The Passing Show: H.M.S. Hampshire (1963)

The Passing Show Column from the October 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

H.M.S. Hampshire

The beginning of September and H.M.S. Hampshire, guided missile destroyer, lies at anchor just off Torquay. A day or two later, she is joined by several more warships of the home fleet. If you like, you can have a boat trio around the grey monsters and view—at a distance, of course—their wicked death dealing paraphernalia.

These ships have just finished exercises off the South West Coast. They are a timely reminder of the constant development under capitalism of more and more horrifying weapons; for these are just about the last word in modern fighting craft, although they will probably be out of date in a few years’ time. Capitalist politicians may prattle about efforts for peace, disarmament, test ban treaties and the like, but sincerity has never been their strong point. Anyway, sincerity will not remove the conflicting interests of private property which make armaments necessary. So Lord Hailsham signs a treaty in Moscow, and almost in the same breath, the government announces that another warship is to be built—this time an aircraft carrier costing around £50 millions,

Militant Bank Managers

Whatever next! There were enough disdainfully raised eyebrows and tongue cluckings when the teachers struck for one day last year. But now the bank managers, of all people! The Daily Herald of September 7th tells us of the first of a series of weekend strikes by these men and their staffs, employed by the Manchester and Salford Trustee Savings Bank. Apparently it’s a very gentlemanly affair with courteous picketing outside the branches by none other than the managers themselves.

But strip away the niceties of etiquette and what is the strike over? Why, the same old thing, of course—pay and conditions. The bank staffs are pressing for “proper negotiating machinery” and have reached the end of their tether waiting for a move from their employers. “…. even gentlemen get their backs up occasionally,” commented one bank man, bitterly.

It is certainly interesting, this show of militancy among “professional” workers. And at the risk of being called priggish, it does go to support something we have always said. Arbitration courts and joint councils may be all very well up to a point, but it is the strike (or the positive threat of it) which gingers up the negotiations. In fact, it is the only weapon which workers have in their struggle with the employers, although it cannot be used indiscriminately, of course. This hard truth has begun to dawn on some of the bank employees, and they are a living denial of the claim sometimes heard nowadays that the strike weapon is out of date. It will never be out of date as long as we have capitalism.

Auto-intoxication

Roaring and stinking its way merrily across the length and breadth of the land goes the motor car. It pours from the production lines to swell the enormous tide of tinplate on the already overcrowded roads. In attempts to cope with its insatiable appetite, workers’ backyards are sliced in half as motorways are pushed through with ruthless urgency. And up, up, up, mounts the toll of death and injury in its wake. No wonder Dr. Bergen Evans wrote a long and bitter denunciation of it eight years ago in The Spoor of Spooks.

But it is not only Dr. Evans who is concerned at the encroachment of the motor car. Brickbats have been thrown at Transport Minister Marples over his plan for “pedestrian control” experiments in selected areas. “The Marples Matchsticks” it was contemptuously labelled by the Daily Mail, after the illuminated robot who will show you how to walk across the road when the way is clear. Failure to observe the rules may cost you a £20 fine and the Mail is very piqued at the whittling away of pedestrians’ rights which this will involve.

Now the motor car is no longer a luxury. Indeed, it is an essential to many workers in holding down their jobs. More than eight million are on the roads and the number is expected to go on increasing. So the car manufacturers have done nicely out of it, although no one will expect British Railways to be very pleased. Neither will some of the shop owners, who will no doubt echo the Mail’s sentiments, because growing pressure against pedestrians might well discourage sales. This has in fact happened in some of the streets recently restricted to one-way traffic.

There is nothing very straightforward about the traffic problem, because it is surrounded by all sorts of interests tugging all ways, a familiar enough feature under capitalism. It exists, too, against the background of speed and yet more speed. For as any Socialist knows, the time factor is all important in capitalist production and colours all our outlook And when looked at from this angle, Socialism would be worth establishing: only just to let us slow down and take a breather.

Eddie Critchfield

Whatever happened to the middle class? (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The most comical programme on the radio today, is, without a doubt, that uproarious piece of fatuous nonsense known as “Any Questions”.

Week after week a panel of so-called experts, or notorious personages, attempt to answer questions put by members of the audience.

Conversely the most profoundly philosophical item on the “box” is frequently the one professing to be ludicrous.

More often than not, the jokes of “the comedians” on TV are priceless little cameos highlighting the catastrophes and calamities of modern latter-day working-class life.

But on “Any Questions” we have the best humour of all, unconscious, unintended, spontaneous. A question was asked: “What is happening to the Middle Class and what should they (the Middle Class) do about it” The result was side-splitting, a smasher, especially since the “panel” consisted of those well- known knockabouts, Malcolm Muggeridge, Lord Hailsham and Lord George Brown, plus Lady Barnett. Muggeridge jumped in with a broadside: the middle class he said are licked, powerless, helpless, they are being wiped out, done down, and there is nothing they can do but put up with it.

Then there was comedian George Brown’s go. In that absurdly pompous manner which he fondly imagines is impressive, he proceeded to babble more self-contradictory nonsense in a few minutes than anyone would think possible. The audience quickly told him as much. The place of the Middle Class today, he squeaked, has been taken by the working class. The miners, dockers, and car workers get over one hundred pounds a week; redundancy pay, social security, free health benefits and other advantages. The middle class is now the inferior class and the working class better off (than the “middle” lot.) These statements were apparently based on what has happened to “his kids”. My kids, he wailed, are (or were) members of the middle class with (and here he was expressing a common-place fallacy) “professional training’' but now much worse off than the dockers or miners.

One is tempted to ask why, if dockers are doing so well, his kids didn’t go in for it; but this never came up.

People in the audience tried to tell George that if all that had happened was a change of the names and addresses (middle for working) then no social change had taken place, but he only lost his temper.

Then it was Hailsham’s turn. We are not licked, he raved and ranted, we shall fight: wherever these great juggernauts, the TUC and the unions, challenge us we shall join together, and we shall win. Fine fighting words, “Hoggy”!

Rather unkindly (impudent workers) the next question was: “What do the members of the panel think are the qualifications for being on it?” Predictably enough this produced dead silence from the usually loquacious professional windbags. So much so, that Jacobs the question-master had to prod them. After all, they do get about £85 for the half-hour job.

Mugg said he hadn’t got any. Brown said none whatever, Hogg that he’d answered before and always tried to do his best. Likewise Lady B.

In the ensuing “Any Answer” slot supplied by listeners, a bloke wrote what Jacobs said was the shortest letter they’d ever received in twenty years. It was one word: “Ego”. And it is right. All of them, Brown, Hogg, Mugg. have no more knowledge of the economics of capitalist society than a bright fifth form schoolboy.

The one attribute they all have is boundless, mindless self-conceit; and the presumptuous conviction that most ordinary quiet people must be congenial idiots. They were all mistakenly talking about something that does not exist any more; and practically saying so without even knowing it! Especially the rubbish about “professional training.” Many kinds of workers today handle complicated equipment and require to be highly trained. Soldiers, airmen, printers, steelworkers, even a London taxi-driver whose intimate detailed knowledge of the most complicated maze in the world takes a minimum of two years to acquire.

The so-called white collar workers have joined the TUC in hundreds and thousands because, like blue- collar workers and no-collar workers, they belong to the same class. What defines a class is its relationship to the productive apparatus. In general those that are NOT capitalists are workers; whether driving a .Jumbo jet at £400.00 a week or a bus at £50.00.

What bogs many workers down on this is a failure to understand the difference between a whole class, and individuals. True, we all know cases whom we cannot slot neatly in. They are borderline cases. Every branch of knowledge has these, science could not function without them.

In biology we have the platypus: half bird — half mammal. In chemistry we have isotopes — compounds of unstable elements. “Heavy Water”: H30 not H20. No chemist has yet declared that ordinary water does not exist. In atomic physics unstable radio-active particles and anti-matter.

All these are exceptions. No biologist claims that the platypus invalidates species. So with society; individual exceptions merely confirm the general rule. Capitalism drives all workers ultimately into recognizing their class position. Once the process starts, the spread of Socialist ideas is inevitable.

There were 4,000 small bankruptcies last year; not Rolls-Royce, Leyland, Court Line or British Rail, but members of the hypothetical “Middle class” driven back to the ranks.

Members of the panel were NOT among them. They are bankrupt only in knowledge.

Horatio.

The Passing Show: The pace-makers (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The pace-makers

The present uproar among those employed in the “public sector”—nurses, teachers, civil servants, and so on—at the fact that they are the chief sufferers from the Government’s pay policy, is particularly interesting to those who remember what the Labour Party and reformers generally used to say on this subject. It was once a settled belief among left-wingers that any industry or service run by the State or by a municipality would give its workers better conditions than any similar private industry or service, and that private employers would have to improve the wages and conditions they offered in order to keep their workers. So that the nationalisation of an industry would not only benefit the workers in that industry: it would benefit those in other industries as well. See, for example, Bernard Shaw in The Transition to Social Democracy, reprinted in his Essays in Fabian Socialism:

“At the very outset of the new extension of municipal industries, the question of wage will arise. A minimum wage must be fixed . . . The worst sort of sweaters will find that if they are to keep their ‘hands’, they must treat them at least as well as the municipality.”

And so forth. When these arguments were fashionable, Socialists were pointing out that since the State, and the municipalities, and the State boards, were and could only be committees representing the general interests of the capitalist class, it was useless to hope that they would give any “better wages and conditions than individual capitalists. And judging by the recent agitation among “public sector ” employees, it seems that not only are those employed by the State and its agencies no better treated than similar workers in private employ—they are actually falling behind in wages and conditions.

But no doubt the nationalizers will still be trotting out their “better wages” arguments for years to come.

Strike in Saskatchewan

When we say that all workers by hand or brain have fundamentally the same interests, we are told that white-collar and professional workers are somehow quite different from manual workers— for example, doctors and the rest would never strike. This theory was never in accord with the facts—doctors and nurses have gone on strike more than once in Continental countries in recent years, and they threatened to strike, and nearly did strike, in this country on the introduction of the National Health Service. Now, of course, the theory has been swept away finally by the events in Saskatchewan. There the great majority of doctors have gone on strike against the Government’s attempt to introduce a medical service having some points in common with the British system. What matters here is not whether one sympathizes with this particular strike (we emphatically do not), but the simple fact that the strike has happened and has continued several weeks. Doctors, in fact, are workers just like the rest of us. In their struggles over conditions of employment they can and do use such working-class weapons as strike action even, as in this case, for the wrong reasons.

Cruel and violent

As a judge recently sentenced a man of twenty to five years’ imprisonment, and other youths to shorter terms, for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, he is reported to have said: “The iron bars and bottles and other weapons with which some of you were armed show how cruel and violent human beings can become.”

Well, well. There is news for the judge.

Human beings can become even more cruel and violent than that.

An iron bar can kill a man. A high-explosive bomb can kill a thousand. An atom bomb can kill a hundred thousand. And the latest H-bombs, we are told, can kill several millions.

But for these large-scale killings, no one is put in the dock. Violence is only deplored when it is not in the interests of the ruling class.

Yet if five years’ jail is the fit sentence for injuring one or two other men, what sentence can the workers pass on the capitalist system?

The only possible sentence is total abolition.

Top people

A new book Anatomy of Britain, by Anthony Sampson, gives several indications of the wealth of Britain’s upper class. On the distribution of wealth, he says :

“One recent survey has thrown light on capital wealth. Lydall and Tipping, writing in the Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Statistics in 1961, estimated that the top one per cent of British adults owned 43 per cent of total net capital—whereas in America (in 1954) the top one per cent owned only 24 per cent of personal wealth. The authors estimated that 20,000 people owned more than £100,000, and that their average holding was £250,000. (While at the bottom there are 16 million people with less than £100 each, and an average of £50.)”

Mr. Sampson quotes the Ministry of Labour, I960, figures that 30,000 men and 275,000 women are in private domestic service, among whom (according to one domestic agency) there are 600 butlers. He goes on to quote an estimate of “the cost of service in a well-appointed household”:

Butler:                                       £500

Two footman at £350:               £700

Odd man:                                  £250

Head housemaid:                      £300

Two housemaids at £250:         £500

Cook:                                        £400

Kitchenmaid:                            £250

Lady’s maid:                             £300

Chauffeur (non-resident):         £650

Three daily helps at £150:        £450 

Total:                                      £4,300

Keep (residents only):           £2,000

Total:                                      £6,300

If only someone would mention these figures to the Labour Party leaders, they might stop talking about the “social revolution” they are supposed to have put through after the war.

Alwyn Edgar

Pot Pourri. (1910)

From the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

I did not go to the Business Exhibition, but I have done the next best thing — read the newspaper puffs of it. One needs not to be a master of deductive philosophy to read the lesson writ large over the pages of booming devoted to it. The features of this year consist of calculating machines for eliminating clerks ; a machine (the Dictaphone) for doubling one’s output ; another that addresses envelopes at the rate of 2,000 an hour, and so on. Competitions for speed and accuracy are again a leading item, marked this year by the large number of women who have entered for the first time. One firm will teach you (for a consideration) how to develope your powers, how to manage men, increase efficiency and such like.

* * *

The Dictaphone is best described in the maker’s advertisements : “enabling one person to do the work of two, saving 50% time and labour in any office. The work of the principal is simplified, the output of the typist doubled.” Wages, we understand, will remain stationary. When the envelope addresser and the Dictaphone get thoroughly going, throwing half the clerical workers on the streets, making the unfortunate remainder work doubly hard, I suppose the Tariff Reformer will still have no difficulty in proving to them that a tax on Dutch cheese and a preferential tariff in favour of Colonial sardines will solve the problem. The Free Trader, doubtless, will glibly assure the beaten competitors of the Dictaphone and the mechanical calculator that as soon as the Budget has had a chance, and when the 99 year leases fall in, and when the great schemes that the Liberal party has up its sleeve (at present only darkly hinted at) get in full swing, “then !” he’ll say, “then !—” Ah ‘then !

To the clerk, as to every other labourer for hire, it should be clear that the good things of life are not for him whilst the present system of “managing men” is the vogue. If you believe in a step at a time (most of them backwards), join the Liberal party, or its adjuncts, the I.L.P. or S.D.P., and work for State Christmas Trees for your great-grandchildren and municipal ice-cream barrows. If you want freedom now, not in 99 years, join the S.P.G.B.

* * *

I would like to say just here that we Socialists don’t ask for any license, poetical, political, or of any other variety. When we say the I.L.P., Labour Party, S.D.P., Fabian Society, etc. are capitalist agencies, please don’t assume that pique or arrogance actuate us. Just to show you what is meant, here is an instance.

* * *

The Railway Clerks’ Association has recently affiliated to the Labour Party. The latter, of course, accepted it on the usual terms. The character of the.R.C.A. is succinctly outlined in. the October No. of their official organ, p. 202 : “The policy of the R.C.A. is not only to secure justice for its members, but also to urge and assist them to make themselves worth more to their employer.” Of such is the kingdom of Henderson & Co.

* * *

Whilst we are on the subject I may have a jab at the Fabians. Now look at this !

“I came to the conclusion that just as it is in the interests of Capital to keep the rolling stock and the permanent way in good repair, so it must be to the interest of Capital to be constantly raising the standard of living for the men in order that the human factor may be improved.”

Who said that? None other than Mrs, Sidney Webb, at the opening of the new A.S.R.S. offices. That’s the sort of fool’s errand the Fabians are on. Don’t join them.

* * *

A few lines from a poem by Mr. James Stephens are worth repeating.

"For I’ve sat my life away with pen and rule,

        On a stool,

Totting little lines of figures, and so will

        Tho’ the chill

And the langour of gray hairs on my brow

        Mock me now.

And sometimes while I work I lift my eyes

        To the skies,

To the foot or two of heaven which I trace

        In the space

That a grimy window grudges to the spot

         Where I tot.

And I ask the God who made me and the sun

          What I’ve done

To be buried in this dark and dreary cave

           Like a grave,

While the world laughs in scorn now and then

          At my pen."

You see, that’s just where he is silly, asking God anything. You can sit on a stool asking conundrums of space and gather nothing but a harvest of wasted years and a heap of worn-out trousers. It may be easy, but it is quite profitless. Get off your stool and get to work on your slave-irons. Gazing through a couple of feet of smoky window-glass wont help you any. If you have any spare brain your employer has not a lien on, we’ll tell you what to do with it. Come in.

Wilfred.

50 Years Ago: Who are the working class? (1984)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Within the ranks of the working class itself there are many who suffer from the illusion that they are in a class apart from and above the common worker; in fact that their interests are identical with those of the masters as against the rest of the workers. Amongst these are scientists, managers and salaried workers of various kinds.

These types of workers would be under no delusion if they would apply to their condition the test of a slave. On what do they depend for their living? Are they dependent wholly or mainly on selling their energies for wages or salaries in order to live? If this fits their economic condition then they are members of the working class, slaves, always in fear of losing their jobs and suffering accordingly.

The point always to be borne in mind is the frailty of the hold upon that on which the living depends, and the ease and swiftness of operation of the power of the job-controllers. Many in exalted positions have had this very cruelly impressed upon them, and although they scorn the suggestion that they are enslaved, yet they take good care to placate and dance to the tune of those responsible for the salaries.

There is no escape, therefore, from the conclusion that the fundamental interest of all who depend upon wages or salaries is identical, and is opposed to the interest of those who own the means of production and pay their slaves wages or salaries. It is a slave interest opposed to an ownership interest.

[From an article, "Are You a Slave?" by G. McClatchie, published in Socialist Standard, December 1934.]

At Random. (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Mr. Burrows ought to be in Parliament; he is much the sanest of the Party to which he belongs.” (W. T. Stead, Review of Reviews, August, 1908.

* * *

After this handsome certificate of comparative “sanity” from one of the most notorious tin gods of Nonconformist-Liberalism, the suave gentleman who plays “Socialism” on a cracked pipe in an impossible key to the tune of “Reform,” should experience no trouble in making one of those “compacts” with the master-class which the Social Democratic Party would never endorse.

* * *

What, never ? Well; hardly ever ! See Manifesto of the S.P.G.B., pp. 1, 9, and 10.

* * *

The “humanity” of individual members of the governing class often throws a lurid light on the all-essential conception of class-consciousness. We learn from the Correspondent of the Daily News that “President, Faillères and M. Clemenceau have stubborn objections to capital punishment.”

* * *

Whether a criminal shall take his last look through the “little window,” or be immured in prison, has little, or very remote, bearing on the interests of the gentlemen in question as members of the governing class. Quite otherwise with a strike. The sabred right of the capitalist to exercise his unfettered “freedom” in brutal exploitation is challenged. The genial Fallières and the clement Clemenceau have no hesitation then in shooting.

* * *

“Stubborn objections to capital punishment” en masse, in the interests of the employers, have as little existence with Fallières and Clemenceau. as with Asquith and Burns.

* * *

When will the worker fully grasp the fatal significance of the armed forces of the nation to himself ? “Hard times” are in store during the coming winter. Sharp reminders of the real moaning of such forces may serve to help even fatuous fools of the Blatchford type to see that preservation of “our” country is the function of the army and navy only on the clear recognition of the fact that “our” is synonymous with the class that hold and control the instruments of production.

* * *

The worker is fatherland-less. Stripped of all claim to any advantages which he may have formerly enjoyed from the use of land, the appeal to save “our” country from foreign conquest by the Editor of the Clarion, is on a par with his strenuous begging for funds to finance “our” Vans—which belong, as you please are solely controlled by—spite the feeble Clarionese kickers—the Editor of the Clarion

* * *

As thus : “MY method is soon told. I look out for good men. When I find one, I give thanks. I put him into the right place. I give him a free hand.”

“Alderman E. R. Hartley will be appointed Van Organiser.—Clarion (recent issue).

* * *

Inimitable style, Nunquam’s ! ! My very dear friends of the Clarion brand of “Reform,” DO YOU READ “YOUR” ORGAN?

* * *

Listen to the tale of woe ! The Class Teacher this time. “Pious professional protests, pious professional tears have all been in vain. In some cases we (the teachers’ unions) are actually progressing backwards.”

“One gets sick unto death of it all: we are singing and making merry while the ship is sinking.”

* * *

The “dearth” of teachers has come to a most brutal, beastly, unseemly end. The poor pedagogue is actually being brought face to face with “iron laws of supply and demand.” But—soft ! We will take heed unto ourselves, we will take counsel of the miner, we will learn wisdom from the bricklayer, and the gasworker. We “will reduce the number of possible blacklegs.”

* * *

Why, damme ! if it comes to that, “we will adopt strike principles.”

* * *

Ay ! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Counter-Jumpers’ Champion, noise it not abroad in the Dustmen’s Herald—we will bow our heads, and admit “uncertificated teachers” to the Union what time we declare that “with the ‘supplementary ‘ teachers we have no cause in common.”

* * *

“No cause in common.” Fools and blind ! Compelled to sell your pitiful commodity, a shoddy education, at a rate which compels you too oft to occupy your “leisure” time in petty trading, in divers pursuits which a false pride and an eye to income tax compels you to hide, you have yet to learn that you have a “cause in common” with your class, the working class.

* * *

Meanwhile, the President of your Union is discovering that there is a “great sense of unity” among teachers in the wonderful German Empire.

* * *

A comrade from Manchester, who modestly hides his individuality under the weird title of “Jaybee,” writes: —

“The futility of endeavouring to put a stop to industrial operations by such a method as the general strike, was shown during the recent strike in Paris ; Mr. Clemenceau, the Premier, said he would be able to place at the disposal of the directors, military engineers to take the place of the men in supply stations if they went on strike.”

* * *

“Further, he was prepared to supply TROOPS TO GUARD THE MAINS.”

* * *

A striking commentary on the soundness of the position taken up by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, viz: that, whilst fully recognising the necessity of organisation on the industrial plane, the seizure of the political machinery (including the armed forces of the nation) by the worker, is absolutely essential to working-class emancipation.

* * *

“Direct action,” however thickly veiled with high-seeming Socialist phrases, is Anarchy, and he who would persuade the worker to “drive out Beelzebub with Beelzebub” is working present woe, and hindering future weal in a way that is the more tragic, in so far as a genuine desire to serve his class often dominates the misguided devotee to an ancient and obsolete faith.

A. Reginald

Letter: I’ve Been Misinformed (1993)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

I read with interest Steve Coleman's article "Farewell to the Middle Class" in the September issue as 1 used to work for IBM as a contractor some years ago. It was pitiful to see how brainwashed its employees were; so much in fact they all believed that the corporation would keep them all employed for life. I remember colleagues almost boastfully stating that union membership was totally unnecessary when employed by such a kind and caring company as IBM.

Now that thousands of its workforce worldwide have been, or still are, facing redundancy, I’ve no doubt that those same, smug people can now be seen with egg slowly dribbling down their faces. This corporation is a past-master at hiding its tyranny behind a smile.

While insecurity and uncertainty dog its workforce (and I’ve no doubt the plight of those sorry characters in Steve's article w'ill be repeated many times over), it is interesting to note that earlier this year, the IBM corporation employed a new chairman. Lou Gerstner Jr., previously of Nabisco has been engaged on a salary of S2 million plus annual performance-related incentives of of $1.5 million. Included in this neat little package was also the offer of 500.000 IBM shares and a further, long-term inducement of $500,000. Oh! I almost forgot. As a "sweetener" for leaving Nabisco, he also received a further $5,000,000 to cover any of the profits he may have lost by leaving Nabisco.

Sounds incredible, eh. Not least of all to the employees I don’t wonder. Perhaps it would be more fitting if IBM stood for I’ve Been Misinformed.

Simon Montfalcon,

Romsey, Hampshire

The Only Way for Clerks. (1908)

From the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Word to the National Union.

.

Mr. Herbert H. Elvin is a hard-shelled Baptist—or so it would seem from his biographical notes, which appear (with portrait) in the March issue of The Clerk. He is also the General Secretary of the National Union of Clerks. In the capacity of Baptist he is after souls, and is still, we learn, “in great demand as a local preacher.” As the secretary of the N.U.C. he is concerned with the salvation of bodies. In both departments his methods are the same. He builds temples to Ignorance and invites the unregenerate to come in and worship in order that they may be saved. His success as a Baptist church-builder may be unquestionable—I neither know nor care. But we of the S.P.G.B. are concerned with the measure of his success in the politico-economic sphere—meaning by success in this connection, the extent to which he may be able to induce clerical workers to regard his economic and political temple as a sanctuary from the deep damnation of their servitude.

Clerks have generally been regarded, not without reason, as amongst

THE MOST DESPERATE OF ALL THE DULLARDS

of the working class. The pathetic intensity of their passion for respectability, and the affectation of aloofness from the “corduroy brigade” which, as members of a “profession,” they have, in the past particularly, displayed, have made their organisation a distinctly difficult task. Not even such an eminently respectable society as the N.U.C. seems to be, could have inspired in them any other than a feeling of lofty disdain had it not been that the operations of a highly organised capitalist system, ruthless in its working, and certainly entirely regardless of any suppositious differences between owners of stovepipe hats and smokers of the black cutty, have crushed the clerk into some sort of recognition of the fact that, in common with all other working-class members, he is no more than a commodity in the labour market—and a very redundant commodity at that. Having, however, reached the point where he is beginning to see that his interests are, after all, bound up with those of the horny-handed sons of labour, it is of all things undesirable that he should have his devolopment warped by being put upon a polltico-economic dietry which, while it may be good enough for the sustenance of crustacean Baptists, is absolutely starvation fare for a healthy member of the working class.

Of course, Mr. Elvin cannot help being merely silly in the position of advisor to the clerks,

HIS BIBLICAL EXEMPLARS

and his contemporary religious mentors are hardly likely to guide him in the path that is economically right; and when a young man has been brought up to regard these as the embodiment of all the virtues, it is not surprising if he gives off “views” that are only notable for their, shall we say, absurdity. I sympathise with him in his unhappy position, but I must, all the same, baste his precious views. This one, for an example—

“We should not allow our branches to become mere debating societies to discuss the good and the ill of Toryism, Liberalism, Socialism, or any other ism outside trade unionism. To effect any great reform in the condition of the clerk we must first of all weld all clerks into a powerful organisation, and, knowing what I do of the temperament of the clerk, I am fully satisfied that we shall never be able to accomplish this if members try to bring the Union under the control of some political party, rather than work disinterestedly for the benefit of clerks as a whole.”

Now I will defy Ramsay MacDonald, Robert Blatchford, Bruce Glasier, or any other accepted exponent of the art, to crowd more undiluted piffle into so small a compass. Toryism, Liberalism, and Socialism are taboo in the Union. The clerks are to regard Socialism as on a par with Toryism and Liberalism so far as the realisation of their “great reform” is concerned. It is of no consequence that Liberalism and Toryism are the political expressions of the interests of the master class against which the clerks are to organise themselves. It is of no account that these masters are in politics simply in order to maintain their economic supremacy and the continued enslavement of the clerk. It does not matter that the Socialist Party stands in irreconcilable antagonism to the capitalist parties and is the only party through which the clerks and other workers may achieve any material improvement in their conditions. This is outside the purview of the trade-unionised clerk. He may come in, be he Tory or Liberal or nothing. He is to

KEEP MUM UPON EVERYTHING

except the increase of the strength of the trade union, the payment of his dues, and other matters appertaining to the union, until there is a sufficient body “organised” to warrant a move being made toward that “great reform” and then—well, we will make a move !

I wonder whether Mr. Elvin has any definite notion of what that move must be toward, and how the N.U.C. is to proceed. I understand he does not favour strikes. He is opposed to discussion that may have the effect of opening the eyes of the politically blind. Does he, then, hope to peacefully persuade the masters to concede the “great reform”—whatever that may be ? Surely even a Baptist is sufficiently awake to know the futility of that hope. How then ?

Mr. Elvin seems to see, rather mistily, that he is up against a dead wall. And he takes refuge in “pothry.” It’s an old dodge, and rather a favourite with those who are faced at the end of their argumentative tether with an irrepressible note of interrogation. Mr. Elvin’s refuge is Whittier, who exhorts the reader thus—

Perish party, perish clan,

Strike together while ye can.

and finishes

Let your hearts together be

  As the heart of one.

which is all doubtless very nice and inspiriting, but doesn’t get us much “forrarder,” seeing that we don’t know yet what we are to strike at, or how we are to strike. We cannot strike economically because strikes are taboo. We cannot hope to induce the masters to give us our “great reform.” Much more powerful organisations of much more highly skilled workers, e.g., the engineers, have failed dismally in that direction. And we cannot strike politically because, being at

POLITICAL SIXES AND SEVENS

(owing, in part, probably, to political discussion being barred in the Union) we cannot “strike together” as exhorted by the poet. On the whole it would seem easier to “Let our hearts together beat as the heart of one” !

But to do Mr. Elvin justice, he is not quite done yet. He seems to be, although he does not say so directly, in favour of the move toward the “great reform” being made if all else fails, through the medium of the Labour Party. After all the “no politics in the Union” ukase, this seems to be a little confusing. Therefore Mr. Elvin hastens to assure us that the Labour Party is not a political party “in the general usage of the term.” It is only a party taking political action. If that also is not clear perhaps this will be. “It” (the Labour Party) “is a conglomeration of the political parties. It is a union of those who are divided on questions like Home Rule, Education (sectarian or secular), Disestablishment of the Church; but are of one mind on matters affecting the interests of the workers.”

Accept this for the fact it is not. Apparently Mr. Elvin believes that political parties “in the general usage of the term,” are only concerned with questions like Home Rule, Disestablishment, etc. He doesn’t seem to have an inkling of the truth that just as (according to him) the Labour Party is of one mind on matters affecting the interests of the workers, so the other parties are of one mind on matters affecting the interests of the capitalists. If the Labour Party was of one mind on questions of real working-class interest, if it was a political party “in the general usage of the term,” it would not be the conglomeration of pettifogging palliative-mongers purveying preposterous pills for economic earthquakes that it is. It is as hopeless as the poet, as futile as Mr. Elvin’s creed. It cannot effect any material improvement in the position of the working class.

But even if it could, how is it possible to secure the adhesion of Liberal and Tory clerks in the N.U.C. to the Labour Party if discussion of party politics is not allowed ? To talk as Mr. Elvin talks about the difference between politics and party politics is simply more piffle. Political questions are broadly associated with political parties. Essential working-class politics are the politics of the party that is in irreconcilable opposition to the political parties of the capitalist class. That working-class party is not the Labour Party. It is the Socialist Party. Yet Mr. Elvin puts

SOCIALISM IN THE CART

with Liberalism and Toryism and hauls them all outside his precious Union.

All this “baffle-headedness” and positively paralysing stupidity may come of being a Baptist, or it may not. We of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are not concerned with the Baptist or greatly with Mr. Elvin. But when Mr. Elvin the Baptist, takes up the position of an instructor of the working class and pours out the vials of his drivel upon the heads of those of our class who have in their ignorance elected him to their chieftainship, we step in to show the folly of the position and the disastrous results that must accrue. If Mr. Elvin is honest (and we have no reason for the present for supposing him otherwise), let him reconsider himself and see if he cannot fit himself adequately for the post of working-class advisor—if that is what he desires to be. If, however, his union members prefer to follow his present lead ; if their action is not guided in the future by a clearer apprehension of the position they occupy as clerks in the working-class movement than their secretary seems to possess, they are in for some extremely painful experiences. But if they will take every opportunity of discussing the political situation in the light of the information the Socialist has; if they will study Socialism and let their actions be guided by Socialist science, they will go out to the fight—it will be a fight, sure enough—with no delusions about the capitulation of the opposing forces, with no misapprehensions on the score of the advantages to be derived from this or that big or little reform. They will know that there is no reform worth much more than a tinker’s anathema from the working-class point of view. They will know that the only thing worth organising for, striving for, if needs be, dying for, is the control of the means by which they live. Without this control they have no voice in the disposal of the product of labour. They are slaves without the security that the chattel slave possessed. Their position is always precarious, always one of unhappy struggle ; a position which is not, nor can be, altered in any single important aspect by any reform whatever. But given ownership and control of the means of living, and they have the guarantee of all the material things of life.

THE SLAVE HAS CEASED ;

the master of slaves has ceased. One hundred per cent. of the produce goes to the producer. The struggle for bread is done.

How may this control be secured ? Through organisation on class-conscious lines in the workshop and office and factory ; and in the political party (in the common usage of that term) that is out specifically to wrest political power from the representatives of the capitalist class in the legislature, in order that control of the machinery of production may be secured by the working class without danger of being blown to the Baptists’ devil by the armed forces, which are, of course, under the direction of the dominant power in Parliament.

The Socialist economic organisation has yet to be evolved. But the political party that answers all requirements, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, is here. The Socialist Party is the political party that the stupidity of Mr. Elvin places outside the union in company with the Liberal and Tory Parties, yet it is none the less the party the clerical workers must join sooner or later. Therefore it behoves them to treat as cavalierly as they think fit their secretarial exhortation, and discuss political action—party politics—to the top of their bent, particularly the politics of the Socialist Party.

If they require further information or literature a line to the office of the Party will bring it. Or if Mr. Elvin would like to defend his position or attack ours, we will give him all the rope he wants. And if the worst happens, his blood be on his own head !

Alegra.

Notes and Clippings. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fred. Jowett, M.P.,—who signalised his career as a public man by bargaining with the Liberals for the exchange of support—has been giving what the Clarion is pleased to call “a Lesson in Political Tactics.” The lesson does not consist, as one conversant with his actions would suppose, in an exposition of the gentle, if somewhat dirty, art of collecting “fly-paper” votes. On the contrary, the member for West Bradford lectures the Scotch representatives on their “docility,” pointing out that Irishmen have.obtained concessions by reason of their militant attitude.

* * *

And how does this Political Bottom comport himself when confronted by the assembly which he so valiantly belabours on paper? Call a witness—Lloyd George : “There were only five or six Socialists in the House of Commons. Though some of them might make wild speeches outside, in the House of Commons they were thoroughly tame. They were there, tinkering up bills, and doing odd jobs of that kind in the Liberal workshop.” Verily, the master class, relieved and amused at the nightingale “roaring” of the bogus lions, may well say “Let ’em roar again, let ’em roar again.”

* * *

A paid organiser of the Independent Labour Party, speaking in opposition to a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, on the 12th of April, in Finsbury Park, said that he had had it on the best authority that Ramsay MacDonald had been offered a post in the government by Asquith, and his manly bosom “visibly swelled” when he informed his hearers that the man whom Quelch says is out for the making of his own career, refused.

* * *

Query: Did the organiser expect him to accept ? Had he done so, what would have been the position of the Independent Labour Party ?

* * *

We pause for a reply—which we do not expect from officials or organisers of the I.L.P. An expression of opinion from any of the rank and file of that organisation would be warmly welcomed—and recorded—by the Socialist Standard. Personal contact with members of the I.L.P. has given more than one of us high hopes of the rank and file. Not a few who had been merely lacking in information as to the methods of their organisation, when enlightened by the mouth or pen of a genuine Socialist, have expressed deep dissatisfaction, which must lead to the inevitable discovery that false methods are the inevitable outcome of a false theory.

* * *

Anything short of the recognition that the emancipation of the working-class must be the work of the working-class itself, will inevitably breed the particularly noxious species of parasite that lives upon its own kind, the sentimentalist whose attitude is an eternal compromise between broken-bottle-anarchy and we-are-all-brothers fatuousness, disappointment, disgust, and apathy.

* * *

The National Federation of Assistant Teachers—one of the six unions to which some fortunate pedagogues may belong!—is of opinion that “there is immediate necessity for an alteration in the salaries of assistant teachers.” But alack and alas! the organ of the N.F.A.T. has discovered that “the earnest devotee of the scholastic art is as much a victim of the iron law of supply and demand, as any luckless wight of a miner, joiner, or bricksetter ever was.”

* * *

The remedy proposed, of course, is the old, old Trade Union fake. Strive to create a corner in labour. Lesson the supply. In view of the fact that the “powerful” London Teachers’ Association, represented on the London County Council by the late rejected of Peckham has failed to perceptibly influence the Council with regard to its policy of flooding the market with “scholarship” lads and lasses, bearing in mind that the parents who are only just able to send their children to “secondary” schools, feeling the “economic pressure” which is steadily squeezing them down, down to ever lower levels, are eagerly availing themselves of the opportunity to “place” their children, is it likely that the mop of Unionism can stem the advancing flood ?

* * *

No hope, no light for the teacher until he recognises the fact that the “iron law” which binds him and the miner is but an expression of the fact that he and the miner, having nothing to sell but their labour-power, are wage-slaves, and that the united efforts of teacher and miner, joiner and bricksetter, are required to abolish wage-slavedom. This is only possible by an organisation which shall embrace the whole working class. In a word, the basis of the workers’ organisation must be class solidarity and class interests. Its tactics must be aggressive, and its aim revolutionary. Such an organisation (the S.P.G.B.) exists.

* * *

Mem. for “devotees of the scholastic art” :

Socialist Standard, June, ’06 : “The declared reason for the existence of the National Union of Teachers is the furtherance of the interests of the child. Is there not a danger that it may become the happy hunting-ground of the eloquent Party-man in a hurry to round his own life into a success?”

Daily Chronicle, April, ’08: “Everyone rejoices in the deserved promotion that has come to Dr. Macnamara, who has worked with unstinted devotion for the cause of Liberalism.”

* * *

Salary, £2,000.

* * *

Another mem. “N.F.A.T. Handbook,” p. 57 : “The following standard of salaries has been adopted by the National Federation of Assistant Teachers and the National Union of Teachers as a just and reasonable remuneration for Class Teachers:—

Metropolitan Men, Maximum, £220.

Women, Maximum,                  £165.”

* * *

Really, the humility of the average “class teacher,” if the above may be taken as a true reflection of his opinion, “passeth all understanding.” He deliberately rates his services at a tenth of that of his astute former colleague. How is this estimate arrived at ? Will some of the younger members of “the profession” enquire? Why are a woman’s services rated lower than those of a man ?

A. Reginald.

Civil Servants and Bonus Cuts. (1931)

From the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

During and after the recent Great War, Civil Servants found that the wages and salaries paid to them as employees of the State were not, owing to the general rise in prices, sufficient to maintain them and their families in the same comfort they had been accustomed to. After much agitation and negotiations with the authorities, an agreement was entered into in 1920, by which an addition was made to the prewar scales of pay according to the increased cost of living then existing. The bonus was to be increased or reduced as the cost of living should further rise or fall.

At the present time the cost of living is computed to be 52 per cent. over that of 1914.

Under the agreement the full bonus is only given on rates of par not greater than 35s. per week. Rates in excess of that sum carry a bonus which is reduced proportionately as pay advances above 35s., so that, in these cases, the actual addition to pre-war rates varies from 46 per cent. to 16 per cent. on the higher scales of pay.

Civil Servants in receipt of basic pay exceeding 35s. weekly, and consequently diminishing bonus, therefore claim, not unreasonably, that their standard of living has been considerably lowered.

Considerable notice has been given in the daily press to the question and to the efforts of Civil Servants and of W. J. Brown, Labour M.P. for West Wolverhampton, to bring pressure to bear on the Government to suspend the operation of the agreement in reducing pay at the present time, but without success. A saving of three million pounds per annum, in the wages of Civil Servants is indicated.

Civil Servants have been pleased by the quite unusual notice of the press given to their demands, which had not hitherto been so prominently brought before the public. It is probable that this is not so much due to sympathy with the efforts put forth, as to the impression desired to be made on other sections of the workers whose pay is at present the object of attack by the master class, such as school teachers, bank employees, and others.

The facts of the situation should be closely considered by Civil Servants. On the whole, as is also the case with school teachers and similar employees, they are reluctant to identify themselves with the working class, regarding; themselves as superior and holding themselves aloof as forming part of a middle class. The fiction of a middle class is encouraged by the capitalist class in order that this aloofness may keep them politically separate from the working class. The very fact that the current discontent in their ranks is based upon the inadequate remuneration given to them in return for the work performed, is plain proof that they are dependent upon their earnings for their maintenance. This condition of society is essentially one that puts its seal upon the working class who, having no means of living of their own, must sell their labour power to an employer in order to obtain the means of living, the employer in this instance being the State.

The remuneration they receive is based upon the necessary cost of their maintenance as Civil Servants and the rearing of a family in like circumstances. Under the present capitalist system of society there is always a tendency to depress their standard of living to a minimum. This it is from which they are now suffering. As in outside working class ranks they have been compelled to form their unions in order to maintain and forward their interests, as opposed to the attempts of their employer, the State, to lower their status and standard of living.

What is here pointed out should help Civil Servants to realise their position in Society, and also that, in order to reap the full benefit of their labour, they should unite with ail other sections of the working-class to overthrow the capitalism system and to establish the Socialist Commonwealth.

F. J. H.

The Blight of Snobbery. (1907)

From the May 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Organisation of “Respectable” Workers.

Notwithstanding our past efforts to point the more excellent way to the Railway Clerks’ Association, that organisation of the more “respectable” railway employees, like the ploughman of the famous Elegy, still continues to pursue its dull and melancholy way. Its latest lucubration makes it clear that although as their watch-word in large capitals informs us “Association is the law of Progress,” it does not follow that progress must accompany association. Intellectual progress (the analogy is intended to be void of offence) would not, for example, result from wooden heads be they never so closely associated. A silk purse is not the outcome of the association of sows’ ears. Two years ago we gently argued with the R.C.A. in an endeavour to show that its position was unhappy and untenable, yet to-day it comes along with pretty much the same sort of fallacious pronouncement. It has had two years of association but that has not connoted progress—of intellect anyhow.

This is its statement of some reasons why railway clerks should combine–preferably in the R.C.A. :—

“On nearly every railway there are evidences of reactionary tendencies which will become very detrimental to the welfare of the clerical Staff unless steps are taken to counteract them. Salaries are being kept down, staff reduced, holidays made more difficult to obtain, returns are multiplied, and office work made heavier and more complicated every year. Sunday business increases without any extra remuneration being allowed to clerks who are called upon to sacrifice their Sabbath. Girl clerks are introduced to keep down the standard of the men, and the word “Economy” is abused wherever opportunity allows. 

Instead of Railway Clerks participating in the general improvement of trade and the increase of National wealth, their condition is either stationary or declining while Railway revenues are steadily advancing. Prospects of promotion diminish every year through the introduction of young men from universities who have undue preference over experienced capable men amongst the general staff.”

Excepting that it seems to be assumed that if railway clerks would but join the R.C.A. they would participate in the increase of National wealth—an absurd assumption of course—this statement, doubtless, fairly represents some of the conditions of railway clerical labour. It is what we should expect to find seeing that railway clerks are in the same position as any other section of the working class—the position of an exploited or robbed class. In common with the rest of the workers they have to sell their labour-power for wages, and any hardening of their conditions simply means that the capitalist class, who buy their labour-power, are endeavouring to squeeze a little extra surplus value out of the deal—whether the exigencies of industrial conflict necessitate such squeezing in order that dividends may be maintained, doesn’t matter for present purposes.

The Roots of Capitalist Philanthropy.

The operation may be ill-advised from a capitalist point of view. It might be better business for them to make, for example, the surroundings of their employees more congenial; but they, naturally, would only consider that matter favourably if they could see that it was possible to get greater profits out of the improvement. It is their concern for profits which is the actuating motive, not the increased comfort and happiness of their wage-slaves, and they may be relied upon to make any such alterations in their own interests without any assistance from an organisation of employees.

The R.C.A. or any other such body presumably does not exist for the purpose of informing the master class of the best means of getting larger profits. Seeing that all profit is obtained from the exploitation of the workers, they (the workers) are not concerned with being party to the increase of that robbery—not unless they are very stupid. It is no advantage to them if they are translated into conditions which enable them to speed up their energies to permit of three days’ work being done in two, when, as is inevitable, the speeding-up process results in the production of an earlier state of decrepitude. They are concerned, or should be, in securing, if possible, some real advantage—a benefit which has no counterbalancing loss.

If we are agreed so far, it will at once be seen that such benefit cannot be obtained except at the expense of capitalists’ profits. And the capitalist is not going to relinguish any portion of the profits, upon which his existence depends, without a struggle. Into this struggle the worker, out for increased benefits, must fling himself willy-nilly. There is no other way for him. He cannot achieve his purpose by “blarney,” by pleading the misery of his lot, by appealing to the “higher nature” of his employer. Capitalism knows no higher nature. It only knows higher profits. The worker has got to go into the struggle. And his measure of success will be the measure of his appreciation of the conditions of the conflict.

The Class Struggle.

The conditions of the conflict are simple. He is fighting as a worker against the capitalist whose interests are absolutely and entirely opposed to his own. It is not a fight of individuals either. It is not him versus his employer. If it were he would go under at once because his employer has always the unemployed reserve to fall back upon and all he has to do is to sack his “hand” and get a new one from the hungry crowd clamourously appealing for work outside. It is not even a section of workers against a section of capitalists. Threaten a section of the institution of profit-mongering seriously, and immediately the capitalist section becomes a capitalist class with all the forces that Capital can command hurrying up to the defence of one of its citadels. The sectional struggles of the workers since the rise of capitalism are in evidence as proof of this. A Tory mine-owner (Masham) calls upon a capitalist Liberal Government for help against his striking workers, and in a twinkling we have the soldiery shooting down the workers in revolt. Scores of cases could be cited if space allowed.

The struggle then is between class and class. When the workers recognise that, they will have appreciated the conditions of their battle and will organise their forces on a class basis accordingly. As it is they organise sectionally, enter the fight sectionally, and are beaten in detail by the opposing forces acting in concert, with their economic power buttressed by political power controlling the armaments of the country. The working class in such circumstances are in a condition of pitiable impotence. Under the direction of leaders either fraudulent or ignorant they waste their substance and their strength with a recklessness at once prodigal and imbecile. And if as a result of repeated efforts repeatedly smashed, they fall back hopeless, dispirited, apathetic, what wonder is it ?

But even if any ground existed for the supposition that sectional fights might be productive of good, it would be at once conceded that the larger the section, the better the chances of success. If the railway workers could take sectional action for sectional benefit to themselves as railway workers, it would surely be allowed at once that such action ought to be taken by the whole of the railway workers. The larger the association, the more effective the action— that is always argued by the trade union leaders. And yet we have the Railway Clerks’ Association coming along to railway workers, mouthing “union is strength” and the rest of the inconsequentialities of trade union stock-in-trade, to urge that a section of a section should organise themselves separately—without connection with any other firm in the same street !

How Not to Organise.

Here is the acme even of trade union absurdity. Railway clerks must combine separately. In the name of the ten-a-penny gods, why? Because their interests are separate and distinct from the interests of the rest of railway workers ! Really, I hardly know whether this is rant or cant or fustian. The interests of clerks are as distinct from those of engine drivers as the interests of platelayers are distinct from those of porters—neither more nor less. Therefore—a platelayers’ union, and a carriage washers’ union, and a porters’ union, and two or three score other unions in the same industrial section ! Why not ?

The fact is, of course, that the R.C.A. is endeavouring to play up or down to the “respectability” of the clerk. He doesn’t wear corduroys—therefore his interests are different. He wears a black coat —which, perhaps, poor devil, he hasn’t paid for—and therefore his ways are not the ways of the carman who, probably, wouldn’t have a coat at all if the Company in its large-hearted charity didn’t supply him with one. He is a superior person our railway clerk, and must be treated “as sich.”

Of course, this cult of the bob-tailed coat is a live thing with railway clerks or the R.C.A. would be unable to exploit it. But it is none the less a manifestation of clerkly ignorance, not less but more pitiably ludicrous because it is crowned with the stove-pipe hat of caste. Clerks, railway or other, will have to recognise the essential unity of their interests with those of the more horny-handed sons of labour if they are to effect any material change in their condition. As members of the working class themselves there is no progress for them apart from the general advance of their class. Any organisation they may be associated with not based upon this conception of class solidarity coupled with the recognition of the conditions of the conflict they are consciously or unconsciously participating in to-day—conditions briefly set out in the foregoing—is not an organisation at all for their purposes. It is simply a delusion and a snare from which, when wisdom comes, they will flee—after giving it a parting kick as a mark of their esteem.

R.C.A. Fatuity.

Does the Railway Clerks’ Association give even a fleeting intimation, of its recognition of the essentials of working-class organisation? To that question we have to answer to-day as we have answered before—not one. On the contrary it seems to lay itself out to shew that more appalling stupidity, more abysmal ignorance can find lodgement in the clerical breast—or that part of their anatomy clerks usually think with—than in the mental fit-up of any other species of proletarian. The public pronouncement previously referred to after detailing some of the reasons for organisation on the part of railway clerks, goes on with sublime fatuity (or stupendous cheek) to say—

“The Association advocates nothing of a character likely to be detrimental to proper discipline or the best interests of the Railway Companies, and one of its aims is to promote a better understanding between Directors, Officers and Staff.”

Is there any “Labour” organisation maintaining itself leech-like upon working-ignorance anywhere, that can beat that for folly ? Here are workmen acquiescing in the announcement made by their leaders with an air of authoritative wisdom to the effect that on the one hand out of their own pence the men are voluntarily creating an organisation for the purpose of looking after the best interests of their employers, while on the other they assert they have entered into association to protect themselves against their employers ! Apparently the R.C.A. is of opinion that the best way to fight the employer is to kill him with kindness—a method for which, perhaps, something might be said if the employer under such treatment did not take so unconscionable a time in dying.

And this is the organisation which railway clerks are strongly pressed to join ; an organisation without a glimmer of understanding of the working class position ; an organisation whose idea of association is to sub-divide the working class into as many sections and sub-sections as the numerical strength will allow ; an organisation that conducts its campaign against capitalism by studying the best interests of capitalism and modifying its own action to conform to the requirements of those best interests ! How the board-rooms must ring with the laughter of the great-hearted Directors when the news comes in of the steps their clerical workers are taking to secure some amelioration in their hard condition. Small wonder that Directors of Companies sat at one time—whether they do or not, now, does not appear in the document under notice—in the presidential and vice-presidential chairs of the R.C.A.—it was most excellent good business for them.

And small wonder also that such an organisation should have as its most prominent fugleman, the nominee of a person of so malodorous a reputation as the President of the Local Government Board. Alderman W. J. West, J.P., the nominee referred to, is the President of the R.C.A. and under the aegis of Burns stood as L.C.C. candidate for Battersea, vice Burns himself, (who had been called to higher things by his too satisfied capitalist paymasters). We had the satisfaction of doing something toward the defeat of Mr. West’s pseudo-Progressive and confusionist candidature, just as we hope to have the satisfaction of doing something toward defeating the work of Mr. West’s pseudo-labour confusionist organisation.

The Duty o£ the S.P.G.B.

That is our business in life as a Socialist Party. We are out to combat working-class error, and invincible though the error seems when manifested in such appalling pronouncements as the one quoted from above, we are by no means dismayed. To some number we who form the S.P.G.B. are clerks ourselves and have some intimate knowledge of the forces which operate to produce in the clerk that sense of snobbish superiority which is so pitiable because based upon such slender ground—as the clerks themselves make patent every time they “spread” themselves to achieve dialectical effects in political or economic discussion. As the Emerald Islander would put it, “they can never open their mouth without putting their foot in it.” Break down the fancy line of caste, however, let in upon him the light of the Socialist philosophy that raises (or reduces) the man with the hoe to the level of the man with the pen, and the clerk takes his place with the rest of the working class and may be relied upon to do his share in the work of breaking down the society forms behind which the forces of capitalism lie entrenched, and setting to utter rout those forms thus unmasked.

The Only Hope.

We despair neither of the clerk nor the navvy. Pressure of economic forces will compel him to cast about for the, means of economic salvation, as in fact it is doing to-day, and although his untutored efforts may be temporarily arrested by charlatan or fool and his energies switched off and wasted in absurd organisations of the type of the R.C.A., it must occur that, in the result, for the very simple reason that the Socialist Party alone holds the solution of the industrial problem, he must turn to the Socialist Party for the way of escape. The Socialist Party alone can explain the phenomena of economic cataclysm. The Socialist Party alone can unravel the tangled skein of working-class hardship and poverty and insecurity. And in the Socialism they advocate can adequate and final remedy be found. “There is no other name given under Heaven whereby we may he saved” except Socialism.

Our appeal to the clerks of the R.C.A. and to every other memher of the exploited working class is that they should concentrate their mental energies upon a fair and full consideration of the Socialist position. The result will be sure. It will he death to the Railway Clerks’ Association and all other such causes of working-class confusion, but it will mean life to the railway clerk and to the rest of the proletariat.

A. James

A Look Round. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Weekly Times and Echo is a Liberal newspaper. Between elections it plays to the Labour Gallery, prints articles from prominent Social-Democrats and Labour men. But at elections it supports the Liberal (which, of course, includes the Progressive) candidates, and should therefore be regarded as an enemy by those who claim to be Socialists.

***

“He that is not with us is against us,” used to be recognised as a truism by the S.D.F. But recently things have been altered. On the front page of the Weekly Times and Echo for March 17, 1907, appears an advertisement by the Edmonton Branch of the S.D.F., addressed to the Electors of Edmonton, and announcing a mass meeting in support of S.D.F. candidates for the District Council. In the advertisement the electors are advised not to blindly vote for “the man your landlord thinks the best, and who is selected by the landlords themselves.”

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This denouncing of the landlord, while ignoring his companion, the capitalist, is an old Liberal dodge, but I hardly expected to find it in an S.D.F. Advt.

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The advertisement concludes : “Take in this paper weekly. It is the best for all workers.”

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So the S.D.F. are now reduced to urging the workers to be taken in by taking in a paper which appears several times during the week for the greater glorification of the Liberal section of the capitalist class !

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What Judge Emden described as an extraordinary state of affairs was revealed at the Lambeth County Court on March 13, when a member of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners named Murphy sued the Society for £50 which he claimed as accident benefit. Counsel for the Union submitted to the Judge that as the Society was an illegal society for the purposes of restraining trade, the Court had no jurisdiction to try it, which was proved by section 4, subsection 3, of the Trade Union Act of 1871. This provided that members of the Society, or vice-versa, shall have no power to resort to a court of law for the purpose of enforcing any agreement between them.

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After a lengthy legal argument the Judge decided favourably to the Union, dismissed the action, and at the request of the Union’s advocate, gave costs against the Union member.

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The plaintiff’s advocate described the Union as a “swindle” and was promptly reproved by the Judge. But the irony of it ! The workers are urged to join their Trade Unions, in order to make provision, amongst other things, for sickness, old age, accident, etc. And then the Union into which they have paid, week after week, a large proportion of their earnings, resists claims by its members and defeats them by the tactics detailed above.

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The Liberal Government at home are mouthing threats against the House of Lords, mainly because they claim that “it thwarts the people’s will.” At the same moment they have established a second chamber in the Transvaal with the definite object of thwarting the wishes of the elected Assembly.

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The scandal of the Upper House nominations, writes the Daily Chronicle’s Johannesburg correspondent, must be remembered in estimating the political outlook. The people elected a majority pledged to the repatriation of the Chinese, and Lord Selborne has nominated a Progressive Chinese majority in the Upper House. Consequently it is premature as a result of the elections to predict the peaceful elimination of the Chinese, since the power to precipitate a crisis and thwart the policy of the Assembly and the home Government by voting such legislation as is essential to repatriation is placed in the hands of the puppets of Lord Selborne and the mining houses, as, in case of a deadlock, the Governor can dissolve the Assembly without calling a joint sitting of both Houses.

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“Improvements in administration, chiefly in the interest of the middle-class ratepayer, improvement even in the status of organised labour, does not take us far on the road to genuine Socialism. It is reform certainly, and it has, in some respects, a good effect in so far as it shows the way to better things. But, on the other hand, palliatives are likely to obscure the main issue and the idea itself of the maintenance of municipalities, and the raising the status of wage-earners, stunts the revolutionary intelligence and restricts the area of economic foresight.”

H. M. Hyndman, November, 1895.

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“To get a little they must ask for the lot, if they ask for a little they will get nothing. As he was growing older he was beginning to feel the futility of crying for reforms when you find yourself face to face with a system which makes all reform impossible.”

H. M. Hyndman, March, 1904.

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Those who will carefully read the above Hyndmanisms, and then read through the addresses issued by S.D.F. candidates at recent elections will not need to subscribe to the Daily News edition of Punch.

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“Who aims a star, shoots higher far

Than he that aims a tree.”

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On Saturday, London had spoken for the forces of reaction, and had played into the hands of the Harmsworth family once again, said our Lady of Warwick at the East Ham Town Hall on March 4. As London had to choose between a majority of “Progressives” and one of “Moderates,” both of whom serve the interests of the capitalist class, it is evident that her Ladyship would have hailed the victory of the former as a defeat of the forces of reaction.

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According to the Burton Evening Gazette, something of a sensation has been caused by certain staff changes at Messrs. Allsopp & Sons’ Offices. A number of clerks, some of whom had given life service to the firm, were dismissed peremptorily, but with their salaries in advance, and the incident, although it is merely an elaboration of a policy which has unhappily long been in progress, caused much comment by reason of the position of the parties concerned and the length of their association with the brewery.

The lady clerk is to make her appearance at the desk, and she and her class will very largely take the place of those gentlemen who have been sent adrift. It is contended that the somewhat drastic changes which are now in progress in Messrs. Allsopp’s internal affairs are dictated by the demands for a strictly economical working plan. Whatever may be the verdict of the general public on the matter, it cannot be denied that much resentment is expressed locally at the continued dismissal of clerks, and this has especially made itself felt within the past few days.

A representative of the Gazette had an interview with Mr. C. J. Stewart, the chairman of the Board of Directors, who stated that the policy of economy had been going on generally since he commenced his tenure of office. “A considerable saving has,” he said, “been effected in the administrative staff in accordance with that policy.” He had had experience of lady clerks in other capacities, and he thought that they would be very suitable for the work it was proposed to give them. It would be merely a matter of figures, and what might be monotonous for men would not be so in the case of girls. In fact, it was really women’s work to do that sort of thing.

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Of course, “it is really women’s work to do that sort of thing,” and any other sort of thing whereby the wages bill can be reduced.

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As we have so often pointed out, the displacement of men by women and even by children is incidental to the capitalist system and must and does take place in offices as well as in mills and factories. The writers of some of the letters that have appeared in the Press concerning this particular case have made some extraordinary suggestions and have mostly shown a lamentable ignorance of things as they are. They have appealed to the “feelings” of the Directors, etc. In days gone by, when businesses were small, when they were personally superintended by the proprietors, there no doubt did exist some feeling of friendship between the employer and his employees, but since the advent of the large concerns, the joint stock corporations, where often the employees never see the actual proprietors, where the departmental managers are expected to make their respective departments “pay,” sentiment is entirely out of the question. Business is not carried on for philanthropy but for dividends.

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It has also been suggested that the lesson, to be learnt by the clerk is that there is still room for him if he will make himself an all round competent man. But there are plenty of these today working for a mere pittance, and plenty even dossing nightly at Booth’s hotels. Moreover, the only practical school for acquiring efficiency in office routine is the office itself, and the conditions of modern offices render it impossible for the necessary experience to be obtained. The “From Powder Monkey to Admiral,” “Office Boy to Proprietor” fiction is long since exploded. In the small office, say with manager, cashier, clerk, junior and office boy, the “yob” certainly did have an opportunity, provided he were smart, of acquiring a general and particular knowledge of the office routine and of the business transacted, but as the small offices gave place to the mammoth concerns now so common in commercial centres, the work became departmentalised and all-round knowledge rendered unnecessary for the majority of the staff. The newcomer, however proficient he may have made himself at commercial schools and similar institutions for extracting fees out of would-be Pierpoint Morgans, finds himself set to work which, as Mr. Stewart says, is “merely a matter of figures.” Usually, his only hope of promotion is to become the head of the department, or one of that worthy’s ”coppers,” but between him and the coveted post intervenes an array of a score or more all anxious for advancement and all as little likely to secure it. His knowledge is useless because his only prospect is to remain at one particular job, at work which could be done by any other fairly correct person, male or female.

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What the clerk has to do is to drop his cant of respectability and to recognise that economic development, which has reduced the skilled mechanic to a casual labourer, has also affected him. The growth of large concerns, the aggregation of capital, the increased use of mechanical appliances, in offices as elsewhere, the subdivision and departmentalisation now generally in vogue, have effected vast changes in the status of the wage and salary earner, of those who have to sell their abilities, physical or mental, to the master class. Under capitalism, production per head of the population tends to increase continually, but production per head of the actually employed workers also increases. Thus the army of the unemployed will be an evergrowing one and we ask our opponents to show how the problem can be dealt with, apart from a re-organisation of industry—apart from the substitution of Socialism for the present system.

J. Kay