Notes by the Way
Shades of 1931
It is interesting to note the similarities and differences of the present crisis and that of 1931, which split the Lahour Government, and led to its Prime Minister, J. R. MacDonald, going over to a National Government while the present Labour Party leaders went into opposition. Both crises have been described as being largely due to the aftermath of war, for MacDonald’s manifesto to the nation for the October, 1931, elections referred to “some of the most fruitful causes of the economic misfortunes—like War Debts and Reparations—from which the whole world now suffers so grievously.” Both crises took the form of an “adverse balance of trade,” too many imports and too few exports, and then as now the Government was looking to the expansion of exports and restriction of imports as the way out.
There is a curious resembance between the present Government’s appeal to Parliament for emergency powers, not for specific and known measures, but for measures of all kinds that may appear necessary from time to time, and MacDonald’s 1931 appeal .to the electors for a “doctor’s mandate”—”as it is impossible to foresee in the changing conditions of today what may arise, no one can set out a programme of detail . . . Tihe Government must therefore be free to consider every proposal likely to help, such as tariffs, expansion of exports and contraction of imports, commercial treaties and mutual economic arrangements with the Dominions.”
Among the differences are the following. This time British capitalism’s troubles arc attributed to the rise of food prices in U.S.A. and in the world generally. In 1931 it was the opposite, we were told that the trouble was due to the catastrophic fall of prices. Mr. G. D. H. Cole wrote in 1932: “The result of increased productive power has been … a great mass of unemployment in the manufacturing countries, and a fall in the prices of foodstuffs and raw materials which has more and more “impoverished the producers of these classes of goods. These impoverished producers cannot afford to buy as many manufactures as before, with the consequence that many businesses have gone bankrupt and many millions of industrial workers have been thrown out of work.” ( Economic Tracts for the Times,” 1932, page 12).
This time, says Mr. Douglas Jay, “the only final solution is a fall in the world price of food and raw materials.” (Daily Herald, 4/8/47). Of course, when the fall takes place we shall be back at 1931 !
Last time the trouble was said to be “over production,” this time it is “underproduction.” Last time the Government took the lead by reducing unemployment pay and the pay of civil servants, teachers, etc. This time it is an appeal to the workers to work longer hours and not press for higher wages.
Spivs and Hard-faced Men
It is an old story that what the parties of capitalism say when they are in opposition undergoes a remarkable change when they get into power. A straw which shows the way the wind is blowing is the way the Labour Party has set up an entirely new Aunt Sally in place of the old one. After World War I the Labour attack was directed against a cartoon-creature popularised by Will Dyson—the Hard-Faced business man, or war profiteer. We hear little of him now, his place having been taken by the “Spiv,” a term used for the individual who prefers to live by gambling, quick dealing or by “fiddling” in the black market, rather than by toiling in a mine or a factory.
The Labourites are not lacking in explanations for this, in the pretence that the idle rich are not with us any more. This is a droll story particularly favoured by Mr. Dalton.
Intoxicated with their own belief that capitalism would be all right if only it were “controlled” the idea is only very slowly creeping into the minds of the Labourites that black markets are the inevitable product of price controls and rationing. Where there is great wealth and poverty side by side the rich will always be able to get what they want, legally if they can, illegally if they must.
Political Secrecy
The Committee of Privileges of the House of Commons has condemned the practice of M.P.’s selling to the Press information about the proceedings at private Party meetings in the House of Commons. While not holding that Party meetings have the same privileges as sittings of the House of Commons the Committee, or a majority of them, hold that certain privileges attach to such meetings because the holding of private Party meetings is now a normal part of Parliamentary procedure.
Some M.P.’s differ from the majority of the Committee on this point but it does not appear to have occurred to anybody that the simplest, best, and only completely water-tight, remedy for the selling of information about private Party meetings is to cease to make them private.
And if anybody thinks that secrecy of Party meetings is necessary it is sufficient to point out that S.P.G.B. meetings, conferences, E.C. meetings, etc., are open to all members and to the public. But then, of course, the S.P.G.B. is a very different sort of political party, one that is really democratic.
The Communists and Censorship
The Catholic Universe criticised the Russian S’overnment on the ground that it had done everything to prevent Russians from taking an interest in Western civilisation. The Daily Worker (28/7/47) retorted by pointing out that Shakespeare and other English classics are widely read in Russian translations. Mentioning Marlowe. Smollett and Fielding the Daily Worker asked, “would, perchance, any of these works he found in the Vatican’s ‘Indcx’ of forbidden books?”
Quite a legitimate retort, except for the fact that in Bolshevik Russia, just as in Catholic Spain, there is suppression of organisations, news and views unpalatable to those in power. Besides, in view of the way the Communists and Catholics managed to work hand in hand to interfere with freedom, of the Press in Italy the former should keep quiet about the latter. According to the Rome Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (14/5/47) they voted together on anti-democratic clauses of the new Constitution. When the Catholics moved “that in cases of emergency publications may be sequestrated by police officials, provided they give an account of their action within 24 hours” the Communists voted with them; as also when the Catholics moved for “the insertion in the new Constitution of the Lateran Pacts and Concordat which were signed by Mussolini and Pope Pius XI.” It was only a revolt of the Communist rank and file which prevented their M.P.’s from voting for the prohibition of divorce.
There is another aspect of the supply of information to the Russian workers. The Daily Worker thinks that its case is made good because Russian workers are permitted to read the works of long dead English novelists and playwrights. The Daily Worker mentions that “new translation of works by Dickens are to be published in the Soviet Union.” Now for an example of the use made of Dickens. Cabling from Moscow during what passes in Russia for an election, Alexander Werth told the following incident:
“Six young Communist girls wanted to know how candidates were chosen and campaigns conducted in ‘bourgeois’ countries. They wrote to the Young Communist paper . . . which promptly replied by referring them to the Eatanswill election in the ‘Pickwick Papers’.” (Manchester Guardian, 25/1/47).
Mr. Werth goes on to say that the Young Communist paper told its inquirers, “Eatanswill is an imaginary place, but what Dickens wrote correctly describes English reality.”
Of course the motive for this deception is obvious. If the Russian workers discovered that real electoral contests take place outside of that country they might the more quickly resent the continuance of their totalitarian regime which permits the existence of only one political party.
On the subject of the Russian censorship the Daily Worker (31/7/47) reported the complaint made by the Amalgamated Engineering Union delegation which visited Russia last year. The Daily Worker’s statement reads:
“In conclusion, however, the report says the delegation sometimes had a feeling ‘that we did not have real freedom of movement and action.’ ‘For example,’ it adds, ‘photography was discouraged and our letters home were censored.’ ”
Mr. Aneurin Bevan on the Export Drive
The Sunday Express (6/7/47) quotes from a speech made by Mr. Bevan in 1945:
“We are told by some people who ought to know better that we shall need to increase our exports after the war by 50 per cent. . . . Expanding exports are the will-o’-the-wisp private enterprise is compelled to pursue.”
All the countries are now (a) trying to increase their exports and (b) cutting down their imports. Now that Mr. Bevan is a member of a government engaged in trying to increase exports by 75 per cent. over the prewar level and at the same time preaching austerity and less imports perhaps he will explain what happens when all the countries export to the limit and import nothing.
H.