Part 16 (1/2)

[368] Councillor Glyde, _Britain's Disgrace_, pp. 31, 32.

[369] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 170.

[370] Robert Blatchford, _Real Socialism_, p. 13.

[371] Ben Tillett, _Trades Unionism and Socialism_, p. 12.

[372] Bebel, _Woman_, p. 192.

[373] Quelch, _The Social-Democratic Federation_, p. 5.

[374] _Report on Fabian Policy and Resolutions_, p. 11.

[375] Webb, _Socialism True and False_, pp. 8, 9.

[376] _Report of 21th Annual Conference, 1907, Social-Democratic Federation_, p. 17.

[377] Ellis Barker, _Modern Germany_, p. 546.

[378] _New Age_, November 30, 1907.

[379] _Social Democrat_, October 1907, p. 580.

[380] Kautsky, _The Social Revolution_, p. 6.

[381] Russell Smart, _The Right to Work_, p. 15.

[382] A Bill to Provide Work through Public Authorities for Unemployed Persons.

[383] _Independent Labour Party Report, Annual Conference, 1907_, p.

54.

[384] See Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, p. 557.

[385] c.o.x, _Socialism_, pp. 37, 39, 40.

CHAPTER VII

THE ATt.i.tUDE OF SOCIALISTS TOWARDS TRADE UNIONISTS AND CO-OPERATORS

The British Socialists have during many years attacked and denounced the Trade Unionists and the Co-operators, firstly, because the trade unionists and co-operators are ”capitalists,” and therefore traitors to the Socialist cause; secondly, because Socialism unconditionally condemns providence and thrift among the working men, as will be seen in Chapter XXIII.

Although the Socialists pretend that they denounce co-operation and thrift, and even abstinence from alcoholic drink, on economic and scientific grounds, their real reasons are political. Socialism can flourish only if the ma.s.ses are dissatisfied. The Socialists are therefore little interested in improving the position of the worker, but very greatly in increasing his poverty, unhappiness, and discontent. Socialism is revolutionary, and the Socialists know that people who are well off are not revolutionists. For tactical reasons, therefore, the Socialists oppose and denounce thrift, co-operation, and abstinence, qualities which are found pre-eminently in co-operators and trade unionists.

The trade unionists, the aristocracy of British labour, are too conservative, too temperate, too cautious, too prosperous, and too little revolutionary for the taste of Socialists. The Socialists complain: ”The British trade union suffers from three fatal defects: (1) It is anti-revolutionary. It disavows the fact of the cla.s.s struggle. It accepts the capitalist system as a permanency. The rules and const.i.tutions of many unions explicitly refer to the 'just rights of the employer,' and those who do not set forth any such statement openly, admit it in actual practice. The capitalist cla.s.s, as voiced by the capitalist press, recognise in these unions the bulwark of present-day society against the advance of Socialism. (2) The British trade union method of organisation is a complete negation of the solidarity of labour. Each trade or section of a trade has its own particular and autonomous organisation. Even trades which are most closely connected are divided into separate unions, each union ignoring the interest of the rest, making its own special contracts with the capitalists, and a.s.sisting them by remaining at work when their fellow-workers in a kindred trade are on strike. The most noteworthy example of this form of inter-trade treachery was offered in the case of the engineers' strike of 1897-8, when the Boilermakers'

Society by remaining at work were the means of defeating the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and of forcing them to return to work on the masters' terms. (3) The British trade union refuses to admit to its ranks those teeming millions of workers whom it terms 'unskilled.'”[386]

Other Socialists complain: ”Trade unionism recognises the present system of society, justifies capitalism, and defends wage-slavery, and only seeks to soften the tyranny of the one and a.s.suage the evils of the other. Social Democracy aims at destroying the whole system.”[387]

”We are never allowed to forget the splendid incomes earned by these aristocrats of labour, a mere tenth of the whole labour cla.s.s. The trade unionist can usually only raise himself on the bodies of his less fortunate comrades.”[388] ”The old-fas.h.i.+oned policy of the English trade unions has made them _guilds of privileged_, rather than fighting representatives of their cla.s.s.”[389]