Jottings

D. J. Shackleton, M.P., speaking at Leeds on Oct. 24th, ’08, on unemployment, said of the Labour Party, “It should always be remembered that they were the smaller party, and what they could get out of the ‘House’ would be by persuasion and force of argument.” And yet later in the same speech he stated “I take it that Mr. Asquith means help apart from the Poor Law. If he does not we are not going to have it” (“it” being Asquith’s remedy for unemployment). Fancy the party of persuasion having or not having as it chooses ! “If we can only get Parliament to see the reasonableness of our demand, I, for one, will be quite pleased to see the Government get on doing the good work with regard to temperance reform and other matters that they are doing.” Mr. Shackleton doesn’t seem to realise that what appears reasonable to profit-mongers in Parliament will not be to the workers’ interest. Further, were it in the workers’ interest and there was no force behind the demand they can ignore it. Mr. Guy Wilson, at West Hull, quoted Mr. Shackleton as showing that the Liberal Party were favourable to Labour, and now he has given one of the parties whose interests he is to strictly abstain from promoting, another testimonial. He is reported as saying “We are not anxious to do anything to hamper the Government, but they are not doing all we could expect of them.” There’s where he makes a mistake. If he viewed these matters from a class conscious stand-point he would see that they do all one can expect of them from the workers’ point of view, and that is “nothing.”

Messrs. Brunner, Mond, & Co., Northwich, have not, according to Mr. F. W. Brock, a director, considered the financial effect of putting their employees on short time (and short wages) in order that work may be found for some of the unemployed in and around Northwich.

The scheme is on similar lines to one mentioned by J. T. McPherson, M.P., in the Eight Hours Bill debate, 18.3.08. The members of the union this gentleman is connected with alleged to be getting so much in wages for a twelve hour day on the North-East Coast and West of Scotland that a proposal had been made to the employers to allow three shifts of eight hours each instead of two shifts of twelve hours each per day. By this method it was hoped to employ 1,200 additional men, and, even though the steel smelters were willing to sacrifice one third of the wages they received the employers declined to entertain the proposal. It would be interesting to know what the wages were at the time the suggestion was made. I should have thought that so many unemployed in an industry would tend to lower wages. In the Northwich arrangement it is calculated that work will be found for 250 additional men, while the same wages bill as at present will be paid. This means speeding up. And as work is to go on day and night, it is obvious that the financial side has not been considered at all. It never is ! The dividend is 5 per cent. below the corresponding period last year. Possibly this has something to do with the new move.

If open confession be good for the soul, Councillor J. E. Sutton, a Manchester “labour” leader, must now sleep easy o’nighls. Speaking in support of “Labour” Councillor Billam at Bradford, Manchester, during the municipal contests, he stated, “The Labour Party are willing to compromise if the other parties would allow them one representative in every ward. That would give them thirty representatives instead of the eleven which it had taken them fourteen years of hard work to secure.”

There are about, 124 representatives on the Manchester City Council, therefore, Councillor J. E. Sutton thinks Labour’s share is about one-fourth the total. Any attempt to break through such an arrangement by endeavouring to secure more seats on the council would mean the loss of some of the original thirty. The workers of Bradford, Manchester would do well to read tho following.

At the Hull Conference of the Labour Party Mr. Grayson stated that he believed in pallitives with all his heart; now he tells us that “war has been declared. The decks are cleared. The people know their friends and I am hopeful. I am out for Socialism, and will be content with nothing less.” (Daily Dispatch, 17.10.08.) At a meetng held at the Huddersfield Town Hall on 31.10.08, Mr. Grayson said, “Robert Blatchford and I have been considering, and we have come to the conclusion that while the squabble goes on the people must be fed. There is nobody else will feed them, and we in the Socialist movement must. We are going to say to the classes who say it cannot be done, ‘put down as much as you can and we will feed them.’ If they refuse to put it down we shall be able to turn round on them and say, ‘You contemptible cads, we applied constitutional and peaceful means—we shall now resort to other means.’ You must be ready for the other means.” —Manchester Guardian, 2.11.08.

Socialism, to Mr. Grayson, would appear to mean charity ; failing charity being forthcoming he would resort to other means, presumably Anarchy, not Socialism, surely, because that might well be brought about by constitutional methods, via the ballot box, that is given voters educated to a sense of their class mission. Belfort Bax in “Socialism : What it is and what it is not,” tells us “No! emphatically, alms giving, whether good or bad, right or wrong, under existing conditions, not only is not Socialism, but has nothing to do with Socialism.

But, of course, Bax is an “esoteric rambler” vide Grayson, in his debate with Hicks.

The Liberal politicians are as much at sea as the Labour misleaders. This possibly arises from their actions in Parliament being similar. C. F. G. Masterman (whom J. Hunter Watts supported), speaking at Tottenham on October 29th said that “If the Right to Work Bill had been passed, however, in the crude form in which it was presented to Parliament, it would have been as difficult for them to provide work as at the present time.” And yet he “voted some time ago for the Right to Work Bill.”

W. Thorne, in backing the Unemployed Bill of the Labour Party whilst knowing it was of no use as a solution of the problem, was in the same position as Masterman in voting for a measure he knew was of no use.

JAYBEE