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Oh heed not the talk of those fat agitators,

Who prattle of Gladstone, or Churchill, or worse;
Expect not your rights from professional praters,
But manfully trust in your courage and force.1

Onward! Sons of Labour! nerve ye for the fray;
Soon shall beam the dawning of a brighter day.
Keep the red flag flying, herald of the free-
On yourselves relying, on to liberty.

See! the coming glory streams across the plains.
Soon the Sons of Labour shall take up the reins.
Then in every nation shall our Cause increase

Till it reigns triumphant-pledge of joy and peace.2

On the other hand, there are Socialists who think that Socialism cannot succeed if it cuts itself adrift from the great national parties and pursues a purely Socialistic Labour policy. "A member of an Imperial Parliament is an Imperialist in spite of himself. A party which concerns itself with sectional interests only will soon cease to be a party; it will degenerate into a group, and as such it cannot hope to receive serious backing in the country."

"3

Many Socialists feel confident that they will conquer power by conquering Parliament. "Parliament has always governed the country in the interest of the class to which the majority of its members belonged. It governed in the interest of the country gentlemen in the old days when they were in a majority in the House of Commons; it has governed in the interests of the capitalists and employers since they won a majority by the Reform Bill of 1832; and it will govern in the interest of the people when the majority is selected from

Social-Democratic Federation Song Book, p. 30.

2 Clarion Song Book, p. 21. 3 Socialism and Labour Policy, p. 3.

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the wage-earning class."1 "No sooner shall two hundred Labour members be firmly seated upon the crossbenches of the House, than both parties will approach them with bended knee, bringing gold and frankincense and programmes." " There is a fine impartiality about the policeman and the soldier, who are the cutting edge of the State power. They take their wages and obey their orders without asking questions. If those orders are to demolish the homestead of every peasant who refuses to take the bread out of his children's mouths in order that his landlord may have money to spend as an idle gentleman in London, the soldier obeys. But if his orders were to help the police to pitch his lordship into Holloway Gaol until he had paid an income-tax of twenty shillings on every pound of his unearned income, the soldier would do that with equal devotion to duty, and perhaps with a certain private zest that might be lacking in the other case. Now these orders come ultimately from the State, meaning in this country the House of Commons. A House of Commons consisting of 660 gentlemen and 10 workmen will order the soldier to take money from the people for the landlords. A House of Commons consisting of 660 workmen and 10 gentlemen will probably, unless the 660 are fools, order the soldier to take money from the landlords for the people." 3

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What Socialism Is, p. 3.

2 Leakey, Co-operators and Labour Platform, p. 16.
* Shaw, The Impossibilities of Anarchism, p. 26.

CHAPTER XVII

SOCIALISM AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

MANY Socialists, especially the Fabians, hope to introduce Socialistic principles and Socialistic rule into Great Britain rather through the local than through the national authorities. They are strenuously exerting themselves to bring about that result, and so far their exertions have been by no means unsuccessful.

"Socialists to-day are working in the towns with a twofold object. (1) To level up their districts. If Glasgow has municipal telephones, there is a very good precedent for Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, &c., doing likewise. If Liverpool owns a municipal milk-supply, London, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, &c., must be brought into line. Each town must adopt the good points from every other town. (2) To urge their districts to launch out into something new." "The property held and worked and controlled by municipalities already exceeds 500,000,000l. sterling in value, and is being added to yearly. This process has but to continue long enough to ensure that every industry will pass under public control, and thus State Socialism will become an accomplished fact by a gradual process of easy transition." 2

"The proper sphere of municipal activity includes everything a municipality can do better than a private company. "The immediate object should be to

3

The Advance of Socialism, p. 2.

2 Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, pp. 27, 28.

3 Snowden, Straight Talk to Ratepayers, p. 8.

municipalise all those services which are necessary to a healthy life. Food, fuel, clothing, shelter-these are required by all-and no man should have the right to deny them to any worker. We must not stop at municipal trams. We must not stop at municipal gas. We must not stop at municipal electricity. These are only stepping-stones. Not until we can say that poverty and disease and unemployment are abolished out of the land shall we have the right to discuss the limits of municipal trading." "The economic forces which replaced the workshop by the factory will replace the private shop by the municipal store, and the private factory by the municipal one.'

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According to Socialist teaching the destruction of private enterprise by municipal undertakings will be a blessing to all citizens. "Where a city supplies its own gas there is no middle-man.' The corporation stands in the place of the middle-man,' and as the corporation is elected by the citizens the people are thus in the position of getting their own gas made and paying for it in their own way. Some of the citizens are makers of gas, or workmen; most of the citizens are users of gas, or consumers; and all of the citizens are owners and managers of the gasworks and of the gas supply." 3

The suppression of the "unnecessary middleman " sounds so very plausible that it is certain to prove an excellent election cry. But has the middleman really disappeared when a city corporation takes his place? Does the corporation-middleman supply gas gratis? Are the private middleman's profits not distributed to a host of corporation officials in the shape of substantial salaries ? The transfer of gasworks, &c., from private hands to a city corporation is no doubt very beneficial

'Suthers, Mind your own Business, p. 148.

2 Fabian Essays in Socialism, p. 157.
Blatchford, Competition, p. 4.

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to those who draw the corporation salaries. It may be very profitable to the local politicians and their hangerson. Jobs may be had as a reward for political support. But the citizens may find the gas to be no cheaper and the rates to be considerably higher after the suppression of the "unnecessary middleman." And will it then console him that he is the "owner and manager of the gasworks and of the gas supply"?

Under the heading "The Justice of Abolishing the Private Trader" one of the leading champions of municipal Socialism writes: "Is it unfair to take away the living of the private trader? Then it is unfair to take away the living of the unemployed, the twelve millions on the verge of starvation, and the thousands slain annually by poverty and preventable disease. I say that the welfare of the nation must be considered before the profits of the monopolists and the wasteful freedom of the small trader. Under the present system a large proportion of the population have so deteriorated in health and stamina as to endanger the existence of the nation. Private enterprise and Private enterprise and competition are responsible for nine-tenths of the misery and suffering of our twenty million poor. But we must not attempt to alter the conditions because the small private trader would be ruined. Nevertheless the system is going to be altered, whether the small trader likes it or not." 1

The foregoing are typical Socialist arguments. In the first place, the writer grossly exaggerates existing poverty by speaking of "twenty million poor." Then he boldly asserts that all poverty is due to private enterprise and that municipal enterprise will abolish it. So far municipal enterprise has not even succeeded in diminishing poverty. On the contrary, with the phenomenal growth of municipal enterprise in Great Britain pauperism, actual and percentual, has also grown at an alarming 'Suthers, Mind your own Business, pp. 93, 94.

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