Notes by the Way: Do You Trust Colonel Nasser? (1956)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do You Trust Colonel Nasser?

Much of the propaganda about the Suez dispute has been concerned with whether Colonel Nasser is to be be trusted. Sir Anthony Eden says no; and the Colonel says he doesn’t trust the Western Powers. Many of the Labourites who oppose the Government’s policy affect to believe that British Capitalism can rest content with the Colonel’s promise not to interfere with the unfettered passage of the Canal.

Which of them is right? The answer is that they are all wrong. History is littered with binding treaties which turned out to be scraps of paper; with treacheries and forsworn promises even when the signatories, at the time they pledged their word; had every intention of keeping it.

The truth is that where vital economic and military interests are concerned it is so easy for the party to the agreement, who finds it becoming an obstacle, to convince himself that altered circumstances justify him in repudiating his obligations. (There is a lot to be said for the attitude of those Quakers who, on moral grounds, refuse to pledge their future conduct lest this should happen).

It was British governments which occupied Egypt "temporarily" and stayed there for over half a century and British governments which have not paid off the hundreds of millions of pounds they pledged themselves after her World War I to repay to America.

All governments, when they find it highly convenient to do so, and provided they can get away with it, break their promises. They do it, too, in home politics with election pledges and it is the height of simplicity or hypocrisy for Labour opponents of Eden to pretend that we all ought to trust one another. They are indeed “all honourable men.” but does the Labour Party trust Eden when he makes election pledges? or does he trust them?

About that High Dam and American Cotton

It happens that Egyptian plans for a new dam on the Nile provide an example of how promises come to be broken. What sparked off the Suez dispute was the action of Mr. Dulles in suddenly withdrawing the promise he had made to supply millions of American dollars to help Egypt meet the estimated £120 million cost of the new high dam at Aswan. The excuse given by Dulles was that the American Government believed Egypt's own financial resources to be insufficient to meet the rest of the cost, particularly since Egypt had been mortgaging its resources to buy costly arms from Russia. The British Government followed Dulles’ lead in withdrawing an offer of aid.

But an American reader of the Manchester Guardian, writing from San Francisco, gives a different reason. Mr. Dulles’ Republican Party, needs every vote it can in the forthcoming Presidential election, including the votes of American cotton growers, already worried about large unsold stocks of cotton, they do not like the idea of an Egyptian dam which will greatly extend the irrigated area on which Egyptian cotton can be grown and put on the world market in competition with American cotton. The San Francisco reader writes:—

"The reason given by Mr. Dulles for the last-minute refusal was that Egypt was not able to fulfil its part of the contract. Whether Egypt was able or not, I do not know, but the more likely reason is that the State Department heard protests from the cotton growers of Louisiana and Mississippi. This is the year of a Presidential election, and in election years American foreign policy is always uncertain." !

(Manchester Guardian, 29/8/56.) 

The same writer also dismissed any notion that Mr. Dulles has developed scruples about using force in international disputes, and 'that this explains his caution over Suez:—

"When American canal interests were endangered by a recent revolution in Guatemala, America acted not with caution but with decision, and the revolt was quickly put down."

And what about Colonel Nasser’s pretence that it is only the Western Powers whom he cannot trust and that the African Powers are full of mutual love and confidence? Does the Colonel trust his fellow religionists in the Sudan or his fellow Africans in Ethiopia? Not on your life! The Government of the Sudan does not like the Egyptian plan and can advance seemingly weighty technical reasons. They would prefer dams and irrigation schemes higher up the Nile and its tributaries, under a joint operation in which Ethiopia, Uganda, the Belgian Congo, would join with the Sudan and Egypt. But the Colonel does not trust them any more than British Capitalism trusts the Colonel. He fears quite reasonably, that if Egypt puts up a lot of money to build dams not inside Egyptian frontiers, his Sudanese brothers may be tempted to take advantage of it. Mr. C. L. Hartnoll, wrote on the subject in The Arab World, which is the organ of the Anglo-Arab Association and sympathetic to the Egyptian point of view, with the Egyptian Ambassador as one of its patrons. The article, written before the Suez dispute blew up. contains the following:—

“The most probable explanation of Egypt’s insistence on the superior merits of the High Dam is, therefore, most probably a political one. No doubt she feels that if she has to put up the money anyway, she might as well have full control of the whole undertakings on Egyptian territory rather than disperse control by foreign engineers at various points in the Sudan, Ethiopia Uganda and the Belgian Congo. Strategically she has always felt at the mercy of any power controlling the upper waters of the Nile but at least at Aswan she would have the control in her own hands. Also, of course, the prestige value of the High Dam to the Revolution and its leaders is not without its attraction." (The Arab World, July, 1956.)

For while Egyptian Capitalism masks its financial interests under a high falutin imperialist principle called “the natural unity of the Nile Valley,” which includes the ambition of Egyptian control of territories all the way up the River, some of the equally ambitious Sudanese have dreams of achieving this “natural unity” at Egypt’s expense.

The Sudanese do not like the idea of Nile control, vital to themselves, being in Egyptian hands at Aswan. And the Colonel for his part may reasonably fear that if Egypt puts up money for dams higher up the Nile the Sudan or Ethiopia might “do a Nasser on him.” This is what Capitalism does to human relations.

Unearthly Socialism

In Labour Party journals and on their platforms, lots of pens and voices are calling for means to recapture the “lost spirit of the movement.” One lifelong supporter knows an unexpected direction in which to look. Writing in The People (April 8, 19.56), Mr. Hannen Swaffer had this:—

“I am, in religion, a Spiritualist and a Socialist. To me both these words mean the same thing. By this I mean that I have learned from the Spirit world to understand something of the creative force which is behind all creation, and that, knowing it to be my duty to try to carry out. during my earth life, the furthering of that creative principle in this world, I can see only in the adoption of Socialist principles the means."

He went on to affirm his belief that “Spiritualism and Socialism, when joined in the practice of the lives of all of us, will abolish all creedal differences, and all class and caste hatreds, join us all in one great human family. . . ”

We can accept that Mr. Swaffer assiduously plugs Spiritualism and mixes it in with his already muddled notions of Socialism because it is the thing he really relieves it, but the same excuse cannot be made for the Daily Herald's recent addition of horoscopes to its columns. The worried workers, seeking respite from the daily harassments of the Welfare State, can now consult “Your Lucky Stars” as interpreted by Diana. Another recent addition to the horoscope Press is the News Chronicle (“Seeing Stars,” with the help of Leon Petulengro)..

If they change to the Express, the Mail, or the two morning picture papers, their needs are likewise cared for and almost all of the cheaper Sunday papers are in the heavenly swim. But why no horoscopes in the evening papers?

Before the war the Beaverbrook Press, high mindedly and with a loud banging of trumpets, announced that it would ,no longer pander to this “ignorant superstition but after a lapse of time the horoscopes crept back again.

The purpose, of course, is to whip up circulation and the publicity experts are clearly convinced that you can’t get into the big circulation without horoscopes.

The Reverend Donald Soper on Nasser

Among his admirers the Reverend Donald Soper is credited with understanding Socialism and being a Socialist. A speech delivered by him at Caxton Hall on August 14th, 1956, shows how little there is in the claim (speech published in the Arab News Letter Arab Students Union, September, 1956)).

On the superficial things such as the hypocrisy of the British Government; the failure of the Labour Party (of which he is a supporter) to see the real issues; the non-existence of the “international law” to which the Government appeals; and the failure of the Church to seek “peace on earth and goodwill among men,” on these he was plausible enough, but when it came to putting a Socialist point of view he was silent. He had absolutely nothing to say about world-wide Capitalism and the forces that drive all the nations into conflict. The nearest he got to reality—and this was seeing symptoms instead of causes—was to see evil in the existence of “nation states.” But his remedy for this is “world government” and United Nations; much as if to say that as banditry is bad let us hope that the bandits can unite into one central bandit and in the meantime let us make rules of conduct for the bandits. So he demanded that while these “nation states” endure “there must not be privileges for some and rejections of these privileges for others.” . In other words “Fair play for ail the bandits.”

He dwelt on the slums and poverty alongside great wealth in Cairo and, quite fairly, marked this up against the former British rulers of Egypt; but is he really so naive as to suppose that the ruling class behind dictator Nasser are taking the Canal for the sake of the Egyptian workers they exploit? Apparently he is that naive or had his tongue in his cheek, for he called on the Church to support Nasser.

“I want to say in the name of Christianity that this Nasser ought to be encouraged and not be repressed, because I believe the root of the matter in him is good, and because it is good, it is our business to evoke it by corresponding good, and not to repress it by threats of violence.”

What evidence can Mr. Soper bring forward for his implication that when a home grown ruling class runs Capitalism itself after ousting foreigners that their aim is any less the perpetuation of exploitation and the resulting poverty of the masses? British Capitalism has been run by home-grown rulers (including years of the Labour Party that Soper supports) and it hasn’t touched the class ownership of accumulated wealth. And Mr. Soper shouldn’t have far to look in his own neighbourhood to find some of the million slum dwellings.

He ended his speech with a call to throw out the Tory Government. His solitary piece of lip service to what he supposes is Socialism, being a plea for the introduction of “a truly Socialist Government.”

Embarrassed by his difficulty in fully endorsing the Labour Party he declared that “by the grace of God, even the Labour Party can become a Socialist Government which surely is hardly flattering to his God. Why must God (whose “will,” incidentally Mr. Soper claimed that he knows!) have to act in this roundabout fashion? Why can’t the “grace of God” turn the Tory Party into a “Socialist Government?” It shouldn’t be any more difficult.

Of course Mr. Soper knows that “divine grace” isn’t going to solve the problem. He also knows that delivering Socialist truths would help. What, then, is his excuse, as a self-styled Socialist, for not delivering them at that meeting?

Automation, 1830

The rich have always been able cheerfully and patiently to bear the hardship of the poor and urge them to be equally patient. We now have the politicians and economists telling the workers who may lose their jobs through “automation” to reflect that in the long run it will all be for the best, and anyway it is inevitable. In 1830 the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge published an Address to the Labourers on the subject of Destroying Machinery. Here is a typical passage: —

“It is undoubtedly true that all machinery which spares human labour, unavoidably, on its first invention and on beginning of its work, throws some persons out of the employment in which they had been engaged, and they must seek their means of support in some other way; this is the necessary consequence of the introduction into use of the most simple instrument, and of all improvements in art. But, on the whole, the public, and every individual in it, are in the end infinitely the gainers.”

A caustic cartoon, also published in 1830, and believed to have been the work of the brother of the better-known Cruikshank, dealt with the unemployment caused by the incoming machinery as one of a series called “Living Made Easy,” The “machines” it portrayed were “Charity tubes to convey the smell from the tables of the rich, for the benefit of poor operatives.”

It showed humble bare-headed workers permitted by a livened flunkey to stand over the open ends of iron tubes which conveyed the smell of food into the courtyard of some palatial mansion. It was “particularly recommended to the philanthropy of those who have made large fortunes by machinery.”

Mr. MacMillan on Paper Pounds

In a speech on inflation in which he warned that if wage increases went on the Government might devalue the pound again as did the Labour Government in 1949. He asked the trade unions

"Do you want more paper money to handle or more goods and services to enjoy? ”

(Daily Mail, August 30, 1956.)

This is indeed a classic example of the devil rebuking sin. It is not the trade unions but Mr. Macmillan and other Chancellors of the Exchequer who determine the amount of the note issue. And what is their record at setting the printing press at work making more and more paper money? In 1938 the amount in issue was £529 million and in 1945 £1,311 million. The Labour Government stepped it up to £1,383 million and the Tories since they came in in 1951 have added another £300 million, making the present total £1,662 million.

Not, of course, that it makes any material difference to the workers position under Capitalism. They were just as poor and just as much exploited in 1938 with pounds fewer and wages lower, as they are now with wages trebled and each pound buying about one third of what it then bought.

They Cant Afford a Holiday

The British Travel and Holidays Association in a survey of the holidays of Britain’s population tell us that “about half the population of Britain took no holiday away from home in 1955. Of those who did travel, only 8 per cent. went abroad: 77 per cent. of the population has never been outside Britain” (Manchester Guardian, August 31, 1956).

“Expense was given as the main reason why people stayed at home during their holidays.”

What Nina did not say

Nina, the Russian athlete, who was alleged to have taken hats worth 32s. 11d., missed a fine opportunity by not appearing in court. Why did she not get up and tell the British workers that under Socialism in Russia you just go along and take what hats you need without this Capitalist nonsense of paying for them?

The answer, in case anyone is in doubt, is of course that there isn’t any Socialism in Russia, the claim that there is being one of the lies of the Communists.

Mr. Nehru Again

In his attitude on the use of military force to crush the Naga independence movement in India Mr. Nehru gets more and more like Sir John Harding in Cyprus.

A Naga M.P. in the India Parliament made a long statement on the suppression of the Nagas.

“As a result of military operations, Mr. Keishang said, 2,000 people were forced to stay in the jungles. Most of the villages of the Mokukchang area had been burnt by the army, between 30 and 50 villages had been burnt in the Megkukchange area, and four-fifths of the villages in other areas had been burnt. He said that 397 Nagas had been killed, and troops had also killed Dr. N. Haralu, a respected doctor of Kohima, who had been “ hunted in the streets of Kohima and shot down.

“More than five hundred Nagas are in prison, including students and children aged between 1 and 13. The Army tries to terrorise the Nagas by carrying a naked corpse, bound hand and foot, through the streets of Kohima, and bodies are burnt in spite of the fact that the Nagas never burn bodies. Is this behaviour of the Government better than that shown by the Nagas ? . .. The spirit of revenge will persist for generations, even if the Nagas are defeated.” (Manchester Guardian, August 24, 1956.)

Mr. Keishang chided Mr. Nehru with failing to show at home the “spirit of peaceful negotiation” he is always recommending to other governments. But Mr. Nehru was not to be moved. He won’t even discuss the matter.

“Mr. Nehru, winding up the debate, admitted that some mistakes had been made, but said that the attitude towards the Nagas had been human and not completely a military one. He repeated that the Government could not talk with the Nagas until they gave up their demand for an independent state.

“There is no question of prestige. India is far too big for her prestige to suffer in such dealings. We are not prepared to talk independence, and we demand that the Nagas must give up violence."

Mr. Nehru is another of the reformists to demonstrate that there aren’t any different ways of running Capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

I believe that the 1830 cartoon that Hardcastle is referring to in his column is the one posted below. The only sticking point is that he mentions it was by Isaac Robert Cruikshank but the internet is telling me that it was by Thomas Mclean .

The new source of energy (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

“In recent years physicists have found methods of producing radio-activity artificially.

Under suitable treatment many substances which are not in themselves radio-active, and which therefore do not disintegrate of their own accord, can be made to emit radio-active rays and particles whereby the atomic nucleus is transformed and finally destroyed—A relatively small inout of energy can lead to . . . the emission of much more energy than was put in ... We have potentially at our disposal an almost unlimited store of energy which, suitably unleashed, can have a tremendous effect on our economy and civilisation.

Used for destructive purposes, it can wipe out the human race; used as a source of industrial power it can confer limitless benefits on mankind.” (Power, Martin Ruhemann, D.Phil. Sigma Books.).

Business men worried about the fall of world trade (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

“At a time when this country has to contend with conditions flowing from the credit squeeze and difficulties in the motor vehicle industry, it is not too pleasant to read that there is likely to be a reduction in the rate of growth of world trade this year. The United Nations’ World Economic Survey for 1955 suggests that this decline will follow the reduced rate of expansion in demand and output in the industrial countries. This will affect countries dependent on exports for expansion of economic activity. The report finds that the economic record of the past few years is better than that of the ten years following World War I. There are several grounds for serious concern, however. The growth hitherto has been due only in part to favourable long-term forces. It had been largely based on temporary or special factors, and some of these have been disappearing. It is properly suggested that one decade of prosperity affords no proof that the world has acquired permanent immunity against the business cycle, or that the national or international remedies in its medicine chests would prove sufficiently potent to cope with another outcropping of the disease. Having regard to the changing aspect of world markets, to the increasing tempo and strength of foreign competition and to the domestic difficulties in this country, there is. indeed, no assurance that the comparatively good time through which we have passed in recent years will be prolonged''--(Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Journal, August, 1956.)

Party News Briefs (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Autumn Delegate Meeting will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 6th and 7th, at Head Office (52, Clapham High Street). The Saturday session commences at 2 p.m, and on Sunday at 11 o’clock.

Meeting on Suez. At short notice, owing to the topicality of the subject, another successful Sunday evening meeting was held at Denison House, Victoria, on September 16th. The audience numbered over 200 and many non-Party members were present. Comrade Wilmott was the speaker and Comrade Fahy was in the chair.

Swansea Branch have had some good meetings this summer. Comrade Young went down from London and addressed two meetings. The members are very pleased with the result and no doubt will continue their good work of getting letters in the local Press regarding the Party and Socialism.

Sunday Evenings at Head Office, October 14th is the starting date for lectures at Head Office, illustrated with films. For full details see elsewhere in this issue.

The Literature Circulating Committee are planning an October Sales Drive of the Socialist Standard, and details are given in this issue of meeting places for canvassing. If Comrades rally to these sales drives and increase the Standard sales, they are propagating Socialism and reducing the loss we now sustain on literature.

Phyllis Howard

Correspondence. (1956)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow, C.2, 22/8/56.

Sir.

In the Socialist Standard for August your contributor F. Offord, says “At the conclusion of the Second World War when the Japanese capitulated to Russia their arms and ammunition and their control of Manchuria were handed over by Stalin, not to the Communists who had borne the brunt of the Chinese war against the Japanese, but to their mortal enemies the Nationalists.”

These statements are not merely incorrect—they are the very reverse of the truth. When withdrawing from Manchuria, the Russians, instead of handing over Manchuria to Chiang Kai-shek, whose authority they had by treaty recognised, gave advance notice to the Communist forces who were able to take up positions before the Nationalists arrived. The Russians surrendered immense quantities of captured Japanese arms to the Chinese Communists and this was one of the principal factors in ensuring Mao Tse-tung’s success.

Neither is it true, but the very opposite of the truth, to say that the Chinese Communists bore the brunt of the fighting against Japan. The Communists reserved as much of their strength as possible for the coming struggle for China while the Nationalist forces were exhausted by their long and terrible campaign against the Japanese. Lin Yutang did not exaggerate when he said, in 1945: “For every Japanese the Communists claim to have killed they have killed at least five Chinese; for every town they have captured from the Japanese, they have captured fifty towns from the Chinese.”

The Communists directed their struggle mainly against their own countrymen and the immense aid which Russia gave them was a direct breach of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship of August 1945 in which Stalin recognised the National Government as the central Government of China.

Yours faithfully.

H. W. Henderson.

Reply to Mr. Henderson.

On Mr. Henderson's first main point that Russia surrendered to the Chinese Communists the arms and ammunition left by the Japanese in Manchuria and also assisted, with advice, he does not give proof of his assertion. As for the statements in the article, they are fully supported by the following quotations from the generally-recognised historian on China, Professor C. P. Fitzgerald, and quoted from his work “Revolution in China.” “Late in the war, in 1945, Stalin could say to Harry Hopkins that he did not regard the Chinese Communists as a serious factor, and recognised only Chiang’s Government as that of China. ... It was this regime [that of Chiang Kai-shek] that the victorious powers recognised as the legitimate Government of China. The Communists were treated as dissident forces who should properly submit to the authority of Chiang Kai-shek. Their claim to share in the surrender of the Japanese, or to administer the provinces in which they had maintained resistance for eight years, was not accepted ” (page 83). On page 86 is a description of how Chiang Kai-shek (the leader of the Nationalist Kuomintang Party) obtained “the surrender of the Japanese to the forces of the Kuomintang, not to those of the Communists.”

As to which side bore the brunt of the fighting against Japan—on page 64 “Chiang devoted his time and his German-trained armies to fruitless campaigns against the Communist rebels in South China. Huge sums of money were wasted on these vain attacks, heavy losses of material, many casualties among the best trained troops. None of these troops were ever permitted to fight the Japanese. . . .” On page 77, “. . . the Communists, who had ten years of experience of guerrilla warfare behind them, could be sure of being able to keep the field, for years if need be, till they, and they alone, represented Chinese resistance.” Again, on page 80, “.The Nationalist Government, from the end of 1939, never made any further military effort to recover lost territory . .  It did not engage to any serious extent in guerrilla warfare behind the Japanese lines. This task was left to the Communists. . . ." Incidentally it was the constant fight against the Japanese which the Communists maintained that was such an important factor in rallying the patriotic Chinese behind the Communist Party, and that, in turn, really was a factor which enabled the Communists eventually to conquer China.

F. Offord.

"Boom-time" (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Under the conditions of accumulation supposed thus far, which conditions are those most favourable to the labourers, their relation of dependence upon capital takes on a form endurable, or, as Eden says, “ easy and liberal." Instead of becoming more intensive with the growth of capital, this relation of dependence only becomes more extensive, i.e., the sphere of capital's exploitation and rule merely extends with its own dimensions and the number of its subjects. A larger part of their own surplus product, always increasing and continually transformed into additional capital, comes back to them in the shape of means of payment, so that they can extend the circle of their enjoyments, can make some addition to their consumption fund of clothes, furniture, etc., and can lay by small reserve funds of money.

But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and larger Peculium,* do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker.

A rise in the price of labour, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of the tension of it.” 

[Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, chapter “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation.” Page 676. Kerr edition, 1921.]

* Peculium: pocket-money given to slave by master.

Magic and Science (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

However, so far as the schemes for controlling events by magic were concerned, men have learned from bitter experience that nature does not work in that way.

Things do not happen in the world as if at the bidding of capricious sprites, but in an orderly manner as if in deference to fixed laws which have to be obeyed.

Night follows day, the seasons pass in due succession from seedtime to harvest, the events of human and animal life form a regular routine. The discovery of this Essential orderliness of nature marks the beginning of what we call science. Once men have reached the scientific stage of development, they realise that success in living does not depend upon coaxing or forcing nature to do what we want.

It depends upon understanding nature's laws, and in making use of them to serve human purposes. That is the principle underlying all the great inventions—steamships, airplanes, radio and so forth, which loom so large in the world today.” (The World of Copernicus, by Angus Armitage, C.Sc. Mentor Book.)

An interesting prophecy (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

"I doubt not posterity will find many things that are now but rumours, verified into practical realities. It may be that, some ages hence, a voyage to the Southern tracts, yea, possibly to the moon, will not be more strange than to America. To them that come after us, it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly to remotest regions, as now a pair of boots to ride a journey; and to confer at the distance of the Indies by sympathetic conveyances may be as usual in future times as by literary correspondence. The restoration of gray hairs to juvenility, and renewing the exhausted marrow, may at length be effected without miracle; and the turning of the now comparatively desert world into a Paradise may not improbably be effected from late agriculture." 

[Written in 1661 by Glanvill and quoted by Mumford in The Golden Day.]

Housing, savage and civilised (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

“In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilisation especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live."  

Thoreau, Walden, page 25, World's Classics edition (written in 1854).

50 Years Ago: Mental Health and Poverty (1956)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

[From the “Socialist Standard," October, 1906]

There were 121,979 persons in England and Wales certified as insane and under care on January 1st. 1906, being 2,150 in excess of the figures recorded on the corresponding day of 1905.

On January 1st, 1906, according to a Parliamentary paper issued by the Local Government Board, there were 926.741 paupers in England and Wales, equal to one in 37 of the population.

#    #    #    #

[The corresponding numbed of persons registered as of unsound mind on January 1, 1955, was 152,144, the increase since 1906 being rather less than proportionate to the increase of population.

In December, 1955, the number of persons receiving weekly allowances from the National Assistance Board was 1,612,000. Including wives, young children and other dependents these assistance allowances “made provision in whole or in part for a total approaching two and a quarter million persons.”—(Report of National Assistance Board for 1955, page 5).

These figures are not comparable with the 926,741 for 1906 because the 1906 figures relate to England and Wales only while the figure 1,612,000 relates also to Scotland and Northern Ireland. A more nearly comparable figure for 1906 is 1,124,421, given in the 16th Abstract of Labour Charities, 1913, page 334, but that figure included Southern Ireland. The population covered by the 1906 figure was about 43. million compared with the present population of 51 million.]

Your help needed (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The purpose for which the S.P.G.B. publishes the Socialist Standard and pamphlets is to bring the Socialist case to the attention of workers who so far do not know it. The cheaper the price the easier it is to sell and the aim has always been to keep prices as low as possible. But keeping the price of the Socialist Standard at 4d. necessarily results in a heavy loss. Readers will have noticed that in order to save costs we recently reduced the quality of the paper. Even so the loss is running at well over £20 a month.

The best sort of help you can give us is to push up the circulation. If we sold more copies each copy would cost a little less than it does and the loss would be smaller.

The other help you can give is financial. You can give us donations to help cover the monthly deficit, and thus free our ordinary income to meet other propaganda expenditure.

At present we also need over £200 to reprint our pamphlet “The Socialist Party: its Principles and Policy,” and to publish a collection of articles from the Socialist Standard under the title “Socialist Comments.” Other pamphlets are contemplated. If you want to help, send your donations to the Treasurer, E. Lake, S.P.G.B.. 52, Clapham High Street, Clapham, S.W.4. Postal orders, cheques, etc., should be crossed and made payable to the S.P.G.B.

Blogger's Note:

According to this link on the Libcom website a new edition of “The Socialist Party: its Principles and Policy” pamphlet was published by the SPGB in 1956, and a pamphlet under the title of "Socialist Comment" was also published by the Party in 1956. (It should be noted that "Socialist Comment" wasn't advertised in the Standard until 1957.)

SPGB Meetings (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Background to Joe Thomas and the Workers' League is available at the following link.

October "Socialist Standard" Drive (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fools learn by experience. And so do other people. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

What We Have Left Behind.

It was the custom, but a short while ago, to attribute to savage life a setting of perennial violence and promiscuous murder. It was the custom, in days yet no further from us than their rose-scents endure, and their laurels keep their freshness, to acclaim our exalted civilisation, and to gasp at the completeness of our conquest of ourselves by ourselves, and our triumph over external conditions—with the aid of God, and of parson, and of men like Mr, Lloyd George, and Lord Kitchener, and Mr. Berry, the celebrated hangman, of course. It was the custom to search the world for the Molochs of other worships and the Juggernaut cars of other civilisations, and to use them as pin-flags to mark the course we have followed and the giddy heights we have achieved above them.

Who does not remember for what bloody butcheries and devastating conquests excuse has been found in the tyranny of native rulers and insecurity of native life ? The “poor black” could never be sure, when he put his head out of his kraal in search of his morning paper, that some earlybird with a highly developed sense of humour and a capacious knife was not going to tumble that head into the milk-can. And it was suspected that, hidden away in the fastnesses of primitive forests, woolly-headed, dusky Camp­bells and Booths and other bogey-men were mixing up the trade of restaurateur with that of juggler, and administering the Communion with such grim realism as rendered superfluous the pronouncement “This is His flesh.” Such offences against the nostrils of “our common humanity” invariably called aloud for expeditions composed mainly, after its human components, of those well-known civilising agents, bullets, bibles, and booze (three out of the famous “Four B’s” of Christian pioneering—the missionary was the fourth).

Love’s Labour Lost.

Many an expedition, armed to the teeth for butchery, has left our shores on the pretext that the barbarities of little-known people shock the world and are a danger to civilisation ; many an expedition, reddened to the ears with butchery, has justified its orgy of rape and murder by grim tales of mountains of skulls discovered in some dusky potentate’s backyard. Civilised ruling classes have been touched to the tenderest cores of their tender hearts by savage brutality, and have expended much blood and treasure to correct the idiosyncrisi.es of the Mahdis, and clear up the messes of the King Coffees,

And now what a spectacle the Christian rulers of Christian lands present to the astonished eyes of savagedom !

All former hates and blood-lusts pale into insignificance compared with the consuming passions that run riot through the breasts of “civilised” men ; all former wars become mere local disturbances by comparison with this ghastly struggle which is turning countries into cemeteries and civilisation into an instrument of bloodshed; all former barbarities, whether of African despot or Asiatic ravager or European money-hunter, are eclipsed by the callous brutality of the means by which all the combatants alike seek to put out the lifespark of men in this last great crime which reveals the true visage of capitalism.

What irony survives the shock of events ! It was the complaint of multitudes, when we Socialists delivered the Socialist message in the pre-war days, that any attempt to establish society upon a basis of common ownership must lead to bloodshed. The fear of such a contingency has closed to our message the ears of many whose logical faculties could permit no other escape from the general truth of our conclusions, but who had not yet appreciated the veracity of Mr. Churchill’s dictum : “There are worse things than bloodshed.”

If Blood be the Price—

But to those who feared so much the giant figure behind the Socialist banner what has capitalism presented—and what has it yet to present ? In the first year of war about 85,000 British lost their lives in operations by land and sea, and a month later a military member of the House of Commons told us that “we have hardly yet wet our shoes.” A Paris journal. “L’Oeuvre,” in an estimate widely quoted by the Press of this country, states that up to the end of last February, that is when the war had been in continuance only half the time that it has now. France had lost in killed alone 304,000 men, Russia 850,000, Germany 975,000. Austria 1,400,000, while the total losses in killed of all the belligerents exclusive of Turkey were 3,689,000.

If we had not wet our shoes in September we had not even soiled them in February. Since then there has been colossal fighting on the eastern front and terrible work and suffering in Gallipoli ; since then there has been a costly attack and advance in France, while in addition Italy has entered the arena and made some progress in running up a tragic bill. What, then, must be the appalling death-roll now, with this second seven month’s lighting added to the first ?

Nor is it only in this direction that the war is robbing Socialism of its terrors. Many people in the past have stumbled over the idea that it is only the free play of capitalist competition that makes the world go round, and that without this stimulus to endeavour the means of production, wonderful as they are, would not suffice to support the race, and chaos and ruin would at once overtake us. But what do we find ; where does the war demonstrate the truth to be ?

It is revealed in practice that military strength —which to-day more than ever resolves itself into the largest, and therefore the most econo­mical output of wealth—is in inverse ratio to the free play of capitalist competition. It is seen that, so far from true is it that the ordinary private enterprise of interested capitalists, spurred on as it is by an unparalleled opportunity for gain, means efficiency, that it means, on the contrary, misdirection, waste, and chaos which must prove fatal to those foolish enough to rely upon it.

The Failure of Private Enterprise.

It is here that the scientific German has scored heavily over the short-sighted fools who have fondly imagined that private enterprise under the stimulus of competition would suffice for nearly all things in peace and in war. For years the German rulers have had arrangements made for a wide abandonment of the competitive processes of production in event of war. At the annual military manoeuvres a large number of German factories have been put under State control and run for a fortnight under war conditions. Whatever miscalculations the Germans made as to the requirements of modem warfare, they may, at all events, take credit for recognising from the first, and long before the outbreak of hostilities, the truth of the Socialist contention that the boasted private enterprise, under the stimulus of the competition generated by the lust for profit, is a drag upon production and a fertile source of chaos and inefficiency.

Germany acted upon this knowledge, and as a result our masters are forced to confess that, other things being equal, the only effective reply is to themselves abandon private enterprise for the time. In other words, they are forced to admit that capitalist production by private enterprise is a failure, and that only production organised on a basis from which the attributes of private enterprise are eliminated can enable them effectually to deal with a situation of their own making. To this extent, therefore, the evidence of the war is a triumph for Socialist theory which we shall know how to make good use of when the war has run its course.

Some further lessons.

But another aspect of the same question provides a useful lesson and further vindication of Socialist claims. When the war broke, out the financiers and capitalist economists showed that it could not last longer than a year. The upheaval of finance, the disturbance of trade, the disruption of production—these potent factors were to cool the ardour of the most warlike in a matter of nine to twelve months, and bring peace because the resources of mankind could not support war on the colossal scale for a longer time. By all the calculations of capitalist economists, based upon the soundest of capitalist theories, the Teutonic allies, with so much of their own manhood removed from the production of the necessaries of life, with their imports and exports almost completely cut off, should have reached bankruptcy and starvation and military paralysis long before this. Yet the prognostications of the wise men, who have imagined that the only possible basis for the activities of civilised man is money, and therefore solvency, and who have stoutly denied the Socialist assertion that an enormous proportion of the human energy under capitalism is run to waste these prognostications are pulverised by the peculiarly healthy vigour of the Austro-German entity.

Of course, the seers did not realise that a country organised for war could eliminate private enterprise and profit-hunting to any extent that its government thought necessary and its capitalist element was prepared to submit to, and thus organised on a temporary basis foreign and even antagonistic to capitalism, could go on with the war in defiance of financial dictums and capitalist economic theories, to the first of which the capitalists of that country are answerable only when the normal conditions of capitalism return, and the last of which they blast for ever.

But so it has been. The rulers of the German nation have found it possible to engage over ten millions of their seventy millions population in the direct prosecution of the war in the actual fighting forces, and in the production and transport of munitions and other requisites of war. We may put the ordinary working strength of Germany—the number, that is, following any occupation (the housewife’s duties excepted)—at from eighteen to twenty millions. We find, therefore, the remarkable spectacle in a capitalist country “organised for war,” of more than one half the working population (and the most physically efficient half at that) engaged in providing the forces and means for carrying on the conflict.

It is just this that has upset the calculations of the prophets. Plain soldiers, unhampered by economic theories and financial superstitions, knew that of the conditions essential to the carrying on of war, solvency was not one. Hence they made preparations “for three years or for the period of the war.” But the theorists have had a rude awakening. It comes as a surprise to them to find that while the ordinary processes of capitalism were suspended, and to the extent that they were suspended, bankruptcy was a word without significance. It comes as a shock to them to find that the country best organised for war is forced, when up against the military resources of the greater part of capitalist civilisation. can gain additional strength only by the wider abandonment of the principles of private enterprise, and the substitution therefor of organisation on a basis which, while far as the poles asunder from Socialism, contain this element in common with Socialism, that production for profit, with its wasteful competition, gives place to production for use, with its concomitant economical co-operation.

Thus is proved the Socialist contention that capitalist production, on normal capitalist lines, notwithstanding that such vast wealth results, is an insanely wasteful process. The very fact that the capitalists themselves are compelled at a time of stress to reject it in fields essential to the prosecution of the war speaks volumes. In this, when the war is finished, Socialist propagandists will find a powerful object-lesson to put before their fellow-workers.

It is more than possible that the war will provide even more important lessons for the working class than any here outlined so far. We all know how much the governments of the “quadruple entente” are building upon a revolt among the working class of the “enemy” countries. The contingency is not by any means remote, since it might suit the book of the Teuton mili­tarists, should they be unable to stave off defeat in the field, as well as it would suit the purpose of our own masters and their allies. We should then probably see the erstwhile capitalist foes united in a bloody suppression having for its object the striking with terror anew the working class of the world.

But for the moment the lessons of the war are these: Firstly, that the evolution of capitalism, so far from freeing us from the bloody violence alleged to attach to savage existence, tends to make wars more colossal as the improvement in the means of production sets free a larger proportion of the workers for war, and more cruel as the conquests of science place new means of butchery at the disposal of our respective masters. Secondly, the war demonstrates how small a proportion of the energy of any community, with modern instrument of labour, suffices to supply the necessaries of life for the whole. Thirdly, the war reveals that private enterprise and production for profit, so long and so sternly condemned by all Socialists, is not good enough even for the capitalists when the exigencies of a vital war make it imperative for them to make the most of their resources.

These lessons of the war will go far in the hands of those who have taken up the Socialist position, when the butchers shall have decided their quarrel by the old test seeing who can pour out working-class blood the longest. They will, added to the grudging return which the capitalists of this country are already preparing for their disabled warriors, open eyes even that German bullets have rendered sightless forever. Then, with the utter wantonness of this colossal destruction of life revealed in the worsened conditions of those who are everywhere bearing the brunt of the fighting and the bulk of the suffering the working class—and with the many false friends of labour exposed and discredited for all time by their attitude during this crisis, the cause of the working class will flourish with vigour that will relieve and compensate for this dark and savage outrage upon our class.

A. E. Jacomb

Our case in brief. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

At such a time of appalling misery and waste of human life as the present, it may be useful to review again the claims of the Socialists, and to set out once more the means by which they propose to reach their goal. The writer has nothing new to tell—nothing at all that he has not said many times over in these columns. Nor can he hope to say it in a different way from which he has said it all before. But the message must be repeated again and yet again, though the messenger grows sick at heart. Conditions are always changing, if the message is not, and therein lies hope sufficient for the day.

Socialists claim that human happiness rests primarily upon the security and sufficiency of the necessaries of life—food, clothing, and shelter They do not say that there are no other sources of happiness, or that security and plenitude in these things must necessarily banish all unhappiness. What they contend is that these material things are the basis of human happiness viewed generally, just as they are the basis of human life itself.

Socialists maintain that the wealth produced at the present day is sufficient to afford ample of the necessaries of life to every man, woman, and child in the community, while the means at the command of society are sufficient to enable that wealth to be produced by the expenditure of a comparatively small amount of the time and effort by which the working class gain their meagre livelihood to-day.

The first of these contentious, namely, that human happiness depends primarily upon the means of living, hardly needs any enlarging upon at this time of day. Everybody understands, even if he had never thought seriously about it before, that before one can have any experience at all, happy or otherwise ; before one can think or act or desire, one must eat—for the simple reason that every organic activity results from the consumption of food, from this to the proposition, that lack of the means of subsistence is bound to cause physical distress and, in highly sentient beings such as man, mental distress also, is a logical step. This physical and mental distress, which, where it exists and in proportion as it exists inevitably undermine all happiness, can only be banished by giving sufficiency of and security in the means of subsistence.

Now as to the amount of wealth which is produced today, let us take the evidence of the opponents of Socialism. Mr. Chiozza Money, the Liberal M.P., an accredited capitalist statisti­cian, estimated the national income in the year 1904 at £1,710,000,000. and he says in his book “Riches and Poverty” (page 29), “if the income the nation were equally distributed amongst its inhabitants a family of five persons would enjoy an income of about £200 per annum.” It is seen, then, that sufficient wealth is produced to afford ample means of subsistence to all.

It must, of course, be granted that much of the wealth produced to-day takes a form which would be useless in a society where the products of labour were equally enjoyed by all, but as all this wealth is simply nature-given material to which human labour has been applied, either to change its from (as in the case of cannon) or to change its position (as in the case of coal), or to change both form and position, as in the case of most things, it would be the simplest of matters to direct all labour into channels, and turn all useful materials into forms, which would contribute to the end in view.

Is it true that the means which we possess for producing wealth to-day are sufficiently developed to enable us to maintain the present output of wealth with the expenditure of far less time and energy per head of the able-bodied population than the working-class bread-winner of to-day has to give, on the average, to the gaining of his livelihood ? To commence with, think what happens to every commodity which is produced before it becomes available to fulfil the function for which human toil has fitted it— that is, before it can be consumed. It has to be sold, and perhaps sold several times. It is, in fact, produced in order be sold, not in order to be used though unless it was capable of being used it could not (except under false pretences) find a purchaser. This means that, an enormous number of clerks, travellers, salesmen, shopkeepers, and others too numerous to mention must be maintained in labour which adds not one iota to the wealth which is produced. According to the Census returns of 1901 there were 504,294 commercial travellers and commercial and business clerks engaged in this useless labour in the United Kingdom—apart from thousands of other clerks and touts, such as those employed by lawyers, political and other organisations, for example. How many shop-assistants are wasting their time waiting for customers who do not come ? How many baker’s and butcher’s carts chase each other over the same ground ? How many canvassers, agents, and house-to-house distributors swarm the streets ? And all this because goods must be sold when they are completed, instead of then being immediately available for consumption.

And as goods are produced under the present system only to be sold, so they are only produced while they can be sold. Hence there is at all times an immense army of workers unable to find employment because there is not sufficient sale for the sort of goods they are producers and distributors of. In the year when the stupendous amount of wealth mentioned by Mr. Money was produced the “percentage of members of Trade Unions making returns who were out of employment was 6.8” (“Statistical Memoranda,” Cd 4671, Local Govt. Board). It is generally admitted that the unorganised trades would show an even larger unemployment percentage, but this figure applied over the whole field would give about a million workers in the country in enforced idleness.

Then even before the war there were in the Army, Navy, Police force and Prison staffs, the very pick and flower of the race another half-a-million men adding nothing to the wealth of community, while 50,000 parson “labour” but to keep us in the land of nod.

Everywhere around us we find energy wasted, from the railway ticket-collector and the ‘bus company’s spy to the jeweller setting diamonds in the collar of her ladyship’s Pekinese pup and the flunkey buttoning up his dilettante master’s breeches. And on top of all this there is that great group of the master class, to the number of about 5,000,000, who produce nothing, and who would, if they contributed workers in the same ratio as the working class, add another 2,000,000 to those available for production.

These figures, even if they may be disputed on the matter of strict accuracy, are sufficient to show that society has means to hand to produce vastly more wealth than is at present produced with the same average expenditure of time and toil which the members of the working class who are in employment render for their bare, miserable subsistence, or the same amount with far smaller average expenditure of time and effort. But we must find a method by which all these idlers, compulsory or voluntary, shall be brought into production, and all these workers whose efforts are directed into wrong channels shall become fruitful in their labours.

* * *

Before we go any further let us make up our minds for the wholesale destruction of preconceived notions, it is quite apparent that, the enormous waste of human labour entailed, in the selling of all the products of man’s industry cannot be eliminated by anything short of the abolition of sale and therefor of production for sale. Nor can unemployment be abolished, it is equally evident, until men’s employment ceases to be dependent upon the sale of the goods they produce—which again means that production for sale must go. And again, it is quite certain that we shall have to have a very different set of social conditions and a very different distribution of social power before those idlers, the master class, can be brought into production and distribution, and compelled to contribute their share to the common labour fund, in return for the food they eat, the clothes they wear, and the houses they live in. So it is plain that the method we are looking for must involve very great changes in our social structure, and that before we can accept, such changes many of the ideas current among us to-day, and many of our common ways of looking at things, must go into the melting-pot together.

* * *

Why do working-class men and women have to sell their strength and skill (commonly but wrongly called their “labour”) to the masters for wages or salary ?

Because the masters own and control all the means by which people to-day can produce the things by which they live…..that is, all the land, mines, factories, machinery, raw material, railways, ships, and so on.

Why do the masters not have to sell their strength and skill, or, indeed, why do they not have to work at all, in order to live ?

Because they own the means and instruments by which all wealth is produced and distributed, and owning these things, own also the wealth which is produced with their aid.

Why are there at all times many workers who are unable to get employment ?

Because the goods in the production of which they seek employment are only produced for sale and when such goods cannot be sold the owners of the means of production will not employ workers to produce them,

Why will not the owner of these means of production employ workers to produce goods which cannot be sold ?

Because, firstly, in order to maintain himself in the position of property-owner (that is, to keep solvent) he must pay his way, which he can only do by turning the wealth his employees produce into money, or in other words, by selling it ; secondly, in order to live without himself producing wealth the employer must secure that produced by others (his employees). But as he cannot satisfy his needs with the actual goods his employees produce, any more than he can pay his debts with them, again he must sell them. And if he cannot sell them he could [not] continue to stand the expense of their production.

It is seen how all these things have their root in the basic condition—the private ownership by a class of the means and instruments of production and distribution. Clearly, then, private ownership in these things—in all things which are necessary for the sustenance and well-being of mankind, in fact—must go.

That, in brief, is the Socialist remedy. Private ownership in the instruments of labour and the raw material, in the land, mines, factories, machinery, railways, canals, ships, and the like of all these things, must cease. They must become the property of the whole community, and be controlled and operated by the whole community. Can anything be simpler than that?

Socialism, after all, is very simple. There is never any need to wrap it up in hard terms. It is just a social system based upon the common ownership of the means of living, as the present social system—capitalism-is based upon the private ownership of these things.

In a future issue it will be shown what will follow from the changed property condition.

A. E. Jacomb