While the headline could be from today it is from 115 years, because that’s been the critique of the Labour Party since its beginning.

‘British Labour Party A Non-Socialist Office-Seeking Insincere Wing of British Liberalism’ by Th. Rothstein from The New York Daily Call. Vol. 3 No. 197. July 16, 1910.

(Special Correspondence.) LONDON, July 5. Last Thursday, just two months after the famous budget of 1909-10 became law, Lloyd George introduced into the house of commons the new finance bill for the current year. At the time when the old struggle came at last to an end it was not expected that the same house of commons would see the introduction of a new budget. The government was pledged to deal first with the house of lords by means of the veto resolution, or a vote bill, and as these were certain not to pass the lords, a new dissolution and a fresh general election were universally expected about this time of the year. The death of King Edward has spared both the government and its allies, and the opposition, this unpleasant eventuality, and now once more we have a budget to pass our time with.

It is not likely, however, that Lloyd George will have this time much difficulty in getting his finance bill through. The bill, it is true, is an exact replica of the old one, containing the same taxes on land and higher incomes, which are so objectional to the Tories, and the same whisky duties, which are so hated by the Irish. But it will obviously not do for the former to fight these measures over again after the house of lords had sanctioned them–especially as all the controversial subjects are being discussed at the secret conference between the leaders of the two parties. As for the Irish, they have been placated by the announcement of an autumn session which will give them the opportunity at the later stages of the budget to vote one way or another, just as they find the results of the conference agreeable or not.

Liberal “Retrenchment.”

Properly speaking there is only one party which might and ought to have fought the budget, regardless of all considerations of expediency, and solely on its own merits. This is the Labor party. Of course, it is not a Socialist party. It does not even claim to be one, while its right wing expressly repudiates any desire of ever becoming Socialist. It, therefore, does not understand that the budget is an instrument of domination in the hands of the bourgeois state, and ought to be voted against as a matter of principle. I, therefore, purposely abstain from speaking of principles, and merely use the word “merits.” Now, what are the merits of the budget from a non-Socialist-Labor point of view? Consider that the Labor party, just as the Liberal, has always been insisting on the necessity of economy and retrenchment as the prime virtue of a good government. The present budget, so far from meeting this demand, is increasing the expenditures (apart from the deficits of last year, to be recoverable in the present year) from £162.1 to £171.8 millions, that is by £9.7 millions. That this is no mere accident, due to extraordinary circumstances, is seen from the fact that in 1906, the first year of the Liberal administration, the expenditure only amounted to £129.4 millions. It is evident that the word “retrenchment” is an empty sound in the mouth of a Liberal government, and that it is just as expensive as a Tory administration. On this ground alone, if the Labor party had been earnest about its watchwords, it ought to have fought the government and refused to sanction its breach of faith with the people.

But, perhaps, this increase of expenditure is due to the vast development of social reforms? It is well know that at the bottom the Liberal cry for retrenchment was really nothing more than a desire to reduce the functions of the state to a minimum. With this, of course, a Labor party can have nothing to do, and it may well reconcile itself to the growth of expenditure if it be caused by an increased state activity on behalf of the masses of the people. Is this, perhaps, the case with the present budget? Let us see how the additional £9.7 millions are distributed. Its chief items are two. One is for £2.3 millions under the head of civil services. Of what is it composed? There is, first, some £550,000 for public education. That is very good, but a very small item, indeed. There is, further, £470,000 for old age pensions, which is also very good, as it is due to the removal of the pauper disqualification, which will now enable old men and women, now in the workhouse, or in receipt of outdoor relief, to escape from the tender clutches of the poor law. But this item, too, is too small to induce the Labor party to swallow for its sake the remainder of the increase. Lastly, there is under this head an increase of £1.3 millions for “other civil service expenditure”–salaries of officials, to wit. Ought this item to lend itself to the approval of a Labor party? It is not a question of salaries for the lower officials–these are being neglected as ever before. It is the bigger officials who are receiving the increases of salary and pensions, and who are getting new appointments and promotions.

People Not Trusted.

Besides, the Liberal government is more busy than ever the Tories were in creating a vast bureaucracy to manage the affairs of the country, instead of, as the immemorial custom of England was, handing them over to local government authorities. Home government in England, as Richard Oastler pointed out at the time of the poor law reform of 1834, and has since then been confirmed by the best authorities on English administration, has ever been in the past essentially local government, decentralized, elective, and to an even larger extent, directly controlled by the people. The present Liberal government, with its Fabian predilection for the “expert” (which is really nothing but distrust of the people), is gradually changing all that, and with every new law which it passes, such as the old age pensions act, the labor exchanges act, the development act, and so forth, it creates a new bureaucratic machinery to administer them irresponsibly, and in a centralized fashion. As stated in a parliamentary return the other day no fewer than 1,154 new officials have been appointed within the last year or so, in consequence of new legislation, costing not less than £130.212 a year. England, which hitherto had really the most democratic system of internal government in the world, is getting rapidly “Prussianized,” and this alone ought to have induced the Labor party to oppose the increase of the civil service vote.

Labor for Navy!

But even these £2.3 millions under the head of civil service are but a fraction of the new increase of expenditure. The biggest item of the increase amounts to £5.4 millions, and falls under the head of-the Navy! This is what accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the increased expenditure and the betrayal of the trust placed in the Liberals at the time of the elections of 1906: Within five years of the Liberal administration the naval expenditure has risen from £31 to 140.5 millions, and the Labor party. which professes so vehemently its pacificism, and goes to Germany on peace missions, swallows these enormous increases in naval armaments, merely contenting itself with a polite and platonic protest.

Altogether, taking the expenditure side of the present budget as a whole, we find that nearly £93 millions, or more than 54 per cent of the total expenditure, is due to military and naval expansion and payments on the so-called national debt, which again is nothing else than war expenditure. Only 46 per cent of the total expenditure remains for the proper administration of the country, which, moreover, is extravagantly done. Is a budget, by which more than one-half of the people’s money is thrown away on warlike purposes, one to deserve the support of a Labor party? Even if the other, the lesser, half had beat, devoted exclusively to the welfare: the working class, which, of course, is not by any manner of means, oven approximately the case, the Labor party might have considered it rather expensive to have to pay for every 26 shillings worth of reforms extra 21 shillings to be used by the master class against the interests of the people.

It may however, sometimes happen that though the expenditure is not intended for the benefit of the people, but has to serve the purposes of the capitalist class, the means wherewith it is to be met are raised from the capitalist class itself. Even that would for a Socialist party not be a reason for voting in favor of the budget, since the increase of the power of the capitalist class, even if it should cost the proletariat nothing, is an evil to be fought under every and any circumstances. But we do not demand so much of a Labor party, and would find it pretty satisfactory if it were to say: We do not care how the expenditure, is distributed, so long as the capitalists themselves bear it.

Workers Foot the Bill.

But is this the case with the present budget? Let us consider the revenue side which amounts (again regardless of arrears from last year) to £169.7 millions. Of this sum only £27.2 millions are raised from non-taxable sources, such as the post office, Suez Canal shares, crown lands, etc. The bulk, namely, £142.4 millions, comes from taxation. How, then, is the taxation distributed? The direct taxes, such as death duties, property and income tax, land tax, etc., which fall directly on the propertied classes, will yield £67.4 millions, while the indirect taxes which, like the customs and excise, fall essentially on the working class, will produce the remainder, that is, £75.0 millions. In other words, deducting from the latter a small fraction which may fall on the consumption of the richer classes, the working class, whose total income does not exceed £700 millions, pays about the same as the richer classes, who probably net not less than £1,000 millions per annum. It will thus appear that not only does the budget devote the greater part of the money to the interests of the capitalist classes, and on objects inimical to the proletariat, but it also makes the working class pay for it exactly one-half. A very neat arrangement, indeed. What, then, is the attitude of the Labor party toward the budget? It has been formulated by its chairman, Barnes, on the day of its introduction. He “regretted” very much that the promise to introduce unemployment and invalidity insurance, given last year, had not been fulfilled. He regretted” further that the equally promised abolition of the sugar tax which was weighing so heavily on the poorest of consumers had not been effected. He also “regretted” the “wholly unnecessary” expenditure on the navy. He “hoped,” however, that as the yield of the land tax (its produce is now £600,000) grew, the taxes on tea and sugar would be abolished, and considering the budget as a whole, he and his friends “would have due regard to the difficulties” in which the chancellor of the exchequer was placed. In other words, the budget is not up to much, nevertheless the Labor party will vote for it.

We refrain from further comment on the subject. It is but necessary to add that Lloyd-George has not as much as thanked the Labor party for its loyalty, and that the other speakers have not taken the slightest notice of what the Labor leader said. Who cares? The bourgeois parties would not mind having many more “independent” parties such as this.

Harmless Mr. Snowden.

P.S.-The above had already been written when on the second day of the debates another Labor member made a speech on the budget. This time it was Snowden. He always speaks on the budget and criticises. and the very fact that he always criticises, but never votes against the budget, reduces his criticisms to mere play. On this occasion he attacked George for the increase in naval expenditure, for the non-fulfillment of his promise in the matter of unemployment and invalidity insurance, and for not taking off the food taxes which play so well into the hands of the tariff reformers. He also scathingly referred to his optimism as regards the coming boom in the trade. He spoke, he said, as a Socialist who could not accept Dreadnoughts as a substitute for social reform, and he advocated the expropriation of the liquor traffic and the confiscation of all future increment value of land.

Strange to say, however, he was equally applauded by the Tories as by the Liberals, and so far from rousing the passion or the indignation of this or other bench by his attacks now on the government and then on the opposition, his clever remarks were received with considerable good humor and on many occasions provoked to amused laughter.

The reason was that his speech was really nothing but a clever dialectical exercise of criticism, and meant no harm. The entire edge of his caustic remarks was taken away at the very beginning by his declaration that “the circumstances of the year forbade captious criticism of the budget, and he spoke more in sympathy than in anger.” This was sufficient. A Socialist critic who speaks “in sympathy and not in anger” need not be taken very seriously–he is not a Juvenal and does not intend to be one.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1910/100716-newyorkcall-v03n197.pdf