The Passing Show
Our People
The Government’s recent call to employers to reject any application for wage increases — at a time when inflation has been continuing for twenty-one years — was not, it now appears, an attack on wages. It was, in fact, a “defence of wages.” For Selwyn Lloyd made this clear in a recent speech to those well-known wage-defenders, the bankers and merchants of the City of London, at a banquet in the Mansion House. He said:
“Whatever is said to the contrary in the heat of the moment, I believe that the commonsense of our people will assert itself and they will acknowledge I am right.”
(One passing thought: do our rulers realise how much they irritate the rest of us by calling us “their people”?)
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd could hardly have expected his audience to believe him. As members of the owning class, they knew that all members of that class must constantly strive to cut their costs to the lowest possible; and one of the most important of their costs is wages. Since their competitors, both here and abroad, are always trying to restrict wage-costs, either by reducing wages or by holding back their increase as much as possible, any capitalist who did not watch this aspect very closely would soon be out of business. Either his shareholders would withdraw their money from his business, or he would go bankrupt. Mr. Selwyn Lloyd has simply tried to help the employers in this process by telling the workers that “the country’s well-being” depends on a “wage-pause.”
Mr. Lloyd should take care, next time he addresses an upper class audience, not to speak too persuasively. For if the ruling class did believe he was “defending wages” (that is, from their point of view, keeping up costs) he would not last long as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
A good way to die
The Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury called recently for the abolition of capital punishment, or at least for its complete suspension for a period of five years. The rural dean of Dulwich, however, kept up the good old tradition of those bishops and prominent churchmen who for centuries have supported the most barbarous of punishments against those who broke the law. Hanging, the rural dean said, might be “theologically and intellectually, rather a good way to die.” He went on:
“Why should the Christian say it is such a terrible thing to end someone’s life? We do not believe death is the end. Intellectually, is it so frightful to know, in full possession of your faculties, that you are going to met your Maker in a certain definite time ? I cannot see that, from a Christian point of view, it is so frightful.”
When one thinks of the millions of men killed in wars supported (on both sides) by Christian churches, it is not very surprising that the rural dean should seek to defend the “ending of someone’s life ” by the state apparatus. But, of course, the rural dean’s remarks are for export only. He claims it isn’t so frightful to be told you are going to have your neck broken “in a certain definite time”; but he appears to have taken no steps to embrace such a fate himself.
Convicted
Russia, the country which claims to be Socialist and still has property and all the institutions of property society, has again gladdened the hearts of anti-Socialist propagandists by sentencing two men to death and jailing several others for thefts of public property.” There is, of course, no such thing as “public property” in a private property society. There is property which belongs to members of the ruling class individually, and property which is usually managed by state or “public” boards, which act on behalf of the whole owning class. If this property was really public, or in common ownership, then it would belong equally to everyone, which is another way of saying it would belong to no one. To steal it would be impossible. So that when Russia holds trials for the “theft” of “public property,” it is really the system itself which is put on trial. And convicted.
Affluence
After the vague talk about “the affluent society” come the actual figures, produced by the state machine itself. According to National Income and Expenditure, 1961, published recently, these were the figures of national income:
“In 1960, 10,900,000 people (counting husband and wife as one person), 41 per cent of the total, were receiving less than £500 per annum before payment of tax ; 45 per cent between £500 and £1,000; 12 per cent from £1,000 to £2,000; and 2 per cent more than £2,000. After tax the corresponding percentages were 44; 46; 9 ; and 1.”
In other words, after tax 44 per cent, get less than £10 a week, and 90 per cant, less than £20 a week. And this, remember, is counting the wife’s income in with her husband’s. In the small minority of homes where there is an income coming in besides those of the father and mother, the standard will be correspondingly higher; but in the great majority of homes, the standards are indicated clearly enough by these figures. And anyone who thinks they amount to “affluence” for the ninety per cent., for the workers, should try bringing up a family at today’s inflated prices on anything under £20 per week.
ALWYN EDGAR.