A New York cable states. (1904)

From the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

A New York cable states: 

  “A law which comes into operation to-day (Sept. 1st, 1904), makes it bribery for an employer to pay money to a labour leader to avert a strike. Hitherto blackmail of this kind has been exceedingly common.”

The Socialist Party of Great Britain. General Meeting. (1904)

Party News from the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Communist Club, 107, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, London, W., on Sept. 18, 1904, was held the general meeting of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. A good muster of the members were present. The Secretary having called the meeting to order, Comrade Kent was appointed to the chair. The Standing Orders Committee having been appointed, the Secretary read the Report of the Executive Committee as follows:—-

  "Unlike other organisations in this country claiming to be Socialist, and, therefore, democratic, we have not deemed it necessary to hold our meetings in secret and to exercise our discretion as to what translations should be made known to you, and what business concealed from you. It is our opinion that each and every member of our party is entitled to know what is going on inside the organisation. Under the political conditions now prevailing in Great Britain, and other countries governed by Parliaments, conspiracy is discarded as a revolutionary method, and the plea for secrecy is put forward only by organisations ignorant of political development, or whose leaders desire to hoodwink the rank and file. 

  Most of us have had experience of the political confidence trick in the Social-Democratic Federation and other organisations. Therefore your Executive Committee from the very beginning threw their meetings open to any member of the Party desiring to be present during the transaction of the business, and the opportunity was, we are pleased to state, freely availed of. Not a single one of our meetings was held that was not attended by non-members of the Executive Committee, and our discussions were, with permission, frequently participated in by them. 

  This fact would largely obviate the need for a report of our proceedings, but as for various reasons the bulk of our membership could not be present at our meetings, we will proceed to detail our work during the first three months of the existence of the party.’'

The Report then after giving details of the party membership and the attendances of the members of the Executive Committee, resumes :—

  “We have to the best of our ability carried out the instructions you have given us. Mass meetings have been held in various parts of London with the twofold object of heralding the advent of the party and collecting funds for the extension of our propaganda, and in both respects we have had a record success, A lecture list has been organised which will well bear comparison with that of any political organisation holding propaganda meetings in the metropolis. The party has at its disposal over 15 speakers whose vigorous and sustained outdoor work has enabled us to hold over 20 meetings each Sunday and many others on week-days. Altogether about 300 propaganda meetings have been held since the inception of the party. 

  The lack of suitable literature soon made itself manifest, and the want of this most powerful instrument of propaganda has to a large extent negatived the good effect of our speakers’ addresses. When the party was forced into existence, we found ourselves without any literature of our own, and an examination of the literature published by other organisations did not reveal very encouraging results. We did not, however, believe that bad literature was better than none, and decided to ask the branches to be careful of the literature they handled and recommended them for the time being to confine themselves to the list furnished them by this committee. 

  Many otherwise suitable pamphlets—among them several published in America—had to be discarded owing to the presence of objectable advertisements, and even in the selected list some were found to which the same objection was raised. The question of the publication by the party of pamphlets explanatory of our position has engaged our attention, but pressure of business at the Centre |and lack of the necessary funds have prevented us from taking more active steps in this direction. 

  To facilitate the branches in procuring supplies of all suitable literature, we have established a Literature Agency, which has been largely availed of. The development and extension of the agency will be greatly aided when adequate accommodate for this department is provided by the acquisition of party premises. For the building up of a library of Socialist propagandist literature, time and money are required, and when sufficient of the one has gone by and the other come in, we have no doubt the party will fully equip itself in this respect. 

  At the inaugural meeting you instructed us to open a fund for the establishment of a party organ and the first number appeared on the3rd inst. 

  Owing to the whole-hearted manner in which the branches have taken up the prospect of the party organ, a sale of two-thirds of the total issue each month is guaranteed, and the really splendid response made by the members to our call for funds to start and maintain The Socialist Standard has placed our paper on a sound financial basis. 

  Deeming it advisable that the party should be represented at the International Congress, we decided to ask our comrade John Kent to proceed to Amsterdam. Comrade Alexander Pearson was also furnished with credentials. Our delegates were seated and The Socialist Party of Great Britain was duly recognised by the International Congress. 

  The report of the party delegates to the Congress has already appeared in The Socialist Standard and you will be asked to discuss it at this meeting. 

  The question of trades unionism and the attitude of our party thereto has been the subject matter of two meetings of the party. The discussions which have taken place at these meetings have been of an extremely interesting and highly educational character, and an incalculable amount of good is bound to follow from the free and frank expression of opinions on a subject which is at present engaging the attention of the workers, particularly of this country. 

  We venture to assert that never before in the history of the working-class movement in Britain has the question of trades unionism been so searchingly investigated from a scientific standpoint. We have no trade union leaders to conciliate, neither have we the desire to alienate the sympathies of any section of the working-class. The absence of vested interests in the maintaining of the status quo of unclass- consciousness economic organisations has enabled our party to examine the question in the light of science unhampered by any consideration other than the desire to find the truth, and as a result of the discussions which have taken place, we are able to lay before you a resolution, confident that your decision upon it will be the outcome of an earnest and honest desire to further the cause in which we are embarked. 

  We have discussed .at some length the question of the training of speakers. We have also considered the question of the education of the members in general, in order that the party may be better fitted for the struggle for working class emancipation, and with this object in view have organised a Central Economic Class for the purpose of disseminating a knowledge of the scientific basis of Socialism. 

  The Peckham branch has placed at the disposal of the party their printing press, and this is already being utilised for the printing of propaganda leaflets. 

  Dealing with the progress of the party, we have to report the formation of 14 branches, : viz., Battersea, Central, Clerkenwell, East London, Edmonton, Fulham, Islington, Paddington, Peckham, Southwark. Tooting, Watford, West Ham, Wood Green, and the increase of members has been considerable. 

  Our party is now firmly established in the metropolis, and its influence is being spread into the provinces where we have several members and hope soon to have more branches. 

  We claim that we have done all that could be accomplished in the circumstances and within the time. This has meant work for us. Not a single penny has been paid to any of our members for their services, but the consciousness of the inevitable triumph of our cause is sufficient reward for any exertions we may have put forth, and the knowledge that in that triumph will fructify the aspirations and yearnings of the today silently suffering multitude of the disinherited, will, we are confident, stimulate everyone of our members towards greater efforts for the upbuilding of The Socialist Party of Great Britain.”

This report having been accepted by the party, the questions of the Party Organ, Trades Unions, etc., were discussed at some considerable length, and the rules of the party were decided upon.

The following officers were appointed :

Treasurer—Alec J. M. Gray.

Executive Committee—Comrades E. Allen, T. Allen, A. Anderson, Crump, Elrick, Fairbrother, Fitzgerald, Hawkins, Hodson, Kent, Neumann, Woodhouse.

Auditors —Comrades Newlands and Neumann.

The meeting, after singing “The Internationale,” broke up with hearty cheering for the Social Revolution and the triumph of Socialism.

Verax.

Socialism and Labour Politics. (1904)

Party News from the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

We reprint the following from the Ilford Guardian:—

  Speaking under the auspices of the Romford Division of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, at the usual Monday evening open-air meeting held at the corner of Roden Street, Ilford Lane, Mr. John Kent said that there were many misconceptions with regard to Socialism, and with one of them, namely, that what were usually called “Labour Politics” were the politics of the Socialist Party, he wished to deal. The politics of Labour, as an expression, referred to the political views of the workmen organised into Trades Unions. They had, therefore, only to consider the various resolutions passed by and the attitude adopted at the Trade Union Congress of the previous week to recognise the very essential differences between them and the sound representatives of Socialism in this country—The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Let them take the views expressed by the Congress President, Mr. R. Bell, M.P., who was endeavouring to square the circle by taking the money of Organised Labour and at the same time doing the work of Organised Capital, by supporting Capitalist candidates and members of Parliament. In his opening address he had urged Labour to take a leaf out of the book of the brewers and the publicans, who, he declared, had held a loaded revolver at the head of the Government, with the threat that if the Government did not do as they wished, they would turn them out. Let Labour, said Mr. Bell, present a loaded revolver at the Government, and state that if those conditions which Labour considered fair and reasonable were not granted, then Labour would turn out the Government. 

  But, said Mr. Kent, let us carry this to its logical conclusion. If a Government, whether of the Tory or Liberal section of the master class, would give Labour these things, then Labour must keep that Government in office. And what were these things? They were mere unimportant (to the capitalist class) sops which Government could give without sacrificing anything of a fundamental character. Thus, the Congress, on the motion of Mr. W. Steadman, declared in favour of a pension of 5s. a week to workmen reaching the age of sixty. What was the use of this? How many workmen could work up to sixty? The Polytechnic Labour Bureau stated in its circulars that the employers rarely asked for men over 35 years of age. 

  But supposing a workman was unfortunate enough to live to be sixty, of what use was 5s. a week to him? The Socialist Party of Great Britain would not waste time upon such petty proposals. If the wealth producer was entitled, as they claimed he was, to anything at all, he had a right to full maintenance whenever he became unfit for work. But he would never secure his rights by appealing to the Capitalist Government. He must organise to take them for himself. The speaker dealt similarly with other resolutions passed at the Trade Union Congress, and declared in conclusion that the true interests of the people lay in allying themselves with the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Answers To Correspondents. (1904)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

J. H. Kennett (Ilford).—As we have no men of college education among our contributors, we cannot see why a college education should be necessary in order to understand what we write. Having something to say, we say it as clearly as we can. We assume that our readers possess a certain portion of cerebral tissue, and therefore do not undertake to provide them with powers of understanding.

H. Kestrail.—Thanks for suggestions, one of which you will observe has been adopted in this issue. The other matter is being considered.

S.W.T.L. (Peckham).—We have an article in hand dealing with the subject of your query. Clamour for what you want and you will get it when space and other things permit.

B. M. Jones.—Certainly not.. The object of our journal is to expound the principles of Socialism. If you have any suggestions to offer which might enable us the better to carry out that object, by all means send them along. What you suggest is not Socialism.

J. Samuels (Stratford).—This is the inevitable outcome of supporting fakirs of any kind. We are watching the situation with interest, and shall act in the true interests of Social-Democracy. We refer you to our Branch Directory for the information you require.

Correspondence. (1904)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

To The Editors.

Dear Comrades,—The Saturday Review discussing the Amsterdam Congress and the relative merits of Bebel and Jaures, observes, amidst many other funny observations, that—

  '‘The Socialism of the Fabians is the Socialism of Jaures, which is different from that of Keir Hardie who will not have anything to do with either Liberal or Tory," And, again, “Jaures ought to have nothing to do with the Congress, he is too clever and level-headed to keep company with the men who carried that resolution.” (Re India.)

It may interest the Saturday Review scribe to learn that Keir Hardie as President of the British Section, voted with Jaures as against Bebel, on the “Dresden Resolution,” and that the Resolution on “India,” moved by S. G. Hobson (I.L.P.) and seconded by Dadabhai Naoroji (the Liberal candidate for North Lambeth) was carried amid the acclamation of Jaures and his party—The Parti Socialiste Francais.

Truly, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”— 

Yours fraternally,

Alex Pearson, 

Gravesend, Sept. 9, 1904. 

The Bogey of the Taxes. (1904)

From the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

A great  cry is being raised at the present time by two sections of the capitalist class about the question of taxation in relation to Import Duties. Mr. Chamberlain and his Conservative friends have suddenly discovered that a large amount of poverty, misery, and want of employment exists around us among the working-class. This is due, says this section, to the foreigner “dumping” his goods on our markets, underselling the home producer, and thereby bringing about unemployment by preventing the home trader from disposing of his goods. The latter cannot retaliate upon the “foreigner’s” market owing to the tariff wall erected around it to keep him out. At once the remedy comes to the front: Tax the foreigner’s goods and keep them off our market, then the English manufacturer will be able to employ more “hands” and raise prices, to the benefit of the whole community.

But our Tory saviours shut their eyes to the state of Germany where Protection reigns, and where the nation has been passing through the worst trade depression it has ever known, with the concomitant evils of unemployment, want and misery for the working-class. If Protection be a remedy, how is it that it has failed in this case? Again, in America, which has just passed through a big “boom” of trade, the inevitable depression has set in and men are being discharged in thousands from the railways and other industries to tramp about in a vain search for employment and to consider the beauties of Protection and high prices.

Mr. Chamberlain also claims that if Protection were adopted, wages would rise. As he means wages reckoned in coin, his opponents point triumphantly to Germany and France, where wages, reckoned in the same way, are lower than in England; while he retorts by pointing to America, where the wages are higher. The one thing that this does prove is that wages are determined by some factor independent of fiscal policies or tax jugglings and thereby places both sections of fiscal trumpet blowers out of court.

The Free Traders, largely Liberals, claim that the enormous increase of “our” trade and “our” business has been due to the abolition of the Corn Laws and the general policy of Free Trade. “Our” wealth has increased by leaps and bounds, and “our” prosperity is marvellous – so marvellous, in fact, that if Mr. Chamberlain’s proposal to increase the tax on wheat is carried, the ¼d. or ½d. increase in the retail price of the loaf of bread will cast the twelve or thirteen millions of people already on or below the poverty line into the deepest depths of misery and wretchedness. It would not need a very elaborate calculation to estimate the date when, if “our” prosperity continues, the whole of the workers will be in the position of those before mentioned.

Therefore as they, the Free Traders, are the “real friends” of the working-class, they call upon that class to vote them into possession of the political machinery for the purpose of saving the workers from this dire evil that is about to be inflicted upon them. True, some cantankerous person may point out that this party is chiefly concerned in having cheap food, so that the cost of production of labour-power may, as a consequence, be cheap also; that following the abolition of the Corn Laws these humane manufacturers reduced wages in the textile industries by an average of about 14 per cent; that they opposed the Factory Acts, which had been introduced to protect women and children, with all their power; that when returned to power in 1892 upon the well-known Newcastle program, while they sent soldiers to shoot down the miners of Featherstone and a gunboat to “pacify” the dockers at Hull, they quite forgot to pass measures such as Payment of Members, Triennial Parliaments, One Man One Vote, Payment of Election Expenses, which they had pledged themselves to make law. Another might draw attention to the fact that a large section of this party import raw material and use large quantities of flour, etc., in the manufacture of cotton and other textiles, and that they are quite as much concerned in cheap wheat for this reason as for giving the worker a big loaf.

The serious-minded worker who does his own thinking will probably at first be amazed at the money, the energy and dexterity expended by both sections of the capitalist class, or its agents, in this campaign – all for the benefit of the working-class. He watches them handling figures and statistics in a way that must cause Cinquevalli to turn green with envy, each proving that the poverty and misery is bound to increase if the proposals of the other side are adopted! If, however, he turns from the assertions, contradictions, and general bewilderment that surrounds these howling Cheap Jacks, and examines the facts of the situation calmly, his amazement will disappear.

In any form of civilised society certain common expenses have to be met by the members of that society in one way or another, depending upon the conditions and form of that society. As the wealth of all communities can only be produced by applying human labour to the raw material provided by Nature, it follows that the working-class produces all the wealth in existence, no matter to what purpose it may be turned. But here a significant fact comes to light. While the working class dig the ore, construct the machines, build the mills and factories, lay the railways – in short, bring forth all the instruments and machinery necessary for the production and distribution of wealth, yet they own neither these instruments nor the wealth when it is produced. It does not matter in what direction or with what object any member of the working class wishes to apply his energies in the production of wealth, he will find a barrier to that application in the fact that some individual or individuals belonging to another class own and control the raw material and the machinery necessary to convert it, and who will only permit the worker to operate these instruments upon the condition that the wealth produced is left in the capitalist’s possession to dispose of as he pleases.

Of course, it will be easily be understood that if there were no working class to exploit, the capitalist class would have to work to keep itself, and they are therefore bound to return to the workers sufficient of the wealth they have produced to keep them in a state of working efficiency and to reproduce their kind.

The capitalists may differ among themselves as to the exact point at which this standard may be fixed, but they are unanimous in fighting to retain for themselves all above this limit. The workers, on the other hand, are always struggling to increase their share of the wealth produced, with varying degrees of success, which results in individual or sectional wages varying, but makes the return to the class as a whole a close approximation to the cost of living under the conditions obtaining in that society. It thus becomes evident that the taxes must be paid out of the surplus value extracted from the workers by the capitalists; this explains not only the latter’s interest in the question of taxation, but also why it is of small moment to the worker.

“But”, says the Free Trader, “all taxes fall upon the consumer, and therefore the workman will have to pay increased prices for the articles he purchases if a tax is placed upon them”. The obvious retort is that as the working class are the only producers, but not the only consumers, it is from the former point of view that they should look at the matter. But apart from this, the statement is not true of itself. Prices are determined primarily by the cost of production, and immediately by supply and demand. The variations in the latter cause prices to fluctuate, but the point above and below which they move, and tend to come to rest, is the value of the article – or, technically, all commodities exchange upon the average at their value. If owing to circumstances a commodity were being sold above its value, fresh capital would soon be turned in that direction, and competition and extra supply would cause prices to fall. If being sold below its value, part of the capital would be withdrawn, and the diminished supply, other things remaining constant, would cause prices to rise to the normal level.

Whatever may be the conditions at any given time, the capitalist always sells at the highest price the market will bear at that period. Articles that are easily produced are often taxed without affecting the retail price at all, as shown in the taxes on tea, beer, and spirits, while in the case of tobacco one grade is sold at a price almost equalling the tax imposed! When the 1s. duty was laid on corn the price of bread rose in a few districts; but in the majority of cases it remained stationary, and when the duty was removed the wholesale price of corn rose! House rent offers another good example. Often when the landlord raises the rent he makes the excuse that the rates have gone up, but he never offers to lower them when rates go down, showing thereby that it is only an excuse, and that while competition for houses continue rents will rise. When the Central London Railway was opened the competition for houses in Shepherd’s Bush increased largely, and as a consequence rents rose as much as 3s. in the £. This was the limit offered for the time being, and when shortly after rates were raised by a good sum, the rents remained unaltered. At West Ham, which is the most heavily rated district in England, rents are falling, while rates are rising, owing to the decreased demand for houses. These illustrations show how little the question of rates affects the workers who pay rent.

This is still more true regarding so-called monopolies whose productions are sold at the highest price obtainable consistent with the carrying on of business, and even if they were taxed up to the point of absorbing profits, other things remaining constant, the business might close, but obviously prices could not be raised. An instance from Australia may be cited. The Standard Oil Company have a practical monopoly of the petroleum oil entering that continent, and until a short time ago a duty of 3d. per gallon was levied upon it. The company charged 6d. per gallon to the retailers, who paid the tax and sold the oil at 11d. a gallon. An agitation was set on foot to have this tax taken off “the poor man’s oil”, which after some perseverance was effected.

On the same day that the duty was abolished Rockerfeller raised the price to the retailers to 9d. a gallon, who sold it to the consumers at the same price as before – in other words, Rockerfeller was relieved from paying the tax that until then he had paid upon his product entering the country, and the working class were in exactly the same position as before. In London the abolition of the coal dues levied by the City authorities did not alter the retail price one farthing.

It is thus easily seen that if the whole of the taxes were abolished it would not benefit the working class unless competition among the capitalists drove prices down in proportion, and then others would benefit as well, while the workers would have to resist a reduction in wages.

The question thus becomes reduced to one of a quarrel between the big and the little thieves as to the apportionment of the cost of maintaining the present system, and is expressed chiefly by the small middle-class forming various tax-reform parties with the object of curtailing the powers of the monopolists and big capitalists. Being only really concerned with the problem of how to stop the robbery under which they suffer, the workers should take no stock of the quarrel over the paying of the expenses of the burglary. Whether he is living in a country whose fiscal policy is based on Free Trade or in one in which it is based upon Protection; whether the country is highly taxed or otherwise; whether the district he lives in is highly rated or the reverse, makes little difference; the worker finds that whatever of the above conditions he may be under, a subsistence is all that upon an average he obtains.

Firmly gripping the above sound and logical position, The Socialist Party, the only party truly representing the workers, makes its attack upon the central pivotal position – to capture the political machinery and therewith control of economic powers and social forces – taxation and the armed forces of the nation, for the purpose of ending the robbery by overthrowing the system of Capitalism, emancipating the working class, and laying the foundations of the Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth.

Jack Fitzgerald

Things You Should Know. (1912)

From the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some of our opponents are either moat superficial readers or given to deliberately misrepresenting statements that have appeared in the Socialist Standard by selecting a particular paragraph from an article which, taken by itself, has the appearance of being contradictory to our Declaration of Principles, while they conveniently ignore the remainder of the article, which would invariably put a very different complexion on the paragraph in question.

One such dishonestly selected passage is being perambulated before our supporters and others, who am misled simply because they have not the whole article before them.

The paragraph appears in the September 1911 issue of this journal, in an article under heading “Strikers Struck : How the Railway Servants were Betrayed.” It is as follows:

  "What was the position? The Companies had bluffed and failed. They were surprised at the effectiveness of the strike. The Government had bluffed and failed. They had thrown the whole military might of the nation against the strikers, and the only result had been to demonstrate the weakness of their position. The crude incapacity of their leader, whose traditional remedy for every difficult situation is butchery, had got them into a blind alley. They had not another move left.”

Our opponents the Industrialists and Anarchists, are now declaring that this is an admission of the superior power of the workers on the industrial field as compared with the political field. But where had the Government bluffed and failed? In what way had they demonstrated the weakness of their position? Our crafty antagonist does not tell you that, although the article explains it.

But possibly the present reader has the issue in question at hand, in which case, if he will turn to the fifth page, and the third column thereof, he will find the answer to the question about half way down the column.

But for the benefit of those who are unable to peruse the original article, I cull the following from it:

  "Let the workers learn from this the futility of General Strike tactics. The recent case was not a General Strike in any sense of the word. The Government's mistake was in taking measures called for by a General Strike. But in the chaos, and brutality, and bloodshed, and suffering, ay, and failure, of those few hours is a great lesson for the working class. The shade of anarchy, the spectre of starvation, in the adjacent background, did not threaten the masters, but brooded over the workers. On them was to fall all the horrors of the situation. Just because the issue was not worth either the launching or the bloody suppression of a General Strike, the railwaymen’s strike was good for more than it brought them; but where the issue from the workers’ standpoint is worth a General Strike, it is from the capitalists' standpoint worth crushing out in a Niagara of blood.
  “That the master class will always have ample powers at their command for this purpose while they hold the political machinery they will make sure, and that they will use them the thirty thousand victims of the Commune massacres warn us. And again the need for wresting the control of the armed forces from them by political action, by voting Socialists and Socialists only, into Parliament, is demonstrated.”

But to further insure against misunderstanding I commend the whole article to the careful perusal of the reader.

#    #    #    #

A rather remarkable speech was delivered by Baron de Forest in the Commons debate on international diplomacy — remarkable for the truth it contained. For truth is quite foreign to the average Liberal when it (as it usually does) rebounds to his detriment. He is reported (by “Reynolds’s Newspaper") to have said :

  “These [wars] were generally entirely international and cosmopolitan, and in no way did their gain affect the citizens of any one country. ‘In every country,’ he continued, ‘the machinery of the State, the naval and military powers of the State, are employed to secure privileges which are beneficial only to the few, and which in the majority of cases are actually harmful to most of the people, and have to be maintained first by money and then by lives in the last resource. Everywhere, if you erect privileges, you necessarily create a cause of strife. The interests of the privileged citizens of one nation clash with the interests of the privileged citizens of another.
  “At once there is an appeal to national prejudice. Each nation is persuaded that its national interests are in danger, and the masses of the two people of the two nations, who have really no interest in the quarrel, are hurled at each other’s throats for the sake of men they have less in common with than they have with one another, and who only try to exploit them in war as in many cases they exploit them in peace. A great many people in the constituencies outside are beginning to realise that this is so. They are beginning to see that these international differences are not between nation and nation, but are between individuals who are only using the nations for their own ends.” 

How’s that, Blatchford ?

Between the working class of all countries there exists an identity of interests which is diametrically opposed to the interests of the capitalist class of each and every country.

But what have our Liberal opponents to say now? They have most emphatically denied that “the machinery of the State, the naval and military powers of the State are employed to secure privileges which are beneficial only to a few” (capitalists). When thieves tall out the truth is sometimes told.

But do we, because we are conscious of the fact that the machinery of the State is employed for the benefit of the capitalist class, do we abjure political action? By no means; for to quote our Declaration of Principles,

  “As the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist clam of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise, consciously and politically, for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.” 

There is some excuse for the bold baron speaking the truth, for we are told that this was his maiden speech. But if he continues in this strain his career in the Liberal party will be of short duration.

#    #    #    #

The Anarchist conception of the realisation of the Social Revolution is exemplified in the following :

  “The fatal defect in the reasoning of the S.P.G.B. is their apparent inability to comprehend the conditions of electioneering and Parliamentary tactics, and the environment of bourgeois politics generally. The leaders of the party could only act similarly to the men they criticise had they to take their places, or they would be obliged to leave the Parliamentary arena in disgust and defiance. Of course, that method results in compromise, shuffling on matters of principle, and other unsatisfactory consequences; even in many instances, betrayal of the workers' interests. Without tactics of this kind the State cannot be ‘captured ’— and then the State captures the miracle workers instead.”

So then, these are the tactics we must adopt. Possibly this explains why the Anarchist at times drops his antagonism to political action and runs as a Progressive or Labour candidate.

The suggestion that it is impossible for the Socialist to be elected to Parliament without adopting the present-day “electioneering” tactics, with the inevitable result of compromise, shuffling of principle, and betrayal of working-class interests, implies that it is futile to attempt to educate the workers to a true conception of their class position. The Anarchist, therefore, imagines the Social Revolution will be accomplished by a non class-conscious proletariat following certain leaders.

The education of the workers may be a tedious process, but it is none the less essential for the achievement of our object.

H. A. Young

Editorial: The Miners' Masters. (1912)

Editorial from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The great army of ill-paid workers who face death and disablement in the bowels of the earth have been met with derision when asking for security of a mere pittance. A minimum wage varying with the cost of living and hardly ever exceeding it, is said to be the “end of the industry.”

Though the mine-owners have been piling up huge profits—increased, too, by the strike rumours —they are leaving no stone unturned to “scotch” the disaffected toilers. Idyllic pictures are appearing in the prostituted Press purporting to be the homes of the colliers, but the exaggeration and obvious lying they contain cannot but convince the reader that they are really describing the homes of the managers instead! Mr. D. A. Thomas, the Liberal head of the Cambrian Combine, is roaring and fuming like the Bull of Bashan about the extortion of the miners. His fellow Liberal mine-owners all follow in his train. Sir Charles MacLaren and Sir Alfred Thomas (now Lord Pontypridd), the recent recipient of “honours,” are also Liberal mine-owners. In fact, the Liberal party contains more of them than does the Tory party.

If matters last long enough, we may witness the same methods that have ever been, used to frighten and cow the strikers. The great party of “trust, tempered with prudence,” will answer the cry of the stricken shareholders by despatching police and military.

Some “compromise” in which the workers’ demands are forgotten will no doubt be the one result for some time to come. But the economic pressure, ever present,will force the men again and again into these skirmishes. Until they grasp the Socialist view and wrest political supremacy from their masters very little can be achieved. And the mischievous moonshine about the power of Industrial Unionism or Syndicalism that is being taught amongst the miners will not help matters.

Preach united action by a worker's organisation built on class lines, by all means, but disillusion yourself that even that sound economic action alone can give yon any lasting and efficient victory. In America, where the Western Federation of Miners is strong, where miner’s unions are the backbone of the Federation, you have massacre after massacre by the armed ruffians hired by the Republican Government. Tender children sweat in the most dangerous mines, and wages are but the bare cost of the toilers’ subsistence.

Show the toilers the lines of class cleavage, its cause and the instrument of its perpetuation. Organise them politically for the capture of that instrument for their own purposes, that is, for the overthrow of the present social system and the establishment in its place of the Socialist Commonwealth. That and that alone is the cure for the miners’ misery.

Editorial: Liberal "Honours." (1912)

Editorial from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The birthday honours list is a very good example of the fraud of Liberalism. It is only a few years since they knighted Dr. Jameson, the ‘‘hero” of the Jameson raid. Now Lionel Phillips and his colleagues, Neumann and Albu, the great South African multi-millionaires, are to be made baronets. During “the war” the Liberals never tired of denouncing these men as rogues and adventurers, but when their poor dupes had voted them into place and power, they declared these statements to be “terminological inexactitudes.”

Editorial: The Game of Hell. (1912)

Editorial from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fall of the Caillaux Ministry through the disclosures of the Morocco scandal is but another lesson in the sordid nature of our masters’ diplomacy. Here in England the same rotten mess is being made, and even the “Daily News,” Liberal though it is, calls for the resignation of Sir Edward Grey. What childish innocence! Just as if one man, and not the whole Liberal party, is to blame. Just as if every Liberal Minister, from the days of Palmerston’s intrigues with Russia, has not been the same. From the Crimea War to Majuba Hill the same old game was played.

Behind it all lurk the figures of the financial kings of England (or of capitalism), the men who come to the rescue of Governments with their money bags, the men who supply the party funds. Mr. Rothschild loaned Gladstone’s Government, millions at 15 per cent. interest to finance the Suez Canal and other Egyptian ventures ; he thereupon was made Lord Rothschild and Gladstone made war upon a people “rightly struggling to be free,” because they didn’t pay the interest quickly enough.

Russia has been the scene of greater wholesale murder for the past century than perhaps any other European country. That does not prevent our Liberal Government from making secret alliances, and welcoming the bloody Czar of Russia. Now a so-called return Parliamentary visit is being made to Russia, but the swindle is already seen. For instead of a purely Parliamentary deputation, there are representatives of all the great financial interests likely to be concerned in the promoting and building of a trans-Persian railway. Behind all the treaties —"to promote better relations" — there is merely the profit grinding commercialism of the Liberal and Tory capitalist.

As we prophesied in our December issue, Persia is to be the ”happy hunting ground” of English and Russian capitalists, and every obstacle to its annexation is cast aside—hence Mr. Shuster's dismissal. The speedy influx of capital in search of plunder recalls the building of the Cape to Cairo Railway that followed the arrival of Rhodes and his fellow buccaneers in South Africa.

John Bright on Adulteration. (1912)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

J. B. (Manchester) asks where John Bright made his famous defence of adulteration. We quote the following extract from a speech delivered in his capacity of President of the Board of Trade, on March 5, 1861, in replying to a demand that food inspectors should be appointed.

  “My own impression with regard to this adulteration is, that it arises from the very great and inevitable competition in business. . . .  It is quite impossible that you should have the oversight of the country by inspectors, and that you can organise a body of persons to go into shops to buy sugar, pickles, cayenne, to get them analysed and then to raise complaints against the shopkeepers and bring them before the magistrates. If men in their private business were to be tracked by Government officers every hour of the day, life would not he worth having, and I should recommend them to go to another country, where they would not be subject to such annoyance.''

Asked & Answered. (1912)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reply to H. Osborne.

Capitalism to-day extends over the major portion of the habitable globe, and includes practically all those territories usually termed “nations.” Hence it is international.

Capitalism is controlled by the capitalist class. The establishment of Socialism is the historic mission of the working class; but Socialism can only be established by abolishing capitalism. From this it follows that the interests of the capitalist class are in direct opposition to those of the working class. These two classes, as classes, have no national boundaries—not only because they exist wherever capitalism reigns, but also because both capitalists and workers wander all over the globe, the one in search of profits, the other in search of a living, through the medium of work.

To establish Socialism the working class have to wrest power from the capitalist class, and therefore the fight for Socialism, and its establishment. must be international.

The I.L.P. is not a Socialist organisation. Its leaders deny the existence of the class struggle outlined above, and, being anxious to retain capitalism under the “State” form by municipalising and nationalising the various industries, they merely extend the error of their fundamental misconceptions when they add the stupid statement that Socialism could be established in one country alone.

Jack Fitzgerald

The German Elections (1912)

Editorial from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

While there is little doubt that underlying all the seething boil of excitement and conflicting emotions which is just now sweeping over Germany, some considerable increment of real Socialist knowledge, opinion and belief exists, those who depend upon mere superficial views are prone to discern in names and numbers much deeper significance than they do in reality possess.

In Germany the fact that every other party, without exception, has from time to time openly supported the Kaiser regime, drives those who, for their own good purposes, are “agin the Government”, to vote for the Social-Democratic candidates.

Thus, whilst the membership of the Social-Democratic Party there is at most 800,000, the voting for their candidates totalled 4½ millions! Their candidates seek votes upon every pretext, from Free Trade to “No indirect taxation”.

Though the Radicals united with the “Blue-Black Bloc” against the “Reds” at the polls in 1907, the Social-Democrats this time advised their supporters to vote Radical during the Second Ballots!

The German Socialist Party includes men like Bernstein, Von Vollmar, and David, who have opposed every principle that Socialism includes – men who openly cry out for standing alliances with the Radicals and other enemies of the Red Flag.

Amid all the piffle and lies appearing in the Liberal Press, the statement that the Social-Democratic Party in Germany occupies a somewhat similar position to that of the Liberal party here is largely true. For the Social Reform rubbish and anti-working class politics preached by the leaders of the Social Democrats there is very similar to the “Advanced Legislation” put forth by Lloyd George, Churchill, Ramsay Macdonald, Philip Snowdon, and the hosts of other Liberal Labour hacks here.

Knowing this only too well, we must discount very heavily the so-called Socialist victories in the recent elections in Germany. A body of supporters got together upon all manner of pretexts can only hang together so long as no important action is taken, and must fall to pieces directly a move is made in the revolutionary direction. In that day of dire disaster, woe betide those who have counted heads in the ballot and put their faith in numbers.

Only those who understand the principles of Socialism can give strength to the revolutionary army. Let ignorance march against us since our foes can turn it against us when they will.

Bernie Sanders and Workers Control (2019)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

The idea of "workers' control" or "industrial democracy" is now being  discussed in American political circles. Even some of the more far-sighted employers now support the idea of "workers' participation” or “worker directors”. Bernie Sanders, the progressive presidential hopeful, is set to introduces plan that encourage employee-owner businesses and would require corporations to reserve a seat at the boardroom table for employees to extend work-place democracy ensure that the work-place have a say in decisions that affect their day-to-day lives. Of course this is not a particularly new proposal. The highly conservative British Civil Service incorporated employee consultation as far back as 1919 when it introduce what is called the Whitley system of management.

It is not the job of socialists to protect the profit advantage of any individual company but to support improvements in the conditions of the workers as a whole and to bring an end to the private profit system altogether. 

Workers control is only meaningful in terms of a socialist economy democratically determined and administered by not just work-places but local communities and larger society otherwise workers’ control means workers are deprived of all effective social control. This entails that ownership of industry cannot remain in the hands of the capitalists. Only common ownership would guarantee workers' management and workers' control in the individual plants. If by “workers’ control” it is meant control of the ownership and distribution of the wealth the workers produce, it obviously cannot be under capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on private ownership; so long as capitalists own, they control.

However, Bernie Sanders is engaged in the re-invention of the wheel, resurrecting ideas from the history of the labour movement and presenting those past ideas as something new. If Sanders wishes to be seen as a genuine socialist he should not be supporting capitalism regardless on how a nice a face has been put on it but rather he should be calling for the abolition of capitalism. Worker-owned enterprises and cooperatives are perfectly compatible with capitalism and operate  like any other business or institution which extracts surplus value and produces for exchange. As nice as Sanders make it sound at the end of the day they remain capitalist enterprises, and as socialists it is vital that we recognize this fact, because if we don't go after the heart of capitalist production then all we end up with is a capitalism-without-capitalists. Operating in a competitive market economy, workers have to exploit themselves as if they were exploited by capitalists. While this may be more palatable, it does change the fact of their subordination to economic processes beyond their control. Profit production and capital accumulation control behaviour and perpetuate the misery and insecurity bound up with it. While there cannot be socialism without workers’ control, neither can there be real workers’ control without socialism. 

To assert that gradual increase of workers’ control in capitalism is an actual possibility merely plays into the hands of the ruling class to disguise their class-rule by false social reforms.

ALJO

By The Way. (1916)

The By The Way Column from the February 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thumbs Up!

The week commencing Monday, 10th January, proved to be an interesting one in the English House of Commons. On the termination of a debate dealing with the prosecution of the war, the question of the suppression of a Scottish paper (‘‘Forward”) came up for discussion. To those people here who are so fond of telling how the poor German is “spoonfed” by the Press and the authorities in his native land, the following notice issued by the Press Bureau may prove interesting reading :

  Mr. Lloyd George will address meetings at Glasgow, and it is particularly requested that no report other than the official version of his speech should he published.

The “request” on this occasion for silence on a question of such importance is significant of much. Doubtless it was a case of coming events casting their shadows before them, and the official eye had discerned that the right honorable gent, was in for a lively time. “Tell it not in Gath" that at long last the before-mentioned gentleman, whose silver tongue has so often been used to coat the bitter pills given to the workers, is found out. A careful perusal of the Official Debates reveals the fact that Mr. George does not stand alone in this connection, for we find that the Clyde workers "repudiate Mr. Arthur Henderson” and "Mr. Brownlie has been told the same to his face." Possibly later historians will describe them as an unholy trinity.

I do not propose at this juncture to deal at any length with this subject. Suffice it to say that, perhaps, an extract from a capitalist paper would not prove amiss.

  If, as Mr. Lloyd George stated last night, the suppression of the Glasgow journal “Forward” was due to a series of unjustifiable articles, it was decidedly unfortunate that no action should have been taken until that newspaper had published a report of the Minister's conferences with the Clyde munition workers. As the Press had been forbidden to publish any report other than the obviously one-sided “official" version of this meeting, the suspicion was not unnatural that “Forward’s" offence consisted in letting in too much light upon that adventure. . . It was a grave blunder to defer action by the Executive until immediately after the Minister's visit to the Clyde. "Star,” 11.1.16.

The only supporter of Mr. Lloyd George was a military member who briefly addressed the House and stated that he rose “to support the Minister of Munitions, a man who, I must say, I have never supported before.” Of course, Tories and Liberals join hands when necessary to make a combined attack on the workers, just as the French and German rulers did when the workingmen of Paris revolted after the Franco-German war (1870-1). The priceless gem was found when Captain Campbell said :

 I tell the House frankly that if I had the Hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Outhwaite) in my battalion at the front he would be strung up by the thumbs before he had been there half an hour. Official Report, Vol. 77., No. 142, Col. 1420.

Such language, addressed to an M.P., is too strong even for capitalist journals, for the “Star” (11. 1.16) commenting on this says:

  This is the sort of brutality that many people in Prussia and a few people here mistake for “firmness’’ and patriotism. If they were heeded we should soon revert to the era of the pitchcap and the thumb-screw, which left such a dark stain on Irish history a century ago.

The laughter and cheers that greeted Captain Campbell's bully-swashbuckler threat makes it evident that the motto for conscription is ‘‘Thumbs Up!"

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Economy!

In the early part of the month of December three Cabinet Ministers addressed the “representatives” of organised labour on the need for economy. Reference has previously been made in these pages to the speeches then delivered. I refer now to this incident only to lead up to the further point that at almost the same time the Press was busily engaged in advertising the fact that the daughter of Mr. Asquith and his private secretary were being married also at Westminster. After reading how the bride was gowned (an interesting study for bourgeois ladies) the next announcement was that “Mr. and Mrs. Bonham-Carter have returned to London after their honeymoon tour in Southern England and Italy.” Evidently they are not concerned about economy in war time. One wonders how some of the munition workers would take to the idea of a trip to sunny Italy now, eh ?

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Made in Germany.

The old adage reads “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Whilst this may or may not be so, it would he well for those who are constantly declaiming against Germany and things of German origin to remember that technical institutes, labour exchanges, insurance acts (did not the Welsh Christ go specially to Germany to study for himself the operation of the insurance acts there?) pensions, all come from Germany, and, last but not least, are not our masters going to “crush German Militarism with that close imitation of German Militarism, Compulsory Military Service?

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Signs of the Times.

The Compulsory Military Service Bill which is before the House at the time of writing is bringing forth the usual crop of protests and resolutions from various sources. One of the things that stand out in noon-day clearness is the attitude of the "Labour” frauds. These gentry are so fond of getting on their legs at conferences and at other meetings and stating that “we speak for organised labour; ” “we represent hundreds of thousands of such-and-such workers.” The idea is preposterous. How often do these fakirs really consult the rank and file of their organisations to ascertain the views held by them? Very seldom. The present scribe happens to belong to one of these organisations, where certain individuals are elected “as delegates” from time to time to attend Trade Union conferences, etc., and where the idea of these said “delegates’’ receiving their instructions from the rank and file is entirely foreign to them.

However, as an illustration of the hopeless state of confusion that the present Labour Party are in, the following only needs to be stated for this to be at once realised. On the occasion of the First Reading of the aforesaid Bill there voted: against, l3; for, 10; and a number sat on the fence. A somewhat similar course was adopted on the motion for the rejection of the Bill at the Second Reading, but with a majority in favour of the Bill and only nine against. One brave old “labour leader" delivered himself as follows : “I would rather die a thousand deaths than allow a conqueror to rule over Britain.”

We read that the Executive of the National Union of Railwaymen have discussed this Bill, and their conclusions will, no doubt, shock many. I have noticed in the debates that many of those who are so fond of talking about spending the last farthing and shedding the last drop of blood (other people's, of course) are very seriously concerned when such things as the Excess Profits Tax are under discussion. Imagine, then, what their feelings must be like when they read that the railway men have decided ;

  That any scheme involving the confiscation of the lives of men and leaving the material resources of the nation in the hands of a privileged class cannot be termed “National Service," and should therefore be opposed by the united forces of Labour.
 That unless the Government are prepared, as a preliminary step, immediately to confiscate wealth of all description, viz., land, shipping, money, and all other national assets, we are prepared by every means in our power to resist the confiscation of men whose only wealth is their labour-power, as we believe that if such a principle as that now proposed by the Government is once adopted it will mean the loss of liberties which are essential to effective industrial organisation and action, and will mean the permanent enslavement of our class. “Daily Chronicle." 15.1.16.

In view of the lack of “unity," as evidenced by the Labour Party and the “labour leaders" in the House and out of it, one is afraid that the pious resolutions passed by sections of the workers will avail them little until they realise their class position in society and, basing their action on that knowledge, they organise to overthrow the present system instead of tinkering with various manifestations of capitalism—then and then only will they come into their own. Organise, then, for Socialism.

The Scout.