Editorial: Much Ado About Nothing. (1909)

Editorial from the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

We refer, of course, to Mr. Asquith’s speech of the eleventh of December, at a dinner given in commemoration of a Liberal defeat. “We are met,” said the Premier on that auspicious occasion, “to celebrate a failure.” The Lords had inconsiderately slaughtered a Liberal licensing bill, and sour-faced Nonconformity had in consequence been cheated of its sop. Weeks had been spent by the Commons in dreary talk in the passing of that measure, and tons of unreadable printed matter had been issued, but this had not prevented it going the way it had been expected it would, and perhaps intended it should, go—apparently to the relief of the majority outside. The bill, indeed, was utterly worthless to the workers, and quite hopeless in the promotion of temperance : its only function seems to have been to square the electoral account for nonconformist and teetotal support.

The collapse of the so-called Education Bill, added to the violent death of the licensing measure, had depressed the Liberal party and made many of its supporters discontented, and it became incumbent on Mr. Asquith to give a rallying cry to decaying Liberalism, and revive the drooping fortunes of his party. And to the accompaniment of loud and prolonged cheering the anxiously awaited pronouncement was made public. “I invite the Liberal Party from tonight,” said the hero of Featherstone, “to treat the veto of the House of Lords as the dominating issue in politics.” Hardly inspiring, this, as a rallying cry, even if it were not mere sound and fury, signifying nothing. Indeed, what did the Premier propose to do to make his dominating issue a reality ? Was the party to go to the country forthwith upon the issue and fight the Lords ? No, quoth Mr. Asquith, that would be to admit the right of the Lords “to dictate both the occassion and the date of a dissolution.” So the Liberals were going to be brave—and to submit. The hollowness of Liberalism hardly needed further demonstration. “Down with the Lords” is again to be its empty rallying cry ; and although the House of Lords, has not yet gone to Jericho, still its walls are expected to crumble at a shout, for certainly the Liberals are prepared to do nothing more.

It cannot be denied that there exist powerful constitutional weapons against the Lords which the Liberals could use were they sincere, but wherever capitalist interests are endangered Liberal and Tory have two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one. In view of working-class unrest, does not the second chamber offer a possible barrier to working-class advance should other obstacles not suffice ? And does not this account for the tenderness with which the Lords are treated by the Liberals, and partly, also, for the enormous number of peers which the latter create ? Not, however, that we are enamoured of a reform of the House of Lords, for the reform of a rotten institution simply serves to perpetuate that institution, and a House of Lords reformed would undoubtedly be a House of Lords strengthened as a weapon against the workers. Nevertheless the fatuity of Liberalism in this respect, as in regard to their projected Land Tax, cannot escape recognition. The fiscal reform of the Liberals, indeed, is at least as futile as the fiscal reform of the Tories, as far as working-class interests are concerned. So, also, with that other measure which collapsed of its own weakness—the “Education” Bill. There, also, we have an example of Liberal futility. Though called an Education Bill, this measure had nothing whatever to do with the improvement of education, but was solely a faction squabble between sections of the capitalist interest as to which particular brand of Christianity should be forced down the throats of the children. In other words, since the particular form of superstition to be taught is but the outward and visible sign of the interests of one section or other of the ruling class, so the squabble over religious education was really to decide which section of the ruling class the children were to be taught to look to for guidance. To capitalist parties this religious squabble may be vital. Mr. Hill, “Labour” M.P., may claim that “the Bible is still his best book,” and that he believes “in simple Bible teaching.” But from the working-class point of view the fact remains that the worker’s interest is foreign to all this Labour cum-Liberal twaddle.

Moreover, the Liberal-Labour bankruptcy on the question of unemployment could hardly be made clearer. Along with the boasted avalanche of Liberal measures—all conceived in the interest of the ruling class —the position of the worker has been steadily growing worse. Statistics convey a quite inadequate idea of the extent of dumb suffering and poverty that exists among the workers from this cause. Mr. William Redmond, M.P., is moved to remark in Reynold’s that “there is no part of the world where the contrasts between luxurious wealth and miserable poverty are so marked as in England, and particularly in London.” And he further adds,

“We have in Ireland suffering and unemployment enough. But the humblest labourer in his cottage in the country is to be envied in comparison with the workman in the great cities who finds himself without employment. Bit by bit the little articles of the home are sacrificed. The pawnshop stretches forth the only hand of assistance often to be found. The home goes, and there is nothing left but the streets. Far preferable is the lot of the poorest dweller is the countryside to this.

England has been glorified because of her great industrial progress, her mighty factories, and her great hives of industry. But when the depression of trade brings with it the discharge of workmen and the hopelessness which that entails, it is futile to talk of the glory of England’s progress. She then presents a spectacle which is unparalleled in the history of the world, of the most boundless wealth on the one hand, and the direst poverty on the other.”

But to these sufferings of the working class the Liberals, like the Tories, are cynically indifferent, and are, in fact, only likely to move when the workers start acting for themselves. So bad is the state of affairs, indeed, that the Labour Party, that docile tail of the Liberal bow-wow, is even moved by the callousness of the Government to murmur a faint protest. We quote from the daily paper of December 12th.

“Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., secretary of the Labour Party, speaking at Coventry last night, said deliberately (according to the Central News Agency) that unless the Government turned over a new leaf and observed more sympathy, initiative, and determination in dealing with the serious problems of unemployment it would find the Labour Party before long in violent conflict with it.”

Things must be bad indeed, when the Labour Party threatens to be in conflict with the Government ! In fact, we cannot believe that it will ever come to that. The faithfulness to the Government that has hitherto characterised the “Labour” members is not likely to be disturbed. As we have been reminded on more than one occasion, they find their seats too comfortable.

For the working class, however, groaning under their increasing burden of misery, only the policy of hostility can be of use. They must, as distinct from the Labour Party, find themselves all the time in violent opposition to the capitalist Government. They must democratically champion their own interests against all sections of the capitalist party, and realise to the full that the rallying cries and faction fights of Liberals versus Tories are in very truth rightly said to be “much ado about nothing.” Indeed, if the workers are not prepared to take a stand with their comrades in the Socialist Party and fight their own battles, then there is no power can save them from the deepening misery that threatens.

The Apostles of Lower Wages. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again we turn the searchlight upon the nefarious traffic of those who, styling themselves labour leaders, support the character by leading Labour, like a lamb, to the slaughter. The latest instance of the treachery of these odorous hirelings of the capitalist class, while of no importance as an historical event, since it indicates no new phase in the record of this unspeakable band of fratricides, is of moment as showing once again, to those who have eyes to see, the face of the old enemy beneath the mask of the new friend. Mr. D. J. Shackleton, M.P., member of the Parliamentary Labour Group, president of the Trade Unions Congress, is reported to have delivered himself of the following sentiments at the Mechanics’ Institute, Nottingham, on November 30th :—

“Supporters of the Bill recently rejected were hoping that it would have enabled them to deal with the drink traffic in such a manner as to put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries. So long as they spent, as at present, far and away more than Germany and America per head of the population on intoxicating liquors, so long would they be liable to be beaten in industrial competition.”—Daily Chronicle, 1.12.08.

There is, indeed, food for reflection in this message from the chief of the purveyors of soporifics to the working class of this country. In the first place it may be noticed with what a deft turn of capitalist sophistry this hireling shepherd removes the fight from the “class” field to that of race. It is not, be it observed, the filching from the worker of the greater part of the product of his toil that claims the attention of Mr. D. J. Shackleton and his cannibal pack of vampires. No ! the enemy of labour is not capital; the despoiler of the worker is not that class which stand between him and the fulness of the earth the fruit of his painful drudgery ; the evil is not, mark you, rooted in the system of class domination, class possession of all that is necessary and good under the sun. No ! all this is mythology, the vain vapouring of well-meaning visionaries, or the calculated seduction of far-seeing panderers to the popular aspiration to better conditions. Labour has but one foe, we are told, and that is—himself.

Oh ! coals of fire upon those of us who dared to dream of the “brotherhood of man,” and those others of us who asserted nothing higher than the oneness of the material interests of the wage-workers the whole world—over the enemy of Labour in one country is himself in all other countries. The workers of Germany and of America have taken us by the throat in the strife of industrial competition, and we must clutch at their vitals in self defence.

Alas ! for our dream of emancipation without distinction of race or sex.

Oh ! sackcloth and ashes for those of us who aspired to the capture of political power for the overthrow of the capitalist system, the bill is to be filled by the abolition of the House of Lords to the end that a measure shall be passed to make the British worker become more abstemious and so put “the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries.”

Overwhelming shame on those of us who, in our visionary frenzy, declared for “the whole product to the producer,”—the trouble is that the workers already get too much ! They must be legislated into temperance—not for temperance sake, but to “put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries.”

Repentance at leisure for those fools who sent Mr. D. J. Shackleton and his gang of shameless harpies to the House of Commons to forward the interests of Labour—the only interest of Labour they have made any attempt to forward is this abortive effort to reduce the workers’ “drink bill” so that a corresponding deduction may be made from their wages bill “to put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors of other countries.”

These men stand now in the broad light of day, self confessed—by the lips of their leader—apostles of lower wages for the class who are fools enough to allow them access to their pockets in the vain hope that they will do something for them.

For how else can they pretend that the realisation of their desire to “deal with the drink traffic” can save their working-class dupes from being “beaten in industrial competition,” except on the ground that lower wages would rule, and enable the manufacturer to throw commodities into the foreign market at a lower price ? Mr. Shackleton may be quite correct in his economics so far. It is admitted that, notwithstanding the broad law ruling the world of commodities, making them exchange one with another according to the labour time necessary to their production, the manufacturer who secures the cheapest labour-power is certainly in a position to sell below value “to secure the business.” But to argue therefrom that the workers of this country, as a result of having learnt to live cheaper, and therefore to work, as these labour leeches wish them to, for smaller wages, are going to reap the benefit in the form of less unemployment, is to present a view as chimerical as it is pleasing and plausible.

If there is any truth in Mr. Shackleton’s argument that the lower wages due to the lessened consumption of intoxicating liquors will enable British commodities to find a larger sale in foreign markets, it equally true that the rise in British wages which would follow upon the more general demand for labour-power in the home labour market will have a counterbalancing effect. For the rest, as has been recently shown in these columns, any rise of the price of labour-power at once handicaps it against its incessant competitor, machinery, the extended adoption of which throws men out of employment until the relative proportion of out-o’-works to in-works stands at that particular level that best suits the production of profit.

So, the object of these instruments of working-class betrayal resolves itself merely into a reduction of the working-class standard of living, lessening of the portion of wealth produced which falls to the lot of the producer, ostensibly “to put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries,” but in reality in order that a larger share of the wealth produced may be left for those who do not produce it.

A high aim, friends and fellow workers of the S.D.P. and I.L.P., who bruised your shoulders against the wheel to trundle these men into the “House.” A lofty and noble aspiration, brother workers of the trade unions, of whose Congress this particular individual is the presis, to direct your anxious efforts toward. Lower wages is the only message he has for you, for all the hundreds of golden pieces you pour into his capacious maw, year in and year out. A lower standard of living, a cheaper existence, is the only hope he can see for you, who produce all the wealth of the community and enjoy so little of it. A labour leader, and the only enemy he can find to lead you against is your fellow workers of Germany and America. The paid declarant of your poverty and suffering, he insults and mocks you with the suggestion that you have yourselves to blame for wasting your substance in riotous living—as your abstemious masters have told you for so many years without charging you anything for the information.

Fellow members of the working class, how long will you continue to put your faith in these damnable, sneering rascals who, imbuing you with the fallacious idea that they are nearer to you than your masters are, become the valued instruments of those masters by leading you around the industrial Desert of Gobi ? The present remedy for your deplorable condition is to reduce your standard of living to that of your German co-workers ; but how when international capital opens up the great Chinese labour market, and you are face to face with the products of 500,000,000 people who can each, we are told, live on a handful of rice ? It is logical to presume that your salvation will then lie in reducing your standard of living to meet the new conditions.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain do not offer you economic salvation at so low a cost as temperance or even total abstinence, do not promise you safety in citizen armies, or surcease of sorrow in pensions for the old and meals for the young, do not urge you to take arms against the militarism of the German Emperor or to tighten the belt and forego pipe and pewter in the endeavour to outstarve the “industrial competitors in other countries.” All we can offer you are the irresistible weapons of the class struggle and a place in the forefront of the battle; continued and increasing poverty and suffering until the day of victory,—but victory at last. They lie who promise you more; they betray who would have you burn your brains out in the search for palliatives. There is no balm in capitalist Gilead, therefore—the World for the Workers. Only possession of whole means of production can give you any amelioration of your lot. Unemployment and starvation, ay, and even drunkenness too, and other degradation, are, the necessary concomitants, or, it is better said, necessary results of your status as wage-slaves. That status must be altered ; and it is because these men who claim to represent Labour in Parliament, with their fostering of race hatred, their advocacy of cheaper existence, their thousand and one acts and “words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal,” are one of the chief bulwarks of capitalist domination that we denounce them for what they are—tools of the master class, betrayers of their own.

A. E. Jacomb

Dynamite. (1908)

From the December 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

WAS GOING TO SMASH SOCIALISM

At a sitting, before Mr. Registrar Brougham, for the public examination of E. W. Mockler, of Hungerford Road, Holloway, works manager, it appeared that he had interested himself in politics, and that about June, 1907, he became treasurer of the Constitutional Speakers’ League, which was to send vans round the country and supply speakers at meetings to be held on the subject of tariff reform. In respect of that league the debtor stated that he had personally incurred sundry liabilities, and he estimated that, including money advanced to the chairman (about £300 now appearing as a bad debt) and other expenses, he had lost about £750 in connection therewith. The horses and vans were eventually seized and sold for the payment of keep and storage. To his losses and liabilities on behalf of the league the debtor attributed his failure,—”Morning Advertiser,” 7.11.08.

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LETTING THE CAT OUT

Sir,—I beg to assure you that there is nothing of revolt against the Government in my letter stating I would not again contest Walworth. I wish to give the Prime Minister, Mr. Burns, and Mr. Haldane every support. What I do revolt against is any pandering to Socialism by less experienced and less wise Ministers, and entirely because their doing so helps reaction and blocks the way of the urgent reforms to which I am pledged. REFORM AND SOCIALISM ARE LIKE WATER AND FIRE—MUTUALLY DESTRUCTIVE.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

C. J. O’Donnell,

House of Commons, Oct. 26.

—” Standard.”

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HOW ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN?

When you go back to the early years of the nineteenth century, and read the accounts of children’s sufferings due to the cruelty of slave-drivers, your hearts are apt to cry out in anguish. Just think of today. Think of today in these great United States, children five and six years old, working from six in the morning until six in the evening, and at the hardest and most trying kind of labour. These children are being ruined by thousands by the manufacturers. It is killing the whole white race of the South.

It may be surprising, but it is the absolute truth, that things just as bad are going on right here in New York City. Child slavery thrives here in greater proportion than in the South.

There are parts of this city where little children are driven to work early in the morning for two hours and then sent to our American schools, and after school are forced into sweatshops, where they are obliged to work from three in the afternoon until eleven o’clock at night.—William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools of New York City.

—”St. Louis Labour,” Oct. 17, 1908.

Who said ” Tariff Reform” ?

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CANDOR

Asked at a mass meeting last January, “What do you advise a conscientious working man to do who is out of a job and whose family is starving because he can’t get work ?” Mr. Taft, who weighs over twenty stone, flung his hands above his head in a gesture of despair as he answered, “God knows, I don’t.”

That pregnant ejaculation has travelled from New York to San Francisco and its echo has been heard from New Orleans to Minnesota. It is characteristic of its author—as honest an American as the United States ever produced.

“Star,” 8.11.08.

For the first time a mountain in travail has brought forth something that may pass for the truth. Taft may know God knows what a starving man should do, but certainly Taft, the capitalist doesn’t.

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WHAT DO THEY KNOW?

Much amusement was caused in the Lobby of the House of Commons last night by the circulation of a portrait in a New York newspaper. The words underneath were “England’s Bulwark Against Socialism—Mr. John Burns,” but the portrait, by some mischance, was that of Mr. Keir Hardie.

—” Daily Mail,” Guy Fawkes Day.

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No one, surely, can be so unkind to John Burns as his friends.

“Mr. Burns has seen one relevant fact of great importance. He has realised that if municipalities distribute their work with more regularity over the year and give out as much of it as possible during the winter months a good deal of unemployment can be prevented, and for some of it a resource will always be available.” “Daily News,” 26.10.08.

How can unemployment be affected by starving men in summer to feed them in winter ?

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We do get the truth, sometimes.

“The pretence that the existing distress is merely a transient phase due to financial disturbance in the United States and so forth is absurd.”—”Standard,” 26.10.08.

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This is interesting.

“One remedy for unemployment would be to double the wages of every working man. If that could be done to-morrow the spending power of the people would be doubled, and work would be provided, for every man and woman in Great Britain in providing for their needs.”-(Keir Hardie at Merthyr, 24,10.08.)

It is as difficult to mitigate unemployment by doubling wages as it would be to remove unemployment by abolishing wages.

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What d’ye say, Henderson ? What’s the good of it if it don’t find work for every child as well ?

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Oh ! these “Socialists.” Here is another specimen. Author, Philip Snowden.

“He wanted to assure all temperance workers of his sympathy and of the sympathy of his colleagues, who were working in other fields of reform—reforms which were no less temperance reforms … As one who deeply appreciates the very great injury and the very great obstacle which the drinking habits of the people present to the progress of every movement of a social reform character, I want to assure you that we are heart and soul with you, and we wish you God-speed. … In connection with the Trade Unions Congress there was always held a temperance fellowship meeting. Mr. Steadman, M.P., the secretary, had told him that he could remember the time when a temperance resolution was struck out of the agenda on the ground that temperance had nothing to do with labour. 

“There was at the present moment another question besides that of temperance touching the hearts of the people—the wide-spread suffering and privation from want of employment.”—(“Manchester Guardian,” 10.10.08.)

The quotations are quite in their proper order. Observe the great question of “temperance reform” comes first, then the secondary matter of “unemployment,” while as for Socialism, that seems to have been “struck out of the agenda on the ground that it has nothing to do with labour.”

Dynamite. (1908)

From the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jeering at the claims of the Tariff Reformer as the possessor of a nostrum that will alleviate poverty, Burns, at Tynemouth, 14.10,08 (Daily News report) said “I am not a prophet, but I suggest this : If Protection were in existence, it would never see one hard summer because the people would perish.” So. The people who under Free Trade have so great an advantage over the miserable wretches who are forced to exist under Protection, are so strong, so virile, so well nourished after their generations of prosperity, that they would perish in one summer of Protection that the miserable weaklings of Protection manage, somehow, to pull through years of. No, we should not describe Burns as a prophet. A much shorter word will suffice. He doesn’t seem to have sense enough to know when he is giving the game away. Verily, if his salary is to be preserved to him the Lord must make quick and violent incision in him, for he is indeed raw.

* * *

“In Newcastle Mr. Hudson (Labour) was hand in glove with the Liberal candidate at the last (general) election. He was entertained at the Liberal Club less than 36 hours before the election, and he urged his supporters to split their votes between the Liberal and himself, which was very loyally done.” 

Sunday Chronicle, 13.9.08.

* * *

“Mr. Hudson says that he is not going to take a hand in the contest and his attitude is the outcome of his loyalty to the Labour Party. Newcastle is a strong one-man seat for Labour. Two Labour candidates mean that both would be defeated at the next general election.” 

Sunday Chronicle, 20.9.08.

* * *

“The Independent Parliamentary Labour Party which boasts of its independence of either of the old political parties, has refrained from putting up a candidate at Newcastle because Mr. Hudson, the “Labour” member for the double-seated constituency, believes he cannot be independent of the Liberal vote at the next election ; or, at any rate, the leaders of his party believe that . . . Conservatives can afford to smile at the sight of Labour kow-towing to the Liberals who make helots of some state servants.” — Evening Chronicle, 18.9.08.

* * *

“Forty-six deaths from starvation in the county of London for 1907.” 

Home Office White Paper.

* * *

The Registrar General’s analysis of the 1901 census recently published shows that general labourers in industrial centres have an average mortality more than twice as high as the average for all workers, while the mortality among clergymen is less than half the average.

* * *

“The time is fast approaching when the real struggle will be between the man who wields hammer and chisel and the man who holds the cash-box—Capital versus Labour, if you like. Whig and Tory must give place to these.” 

The Business Man’s Magazine.

Whig and Tory know this already. The Business Man’s Magazine’s writer’s point is merely that Whig and Tory will soon be forced to drop the present pretence of political partizanship in the general interest and come out in what the draper would call “fast colours.”

* * *

Since the law came into operation that closed public houses in Scotland all day on Sunday and early on Saturday, the proportion of charges of drunkenness and disorderliness per 1,000 of the population of Glasgow has increased from 17.7 in 1904 to 27.7 in 1907 according to the official figures supplied by the Chief Constable of Glasgow. In 1904 there were 13,850 charges; 1905, 15,263 charges ; 1906, 20,458 charges ; and in 1907, 22,314. This is how the facts support the argument of the temperance crank that the absense of facilities for drinking prevents drinking being indulged in.

* * *

From 1896 to 1905 the total deaths from all classes of accidents in connection with mines in the United Kingdom was 10,202. (Blue Book.)

* * *

The latest report of the General Board of Commissioners states that since 1858 lunacy in Scotland has increased by 202 per cent. as against a population increase of 58 per cent. On the 1st January last the total number of insane person in Scotland was 17,908.

* * *

“According to the Board of Trade ‘Labour Gazette,’ returns from 268 trade unions, having a net membership of 648,585, showed 8.9 per cent. of the net membership as unemployed. According to the report of the New York State Labor Department, out of a total of 387,450 trade unionists reported on, 138,131, or 35.7 per cent., were unemployed on 31 March. The New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph stated, on 27 April, on the authority of Mr. Herman Robinson, general organiser of the American Federation of Labor, that at least 40 per cent. of the trade unionists of the city of New York were unemployed on 1 April.” 

Morning Leader, 5.10.08.

Cuttings and critiques. (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Mr. Ritzema, J.P., of Blackburn, recently delivered himself of a scheme to “Nationalise and suppress the Liquor Traffic.” So impressed is he with his scheme that he has had it printed, and the Socialist Standard has received a copy. Let me say at once that I also am impressed by the scheme—in spite of the fact that it was first launched upon a long-suffering public from Paradise Church, Blackburn.

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The background having been laid on with the brush of a Stiggins, incorporating the usual denunciations of drink as a greater curse than war, pestilence and famine, the cause of 80% of crime. 50% of lunacy, pauperism, etc, Mr. Ritzema talks of buying out the brewers at about 300 millions, imposing a tax of 20s. in the £ upon all intoxicants, selling them at cost to the town and county councils—who will provide public-houses and managers out of their own funds, 9-l0ths of the cost of which, and the loss on the sale of liquor, the Government would refund. Of the profits stockholders would receive 4%, and 2% would be set aside to redeem the capital. This would leave large sums for social work, such as “finding immediate work for the unemployed,” the drink traffic would be gradually extinguished under the benign influences at work, the money diverted from beer would buy the workers bread and boots, trade would be stimulated, lunacy, crime, and pauperism almost obliterated, the churches saved, and a sober, educated, and intelligent democracy would be evolved.

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A beautiful scheme, savouring of the scheme for old age pensions to commence 20 or 30 years after the potential pensioner is a box of cold meat. The poverty of the proletarian is due to his exploitation at the source of production, and from that exploitation all things flow. The investigations of Chas. Booth, the Tory, show 75% of drunkenness to be due to poverty and its inseparable conditions. It is the degradation wrought by poverty that expresses itself in alcoholic excess, and the righteous Ritzema, living under the normal conditions of the lower paid worker, might find the atmosphere of Paradise Church less congenial than the mild excitement of the “Pig and Whistle.”

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These morality-mongers prefer to potter with effects; yet this question must strike the stupidest in the face, if drunkenness exists why is it? What answer has the blue-ribboned army to that? It is, they say, when they are not dumb, due to the opportunities that exist for drinking. Oh, blind and sons of the blind! Abolish drink tomorrow—what then ? Happiness, they say, prosperity, joy in living. Yet the most abstemious, thrifty, careful living people in the world are the most poverty-stricken—the people of India.

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No ! it won’t do. If the conditions of existence drive people into deplorable excess, that excess, that craving for excitement, for some break in the hideous monotony of their existence, must manifest itself somehow. Close all the public-houses—have you then exhausted all the media through which the craving will express itself ? No !

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I wish I had space to deal with Mr. Ritzema’s little scheme. It would be interesting to try and discover how his blue horror fades to a lighter blue when it is dispensed by town council managers rather than rubicund Boniface, and how the craving for drink is to languish and die out when the liquor is served in pewters engraved with the council’s arms, and how the deep damnation of the whole business is reconciled with the payment of the authors of it (the brewers) and its continued existence under the management of a government that regards it as an. unspeakably reprehensible thing, more accursed than war, plague, or pestilence.

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At the recent bye-election for Montrose Burghs a Mr. Joseph Burgess sought election, claiming to stand for Independent Labour and Socialism. In the first paragraph of his address he said, “If I have the honour to secure your suffrages I shall consider it my first duty, as the representative of all classes and industries, to do all that lies within the power of a Parliamentary representative to advance the general interests of all the Burghs and their citizens.”

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By “all classes” Mr. Burgess really meant all sections of the only two classes there are—the master class and the working class. He was therefore admittedly prepared to go to the Commons to represent the master class—the landlords, employers, financiers, lawyers, the officials of the army and the civil forces!

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In his next paragraph he said, “all textile trade questions would find in me a zealous and intelligent Parliamentary advocate,” and in the following, “I believe I could be helpful to all who are therein concerned, whether they be employers or operatives.” So here you have an “Independent Labour Socialist” candidate endeavouring to convince the employing class that he could be of great assistance to them. Apparently Mr. Burgess is far from accepting the impossibility of serving two masters faithfully. How he can serve the interests of the masters without opposing or neglecting the necessarily conflicting interests of the workers Mr. Burgess does not say.

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Mr. Burgess would, further, nationalise all forms of industrial capital, evidently thinking it better for the workers to be exploited by Government departments than by individual capitalists or joint-stock companies. It is the same to us whether we are robbed by the Post Office, or the L.C.C. Tramway Department, or by Sir Clifton Robinson, or the National Telephone Co. It is a matter of complete indifference to us that the distraint for rent is levied in the name of some local teetotaller or Bible basher, or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or a Government Land Department. Capital is wealth used for the exploitation of labour. We do not wish to nationalise that exploitation, but to abolish it.

#    #    #    #

Mr. J. W. Benson is the Parliamentary candidate for Pudsey Division, “at the unanimous invitation of the branches of the Pudsey Division I.L.P.” He claims that he is “an earnest student of the cause of poverty” and “convinced that Socialism is the only real and permanent remedy”; that “bad trade, unemployment, and poverty at present exist under a Free Trade policy, and therefore Free Trade is no remedy for these evils.” After this avowal one would expect (not knowing these I.L.P. chaps) that Mr. Benson would point out that Socialists took no part in the fiscal controvacy, being concerned only with the abolition of poverty, through Socialism, “the only real and permanent remedy.” Not so Mr. Benson. “I am in favour,” he says, “of the continuation of Free Trade.” So there you are. The evils of bad trade, unemployment and poverty exist under Free Trade, therefore let us have some more Free Trade. Let us hoodwink the workers into believing that it matters to them whether they are robbed by Protectionist crows or Free Trade kites. Such is I.L.P’ism.

#    #    #    #

In this respect, however, the I.L.P’s vis-a-vis, the Social-Democratic Party, has nothing to shout about. In a pamphlet written by its secretary on “Social-Democracy and the Zollverein” it pointed out that the great danger was that the working class might be induced to take sides. Agreed. And yet every S.D.P. candidate, from H. M. Hyndman downwards, has endeavoured to induce them to take sides, by declaring for Free Trade as against Protection. Take its very latest wild-cat candidature, in North-West Manchester. On the front page Dan Irving declared for “no tariff barriers to make dearer the food of the people,” although in the body of his address he described the Tariff Reform agitation as “a sham, political warfare on the fiscal arrangements of the country,” after which he said, “as a Social-Democrat I am in favour of Free Trade.”

#    #    #    #

Dan’s address was funny in other respects. “Whatever party may be in power,” he said, “I shall always be found giving my support to any measure which makes for the benefit of the people,” and then, in his concluding paragraph, “Workers, remember that in all times of industrial struggle” (which, of course, means every minute of day) “the members of the master class use the power you give them in Parliament and on public authorities to compel you to submit to their will.” And it is suggested by this “worker for the Labour Movement for twenty-four years” that the master class, possessing and using the power of compelling the workers to submit to their will, will introduce measures which make “for the benefit of the people”! Really, these fellows must be abysmal idiots or—— (missing word. Suggestions invited.)

#    #    #    #

“Do not the working class pay the rates and taxes ?” is a question asked in the “Catechism of Socialism,” and Messrs. E. Belfort Bax and H. Quelch, both of the S.D.P., answer “No.” The worker, they add, has “nothing wherewith to pay taxes, and whether these be high or low, and whoever has to pay them directly, his position remains the same.” Generally speaking, they say further, the reduction of rates is of no benefit to the working class, and to devote the proceeds of municipal undertakings to the reduction of rates is simply to use them as means for making profit for the propertied class. After which Mr. Dan Irving, in his election address, “in the interests of Labour and Socialism,” declared for the “Nationalisation of Education and Poor Rates so that the financially strong may help to bear the burdens of the weak.” Very ‘OT—what ?

#    #    #    #

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Lorebrun, member of the Liberal Cabinet, said at a dinner at the Newcastle Gladstone Club on May 29th, that “The Conservatives represent the constant apprehension that change will do harm to vested interests. YOU WILL FIND, IF YOU LOOK BACK, THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO VESTED INTEREST INJURED BY ANY REFORMS THAT HAVE BEEN PASSED IN OUR DAY. You need never be afraid that things will go too fast in this country. In the last fifty years there has been an unparalleled advance in industrial progress and in the material domain of human effort, but nothing of the kind in the least degree corresponding has been done in regard to the improvement of the condition of the people.”

#    #    #    #

The Lord Chancellor has blown the gaff. No wonder that only one newspaper gave a full report of his speech. But what the frank Chancellor admits is undoubtedly true. No Socialist expects the master class to legislate against its own interests, and as we see, they do not so legislate. Hence the position of the S.P.G.B. Before the workers can get anything from the master class they must be able to take it. Therefore the work before us is to educate and organise the workers in these truths for the political supremacy of the workers. Then, and then only will the wealth producers find their burden lightened.

#    #    #    #

Mr. Ben Tillett, in an eulogy of the work of Tom Mann in Australia, writes, “the present leaders of the Labour Parties (of Australia) are blind to the revolutionary work going on apace and the trend of capitalism, falling back upon worn-out political shibboleths, fiscal fooling, sectarianism and religious intolerance and with the usual clap-trap of temperance opponents.” Well, Ben, what fooling, fiscal or other, beats your own fooling as emigration tout in England for the Australian Capitalist ? Was that fooling or something worse ?

#    #    #    #

The local Branch, S.D.P. indulges in Justice (6/6/08) in a great chuckle because they were able, by lying low and saying nothing, to secure that their nomination for the Leigh Union Board of Guardians should be the only one, so getting their man returned unopposed. They rejoice in beating Liberals and Tories at their own game, “and Lees is inside the board room, where we have not the least doubt that he will make his presence felt.” A victory for Socialism indeed—of the S.D.P. brand ! The educational effect on the workers locally must be stupendous !

Alegra.

Here and There. (1908)

From the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Sunday, January 12th, the Hyde I.L.P. and Labour Church held two meetings in the Theatre Royal, Corporation Street. Councillor John Lachlan said they would find, if they considered his practical work, that Christ believed absolutely in the collective ownership of the means of life. Nineteen hundred years ago, he said, Christ founded the creed of Socialism.

* * *

One can quite understand the North Cheshire Herald’s reporter’s statement that this Councillor gave a humorous speech !

* * *

At the same meeting Mr. J. A. Seddon, M.P., was asked about the Labour Party’s Unemployed Bill and the penal clause. He replied that he was not there to defend the Bill nor to say it was a step in the right direction. He did not claim to know the solution of the unemployed problem, and if they were to wait until the remedy was brought about he thought the questioner was a greater enemy to the unemployed than to anyone else.

* * *

If this report is correct what a tower of strength to the Labour Party Mr. Seddon must be.

* * *

According to the “Trenchant Manifesto” issued by the Trade Union and Labour Officials Temperance Fellowship, one of the reasons why the liquor traffic is an enemy of the working-class movement is because “it lessens the industrial efficiency of the worker.”

* * *

In so far as it does this, of course, it tends to relieve the pressure of the unemployed problem. New and improved machinery, better organisation of industry, more healthful conditions of employment, increase the efficiency of the worker and increase the unemployed.

* * *

It is rather cool of the T.U. and L.O.T.F. to accuse the liquor trade of “a sinister avowal that it sets its own trade interests above the welfare of the nation” because its motto is “Our trade our politics,” when it is remembered that existing trade unions set the welfare of their own members not only against that of workers outside but in many cases against members of other trade unions. As a rule, too, by their high fees and other restrictions the unions limit their “benefits” to the privileged few who are permitted to join.

* * *

“On the whole, there is nothing to lead one to suppose that there will be any irreconcilable differences between the Labour Party and the Government when the House of Commons is invited to discuss Mr. Asquith’s scheme (of old age pensions).—Daily Chronicle, Jan. 20th.

* * *

At the Labour Party Conference on Unemployment, Mr. Will Thorne, the S.D.F. M.P., declared “bluntly” that the Party’s Unemployed Bill only played with the question. And yet, as the astute, and far from blunt, Ramsay MacDonald pointed out, Mr. Thorne has backed this very bill.

* * *

Out of his own mouth, therefore, is the member for South West Ham condemned. He has put his name to a bill that is a fraud, and must support it in the House of Commons.

* * *

At the same meeting Mr. Thorne asked why, if those present believed that Socialism is the only remedy, they did not say so ?

* * *

This is pot and kettle with a vengeance, seeing that Mr. Thorne, on his own confession, sunk his Socialism and ran as a “Labour” candidate only at the General Election, and also supported Mr. Percy Alden, the Liberal candidate for Tottenham, S.D.F. rules and L.R.C. Constitution notwithstanding.

* * *

Mr. Theodore C. Taylor, M.P., recently visited Japan and China and, as a result of his investigations, he urges that if we (i.e., British capitalists) are to retain our hold upon the world’s markets, our aim must be better work and more work in the time, to correspond with the shorter hours we now work. As yet, he says, it is mainly in coarse counts that China and Japan compete with Lancashire, but he sees nothing to prevent their spinning finer counts as well. One company whose works he saw had eleven policemen of their own and in the manager’s office was a row of twenty-four rifles for use in case of need. (Of course, there is no class war: capital and labour are brothers !) The company had also provided a Roman Catholic church, a school, and a free dispensary as equipment of the “village” they have built for their workfolks. How kind !

* * *

If the schoolmaster can’t educate the Chinamen as to the advantage of being wage-slaves, and if the priest cannot chloroform them—well, let’s try the cops and the rifles. It is astonishing how effective is the fear of man when the love of God fails !

* * *

By their Gas Act of 1875 the Widnes Corporation are compelled to devote all profits arising from the gasworks to either extension or to reduction of price, but they have now inserted a clause in the Bill they are bringing before Parliament to empower them to devote the profits to the relief of the rates. The landlords are supporting the proposal and the big chemical and soap magnates are opposing it.

* * *

If it were true that rents rise or fall because rates rise or fall, the change would make no difference to the landlords, and they would not therefore be opposing the manufacturers on the point.

* * *

Mr. H. Quelch, of the Social Democratic Federation, was present at the Hull Labour Party Conference, disguised as a Trade Union delegate.

* * *

He asked the Conference to declare itself, and let them know absolutely where they were.

* * *

We can understand his desire to find out where he was and what he was doing, in view of the S.D.F. refusal to again affiliate with the Labour Party, because it is not a Socialist party.

* * *

He also said that he objected to a Labour Party which was a non-Socialist party in England and a Socialist party on the Continent.

* * *

It is no doubt because he objects to it that he was supporting it at its National Conference.

* * *

Mr. Bruce Glasier did not wish to impose Socialism upon those who were not prepared to declare for it.

* * *

And, he might have added, he was not prepared to declare for it whilst it was more profitable, politically and financially, to hide it.

J. B.

Blogger's Note:

Local knowledge of Hyde and Widnes in this column suggests that 'J.B.' was Manchester Branch's Jim Brough.

Drink and the child. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Board of Education have now made the teaching of teetotalism a normal part of the elementary school curriculum by the issuing of a comprehensive syllabus of lessons on the subject. Now if this were a disinterested endeavour to promote the well-being of the child it would be welcome, but, as in all capitalist “education,” the cloven hoof is visible. The chief object of this latest move is, as will be seen, not humanity, but more profit. Of course, from the professions of bourgeois spokesmen this fact could not be gathered. According to them the capitalist is in business solely for the benefit of the working class. He makes a profit only in order that the workers may get wages. He lives in debauchery and spends huge sums in luxury only to provide work for the lower orders. Indeed, his attitude is summed up in Marx’s ironical phrase, “the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the benefit of the working class.”

So, in the matter of education this humbug is perpetuated; and the insincerity of the master class is as plain in its temperance proposals as elsewhere. Drink is only a curse to-day because of the capitalist conditions which make for its excessive use and poisonous adulteration. But to remove the economic conditions which engender alcoholic abuse would be to strike a blow at capitalist interests. Instead, therefore, of abolishing the wretched conditions of proletarian life that lay at the root of much of the craving for drink, the capitalists hypocritically try to minimise effects by puritanical legislation, or they try to train the tender sapling during the brief school hours in the fond hope that industrial conditions in later life will not bend it in an opposite direction.

Many eminent men have placed on record the fact that bad air, bad food, monotony and overwork, are prominent among the influences that lead to excessive drinking. Prof. Konig expresses a common view of German physiologists when he says that:

“Taken in moderate quantities in such forms as cognac, brandy, beer, and other beverages, alcohol is likewise an important stimulant to digestion. Brandy, whiskey, sherry, and the like, are therefore favourite remedies in disturbances of the bowels and stomach, and this helps to explain why the poorer classes, who often live upon a wretched diet of the less digestible foods, such as coarse bread and potatoes, have a craving for strong and stimulating alcoholic drinks.”

In few questions, moreover, has the perversion of truth been more effectively organised than in that of the use of alcohol. The noisy and well organised teetotalers have for long, with damnable iteration, dinned exaggerated or lying statements into the public ear on this, matter, particularly in discussing its economic aspects. And now the education authority itself enters more thoroughly into its work of hypnotising the masses by means of early and persistent suggestion of the employer’s side of the case. From the standpoint of economics the teetotal twaddle admits of easy refutation; but even, from the physiological point of view, though, opinions differ among Socialists as to the benefits or otherwise to be derived from a moderate use of stimulants, it is well to remember that the evidence is by no means solely on the side of abstinence.

The Lancet manifesto in favour of the moderate use of alcoholic liquors, which was extensively signed by eminent medical men, will still be fresh in the mind of the reader. At the meeting. of the International Physiological Congress, held at Cambridge in September 1898, an attempt was made to obtain the opinion of leading physiologists regarding this particular subject, and the following statement drawn up by Sir Michael Foster, the president of the Congress, was presented for signature:

“The physiological effects of alcohol, taken in a diluted form, in small doses, as indicated by the popular phrase “moderate use of alcohol,” in spite of the continued study of past years, have not as yet been clearly and completely made out. Very much remains to be done, but, thus far, the results of careful experiments show that alcohol, so taken, is oxidised within the body, and so supplies energy like common articles of food, and that it is physiologically incorrect to designate it as a poison—that is, a substance which can only do harm and never good to the body. Briefly, none of the exact results hitherto gained can be appealed to as contradicting, from a purely physiological point of view, the conclusions which some persons have drawn from their daily common experience, that alcohol so used may be beneficial to their health.”

The occasion was particularly favourable, for some of the most celebrated physiologists of the world and many well-known investigators were present. A very few objected to the phraseology, and one, although believing it to be correct, refused to sign because he feared it might be misused by “the trade.” A large proportion of those to whom it was submitted expressed their approval by their signatures. And, says Mr. W. O. Atwater (Harper's, No. DCVI.) the number and character of the signers are such as warrant the acceptance of the statement as the opinion of the leading physiologists of the day.

But even if the excessive use of alcohol were to cease, and it were clearly proved that the sum of human happiness was increased by its moderate use, the capitalists’ objection would not cease. The real basis of their objection is that it is not a necessary but a luxury, and that if the worker could be got to do without it he could live more cheaply and work for less wages. Macaulay once said that the Puritans “hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.” And the modern Puritan looks upon working-class pleasures in exactly the same spirit, particularly when they appear to stand in the way of bigger profits. This, indeed, underlies the whole of the Education syllabus as explained by the Daily News. Pleasure is a thing to which the workers have apparently no right. In choosing their food and drink they must allow no considerations of enjoyment to influence them. Thus the syllabus and notes are quoted by Cadbury’s organ as follow.

“Neither tea nor coffee is good for children ; they should have milk or cocoa instead. Cocoa is better for children than tea or coffee because it is less stimulating and contains a little more real food substance.

“It is true that there is a certain amount of nourishment in beer. There is, for example, a little sugar, and there is a small quantity of the food substance found in meat. To obtain enough food from beer really to benefit the body, however, it would be necessary to take an extremely large quantity. For this reason the good that might be done by the nourishing part of the beer would be more than counterbalanced by the harm done by the alcohol contained in so large a quantity.”

It will be seen that no weight is given to psychological considerations: the amount of nourishment is treated as the only factor, while beer is condemned, apparently, because it would be injurious to subsist solely upon it ! But it is also true that man cannot live by bread alone ; and when the percentages of protein and carbohydrates in an aliment have been found by analysis, the last word has by no means been said on its value. On some people, particularly those in depressing health or circumstances, the pleasure afforded by a small amount of alcoholic stimulant may have a beneficial effect—even from the dietetic point of view—far more important than the amount of actual nourishment imparted. No food-value has yet been ascribed to a hearty laugh, but there is much truth in the popular saying, “Laugh and grow fat.” Indeed, no discussion of the value of alcohol as an aliment can be adequate that does not take the psychological factor into account; and it is, moreover, doubtful, to say the least, if a merely attenuated existence is the life most worth living in any case.

Now, however, we come to what is after all the gist of the whole matter. It is that the capitalist has, rightly or wrongly, become convinced that the abstainer does more work, and the following striking statements are made by the Board of Education.

“Experiments were made by Dr. Parkes with two gangs of soldiers doing equally hard muscular work (mowing), one gang alternately taking beer during the work and the other not. In every case it was shown that although men taking beer might for a short time might gain on the others, yet they soon dropped behind, and at the end of the day the total work they had accomplished was less than that done by those who had no alcohol.

“Mr. Brassey (“Work and Wages”) says: ‘Some of the most powerful of the navvies have been teetotalers. On the Great Northern Railway there was a celebrated gang of navvies who did more work in a day than any other gang on the line, and always left off work an hour or an hour and a half earlier than any other men. Every navvy in this powerful gang was a teetotaler.'”

That is the point. The capitalist believes that the teetotaler can do more work for the same wages. He can live more cheaply, and so soon as abstinence is general, competition on the labour market will make him do more work for a lower wage, thus fitting, according to economic law, the price of his labour-power to his reduced average cost of subsistence. As though to emphasise the fact that it is the profitableness of the wage worker that is the chief care of the education authority, there follows the usual teetotal panegyric on thrift. It is worth quoting.

“The expenditure of £160,000,000, or more, on intoxicating liquors every year is a drain on the resources of the nation and the direct cause of not a little national poverty. It must be remembered how vastly large is this sum, which, it is estimated, is equal to all the rents of all the houses, farms, shops, hotels, etc., in the United Kingdom, so that the amount spent on drink alone would be enough to enable everybody to live rent free.”

The quotation has its amusing side, but how sad are the full facts from the workers’ point of view ? And what a condemnation of the present system it is that the thrift, sobriety and higher efficiency of the workers, while they swell the profits of the masters, simply intensify competition on the labour market, increase the toil of those in work, and augment the number of unemployed ! The net result of the labourer’s “virtue” while the labourer is a hireling under capitalism is a worsening of his economic condition. This side of the medal is not shown to the children. On the contrary, the impression is given to the worker’s child that he and not the employer will receive all the benefit of general thrift and abstemiousness, and that hunger will cease from troubling and the landlord lie at rest. Yet the facts, which the syllabus does not give, are that thrift, if general, means a reduction of the demand for goods, and is consequently a restriction of the market and of the employment for labour ; that increased efficiency on the part of the workers does not increase the demand for products but decreases the number of men the masters need employ to supply the market; and finally, that the less it costs the average worker to live, the lower will competition force down wages. But all this does not matter, for though the worker gets less wages and less employment, the capitalist will get more profit—and that is the real aim of State education to-day. Truly we have much to thank the ruling class for in these matters. The workers schooling is a training for wage-slavery ; no more, no less. The propertyless are taught to revere and defend the interests, the flag, and the Empire of their masters. The supreme aim of it all is the making of docile instruments of profit; and the temperance lessons, stripped of their humbug, are of a piece with the rest. For after all it is capitalism that creates the drink problem, and, in spite of their hypocritical preaching, the masters decline to attack it at its source. They are ever deaf to the appeal of humanity when profit beckons them on. But all their wiles cannot for ever obscure the fact that it is not drink but capitalism that causes the poverty of the workers, and that class rule makes thrift, temperance, and efficiency so many weapons against the latter in the hands of their exploiters. Indeed, no greater condemnation of a system is than that it makes right living a means of increasing the hardships of those who produce. It is the very kernel of the capitalist system that is at fault, and no mere reform can alter it. By Socialism only can these things be changed, for the conquest of capitalist society by the toilers must take place before they can secure the fruits of their industry and the elements of a full and healthy life. Then it will be discovered that intemperance has ceased to be a problem, while the object of public education will at last be the making, not of cheap wage-slaves but, of better men and women.

F. C. Watts

Unconsidered Trifles. Being Letters not hithero published. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor of the Daily News.

Sir,— I observe in your issue of date that Mr. D. A.Thomas, M.P., has been threatening that unless the Government is prepared to bring in forthwith a radical measure of temperance reform, he will seriously consider the advisability of going over to the “Labour, Independent Labour, or Socialist Party.”

This I think is most kind and considerate of Mr. Thomas and I make no doubt that the “Labour and Independent Labour Party,” which is always on the look-out for persons of political or social standing, will be happy for the chance of welcoming the Welsh gentleman to its councils and adding his political scalp to the tent pole of its wig-wam. Particularly as he is in favor of a “radical measure of temperance reform,” which so far as I have noticed, represents the “Labour and Independent Labour Party’s” most revolutionary proposal. I cannot speak for that Party, but I can speak for The Socialist Party of Great Britain—the only real Labour Party of my knowledge—and on its behalf I must inform Mr. Thomas, M.P., that we cannot do with him.

Mr. Thomas would, I am sure, prefer to have it pointed out quite frankly that we have no use for M.P.’s whose political development has only reached the stage in which such grotesquely unimportant matters as temperance reform occupy pre-eminent positions. The Socialist Party has to deal with great working-class issues and until Mr. Thomas has given some evidence of his appreciation of those issues I am afraid it will be useless for him to apply for membership. Our measure of the fitness of a man to voice Labour’s claims is neither membership of a Westminster political club nor a standing in “Society,” but the indications he gives of a clear knowledge of the. working-class position, its causes and its only remedy, and of his determination to proceed to that remedy along the only lines that can logically be followed by any person claiming to be a Socialist, viz., the lines of relentless hostility toward all other parties of whatever political label.

This may sound strangely to Mr. Thomas but then clearly Mr. Thomas doesn’t understand. The Socialist can only justify his separate organisation upon the ground of the futility of all the other bodies claiming working-class support. Not being able consistently or honestly to support futilities or to stand by passively while his own object is obscured and his work frustrated, he must actively oppose. If he does not he is useless as a Socialist—worse than useless indeed. That is our complaint against all other political parties. If they are representing capitalist interests as is indisputably the case with the orthodox Liberal and Tory, they cannot represent working-class interests which are always and in every essential particular, in antagonism to capitalists’ interests,—witness Belfast where, by the way, Liberal sympathy with the workers in revolt under oppressive conditions, is manifesting itself in the same old way: through soldiery and quick-firing guns even as at Featherstone and Hull. If they are claiming to specially represent working-class interests (as in the case of the “Labour” Party falsely so called), they must establish their claim by giving evidence of their understanding of the working-class position and directly pointing their efforts to the overthrow of the prevailing (capitalist) method of production based upon the exploitation (robbery) of Labour. This evidence is entirely lacking and the conclusion is forced upon us that the “Labour” Party is either composed of ignorant persons, or those who have deliberately bartered their Socialist principles for the wages which the Party pays. If they are definitely asserting their Socialism as is the case (at times) with the Social-Democratic Federation, they are also, by supporting capitalist candidates, by arrangement with capitalist parties and by the propaganda of inconsequentialities sometimes called palliatives, nullifying any good effect of their occasional assertion of Socialism as admittedly the only hope of the workers, obscuring the class issue, confusing the working-class mind and, therefore, as Socialism is inconceivable apart from a class conscious working class, delaying the day of Labour’s emancipation.

For these reasons we are opposed to them all. For these reasons we claim to stand as the only party of the workers—the only Socialist Party in this island. And for these reasons we cannot at this stage of his development accept any application for membership from Mr. Thomas. It will save the gentleman some humiliation if he will try and understand this at once.

Yours etc.,

AGRA.

30.7.07.

__________________

The Menace of Socialism

To the Editor of the Daily Express.

Sir,—I pray you be gentle. As you value truth—and how much you value truth the world knows well—be merciful. Say what you will; do anything that seemeth you fit, but spare us who are Socialists the dire infliction of the public association with our movement of the names of such gentlemen as the vice presidents of the Land Nationalisation Society or similar organisations—names like Thomasson, Cornwall, Macnamara, Bell, Vivian, and unkindest cut of all, Burns ! Scourge us not with whips like these. Have pity ! We do not deserve it—really !

And, oh ! Sir, tell the trenchant, virile, truthful and painstaking author, of your articles under this head, to take it from me that there is nothing subterranean about our propaganda. We are loudly, openly, and unblushingly preachers of discontent, organisers of working-class revolt, propagandists of a fierce, unrelenting war upon Capitalism and all its works and all its champions and must remain so while we remain Socialists, until the working class, with whose well-being we are solely concerned, shall have taken control of the political machinery and through that the whole of the land and other means of life, in their own interests. And we include among the works and champions of Capitalism all shufflers and intriguers, all misleaders whether styling themselves Labour men or otherwise, or whether merely fools or arrant knaves ; Liberals and Tories to a man, Constitutionalists and Tariff or Municipal Reformers so called, literary pimps and panders, journals with the largest circulations, and so on. All who do not accept Socialism as the only hope of the workers, all who are not with us, are against the working class.

Of course we who are Socialists cannot help people taking our name in vain and working in dark ways for the realisation of their ends any more than you could help the good name of your paper (if it had one) being besmirched. But if these people think, as some of them, I believe, quite honestly do, to achieve Socialism by back-stair methods, they must be deplorably stupid people; and deplorably stupid people cannot be Socialists—any more than jingo editors can be honest. If they are not stupid they may be and probably are as you describe them, “political fakes working craftily in the dark” but they will be working for their own aggrandisement.

But that’s not our fault. Not every one who cryeth “Lord! Lord!” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven ; and not every one who sayeth (on occasions) that he is a Socialist will come through an examination creditably. In short, we are not all Socialists now, notwithstanding a certain fat and be-knighted person’s notorious asseveration to the contrary. We repudiate these men of craft and do our best to let in the light upon the stupid; and we are continually exposing the working-class misleader. The young person with a passion for righteousness who spreads himself on your front page every morning, should read THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, the organ of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. He would then be able to get a notion of what Socialism means, the only way it can be realised and the only position a Socialist party can take-up. And he would learn that the Express is not a Socialist paper because it is presumably in favour of the nationalisation of the postal service; nor are Belgium and Germany Socialist countries because they have nationalised railways ; nor is Japan Socialist because she has a form of land nationalisation. And then he may discover to his (probable) surprise that a man may even be a “Constitutionalist,” an anti-Socialist, and a member of the “Socialist” Land Nationalisation Society ! I say probable because I have some reason to know that the writer is quite as well aware as I am that he is writing “piffle.”

However, I note with more than ordinary interest that you include in your latest, list of “Spies and ‘plants’ and political fakes who work craftily in the dark and fight under any colour but their own” the name of your erstwhile particular political pet, your own levelheaded labour-leader, your strong anti-Socialist fighter, Richard Bell, M.P., who, I conclude from your remarks, is really working insidiously for Socialism in the “Socialist” Land Nationalisation Society” ! I hope poor Richard will be properly grateful.

Finally, Sir, I don’t suppose for a moment that you will publish all this. What you will do (if you publish anything at all) will of course be to select those sentences which you think may in themselves look rather atrocious and arrange them in an order that will either seem to reflect upon the writer or support your contention. That of course is the pretty way usually affected by the Northclilfe-Pearson combination. But as I have taken the precaution of keeping a copy which I expect will appear in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, it won’t greatly matter what you do.

Believe me, Sir,

Yours appreciatively,

AGRA.

24.7.07.

A Look Round. (1906)

From the May 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month the “Progressive” London County Council took over the tramways of the North Metropolitan Company and immediately signalised the march of “progress” by withdrawing a privilege that passengers had hitherto enjoyed.

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Under the Company management two-journey tickets were issued at the rate of three-fourths of two “all-the-way” fares. The return portion of the ticket was available by any route at any time ; but, so soon as ownership and control by the public capitalists was substituted for that of the private ones, notices were exhibited in each car stating that these would be available on the day of issue only.

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Such is the “progressive” policy of Messrs. Benn, Crooks, Burns, Isaac Mitchell & Co.

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Eastwood & Co. have introduced a new process of making bricks at their works at Conyer, near Sittingbourne, by which bricks of good quality are now turned out by machinery in seven days, against three months under the old hand-made process.

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There are “reformers” who, amongst other wild ideas, propose to solve the “problem” of the unemployed by a revival and extension of the apprenticeship system. By it, for example, they would increase the number of expert brick-makers, and then, even before then—along comes a machine which does all their work in one-thirteenth of the time !

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Some people would argue that it would be better to put aside the machine and make the bricks by hand ; but these are usually people who have never made nor attempted to make any bricks. They are not Socialists. Socialists are working for the elimination of waste, for the greatest economy in the production and distribution of wealth. The difference between Socialism and Capitalism as regards machinery is that under Socialism machinery will be a real labour saver, reducing the hours of necessary work of all the wealth producers in the community, whilst under Capitalism machinery simply reduces the wages bill of the capitalist and intensities the unemployed question.

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It is not, of course, wise to dogmatise as to the extent of the reduction of hours of labour that will be effected by the industrial organisation that will obtain under Socialism, but it is easy to see that when all useless occupations, such as those which are the necessary concomitants of the competitive system, are eliminated, and those engaged therein are performing their share of the useful labour ; when those who are now chronically unemployed or are in the ranks of the predatory professionals (or should it be the professional predatorists ?) are also helping, what an enormous reduction of each worker’s hours will be possible.

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It is sometimes suggested that people under Socialism, having reduced the necessary labour to a minimum, will not know what to do with themselves in the leisure hours. It doesn’t strike me that way. In the summer time, at any rate, I can always enjoy a “laze,” stretched with my “back-to-the-land” by the side of a stream or the sea, and if I were living under a Socialist State, and had done my fair share of the necessary work, I don’t think time would hang very heavily on my hands. I have yet to learn that I am constituted much differently to other folk.

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A book which is often mentioned when discussions arise concerning the hours of labour under Socialism is “Our National Resources and how they are wasted.” It was written by William Hoyle and published in 1871. The writer said (page 50), “Assuming every person did their share, a total of 1¼ hours’ daily labour would suffice to supply us in abundance with all the comforts of life.” He added, “The progress of invention and the increasing application of machinery, are daily reducing even this amount of labour, so that the part which has now mainly to be played by man is simply to superintend the machinery which does the work.” That was nearly 40 years ago.

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Speaking of Wm. Hoyle reminds me of the shock which the rabid teetotallers have recently received. They glibly assert that “drink is the chief cause of crime,” and that “drink fills our prisons,” etc. Dr. Emile Keich has proved, by quotations from the United States Census Report on Crime, Pauperism, and Benevolence, that total abstainers committed more crimes than drunkards, and now we have a Special Correspondent of The Tribune declaring that, as a result of his investigations at Dartmoor, “the bulk of these specialists in crime, who represent the Genius of Evil, are confirmed teetotallers.”

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Farther than this, the Daily News, the anti-alcohol, pro-cocoa, organ, last week reviewed the Criminal Statistics for England and Wales in 1904 and said, “Summarising the results, drunkenness is regarded as stationary, but minor offences of dishonesty and serious frauds and breaches of trust have increased, while offences of the vagrancy class are declared to be growing rapidly.” And if “drink fills our lunatic asylums” how is it that the consumption has seriously declined in recent years, but the number of lunatics has considerably increased ?

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“The deepest root of the evils and iniquities which fill the industrial world is … the subjection of labour to capital and the enormous share which the possessors of the instruments of industry are able to take from the produce.” J. S. Mill.

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Those who think that imprisonment for debt is one of the barbarisms of the past may be interested in the fact that 19,217 debtors went to prison in 1904, the figures for the four previous years being 17,598, 15,710, 13,635, and 12,875 respectively.

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The recent earthquake and resulting fires in San Francisco have considerably affected the shares of many British and German Fire Insurance Companies. In these countries, as well as in America and others, the workers are exhorted to “support home industries,” “keep the money in the country,” etc. But these considerations do not weigh with the employing class. They know no lines of demarcation, whether geographical, national, or racial. And American capitalists are quite as willing to pay premiums to British Insurance Companies when it suits their purpose as British ones are to invest in industrial concerns abroad to compete against British productions.

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But the fact that a seismic upheaval, as the “penny-a-liners” have it, occurring miles away, has caused the price of certain British shares to considerably decline on the London Stock Exchange, has a greater interest for the working class than at first sight appears. It shows the internationalism of capitalism.

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This has of course been shown before. When Mr. Joseph Leiter was operating in Chicago with the object of cornering the world’s wheat supply, the price of wheat, flour, and bread rose, not only in America, but all over the civilized world, and in Southern Europe starving workers who were parading the streets unable to obtain bread, because of the prohibitive prices, were shot down by the national defenders of international capitalism. This was dealt with in detail in the article “Invasion or Starvation,” which appeared in the Socialist Standard in July last.

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Capitalism has long since ceased to be local and national. It is international. The workers are hoodwinked by the capitalist class and their henchmen into thinking that workmen of other districts, of other countries, of other races, are their enemies. But the capitalists draw no distinction. They set out to exploit the working class irrespective of race, creed, or colour. They organise, but as a class against the working-class. The working class have not yet learned the lesson placed before them by their masters.

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It is to the capitalists’ interests that the workers should be disunited, but that if organised they should be organised sectionally, even to the extent of workers in different departments of the same industry forming separate Unions and often blacklegging each other. This suits the so-called Labour Leader as well as the employing class. The more Unions the more jobs, the more joint conferences with the employers, and the more drawings of expenses by the “representatives of the men,” etc. And when some Trade Unionist arises to urge that so many Unions are inadvisable and prejudicial to the workers’ interest, that they involve more paid ollicials than are really necessary and are used by the capitalist class against each other, the “leaders” always find insurmountable difficulties against amalgamation, and if something must be done, they effect a Federation, and create some more well-paid jobs for their own kidney.

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The “General Federation of Trade Unions” job will be fresh in the minds of most readers.

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There is no hope for the workers until they became class-conscious, that is, until they recognise that their interests, like their masters’, are not sectional, trade, or national, but class, and that they must organise, as a class, as the international proletariat, “to the end” in the words of our Declaration of Principles,* “that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.”

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Writing in the Labour Leader the Gateshead I.L.P. express the opinion “that the reason that Socialism is not making the progress we have a right to expect is largely to be found in the matter served up to their audiences by our I.L.P. Lecturers.”

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Truth will sometimes out ! If the I.L.P. lecturers were Socialists, intent upon imparting to the working class a clear understanding of the principles of Socialism, the matter served up would be different. But, as we have proved, to go no further back than the General Election, the I.L.P. leaders threw over their principles when they found that if they adhered to them they would fail to reach the above-all-things coveted seat in the House of Commons.

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“Thank God,” writes the editor of the Labour Leader, “we are not logicians.” Thank God, say we, we are guiltless of laying that charge to their door.

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In the course of the recent action for slander brought by Mr. J. Pitt Hardacre against Mr. Joseph Beavor Williams, a Labour member of the Manchester City Council, and prominent by his connection with the Musicians’ Union, the defendant admitted that when addressing meetings at Openshaw, in Manchester, he had not confined himself strictly to the truth.

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It will go hard with lying labour “leaders” when the workers get hold of the truth !

J. Kay