SOCIALIST VIEWS ON PARLIAMENT AND THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
The opinion of most Socialists with regard to the British Parliament
is well summed up in the phrase "Parliament a way to the Democracy?
Why, 'tis not a road at all, but only a barricade across our
road."[567] It will be seen in this and the following Chapter that
Socialism means either to capture and hold that barricade or to pull
it down.
Let us take note of some representative Socialist opinions on the
British Parliament. "The House of Commons is a machine elaborately
contrived by the exploiting classes to serve their own ends. In the
race for Parliamentary seats the wisest and the best are nowhere. They
are rarely even permitted to start. The prizes are for the richest,
the most unscrupulous, cunning, and pushing. And without a complete
revolution in our ideas regarding the objects as well as the methods
of legislation, it must always remain so."[568] "Parliament is
appointed, we are told, to fulfil the will of the nation. Then why
doesn't it do it? If it has a job to do, why does it stand day after
day, week after week, year after year, cackling, cackling, cackling
about it? Can the mind of man conceive anything more intensely
ridiculous than this spectacle solemnly presented for our admiration
by the champions of the system, of six hundred garrulous old gentlemen
making a set and formal business of cackling--cackling, cackling,
cackling, with infinite pride in their own preposterous squeaking and
nagging, and then filing out one by one at intervals, like a stately
Lord Mayor's procession in the kingdom of the black and white
penguins? What is to be done with such a museum?"[569] "Government by
Parliament is a preposterous pretence--a delusion and a snare to the
people. It is a gag imposed by the classes on the aspirations of the
masses. Our Parliamentary representation is a fraud. If we could
appeal directly to the whole people as to whether willing workers
should starve, or little children suffer hunger, then something might
be done. But how can the electors express their desires on this vital
matter under our present electoral system?"[570]
Socialists complain that Parliament is run by a class. "It is colossal
impudence for a party paper to talk against 'class representation.'
Every class is over-represented--except the great working class. The
mines, the railways, the drink trade, the land, finance, the army
(officers), the navy (officers), the Church, the law, and most of the
big industries (employers) are represented largely in the House of
Commons. And nearly thirty millions of the working classes are
represented by about a dozen men, most of whom are palsied by their
allegiance to the Liberal party."[571] "The rich man's club at St.
Stephen's is merely a committee of plutocrats--rentmongers,
interestmongers, and profitmongers--assembled for the purpose of
safeguarding the spoils which the 'classes' have theftuously contrived
to heap up."[572] "The inequality of representation of classes in
Parliament at present is somewhat startling. It stands as follows:
_House of Lords_
Capitalist members 614
Labour members 0
---
Total 614
_House of Commons_
Capitalist members 640
Labour members 30
---
Total 670
"That is, we have 640 members representing the interests of, say,
6,000,000 of persons, and 30 members representing the interests of
37,000,000."[573] "As recipients of rents, royalties, interests, and
dividends, some 600 of the representatives of the people in the House
of Commons are parasites upon the people's backs. The railway
shareholders have 78 representatives; the railway workers, nearly
400,000 strong, have one. One hundred and eighty thousand landed
proprietors have 155 members; 1,000,000 agricultural labourers have
one. Coal-mine owners have 21; and 655,000 miners have seven members.
The shipowners and builders have 22 representatives; the 200,000
sailors have none."[574]
"The social composition of the House of Commons is as follows: 124
lawyers, 108 manufacturers (including brewers, colliery-owners, &c.),
85 landowners, 64 merchants and shopkeepers, 37 army and navy men, 33
journalists and authors, 28 financiers, 23 professors, teachers, &c.,
18 Civil servants, 18 newspaper proprietors and publishers, 16 heirs
to the peerage, 67 of miscellaneous occupations and professions, and
50 working men. Thus the bulk of the present House of Commons consists
of rent, profit, and interest mongers and their hirelings and
hangers-on. The exploited masses of the people are only represented by
fifty men."[575]
See your masters, how unceasingly they strive to keep you down,
How they manage all your business up in Parliament and town;
Well, it is not quite your business, for it really is their own.
And that is why the millions of the toilers slave and groan.[576]
"On the top of all this political chicanery and impudent pretence of
popular representation, there sits an autocratic, irresponsible,
hereditary legislative body, consisting exclusively of idlers and
parasites who reserve to themselves the right of rejecting all laws
which do not clearly further their own exactions and monopolies! Then
ask yourselves: Of what use is Parliament? Of what use can it ever be
to the mass of the common people?"[577]
Parliament is not only useless to the worker, but is also, according
to the Socialists, utterly corrupt and callous to the sufferings of
the people. "Whenever an American is met abroad with the assertion
that government in the Republic is corrupt, he can safely say that for
one ounce of corruption in America there is a full pound avoirdupois
in Britain."[578] "It is extremely doubtful, indeed, whether either
slavery or the slave-trade would be abandoned in the British Empire if
they still existed to-day, and their abrogation and suppression
depended upon the English House of Commons. The hideous corruption in
that assembly and the utter indifference of the majority of its
plutocratic members and their retainers to the welfare of any people,
at home or abroad, where money is to be made by neglecting the
commonest rules of ethics, have never been so clearly manifested as
they are to-day."[579]
"The suffrage in Great Britain is very unsatisfactory, as the
following table shows:
Per cent. of the
population
having a vote.
France 27.9
Switzerland 23.5
Greece 23.0
Spain 22.4
Belgium 21.5
Germany 21.2
Bulgaria 21.2
Norway 19.9
Austria 19.9
Portugal 19.0
Great Britain 16.5
Denmark 16.4
Servia 16.0
Holland 16.0
As to England, she occupies a very low place in the scale. But then
the people here have not even got universal suffrage! And this is a
'democratic,' 'self-governing' community."[580]
Furthermore, "The time has come when members of Parliament will have
to receive payment for their services in the House of Commons, because
the people have realised that they cannot be adequately represented
only by men of wealth and position who are able to pay their own
expenses."[581]
The national Administration is quite as unsatisfactory to Socialists
as is the national Parliament. "To-day honesty wears rags, and
rascality and idleness wear robes. Every pint of beer, and every drop
of wine or spirits the workers drink, every pipe of tobacco or cigar
they smoke, every cup of tea, coffee, or cocoa they drink, every
patent medicine they purchase, every dog they keep, every pound of
sugar they use, even their playing cards and their insurance policies,
are taxed to help to pay big salaries and pensions to the younger sons
of the aristocracy, &c. The eldest sons live on the family estate; the
younger live on the State. One becomes a lawyer, and will lie for
anyone who will pay him well; another becomes an officer in the army
or navy, and he will cut the throat of anyone in return for a good
salary; another becomes a parson, and in return for a good stipend he
will pray for anyone; the others are quartered on the consular or the
diplomatic service, or are placed as clerks at _1,000l._ per year in
the Colonial, Foreign, or Home Office, &c."[582] The official
Parliamentary Report of the Independent Labour Party for 1907 states:
"Our short experience has been sufficient to teach us that it is as
important to democratise our administrative departments as it is to
democratise our Statute Book. We have found that the doors to the
higher offices in Whitehall are closed to everyone who has not had a
middle-class or aristocratic education, and recent changes have placed
our Civil service more completely in the hands of the wealthy
classes."[583]
In the foregoing statements we find some of the principal complaints
of the Socialists regarding the national Parliament and
Administration. Let us now take note of their wishes and proposals.
Among the "Immediate Reforms" demanded in the programme of the
Social-Democratic Federation we find the following regarding
Parliament and the Administration:
"Abolition of the Monarchy. Democratisation of the Government
machinery, viz. Abolition of the House of Lords, Payment of members
of legislative and administrative bodies, Payment of official expenses
of elections out of the public funds, Adult suffrage, Proportional
representation, Triennial parliaments, Second ballot, initiative and
referendum. Foreigners to be granted rights of citizenship after two
years' residence in the country, on the recommendation of four
British-born citizens, without any fees. Canvassing to be made
illegal. Legislation by the people in such wise that no legislative
proposal shall become law until ratified by the majority of the
people. Legislative and administrative independence for all parts of
the Empire."
As the above demands are somewhat vague, it is worth while to take
note of another and clearer statement of the political demands made by
the Social-Democratic Federation. "We of the Democratic Federation
demand complete adult suffrage for every man and woman in these
islands, because in this way alone can the whole people give free
expression to their will; we are in favour of paid delegates and
annual conventions, because by this means alone can the people control
their representatives; we stand up for the direct references of all
grave issues to the country at large and for the punishment as felony
of every species of corruption, because thus only can tyranny be
checked and bribery be uprooted; we call for the abolition of all
hereditary authority, because such authority is necessarily
independent of the mass of the people. But all these reforms, when
secured, mean only that the men and women of these islands will at
length be masters in their own house. Mere political machinery is
worthless unless used to produce good social conditions."[584]
A widely read Socialist writer formulates the Socialistic demands
regarding Parliamentary reform as follows: "(1) The suffrage should
not be given to a man's house or his lodgings, but to the man
himself. I believe in adult suffrage, male and female. (2)
Constituencies should be numerically equal, each having three members,
one retiring annually by rotation. (3) Cabinets should be chosen
annually by the members of the House of Commons, to whom alone they
should be responsible. (4) Payment of members and election expenses.
Members should receive reasonable 'wages' according to the ancient
practice of the Constitution, while all election expenses (not
strictly personal to the candidate) should be defrayed out of the
rates. (5) The Monarchy. If we are to have more kings or queens, their
cost ought not to exceed that of the President of the United States,
viz. _10,000l._ a year. 'The office of a king in this nation is
useless, burdensome, and dangerous, and ought to be abolished'
(Resolution of the Long Parliament, 1649). (6) The House of Lords. 'A
House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous and ought to be
abolished.'"[585]
The Fabian Society proclaims: "To complete the foundation of the
democratic State, we need manhood suffrage, abolition of all poverty
disqualifications, abolition of the House of Lords, public payment of
candidature expenses, public payment of representatives, and annual
elections."[586]
"The problem how the Lords are to be abolished is of easy solution.
They cannot present themselves at the Gilded Chamber without writs,
and these a democratic Ministry could and would peremptorily stop.
Should they come without writs, Inspector Denning could be instructed
to take charge of them. Or the House of Commons could simply revive
its resolution of January 6, 1649, decreeing their abolition."[587]
Many Socialists are opposed not only to the House of Lords but to all
second chambers. "When the hereditary House is abolished, the demand
which will be made by reactionaries for a representative second
chamber must be sternly resisted. True, most nations have second
chambers in imitation of our pernicious example; but there is not one
of them, however constituted, whose history is not a conclusive
argument against such institutions. The second chambers of Europe and
America are nothing more than standing monuments of the gregarious
folly of mankind. Nations can no more have two wills than individuals.
A second chamber at one with the first is superfluous, in opposition
it is noxious."[588]
A large number of Socialists do not think that the democratisation of
the House of Commons and the abolition of the House of Lords will
suffice. They fear that party politics and party intrigues may become
more pernicious in a Labour Parliament than they have proved to be in
a middle-class Parliament. They fear that adult suffrage may not
improve matters, and that impecunious professional politicians may
prove worse than the class of politicians who up till now have sat in
Parliament. "We stand in England at the parting of the ways. One leads
to the payment of members and the creation of a class of professional
political adventurers; the other leads to the referendum and
initiative."[589]
"In the Republics of France and the United States the electors are
virtually endowed with male adult suffrage, and Labour representation
is facilitated by State payment of members and of their election
expenses. Yet the French Chamber, with its Panama and Southern Railway
scandals, in which the patriots have gorged their servile lusts, has
stood for many years before the nations as a monument of infamy. The
United States Congress has not a single Labour representative within
its walls, and the Government of the country is become a vile synonym
for corruption."[590] "In America the compensation of each Senator and
each Representative is fixed at five thousand dollars, or one thousand
pounds per year. In addition to this the members have special fares on
the railways, and many other perquisites. Yet the American
'Encyclopedia of Social Reform,' edited by W.D.P. Bliss, says, on page
325, 'Congressmen, notoriously, do not represent the people, but
special interests and great moneyed corporations. The Congress is
almost the only great national legislative body owned wholly by the
well-to-do. In the British Parliament, even after the Conservative
victories of the last election, there are thirteen Labour men. In
Congress there is not one."[591] "Better the stupid British hereditary
gentleman than the cunning politician-for-a-living. Better a Cabinet
of Chamberlains and Gladstones than a circus of conflicting
unscrupulous demagogues on the make."
"The Parliamentary system tends, not to the summoning of thoughtful
patriots to their country's service, but to the exaltation and
glorification of plausible windbags."[592] "The panacea of Labour
representation will not remedy those defects. It is in the eternal
nature of things that in the electoral competition of rival
personalities the scum must rise to the top. So long as self-seeking
is rewarded by the highest honours self-seeking will flourish."[593]
"A Parliament of Labour members would develop just the same tendency
as any other to division into parties commanded by rival ambitions,
between which the democratic vote would, as always, annul
itself."[594] "If there were five hundred delegates of Labour, if the
whole of the Cardiff Trade Unions Congress could be suddenly
translated to Parliament and power, there might still be some envious,
spiteful braggarts subterraneously scheming and gnawing to undermine
and engulf a rival, though a people's cause were wrecked in the
catastrophe. Leaders are always dangerous. The workmen have too many
leaders. Their first political necessity is to get rid of the
politicians. Therefore I would like to see abolished all Legislative
Chambers, Senates, and Councils of State."[595]
Views identical with the foregoing are held by many Socialists, and
therefore a Socialist writer has asked: "Why cannot the people, even
of a populous and extensive country, vote upon all laws?"[596]
"Instead of representation we shall have what is technically called
the referendum, or submission of all proposed measures to the people,
who must signify their approval by vote before the measures can pass
into law. This has been practised already to some extent in
Switzerland, both in national and cantonal affairs. It was first
proposed by Robespierre when he advised the king of France to say: 'My
people, here are the laws I have made for you. Will you accept
them?'"[597]
Another Socialist says: "It is impossible that any delegate should
completely represent the desires of ten or twenty thousand electors. No
two human beings are agreed about everything; and, in every election,
electors, in order to express approval of one cherished principle, are
driven to adopt half-a-dozen others which they bitterly
disapprove."[598] "The way to true democracy will never be found through
delegacy. The only safe way is through direct legislation--through the
referendum and initiative. The referendum and initiative does not mean
more laws, but fewer, shorter, simpler, and more understandable
ones."[599] "What is wanted is neither aristocracy, plutocracy, nor
demagoguecracy, but democracy--the one governing system which never has
been tried. The people must learn that the game of politics is not an
unfathomable science, but a struggle of rival interests in which no
delegate can so well represent their needs as themselves."[600] "The
referendum quite changes the character of the Federal Assembly. It
ceases to be a Parliament, and becomes merely a drafting committee. In
other countries the initiative comes from above; the Parliament and the
King are together the legal sovereign. In Switzerland it comes from
below, for the legal sovereign is the electorate."[601]
Other Socialists are strongly opposed to the referendum: "Democracy,
as understood by the Fabian Society, means simply the control of the
Administration by freely elected representatives of the people. The
Fabian Society energetically repudiates all conceptions of democracy
as a system by which the technical work of Government administration,
and the appointment of public officials, shall be carried on by
referendum or any other form of direct popular decision. Such
arrangements may be practical in a village community, but not in the
complicated industrial civilisations which are ripening for
Social-Democracy."[602] "The people can only judge political measures
by their effect when they have come into operation; they cannot plan
measures themselves, or foresee what their effect will be, or give
precise instructions to their representatives; nor can any honest
representative tell, until he has heard a measure thoroughly discussed
by representatives of all other sections of the working class, what
form the measure should take so as to keep the interests of his
constituents in due subordination to those of the community. It is to
be considered, further, that intelligent reformers, especially
workmen who have grasped the principles of Socialism, are always in
the minority; they may address themselves with success to the
sympathies of the masses and gain their confidence; but the dry
details of the legislative and administrative steps by which they,
move towards their goal can never be made interesting or intelligible
to the ordinary voter. For these reasons the referendum, in theory the
most democratic of popular institutions, is in practice the most
reactionary."[603]
Other Socialists are in favour of a reformed Parliament which is to be
a glorified trade union congress. "Each industry would have adequate
representation in the Parliament of Industry, and this Parliament
would connect and harmonise the affairs of the whole. In the future
society the descendant of the union of to-day will be the centre of
social life and the administration of things. Let 'workers of all
trades unite.'"[604] Others, again, call for a Parliament of a frankly
revolutionary type which is characteristically called a "National
Convention." "What is the use of the suffrage? It has but one use--to
enable the workers, as a class, to take peaceful possession of the
power of the State, so as to use that power for social purposes. But
to do this you must have paid delegates from your own class, not
timeserving unpaid representatives from the classes which rob you; you
must put your servants, not your masters, at Westminster; you must
have a National Convention of the People, not a House of the
Confiscating Classes."[605] Readers will no doubt remember the French
National Convention and its reign of terror and crime which culminated
in the execution of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.
Many Socialists, like most Anarchists, are utterly opposed to
Parliamentary government and majority rule, preferring rule by
violence to rule by argument. "What has hitherto been called the will
of the people, or the will of the majority as manifested in the modern
constitutional State, does not express any act of will at all, but the
absence of will. It is not the will but the apathy of the majority
that is represented."[606] "The preaching of the _cultus_ of the
majority in the modern State is an absurdity which can only for a
moment go down with the Parliamentary Radical who is wallowing in the
superstitions of exploded Whiggery."[607] "The Socialist has a
distinct aim in view. If he can carry the initial stages towards its
realisation by means of the count-of-heads majority, by all means let
him do so. If, on the other hand, he sees the possibility of carrying
a salient portion of his programme by trampling on this majority, by
all means let him do this also."[608]
The Women's Suffrage problem has lately come to the front, and it is
characteristic and noteworthy that it has been taken up with the
greatest energy, we might almost say with hysterical energy, by
Socialist women. They tell us, "We desire the stain removed from our
womanhood. Remove the hateful stigma from your mothers, your wives,
and your daughters, which places the noblest and the best of them in a
lower position than the most uncultured and immoral specimen of the
male sex who pays his rates and taxes."[609] According to a woman
Socialist, the Votes-for-Women problem is "the greatest moral and
spiritual problem that has torn asunder the souls of men since the
fall of Adam and the coming of Christ."[610] "Society has no brighter
hope, humanity no larger promise than her coming, radiant with health
and happiness, love and liberty shining from her eyes, the beautiful,
high-souled, sister-mother of the men that are going to be."[611] "The
State cannot spare from its high councils the deep wisdom of its
mothers and the comradeship of its wives."[612]
It is obvious why Socialist women demand the vote with almost frenzied
fervour, and why the various Socialist societies and parties support
their agitation. Socialists believe that their wives, and the women
workers in general, will vote for Socialism, and that most other women
will be indifferent and abstain from voting. Therefore we learn:
"Socialism in the only true sense of that term, in the only wise
conception of that state, can never be brought into the fulness of its
being until women have been made equal with men as citizens."[613]
"The benches of the National Chamber may yet be seen accommodating
three hundred and thirty-five intelligent women."[614] In referring to
the elections in Finland, Mrs. Snowden writes: "To Socialists, an
interesting point is the fact that, in spite of the women voters, who
are supposed to be retrograde in politics, by far the largest number
of party votes recorded were for the Socialist party."[615]
The claims of women for the franchise have been supported by large
majorities at important meetings of Socialists. The resolution of the
Independent Labour Party, "That this Conference declares in favour of
adult suffrage and the political equality of the sexes, and considers
that the right of suffrage should immediately be extended to women on
the same conditions as men," was carried by 236 votes to 24.[616] The
Social-Democratic Federation resolved: "That this Conference declares
that the time has arrived when equal rights of citizenship be extended
to all women and men of full age; urges all members to take advantage
of the present suffrage agitation to focus public opinion upon the
only logical solution of the question, viz. the abolition of existing
franchise qualifications and the establishment of universal adult
suffrage; and calls upon them actively to work for this practical
measure of reform." This resolution was carried by 42 votes to 9.[617]
The recent clamour of "Votes for Women" emanated not so much from
philosophic Radicals who had read John Stuart Mill as from Socialists,
and many non-Socialist women have become their dupes. Socialist women
hope that they will have the voting all to themselves. Therefore they,
and most men Socialists also, would very likely resist to the utmost
all proposals which would make voting compulsory for _all_ women.
FOOTNOTES:
[567] Thompson, _Hail Referendum_, p. 3.
[568] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 99.
[569] Thompson, _Hail Referendum_, pp. 4, 5.
[570] Thompson, _The Referendum and Initiative in Practice_, p. 4.
[571] Blatchford, _Britain for the British_, p. 152.
[572] Davidson, _The Gospel of the Poor_, p. 59.
[573] Washington, _Whose Dog art Thou?_ p. 14.
[574] Thompson, _The Only Way to Democracy_, p. 8.
[575] _The Socialist Annual_, 1907, p. 43.
[576] Neil, _Songs of the Social Revolution_, p. 21.
[577] Thompson, _Hail Referendum_, p. 7.
[578] Davidson, _The New Book of Kings_, p. 118.
[579] Hyndman, _Colonies and Dependencies_, p. 9.
[580] _The Socialist Annual_, 1907, p. 58.
[581] _The Reformers' Year Book_, 1907, p. 121.
[582] Councillor Glyde, _Britain's Disgrace_, p. 30.
[583] _Report Annual Conference of Independent Labour Party_, 1907, p.
52.
[584] _Socialism Made Plain_, p. 7.
[585] Davidson, _A Democrat's Address_, p. 4.
[586] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 187.
[587] Davidson, _The Book of Lords_, p. 78.
[588] Davidson, _The House of Lords, Useless, Dangerous, &c._, p. 13.
[589] Thompson, _The Only Way to Democracy_, p. 11.
[590] Thompson, _Hail Referendum_, p. 8.
[591] Thompson, _The Only Way to Democracy_, p. 10.
[592] Thompson, _The Referendum, &c._, p. 3.
[593] _Ibid._ p. 1.
[594] _Ibid._ p. 16.
[595] Thompson, _Hail Referendum_, pp. 8, 9.
[596] Gronlund, _Co-operative Commonwealth_, p. 130.
[597] _Ibid._ p. 129.
[598] Thompson, _The Only Way to Democracy_, p. 4.
[599] _Ibid._ p. 15.
[600] Thompson, _The Referendum, &c._, p. 5.
[601] _Ibid._ p. 11.
[602] _Report on Fabian Policy_, p. 5
[603] _Report on Fabian Policy_, p. 13.
[604] Kessack, _The Capitalist Wilderness and the Way Out_, p. 3.
[605] _What Use is a Vote?_ p. 1.
[606] Bax, _The Ethics of Socialism_, p. 120.
[607] _Ibid._ p. 128.
[608] _Ibid._ pp. 127, 128.
[609] Ethel Snowden, _The Woman Socialist_, p. 20.
[610] _Ibid._ p. 19.
[611] Ethel Snowden, _The Woman Socialist_, Introd.
[612] _Ibid._ p. 93.
[613] _Ibid._ p. 97.
[614] _Ibid._ p. 92.
[615] _Ibid._ p. 98.
[616] _Independent Labour Party Report, Annual Conference_, 1907, p.
45.
[617] _Report of 27th Annual Conference, 1907, Social-Democratic
Federation_, p. 26.