New Zealand—A socialist country? (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that Socialism involves a complete sweeping away of the prevailing system of society which is known as capitalism and the introduction of a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of life. The introduction of reforms which occur in the normal evolution of capitalism and are necessary to its more effective working, do not constitute socialism though the reforms may be put through by politicians calling themselves Socialists as in New Zealand to-day.

New Zealand was opened up :by the New Zealand Company, and not by independent settlers as took place in America, hence its particular evolution. The dominant figure of the company and the man who defined its policy was Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He looked at the American colonists’ progress in the early days, and from his capitalist’s outlook found it unsatisfactory, because each ‘settler was virtually independent, making their own clothes, candles, soap, etc., in addition to growing their own food. That was not Wakefield’s idea. Where all are independent, as were the early American colonists, there is little capital accumulated, as there are few, if any, labourers to exploit.

Wakefield saw that if many workers could be attracted to New Zealand they would require the products of manufacturing industries in order to support life, thus creating more employment with resultant profits to the capitalist class.

Primarily employment was to be in the form of work on the land and steps were to be taken by the company to see that the ownership of the land was concentrated in a few hands, thus preventing the workers from becoming smallholders and achieving a measure of independence.

England in 1840 was, for the labouring masses, a country best left behind. The history of 1830-1840 is of revolts by agricultural workers, miners and iron workers against their appalling conditions: revolts which were ruthlessly put down. The French revolution was too recent for clemency, which might he mistaken for weakness. With the industrial revolution accomplished, there was unemployed capital as well as labour; Wakefleld believed that both could be profitably employed in New Zealand.

Alas, his hopes were doomed to failure for many years. The New Zealand Company bought up land from the Maoris at less than the proverbial song and sold it in large lots to those who were to become capitalist farmers and would, it was hoped, employ and exploit the labourers which the New Zealand Company intended to persuade to emigrate.

In order to induce workers to go out to New Zealand the Company gave free steerage passages and undertook to give paid employment in the service of the company if the workers could not at once find masters. The company did not bargain with having to redeem this pledge; they made the fatal mistake of not ensuring that buyers of land went to the colony in order to employ labour to work it. With promises of employment, hundreds of working people emigrated from England. The rough sea journey was a smooth passage compared with their sufferings when they arrived and found none of the promised jobs, and were forced to take employment with the New Zealand Company at less than a subsistence wage.

Few landowners but many labourers continued to arrive, as having once been set in motion the recruitment did not cease. Agents in England continued to be paid at a fixed rate per emigrant, and news did not filter through to warn the prospective worker emigrants.

Finally, in 1844 matters had reached such a pass that the company ceased employment and payment altogether and distress was widespread. Here the lack of any elementary form of doles became evident. The destitute labourers in England had, meagre though it was, Parish relief or relief in the Poor House. In New Zealand, however, nothing of the kind existed and charity was most tardy.

As colonization continued the price of land increased still more and the land remained in the hands of the few. As the franchise had a property qualification the government represented the interests of these few. Legislation therefore, for the provision of hospitals, schools, and the relief of pauperism, was blocked in successive Parliaments. By 1853 only four hospitals had been built in the whole of New Zealand, and these left everything to be desired, but they became the beginning of relief, the Poor Law infirmary without the Poor House ! Another attempt to deal with pauperism was the setting up of Soup Kitchens in Auckland, and in 1865 a contributory form of health insurance was inaugurated among the road makers, on the basis that they paid the whole contribution.

The year 1865 also saw the passing of the repressive “Master and Apprentice Act,” which contained a clause stating that boys or girls refusing to serve their apprenticeship could be sent to jail for three month’s This related to children of twelve.

1868 saw the first attempt at unemployment insurance, which was a tax of 10s. a year on adult male^ to provide a fund for the destitute, the sick, orphans, etc.’

By 1898 it had become necessary to make some provision for the aged poor. These were the young labourers of the early immigration ; they had not grown rich or become landed proprietors, as some earlier colonists of other countries had done. In old age, after a life time of privation, they were awarded a pension of 6s. 11d. per week.

Meanwhile, industry was going forward in New Zealand, and the introduction of refrigerating ships made export of food a paying proposition to the big farmers. The workers learned that organisation on the industrial field was essential if their standard of living was to be maintained. The United Federation of Labour was formed in the teeth of opposition from the employers, who victimised the members at ever, conceivable opportunity. The climax came in October 1913, when the employers cancelled their contract wit: the Wellington Watersiders and staged a lockout During the bitter weeks which followed the workers were completely defeated. The Labour Disputes Investigation Act was passed making sudden strikes illegal, and the Federation of Labour lost most of its power as the unions became more and more concerned with arbitration.

The Social Democratic Party originally declared Socialism to be its aim deteriorated into reformism. like the British Party, and in 1916, the present Labour Party emerged from it, its avowed object, being simply the nationalisation, that is the taking over by the state of the means of production.

It was this Labour Party that took office in December, 1935, on a programme which included state control of currency and credit, guaranteed farm prices, i national health service, and a recognition of the “right to work” !

Whatever else it may be, it, is clear that a programme of this kind bears no relation to Socialism. When Socialism is established there will be no currency, no credit, no guaranteed farm prices, nor any of the provisions that capitalism is forced to make to try to combat the effects of slumps and booms. State intervention in these problems of capitalism is not Socialism.

The set-up in New Zealand is accurately described by R. S. Parker, a New Zealand political writer, in ” The Australian Quarterly ” (March, 1941, page 30) :— 

”The Labour Government has simply continued in the New Zealand tradition of state control and regulation, private ownership and operation. The central feature of the present set-up is the survival of the spirit and content of an essentially capitalistic economy, upon which the state has imposed a far reaching, but largely negative system of regulations, controls, prohibitions."

The Labour Party has been in office for over ten years, yet in many aspects conditions in New Zealand are worse than those of Britain.

The latest report of the Director-General of Health for the year 1944-1945 proves Public Health and Industrial Hygiene to be worse than in the “old country.” As comment on all points is impracticable for reasons of space, only the most significant will be given.

The general health of the Maoris, who were in 1840, a healthy race, is poor. Tuberculosis is rampant, and the infant mortality rate very high (102.26 per 1,000 live births). Much ill-health is due to the notoriously bad state of Maori housing and no great improvement in health is possible whilst they are living under such overcrowded and insanitary conditions.

The report on Industrial Hygiene is very enlightening. Many of the comments of its author, Dr. Davidson, would fit any industrialised country: —

“… many thousands are employed in work which is hot, dusty, laborious, dirty or merely monotonous and uninteresting, and they, too, may be exposed to environmental dangers, the effects of which although less immediately disabling are none the less real” (page 20).

Continuing, Dr. Davidson holds up British Factory Legislation a-s a shining example to New Zealand, and advises those capitalists who are reluctant to spend money on amenities for their workers to think again. Covering the bitter pill of expenditure on nurses and doctors in the jam of future profits, he shows what skilled treatment of accidents, etc., may save in absenteeism, accident compensation, etc.

Dr. Davidson recognises the reasons why necessary reforms in industry are not carried out when he points out: —

”It is partly a matter of finance; merely to, keep a factory clean costs money” . . .

“Good seating, too, is no mere philanthropy, its pays.”

To the ears of the capitalist class the words “it pays” are sweeter than the sweetest of music—perhaps they will be convinced!

We have seen how young children might be jailed for refusing to work, but Dr. Davidson was surprised to find them still working : —

“I have been surprised to find children under school leaving age working full time in various factories during school vacations and in isolated cases during school terms. Children of 13 and even 12 can be seen working whole time—and sometimes overtime—in factories which in many cases are very ill-kept and in some of which highly poisonous chemicals or dangerous machinery are in use ” (page 27).

After the above report was compiled the Statutes Amendment Act of 1944 prohibited the employment of children under 14 years. Such conditions had, however, prevailed for almost 10 years under the “Socialist” Government.

The workers of New Zealand have been taken in by the promises of their Labour Party as were the workers of Britain in 1945. Disillusionment must come when it is found that neither state control nor private ownership within the framework of capitalism will solve the ills thrown up by capitalism. Only when the workers of New Zealand, together with the workers of other lands, realise the reason for their exploitation and combine to overthrow it can Socialism be achieved.

W. P.

Our Indian Sisters (1945)

From the September 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The debased condition of women in India is both a reflection of India’s economic backwardness and a bar to its progress. In the limits of an article we can only examine a few of the aspects of this problem.

It has been said that comparisons are odious, but nevertheless they have their uses in that they heighten contrasts. Only by relating the status of women in India to the status of women in Western countries may we appreciate the deplorable state of the former.

In the West nowadays every girl receives some education, usually earns her living for a period and attains a degree of independence unknown even a hundred years ago. She chooses her husband and, if wise enough, determines if and when she will have children. She chooses her religion or discards it, appears in public and possesses the franchise. With what she will enjoy under Socialism it is meagre, but by comparison with her Indian sister she has a world within her grasp.

Before examining the position of Indian women it may be useful to explain, though very briefly, how it came about.

Peoples evolve in a similar manner, but do so unevenly, and in India we see capitalism side by side with relics of Feudalism. In the isolated villages primitive communism is only just disappearing before the inroads of modern industry. India has been invaded by many different groups of people throughout her history, but the principle invaders have been Turkish people. India has therefore many religions, but the predominating religions are Hindoism and Mohammadanisni. Out of every 100 persons in India 68 are Hindus and 22 are Mohammadans (Muslims).

With the development of property women came to be regarded as chattels and religion adopted that status in its evolution. The Muslims secluded their women in order to secure them from robbery and the Hindus adopted this method. It is known as the Purdah system and consists of secluding the girl when she attains puberty. Religion also decreed, as in many early religions that the woman’s god on earth is her husband and she must serve him as such. Her life is only really justified when she bears a son wlio will assist her husband’s soul to continue its journey to its next life, which is one of many. The Brahamins (priestly group) dominate the Hindu religion and at birth, death, marriage, etc., the Brahmin must be paid. The Brahmin makes it incumbent on parents to arrange marriages early for their children, at birth or shortly after. At puberty the girl is sent to her husband despite the fact that the Sanda Act of 1929 penalises the marriage of girls under 14 and of youths under 18, this act has never been adequately enforced. The woman has no rights of divorce or property under Hindu law mainly it is explained because marriage is a sacrament.

The Muslim woman comes off better in theory than her Hindu sister as marriage is to her “a contract for the procreation of children” and as such may be dissolved by both parties. The Muslim woman has property rights and the custody of her children after a divorce, but it is in the main a facade of freedom as Purdah shuts her off from the world and makes enforcement of rights difficult and, due to lack of education, she may even be ignorant of them. Her husband’s divorce is easier than hers, and he may illtreat her and take other wives.

The seclusion of both Hindu and Moslem women is really the worst crime perpetrated against them, property rights began it, religion sanctioned it and the dead hand of custom continues it. Tuberculosis is rife among Purdah women.

“In Calcutta between the ages of 10 and 15 years for every boy that dies of tuberculosis 3 girls die. Between the ages of 15 and 20 for every boy that dies of tuberculosis five girls die.”

(Quoted from “Key of Progress,” a symposium written by Indian and other writers and edited by A R. Caton, 1930. Page 108). Early marriage is the main factor responsible for the high rate of tuberculosis among women.

Venereal diseases are rife in India and the stock is therefore often infected at the start, and early marriage produces a very high rate of abortions among the girls below sixteen. The maternal mortality rate in India is three times—great as in U.S.A.—24.5 against 8.5. Full-term pregnancy may prove to be a catastrophe also. The girl who is kept indoors away from air and sunlight and fed mainly on vegetables and rice nearly always has some degree of rickets and in Purdah continues to develop adult rickets known as osteomalacia. The bones soften and bend and the pelvis may becomes so completely altered from its normal snape as to render normal delivery impossible and Caesarian section is the only method possible should the girl be got to hospital in time. The girls require ante-natal care more than then western sisters but seldom get it. The so called midwives or dais are worse than untrained and have no knowledge of even the rudiments of cleanliness; the wonder is that any mothers survive. More hospitals are being provided but Purdah women are slow to make use of them and in any case they must be completely staffed by women, for the Purdah woman is so well schooled in her creed that she would rather die undelivered than be attended by a male doctor.

The Indian mother possesses much maternal instinct but little maternal capacity for she is still only a child herself. She lives in the joint family system which operates in most parts of India and here her mother-in-law assumes control and trains her in the bad old ways. The Hindu religion whilst on the one hand debasing women on the other it makes the grandmother a matriarchal symbol of great veneration, hence her power, but alas she has had no opportunity to learn aught save a few outmoded superstitions. Religion also teaches that over zealous care of babies angers the jealous gods against them, making neglect preferable. Whilst this is bad in any country, in disease ridden tropical India it is disastrous and the infant mortality rate per 1,000 births is 162 as against Australia’s 38.

The girl’s ignorance is not only limited to infant care but to all branches of knowledge. Literacy among the women of India in 1941 was 5 per cent., the following indicates the reason why :—

“It is not so much the view that ‘education is unbecoming the modesty of the sex,’ as the view that education is entirely futile and has no bearing on home life which must to-day be combated. And who could deny that a year, or perhaps two, spent in parrot-like repetitions of meaningless words, is an absolute waste of time? Even as a creche (the usual use to which primary schools are put), the primary school is hopelessly unattractive. There is none of the apparatus little children love, no sand heaps, coloured books, chalks, or handwork; only an abracadabra of sounds and signs leading nowhere. . . . Over the middle and high schools where literacy at least might be attained, Purdah and early marriage have cast their long shadows.”— (“Key of Progress,” page 18), and again, “In no province does one girl out of five attend school; in some provinces not one of 20 or 25.” (page 3).

Schools for girls have only existed since the middle of the last century and it must be remembered that co-education is rarely permitted. Girls must be taught by women, and parents are rarely interested in careers for girls, so the vicious circle continues resulting in a lack of women teachers, nurses, and doctors. What schools exist are mainly in the towns and though the population of the towns is almost that of America yet 80 per cent. of India’s population live in the villages.

Education is administered by the provincial governments and these have failed to obtain sufficient money to establish an adequate number of schools; co-education is, however, permitted in Madras, but hardly anywhere else. A further problem is that of the caste division; an untouchable may not attend school with the Brahmin, etc., and requires a separate school, rarely attained. Until present customs are broken down the activities of the Indian woman in the sphere of education are greatly restricted.

The life of the Indian village women may be less strict in the observance of Purdah if she be very poor, but education will be nil. Village life has become poorer due to facts beyond the scope of this article which are bound up with the destruction of native crafts, lessened productivity of the soil, heavy taxation and religious customs requiring payments. During the last century tea and coffee plantations were set up, factories built in the towns, mines opened up and railways laid down. Many of the impoverished peasants offered their labour power, but the man was so exploited that it became necessary for the wife and family to share his toil. Modern industry acknowledges no religious laws so the wife exchanged Purdah for a confinement of another sort.

Women work in the mines in India, and though eliminated from them in 1935, have been brought back during the present war. The 1931 census stated there were 8,600 women employed in “the exploitation of minerals” and the 1942 census gave 281,563 women employed in factories. Comparatively few women therefore work away from the home, and industry is mainly confined to the towns where payment and housing are very poor.

“In Bombay a woman earns half of what a man earns, in Ahmedabad it is more than half and in Sholapur it is much less than half. It would be absurd to suggest that the relative efficiency and productivity vary in this way in these three industrial centres. An assumption therefore that the employers are able to exploit woman labour in different degrees in these places is perhaps nearer the truth.” (page 155, “Our Cause,” edited S. K. Nehru).

Workers are always badly housed, but in India this means something worse than in other countries.

“A description of the housing of factory workers in Ahmedabad shows that out of 23,706 tenements observed, 5,669 had no provision of water, 5,360 had no latrines, few had any kind of drainage. . . . the tenements of Bombay provide unsanitary housing on large scale in a more compact shape.” (Page 150, “Our Cause”)

No study of women in India would be complete without consideration of prostitution which exists on a large scale and may be divided for purposes of discussion into religious and commercial, needless to say both are now commercial.

The religious prostitutes or devadasis, to give them their proper name, are girls vowed to the temple service by their parents, and are “married” to the god. Their duties consist of singing and dancing before the idol at certain times, and at others they are at the disposal of pilgrims, whose contributions go to tho temple whilst the girls receive maintenance. The community in Madras alone numbers 200,000 ! Many wish to free themselves from this slavery but legislation on their behalf is slow. Dr. Reddi, who has been active on their behalf comments: —

“Government officials in the assembly have always ignored the progressive Indian view in social matters, while they have showed too much anxiety to respect orthodox sentiments which have been suicidal to the social and moral welfare of the Indian masses.” (P. 184.185, “Key of Progress.”)

Commercial prostitution is also on a large scale. The 1931 census figures for female “beggars, vagrants and prostitutes” were 486,539. The rise of Industry is a partial explanation of its existence as it is almost nil in country districts; soldiers and sailors frequent towns and ports and evidence shows that the Government in the past has endeavoured to keep a special group for the use of the British Army in order that the incidence of V.D. might in some measure be controlled. Many of the prostitutes are recruited from India’s widows.

Before the advent of the British it had been customary to burn the widow with the husband’s corpse because it was believed she was the cause of the death. The British rendered it illegal but were powerless to remove the stigma attached to widowhood. In 1931 there were 25,496,660 widows who are treated as outcasts, half-starved and abused by their families, and many turn to prostitution.

Other recruits for the profession come through Pathan money lenders who terrorize poor people into giving up their daughters when they cannot pay the money borrowed. Once in these hideous dens of vice the girls lead a life that is a hell on earth, the keepers take all the money merely feeding the women and forcing them to serve whether ill or well, even when suffering from acute forms of venereal disease.

The position of women in India therefore is one which evokes horror. We find mere babes married, divorced, widowed and prostituted, the former and the latter appearing equally evil. The cause of widows is particularly bad although a few societies are springing up to educate them as teachers. The women who have escaped Purdah to enter factories or mines have gone, under present conditions of exploitation, from one slavery to another. Many work earnestly for the cause of women, but in India as elsewhere the fate of women is bound up with that of men and only a change in the social system will work any real salvation.

In Turkey and parts of Russia, where previously the conditions of women resembled that of India, intense industrialization was the determining factor in changing their way of life. Capitalist society demanded female labour for the factories and got it, with the blessings of Kemel Ataturk and Stalin : Industry, though growing in India during the present war, is infinitesimal in comparison with the wealth of the country and the needs of its peoples. Indian would-be capitalists are stirring and will either open up the country themselves or force this situation upon the British who have hitherto preferred to keep it as a dumping ground for their own imports : India’s wealth will be exploited and with it, her people. The change will not be a happy one until the workers become experienced enough to make their claims heard, but the position of Indian women at least cannot be worsened. Modern industry when firmly established requires moderately healthy, literate workers as the Russians discovered. We can only await that time and when it comes India’s women and men will be receptive to Socialist ideas and finally demand Socialism, which is the only solution to the problem of the Indian workers as it is to the problems of the rest of the workers throughout the world to-day.

W. P.

Do We Need a Bigger Population? (1945)

From the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

A revolution in ideas regarding population has taken place since 1798, when Malthus wrote his coldblooded “Essay on Principles of Population.” It had a favourable reception from the ruling class of the day, but the passing of time has shown his ideas to be fallacious, and they have been superseded by ideas which are quite contrary to his conclusions. His doctrine, which declared that there is a universal tendency for population to outrun the means of subsistence, expressed the ignorance of his time.

The only solution Malthus saw to the poverty of his day was to get a decrease in the population and so raise the standard of living among the remainder. He does not seem to have been quite so heartless as some of his contemporaries, who regarded the lower class as a variety of animals requiring even less care than domestic animals. Commenting on one of them, the notorious Count Rumford, who had concocted recipes for cheap soups as a suitable diet for the common people, Malthus writes:

“They (the soups) are excellent inventions for the public institutions and as occasional resources; but if they were once universally adopted by the poor, it would be impossible to prevent the price of labour from being regulated by them . . . perhaps some cold politician might propose to adopt the system with a view of underselling the foreigners in the markets of Europe. … I really cannot conceive anything much more detestable than the idea of knowingly condemning the labourers of this country to the rags and wretched cabins of Ireland, for the purpose of selling a few more broadcloths and calicoes.” (Essay on the Principles of Population, page 232-233.)

So Malthus was not completely unaware of the trend of wages, although he knew nothing of surplus value !

The housing problem was then, as always, acute among the poor, but Malthus saw in it a weapon for keeping down the population.

“One of the most salutary and least pernicious checks to the frequency of early marriages in this is the difficulty of procuring a cottage, and the laudable habits which prompt a labourer rather to defer his marriage some years in the expectation of a vacancy, than to content himself with a wretched mud cabin like those in Ireland.” (Ibid, page 250.)

Portal houses are now to be produced for precisely the opposite reason.

As Socialists profiting by the work of Karl Marx, we realise that workers are short of the means of life, not because production falls short of demand, but because the present anarchy of production is concerned merely with profit-making and not with supplying people’s needs the latter being incidental.

Turning to recent writers on population, we find them arguing in the opposite direction to Malthus. The writers and investigators on the subject—Glass, Carr Saunders of the Eugenic Society, Titmuss, Charles and Ginsberg, to mention just a few—are full of woe and gloomy prognostications. They foresee something like extinction for the Western nations in 200 years time, and for the near future they predict more old people in bathchairs than infants in prams.

They relate it to economics too. D. V. Glass states :

“The population will suffer from a much higher degree of invalidity and the burden of State health insurance will be greater. So, too, will the relative cost of old age benefits. On the other hand, this large section of aged and therefore unemployed people will have to be supported by a relatively much smaller proportion of able-bodied persons. That is, proportionately the amount of taxation per head will rise, while the ability to bear it will fall. Moreover, the position of industry is likely to be more difficult. In the last century the industrial system recovered fairly easily from the depressions through which it passed, and one of the major factors in this case of recovery was undoubtedly the growth of the population. An increase in the numbers of people meant an increase in the demand for the products of industry, and with it the slump period of the trade cycle was shortened. The much reduced rate of the increase of the population of the world since the war has no doubt helped to intensify and prolong the economic crisis, and if population actually falls in the future, the effect of the trade cycle upon economic prosperity is likely to be much more severe.” (“The Struggle for Population,” pages 14-15.)

To a Socialist such fears appear fantastic; to the orthodox economist, however, they are very real : immersed in a vain effort to reform and prevent the worst trends of capitalism, the real solution escapes them. Under Socialism people would not deny themselves the pleasures of children and the play of their normal instincts. Generally speaking, contraception is practised because would-be parents either cannot afford children or wish to do better for the ones they have. The working class, possessing only their power to labour, possessing no resources of wealth on which they can draw in bad times, find the inclination is not strong to procreate merely to create a reserve army of unemployed for the capitalist to draw upon in boom periods and that will languish on the dole during slumps. The worker is not interested in falling populations, but he is well aware that after successful strikes or negotiations for a rise in wages, a usual practice in the times called peace is to turn off many workers and instal bigger and better machines to do their work, and thus reduce the wages bill.

In an effort to stem the falling birth rate (rising temporarily in the present war), the Government of this country are about to institute some form of family allowances. As an inducement to parenthood it does not bear the stamp of originality. Family allowances were first given in France in 1854 but did not become general until 1916, when rising prices were making it increasingly difficult for the parents of children to maintain their standard of living. It was resisted by the trade unions, who claimed that it would reduce real wages. Until 1932, when the Equalisation Fund was set up, the scheme was a voluntary one run on contributions obtained only from employers. We dismiss at once any suggestion that it might be due to their innate generosity or love of little children (for it is not characteristic of employers as a class), and look for a more likely reason. Possibly the following quote fills the bill:

“Among other factors which may have influenced employers is the one given by the Director of the Fund for the Stephanoise Region. He believes that the granting of allowances has effectively withdrawn the family man from the ‘class struggle.’ If this is true, the employers had very strong grounds for extending the system.” (D. V. Glass, “The Struggle for Population,” page 52.)

The Fascist powers, in their rise to domination, in Italy and Germany, made a determined attempt to increase the birth rate. The Nazis made loans free of interest to young couples, cancelling repayments at the birth of each child. Promotion was also given to fathers of families, together with opportunities to obtain the best houses or flats.

The Italian plan, though on the same principle, had different features. A bachelor tax was levied, and financial burdens decreased in large families, by means of tax exemptions. The large family, however, consisted of seven children among State employees and ten children among other workers! In both countries improvements were made in maternity and child welfare.

Methods employed in Russia are akin to the Fascist powers in this as in other matters. A 50 per cent. increase has been made in maternity benefit and endowments given to mothers of six or more children, whilst the mother of ten qualifies for a medal. L. Ginsberg, in a Fabian pamphlet, “Parenthood and Poverty”, thinks, in the Fabian manner, that it is merely an extension of the social services and an attempt to raise the standard of living; we prefer to view them in a more realist manner. The anti-abortion law of 1936 marked the commencement of a new policy regarding population which finds expression in the more recent changes.

A method used by these countries is discouragement of birth control propaganda and sale of appliances. In Italy the latter became illegal, but was avoided in a truly commercial manner by selling certain articles under the heading of preventatives of disease.

Individual capitalists are not concerned with the state of the population in a hundred years’ time; they want their profits now.

Sweden, claimed as one of the most democratic countries, has adopted a saner method. Deciding that wanted children thrive best, birth control information is disseminated, whilst granting allowances and improving maternity and child welfare.

Most Western countries now grant allowances for children. These include Spain, Hungary, Holland and Belgium. So also do Australia and New Zealand. The Baltic countries and Switzerland, Austria and Bulgaria grant them to State employees.

The latter grants seem to indicate the desire of these countries to keep State servants loyal to the government and to induce them to refrain from following their class aspirations. We find Britain only recently tackling her problem. The proposed allowance for each child (after the first) is to be 5s. and not the 8s. suggested by Beveridge.

From Malthus to his modern counterparts, no solution to the so-called population problem along their lines can be effective!. Malthus advised continence among the “lower orders,” the moderns advise the opposite, and neither solves any real problems for the working class.

In a world torn and bleeding by a ruthless and brutal war, it is sheer humbug, cant and hypocrisy to talk of a population problem. Capitalism, which dooms millions to hunger in a world of plenty, wastes the lives of millions in useless toil, and periodically sends millions to their death in futile wars in every part of the globe, will appeal in vain to the working class to solve capitalism’s future population problems. There can be only one answer to such appeals-— a determined purpose to change the basis of society on the part of the workers, and to win a world with natural resources so vast and with productive forces so great that the needs of all can and will be supplied. Intelligent men and women will not then deny themselves the joys that children can give, and no special incentives need be offered to induce unwilling people to procreate. Family allowances and medals are devices of a ruling class endeavouring to solve its particular problems.

Workers should cease looking to family allowances and social services for the solution to their present troubles. Why ask for paltry sums when the world is yours to win ?

W. P.

What should Women do to be Free? (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looking through an old copy of the Socialist Standard, the writer came across a series of articles based on lectures on that seemingly eternal subject, “The Women’s Question.” Like unemployment, it is always with us, and will remain so until the inception of Socialism.

Woman cannot expect emancipation, any more than can her fellow-worker, man, under the existing system, capitalism. The amount enjoyed now by the male is merely a question of degree, conditioned mainly by his class position ; if of the working class, he is at liberty to sell his labour power or to starve.

Morgan, in his great work “Ancient Society,” shows clearly that the subjugation of woman did not come about to any great extent until the importance of private property was realised. Woman then became part of it; she was as important as flocks and herds, because she was reproductive, and she had no more freedom. Companionship and affection between the male and female had not yet been realised, and could not enter into the contract. The husband punished infidelity with severity, whilst reserving for himself the right of promiscuity. A section of women became courtesans, thus filling the needs of man for enjoyment outside his own home. These were found in the early civilisations of Rome and Greece, where the married women had no rights or freedom. Man then became the head of the family, over which he exercised power of life or death; property descended through the male line instead of the female, as heretofore, and the female lost all right of expressing herself and putting her point of view as she had been accustomed to so doing in the savage tribes. Her place became the home, whilst the man developed for himself a life outside it and generally had some voice in public affairs. Thus began the possibility of the charge so often still levelled against woman, that her mind can only appreciate trivialities. Small wonder, she was for so long debarred from all else, and the education available for her brothers was denied her.

Time, coupled with the progress of capitalism, has modified her position somewhat. To the capitalist she has appeared in the guise of a worker who will accept less wages than the male. Her centuries of subjugation were exploited to their fullest extent during the Industrial Revolution. Marx, in “Capital” (Vol. I.), gives a telling quotation from Lord Ashley’s speech on the 10-hours Bill. “Mr. E., a manufacturer, informed me that he employed females exclusively at his power looms . . . gives a decided preference to married females, especially those who have families at home dependent on them for support; they are attentive, docile, more so than unmarried females, and are compelled to use their utmost exertions to procure the necessaries of life. Thus are the virtues, the peculiar virtues of the female character, to be perverted to her injury; thus all that is most dutiful and tender in her nature is made a means of her bondage and suffering.” (Page 100, Glaisher edition.)

During the present war the calling up of men for the armed forces, and the subsequent conscription of women for industry, has once again given the capitalist a golden opportunity for getting more surplus value from his workers. Army pay has been so low, has borne so little relation to the needs of life, that women with small children have been compelled to go into the factory. That it has been the design of the representatives of the capitalist class, the Government, is evident by their provision of war-time nurseries. They are learning how better to enslave their workers from their co-belligerent Russia, who provides factory creches for war workers’ babies, so getting their cheap labour without damaging the next generation of wage slaves. Britain has hitherto been too crude in her methods to make such provision. Mothers have gone out to work and left their children under little or no supervision, which has been one of the causes of infant mortality and disease.

Woman has awakened sufficiently at this time to strive for “equal pay for equal work,” but not enough to demand the abolition of the wages system. She, like her male fellow worker, does not realise the theft that is being perpetrated upon her when she becomes employed. Such slogans tend to increase any antagonism that may exist between the sexes, instead of uniting them against the common enemy, the master class. The possibility of further antagonism may be manifested after this war, when men return from the Army to find, as after the last world war, that the women ensconced in their seats are unwilling to get down, and it will doubtless be exploited by Governments when unemployment once again becomes rife—as indeed it must, despite all “reconstruction schemes.”

An organisation called “Women for Westminster” has recently been born. It has a self-explanatory name and object. What a waste of time and energy such an organisation causes, and what future disillusionment must there be among its adherents ! Supposing they were to have a measure of success according to their aims, and get a predominance of women in the House of Commons. They would find that women, merely as women, can run capitalism no better than can the Labour or Tory Parties.

The Suffragettes have been appalled by the lack of enthusiasm for the vote, following their desperate efforts to gain it. Their lack of knowledge of the make-up of society is the reason for their indignation. Despite the constant propaganda of the press, screen and radio, woman as well as man is sceptical, often unconsciously so, regarding electioneering programmes, which cater for all tastes. Speaking generally, members of the working class are apathetic and not politically conscious. Many, unfortunately, are led away by reform parties, by idolaters of Russia, or by mushroom growths such as Commonwealth.

Many of the reforms regarding women have been implemented since Mary Woolstonecraft wrote her book “The Rights of Women.” These may, in the main, be attributed to the rise of capitalism, which has made it necessary for woman to take her place as part of the industrial army. In countries such as Turkey, for example, where after years of seclusion woman has removed her veil and gone out to work in the factory, it does not merely indicate that opinion there is becoming more liberal, but that the forces of industrial capital are at work looking out for cheap labour. The benefits woman has received in the field of education have been essential for her to take her place in the professional groups, and whilst giving her some individual freedom, have exchanged her quiet home life for that of a competitive existence.

Many women intent on emancipation have sublimated their natural instincts. This is undoubtedly possible for the possessor of an interesting and absorbing job, but as most work has been reduced to routine by the division of labour, characteristic of capitalist organisations, little permanent satisfaction is obtained thereby. With the present knowledge of birth control, the modern working woman denies herself the pleasure of children rather than bring them into a world, for them, of abject poverty. Frustration is thus found on all sides; denied an interesting and creative job, denied the rightful expression of her normal instincts, woman becomes, like the male worker, another machine for productivity and exploitation by the capitalist.

Whilst capitalism lasts, women will remain, like men, in a subject position, no matter how far progress is made towards equality with men. The interests of women are therefore identical with men in struggling for the overthrow of the present system, as it is only under Socialism that both will find real emancipation.

W. P.

The Workers and Education (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many workers read with pleasure the announcement in the daily press of the proposal of the new Education Act to extend their children’s schooling to the age of 15 years, coupled with a vague promise of raising it when possible to the dizzy height of 16 years. Perhaps they took it as an earnest of the post-war reconstruction we hear so much of nowadays, an added inducement to have bigger and better families completely educated by the State.

If proof were needed to show that education is part of the State machinery used by the ruling class to make obedient wage slaves, it was given in the proceedings in the House of Lords on July 11th, 1944. The Daily Telegraph of the following day reports:—

“The Minister of Education is to discuss with his Advisory Council the best course to adopt to see that children are taught the duties of citizenship and to defend their native country.”

In the debate which followed between the noble Lords, the Church gave its blessing to jingoism when the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Temple, replied to Lord Mottistone, who stated that it was “the law of the land to defend one’s country,” by saying, “I was fully aware of it and rejoice in the fact.” (Daily Telegraph, July 12th).

Later on in the debate, the following curious statement was made by Viscount Maugham : —

“Historians of France had said that in recent years no body of people in that country were so responsible for the events of 1940 as were the teachers.” (Daily Telegraph, July 12th.)

Blame has been laid at many doors for the fall of France, but Viscount Maugham has at least been original in his particular scapegoat. It is, however, difficult to accept. If he would peruse a little work by Mark Starr, entitled “Lies and Hate in Education,” he might learn a little about history and geography as taught to elementary school children of capitalist countries. A whole chapter is devoted to the French text books. It opens on page 94: “In comparison with the British books, bias and nationalistic hatred are more easily to be seen in their French counterparts.” Many and extensive quotations are given from the French school which illustrate the design to awaken hatred of the Germans and to make children believe that they are their hereditary enemies and the sources of all their troubles. Thus does the ruling clique, as representatives of capital, endeavour to befog the workers, from a tender age onwards, into believing that their enemies are anyone but their masters, and also prepares their minds to accept the vituperative outpourings against a competitive nation, which always accompanies a military attack upon it.

One quotation by Mark Starr shows that the Treaty of Versailles was eulogised by the French history books, whilst the German counterparts gave a totally opposite view. Yet another reads : —

“You will happily put up with the strenuous and noble soldier life if you remember the past—our bombarded towns, our burnt-out villages—if you think of the provinces torn out of France, if you do not forget Alsace-Lorraine.” (Page 97).

From a “Reader for the Young,” the following is given : —

“The poor little boy has two cut hands. It is the Germans who have wounded him thus. They have killed his father, his sister, and his big brother as well. . . . Ah ! wicked Germans, the French children will curse you in their hearts for a long time.” (Page 100.)

A little history about the employment of young children in the French coal mines, such as is given in Zola’s “Germinal,” might have taught the French children to curse a little nearer home, where their own interests might have been affected.

Much, states the chapter on France, is said about German “ferocious beasts” and “brutes drunk with alcohol and blood” (pretty much the same as we read in our daily papers), whilst the Paris Commune of 1871 receives a boycott of silence, except that the Communards are dismissed as dangerous fanatics.

Many workers looking back on their own years at an elementary school will remember a similar attitude to history. Mainly an account of good, bad and indifferent kings, the unsurpassed greed of other nations, treachery among the blacks, yellows and browns, usually rounded off by a Kipling rhapsody on the white Britisher. The general ignorance of, say the Chartist movement is well illustrated by an extract from the chapter devoted to English education in Mark Starr’s book : —

“It is hardly surprising that when British soldiers in Murmansk were appealed to by aeroplane-scattered leaflets to “Remember your Chartist forefathers,” they only replied, “Who the hell are they?”… In treating the earlier Radical and Luddite agitations, the supporters are described as “rioters” and “foolish men.” This is the Fletcher Kipling account of Peterloo : 

"At one riot at Manchester in 1819 the soldiers had to be called in, and several people were shot. Very likely these were only innocent spectators; those who get up riots are usually careful to keep out of the way when their suppression begins. Stiff laws were passed in Parliament to prevent such riotous meetings for the future.’” (Pages 52 and 53.)

All civilised countries have their nationalistic teachings designed to warp the young mind. No wonder Socialist teaching is so often hard going; the workers have so many discoveries to make and so much to unlearn.

The Roman Catholic Church has always appreciated the need to get its adherents very young, and has protested strongly against the Education Act. The Act proposes to give them little financial assistance should they remain as they now are—that is, completely running their own schools and employing only teachers of the faith, and in many schools Monks and Nuns.

Commander Bower, in the House of Commons, among others, put the case for the Roman Catholics : —

“A Roman Catholic therefore must believe all the dogmas of his faith. His faith is a house supported by many pillars and if you knock one down, the whole collapses. . . . From this it follows that our view of education is fundamentally different. So religion must permeate the whole curriculum. All subjects must be taught from the Roman Catholic angle “(our italics). (Hansard, January 20th.)

So there it is, from the cradle to the grave never allow the individual to think for himself in case one pillar might be dislodged. Time, however, is not on their side. Not so very long ago the Roman Catholic Church held undisputed sway in this country. It became inconvenient, however, to the State, which endeavoured to institute a different kind of control on the worker. The manner in which it came about is beyond the scope of this article, but to anyone interested in real history it is most instructive.

It became necessary with the growth of capitalism that operatives of all descriptions must receive some education, but it was not of the variety designed to inculcate ideas of freedom in their minds. Education, nevertheless, is a two-edged sword, wield it never so carefully. Whilst making a useful worker, the development of his mind proceeds apace. Even the doctored history and geography cannot quite bemuse him, and his horizons widen ; often, however, he becomes disillusioned, but many turn this to good advantage, determined to resist and oust the master class. As the capitalist method of production advances, there is an increasing need for advanced education. The machines of the present war, for instance, require extensive knowledge of all branches of mathematics. The tremendous weaving and spinning plants of the cotton districts cannot be managed by a worker like those who ran the domestic industry in times gone by. Whilst many operations are performed by turning a lever, the actual working and construction of the machinery is a highly technical affair.

The longer period of education to be given by our masters, whilst appearing to be in the homes for heroes category, is merely a design for the better filling of our masters’ coffers. In veiled terms, the White Paper on Educational .Reconstruction stated this (page 19) : —

“From the point of view of the country’s manufacturing industry, agriculture and commerce, the training afforded by a system of part-time education in conjunction with employment is long overdue. The initial and natural advantages that gave this country, almost for the asking, its place of pre-eminence in world manufacture and world markets have long been fading. More and more in the future will it be necessary to rely on the capacity, adaptability and the quality of our industrial and commercial personnel. Had fuller attention been given earlier to the all-important question of training of young workers, some of the difficulties experienced by the Services and by industry during the present war would have been markedly less acute.”

Whilst an asset to the master class, therefore, we know the educated worker will be an asset to his own class in its task of educating for Socialism. The ability to propagate knowledge is badly needed. Many people are found to be receptive to our case, once presented, because of their own experience, but Socialist educationalists are needed to reach their brothers in all lands. The deplorable fact that most people believe what they read in their daily newspapers is somewhat mitigated by the fact that they can read; thus our hopes of teaching them with our literature.

To this end we welcome the Education Act, despite its capitalist purpose, for we remember that within the capitalist system are the seeds of its own destruction.

W. P.

Concerning “A National Health Service” (1944)

From the June 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The White Paper issued in February 1944 dilates on proposals for a National Health Service. This is the result of discussions with various bodies including the British Medical Association (which may be termed the doctors’ trade union), the Royal Colleges, Voluntary and Municipal Hospital representatives. In the words of the report:-

The Government . . . want to ensure that in future every man and woman and child can rely on getting all the advice and treatment and care which they may need in matters of personal health; that what they get shall be the best medical and other facilities available; that their getting these shall not depend on whether they can pay for them, or on any other factor irrelevant to the real need—the  real need being to bring the country’s full resources to bear upon reducing ill-health and promoting good health in all its citizens.

As Socialists we are not impressed by this show of good-will; we give due regard to the capitalist need for healthy workers, and to the date of publication – viz., during a period of something very like war weariness, when accounts of Jap atrocities are needed to pep up morale.

We will digress for a moment to examine the state of medicine at this time in relation to the working class.

Ideas regarding a State medical service for all, not just for insured workers as prevails at the present time, are by no means new, but in their previous forms they have met with opposition from both the British and American Medical Associations. In their organ, the British Medical Journal, the BMA have expressed fear that the present “free” choice of doctor will cease. That freedom of the present choice will be apparent to most workers, but should any retain illusions, they may be quickly dispelled. A worker may not choose a Harley Street specialist, but most have a general practitioner engaged in panel practice, unless he is prepared to spend his meagre earnings on doctor’s fees. The doctor chosen is usually the nearest, in order to save time. Frequently nothing is known of his or her qualifications, letters after the name conveying no more than would hieroglyphics. When the choice is made, unless the worker is extremely ill, he attends an overcrowded surgery, perhaps being allowed five minutes of the doctor’s time. He may, however, not get this, for it has long been the custom for doctors with large panel practices to employ assistants – e.g., newly qualified doctors. The assistant sees the panel patients whilst the doctor attends his fee-paying patients. (This practice is in abeyance during war time, due to the calling up of young doctors, so the poor panel patient gets less time than ever.)

In these days of specialisation, the general practitioner cannot completely attend to all his patients’ requirements. Equipment and the services of dispensers and secretaries are costly. The White Paper recognises this fact and proposes Health Centres in which a group of doctors could practise with staff and equipment provided. The private patients also suffer under the present system. Their own doctor may administer palliatives instead of sending them to the appropriate specialist for radical treatment.

The BMA have also feared they may find their members working in the guise of civil servants subject to control, which they state would stifle initiative and responsibility towards those sacred trusts, their patients. The American counterpart went so far as to remove from membership any doctor taking part in salaried practice, until prevented from so doing by an order of the Supreme Court in 1942.

Much of the opposition to a National Health Service arises from the inability of doctors to regard themselves as members of the working class. They are, in their own opinion, a class apart, members of the highest profession, rendering selfless service to mankind. No doubt many start with the highest ideals, but few keep them. This is not intended to portray doctors as battening ghoulishly on the lay public, but like all others, they are caught in the cleft stick of capitalism. The doctor is an expensive product; he must keep up certain appearances, and bring up his children in like manner. To be successful he cannot escape the sordid struggle for life under capitalism. He must sell his labour power in order to live, as does his meanest panel patient. These facts are not readily appreciated by the BMA, who, however, by their resistance to salaried schemes, have compelled the doctor to sell in the open market.

Nevertheless, the views of the BMA have not been wholly representative of opinion here or in America. In  a leading article, The Lancet (January 22nd, 1944), anticipating the proposals in the White Paper, commented on the advantages to the patient of co-operation between local authorities, hospitals and the doctor, now inadequate, and states that hitherto most attention has been paid to the convenience of the doctors concerned. Unpopularity of central control may be the reason for this outburst. “Enough of this bureaucratic planning; give me my own show and let me get on with it”. The article continues: “The answer to him has already been given. ‘The needs of the sick are endlessly variable; the resources of medicine are multifarious; and only a large adaptable, sensitive, smooth running organisation will fit one to the other in the largest number of cases.'”

Similarly the attitude in the USA, where there is no National Health Insurance, is changing. Reviewing Kaiser Wakes the Doctors, by Paul De Kruif, New York (a work demonstrating the success of shipbuilder Kaiser’s medical scheme for workers in the mushroom ship yards of the Pacific coast, employing 60 salaried doctors), The Lancet of February 19th, 1944, quotes De Kruif’s confession. Hitherto, he had “remained content with official medical explanations that this prepaid medicine was unethical; 100,000 doctors could not be wrong.” It now appears that they could. At the present state of development it is uneconomic for the doctors to sell their labour power in the open market, as the worker cannot afford to buy it, and his health suffers in consequence. The needs of war-time industry here and in the States require workers to receive expert medical attention in every sphere, in order to return to work rapidly and make the wheels of capitalism spin. Note the recent accent on “rehabilitation”. In times of slump the breakdown of a few workers is immaterial when others can be drawn from the reserve army of the unemployed. The present arrangements, in which the general practitioner works alone, are not conducive to the production of efficient, healthy workers. “Accident proneness” is inevitable in sub-healthy states. Also the fact that the worker’s wife has no panel doctor has come to be realised as an anomaly overdue for remedy. As she must be a fee-paying patient, she often fails to seek necessary advice, and comes to accept ill-health as part of her life.

The widespread influence of the BMA compelled the Government to accept its offices in the recent discussions. The White Paper is throughout a sop to the BMA, reiterating again and again that “the patient should choose his own doctor”. The suggested arrangements for the entire population to be covered by insurance has the advantage of simplicity, but not so the arrangement of general practitioners. The Health Centres proposed will be used by a group of doctors who will see their patients there instead of at their surgeries. A salary or equivalent will be paid to them but – and what a large “but” it is – the doctor may still have private fee-paying patients. The report states, however, that no one must be given “reason to believe that he can obtain more skilled treatment by obtaining it privately than by seeking it within the new source”.

Socialists may suppress a smile at so naive a hope. What reason is there to suppose that a doctor now giving greater attention to his private patients than his panel will not continue to do so under the new scheme? It is not hard to visualise a doctor seeing his erstwhile panel patients at the Health Centre, receiving his salary for so doing, and then rushing off to see his private patients. True, the better equipment provided at the Health Centre may even be an inducement to persons of means to attend, so that private practice declines and the doctor ceases to sell his labour power in the open market, but what then?

Will the doctor’s salaried position enable him to see his true place in society? Time will show, but under neither this proposed scheme nor any other will the worker get the requisite attention. Under any scheme in capitalist society expenditure is resisted at every step, as has been the case with housing for the workers (not their masters), sanitation, education and the like. Even the Beverage scheme for health insurance requires that large scale unemployment shall not obtain; such statements serve to demonstrate the hollowness of capitalistic schemes, for it is powerless to prevent unemployment, which is inherent in its constitution. Only under Socialism, where the wages system  will no longer exist, and where the workers will enjoy the fruits of their labour under ideal conditions without exploitation, can doctors truly serve their fellow-workers, and a real health service for all be established.

W. P.

The Lady with the Lamp (1944)

From the March 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nursing as it is To-day

That nursing is a vocation in the religious sense is an assertion surprisingly still made to-day, as witness the film “The Lamp Still Burns,” about which something will be said later. Nurses, like Nuns, are supposed to take up their work in response to a mysterious call, but many relinquish its mixed joys on closer acquaintance.

In early times, before the dissolution of the monasteries, the care of the sick was in the hands of the religious houses, remnants of which became the first voluntary hospitals. The Elizabethan Poor Law was the basis of what is now the municipal hospital, first under the Parish overseer, then the Board of Guardians, and lastly the Ministry of Health.

Of nurses and nursing in this country we know little before the nineteenth century, and training was unknown. In military hospitals there were no female nurses, and mortality was high. The lack of organisation went unnoticed until a major war occurred nearer the scale of modern war. War to the general public seemed far away when only a standing army was affected.

In the early nineteenth century there were voluntary hospitals and workhouse infirmaries for the sick poor, looked after by nurses who, if for nothing else, were known for their drunkenness. This was excused on the ground that hospital conditions were so terrible that some stimulant was necessary to enable nurses to carry on. Beds were packed close together, fresh air was practically nil, and surgical cases often died of the dreaded hospital gangrene. The rich were cared for in their own homes, by women of whom Dickens’ Sarah Gamp seems to have been a fair prototype; but at least they were not exposed to the infection of a hospital ward. Any poor ignorant woman who was fitted for nothing else could be a nurse. They worked long hours, did all the domestic work, and usually lived in the hospital, often in the wards themselves.

In the mid and late nineteenth century great reforms came about, mainly through the establishment of training centres, notably Florence Nightingale’s school of nursing and St.Thomas’s Hospital in 1860. Florence Nightingale may be called the founder of modern nursing. Though known sentimentally as the “Lady with the Lamp,” she instituted modern hospital planning and hygiene, and spread much knowledge of sanitation. It is interesting to notice a little of her career. Being of the propertied class, her wish to be a nurse was resisted by her parents on the ground that a gentlewoman could not associate on equal terms with working women, often drunken and immoral, and, even if chaste, still working women. After much resistance she obtained what training she could at Kaiserworth in Germany in 1851 and with the Sisters of Charity in Paris in 1853.

In 1853 the Crimean War commenced, and in this major campaign great perturbation was caused by the deaths of the wounded British from negligence. Nearly 50 per cent. died. People became incensed as they learned that preparations and precautions were practically nil. The French ally, by contrast, had reasonably well organised medical services, and had taken 50 Sisters of Charity to act as nurses.

Florence Nightingale was asked by the Government to take a party of nurses to remedy matters. We have seen that the British Army had no female nurses, and this intrusion was energetically resisted by many of the medical officers, who saw in it criticism of themselves. The medical profession to-day likewise resists any apparent encroachment on their privileges. We know by Florence Nightingale’s reorganisation of the hospitals at Scutari and in the Crimea that she did not lack energy and initiative.

Following the Crimean War, strenuous efforts were made to reorganise hospitals in this country, and trainees of Florence Nightingale started nursing schools at many hospitals, and the status of nursing became raised.

Just before the turn of the century, great improvement were made in this and other Western countries. Efforts were made to check infectious diseases by isolating and notifying. Great strides in medicine, such as the technique of antiseptic surgery, introduction of anaesthetics, discoveries of the causes of hitherto baffling diseases were made. County councils with medical officers of health were set up, and sanitation at last received some attention.

Florence Nightingale’s reforms in nursing had their way because all this was in the air. The discoveries in medicine made the more intelligent nursing of the sick essential. It was not something which just happened out of the blue by the goodness of one woman, but because at this time it became necessary to transform the Sarah Gamp into a trained knowledgeable worker in the art of nursing, into a woman who could carry out important observations, and many special treatments—in a word, to change the unskilled into the skilled worker.

In 1902 the Midwives Act was passed—”an Act secure the better training of midwives.” Efforts were made to secure as nurses girls of better education, at least secondary school standard. But the shortage of suitable recruits has usually been acute except at the best teaching hospitals —e.g., the London voluntary Hospitals. Girls of better education have wanted better rewards than nursing can give. The lure of the vocation, the life of satisfying work for suffering humanity, etc., ad nauseum, have all been tried. The bait has never been good conditions, reasonable hours and adequate pay for an efficient worker. But the dope has never been completely successful. The municipal hospitals and smaller voluntary hospitals have had to recruit from the elementary schools. This makes it difficult for the recruit, who has probably left school at 14 years and worked in a shop, office or factory, to go back to school again at 18 years. Particularly is this the case now that many high schools run pre-nursing courses, thus relieving the student nurse of much study in her first difficult year of hospital life.

A student has much to learn of a scientific character, and a knowledge of chemistry and mathematics is a great help to the prospective nurse. As always, the good background of education makes all the difference between taking a job in one’s stride or making it a very hard grind. Many fall by the wayside and never become State registered. They then become the assistant nurses, or, shall we say, the labourers of the present nursing world.

What has been the reward for the hard grind ? Until the Rushcliffe scale of salaries was introduced recently, the best salary paid to a student nurse was £20 in the first year, £30 in the second, and £40 in the third, together with board and lodging. The answer to complaints on this score has always been that training was being given free during this period, whilst other trainees—e.g. doctors, teachers, architects, etc.—have to pay for theirs. Such students, however, do not have to work 10-12 hours day or night, often at an exhausting pace, and then attend lectures afterwards. In the writer's experience of commencing training only 11 years ago night duty commenced at 7.30 p.m. and finished at 8 a.m. Often the entire night was worked without a break even for a meal, and then lectures had to be attended at either 9 a.m. or 6 p.m. At 9 a.m. the lecturer received scant attention. A hard school, indeed, and the one night off per week was often spent in sleeping the clock round. The Horder Committee report on nursing reconstruction, recently published, recommends that the nurse should be a student paying for her training, and not an hospital employee responsible for the work of the hospital. They suggest she should be helped by Government grants.

Conditions, however, are improving, in order to attract recruits of what are termed the better kind. Parents are not willing to allow their daughters to undergo an interesting but vigorous training at the cost of their health. “Hard work never killed anyone,” still say some members of the old school. Perhaps not, but health may be impaired, and vitality and energy for outside interests may be completely sapped. We do not, generally speaking, find nurses interested in political questions and world affairs. Why? Because the hospital is its own little world in which one may work and take no notice of the greater world. This may be thought a good thing. Florence Nightingale would have considered that completely absorbing work in the service of others was so. Facts belie it. A nurse so living becomes narrow and harsh, and finally is quite unable to understand the youngest recruits. Certain hospitals in this country now allow their trained staff to live out. This has, on the whole, been extremely successful, and these hospitals have had less difficulty in obtaining staff.

What are the nurse’s expectations when finally she is trained, passes her exams, and can put those long-coveted letters S.R.N. behind her name? She may remain in a general hospital as a staff nurse to do surgical or medical nursing, and after a few years of experience become a Sister and direct the ward. She may take further training in some other branch of. nursing—e.g., midwifery, fevers, children, district, public health or industrial nursing. Many fields of interest are now open to the trained nurse. The latest of these is that of industrial nursing.

The Government has recommended that factories employ a trained nurse and establish a first-aid and welfare department. This department was not established out of the kindness of the employer’s heart. Absenteeism through sickness is considerably reduced: prompt treatment of accidents saves weeks of disability, and reduces compensation;—the worker with a wound has his dressing done by the factory nurse, thus preventing him taking a day off to visit his local hospital or his panel doctor.

Public health and district work is popular, as here the nurse works with greater freedom than her hospital colleague, and she lives out. These nurses regard their work as important and socially useful; their hours are reasonable, and their scale of salary has just been raised through the recommendations of the Rushcliffe Committee. It is not, however, princely, as the maximum salary for a superintendent of health visitors, a post only reached after years of experience, is £55O per year.

The Rushcliffe yearly salaries for the trained nurse are £90, for the ward sister £130, and for a sister tutor £200 rising to £350. These are exclusive of emoluments. The student nurse is to be paid at the rate of £10 first year. £45 second year, £50 third year, and £60 fourth year. These are mentioned in detail as they were supposed to constitute a wonderful improvement.

Previous to the war nurses who married were expected to leave. Since the war they have been permitted—nay, implored—to remain. Florence Nightingale was harsh with nurses who married; she considered that they should devote their whole lives to their work.

The clock cannot be put back despite frantic efforts to do so. The production at this time of the film “The Lamp Still Burns” shows a desire to do so. The heroine, Hilary, foregoes her private life to serve her calling. Few would be willing to make such an unnatural sacrifice Why should such an anachronism be expected? Under modern conditions the nurse may work, for example, for eight hours efficiently and then leave hospital, district or clinic for her home or her own interests and relaxation. The nurse in training may live in for convenience, but should have her lectures in her “on duty” time.

Reorganisation is required and had to some small extent been carried out in England before the war, but more widely in America. Under better conditions nursing could be a most satisfying kind of work. Indeed, it provides an answer to those who state that workers must have bosses. Many nurses, working without supervision, voluntarily exceed their hours of duty for their patients’ welfare.

Efforts are required by nurses themselves to improve their conditions. Hitherto they have been too exhausted to do much in that direction, plus, of course, the play on the vocational side.

The nurse has now become a skilled worker, but do not whisper this to her, as she is taught to regard herself as belonging to the professional class, whom it would appear are a race apart. This snobbery has been a bar to trade-union activity, which has, generally speaking, been resisted by hospital matrons.

Apart from the apathetic state of nurses, three main obstructions to progress exist : The attitude of the working class, who ignorantly look on her as an angel of mercy or despise her as part of what they regard as the racket of medicine; the medical profession, who wish the nurse to be the Cinderella to their own great glory; lastly, from those who as nurses wish the vocational idea to continue.

Many of the diseases and accidents which can be directly traced to the needless hazards of industry or to the poverty of the workers, as well as the more dramatic casualties of war, will die with the death of capitalism. Only under a form of society in which the health and happiness of people, rather than the production of commodities, is the aim can nursing come into its own, with its infinite possibilities of satisfying work.

W. P.

The Economic Foundations of Ill-Health (1944)

From the August 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much emphasis has been laid of late years, particularly since the war, on the importance of health education. It is a tragic fact that under the present system it takes a war to reveal the condition of the nation’s health. The Boer War revealed the harm done to the manhood of England by their employment as young children in the factories and mines. Those surviving, whilst fit enough to be alive, were not, curiously enough, sufficiently fit to die for their country. The last great war revealed a high percentage of C3s. Robert Sinclair, in “Metropolitan Man,” states (page 28) : “The position has not substantially changed since the closing year of the war, when the Ministry of National Service compiled a health census of the 2,500,000 young men who then attained their eighteenth birthday. Of this fine flower of the English race, two specimens in every three were unfit.”

Complacency during this war has not been so much disturbed by the prospective fighting men as by the condition of their children. Evacuation of the town populations to the country brought to light some startling facts. Dr. Kenneth Mellanby, quoted in “Our Towns” (page 5), suggests that 50 per cent. of the evacuated children were verminous. Their hostesses were horrified by their condition, but had they become aware of the state of the “homes” from which many had come, their horror would have been better founded.

“The New Survey of London Life and Labour,” quoted in “Our Towns” (page 40), states : “It is the exception rather than rule to have water ready at hand in unlimited quantities. In half the houses investigated water has to be fetched from outside the tenement, often from a tap on the landing, sometimes from across a yard, at others up or down three flights of stairs; nor is the place for emptying dirty water always where the tap is—it may be yet further away.”

Public health workers, such as health visitors, midwives, school nurses, are expected to be the educators of the working class living in the conditions mentioned above. Under the more passable conditions of some of the working class their advice is welcomed and followed; to those dulled by years of the most brutalising poverty, it fails to register. To the more intelligent among the poorest, however, nothing could be more exasperating. Under hopeless conditions, health talks serve to deepen frustration.

The writer recently attended a lecture on Parentcraft. As he stated his case, the lecturer cited a family of his acquaintance as an example of what parentcraft can do. They appeared to be in the direst poverty, but due to the untiring efforts of the mother, the children had survived. The writer made a reference to “Birth, Poverty and Wealth,” by R. Titmuss, a work showing how descent in the social scale, and the type of work performed by the father, condemned the children to a greater expectation of disease and early death than those of the highest professional groups, and was the greatest factor in the health of the family. The lecturer stated that, whilst he appreciated the effects, he felt that much could be done to ameliorate them by knowledge of parentcraft. What empty hopes! Reminiscent of the boy who, by holding his hand over the hole in the dyke, hoped to stem the flood. Thus do reformers waste their time and energies in trying to alleviate the direct effects of capitalism, instead of striving to abolish the cause.

Health education comprises also a knowledge of food facts. In December, 1937, the Ministry of Health and the British Medical Association worked out budgets in which the amount necessary for food lay between 5s. and 6s. a week per head at the then prevailing prices. Aleck Bourne, commenting on it in “The Health of the Future” (page 81), says : “It may be true that if such a sum were spent by a housewife with a sound practical knowledge of the vitamin and mineral content of the food exposed for sale, she might be able to feed her family without physiologial privation. But this would still not be possible, even though she could buy the food, unless she had been taught how to prepare and cook it, both to preserve the living elements and also to make it palatable and attractive.”

Let us try to imagine the mother of a large family, living, if very fortunate, in a council house; if less fortunate, in a tenement, or even in one room or less, in the worst part of an industrial town. Her vitality is diminished by repeated births and the unending struggles to wash, cook, clean and care for her little ones in surroundings not conducive to the continuance of such activities. Yes, it is very hard to imagine her sitting down and planning the day’s menus in a balanced manner; much easier to imagine her buying fish and chips, bread, marg. and jam, and washing down the mixture with over-sweetened tea as a stimulant. Under such conditions, knowledge, if imparted, could scarcely be made of use. A telling incident is recorded in “Our Towns,” showing how bad housing induces bad eating: “The motives of conduct of poverty are sometimes very far to seek for the well-to-do. An old woman who was bringing up a 10 year old grandson used, when short of money, to give him 2d. to buy two cubes of a proprietary extract. Asked why she did not buy herrings instead, she replied, ‘You see, we’ve only got one room, and the smell of fish frying turns me stomach; and it brings out the mice, and I’m afraid of mice'” (page 41).

Many of these incidents must have occurred within the experience of the average worker, but for a last damning example we will turn to America, that land of the free, and further to South Carolina, that erstwhile home of slavery, where negroes now live under conditions never equalled in the heyday of the “Southern Gentlemen.”

“Look,” an American magazine, in its June 1942 issue, published an article entitled “Parenthood U.S.A., The Story of South Carolina.” It deals with the appalling conditions in Berkeley and Lee counties, which are mainly populated with negroes. “Tucked away in the hot amiable heart of South Carolina are the counties called Berkeley and Lee. Here in two areas, each of 1,200 parched square miles, rural, agricultural, economically impotent, 70 per cent. Negro, exists a public health programme with teeth in it, obstetrical care, infant care and baby spacing are its three main functions. Nowhere in the U.S.A. was there a greater need for such a programme. In 1936, 360 South Carolina mothers died in childbirth; 5,600 infants died in their first year, a higher proportion than in any other state. In 1939, when South Carolina made baby-spacing one of its official public health services, Berkeley County instantly began functioning as an experimental centre. … If the programme works in these impoverished regions, it will work anywhere.”

Graphic descriptions follow. The main diseases rampant include V.D., malaria, rickets, pellegra. Malnutrition is common enough to be almost the rule. The article states in uncompromising terms, “Low incomes mean high infant death rates.” What, then, is the solution to the problem in South Carolina ? The obvious one of raising incomes, or of abolishing the wages system and providing plenty for all? No! what is called baby spacing is alleged to be the panacea for all ills.

Whatever so-called success attends this health drive, it can only constitute a palliative. The malaria may be treated by free quinine, but in such a district, with sanitation almost nil, re-infection will quickly occur. The treatment of syphilis is lengthy, and much of the damage done is irradicable. And the deficiency diseases, what of them ? With smaller families, the wage, such as it is, is divided among fewer mouths. But as the chief occupation is tenant farming in a dry, crop-poor land, reward for hard work is meagre. Many receive what we should term public assistance, and this, we know, maintains life, but not necessarily health. An excellent example this of capitalist reforms; surface scratching, leaving the hard core, the root cause untouched. After all the teaching of parentcraft, birth control and what you will, Berkeley and Lee will remain to their unfortunate inhabitants 2,400 parched square miles where they are compelled to sell their labour power at a bare existence price, or seek some other place. But wherever they go, they will be, whilst working, exploited; if idle, forming part of the industrial reserve army, and, finally, join the scrap heap.

When the worst anomalies are removed, others more subtle become apparent. An excellent exposition of the effects of poverty on the mentality of the school child is given in a work entitled, “A Pen’orth of Chips” by C. S. Regal. This school teacher, working in the Royal Borough of Kensington, found children living in over-crowded surroundings, getting little sleep, and that disturbed, having the well-known diet of bread and marg., getting little fresh air, with a greater preponderance of dullness than those living in less poverty-stricken districts. Dullness is a physical condition that may be inherited, but it may also be acquired. The difference in the stature of the elementary schoolboy and the public schoolboy is well known, but is the difference in the mental stature and its cause so readily appreciated?

It will take more than parentcraft, baby spacing, school meals, etc., to remove the effects of poverty in a world of plenty; it will take a complete change in the social system to bring about production solely for people’s needs, and not in order to make a profit such as obtains to-day. Poverty for the many is inherent in the capitalist system, and we must work for Socialism in order to remove it. By Socialism we do not mean public utility corporations, State control and National Health services, which pass for it with some of our less well informed fellow-workers. By Socialism we mean a system in which all who are able participate in production, and everyone receives what he needs. Only under Socialism can the heart-breaking effects of poverty be removed and all have an opportunity of living the good life as well as enjoying good health.

W. P.