The Socialist Forum
A Canadian reader asks if the price of gold fluctuates.
When the value of commodities is expressed in the form of money, that is their price. Money itself, therefore, has no price, since it would be meaningiess to express the value of one sovereign’s worth of gold as being equal to one sovereign. When gold is the money commodity, the price ot gold is a fixcd relationship between gold as bullion and the unit of currency. For example, if the pound sterling were defined by law as a quarter of an ounce of pure gold, then an ounce would always be worth £4 (putting aside questions of the cost of coining, melting, transporting, and insuring, etc.). Actually, the pound sterling is fixed by law at a quantity and quality of gold which makes an ounce (troy weight) of gold of standard fineness worth £3 17s. 10½d. ; and makes pure gold worth. £4 4s. 11½d. an ounce. Given that the coin is convertible into metal and vice versa, the fixed price except to the extent of the cost of melting, transporting, insuring, etc. Thus, on March 31st, of this year, owing to gold coming into the London market in excess of demand, the price fell from £4 4s 10¾d. to £4 4s. 9¾d., the lowestprice for five years.
If gold were not the money commodity, then its price could fluctuale in just the same way as the prices of other commodities. When gold is the money commodity, changes in the value of gold (due to changes in the amount of labour necessary to produce it) have the effect of changing the prices of all other commodities. Thus, a fall in the cost of producing gold would cause a rise in prices generally. But if gold were not the money commodity, its price would be expressed in the money commodity and could fluctuate just as if it were wheat, or boots, or silver. The money unit may be paper money not convertible into a precious metal, as in Germany and elsewhere after the War. If, in such circumstances, the Government issues paper money in large quantities in order to pay its way, inflation causes all prices to rise. Everyone tries to hold goods, and to get rid of paper money whose purchasing power falls from day to day. Then the paper money price of gold soars with the soaring prices of other corn-modifies.
A reader points to the extraordinary confusion that exists in the minds of the workers, and asks how we propose ever to get them to take a different line from the one they now follow, unless we are prepared to participate actively in the political side of public affairs.
The answer is, that whatever our wishes on the subject may be, we have not the choice which our correspondent assumes is within our reach. He assumes that we can, if we wish, participate in what its defenders call “practical politics,” and at the same time continue with our Socialist propaganda, instead of concentrating on the latter only. But the two things are not compatible. If the sort of “practical” work carried on by the reformist organisations like the Labour Party were to lead anywhcre, it would kill all interest in Socialism, and rightly so. The workers would quite well see that if reforms of capitalism can solve their problems, there would be no need to consider the possibility of setting up a diiferent system of society. But this “practical” work does not lead anywhere and solves none of the real problems. That is the strength of our case. Sooner or later, the workers will tire of solutions that do not solve and improvements that do not improve, and will turn to consider something else. As that occurs, the Socialist Party needs above all things that those workers who have formerly opposed us shall know that we never had any part whatever in the work of reforming the capitalist system.
A reader sends us a cutting from the Daily Herald (April 16th), in which it is stated that the Post Office has helped a Trade Union to obtain increases in wages totalling £4,000 a year for the employees of a firm engaged on Post Office contracts. This has been done under what is known as the “Fair Wages Clause,” which requires contractors engaged on Government contracts to pay the recognised Trade Union or other standard rates of pay. Our correspondents asks, “What about it?” We do not know whether we are expected to offer a bouquet to the Labour Government on this account. If so, we shall have to disappoint the expectation. The Labour Postmaster-General might very well turn his attention to his department. Civil servants, including the Post Office staff, have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds through the reductions in their cost-of-living bonus since the Labour Government came into office. Then there arc the thousands of part-time workers in the Post Office, fully dependent on their Post Office pay for their living, manv of whom are getting less than they would get as unemployed pay. Perhaps the firm of contractors concerned would like to give the Postmaster-General some points.
We arc asked what is our view of Republicanism and of the Spanish revolution.
Our object as a Socialist Party is to get Socialism, and we are not much concerned with the question which is the better way of running’ capitalism, by means of a monarchy or by means of a republic. The purpose in both cases is, from the capitalist standpoint, to have a figure-head in whom the majority of the population will repose confidence. As far as the workers are concerned, it is a distinction without a difference. In Spain the capitalist system will be carried on in much the same way as before, and in the main by the same set of politicians. Our objection to Republican presidents is the same as our objection to kings, i.e., that workers who still believe in the fiction that affairs are run by the titular heads of the republics or monarchies are not yet fit to take on the responsible task of understanding political and social problems themselves and of organising to control affairs collectively in their interests as a class.
A reader asks if we would favour the abolition of the £150 deposit which Parliamentary candidates have to find before being allowed to run, and if Socialists in Parliament would try to secure its abolition.
The first point to consider is whether or not the obligation to deposit £150 is a barrier to the spread of Socialist knowledge. It certainly is true that the present law does prevent the Socialist Party from running candidates at Parliamentary elections, but the importance of this disability must not be exaggerated. If there were any constituency in which Socialists had become so numerous that they were somewhere in the neighbourhood of a majority, there would be no risk of losing the money and the problem of finding £150 for a few weeks would not be insuperable. The extent of the disability is, therefore, that we are at present deprived of an opportunity of putting forward a candidate and thus making the most effective use of the elections for propaganda purposes.
The second point concerns the actions of Socialists in the House of Commons towards the abolition of the present restriction. But surely it begs the question, since the Socialists in Parliament could only have got there by showing that the obstacle of the deposit can be surmounted. By that time some of the capitalist parties will, perhaps, be feeling the pinch and want the deposit abolished, not for our sake, but for their own.