A Look Round
Mr. Louis A. Hill, to whose utterances I have previously referred in these columns, continues his advocacy of an Eight Hours Act for bakers and continues to make unprovable statements in connection therewith.
In communications to the Dally News and the Daily Express recently, he stated that the passing of the bill would “find work for practically every unemployed baker in London” and “would find employment in London alone for some 4,000 or 5,000 extra hands.” Now in my humble opinion Mr. Hill knows he cannot justify these statements, hence his refusal to debate the matter with a member of the S.P.G.B., when asked to do so at the meeting of bakers held at Canning Town on February 9th.
In the February issue of the Journeymen Bakers’ Magazine, Mr. Jenkins, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Operative Bakers, reported that during the Labour Conference at Belfast he visited one of the largest and most up-to-date bakeries in the city, and “had special facilities offered me to examine the newest machinery that had been introduced from a labour-saving point of view, and found, as I had expected, that every development of machinery was throwing men out of work, the result being that 102 men were on the out-of-work list, so that with a 700 membership, one out of every seven were out of work, which represents a very serious state of things ; up to now they have been able to deal with this small army of unemployed, but from all appearances they may be eventually hard pushed to provide for them unless by a serious increase of contributions, notwithstanding they are working under a 48 hour week.”
According to the British Baker for April 19 last, Mr. Jenkins attended the Annual Dinner of the Portsmouth Branch of the A.U.O.B. & C. on April 10 and in replying to the toast of “The Amalgamated Union,” laid special stress on the Eight Hours Day Bill for the Baking Trade now before Parliament, which had, he said, been rendered necessary by the excessive labour forced on those who could find employment, the result, in connection with modern improvement, being an ever-increasing army of unemployed bakers, which the proposed Bill would practically eliminate. Where ten or fifteen years since ten or eleven sacks was considered a fair output per man, now double that amount was the output in many of the factories, and it was evident that something to alter the conditions of the workers was an absolute necessity.
Once again I ask Mr. Hill, and also Mr. Jenkins, to reconcile their extravagant statements with the actual facts as admitted by, at any rate, the last-named.
That “Radical of Radicals,” Mr. Horatio Bottomley, has made Mr. Featherstone Asquith a present of a suggestion, but does not for a moment suppose that Mr. Asquith will adopt it. He says : “An Old Age Pension of 5s. per week for every law-abiding citizen—whether otherwise “deserving” or not—of the age of seventy years and upwards, who cares to claim it. That will exactly fit the case—and Mr. Asquith’s name will go down to posterity as that of the great Chancellor who, out of the country’s wealth, fed and clothed the aged when their powers of contributing to it were exhausted. No man could seek a higher reputation than this.”
Oh! that will be joyful. Most members of the working class are “too old at forty.” The great friendly societies, who take care only to enrol “good lives,” show in their statistics the number of middle-aged members who, mainly because of unemployment, lapse. And if they can only manage to “hang on” until they are 70, and never break the law, Horatio would give them five shillings per week !
This, in Mr. Bottomley’s opinion, will enable them to feed and clothe themselves. I should like to see Bottomley, Asquith & Co. doing it at the price. And what about rent ?
In the following year Mr. Bottomley would extend the pensions to those of 65 years of age, thus bringing himself into line with those other advocates of “justice” for the squeezed-out workers, the Labour Party, who through Mr. G. N. Barnes, urged this proposal in the House of Commons in February, 1906.
In sending stamps for twelve months’ subscription to THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, “Wrong Fount” expresses his appreciation of our efforts to produce an interesting and instructive journal, the reading of which has greatly strengthened him. He is a member of the S.D.F., and has been recently a municipal candidate for that body. He does not wish his name and town to be mentioned, as “the time has not yet arrived,” whatever that may mean. He adds:—”You have a good work ahead ; it is good if only for what the ‘S.S.’ has taught me, although I am still ashamed of my ignorance. Go on, Lads!”
Well, we cannot expect to dispel ignorance all at once. It took many years for some of us who were in the S.D.F. to arrive at the stage of entirely breaking away from the reform and palliative mongering of that body. But at last “the time arrived,” and we formed the S.P.G.B.
One paragraph in “Wrong Fount’s” letter is undoubtedly based upon an insufficient knowledge of the facts, and may also be due to some prejudice on his part against us. He says: “might I suggest that there is a vast difference between criticism and villification—although I must confess that the latter weapon is not used so much now as it was formerly by you. That is good, too.”
Now, I do not think it can be charged against us that we have ever villified anyone in the columns of this journal. To villify means to degrade by slander and a slander is a false or malicious report. So far as we know, no “slanders” have ever appeared and every effort will be made to keep them out. Upon reconsideration “Wrong Fount” will no doubt withdraw his remark.
On Wednesday, September 6th, 1905 (one year and eight months ago), whilst the Trade Union Congress was sitting at Hanley, over a hundred people were evicted during a heavy downpour of rain from their homes at New Hemsworth, near Barrnsley, at the instance of the Colliery Company, with whom they were in dispute. Other evictions followed later. The dispute is not yet settled, and the evicted ones have not yet returned to “their” homes. They are endeavouring to subsist on the few shillings that can be raised by making charitable appeals to their fellow members of the working class, who have not sufficient for themselves.
For fourteen months out of the twenty there has been a “Labour” Party in the House of Commons, specially claiming to represent the Trade Unionists, of whom the Hemsworth colliers form a part. While the colliers and their wives and children have been suffering and starving, the “Labour” Party have been earning the encomiums of the capitalist party, and boasting of their “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability.” One of them (Ramsay Macdonald) moved the adjournment of the House to discuss the shooting of natives in Natal, but none (not even W. Thorne, S.D.F.) has risked his reputation for “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability” by denouncing the damnable system which produces such outrages as the Hemsworth evictions.
“Wrong Fount” may accuse me of villification, but can he deny that what I have written is true and justifiable ?
Of course one can quite understand the reluctance of Keir Hardie and his friends to take action concerning such a glaring illustration of that class war which they declare is only a “shibboleth” and “a reactionary and whiggish precept, certain to lead the movement away from the real aims of Socialism.”
A formal report has been issued by the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the “probable economic effect of a limit of eight hours to the working day of coal mines.” Some interesting evidence has been given, particularly as to the effect of a reduction in other industries. Mr. H. F. Donaldson, M.I.C.E., chief superintendent of the Ordnance Factories, Woolwich, detailed how the hours in the factories had been reduced from 54 to 48. Their method of work was really piecework, and the production had been approximately the same as under the old regime. The attendance of the men had been more regular since the shortening of the hours. He did not think that the reduction had meant an increased intensity of labour, but it did mean “hustle,”
Mr. J. Lowrie, manager of the Royal Army Clothing Factory, Grosvenor Road, also gave evidence. He said that at his establishment there were employed 1,532 women and girls, of whom 1,385 were on piece work. Until 1894 they were working 55 hours per week, after which year they were reduced to 48. He did not think this reduction of seven hours had made any difference in the output: there was the same efficiency in the shorter hours. He considered it had been an economic success.
And there are some folks who talk of dealing with the unemployed problem by enacting an Eight Hours Day !
J. KAY