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Organ Ofthe Socialdemocracy

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Organ Ofthe Socialdemocracy REGISTERED FOR INLAND AND FOREIGN TRANSMISSION. Organ of the Social Democracy. LONDON, SATURDAY, OCT. 21, 1893. [P rice O ne P enny. S o m e E ccentricities o f F a b ia n is m . CRITICAL CHRONICLE. One of our most distinguished comrades last week aptly characterised the London Fabian as the “ uni­ T h e M u r d e r e r A s q u i t h . versal objector.” This seems certainly to indicate the special role chosen by Messrs. Shaw, Wallas, and Nothing was more satisfactory or sig­ their imitators. There is Mr. Shaw’s great discovery nificant in Sunday’s demonstration than that Marx, with the whole of the classical econo­ the groans which greeted the mention mists, are wrong in their theory of value. There is of the Home Secretary’s name at every Mr. Pease’s (if we remember rightly) denial that platform. The people have evidently commercial crises and over production can possibly made up their minds that this mouth­ exist! There is, most recently, Mr. Graham Wal- ing Whig sycophant shall not hear the las’s attempts to nibble at the great discovery which last of his crime whatever his packed forms the foundation of our modern interpretation Commission may have resolved to say of history. Now, all this intellectual single-stick for him. The blood shed at Feather- practice may be very brilliant and amusing, but the stone has shown the workers clearly question is as to its profitability for instruction. Mr. that Liberals and Tories both wish Graham Wallas recently charged Socialists with nothing better than to have the oppor- regarding everything as known and every question tunity of safely shooting down their as settled. Now there are undoubtedly a great many wage-slaves. Let us prove to both things not known, and a great many questions not factions at an early date that these butcheries of the settled, in this world, but the point is, would it not producers are not quite so safe as they were. The be much more profitable for our Fabian friends to first step in this direction is to drive Asquith out of apply their cleverness to this very wide field of in­ public life. Let a crusade be organised against him vestigation rather than to go on tilting at things that in Fifeshire. Here is a bit both of social and poli­ are known and attempting to reopen questions that tical work which Keir Hardie could do excellently are settled. Are we never to regard any controversy well. Let him call a few meetings in Fifeshire and as closed ? If so, we may one of these days expect to tell the Scotch miners and other workers how this find a Fabian taking up the cudgels for the hypo­ Liberal Home Secretary, with the approval of h is thesis that the earth is flat, maintaining that the Copernican cystem of astronomy is an exploded fallacy, the Ptolemaic Being much nearer the truth, W a n t e d —J u s t i c e . or championing the “ Farbenlehr ” of Goethe against the Newtonian theory of light. To us all To those who would acquit the Home Secretary this sort of thing seems, we confess, very much like of these murders we commend the perusal of his childish waste of time. speech at Glasgow, which even the D aily Chronicle is compelled to condemn. There, speaking of the M r . L a b o u c h e r e ’s V i r t u o u s I n d ig n a t i o n . Featherstone outrage, he coolly and deliberately declared that he accepted the fu ll responsibility fo r Mr. Labouchere devotes a considerable space in everything that had been done. He thus pleads Truth last week to castigating an " old harridan ” guilty to the murder of these men. That it was a who undertakes the flogging of young ladies for such foul and cruel murder, committed in the most cold- “ parents and guardians ” as can afford to pay for blooded and deliberate manner, all the evidence yet this educational process. He seems, indeed, to adduced goes to prove. If the Commission of spend a considerable portion of bis time in hunting Inquiry which Asquith has himself appointed up isolated practitioners of corporal punishment on acquits him of all blame, as it is intended to do, it is the female sex, and grinds his teeth with indigna­ the duty of the miners themselves to appoint an tion over the iniquity of the rod as applied to girls. independent inquiry, and if the facts are shown to be At the same time that he is rummaging in out of-the as already stated, the perpetrators of this foul crime, way holes and corners for those whom naturally including the man who accepts the full responsibility nobody cares to defend he takes care to pass over for everything that was done, should receive the without protest the infinitely more brutal and dis­ punishment the law awards. gusting floggings of young working boys on board training ships and in industrial homes (not to men­ I n a P o w d e r M a g a z in e . tion the fiendish and brutalising punishments in­ flicted on men in our prisons) with the sanction and It looks very much as if the French were once approval o f public authorities. One could wish that more going mad with Chauvinism and Europe has Mr. Labouchere might spare just a little of his had terrible experience of what that means. The seething indignation and concern respecting the sneers and ridicule which the English capitalist news­ remoter end of an occasional young lady for those papers pour upon the whole of this hysterical jubila­ unfortunate victims of a systematic cruelty for which tion over the coming of the Russian sailors will not the whole nation is responsible, and not, as in the make matters better. The situation is too serious other case, simply a private individual here and fIAT JustITia ruat CCELUM for this sort of talk. Rather let us face the truth there. But it is so much easier and more profitable that peace for the next few weeks or months will be to follow an imbecile and illogical drift of public at the mercy of any hot-headed fire-eating French opinion, and maunder of the special vileness of a SPECIAL NOTICE. colonel in Europe or in Asia who chooses to go so sporadic " girl-flogger,” than it is boldly to take a far that his countrymen cannot abandon him without stand against corporal punishment altogether, in­ what they would consider humiliation, or support him cluding that which is not only tolerated by public S.D.F. CENTRAL HALL, without going to war. Having watched these French opinion at large, and constantly practised, but is 337, Strand, W.C. ebullitions close at hand on several occasions we even popular in many influential quarters ! know how very little may suffice to give them an ugly turn. Honour the more, therefore, to those who, “ Some folks will be more interested in the medi­ LECTURE. like Vaillant and a few other Socialists—not we cal evidence than in the inquiry into the circum­ regret to say including our comrade Brousse and stances attending the shooting, as the terrible cha­ SUNDAY, Oct. 22nd. his friends—who refuse to lose their heads at this racter of the wound inflicted by a bullet from the W. G. PEARSON, juncture or to forget that Russia is the worst enemy Lee-Metford rifle on the human body was practically of democracy in Europe. As English Social* illustrated at Featherstone for the first time. It is “ WITH THE RED VAN IN BERKSHIRE." Democrats we offer our sincerest congratulations to pitiful and scandalous that the subjects of the grim these men, and we hope their countrymen will soon experiment should have been English working Doors Open at 7.30. Commence at 8 p.m. recover from their temporary aberration. men.”—Sun. 2 JUSTICE O ctober 21, 1803. SCOTTISH NOTES. pired afterwards that both of them were present, HELP FOR THE UNEMPLOYED. and formed part of the audience of an I.L.P. At the last annual meeting of the Scottish Labour meeting held at the same hour. Now, conduct of Comrades and fellow citizens,—It is allowed on Party the Rev. Alexander Webster was in the this kind is something more than suspicious, and every hand that the distress arising from lack of chair. Since the I.L.P. have thought proper to ought to be put a stop to at once. I hope this is employment is likely during the coming winter to denounce Champion this rev. gentleman has con­ an isolated case ; if it is not the sooner the branches be of an exceptional and serious character. We sidered it his duty to write to the press pointing out vote whether a member of the I.L.P can also be a are in the midst of one of those crises in trade which that a party which had as members persons guilty of member of the S.D.F. the better will it be for our are the inevitable outcome of the capitalist system. opening other people’s letters had members who organisation. For many winters this question has arisen with ever were as bad as any Pigott, and unless members who increasing gravity, and it looms upon us now with were guilty of acts of this kind, or members who Does every member of the S.D.F.
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