New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-03-02
Independents and
Socialists

The Independent Labor party is social
istic; its leaders may be said to be Arthur
Henderson, Philip Snowden and Ramsay
Macdonald, but Henderson is not quite
radical enough for the rank and file They
want state socialism-governmen own
ershlp OF the means of production but they
are willing to operate through the constitu-
tlonal channels. The Socialist Labor party
are the followers of Trotzky, Lenine e. Co.,
and want the complete overthrow of capital
through direct action They are Mars
Socialists and represent the extreme or
Bolshevik voice. Their leaders are rather
hay, but Shinwell, in Scotland and Smil- |
lie, in Wales, are probably the leading spir-
its The Labor party supported the war and
Is antl-paclilst; the other parties want war
only to further the class struggle The fur
ther tenet of the Socialist Labortes is that
craft unions are Objectionable in that they
represent form of capitalism; they want
union Of all working people irrespective
Of whether they happen to be engineers or
miners. Thus they are opposed to the
unions as such and arc as violently anti
union as they are ant-capitalistic
When Gompers spoke in Scotland on his
trip of some months ago, he followed one
of these extremists on the platform and
listened to a speech condcmnIng war,
nationality and capitalism and advocating
the social revolution. This is not the
Gompers idea of n labor movement, and
he startled the audience by putting aside
MS regular speech to say that if he had
any voice in the government of Britain he
would put the preceding speaker in jail or
possibly hang him; then he launched into
an attack upon socialism and its Bolshevik
Developments Therefore the name of
Compers is anathema among the English
radicals. That will more or less illustrate
their position, which promises In the light
of present happenings to be one of great
Importance. The point to remember is that
part OF the English and Scotch so-called
labor movement is not at all labor move
ment In our sense Of the term, but is purely
destructive.
England being fully unionized each craft
has its local and national agreements with
employers on wages and hours. Sometimes
Ms agreements arc with individual en-
pioyers, but more often they arc with arso-
Citations, In the engineering trade For
instance, the Birmingham Engineering En-.
ployers' Federation has n Joint agreement
NH' fnil'eH inherent uNlOha WD1cH
they employ In their shops. The terms Nh
hfteen printed pages and include three sep
arate groups Of sub.agreemouts on the
methods Of settling dsputca, since all Of
tho unions could not agree on methods. The
whole Of English industry lr network of
agreements with employees, and on top Of
these are great number Of rules or lava
growing out Of war work.
Aside from n few small establishments,
there Is really no freedom Of action or
opportunity for personal relations between
employer and empIoyo; neither trusts the
other sufficiently TO do anything which IS
not down in black and white
And this takes US to the real cause. There
is reason on both sides for this attitude,
~ cannot be denied that for many years
past Englieh labor has been exploited. with
more men than jobs the employers could
keep wages down TO the starvation point,
and they did. The margin over actual living
szpenses for the mechanic was very small.
IA q rule he had 10 live In something little
better than a slums and in Glasgow espe-
cislly thousands Of workmen can be found
living with large families In d single room
Birmingham, Manchester and the East End
Of London have the same story. England
vas able 70 undcraeil the markets Of the