Pioneer

To Ye To Whom The World Appeals. IT is curious that every movement that seeks to emancipate humanity, whether in the mass, in a single nation or only through a class, inherently seeks the support of the British Socialist-Labour platform. No matter whether it is the Hindu Nationalist striving for an autonomous India; the Jew turning his thoughts, after centuries of oppressive outlawry, to repatriation in Palestine; the Spaniard indignantly demanding that his autocratic government shall cease to play the Capitalist game by imprisoning trades-union leaders; or the theoretic idealists with their League of Nation panaceas, they all seek the platform of the I.L.P. and its kindred advanced Democratic bodies in a spirit of high optimism; stir us with their oratory, induce us, when we agree with them to pass resolutions of sympathy, protest or assist, whichever meets the case; and after a tour of the whole nation and a nine days' agitation on the part of hundreds of our organisations, we are lucky if we can win a very, very minor part. It is surprising when we con- sider that although Home Rule for Ireland has had the complete approval of Socialists and La- bourites at home since a day before the present decade of voters were able to pronounce the word legislature, it is still in the air; when the reforms demanded by the Chartists while Vic- toria's first parliament wa-s sitting are not all to- day realised, though heralded with a fervour that looked revolutionary in its day, it seems peculiar that we should still retain our belief in our powers to perform miracles of reform, and still more surprising that other peoples should share in our faith. Theoretically, of course, our Democracy has only to hiss and its political spokesmen will rush to do its will, but theoreti- cally we should all "hiss" as one to accomplish that result, and practically we have never as yet been even geese enough to do that. The pity of it is that the satire of little performances from mighty efforts does not awaken us to a germane questioning as to why we, the sovereign power in the land, should have to work so hard and to such little effect when our wants clash with the privileges and powers of the non-working-classes. Not until we start that questioning shall we be able to do more than we have in the past, and only that if the post-war turmoil is much less than it promises to be in perspective. The les- son we have most to learn is that we cannot help Ireland or India, Spain or Internationalism to any appreciable extent until we have learned to help ourselves much more than we have in the past; until we learn that our sympathy towards the Jewish national aspirations will be only practical when we have decided on a policy of Britain for the British, as well as Palestine for the Jew. These causes are our causes because their opponents are also ours-the opposition of vested interest and class privelege. They come to us because they, like ourselves, base their claims on justice without reference to class or colour. But justice in that sense is a philosophi- cal abstraction, the realisation of which is impos- sible because a certain section of the peoples, in whose hands the economic rivalries of the past ■ ■ m have left the power, has invented a rule-of-thumb justice and morality, sorely oppressive of the peoples of the world, but blindly accepted of them in their ignorance. How can we who are oppressed by our Capitalists at home, prevent those Capitalists from oppressing other races, when we are powerless to relieve ourselves from oppression ? Before we can effectively help others we must first help ourselves by realising the forces that limit our powers; by recognising why we have to generate the enthusiasm and power that would move mountains, to turn over I pebbles. Too long have we allowed our eyes to feast on the glorious vistas of the future, and our minds to dwell in the airy, fairy castles' of Utopia. If we are ever to dwell in those vistas, ever to build those castles of song and sunshine and freedom, we must first dig the foundations, gather our material and have the knowledge and skill to build aright. Enthusiasm is not enough, good-will and intentions are but bitter fruite if we do not know how to give them effect. We must educate ourselves; we must know why our Socialism is better than the gilded best that others would offer us; we must sympathise our own experience in the light of the experience that our great leaders have to offer us, and from the education in our principles that is to- day the great task before us will come the co- ordination of working-class solidarity and power that will set itself right, and will rove the world in gleaming armour of wonderous chivalry seek- ing out and destroying the filthy dragons of Capitalism that infest the backward nations of the world. God is goodness, and goodness is only realisable through the triumph of social democracy, life is for all, but life is impossible while the few bind the many to machine-slavery that leaves no time for culture or travel. Only from knowledge can come effort; the well-to-do can accomplish nothing tangible unless it is guided by intelligence and enthusiasm. So long as we merely resolve in our meetings that this is good and desirable for this or that people or ourselves; and do not resolve to acquaint our- selves with the knowledge that will materialise the good and desirable we are but fickle little creatures playing at being men. Let us be men, and as men resolve to know, that knowing all may do.

The Freedom of the Press ? WE who yesterday were surprised that the Rus- sian proletariate should remain supine and pas- sive under the iro-i heel of an autocracy; who puffed our chests with thoughts of what would happen to the person unwise enough to try on any fancy games in constitution breaking in the land whose people i-iever, never, shall be slaves," have occasIOn to dress in sackcloth and ashes; aye, and hair shirts, too, the while we sing dolorous dirges to the manhood that was of our land but is not. They were our fathers, those Richard Carliles and Geo. Jacob Holy- oakes, that suffered that we might have the right to express honest opinions openly in the press and from the platforms, and, our mothers who carried on the task until they, too, were closed in gaols that sheltered their husbands; they were our parents those men who suffered the fates of rebels and revolutionaries that the old combination laws should be repealed and Trades unions be. recognised as legal. We, their feculent children, blessed with the blessings of a free education, have not alone surrendered the rights of the last, but we have submitted to a corruption of the press by a crowd of Downy Sams, that has turned the most valuable safe- guard of the constitution into the most power- ful oppressive weapon that our enemies possess. It is all very well to giggle at the puerilities of John Bull's" alliterative sub-editors; and to smile long and broadly at the repeated finding of the strong-man-of-the-land by our Harms- north's, but it is we ourselves, that have given these men their power tq use as they will. We take their cheap sweets because our tastes are cheap and uncritical. These men do not tell us when the governments which they make or break are descending to tactics that would con- demn a Sultan of Turkey to a life of perpetual incarceration and oversight, and even when someone else tells us we are not interested enough to listen. The. most shameful act; that ever was performed against any paper anywhere has just been perpetrated in our s own London, and not one of us has stood up and howled the most vital blow that has ever been struck at our freedom of the Press has been passed by With-I out comment in our great dailies, and has found a defender in only a printer who had pride in his professional rights and concern for his national honours. Last week we told how the officers of the Crown took upon themselves the right to pre-judge a British newspaper published in Lon- don, and prevent its publication, but so far we have not heard that any lodge of the South Wales Miners' Federation, any branch of any other union, or, even any Socialist Society has stood out and condemned the action. The whole affair is so wickedly un- Democratic that it was a crime that any Government should be allowed to continue on its way unreprimanded after com- mitting such an offence. No Government has the right to pre-judge as has been done here. Prosecution for opinions expressed is understand- able, the uses of national force for the suppres- sion of opinion unexpressed is understandable. only by reference to barbarian times and habits of thought. In this case it is not even suggested that the Workers' Dreadnought" contained any matter calculated to injure the national cause as it is read in these days; while the whole thing would be reduced'to a farce, were it not for the seriousness of the subject, by the fact that directly a man was found with grit enough to say that he would do what the officials had said should not be done, he was allowed to do it without restraint. The suppressed copy of the Dreadnought has been published after warn- ing, and so far no proceedings have been taken. Only fools will suffer gladly the continued de- velopment of an autocracy that not only robs us of the rights we possessed, but would even rob us of the right of expression if we happen to differ in our thoughts from the thoughtless mob. Are we fools that we should suffer this P

Gilfach Goch Notes. I Concert. I A grand concert was given at the Libanus C.M. Chapel. Gilfach Goch, on Thursday even- ing last by the Gilfach Goch Male Voice Party. The chief soloists were: Bass, Mr. Granville Davies, Maesteg; tenor, Mr. Todd Jones, Tre- herbert; soprano, Miss Annie Jones, Gilfach Goch. The singing of the soloists was fine and was much appreciated by the audience, the artistes being repeatedly encored. The Party performed well, under the conductorship of Mr. John Webber. The orchestra was batoned by Mr. Aneurin Parker (Porth). The chairman for the evening was Mr. D. Davies, M.E. Mr. John Webber, the conductor of the party, deserves a word of praise as having the reins of the party once more. The party is young yet, but if they stick together there is no question that a party to be proud of will result.

Political Notes. I BY F. W. JOWETT, M.P. I The Prime Minister was always a, reckless speaker. He gets more reckless a.s the war goes on. He is so deeply involved in the war gamble he will "stick at nothing." When he speaks in public his sure instinct tells him what the public wants to buck them up," and he gives them it. At the Albert Hall the other day he felt it necessary to say something about the ever increasing debt. He did not state the amount. If he had the audience would have felt as if a wet blanket clung to them and a cold wind blew through the hall. So he spoke of a solacing fact" about tli(,. giginti(- debt." We owe the debt to ourselves," Mr. Lloyd George said. Ourselves being the people with money to lend and the bankers who are fabricating credit by mere entries in their books. On the security of these bank entries the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer is printing Treasury Notes and issuing Treasury Bills almost as fact as lie can print them. These Treasury Notes and Treasury Bills, seeing that they reduce nobody's spending power, inflate prices and inflict great hardship upon the section of the- community that has no riionev to lend. It was a bold and daring assumption of popu- lar ignorance led Mr. Lloyd George to pretend that the moneylenders who are getting the na- tion in power, and the moneyless people who are being fleeced, are the same people. Another equally reckless reference of his was aimed at pacifists. If he had attempted to argue that people who wish to see peace negotiated on the terms clearly indicated in the German reply to the Pope's note and the Reichstag resolution, that is to say, no forcible annexations by any belligerent power and the future peace safe- guarded by disarmament and arbitration agree- ments, he would find himseH in difficulties directly. Doubts would have arisen in the mind of some member* of his audience about the wis- dom of continuing the war gamble. He dare not argue on the real points at issue, so he fell back on Bolo. Bolo is the man who is alleged to have spent large sums of German money in France to bribe newspaper editors to print what Germany wanted -French people to read. To suggest that those who do not share Mr. Lloyd George's views con- cerning the war have also been bought and have shared the sinister benevolence of the Bolo man was easy. It also saved the necessity for discus sion and the inevitable doubts, which, as I have said, would arise, if the audience had been re- spectfully treated and the case had been fairly stated. Therefore, Mr. Lloyd George chose the easier, albeit more vulgar, method of pretending that people who prefer peace by negotiation are in the pay of Germany, and the Bolo man has got hold of them. Mr. Lloyd George did not tell his Albert Hall audience that the accusation against the Bolo man, #110 is said to have distributed German money to French newspapers, affected the honour of the French Jingo papers and not the peace by negotiation party at all. He assumed that his audience was ignorant of all that, as they almost certainly were. If Boloism," as Mr. Lloyd George implied, is at work here, as it is alleged to have been in France, then the Yellow Press must be watched. The only conclusion to be drawn from the alleged operations of the Bolo man in France, is that with the object of feed- ing the German public with aggravating quota- tions from French newspapers to keep the Ger- mans on fighting, the French equivalents of the Daily Mail and the "Express" were bribed to write such stuff as is printad in this country by the "Daily Mail," the Express" and the "Times." The artful dodger, a.t present Prime Minister, who is gambling with the life and liberty of the British people, ignored all this, and, at the Albert Hall meeting at all events, fastened the Bolo man on to those who want to bring peace by negotiation, as if the Devil not only loved Holy water, but would part with his most cherished treasure to get it. To press for peace by negotiation, according to Mr. Lloyd George, is to press for a premature peace. Therefore, he implies, but does not argue, that we must have a peace imposed by force, because, if again there is a wai-, destruc- tive power of those horrible agents only just disclosed to the belligerents within the last few months would bring about the death of civili- zation. We must (lie says) do to Germany what Ate did to France when we taught France a lesson she never forgot by bringing about the failure of Napoleon. Mr. Lloyd George has misread the lessons of history—or he would never have used that illus- tration about Napoleon. By force of arms, and the trade union of Kings, the first Napoleon, it is true, was thoroughly defeated. France may have been taught a lesson, but it is not true to say that she never forgot. In the days of her humiliation she wove legends around the defeated Napoleon and cherished his memory. And, forty years later she took his unworthy descendent de- fiantly to her arms and faced the world with him. She had not forgotten. Forty odd years before this war began another peace was xorced on France. Alsace-Lorraine was the price of it. Alike to all other examples of enforced peace between great and powerful nations, it was only a truce. Even Mr. Asquith, the ex-Prime Minister, who thought, or pro- fessed, that this war was for the protection of Belgium, has made the belated admission that the peace imposed by force on .France was one of the main predisposing factors leading to the present war. And yet, if the settle this once and for all policy, which is Mr. Lloyd George's form of expression for the militarist solution on which he so recklessly gambles, would work at all it ought to have, succeeded after Sedan. British opinion, at that time, recognised that the German victory was complete and that the penalty exacted was deserved. It was a patched up peace, really, because it was not based on reason and justice, but such as it was it met with the approval of the British press of those days. It is interesting to recall the ,attitude of the British press towards the peace conditions im- posed by force by Germany on France in 1870. In the Cambridge Magazine of October 10th, 1917, there are two extracts from the "Daily News and the Times which I venture to reproduce here. The Daily News," August 20th, 1870, said: — There is no longer any question as to whether the Germans will take or rather re- take Alsace, but rather, having got it, they will give it up again. Some 200 years back Louis XIV. stole it. The lapse of vears -nay hide a theft, but not the justification of re- conquest. The population of Alsace is German by origin, by language, and, by custom. Ou September 14th, 1870, the 1Jl wrote: Till the French are ready to recognise th? h neIg they have acted unjustly toward their lieigh- bom?: and to offer sureties against a 1TT|]e tion of such conduct/ the fair demands -f t"D Germans (40 milliards and Alsace Lor,,Il."e) cannot be considered satisfactory. j'+inris assure France, if she finds these ? dit?iOns hard, that there are many persons in (jer- many who consider them remarkably li,,ht, and who would be only too pleased to eoni]>ia'n, their hereditary enemy getting off so Alsace-Lorraine is the minimum condition ? peaœ loving German can accept as the' of peace. & & -I- And yet, the peace of 1870 was a patched ^r\ peace imposed by force; and, such a peace, the gambler, Mr. Lloyd George, fully aware a, he is of the terrible new developments in war^ and the "detructive power of those hO.Jldis- agents whose power has only just been closed," wishes to-repeat. Judging by what has just happened in  peace by negotiations would not be nnweico? there. M. Ribot, who was responsible f °r, c decision of the French Government to ,efusle passports for the Stockholm Conference has had to be dropped from the French Minisit?v. action in refusing passports weakened his P"°? tion to begin with. in the French Chamber, in the course of bieb he stated that Germany had made peace ov f. tures to France ("peace whispers") which had treated as a trap." Immediately, » sec^ session was demanded by various sections of tbo Chamber. The French public does not  peace ovenures to be rejected without carej consideration. It is alleged that at the see,t session it was reported that Mr. Briand had passed on a message to M. Ribot from pi-inco t?tlow. which he had received through an i? ? mediary, to the effect that the Central 1?? were willing to restore Belgian indep&nden ? surrender Alsace-Lorraine to France, and, 9"7" up Trieste to Italy in return for concession ? t the expense of Russia. The French Chamt? ?? ? angry with M. Ribot for treating the Vert"re$ as a trap and, consequently, M. Ribot has h ad to leave the -French Ministry. If this AersiOl.l f 1 fl'" I 'h 1 y.; flO of the affair is the correct one t ere (OE, 0t appear to have been much consideration Sho fl" in the French Chamber for Russia. 1? a f,y" case, however, the fall of M. Ribot maes ?lie thing quite clear, and that is the determine of France to allow no individual Minister t?. ject overtures for peace. l ien The position in Russia is pathetic. When t: Russian delegation visited this country s° time ago the delegates repeatedly stated t'lliq? the RevolutIOn was to succeed peace must lot be Jong delayed. To carry on a grat waT 'and 0: revolution at the same time, they reO'arde e 11 J b ors practically impossible. To make matters W?g the ill-starred offensive was imposed upon  sia by the Allies. It has been stated that offensIve would not have been undertaken b t for the urgent necessity for American ran* £^ waggons for transport of food which Ani?? would only deliver if Russia took the o'8'ensi? There is a?o Japan. Japan is said to be P?"? ing the part of the Entente's policeman ??\M J Russia, and if Russia does not keep going inthe war Japan would probably help herself to sian territory in Eastern Asia at Russia s pense. It is almost a Imracle that, confroilt? with all the diffieu1ti and complications AVit al and without, the Russian Revolution has not ready been lost. The proposed constitution of the Labour Py ? j will be considered by the National Counci.t j the I.L.P. this week. It has one or two ("00(i points which are new, but it fails to deal  the grave injustice done to Socialist bodies10), the miscounted vote at Manchester. The 'VO  in question excludes Socialist bodies from sePar- ate representation on the Executive. Under tile proposed new constitution, also, Trades CounC1 '1 ■, will not in future be allowed to function as 1?? Labour parties. Trades Councils already a liated to the National Party will be allowed continue their connection under certain con«'' tions, but new applications will not be coJ1- sidered. r <1ti- The chief feature in the proposed new  'i t'rhon is the scheme for' organising indivi? t members in every constituency. Pers.onallYl think this scheme is on right lines. The l°c^j LabouT parties will consist of branches Of Trades Unions, Socialist and other bodies elig? ? to join, and, individual members. Provision to I* oiii, an d iiidiviciiial members. Pr(,Vi,iorl made for every separate constituency to  presented by a delegate at the Annual C?onic? ence (two in case of undivided boroughs) and an extra delegate whp must be a woman If the number of individually enrolled women exc? d s 500. j  The dimculty of the block vote, as I h? said, still remains, but I.L.P. -members Trades Unions ought, sooner or later, to rente. that difficulty by persuading their unions to J low minority votes to be cast at Labour P:1\ø conferences. If this course were adopted, f force of the Socialist objection to the loss I separate rights of representation on the NationJ Executive would be materially reduced, for opinion of the Conference would then be 1 r }{ corded and the bargaining for the total it vote of large industries would not falsify election results as is the case under the b, vote system. For the present I will not 00 ment at greater length on the matter but I 111 return to it again after the National Oon??;l has considered the questions involved. 1

The Electric Theatre. Next' week's picture programmes at the J: j thyr Electric Theatre mark the return of P.tØ g, White, of "Exploits of Elain," etc., fame J11 new super-serial feature, Pearl of the ^xraVe\- which will be screened on Monday, an d te g come reappearanoe of Charles Chaplin in tvvo comedy-farces, in which his broad humour is baot 'its best, Married on Credit" and tbØ "Rounders." The big drama feature forthe earlier part of the week is "8torm and shine," by the famous Phillips Film Comp?? the acme of dramatic and photographic ? & ?? Ambrose" gets deliriously mixed up w1? jjj couple of crooks and the Keystone pohœ ifl His Naughty Thought," and another C'1'* "Love Regained," goes to making up a toP-P,i,, ,9 bill. Not a whit less attractive are the 1105t0f features for Thursday onwards. The dram?a tof" lines is "La Philine," an unusual p'l.dnoddi' with a, gripping storv. The comedies, 1? dclj-- tion to Chaplin, are "Dried Goods" Gaumont people, and "Bombs and Board with Billy West as chief mirth provoker- ""øel;: This week's show is typical of the f-O eek by week placed before the patrons. C DrOs$ '( is & particularly fine production, and th0 Billy Merson is incomparably droll in 13illYthe Truthful." I —?  ? t