Pioneer

The ECONOMIC BASIS OF EVIL Mr. Brailsford's Lesson in Social Science. I The Economic Slavery of a League of Nations. I .Few industrial centres in these iftlee can give best to the Merthyr and Aberdare Vallies in their appreciation of the work that Mr. H. N. Brailsford has done for democratic advance- ment through the medium of the press. His permament contributions to the literature of the movelllent have, we opine, found their way into more workmen's cottages pro rata. than even he might imagine; whilst he has lifted himself easily into the front rank of our journalist-pub- liciets by his pertinent oontrloutions to the problems of the moment and the movement in the columns of the Herald," and the pamph- lets of the U.D.C. It is not surprising, there- fore, that despite the sleet-driven nature of Sunday the attendance at the Rink, on the oc- oamon of Mr. Brailsford's visit, was most satis- factory, from the standpoint of mere numbers. Even more so was the spirit in which the audi- ence so attentively followed the indictment of -Capitalistic expansion as worked out by the author of The War of Steel and Gold." Bert "Brobyn was in the chair, and he made a strong I appeal to all unattached persons in the audience to ally themselves with the I.L.P. in their locality. .PAROCHIAL MORALITY. I I Mr. Braiisiord opened by remanding us 01 we Gretna Green rail disaster during the early days of 1915, and reminding us of the horror and -concern which was aroused in the country by Lhat unfortunate occurrence; and horror and oonoern far different from that awakens! on the ■Continent at that moment. When we were ..dealing with a woman whose tears we could see, or a man whose anguish was expressed in words or cries, our. sympathy went forth at once, but when we had before us the dim. unrealised millions of a continent then our sympathy moved very languidly. That fact seemed to bo at the basis of much tha.t was strange and difficult in our international "dat.ionsbips. Those relation- ships had taken on a world-wide sweep dpnng the past half-century, and the consequence was that those relationships were getting beyond the range of that instinctive sympathy which only seemed to behave naturally and humanely when it was dealing with people at our own doors. Our civilisation through the last half-century had gone on with a. physical extension, it had swept over the earth, but along with that physi- cal development had not gone a cor respond mg development of mind and morals. Civilisation had put on the seven-league boots, but with that Democracy had not acquired the seven-league mind which would have enabled it to control this enormous process. We could not go back. That extension had come for good or for evil. It had come without our volition, without even our unde<r>tanding where is was carrying us. He was going to try to survey some of the forces that had h-d ûO this develop- ment of this so-called civilisation—this Imperial policy. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION. "I x'he rorw uiu. hi.Ù, \J. llot the will or the masses or the directing mind of a Demo- cracy. The forces that made it were tJie econo- mic pressure 01 the Capitalist System. It seemed to him that tho roots of our modern Imperialism, and ultimately of militarism, lay in our own factories and coal vallies. and iron worlds. The Capitalist System was grinding out all the while its surplus values, its vast ao cumulations of fresh capital. Capital added end- lessly to itself, and the relation of this aspect of Capitalism to Imperialism was simply that because Capital had paid less ivages than was che workers' due as beings, it had been able to -add to its own stores, to accumulate that which •ould not be absorbed within the shores of its national grouping, and which, therefore, com- pelled a search for means to employ it. There was such a tiling as unemployed Capital, just ,;us there was unemployed labour, and such ,(-aixtal looked about for a m-irket in which it -oild employ itself to- its tlwn advantage. If the Capitalists had dealt fairly with t.he worke.1. if they had raised wages as their con- -erns thrived, there would ha.ve been in the home markets a demand for the products of home industry, for the more the employer paid, -t.ho more the woi- k t?.r hz n orv?, the oiyipl o?vt-.z- pai d the more the worker had to spend. Because there was not at home a free and prosperous Democracy, unemployed Gapatal had to travel to the distant -orners of the earth and there see k the possibility of employment. THE ALTERED OUTLOOK. I During the last quarter of a. century there had become ajiparent a new industrial pheno- menon. Accumulated capital began to bestir itself in the search for concessions. It ocgan not only to send out goods for sale, but to ex- port itself; it began to look for opportunities not merely to sell things, but to anchor itself -an the soil of the out-lands, a.nd of tlib decaying •rtlpires of earth. Oonsumable goods did not. ■engender that k«n interest in the country to which they were exported, as did Capital which was anchored down in the ph&pe of mirit-,6 or a railroad, for in the latter event The Capital was ind-issolubly bound up with the interests ol' the country in which it was invested. So we found that the Capitalist called on his own country to guara.nt<v him tlie extension of his enterprise, to assure to him his profits; to protect him in dealing with native governments. Diplomacy was thus tailed in as the pioneer for ■exported capital, as its protector and as its shield in the background. The Ambassador hn- camfl the advance agent of finance, but he was an advance agent who did his business with aU L-- -natj()n !-A, h iii(i )i i in. the armed power of his nation Jx'hind him. ÐVPTywhern the shadow of armed power was he- hind this financial dealing. That was. bad for the little nationality or decaying empire that, -was being financed; but it, had another and oven more disastrous aspect. It meant that the rivalry behind the different national groups was no longer the rivalry of financiers, but, was the rivalry of governments with their armed forces behind them. And as soon as we had reached that stage the whole relationships of states and ■empires was degraded at the touch of Capital- istic Imperialism. It came to this, that when we talked of the Balance- of Power we meant that the nation holding that balance was in a. favour- able j>osition to deal with the rivals of its na- tional financiers in this enormous process of I(ImpiWi.st expansion overseas. That was hound to break down somewhere, sometime, and for three years we had been in the awful struggle to re-adjust the balance of power by the appeal to the sword. THE BALANCE OF POWER. I What did the Balance of Power mean? It 1 mieaut that even a. victorious ooaiclusion to one side in this war might result in not transferring a single yard of territory, but in "deciding that that side should have the advantage of dealing with the minor half-civilised states and dying Empires in which Capital sought its opportuni- ties. The Balance of Power meant the oppor- tunity of controlling concessions and controlling the raw materials for industry, and securing the expansion of new finances. As illustrating the truth of his analysis Mr. Brailsford traced. the history of the Frar.co-German difficulties over Morocco from 1904 to 1911, in which tho real struggle under the political issue was the fight of the different groups of national financiers to control the untapped wealth of iron ore in the Atlas mountains; and in which we were em- broiled by our determined opposition to the ex- pansion of German finance in the Bagdad rail- way. THE SIX ECONOMIC UNIONS. Other instances were also cited to clinch the argument, which he further claimed be need not have been at such pains to illustrate, since it was set forth in the resolutions of the Paris Economic Conference—at which we declared in effect that the Allies should declare economic war on their enemies at the termination of hos- tilities on the field, by the discrimination against Germany, and, in a lesser degree against neu- trals, and the preferential treatment of Allies in the sale of the raw materials of which the Allies possessed a virtual monopoly. This had somewhat of a parallel in the memorandum which the Six Economic Unions of Ge-nnanv laid before the Chancellor in the early days of the war. In that document the Six Economic Unions—syndicates of employers mostly in the metal trades—it was brutally laid down that the war aims of Germany should be the coalfields of Belgium and the ironfields of Northern Fram e, these, of course, to pass into the pos- session of German financiers, the present holders to be paid out with money extracted as an in- demnity. IA SINIST-ER PROSPECT. How did all this look from the- point of view 01 the workers?, asked Mr. Brailsford. It had several aspects. First of all there was the aspect of this Imperial process as it concerned the workers of the countries exploited—Turkey, China, and so on. For they also were our bro- thers, bound to the wheel, victims of the same Capitalist, machine, with this difference, there were no Factory Acts east of Suez. (Shame.) 1 At home, and abroad this Capitalist System was orutal and anti-social; having exploited us on the ewnomic field it got to work on the aT"Tua-1 ments of the world. and worked out its schemes in the blood of our sons. (Cheers.) If those Paris resolutions were to be insisted upon, then the war was going on, for they would mean debt, bankruptcy and ruin for the German workers who were, divorced from the raw ma- terials of their trades. The (Jerman worker being a manly fellow, with deplorable faults we would admit. Imt with the characteristic primi- tive courage of the Western races, and he would say that the next war was going to be a war for his Right to Work." If that, policy was car- ried out it would mean that in the next war Germany would have a motive that would seem just, not only to her financiers, but to every worklllàn in tli-L, We had talked for Year in Britain about the Right to Work, but kn. us also remember that a nation, too, had the Right to Work. (1a,pitaüt expansion had made a slum at one end of the scal e and a Dreadnought at tho other, and it built the Dreadnought because it had first built the slum. (Cheers.) There lay the past behind ii-, and it had led us into the awful clash of this war. Sometimes he felt that, the evil was going to euro iteelf by its very excesses. He thought that some compromise, some arrangement, would be come to, and the Paris Economic Conference re- solutions allowed to go. He thought that we might get a settlement in some ways more sin- ister than that. We would get instead of that rivalry between national groups of financiers, a deal between them, and the result would be an arrangement to exploit the rest of the world without the troublesome interruption of war. That had its good side, since we would be able to count on the reassurance of peace in the fu- ture. It was bad because it meant a world- wide power of Capital. Hitherto Oipitul had been mobilised in national groups, but he saw in tlie future a League of Nations which might be at firat a League of Ruling Classes, a League of Capitalist Governments, and under that in peace as in war we might bo sure that the ma- chine would have its Capitalist System. The economic motive would go on so long as the division into Worker and Capitalist in Society. We of tae workers' movement must in the future be alert where we were supine, organised where we were disorganised, awake where we were as leep. (Cheers.) We had to realise the enormous powers and forces against us. We must realise the fact that Capital in its foreign policy, and expansion was mow intelligent than we wi,n,. with it that policy waa not a matter of abstract speculation, but of direct, financial interest. We hrd to realise that our Democratic power had been wasted, and was directed largely through ignoraaico of t.he enor- mous world-wide process going on around us. War it-self was a disease- ignorance—the ignor- ance of the voters, t;he workers of the country. (Cheers.) We were to-day rationed in butter, in sugar and in truth, and the only way to get at the truth for ourselves was to turn our La- bour Party to the task of criticising and track- ing down this Imperial process at. the. mercy of which we lived to-day, and at the mercy of which our children and grandchildren would con- tinue to exist if we ourselves did not face the t^i,sic of ending it. At the moment we coukl do little, but when the moment once more arrived for negotiations we must be strong enough to seiw it, a.nd a.t the settlement our forces should joe knit, united and organised to demand a set- tlement of this war by Democratic methods—by open Democracy and not by the devious and secret ways of the older statecraft. (Cheers.) He looked upon this problem as the most vital and the largest that, the working-class had to solve, and we must see to it that we were not diverted from its settlement by the questions of purely domestic reconstruction and reform. (Cheers.) If we oould not, face and master this secret diplomacy and this economic exploitation we were liable to have our family life inter- rupted by the call to arms and conscription. THE ONLY WAY. I i,m us not imagine that the settlement of I this was was goin 1 to settle our international I (Continued at foot of next column).

Keighley Bye-Election. I Our Comrade W. Bland, the I.L.P. candidate in the Keighlev by-election, hafl issued an ad- dress in which ho states that he stands for the repudiation by the people and governments of secret treaties, and for a jieace based on the principles of no annexations, no indemnities, and the J'ight of all peoples to determine their sover- eign allegiance and form of government. May we remind our readers that there is ur- gent need for funds to carryon the fight. All subscriptions should be sent to Mr. T. D. Ben- son, Treasurer, at the Party headquarters, John- son's Court, London, E.C.4.

School for Mentally Defectives. I MERTHYR'S LEAD TO SOUTH WALES. I Mejthyr Education Committee on Wednesday considered a proposal to enter into negotiations with the Housing Committet, for the purchase for. £3,600 of Gwaunfarren House and the ad- joining land for the purpose of establishing a school for mentally deficient children. The adoption of the suggestion was moved by Mr. L. M. Francis and seconded by Alderman Charles Griffiths; whilst Mr. H. M. Lloyd, seconded by Mr. Gomer Thomas, submitted an amendment that the scheme should not be entertained, and that as an alternative the authority should con- sider the advisability of providing for mentally defectives by amalgamation with other authori- tie, Mr. David Da vies uttered a vigorous pro- tect against tho course embodied in the amend- Invent. He was astounded that members should quibble about an expenditure of a few thousand pounds when such an outlay would mean that the afflicted children of the borough could thus be saved from the workhouse. Mr. L. M. Jones, associating himself with the protest, said money was no consideration when the future of the children could be ensured. Mr. Rhys Elias (director of education) stated that the available accommodation in the country was for 15,000 children, whereas there were actually 30,000 in* need of treatment. On a division nine voted for the amendment and ten for the motion—the Labour Party being all included in the la tter number.

Problems of the Teaching Profession. I THE "NO HEADSHIP POLICY AND I LABOUR. BY W. G. COVE. I It has always seemed a. difficult matter to ex- plain the composition and functions of the various teachers' organisations to the interested members of other workers' organisations. They hear teacher^ speak of the N.U.T., the class Teachers' Association, the Certificated Class Teachers' Association, and Head Teachers' As- sociation, and when they discuss the meml>ership of these various bodies with teachers, they find that many teachei-s a.re members of more than one organisation, and a.re i-athei- puzzled, especially when they find that teachers do not regard such dual membership as anomalous. Al- though membership of more than one organisa- tion appears irrational, yet this is not so. Teachers are charged with being "snobs," hu t mere snobbery does not account for the multipli- city of unions; they are further charged with being ignorant of Trades Unionism—(this is true perhaps)-but this a,gain does not explain the existence of so many organisations.. We have to go depper. THE HISTORY OF THE PROFESSION. I The explanation is to be found in the history of the "profession" and in the fn-cot that thero exists even to-day an antagonism of interests between the various grades employed in the schools. At one time everv teaeher who secured his certificate, and thus became a Certificated Teacher, was practically certain of becoming a He-ad Teacher (master or mistress). When this condition obtained it meant that every certifi- cated teacher had an identity of interests based upon silliilarit. of a eadem ic qualifications and upon economic and professional status. With the increase in the number of Certificated Teachers the identity of economic and profes- siona l interests broke down, for instead of all Certificated Teachers becoming Heads of Schools, an increasing number had to remain as Certifi- cated Assistants. In this fact—at bottom an economic OD e We lii)d the canst- of dIP antagon- ism between Heads and Assistants—and hence the ri.se of Certificated Class Tedehers' Associa- tions and Head Teachers' Associations. THE ERA OF SKILLED LABOUR. I JJiwng the period when (Vr mica ted Teaehem almost automatically became Heads of Schools, and when the bulk of assistants were uncerti- ficated Teachers, the National Union of Teachers was formed. At this time, wages were very low, both for the Certificated Heads and the Uncertificated Assistants, and it was evident that if there was to be an effective union, all grades must be admitted to membership. Tlie N.U.T. then comprised uncertificated and certi- ficated teachers. When the latter grew in nnm- ber, they began to feel stronger and found that the difference in academic qualifications was a bar to t-eal unity. It was the era of the skilled worker, and a-s in other trades unions, the skilled worker was claiming preferential treatment. The uncertificated teacher was then debarred from becoming a member of the N.U.T. SECTIONAL ORGANISATION. I After a period of unity within, the N.U. T. the Assistant Certiifcated Teachers began to feel the need for a sectional organisation. They found that their interests often dashed with those of the heads, and that the N. U.T. policy was dic- tated by Head Teachers. They felt. that while it was to their best interests to remain within the N.U.T. it was essential that they should build up an Association comprised of Assistants, and that the aims of snch an organisation would be to formulate policies in their interests and to "capture" the N.U..T. machinery. We thus have Certificated Teachers—both Heads and As- sistants—members of the X.U.T., while they are also members of the Head Teachers' Association, and of the Class Teachers' Federation. Thus wp find the bulk of fully qualified teachers mem- bers of two unions; although stating that the N.U.T. is THE Union. HEAD TEACHER AND HIS FUNCTION. I Perhaps it would 11. well at this point to dis- cuss more fully the position of the Head Teacher and his function in the school, and thus shoiv that, the causes for the antagonisms are inherent in the conditions that prevail. The Head Teacher has secured his jol)--oither by "wire pulling" or by seniority. He is no better qualified than his certificated, assistant. If he has secured it by the former method, then there is smouldering contempt for him if by the latter, there is often contempt for his methods of teaching. He is often regarded either as a sycophant or an old fogey." Ho represents the Education Authority on the spot, and all their regulations are put into force by him. His position gives him much power for good and for harm. He examines the Certifi- cated Teacher's class and reports upon the work done. This gives him tremendous power, for it is peculiarly easy to find "bad work." He can set a "stiff test" if he so desires, and still make a brave show of being reasonable. A bad report upon an assistant's work will effectually prevent promotion. He is trusted with the dis- cipline of the school and Education Authorities are very prone to uphold his authoritiy. In the selection of books, the drawing up of syllabuses, the Head is the supreme authority. His fads cannot rule, but they can dominate the school. He has private conversations with His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, and during these conver- sations can praise or blame individual teachers. This may be good or bad for the teachers con- cerned. It is easy to see from the above the antagonisims latent in the positions of Head s and Assistants. STILL UNSATISFIED. I All the above powers are recognised by Edu- cation Authorities, but the Head Teachers are not satisfied. At their National Conference they have put forward claims for mare absolute powers. They have passed resolutions demand- ing the right of appointment and dismissal of their staffs, and have claimed that all disputes between them and their assistants must be set- tled by the authority without the intervention of the N.U.T. through its Professional Code of Honour Committee." We have lately had a case in the Rhondcla-and it is not yet settled—in which a headmaster suspended a teaeher on his own authority because she would not apologise to him. The authority has decided to punish the assistant on the score that the disciplina.ry powers of the Head must be upheld, and have thus, by implication at least, granted the right of suspension on the part of the Head. The La- bour members seem to agree to this, with the re- sult that there is every likelihood of a fight. This case has brought to a head the questions at issue between Heads and Assistants, and even if matters are adjusted for the time, the problem will still remain. (Continued at foot of next column).

27c Prosecution and The Quakers. PLAIN STATEMENT IN COURT PROCEEDINGS. I On February 26th, M rs. Sime Sernya Williams and Miss Stewart, one of the staff of the No- Conscription .Fellowship, went to the Central Hall, Westminster, to distribute copies of the Friends' Service Committee leaflet, A Chal- lenge to Militarism." The police issued a sum- mons against them and they appeared at Roches- ter Row Police Court on April iHtli to answer the charge under D.O.R.A. 27c of distributing leaflets that did not bear the true name and ad- dress of the author, and in that they had not therefore been submit,ted to the Director of the Official Press Bureau." As a matter of fact, the leaflet has the full name and address of the Friends' Service Committee, as the authors and publishers, printed on 70,000 MORE ON ORDER. Mr. Williamson, for the prosecution, called a police officer to give evidence that the defend- ants distributed the pamphlets. Mr. E. J. Pur- chase, the Counsel for tdio defence, in his able cross-examination of this witness, brought out some most interesting and significant points. He elicited tho tacts that the police officer had been several times to the offices of the Friends' Ser- vice Committee during the period between the taking of the defendants' names and the issuing of the seummonses, that his enquiries had been answered quite willingly and frankly by Miss Ellis, the secretary, and other members of the Committee, and that they had shown him evi- dence (minutes of meetings, etc.) that the Friends' Service Committee was, in fact, the true author and publisher of the leaflet, in ac- cordance with the statement printed on it. Fur- ther, it. was shown that although the police were told that <0,000 more copies of the leaflet had been ordered for distribution, they did not take any steps to stop the printing or distribution of these further copies. A JOINT PRODUCTION. After Mr. Snagge. for the Official Press Bureau, had stated that the leaflet had not been submitted to the Press Bureau, and that, the name of a Committee as author would not be held to satisfy the Regulation. Mr. Harrison Barrow, acting Chairman of the Friends' Ser- vice Committee, went into the witness box. Mr. Barrow, who is a City Councillor an d magistrate for Birmingham, deposed that the pamphlet was considered at different committee meetings he- tween June and December, 1017, and was finally approved by practically all the members of the Committee on December 7th, 1017. It was a joint production of the whole committee, who desired to take full responsibility for it. As to the non-submission of the leaflet to the Press Bureau, this was in accordance with the con- sidered and open i>olicy of the Society (if Friends, who, on the passing of Regulation 27c, plainly declared their opposition, on religious groimds, to such submission. The statement declaring this opposition, which was sent to the Premier and I)iil)llslie(i in the press at the time, was read ill court, by Mr. Harrison Barrow. A COURT DEBATE. M iss Edith Ellis, secreijary of the Friends' Serv ice Committee, "was next called, and the. t, in d t h al Magistrate entered into a discussion with her on the subordination of the individual conscience to the will of the State. Miss Ellis earnestly up- held the i>o*ition of the Society that the indi- vidual must stand fast to his own religious con- victions even when they conflict with laws im- posed by human officials, and Mr. Chapman, finding that he was making no headway, wa obliged to retire from the argument. He ther said that the responsibility quite clearly rested with the Friends' Service Commi ttee, an had been franklv a,nd bravelv stated bv Mr. Har rison Barrow. As it would lie obviously ab- surd to punish the defendants for the distribu- tion while those responsible escaped prosecution he could not understand why proceedings had not been taken against the Friends' Servic»- Committee. Mr. Williamson, for the prosecution, having said that the matter would lie considered by the Public Prosecutor with a view to further pro- ceedings- against those responsible, the magis- trate said he would remand the defendants or- their own recognisances until these proceedings were taken. Mrs. WiHiams and Miss Stewaj: having given an undertaking not to distribute these leaflets until the ease came on again, on the definite understanding that it. was within e limited time. the summonses were adjourned sine die.

problems for us. It would be only a new chap- ter. It was idle to talk of our pacific disposi- tion until each in his own constituency, until each in his own ring of opportiinitiv had learned to organise and build up the forces which were going to stand not merely against war, but against the process of profiteering under Im- perial sanction which lay behind modern war. It seemed to him that there lay something at the root of our task even deeper than organisa- tion, even more important than education—im- portant as both were. We should not get Europe out of this appalling catastrophe, we should not lift mankind to a level of security until we had somehow altered the spiritual values that under- lay civilisation. The profiteering Capitalist mar chine had ruined the whole social conception of Society. Capitalism had blighted the body of life, it had blighted the sense of duty of man- kind and the sense of social service, and the joy of work of us all, and until we had rooted it up, Society oould not be put on another basis. We oould not do that until we had put Society on the basis of the Co-operative Com m on wealth.

THE INCREASING PROBLEM. Not only will it remain, but as the supply rY Certificated Teachers increases the problem wi): "become more acute, and the functions of tii Head will certainly have to undergo considerate • modifications. The very snobbery of whie > teachers are charged will become a powerful de- structive force and. granted some measure < solidarity amongst assistants, will result in thr abolition of headships. Control of the scho.>N will mm-(- and more devolve upon the t,-acliers a whole through the medium of their Unions. 1; has been argued that a Head makers the. insin) tion of the school an organic whole, but this s not true. If the teaching given by a staff is i > be an organic whole, it. must be, the eolleoth e work of that- staff. It has been said, too. that we must have discipline, but surely there i powerful disciplinary force in collective respon- sibility for the work of a school. It is in regis1, r to the control of the schools that T find 1.1. greatest cause of complaint against Labo. • mem bers. The least they could do would be t.) experiment in this way. Let them stand for no headship policy in the next school that vacancy arises. If it is a. failure, then I shu" be greatly surprised. Labour members shouVi realise too, that the touting for headships is the greatest bar to Trade Union solidarity amongst the. Teachers, and were they abolished teachers would become far better trades nnioTi- ists. THE WAGES QUESTION. The wages question as far as qualified teachers are concerned is in the process of solution. In many areas the fight for salaries will become li >s keen, and the energi es of the teachers will he more and more taken up with securing some measure of control over syllabuses, repor methods of teaching, school apparatus, etc. They will no longer be sa,tisfied with imposed syllabuses and methods of teaching. At present, there is no room for the enthusiast and the re- volutionary. After leaving college the teacher is subjected to all sorts of limitations—" Shades, of the prison house" begin to enclose him; officialism is his bete noir, and while he fights it, the education of the children suffer. We hope to deal with other problems.