At Random
“Mr. Burrows ought to be in Parliament; he is much the sanest of the Party to which he belongs.” (W. T. Stead, Review of Reviews, August, 1908.
After this handsome certificate of comparative “sanity” from one of the most notorious tin gods of Nonconformist-Liberalism, the suave gentleman who plays “Socialism” on a cracked pipe in an impossible key to the tune of “Reform,” should experience no trouble in making one of those “compacts” with the master-class which the Social Democratic Party would never endorse.
What, never ? Well; hardly ever ! See Manifesto of the S.P.G.B., pp. 1, 9, and 10.
The “humanity” of individual members of the governing class often throws a lurid light on the all-essential conception of class-consciousness. We learn from the Correspondent of the Daily News that “President, Faillères and M. Clemenceau have stubborn objections to capital punishment.”
Whether a criminal shall take his last look through the “little window,” or be immured in prison, has little, or very remote, bearing on the interests of the gentlemen in question as members of the governing class. Quite otherwise with a strike. The sabred right of the capitalist to exercise his unfettered “freedom” in brutal exploitation is challenged. The genial Fallières and the clement Clemenceau have no hesitation then in shooting.
“Stubborn objections to capital punishment” en masse, in the interests of the employers, have as little existence with Fallières and Clemenceau. as with Asquith and Burns.
When will the worker fully grasp the fatal significance of the armed forces of the nation to himself ? “Hard times” are in store during the coming winter. Sharp reminders of the real moaning of such forces may serve to help even fatuous fools of the Blatchford type to see that preservation of “our” country is the function of the army and navy only on the clear recognition of the fact that “our” is synonymous with the class that hold and control the instruments of production.
The worker is fatherland-less. Stripped of all claim to any advantages which he may have formerly enjoyed from the use of land, the appeal to save “our” country from foreign conquest by the Editor of the Clarion, is on a par with his strenuous begging for funds to finance “our” Vans—which belong, as you please are solely controlled by—spite the feeble Clarionese kickers—the Editor of the Clarion
As thus : “MY method is soon told. I look out for good men. When I find one, I give thanks. I put him into the right place. I give him a free hand.”
“Alderman E. R. Hartley will be appointed Van Organiser.—Clarion (recent issue).
Inimitable style, Nunquam’s ! ! My very dear friends of the Clarion brand of “Reform,” DO YOU READ “YOUR” ORGAN?
Listen to the tale of woe ! The Class Teacher this time. “Pious professional protests, pious professional tears have all been in vain. In some cases we (the teachers’ unions) are actually progressing backwards.”
“One gets sick unto death of it all: we are singing and making merry while the ship is sinking.”
The “dearth” of teachers has come to a most brutal, beastly, unseemly end. The poor pedagogue is actually being brought face to face with “iron laws of supply and demand.” But—soft ! We will take heed unto ourselves, we will take counsel of the miner, we will learn wisdom from the bricklayer, and the gasworker. We “will reduce the number of possible blacklegs.”
Why, damme ! if it comes to that, “we will adopt strike principles.”
Ay ! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Counter-Jumpers’ Champion, noise it not abroad in the Dustmen’s Herald—we will bow our heads, and admit “uncertificated teachers” to the Union what time we declare that “with the ‘supplementary ‘ teachers we have no cause in common.”
“No cause in common.” Fools and blind ! Compelled to sell your pitiful commodity, a shoddy education, at a rate which compels you too oft to occupy your “leisure” time in petty trading, in divers pursuits which a false pride and an eye to income tax compels you to hide, you have yet to learn that you have a “cause in common” with your class, the working class.
Meanwhile, the President of your Union is discovering that there is a “great sense of unity” among teachers in the wonderful German Empire.
A comrade from Manchester, who modestly hides his individuality under the weird title of “Jaybee,” writes: —
“The futility of endeavouring to put a stop to industrial operations by such a method as the general strike, was shown during the recent strike in Paris ; Mr. Clemenceau, the Premier, said he would be able to place at the disposal of the directors, military engineers to take the place of the men in supply stations if they went on strike.”
“Further, he was prepared to supply TROOPS TO GUARD THE MAINS.”
A striking commentary on the soundness of the position taken up by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, viz: that, whilst fully recognising the necessity of organisation on the industrial plane, the seizure of the political machinery (including the armed forces of the nation) by the worker, is absolutely essential to working-class emancipation.
“Direct action,” however thickly veiled with high-seeming Socialist phrases, is Anarchy, and he who would persuade the worker to “drive out Beelzebub with Beelzebub” is working present woe, and hindering future weal in a way that is the more tragic, in so far as a genuine desire to serve his class often dominates the misguided devotee to an ancient and obsolete faith.
A REGINALD