A Look Round. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

H. M. Hyndman, November, 1895.

***

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

H. M. Hyndman, March, 1904.

***

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

***

“Who aims a star, shoots higher far

Than he that aims a tree.”

***

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

***

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

J. Kay

Editorial: The New Hebrides and the Transvaal. (1907)

Editorial rom the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has repeatedly been pointed out in these columns that there is no essential difference between the Liberal and Tory parties. The way the Liberals have shuffled out of their promises to the electorate, particularly regarding the Chinese Labour Ordinance, is patent to all; and now we have them perpetrating a New Hebrides Convention that is in all ways worse than the Ordinance they were elected to overthrow. Out of their own mouths they stand condemned. Thus the Daily Chronicle says :

“Let us state the case at its worst, so that Liberals may appreciate the point which they have to meet. The Liberal Party and the Liberal Government have denounced the system of indentured Chinese labour in South Africa. By the New Hebrides Convention the same Government has set its seal upon a system of indentured labour which is, or may be, far more oppressive and objectionable. The indentured labour drawn from China is confined to adult males. From the New Hebrides, unmarried women may also be indentured, and children ‘if they are of a certain minimum height.’ The women or children may be employed between sunrise and sunset, with an interval of only one hour, and at rate of 10s. a month. There might also, in the case of labourers indentured from the New Hebrides, be no inspection during employment.

“Such are the facts, or rather such is that part of the facts about which on Opposition platforms we are likely to hear a good deal more. In the debate in the House last night, the party business was largely of the pot and kettle order. To the Opposition’s taunt, ‘With what face can you condemn the Chinese Labour Ordinance when you have sanctioned the New Hebrides Convention ?’ the Ministerial reply was ‘With what face can you condemn indentured labour in the New Hebrides when you introduced it into the Transvaal ?’ Each side in turn described the other as ‘Satan rebuking sin.'”

Herbert Spencer and Socialism. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reprinted from the Burton Evening Gazette

Sir,—In a recent issue of your paper there appeared a report of a lecture on “Herbert Spencer,” which was delivered by Mr. F. E. Lott, F.I.C., A.R.S.M. Being an ardent admirer of Mr. Spencer and his “Synthetic Philosophy,” as well as an enthusiastic Socialist, I may be permitted to crave your indulgence for the following remarks regarding your report.

The passage which engaged my attention is the following:—

“His principles of sociology showed that he was no believer in Socialism, though he had often been hailed as such. The principle of ethics was, perhaps, the most important part of his works, and in it he demonstrated that Socialism attempted to improve social life by breaking the fundamental law of social life.”

I presume that the fundamental law of social life referred to is the principle of every man being entitled to the fullest liberty so long as the like liberty of others is not infringed. With this principle as thus expressed in abstract terms I think few Socialists would disagree. The difficulty arises when we discuss what constitutes an infringement of the liberty of others. Spencer held that the State was an organism. But in applying his principles to man in his relation to the State he treated Society not as an organism but as an aggregation of individual units.

Another quotation may be allowed me from a letter from Spencer to John Stuart Mill—

“The view for which I contend is, that morality properly so called—the science of right conduct—has for its object to determine how or why certain modes of conduct are detrimental and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things, and I conceive it to be the business of moral science to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognised as laws of conduct, and are to be conformed to, irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.”

Now, how can Socialism be viewed as infringing those principles ? The Socialist looks upon Society as an organism of which human beings form the cells. Any disease of the cells of an organism is injurious to the organism. Anything depriving the cellular tissue of its proper nutrition causes a disease of the tissue, and the organism suffers. The Socialist viewing the present society, based upon the class ownership of wealth and the means of wealth production, sees that many millions of the human cells forming that society are deprived of the means of proper sustenance, whilst others of those human cells are fed to repletion. As one organ of the human organism may be a parasite seeking aggrandisement at the expense of the other organs, so in the body social we have a class of machine-owners living as parasites upon the labour of machine-minders.

View human society as it has been pictured by Mr. Charles Booth in his investigations into London poverty, by Mr. S. Rowntree in York, others at Egremont and elsewhere, as well as the conditions mentioned in the Interdepartmental Report on Physical Deterioration, and the more recent report on the condition of the working-class in Dundee. From these reports it is evident that at least 13,000,000 people in this country are living below the line of bare physical efficiency. And why ? Because Society to-day is organised in the interests of a class. That this is the inevitable result of a long process of evolution makes it none the better for the working class, though this knowledge affords a hope that the end of the evolutionary process is not yet.

The reason is that the worker to-day can live only by selling his labour power—his power of working—for such a remuneration as barely suffices to replace the energy expended on his work, together with rearing, in the cheapest possible manner, a family of future workers to replace him when he gets “too old at forty.” In return for this wage—this food, clothing, and shelter—the worker toils for a longer period than is necessary to replace its value. The surplus he creates in this surplus time forms a product which is divided into various parts. These parts are the profit, the rent, and the interest of the ruling class.

The Socialist, therefore, contends that profit, rent and interest are merely the various shapes which is taken by the unpaid labour of the worker. He further contends that every new improvement of machinery, each wage-saving contrivance, which speeds up the working-power of the individual worker, increases the wealth of the capitalist, while it further degrades the worker. The division between extreme wealth and extreme poverty has never been so great as it is to-day. Though the economic position of the worker is declining relatively to his powers over nature, his potential power of altering the structure of Society is ever increasing. The manufacturer, the merchant, producing in order that his capital may fructify, has to compete in the market with other men of similar aim. Each manufacturer seeks to augment his share of the market. In prosperous times, like the present, he works his machines at full pressure to meet the demands of the market. Unwitting his efforts, his rivals do likewise, and the market becomes glutted. Men are thrown out of work, thus reducing the “effective demand” for commodities. Amidst the plethora of wealth poverty increases. Under capitalism, says Charles Fourier, “poverty is born of superabundance.”

The capitalist, finding his warehouse glutted with merchandise, ofttimes perishable, and his machines idle, finds it difficult to meet his bills. The necessity of paying his creditors, of redeeming his bills of exchange, makes it imperative to sell at a loss. During such a period of commercial stress bankruptcies are many. On the other hand, those manufacturers with a larger capital who are better able to face those times find in them their most glorious harvest, and buy up their smaller rivals.

Thus the tendency of modern competition is towards the concentration of capital in fewer hands, and the growth of gigantic businesses. Competition must necessarily evolve monopoly. 

We see, then, that the evolution of modern industrial forms is towards the trust. No human effort can head back this movement. Under Free Trade or Protection, under Monarchy or Republic, the trust alike flourishes. To-day, then, it is evident that the evolution of industrial forces and of methods of production, upon which the social superstructure is erected, is in the direction of sameness of life, sameness of outlook, monotony in dwelling, monotony in work, monotony in every phase of our mental, physical and moral life, under which man must sell his labour as a merchandise, under which he is virtually a slave to a wage system.

Against this the Socialist makes a vigorous protest. The Socialist is an individual who wishes to introduce a system of society under which the highest individuality of every man could be developed. He claims, however, that in the necessary toil of Society in providing the means of satisfying human needs every healthy man and woman should bear their share. With the present power of man and the machinery at his disposal two hours work a day on the part of every adult member of the community, excluding the aged and the infirm, would more than meet the necessary demands of Society, and beyond that Society would not seek to restrict his efforts in any way.

Surely this would not constitute so great an interference with man’s individuality as does the social conditions of to-day with its overwork on insufficient wage. Socialism would be a system of Society in which the needs of the individual would be no longer antagonistic to, but harmonious with, the needs of Society. It would be a condition not of Man v. Society, but of Man and Society with identical interests. In such a society only would it be possible to properly “deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness.”

To prepare for the establishment of such a society is the object of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, which recognises the need of propagating these principles, and building up a political organisation which will capture the forms of Government for the express purpose of taking command of the trusts and of the means of producing and distributing wealth. We are seeking to get rid, once and for all, of individual ownership of social forces, to the end that man’s individuality, health, comfort, and welfare may be secured.

I am, sir,

Your obedient servant,

“Economicus.”

Blogger's Note:

There's a lot of references to Burton-on-Trent in this issue of the Socialist Standard. I initially got my hopes up - like you do - that “Economicus” writing to a local newspaper in Burton might mean that “Economicus” was the pen-name of a local SPGBer in Burton. A 'J. Blundell' is listed as the local contact in Burton in this issue of the Socialist Standard, but it turns out Blundell joined the SPGB in March 1906 and “Economicus” was appearing in the Standard as early as May 1905.

Correspondence: The Late Dispute in Islington. (1907)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

[To the Editor of the Socialist Standard]

Sir, —Re your article in the February Socialist Standard : “The Late Islington Dispute,” wherein you make a statement that no delegate had instructions to vote “Islington’s expulsion,” which is not true, as I was present at the Tottenham Branch meeting, when the delegates got instructions to vote for the expulsion of Islington.

W. Innes.

Reply:

[Though it was evident that Mr. Innes was entirely in error, it was decided, in order that not the slightest doubt might remain, to request the secretary of the Tottenham Branch to forward a copy of all minutes containing instructions to delegates to the quarterly delegate meeting in question. These Comrade Lobb has sent and they make it abundantly clear that there is no truth in Mr. Innes’ allegation. The following is a copy of the Tottenham secretary’s letter:

Dear Comrade,—Re yours of Feb. 24th. The following is a copy of minutes from the minute book of the Tottenham Branch, dated respectively the 9th and 23rd of July, 1906:—

July 9th—”H. A. Young and E. Stevens were appointed delegates to Quarterly Delegate Meeting.

July 23rd—”Secretary read re Bexley Heath and Islington Branches. After considerable discussion, Kauter proposed and Dye seconded, ‘That delegates defend the action of the E.C. and condemn the action of the Islington Branch.’ Resolution carried. Young and Stevens being unable to attend, Rich and Stowe were appointed, and credentials handed to Stowe.”

The subject under discussion was the stopping of propaganda meetings of the Islington Branch and the instructions given were to condemn same and support the action of the E.C. re Bexley Branch.

Yours fraternally,

T. W. Lobb.

As was stated in the February issue of this journal, “no delegate of any branch had instructions to vote Islington’s expulsion.” The minutes in question are open to the inspection of Mr. Innes upon application.]

Blogger's Notes:

'R. Innes' might be a typo. A 'William Innes' was a member of Tottenham Branch — joining the SPGB in 1905 — and records state that he did resign from the SPGB, but it doesn't give the exact date. We just have to presume it was in the aftermath of the Islington Branch dispute.

The Advance of Machinery. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

There have been installed at the Shobnall maltings of Messrs. Samuel Allsopp & Sons two machines that are calculated to ultimately effect a saving of labour to the extent of 50 per cent. The machines, for which patents have been obtained, are the result of several experiments on the part of Mr. F. Griffiths, maltster at the works mentioned. The appliances are known as “the Burton automatic grain sacking apparatus” and “the Burton grain bulking machine.” The former has been working for some little time, but the latter has only just been perfected.

Formerly the unloading of grain from railway waggons and bulking it into heaps six feet deep has been entirely performed by manual labour, at a cost of between 6s. to 8s. per 100 qrs., and the total cost of removing 450 qrs. per day has been about 13s. 4d. This appliance, however, can put barley in bulk to a height of six feet at the rate of 400 qrs. per day from any distance in the granary, with the aid of the necessary number of boys, at a cost of 1s. 4d. per day per boy. Where grain requires moving from one part of the warehouse to another the sack-filling machine can be employed to lift it into sacks or tip barrows, and the bulking machine deposits it where it may be required. The method generally in use for putting grain into heaps on the arrival of a large consignment (though in some cases maltsters use their own particular system) is by means of men carrying the material in sacks, running up a plank and pitching it over. But in this way a lot of labour is entailed, and the work is arduous, seeing that each sack contains 16 stone weight.

The method of the new apparatus is simple. The contents of the sacks are shot into a receiver, and the grain being conveyed up an elevator in cups, is finally distributed where required from a shoot. In regard to the automatic sacking apparatus, the saving effected is placed at between 50 and 60 per cent. In the majority of granaries most of the grain is bushelled or otherwise lifted by hand into sacks. The machine under notice entirely obviates this, and is capable of “sacking up” from 500 to 650 quarters per day of nine hours, with the help of three boys. It is entirely automatic in its movement into the grain, and can be driven off any existing shafting by either a special rope drive or by a motor of any description fitted to the machine, thus making it entirely independent. This is an ingenious contrivance. It is placed at the side of a heap of grain, and in the front part there is a worm which works the grain to the centre. As in the other machine, the barley is then taken up over the elevator in cups on an endless belt, and thrown into the hopper, from which it passes through the slide and into sacks at the back in charge of lads.

The most intricate and vital part of the machine is, perhaps, the eccentric and ratchett arrangement, which pushes the machine forward into the grain. This part, when one bag is full, is automatically thrown out of gear by the contact of two buffers at the front with the grain. The lad then puts down the slide and stops the grain while he takes the full bag away and opens the slide at the mouth of the other bag. With this machine only one strong boy need be in attendance, to hang on sacks for filling. The cost depends somewhat on the distance the sacks have to be taken for loading into railway trucks. The total cost per day for filling 500 qrs. into sacks and loading them into railway trucks has been 15s. 8d., against 9s. or 10s. and upwards for every 100 qrs. by hand labour. The machines are in daily use at Messrs. Samuel Allsopp’s maltings, and it is claimed that they will in all probability revolutionise the method of dealing with grain at maltings in the course of time.

Burton Evening Gazette.

Mr. Dooley in “Capital and Labour.” (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Christmas time Capital gathered his happy fam’ly around him an’ in th’ prisince iv th’ ladies iv th’ neighbourhood gave thim a short oration. “Me brave la-ads,” said he, “we’ve had a good year (cheers). I have made a millyon dollars (sensation). I atthribute this to me supeeryor skill, aided by ye’r arnest efforts at th’ bench an’ at th’ forge (sobs). Ye have done so well that we wont need so manny iv ye as we did (long and continyous cheerin’). Those iv us who can do two men’s wurruk will remain, an’ if possible do four. Our other faithful servants” he says “can come back in th’ spring” he says “if alive” he says. An’ th’ bold artysans tossed their paper caps in th’ air an’ give three cheers f’r Capital.

They wurruked till ol’ age crept on thim, an’ thin retired to live on th’ wish-bones an’ kind wurruds they had accumylated.

Mr. Dooley in “Capital and Labour.”

A Lesson on Value. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the loss of a dog in a railway accident on the Midland, the owner has been awarded £300 damages. For the loss of her husband, an engine driver, also in a railway accident, a Mrs. Robbins has just been awarded £100. Don’t get married, ladies—take out a dog licence.

The Truth about Canada. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have been this last year engaged on railway work in Manitoba, miles away from big towns, and have seen something of what life farmers and others lead, besides leading a very rough life myself . . . Statistics are given showing the number of immigrants per annum, and as much “copy” as possible made out of it. But nothing is said of the hundreds who return to Europe, and I know as a fact that this is the case, and I know many more would do so if they had the money to pay their way. They are helped out to Canada, but then they have to make the best of it when once there, and they can, as a rule, only just manage to subsist. I have been inside many farm houses in Manitoba, and, as a rule, they contain nothing but the barest necessities, comforts being conspicuous by their absence.

Many people in Canada have expressed the opinion to me that immigration is being overdone. The country cannot absorb the thousands who enter, and owing to the very long and intensely severe winter, thousands are thrown out of employment during those months.

A Civil Engineer in “John Bull.”

Some Publications. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Messrs. Watts & Co. are issuing, as one of the R.P.A. Cheap Reprints, Mr. Dennis Hird’s “An Easy Outline of Evolution,” which has passed through a large edition in a more expensive form. They are also issuing the popular edition of Professor Haeckel’s “The Evolution of Man,” complete in a shilling volume with stout paper covers. It consists of nearly 400 double-column, well-printed pages, and has more than 400 excellent illustrations—truly a remarkable publication at the low price mentioned.

Apostles of Confusion. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The last strains of the “Marseillaise” (it’s all right, Mr. Editor, this is not a tale of the French Revolution)—the last strains of the “Marseillaise” were being sung when two comrades of the Watford Branch and myself entered Clarendon Hall, Watford, on the evening of Friday, February 22nd. We found an audience of about 300 assembled to hear addresses by Hyndman and Gribble (of Northampton) on Social-Democracy. The meeting was being held under the auspices of the Watford S.D.F., I.L.P., Trades Council, and Labour Church.

To make speeches that would suit such a mixture of psuedo-Socialists, “Labour” men .and reformers as were here gathered together would tax the capabilities of the best S.D.F. speaker, and that is saying much. Anyway, Hyndman and Gribble tried, and whether they succeeded in tickling the ears of their audience or not, they certainly never gave a clear exposition of Socialist principles. At least, that was our opinion, but then perhaps we are “too scientific.” As we took our seats, the chairman, Mr. Gorle, who proclaimed himself the only working-class representative on the local bodies, was reading apologies for non-attendance from Lord Hyde and other class-conscious individuals.

The chairman then made a short speech intimating that an S.D.F. candidate would be run for the County Council. Gribble was called upon and proceeded to speak on “Social-Democracy and the Present Political Situation.” After a few preliminary remarks (including the usual compliments to Hyndman) he assured us “that it was never more necessary than it was to-day for Socialists to work along the straight path,” a remark that called forth loud “hear, hears ” from the S.P.G.B. men.

He then traced the evolution of the Socialist movement in England. He stated how the S.D.F. had fought alone for many years; told us how the I.L.P. came into existence as an independent political party only, but gradually evolved until it differed but slightly in its principles from the S.D.F. He told us of the desire for fusion that grew up in the two parties, of the vote taken and carried by a large majority, but did not tell us why the leaders refused to carry out the mandate of the members.

Briefly scanning the events that led to the formation of the L.R.C., he tried to make clear the S.D.F. position in regard to that, body. He said “it was a policy of friendly criticism and advice.” We (the S.P.G.B.) know where that policy has led.

He then told us how disappointed he was at the past year’s work of the Labour Party, and proceeded to criticise its members. He dwelt with bitterness upon those “Socialists” who opposed the adoption of a Socialist programme. The speaker complained of the way the decisions of the Labour Conference had been set aside by the Executive body, and of the way in which, after Quelch and others had by superhuman efforts managed to make the trades unionists swallow an “Universal Suffrage” resolution, the Labour members had disregarded that vote, and had allowed individual members a free hand to support or oppose any measure they liked during the coming session.

“They,” he said, “think that they alone are the Labour Party, and that the thousands behind them in the country are a mere nothing,” and he grew sarcastic about Shackleton’s withdrawal of the Old Age Pension amendment upon Mr. Asquith pointing out that it was a censure upon the Government. Then finishing up with the statement that the workers should put their trust in Socialists and disregard everything except the establishment of a Socialist Republic, Gribble sat down.

All this was very interesting. It might have been news to the audience, but it was merely what we had predicted come to pass.

Is Gribble’s feeling toward the Labour Party the feeling of the S.D.F.? Did his remarks please or offend the members of the local branch ?

As regards the S.D.F. as a body, we know that they occasionally utter a few criticisms of the Labour Party but all the time are supporting it. As regards the local branch, it is their duty either to repudiate Gribble or to repudiate and oppose the local Trades Council, I.L.P., and Labour Church.

But we know they will not do either. They will play the old game of being “all things to all men,” and nothing of any real value to the working-class movement.

The chairman then introduced the principal speaker of the evening, Mr. H. M. Hyndman, who started his speech by saying, as he usually does, that he never worked but lived upon those who did. We had heard this before, but the audience had not, and cheered in the usual way. It always fetches ’em.

The speaker then went on to show the desirability of certain reforms, dealing at length with the question of Free Maintenance. “After years of agitation,” he said, “we have at last got in the thin end of the wedge.” Afterwards in answer to a question, he admitted that this much desired reform would only produce better wage-slaves for the capitalist. He enlarged upon the benefit of Better Housing and Old Age Pensions. In stating that the opposition to Socialism arose largely from ignorance, he said that he had sufficient faith in humanity to believe that, did but the governing classes only know what benefits would accrue from Socialism, notwithstanding their desire to dominate others, they would join the Socialist movement !

And so his speech proceeded, “boxing the compass” politically, industrially and ethically, hinting vaguely at revolution, dealing in detail with useless reforms, but never giving his audience any real insight into scientific Socialism.

After the collection, questions were called for. Comrade Wilkins asked the speaker how he reconciled his statement that the capitalist class would welcome Socialism when they saw what benefits would come, with his supposed belief in the Class Struggle and the Materialist Conception of History as expounded by Karl Marx.

Mr. Hyndman answered that no reconciling of statements was needed, that although he believed in the Class Struggle, he believed that when the capitalists recognised the advantages of Socialism they would welcome it. Yet previously in his speech he had quoted Marx in agreement with his contention that, however much peaceful revolutions are expected, history always proves the expectations false ; that force is the deciding factor.

We sent up two other questions. One: was he in favour of economic organisation of the workers on a class basis, and if so could the present trade unions be altered to such ? To this he replied that the outlook in the trade unions from a Socialist standpoint was hopeful, and seeing that many of their officials were S.D.F. men the future should see a more Socialist position taken up. The other question was: The Watford S.D.F. claimed to be revolutionary Socialists : if they believed what Gribble said to be true, would not the proper attitude to be taken up towards the Labour Party, both locally and nationally, be one of hostility ?

But he would not have it. He could see the red light. “He wanted no rift within the lute” in Watford. So he said it was not his business. He left it to the local branch. He had never been a “Labour” man.

Of course it was not his business. Had he supported Gribble against the “Labour” crowd what a position the comrades would be in with an election coming on ! It would not have paid. “We are willing,” he said, “to work with those who go a little way with us and thus try and bring them in touch with Socialism.” And this is what Hyndman has spent twenty-five years of his life for.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Afterwards, when I had bidden my friends “good-night,” and braced myself for my four-mile walk home along the moonlit country lanes, the pity of it all came to me.

With machinery and industrial organisation rendering larger masses of men superfluous; with the intensity of production lowering man’s vitality; with the position of the workers becoming more precarious and the struggle for existence becoming keener ; with all the degeneration, poverty and hunger, with all the horror—there is no other word—of capitalism, yet they have no other message for the workers than this.

For two whole hours, having before them three or four hundred men, probably open to receive the truth, they had told them half truths that are worse than lies. Men who, properly guided, might have become members of a sound Socialist party, were deliberately led into the disappointing wilderness of reform.

What can one think of it?

Does Hyndman know the futility of these reforms he advocates ? Does he know he is misguiding the workers ? Has he not learnt the lesson that years of struggling for these things with no avail should have taught ? Can he not see that even if they were of any use the very best way to get them would be by the revolutionary method ? Does he not perceive that by side-tracking the working-class movement in this way he is delaying the day of the wage-slaves’ emancipation ?

If he does not see, then he is a blind leader of the blind, and should not be listened to. If he does see, then he is wilfully misdirecting the precious energy of the workers and should be exposed. Whichever way it is, we of the S.P.G.B. know our duty and are prepared to do it. We may be dogmatic—so is Science. We may deal with persons sometimes : but the act of any man that rivets the chains tighter upon the limbs of the workers is too tragic in its consequences to be lightly passed over. We may be small in numbers, yet we know that our efforts are exposing the misleaders of the working class and are teaching those principles that will help to bring about the abolition of capitalism in the quickest and surest way.

F. Hesley

Blogger's Note:

The Watford Branch member of the SPGB mentioned in the report of the meeting, Tom Wilkins, was the last living founder member of the SPGB when he died in 1970 at the age of 89. As his linked obituary states he was better known as 'Tom King', adopting the pseudonym during the First World War.

There is no record of a F. Hesley in the early SPGB records, so it was possibly a pen-name.

Wholesale Agents for the Socialist Standard. (1907)

From the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: What a show of pretence and hypocrisy (1963)

Editorial from the July 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Yet another political scandal has hit the headlines. Mr. Profumo’s indiscretions are only the latest in a long line of such extra-curricular activities on the part of our elected representatives but, unlike most of the others, he failed to keep his indiscretions discreet.

His confession and resignation have left the Conservative Party in confusion and the Labour Party cock-a-hoop. The latter, of course, can hardly go wrong as long as they don’t overplay their hand and show their glee too openly. It is enough for them, whilst fervently protesting that they are not in the least concerned with Mr. Profumo’s sexual behaviour, to keep the pot quietly simmering with expressions of deep and distressed concern for the country’s security.

As for the Conservative Party, they are quite demoralised, in spite of all Mr. Macmillan’s efforts to pull them together. Following upon all the other distasteful events of recent months, the new bombshell has shattered forever the sacred relic they have so carefully carried in their political baggage for so long — the idea that they alone are the Party who should rule because they are gentlemen, the personifications of all the noble traditions of high principle, strict morality, implicit honesty, and overwhelming trustworthiness.

The sensation-mongering Press, after taking a bad beating over the Vassall case, are back in full cry. Miss Keeler got what is reported to be £15,000 from the News of the World for her confessions, and was also well paid by the Sunday Mirror for her letter from Mr. Profumo. No doubt more large sums are in the offing for her and others in the case. At the same time, it is disclosed that the actual facts were known to many sections of the Press even when Mr. Profumo was making his denials last March, but that they all chose to keep quiet about them. Not, be it added, because of scruples about Mr. Profumo, but because they were afraid of losing some money in libel damages. So much for the boasts they periodically give us about telling the truth at any price.

Large sections of the public, of course, put on their usual show of shocked protest whilst fervently perusing every hard-bought detail the newspapers provided for them. One of the choicer blooms of the British cultural scene, the weekly ration of spice, scandal, and snigger, flowered brighter than ever.

What a show of pretence and hypocrisy it all is. The capitalist political parties all play the game of setting up their leaders as men apart—as people of greater intelligence, higher principles, stricter morals, than the common herd. The working class accept all this, and even grow to believe it, in return for lots of nice, fat promises to have things done for them and the relief of not having to think for themselves.

All sorts of people are drawing all sorts of implications from the Profumo a case. But for Socialists, its chief importance lies in the way it reflects, yet again. the cynicism and hypocrisy of the capitalist parties and their system, and the political laziness and ignorance of the working class who support it all and refuse to take action to get rid of it.

News in Review: The Profumo affair (1963)

The News in Review column from the July 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Profumo affair

It was in the May Socialist Standard, at a time when Mr. Profumo’s strenuous protestations of the innocence of his relationships with Christine Keeler still held public water, that we pointed out how unimportant are the personal morals of the administrators of capitalism.

Now that Profumo has come clean, and now that we have been treated to the squalid detail of the Argyll divorce case, what we said in May still stands. With something to be added.

The rather nasty stories have lifted a corner of the curtain on a life which is completely foreign to most workers.

The life of rich houses, glamorous holidays, expensive women and powerful men. Of easy luxury and sophistication. The life, in fact, of people who can dedicate their lives to what they conceive as living.

Which is something very foreign to most members of the working class, who are only the people who make possible the lives of luxury and glamour.

Profumo was a member of a capitalist government and capitalism teaches us, when we are children in school and when we are grown up enough to read its journalism, that the basis of morality is monogamy.

Many workers absorb this teaching and, no matter what it costs them in terms of personal strain, conform to it. Others conform because they cannot afford to do anything else. Promiscuity can be a costly business.

It can also be a tragic business, for workers. Only recently The Observer ran a series on illegitimate children in this country, which showed up the sadness of many unmarried mothers who are forced by their circumstances to give up their babies when they desperately want to keep them.

This sort of tragedy need never happen to rich people who are also promiscuous. They have no trouble in taking care of any number of children, 'legitimate" or no.

In more ways than one, capitalism is a sordid, inhuman social system in which only the ruling class are free.

War in the air

The early railways fought each other tooth and nail for freight and passengers, often taking enormous physical and economic risks in the process. In the same way, the great airlines are currently coming to grips over the pickings to be had on the world’s busy airlanes.

For some time, the American transatlantic carriers have been fighting the rest —and particularly Britain—over fares and cargo rates. This provoked the recent crisis in which British airports were on the point of being closed to Pan American and Trans World aircraft; something which was averted only when the American Civil Aviation Board made a temporary climb down. The situation remains threatening.

And now the war is hotting up in the freight carriers.

BOAC has been happily operating piston engined freighters across the Atlantic and had no immediate intention of spending any more millions on jets to speed up this service.

This intention has been upset by Pan American’s opening of the first all jet freight service, over both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Fast and capacious, the Boeing freighters have started an air cargo sales war which may, as in the case of passenger traffic, develop into a rate war.

If this happens, we shall probably see every airline which aspires to a place in the sun on the transatlantic run being forced to buy aircraft which they cannot afford, do not want, and which they often have to send off only half full of cargo. We may see countless aircraft which have plenty of useful life in them being scrapped or sold off for a song. And perhaps we shall see the airlines taking the same sort of physical risks which the primitive, battling railways took.

Competition, we are often being told, is one of capitalism’s health-giving substances. In fact, just like the other features of the all-wasteful society, it is a ludicrous way of running human affairs.

Advertising for votes

Do you vote for capitalism? You do?

Well, how does it feel like to be in somebody’s sights? You should know —both the big parties are now drawing a bead on you.

You have probably seen the big spread ads. which the Tories have been taking in the papers. You have probably heard that the Labour Party is indignant about where the money comes from, and you may have reflected that this argument has lost a lot of its point since Labour started putting out its own big ads.

These are part of a very expensive 
campaign. And it is all aimed at you.

The Tory ads. are punchy, with facts and figures about the roads they will lay down, the hospitals they will put up, and so on. If only, that is, you will give them the chance. Has it struck you as strange that after twelve years of Conservative paradise there are still no new hospitals in this country and the roads are still in a mess?

The Labour ads. are perhaps rather more airy, with some distant ideals of justice and equality—and Mr. Wilson just caught in the act of almost giving the new Labour thumbs-up sign. Labour has to go easy on the facts and figures. Their own record is pretty awful and to say too emphatically that there is anything wrong with Britain today leaves them open to the countercharge of running down the old country, dammit. That wouldn’t go down with a patriotic voter like you, would it? So Labour puts in the plea that everything could be all right. If only you give them the chance.

And will you? The big parties are lashing out the thousands in an effort to persuade you to put them in charge of British capitalism. But whoever gets that job will make no difference; the black spots which capitalism makes will remain unerased.

The tragedy is that the ballyhoo, the big splash, is what so often counts.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain cannot afford expensive publicity campaigns and indeed has to bleed itself merely to run one or two candidates in an election. Yet only Socialism can give us the sane world which most people, somehow, are looking for.

Remember that, when you read the next big ad. Remember it when you vote. They’ve got you in their sights but, in a way, you are the one who pulls the trigger.

The Pope is dead

Pope John died when, just before the Profumo scandal burst, news was in short supply. Especially the juicy "human interest” sort of news on which the popular press thrives. On thin rations, the papers made the most of the drawn out death agonies. Some of the headlines were almost ghoulish.

This gave us a peep at one of the nastiest sides of capitalism—the side which works for a profit out of human suffering, even when it is the suffering of one of the great upholders of property society.

Not only reporters rushed to say nice things about John XXIII. Bertrand Russell, a professed non-believer, echoed the popular estimation of the dead Pontiff as a man of peace:

The Pope used his office and his energy to bring peace and to oppose policies which lead to war and mass murder. His encyclical is a magnificent statement of the deepest wishes and hopes of all men of decency. . . I mourn his death.

There is, indeed, some rather tenuous evidence that the dead Pope was prepared to act as some sort of a go-between in a new world carve-up by the United States and Russia. This is the sort of diplomatic dabbling which often qualifies all sorts of people for the description of "peace loving.”

But this holds good only in peacetime. We know that, just like his predecessors, the Pope would have done nothing to oppose a future war and that in such a war there could well be Catholics on both sides, killing each other.

Thus does capitalism make warriors of them all.

In any case, modern war has nothing to do with a supposed lack of men of peace among the world’s leaders. Capitalism itself causes war and the leaders always go along on the tide of destruction.

And let all peace lovers remember that capitalism has always done well out of the servile ignorance of the religious, and especially of the Church of which John XXIII was so briefly the Vicar Supreme.

Postscript on housing

Of all the people to write a postscript to the special issue of the Socialist Standard on housing last May, it had to be the Minister of Housing himself, Sir Keith Joseph.

The last few days of that month gave birth to yet another White Paper which is supposed to be going to solve the housing problem. (“. . . promises,” commented The Observer, “borne on fairly insubstantial wings.”)

The new plan is to give housing subsidies only where the government thinks they are needed. Thus is quietly killed off the old policy (which was also going to solve the problem) of giving subsidies virtually indiscriminately. How long before the latest plan is pronounced to have failed?

There will be a bit more entertainment from the government’s financial jugglers; £100 million is intended to be available to encourage the building of houses for rent. From the merry shouts of welcome which greeted this announcement, nobody would have thought that these were the very policies which, in one form or another, have failed so blatantly in the past.

And, of course, the government will be speeding up slum clearance and will build more houses. The happy day when everyone will be living in what Housing Ministers think is a decent home has had to be postponed for a bit more, what with all this planning. Actually, it has been put off for another ten years. Said Sir Keith:

This programme will within 10 years transform the country's housing position, and will bring within reach of nearly every citizen in the land either a modern or a modernised house.

Presumably the Tories are hoping to win a few votes on this programme. Perhaps they will. It would not be the first time the working class have been hopelessly deceived about one of the ways in which capitalism blights their lives.

The Importance of Mr. Profumo (1963)

From the July 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

it was the Daily Express which pointed out, quickly, cruelly, that profumo is the Italian word meaning perfume. But the famous scandal sticks in a way undreamt of in the philosophies of big newspapers.

Now Profumo’s “sin,” for the Tories, was not just that he was running a mistress. That was bad enough, but there have been some famous precedents who have got away with the same thing. It was not even that the girl was being shared with a Russian intelligence agent and at least a couple of others, although that was enough to wilt the flowers on the starchiest of hats at a Conservative women’s fete. What really put Profumo beyond the pale was that he admitted to telling a lie. Not a lie to just anyone, but to the House of Commons, which is supposed to be an assembly of gentlemen and where it is the tradition not to question nor debate personal statements like Profumo’s original assertion of his innocence, this was what Robert McKenzie called a kick in the stomach for the Tories, who have always liked to think of themselves as the party of better people, of Christian gentlemen.

It was the lie which gave Lord Hailsham the excuse for his fireworks in his TV interview with McKenzie, when he blasted Profumo as a man who has “ lied and lied and lied ” and insisted that the whole affair was a moral issue. Hailsham is well known as a Tory moralist, a strict Christian who professes unshakeable principles. So is another central figure in the drama surrounding the government crisis—Enoch Powell. The hullabaloo over Profumo has served to make these men— and others like them—heroes of integrity. The inference we are invited to draw is that generally capitalism administered by the sort of men who would never tell a lie and that Profumo was just the inevitable bad apple.

Alright. Let us have a look at this business of lies. And if we do, the first thing to hit us is that political history is crammed with examples of men who, as a matter of course, have told enormous lies yet have never been accused of being liars. Some of them, in fact, have died as respected pillars of capitalist society. Stafford Cripps, for example, was the very caricature of an ascetic moralist. Strict vegetarian. Fervent Christian. Like Enoch Powell, he was supposed to be a man who stood for principle before everything. Did Cripps, then, never tell a lie? We need nudge our memories only a little to recall that in 1949 he protested for weeks that he had no intention of devaluing sterling, while all the time his plans for devaluation were cut and dried. There are plenty of other examples of Cripps’ flexible reverence for the truth.

The Tories are not, of course, untarred by this brush. Hailsham and Powell are only two of those who were unprotesting members of the Eden government which embarked on the Suez fiasco. They apparently held their consciences in check when their government broke its word to the United Nations and justified the invasion by what were quickly revealed as blatant lies. More recently the same, government has been what we can politely call less than frank over, the deportation of Doctor Soblen and of Chief Eriahoro. In fact, in a more subtle way, Christine Keeler is not the only matter on which Profumo has been dishonest, although on these issues his ex-colleagues in the government would never dream of calling him rude names. As Minister of War, Profumo bore the ultimate responsibility for the big publicity campaign to persuade people to join the Army. The advertisements used in this campaign showed such a one-sided view of Army life that even some newspapers felt moved to protest. Profumo’s ads. showed clean-living young men playing rugby, climbing mountains, patrolling romantic deserts. They did not hint that military discipline, in its dreary stupidities, is designed to degrade and brutalise men. They did not mention the unpleasant places a soldier may be sent to, nor the dirty jobs he may have to do there. They ignored the fact that soldiers often die especially horrible deaths, looking not at all like clean living Soldiers of the Queen as they do so. The advertisements told lies, but nobody in the government got upset with Profumo because of that.

Neither have they been upset by the lies about, say, the effects of testing nuclear weapons. The government assure us that the danger from these exercises is negligible and that another little test will not do us any harm. Yet they know perfectly well that every test adds to the atmosphere’s load of radioactivity and that this means that a lot of people, especially children, will die who would otherwise have lived. Overseas, as well, lies are told on this matter. President Kennedy has recently announced that his government will suspend all tests, unless some other country starts them up again. This may well be followed, as it was in 1958, by a similar announcement from Moscow. Both sides will pose as the guardians of peace and human safety. Yet both sides know that a suspension of tests does not mean that the development of nuclear weapons has been suspended. They know that they are all working on -their bombs and that when they think it is to their advantage to do so they will think up some reason to start testing them again. Are Kennedy and Khruschev, then, champions of truth?

It would, indeed, be surprising if men in their position were, for they administer a social system which is full of lies, and not only those told by politicians. Were the makers of thalidomide telling the truth when they asserted that the drug could safely be taken by pregnant women? What sort of principle were they upholding, when they protested that the delay in the American Food and Drug Administration approving thalidomide was costing them their chance of exploiting a Christmas market? Do the mass-production tailors believe their own advertisements, which show aristocratic young men being admired by glamorous girls for the cheap off-the-peg outfit they are wearing? Are the estate agents who advertise a cramped, poky apology for a house as “ neat and compact ” and a garden with knee-high weeds as “mature” keen churchgoers who regularly say their prayers?

We know what grounds these lies are excused on. We know that capitalism claims that strategic and commercial reasons justify telling lies. As R. A. Butler said about the Cripps lie, “. . . I know that if you talked about devaluing the currency well ahead of time, you would do indefinite damage to your own currency. . . .” But they cannot have it both ways. Capitalism professes to work on a basis of morality; workers are taught from the very beginning that the road to Heaven is paved with honesty and high principles. Yet capitalism admits that its own interests force it to deny these principles. And since when have the sort of morals propounded so often by capitalism's leaders been relative, adaptable, matters of expediency? A lie, after all, is a lie under any circumstances. No, they cannot have it both ways, although over Profumo that is how they have tried to have it.

Imagine a politician who told the truth! A Minister of Housing who admitted that he could not solve the housing problem! A Foreign Secretary who blew the gaff on every double-crossing international carve up as soon as he had made it! A Chancellor of the Exchequer who introduced his Budget with the admission that it was just a rehash of a lot of ideas which had flopped in the past! If that happened nobody would get involved in a scandal. There would be a dignified resignation, surrounded by sorrowful stories of tiredness, strain and mental breakdown.

Profumo told a rather foolish and, for him, a risky lie. But at least it was a lie about his personal life, a lie which involved only a very few people. In contrast, day after day capitalism goes on turning out lies which affect the welfare and in many cases the very lives of millions of people. What is more, those lies play their part in bolstering the social system which degrades and depresses the majority—the only socially useful people—the working class.

No minister gets worked up about that. There are no top level inquiries, no resignations, nothing on television. In cases like the Profumo scandal the working class are supposed to be content with a mixed diet of salacity and hypocritical moralising. The same newspapers which got indignant over Profumo's lie saw nothing wrong in paying thousands of pounds for Christine Keeler's story, nor in publishing photographs of her which we will describe—and not for want of a better word—as arresting.

It will be tragic if in among this smoke screen of hypocrisy and scandal the essential fact is lost sight of. Let us state it here, quickly and simply.

Lies are essential to capitalism and super moralists like Lord Hailsham know it. And capitalism itself is the biggest lie of all.

Ivan

A long, cool look at a hot potato (1963)

From the July 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politically speaking, the issue of full employment has become a very hot potato. Ever since post-war capitalism pulled out the first of its many surprises by not going into the deep slumps which were such a feature before 1939, governments have trod carefully, thinking perhaps that a couple of million unemployed would mean the end of their term of power. (Although if they do think like this they may be over-pessimistic. Despite the heavy unemployment between the wars, the working class never got around to challenging capitalism ; indeed, in 1939 they were preparing for yet another slump under yet another Conservative government.) Inevitably, Chancellors of the Exchequer have churned out many soothing speeches on the theme that the jobs of the working class are safe in their hands. Then can even produce that old and faithful ally Statistics to prove their point. Yes, a hot potato.

And why? It is obvious that employment is important to the working class under capitalism for the simple reason (and we shall have more to say on this) that they depend on their jobs for their living. But the matter does not end there. For so many workers their employment is more than that. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that they almost deify the company they work for. Listen to them talk about it: “ My Job “ My Company.” You can almost hear the capitals. If employment is important to the working class, if it is a delicate political issue, it can be because a depressingly high proportion of workers ask for nothing much more from life than the chance to live in servitude.

In these circumstances it is only to be expected that there would be a lot of wrong thinking about employment. In the first place, about “ full ” employment. Recently, the newspapers, the novelists, film directors, TV men, and so on, have made the startling discovery that in many industries and in many parts of the country full employment is a sour joke. In the shipbuilding industry, for example, and in the towns where the shipyards are based. Day by day, gloomy reports come in from the yards. Employment is low. Orders are scarce. Some yards are completing what they fear may be their last work for a long time. A few small yards have had to shut down.

In the second place, a lot of nonsense is often talked when unemployment is in prospect, and it is not only the politicians who are to blame here. Consider again the shipbuilding industry and the recent decision of the Court Line to order a big tanker from a Japanese shipyard. Court Line is a British company, although the tanker is for a subsidiary of theirs in the Bahamas. Nobody needed to be a clairvoyant to forecast that the placing of this order abroad would provoke strong protests and sure enough that rumbustious fellow, Mr. Ted Hill, secretary of the Boilermakers' union, satisfied our expectations. This was, he said, a ”. . .  wrong to the British workers.” And more specifically: “Any British shipowner who places an order in Japan is un-British.”

Mr. Hill did not tell us, at the same time, what he thought of foreign shipowners who have their ships built in British yards. The Sunderland yard of Joseph L. Thompson & Son, Ltd., for example, recently completed the 24,500 ton bulk carrier Kolfinn for an Oslo firm. This was the fiftieth vessel built by the yard for Norwegian owners; their next launch will be an 80,000 ton tanker for Red Olsen & Co., Ltd., also of Oslo. Mr. Hill did not comment that it was un-Norwegian of Olsens to place their orders on the Wear instead of using them to develop their own shipbuilding industry. Neither did he say that it was un-Russian of the Soviet government, when they recently invited tenders from British yards among others—for six fishmeal factory ships.

Mr. Hill’s brand of nationalism is very much a have-your-cake-and-eat-it affair, with the added complication that he is not the only one to be after the cake. When the Russians put out the fishmeal ships for tender, there were signs that the British government were considering swapping an order for Russian oil for the contract to build the ships. This may have pleased the boilermakers, but it upset the miners, who regard every drop of oil as a threat to their jobs. Mr. Sidney Ford, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, described the oil-for-ships deal as “ridiculous.” “This cannot/' he said, “ be a good thing for the coal industry."

And while all this rumpus is going on, capitalism continues on its way, as serenely as it may. For capitalism, once we accept its basic, chaotic illogicality (and that is what trade union leaders have done) has its own orderly logic for its actions. Court Line did not give its order to Japan to cock a snook at British shipbuilding. They protested that they had made every effort to get their ship built in a United Kingdom yard. But:

It was found, with sincere regret, that British prices and credit terms for this type of vessel resulted in an uncompetitive unit when compared with the offers received from abroad. Had the order not been placed in Japan, no ship would have been contracted at all.

Court Line, in fact, are taking advantage of the low shipbuilding prices which are resulting from the current battle between Swedish and Japanese yards and are gambling that the recent rise in tanker freight rates will still be effective when they take delivery of their new tanker. From their point of view it was reasonable to place the order abroad; the economic requirements of capitalism saw to that. In the same way it was reasonable for the Soviet government to put Mir. Ford's mind at rest by ordering their fishmeal ships from Sweden. They got a good price, a promise of quick delivery and generous credit terms. What more does any Capitalist concern ask for?

Capitalism, because of its insistence on the profitability of an enterprise, is often bound to make life difficult for anyone who preaches economic nationalism, whether they do so in the board room or a trade union conference hall. For the working class, it goes even deeper. Last May, an American trade union leader on a visit to this country uncovered an example of the use which the employers can make of working class nationalism. He was Mr. Ben Segal, the director of international affairs in the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers. This is how The Guardian of May 17th reported him:

. . . General Electric, the American company, had pointed out to their own unions the dangers of lower standards in Japan, but . . . it was found that their own international company was the largest stockholder in Toshiba, one of the principal manufacturers of electronic products in Japan.

Nobody need get indignant about this. A nationalistic working class are wide open to the smooth operator.

The big point in this is that capitalism has split its population into two and of these two it is the working class who need to get a job to live. But merely finding employment does not mean that a worker has solved his problems; indeed, so often it is the people with the better jobs who suffer the most strain. And even when he is earning a steady wage, the worker always finds that he lives under restrictions and that the cloth available to him allows only the skimpiest of coats to be cut.

Let us pile it on a bit more. A worker only gets a job when his employer can make a profit from his labours. If, for any one of a number of reasons, the profit is not there then very often neither is the job. This is why workers are so often interested in their employers finding markets for their goods. It is why shipyard workers agree with Ted Hill raving about “ un-British ” shipbuilders on one side, and on the other miners agree with Sidney Ford snapping about “ridiculous” international trading deals. In another way, it is why workers in the North want industry diverted to them from other areas. It never seems to strike them that this is the most futile tinkering with the problem and that the very best that they can hope for is to keep themselves in a job while another worker somewhere else gets the sack. Employment, of course, is the great dream of the working class; to many of them a regular job is the sun and the moon. What a measly outlook! For the only difference between employment and unemployment is often that between one degree of poverty and another.

Until the working class have grasped this fact, capitalism will continue, and so will its anomalies and stupidities. Industries will continue to boom and to slump and if they are industries like shipbuilding the slumps will cause some concentrated suffering in the areas which live off the industry. For capitalism makes its wealth in order to sell it, and this applies to ships just as it does to anything else. When conditions look good for selling cargo space, the tendency is for a lot of ships to be built. This in itself can mean that the market becomes restricted, helped perhaps by something like a decline in general international trade. This is what defeats gambles like that which Court Line are making over their new tanker. Too many ships compete for a limited market. Ships are laid up (there are over 500 like that at the moment). Shipyards slump and whatever help they may get from their governments (a £30 million fund was recently announced by the British government to aid shipbuilding) can have little effect on the problem.

This is something like the situation today. The chairman of the Houlder Brothers shipping line described it like this in his last report to the shareholders:

. . . instead of reaping the benefit of the expansion in world trade, the shipowners of the world have robbed themselves of that benefit by excessive building of new ships.

This excessive building has been stimulated by. . . over optimism generated by the prosperity of previous years. . . unhealthy encouragement imparted by tax considerations in some foreign countries and . . . the building up of national fleets based on policy unrelated to commercial considerations.

There speaks an authentic voice of capitalism, unconsciously displaying the system's crass anarchy. For no economist, no managing director, no minister, has yet been able accurately to predict the course of capitalism's markets. But all of them must go out on some sort of a limb and take their chance on beating their rivals into a market. British shipbuilding may be groggy on the ropes but it is still in there punching, even if rather weaker than before. Camell Laird's chairman said in his last report: “. . . we have intensified our efforts to attract business from overseas. We shall pursue relentlessly and vigorously all potential business at home and overseas . . ."

Cheers, almost certainly, from the Cammell Laird workers. Cheers, for sure, from their shareholders. Employment may be a tricky issue for capitalism and there may be a lot of nonsense talked about it. But the worst thing of all is that the nonsense usually persuades the workers that their interests are hand in glove with those of their employers and this delays the day when the world can take a long, cool look at itself. And come up with the right answers.

Ivan