Peace Treaty Disaster

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REPUBLIC EVADES WORKERS 

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Ominous Figures In Background

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By SOLOMON BRIGG

 EARLY 1919

It was early in 1919 that the Weimar Constitution establishing the ill-fated Weimar Republic finally took shape.

The work was entrusted to the National Assembly, and although the elections had shown that 23,400,000 Germans had voted in favor of Democracy against 4,700,000 opponents from the Right and 2,300,000 from the Left, the Government's chief concern appeared to be escape from the influence of the Workers and Soldiers' Councils.

 Control by the working class was not acceptable to the new rulers, so the drafting of the new constitution was undertaken at Weimar, well removed from the democratic influences of Berlin.

 Concessions were certainly given, but already could be seen in the background the ominous figures of the major industrialists, who were destined to destroy the new Republic.

 The Socialist revolution was not to be socialist In form, and in the transfer of powers the old bureaucrats of the Prussian regime succeeded in maintaining their machine almost intact.

 Own Theories

 Thus the actual drafting of the Constitution was not undertaken by the Workers' Councils, but by Herr Preuss, a well-known official of the Prussian Ministry of the interior, who succeeded In undermining all the objectives of the Socialist majority and imposing his own theories of a minimum of democratic rights. 

Strange, indeed, was the conduct of the leading doctrinaire socialists.

 Instead of insisting upon the adoption of their platform they acquiesced in the decisions of the reactionary Preuss.

 The Weimar Constitution rejected the central plank of socialism, but promised the socialisation of all enterprises which were "suitable" for social administration.

 In other words, the Government was satisfied with the right to participate in the administration of industry, with all profits and final responsibility still the prerogative of capitalist proprietors.

 Costly Disputes 

The trade unions were given representation on the federation controlling the industry, while Factory Councils were established for the purpose of providing the basis of job control. Although the membership of the trade unions increased to eight millions within a few months, they found themselves involved in a series of costly disputes, in which the employers invariably secured all the gains, while the Government refused to intercede. 

Investigation committees were established early in 1929 to report upon the socialisation of the mining and potash industries, while the Government even went so far as to draft a law to provide for the socialisation of the electrical industries.

 But Big Business proved too active, and all the initial enthusiasm soon disappeared, leaving the powerful industrialists in control.

 In January, 1919, there was a general strike in the Ruhr area, and the socialisation of the mines was proclaimed. The workers were armed and took possession of the buildings. But once again Noske rushed his Prussian Old Guard troops to suppress the workers. In attempting to keep to the "middle of the road", the Government was actually building the machinery that was to encompass the destruction of the Republic.

 Driving Wedge

 The Weimar Constitution was bourgeois republican in form, while the bitter dissensions between the various groups of Socialists made it easy for Hitler later to drive a wedge into the proletarian movement. On the positive side, the Weimar Constitution achieved the unification of Germany, removing the barriers offered by the existence of hereditary rulers in the various States, while the disappearance of the Hohenzollerns enabled the people to think in terms of the nation rather than in terms of the Prussian oligarchy.

 Thus the first step was the centralisation of all forms of government.

 The constituent States, or Lande, were in future to receive most of their revenue from the proceeds of national taxation, so financial control was highly centralised, making it possible for the Governor of the Reichsbank to exercise such enormous influence in the political affairs of the day.

 Disastrous Blow

 But the most disastrous blow of all was the signing of the Peace Treaty, which imposed such crushing terms of humiliation upon the German people. Germany had set its faith in President Wilson's 14 Points, but when its representatives reached Versailles in 1919 they found themselves face to face with the tigerish Clemenceau and Lloyd George, with memories of his "Hang the Kaiser" campaign still fresh in his mind.

 The Allies backed up by the insistence of the international banks— including J, P. Morgan and Sons— were insistent that the terms offered were the minimum, and all the pathetic idealism of Woodrow Wilson could in no way abate the harsh conditions. It was thus a bitter paradox that the Social Democrats, who had raised the flag of revolution to force Germany into peace, should be called upon to bear the brunt of all the odium attached to that peace.

 Versailles rankled deep in the heart of every German, and when Hitler was seeking a rallying cry to secure support for his plot on behalf of Monopoly Capitalism, there was no more potent slogan than "Down with the Treaty of Versailles," while the Social Democrats were pilloried as betrayers of their country.

 Refused To Sign

 Schiedemann, the Chancellor, indignantly refused to sign the terms and, together with the Democrats, left the Government in June, 1919. The Government was immediately reconstructed under Gustav Bauer— a Majority Socialist leader— and Socialism was committed to the fatal policy of fulfilling the conditions, including reparation payments.

 H. N. Brailsford, in his penetrating study, "Property or Peace," sums up the situation rather admirably thus:

 "The truth about this Republic that died so easily is that It was never more than half-alive. The Republic was born in defeat: it lived through humiliation; it went down in slump. Its signature, and not that of the imperial Warlord, was set to the treaty that stamped Germany as guilty untouchable, on the fringes of human society; it was excluded through its formative years from the League of Nations; it must acquiesce, while the Allies, supported by colored troops, occupied the Rhineland, and sit by passive while the French occupied the Ruhr; its was the currency that the inflation degraded, and its the policy (though the burden of reparations and occupation set it in motion) that wiped out the savings of the small middle-class and brought its standard down to a proletarian level; it was the tributary that must send the surplus of German toil by the one-way road to Paris and New York; its was the flag that only rationed armaments might defend, while the Poles across its border assembled great guns and tanks and aeroplanes for the use of conscript millions.

 "The Powers that imposed these burdens and humiliation of a struggling Republic were themselves based on the sovereignty of the people, and in their more exalted moments believed that they had fought the war to make the world secure for democracy."

 That appraisal reveals the tragedy that was the Weimar Constitution in all its facets.

 Instead of a complete social transformation, the Socialists were satisfied with an external political change, but below the surface the Junkers and major industrialists held an even tighter rein than ever.

 No Transition.

 There was no transition— only a change in nominal rulers. Thus the Weimar Constitution provided that authority to interpret the Constltutlon was to be vested in the Supreme Court. No Republican had ever been appointed to that body, and its decisions were always adverse to the Socialist regime, so that the Monopoly Capitalists were as secure as ever.

 Brailsford explains this surrender thus:

 "The German Republic sprang from a spontaneous mass revolt of the workers. It doomed itself to defeat, because in the early days the party that assumed leadership lost the initiative. It postponed indefinitely its proper aims. It dropped into a posture of passive defence. It ranged itself in ever-widening coalitions with sections of the middle-class, and, therefore, it fought only to hold the ground which these also valued— civil liberty, Parliamentary institutions and International peace.

 "In its attachment to these it was stubborn and sincere. But It never forced an issue or launched a challenge; always it was countering the moves of its adversaries: and choosing at each turn the lesser of the two evils confronting it." 

Yet during this time Germany had the largest Communist Party of any country outside Russia. Internationalist organisations flourished, and international Communism regarded Berlin as its intellectual headquarters. Of its activities Brailsford is no less scathing when he declares:

 "The record of the German Communists was, if anything, less excusably futile than that of the Socialists. The Socialists were the victims of an illusion about legality. The Communists had no such illusions. Yet, proclaiming from first to last the duty of physical resistance, they, too, went down without a blow."

 So even in its first year the Weimar Constitution exhibited all the elements of weakness that were to provide the fuel for its destruction.

Labor Daily (Sydney, NSW ), 1935

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236480305

Is patriotism a decaying virtue ?

 Or, not to beg the preliminary question, is it a virtue at all ? Mr. GOSCHEN has been lecturing the rising generation of England upon the necessity of maintaining a lofty national spirit, but has scarcely touched either of these questions in its simple form. To define patriotism as love for, and pride in, one's country is easy. To arrive at a solid ethical basis for it is quite another matter. It is a commonplace to assert that self-sacrifice for the sake of fatherland is the citizen's duty. But why is it a duty, and when does it cease to be a duty ? These are questions which the orator and the poet ignore, but which dry-light philosophers and coarsely unpoetic natures begin to agree in examining. From HOMER, TYRTÆUS, and HORACE down to SCOTT or TENNYSON, the whole race of bards sings in unison that it is dulce et decorum to die for one's country, and that the man " whose heart hath ne'er within him burned " for his native Greece, Italy, England, or Caledonia, however " stern and wild " or otherwise those lands may be, is doomed to be, and deserves to be, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. And with the poets go all those of mankind who are apt to yield to mere generous impulses and unanalysed affections. " Our country, right or wrong," appears to them a maxim as unquestionable as the fifth commandment. With them, too, agreed the older order of idealistic philosophers. PLATO went so far as to maintain that the fatherland and its laws were things deserving of more honour and reverence than even parents themselves. But the world, which "advances" on so many lines, intellectual and moral, has been obliged to advance on this line also. The modern student of ethics shakes his sapient head at patriotism as a virtue Mr. SIDGWICK remarks that "whether a citizen is at any time morally bound to more than certain legally or constitutionally determined duties does not now seem to be clear ;" and therein he but follows cautiously KANT'S dictum that a country has no inherent natural right to the obedience of its citizens. To moralists of this type patriotism is an objectionable disturbing element—an impediment to the play of pure reason, and the faculty of seeing things as they are. OVID once committed himself to speaking of "the love of fatherland, stronger than reason," and that anything should be stronger than reason is naturally a heinous condition of things to the philosophic mind. Nor would we quarrel with the philosopher thereat. We would only ask him to be careful that, in constructing his syllogisms, he has taken all the necessary factors into account.

Though all ages, even the most barbarous, and all countries, even the least eminent, have believed in the citizen loving, belauding, and dying for his native land, there have, no doubt, always been self-centred individuals and constitutional cynics who have asked themselves, when they dared not ask their neighbours, why a citizen should recognise any obligation to anything beyond his own precious self. Side by side with ÆSCHYLUS or PLATO or HORACE went those who held that " any land where you are prosperous is your fatherland." Such persons would never have won a battle of Marathon, or brought their country through to the brilliant issue of Zama. Fortunately they were few in number, and had little to say in the destinies of the country for which their affection was such cupboard-love. But in those times their number increases daily. There are many circumstances which tend to replace the fine old patriotism by a watery "cosmopolitanism" which might, perhaps, better be called sheer blank indifference. Among the ancients the zeal for home, with its Lares and Penates, and for the State, with its religious and other institutions, was inevitable. Foreigners were barbarians, cut off by other languages, other gods and rites, other customs. The natural attitude of state to state was one of hostility. To go abroad meant to sacrifice much comfort, all ambition, and most of the privileges of a free man. It was banishment, felt as keenly as by NORFOLK in " Richard II." In later times, however much new religious ideas had brought mankind into closer brotherhood and rendered national customs more homogeneous, yet travelling was uncommon and difficult, the disabilities of aliens were great, and perpetual wars kept alive everywhere the sentiment of distinct nationality. In modern times the facilities of travel and relations of trade have made nations better acquainted with others' virtues and their own deficiencies. Ease of emigration and the success of emigrants have made the breaking of the tie with the home land more and more commonplace. That any races were born to be permanently hostile to each other is a doctrine now held only by French and Germans relatively to each other. Increased intercourse has produced a closer similarity of constitutions, dress, and customs. The linguistic difficulty has been largely surmounted. Religious intolerances and antipathies retain no great potency among the more civilised of peoples. Moreover, the vogue of philosophic scepticism is dissolving all sorts of primitive ideas. The so-called education of the present day, confident in its miserably jejune logic, is apt to look upon one's country as just so much earth, and on the state as so much machinery, neither one nor the other being capable of inspiring a tender sentiment. Democracy, uninformed by any great idea, and looking upon the state as but a temporary majority of persons, will recognise no obligation of self-sacrifice for anything so commonplace as " the country." Yet again, the growth of industrial unions extending from country to country induces many workers to place the interests of their trade first and of their fatherland but a poor second. Socialists openly proclaim the same doctrine. The result of all these circumstances is that patriotism as a sentiment shows clear signs of decay ; and that cosmopolitanism, whether regarded as a transcendental conception of a wider human federation, or as a mere negation of patriotic sentiment, is gaining ground. Men are beginning to treat the fact of their being born and nurtured in a certain country as only a geographical and historical accident not entailing any moral obligation. Mr. GOSCHEN acutely notes two spirits which seriously affect patriotism in practice. The one is the spirit of parochialism, which will sacrifice the gravest national interests for the sake of getting a town pump, and will bear a national humiliation if only it can secure the new post-office. If Mr. GOSCHEN lived among ourselves, he would witness the spectacle of a community which has been brought to realise all too keenly how far parochial districts will go in bringing disaster on the country for the sake of their own little railway or other local fancy. The other spirit is that of party, which will sometimes lead one faction to welcome disaster to the whole nation provided the disaster brings discredit and defeat to the other side. It remains to be seen whether party spirit will be overcome by patriotism among ourselves when a Government proposes manfully to act for the public weal against all the clamours of parochialists.

We do not believe in Jingoism, if Jingoism means to be Chauvinists. Bragging of one's country in season and out of season is not patriotism. It is intrinsically no better than bragging of one's village, a proceeding of which any other village can see the folly and feel the offence. None the less, natural regard for one's village, then for one's province, and thence for one's country, is a thing to be commended and not analysed. It may be partly due to unreasoning affection for old associations, partly to love of the friends whose circle is in the locality, partly to that self-esteem which will not admit inferiority of the place from which one comes. In the case of a great country it may be pride in its power and history. It may even be a sense of solid obligation for the advantages derived from its superior institutions, in which we have shared. It may be, and in the case of Englishmen it is, all these things. To dissect our patriotism and call it ethically baseless may be sport for philosophisers, but it is death to milder men. " Impressions are often juster than judgments," and we declare for the natural sentiment. If the result of patriotism is to maintain the power and high character of the fatherland, to keep it superior or at least not inferior, to others, and to improve the individual's own morale by the habit of making sacrifices in its behalf, we do not care for all the syllogistic counter-demonstrations of all the logicians and moralists. In these days, when wars are scarce and patriotic deaths but little called for, the true patriot is he who deliberately encourages his affection for his country as a whole, who looks broadly and enthusiastically at its interests, and who disregards the cries of party or of parish when the country itself cries otherwise.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic.),  1893, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8532444

EVOLUTION OF MODERN SOCIALISM.-No. 5.

 (BY FRANK STONEMAN).

(1) ORIGIN.

Guild Socialism is the reflection in the intellectual sphere of the revolt, against Parliamentary action, and inaction, chronicled in Article IV. Though the formulation of its theories is the work of a handful of "intellectuals," it is no closet philosophy. A close study of trade union conditions and a resolute and energetic attempt to grapple with the actual problems of industry, acquit it of the charge of Utopianism. Though it has made more headway among University men with a radical bent than among workingmen, it is beginning to influence trade union policy here, in Britain, and in America. Guild Socialism originated as a revolt against Fabianism. As the admirable schemes of the Fabian Society, designed by the patient, passionless, and tireless Webbs, became more definite, a fierce feeling of revolt stirred among many of their co-workers and disciples. This bureaucrats' Utopia meant the destruction of all spontaneity, and of all liberty. It meant a State created in the image and likeness of the Civil Service. It meant the minute regulation of life, not according to the will of the people, but according to the will of a trained and disciplined administrator. The State would take over industry from the great joint-stock companies; would eliminate waste, muddle and inefficiency; would abolish pauperism; would see that every child was "well born and brought up"; would sterilise or segregate the unfit; would ease the path to the grave by pensions and insurance schemes, and would leave nothing to individual or independent social groups, but a routine of ordered duties. Parliament, a clumsy and inefficient body, would become a machine for registering the decisions of the expert, public opinion would be the echo of the still small voice of the expert; the turmoil and struggle which make life hard, strenuous, and interesting, would cease because everybody would surrender his own private foolish desires, and cut the cloth of daily life according to a fashion designed by the expert. This threatened apotheosis of the expert drove those who valued life more than the means of life to seek other solutions. Mr. Belloc drank yet another jug of beer and wrote, "The Servile State." The name had more influence than the book, and the term became a stigma sufficient to damn attempts at State paternalism. Mr. H. G. Wells, with rage in his heart, wrote the "New Machiavelli," in which appeared Oscar and Altiora Baillie—a cold capable couple who pulled wires whereat Parliamentary caucuses and Local Government committees, carried out their irreproachable scheme of Social amelioration. L. T. Hobhouse, who was approaching Socialism by the route of Liberalism, discerned resemblances between the Imperialism of Lord Milner and the Collectivism of the Administrator. And finally a coterie of artistic souls saw in the "Selfridge State" the perpetuation of the dull uniformity which is the heaviest burden modern industry has laid on life. These last were the men who have since formulated the theories we know as Guild Socialism. The "New Age" was their chief expression, and G. D. H. Cole, S. G. Hobson, and A. R. Orage the chief promulgators of the new theories. 

(2) FUSION OF SYNDICALIST AND COLLECTIVIST IDEAS.

 Guild Socialism is the child of Syndicalism and Collectivism. The romantic strain in its composition yearns after the violent methods of its turbulent French father, but it follows the tidy ways of the mother, it scolds with a rather amusing petulance. "Syndicalism," writes Mr. Cole, "is the infirmity of noble minds. Collectivism is only the sordid dream of a business man with a conscience." ("Self-Government in Industry," G. D. H. Cole.) That is to say, the Guildsman recognises the necessity for efficient organisation, but refuses to sacrifice freedom and spontaneity to efficiency. Consequently he holds that industry should be controlled in such a way as to leave the fullest possible freedom to the worker.  The question of remuneration is quite secondary. What is of prime moment is whether the workman shall have a voice in the government of his own working conditions. Guildism, therefore, rejects the Collectivist objective of State Socialism, and adopts the Syndicalist ideal of producers' control. The State, representing the community on a geographical basis, reflects the views of the organised consumers. Though it might ultimately be a better master than the capitalist, because there is no skimming off of the productive surplus, it would leave the employee as much a "wage slave" as he is now. He would be subject to a great hierarchy of administrative officials, who would regulate his working life down to the minutest detail. The subjection of the man to the machine, the bitterest of all the bitter draughts that capitalism has made us drink, would be intensified. And the pretence of political self-government must finally vanish from such a community. The conditions of employment influence the characters of men, at least as much as the diversions of their leisure hours. A man chained to such a servile system would become a very slave in soul. He would be even less capable of electing competent legislators than is our present democracy. Real government would fall into the hands of the principal civil servants. We should arrive then at a Dictatorship of the Efficient. Man would have sold his birthright of freedom for the pottage of good wages, and increased leisure.

 Furthermore, producers' control seems a natural development of the present system. Within the structure of capitalist controlled industry have grown up the trade unions. From being organisations to secure better conditions they have become militant associations, reaching out their hands for power. Would they bow the neck to the State yoke even if bribed by higher wages ? Present tendencies indicate no hope of such an attitude. The post office servants in France and Britain kick against the authority of the State, and the more radical trade unions, the world over, are asking not for nationalisation, but for self-government in industry. 

So far Guild Socialism is in line with Syndicalism. But whereas the Syndicalist believes that the State will be destroyed or will atrophy when the workers take over industry, the National Guildsman believes it will remain to perform functions which could not adequately be performed by a Federation of Guilds.

 The first of these is to safeguard the interests of the consumer. Both the Syndicalist and the Collectivist are wrong when they assert that because we are all (except the idle rich and the idle poor) consumers and producers there is no conflict of interests between these two classes. Man's chief concern as a consumer is to get goods cheaply. His chief concern as a producer is to get fair remuneration and decent working conditions. We are grouped as consumers with other people who inhabit the same locality. We are grouped as producers according to the industry or profession in which we work. The only way to reconcile our interests is to elect responsible bodies to represent us in each capacity. A balance will then be maintained between the conflicting interests of the whole community. This involves a theory of the State which is radically different from the traditional view, and no less different from the Marxian conception. 

(3) THE GUILD THEORY OF THE STATE. 

The theory of Sovereignty generally accepted to-day is that the State, as the supreme representative of the community, has the right to limit the activities of every individual and of every smaller social group. The Marxian theory, accepted by Revolutionists, is that the State is but an organ of capitalism, maintained to preserve order among the exploited class. National Guildsmen maintain that the legitimate function of the State is to represent the whole community as consumers. As producers people will be represented in the National Guild, which will represent and govern their trade or profession, and in the Guild Congress, which will represent the whole body of producers. Thus sovereignity will be divided between the Legislature and Local Governing bodies on one side, and the Guilds on the other. The line of demarcation between their respective spheres will be tolerably clear because of their very different functions, but an independent judiciary will be necessary to decide disputed cases. In deciding on a policy which affects the whole community, such as a war, joint conferences of the Legislature and the Guild Congress may be held. 

Despite the obvious objections which strike the most uncritical on examining this theory National Guildsmen maintain that it is essential. Not merely capitalist domination, but any concentration of power is inimical to individual liberty and the freedom of social groups. Unless the spontaneity and vigor of the smaller social groups and of the individual who is not a "dominating personality," are preserved by a policy of non-interference, the centralised government will establish the "Servile State.''

 This new theory of Sovereignty, which bears some affinity to the older doctrine is Laissez-Faire, or non-interference with individual action, has a respectable juristic backing. Gierke, the great German jurist, and Maitland, one of the greatest of English legal historians, have advanced the doctrine that an association which arises spontaneously to satisfy some legitimate human need, has an inherent right to exist and to take on new functions. If this theory be accepted, trade unions do not exist by favor of the State but in their own right. Furthermore, they may take on new functions without permission of the State, and when they have grown to their full dimensions the State has no right to interfere with them. In the Guild community the State, i.e., the existing Governmental machinery shorn of its coercive power over industry, and the National Guilds will exist side by side, each performing a communal function, and each sovereign in its own sphere.

 (4). THE METHOD OF APPROACH.

 This theory of ultimate character of the Guild community determines the line of action advocated by Guildsmen. They neither eschew political action like the Syndicalist, nor deprecate direct industrial action like the Collectivist. Since the State is not sovereign, it does not matter whether capitalism is destroyed by "constitutional" means or not. It is purely a question of tactics. And as capitalism, with its economic power, is the substance, while the State, with its political power is but the shadow, the Guildsmen lay heavy emphasis on the necessity for industrial action. The unions must concentrate on the task of building a new society within the old. Before capitalism is destroyed, the trade unions must have perfected an organisation capable of controlling industry. Then they must strike hard, both in politics and industry. They must, by a series of strikes, acquire Self-Government piecemeal. In some cases nationalisation will precede Guild-control. Therefore they must gain and keep control of the Parliamentary machine, taking care, however, that the strength of unionism is not drained away in a futile attempt to achieve everything by political action. The main guard of the Socialist army must be a federated system of strong "blackleg-proof" unions, organised on an industrial basis. The political movement will be mainly occupied in preserving the rights of free speech and free association, and in keeping the coercive force of the State from being used by the employers.

 (5) PRODUCTION UNDER THE GUILD SYSTEM.

 A series of distinct but connected changes rather than a grand "coup," such as a general strike, is anticipated. Probably the railways and the mines will be controlled by Guilds under a semi-Socialist State, while the remainder of the industry is still in the bonds of capitalism. When the great key industries, which, having the most powerful and militant unions, may be expected to "go Guild" first, have established self-government, something in the nature of a "landslide" may be expected. The final act of the Sovereign State will be to divest itself of its coercive power over industry. This power will then be vested in the Guilds consisting of a number of National Guilds, each of which controls a whole industry, e.g., mining, transport, steel manufacture, textile industry and the like, and a federation called the Guild Congress.

 The Parliamentary and Municipal machinery will remain, purged of capitalist domination, to control society in all those matters which concern men as neighbors, and as theirs of the same traditions. Freed from the burden of regulating industry, and no longer subject to pressure from predatory interests, the State will devote its energies to assisting the spread of culture, and the growth of art. It will leave the economic side of the national life to the Guilds, and become the guardian of the higher common interests of the community.

 (6) CRITICISM.

 Such, in a broad outline, is the theory of Guild Socialism, its originators are conscious that no society will ever be established exactly in accordance with their plans. But they hold that the successful fashioning of a new commonwealth depends on the knowledge of economic and political tendencies possessed by those who sway thought and passion. They realise that they are attempting to forecast organic changes. Consequently their attempt to visualise a new order, and indicate the method of approach to it, is of immense value, though the realisation will differ from the plan. Criticism centres mainly round two points. First, the division of Sovereignty. Second, the preservation of the present Governmental machinery in a Socialistic community. Collectivists and Constitutional Theorists maintain that either the organised consumers, or the organised producers must ultimately be Sovereign. Revolutionary Socialists maintain that the existing State will perish when communism is once established, because its function will be gone. Both criticisms are weighty. Neither should detract from the practical lesson that Guildsmen have to offer the Socialist movement. The present task is to built up "blackleg-proof" unions on an industrial basis in order to face concentrated capitalism with an organisation having an equal economic weight, while at the same time maintaining in the legislatures a party powerful enough to legalise what is won on the industrial field. The future society will almost certainly leave the control of actual working conditions in the hands of unions of Guilds of producers. It will also retain the State, or establish some new central organisation, to represent the whole community, and reconcile the claims of conflicting groups. Much will depend on the success or failure of the Soviet system in Russia. Indeed, the success during this century of the Socialist movement seems to hang on the outcome of the great experiment of the first Communist Government. Guild Socialism is valuable, mainly for its revival of idealism in British Socialism, for its insistence on freedom, even at the expense of mechanical efficiency, and for its attempt to reconcile the claims of the worker struggling to be free with the claims of the member of the community striving toward decent living conditions.

Truth (Perth, WA ), 11 June 1921,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article210048694

EVOLUTION OF MODERN SOCIALISM.-No. 4.

 (BY FRANK STONEMAN).

(1) THE CHALLENGE TO THE CONSTITUTIONALISTS.

 In 1910 the British Socialist leaders were perturbed by a new strange thing called Syndicalism. The placid waters of Trade Unionism and Parliamentary Socialism began to be troubled. A monthly publication, "The Industrial Syndicalist," conducted by Mr. Tom Mann, sounded the old call familiar to every progressive movement, "To your Tent, O Israel." The Transport Workers' Federation was formed on the principles of Industrial Unionism. The Welsh and Scottish miners became mutinous, talked of sabotage, and displayed signs of preparing to "bolt." The old and trusted leaders of the Labor Party, Ramsay Macdonald and Philip Snowden, looked round with an expression of hurt and surprise, wrote books to demonstrate that the thing was naught, and showed by their concern that it was really a matter of some moment. The constitutional methods of the Parliamentary Labor Party and the time-honored tactics of Trade Unionism were alike challenged by the new Industrial Syndicalism, which aimed at "the capture of the Industrial System, and its management by the workers themselves for the benefit of the whole community." Whence came this trouble of the Socialist camp.

(2) TOM MANN

 Mr Tom Mann had just returned from the "storm centre of Australian Industrialism"—Broken Hill, and the energy he infused into the English movement had been largely generated in his battles with the silver lords. But the ideas which began to permeate the left wing of Labor in 1910 came chiefly from America and France.

(3) THE I.W.W. 

The I.W.W. was the outcome of the peculiar political and economic conditions of the United States. The selfish policy of the American Federation of Labor, organised on a craft basis, seeking special privileges for skilled labor, and making no attempt to raise the status of working men generally; the power wielded by concentrated Capital over corrupt legislatures; and the successful breaking of strikes by the use of blacklegs and "Pinkertons" (bands of private-controlled mercenaries); all these had combined to produce the revolutionary organisation known as the I.W.W. It avowed that the State was the instrument of the Master-class, that Democracy was a sham, and that the road to emancipation lay along the lines of the class war. It took its tone from the Trust Magnate, who told a Congressional committee that he did not "care a fig for their ethics." Its outlook was almost a precise counterpart of the real politics of the German junkers. The world could not be saved by "softness." Instead let us have hardness of head and hardness of heart, bitter reprisals for bitter repression, war in the workshop and war in the street, in short the overcoming of force by force.

 "Might was Right when Gracchus bled upon the Stones of Rome.

 Might was Right when Christ was hanged beside the Jordan's foam,"

 chanted the Industrialist. Whether we agree with his doctrines or shudder at them we must concede that they were the outcome of grinding industrial tyranny and that he sought not to initiate a new era of oppression but to end an old one. He was acting in the spirit of John Brown, who held that blood could only be wiped out by blood, and who strove to emancipate the slave of the old South by means of a slave revolt I.W.W. propaganda got no hold on the British workers until the Parliamentary Party began to show signs of sinking into impotence and the method of collective bargaining by Trade Unions failed to keep wages abreast of the cost of living. The British workers would have no truck with Sabotage and Direct Action while they could look forward to "a Revolution by due process of law." But in 1910 the hope of ever converting the "damned compact majority" died in many hearts; Socialism, made respectable, seemed to be Socialism emasculated; they were tired of leaders who could achieve nothing; and the militant section among the rank and file decided to wage pitiless, unrelenting war after the fashion of the Industrial Workers of the World.

 (4) FRENCH SYNDICALISM.

 While the tactics of British and Australian Syndicalism are mainly derived from America, it is to France that we must look for the ideas. The word Syndicalism is derived from Syndicat, which means an association, and has become the ordinary appellation for Syndicat Ouvrier (Trade Union). Until 1902, the Trade Union movement in France was faction-rent like its comrade Parliamentary movement. In that year the Federation des Bourses du Travail (Federation of Labor Exhanges) which under the leadership of Pelloutier had become the backbone of Unionism, coalesced with the Confederation Generale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor), a sort of standing Trade Union Congress organised for industrial strife. Since then the C.G.T. has dominated French Labor. and the militant left wing has dominated the C.G.T. Thus Syndicalism has come to mean not merely Trade Unionism but Trade Unionism organised for Revolution. If we would know what message Syndicalism has for the Labor movement generally, we must turn to its theorists (though they would scorn the title) Lagardelle and Sorel and other refined and cultured dreamers. Werner Sombart thus described them: "They are good-natured, gentlemanly, cultured people; people with spotless linen, good manners, and fashionably dressed wives; people with whom one holds social intercourse as with one's equals; people who would at first sight hardly be taken as the representatives of a new movement whose object it is to prevent Socialism from becoming a middle-class belief." (Sombart's "Socialism, and the Socialism Movement," p. 99.) They have produced a fine crop of ideas which may help to revitalise the Labor movement. Syndicalists are too anarchic in their thought and their methods to gain the whole world, but they have saved their souls. They may help to save the soul of Labor.

 (5) SYNDICALIST IDEAS.

 The theory of Syndicalism is to have no theory. Its central idea is that ideas are all but valueless. It is as anarchic as the seeming chaos out of which Energy fashioned the Universe. But like that chaos it ferments with creative power. The apostles of Syndicalism start from the assumption, for which the philosophy of Bergson and the psychology of Ribot give them warrant, that action is determined not by conscious thought but by the unconscious striving of human nature. The intellect is but a mechanism evolved by the process of adaptation to environment, in order that man may accomplish what his ineradicable instincts desire. Given the environment which fosters the "good life" a man will live nobly. By the unalterably law of his being he must strive to secure those conditions. Therefore, the workers must be bound neither by the theories they have constructed for their own emancipation, nor by the moral ideas which Bourgeois ideologists foist on them. Their historic mission is to destroy exploitation and to create a Communist Society and no theories or moral scruples are to be allowed to hinder them in the performance of their work. This single idea, apparently, the Syndicalists adhere to. But no other idea must be allowed to baulk the free activity upon which its realisation depends. Let the workers act freely in whatever way appears to them at the moment to be right. The Great Babel will fall and the kingdom of the righteous exist on earth. This insistence on action rather than thought and on spontaneity rather than discipline springs from and tends to perpetuate the local autonomy of the Bourses. The C.G.T. is an advisory body, and the initiative in all industrial struggles is taken by the several districts. This also is in accordance with the belief that conscious thought is the servant of man's needs not the regulator of his life. If the eternal energy demands a certain line of conduct then let each man make his poor little mind obey its bidding. No Syndicalist would state the matter precisely in that way, yet such seems to be the tenor of their arguments. Syndicalism is nearer to philosophic anarchism than to collectivism. Certain ultimate aims and certain lines of policy seem to meet with the general approval of Syndicalists despite their anti-intellectualism.

 (6) ULTIMATE AIMS. 

They aim at the complete destruction of the State and the substitution therefore of a purely economic organisation of producers. To them authority does not exist to enable "good men to live among bad," but "to enable rich men to live among poor." When exploitation has ceased there is no need for coercive authority. Parliaments, Courts of Justice, prisons and policemen will go the way of the Inquisition, the axe, and the gibbet. Associations of workmen will control mines, factories and workshops. These associations will be none other than the existing Trade Unions transformed into Producers' Syndicates. In effect, then, their ultimate aim is to replace the present governmental bodies, elected on a geographical basis and representing the whole body of consumers, by a new set of governmental bodies, elected on an occupational basis and representing the whole body of producers.

 (7) METHODS. 

The method by which this is to be attained is "Direct Action." They assert that political action has not only been a failure but is forever doomed to be a failure because Parliaments are Bourgeois institutions which respond always to the economic pressure of the financiers. The argument is inconclusive, but syndicalists support it by the argument "ad hominem." Millerand and Briand were Socialists until they began to administer the affairs of the Bourgeois State. Then they became first opportunists and finally reactionaries. The really sound argument in favor of industrial as opposed to political action is that working men understand the mechanism of the Trade Unionism, whereas they are inferior to the lawyer in the art of manipulating the legislative machine. Many a good Union official has been spoiled to make a poor deputy. Therefore there is a grain of sound sense in the theory that the Proletariats should leave the machinery of government alone and concentrate all their efforts on building up a new economic and social structure to replace the old. The direct pressure by which the Unions are to shatter the dominance of capital may express itself in a strike, in sabotage or in a boycott, but all these are theoretically ubordinate to a plan of campaign which is to culminate in a general strike (greve generale). When that day of wrath arrives all the wheels of industry are to stand still. The great heart of France, Paris, will be threatened with starvation, the bourgeoisie will capitulate, and industry will resume under the direction of the Syndicats. Sabotage is the most distinctly syndicalist method of warfare. It is derived' from the French word "sabot." One explanation that when the factory system was supplanting the domestic system of industry, early in the last century, the workers used their wooden shoes to break windows and put machinery out of gear. Another is that a man shod with sabots is likely to tread slowly. The word therefore would seem to cover the policy the policy of violence and "go slow." Generally it means any method of working which will reduce the employer's profits. Thus the refusal to use bad material at the command of a jerry-builder is sabotage no less than the refusal to speed up. Further detailed description of Syndicalist methods is unnecessary. All ore the outcome of the belief that the class war is the ultimate fact in present day human relationships and that the exploited class should have regard to no principle or code that would hinder their free activity.

 (8.) THE VALUE OF THE SYNDICALIST PROTEST. 

As a constructive scheme for the regeneration of society, Syndicalism is defective. As a protest against certain tendencies in the Socialist movement, it has considerable value. It has placed a premium, on idealism, and has registered a healthy protest against time-serving and opportunism. It has emphasised the necessity for using the Industrial wing of the Socialist army as a fighting force, instead of regarding it is an appanage of the political party. It is an irritant which has roused the somnolent collectivist from his "masterly inactivity." And finally by stressing the truth that the value of a movement depends more on its incessant action than on the soundness of its theories, it has vitalised the forces of labor. Nevertheless, it fails as a programme of action. The substitution of industrial for political action would mean abandoning every weapon save passive resistance and force. It would mean surrendering to the Capitalist complete control of Army and Police, Customs. Finance, and Public Opinion. No one can doubt that a Government of class-conscious business men would, in desperation, use all these influences to destroy organised Labor. What would it profit the Trade Unions if they seized mines and factories, and left the command of the Customs and the Military with their opponents? How would the industrial movement fare if a rigorous press-censorship were established and unlicensed public meetings forbidden? And how is industry under a Communist Government to be conducted at all, if a sound system of communal credit has not been built up by political action? The very existence of Trade Unions, which make industrial action possible, depends on laws permitting free association and free speech. These laws can only be preserved in their integrity by the unremitting activity of parties which are not dependent on capitalist support. And the worker can never be sure that there is a party independent on the Money Power unless he maintains an independent Labor Party. The proposal to hand over all industry to groups of producers is equally inadequate. It is true we are all consumers and producers. But our interest as producer is opposed to our interest as consumer. It is the interest of a group of miners to get high prices (or more purchasing power) for metals. It is also their interest to get food cheap. The farmer's interest, on the other hand, is to get high prices for food while he buys his ploughs cheaply. Some single central representative body must therefore represent the whole community to provide machinery for reconciling conflicting claims. The Syndicalist policy is this respect is a reversion to the old theory of "Laissez-Faire." Instead of leaving individuals to settle supply and demand among themselves they propose to leave that task to corporate persons—to groups of producers. Moreover there are communal needs which are not economic. Education concerns the child and his parents more than it concerns the teacher. Could we leave it entirely in the hands of a Teachers' Union? Finally Syndicalism stands condemned for its neglect of the principle of organic growth. Metaphysical conceptions of the State and organic conceptions of society have given an exaggerated idea of the importance of the nation. Nevertheless there is value in the conception of the community as an entity which includes our fathers who begot us ourselves, and the unborn generation who will continue the glorious adventure of mankind on the earth. It Is well that national jealousies should cease and that individuals should not be sacrificed, on the altar of the Moloch of Nationalism. But it is not desirable that Frenchmen should forget their kinship with fellow French men nor that Australians should forget that they form a Commonwealth. Some body representative of the whole community must be retained even if we hand industry over to syndicates of producers. What better representative body could be found than those ready to our hands? Socialists of all shades agree with Syndicalists that the whole purpose of Democratic Government is defeated by the existence of an exploiting class. But when industry is conducted by little Commonwealths of workers will not the Great Commonwealth to which we all belong find its true purpose and fulfilment?

Truth (Perth, WA), 4 June 1921,http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article210048654

SEMI-SOCIALISTS.

 " There is, generally speaking, amongst democrats a leaning towards a kind of limited State Socialism, and it is through that that they hope to bring about a peaceful revolution, which, if it does not introduce a condition of equality, will at least make the workers better off and contented with their lot.

" They hope to get a body of representatives elected to Parliament, and by them to get measure after measure passed which will tend to this goal ; nor would some of them, perhaps most of them, be discontented, by this means we could glide into complete State Socialism.

 " I think that the present democrats are widely tinged with this idea, and to me it is a matter of hope that it is so ; whatever of error there is in it, because it means advance beyond the complete barrenness of the mere political programme. Yet I must point out to these semi-Socialist democrats that in the first place they will be made the catspaw of some of the wilier of the Whigs. There are several of these measures which look to some socialistic, as, for instance, the allotment scheme, and other schemes tending towards peasant proprietorship, co-operation, and the like, but which, after all, in spite of their benevolent appearance, are really weapons in the hands of reactionaries, having for their real object the creation of a new middle class made out of the working class and at their expense ; the raising, in short, of a new army against the attack of the disinherited.

" There is no end to this kind of dodge, nor will be, apparently, till there is an end of the class which tries it on, and a great many of the democrats will be amused and absorbed by it from time to time. They call this sort of nonsense "practical," but it seems like doing something, while the steady propaganda of a principle which must prevail in the end is, according to them, doing nothing, and is unpractical. For the rest, it is not likely to become dangerous, further than as it clogs the wheels of the real movement somewhat, because it is sometimes a mere piece of reaction, as when, for instance, it takes the form of peasant proprietorship, flying right in the face of commercial development of the day, which tends ever more and more towards the aggregation of capital, thereby smoothing the way for the organised possession of the means of production by the workers when the true revolution shall come ; while, on the other hand, when this attempt to manufacture a new middle class takes the form of co-operation and the like, it is not dangerous because it means nothing more than a slightly altered form of joint stocking, and everybody almost is beginning to see this. . . The enormous commercial success of the great co-operative societies, and the absolute no-effect of that success on the social condition of the workers, are sufficient tokens of what this non-political co-operation must come to ' Nothing — it shall not be less.' 

" But again, it may be said, some of the democrats go further than this ; they take up actual pieces of Socialism and are more than inclined to support them.

 " Nationalisation of the land or railways, or cumulative taxation on income, or limiting the right of inheritance, or new factory laws, or the restriction by law of the day's labor— one of these, or more than one sometimes, the democrats will support, and see absolute salvation in these one or two planks of the platform. All this, I admit, and once again I say, there is a snare in it— a snake lies lurking in the grass.

" Those who think they can deal with our present system in this piecemeal way very much underrate the strength of the tremendous organisation under which we live, and which appoints each of us to his place, and if we do not chance to fit it, grinds us down till we do.

 " Nothing but a tremendous force can deal with this force ; it will no suffer itself to be dismembered, nor to lose anything which is really its essence without putting forth all its force in resistance ; rather than lose anything which it considers of importance, it will pull the roof of the world down.

 " For, indeed, I grant these semi-Socialist democrats that there is one hope for their tampering piecemeal with our society, if by chance they can excite people into seriously, however blindly, claiming one or other of these things in question, and could be successful in Parliament in driving it through, they would certainly draw on a great civil war, and such a war once let loose would not end but either with the full triumph of Socialism or its extinction for the present, it would be impossible to limit the aim of the struggle ; nor can we even guess at the course which it would take, except that it would not be a matter of compromise. But suppose the Democratic party were peaceably successful on this new basis of semi-State Socialism, what would it mean ?

 Attempts to balance the two classes whose interests are opposed to each other, a mere ignoring of the antagonisms which has led us through so many centuries to where we are now, and then, after a period of disappointment and disaster, the naked conflict once more ; a revolution made, and another immediately necessary on the morrow — William Morris, "Signs of Change." 

People (Sydney, NSW ),11 November 1905, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138914451

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

———————— 

In this broad earth of ours,

 Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, 

Enclosed, and safe within its central heart.

 Nestles the seed perfection.

 The pursuit of perfect human happiness has been the aim of the social reformer, for longer time perhaps than chemists sought the philosopher's stone or mechanists the principal of perpetual motion. That this earth may be made to the likeness of a heaven, peopled only by happy men and women, many optimists of all ages have dreamt. In the imaginative account of Plato's Republic, in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, in a book of a like character left unfinished by Lord Bacon, in the modern dreams of Bellamey's " Looking Backward," and William Morris' " News from Nowhere," may be traced the same exuberant hope that unhappiness is no necessary part of earthly life, and may with wise effort be banished. The idea of a heaven on earth has been, it is true, sometimes combated for religious reasons, by teachers who argued that being a place of trial this planet could not but be a place of unhappiness. Such contentions have however, come rather from a misconstruction of the meaning of the word happiness (which is by no means inconsistent with hard trial) than from any serious thought of setting up a fatalistic creed that since misery must exist, being ordained by the nature of things, no effort should be made to secure earthly comfort. This is proved by the fact that in all ages religious associations and bodies have striven, sometimes mistakenly but always sincerely, to add to the sum of human happiness. The great Crusades of the churches against slavery, their innumerable charity organisations, their bold denunciations of the grinding greed of any oppressors of the poor— all witness how largely the promotion of the material welfare of the masses has occupied their attention.

 Contrasting the earlier meetings of pagan and Christian Utopians with those of later ages a basic difference will be found. The former are aristocratic, the latter democratic. Plato's scheme of the completely happy life was founded on the idea that only the free Greek population of the world was human, that the Barbarian (a term comprehensive of all the people's living outside of the Ionic peninsula) was a strange creature not possible of inclusion in any system of a well-ordered state, and that the slave was a superiorly-gifted animal to be fed and housed well, but otherwise unconsidered. His Utopia was for a few philosophers, living a life of high thinking, under the favoring influences of a material well being which wisdom would prevent from abuse. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman, set down laws of life which followed the most exalted moral principles, but yet presupposed the existence of a slave class. Sir Thomas More's Utopia represented, according to modern ideas, a very great advance on the old pagan ideas. His conception of a happy state involved the complete material happiness of all individuals, but their obedience to and reverence of Prince and Church.

 Omitting consideration of minor writers from the Elizabethian period to the 19th century there seems to have been little of that curious speculative striving after the perfect happiness which is now the refuge of every mediocre scribbler. With the genesis of the socialistic movement, imaginary Utopias became as plentiful as forms of religion. "Looking Backward" was one of the most striking of the easy recipes for human happiness, partly on account of its fair literary ability and boldness of thought ; partly because of the splendid audacity which placed Utopia hardly a century ahead of the present generation. It was preceded and followed by hundreds, perhaps if all the booklets of the world could be accounted thousands, of schemes of the same kind, modelled upon State socialism, and guaranteed to cure all the evils that flesh is heir to. A closing word was spoken by William Morris, who, without attempting to say how his ideal could be attained, wrote of England under a system of anarchist-communism, peaceful, happy, reverent, filled to the lips with art and poetry living a life woven with purple and gold. From a " reform " point of view his book was perhaps not meant seriously. As a beautiful daydream it will live in literature.

 The reason for drawing the dividing line at the Elizabethan period, in considering the written aspirations after Utopia is that the works antecedent to that all dealt with an aristocratic form of rule. Republican or monarchical, each writer presumed the existence of a superior class and an inferior class. Since then the world has gone through the French Revolution and has learnt its democracy. Modern Utopias, therefore, are based upon the rule of the people or on no rule at all, as in the works of Prince Krapotkin and Morris. 

After calm consideration it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that both ancient and modern schemes for Utopian happiness are at present impracticable. That under an aristocratic system it is possible to secure perfect material happiness for every citizen of a state has been proved by experience in many parts of the world. England, in the days of " Merrie Englande," ruled by an aristocracy held in check by a powerful church, and with one third of its lands held by religious organisations, came very close to that happy state. Thorrold Rogers, in his researches as to the economic condition of Britain at that period, found though many abuses, hardships and wrong privileges existed, the general state of the people was happy. A workingman could with the labor of one and a half days earn sufficient for good board and lodging for a week. With three days labor he met the cost of the maintenance of himself, a wife and family. Beggars, except the maimed, were rare, as the monasteries kept the poor. The then Established Church had acquired possession of nearly one-third of the whole cultivated area of the country, but was a mild and indulgent landlord and used its revenues in the building of great churches and other works of art. In Peru also, under a pagan religion, material happiness was secured to all the inhabitants of a country boasting a very large population and a great degree of civilisation. The conditions of " Merrie Englande" and of Peru are now, however, impossible. King Demos has upset all the thrones and made impossible a State founded on the principle of the absolute obedience of the general people to an aristocratic order. 

Equally impossible are the democratic socialistic schemes for Utopia, of which the present days have been so prolific. All such schemes are founded on the assumption of a new man, a man without envy, selfishness, turbulence or sloth ; and that new man has not yet come within the range of things practical. In fact whilst hoping for the attainment of such schemes, those dreaming them do seem to strive most for the stirring up of the malices and jealousies which hinder humanity from happiness.

 But away from all the thinkers of vain things, a few have found what seems the right road to happiness. Such men as Ruskin, Carlyle, Mazzini, Walt Whitman. (those are not mentioned invidiously as there are many score others) have insisted that the gainings of happiness is not through materialism, have gone to older days and have recast for modern times the old doctrine that well-being does not consist alone of bread and meat, and that, the humbly placed may be as joyous as the great.

 " Each is not for its own sake,

 I say the whole earth and all the stars in the

 Sky are for religion's sake.

 That was the say of Whitman, the greatest thinker of America ; and, understanding " for religion's sake" in its broadest sense, it is the say of Ruskin and all others of the new school of Economics. 

"Each man should seek to satisfy his needs with the least possible exertion" is the dictum of the Freetrade economists who ushered in the industrial era of civilisation, and the spirit of that statement has largely dominated life since. But no more pernicious doctrine could be imagined. When for it is substituted the faith that each man should love his work for his work's sake, should love humanity for humanity's sake, and should strive for a clean and beautiful world for his own sake, then happiness will be a nearer haven. The opportunity for satisfying desires is not happiness, so that the pursuit of that opportunity is not the pursuit of happiness. When that is recognised greed will be abandoned and well-being pervade the air. It is to attempt an impossible reversion of the natural order of progress to seek after material good first, preaching the increase in the riches of some and the decrease in the riches of others as the sole way to the happiness of the world.

National Advocate (Bathurst, NSW ),  21 September 1896 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article156707409

William Morris on Socialism.

 The utterances of William Morris, " poet of the people" and author of  " News from Nowhere " and other works, should be extremely interesting to students of the Labour movement at the present time when some Australasian reformers show such a tendency to resort to so-called Liberalism. Writing in the FORUM, Mr. Morris says : " There is no progress possible to European civilisation save in the direction of Socialism; for the Whig or Individualist idea which destroyed the mediæval idea of association, and culminated in the French revolution and the rise of the great industries in England, has fulfilled its function or worked itself out. The Socialistic idea has at last taken hold of the workmen, even in Great Britain, and they are pushing it forward practically, though in a vague and unorganised manner. The governing classes feel themselves compelled to yield more or less to the vague demands of the workmen. But, on the other hand, the definitely reactionary forces of the country have woken up to the danger to privilege involved in those demands, and are attacking Socialism in front instead of passing it by in contemptuous silence.

 *    *    * 

"The general idea of Socialism is widely accepted amongst the thoughtful part of the middle classes, even where their timidity prevents them from definitely joining the movement. The old political parties have lost their traditional shibboleths, and are only hanging on till the new party (which can only be a Socialistic one) is formed : the Whigs and Tories will then coalesce to oppose it; the Radicals will some of them join this reactionary party, and some will be absorbed by the Socialist ranks. That this process is already going on is shown by the last general election. Socialism has not yet formed a party in Great Britain, but it is essential that it should do so, and not become a mere tail of the Whig Liberal party, which will only use it for its own purposes and throw it over when it conveniently can. The Socialist party must include the whole of the genuine labour movement — that is, whatever in it is founded on principle, and is not a mere temporary business squabble ; it must also include all that is definitely Socialist amongst the middle class; and it must have a simple test in accordance with its one aim— the realisation of a new society founded on the practical equality of condition for all, and general association for the satisfaction of the needs of those equals. The sooner this party is formed, and the reactionists find themselves face to face with the Socialists, the better. For whatever checks it may meet with on the way, it will get to its goal at last, and SOCIALISM will melt into SOCIETY."

Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 11 July 1896 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70932803