democracy in Great Britain. Russia has called us to follow her. You must not refuse to answer that appeal. Send in your application for delegates’ cards at once, etc.”—On behalf of the United Socialist Council we remain, yours fraternally, 

H. Alexander, Chas G. Ammon, W. C. Anderson, C. Despard, E. C. Fairchild, J. Finsberg, F. W. Jowett, Geo. Lansbury, J. Ramsay MacDonald, Tom Quelch, Robert Smillie, Philip Snowden, Robert Williams.

May 23rd, 1917.”

* * *

The Daily Herald's Two Voices.

Daily Herald Editorial on December 10th, 1930:—

“The man in the street, asked what is the cause of our present troubles, would be likely to answer, “There’s not enough money about.” The man in the street would be largely right. The world is not . . . producing enough gold for its needs. . . . Shortage of gold means shortage of currency. Shortage of currency means shortage of purchasing power.”

Daily Herald Editorial, January 20th, 1931:—

“The pessimists received a further blow yesterday when a £3,000,000 issue of new debenture stock by the London Power Company was oversubscribed within a few minutes. Here is evidence in plenty that there is in this country money available for sound schemes. . . . How can it be attracted into industry again? The sure way is by increasing public confidence in our industrial future, and by persuading the ordinary consumer to buy more of the goods which are on all sides being offered at reasonable prices.”

It may be remarked that the oversubscription of public issues of shares was going on throughout the latter half of 1930. We wonder, too, whether the “ordinary consumer” who is asked to spend more includes the workers whose wages have been reduced while the Labour Government has been in office.

* * *

The Cotton Lock-Out.

It is interesting to notice that the factor which induced the employers to withdraw the lock-out notices and abandon their intention to try to impose a further 12½ per cent. reduction in pay and an increase in hours was the refusal of the locked-out men and women to give their trade union officials power to enter into negotiations. Reynolds’s Illustrated News (February 10th) says :—

“What brought about the collapse of the lock-out undoubtedly was the firmness of the rank and file of the operatives.

Right from the beginning of the dispute they have resolutely refused to give their Trade Union leaders power to negotiate with the employers, and have held our for the complete ending of the more-looms system.”

The Socialist Party has always pointed out the danger which arises from the practice of giving the officials power to negotiate in secret with the employers.

* * *

Unemployment in France.

A Blow to the Birth-Controllers.

Last year the publishers of the New Generation distributed (with the assistance of the New Leader a leaflet by G. A. Gaskell and R. B. Kerr, M.A., LL.B., showing how birth control would abolish unemployment. France, they said, was the “one country . . . which is free from unemployment.” France used to have unemployment, but birth control cured it. “Surely this is a magnificent achievement for birth control !” wrote the authors. Unfortunately for them, France hasn’t got rid of unemployment. In the August, 1930, Socialist Standard we gave the reasons why France had temporarily escaped obvious unemployment, and prophesied that unemployment would soon appear.

Now we have some definite evidence on the subject. The special correspondent in France of the News-Chronicle wrote as follows (22nd December, 1930) :—

“No reliable unemployment figures are available, though the Government admits a slow, but steady, increase. M. Lenoir, the Secretary of the Confederation Generale du Travail, declares that the situation is serious and that the number of unemployed is increasing every day. ‘It is not,’he adds, ‘seasonal unemployment. The workless are legion in the textile and metal industries of the North. . . . There is also a lot of short time everywhere.’”

Further evidence was given by Mr. H. J. Greenwall, who was in France for the Daily Express. He wrote (January 13th, 1931) :—

“There are, at the moment, about a quarter of a million unemployed in France, while those on short time bring the figures up to about half a million.”

The French representative at the recent Geneva Conference on unemployment admitted that there are in France 350,000 wholly unemployed and about 1,000,000 partly unemployed, excluding all firms employing under 100 persons (see The Times, February 7th). These figures were confirmed by the French Government. The Paris correspondent of The Times also reported that the census of 1921 showed 537,000 unemployed, and the census of 1926, 243,000. France is now faced with threatening strikes and lock-outs in several industries owing to attempts to reduce wages.

By the end of February, according to The Times March 7th, 1931), unemployment had risen to at least 650,000, with a further 1,500,000 partly unemployed.

So much for birth control as a cure for unemployment and poverty.

* * *

Mr. Maxton's acrobatics.

Mr. Maxton has often declared that the Labour Party is a capitalist party, but he always takes good care to keep inside that capitalist party, in the warm. The thought of being put out into the cold, where there are no political jobs going for the bright young men and women of the I.L.P., fills him and his supporters with the wildest alarm. He was taunted with this inconsistency at the Conference of the Scottish I.L.P. He said (Forward, January 17th) :—

“He had been told in the House of Commons that a man could not ride two horses. All I can say is that if you cannot ride two horses you have no right to be in the bloody circus. . . . 

Surely I, in the Left Wing, am entitled to my acrobatics, and to have one foot on the Labour official horse and the other on the fighting socialist horse.”

A resolution to disaffiliate from the Labour Party was defeated by 112 votes to 25. Bold Mr. Maxton, riding his two horses as usual, “said he would not speak either for or against the resolution.” This is how the “leaders” give a “lead” to their followers.

* * *

The I.L.P. drops members.

It was disclosed at the Conference of the Scottish I.L.P. that the number of Labour M.P.’s who are members of the I.L.P. has fallen to 156. A year ago, when the Party held its National Conference, it was stated in the Report to Conference that nearly 200 I.L.P. members were Labour M.P.’s. So that over 40 Labour M.P.’s have in a year decided that the I.L.P. can be of no further use as an aid to a political career. The I.L.P. still, however, counts as members a clear majority of the Labour M.P.’s.

It is interesting to notice how the membership of the I.L.P. has fallen in recent years. In February, 1925, according to the “Socialist Annual, 1925,” published by the I.L.P., there were approximately 50,000 members and 1,028 branches. At the Conference in 1930 it was stated (Manchester Guardian, April 3rd, 1930) that the branches had fallen to 748. If the membership has fallen proportionately to the fall in branches, it would have been not more than 30,000 a year ago. The income from affiliation fees fell by over 40 per cent. between 1925 and 1929.

The Report of the National Administrative Council to the 1931 Conference shows a further decline. The branches now number 712, and affiliation fees have fallen to £.1,523, as compared with £3,467 in the year ended January, 1926.

According to Mr. F. A. Ogg (“English Government and Politics,” p. 541), the I.L.P. in 1914 had 60,000 members, and in 1927, when its book membership was 50,000, the actual paid-up membership was nearer 30,000.

* * *

The Well-To-Do I.L.P.

The I.L.P. has objected to the Government’s proposed Voting Bill because it is not sufficiently democratic. The I.L.P. put down several amendments, but we observe that neither they nor the Labour Party, the Liberal Party or the Tory Party, propose to abolish the clause which compels candidates to deposit £150. To find such deposits is a hard task for a party (such as our own) dependent on the spare cash of members of the working class. It is by no means difficult for the wealthy parties referred to above. The dependence of the I.L.P. on well-to-do supporters is illustrated by their recently published appeal for funds. Four lists of subscribers have been issued up to February 20th. Out of a total amount of £1,169, no less than £709 was subscribed by only 14 persons. This included one donation of £250 and three donations of £100. Although the I.L.P. complains of dwindling funds, it is still able to count on well-to-do supporters.

* * *

Capitalism and class barriers.

Defenders of capitalism are fond of pointing out that everyone has a chance of climbing to the top. The statistical department of the German Government has just conducted an inquiry to find out how many workers’ sons have actually been able to climb into the ranks of the privileged class. An account of the inquiry was given in the News-Chronicle on December 10th, 1930.

It was found that there were only four workers’ sons among 247 bankers, stockbrokers and big business men ; two among 258 company directors ; none among 122 big property owners ; six among 203 actors, singers, theatrical managers ; none among 300 political economists, etc. ; and only about seven among 1,370 high Government and Municipal officials. 

No daughter of a working man was found to have penetrated into the learned professions or big business circles.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Socialist Searchlight. (1928)

From the September 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

VARIOUS POLICIES EXAMINED.

THE “SOCIALISM OF THE LABOUR PARTY. 

What the Labour Party calls Socialisation can easily be gathered from the famous speech on “Gradualism” made by the “brains” of the Labour Party—Mr. Sidney Webb—who plainly showed that his conception of Socialism was the ordinary legislation of Liberals and Tories. He said:

“The process of Socialisation has been going on for a whole generation in National and Local Government without our realising it.”

If the I.L.P. thinks that Mr. Webb is not advanced enough what about their own Tom Johnson, M.P., who as Editor of “Forward,” continually describes Glasgow “City Owned” Tramcars as Socialism? This same I.L.P. leading Member of Parliament, in his debate with Mr. J. M. Keynes, said :

“That he regarded many of the proposals in the Liberal Yellow Book as proposals for which Socialists could vote with both hands (“Forward,” 11/8/28).

HOW COMMUNISTS FIGHT ELECTIONS. 

Mr. Aitken Ferguson, adopted as Communist Party Candidate for North Aberdeen, shows that he is a Communist in name only. The National Left Wing Committee asked him if he accepted their programme and he replied (Sunday Worker, August 12) :

“The whole programme is unreservedly accepted. I am enclosing a copy of my election address, and you will notice that it differs in no essential points from the programme of your national committee.”

This programme includes Nationalisation of Banks, Mines and Basic Industries, 44-hour week and £4 minimum wage Law, Nationalisation of Land (with due regard for Co-ops, and small holders !), Capital Levy, Unemployment Relief on a National Scale, Pensions at 55, Abolition of House of Lords.

This policy is not Communism nor is it one which alters the slave position of the workers under Capitalism. The programme can be carried out and still leave the Capitalists richer than ever, because nothing in such a series of reforms stops the normal development of industry benefiting the Capitalist at the expense of the worker. The last item—abolition of House of Lords—shows how “vote catching” has reduced for election purposes the Communist demand of “smashing the State” to the gentle liberal political reform of “No Second Chamber.”

RATIONALISATION AND ITS RESULTS. 

“Apparently the increased seriousness of accidents during the last few years has been the direct result of the increased intensity of industrial activity during that period. There are, however, forces inherent in mechanisation itself and in the consequent speeding up of industry which have a direct tendency to increase the seriousness of accidents.”

(From “A Study of Safety and Production,” by The American Engineering Council.)

THE ECONOMIC MARCH. 

“The fact that during the past 20 years the number of factories has increased by 40 per cent., while workshops have fallen by 26 per cent., is regarded as an indication that “the small employer tends to drop out of existence, and that mass production in highly organised establishments is steadily replacing the village and rural workshop.” 

The “Daily News,” July 31st, quoting report of Chief Inspector of Factories, 1928.

THE COMMUNIST “UPSURGE.” 

Since the theses of the Third (Moscow) International advocating violence and armed insurrection (1921) were suppressed by the authorities, many workers think that policy has been abandoned by the Communists.

We print below two quotations from the new draft programme of the 3rd International now being discussed by the Congress in Moscow, where a large number of paid officials of Communist Parties are meeting.

These quotations prove that phrases and slogans borrowed from Russian experiences are still being advocated for countries with a much different situation than Russia. The net result of such a programme is simply to get the minorities who act on these lines smashed by the powers of the governments. Steady organisation and education in Socialist ideas are neglected entirely by such schemes of sensational uprising.

THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME. 

“When the revolutionary tide is flowing, when the dominant classes are disorganised, the masses are in a state of revolutionary ferment, the intermediary strata are inclining towards the proletariat and the masses are prepared for action and for sacrifice; the task of the party of the proletariat is to lead the masses into the direct attack upon the bourgeois state. This is to be achieved by propaganda in favour of all transitional slogans (Soviet’s, workers’ control of industry, the slogan of peasant committees for the seizure of the landlords’ land, etc.), and the organisation of mass actions, to which all other branches of party work, agitation and propaganda, including parliamentary work, must be subordinated. This includes strikes, strikes combined with demonstrations, the combination of armed demonstrations and strikes, and finally the general strike conjointly with the armed uprising against the political power of the bourgeoisie. The struggle must be subjected to the rules of military art; it must be conducted according to a plan of war and in the form of a military offensive. It calls for the devoted loyalty and heroism of the proletariat. Such actions must be preceded by the organisation of the broad masses in military units which by their very form attract and set into action the maximum number of toilers (councils of workers’ and peasants’ deputies, soldiers’ councils, etc.), and by intensified work in the army and navy. 

(Daily Worker, New York, July 16th, 1928).

THE MOSCOW POLICY FOR ENGLAND ! 

“Countries of highly developed capitalism (United States, Great Britain, Germany, etc.) with powerful productive forces, a high degree of centralisation of production, relatively small significance of small production and with a long-established bourgeois, democratic political system. In these countries, the fundamental political demand of the programme is direct transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the sphere of economics the most characteristic are : The expropriation of the whole of large-scale production ; the organisation of a large number of State Soviet farms, only a small share of the land to be transferred to the peasantry ; unorganised market relationships to be permitted only on a small scale. Socialist development generally and the collectivisation of peasant farming in particular to proceed at a rapid rate.” 

(Daily Worker, New York, July 13th, 1928).

STREET FIGHTS ARE COMMUNIST POLICY. 

Bucharin was the official Bolshevik speaker in favour of the new Draft Programme on July 19th at the Moscow Congress (1928). His remarks, which we quote below, ask the workers to resort to anarchist street fightings and state smashing and such hopeless and out-of-date methods of struggle. Modern conditions make all such policies obsolete in view of the development of the mighty political machine and its forces, as Engels well showed in reviewing the class struggles in France from 1848 to 1850.

Here is the quotation from Bucharin as printed in the official “International Press Correspondence ” (July 30th, 1928).

“Mass actions must be regarded as one of the best means in our struggle. Our tactics must be to mobilise the masses, to become masters of the streets, to attack again and again the law and order of the bourgeoise State and to smash it, to capture the street by revolutionary means, in the strict sense of the word, and then to go further. Only on the basis of a whole series of such events and on the basis of the development of these events—mass actions, etc.—only through such a process can we prepare ourselves for fiercer and more stubborn mass struggles on a larger scale.”

BACKWARD RUSSIA. 

If they could show that any of the above methods had led to Socialism in Russia they might have a plausible argument. But as we have shown in these columns the Russian Bolshevik Policy is neither applicable here with a different stage of working class development, nor is it able to give Russia Socialism.

How backward Russia is we can regretfully read in this quotation from the Bolshevik Workers’ Life of July 20th, 1928 :

“Russia is a country of small peasant farms, like those parts of Ireland, where landlords do not flourish. In general, the methods of tilling used by the peasants are very primitive, and little attempt is made to sort out good seeds or to study the characteristics of the soil.

But scattered throughout the Soviet Union now there are a number of Soviet farms, larger in size than the peasant holdings, and very much more efficient.

In the R.S.F.S.R. there are over 3,000 such farms, and in the Ukraine there were 633 last year.

Large though these numbers seem, Soviet farms are only “a drop in the ocean” in the vast expanse of Russia. Their production is a very small proportion of Russia’s total output. For instance, they have about 200,000 head of livestock on these farms (cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, etc.), but the total number of such animals in Russia is nearly 20,000,000 !”

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the September 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Communist Tactics— Wholesale Burglaries. 

Workers' News (April 30th), a Communist paper published in Moscow for English-speaking workers living in Russia, contains an account of an unemployed demonstration at Wellington, New Zealand. The unemployed, “under Communist leadership,” attempted to raid the Parliament buildings. Many were injured and several were arrested, including the Communist leader. He told the authorities that “they would organise wholesale burglaries and looting, inevitably entailing general turmoil."

In this way the Communists, bankrupt of ideas and ignorant of Socialist principles, come back to the old and discredited doctrines of individual attempts at law-breaking. And whoever heard of an intelligent burglar telling the police where they can round up the intending breakers of the law?

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Liberal-Labour Government.

As it is certain to be denied later on that there were ever formal negotiations between the Labour Government and the Liberal Party, the following extracts from the Daily Herald have an interest:—

From the Daily Herald of March 23rd, 1931 :—

  The fate of the Liberal Party depends on the events of the next few days.
 Either an arrangement must be reached which provides for a stable period of progressive legislation or an intolerable position must be ended by an appeal to the country.
 A continuance of the present deadlock indefinitely is unthinkable . . .   Already there have been a number of meetings between Labour and Liberal spokesmen and these will be continued during the week.
 Among those who have taken part in these discussions are the Prime Minister, Mr.  Arthur Henderson, Mr. Philip Snowden (before his illness), Lord Sankey, Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Herbert Samuel, and Lord Lothian.

From a Daily Herald editorial on May 29th, 1931 :—

Two years ago to-morrow the country gave at the polls the verdict which threw the Tories from power and made possible the formation of the second Labour Government.
Like its predecessor of 1924, it is a minority Government. And hopeful Tories prophesied for it a short, feeble, and sterile career.
They have been disappointed. ’They will be disappointed.
They forgot that minority Governments are not necessarily either feeble or short-lived.
The Salisbury Government of 1886 was a minority Government; but it lasted its full term, and it heralded 20 years of almost unbroken Tory rule.
History may very well repeat itself. Assured now of Liberal co-operation, as Salisbury was of Liberal-Unionist co-operation, there is no reason why Mr. MacDonald should not hold office for a full and fruitful term.

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Fascism and the Communist Party

Reply to the “ Pan-Pacific Worker.”

The "Pan-Pacific Worker," published at Sydney, Australia, is one of the disguises adopted by the "Communist International,” calling itself for this purpose the "Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat."

In the Australian Edition (12th May, 1931) a Mr. Herbert Moore, in an article on "Fascism,” has a word to say about the S.P.G.B., the Socialist Labour Party, and the Socialist Party of Canada. He calls us all "thoroughly discredited and decadent.” The other two bodies must of course speak for themselves, but the S.P.G.B. has never been in better form than it is now.

Mr. Moore’s reason for regarding us as decadent is that he believes we "hold the illusion that we must pass through Fascism.” He gives no evidence for this belief about us and he is, of course, completely wrong. We hold no such illusion. So-called "Fascism” is as old as capitalism, and simply means the readiness of the capitalists, whenever they think it necessary, to use their power for the violent and brutal suppression of any insurgent minority, either of workers or capitalists. This is a common feature of capitalist political history in every country, before as well as since the war. To say then that the S.P.G.B. holds the illusion "that we must pass through Fascism" is only true in the sense that capitalism without the possibility of such violence by capitalist Governments is, and always has been, inconceivable. But this is not the sense in which Mr. Moore uses it. He thinks that this so-called "Fascism” is something which has not yet happened in the English-speaking countries, but which may happen. Mr. Moore is quite wrong and should acquaint himself with the records of the British, the French, the American, and the Australian sections of the ruling class.

The Socialist Party’s attitude has been logical and consistent. The one way to prevent the capitalists from using their political power against the workers is to refrain from voting them and their agents into control of the political machinery. We have always urged the workers not to vote for any candidate who is a supporter of capitalism.

Compare our attitude with that of the Communist Party, which has Mr. Moore’s sympathy and support.

In Germany, at the time of writing, the Prussian Communists are voting for the referendum initiated by the Hitlerite (Fascist) Party and the German Nationalists.

In Great Britain the Communists have supported Labour leaders notorious for their willingness to use the armed forces against the workers.

There was Mr. Arthur Henderson, who, as a member of the War Cabinet, urged the forcible deportation of the Clyde strikers in 1916. For years the Communists have urged the workers to vote for Mr. Henderson.

In 1922 the Communists voted for all the Labour Party candidates while declaring of them that "they support British imperialist policy in Ireland and India.”

  In Ireland they stand by the British machine-guns of the Irish Free State against the declared will of the majority of the Irish people for a Republic.—(“The Communist,” November 4, 1922.)

One of the most striking illustrations of Communist trickery in supporting avowed enemies of the workers relates to Mr. John Hodge, M.P.

At the 1922 General Election, which took place in November, the Communist candidate, Mr. Harry Pollitt, stood down in favour of Mr. John Hodge and supported him on the Labour party platform (see "Communist Daily,” November 13, 1922).

Nine months earlier the local Communists had asked some questions of the Right Hon. John Hodge, who was already the Labour M.P. for the constituency. Questions and answers were published in the "Communist" (February 4, 1922):— 

Question.—"Are you, if elected to Parliament, prepared to support the Government in bringing out the White Guards against strikers, as you did during the Boilermakers’ Strike at Liverpool? "
Answer.—" Yes."

We commend this to the “ Pan-Pacific Worker ” for their consideration.

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Socialism—“ For Export Only.”

Mr. J. T. Walton Newbold has for some time been a member of the Social-Democratic Federation. Until a month or two ago he was Editor of their journal, "The Social-Democrat.” During the War the Social-Democratic Federation called itself the "National Socialist Party” and devoted all its energies to helping the British capitalists win their war. In the "Writers’, and Artists’ Year-Book” the "Social-Democratic Federation” advertises its journal in the following choice phrase : "Though Socialist, was pro-Ally during thfc War.”

All of which leads us up to an article by Newbold and W. Craik, published in the Winnipeg "One Big Union Bulletin” (July 16). In this article, which describes the political Situation in Germany, the writers denounce and ridicule the German Hitlerites on the ground that their official title, "The National Socialist German Workers’ Party,” is a "contradiction in terms.” They point out that it is a useful name because it enables the party to attract all kinds of support, both big and small capitalists and also workers.

But why is "National Socialist” a contradiction only in Germany and Canada? Why not in England? Why is the policy of building up a party out of contradictory elements (vide the British Labour Party, or the Social-Democratic Federation) sound in England, where Newbold supports it, and unsound abroad? Why is Newbold so anxious to prevent his foreign readers from knowing the kind of policies he pursues at home?

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The Fabian Bolsheviks.

Mr. George Bernard Shaw, who received an idolatrous reception on his nine-day visit to Russia, has enormously cheered the Communists by his approval of their political and economic system. If they had stopped to consider exactly what Mr. Shaw says of them, they might be less happy about it. He told the I.L.P. Summer School that "the first thing I discovered, with great gratification, is that Socialism as established in Russia is Fabian Socialism” ("Manchester Guardian,” August 6, 1931). This particular description was used many months earlier by the Liberal, Lord Lothian, who was Shaw’s companion on the Russian visit, and Mr. Shaw is not above borrowing a smart phrase when he hears it. It is absurd, of course, to describe Fabianism as Socialism, and we have for a quarter of a century attacked that misconception, but it is indeed true that the Fabian nightmare of State capitalism run by "intellectuals” is. in many ways similar to the scheme of things in Russia. Long ago the similarity was referred to in these columns.

We wish the Communists joy of their new convert, who so lately was worshipping at the feet of Mussolini. We would, however, warn them that policies have a queer knack of "blowing up” as soon as Shaw endorses them. On August 10th, 1921, Shaw-congratulated the Russians on their existing policy, including forced labour. Twelve hours later the Russian Government announced the abandonment of their policy and the introduction of the so-called "New Economic Policy,” because the old one would not work.

On the present occasion Shaw’s approval was hardly in print before the Russian Government announced a big extension of their existing policy of inequality of pay between different groups of workers. Yet Shaw, it will be recalled, defines his "Socialism” as "equality of income.”

In one thing we can agree with Shaw, that is, in his assertion that the theories of the Bolsheviks are not the theories of Marx.

Edgar Hardcastle