Britain for the British

by Robert Blatchford

But besides the conflict of personal interests, there are other reasons why the Liberal and Tory parties are useless to Labour.

One of these reasons is that the reform programmes of the old parties, such as they are, consist almost entirely of political reforms.

But the improvement of the workers' condition depends more upon industrial reform.

The nationalisation of the railways and the coalmines, the taxation of the land, and the handing over of all the gas, water, and food supplies, and all the tramway systems, to Municipal control, would do more good for the workers than extension of the franchise or payment of members.

The old political struggles have mostly been fought for political reforms or for changes of taxation. The coming struggle will be for industrial reform.

We want Britain for the British. We want the fruits of labour for those who produce them. We want a human life for all. The issue is not one between Liberals and Tories; it is an issue between the privileged classes and the workers.

Neither of the political parties is of any use to the workers, because both the political parties are paid, officered, and led by capitalists whose interests are opposed to the interests of the workers. The Socialist laughs at the pretended friendship of Liberal and Tory leaders for the workers. These party politicians do not in the least understand what the rights, the interests, or the desires of the workers are; if they did understand, they would oppose them implacably. The demand of the Socialist is a demand for the nationalisation of the land and all other instruments of production and distribution. The party leaders will not hear of such a thing. If you want to get an idea how utterly destitute of sympathy with Labour the privileged classes really are, read carefully the papers which express their views. Read the organs of the landlords, the capitalists, and the employers; or read the Liberal and the Tory papers during a big strike, or during some bye-election when a Labour candidate is standing against a Tory and a Liberal.

It is a very common thing to hear a party leader deprecate the increase of "class representation." What does that mean? It means Labour representation. But the "class" concerned in Labour representation is the working class, a "class" of thirty millions of people. Observe the calm effrontery of this sneer at "class representation." The thirty millions of workers are not represented by more than a dozen members. The other classes—the landlords, the capitalists, the military, the law, the brewers, and idle gentlemen—are represented by something like six hundred members. This is class representation with a vengeance.

It is colossal impudence for a party paper to talk against "class representation." Every class is over-represented—except the great working class. The mines, the railways, the drink trade, the land, finance, the army (officers), the navy (officers), the church, the law, and most of the big industries (employers), are represented largely in the House of Commons.

And nearly thirty millions of the working classes are represented by about a dozen men, most of whom are palsied by their allegiance to the Liberal Party.