Correspondence: Electoral Tactics in the Potteries. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Electoral Tactics in the Potteries. 

Sir,—Can a worse case of faking and compromise be found than the following ?

At the recent Municipal elections the A.S.R.S. put forward a Mr. Robinson for the South Ward, and his candidature was endorsed by the North Staffs Trades and Labour Council. He is a member of the I.L.P., but did not mention that fact in his election address. Another member of the A.S.R.S., an ex-signalman named Leese, an expelled member of the I.L.P., who poses as a “Labour” man and who has acted as election agent for Mr. John Ward, M.P., undertook to serve in a similar capacity for Mr. Robinson. The Mayor, who was also running in the same ward, called upon Mr. Leese, threatened that he should be opposed next election, reminded him that his (the Mayor’s) class gave liberally to the Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund of the A.S.R.S., that he (Leese) did not altogether depend upon the working class for his livelihood, and also that the railway companies were objecting to their servants contesting elections. The result was that a notice appeared in the Sentinel the following evening stating that Mr. Robinson had withdrawn, as he did not wish to oppose the Mayor !

In the Wellington Ward of Hanley, Mr. J. Lovatt, member of the S.D.F., and secretary of the Potters’ Union, was put forward by his union as a Labour Candidate, although as he won Justice claimed the result as an S.D.F. victory. At an indoor meeting Mr. Lovatt said he was a Socialist but was putting that on one side and was running simply as a Labour candidate in order to be at peace with the non-Socialists in his union. On Oct. 30th he was supporting Mr. A. Stanley, M.P., an anti-Socialist, at a public meeting !

Thus do the place-hunters obscure the issue.

Yours faithfully,

J.T. Skelton.

[Do figs grow on thistles ?—Ed. T.S.S.]

The Potteries. (1914)

Party News from the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

All sympathisers with the Party living in or about Stoke, Fenton, Hanley, Crewe, and Newcastle-under-Lyme should communicate with

G. BANHAM

8 NORTH STREET,

NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME

for particulars as to joining, etc.

The “Socialist Standard” may also be had from the above.

Obituary: Billy Iles (1966)

Obituary from the February 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Billy Iles

In December a group of members attended a crematorium in Guildford, Surrey, to say a last and sad farewell to an old comrade, O. C. Iles, who had been ill for some time with cancer.

Billy Iles, as he was always known to us, joined the Party in 1911 and was active for years in London as a writer, speaker and doing the routine work at Head Office, until his work finally took him to Liverpool.

He was called up during the First World War but refused to join the army. He managed to keep out of trouble during the war, although he never left London, by taking various jobs on night work at Covent Garden, as a milkman, and the like. He lodged for a time with a woman member, Mrs. Chilton, along with other members "on the run"; later with another member in a flat over Head Office until the war was over. In those days we used to collect the Socialist Standard in loose sheets from the printer and folded them ourselves. Billy Iles made many trips to the printer for this purpose and spent many nights folding so that the "S.S." could be out on time.

After the war times were somewhat turbulent and meetings were inclined to be noisy. On one Bank Holiday Billy cycled all night up to Hanley in the Potteries, to hold a meeting during the coal strike in 1921.

During the twenties he was secretary to the Editorial Committee and wrote articles over the initials O.C.I.

Owing to the fact that he lived out of London we did not see much of him during late years, but his optimism and steadfast support continued all through the years and he sent many useful organisational suggestions to Head Office.

The present writer will always remember Billy as a lively and humorous companion on many cycling trips in years gone by.

His illness was a heavy burden to his wife as he only went into hospital during his last few days. To his wife, daughter and brother we send our sincere sympathy.

And so has passed away another of the diminishing group of members, who now only number a handful, who actively pressed forward the Party's principles before and during the years of the First World War.

Gilmac.

Letter: What capitalism means. (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir,—-I am taking keen interest in economics and would like to know the exact relation of things and definition concerning what capital means.

I listen to all parties and read all literature of all parties.

G. Peace, a speaker for the “Commonwealth [Land] Party,” speaking in Hanley, said that last year he visited the outcrops in Hanley and saw men working using their own capital, which proved the worker will do without bosses when all the workers followed the example of the men out-cropping.

Now I wish to know if the tools such as unscientific things as old wheels of bicycles, etc., ropes and buckets to draw the coal up from the outcrop comes under the true definition of capital. Seeing that your definition of capital is the means of exploitation or legalised robbery of the workers.

There is another point perhaps you will be good enough to correct me on. Mr. G. Peace also said during his discourse on the outcroppers that he was amazed to learn the outcroppers were charged five shillings for every ton of coal carted away by the owners of the land.

To me, the economic renters, like Mr. G. Peace, under their single tax or economic scheme, would be somewhat similar, but the only difference would be the State officials, would collect the economic rent instead of private or group Capitalist officials; just assuming that we would gain access to the land in the manner the outcroppers did, this would not bring economic security to all, for there would be disorder instead of proper organisation. Plenty of outcroppers would not find a market for their coal and would be forced to leave their outcrops. So it appears to me competition for markets will be in existence under Capitalism, under economic rent, nationalisation, etc.

Of course, I ask for correction on the points raised.

Thanking your in anticipation, 

Yours sincerely.

—Inquirer.

Answer to Inquirer.

Capital is wealth used for the purpose of obtaining a profit. The owner of this wealth —the Capitalist—purchases buildings, plant, machinery, raw materials, etc. Then he purchases labour-power to use the plant and machinery on the raw materials for the purpose of producing commodities, or article for sale. The value of the raw materials and of the portion of the plant and machinery, used up in a given time, form part of the value of the commodities, and pass over unchanged into the latter value.

The value of the labour-power can be represented at any given period by a particular number of hours’ work. If the labourer only worked this particular number of hours each day there would be no surplus produced as the value of the commodities would be equal to the sum of the values of (1) the raw materials used; (2) the portion of plant and machinery worn out; and (3) the labour-power expended. But, by using the whip of hunger, the Capitalist compels the labourer to work for a longer number of hours than is necessary to replace the value of his labour-power. In these extra hours of work is produced the surplus-value which is afterwards split up into various parts. One part may be used to extend the business. Another part may be absorbed in advertising the goods for sale. Still another part may go to pay rates and taxes. The part remaining to the Capitalist after these distributions forms his profit. Surplus-value is thus seen to consist of the products taken by the Capitalist that the labourer has produced in the time during which he works, but for which he has not been paid. In other words, surplus value is based upon the robbery of the worker. Profit is a part of the results of this robbery.

This explanation makes it quite clear that an individual only obtains profit when he robs some worker, or workers. Whatever tools or plant a man employs in working for himself obviously cannot be capital, as he does not obtain a profit because he does not rob anyone. Only when he uses these tools and plant to rob some worker or workers of the values they have produced, do they become capital and he a Capitalist. The fact that the appliances may be out of date or unscientific, does not prevent them becoming capital in the above circumstances —though it certainly places the Capitalist using them at a disadvantage in competition with other Capitalists who are better equipped.

Mr. Peace’s statements are therefore quite inaccurate. The “outcroppers” were not using capital at all. Their few crude appliances were not used to rob anyone, and therefore, in those conditions, could not be capital. Moreover, if the “outcroppers” had to pay five shillings a ton for the coal obtained the landowners were certainly “bosses” of the situation, and so contradicted Mr. Pearce’s other statement that “the outcroppers were doing without in bosses.”

“Inquirer” is quite correct when he says that under the single tax theory the economic rent would go into the Government coffers instead of into those of private or group Capitalists. This would leave the workers just as they are to-day, slaves to the master class, and robbed of the larger portion of the wealth they produce. Only Socialism can end this slavery.

Editorial Committee.

Answers To Correspondents. (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Truthseeker (Hanley).—We note your reference to the local Labour M.P., Mr. MacLaren's continual advocacy of taxation of landowners, but as we recently dealt with the matter in this journal cannot give more space to this threadbare capitalist reform.

Denmark, the choice example of the land taxer's paradise, is, as you rightly state, a country of increasing unemployment.

E. Wright.—Your letter advocating money reform covers points already recently dealt with in S.S., and we cannot therefore deal with the matter again at present.

F. S. Harvey (Wandsworth).—Your letter about the “ Slave of the Farm " will be dealt with in next issue.

Northern Propaganda Tour (1977)

Party News from the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Branch Formed

In the last week of February a group of London members toured West Yorkshire and Lancashire and, with the help of local members, staged five indoor meetings with great success.

The first two meetings were held in Bradford, at the University and the Textile Hall: the subjects were "Introducing the SPGB” and "Socialism Yes — Labour No!” There were good-sized audiences for both. At the second one several vociferous opponents from left-wing groups and the Labour Party were present. Our Central Organizer wrote in his report: “The way in which the speaker dealt with them left me in no doubt that this meeting was one of the finest I have ever attended.”

On the following days meetings were held in Bolton and at Keele University. Both roused considerable interest. We have several members in the Stoke and Keele area, and there are good prospects of a discussion group and further activity there.

The final meeting of the tour was at the Crown Hotel in Manchester. Because of the size of the audience, the landlord turned customers into another bar to provide a larger room. While it may be too early to start talking about the reconstitution of a branch in Manchester, members round the city are doing a lot of useful work. We look forward to hearing more from there before long.

It was a hectic five days, covering 800 miles, and a tonic to the members who went as well as the local members. The specially stimulating outcome is the formation of a new branch of the Party, to be known as the West Yorkshire Branch. Details of its meetings can be found on the Directory page; Socialist Standard readers in that area, take note!

We Invade the Potteries. (1920)

Party News from the October 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

A New Branch At Hanley.
It it our pleasurable task to announce the formation of a newBranch—at Hanley, Staffs. As will be seen from the advertisement in the Branch Directory, the Branch meets at the Working Men's Club, Glass Street, Hanley, on Wednesday evenings. We are unable at the moment to give the time of these meetings, but enquiry of the Secretary, J. Gallagher, 10 Sidney Street, Hanley, will elicit this information. Comrade Gallagher will also be happy to give any other particulars concerning the Branch or the Party to enquirers.

All sympathisers within practical range of Hanley are cordially invited to attend the meetings of the new Branch, and, if they agree with our principles and policy, to join up and get their shoulder to the wheel of old capitalism’s hearse. They may be sure of a comradely welcome and of finding themselves in company with lads who mean business.

How I became a Socialist (1977)

From the December 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looking back, I can see that I was nearly a middle-of-the-road floating voter, swayed by whichever tricky-slick talker promised me the most in the shortest possible time—be he Conservative, Liberal, Labour, Communist or whatever. How your head swims at election times when all the MPs and prospective MPs are in top gear! All they need, they say, is to get into Power and everyone's worries will be over. What bloody optimists!

I was born and live in Stoke-on-Trent, the grimy industrial city somewhere in the middle of England. And take it from me, the air isn't much less murky now that can be seen in those old photographs taken during the bottle-kiln days. It's just that when you live in a certain kind of atmosphere for most of your life you tend to take it for granted. It's only on a return to the Potteries after a day in the country or seaside that you notice what a depressing place it is.

Like most people, I grew up with ambitions of becoming someone famous—great footballer, pop star, TV personality, anything that would make me plenty of money, enable me to live a life of luxury. Then BUMP! I left school. Oh yes, marvellous at first, money in my pocket, high hopes of climbing from the lowly dogsbody of junior employee to the dizzy pinnacle of Chairman. "It can be done," they drill into you. But of course, the time comes when reality seeps in—no matter how hard you try to thwart its progress. At that point you take a stone-cold look around. And what do you see? Thousands and thousands of ordinary people just like you, dreaming exactly the same impossible dreams, people who you come to fear and regard as competitors—or putting it in its sober perspective, deadly enemies. You grow to hate them, despise every penny they make more than you, completely unaware that you are giving life-blood to the system that thrives on such emotions.

Then came the time when I gave up such hopes of becoming somebody and settled down to accept my lot. But when I'd reached this stage I became frightened: no overstatement, I can assure you. I saw myself in five years, ten, twenty, thirty, maybe even longer, working at the same place, doing the same job week in week out. It's enough to make anybody contemplate suicide if dwelt upon. So what was the answer? Change jobs. I trued that: clerk, factory worker, labourer, cleaner. Still I had that nagging sensation that something wasn't right. So what was the answer? I couldn't see one. I tried to tell myself that there are people a lot worse off than me, people dying of starvation, homeless, living in poverty. But that type of negative thinking gave no lasting satisfaction but led to questioning more deeply the whole set-up, adding even more questions to my tired mind. Questions like: Why are people starving? Why are people homeless? That's when I turned my hopes for a solution towards the field of politics.

Being a city of mines, pot-banks and other factories, it's not surprising that the Labour Party has held a monopoly in Stoke. The false, though understandable, theory is that as most people in the area "labour" for a living, it follows that the "Labour" Party have their interests at heart. I was no exception in arriving at this conclusion, helped by the older generation's barrage of remarks to the effect that Labour was on the side of the underdog. (When I think of the breath I've wasted in the past defending such notions myself, I honestly struggle not to blush, even in an empty room.)

Anyhow, I was then a Labour man, and with my vote helped the LP into Power. The slow realization crept over me that the Labour Party dealt in nothing more tangible than promises.

Facade

Sad and shattered I looked around, increasingly aware of the injustices in the world. I'm too sensitive, I tried to console myself, so started to listen to the Conservatives and Liberals, but for all their expressions of sincerity I could see through the facade. There's no difference between the lot of 'em, just various methods of giving nothing, So what's left? The Communists: I inquired of a couple of self-confessed reds but there seemed to be no clear aim. "Overthrow the Government! Put our Leaders in power like in Russia!" In fact they were merely another version of all other parties, wanted to dictate to the masses—namely me—what they wanted us to do. That wasn't freedom. 

Dejected I concluded that the world was as it was, that there was nowt anybody could do. There'd always be poverty and starvation. All we could so was to send a few bob when we could afford it to one of the hundreds of charities in the vain hope that we'd relieve the suffering of some poor soul whose belly was forever rumbling. But what satisfaction was there in that when you could see and hear of people spending hundreds of thousands on paintings, jewellery, driving round in chauffeured Rolls, going on cruises of the world three times a year, never having to lift a finger, yet never going short of a thing?

That's how I was feeling when I came across the Socialist Party of Great Britain in an advert in the Socialist Worker, the organ of the then International Socialists, a so-called left-wing group, whatever that might mean. It was the first time I'd heard of such organizations as IS, testifying to my ignorance of how the world revolved. I bought the paper in the hope that it would shed some light on how to get a better deal from life. It offered little hope at all, concerned itself mainly with slagging off the other political parties, not even sparing the Labour Party who it urged people to vote for. Very confusing! The little hope turned out to be the small advert asking the reader whether he would like to see One World, a classless, moneyless system of society based on the common ownership of land, buildings, means of production, ect., and democratically controlled by free individuals. Sounded like a set of cranks to me. Still, what had I got to lose? I'd tried everything else so I sent off for literature.

Suspicious 

Naturally, the proposition of a world without money and of co-operative human beings put to a person in a state of mind whereby he thinks things can never alter and is suspicious of all politics seems ludicrous. What about human nature? Who'd do the work? Surely there'd be leaders to influence and coerce people? All these questions and many more come to mind to batter these mad views. How else can you react when right from childhood you've been conditioned into thinking purely in terms of money, buying, selling, competition, winning, etc.

Gradually, after reading the straightforward articles which explained how nearly every problem on earth is caused primarily because of the system known as capitalism that we live under, it dawned on me that not only was such a new system desirable—indeed essential—it was so easily possible with majority understanding.

At last here was hope for the future, something positive to aim for, I'd broken free from the muddled thinking of my past, un-brainwashed myself from the conditioning we are all subject to. What a sense of enlightenment! And what's more gratifying is that I am now in the knowledgeable position of being able to urge you to do the same, to find out about the REAL Socialism of the SPGB and its companion parties abroad.

It's a fact that the world we live in is sickening but it need not be so. Don't just accept things as they are. Do a little enquiring, question all you see and hear, and you'll discover that Socialism is the ONLY way of making life a pleasure instead of a burden!

Paul Breeze