SOCIALISM IN OUR TIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 114, 15 May 1926, Page 19

SOCIALISM IN OUR TIME.

THE HOW AND THE WHEN. MILITANCY IN LEADERS DEMANDED. (From Our Our Correspondent.) LONDON, April 9. The day when the I.L.P. piously registers in its annual meeting a demand for the socialisation of the means of production and distribution has gone by. This year's meeting at Whitlev Bay, on the Northumberland coast, has de-niandt-d from its leaders a militant policy aimed at "socialism in our time," an-1 not at some vague Fabian-devised future date. To judge by the voting the I.L.P. is firmly set on its militant path. But thtre waa criticism, and more significant still 3lr. Kanisay Mac Donald did not go to Whitley V.ny, a policy which was -ieteribed in oiip quarter as being, if not tactical, at least tactful. Mr. Jlamsay Mac-Donald's view—well enough understood by the I.L.P.—is that "socialism in our time." which, he says unkindly, i~ "of no definite meaning, but a line romantic sweep of expectation," is heading straight for destruction. His ideal Socialist does not stop the life of society in order to try new experiments or to put a brand new system'into operation. The outstanding fact was that where the speeches for and against were almost equal in strength, yet in spite of this apparent balance of opinion a majority recorded their vote for fighting tactics to achieve as the slogan goes "socialism in our time." The Right To Live. How exactly is this frontal attack to be aligned . Still another slogan has been coined for the first line attack — "the right to live."' What precisely is meant by this new substitute for the older demand the right to work, is not clear. Apparently it envisages a national minimum wage, allowances for wife and children and the means for their decent education and upbringing— nothing very revolutionary after all. Lots of people who would be horrified at being termed followers of Labour, accept suck a suggestion quite calmly. These desiderata, we need hardly say are no less desired by others than Socialists. What is new is the urge to get it done here and now a s well as nationalisation of banking and a few other things. The philosophic onlooker at once aaks why this hurry. The answer is provided by Mr. Brailsford, editor of the "New Leader," who strangely enotigh ha 3 joined the ranks of these who, for convenience sake, may bo called the reds. He frankly confesses the need for hurry lest the capitalist gets in first. "If we shirk or postpone the task, if we fail to realise the need for conscious and deliberate strategy, capitalism may save itself for a generation." This no doubt is a movement due to the fact that the capitalists have lately been wakened up by their younger men, and by their slogan —high -wages. Still another explanation which we give with all due reserve is that the conference had to do something to keep the younger, {hose attracted by Conramnißm, within the li.P. pale. Whole Position Puzzling. The whole position is puzzling. Do the Socialists wan to shed their titular leaders? We give as an explanation that geems to explain what this week' 3 "New Statesman" says:— "Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald and STr. Snowden are I.L. Peers by origin; but they have come to -he leaders in the Labour party, as must every I.L.P. member who rices to Parliamentary prominence. As Parliamentarians, they have to act as members, not of the 1.L.P., but of the Labour party. Experience iff Parliament and, still more, experience- of office, tend to shift the allegiance of the I.L.'P.'s own leaders. They become Labour party men, and get an interest in the machine and policy of the Labour party, which transcends tHeir T.L.P. interest. Parliamentary conditions tend to push them in their conception of policy to the right; the Parliamentary situation comes to govern their attitude. Meanwhile, the I.L.P. has replaced these leaders, who have passed into wider spheres of action by new men who have the same Parliamentary responsibilities. These new men become the rallying point for those who demand a more radical Socialist policy. The old leaders move to the right; the organisation from which they sprang moves to the left." As for the programme, few within the Labour party deny that the family allowance as a supplement to a living wage is in principle other than just. '' But it is difficult," we quote again from the " New Statesman, "to apply both for financial reasons and because it is liable to conflict with the whole standard wage policy of the trade unions, while the allowance is, almost admittedly, impossible to realise save as the result.of an elaborate and necessarily prolonged reorganisation of the entire economic system. . . The trade unions, we fancy, will be more inclined to stick to their own method of improving wages and conditions when and as they can than to line up behind the LL.P. demand for a Living Wage for All."' The " New Statesman's" view is that "To demand a reasonable living wage for everybody as a first step towards Socialism is to demand as a preliminary something which most Socialists agree can be achieved only as a result. The new I.L.P. leaders would presumably answer that they admit this, but regard the living wage demand, as the French Syndicalists used to regard the general strike, as good propaganda designed to unify the working-class movement behind a common human claim, and to convert them to Socialism as the means to its satisfaction." What we as lookers-on from the Dominions take most interest in is the declaration of this philosophic and Fabian organ that "the I.LJ , . is not 'going Red ' —still less is there any sign of ifcs going over to Moscow. But it has pretty clearly reached a point where ife ie trying to decide whether to dissolve its identity, so far as policy is concerned, in a Labour party which has now outgrown its control or to become a 'ginger proup,' within the larger party • • - The result of this week's conference is a qualified declaration in favi«r of the latter alternative. This dons not, however, mean that the question is finally settled; for beyond doubt the prestige and power of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and the other leaders in the LLJ». are still very great indeed. . . It will take a few years to show whether this keek's decisions are the beginning of a real leftward movement in British Socialism, or merely a flash in the pan."