Cuttings and comments
“Every man born on the soil of England had a right to claim work.” Thus the Lord Bishop of Ripon. But who disputes the right to claim ? Certainly not the Bishop’s friends of the capitalist-class. Why indeed should they ? The more men claiming the keener the competition and the lower the wages. Now if every man born on the soil of England put in a claim for the whole product of his toil and refused to allow the capitalist to non-suit the claim, there might, it is true, still be unemployment, but only because the worker would not require to work so hard nor so often. And as he would receive all the wealth he produced, there would be none left for my Lord Bishop, who would perforce have to work himself.
William Sotting, aged 74, shot himself, having been forced to the conclusion that “Old men are like old dogs, and ought to be shot when they are past work.” According to the dictum of American capitalism, when a man reaches the age of 40 he should be taken out and shot as useless for further profit-making. Here is a case in which the views of exploiter and exploited coincide. Ergo, there is no class war as Keir Hardie would say!
Referring to certain Trade Union amendments which he had heard were to be moved to the Government “Unemployed” Bill—that unqualified absurdity in which the S.D.F. have claimed their influence is apparent—the writer of the labour column in the Echo says: “It seems to be quite certain that Mr. Balfour will consent to none of these amendments, and, what is more, a Liberal Government would not assent to them either.” As the attitude of both Liberal and Tory Governments towards labour is the same, the Echo writer has doubtless spoken truly, although in speaking truly he is not following the precedent set by other Liberal scribes whose business it is to induce Trade Unionists to lend their support to Liberalism, on the ground that Liberalism is infinitely better than Toryism. If he gives the game away so inartistically, the Echo writer we fear, will not for long remain unacquainted with the order of the sack.
Mr. William Crooks, M.P., L.C.C, has been talking again, this time to a World interviewer. “There is no snobbish or social distinction when once you get inside the House of Commons” he says; only “wonderful and splendid kindness” for Labour members apparently. He did not add “so long as they do as their capitalist fellow members want them to do,”—the addendum necessary to make the statement entirely true.
Mr. Crooks also has a remedy for the overpopulation of cities and the misery resulting from unemployment. He unburdened himself of it to the World man thus :
“It is to be found on the land, the mother of us all. You go through England and see what vast stretches of beautiful and uncultivated soil there are. Why don’t some of these wealthy landowners say : ‘Hang it all, I will give up some acres or so to these poor under-fed devils, shove up some tin houses and train them in agriculture’ ? They are no good at first. They hardly know the difference between a brick and a lump of clay. But they can learn, and they can quickly pick up their strength, and turn into good farm labourers, worth their 2s. 6d. a day in England and their 6s. 6d. a day in Canada. The experiment has been tried on a small scale and has proved successful. But we leave it to the hobby of an American philanthropist, and our own wealthy classes won’t lend a hand.”
This “remedy,” though couched in unpolished and homely phraseology, hath an ancient and fishlike smell. We seem to have heard of the “shove ’em back on the land” cure, as Mr. Crooks would say, before. It is much the same as the reafforestation (or firewood manufacture) cure favoured by other ”Labour Leaders,” and pre-supposes capitalist production without a large army of unemployed. Which, as the youngest of economic fledglings would be able to show, is ridiculous. Mr. Crooks skould read more and talk less.
” A Rose by any other name—
“A woman applied to Mr. Rose at the Tower Bridge Police Court for a pair of boots for her young daughter from the funds of the poor box. In refusing the application, Mr. Rose said he was averse to giving boots in the summer because he did not consider them as a necessity. Children could go to school without boots, especially this weather, or with canvas shoes, which could be bought for a shilling, or slippers.”
Mr. Rose is no doubt a most worthy person, and has spoken according to his lights. If his lights are not very bright or his sympathy with working-class want not over strong, the fault is not his. The brutality of his indifference simply reflects the training he has received, the atmosphere he has moved in from his youth up. It is a not unusual expression of the callous cult of capitalism.
Mr. Rose is not to blame, but his reply to the woman asking for boots is strongly reminiscent of the reply of Foulon, of unsavory memory, of whom it is recorded that, in the days which preceded the French Revolution, he replied to the people who cried aloud for bread that they should eat grass. Foulon was the product his time and was not to blame. But his latter end found Foulon hanging from a lamp-post his mouth stuffed full of his grass.
Philosophic dissertations upon individual responsibility—or lack of it—have no great weight with the ill-educated striking against oppressive conditions. They personify the causes of their misery, and the persons selected are generally those who have been most brutally indifferent to the unhappiness of their position, or who have in some other manner been associated with the maintenance of the system spelling oppression : at these they strike.
We do not pretend to view this method of striking with favour. We are in existence as a political party in order to educate the working-class so that they may strike effectively at the ballot box without having recourse to the lamppost. The lamp-post has had its day. But the representative of capitalism who speaks as Mr. Rose has spoken, is none the less in a dangerous position, because he emphasizes the existence of the gulf which yawns between his class and the oppressed and poverty-stricken working-class, and so helps to prepare the material out of which the Socialist Party will fashion the weapon that shall presently sweep capitalism out of existence altogether—the weapon of a class-conscious, well organised, working class. Mr. Rose is therefore in the dangerous position of contributing to the destruction of the form of society upon which his position depends.
A.J.M.G.
We commend to the chastened reflection of Mr. Gribble and the members of the S.D.F. in Northampton the fact that the gentleman who was largely responsible for preventing the case of the Raunds strikers coming before the House of Commons was precisely that gentleman whose democratic sympathies they expressed their appreciation of by assisting into Parliament. It was Mr. Labouchere’s inordinate and intentionally prolonged remarks on the Women’s Suffrage Bill, which he was frankly concerned to talk out, that robbed those who professed to be anxious to bring the matter forward of the opportunity to do so. Of course it might have been done in a disorderly way by breaking down a few of the forms of the House, but the “Labour” members are far too respectable to do that. Besides, it might jeopardize the esteem in which they are so proud to be held by their fellow members of the capitalist-class !