LABOUR POLICY—FALSE AND TRUE

LABOUR POLICY—FALSE
AND TRUE

A Study in Economic History and
Industrial Economics

BY
LYNDEN MACASSEY

‘Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.’

THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED
15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2

First published August 24, 1922

PREFACE

Portions of some of the chapters in this book have already appeared in The Times, the Quarterly Review, the Edinburgh Review, the Nineteenth Century, the Sunday Times and the Evening Standard, and are now incorporated in their proper place in the larger scheme on which they were originally written. I am indebted to the proprietors of those publications for their kindness in permitting me so to reproduce them.

An old friend and valued colleague of mine in the Department of Shipyard Labour—Mr. C. F. Farrar—did me the great service of assisting to get the book through the press.

To my Secretary, Miss K. I. Toogood, I owe the preparation of the Index.

L. M.

August 12th, 1922.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Our great industrial difficulty, under modern conditions, is to combine human development with human work, and persuade people to be industrious. Formerly, men worked to benefit themselves; now, they are apt to refrain from working for fear they may benefit other persons. The injury to employers from such a course is evident; but the detriment to the workers themselves is less obvious, and the calamitous effect on the community is seldom realized. That difficulty is what we call “the Labour problem”; a knowledge of the principles on which it can best be solved is our chief national necessity.

This book strives to criticize the wrong, and indicate the right, solution. The test which it applies is whether a solution places the community before section or party, or is one designed primarily to advance sectarian interests, political or industrial, either avowedly, or speciously, under professions of solicitude for the public good. Nowadays, one has to look well below the surface of words, however distinguished may be their origin. There is little to choose between the revolutionary Socialist, whose solution consists in thrusting industrial democracy into supreme economic or political power through ruthless direct action and then socializing industry, and the constitutional anti-Socialist, who would solve the problem by pledges to inaugurate a new industrial Heaven and Earth, and other “ninepenny-for-fourpence” promises, which he has no honest conviction can be redeemed, and which, if he seriously considered, he would know can never be fulfilled. On the whole, during the last few years, the latter has proved the greater menace to the nation.

Policies for the solution of the Labour problem fall, broadly speaking, into two main categories. Those which insist upon, or imply, the reconstruction of industry by eliminating private enterprise and the capitalist. Of this type is the policy for which the Labour Party stands—the vague abstraction of “nationalization and democratic control.” All other policies are of the type which postulates, as essential to industrial progress, continuance of the so-called capitalistic organization of industry with, however, amendments and reforms of varying character. There is not always that clear-cut distinction. Many opponents of the Labour Party’s policy are advocates of the particular method of socializing industries known as municipalization, and even of the State running certain quasi-industrial ventures like the Post Office. Such overlapping and border-line cases must always occur. Human affairs can never wholly be regulated by precise formulae; were that possible, the world would be a dull place wherein to live.

If the Labour problem is to be solved, there must be more clear thinking, critical analysis, and decisive action on the part of the general public, who forget how vitally they are interested. With the object of placing before them its various elements in logical sequence and balanced perspective, I have, after much consideration, adopted the following scheme for this book: I set out in [Part I] the policy of the Labour Party for solution of the problem, and examine its fundamentals; next, I describe in [Part II] the Government’s Labour policy, so far as it has been declared, or evidenced in departmental practice, and consider it; then, lastly, I outline in [Part III] what, in amplification of the Government policy and in opposition to that of Labour, I conceive to be the true solution, and the one most calculated to promote the interests of the nation.

The Labour Party heralds itself as “the true national democratic party,” and as such claims to have formulated a national Labour policy, which, on the most superficial examination, exhibits many indications of purely sectarian objectives. My effort has been to appraise that policy critically but fairly, and see how far it is likely to advance the common welfare. This cannot be done unless one clearly appreciates the industrial root on to which the so-called national democratic party has recently been grafted, and from which it draws all its nurture and virility. [Part I], therefore, explains in some detail the history and constitution of the Labour Party, and also the nature of the root, which, called by the most euphemistic name, is merely a particular species of Socialism. At the moment, the Labour Party does not seem unduly proud of its lineage, nor inordinately anxious to force upon the attention of the country its real socialistic aims. But it is essential that they should be laid bare, and this I endeavour to do in [Part I], not by quotations from Labour leaders’ speeches, which express considerable difference in views, according to the forum, are not conspicuous by consistency, and are regarded as of no binding force by the Party. I give actual extracts from official documents published by the Labour Party, not generally known or accessible to the ordinary reader, and which state, if not with clarity, at any rate in its own language, the principles to which the Party declares that it has pledged the allegiance of all its followers.

The Labour Party arraigns before the bar of public opinion the present Government, and, indeed, all past “Capitalistic Governments,” and charges them with having neglected the interests of the workers, and of being devoid of any consistent Labour policy. Such an accusation, if sufficiently repeated, obtains a certain validity of currency, because the public know little of what has been really achieved under Government direction. I hold no brief for the present Coalition Government—I have often criticized its unfortunate opportunist action in regard to industrial matters, and do so freely in this book—but it is vital that the public should understand, if only as the foundation on which to build a new and amplified Labour policy, what it and former Governments have done, at the expense of the nation, for the workers of the country. This is the theme of [Part II], and, as any future solution of our Labour difficulties must be materially influenced by the effect upon industry, upon employers and employed, of the emergency measures taken by Government for the regulation of Labour during the war, a chapter in [Part II] is devoted to this important matter.

In [Part III] I then proceed to the true purpose of the book—to indicate in broad outline what seems to me to be the only possible Labour policy for the future. It must satisfy, and be attuned to, the human qualities of the workers; [Part III], therefore, starts with a description of the aspirations and sentiments of the workers as I found them in real life, and then proceeds to set out the principles that I think should govern the three greatest relationships in industry—that of the Government to industry—that between employers and employed—that between industry and the community.

In my treatment of the subject I have tried to avoid academic disquisition, and to produce a discussion fitting as closely as possible to the actual realities of workshop life, as they came within my practical experience, first, as an engineer, and, later, in discharging for Government the duties of many war-time offices involving the control of labour. My own ascertainment of facts is opposed in many respects to what has been stated by other writers, but some three thousand close and intimate conferences during the war with employers’ organizations, Trade Union executives, district and branch committees, together with many mass meetings—at all of which careful notes were taken—to say nothing of having one’s finger daily on the pulse of over one million men, supply me with a groundwork of facts sufficiently convincing at any rate to my own judgment.

That the Labour problem can eventually be solved with success by resolute perseverance along the line of principles suggested in [Part III] I feel certain. In the robust common sense of the British employer and the British workmen I have the utmost confidence. Of its ultimate triumph I am convinced. Time after time, during the war, when an industrial catastrophe seemed inevitable, I have seen common sense, acting on the national genius for compromise, serve to prevent both sides from going over the brink of the abyss that suddenly yawned. Along these principles a solution can be secured that will be stable and satisfactory alike to employers, the workers and the community. The first essential step to a solution is knowledge of the ingredients that make up the Labour problem, and there is no book, as far as I am aware, available to the general reader that states the matter plainly from a wide and practical experience quite as I have striven to do. That is my apology for publication of this book.

My criticisms, I trust, will leave no rancour; I have stated my views with directness, but in words I have weighed, and there is nothing behind them, for I am neither an employer nor a politician. I am but anxious to see a brotherly, just and nation-saving solution of the problem. Labour and I have had many a fierce tussle in the past, but I think we have learned to respect each other. No section of the community so revels in and honours straightforward and downright criticism as does Labour, provided it is really honest and the critic is sincere. It is something to be able to say, after so much official controversy as I have had, that on no occasion did we ever descend from discussing principles to personalities. I hope this book may not contain a single involuntary lapse from that standard, as I count myself fortunate, in spite of acute differences in economic views, to enjoy the friendship of many persons, both great and humble, in the Labour movement, a valued possession I would not lightly jeopardize. It is with principles, and principles only, that this book is concerned, and not with persons.

Part I
THE LABOUR PARTY’S FALSE POLICY

CHAPTER I
THE LABOUR PARTY’S CONSTITUTION AND ITS DEFECTS

Origin of the Labour Party—Reconstitution in 1918—The Trades Union Congress—The National Joint Council—The Parliamentary Labour Party—The Labour Party a Class Party—The Party’s Want of Leadership.

There are two great Labour organizations: the Trades Union Congress, with its Executive, the General Council, which represents the industrial wing; and the Labour Party, with its National Executive or Executive Committee, representing the political wing. The distinction between industry and politics—at no time kept clear—is fast disappearing.

Origin of the Labour Party

The Labour Party dates from 1900—when the Labour Representation Committee was formed on the initiative of the Trades Union Congress, the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation, and the Fabian Society. Of 15 Committee candidates who ran at the subsequent General Election of 1900, 2 were returned—the late Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Richard Bell—9 Trade Unionist members being also returned, but not under the auspices of the Committee. Before 1900 prominent Trade Unionists had stood individually for Parliament, and had, from time to time, been elected. The first effective steps had been taken in that direction by the Labour Representation League established in 1869, after the Reform Act of 1868. In 1874, 13 candidates went to election, and the first two “Labour members” were elected, one being the late Right Hon. Thomas Burt. In 1880, 3 were returned; in 1885,11; in 1892,14; in 1895,12. The successful Labour candidates stood on an industrial and not a “Socialist ticket”; where Socialists did stand they received scanty support. At the election of 1885, the Social Democratic Federation ran a candidate in Kennington and one in Hampstead: the former polled only 32 votes, the latter 29.

In 1886, the Labour Representation League having been dissolved, the Electoral Labour Committee was constituted by the Trades Union Congress. It soon fell under the influence of the Liberal Party, and this led to Mr. Keir Hardie’s campaign, opened at the Swansea Trades Union Congress in 1887, for an independent Parliamentary Party representing Labour. Mr. Keir Hardie himself fought Mid-Lanark as an Independent Labour candidate in 1888 unsuccessfully, but was returned for South-West Ham in 1892. At his instance the Independent Labour Party was founded in 1893; it sent 28 candidates to the poll in 1895, with no success. But the political activity of the Independent Labour Party soon roused the Trades Union Congress. In 1899, at the Plymouth Conference, the Congress passed a resolution directing its Parliamentary Committee to arrange a conference of Trade Unions, Co-operative and Socialist Societies, to secure the return of an increased number of Labour members to Parliament. As part of the machinery the Labour Representation Committee was formed in 1900.

The constitution of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 was as follows: 41 Trade Unions, with a membership of 353,070 members; 7 Trades Councils; 3 Socialist Societies, adding a further membership of 22,861, making a total of 375,931. At bye-elections between the General Elections of 1900 and 1906, three prominent candidates of the Labour Representation Committee were elected: Mr. (now Sir) David Shackleton for Clitheroe, the late Mr. Will Crooks for Woolwich, and Mr. (now the Right Hon.) Arthur Henderson for Barnard Castle. The Newcastle Trades Union Congress of 1903 passed a strong resolution enjoining political independence, and instituted a parliamentary fund. At the General Election in 1906, out of 50 candidates sponsored by the Labour Representation Committee, which in that year re-christened itself “the Labour Party,” 29 were elected. Under the chairmanship of Mr. Keir Hardie, the Parliamentary Labour Party was immediately established with all the paraphernalia of a separate political party in the House of Commons. At the General Election of January 1910, out of 78 candidates, 40 were elected; at that of December 1910, out of 56 candidates, 42 were elected; at that of December 1918, out of 392 candidates, 59 were elected. At the last election in 1918, with a total vote in Great Britain of 9,690,109, 2,375,202 were polled by Labour.

Reconstitution in 1918

At the Labour Party Conference at Nottingham in January 1918, a revised constitution was proposed, which was ultimately adopted in London at the Party Conference on February 26 of the same year. The case for the new constitution was put before the Nottingham Conference by the Secretary to the Executive Committee, the Right Hon. Arthur Henderson, in these words: “It was no use the Executive using anything in the nature of a social programme or talking about building up a new social order and reconstructing society until they had taken into very careful consideration their present position as an organized political force. They had done so, and came to the unanimous conclusion that Labour, as politically organized in the existing circumstances, was altogether inadequate to the great task that lay immediately before it. They had never in the proper sense claimed to be a national political party. This limitation was inherited from the resolution carried at the Trades Union Congress in Plymouth in 1899. They were a political federation consisting of Trade Unions, Socialist bodies and Co-operative Societies, but in recent years they had developed what were called Local Labour Parties.” Mr. Henderson said the real question to be decided was whether, for the purposes of best attaining political power and of so advancing its party programme, the Labour Party should scrap the whole of its existing political machinery and build up a political organization from a new foundation depending only upon individual membership. “Speaking as an old electioneerer,” he continued, “he did not mind saying that if they had to begin afresh that would be the ideal at which he would aim, but in view of the close proximity of a general election he could imagine no greater mistake than to attempt to create a new organization based solely upon individual membership.” The Party ultimately decided to adhere to the existing scheme of a central industrial federation, but to graft on to it such a form of electoral constituency organization, linked up with the Local Labour Parties or Trades Councils, as would bring the federation and the constituencies into close contact with the Annual Conference and the National Executive of the Labour Party.

In the new constitution the Party thus expressed its intention:

“(a) To organize and maintain in Parliament and the country a Political Labour Party, and to ensure the establishment of a Local Labour Party in every county constituency and every parliamentary borough, with suitable divisional organization in the separate constituencies of divided boroughs.

“(b) To secure for the producers, by hand or by brain, the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

“(c) Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life.

“(d) To co-operate with the Labour and Socialist organizations in the Dominions and Dependencies with a view to promoting the purposes of the Party, and to take common action for the promotion of a higher standard of social and economic life for the working population of the respective countries.

“(e) To co-operate with the Labour and Socialist organizations in other countries, and to assist in organizing a Federation of Nations for the maintenance of freedom and peace, for the establishment of suitable machinery for the adjustment and settlement of international disputes by conciliation or judicial arbitration, and for such international legislation as may be practicable.”

The new constitution maintains the Party as an industrial federation of Trade Unions, Socialist Societies, Trades Councils, and Local Labour Parties; but it establishes the principle of individual membership of the Party through membership of the local organization. Every man and woman, therefore, may now join a Local Labour Party. It is intended to form a Labour Party in every parliamentary constituency, as a unit of organization to which Trade Union local branches and Local Trade Councils, Co-operative, Socialist, and other such societies will be affiliated, and to which each individual local supporter of the Labour Party will adhere. Every candidate for Parliament must be chosen or approved by the local organization and accepted by the National Executive. He must stand as a Labour candidate, and, if elected, must agree to act in harmony with the constitution and standing orders of the Party, and accept the decisions of Party meetings. He must include in his electoral address those issues defined by the National Executive as the Labour Party’s programme for the election.

The official adherence of the Co-operative movement to the political Labour Party is rather interesting. For many years when motions were brought forward in the Annual Co-operative Congress in favour of the Co-operative movement taking up political activity, these resolutions were invariably rejected by overwhelming majorities. However, in 1918, at an emergency conference of the Co-operative movement in London on October 16 and 17, it was decided to take political action. The reasons which led the Co-operative movement to this decision were taxation of Co-operative dividends, the alleged neglect of the Government to make greater use of the Co-operative movement in dealing with the national food supply, and alleged unfair treatment of the staffs of the distributive societies under the Military Service Acts.

For the year 1917, prior to its reconstitution, the Labour Party’s membership was as follows:

making a total affiliated membership of 2,465,131, which also included the membership of the Co-operative and Women’s Labour League affiliations. For the year 1920, the membership of the Labour Party was 122 Trade Unions, with a total membership of 4,317,537, 492[1] affiliated Trades Councils and Local Labour Parties, 5 Socialist Societies, representing a membership of 42,270, making a total membership of 4,359,807, which also included the membership of the Co-operative and Women’s Labour League affiliations.

The Socialist Societies are the Fabian Society, which, in 1921, returned a membership of 1,770; the Herald League with a membership of 500; the Independent Labour Party with a membership of 35,000; the Jewish Socialist Party (Poale Zion) with a membership of 3,000; the Social Democratic Federation with a membership of 2,000.

By the accounts of the Party the total receipts for the year ending December 31, 1920, were £62,000 odd, of which £49,000 represented affiliation fees.

The Trades Union Congress

Turning from the Labour Party to the Trades Union Congress, “Labour’s Annual Parliament,” this, when founded in 1868, consisted of 34 delegates, representing about 20 societies with an affiliated membership of 118,367. In 1919, although all Trade Unions were not included, it had grown to 851 delegates, representing 266 Unions and an affiliated membership of 5,283,676. In 1921 it consisted of 810 delegates representing a membership of 6,417,910. It may now be taken to represent industrially the organized labour of Great Britain, and has the largest Trade Union affiliated membership in the world.

The Trades Union Congress must be distinguished from the General Federation of Trade Unions which was created under its auspices in 1899—now representing an affiliated membership of about 1½ millions—and the chief object of which is to maintain Trade Union rights, and to assist financially or otherwise affiliated Unions involved in disputes with employers or employers’ organizations.

The National Joint Council

A scheme for co-ordination of Labour forces was recently worked out by a Joint Co-ordination Committee representing the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress and the Executive Committee of the Labour Party. A National Joint Council has been constituted representing the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, the Executive Committee of the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Party. Its duties are to consider all questions affecting the Labour movement as a whole, and to make provision for immediate action on questions of national emergency, and to endeavour to secure a common policy and joint action, whether by legislation or otherwise, on all questions affecting the workers as producers, consumers or citizens. The expenditure of the Council is met in equal proportions by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress and the Executive Committee of the Labour Party. The scheme also provides for the establishment, under joint control of the General Council and of the National Executive, of four departments organized to deal with research and information, international affairs, publicity and legal matters. In the memorandum which recommended the scheme for the National Joint Committee, it was pointed out that in view of the enormous growth of the Labour movement and the importance of presenting a united front upon the great problems which lie before it, the need for co-ordination was becoming daily more important. “If Labour is to realize its ideals it must formulate a common policy and secure the maximum of common action. The effectiveness of the Labour movement has in the past been dissipated by overlapping functions, by duplication of effort, and by confusion arising from conflicting policies.” The scheme is described as one which enables Labour to speak with one voice on all questions of national importance, and to pursue one uniform policy in support of its common ends.

The Parliamentary Labour Party

What the Parliamentary Labour Party is, must also be explained. In 1906, 29 Labour members were, we have seen, returned to Parliament; they were then constituted into a distinct Parliamentary party, Mr. J. Keir Hardie, M.P., being elected Chairman, and a Vice-Chairman, Secretary and Whips being also appointed. It is the practice of the Parliamentary Party at the beginning of each session to review the resolutions passed at the various conferences of the Labour Party and to take them as indicating the principles on which the Parliamentary Party should proceed. About the commencement of the session there is a joint meeting between the Parliamentary Party and the National Executive of the Labour Party for the purposes of deciding the various objects in respect of which Bills should be introduced into Parliament or motions made. A general review of the Parliamentary Labour Party’s activity since 1906 will be found in the Labour Year Books for 1916 and 1919.

The Labour Party, a Class Party

The Labour Party claims to be “the true national democratic party” in challenge of the old party system. It recommends itself to the electorate as “the party of the producers, whose labour of hand and brain provides the necessities of life for all and dignifies and elevates human existence,” “Producers have been robbed,” it says, “of the major parts of the fruits of their industry under the individualist system of capitalist production; and that is justification for the Party’s claims.”

The constitution of the Labour Party when examined definitely disproves the contention that the Party either is or ever can be, while that constitution lasts, a national democratic political party. By a political party one understands, according to our British traditions, a party whose members are united in support of common political principles, and not a party whose object is to advance its own material interests. Whatever the Labour Party may call itself, it is in fact a class party—that appears clearly from its history. Up to 1900, when the Labour Representation Committee was constituted, it was definitely Trade Unionist in its organization. In 1900, as has been shown, seven local Trades Councils were, for the first time, brought in along with three Socialist Societies, but they only accounted for 22,861 out of 375,931 affiliated membership. Between 1900 and the revision of the constitution in 1918, the Party was obviously still comprised, in the main, of industrial Trade Unionists. Individual members were, as has been explained, nominally introduced into the Party in 1918, by throwing membership open to members of Local Labour Parties and Trade Councils. It is impossible, because the Labour Party has not the figures itself, to give any comparison between the number of individual members of Local Labour Parties and Trades Councils who are not Trade Unionists and the 4,317,537 members of the affiliated Trade Unions in 1920. But one thing is quite clear—the individual member is wholly swamped by the Trade Unions’ membership and power. If the accounts of the Labour Party are examined for 1920, it will be found that of the total affiliation fees of £49,000, only about £1,382 is contributed by Trades Councils and Local Labour Parties, which include a certain number of individual members, and £524 from five Socialist bodies; so that practically the whole of the income of the Labour Party comes from the Trade Unions; they naturally exercise the right to dictate policy and run the Party machine. When it comes to the selection of the local Parliamentary candidate, if a Local Labour Party or Trades Council runs a candidate they must themselves provide for the whole expenses of the election, and that puts a serious difficulty in their way; on the other hand, if a Trade Union selects a candidate it is enabled, by means of its parliamentary levy, to pay the whole costs of his election. As a result, in the great number of cases, Trade Unionist candidates, with the financial backing of their Unions, are accepted as Local Labour candidates—true carpet-baggers in the real sense of the term, and probably wholly unknown to the district. One may learn from experience the basis on which the Trade Unions select candidates. It is considered a matter of prime importance by every Union to have members of its own in Parliament, and its first consideration is whether he is a sound and trusty member of his particular organization. As it is considered essential that only men should be selected by a Union who have an intimate knowledge of the working of the Union, the branch secretary or the district delegate or district secretary or a member of the executive or the general secretary of the Union is generally chosen, and he, it should be noted, is picked out, not for his political experience or enthusiasm, but as a trusty protagonist of his own trade body; he, therefore, goes into Parliament primarily to advance the industrial interests of his own particular Union and, so far as is compatible with that, of Labour in general. This needs clearly to be understood by the general public of this country. The Labour Party has no right to protest against those who would institute a campaign against it on the ground that the Labour movement, as at present constituted, is definitely class and sectarian in its objects. There is ample justification for that attack in the Labour Party’s own pamphlet Trade Unionism and Political Action. The Labour Party will not for a very long time, if ever, be a Party solely of individual membership; that would mean that the Party would have to cut itself off from the enforced contributions of affiliated Trade Unions, and rely upon the voluntary contributions of its individual members.

The Labour Party prides itself on being the party of brotherhood—an admirable sentiment, one too seldom encountered in the industrial world to-day. We are entitled to test such a profession by examining to what extent the spirit of fraternity operates amongst the 122 different Trade Unions which are members of the Party. If any one part of the community is torn by internecine strife it most certainly is the Trade Union section. Consider for example the question of demarcation of work. If we take trades like those of the shipwrights and the joiners, they are separated by thin divisions; so much so that in one port shipwrights do work which in another port is done by joiners. If anywhere there is the least invasion by one trade into the work of the other the most unbrotherly struggles ensue, resulting almost invariably in one Union or the other calling their respective members out and so stopping work in the port. Time after time during the war I had the fitting out or refitting of urgently needed vessels held up by these kinds of fratricidal disputes. Again, take trades like engineers, members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and plumbers, members of the Plumbers’ Union—between them there is the most bitter animosity. Certain pipes on board ship are, according to the custom of the port, bent and fitted by the members of one Union, and certain other pipes, possibly of the same material but a little larger or smaller, or of the same size but of a different material, are bent and fitted by members of the other Union. After the Jutland fight, I had most vital naval repairs held up owing to the whole of the engineers in one large district going on strike because plumbers had been put on to bore a few holes in the outer casings of searchlights, as there were no available engineers to do the work. Instances might be multiplied indefinitely of this industrial enmity which is to form the basis of the new political brotherhood. We have again the perennial dispute between the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the National Union of Railwaymen in respect of the men in the railway engineering shops, or the acrimonious controversy, growing in intensity, between the General Workers’ Union, representing the unskilled or semi-skilled men, and the Amalgamated Engineering Union. The former Union asserts the right of an engineering employer to promote its members from the job of general labourer “on the floor” to work semi-automatic or other similar machines “in the shop,” which without question the man is usually quite competent to do; on the other hand the Amalgamated Engineering Union, or its district committee, claims that no person, however competent, can be put on to work any of those machines unless he is a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and receives in respect of the work the prescribed rates of pay. So then we have this curious paradox that the Labour Party, which knows that there exists, and is quite incapable of extinguishing, this spirit of industrial hostility amongst the various sections of its Trade Union membership, still professes its ability to instil and enforce the spirit of social brotherhood throughout the whole electorate. “By their works ye shall know them,” The truth of the matter is that the sole cohesive political force which the Labour Party can exert, apart from the Trade Unions’ industrial compulsion on their members, are the promises of better times, less work, more time for leisure, more money to spend, by the abolition of what it calls the “capitalistic” or private employer, and the suggestion that thereby there will be some fund of money made available for distribution amongst the members of the Party.

The Party’s Want of Leadership

What about the Labour Party’s leaders? Labour undoubtedly possesses outstanding men of tried experience, ability and judgment, and others, untried as yet, but of equal capacity and ability. I had the good fortune during the war of serving at different times directly under the Right Hon. A. Henderson, the Right Hon. G. N. Barnes, the Right Hon. John Hodge, and the Right Hon. G. H. Roberts. I had also the opportunity of comparing their ministerial gifts with those of other Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State. The Labour Ministers did not suffer from the comparison; their respective records are unsurpassed for foresight, decision, balance of judgment, statesmanship, organizing and administrative ability, power of evoking the loyalty of their departments and commanding the confidence of the public. The weakness of a Labour Government will assuredly not lie in the personnel of its Ministers if they lead—but will they be allowed to lead? So far the signs are not encouraging.

Nobody who has not seen the working of the Trade Union machine from inside has the remotest conception of the difficulties of the Trade Union leader, or of the tyranny to which he is subject. He is in the first instance usually a paid official of his Union, and if he takes or advocates any political or parliamentary action which is considered in any way to invade or infringe the trade rights and privileges of his Union, he will assuredly fall from office at the next Union election. Every leader must, therefore, keep one eye upon his own position and the other upon the political principle which he is disposed to advocate. This makes it exceedingly difficult for any Labour leader to take a strong independent line which may excite even the suspicions of ill-informed sections of his followers, still less their hostile opposition. I saw over and over again during the war how frequently large committees of Trade Unionist leaders would agree with the Government in London on the adoption of some measure—it may have been for the suspension of a trade custom in order to expedite production—and how it became quite impossible to obtain their active assistance afterwards to put the agreement into operation among their members, with the notable exception of some few whose sturdy independence I never ceased to admire. But these, unfortunately, perhaps as the result of their qualities, have little influence in political Labour.

There is another aspect: the great unwritten law of the Labour movement is solidarity at any price, and it frequently happens that the leaders, in order to avoid splitting the Party, will adopt, against their own better judgment, the proposals of extremists rather than face disruption. The action of constitutionalists in the Labour movement, in ultimately taking part in the recent formation of the Council of Action, notwithstanding their own earlier protests, is a case in point.

No political party is immune from intrigue or from cabals and conspiracies against its accepted leaders, but it is not an exaggeration to say that the Labour movement is more impregnated than any other movement in this country with those unlovely tendencies. You have only to follow the course of a branch committee or a district committee election, or the election of an executive committee-man or general secretary of a Trade Union, to realize the prevalence and power of personal jealousies. This is notoriously so in the political Labour world. Nothing cuts so deeply at the roots of independent leadership as incessant conspiracy and intrigue.

CHAPTER II
AN OUTLINE OF THE LABOUR PARTY’S GENERAL POLICY

A National Minimum Standard of Living—Effective Personal Freedom—Socialization of Land and Industry—A Revolution in Public Finance—The Surplus Wealth for the Common Good—International Co-operation—No Protective Tariffs—Freedom of International Trade.

To appreciate the Labour Party’s industrial policy, it is necessary to know, at least in outline, the general policy of which the former is a part. As the basis of all social reform it is contended that “the individualistic system of capitalist production based on the private ownership and competitive administration of land and capital, with its reckless profiteering and wage slavery, its glorification of the unhampered struggle for the means of life, and its hypocritical pretence of the survival of the fittest, must go.” With it must be eradicated the “monstrous inequality of circumstances which it produces, and the degradation and brutalization, both moral and spiritual, resulting from it”—“along with it must disappear the present political system, enshrining the ideas in which the capitalistic system naturally finds expression.” The Labour Party advances a new basis of social reorganization; it proposes to reconstruct society on four pillars resting upon the common foundation of “the democratic control of society in all its activities.” These four pillars are: “(1) Universal enforcement of the national minimum; (2) the democratic control of industry; (3) a revolution in national finance; and (4) the surplus wealth for the common good.”

A National Minimum Standard of Living

The principle of the national minimum, it is claimed, contrasts sharply with the principle of the capitalistic system, expressed either by Liberal or Conservative policy. By the national minimum is meant the assurance for every member of the community of a standard of life conferring a reasonable minimum of health, education, leisure and subsistence. One chief element is a legal minimum wage, to be revised according to the level of current prices. As part of this national minimum, the ambiguous principle of “equal pay for equal work” is postulated in all occupations in which both sexes are engaged. The Party also demands that the Government shall prevent unemployment, and should it fail to secure for every willing worker a suitable situation at the standard rate of wages, it shall provide such a worker with maintenance in the form of out-of-work benefit paid through his Trade Union. The National Unemployment Insurance Scheme should, it is insisted, be extended, on a non-contributory basis, to every occupation. What is affirmed as a fundamental is that “in one way or another remunerative employment or honourable maintenance must be found for every willing worker by hand or by brain in bad times as well as in good.” Complete provision against involuntary destitution in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, must be assured for every member of the community.

Effective Personal Freedom

Democracy, the Labour Party asserts, implies effective personal freedom, and involves the complete removal of all war-time restrictions on liberty of speech, publication, press, travel, choice of residence, kind of employment, and especially of any obligation for military service. These sentiments, strange to say, come from the Party which denies the right of the non-Union operative to work; and which claims for Trade Unions the right to picket and the other privileges afforded by the Trade Disputes Act, 1906. On the same principle, complete political rights are demanded for every adult irrespective of sex, and for every minority, the right to full proportionate representation in Parliament. The abolition of the House of Lords is demanded, with the elimination from any new second Chamber of any qualification based on heredity. Separate statutory legislative assemblies are claimed for Scotland, Wales and England, with autonomous administration in local matters; Parliament at Westminster to be merely a Federal Assembly for Great Britain, controlling the Ministers responsible for departments of central government; these Ministers, with others representing the Dominions and India, to form a Cabinet for federal affairs of the British Commonwealth.

Socialization of Land and Industry

The Labour Party stands for the removal from industry of the private employer and the capitalist, the introduction of a new “scientific re-organization of the national industries,” purged from the degradation of individual profiteering, and regenerated on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production; the equitable sharing of the output among all who assist in any capacity in production; and the adoption of “democratic control of industry.”

Accordingly the Labour Party would immediately establish the common ownership of land, the common ownership and administration of railways and canals, and their consolidation with harbours, roads, posts, telegraphs, and the ocean-going steamer lines into a national service of Communication and Transport, to be worked “unhampered by capitalist, private or purely local interests, and with a steadily increasing participation of the organized workers in the management, both central and local, exclusively for the common good.” So also it would erect a score of national central electrical generating stations, with which all municipal electrical plants would be connected for distribution purposes. For similar reasons, the Party demands the immediate nationalization of coal-mines, with steadily increasing participation in the management, both central and local, of the various grades of persons employed; and insists that the retail distribution of household coal should be undertaken by the municipal authorities or county councils, the purpose to be achieved being the distribution in every local district of household coal of standard quality at a fixed and uniform price “as unalterable as the penny postage stamp.” The State expropriation of profit-making industrial insurance companies is urged, also the assumption by Government of the whole business of life insurance. Much stress is laid upon the alleged necessity that Government should take the manufacture and retailing of intoxicants out of the hands of persons who find profit in promoting the utmost possible consumption of them, and that each local authority should deal with “the trade” within its district on the basis of local veto or limitation of licences or other system of regulation.

Admittedly alive to the evils of centralization and the restrictions of bureaucracy, the Party claims a free hand for local authorities, assisted by grants-in-aid from Government sources, to extend widely the scope of municipal enterprise. Local authorities should, it is asserted, not only retail coal, but supply milk, and engage in other similar spheres of trade. All members of local bodies ought, it is said, to receive their necessary travelling expenses, and also be paid for time spent by them on the public service.

The Labour Party would re-organize the whole educational system from the nursery school to the university “on the basis of social equality”; “each educational institution, irrespective of social class or wealth, to be open to every member of the community on terms within his reach”—everything in the nature of military training to be absolutely prohibited. In regard to public health, the Labour Party holds that Government should build at the national expense the requisite number of dwelling houses, spacious and healthy, each having four or five rooms, larder, scullery, cupboards, and fitted bath, spaced not more than ten or twelve to the acre, and provided with a garden. National provision for the prevention and treatment of disease, and the care of orphans, infirm, incapacitated, and aged persons is also included as an indispensable part of Labour’s policy.

In regard to agriculture and rural life, the Party has formulated a number of proposals based on the Government’s immediately assuming control of the nation’s agricultural land, and—

“ensuring its utilization, not for rent, not for game, not for the social amenity of a small social class, not even for obtaining the largest percentage on the capital employed, but solely with a view to the production of the largest proportion of the food-stuffs required by the population of these islands under conditions allowing of a good life to the rural population with complete security for the farmers’ enterprise, yet not requiring the consumer to pay a price exceeding that for which food-stuffs can be brought from other lands.”

The means proposed to attain this end are large national farms, small holdings made accessible to practical agriculturists, municipal agricultural enterprises, and farms let to Co-operative Societies and other approved tenants, under a national guarantee against losses due to bad seasons. All distribution of agricultural food-stuffs—from milk and vegetables up to bread and meat—is to be taken out of the hands of dealers and shopkeepers, and is to be effected by Co-operative Societies and local authorities “with equitable compensation for all interests expropriated or displaced.”

The Labour Party also advocates Government importation of raw materials and food-commodities, and Government control of the shipping, woollen, clothing, milling, and other similar industries; the rationing both of raw material and of food commodities, and the fixing of all prices on the basis of accurate costing, so as to eliminate profiteering. It is, the Labour Party says—

“just as much the function of Government, and just as necessary a part of the democratic regulation of industry to safeguard the interests of the community as a whole and those of grades and classes of private consumers in the matter of prices, as it is by the Factory and Trade Board Acts to protect the rights of the wage-earning producers in the matter of wages, hours of labour and sanitation, or by the organized police force to protect the householder from the burglar.”

A Revolution in Public Finance

A complete revolution in national finance is overdue, in the opinion of the Labour Party. Too long, it says, has our national finance been regulated on a basis opposed to the teaching of political economy, according to the views of the possessing classes and the desire for profits of the financiers. There ought to be such a system of taxation “as will secure all the necessary revenue to the Government without encroaching on the prescribed national minimum standard of life of any family, without hampering production or discouraging any useful personal effort, and with the closest possible approximation to equality of sacrifice.” The Labour Party accordingly would institute direct taxation of all incomes exceeding the necessary cost of family maintenance, and the direct taxation of private fortunes both during life and at death for the redemption of the National Debt. It opposes taxation calculated to increase the price of food or necessaries of life, and holds that indirect taxation of commodities, whether by customs or excise, should be limited to “luxuries.” It would retain and increase the excess-profits tax and, until nationalization of minerals, the mineral-rights duty. The unearned increment of urban land and mineral values it would divert by taxation wholly into the public exchequer. Death duties would be regraduated and heavily increased, so as to turn into the national coffers all the wealth of every person deceased in excess of a quite moderate amount to be left for family provision. In addition, the Labour Party stands for “conscription of wealth,” described as “a capital levy, chargeable, like death duties, on all property, with exemption of the smallest savings up to £1,000, but rising rapidly in percentage with the value of the property, for the purpose of freeing the nation of as large an amount as possible of its present load of interest-bearing debt.” Co-operative Societies would be left entirely free from this levy.

The Surplus Wealth for the Common Good

The fourth principle of the Labour Party’s policy of social reconstruction is “the diversion to the common good of the surplus over the expenditure required for the maintenance of the national minimum of life.” This surplus is said to be embodied in the riches of the mines, the rental value of lands superior to the margin of cultivation, the extra profits of fortunate capitalists, now alleged to be absorbed by individual proprietors, and devoted to the senseless luxury of the idle rich. It is to be secured by nationalization and municipalization, and by steeply graduated taxation of private income and riches. From it is to be drawn the new capital which the community day by day will require for the perpetual improvement and increase of its various enterprises, and for which it is said to be dependent now on the usury-exacting financier.

“It is in this proposal for the appropriation of every surplus for the common good—in the vision of its resolute use for the building up of the community as a whole instead of for the magnification of individual fortunes—that the Labour Party, as the Party of the producers by hand or by brain, most distinctively marks itself off from the older political parties, standing as these do essentially for the maintenance unimpaired of the perpetual private mortgage upon the annual product of the nation that is involved in the individual ownership of land and capital.”

International Co-operation

From Labour’s home policy we turn to foreign affairs. Its international aims are “peace and co-operation between nations; the avoidance of anything making for international hostility; the development of international co-operation in the League of Nations,” and “an ever-increasing intercourse, a constantly developing exchange of commodities, a steadily growing mutual understanding, a continually expanding friendly co-operation among all the peoples of the world.” “Imperialism,” defined to mean extension of empire over countries without reference to the wishes of the inhabitants of those countries, is repudiated as rooted in capitalism, and springing only from a desire for profits and for selfish exploitation of the natural resources belonging solely to those inhabitants. “Protectionism” in any form, whether by prohibitions on imports, embargoes, tariffs, differential shipping or railway rates, for the purpose of limiting the amount or restricting the free flow of foreign commodities into this country, is unreservedly condemned. Protection for the benefit of a particular trade, or all trades, while it may conduce to the immediate advantage of Labour, is presumed to operate to the greater ultimate advantage of the capitalist, and to strengthen his position. Anything tending to such a result is “contrary to the true interests of Labour.” Protection is said to lead to capitalistic rings, combinations and trusts, higher prices, diminished consumption, reduced employment. This being so, Labour favours the free importation of all foreign goods, and their sale at rates as low as are consistent with their manufacture under unsweated labour conditions in their land of origin.

No Protective Tariffs

All tariffs, especially if differential, must, so Labour contends, inevitably create international friction, retaliation, enmity, and ultimately active hostilities, and are to be more especially discarded, inasmuch as they are the favourite instrument of capitalistic groups eager to make profits out of international ruptures. Labour accordingly objects to the protection of key industries for purposes of national safety. “It is impossible to make either the British Empire or the British Isles self-contained or self-supporting. Even if practicable, the policy of self-sufficiency would indicate a provocative intention to maintain a national condition of perpetual preparation for war.” Therefore, except so far as is necessary to avoid the spread of disease or prevention of accidents, there must be no restriction on the transit or importation of any commodity. Imperial preference is likewise rejected as a selfish attempt to reserve for the inhabitants of the British Empire the raw materials and markets of the Empire, a course incompatible with any kind of lasting peace, having regard to the resentment it would provoke amongst the nations excluded from participating in these raw materials or from supplying our imperial markets. Labour calls for “the open door” in all our Colonies and Dependencies, and in “non-adult countries,” meaning by this term “exploitable countries” like China and Africa. The position of the capitalist has been so undermined by Labour’s attack at home that capital, in Labour’s opinion, is now making its real profits and consolidating its power by expropriating natives, and compelling them to work for low wages.

Freedom of International Trade

In order to free Europe from “the rivalries of Capitalism—Imperialism—Protectionism, which poisoned international relations between 1880-1914,” Labour desires to see an economic side of the League of Nations developed so as to secure the removal of all economic barriers and maintain equality of trade conditions. But surely it was Labour itself that called loudest for self-determination, which has so grievously impaired the economic restoration of Europe. A World Economic Council of the League ought to apportion the supplies of food-commodities and raw materials and maintain credit in the various countries so as to ensure fair allocation of raw materials, the furtherance of production, the development of international lines of communication, and the prevention of exploitation by trusts. As an alternative to “the present profit-making capitalistic economic system,” Labour proposes to use for purposes of international trade, an organization on a world-wide basis of the different national Co-operative movements. So long as foreign trade remains under the control of the competitive and capitalistic system, Labour asserts that its general international aims can never be attained.

CHAPTER III
THE LABOUR PARTY’S ADOPTION OF SOCIALISM
I. MEANING OF SOCIALISM

The Common Characteristics of all Socialistic Creeds—State Socialism—Syndicalism—National Guildism—Nationalization and Democratic Control.

Socialism is too amorphous to admit of any workable definition. Each age exhibits schools of thought, industrial and philosophic, which define Socialism in different ways according to contemporary political circumstances, economic conditions and industrial tendencies or their interpretation of them. There is no more interesting study than to trace out the variant meanings of “Socialist” from its first appearance in the Co-operative Magazine of November 1827 up to the present time, and to note its successive contractions and extensions in political, ethical, economic and social implications as decade succeeded to decade.

The Common Characteristics of all Socialistic Creeds

But certain brands of Socialism can be described if not defined. The one common characteristic is abolition of the “capitalistic organization” of industry. If we call this A, then we can say that all schemes of Socialism can be reduced to the general formula A + x, where x is a symbol standing for a very large number of variables which comprise the methods by which the capitalist is to be extinguished; the terms on which the present capitalists will be compensated or otherwise expropriated; the persons or authority in whom the means of production—and probably there should be added distribution and exchange—will be vested; the persons or body to be responsible for the organization of industry and for its control; the means by which capital will be found and prices regulated; the relation in which the new industrial system will stand to the community, and the various socialized industries to one another. These are the practical points to which attention should be directed rather than academic definitions.

Of the term “capitalism” and what is implied by it all kinds of definitions are current. Socialists of different schools have their own definitions embellished with epithets which vary in virulence according to their particular trend of thought. Employers too have their definitions, but it will be sufficient for our purposes if we take capitalism to mean the existing scheme of industrial organization. The basic vices of capitalism, according to all Socialists, are that it is a system under which the owner of the capital employed in industry possesses and controls the whole business of production and sale of the output, buying, just as he buys raw materials for his business, the labour power of the workman, paying him as little for it as possible, and that in the form of a wage merely in respect of the time he is at work; a system under which the employer maintains a reserve of unemployed labour in order to provide for the variations in trade, while recognizing no responsibility in respect of the workman at times when the employer cannot or is not prepared to provide him with work. Under such conditions the workman is said to occupy a quasi-servile status, to be a wage-slave and entitled to no voice at all in the control of the industry. That, without the usual garnish of abuse, is probably a fair description of the present organization of industry as it is envisaged by the Socialist. The two great incidents of capitalism which the Socialist therefore seeks to eradicate are: the private ownership of land and capital; and the employment on a wage-basis of hired labour. If only capitalism could be abolished the workman would no longer see his employer and other capitalists appropriating, in the shape of rent and interest and profits, all the value of the product which the labourer is said to create over and above the amount of his wages.

To capitalism, it is customary, and, indeed, necessary for his argument, for the Socialist to attribute all the ills from which industry suffers and most evils to which the community is heir. With the exit of capitalism the Socialist says that unemployment would disappear and adequate maintenance be secured for sickness, old age and other incapacity, equality of opportunity afforded to all, full scope provided for individual expression and development, and a universal millennium inaugurated. In the minds of some Socialists there seems no limit whatsoever to the mephitic influence of capitalism. Dr. Shadwell, in his discerning articles in The Times[2] on “The Revolutionary Movement in Great Britain,” mentions that the Daily Herald of February 2, 1921, found the cause of influenza in capitalism, and argued that unless the latter is destroyed it will destroy mankind; conversely Dr. Shadwell logically suggested we may assume that if capitalism is abolished influenza will disappear!

We are now in a position to distinguish the principal schools of Socialism that exist to-day. One will not find them formulating their principles as crisply as I set them out. My object is merely to indicate the main outlines.

State Socialism

First we have the State Socialist who advocates that the State should acquire, as he generally says, the means of production, distribution and exchange, or, to reduce it to practical terms, land and the national industries. Taking, for example, a concrete case—the railway industry—the State would take over all the railway undertakings in the country from the various companies of shareholders who now own them and, under most schemes of State Socialism, would compensate the shareholders by paying them, in State securities, something approaching the capital value of the net maintainable revenue of the undertakings. Under this system the State steps into the shoes of the original owners of the railways and acts as the employer controlling the industry and employing the workmen just as the private owners previously did. The industry would be run by a Government Department in Whitehall and, the State Socialist says, will be run in the interests of the community and not for private profit, inasmuch as the Government Department is, through its ministerial head, responsible to Parliament, which represents the community.

Syndicalism

The next school is that of Syndicalism, which, curiously enough, was really in its origin a British conception evolved in the revolutionary phase of the Chartist movement, but afterwards touched up and elaborated by Continental Socialists, especially in France, as by G. Sorel. Under this system, the private owner would be evicted by the workers, who would form some consolidated body, usually in the shape of an industrial Union, including all persons concerned in the operation of the industry, and that body would carry on the industry solely in the interests of the workers. Possession of the industry would be secured by the workers seizing the political power in the State, or, as is more generally advocated, by direct pressure of such a kind, in the form of a general strike or otherwise, as would enable the workers in all industries by concerted action to seize the means of production. Regarding, as the Syndicalist does, the capitalist as an idle and useless parasite who battens on the labour of the workers, no compensation would be paid to owners. The Syndicalist has not quite made up his mind whether he will include the technical and administrative staff in the industrial Union which will own and operate each industry, nor has he worked out the relation to the State of individual industries or industry as a whole.[3] Most Syndicalists assume that the State and its legislative, administrative and executive organizations, as we know it, will cease to function and come to an end under a syndicalistic regime, and that the country will be governed by some organization representing the workers as a whole. Except amongst certain revolutionary elements, Syndicalism has not a strong hold on British labour.

National Guildism

Next we come to the school of Guildsmen, of which that section known as the National Guilds have worked out their theory in the greatest detail. This school says that State Socialism would mean a rigid bureaucracy, and, so far as the workers are concerned, little advance on the capitalistic regime, because the workers would really be in the employment of the State and enjoy little or no voice in the control of industry. On the other hand, they say that the syndicalistic conception is doomed to failure because it makes no provision for including the supervisory, technical, managerial and administrative staff in the industrial organization that controls each industry, nor allows any safeguards for the consuming community against the selfish exercise of monopolies upon which the people are dependent for their necessary commodities and services. Accordingly the National Guildist proposes that the system of craft Trade Unionism that exists in this country should be replaced by industrial Unionism under which all manual workers employed in each industry would be enrolled in a comprehensive Trade Union embracing the whole of the industry, which in course of time would be expanded into an industrial Guild that would also include all the supervisory, technical, managerial and administrative staff, and that this Guild should be entirely responsible for the control and organization of the work of the particular industry. Exactly how the Guilds are to acquire the means of production in each industry is not yet developed; some advocate acquisition by the State for a small payment to the owners and then transference by the State to the Guilds; others the forcible acquisition by the Guilds after such gradually intensive action on the part of the workers as will bring the capitalistic system of organization of the industry to an impasse. A Guild Congress for each industry will regulate the affairs of that industry, and a National Guild Congress of all industries the affairs of all the industries in the country. Prices and other matters in each industry which affect the consumer will be regulated by arrangement between the Guild and local and central organizations representing the consumers, and general matters in all industries affecting the community will be adjusted by negotiations between the National Guild Congress and National Consumers’ Organizations. Those who desire to follow out Guild Socialism both as an industrial and a political conception should read that most interesting and brilliantly written book by Mr. G. D. H. Cole, Guild Socialism Re-stated; and investigate the Building Guilds.

Nationalization and Democratic Control

In Great Britain, political, industrial and social schemes of reconstruction have never followed strictly logical lines; they have invariably assumed a character of compromise, thereby giving effect to national idiosyncrasies of temperament. Accordingly we find a large body of Socialist opinion in this country advocating what it calls “nationalization and democratic control.” Perhaps the best illustration of what is meant by that baffling phrase is afforded by the scheme of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain for the reorganization of the coal industry. In that scheme, which is explained in the Bill presented to Parliament by the Miners’ Federation in 1920, the basic proposal is that the State should buy out the coal owners and that there should be established a National Mining Council. Since the Miners’ Federation as at present constituted could not appoint the technical workers, this Council would be composed, as to one-half, of representatives of the manual workers in the coal industry, and as to the other half by representatives of the Government. If, however, the Miners’ Federation could appoint the technical workers, I rather gather that they would not have been prepared to acquiesce in such duality of control. Under their proposal, the one-half of the National Mining Council representing the workers would be appointed by the Miners’ Federation and the other half would be persons appointed by the Government to represent the technical, administrative and commercial sides of the industry together with other persons to represent the consuming community. This Council would determine the annual output, fix prices and control finances. In addition, there would be District Councils for each coal-mining district, one-half elected by men working in the district, and the other half being technical and administrative persons and representatives of the National Council. Further, there would be Pit or Colliery Committees at every colliery comprised exclusively of the managerial, technical and manual workers. The manager as the person responsible for the governance of the mine, would be responsible to the Pit Committee, and the Pit Committee and the manager would be responsible for conducting the colliery.

It will be observed that this scheme of organization, which is probably what the most thoughtful sections of Labour have at the back of their minds as the kind to be applied to a well-organized industry, differs from State Socialism in that the State is not the direct employer, and differs from Syndicalism in that the workers have not autocratic control, and differs from Guild Socialism in that the conduct of the industry is not entirely by a Guild representative of all persons concerned in the industry, but by a Council consisting as to one-half of representatives of the miners and as to the other half of Government representatives.

CHAPTER IV
THE LABOUR PARTY’S ADOPTION OF SOCIALISM
2. HISTORY OF THE ALLIANCE

Labour’s Struggle for Political Power, 1825-1832—Labour’s Alliance with Revolutionary Socialism, 1832-1842—Labour’s Renunciation of Socialism, 1842-1885—The Era of Constitutional State Socialism, 1885-1905—The New Syndicalist Revolutionary Ferment of 1905—The Socialist Societies—The Social Democratic Federation—The Communist Party—The Fabian Society—The Independent Labour Party—The Socialist Labour Party—The Socialist Party of Great Britain—The National Guilds League.

It is impossible to understand the present connection between the Labour Party and Socialism without some small acquaintance with the history of Labour’s attitude to Socialism in the past. That involves a retrospect of Trade Unionism. Up to 1825, anything in the nature of a Trade Union was rigorously suppressed by the Combination Laws, which, after considerable agitation, were repealed by the Acts 5 Geo. IV, 95 and 6 Geo. IV, 129. Although full freedom was not thereby secured for Trade Unions, yet for the first time the right of collective bargaining was recognized—a process of negotiation in course of which organizations of workmen could withhold their labour in order to secure the rates of wages or conditions of employment that they desired. As was naturally to be expected, this led to an increase in the number of Trade Unions and of their power. But fortune proved unkind. At the outset of their development there occurred the financial crash of 1825, which caused wholesale commercial ruin and widespread closing of works, reductions of wages and unemployment for the four or five years following, with continual strikes by way of resistance to wage reductions. The poverty and destitution of the working-classes as compared with the wealthier section of the community led to dissemination among the workers of revolutionary ideas, political and socialistic. One can read in the newspapers of the time, even as far back as 1829, familiar doctrines—that Labour is the only source of wealth—that the working-men are the support of the middle and upper classes, the nerves and soul of production, the foundation of the nation. From 1829, and particularly through the Chartist days of 1835-1842, the Trade Union movement which had previously concerned itself mainly in endeavouring to increase wages and improve conditions of employment, was actively associated with the middle classes in prosecuting revolutionary aims.

Labour’s Struggle for Political Power, 1825-1832

From 1829-32, the struggle swayed around the Reform Bill. Both Labour and the middle classes combined to regard the enactment of that measure as the opening of the door to social progress. Its failure to provide for universal manhood suffrage shattered the hopes of Labour. Revolution had for some time been whispered; a school of advanced Labour thought, when working out to its logical conclusion the theory that labour was the sole source of value, had evolved the doctrine of class-war.

Labour’s Alliance with Revolutionary Socialism, 1832-1842

Stung by disappointment through exclusion from the suffrage, organized Labour embraced these revolutionary doctrines, arrayed itself definitely against Parliamentary government, and insisted that the workers’ only hope of salvation lay in direct application against the community of their economic power. Robert Owen about that time was the leader of socialistic thought in this country, and Labour adopted and adapted certain parts of his policy as its official programme. Owen’s notion substantially was that the machinery of production should be owned not by the community, but by the particular section of workers who used it, and that the Trade Unions concerned in each industry should be transformed into national companies to carry on the trade. Profit-making and competition were to be eliminated. The labour of the miner, for example, would exchange on some time-basis with the labour of the agricultural labourer. One enthusiastic Owenite, William Benbow, elaborated the theory of the general strike as the means of enforcing the transfer of industries from the capitalists to the workers. This was the first official adoption by organized Labour in this country of socialistic conceptions. The movement, however, collapsed in 1834, and was succeeded by what is now known as Chartism. That term was at the time merely understood to mean democratic parliamentary reform, its immediate object being the conquest of political power, and its ulterior purposes, so far as organized Labour were concerned, were the establishment of communist colonies, the common ownership of land and of the means of production, social reform, democratic political organization, greater freedom for Trade Unions and improvement in wages and working conditions. There was thus a combination of mixed forces working indiscriminately for social reform, Trade Unionism and democratic parliamentary government. The dominant notion was to obtain parliamentary power which was thought a sufficient means to reform society, reorganize industry and purge the nation of every kind of social and industrial disorder. As is well known, there were two distinct parties in the Chartist movement, those who advocated physical force and those who confined their argument to moral suasion.

The year 1842 marks the culmination of Chartism and will be remembered as the year of the general strike in the North of England, and of the apparent imminence of a social revolt; but the collapse of the general strike and the repressive action of the government took, for the time being, all driving force out of the agitation. When times improved, and trade started to prosper, Chartism lost ground; the Trade Unions began to detach themselves from schemes of social revolution, and to make their immediate objective the improvement of the conditions of the workers in regard to wages and employment. Chartism continued as a political movement, with varying fortunes, up to the year 1849. What it achieved up to 1855 is thus summarized by Mr. Beer in Vol. II of his History of British Socialism, p. 190:

“After a desperate contest of thirty years’ duration, Chartism had come to an end. It had not been a struggle of a plebs for equal rights with the patriciate to spoliate and enslave other classes and nations, but a class-war aiming at the overthrow of the capitalist society and putting production, distribution, and exchange on a co-operative basis. The working-class was apparently defeated.

“Baffled and exhausted through erratic leadership, untold sacrifices, and want of proper mental munitions, they retired from the field of battle, bleeding and decimated, but little aware of the great results they had achieved. They only saw the shattered ideals and broken hopes that lay strewn on the long path they had been marching and counter-marching from 1825 to 1855, not knowing that it was from the wreckage and debris of those shattered ideals that the material was gathered for building and paving the road of social progress.

“The advance which Great Britain had made in those thirty years in social reform and democracy was enormous. The Chartist period witnessed the first real Factory Act (1833), the first mining law for the protection of child and female labour (1842), the Ten Hours’ Day (1847), the reduction of the newspaper stamp (1836), the Abolition of the Corn Laws (1846), the repeal of the Corresponding Acts (1846). It bequeathed to the working-classes the co-operative store and co-operative production, more successful trade unions, and international sentiments. It forced the thinking men of the nation to regard the Labour problem as a serious subject for investigation and discussion. Finally, it imbued the thinking portion of the working-class with the conviction that Liberalism must first do its work, before Labour could come into its own, both in the legislature and in the factory. In short, from the catastrophes of 1832, 1834, 1839, 1842 and 1848, the lesson emerged that the revolutionary policy of ‘all or nothing,’ of a sweeping triumph by one gigantic effort, of contempt for reform and of the supreme value of a total and radical subversion of the old order, were foredoomed to failure. The generation that succeeded Chartism went into Gladstone’s camp and refused to leave it either for the social Toryism of Benjamin Disraeli or for the social revolution of Karl Marx.”

Labour’s Renunciation of Socialism, 1842-1885

Onwards from the year 1842, although individual Trade Unionists and certain societies, which included no doubt members of the working-classes, continued to promote Socialism, the British Trade Unions advocated no scheme of Socialism as part of their official objects. They contented themselves with improving their organizations, increasing their members, making provision for friendly society benefits and of introducing methods of collective bargaining instead of class-war and of strikes. Mr. Beer again states the position at p. 195 of Vol. II, History of British Socialism:

“The twenty years following upon the collapse of Chartism formed the golden age of middle-class Liberalism. The glamour of its doctrines as set forth by Mill in his essay ‘On Liberty,’ the phenomenal growth of British trade and commerce, the unrivalled position of Great Britain as the workshop of the world, made British Liberalism the lodestar of all nations striving for freedom and wealth. Competition as the regulator of economic relations, free trade as the international bond of peace and goodwill, individual liberty as the sacred ideal of national politics, reigned supreme, and under their weight the entire formation of social revolutionary ideas of the past disappeared from view. The working-classes formed a part of triumphant Liberalism.

“Gladstone, surveying his hosts in 1866, appeared quite justified in telling his Conservative opponents that there was no use fighting against his social forces, ‘which move onwards in their might and majesty and which ... are marshalled on our side.’ He might have addressed the same eloquent words to the leaders of the International Working Men’s Association, who with Karl Marx at their head, were precisely at that time making a serious attempt to resuscitate Chartism and detach the masses from the Liberal Party. Socialism and independent Labour politics came to be regarded as exotic plants which could never flourish on British soil.

“The trade unions renounced all class-warfare and merely tried to use their new citizenship (1867) and their growing economic organization—the first trade union congress took place in 1869—with a view to influencing the distribution of the national wealth in their favour. Their aim and end was that of a plebs striving for equality with the possessing and ruling-classes. It was, despite some struggle for the legalization of trade unionism, a period of social peace, and it lasted till about 1880.”

This state of things continued in fact up to about 1885, and until that date Socialism formed really no part of official Trade Union principles.

The Era of Constitutional State Socialism, 1885-1905

Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb in their History of Trade Unionism, revised edition, 1920, p. 374, describe the principles of the Labour Party about 1885 as follows:

“Laissez faire then was the political and social creed of the Trade Union leaders of this time; up to 1885 they undoubtedly represented the views current among the rank and file; at that date all observers were agreed that the Trade Unions of Great Britain would furnish an impenetrable barrier against Socialist projects. Within a decade we find the whole trade union world permeated with collectivist ideas, and, as The Times recorded as early as 1893, the Socialist Party supreme in the Trades Union Congress. This revolution in opinion is the chief event of Trade Union history at the close of the nineteenth century.”

These two talented authors analyse the causes. They attribute it in great measure to the “new unionism” of 1889 which was itself largely the result of the wide circulation in Great Britain of Henry George’s Progress and Poverty during the years 1880-1882; the lecturing of the late Mr. H. M. Hyndman and Mr. William Morris and other disciples of Karl Marx; revelations of certain “well-intentioned if somewhat sentimental philanthropists” of their experiences in the sweated industries and slums of our great cities, as, for example, Mr. Charles Booth’s great work, Life and Labour in London; depression in trade; the great Dock Strike in 1889.

The attitude observed by the Trades Union Congress in regard to socialistic proposals is instructive. Up to 1887, at five successive conferences, amendments in favour of the nationalization of land had been continuously rejected; at the Swansea Conference in 1887, a resolution in no very definite terms was accepted in its favour. The extreme socialistic conception of the advanced Trade Unionist of the nineties was State Socialism to be secured by constitutional political action. The power of action was to be derived from every working-class Socialist becoming a member of his Trade Union, of his local Co-operative Society, of his borough council, urban or rural district or county council. This represented substantially the full socialistic creed of official Labour up to about the year 1905. Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb thus epitomize it:

“In short, there was from the collapse of Owenism and Chartism in the eighteen-thirties and -forties right down to 1900 practically no sign that the British Trade Unions ever thought of themselves otherwise than as organizations to secure an ever-improving standard of life by means of an ever-increasing control of the conditions under which they worked. They neither desired nor sought any participation in the management of the technical processes of industry (except in so far as these might affect the conditions of their employment or the selection of persons to be employed), whilst it never occurred to a Trade Union to claim any power over, or responsibility for, buying the raw materials or marketing the product.”—(History of Trade Unionism (1920), p. 653.)

The New Syndicalist Revolutionary Ferment of 1905

Between 1905 and 1910 new socialistic beliefs of a Syndicalist character began to be absorbed by sections of Trade Unionists, especially the miners and the engineers, who soon exhibited a spirit of revolt not only against the capitalistic system, but more especially against the limited aims of contemporary Trade Unionism. There commenced, and up to the beginning of the war, continued a definite struggle in the Labour movement between the constitutional Trade Unionists who held tight to their ideals of State Socialism, and the revolutionary industrial Unionists, led by James Connolly, and Tom Mann, who preached their doctrine of Syndicalism, advocating first the abolition of craft Unionism—the system under which all workmen of a particular craft, for example, engineers, are enrolled in their own craft Unions irrespective of the industries in which they work—and its replacement by industrial Unionism, that is to say, the enrolment in one Trade Union representing each industry of all men engaged in that industry irrespective of their particular craft or occupations, such as to a limited extent prevails in the railway, mining and transport industries; secondly, the appropriation of the means of production in each industry by the manual workers who would produce the output, charge the price and conduct the industry. Connolly, who was afterwards executed for complicity in the Irish Rebellion of 1916, came from the United States of America in 1905, and persuaded the Socialist Labour Party of Glasgow to link up forces with the American Industrial Workers of the World. Mann, who was recently the Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, brought the seeds of revolutionary Syndicalism from Paris and sowed them personally by means of a widespread campaign.

Without any doubt, the Socialist Labour Party, an organization not, however, affiliated to the Labour Party, has contributed more than any other agency to the spread of Syndicalism in England. It describes itself as “a revolutionary political organization seeking to build up a communist movement in this country.” It works “to sweep away the mass of debris which was once known as the parliament institutions,” Those who want to appreciate its activities in these directions ought to follow them in Dr. Miliukov’s Bolshevism—An International Danger, and I can personally vouch for and add to his testimony. The Socialist Labour Party was indubitably the power behind the revolutionary propaganda before the war among the miners and the railwaymen, and to some extent among the dockers, and it was responsible for many of the numerous “irritation strikes” in 1911-14 and for the Clyde strikes in 1916. Its disloyal action during the war, through the medium of the workers’ committees and shop steward organizations, is later described. The S.L.P. and the I.W.W. were the original founders of the “Hands Off Russia Committee.” Such has been the revolutionary ferment leavening English and Scottish Labour since 1905—to it we largely owe our present recurrent outbursts of industrial insurrectionism.

The Socialist Societies

There are, as previously explained, certain Socialist Societies definitely affiliated to the Labour Party; others are unofficially recognized, and there are yet others not recognized, either officially or unofficially, which comprise numerous persons who through their Trade Union or local organizations, or individually, are members of the Labour Party. These advocate brands of Socialism ranging from State Socialism to revolutionary Syndicalism.

The Social Democratic Federation

The Democratic Federation, founded in 1881 by the late Mr. H. M. Hyndman, mainly as a federation of Radical clubs, with a veiled socialistic programme embracing land nationalization, was the first attempt at a political Socialist organization. In 1889 it became the Social Democratic Federation, avowedly socialistic. Late in 1884 it split into the Socialist League, under Mr. William Morris, pledged to a revolutionary, anti-parliamentary programme; and the Social Democratic Federation, led by Mr. Hyndman. But, captured by anarchists, the Socialist League broke up, many of its leaders rejoining the Social Democratic Federation. The Federation was affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee on the formation of the latter in 1900, but soon withdrew, and in 1908 called itself the Social Democratic Party. It amalgamated in 1911 with a number of local Socialist bodies and changed its name to the British Socialist Party. In 1916 it was affiliated with the Labour Party. Later, in 1916, it declared against the war and pursued a disloyal policy. This attitude, mainly exhibited through its weekly newspaper, the Call, led to considerable secessions from the British Socialist Party, and to the foundation by the late Mr. H. M. Hyndman of the National Socialist Party with its weekly newspaper, Justice, which, while advocating the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth on a democratic basis, actively supported the war. On July 31, 1920, the British Socialist Party merged its identity in the Communist Party, pledged to establish Sovietism and the dictatorship of the proletariate.

The Communist Party

On January 29 and 30, 1921, there assembled at Leeds a Communist Conference for the purposes of merging the various Communist bodies into one party. One hundred and seventy delegates took part representing the following bodies:—Communist Party of Great Britain; Communist Labour Party; Communist Party (British Section of Third International); Aberdeen Communist Group; Left Wing of Independent Labour Party; Industrial Communist Party; Jewish Socialist Party; Bolton Communist Group; Croydon Communist Group; Shop Stewards; South Wales Workers’ Committee.

Later on, April 23 and 24, 1921, another Communist Conference took place in Manchester to settle the constitution and the rules. The party was called the Communist Party of Great Britain, its ultimate purpose being the establishment of a Communistic Republic and its immediate end the abolition of the wage-system through a social revolution. As a means of furthering a social revolution the party urges the adoption by the workers of a Soviet or Workers’ Council system as it exists in Russia, and “for a weapon against the massing of the forces of capitalism” the use of “the dictatorship of the revolutionary masses,” This Party applied for affiliation to the Labour Party, but that was refused at the Brighton Conference in 1921 and again at Edinburgh in 1922. It is affiliated to the “Red” or Communist International of Moscow. The best account of the revolutionary organizations in this country is that contained in Dr. Shadwell’s Revolutionary Movement in Great Britain, Grant Richards, Ltd., 1921.

The Fabian Society

The well-known Fabian Society was founded in January 1884, and has been affiliated to the Labour Party from its inception. It aims at reorganizing society by emancipating land and industrial capital from individual or class ownership and vesting them in the State. It advocates transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial capital as can conveniently be managed socially. As a result of this transfer without compensation, “though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community,” rent and interest will be added to the reward of labour, and the idle class now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear. The Society specially tries to influence local authorities so as to impart a socialistic tendency to their administration. The Fabian Research Department has conducted many valuable investigations into industrial questions; since October 1918, it has been known as the Labour Research Department; affiliation with it is open to Trade Unions, Socialist Societies, Co-operative Organizations, Trades Councils, Labour Parties and private individuals. Its object is to co-operate with the Labour, Socialist and Co-operative movements in supplying information upon all questions relating to labour, and it does so most effectively.

The Independent Labour Party

In 1893, the Independent Labour Party was formed. It owes its origin, as has been stated, to the energy of Mr. Keir Hardie. The “I.L.P.” was established “to secure the collective ownership of all the means of production, distribution and exchange,” and “independent labour representation on all legislative, governing and administrative bodies.” Its original constitution stated:

“That the object of that Party is to establish the Socialist State, when land and capital will be held by the community and used for the well-being of the community and when the exchange of commodities will be organized also by the community, so as to secure the highest possible standard of life for the individual. In giving effect to this object, it will work as part of the International Socialist Movement.”

The I.L.P. and its weekly paper, the Labour Leader, took up persistently a pacificist attitude throughout the war, especially in regard to compulsory military service. It is represented by four members in the present House of Commons.

The Socialist Labour Party

In 1903, the Socialist Labour Party was established in Glasgow—by secessionists from the Social Democratic Federation—on the lines of the revolutionary American Socialist Party led by Daniel de Leon. It is in close affiliation with the Industrial Workers of the World, and actively agitates to further the Syndicalist conception of industrial Unionism. All candidates for membership must subscribe to “class-war”—no Trade Union official is eligible. The Party propagates revolutionary political action, and also revolutionary industrial action of the extreme syndicalistic type. The Party has between thirty and forty branches throughout the country, owns the Socialist Labour Press, and publishes a monthly paper called the Socialist. Although the majority of its members are Trade Unionists, the party refuses to affiliate with the Labour Party. Throughout the recent conflict it carried out an implacable campaign against the war, and impeded in every possible way its successful prosecution.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain

In 1905, other extreme Socialists broke away from the Social Democratic Federation and formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Its declared object is to wage war against all other political parties, either “Labour or Capital.” It advocates the institution of the most extreme Marxian regime, by means of such revolutionary political action as will secure the “capture” of all the machinery of government whether national or local. It publishes monthly the Socialist Standard and is not affiliated to the Labour Party, though it comprises many Trade Unionists.

The National Guilds League

In 1915, the National Guilds League was founded to advocate the cause of Guild Socialism, which has been already described. There are two schools of thought, one which hopes to secure National Guildism by evolving industrial Unionism out of craft Unionism coupled with the Unions securing an ever-increasing control over industry; the other by militant or revolutionary tactics. The National Guilds League has a number of branches throughout the country.

CHAPTER V
THE LABOUR PARTY’S ADOPTION OF SOCIALISM
3. THE HOME SOCIALISTIC PROGRAMME

Nationalization of the Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange—The Labour Addendum to the Whitley Report, 1918—The Industrial Programme of 1918—Land Nationalization—The Control of Industry—Labour’s Report to the Industrial Conference, 1919—Nationalization of the Coal Industry.

It will be sufficient to review the Labour Party’s official socialistic policy in regard to home affairs starting from 1918. Previously to that date, a number of resolutions had from year to year been passed, formally as hardy annuals, at the Trades Union Congresses and the Labour Party’s Conferences advocating nationalization of land, railways, mines and the municipalization of a number of services of public utility. But from and after 1918 the matter assumes a different complexion.

Nationalization of the Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange

In 1918, at the Nottingham Labour Party Conference a stock resolution was passed in these terms:

“That the Labour Party press for nationalization of all the means of production, distribution and exchange.”

The arguments of the proposer were that because of the existence of landlordism and the power of the landlords, the people had been driven off the land into towns and overseas, with the result that this country had to depend on other countries for food-stuffs. There was no discussion, and the resolution was passed nem. con.

The Labour Addendum to the Whitley Report, 1918

The now famous “Committee on Relations between Employers and Employed,” known as the “Whitley Committee,” which advocated the institution in industries of Joint Industrial Councils, Joint District Councils and Works’ Committees, presented the last of their five Reports to the Prime Minister in 1918, dated July 1, 1918 (Parliamentary Paper 1918, Cd. 9153). The Trade Union members[4] of the Committee who signed the report appended this note:

“By attaching our signatures to the General Reports we desire to render hearty support to the recommendations that Industrial Councils or Trade Boards, according to whichever are the more suitable in the circumstances, should be established for the several industries or businesses and that these bodies, representative of employers and employed, should concern themselves with the establishment of minimum conditions and the furtherance of the common interests of their trades.

“But while recognizing that the more amicable relations thus established between Capital and Labour will afford an atmosphere generally favourable to industrial peace and progress, we desire to express our view that a complete identity of interests between Capital and Labour cannot be thus effected, and that such machinery cannot be expected to furnish a settlement for the more serious conflicts of interests involved in the working of an economic system primarily governed and directed by motives of private profit.”

The Industrial Programme of 1918

The new constitution of the Party which was adopted in 1918 was described as a scheme to secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution of them upon the basis of common ownership of the means of production coupled with the application to each industry or service of the best system of popular administration and control, and to promote the economic emancipation of the people, especially those who depend upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life. In explanation of this rather vague programme, the Party stated in a contemporary leaflet, that they intended that the supplies of food and other necessaries of life, especially bread, meat, milk, sugar, butter and margarine, water, coal, light, and transport by rail, steamer, tram and bus, now almost entirely controlled by monopolists, combines, trusts and rings, should be acquired by the State to be administered nationally or municipally solely in the interest of the public and the consumers. In the Party’s proposals for reconstruction as contained in Labour and the New Social Order, which was finally settled by the Labour Party Conference in June 1918, Labour declared that it stood for:

“The progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist, individual or joint-stock, and the setting free of all who work, whether by hand or by brain, for the service of the community and the community only,”

and registered its refusal

“absolutely to believe that the British people will permanently tolerate any reconstruction or perpetuation of the disorganization, waste and inefficiency involved in the abandonment of British industry to a jostling crowd of separate private employers with their minds bent, not on the service of the community, but—by the very law of their being—only on the utmost possible profiteering.

“What the Labour Party looks to is a genuinely scientific reorganization of the nation’s industry, no longer deflected by individual profiteering, on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production; the equitable sharing of the proceeds among all who participate in any capacity, and only among these, and the adoption, in particular services and occupations, of those systems and methods of administration and control that may be found in practice, best to promote, not profiteering, but the public interest.”

Land Nationalization

At the Southport Conference, 1919, a resolution in favour of land nationalization was formally moved by the Miners’ Federation and carried unanimously by the Conference without argument or explanation; it reads thus:

“Seeing that the land alone of all the factors of production is both indispensable to man and incapable of expansion by human agency, it is pre-eminently the rightful property of the nation as a whole. The present system which treats land as private property and prevents free access to it, hampers industry, checks production, crowds the towns by depopulating the countryside, obstructs the provision of good housing, lowers the standard of public health both physical and moral; this Conference strongly urges the Government to bring forward, as early as possible, some scheme for the nationalization of land so as to abolish the present unjust system of land ownership and land leasing. It strongly deprecates the action of the Government in preventing the completion of the valuation of the land, and demands that such valuation shall be completed as early as possible, with a view to the ultimate complete socialization of all land and minerals.”

The Control of Industry

In view of divergent proposals and the general lack of any precise information as to the Party’s intentions in regard to the control of industry, it is not surprising to find this resolution passed at the Southport Conference, 1919, and, significantly, moved by the British Socialist Party:

“That it be referred to the Executive Committee to consider and report to a further Conference on the arrangements to be introduced into industry in order to provide Labour with facilities to control industry—that is to say, to participate in the promotion of undertakings, the negotiation of contracts, determination of the product, and the selection of markets—and the extent that such control by Labour can be secured, or is desirable, on the basis of the private ownership of land and capital. The Executive shall indicate the distinction between conciliatory Labour and Capital and the actual control of industry by the workers, and to that end is instructed to report on:

“(a) The Industrial Councils and their bearing on the question.

“(b) The co-partnership of Labour and Capital.

“(c) The means to achieve the democratic management of industries in national ownership.

“(d) How far the representation of Trade Unions, through their Executives or by ballot of the members, could ensure participation in actual control, and whether, for effective control, it is not necessary that the employees in the workshop or the pit shall construct an organization, integral to any scheme of democratic management.

“(e) Whether the sole or partial management by Labour of industries in national ownership should be confined to the actual workers therein, or should include workers in other occupations.”

The delegate who moved the resolution pointed out that there were different opinions in the Labour Party as to control; one section advocating nationalization pure and simple, another a system of control not necessarily involving nationalization, and that for the guidance of the whole Labour movement an inquiry, as suggested by the resolution, was essential so that “instead of having so many pious resolutions they would have facts and data upon which to build their future policy and activity,” The guidance sought has not yet been given.

At the same conference another resolution was adopted as follows:

“That this Conference re-affirms its pledge of nationalization of industry, but, when nationalized, to come under joint control with adequate representation of the workers on the boards.”

The mover of it thought the previous resolution might include co-partnership, and to that he objected. In co-partnership, he said, “the workers interested became as great aristocrats as the ordinary employer. Every industry ought to be nationalized and have adequate representation under joint control.”

Labour’s Report to the Industrial Conference, 1919

In a memorandum by the Right Hon. A. Henderson, Chairman of the Trades Union representatives, which was appended to the Report of the Industrial Conference in 1919 (Parliamentary Paper 1919, Cmd. 501) appointed to inquire into industrial unrest, there occur these statements of Labour policy:

“Control of Industry.

(p. ii.) “With increasing vehemence Labour is challenging the whole structure of capitalist industry as it now exists. It is no longer willing to acquiesce in a system under which industry is conducted for the benefit of the few. It demands a system of industrial control which shall be truly democratic in character. This is seen on the one hand in the demand for public ownership of vital industries and services and public control of services not nationalized which threaten the public with the danger of monopoly or exploitation. It is also seen in the increasing demand of the workers in all industries for a real share in industrial control, a demand which the Whitley Scheme, in so far as it has been adopted, has done little or nothing to satisfy. This demand is more articulate in some industries than others. It is seen clearly in the national programmes of the railwaymen and of the miners; and it is less clearly formulated by the workers in many other industries. The workers are no longer prepared to acquiesce in a system in which their labour is bought and sold as a commodity in the labour market. They are beginning to assert that they have a human right to an equal and democratic partnership in industry; that they must be treated in future not as ‘hands’ or part of the factory equipment, but as human beings with a right to use their abilities by hand and brain in the service not of the few but of the whole community.

“The extent to which workers are challenging the whole system of industrial organization is very much greater to-day than ever before, and unrest proceeds not only from more immediate and special grievances but also, to an increasing extent, from a desire to substitute a democratic system of public ownership and production for use with an increasing element of control by the organized workers themselves for the existing capitalist organization of industry.”

(p. vii.) “(a) A substantial beginning must be made of instituting public ownership of the vital industries and services in this country. Mines and the supply of coal, railways, docks and other means of transportation, the supply of electric power, and shipping, at least so far as ocean-going services are concerned, should be at once nationalized.

“(b) Private profit should be entirely eliminated from the manufacture of armaments, and the amount of nationalization necessary to secure this should be introduced into the engineering, shipbuilding and kindred industries.

“(c) There should be a great extension of municipal ownership, and ownership by other local authorities and co-operative control of those services which are concerned primarily with the supplying of local needs.

“(d) Key industries and services should at once be publicly owned.

“(e) This extension of public ownership over vital industries should be accompanied by the granting to the organized workers of the greatest practicable amount of control over the conditions and the management of their various industries.”

“State Control and Prices.

(p. viii.) “(a) Where an industry producing articles of common consumption or materials necessary to industries producing articles of common consumption cannot be at once publicly owned, State control over such industries should be retained.

“(b) State control has been shown to provide some check upon profiteering and high prices, and this is a reason why it should be maintained until industries pass into the stage at which they can be conveniently nationalized,”

“Conclusions.

(p. xi.) “The fundamental causes of Labour unrest are to be found rather in the growing determination of Labour to challenge the whole existing structure of capitalist industry than in any of the more special and smaller grievances which come to the surface at any particular time.

“These root causes are twofold—the breakdown of the existing capitalist system of industrial organization, in the sense that the mass of the working class is now firmly convinced that production for private profit is not an equitable basis on which to build, and that a vast extension of public ownership and democratic control of industry is urgently necessary. It is no longer possible for organized Labour to be controlled by force or compulsion of any kind. It has grown too strong to remain within the bounds of the old industrial system and its unsatisfied demand for the reorganization of industry on democratic lines is not only the most important, but also a constantly growing cause of unrest.

“The second primary cause is closely linked with the first. It is that, desiring the creation of a new industrial system which shall gradually but speedily replace the old, the workers can see no indication that either the government or the employers have realized the necessity for any fundamental change, or that they are prepared even to make a beginning of industrial re-organization on more democratic principles. The absence of any constructive, policy on the side of the Government or the employers, taken in conjunction with the fact that Labour, through the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party and through the various Trade Union organizations, has put forward a comprehensive economic and industrial programme, has presented the workers with a sharp contrast from which they naturally draw their own deductions.

“It is clear that unless and until the Government is prepared to realize the need for comprehensive reconstruction on a democratic basis, and to formulate a constructive policy leading towards economic democracy, there can be at most no more than a temporary diminution of industrial unrest to be followed inevitably by further waves of constantly growing magnitude.

“The changes involved in this reconstruction must, of course, be gradual, but if unrest is to be prevented from assuming dangerous forms an adequate assurance must be given immediately to the workers that the whole problem is being taken courageously in hand. It is not enough merely to tinker with particular grievances or to endeavour to reconstruct the old system by slight adjustments to meet the new demands of Labour. It is essential to question the whole basis on which Our industry has been conducted in the past and to endeavour to find, in substitution for the motive of private gain, some other motive which will serve better as the foundation of a democratic system. This motive can be no other than the motive of public service, which at present is seldom invoked save when the workers threaten to stop the process of production by a strike. The motive of public service should be the dominant motive throughout the whole industrial system, and the problem in industry at the present day is that of bringing home to every person engaged in industry the feeling that he is the servant, not of any particular class or person, but of the community as a whole. This cannot be done so long as industry continues to be conducted for private profit, and the widest possible extension of public ownership and democratic control of industry is therefore the first necessary condition of the removal of industrial unrest.”

Nationalization of the Coal Industry

As illustrating the position taken up by the Labour Party in regard to the coal industry, the following was the resolution settled by a Joint Sub-Committee representative of the Executive Committee of the Miners’ Federation, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress and the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, which was submitted to, and passed by, all their local demonstrations throughout the country in 1919-20:

“This Meeting declares:—

“(1) That the coal of the country forms an obvious necessity to national life, and that its ownership should therefore be vested in the community.

“(2) That the mines, machinery, and other means for the production and distribution of coal, being essential to the industry, should also be owned by the country.

“(3) That the direction and conduct of the coal-mining industry, being of vital importance to the workers in the industry and the coal-consuming public, should be under the control of National, District and Pit Committees representative of the national Government and the various classes of workers including those engaged in the managing, technical, commercial and manual processes.

“(4) That the objects to be sought by National Ownership and Joint Control on the lines indicated are:—

“(a) To provide the maximum output of the coal consistent with the provision of adequate protection for the workers engaged in this most dangerous employment.

“(b) The introduction of labour-saving appliances on the widest possible scale.

“(c) A more economic working of coal mines consequent on the elimination of the interests of private land and royalty ownership.

“(d) The remuneration of the workers in this industry on a scale commensurate with the dangers endured and sufficient to provide a healthy natural life for all concerned.

“(e) The co-ordination of the distributive machinery of the trade by the elimination of existing private interests and the substitution of municipal and co-operative supplies at prices sufficient to cover costs of production and distribution.

“This meeting therefore calls upon the Government to bring forward legislation for the national ownership of coal mines and minerals on the lines indicated, and in accordance with the recommendations of the Majority Report of the Coal Industry Commission.”

On March 11, 1920, a special Trades Union Congress was held in London to consider what action should be taken to compel the Government to nationalize the coal mines, and passed this resolution:

“In view of the repeated refusal of the Government to nationalize the mines, in accordance with the Majority Report of the Coal Industry Commission, and in agreement with the terms of the resolution passed at the Glasgow Congress and the Special Congress held in December last, the Parliamentary Committee suggest the following forms of action as a means to compel the Government to adopt the nationalization of mines:—

“(a) Trade Union action, in the form of a general strike;

“(b) Political action, in the form of intensive political propaganda in preparation for a General Election;

“In the event of (a) being carried, the necessary steps be taken to give effect to it in accordance with the constitution of each Union.”

The Congress decided against Clause (a) and in favour of Clause (b) proposing political action.

At the Brighton Conference, 1921, there was moved by the Miners’ Federation and passed unanimously without a debate the following resolution:

“That this Conference views with regret the failure of the Government to introduce legislation for the purpose of nationalizing the mining industry, and reiterates its conviction that this industry will never be placed upon a satisfactory basis in the interest of the community until it is publicly owned and worked between representatives of the State and the technical and manual workers engaged in it, and resolves to continue to educate and organize working-class opinions until the Government are compelled to bring about this fundamental change in the management and ownership of the industry.”

The Chairman at that Conference, Mr. Alex. G. Cameron, in the course of his address made these observations:

“The fundamental truth is that the supporters of capitalism have proved to the world that so long as industry is run on its present lines the workers will have to submit to periods of unemployment and periods of over-employment and that the present capitalist system must go before there can be any permanent solution.

“The workers, by the strength of their Trade Unions, may from time to time obtain improved conditions of employment, but until they obtain possession of the means of producing wealth, namely, the land, the mines, the railways, shipping, factories and workshops, they will remain dependent on a small section of the community providing them with employment. In other words, they will continue to be at the beck and call of those who own and control the capital of the country. They will, when the capitalists decide, be allowed to apply their labour to the production of wealth, but they will not be permitted to control its distribution.

“Before the workers will be permitted to control industry effectively, or even the distribution of the products of their industry, they will first require to own the machinery and materials of industry. Such ownership will only be acquired when we capture political power; and political power will come only as a result of hard thinking and intelligent action at the ballot-box. Political power will also enable us to control credit, money, banking and everything which is fundamental to a nation’s foreign policy, and is the cause of most, if not all, wars from which the workers of the world have suffered.”

The Labour Party’s specific proposals for the nationalization of many important industries and “their democratic control” are explained at length in [Chapter VIII].

CHAPTER VI
THE LABOUR PARTY’S ADOPTION OF SOCIALISM
4. THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTIC PROGRAMME

The First International—The Old Second International—The International Labour Charter of 1919—The New Second International—The Geneva Resolutions on Socialism of 1920—The Second International and Bolshevism—The Third or Moscow International.

The First International

It is important to note the connection before the war between the Labour Patty and International Socialism. As far back as September 28, 1864, the First International was formed in St. Martin’s Hall at the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, the site now occupied by Messrs. Odhams and used for the publication of John Bull. That organization lived under circumstances of great vicissitude as an international centre of socialistic thought until it received its death-blow through the collapse of the Commune In Paris in 1871. Its interesting career is described in Mr. R. W. Postgate’s book, The Workers’ International, and in The Two Internationals, by Mr. Palme Dutt.

The Old Second International

The Second International dates from the Paris Socialist Conference of 1889, but was not constituted in its later form of a Central International Socialist Bureau until 1913. In 1914, it included twenty-seven countries with a membership of twelve millions; to it the Labour Party was affiliated. It naturally fell into a state of suspended animation during the war. Unsuccessful attempts were made at Zimmerwald (1915), Kienthal (1916), and at Stockholm (1917), to revive the Second International. Later, a Conference with the same object in view was held at Berne in February 1919, where various Socialist and Labour bodies assembled to further its revival and also to deal with a number of political and industrial questions. This Conference was promoted by Messrs. Arthur Henderson, Emile Vandervelde and Albert Thomas. It passed an important resolution on “Democracy and Dictatorship,” part of which was in the following terms:

“The Conference hails the great political revolutions which, in Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, have destroyed the old regimes of imperialism and militarism and overthrown their Governments.

“The Conference urges the workers and Socialists of these countries to develop democratic and republican institutions which will enable them to bring about the great Socialist transformation. In these momentous times, when the problem of the Socialist reconstruction of the world is more than ever before a burning question, the working-classes should make up their minds, unanimously and unmistakably, about the method of their emancipation.

“In full agreement with all previous Congresses of the International, the Berne Conference firmly adheres to the principles of Democracy. A reorganized society more and more permeated with Socialism, cannot be realized, much less permanently established, unless it rests upon triumphs of Democracy and is rooted in the principles of liberty.

“Those institutions which constitute Democracy—freedom of speech and of the press, the right of assembly, universal suffrage, a government responsible to Parliament, with arrangements guaranteeing popular co-operation, and respect for the wishes of the people, the right of association, etc., these also provide the working-classes with the means of carrying on the class-struggle.

“Owing to certain recent events, the Conference desires to make absolutely clear the constructive character of the Socialist programme. True socialization implies methodical development in the different branches of economic activity under the control of the democracy. The arbitrary taking over of a few concerns by small groups of workers is not Socialism, it is merely Capitalism with numerous shareholders.

“Since, in the opinion of the Conference, effective Socialist development is only possible under democratic law, it is essential to eliminate at once any method of socialization which has no prospect of gaining the support of the majority of the people.

“A dictatorship of this character would be all the more dangerous if it were based upon the support of only one section of the working-class. The inevitable consequence of such a regime would be the paralysis of working-class strength through fratricidal war. The inevitable end would be the dictatorship of reaction....

“It calls upon Socialists throughout the world to close their ranks, not to deliver up the peoples to international reaction, but to do their utmost to ensure that Socialism and Democracy, which are inseparable, shall triumph everywhere.”

The International Labour Charter of 1919

The Berne Conference formulated an International Labour Charter which was afterwards submitted to the Council of Versailles for inclusion in the Treaty of Peace, and was, to a considerable extent, incorporated in Part XIII. The preamble of this Charter is important and reads thus:

“Under the wage-system the capitalist class endeavour to increase their profits by exploiting the workers in the greatest measure possible by methods which, if unchecked, would undermine the physical, moral and intellectual strength of the present and future generation of workers. They impede the development and even endanger the very existence of Society. The tendency of Capitalism to degrade the worker can only be completely checked by the abolition of the capitalist system of production. Meanwhile, the evil can be considerably mitigated, both by the resistance of organized workers and by the intervention of the State. By these means, the health of the workers can be protected and their family life maintained. They make it possible for them to obtain the education necessary to enable them to fulfil their duties as citizens in a modern democracy.

“The degree in which Capitalism is restricted varies to a very great extent in the different States. Through the unfair competition of backward countries, these differences endanger labour and industry in the more advanced States. The adjustment of national differences in the legal protection of labour by a system of international labour legislation has long been a pressing need. It has been rendered doubly urgent by the terrible upheavals and awful destruction of the vital forces of the people brought about by the war. At the same time, however, the war is bringing about the possibility of satisfying this need by the formation of a League of Nations, which now seems certain. The Berne Conference demands that the League of Nations, as one of its primary tasks, shall create and put into execution an International Labour Charter.”

At Berne a Permanent Commission was appointed to revive and draw up a new constitution for the Second International. This Permanent Commission, which included Messrs. Henderson, Stuart-Bunning and Ramsay MacDonald of the British Labour Party, met at Amsterdam in April 1919, to continue that work. There was also a “Committee of Action” appointed to deal with certain executive matters, on which Messrs. Henderson, Stuart-Bunning and Ramsay MacDonald were also placed. It was this Committee of Action which went to Paris to interview the “Big Four” on various international questions, including the insertion of the Labour Charter in the Peace Treaty, and issued a manifesto on May 11, 1919, after the Peace Terms were handed, on May 7, to the German delegates, stating that “this peace is not our peace.”

The New Second International

At Lucerne, in August 1919, the Permanent Commission finished the drafting of the new constitution of the Second International, and arranged for a General International Socialist Conference to be held at Geneva in 1920, to adopt it. That Conference took place in July of that year. An invitation dated April 10, 1920, was sent out to all Socialist and Labour Parties subscribing to, inter alia, the following principle:—“(1) The political and economic organization of the working-class for the purpose of abolishing the capitalist form of society and achieving complete freedom for humanity through the conquest of political power and the socialization of the means of production and exchange, that is to say, by the transformation of capitalist society into a collectivist or communist society.” The invitation, after mentioning a number of socialistic questions to which the attention of the Conference at Geneva would be directed, concluded in these words:—“Convinced of the necessity of a great effort to ensure unity on the basis of the traditional principles of the class-struggle and with a view to international action ... we invite you to attend the Geneva Conference.”

At the Geneva Conference the constitution of the Second International was fixed; its declared purposes are as follows:

“1. The political and economic organization of the working-class for the purpose of abolishing the capitalist form of society and achieving complete freedom for humanity through the conquest of political power and the socialization of the means of production and exchange, that is to say, by the transformation of capitalist society into a collectivist or communist society.

“2. The international union and action of the workers in the struggle against jingoism and imperialism and for the simultaneous suppression of militarism and armaments, with the object of bringing about a real League of Nations, including all peoples master of their own destiny, and maintaining world peace.

“3. The representation and defence of the interests of oppressed peoples and subject races.

“These principles find three forms of expression in the working-class movement, each at different stages of development, but each necessary; the political, the industrial, and the co-operative. These must, as autonomous bodies, continue to strengthen their national influence and their international unity, and, at the same time, as their ultimate aims are common, and as they are aspects of one great world movement, they should take every opportunity for joint action in an internationalist and revolutionary spirit for the maintenance of the world’s peace.”

The Geneva Resolutions on Socialism of 1920

A number of resolutions were also passed, and those which relate to “Socialization” are worthy of careful study; they were the draft of the British Labour Party’s representatives and were in the following terms:

“Socialization.—By Socialization we understand the transformation from ownership and control by capitalists to ownership and control by the community of all the industries and services essential for the satisfaction of the people’s needs; the substitution, for the wasteful production and distribution with the object of private profit, of efficient production and economical distribution with the object of the greatest possible utility; the transformation also, from the economic servitude of the great mass of the actual producers under private ownership, to a general participation in management by the persons engaged in the work.

“The continuous and rapid growth of monopolistic control of industry by Capitalism increases the power of private owners to manipulate the prices of all the necessaries of life, thus reducing consumers to despair. On the other hand, there is the growing unwillingness of organized labour any longer to support a system of production which keeps them in subjection and does not even enable them to raise effectively their standard of life. The consequent intolerableness of Capitalism renders every day more urgent the reconstruction of industry on the lines of Socialization.

“Socialization will proceed, step by step, from one industry to another, according as circumstances in each country may permit. Objectionable as private profit-making enterprise is to Socialists, they will refrain from destroying it in any industry until they are in a position to replace it by a more efficient form of organization. Such a gradual process of Socialization excludes, in general, expropriation of private ownership without compensation; not only because it would be inequitable to cause suffering to selected individuals, but also because a process of confiscation would disturb capitalist enterprise in industries in which Socialization was not immediately practicable. The funds required for compensation will be derived from taxation of private property, including capital levies, income-tax and death duties, and the limitation of inheritances for the benefit of the State.

“In a community of highly developed economic life, with an extensive population largely aggregated in urban centres, Socialization takes three main forms—namely, national, municipal and co-operative.

“For instance, whatever may be provided for the administration of agriculture, the ownership of land should be national, provision being made for the maintenance and security of peasant cultivators, wherever such exist. Other industries of supreme national importance, such as the transport system, the generation of electricity and mines, should also be national. But the management of a large number of industries and services will be in the hands of the municipalities and other local authorities, and federations of these, not only the provision of water and gas and the distribution of electricity, but also, in some countries, the provision of food, clothing and housing. The production and distribution of household supplies of every kind will form, for the most part, the sphere of the consumer’s co-operative societies.

“Industries which have not yet arrived at a state of concentration at which they are suitable for Socialization, or in which, for other reasons, Socialization is not immediately practicable, will be subjected to control by the community, with a view to effecting economies and improvements in production and distribution, fixing prices, and ensuring prescribed conditions of employment.

“It is important to notice that, in the large measure of individual freedom that will be characteristic of a Socialist community, the adoption of the principle of Socialization does not include agricultural production by individual peasants of the nation’s land, or by independent craftsmen working on their own account, or by artists of any kind, or by members of the brain-working professions—provided always that they do not exploit the labour of other persons. On the other hand, the principle of Socialization excludes the ownership of natural resources or of the instruments of production in the large scale primary industries by individuals or associations of persons of any kind, together with the dictatorship of any person or group over the industry in which they work.

“It is the function of the community as a whole to exercise control over the prices of commodities, and to provide whatever new or additional capital is required from time to time for Socialized industries.

“Administration of Socialized Industries.—A principle of the greatest importance in Socialization is that control must be separated from administration. The control will be exercised by the popularly elected national assembly. The organ of administration in each industry or service must be entirely separate and distinct from those of the political government.

“The National Industries.—Each industry or service will require an organization appropriate to its special circumstances. As a general type it is suggested that a national industry or service should be provided with

“(a) A national board to be composed of representatives of:

“(1) the workers concerned in the industry;

“(2) the management (including the technicians);

“(3) the consumers and the community as a whole.

“(b) Where considered necessary, also district councils for appropriate regional areas, to be similarly composed;