Debate on Industrial Unionism. (1906)

Party News from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Is the Industrial Workers of the World worthy the support of the working class?” was the subject of debate between G. Geis, S.L.P. (affirmative) and J. Fitzgerald, S.P.G.B. (negative) on Peckham Rye on Sunday evening, August 12th. W. Russell, S.P.G.B., acted as. Chairman.

Geis, in opening, corrected a remark by the chairman in which he suggested that the I.W.W. owed its origin to the S.L.P. The I.W.W. was not formed by, nor was it in any way under the control of the S.L.P., or any political organisation whatsoever. With regard to the question in debate, he had first to call attention to the object of the capitalist method of production, which was the extraction of surplus value from the working class. Hence arose the class struggle—on the part of the capitalist class to take from the workers as much as possible of the wealth that was alone produced by labour, and on the part of the working class to resist such exploitation. In the early period of capitalism the organisations formed by the workers were capable of fighting the small and unorganised capitalists with comparative success. Since that time the power of capital had developed enormously ; at the present time the capitalist class was well organised economically and politically, whereas the working class was not well organised in either respect. Indeed, trade unionism, instead of adapting itself to changing conditions, had remained in its babyhood, so to speak. It was now necessary for the workers to organise industrially on the basis of the class struggle. Craft unionism was played out and incapable either of offering resistance to, or advancing against the exploiting class. The outcome of craft unionism was well exemplified in the observations of a recent deputation of German working men to this country—a deputation, it should be noted, by no means revolutionary, but composed of persons eminently respectable, orthodox, and capitalistic. They commented most unfavourably on the uncleanly and unkempt appearance of British working people, and on their social and domestic condition generally. They were especially impressed, however, with the good understanding which existed between employers and employed. This, in their opinion, was an achievement due to the fine diplomatic spirit of the British race. Representatives of each side met, “and the employers got the men’s leaders to understand.” The function of the labour leader, commented Geis, was similar to that of the lightning-rod. The masters instructed the labour leaders, and the labour leaders instructed the men. The labour leaders, as accessories of the capitalist class, had their reward. The report of’ the delegation referred to was in fact an unintentional indictment of pure and simple trade unionism. The German delegates expressed the view that the big unions were anything but altruistic ; the skilled workers organised themselves in their own selfish interests, without any kind of regard for the welfare of the unskilled, the unorganised, and the unemployed. Geis pointed out that of a working population of 14,000,000 but 2,000,000 were at present organised. The higher wages and better conditions of the organised minority afforded no justification for the exclusiveness of craft unionism, for if the whole working class were organised the condition of all might be improved. As a commodity in the labour market the price of labour-power (wages) was regulated by supply and demand. The formation of a complete trust in the labour market, such as was implied in the form of industrial unionism he advocated, would force the condition of the working class infinitely higher ; the obstacle which prevented such a comprehensive industrial organisation was the job-trust, pure and simple trade unionism now existing. Apart from wresting from the capitalist class an ever increasing share of the product of labour, the mission of industrial unionism was to overthrow the capitalist system altogether, which was the logical and inevitable termination of the class struggle. In America, where the I.W.W. was a growing power, its main object was the overthrow of capitalism, but in the pursuit of that object it would incidentally raise wages and reduce the hours of labour. The purpose of the advocates of Industrial Unionism in this country was to start as soon as practicable a similar new organisation of the working class, for the existing craft unions, with their notions of the mutual relationship of employer and employed, and their exclusiveness and selfishness, were useless and irremediable. Geis then gave a number of examples of craft union action to show how the capitalist class took advantage of the sectional organisation of the working class, and how the sections fought and “scabbed” upon one another to their own detriment, and undoing. There could, he said, be no hope for the working class until it was organised, on the basis of the class struggle, in one vast world-wide organisation, co-extensive with capitalism itself, for the overthrow of the capitalist system. It was the duty of working men to understand the principles laid down by the advocates of Industrial Unionism, and by corresponding action to put an end to the unspeakable conditions under which they, the workers, could not be said to live, but merely existed.

Fitzgerald said he was, of course, in entire agreement with his opponent, regarding the necessity of complete economic organisation in the working class. In the capitalist system the workers did not own the wealth their labour produced : it accumulated in the ownership of the numerically small capitalist class ; the relationship of the two classes was, therefore, simply that of robber and robbed. The complete monopoly of the resources of production compelled the workers to sell their labour-power as merchandise to the capitalist class for wages, or in other words, for the bare cost of maintaining and reproducing their productive energies, according to various circumstances and conditions. Hence it became necessary from time to time for the workers to debate with the capitalists the price at which they would sell their labour-power, Necessarily, as the capitalist system developed they found themselves at an increasing disadvantage in their bargaining for subsistence. What Fourier had foreseen—namely, that competition would result in the combination of the competing parties—was surely being realised, and the workers were now confronted with a position in which the capitalist class was becoming smaller and increasingly powerful. For example, during the Engineers’ strike of 1898 eight firms practically dominated the steel industry ; since that time the number had been reduced to about four. Such concentration implied economy of management, especially in the reduction of the number of wage-workers. The promoters of the Milk Trust in America had estimated that when their scheme was in full operation they could dispense with the services of 11,000 “hands.” Again, when Allsopps, Salts, and the Burton Brewery Co. decided to combine, notices were given to a large number of the staff. It had been suggested that the craft form of unionism was responsible for unemployment and the helpless condition of the working class; on the contrary, Fitzgerald contended that no form of unionism—even Socialist unionism—could of itself materially or permanently improve their condition in the capitalist system, under which the application of every new scientific process to industry, or higher organisation, necessarily increased the number of the unemployed. The unions, as at present organised, it was true, by insisting on the payment of high initiation fees and subscriptions in times of crisis, had thereby forced large numbers out of their ranks ; they had unquestionably impaired their own effectiveness by increasing the number of the unorganised, who, driven by the whip of starvation, were used against them in periods of depression. Furthermore, until the workers recognised their class position, and so long as they did not realise the necessity of organising on a Socialist basis to overthrow the capitalist system, sectional differences and internal disorganisation would continue. There were certain delusions prevailing, however, regarding the Socialist basis of trade unions. The mere adoption of a Socialist preamble did not constitute a union a Socialist union. The Gas Workers’ Union and one of the Burnley Weavers’ unions had a Socialist preamble, but owing to the ignorance of the rank and file they had not expressed in action the principles by which they were supposed to be guided. In a Socialist union the members would clearly recognise that the overthrow of the capitalist system was only attainable by the united effort of the working class to wrest political authority from the capitalist class. Revolutionary political action was essential in a real Socialist union.

It had been claimed for the I.W.W. that it was a Socialist union. Like the craft unions just referred to, the I.W.W. did not call itself Socialist, nor did its members exhibit any clearer understanding of Socialist aims than the “pure and simple” unionists they condemned. The I.W.W. was not, in fact, a Socialist union at all. “We must not overlook the fact,” said delegate Klemensic at the first Convention of the I.W.W. at Chicago, “that we are here as working men, and as such we do not recognise the Socialist, the Anarchist, or any other kind of ‘ist.'” This expression of opinion drew no protest from De Leon, nor from any other members of the Socialist Labour Party or Socialist Trades and Labour Alliance who were present. When Keir Hardie, at Darncrook, Newcastle, had stated that the Labour Party was not out for Toryism. Liberalism, or Socialism, but for Labourism, the Socialist Party of Great Britain had not hesitated to condemn his attitude. What distinction could be drawn between the positions taken respectively by Klemensic and Keir Hardie ? Moreover, the Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World contained a remarkable contradiction as follows:

“Between these two classes a struggle must go on until all the workers come together on the political as well as on the industrial field, and take and hold that which they produce by their labour through an economic organisation of the working class without affiliation with any political party.”

How could they come together on the political field if they were kept apart by non-affiliation ? Naturally enough, a big battle raged over this clause in the Chicago Convention. Delegate Clarence Smith said:

“It seems to me that this paragraph of the Preamble particularly is intended, not to represent the principles and purposes of industrialism, but represents a toadyism to three different factions in this Convention, and I am opposed to this organisation toadying to any man or any faction of men. … It seems to me that this paragraph could not have been more involved or more confusing if it had been written by the platform committee of the Republican or Democratic Party. It seems to me as if the paragraph is intended to be toadying to the man who does not believe in politics at all, the pure and simple trade unionist as we have come to call him ; that it means a toadying to the Socialist, and also to the Anarchist, if you please. It seems to me that this paragraph is intended to be such that the supporter of this movement can point to it when talking to a pure and simple unionist and say ‘That is just what you want and expresses what you believe in.’ I believe it is intended to be such that a Socialist can be pointed to this platform with the statement that ‘This is Socialism.’ I believe it is intended to be such that an Anarchist can be confronted and told that ‘This means Anarchy as it is written right in this paragraph.’”

Delegate Murtaugh also made a statement which revealed a confusion of political elements in the I.W.W. which similarly characterizes craft unionism:

“It is useless for us here to attempt to disguise the fact that we have every shade of political opinion. We have the Socialists—I happen to be one of them—who believe that action in the political line is absolutely necessary. We have the Socialist, on the other hand, who is so near the Anarchist that he is beginning to think as the Anarchist does—that action along the political line is absolutely harmful instead of being useless.”

Thus within the I.W.W. according to Murtaugh, there were those who were prepared to repeat the old cry of “no politics in the trade unions.” There was a suggestion made at this Conference that no member of the I.W.W. should be allowed to accept nomination for office in a capitalist political party, whereupon Klemensic pointed out that this would conflict with the position of the Western Federation of Miners in Butte, Montana, where they formed part of the Republican party. Mr. Haggerty, the delegate of the Butte district of the Western Federation of Miners, made the following statement:

“It is true that back in the State of Montana we have a peculiar condition of things. Some five or six years ago I attended the convention of the state labour movement in the city of Helena in September, 1899. I went with the delegation from the organisation that sent me to this convention. It devolved upon that convention to go forth and organise what we knew as a political party. . . . After the party had been organised, capitalist parties commenced to lay plans to seize upon it. We found the Amalgamated Mining Company upon one side, and Senator Clark and F. A. Heinze upon the other, at war. There was an opportunity we could not miss. We seized upon the opportunity. Clark wanted to become a U.S. Senator, and F. A. Heinze wanted something else, and we knew it. I maintain that we did not go to them, but compelled them to come to us; but nevertheless there was a capitalist combination with a labour party, and hence it became capitalistic. We went to the polls and united our movement to theirs. Twelve men went to the legislative body from that county. In the division we got six of the twelve. We got the sheriff of the county, the coroner, and others. I was nominated for the office of county commissioner and was elected.”

Continuing, Fitzgerald pointed out that in Colorado two years ago the Western Federation of Miners had passed through an experience that threw our Featherstone shooting entirely in the shade. Yet at the following election they voted for a capitalist Governor in that state—and this was the organisation that claimed to be “the most radical and revolutionary in America,” and which formed the most important and powerful section of the Industrial Workers of the World. Obviously the elements composing the I.W.W. were indistinguishable from the “pure and simple” unionists represented at our Trade Union Congress ! One of the arguments used against craft unionism by the advocates of Industrial Unionism was that they excluded the unorganised by high initiation fees and subscriptions. But comparison of these charges made by a typical craft union like the Operative Bricklayers’ Society and those made by the I.W.W. was certainly not favourable to the latter. Thus the initiation fee of the I.W.W. was twice as large as that of the O.B.S., while the latter allowed 180 days’ subscriptions in arrear before exclusion, and the I.W.W. only 60, or one-third of that time, as shown by the Constitution and By-laws of the I.W.W. In action, therefore, it was also difficult to distinguish between the I.W.W. and “pure and simple” craft unionism.

[To be continued.]

Correspondence: The S.L.P. And the S.P.G.B. (1906)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gents.,—It is a fitting finish to the two years and more of cowards’ silence that a feeble, unsigned attempt has been made to explain the differences between the S.L.P. and the S.P. Anyone of average intelligence can easily see that the writer defeats his own object. To give a detailed history of the London “Impossiblists,” and to correct Mr. Jack Fitzgerald’s fables in full I should require an issue or more of your paper, therefore I shall simply point where he has mis-stated the truth, and, if my Party (the S.L.P.) are disposed to re-open the matter, I shall go fully into the matter in the columns of our Party Organ (The Socialist). If your readers obtain a copy of our paper for July, 1906, they will find therein a reply to some questions of Comrade E. J. B. Allen, a reply to some of the fiction circulated by Mr. Fitzgerald and others. There were several members of the S.D.F. in London who corresponded with our Scotch comrades ; and as the so-called London section was unorganised it would be interesting to know who gave Mr. Fitzgerald power to act as correspondent. Granted that Fitzgerald was asked, or took upon himself the task, of writing to London men to turn up to the joint Conference at “Cock and Hoop,” on Easter Sunday, 1903, that had nothing to do with his supposed official correspondence with our Scotch comrades after Friedberg had left this country. The London section (so-called) did not suggest that Anderson and MacGregor be invited to that Conference, and I don’t imagine for one minute that Anderson would have showed his face there if such an arrangement had been made. Fitzgerald and McNicol were not asked to tell Comrade Geis he was not wanted, and ask him not to turn up to Conference. But there, I see that Mr. Fitzgerald has forgotten to mention that fact. I might state here for the benefit of your readers that I was Chairman of that Meeting, and also elected Secretary of the London Section that really came into being in an organised manner that night, therefore I am competent to know what took place. Yates did not state “that they had been building up a new party during the last two years.” What Yates did say was “that they had built up an organised section during the last two years, consequently they had the necessary organisation to form a new party when necessary, and after the 1903 S.D.F. Conference that was the only thing they could do.” Elrick who also spoke said “that no self-respecting man could remain any longer in the S.D.F. He was in favour of a London Party affiliated to a Scotch Party.” Yates said he “did not want merely a Scotch Party but a party covering England, Scotland and Wales.” L. Cotton of Oxford also spoke for formation of a new party covering Great Britain and said we should not succeed as mere local societies. Matheson did the same. If Fitzgerald really believed the fables of Alexander Anderson why did he not bring the so-called charges against the Scotch section forward at that meeting. There was plenty of time after he had returned from seeing Matheson and Yates off at St. Pancras, and if necessary, we could have arranged for a meeting on Easter Monday. No ! Fitzgerald preferred to wait until the Scotch Delegates had returned before spreading his charges that have never been proved. His fable about De Leon and his actions at the Amsterdam Conference was refuted before De Leon came to London, and he could have put the question to De Leon at that meeting if he desired, but somehow he did not desire that. My information re De Leon and his credentials came from De Leon himself when I put to him the tale that I had heard from Elrick and that was being circulated among members of your Party. I believe that De Leon also dealt with the yarn in the “Post Box” of the Weekly People, but as I have lent my back copies of that paper I cannot say definitely. In conclusion I would point out one can prove anything by merely taking certain sentences out of a man’s speeches or writings. Mr. Fitzgerald has done this in his anonymous article (A Statement of Differences) and while it proves him to be a tricky debater it does not say much for his honesty of purpose.

—Yours etc.,

W. S. Jerman

Reply:

[We are sorry Mr. Jerman has preferred to prejudice his criticism of our article by an exhibition of bad manners that may well be taken as evidence of an ignorance—deplorable in a correspondent of the mere decencies of discussion. A case is not improved by random and entirely unsubstantiated charges of cowardice and deliberate misrepresentation; nor is it benefited by the laboured irony of, for example, the suggestion that to anyone of average intelligence, our article defeats its own object. Mr. Jerman, of course, does not himself believe that or he would not have been at such pains to endeavour to defeat what had already been defeated. Irony is a two-edged weapon which may only be handled by the literary tyro at the imminent risk of damage to himself.

That Mr. Jerman is a tyro is clear from the fact that he does not understand that unsigned articles are always editorial. The article in question is from the E.C. of the S.P.G.B., not, as Mr. Jerman so hastily concludes, from our Comrade Fitzgerald writing anonymously.

As, however, Mr. Jerman’s letter largely consists of personal references to Fitzgerald, we have asked our comrade for his comments upon the points raised and append his notes. To those notes we have nothing to add except, in all friendliness, to suggest to Mr. Jerman the advisability of seriously endeavouring to free himself from the limitations of a vocabulary and the heavy handicap of a literary style which are not better but worse for having been imported from America and imperfectively transmitted to us through a sadly defective Scottish gramaphone.—ED.]

A careful comparison of Mr. Jermau’s letter with the article mentioned will, I think, render anything in the nature of an extended reply unnecessary. For Mr. Jerman’s benefit, however, and as my name is so frequently mentioned, I will briefly deal with the points he attempts to raise.

1. He asks “who gave Fitzgerald power to act as correspondent ?” As mentioned in the article, and as Mr. Jerman well knew, when Friedberg, who was the recognised correspondent of the section, left England he handed that business over to myself.

2. Mr. Jerman says “the London section did not suggest that Anderson and McGregor be invited to meeting.” Quite true, as a section, but several members made the suggestion, as Mr. Jerman was aware.

3. As the question of Mr. Geis is not raised in the article Jerman’s remarks are entirely gratuitous. I asked Geis to stay away on my own responsibility as he was not a member of the S.D.F. at the time and he promised to do so but broke that promise and came to the meeting place.

4. It is true that Mr. Jerman was chairman of the meeting but there was no secretary, nor were any minutes taken at that meeting. He was appointed secretary to the committee elected to receive information from Scotland and is, therefore, in no better position to speak of what occurred at that meeting than any other member present. His attempted quibble about the words “organised section” as against “New Party” for what difference there may be in them can be refuted by the evidence of several others attending the meeting besides myself, but it is best met by the fact that at the next meeting of the London section held at the “Hope” Coffee Tavern when I repeated the statement now disputed Mr. Jerman did not deny or in any way question that the words “New Party” had been used by Yates.

5. Mr. Jerman’s next point re. Anderson’s fables would be charming in its naivete were it not so clumsy an attempt to avoid an awkward point. Nowhere in the article is anything said about “Anderson’s charges.” What is said is that it was the Scotchmen who made the charges against Anderson and then refused to meet or face the man they charged and this also Mr. Jerman knew well. The only occasion upon which Anderson’s name is used is on the point of forming a New Party behind our backs which Mr. Jerman admits when he says that they (the Scotchmen) “had an organisation ready” and which is fully admitted by J. C. Matheson in the September issue of the Socialist. Moreover, if Mr. Jerman was so convinced on these points it is a wonder he did not at once join the London Branch of the S.L.P. instead of waiting several months, before doing so.

6. Regarding De Leon’s position at Amsterdam, why did Mr. Jerman ignore the points made in the article and try to shuffle out of it by saying he spoke to De Leon himself ? Why at the London Meeting did he not bring the matter up while I was speaking to De Leon as he was leaving the Hall ? Mr. Jerman will, I think, find the points in the article are posers enough for him to answer—whenever he makes a genuine attempt to do so.

Jack Fitzgerald

Editorial: The Parliament of Labour. (1906)

Editorial from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Union Congress has met; has been welcomed and sped by his worshipful the Mayor; has endured its presidential address ; has passed dozens of resolutions, has attended innumerable functions ; has, in short, done all those things it was expected to do after the fashion of Trade Union Congresses from time immemorial, and has passed into the limbo of forgotten things. It leaves behind it the record of a welter of words clothing ideas mainly feeble, fatuous and fallacious, and—that is all ! It was the strongest Congress that had ever met but that only seems to have added to the hub-bub. It was presided over, we are told, by a keen, business-like chairman who would stand no nonsense, but that did not save it from mediocrity. It is alleged to have been well in advance of the Congresses that foreran it but only the eye of faith could discern the difference and we do not possess such an eye.

To us there was little indeed in the Congress that could move, and nothing at all that could enthuse us. The chairman’s references to unemployment epitomised the mental darkness and confusion in which most of those attending seemed to be, not only upon this but upon most other working-class questions. To talk at this time o’day of the causes of and remedies for the unemployed problem being manifold and of a personal as well as an impersonal character is simply grotesque, so much so that we cannot conceive of anyone who has given more than half an hour’s serious study to the subject talking such palpable nonsense except with tongue in cheek. Unemployment has its root solely in the private ownership of the means of life and the consequent reduction of labour-power to the character of a commodity on the market, purchasable only when profit can be derived from it. The remedy lies solely in the break-down of such private ownership and the organisation of industry upon the basis of common ownership in the means of life and common participation in the product of Labour.

Business Done—None !

The depressing part of such Congresses to us consists in reflections upon the might-have-beens. Much a gathering of delegates could, if only they represented class conscious constituencies, have sent reverberating round the world a message of encouragement and inspiration and class solidarity to the workers of all countries that would have carried dismay and confusion into the camps of Capital. But the constituencies are not class conscious and, as we pointed out in our last issue, those who stand as their mouthpieces and champions, are in the main either as ignorant as their following or are apparently less concerned with working-class advancement than with advancement of a more intimate and personal character. And so the watcher on the tower of the enemy’s encampment has gone to sleep again. The time for an alarm he can see is not yet. The day when Capital will be called upon to rally all its forces to the defence of its ditches is still to dawn.

We are doing our part to educate our class to a knowledge of their position and of the means whereby that position may be freed of its insecurity and unhappiness and made to ensure a comfort and a joy in living, unknown to the workers as a class to-day. We are doing all we can to marshal their strength in battle array against the powers of the capitalist class already organised and entrenched and fully class conscious. Our work is rendered the more difficult by the obstacles which the ignorance and the knavery of working-class leaders continue to dump in the path of our progress. But we proceed with our purpose quite confident that in the result our class will rally to the banner which we bear aloft and which, alone of the parties claiming working-class support in England, we steadfastly refuse to lower on any pretext or consideration whatever. And then the Trades Congresses or their equivalent will not fritter away their time and opportunity in long and weary discussion upon the practicability or otherwise of demanding a 30s. minimum wage or some other doleful product of the brain of the half-loafer. Half loaves will then fail to attract. Congress will be satisfied with nothing short of the whole baker’s shop and will see that it gets it.

Until then Trade Union Congresses will continue to afford a little mild excitement annually to the attending delegates who regard such gatherings generally as in the nature of bean-feasts; they may provide the capitalist Press with a little light “copy” ; they may even succeed in whipping up a little interest in their proceedings among the membership of the contributing societies. But the net results so far as real working-class interests are concerned, will, we fear, be summarised in the heading which we have set over this note.

Declined with thanks. (1906)

Party News from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why the West Ham Branch Could Not Join the Local “Labour” Party

West Ham & District Trades & Labour District, Town Hall, West Ham.

19th July, 1906.

Dear Sir,—The following resolution was passed by my Council at their last meeting :

“That the Trades Council convene a Conference representative of all Trade Union Branches and Socialist Organisations in the Borough for the purpose of forming a local Labour Party on the lines of the National Labour Party. The Conference to consist of two delegates from the Trades Council, two delegates from each Trade Union Branch affiliated and unaffiliated, two delegates from each of the Socialist Organisations, viz., S.D.F., I.L.P., S.P.G.B., and Socialist League.”

Your Branch are therefore invited to appoint two delegates to attend the Conference, which will be held in the second week in August.

I shall be glad if you will let me know at your earliest convenience if your Branch are prepared to take part in the Conference, together with the names and addresses of your two delegates in order that I may send them date, time and place of Meeting.

Yours fraternally,

J. Gilbey, Secretary.

________________

447, Katherine Rd., Manor Park,

29 August, 1906.

Dear Sir,—I have to transmit the following resolution passed by the W. H. Br., S.P.G.B. at its last meeting in reply to yours of 19th July last, asking us to send delegates to a meeting convened by the W.H. & D.T. & L.C. with the object of forming a local Labour Party on the lines of the National Labour Party, to which invitation I promised in my note of 14 Aug. a reply as soon as the Branch had time to fully consider the matter.

Your obedient servant,

G. C. H. Carter, Br. Sec.

J. Gilbey, Esq., Sec. W.H. & D.T. & L.C.

________________

RESOLUTION.

That we, the members of the West Ham Br. S.P.G.B., having considered the invitation of 19th July last by the W.H. & D.T. & L.C. to send delegates to a meeting convened by that body for the purpose of forming a “local Labour Party on the lines of the National Labour Party,” wish to make clear the reasons which compel us to decline taking such action.

As a loyal branch of the S.P.G.B., whose declared object is the establishment of a system of Society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, we are not only unable to work with, but are distinctly hostile to, any party on the political field, such as the L.R.C., or any local party on its lines, whose aims, objects, and methods are so opposite to ours.

We have re-read the reports of the Conferences of the L.R.C., and are more convinced than ever of the confusion existing in the minds of those initiating the establishment of that political party. Take for instance Resolution 1 of the first (1900) meeting (which was an amendment to a motion in favour of the working class being represented in the House of Commons by members of their own class) seconded by John Burns, M.P. in a speech during which that (now Rt. Hon.) gentleman stated that “he believed they should consider parties and policies apart from class organisations.” These members of class organisations (Trade Unions, &c.) obediently detached themselves from their class, negated their class organisations and by a majority of 102 to 3 resolved that “the working class should be represented in the House of Commons by men sympathetic with the aims and demands of the Labour movements.”

Again, the motion by James MacDonald of the S.D.F. endeavouring to place the Party on the only true working-class basis of the Class War was negated by these working-class representatives by 59 to 35, Sexton saying “it was very magnificent, it was very heroic, but it was not war. . . . The resolution was reviving a spirit responsible for more recrimination than anything else in the Labour movement. . . . He was in favour of the spirit of the resolution and would vote for it anywhere but there.”

Coming to the Darn Crook Conference of 1903 we find they have got the length of an “object,” viz., “a group in Parliament with whips and its own policy on Labour questions.” J. N. Bell, the chairman at that Conference, points out in his speech the danger to Trade Union funds by process of law, the aggressive attitude of British Capitalism, the development of Shipping Rings, Trusts, and other American inventions, the Housing Question, Old Age Pensions, Unemployment, etc., and goes on to say “if some years ago straight-forward and satisfactory statements had been given on some of these questions it is possible that such a gathering as the present might not have been necessary.”

Considering this speech in connection with the “object” (a Party with whips, etc.) we consider the S.P. of G.B. is justified in stating (as it does in its “Manifesto” p.7) “The L.R.C. came into existence chiefly, as far as the rank and file of the Unions were concerned, owing to the Taff Vale and Quinn v. Leathem decisions, and, as far as the Trade Union officials were concerned, because they saw the chance of Parliamentary jobs.”

There is much more of interest and instruction in this (1903) Report, especially when read in the light of subsequent history. Take two statements by two typical men, at almost two opposite poles of the “Labour movement” :

John Ward (now Lib.-Lab. M.P.) says “they wanted to get their feet well planted in the House of Commons and he believed they would not be particular about the way in which they did it.” Keir Hardie (Lab. M.P.) is reported as saying, “they should be neither Socialists, Liberals, nor Tories but a Labour Party,” and we find the space between these two poles filled in with a mixture in varying proportions of the two ideas.

At the Liverpool Conference of 1905 we find the L.R.C. (your model), have arrived not merely at an “object” (a party with whips) but have, from the Nebo heights to which they have been led, descried in the telescopic distance an “ultimate object.” This “ultimate object” is too far off, however, to be clearly seen, much less understood, even by the seers of the Party, if we may judge by a statement over the signatures of some of them, from Burns and Bell on the one hand to Ramsay MacDonald and Keir Hardie on the other. We find in the United Labour Manifesto against Chamberlainism signed, among others, by those gentlemen, it is stated, “Protection would limit the power of the Trade Unions to improve the condition of the wage-earners” and then they go on to state as counter proposals, “we appeal to the workers of the country to support us in a campaign which will benefit the industrious classes by increasing National efficiency and securing a substantial reduction in the cost of production.”

How could the condition of the wage-earners be improved by the cheapening of production or by efficiency? By cheapening production you cheapen commodities including labour-power, i.e., you lower money-wages leaving real wages as before. Where then is the improvement ? Further, not only is there no improvement in the condition of the workers employed, but the aggregate wages of the working class are lowered by the increase in the number of the unemployed : the inevitable result of efficiency under capitalism.

If these prophets of Labour, instead of passing pious resolutions in favour of ultimate Socialism which they appear neither to believe nor understand, would turn their attention to immediate common sense, not to say anything so advanced as logic or economics, they might ultimately become less purblind leaders of the blind, though certainly not so successful political tricksters.

During the General Election campaign not only did their “ultimate Socialism” become so very ultimate as to be unworthy of serious mention, but their boasted independence, that terribly extreme policy which prevented Steadman, one of their founders, from signing their declaration, also became so “ultimate” as to be unavailable for immediate use.

We were informed by the Daily News of 10th Jan., 1906, that “Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. H. Broadhurst on separate platforms are urging that electors should not plump but allocate their votes to the two Progressives.” This was confirmed after the election by the local papers in which Mr. Broadhurst is reported to have said, “he was proud of the Liberal Party and of the Labour Party of Leicester who had brought about this great triumph. Liberalism and Labour had known no difference. . . This was what they did when they had confidence in each other.” Mr. J. R. MacDonald is reported as saying that “there was one significant fact about the contest. Practically every voter of the 14,000 had polled Broadhurst and MacDonald. The plumping had been insignificant. . . owing to the crises—the crisis to Trade Unionism and the crisis to industry they had co-operated on these specific and definite points to kill the late government and prevent things going from bad to worse.” “Hurrah! for Liberalism and Labour !” says Broadhurst. “Hurrah ! for Labour and Liberalism!” says MacDonald. “Hurrah! for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the independence of Tweedledum !” say we.

It sounds like the language of two separate sections of the same Trust with two different local names professing independence and excusing the similarity of their language by a crisis common to both. MacDonald was no more independent of Broadhurst than Liberalism was of “Labour.” There was no independence on either side.

Whatever pious resolutions the L.R.C. may pass in favour of ultimate Socialism, independence, etc., the language and actions of their members point to a stronger belief in Lib.-Lab-ism if not ultimate Liberalism.

Their professed independence which at its best has about the same relation to even an “ultimate” Socialist attitude to other political parties as the Zulu cotton-thread-on-sticks magic had to the English Field-telegraph has been illustrated locally by Will Crooks and Will Thorne. Both these gentlemen, as you no doubt recollect, supported an ostensibly Free Trade meeting in Stratford (really got up to support the candidature of its chairman Masterman). Thorne by letter wishing it success, and excusing himself from attendance on account of a prior engagement. Crooks by a speech during which he alluded to Mr. Masterman as “your member.”

During the General Election, perhaps to demonstrate principles held by company kept, or it may be to illustrate the proverb, “birds of a feather,” Crooks and Thorne, flanked by Passmore Edwards and G. Cadbury, appear as supporters of the Liberal Percy Alden in the company of Buxton, Gladstone, Burns, and Asquith. Crooks and Thorne are local members of the National Party on whose lines you propose forming, or perhaps ere now have formed, a local party.

Should any professed Socialists not understanding the principles of Socialism be tempted to join and, from the Local Party following too closely the “lines” of the National Party, find themselves compelled to withdraw, it may be as well they should know the treatment meted out by the secretary of the National Party to the S.D.F. on their retirement.

In the International Socialist Review of June, 1903, Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald writes: “Two years ago the S.D.F. ceased to co-operate because it alleged the Committee was not receiving sufficient support from the Trade Unions. . . . The I.L.P. will support such movements in spite of a handful of more timorous and dogmatic Socialists.”

In short, even were we not prevented by our principles and policy from voluntarily associating ourselves with any un-class-conscious political action such as you propose, a statement like the above from the point of view of tactics alone would prove sufficient deterrent.

Even supposing ourselves destitute not only of principles and policy but of political experience or aptitude, we could take warning as to the folly of compromise from part of the chairman’s speech at the L.R.C. Conference of 1903. He said (Report, p. 22) : “The path of compromise is often alluring, and the path of principle is nearly always difficult to tread, but in deciding which way we shall take we cannot afford to forget that by following principle we are certain that it leads, however slowly, to the object we wish to attain, while compromise may lead us there, but may also lead us in a hundred other directions,”

While thanking you for your invitation, which, however, we are convinced must have been sent in utter ignorance or misunderstanding of the principles of the S.P.G.B., we would invite the attention of your members to some of the literature published by our Party, notably the “Manifesto,” and the Socialist Standard, 1d. monthly (28, Cursitor St., E.C.) which in every copy up to the present one contains the “Object and Declaration of Principles.”

Yours faithfully,

G. C. H. Carter, Br. Sec.

The Economic Basis of Morality. (1906)

From the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

As all the advantages of the rearing of animals come to be realised, the savage “pack” gradually changes into a society of shepherds or herdsmen, in which the men are engaged in tending cattle, sheep, or goats, while to the women fall the subordinate offices of spinning the wool, milking the cows and goats, and making the butter and cheese. The men drive the flocks to pasture and water, regulate the breeding, guard the folds against enemies, decide which of the animals shall be killed for food, and break in the beasts of burden.

But in these pastoral pursuits it gradually becomes apparent to the men that labour is a valuable thing. A man who has been very successful in cattle-rearing requires a number of “hands” to keep his herds in order. Besides the domestic labour performed by women, he requires the outdoor labour of men, to prevent the cattle from straying or being stolen, to drive them to pasture in the morning and bring them back at night. To this demand for labour we probably owe two of the great institutions of the pastoral age : permanent marriage and slavery. There is really, as we shall see, nothing out of place in taking these two together, odd as the connection may sound to modern ears.

Permanent marriage is one of the essential features of patriarchal society. By superficial writers, its appearance is often attributed to some vague improvement in morality or taste. Unhappily, the facts point to a much less exalted origin, viz., the desire of the man to secure for himself exclusively the labour of the woman and her offspring. If the change had come about from exalted ideas of morality, we should probably have found two features in the new system (1) equality of numbers between the man and the woman ; (2) free consent to the marriage on both sides. It is notorious that just the opposite are the facts of the patriarchal system, at any rate at its earlier stages. Polygamy, or plurality of wives, is the rule; and while the husband is not at all particular about the conduct of his wife with other men, he is intensely strict about appropriating the whole of her labours ; and all her offspring, no matter who is the real father, belong to him. Again, the ancient forms of marriage, viz, marriage by capture and marriage by purchase, point irresistibly to the conclusion that the woman had little or no voice in the matter. In the case of marriage by capture, the husband carried off his wife by force from a neighbouring tribe ; and long after the reality of this practice has disappeared, it survives, as is well known, in a ficticious form all over the world. It is considered barely decent for the girl to come to the marriage without a show of force. Even in polite modern society the “best man” is said to be a survival of the friends who went with the bridegroom in ancient days to help him to carry off his bride, while the bridesmaids are the lady’s companions, who attempted to defend her from the audacious robber, and the wedding tour is a survival of the flight from the angry relatives of the bride. In the more peaceful form of marriage by purchase, the lady has become an article of marketable value, whose price is paid, usually in cattle or sheep, to her relatives or owners. It is a refinement of modern days that the “bride price” should be settled on the lady herself, or contributed in the form of marriage gifts, to stock the future home. In ancient times it was paid, if not in hard cash, at any rate in solid cattle, to the damsel’s relatives, who, by the marriage, lost the value of her services. Jacob, we know, paid for his wives by labour; but this was probably an exception. In patriarchal society, the father of a round dozen of strong and well-favoured daughters is a rich man.

Slavery arises from the practice of keeping alive captives taken in war, instead of putting them to death. In savage days wars are usually the result of scarcity of food, and result in the killing and eating of members of a stranger “pack.” But, with the increasing certainty of food supply, resulting among other benefits from pastoral pursuits, cannibalism becomes unnecessary, and captives are carefully kept alive in order that they may labour for their captors. It may sound odd to speak of slavery as a beneficent institution, but one of the first lessons which the student of history has to learn is that things which to us now seem very wicked may really have been at one time improvements on something much worse. Slavery is an ugly thing, but it is better than cannibalism. Again, however, we notice that the upward step was due, not to exalted morality, but to practical convenience. Morality is the result, not the cause, of social amelioration.

Edward Jenks, M.A., “A History of Politics.”

Correspondence in brief. (1906)

Letters to the Editors from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

H.P. writes that he recently visited Glasgow and Edinburgh. In the former town he found that 16 members of the S.L.P. out of a branch of 24 had left owing to the Party’s support of the I.W.W., and half the members of the Edinburgh branch had left for the same reason.

o o o

An S.D.F. member wants proof that W. Thorne M.P. has accepted the position of J.P. conferred on him by the capitalist class. We suggest that our correspondent write direct to Mr. Thorne, asking (1) whether he consented that his name should be submitted to the proper authorities for a J.P’ship ; (2) whether he has taken the oaths of office ; (3) whether he is now endeavouring to get his name struck off the roll of J. P’s ; and (4) whether this last endeavour is due, wholly or partly, to our criticism of his conduct,

o o o

East Ham I.L.P’er can find Mr. J. R. MacDonald’s speeches, referring to the Labour Party’s arrangement with the Liberals of Leicester at the General Election in the Leicester daily papers for January 6th and 16th last, and Mr. J. Parker’s arrangement with the Liberals at Halifax is admitted by Mr. M. J. Blatchford in the Halifax Guardian for January 20th.

Party Notes. (1906)

Party News from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Party Outing, at Watford, on Sept. 9th, was a great success ; so also was the meeting, held in the evening, in the Market Place.

***

Several members of the Islington Branch having been expelled, the branch is being reorganised, and any person living in the Islington district who is prepared to accept our Declaration of Principles is invited to communicate with C. H. Wilcox, 25, Mountgrove-road, Highbury, N.

***

A fresh supply of Party Emblems has been obtained, and can be procured by members from their Branch Secretaries.

***

No. 2., of the “S.P.G.B. Library,” “From Handicraft to Capitalism,” is selling well. Branches should push this at all their meetings.

***

The Delegate Meeting will be held at the Communist Club, on Saturday, Oct. 27th., at 4.0 p.m. Branches should see that they are represented by their full quota of delegates.

***

Our Comrades at Battersea and Tooting are contesting the local elections in their respective districts. The Election Address on which the candidates will run is a fitting answer to those alleged Socialists who say that we must adopt a palliative programme when we contest municipal elections.

***

To-morrow (Sunday, Oct. 7th) a debate will take place, in Finsbury-Park, at 3.30 p.m., between Mr. .J. Davis (Liberal) and A. Anderson (S.P.G.B.) Meetings every Sunday at 3 p.m.

***

On Friday, Oct. 26th, at 8 p.m., the Peckham Branch will commence a series of meetings in the Public Hall, Rye-Lane.

On that evening J. Kent will speak on “The S.P.G.B. and Municipal Elections.”

***

Open-air meetings will be held during October at the usual stations if the weather permits.

***

During October the following meetings will be held in Manchester :—Sundays, 11.30, corner of Tib-street and Piccadilly; 7.30, Trafford Broadway ; Mondays, 8.15, corner of Russell-st. and Stretford-rd.; Tuesdays, 8.15, corner of Liverpool-st. and Trafford Bridge-rd.; Wednesdays, 8.15, corner of Medlock-street and Trafford-road ; corner of Russel-street and Fridays, 8.15., Trafford-Road.

***

Battersea branch will run a special series of out-door meetings this month. Every Tuesday and Friday evening at Prince’s Head ; every Wednesday evening at Battersea Square ; every Thursday evening at Plough Road. T. W. Allen, J. Fitzgerald, T. A. Jackson, J. Crump, F. E. Dawkins, H. Newman, and our municipal candidates will be among the speakers.

***

Tooting also will hold meetings in The Broadway every Sunday. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday evening to advance the course of their municipal candidates.

W. G.

Blogger's Notes:

Gilbert McClatchie ('Gilmac'), who was not a member of the SPGB in 1906, (he joined in 1910) wrote a historical article in the August 1954 issue of Socialist Standard on the 'Islington Dispute' mentioned above in the Party Notes. It mentions at the bottom of that 1954 article that the article was "to be continued". It wasn't.

Some publications. (1906)

From the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the second of the two sixpenny parts in which Messrs. Watts are issuing Professor Haeckel’s “The Evolution of Man.” This is an even more remarkably cheap production than the first, as it covers 192 pages, contains 199 illustrations, and is furnished with an index and a new portrait of the author. The two parts can now be obtained in one well-bound cloth volume at 2/- net.

Also in “Cheap Reprint” form, Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man,” edited by Mrs. H. Bradlaugh Bonner, and “Religions Persecution : A Study in Political Psychology,” by E. S. P.

Messrs. Watts & Co.. the publishers, inform us they are issuing in the same form “The New Scientific System of Morality,” by G. Gore. F.R.S., and “The Cultivation of Man,” by C. A. Witchell.

A gem from Justice. (1906)

From the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Trade Union Congress of 1906 will remain long in my memory having brought me in touch with a set of earnest comrades whose economic basis is absolutely sound” !

By which we are reminded of that little knowledge which is proverbially dangerous.

Voice From The Back: Coal, steel and blood (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Coal, steel and blood

For generations apologists for capitalism have churned out the lie that modern war is caused by different ideologies. We have been told that the First World War was a war against militarism and the Second was a war for democracy against fascism. The socialist view is that war is the logical outcome of economic rivalry and now one of the pillars of capitalism confirms our view, inadvertently while he discourses on another subject. As Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, the Italian economist who is now a major influence at the European Central Bank, has written: “It can hardly be denied that establishing joint supra-national management of coal and steel – the two fundamental natural resources of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over which France, Germany and the rest of Europe fought cruel wars was a highly political project.” Observer (9 December).

The cause of poverty

For almost a hundred years the Labour Party have argued that poverty can be abolished inside capitalism. Socialists have always argued that capitalism with its class divisions and production for profit is the cause of poverty. The latest figures on Labour’s failure to deal with poverty inside capitalism illustrate our point. “More families are classified as very poor now than under the last full year of Conservative government, according to new research. The number of people living in households with less than 40 per cent of the average income in 1999-2000 was 8.3 million, 100,000 more than in 1996-97, a study published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says.” Times (10 December).

Terror thugs and terrorist teachers

Under the heading “Terror thugs groom future suicide killers” The New York Post (11 December) reported that kids between 4 and 8 years of age were being taught how to be suicidal terrorists by the Palestine terrorist group Hamas. What they didn’t report is that the US government are also guilty of “robbing kids of their childhood”. “On another front, the Pentagon has succeeded in establishing its first Military Institute, as a public middle school in Oakland, CA. The school’s 1,200 cadets, whose average age is twelve, wear uniforms, perform military drills, and are instructed by military approved teachers.” (WWW.CITIZEN-SOLDIER.ORG).

Who needs the brain scan?

One of Labour’s election boasts was that it would improve the NHS, but what is the reality? “A medical scanner costing millions of pounds is being used to treat pets at an NHS hospital which does not have enough nurses to treat its patients . . . News of the animal treatment scheme comes as the Bedford Hospital Trust has warned it will have to close an operating theatre to avoid a £3 million deficit by the end of the financial year.” Observer (23 December). It is good news for well-heeled pet owners though. A London divorce lawyer was delighted that her 13-year-old poodle had a brain scan and prompt medical treatment at the hospital. This must be a great consolation to workers waiting for treatment on Labour’s new, “improved” NHS.

Inappropriate tears

After the horrendous events at the Twin Towers the outgoing Mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani talked about the site being devoted to a memorial to those killed. The new mayor Mike Bloomberg would now like to distance himself from such foolish, unelectable sentiments. “Mr Bloomberg all but ruled out using the whole site for a memorial. He said that the value of the 16 acre property and the demands of the area for jobs and businesses meant that it would be inappropriate to devote the whole of the space to a single monument.” Times (5 January). Sympathy, condolences and sentiment are all very well, but inside capitalism profit is the driving force, so let us not have inappropriate tears. Although as human beings, they are the only ones we’ve got. Nearly 3,000 human beings died that morning. We still cry, inappropriately, of course, at the madness of capitalism.

Scandal? What scandal?

Under the headline “Scandal of NHS beds auction” (Observer, 6 January) reported that more than 10,000 private patients were treated last year in the UK’s NHS hospitals. That these patients jumped the queue for treatment and cited the case of NHS patients having to wait six months to a year for a heart by-pass operation while for a fee of £15,000 “they can be operated on almost immediately by a surgeon of their choice”. So where is the scandal? Inside capitalism if you are poor you can be homeless, if you are rich you can live in a beautiful house. If poor you will probably get a sub-standard education, if rich you can get the best that money can buy. That is the way capitalism operates – if you can afford it you can buy the best medical treatment, if not get to the back of the queue.

This is progress?

All the slaughter, maiming and terror of the recent Afghanistan conflict was justified according to the Western press by the wonderful improvements in human rights in that country. A report in the Brussels newspaper (Le Soir, 19 December) would seem to indicate that this is far from the truth. “Public executions, stonings and amputations are going to continue in Afghanistan in accordance with the Sharia law, a top Afghan magistrate has stated, while promising more fairness and clemency than during the time of the Taliban. “For example, the Taliban used to hang the bodies of victims in public for four days”, the judge Ullah Zarif explained, “we will only expose them for a short time, say 15 minutes”. As for those guilty of adultery, they will certainly be stoned ‘but we will use smaller stones’, judge Zarif said.”

What’s behind the current strike wave? (2002)

From the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The media is desperate to discredit them, but what are the strikes by the railway and postal workers really about?

The media are trying to discredit the rail strikes by implying that it is just a cynical manoeuvre by rival pretenders to the crown of RMT general secretary. An internal TUC document was leaked to the London Evening Standard, in which one official opined that Bob Crow, the Leftist contender, “believes that strike action raises the class consciousness of the rank and file” (10 January), thus adding a “Red Scare” to their anti-striker arsenal. Unfortunately for the Evening Standard both they and “Red Bob” are wrong; workers do not go to the lengths of striking just to please machiavellian union bosses.

Sociologists studying unions have frequently commented upon how it is the type of industry that can determine the level of union organisation: the turnover in workers, the relations between workers in the workplace, the importance of an identifiable group of workers within the labour process.

Both the postal workers and the rail staff confirm this. They work in industries which involve mass co-operative human labour (relations in the workplace), which are technical enough to prevent them being easily casualised (turnover of staff), and which are social monopolies (key industries) which work stoppages are able to immediately shut down (being services, rather than commodity producing industries). Such factors put workers in a stronger bargaining position, which has itself caused the assaults on working conditions which have provoked the current wave of industrial struggles in reaction.

It is the essential nature of the services in these industries which has led to their being associated with state control. Arguments about state ownership and control over these areas can be traced back centuries (indeed, Adam Smith discusses this issue in his Wealth of Nations, and, indeed, favoured the “regulated market” approach which Blairites claim to be an innovation of the Third Way). These services have to be paid for somehow, but to allow them to be run on a totally free market basis would mean that their monopolistic power could lead to them charging at levels which would be detrimental to the interests of other capitalist firms. On the other hand, in order to attract investment they have to make sufficient return to make it worth investors’ while.

Failure of nationalisation

In 1945 the railways were nationalised, after twenty or thirty years of the capitalist class agonising over how to deal with the railways, and as a necessity of post-war reconstruction (See Socialist Standard, November 2000). This had the advantage of securing the existence of the railways, and bringing them within the system of “planning” that characterised immediate post-war capitalism. It also had the, unfortunate for the capitalist class, side-effect of concentrating the workforce into one huge unit. This effectively meant that the unions in those industries had the power to shut down the entire national system in support of their demands.

Along with two other factors, this led to “inefficiency” within the rail and postal industries. The first of these other factors was the nature of nationalised industries. Although they were in effect simply giant corporations in the usual mould, they had one significant difference. Unlike publicly quoted corporations, they were not subject to take-over. If a capitalist firm is run inefficiently, that is when the amount of profit it produces is low relative to its total capital, its share price falls, and other capitalists are able to buy its assets for a relative song. This spurs management on to keep the productivity of the workforce in line with its capital value and standard rates of industrial profit; and it also acts as a spur to investment in capital.

This lack of stimulus was linked to the nature of political control of the nationalised industries. Given that all parties were chasing working class votes, to hoodwink them into supporting capitalism, the political masters of these industries were reluctant to overtly lay-off workers from the nationalised industries. The tendency was, rather than increase the rates of exploitation, or attack workers conditions, to opt for the more politically expedient way and close down rails, coal mines, etc. when they became “uneconomic” (i.e. capitalistically inefficient).

What this meant was that, over time, whereas it had been expedient for capital to hand these industries to the state, eventually nationalised industry became a detriment to their interests. Firstly because inefficiencies due to inadequate investment in new capital in transport and mail were cutting into the profits of other sectors of the economy. Secondly, because the relative strength of the workers and their conditions had wider consequences of working conditions and labour discipline throughout the whole of the economy. Finally, these asset-rich industries were ripe for someone to make a profit from.

When privatisation did come, as a part of the Tories’ turning away from the “post-war consensus”, they moved to undo the disadvantages for capital of national pay bargaining. Part and parcel of the break-up of nationalised industries, was the introduction of trade union legislation banning support strikes in firms not directly involved in negotiations. This was necessary from the capitalist point of view, so that the huge unions which had amalgamated due to necessity faced with the concentrated power of national employers, could not strike across firms in order to protect their members. This was coupled with the deliberate breaking-up of national institutions (including the NHS) into smaller bargaining units, effectively paving the way for long term attacks on workers conditions.

Get rich quick

The other consequence of privatisation, especially in the rails, was the asset stripping of the industry. Since the amount of capital in the industry (especially land) had not been used “efficiently”, it proved to be a cheap source of profits for the new investors. Indeed, for the first few years, the amount given out in share dividends to the owners of Railtrack et al. were equal the amounts realised in sales of land and stock. Rather than realising profits from improved service provision and investment, the new owners sought profit in the easiest form they could (much in the same manner as the asset stripping of the former Soviet Union’s industries).

Alongside this, “overmanning” was attacked, that is, the new management tried to increase the rate of exploitation. Mostly, this involved laying off staff wholesale, leading to a big decrease in the number of signalling staff, as well as drivers. Many of the staff were transferred into subcontracting firms, which subsequently clouded the chain of command with regards to maintenance, but which in the short term allowed workers’ conditions to deteriorate.

These cutbacks have led to a desperate situation. Arriva trains in the Northeast have found themselves short of sufficient drivers to meet their commitments. As has been shown in Scotland, a simple overtime ban has been sufficient to cripple service there. Across the country, the rising wages of drivers relative to other rail staff has been the immediate cause of the South West Trains dispute (leaving aside the disciplinary grievances). It is hardly surprising, then, that the state is offering to come to the industry’s aid, by subsiding the training of drivers with a new academy, to take this cost of their labour off their shoulders, and restore the level of drivers needed.

This short sighted increase in the rate of exploitation did not, for several reasons, lead to an immediate increase in profits. Firstly, the big bulk freight contracts declined along with the demise of the coal and steel industries, a situation not helped by the second factor, which is that successive governments have consciously followed a policy of preferring roads to rail (after all, the car industry needs propping up). Rails need more maintenance and manpower to keep running that do ordinary roads, so in competition between the two the latter comes out better (especially when its costs are disguised into general taxation).

Transporting labour-power

The most important commodity carried by rail at present is labour power, in the form of commuting workers. This aspect remains vital for many capitalists, particularly in London, since housing prices within the city prevent workers from dwelling near their workplaces. What this does mean, however, is that transport prices feed directly into the price of labour in many areas, and any rises in transport prices cut the profitability of the firms who rely on the rails for labour delivery. Hence why transport becomes such a key issue, and the capitalist class is so willing to countenance state intervention in the rail industry.

The fact remains, though, that the unions remain strong enough within these sectors to resist attacks to a certain extent. Despite being hampered by law and the break-up of the industry, the big unions can co-ordinate their campaigns, and exploit political embarrassment to try and get their way. The problems are such that the rail operators may soon decide it is worthwhile giving national bargaining another try as a way of keeping workers under control. Likewise, the Post Office, now ridiculously renamed “Consignia”, may have to think again about their proposed mass sackings of workers, in the face of a concerted union resistance.

Given, though, that the capitalists have used the issue of nationalisation or privatisation as the grounds for their alteration of policy over industrial relations and an attack on working conditions, it is understandable as to why many workers will see the debate in those terms, and their own interest lying with nationalisation. Hence they may be willing to believe that people calling for nationalisation represent their interests. The nationalisation debate, however, is simply one that occurs due to the incapacity of the market system to contain the contradiction between the need for ever more integrated social labour, with private property and market relations. Re-nationalisation will not remove the question of investment costs and running of the railways that have led it into such a parlous state, and will just lead to a repeat of the centuries old story.

Likewise, success through striking may well encourage other workers to stand up for their rights in the workplace more. A group of workers’ strength, however, will continue to be determined by their position within the capitalist economy, and their victory a partial one within the market system. Only by looking to the political situation, the reality of class ownership and power within capitalism, and organising to make themselves a party to the political battle in the name of common ownership for their mutual needs, will a general gain come to workers, and an end wrought to the need for these sectional battles. Otherwise, the ultimate result of the strikes will be the need to strike again in the future.

Pik Smeet

The Dublin lockout of 1913 (2002)

Book Review from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Dublin lockout is an important part of working class history, but there are few accessible sources of information. We review a new book which puts this right

Perhaps only those who have taken a particular interest in the history of the workers’ movement in Britain will have heard of the Dublin lockout of 1913 and then maybe will only know what happened in general terms, for instance that the workers’ leader was called Larkin and that mobs led by Catholic priests prevented workers sending their children to the rest of Britain for the duration of the dispute. Up to now the most accessible source of information about it has been James Plunkett’s 1969 novel Strumpet City but that was a novel. Now Irish Times journalist Padraig Yeates has produced a 600-page account, based on original contemporary sources, called simply Lockout: Dublin 1913 (Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 19.04 euro). It is an important contribution to working class history, especially as the events in Dublin in 1913 and 1914 raise general issues concerning trade unionism, nationalism, and the role of religion.

Ireland in 1913 was in the midst of yet another Home Rule crisis. A Liberal government was trying for a third time to bring in Home Rule for Ireland in the form of a parliament which would have certain powers within the United Kingdom and the British Empire. The Unionists in Ulster, supported and egged on by the Tory opposition, were mobilising to resist coming under the control of a Home Rule parliament in Dublin.

One revealing aspect of Yeates’s book is how the socialist analysis of the Irish Home Rule crises has now become the standard view. We have always attributed the conflict in Ireland between Nationalists and Unionists to a split between two sections of the capitalist class there whose vital interests differred: the developed industrial capitalists of the North who were an integral part of the overall British capitalist class and who wanted to remain a full part of the UK so as to have continued free access to the markets of Britain and its Empire, and the fledgling capitalists of the rest of Ireland who wanted protection from the competition of British products behind a tariff wall. To win popular support for their respective positions the Northern capitalists played the Orange card while the other side played the Catholic card. Hence what was essentially a split in the capitalist class in Ireland appeared as a religious conflict between protestants and catholics.

Yeates takes this for granted and accepts that Irish nationalism was essentially the nationalism of the rising Catholic “middle class” (in the 19th century sense of small business and professional people). One of these was the leading Irish businessman, William Martin Murphy, who was a central figure in the Dublin lockout. The chairman of the company that ran the Dublin trams and owner of the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Evening Herald, he had been an Irish Party MP on the anti-Parnellite wing, i.e., the wing that was particularly influenced by the Catholic Church which had enjoined the Irish Party MPs to disown Parnell because on his affair with a married woman.

Murphy, Yeates tells us, “saw home rule less as an opportunity to seize the levers of state power and patronage than as a chance to develop Irish industry. His increasing criticism of Redmond’s leadership of the Irish Party had less to do with the fact that Redmond had been a Parnellite than with his inability to gain greater fiscal powers from the Liberals for the proposed home rule parliament” (pp. 4-5).

However, it was not in his capacity as a Nationalist politician that Murphy has earned his notoriety in British and Irish working-class history. It was as the leader of the Dublin employers (most of the bigger ones in fact were not Nationalists but protestants and Unionists). But it did show that workers in Ireland could expect no charge in their condition from a Home Rule – or even an independent – government.

Syndicalism

The whole affair started in July when James Larkin, leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (and he was a leader with followers, even if he could still be described as a working-class fighter), decided to organise the Dublin tramway workers. Murphy replied by sacking members of the union. The union then got its other members to black the Dublin tram company. It also organised a big protest demonstration in the centre of Dublin on 31 August, which the government banned and which turned into a police riot in which many passers-by were beaten up – yet another bloody Sunday. Murphy’s next move was to get the Dublin employers to agree to require their workers to sign a form stating that they would have nothing to do with the ITGWU; those who refused were sacked, in effect locked out.

Larkin was what was called at the time a “syndicalist”, which meant someone who believed that the way forward for workers was combined industrial action on the basis of “an injury to one is an injury to all”. In practice it meant that other workers – ideally, all other workers – should take action in support of any group of workers on strike by blacking goods produced by or supplied to their employers – the “sympathetic strike”.

People who call themselves syndicalists today tend to be doctrinaire anarcho-syndicalists who repudiate any form of political action and rely on strikes only, including one big final general strike to overthrow capitalism. Larkin and the others were not so doctrinaire; in fact Larkin himself had been elected as a Labour councillor to Dublin City Council in 1910 (but had been disqualified because of a previous criminal conviction). Their position was well summed up by Tom Mann, the most prominent English syndicalist of the time (and former member of the Socialist League and future member of the Communist Party) in a speech he gave to the locked-out workers in Dublin on 27 January 1914, as written up by Yeates quoting a contemporary report:

“‘trades unionism is syndicalism’. His object was ‘to combine all workers in each industry, to raise them all nationally and internationally, so as to take over control of the whole economic system.’ In that way the proletariat ‘could fix the number of working days, the abolition of employers, capitalists and government–which latter is only a functionary of the employers.’ The ‘ideal of the co-operative commonwealth will be realised'” (p. 531).

This was all very well in theory but to be effective it would require a very high degree of class consciousness, so high in fact that, if it existed, workers would be in a position to take direct political action to end capitalism. The syndicalists, however, advocated the use of this tactic by workers who were not fully class-conscious, i. e., not socialist-minded and who still thought in sectional rather than class terms, and while leaving the state in the hands of the representatives of the capitalist class. Another factor working against its success was that under capitalism the employers always have the whiphand. If they so choose they can, because they own so much wealth, always break any strike by starving the workers back to work. This was in fact the choice of the Dublin employers in 1913. Murphy had already insolently, but unfortunately pertinently, reminded his workers of this when he addressed them in July right at the beginning of the dispute:

“Murphy told the tramway men that the company’s shareholders ‘will have three meals a day’, whether the strike succeeded or not. ‘I don’t know if the men who go out can count on this'” (p. 7).

Faced with this tactic by the employers of trying to starve into submission the workers in the ITGWU and those in other unions that had taken action to support them, a sympathetic strike by British transport workers (seamen, railwaymen, dockers) was one option. This was what Larkin favoured. Another option was to enable the workers to hold out longer by providing them with food and/or money. This was the option the TUC chose, and unions and union members contributed considerable amounts of food (carried to Dublin in specially freighted ships) and money. Yeates estimates this at the equivalent today of 10 million Irish pounds (12.5 million euro or £8 million sterling), an impressive display of working-class solidarity, and it did allow the workers to hold out until the end of January 1914.

The Catholic Church

Another initiative in this sense, not from the TUC but from individuals sympathetic to the Dublin workers, was to lodge Dublin workers’ children with sympathisers in England and Scotland while the dispute lasted. This seemed a reasonable tactic, but when they heard of it the Catholic Church went ape. The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr William Walsh (who was an Irish Nationalist and had also been one of those who had instigated the campaign to topple Parnell) immediately issued a statement condemning this as a danger to the children’s souls. This was the green light for the most outrageous actions by his priests. Screaming mobs led by priests stopped the children going. The Irish Catholic wrote about protecting “the children whom degraded and dissolute parents would fain surrender to Socialism or to any other Satanic influence” (p. 321).

One of the few to denounce the Catholic Church’s stance on this issue was the poet W. B. Yeats who declared at a public meeting “some day we will have to reckon with those who have fomented fanaticism in Dublin to break up the organisation of the workers” (p. 297).

Both Larkin and James Connolly, the IGTWU’s Belfast organiser who had been called to Dublin to help, were practising Catholics who claimed, contrary to all the evidence, that Socialism and Catholicism were not incompatible. Yeates quotes from a sermon given on 12 September by Father John Condon, a leading Dublin theologian of the time, which raises the intriguing question of what Larkin and Connolly were told when they went to confession:

“I have to tell you, beloved brethren, that the word Socialism connotes a body of doctrine which no Catholic who values his faith can accept; and I say further, that the Catholic who, with his eyes open, gives his sympathy and support to the methods and aims of Socialism is a recreant to his creed” (p. 157).

Archbishop Walsh, addressing a meeting of the St Vincent de Paul Society on 27 October, took up an even worse position preaching that only faith in God providing a better life in heaven could make the poor happy (“pie in the sky when you die”), a reminder of one important reason why socialists oppose religion:

“he dismissed outright the belief of Larkin and his fellow-socialists that the poor could save themselves by some form of social revolution. He believed that happiness was possible in this urban hell only for those willing to accept their lot; ‘holidays’ in England would make the attainment of that spiritual goal far more difficult” (p. 313).

Larkin, to give him his due, told the priests not to interfere. Connolly, too, had replied, in his pamphlet Labour, Nationality and Religion, to an attack on socialism by a Jesuit priest, Father Kane, in his 1910 “Lenten Discourses”. Father Kane, incidentally, had evidently read some SPGB publication as Connolly quotes him as saying at one point: “Now, as to the Socialist system. In the official declaration of the English Socialists we read – the object of Socialism is ‘the establishment of a system of society, based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of the whole community'”.

The Irish Nationalists

The Irish Nationalists and Home Rulers were no more favourable to the workers. Some denounced the aid given by the TUC as “English charity” and even hinted that it was intended to further disadvantage Irish industry by raising wages so as to make it less competitive with English industry. One of these was Arthur Griffith, the narrow-minded founding member and theoretician of Sinn Fein, who, records Yeates, felt that “British trade unionists were exploiting the lockout to undermine Irish business” (p. 353). He also attacked in article in Sinn Fein on 25 October the view that “Capitalism not England is the enemy” by claiming:

“Not Capitalism, but the abuse of Capitalism oppresses Labour . . . Not in the destruction of the Capitalist, but in his subjection to the law of the State, interpreting the conscience and the interests of the Nation, will Labour be delivered from its oppression and restored to all its rights. I affirm that the evils of the social system, as they exist in this country and in Great Britain, are wholly due to English policy and Government . . .” (p. 354).

Fellow narrow nationalist and later Irish Republican hero and martyr, Patrick Pearse, took up a similar position, stating that he believed that “the root of the matter [dire and desperate poverty] lies in foreign domination” (p. 221).

In fact, there weren’t many who were actually saying (correctly) that “Capitalism not England is the enemy”. Connolly, who by now was well on the way to becoming a physical force republican (and, like Pearse, a future republican hero and martyr), argued in effect that “Capitalism and England are the enemy”. Larkin wouldn’t have disagreed but his approach was more down-to-earth: “Home Rule does not put a loaf in anybody’s pocket” (p. 181); Redmond (leader of the Irish Party) and Carson (leader of the Ulster Unionists) were “both simply the mouthpieces of the capitalist class” (p. 254); “Home rule would ‘clear the decks for the workers'” (p. 272).

That’s about all it did. In 1921 Ireland – or 26 of its 32 counties – did get an independence of sorts but capitalism remained—and so, as predicted by socialists, did its problems. The facts themselves – the continuing dire and desperate poverty, unemployment, emigration, slums, and ill-health – were to confirm that it was indeed not “English rule” or “foreign domination”, but capitalism, that had been the cause of the problems the workers in Ireland had had to face in 1913, 1914 and before.

The sympathetic strike – or rather the resistance to the lockout – ended in failure at the end of January in face of the intransigence of the employers and after the TUC had decided it could no longer afford to continue sending food and money. Larkin advised his members to go back while still refusing to sign the anti-union form. The employers took most but by no means all of them back but didn’t insist they sign the form.

Larkin blamed the TUC for not having called a general sympathetic strike of transport workers in Britain. Maybe this would have made the employers bend a little, by perhaps getting them to offer a “no victimisation” clause, i. e., the restoration of the status quo before the dispute. Which could hardly be called a victory. Basically, however, the reason for the failure was that the “syndicalist” tactic wasn’t as effective as its advocates imagined.

Adam Buick