will therefore pass it by here with the remark that an invincible navy
is absolutely essential to the welfare of the workers of this country,
whose food comes almost entirely from overseas, and that the navy has
never been like the Army a menace to popular liberties. It is generally
thought that our navy is in a much more efficient state than our army
is known to be in; but a thorough overhauling would do it no harm
and might expose weaknesses which we do not suspect. At any rate any
attempt to weaken our naval predominance should be resolutely opposed
by all Socialists as by all sensible men.
Of course an effective army and navy will cost money. But the Socialist
will be by no means so frightened of high estimates as the old Radical
who regarded all taxation as being of the nature of a compromise with
Satan. The Socialist knows that at least £600,000,000 a year goes at
present into the pockets of landlords and capitalists and shareholders
generally, and, until this is absorbed, the cry of “ruinous
expenditure” cannot be expected to appall him.
THE FETISH OF FREE TRADE.
Let it not be supposed that I propose to argue the eternal Fiscal
Question here. For the last twelve-month and more we have had quite
enough flinging backward and forward of childish platitudes, scraps
of obsolete economics, and masses of irrelevant and ill-digested
figures by both parties to the controversy. You are quite safe from
figure-shuffling as far as I am concerned, and you are equally safe
from bodiless _a priori_ economics. For me, indeed, the question is
not one that can ever be decided on general principles. To ask whether
nations ought to adopt Protection is exactly like asking whether men
ought to wear over-coats. Obviously in both instances the answer
depends on a number of attendant facts not stated--on the weather,
the constitution of the men, and the thickness of the coats in the one
case, on the character of the people, the distribution of their wealth,
the state of their commerce, and the character of the proposed tariff
in the other. Tell me that you wish in certain specified circumstances
to impose protective duties on certain specified imports, and I am
willing to examine the evidence and express an opinion. But so long
as you put the issue as one of abstract principle, I must ask to be
excused from indulging in what seems to me an utterly barren and
profitless exercise in immaterial logic.
Of course, as I have already insisted, there is a sense in which every
Socialist is of necessity a Protectionist and Preferentialist. As Mr.
Bernard Shaw once expressed it, (I quote from memory) he believes
that the highest wisdom of governments is to know “what to protect
and what to prefer.” For him the Utopia of “economic harmonies” is a
foolish and mischievous dream. He knows that the commercial instinct
unless subjected to energetic and unsparing state supervision, is
certain to become a cause of ruinous social disorder. His whole mind
will be set to the task of regulating it, directing it, curbing its
excesses, and protecting the public interest against it. In a word the
advanced social reformer of the new school is necessarily an emphatic
Protectionist, only differing from Mr. Chamberlain and his supporters
in that he gives to the word “Protection” a wider scope and a fuller
meaning than they.
Now it inevitably follows that there is not and cannot be any kind of
objection from his point of view to a protective tariff on grounds
of principle. The theoretic objection which used to be urged against
such a tariff was founded on the assumption that Adam Smith, Bastiat
and others had demonstrated the futility and peril of all legislative
interference with commerce. Cobden put the whole case as he and his
party saw it in one phrase of one of his ablest speeches, when he
declared that you could not by legislation add anything to the wealth
of a nation. That is a doctrine which no one (save perhaps Mr. Auberon
Herbert) now holds; which no one who approves for instance of any kind
of factory legislation can possibly hold. And that doctrine once fairly
out of the way, the question becomes simply one of expediency and the
balance of utilities.
But, when we come to the balancing, another point of divergence
instantly arises. The Socialists’ conception of utilities differs in
essence from that of Free Traders and Protectionists alike. For Mr.
Chamberlain, for Mr. Morley, for the Tariff Reform League and for the
Cobden Club, the aim of commercial statesmanship is simply and solely
to increase the aggregate commercial wealth of the country. But this is
by no means what the Socialist is mainly concerned about. His object
is not so much to increase the sum total of such wealth as to secure
its better distribution and more socially profitable use. He sees that
the economic struggle between nations is by comparison a matter of
surface fluctuations, while the economic struggle between classes is an
enduring and essential feature of our social system. And whether or no
he likes the old Marxian phrase “Class War,” he is bound to recognise
the existence of a class antagonism cutting right across society as a
fact without the understanding of which the structure of capitalist
civilisation is unintelligible.
This implies that the Socialist, whether he be a “Free Trader” or
no, has to dismiss as untenable practically the whole of the old
economic case for Free Trade. Adam Smith did doubtless prove that
under a system of absolutely free exchange, every country would tend
to engage in those trades which were (for the moment at any rate)
most commercially profitable to it; but he never proved or attempted
to prove that these would be the trades which were most socially
beneficent. It might, for example, happen that the White Lead trade
proved the most commercially advantageous industry in which Englishmen
could engage. But would any modern reformer say that in that case it
would be well for us to abandon all our other industries and take to
the manufacture of white lead--with all its inevitable concomitants.
It may be urged that such a case is not likely to occur. But cases
differing from it only in degree may very well occur--have indeed
occurred already. Such a case is the decline of our agriculture and
the consequent flooding of the towns with cheap unskilled labour;
such also is the tendency already more than faintly visible for
small trades, largely unskilled and often sweated, to supplant our
staple industries. And these things, though they are the inevitable
consequence of unrestricted competition and though Cobden would have
regarded them with complete equanimity, are the very things against
which social reformers have for years been fighting a long and
apparently a hopeless battle. No Socialist can give them a moment’s
toleration. Whether Socialists will think Mr. Chamberlain’s remedy
adequate is another thing. For Mr. Chamberlain’s point of view--a
purely commercial one--is at bottom identical with that of his
Cobdenite opponents.
And it is just this that makes mere statistics of trade and comparisons
between imports and exports so barren and misleading. What we want to
know is not how much tribute the capitalist gets out of our foreign
trade, but what wages the labourer gets, what are the conditions under
which he works, and what is the amount of employment available. Thus
for instance foreign investments pay the capitalist as well as British
investments and are accordingly highly esteemed by the Cobdenites as
“invisible exports.” But they are not equally satisfactory to the
workman who loses his job and drifts into the ranks of the unemployed.
From this point of view Protection if it kept capital in the country
and even attracted foreign capital might be eminently beneficial to
the workers, even though the aggregate of national wealth were thereby
diminished.
Now we have reached two conclusions. Firstly that Socialists will
approach the tariff question with an open mind; secondly that they will
approach it mainly from the standpoint of its effect upon the social
condition of the people and upon the distribution of wealth.
That, I say, is what one would naturally expect Socialists to do.
What the English Socialists and the leaders of organised labour in
this country have actually done is to fling their Socialism and their
“class-consciousness” to the winds, to stampede once more into the
Liberal camp (as they did before over South African affairs), to sing
pious hymns in honour of the memories of Bright and Cobden, oblivious
of the former’s opposition to factory legislation and the latter’s
freely expressed detestation of trade unionism, to trot out for the
confusion of Mr. Chamberlain the very doctrines which Socialist
economists have spent the last fifty years in riddling with destructive
criticism, and generally to devote their energies to the hopeless task
of strengthening the ruined fortifications which protect Liberalism
from the attacks of the time-spirit.
When the Fiscal Question first began to agitate the minds of Englishmen
the new-born Labour Party was in an unusually strong position. It was
as yet uncommitted on the subject, and both sides would willingly
have paid a high price for its support. Nothing strikes one more in
Mr. Chamberlain’s early speeches than his evident anxiety to gain at
all costs the sympathy of Labour. And the Liberals were at that time
equally anxious. Had the leaders of British Trade Unionism followed the
excellent example set them by Mr. Redmond and the Irish Nationalists,
had they held their hands and said frankly to both combatants “What
social reforms will you give us as the price of our support?”--what
unprecedented pressure might they not have been able to exert! To Mr.
Chamberlain they might quite fairly have said “You say that ‘all is not
well with British Trade’: we agree with you, we have been saying so
for years. But before we accept your proposed remedies we want reliable
guarantees that the working classes shall not be the sufferers. Tack
on to your programme a maximum price for bread (or some system of
municipal bakeries which would achieve the same object) and a minimum
wage for labour, and we will consider them.” To the Liberals again
they could have said “You tell us that Mr. Chamberlain’s policy will
not remedy the evils to which he rightly draws attention; granted,
but what is your remedy? If we help you to resist these proposals
what drastic measures are you ready to propose for dealing with the
unemployed and kindred problems?” Had they taken this line, they might
have achieved much. But, having the game in their hands, the labour
leaders deliberately threw all their cards away. Directly the question
of fiscal reform was mooted, without waiting for any pledge from
either party, they began to violently espouse one side and violently
denounce the other. By this they fruitlessly abandoned their excellent
strategic position. Mr. Chamberlain, seeing that he had nothing to hope
from them, treated them as enemies and organised the Tariff Reform
movement frankly as a purely capitalist affair, leaving Labour out of
account in the formation of his celebrated Commission as completely as
Cobden himself left it out of account in the formation of the Anti-Corn
Law League. The Liberals on the other hand are not so foolish as to
give pledges to those who do not ask for them, so that the opposition
to Mr. Chamberlain is as completely capitalist-ridden as is his own
propaganda. Thus, instead of standing to win either way, Labour now
stands to lose either way. Should Mr. Chamberlain succeed, as he very
well may, if not at this election at the one after it, his tariff will
be framed by powerful organisations representing capital and finance,
who will naturally follow their own pecuniary interests. Should the
Opposition triumph they will come into power quite unpledged, save
to Lord Rosebery’s programme of “commercial repose” which is the
newest name for our old friend “laissez faire.” And we shall be unable
to make use of the stir made by Mr. Chamberlain’s agitation, as we
might well have done had we acted wisely, in order to get measures
which we really do want and which are in some sense of the nature
of counter-remedies--the nationalisation of railways, an imperial
shipping fleet with preferential rates, and the re-organisation of our
agriculture by state aid and state supervision.
But there are reasons other than tactical ones why Labour should have
refused to adopt the Liberal attitude of non-possumus in regard to
fiscal reform. Whether or no Mr. Chamberlain’s tariff scheme would
have been favourable to the interests of labour,[6] there are a great
many proposals which are clearly and unmistakeably in its interests
which are yet in their nature protectionist even in the narrow sense in
which that word is ordinarily used.
It is characteristic of the Liberal party that even when it has dropped
accidentally across a right conclusion it invariably seizes with great
eagerness upon the wrong reasons for supporting it. The most striking
example of this is to be found in the case of Chinese Labour. For
myself, I detest Chinese Labour, and am prepared to go, I fancy, a
good deal further than the Liberal front bench in fighting it. But
then I am a Protectionist; and I believe that a plentiful supply of
cheap labour is the worst curse with which a nation can be visited.
The Liberals and their Labour henchmen, precluded by reason of their
Free Trade orthodoxies from taking up this sane and tenable position,
have to devote their energies to denouncing the “slavery” involved in
the conditions of the Ordinance. Now no Socialist can be expected to
get very excited on this point. He hates slavery, but he recognises
that in one form or another it is an inherent part of the capitalist
system, and the difference between telling a man that he must work
for his master or be imprisoned and telling him that he must work for
his master or be starved, can hardly seem to him important enough to
make all this fuss about. Moreover “forced labour” is implicit in the
Socialist ideal, though most of us would prefer to begin by applying
it to the Rand shareholders. As a matter of fact the conditions of
the Ordinance are a mitigation of the evils resulting from Chinese
Labour, not an aggravation of them. They serve to circumscribe to some
extent the limits of the damage which the imported Chinaman can do. My
objection to them is that I do not for one moment believe that they
can be made effective. But the danger of denouncing the conditions
of importation instead of denouncing the importation itself, is that
one of these days our Hebrew masters will say to us:--“Very well. You
object to conditions; you shall have none. We will import Chinamen
freely and without restriction, and they shall supplant white men,
not in the mines only, but in every industry throughout South Africa.
We shall reap still larger dividends, and the danger of a white
proletariat will be still more remote. Now we hope you are satisfied.”
What will our Free Trade Labourites say then?
A less serious but more amusing example of the shifts to which trade
union leaders are sometimes reduced in their efforts to reconcile the
obvious interests of the workers with their holy and sacred “Free Trade
Principles” was afforded by an episode which took place at the Leeds
Trade Union Congress last year. It appears that in certain mines in
these islands the capitalists have taken to employing foreign unskilled
labour. Their motives are doubtless the same as those of the Rand
magnates, namely to bring down the price of labour all round by the
competition of indigent Poles and Italians with the fairly well-paid
workers of this country. It was a very natural thing for capitalists
to do; it was an equally natural thing for workmen to resist. They are
resisting and a resolution was proposed at the Congress condemning the
employment of foreign unskilled labour in the mines. So far so good;
but now comes the comedy of the situation. To exclude the foreigner
as a foreigner is clearly protection of the most bare-faced kind; and
the proposal had to be recommended to a body which had just declared
in favour of unmitigated Free Trade. Then some genius had an almost
miraculous inspiration. It was suggested that the foreigner ought
to be excluded, not because he was a foreigner, not even because
his labour was cheap, but because he could not read the Home Office
regulations which are hung up in the mines. The plea was eagerly
clutched at, and seems to have been received with all solemnity.
The correspondent of the _Daily News_ who had at first regarded the
resolution with natural suspicion felt all his scruples vanish, and
actually hailed the declaration as proof of the unflinching Cobdenism
of the workers. Now what I want to know is--does anyone, does the
_Daily News_ correspondent himself really believe in the sincerity of
this ridiculous excuse? Would the British miners have been satisfied
if the regulations were printed in Polish or Italian? Or, supposing
this to be impossible, would they be satisfied if the immigrants learnt
enough English to read them? Of course they would not. The objection
to foreign unskilled labour is a purely protectionist objection, as
inconsistent with Free Trade as anything proposed by Mr. Chamberlain. I
may add that it has my entire sympathy.
Very soon, much sooner I think than they suppose, the leaders of
organised labour will be forced by the sheer pressure of events to
throw “free trade principles” over-board and find another foundation
for their economic faith. For buying in the cheapest market clearly
implies buying labour in the cheapest market; and the capitalists will
not be slow to grasp its consequences at a time when the expansion
of European civilisation is every day throwing new drafts of cheap
labour on the market. Less developed races with a lower standard of
life are exceedingly useful weapons to the hand of the capitalist
eager to force down wages. Already the appearance of the Chinaman in
South Africa is parallelled on the other side of the Atlantic by the
employment of negro blacklegs to defeat the Colorado strikers. What
has happened in Africa and America may happen--is indeed beginning to
happen here. Are the labour leaders prepared to go on defending Free
Trade, if Free Trade should prove to mean the free importation of great
masses of cheap blackleg labour from Poland, Italy and China? And, if
they so far abandon Free Trade as to shut out such labour, what about
the goods which it produces? Suppose the capitalist, forbidden to bring
the Chinaman here, take to exploiting him in his own country, relying
on our policy of free imports to secure the admission of his sweated
goods. Will not the champions of labour begin to regard the question of
free imports in a different light? The slope is steep and slippery and
the end is--Protection!
Yes the Labour party will have in the end to become protectionist.
Already progressive municipalities do not buy in the cheapest market
but in the best market, regard being had to the remote social
consequences of the purchase. And since the home market is the only
one where they can exercise any real or effective supervision over the
conditions of production, we have the curious spectacle of local bodies
with a big Liberal majority forced into what is in effect a policy of
Protection by the protests of unimpeachable Free Trade Labourites such
as Mr. Steadman. Of course the new Protectionism will not be that of
Lord George Bentinck or even of Mr. Chamberlain. It will “protect”
not the landlord or the capitalist but the labourer and if to this end
import duties are found useful it will make no more fuss about imposing
them than any other necessary piece of state intervention.
TOWARDS ANARCHISM.
There is an entertaining story told (I know not with exactly how much
accuracy) of a well-known Liberal trade unionist, who has recently
become a Member of Parliament. He is a typical labour leader of the
last generation, a Liberal in politics, a Nonconformist in religion,
a deacon (I understand) of his native chapel, a veritable pillar of
proletarian respectability, and an unflinching opponent of Socialism in
every shape and form. Once it was his duty to attend an international
congress of the representatives of his trade, where he found, I should
suppose, the revolutionary trade unionism of the Continent little to
his taste. However, that may have been, a resolution was proposed at
the congress in question demanding a statutary eight hours day. This
reputable and independent Briton rose to oppose it, and in so doing
made a characteristic Liberal speech, recommending the workmen to
rely on themselves, not to appeal to governments, to win what they
desired by their own efforts, and so on. Somewhat to his own surprise,
the speech on being translated was greeted with no inconsiderable
applause--applause which at the conclusion of his fine peroration
became thunderous, and was mingled with enthusiastic shouts of “Vive
J---- et l’Anarchie!” He had unfortunately succeeded in conveying the
impression that by such phrases as “rely upon your own efforts” he
meant to indicate the throwing of bombs!
This story gains considerably in point by the events of the last two
years. For, during that period, the kinship (always innate) between
Liberalism and Anarchism has been made apparent to the whole world in a
most startling manner; and we have seen the Nonconformist section of
the Liberal party, a section which above all others has always claimed
an almost hypochondriac tenderness of conscience, trying to affect the
repeal of a measure to which it takes exception, by means of a campaign
which involves nothing less than a cynical repudiation of the duties of
citizenship and an anarchic war against human society.
Anyone who possesses a temperament sardonic enough to enable him
to take pleasure in tracing the moral _débacle_ of what was once a
great party can hardly amuse himself better than by following the
history of the campaign against the Education Acts both before and
after they became law. No one burdened with much moral or social
enthusiasm will be able to do so with sufficient calm, for I venture
to assert that a more disgraceful debauch of cant, hypocrisy, flagrant
misrepresentation amounting sometimes to flat lying, sectarian venom,
the prostitution of religious excitement to base ends, all exploited
with an utterly shameless disregard of the public interest, cannot be
found in the records of English politics for the last century or more.