The 1910 General
Election:
Our Manifesto to the Workers
FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE WORKING CLASS:
Once again the various political parties are seeking your
support in a General Election. The Liberal Government, who are appealing to you
to retain them in office, were boasting in January last of their “great
victory” at the polls. They pointed to the anti-Lords majority of 120 as a
proof of their clear mandate and sufficient backing to abolish the Lords’ veto.
Yet within a few months of this “great victory”, they are again asking you to
return them for the same purpose.
Hardly had the Liberals been elected when Mr. Asquith
admitted that he had not got the “guarantees” without which he promised at
Albert Hall he would not hold office.
The history of the Liberal party shows that the House of
Lords has nothing to fear from them. Besides acting as a trysting place for
their financial supporters, it does duty as an excuse for their broken promises
and procrastination. They have raised the bogey election-cry of “Down with the
House of Lords!” ever since the rejection of their 1832 Reform Bill, but though
in power a dozen times since then with large majorities, they have not once
joined issue with the peers. Instead of “ending or mending”, they have been
extending, the Second Chamber. A far greater number of peers were created in
the 19th century by the Liberals than by the Tories, and they are well ahead,
with a total of 40, in the 20th century. In fact, the necessity of rewarding
with peerages the great contributors to the party’s funds is, doubtless, one of
the reasons for the Dissolution.
After indulging in the most violent denunciation of the
Lords the Liberals arranged to patch up their quarrel by holding a conference,
which, after five months existence, has been abandoned “for the present” – to
use Mr. Asquith’s phrase. During these months a truce was called and we told
not to disturb the little game of coddem evidently being played by the wily
“eight”. The Government, if returned again, obviously intend to continue the
sham-fight ’til the Coronation, when we may expect another General Election –
or another conference.
Although the Liberals admit that the reform in the
composition of the House of Lords means strengthening it against the people,
the preamble to the Government Veto Bill states that “it is intended to
substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists, a Second Chamber
constituted on a popular instead of a hereditary basis”. This Bill gives the
Lords power to reject every bill twice. Even one of their own members has
admitted the hypocrisy of his party. Writing to the Daily Chronicle (June 20th)
the Hon. J. Martin, Liberal M. P. for St. Pancras, said: “The Government have changed front several times on the House of Lords
question, and on account of their wobbling since the Election, I have no
hesitation in saying that I have no confidence whatever in them.” During
the Dissolution debate (18.11.10) he said: “I
do not believe the Government are in earnest in their fight against the Lords.
With a majority of a hundred members like myself to stand by them, I do not
believe there was any need for a dissolution.”
All this goes to show how fraudulent the Liberals are; but
even were they sincere on this question of the Upper Chamber it would not concern
you, fellow-workers. Mere political changes do not affect your economic
condition. The Liberals say that there is not such a reactionary Second Chamber
abroad as the British, yet you know that poverty and unemployment abound there
as here.
The poverty and insecurity from which you suffer has its
roots, not in political forms, but in the class ownership of the means of life.
No reform, whether of Tariffs, Franchise, or Poor Law, can touch the cause;
consequently the effects persist though social reforms are continually passed.
Even Lloyd George confessed, in his City Temple speech
(17.10.10), that “before we succeed in
remedying one evil, fresh ones crop up. We are hopelessly in error”. That
is a very significant admission. But the very reforms that fail to touch the
evils they are supposed to remedy are, the “wicked Lords” notwithstanding,
being made the issues by the Liberals at the present election.
Very Old Age Pensions for those on the verge of the grave
(adopted because they are cheaper than Poor Law relief); Labour Exchanges
(organised to smash strikes and reduce wages); a specious promise to qualify
the legal effects of the Osborne judgment (a sop to catch the votes of the
trades unions): these are the futilities with which the Liberals mock the care-worn
wage-slaves of capitalism.
The Labour Party, as we have continually pointed out, is
merely a wing of the Liberal party. It is composed of job-hunters who, like
Shackleton, are seeking office in Liberal administrations. Said their chairman
in the House of Commons (18.11.10): “It
was because the Labour Party believed the solution of the House of Lords
question would be a step forward that they supported the Government”.
Your masters are seeking your suffrages in this election
because upon their control of the political machine their supremacy depends.
Liberal and Tory alike are out for the maintenance of this system, which means
for you a continuation of your slavery. While pretending to be in deadly
enmity, they are united as one against you when you try to better your lot.
They combine in Masters’ Federations and try to starve you into submission by
locking you out when you seek to make your wages cover the increased cost of
living – as in Lancashire. They bring the armed forces into your midst to
bludgeon you and menace your very lives – as in South Wales. Through their
political supremacy your masters control these forces of repression, and if you
are to change the conditions under which you work and live, you must fight to
get control of the machinery of Government.
In that fight you cannot take sides with any section of the
capitalist class, because it is to their interest to maintain this system which
means luxury and idleness for them. Neither can you support those parties
which, like the Labour Party and the Social-Democratic Party, are parties of
compromise and reform. (The latter of these organisations has, in its election
manifesto, advised the workers to stultify themselves by voting for the Tories.
Their only candidate is a champion of “a strong navy”!) Your interests, being
opposed to those of the capitalists, must lead you to ally yourself with a
working-class political party waging an uncompromising battle against all the
forces ranged in opposition to your class.
Your emancipation can only be achieved by converting the
instruments of production from the property of the few (who use them to exploit
you) into the common property of society, so that they can be used to produce
the requirements of life in abundance for all; in a word, Socialism must be
established.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain is the only party in
this country that consistently works for this end: and as the realisation of
Socialism depends upon the conversion of the workers, your place is within its
ranks, striving to bring your fellow-workers into line, helping to hasten the
day when the fratricidal warfare of capitalism is supplanted by the fraternal
co-operation that Socialism alone can ensure.
Pending the time when the workers rally in greater numbers
to the Socialist Party, and so enable it to take its proper place in electoral
contests as the only working-class political party in this country, it has no
candidates in the field. Hence all candidates before you at this election,
whether they be openly and avowedly capitalist, or slink at the heels of the
Liberals under the title of I.L.P., S.D.P., Labour or Socialist, stand for the
maintenance of capitalism, and from the position we have outlined your duty is
plain.
ABSTAIN FROM VOTING
On this occasion, and, lest the enemy impersonate you, go to
the ballot-box and inscribe “SOCIALISM!” upon your voting paper. Above all, the
work that lies before you is to enlist the support of your fellows in the fight
for Socialism, for that alone can deliver you from the misery which to-day you
endure.
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT
BRITAIN
December 1910
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