The New Age, Vol.11, No.11, July 11, 1912
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PAGE PAGS NOTES OF THE WEEK ..................... 241 PASTICHE. By Charles White, Ben Hender, Norman Fitzroy FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By S. Verdad ............... 245 Webb and C. E. Bechhofer ............... 256 POLITICS AND THE WAGE SYSTEM ............... 246 THEART OF THE FUTURE.By W. Wroblewski ......... 257 AMENDING THE CRIMINALLAW. By -4. E. Randall ...... 248 LETTERSTO THE EDITORfrom Clifford S. Sharp, E. G. THECASE OF BELFAST.By J. H. Stirling ......... 249 Thorneycroft, F. H. Glossop, C. H. Norman, Geoffrey DICKDEWBERRY. By C. E. Bechhofer ............ 250 Houghton Press-Cutter, Chas. Lee, Frank L. Sumner, PRESENT-DAYCRITICISM ..............d ... 252 Tears and Sickness, Geoffry Lyly, Samuel hf. Rich, C. T. PAGES FROM AN UNWBLISHED NOVEL. By Beatrice Hastings 253 Faulding, Terence O’Neill, Stanhope of Chester Mervyn VIEWSAND REWEWS. By A. E. R. ............ 255 Roberts, Arthur Kitson J. Henry ............ 258 movement are here surely at their crisis. Our seats and Liberal seats and Tory seats! The whole system of political party humbug swallowed and digested by the pure and noble Labour Party without a protest. *** We pass over a second fact which weighed consider- abIy with us in discounting the value of the Labour Party protestations : the character of the party itself. Only observers who can look at a party as if it were a person are in a position either to form or to appreciate a judgment based on collective psychology. N everthe- less, we will mention the conclusions to which such an NOTES THE WEEK. observer of the Labour Party is certain to come. OF Honest, he would say, in intention, the Labour Party THE hope of a wild moment appears to have been is, at the sàme time, without moral courage and without entertained by the Labour journalists of the “ Daily imagination, small-minded, vindictive te its friends and Herald ’’ that, in the news of the three-cornered elec- complacent with its enemies. On any critical occasion, toral difficulty of Hanley and Crewe, the Labour Party therefore, its first impulse will be to strike; but its might be discerned exercising its hitherto metaphysical second will be to yield. We do not say that this independence. For twenty-four hours the threats and character is necessarily fixed in the Labour Party. counter-threats of the Liberal and Labour caucus-bosses Otherwise dynamite, as one ,of our correspondents sug- might, from their dimensions, have been supposed real, gests, would be our only hope. It follows, indeed, from and in the resolution to desert in a body the House of certain more or less accidental and consequently change- Commons for the field of electoral battle the first word able causes, of which the dominance of Mr. MacDonald of sense collectively uttered by the Labour Party was, is one and the absence of any masterful idea in the indeed, news. But with the renewal (of the day came, Party is another. Given a party like the Labour Party, we suppose, the evil light of Mr. MacDonald’s belittling composed even of potential Hampdens and Lincolns, its influence Hanley was still to be fought, it is true, for public character would still be distorted under the there was no option of retreat open on the instant. leadership of a MacDonald. Similarly with the notion Crewe likewise seemed ta be inevitable. But as for the hammered ihto their heads that they are a small party resolution to desert the Liberal Micawbers of the Com- and, therefore, a young and feeble party, a party of mons, it had vanished in the night. Knowing by this wage-slaves’ spokesmen and, therefore, necessarily time, and after five years of daily observation, the all- mendicant, a growing party and, therefore, under the round character of the Labour Party, we were not our- necessity of deferential prudence, the Labour Party must selves misled into even mlomentary hope. Three indica- needs behave in a servile manner. Their idea of them- tions at least existed to make any such hope impossible selves, in fact, is the idea which the governing classes for a close observer. The language employed on the have formed and have impressed upon them : the idea, Labour side in particular was caucus jargon of the most namely, that they have no right to take more than their obvious and blatant order. “ Hanley,” said &Ir. Mac- arithmetically proportionate share in pubfic affairs. A Donald, “ is our seat.” Ours, mind you ! As if the pestiferous doctrine, as ignoble as it Is deadening. A map of the constituencies had been parcelled out among Labour Party of forty, nay, of four, has the right and the bosses and by common consent Hanley had ‘been the duty to speak by and with the authority of forty appropriated to the Labour machine. The weasel- million wage slaves. Instead of reckoning by their minded Mr. Snowden, always pluming himself on his own numb’ers they should reckon by the numbers of astuteness, echoed the language of his chief. “ It is their constituents. ... But the present Labour Party perfectly intolerable,” he said, “ that our seats should has neither the imagination nor the courage for that ; be attacked in this manner.” But in what other man- and, consequently, THENEW AGE is a better representa- ner, save a still more ignominious one, do their seats tive of the working classes than the whole Labour Party deserve to be attacked’ who, while professing themseives put together. People who doubt it prefer arithmetic to democrats and “ true to every pure and noble purpose ” facts. **+ (vide “ Labour Leader ”), barter with vulgar chaffering the constituencies of English electors? The symptoms But even if the Labour Party had the courage for a of the political craziness which has befallen the Labour split with the Liberal Party, it has not yet the idea 242 which would morally justify it. Parties, we n~stre- alleged blindness in hitting is surely remarkably dis- member, consist dainly of interests, and in interests criminative. the Labour and Liberal Parties have more in common *** than in divergence. Both parties, Strange as it may On the charge, however, of having nothing construc- sound, are capitalists in the sense that everything they tive to offer, more evidence than our reasoned denial do is instinctively designed to prosper profiteering. exists. After all, THENpw AGE is not like manna; it Otherwise how comes it that, after six years of does not drop from heaven only to wither on the third professedly democratic and reputedly revolutionary day. Our readers can, if they choose, turn back to our legislation, profiteering is doing a more roaring trade issues of the last six months for evidence to dispose of than ever? It is idle to pretend that this effect has been Mr. Sharp’s hasty and superficial criticism. In the first produced in spite of the Labour Party. On the contrary, place, it would not be possible consistently and system- as Liberal philosophers know very well and admit, this atically to prove Social Reform schemes to be wrong, effect has been produced because of the Labour Party. unless a point of view relatively right and relatively The “Westminster Gazette,” for example, rightly main- constructive were assumed. If anybody thinks it is tains that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer has easy to play the part of consistent destructive critic been Socialism’s most ,formidable foe. And indeed he without a constructive and positive theory by which to has been. But his bestfriend nevertheless, has been work, the sooner they try it for themselves the better. the Labour Party. As the most formidable foe of Without a standard and a positive theory, destructive Socialism it follows that Mr. Lloyd George has been the criticism, if generally applied, becomes inconsistent, and most powerful defender of the wage system; and as obviously inconsistent. Liberals and Tories, for ex- joint defenders with him, whether aware or not of what ample, criticise each others’ proposals both generally , they were doing, the Labour Party have been a capi- and inconsistently, and for the reason that neither has talists’ defence party also. Again, both parties have the any real alternative or positive proposal to offer. We, same aim, the same working hypothesis, and the same on the other hand, have the same fundamental objections methods. The working hypothesis of both the Liberal to make to the whole caboodle of the meliorist reforms; and Labour Parties is economic reform by easy political and we make them both in detail and on a consistent stages, the goal being high wages and high profits, and principle. The test we apply to social reforms is the the method being parliamentary and electoral. In no simple test of their effect on the relative distribution of sense worth considering practically do either the inten- Profits and Wages. If, relatively to Wages, Profits tend tions or the methods of Mr. MacDonald differ from to be increased by it, the particular proposal is, we say, those of Mr. Lloyd George. It requires no stretch of fraudulent Social Reform. If, however, as a result of the imagination to change the position of these two the scheme, Wages can be shown to increase faster than leaders of Liberalism and Labour respectively and to Profits, the proposal is good Social Reform. But, un- foresee no practical result from the mutual cross-over. fortunately, in all the proposals we have examined (and Far from entertaining ideas incompatible with the they comprehend every plank in every political pro- objects of the Liberal Party, the Labour Party plays gramme we have seen), no social reform proposal of the merely the part of pioneers and whip of Liberalism It latter type exists that has the faintest chance of being urges the stragglers of Liberalism into the main body, adopted by any political party.