When the Executive Committee of the Labour Party met in the House of Commons on 18th October, 1921, they had before them a list of 14 prospective parliamentary candidates submitted by local Labour Parties for endorsement. It was "RESOLVED: "That the candidatures be endorsed with the exception of Mr S.Saklatvala, and that this be deferred for an interview with the Secretary and the National Agent." Subsequently the National Agent's Report included the following: "Battersea North
The Secretary and the National Agent reported upon an interview they had had with the representatives of the Battersea Labour Party and Mr S. Saklatvala, who had been selected as the Candidate for the Constituency.
Considerable discussion ensued as to Mr Saklatvala's association with the Communist Party, his attack upon the policy of the Independent Labour Party in continuing its association with the Labour Party, and his attempt to form a secessionist I.L.P. Group favourable to affilation with the Third International.
It was reported that Mr Saklatvala, in accepting the candidature for Battersea North, has indicated his acceptance of the Labour Party Constitution, with its usual implications.
RESOLVED: That the candidature of Mr S.
Saklatvala for Battersea North be sanctioned
on condition that he accepts the Constitution
of the Party, agrees to receive the Labour
Whips if returned to Parliament,and to abide
by the decisions of the Parliamentary Party"
It is somewhat surprising that the Executive Committee of the Labour Party should have endorsed Saklatvala's candidature in view of his self proclaimed and publicly acclaimed adherence to the Third International and his close links with the Communist Party of Great Britain, It is true that his selection by the Battersea Trades Council and the local Labour Party (who, at that time and until 1926, were working in unison), had been numerically overwhelming and enthusiastic and by this time there was no doubt as to his popularity in the Working Class movements and socialist circles in general. Nonetheless, their acceptance of him was surprising; especially as, so far as I can ascertain, he was the only openly avowed member of the Communist Party to be adopted as a Labour candidate at that time. This is confirmed by the following extract from the Report of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party at the Annual Conference held in Edinburgh in June 1922.
"... On January 15th Comrade Gallacher, of the Communist Party, addressed a meeting in Edinburgh. At that meeting, speaking in regard to the affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour Party, he made the statement that Mr Saklatvala, a member of the Communist Party, had been endorsed as candidate for Battersea, and in reply to a question Comrade Gallacher said that he had been endorsed on the same terms as any other candidate but subject to the mandate of the Communist Party. The local Secretary thought that was rather strange, and in view of the fact that they were likely to have a Communist member put forward as a nominee, it was determined to write to Mr Henderson setting forth the details and telling him that they were likely to be confronted in Leith with having a member of the Communist Party nominated. (Mr McQuater here read the letter which had been written to Mr Henderson and Mr Henderson's reply). Continuing, he said that on receipt of the communication they went to a conference feeling sure that everything was perfectly in order. Then they had the bombshell thrown at them that, despite the fact that they had a statement in writing from Mr Arthur Henderson that a member of the Communist Party could be a Labour Party candidate, when they received the nomination of Mr Foulis, they were informed that Comrade Foulis could not be accepted. Mr Ben Shaw (the Scottish Secretary), speaking on behalf of Mr Wake (the National Agent of the Party) said that the nomination of Mr Foulis was not in order. They in Leith pointed out that Mr Henderson was the National Secretary and that they had it on his authority that a Communist could be a Labour Party candidate provided he was prepared to accept the Constitution and the principles of the Labour Party. They then wrote to Mr Henderson and pointed out that Mr Foulis, a member of the Communist Party, had been nominated. Mr Henderson, however, did not reply to this letter, but turned it over to Mr Wake, and Mr wake said that Mr Foulis could not be accepted because he was a member of the Communist Party. They then wrote back again to Mr Henderson and pointed out the position which they themselves had created in Battersea, and said that if it had been done in Battersea it could surely be done in Leith. They were told, however, that Bettersea must not be taken as a precedent. They thought that that was rather curious, because if Mr Saklatvala had been an unknown person, who had slipped through without it being noticed, they would have thought probably the Executive had made a mistake and that they did not know he was a member of the Communist Party when they endorsed his candidature. It had taken six months to get through this business. It was evident that the only thing against Mr Foulis was his membership of the Communist Party and for that reason alone he was turned down by the Scottish Executive, and the National Executive hid behind the decision of the Scottish Executive. He wished to know from Mr Henderson what was asked of Mr Saklatvala. To this day, neither Mr Henderson nor Mr Wake had answered that question. They had to go to the Battersea Labour Party for the information, and they were told there that nothing had been asked from them except what was stated in Mr Henderson's first letter. He wanted to draw attention to the treatment meted out to them in Leith as against the treatment meted out to the Labour Party in Battersea.
Rt. Hon. Arthur Henderson, M.P., in reply said that Mr McQuater had just told them that it had taken six months to reach a certain stage in the negotiations with regard to this candidature. He could assure the Conference it had been a fairly long six months so far as they at Head Office were concerned. There was a long and difficult history connected with this business. They had done their best to satisfy the friend who had just spoken and those acting with him, but they found it absolutely impossible. After all, they had got to keep in mind that in Scotland the question of candidatures went, in the first instance, to the Scottish Council. This question came up at the Scottish Council and the Scottish Council refused to endorse the candidature. The matter was then referred to the Head Office, and a good deal of correspondence had taken place. In the latter stages of the correspondence the Leith friends fastened very severely on to the endorsement the Executive had given to Comrade Saklatvala as a candidate for one of the Battersea constituencies. Their friend seemed to think that Mr Saklatvala was endorsed because he occupied some prominent position in connection with the Communist movement. He could assure them he was entirely mistaken, and he was going to give them the reasons why Saklatvala was endorsed.
Mr Henderson then read a communication of December 12th 1921, to Mr Coltman, the Secretary of the Battersea Party, setting out the terms on which the Executive had agreed to endorse the candidature of Mr Saklatvala for Battersea North, stating that the candidate should appear before the constituency with the designation of "Labour Candidate" only, independent of all other political parties, and if elected should join the Parliamentary Labour Party; that at the General Election he should, in his election address and in his campaign give prominence to the issues as defined by the National Executive from the general Party programme; that if elected he should act in harmony with the Constitution and Standing Orders of the Party. On March 3rd, 1922 a letter was received from Mr Coltman, addressed to Mr Wake, stating that he had called a Special Meeting of the Executive Committee of Battersea North, at which Mr Saklatvala was present, and that the following resolution had been unanimously passed:- 'That this Special Meeting of the Executive Committee of Battersea Trades Council and Labour Party accepts the endorsement of the candidature of Mr Saklatvala for Battersea North on the conditions laid down in the communication from the Labour Party dated December 12th 1921,' and that Mr Saklatvala, who was present at the Committee, reaffirmed his adhesion to the conditions laid down in the above-mentioned communication and that a copy of this letter had been sent to Mr Saklatvala, who would no doubt reply in due course. Mr Henderson said the delegates would now see the position that the Executive took up with regard to the Saklatvala candidature. If there was anything wrong with that candidature, in his judgement it was not from the standpoint of the Labour Party but from the standpoint of the Communist Party. Mr Saklatvala who was a delegate sitting in that Conference, knew full well that he was in exactly the same position as one of their candidates as any of the 73 Members of the House of Commons, or any of the 400 candidates whom the Executive had endorsed. The Scottish people had not got the other people up to that position, and he hoped that until they did their candidate would not be endorsed, as it would be a most unfortunate thing for the Party if they were not going to make all their candidates accept the same conditions, no matter by which constituency they were nominated.
A Delegate asked whether it was not a fact that Mr Foulis had definitely refused to sign the undertaking of the Labour Party
Mr Henderson replied that that was so, and that was why he said he hoped they would all be made to toe the same line.
Another Delegate asked whether it was a fact that there were other candidates who were members of the Communist Party whose candidatures had been endorsed by the Executive.
Mr Henderson said there was not one to his knowledge, and they would see that the Executive had excercised a great deal of care before it ensorsed the candidature at North Battersea."
(Later on, W.Windsor and J.Vaughan, both communists, were endorsed as Labour candidates for Bethnal Green, North-East and South-West; neither of them won a seat in Parliament).
So in this, as in so much else, Father became a 'special' or 'isolated' case; there he was, representing the Labour Party while being an openly, self-advertised member of the Communist Party; he was working FOR and WITH the working class (and enjoyed their affection and esteem) while certainly not being born into that class himself; he was working among United Kingdom political activists whereas he himself was Indian and did not come to the U.K. until he was thirty-one; and he fought vigorously and endlessly for India to be set free from strangling imperialism while not following the popular Congress Party in India and the Gandhian theory of non-violence and the symbolic hand-spinning routine advocated by Gandhi. He seems never to have floated on the tide but was always swimming against the prevailing currents. Strange then that he should have been able to embrace Communism almost without question. (He once said to a friend that he did not allow the least criticism of what went on in Soviet Russia as that would be for him like a sin against the Holy Ghost!)
In order to understand why the Labour Party went to such pains in considering the candidacy of Mr Saklatvala and other members of the Communist Party, it is necessary to understand the complicated and confusing relationship between the Labour and Communist parties.
In March 1917 the revolution in Russia was greeted with optimistic rhetoric by Lloyd George who set down the following Resolution in the House of Commons:- 'That this House sends to the Duma its fraternal greetings and tenders to the Russian people its heartiest congratulations upon the establishment among them of free institutions in full confidence that they will lead not only to the rapid and happy progress of the Russian nation but to the prosecution with renewed steadfastness and vigour of the war against the stronghold of an autocratic militarism which threatens the liberty of Europe." The Observer proclaimed, 'The triumph won by the Duma and the army together for freedom and modern Government is one of the greatest and best things of time. The breath of a new morning is felt not only by Russia but by all mankind,' 'The Nation' (a left-wing, Liberal organ edited by a one-time Fabian, H.W.Massingham), wrote, 'The greatest tyranny in the world has fallen. The glorious news of the Russian revolution will send a thrill of joy through democratic Europe. Liberalism has won its first great victory on the moral battleground where all along the true conflict was going on. Association with the Tzar was a curse and an incubus. Alliance with the Russian people is a glory.' (These were strong words when one considers that the Tzar was a cousin of our own King). The Manchester Guardian was equally enthusiastic; it wrote, 'Revolution has before now proved a great mother of efficiency, and there is no finer dynamic force than a passion for freedom. England hails the new Russia with a higher hope and a surer confidence in the future not only of this war but of the world." However, subsequent events in Russia dampened this first flush of euphoria and admiration gave way to fear that the introduction of socalism and communism might be threatening to spread from Russia to Germany and other countries in Europe. Press and politicians alike became more wary, if not actually apprehensive.
From its inception the Communist Party of Great Britain had sought affiliation to the Labour Party. Their repeated applications were constantly rejected with a growing firmness, clarity and resolution. In order to understand the gulf between the two parties, it will be helpful to quote below the "Explanatory Notes on the Second International versus the Third International, the Soviets, and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (published in England and, alas, undated. But the Third International was established at a conference of 33 delegates from 29 countries meeting in Moscow on the 29th March 1919; it is reasonable to assume, therefore, that this document was produced shortly after that date).
"The Second International cannot be called a Socialist International, as is proved both by its composition and the decisions it came to at its recent meetings in Berne in January - February, 1919 and in Amsterdam in April 1919.
The Second International adhere to the 'Social Patriotic' Parties which supported their Capitalist Governments during the war. These include the British Labour Party; the Belgian Socialist Party, which even after the war, is taking part in a new capitalist coalition formed since the armistice; and the Social-democratic Party of Scheidemann and Noske in Germany, which in upholding the capitalist system, threatened by the first revolution even abetted the murder of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Leibknecht, Leo Yogehes and large numbers of other devoted Socialists.
The Italian, Swiss, Serbian and Roumanian Socialist Parties refused to take part in the Conference of the Second International at Berne, and the Norwegian Socialist Party, as also the German Independent Socialists opposed to the Noske-Scheidemann Party, have now seceded from the same.
The Second International fails to recognise the conflict of class interests created by the Capitalist system, takes up a reformist, instead of a Socialist programme, and therefore it decided for:
(1) The League of Nations
Because of its failure to recognise the working class struggle, the Second International proposed to give to the League of Nations the power to rectify frontiers at any time and to control the production and distribution of food-stuffs and raw materials throughout the world. Such powers in the hands of a capitalist League of Nations, whether composed of representatives of governments, or of capitalist majorities in Parliament, would be used, as was done against the Workers' Revolution in Russia, in every other country where their interest was at stake.
(2) Free Trade and the 'open door' in the colonies.
The exploitation and practical enslavement of the colonial natives notwithstanding!
(3) The Recommendation of: The establishment of an International Labour Charter by the League of Nations.
They placed the framing of a Labour Charter in the hands of a League in which employers predominate, and made a recommendation in line with that which created the National Alliance of Employers and Employed.
RUSSIA
On Russia three resolutions were before the Second International at Berne. One of these by the French Communist, Loriot, upholding the Bolsheviks, received no support. Even the mild resolution declaring that the Conference had not sufficient material to judge of the state of affairs in Russia, found favour with a very small minority only. The resolution adopted by the majority, and supported by the British section, declared:-
(4) Against the Soviets.
(5) Against the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
(6) Against socialism, with control of industry by the workers in it.
(7) For bourgeois democracy, including Parliament, with a government responsible to it, and freedom of speech, press and assembly.
(8) For nationalisation of industry 'under the control of the democracy,' apparently through Parliament, like the Post Office.
LABOUR LEGISLATION.
(9)The Berne Conference adopted a long reformist programme, which it called a Labour Charter, and which included the following commonplace provisions:-
Compulsory primary education, free higher education.
Children under 15 years not to be employed in industry.
Eight hour working day, six hours for children between 15 and 18 years.
Wages Boards representing employers and employed to fix wages for home industries.
A legal minimum to be fixed in sweated industries by wages Boards, equally representing employers and employed.
Unemployment to be reduced by linking up the Labour ???
Exchanges, and by unemployment insurance in each country
A permanent Commission, consisting of an equal number of the governments, which are members of the League of Nations, and of the International Trades Union Federation.
This Labour Charter, drawn up by the pseudo-socialist Conference of the Second International, formed the basis of the Labour Charter afterwards adopted by the Capitalist League of Nations.
THE PERMANENT COMMISSION OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL MEETING IN AMSTERDAM IN APRIL,1919, issued further declarations.
(10) It made a point of demanding self-determination for Georgia, Esthonia and the Ukraine, at a time when the revolutionary workers of those States fighting to unite with Soviet Russia, were being forcibly suppressed, and their capitalists were making war on Soviet Russia, which granted the independence of those states.
(11) It said that it 'welcomes the introduction into the Covenant of the League of Nations of the idea that peoples unable to stand on their own feet shall be placed as wards, under the protecting care of the advanced states.'
How blind is the Second International regarding the 'protecting care' of capitalistic governments! Peoples of Ireland, India, Egypt, Persia, all 'unable to stand on their own feet!'
(12) It declared that 'the economic opportunities of colonies should be open to all nations equally.'
It said nothing about the rights of the real and natural owners of colonial lands!
(13) It demanded that Germany should make reparation for the war losses of the Allies as required by the Wilson programme, characterising this as 'both necessary and just'.
(14) It demanded open diplomacy as employed by President Wilson with regard to the differences between Italy and the Jugoslavs. It said this method guarantees that the claims of the different nations shall be settled strictly on the justice of each case and in the only way calculated to assist the permanency of a world peace.
In that sentence is summed up the 2nd International's disregard of the realities of capitalist diplomacy and Imperialism,and of the fact that under capitalism, international disputes are settled according to the strength of the contending parties.
(15) It declared that it was'determined to opppose any peace which is in contradiction to President Wilson's 14 points, as those form the only basis which will ensure an enduring harmony between all peaceful and free democracies'.
Thus the Second International takes its stand with bourgeois politicians, and asks only for mild reforms within the capitalist system. ?
THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
"The Third International was inaugurated in Moscow in response to the call of the Russian Communists. To it the Italian Socialist Party, as well as Communist Parties in France, Germany, Austria, Holland, America, China, Japan and other countries affiliated,
The Third International stands for:-
1. The overthrow of capitalism and the substitution of socialism.
2. The abolition of the present Parliamentary and Local Government system and the substitution of Soviets, which are composed of delegates from the workers in industry and on the land, from the army and navy, from villages and hamlets where the population is too sparse to be represented occupationally, and from women not employed in industry; the delegates to be always subject to recall by, and to receive instructions from, and report to those who elect them.
3. The dictatorship of the workers during the stage of transition from capitalism into communism. This means that only the persons engaged in productive work, who do not employ others for private gain, may vote or be elected or possess political power. This certainly does not disqualify any honest able-bodied person that does not wish to shirk work. This dictatorship is necessary to prevent the capitalists from re-establishing capitalism, and from committing sabotage against the communist society. The dictatorship will last until capitalism is extinct and the ex-capitalists have settled down to work in the communist community.
4. The socialisation and workers' control of the land and the industries. This means that the land and the industries will become the property of the nation as a whole, and that they will be administered by committees of the people engaged in working in them.
5. Every member of the community doing useful work for the community, and (mis-print for 'is'?) entitled to assured sustenance, whether well or ill, old or young, in accordance with the general standard of living. Thus, in Soviet Russia, though complete communism is not yet achieved, the people are moving towards equality of remuneration, and everyone is assured of the usual wages during illness or in old age.
6. Everything to be free to the children. Education is free to all, and there is maintenance for students; the age for leaving school in 1920 was fixed at 20 years of age; though it may be that war conditions have caused the postponement of this decree.
7. Self determination of peoples by a referendum vote of all the men and women over 18 years of age in disputed territories.
8. Disarmament of the bourgeoisie in all countries, and arming of the workers to protect the socialist communities from capitalist attacks until capitalism has disappeared, when armaments will no longer be necessary.
9. Abolition of all racial distinctions. Whoever goes to live and work in Soviet Russia becomes a citizen of the Soviet State with full citizen rights without regard to his or her original nationality, race or creed.
10. A world federation of communist republics.
11. The Third International, recognising the capitalist nature of the War, voiced the demand that it should be ended on the basis of no annexations, no indemnities, the right of the peoples to decide their own destinies.
The Third International recognises the class war. It calls: 'Workers of all countries unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.' The Third International struggles directly for socialism.
The Second International advises the workers to make the best of capitalism and to form councils of employers and employed.
THE SOVIETS
A good deal of unnecessary doubt is created in the public mind regarding Soviets and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat by persons who desire to continue as 'socialists' but who dare not be advocates of true and bona-fide Socialism that refuses to shake hands with Capitalism.
First a good deal of capital is made out of the fact of the word Soviet being a foreign word in all countries except in Russia. Once upon a time the French word, 'Parliament' must have equally shocked the forefathers of the Anglo-Saxons of Britain, who ultimately adopted it as being the most convenient one word that expressed a series of new ideas. Translate the word as you may in different languages, but the purpose is obvious that it is desired to express by this one word a new chain of thoughts showing the marked and fundamental differences between the new Socialist organisation and the old parliamentary systems, viz:-
1 A genuine representation of all groups of people.
2 A full and continuous control over the representatives by the electors, by the right of recall.
3 Full local autonomy of the people to appoint or dismiss their own officers from their own ranks.
4 An unrestricted franchise to all honest workers of adult age (or those physically unable to work) without sex or economic or social disabilities as in British Parliament, or color, race and creed bar, as observed in America and British South Africa.
It is obvious that those who use the short term 'Soviet' as against 'Parliament' desire to express in one word these fundamental and several other principles whose superiority over existing systems cannot be denied. Every country and people may adopt a different word for expressing the same idea, but before this is done, the word Soviet is the most convenient to use, and best understood internationally.
To argue that what is good for Russia is not good for Britain, and what is good for Britain is not good for China, is the very negation of international Socialism which seeks a new international mode of life to replace capitalism which, in its essentials, is uniform and universal in all countries of the world.
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
These words can also be moulded into a number of misinterpretations. The fundamental and political social changes in British life, e.g., the Reformation, the Civil War, The Glorious Revolution, the struggle for Parliamentary Reform, Chartism, the memorable Peterloo and the rise of the Unions, all give historical proof of what was done in these Isles during periods of transition from the existing to a new state of affairs. No settled human society lives without a final arbitrament. We have dictatorship in the United Kingdom at every turn of life. The real issue is, shall it be a dictatorship of the minority over the vast masses, or shall it be the dictatorship of the wish of the masses over those who desire to disagree and overturn the plans of the masses. We have examples of both kinds in daily life in Great Britain. Every public meeting is under its chairman, who in his turn is under the dictatorship of the meeting in certain matters. Grown up patients in a hospital are as much under the restrictive orders of the staff as children in a school or inmates of a prison. The masses here recognise generally, the value of primary education, and the proletariat fines, punishes and compels the parents in minority, who do not believe in universal education. Similarly we have penalties for persons driving on the wrong side of the road, or spitting in public places, and disagreeing minorities are not at liberty to 'exercise freedom' in matters which the proletariat consider to be of communistic advantage. In our entire economic and political life we are absolutely under the Dictatorship of a powerful minority.
During the transition period when
a) the supreme power is to be passed out of the hands of a privileged minority and handed over to the masses and
b) when the poor down-trodden masses, accustomed to life-long bondage and hereditary submission are to be called upon to remain self assertive and undiminished in the new ideology, it becomes evident to the thinking mind that the super-imposed as well as the self-imposed dictatorship of the proletariat over the selfish opponents as well as over the diffident and relapsing proletariat themselves would be needed. The raising of the marriage age in India by the almost common consent of the people, or America going dry by the vote of the majority does not denote that enforcement of these principles will no longer be needed. The hue and cry against the dictatorship of the Proletariat in new Socialist States is at best futile, and at worst, malicious."??
I have quoted this document at length (I trust not at TEDIOUS length!) because, together with The Manifesto of the Moscow International it forms the basis of the Communist creed which Saklatvala whole-heartedly embraced and was to follow for the rest of his life. In a list of 'Tentative proposals providing for transformation into the Communist Party', the 12th proposal is that 'the Provisional Executive to make immediate application for affiliation to the Third International as the Communist Party of Great Britain". It was this affiliated Party that Saklatvala ultimately joined in the spring of 1921.
Doubtless it was a great relief and excitement to have his candidature endorsed but he had to wait until November 15th, 1922 for the General Election. The Coalition Government, under the Premiership of Lloyd George was to continue for a few months longer, but there were troubles brewing for them; unemployment was increasing, housing for the poor was inadequate and the 'land fit for heroes to live in' was falling far short of expectations. It is not easy to maintain the demeanour of a hero when you are underfed, poorly clad, are without a home and,perhaps hardest of all, without hope of getting work, discarded by the community for whom you had so lately fought during the war.
Meanwhile, Saklatvala continued to address meetings up and down the country, by now, spreading the gospel of Communism instead of that of the Independent Labour Party, as hitherto. In one of the letters addressed to my brother in 1937, an I.L.P. organiser described a typical week-end of Father's, recalling that he would address a conference of workers in the iron and steel industry, speaking for anything up to two hours, in Middlesborough on the Saturday, then on the Sunday he would address meetings in different villages in the morning and in the afternoon; he was more at home, he said, when he was speaking in a ring of people rather than from the wagon and he would often talk to them in the open air for a couple of hours. He stayed in the home of the writer of the letter,who says that on the Sunday evening he would talk to him and his family, describing the terrible conditions of the workers in India; then, in the small hours of Monday morning he would leave for the station to catch a train to London in time to go to his office that morning. (I still recollect sharing some of those weekend jaunts with him when I was roused at what seemed to be the middle of the night to make the long train journey home. All of us children had curly hair which solicited admiration from strangers; Father dreaded that we should become vain or conscious of our appearance, so dressing me even in the small hours of the morning he tugged and tortured my hair, scraping it into a tight pony-tail to make it unbecoming! A most painful and tear-jerking process which I remember vividly). It was a gruelling schedule and one he maintained week after week in different parts of the country, virtually throughout his life. Arthur Field, his fellow worker in the Workers' Welfare League of India, writing in 1937 of this period, says: "From 1922 Sak became an even more active and unsparing propagandist, now died deepest red, and publicly represented as ten shades deeper than that..." Herbert Bryan writing of this period says that the Communist Party got an active lecturer and propagandist because Sak became even more lavish of effort in that Party than in the I.L.P.
The few weeks immediately preceding and leading up to the General Election were politically tempestuous. The Allies, after the War, had redesigned states and frontiers and this division of the spoils of war led to international tensions. In late 1922 the situation in the Near East reached crisis point and some of the newspapers of the day, when the crisis was, up to a point, resolved, said we had been on the brink of another war. Added to the international turmoil, unemployment at home had reached 1,300, 000 (little more than one third of the figure reached in the 70's and 80's by the Thatcher Tories but considered unacceptable in 1922). Lloyd George was losing the adulation he had previously enjoyed. It was said that the coalition remained in little more than name and that the heart of the Unionists was no longer in it.
Austen Chamberlain, made a dramatic dash to Paris and hammered out an agreement with Poincarre; he had difficulty in persuading the Cabinet to accept the terms but in the end they did and the immediacy was taken out of the Near Eastern perils.
Bonar Law, whose popularity within the Unionist Party was increasing faster than Lloyd George's was waning, had written an important letter to the Times which was said to 'be of such a character that might well oblige him to assume a position of political leadership.'
At last, at 4.15 on 19th October, 1922, Lloyd George resigned. King George asked Bonar Law to form a Government; after he had been elected as Leader of the Unionist Party, he agreed and a new Cabinet was formed.
Parliament was dissolved by proclamation on 26th October and the date of the General Election was fixed for 15th November 1922. Father's election leaflet lists the committee rooms and details of meetings to be held in the ward and shows a portrait of him with a typical good- natured hint of a smile, looking surprisingly benevolent and tranquil and serene for a reputed revolutionary! On the opposite page, under the headline ' LABOUR'S UNITED FRONT.' the following claims were made: "The only Party in Great Britain that is solid, and stands solidly by the Workers, nationally and internationally. North Battersea's Candidate has support of all sections." And under that the following legends appeared:
"Mr Saklatvala has for years worked hard in the peoples' cause, and is intensely in earnest in the service he has undertaken. In Parliament he would not only be an able and devoted servant of the workers of this country, but his special knowledge of the economic conditions of millions of our fellow subjects in India would compel attention to the neglected conditions of workers in that part of the Empire." J.R.CLYNES, Chairman Parliamentary Labour Party.
"Dear Comrade Saklatvala, The Executive Committee of the London Trades Council endorse your candidature for North Battersea, and hope that the Trade Unionists in North Battersea will work and vote for your return to Parliament on November 15th. Your election by Battersea workers to the House of Commons would be a message of hope and encouragement to the awakening masses of our fellow workers in the East." D.CARMICHAEL, Secretary, London Trades Council.
"I appeal to you - to Labour, which I have always honoured, to women - women workers and mothers, who are the greatest workers of all, I appeal to my Irish fellow-countrymen and women in North Battersea- support the Party and support the man, Saklatvala- that will be on your side in the great struggle which is bound to come. Saklatvala spoke for us, as a fraternal delegate, in the last Irish Labour Congress, and his courage,wisdom and determination impressed us all." C.DESPARD,Battersea's late Candidate.
"Dear Saklatvala, The forces of reaction are making a strong bid for supremacy, and only the return of the boldest defenders of the working-class can prevent this. Your activities in the movement in the past should more than justify that faith in you, which will secure your return to Westminster. I see the workers in Battersea are rallying solidly to your support, and I hope you are victoriously elected as their Member of Parliament." ARTHUR McMANUS.Communist Party.
"Dear Mr Saklatvala, Permit me to wish you every success in your great fight on behalf of the workers. The great and supreme need of the time is a 'Real Peace', and I earnestly appeal to the Christian men and women of your constituency to give you their wholehearted support, and I use the word Christian in no narrow theological sense.
REV.HERBERT DUNNICO, International Christian Peace Fellowship.
"Dear Saklatvala,- Battersea must be won for Labour. I wish you all the success in the world in your fight." CLIFFORD ALLEN. Treasurer I.L.P.
"Dear Saklatvala, I wish our other Indian friends had your foresight to see the unity of interest between Labour in India and Labour in Britain. I wish you every success in your candidature in North Battersea." K,S.BHAT, Chairman, Workers' Welfare League of India.
"I urge the workers and the unemployed of Battersea to declare war against Poverty and Starvation in the midst of plenty by supporting Saklatvala." WAL HANNINGTON National Organiser, National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement.
"Resolution passed at the FIRST ALL INDIA TRADE UNION CONGRESS, held in Bombay on October 31st, November 1st and 2nd, 1920:-'That this Congress places on record its grateful acknowledgement of the work done by the Indian Workers' Welfare League of London, and by Mr Sh. Saklatvala on behalf of the Workers of India..."
"The Second Indian Congress passed this further Resolution:-
That this Congress requests the Workers' Welfare League of India to ascertain how the state of unemployment of British workers can be speedily remedied by prompt co-operation between workers in India and those of Great Britain and Ireland."
A friend of mine always used the expression "He lies like an epitaph." to describe a liar and I have no doubt that there are those who may feel that Election addresses run epitaphs a close second in the area of lying flattery. But, on the whole, the claims made on Father's behalf seem to have been pretty accurate and truthful.
There were three contestants for the North Battersea seat, H.C.Hogbin, who was standing as a National Liberal, V.C.Albu, Independent Labour, and Father, standing as the official Labour Party candidate. On November 8th, The Daily Chronicle wrote that, "Battersea, always a storm centre of politics, will be watched during the next seven days with close interest in constituencies far removed from its own borders." The paper described Mr Hogbin as a National Liberal, supported by the Conservative organisation, 'North Battersea Constitutional Association'. The Chronicle went on to say, "Mr Saklatvala is a Communist, a supporter of the 3rd International and a sympathiser with the Russian revolution. To do him justice, he makes no secret of these leanings, but rather glories in them. Mr Saklatvala, one would think, will prove too strong even for the Labour element in Battersea."
But this prognosis published by the Chronicle proved wrong, and, on 15th November, 1922, the following results were proclaimed from the balcony of the Town Hall to the excited crowds seething in the street below, despite the raw cold of a mid-November night:-
Mr Saklatvala. 11,311
Mr Hogbin 9,290
Mr Albu 1,756
There was jubilation and jollification amid the throngs of people in the streets of Battersea that night. Apart from the faith in the politics that Father stood for, there was also no doubt a great personal affection for him as a man and great warmth of feeling for him. In the light of present attitudes, it is good to recall that the fact that Father was an Indian did nothing to diminish the real love that thousands of Londoners felt for him personally. He never stressed his nationality nor did he hide it. For the most part, he ignored it, behaving, as he wished ALL people to behave, as a human being, a creature of the universe, without constant reference to the place where he happened o have been born. And he was accepted, respected and loved for his personal attributes. An article in Number 19 of "The Communist" stressed the international character of Saklatvala thus: "Comrade Saklatvala, not only combines in his person tha aspirations of Labour and Communism, but by virtue of his kinship, the hopes of the toiling millions of India; Saklatvala personifies the internationalism of the great proletarian battle for emancipation."
Indeed, it could have been embarrassing if, after all the brou-ha-ha surrounding the endorsement of his candidature he had failed to win the seat for Labour. But he proved, after all, o be a good choice for the Labour Party. And five days later, on 20th November, 1922, he was sworn in and took his seat as a Member of the 32nd Parliament of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The General Election had proved a triumph for Labour who now had 142 seats in the House, virtually doubling their representation in the new Parliament. They were a jubilant and confident Opposition during those climatically and politically gray days of November. (Poor Arthur Henderson who was instrumental in rejecting many prospective candidates who were members of the Communist Party, himself became a victim of the electorate and lost his seat).
It may be of passing interest to quote here a letter from a journalist, Mrs Margarita Barns written to Beram in 1937:-
"Dear Beram,
In response to your letter in yesterday's Manchester Guardian, I am enclosing some correspondence from your father in the hope that it may be of some slight help to you in your task.
My first meeting with your father was during the 1922 General Election when he came over from his own consituency to assist Bertrand Russell in Chelsea. I am mentioning this because the latter may have some interesting light to throw; a greater contrast than these two speakers can hardly be imagined - Bertrand Russell, quiet and conversational; Shapurji Saklatvala, dynamic, rousing the meeting to an intense pitch of excitement. Your mother was generally present at these meetings and she will recollect them.
Good luck, Yours sincerely, signed, Margarita Barns."
It is disappointing that there is no indication that Beram acted on her suggestion of getting in touch with Bertrand Russell so his opinion of Father, alas, goes unrecorded. But it is also clear from Mrs Barns's letter that Mother accompanied him on his electioneering campaign and, indeed, although I was only 3�, I recollect packed halls, where smoke from cigarettes and fog from the dark streets outside, made it hard for me to breathe; and one of Father's helpers introduced me to what I later came to know were Fishermen's Friend" throat pastilles (on which I have relied to this day!)
In "The Communist" of 25th November, Saklatvala wrote, "If ever an election fight was a series of pitched battles it was at North Battersea. Yet they were all bloodless battles full of good cheer, and though a serious fight, it was at the same time a sing-song fight all the way. The great plank in the opponent's fight was to be the Labour Candidate's membership of the Communist Party. But this plank never even once balanced itself on 2 firm ends. More loudly, more emphatically, and more repeatedly did the candidate himself declare and fully explain his Communism than the adversaries had the ability to do. What assisted the Labour candidate most was the very genuineness of his Communist principles; as, in a truly proletarian spirit, he got by his side members of all sections of the Labour movement in Battersea to stand solid as a rock. The comrades of the ILP., comrades of Battersea Labour League, comrades of Trades Unions and Labour Party wards and the Irish without one woman or one man in the active Labour ranks making an exception. All of them laughed at the scare-cry against their candidate being a Communist and all of them seemed to trust him and work more enthusiastically for him on account of the candidate's openness in adhering to his political principles. It was a substantial proof that genuine Communist candidates are bound to enthuse the Labour and working-class voters and electors in a higher degree than by any policy of timidity or half-heartedness."
The 1922 Government had as Prime Minister The Rt Hon. Andrew Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin was Chancellor of the Exchequer, W.C.Bridgeman was Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs were in the aristocratic hands of Viscount Curzon who was also Leader of the House of Lords. The Secretary of State for India was Viscount Peel but the man who was to loom large in Saklatvala's Indian interests was the Under-Secretary of State for India, Viscount Winterton and there were to be many exchanges between them.
There was also one Communist member, Mr Walton Newbold.
On November 25th, the official newspaper of the Communist Party wrote, under the Heading, "The Communist M.P.s" the following : "In the name of the whole Party, the Executive Committee greets the new Communist faction in Parliament, Comrades Newbold and Saklatvala. They have a lonely fight to fight at present, but even one good fighter can be enough to expose the workings of the system and to show up the intrigues of the Government ..."
Clearly, the C.P. was treating Father as another Communist Member and was ignoring the fact that he had been elected as a Labour candidate.
The newly-elected Saklatvala lost no time in making his Maiden Speech which he delivered on Thursday, 23rd November, 1922 during the Debate on the King's speech. It is quoted in full below:
"The Hon. Member who introduced the Motion thanking His Majesty for his Gracious Message said that, as a newcomer, he felt like a school-boy. In a similar manner, and perhaps in a higher degree, I shall offer my apologies to you, Sir, as well as to the House, not only for tonight, but I am afraid, for all the nights that I shall be here. I am afraid that I may be misunderstood if I do not acquire what is known as the traditional manner of the House of Commons. We, the 142 who have come here, and I who was but yesterday with the people of Battersea, know the voice and minds of the people, and we, who have talked outside about politics and governmental affairs, wish now that the genuine bona fide human voice be talked inside, and I would therefore appeal to you, Sir, to realise that if we are found especially wanting in certain mannerisms or if our phraseology is not up to the standard, it is not for want of respect or want of love for any of you, but simply because we of the people shall now require that the people's matters shall be talked in the people's voice.
"His Majesty's Gracious Message referred to the question of unemployment. Unemployment prevails largely in the constituency which I represent. The first immediate thing, that is perhaps not of so great consequence from a strictly political point of view, but is of very great consequence from the immediately psychological point of view, is the unfortunate attitude, at the beginning, of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister says that he believes in the division of labour, and also in assigning responsibility to Ministers. All that may be true. But it is sometimes welcome to the heart of the British people to be heard by the Prime Minister. If they want a deputation, is the Prime Minister to be the judge concerning whether a matter is an appropiate matter for the Prime Minister to hear or not, when the people who may be unemployed, who may be hungry, may have a special desire to see the Prime Minister himself? I make one last appeal to the Prime Minister. I agree with the Prime Minister, perhaps with a different viewpoint, that it would have been equally futile for the unemployed to have an interview with the Prime Minister or any other Minister. But it is just as well that they should see each other, for though no useful result could have been produced by an interview with the Prime Minister himself, there is something in human life which is satisfying if not satisfactory, and if the Prime Minister would only have realised that it was a most satisfying measure, if not a satisfactory measure, to have seen a deputation of the unemployed, I believe that he would have spared the country alot of unpleasant thoughts, and I think that even now it may not be too late.
"Coming to the larger problem of unemployment, the Mover and Seconder of the Address pointed out in their speeches what was wanting in the Message. One of our hon. Members referred to the position in central Europe. Somebody referred to the collapse of the exchanges and reference was made to the high taxation. All that may be true. But are we to sit in this House and keep on analysing today the condition of yesterday, and going on analysing tomorrow the condition of today? Are we not determined once for all to analyse the root causes of it all and to apply the remedy which would remove the real evil? It is perhaps an easy thing today to talk of the collapse of the exchanges on the Continent of Europe. Have we no right to ask those who have been ruling this country since 1906 until today as to what it was which brought about the conditions that produced the collapse of the exchanges of Europe? Have we no right to ask in a similar manner our friends and the Government that is responsible today, and the Government which was responsible during all these strenuous years of trial throughout the world, as to how and why those conditions were produced? It is not satisfactory for us to say today that we are suffering because of these conditions. How are the lower exchanges to be set right?
"One of our Speakers said that the Continent of Europe had been impoverished because capital had gone abroad. Is it a sign of disservice to the country for enterprising men to take their capital abroad? If that is so, what can be said of private enterprise in Britain itself, and those British citizens who are taking abroad British capital produced by British working men, day after day and year after year? May I point out to the right hon, Gentleman, who today deplores the condition into which Europe has been brought by these greedy private enterprisers taking capital abroad and ask him why over 74 jute mills have been erected in Bengal by British millers and capitalists who had got their capital produced with the hard toil of the workers of Dundee, with the result that today we have shut up shop in Dundee and our workers in Bengal are working at from 14 shillings (73p) to 38 shillings (£1.90) a month and producing for the owners dividends of from 150 per cent to 400 per cent? Out of the 124 coal companies in my country, India, I know that 102 have been opened out by British capitalists who have taken capital abroad for these enterprises. If these are the root causes of private enterprise, may we ask our friends not to sit down and not to wait until the great calamity overtakes this country altogether, but to learn lessons from what has happened on the continent, and remove the causes which brought about the conditions which all of us agree are not worthy of any intelligent and civilised human race?
One of my colleagues referred to the position of the trade with India, especially the textile trade, and I understood the Seconder of the Motion to refer to it in passing, showing how it had become impracticable for the Austrians to buy Indian hides and the Germans to buy any Indian cotton, and so forth. I want the House to note carefully that the loss of trade with India is due to two separate reasons. One has been the desire of the Government in this country,who have always prided themselves as a constitutional nation and Government, to try in the outside world the most unconstitutional method, namely, of dictating Government to peoples in various parts of the world from outside. No Britisher would for a moment tolerate a constitution for Great Britain (drawn up) by people who are not British. In a similar way the constitutions for Ireland and India and Egypt and Mesopotamia should be constitutions written by the men of those countries, in those countries, without interference from outside. But there is another great cause, and I wish the House to understand it clearly. That cause is private enterprise, with all its glamour and its seductive tale, has gone out from these shores to India, and it is the rivalry due to the spirit of private enterprise which is reponsible now, and will be responsible in the future, for one country depriving workers of another country of their legitimate livelihood. It is the growth of this, private enterprise, of these large corporations and trusts, these huge industrial concerns in India, which is beginning to tell its tale upon the workers of this country. I wish to make no secret of it. The cotton industry of this country is bound to suffer from this two-fold evil, namely, the political sulking of the people of India with the people of Great Britain, and the spread of private enterprise and of the so-called legitimate privileges of the private enterprisers. The Indian private enterprisers have learned to ask for protective duties, for high dividends, for low wages, long hours, and all kinds of privileges which private enterprise has claimed for 150 years. It is this combination and the spread of the cult of private enterprise by the political bosses in this country which is working the ruin of the workers of this land.
In reference to the Near East there was a passing reference in the Address. I would not like to embarrass either the Government or this House in dealing with the problem of the Near East or the Far East in a thoroughly different manner from that of the past if it be intended so to do. If the Government merely intend to deliver different forms of speeches from those of the past Government they will fail as the last Government failed. I remember the time when a British Prime Minister had to stop a Catholic procession from forming in the streets of Westminster because the Protestants would not allow it. If that happened in the streets of London not many years ago under a Liberal Government, I think that the less a Britisher talks of taking care of the minorities in Armenia or Mesopotamia or Ulster or Southern Ireland or anywhere else, the better it will be for him. There is quite enough for him to take care of in the minorities here. There are many minorities. This morning we heard of the Prime Minister's letter to the Press relating to the unemployed who are now a minority in this country. The right hon. Gentleman exposes them as so many criminals. One reference in that correspondence was to the fact that these men had been dubbed criminals by a legal process in this country, because they dared to belong to political organisations which at present happen to be in a minority. The way in which that minority has been protected has been by bringing into operation legislative machinery, and by bringing the men for trial before judges or magistrates whose chief capital in the past has been party politics and party bitterness, which have made them incapable of dealing out justice. With this one-sided political machinery men have been tried and have been put into gaol. Then the Prime Minister says, "This is a set of criminals." That is the way in which the minority in this country is protected by the majority on the question of the right to express political opinion. I think the Prime Minister knows very well that had it not been for several of these prosecutions and persecutions he would not today have had at his back the number of supporters that he has.
In reference to Ireland, I am afraid that I shall strike a jarring note in the hitherto harmonious music of this House. I am well disciplined and trained in the general principle of the Labour movement, namely, that the happiness of the world depends on international peace, and that international peace is possible only when the self-determined will of the people of each country prevails in each country. I deplore greatly those elements still existing in the Irish Treaty that are not compatible with that great and wholesome principle. It is no use denying the fact, for we shall not in that way create peace in Ireland. As a House we may say that we are giving this Irish Treaty with a view of bringing peace to Ireland, but we know that it is not bringing peace. Either we are actuated by the motive of restoring thorough peace in Ireland or we are doing it as partial conquerors in Ireland. Everyone knows that the Treaty has unfortunately gone forth as the only alternative to a new invasion of Ireland by British troops. As long as that element exists the people of Ireland have a right to say that the very narrow majority which in Ireland accepted the Treaty at the time, accepted it also on this understanding - that if they did not accept it the alternative was an invasion by the Black-and-Tans of this country. The Irish Treaty all along continues to suffer in Ireland from the fact that it is not a Treaty acceptable to the people as a whole. If it were possible in some way in the preamble of the Treaty or by an Act of this House to allow the people of Ireland to understand that their country's constitution is to be framed by them as a majority may decide, and that the alternative would not be an invasion from this country, but that this country would shake hands with Ireland as a neighbour, whatever shape or form that Government took,it would be quite a different story. Otherwise, whatever we may do, however many treaties we may pass, however unanimous the British may be in their behaviour towards Ireland, Ireland will not be made a peaceful country. As in 1801 England gave them a forced Union, so in 1922 England is giving them a forced freedom. We must remove that factor. Unless we do so we shall not be giving to the Irish the Treaty of freedom which we have decided mentally that we are doing. When I say so, I put forward not my personal views but the views of 90 per cent of those Irishmen who are my electors. They have pointed out to me that, whereas under the threat of renewed invasion the Dail only passed the Treaty by a majority of barely half a dozen votes, Irishmen who are not under that threat - Irishmen who are living in Great Britain -, have, by a tremendous majority, voted against it. As long as those factors continue to exist, the Irish Treaty is not going to be what we - in a sort of silent conspiracy - have decided to name it. The reality will not be there. The reality is not there.
Before I conclude I wish to refer to one point which is conspicuous by its absence from the King's Speech. If in the Empire, this House and this Government is going to take the glory of the good, they will also have to take the ignominy of anything disgraceful which happens outside this country. This Government may not be responsible. This House may not be responsible. The people of this country may not be responsible. Yet there is something like a public voice and public prejudice, and if this Government and this House are proud of their association with the Colonies and the Empire, this Government and this House will also have to satisfy this country as well as outside countries, why the policy of the South African Government, in hanging and shooting workers, was permitted and was kept quiet. We are still calling Ireland a part of this Empire, and it is only last week that four young working-class lads, without an open trial and without even fair notice to their families, were shot dead. Even on the night before, their families were told that everything was all right, but on the following morning, when the mother of one of them went to convey a bundle of laundry to her son, she was informed that the poor boys had been executed. These acts might be desribed as the acts of independent governments. Either these governments are independent or they are part of this Empire. If they are part of this Empire, then the Government in the centre of the Empire must see to it that a policy of this kind does not go without challenge and without, at least, protest from this House, if nothing else can be done.
Our relationship with Russia is also a subject conspicuous by the absence of any mention. We hear of the revolution in Italy; we hear of Mussolini, the leader of it, and we have seen Mussolini's manifesto. He does not care for the Italian Parliament, nor for the majority in it. He is going to rule the country by 300,000 most obedient and faithful followers who are fully armed. Here is a revolutionary. But our Foreign Secretary is sitting in consultation with him. Our Foreign Secretary is shaking hands with him. We do not object on the ground that the Italian Government is a revolutionary Government. Why? Because the revolution in this case belongs to another class. We have the case of the King of Serbia. His Majesty King Edward for two years and more refused to have any dealings with him because he had slain the monarch who sat on the throne of Serbia before him. Yet we are friends of Serbia. We honour King Peter; we respect him; we call Serbia our ally; we co-operate with the Serbians, yet if the monarch in Russia has been assassinated, or something had happened, we refuse to join hands with the people of Russia on that account. Why? Because in the Serbian revolution class interest was topmost. In the Russian revolution the mass interest came topmost. I do not for a moment suggest that any of us in this House are purposely and consciously behaving in a dishonest manner. But the unfortunate part of every human life is that we are unconsciously the victims of many suppressed prejudices which are inborn in us and are traditional. Now we are face to face with a situation in this world in which, if we are not determined to burst out of these time-worn prejudices and boldly take a new place, if we are not prepared to push forward not only the good but the rights - even the sentimental rights - of the masses of humanity, into the forefront, and if the traditions, the family interests, the class privileges, the profits and dividends of private enterprise, are not set in the background, then neither this Ministry nor any other Ministry will cure the evil, though they may deliver as many speeches as they please upon it."
At least on the question of unemployment, Saklatvala's maiden speech upheld the official policy being pursued by the Labour Party. Ramsay MacDonald, Leader of the Party and of H.M.Opposition had said earlier in the Debate, "May I appeal to the Prime Minister, apart from the larger issues of this Debate, to do something to allay the agitation that is gathering up in connection with his refusal to see the deputation from the unemployed men who are in London now? ...I urge upon him that it is his duty to give the most tangible and simple proof ... that he understands the distressful position in which these people are placed, and the best way to do that is not to take up a merely red-tape attitude but...to see these men and to tell them what his desires and intentions are. ...We have a system that blocks the road with Rolls Royce cars when the rt hon. Gentleman became Leader of his Party, and which, the next week, blocks the Strand with processions of unemployed."
However, on the question of Ireland, Saklatvala did not toe the Party line. The most pressing business before the House was the urgent 2nd Reading of the Irish Free State Constitution Bill. In the King's speech opening the Session it was said that a Constitution for the Irish Free State having been passed by the House of Parliament established under the Irish Free State Act of the last Session of Parliament, and it being required by the terms of that Act that the Constitution should come into force by December 6th 1922, His Majesty had summoned His Parliament to meet in order that the legislation necessary to give effect to that Constitution and to make the provisions consequential on the Establishment of the Irish Free State might be at once submitted for the approval of the House.
The hon. Member for West Ham, Mr Margesson, (Unionist) seconding the Motion proposing an Address to be sent to His Majesty, said of Ireland:- "The present session has been made necessary ... in order to bring to a conclusion, so far as this Parliament is concerned, the policy in relation to Ireland which was left incomplete by the late Government. Some of us who have now for the first time entered this House may, perhaps, congratulate ourselves that there is no occasion to express any opinion as to the wisdom or otherwise of that policy. It has been publicly acknowledged even by those who most strenuously opposed the Treaty, that there is no longer any course open to this House, consistent with statesmanship and honour, other than to carry out the Treaty which the last Parliament accepted by an Act now on the Statute Book. Our part in the transaction is, in fact, purely formal. We have merely to seal and deliver an instrument already signed on behalf of the English people. We may, however, be permitted to express the desire, shared by all parties, that what we are doing may result in peace and prosperity to Southern Ireland. The conditions still obtaining there, make such a hope rather a venture of faith, but it is none the less sincere on that account. ...."
The approval of the House of Commons was being taken for granted and the completion of the necessary formalities were being treated virtually as a fait accompli.
It was not the first and was assuredly not to be the last time that decisions of historic importance, crucial to the peace and stability of the world, were to be taken under the pressure of a self-imposed time limit, so that neither the decision-makers themselves nor the general public had time to realise all the ramifications of the decisions being taken. Alas,we are still suffering violence and death in the streets of Ulster and, causing far greater outcries, even in the cities of mainland Britain. More time alone would not necessarily have been enough,; time, wisdom and vision were needed and all these appear to have been in short supply.
Rising to open the Debate, on 27th November,1922, Bonar Law expressed the Government's regret that the time for dealing with the Bill was so short, adding, "I think that any Government elected would have realised that if a really great calamity was to be prevented, this Bill should be passed by the 6th December. ....the circumstances are such that, in my belief, so far as the Government are concerned ....our liberty of action is circumscribed within the narrowest limits."
Ramsay MacDonald, speaking as Leader of the Opposition, in associating himself with the sentiments expressed by Bonar Law, said, "The less said about this Bill the better. Criticism is useless, sympathy is dangerous. All that this House can now do in relation to Irish Government is to implement its part of the agreement and allow the Bill to become law...."
Despite the time limit, the Debate became a lively one when a Unionist Member,Colonel Gretton, painted in lurid though imprecise terms a picture of rape, pillage, shootings, sabotage and chaos amounting to 'anarchy and civil war' in Southern Ireland. He was frequently challenged by Opposition Members who asked for names of the places involved, and who questioned the veracity and accuracy of the horror stories related.
It was quite late in the Debate when Saklatvala rose and, new boy as he was, dropped something of a verbal bombshell in the form of an Amendment: "I beg to move, to leave out the word 'now', and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months'.
"I realise the unpopularity I am courting in taking this step, but it was distinctly understood between my electors and myself that they did not wish me to back up a Treaty which was based upon coercion, and was signed under duress. I do not now speak on behalf of the Labour Party in this House. I wish that to be made perfectly clear. I maintain that, perhaps as a purist, I adhere in the Amendment to a principle that the Labour Party has laid down, namely, the principle of self-determination. It is not to be understood that I do not share the wishes or the prayers of my chief, nor is it to be understood I have not the same desire as my colleagues, but I must frankly admit that I do not share their hopes. I believe that the only cure will come when either this Government or a future Labour Government tells our friends in Ireland that they have a right to a genuine and bona fide self-determined voice of their own. Unless that is done, neither the Treaty nor the Constitution nor the Bill now before the House is likely to do what we all, against our convictions, hope that they may do. We talk of a Treaty. Hon. Members on all sides of the House have written and spoken in unmistakable terms in expressing their views that the unfortunate part of the Treaty was that the signatures were obtained under duress. I feel that that duresss was undoubtedly there, and the unfortunate fact was that it need not have been there. If matters had been left to the free will and the good sense of the people, the result would have been quite different from what it has been.
We have heard today quotations and illustrations of similar enactments for colonies and dominions of the Empire. Is there any real parallel between those Constitutions and the hopes and desires of the people of the countries concerned and the hopes and desires of the Irish people? Was Australia not rejoicing and waiting almost to a man and woman for the day when her Constitution would be confirmed by this House? Was not South Africa, after a great war and defeat, gratefully awaiting the day when the Treaty would be passed and the little minority of the republicans in a constitutional manner would be permitted to express themselves as a minority? The people of Canada, too, were determined to have their Constitution and to work it. The case of Ireland is different. It is no use our pretending that it is not so. We cannot adopt the policy that by driving deeper into the soil the roots of a cactus, and by carefully covering it with soil, roses will grow later on. I pay my homage to the great spirit that reigns in this House today, and to the great spirit that pervades the people who sent Members to represent them in this House. I admire that spirit at its full value. In spite of all the bitter differences in the past, we are determined to come to a genuine and sincere unanimity upon this question. Were we settling the matter in dispute here among ourselves, that spirit would give us a permanent solution; but our unanimity does not affect the disunity in Ireland, and that point does not seem to be before this House as emphatically as it ought to be.
Was there ever an instance in the history of treaties where immediately after a treaty had been signed, two out of the five signatories had to repudiate their signatures as not having been put down with a bona fide and conscientious intention? The hon. Member for Spen Valley (Sir John Simon) was pointing out to us the great improvement which has taken place since the Treaty. I am sorry to hear argument of that kind being advanced on rather imperfect observation. [Hon. Members."Hear,hear!"] The imperfect observation which I wish to point out is not referred to in the spirit of the hon. and gallant Member for Burton (Col. Gretton). It is quite in another direction. In the first instance, what is the constituent assembly which has sent us this document? Soon after the Treaty and, apart from anything that was ever contemplated at the time of the Treaty, a truce was entered into between the factious parties in Ireland creating an artificial Dail to tackle the problem of the Treaty. I take no sides with either of the Irish parties, but I maintain that truce, or that promise to observe a truce was not fair to the people of Great Britain, and it was certainly more than unfair to the people of Ireland. Under the truce it was decided to call an artificial constituent assembly, and when the moment came, even that truce was not observed, and the so-called constituent assembly cannot on any bona fide and sincere principle of self-determination, be accepted as a truly and properly elected Dail representing the people of Ireland in the ratios and proportions in which they stand. I was present at the last great Labour Conference in Ireland; I attended its sittings in Dublin and I saw there written down in black and white and heard proclaimed from the platform - "A plague on both your houses!"- on both parties, both the pro-Treaty and the anti-Treaty party. I have heard it declared that Irish Labour, well organised, is determined to work for a workers' republic. These are the views that are being expressed, and the Labour Party in Ireland is bound to come into its own, however much hon. Members may jeer or laugh. The Republicans are there; it is no use denying that they are there in very large numbers, and it is extremely doubtful, if coercive measures were not taken, whether they would not prove themselves to be the majority of the people of Ireland. These facts cannot be ignored, and they cannot be buried or covered up. We are assured by the Prime Minister that, according to Mr Cosgrave, Ireland is only waiting for the Constitution to be carried through this House, and that they are going to work it out. Mr Cosgrave knows that he had to shoot four human beings a week ago, and he has since had to take another life by violence - that of Erskine Childers. He knows that the prisons of Ireland are to be filled with thousands of men, and even some women, without charge and without trial. He knows that Ireland is to be prepared to recieve this Constitution, not with joy and flags and illuminations, but with martial law, penalties and threats, imprisonment and ships waiting to depopulate the country. [Interruption] I will ask you, Mr Speaker, to save me from those who are pretending to be my friends. I appeal to the Prime Minister and I appeal to the House.
Once, in 1801,our predecessors and your forefathers thought they had worked a great political trick and a mighty political charm when with great unanimity in Dublin and London they brought about the Act of Union. For 120 years that Act of Union has only produced distress to Ireland and disgrace to this country. I, as your friend - not as your critic nor as your opponent - feel that I am in conscience bound not to be a party to a bigger and greater mockery. Until the Labour Party in this country comes into power, until genuine self-determination is permitted to the people of Ireland, there is going to be neither peace nor fidelity to the Treaty, nor the carrying out of the Free State Government, nor any of the 'tosh' we have been hearing of late. I am speaking in a most difficult position. I know I seem to be the friend of my enemies and the enemy of my friends, but time and history will prove my case. I shall not be at all sorry or shamed to say that even if you were all unanimous, I stood aloof and away from you. Within five years this House will find the necessity for undoing this unanimous or semi-unanimous Act after more distress and more suffering. Let me predict that it will be the Labour Party sitting on those benches which will have to afford real freedom to Ireland. Instead of merely expressing a pious opinion, I take my courage in my hands and, true to my convictions, I move this Amendment in order to create an opportunity for myself to vote against this Bill."
The next day, the Manchester Guardian, under a sub-heading "Indian Communist Amendment" reported that..."After an Amendment of an obviously irresponsible character, (moved by Mr Saklatvala and seconded by Mr Newbold), for the rejection of the Bill had been negatived without a Division, the Bill received its 2nd Reading without challenge."
Small wonder that Father said he was taking his courage in both hands! He had been in the House barely a week, he had been accepted by the Labour Party, if not reluctantly at any rate cautiously; the Opposition were to support the Bill and he stood up to move an Amendment so that he would have an opportunity to vote against it. That needs a very special courage in my view; unlike a heroic act of courage which evokes praise and adulation, this kind of courage evokes derision, rejection and the jeers of your peers; it isolates you from your colleagues. Father was to show this particular brand of courage in full measure throughout his political life; he was often alone; he may have been sometimes in a small minority but he was never one of the crowd. It is a form of courage that, lacking it myself, I admire almost more than any other. ( Of course I cannot claim to be objective in this judgement - he WAS my Father, after all.) Writing 4 years after this event, he recalled: "...After a whirlwind campaign in the Election of 1922, I found myself ushered in to the Assembly of Westminster. My critics who were jesting and jeering and my friends who were smiling in doubt, confidently looked forward to my immediate conversion to the requisite mentality for the Mother of Parliaments....I came fresh from a constituency where most of the Irish electors were annoyed by the proposed Irish settlement, and, as in duty bound, I attempted to act up to the expectations of my democratic voters. Ridicule, contempt, sneers, showered from all sides and a look of 'cut him out - he's no good to us in this assembly' seemed to be on the faces of all my colleagues. The heavy frowns were not limited to reactionary capitalists, for MacDonald's and Henderson's frowns were even more severe."
Colonel Wedgewood (who had left the Liberals and joined the Labour Party in 1919 and who was to develop a House-of-Commons-friendship with Saklatvala as time went by), expressed the hope that he would not proceed with a division. He said the only result would be that he would find himself in the lobby with a large number of members with whom he really had no possible point of agreement. He went on to say: "I ask the hon. Member for Battersea to consider what would happen if he got his way and if this Bill were rejected. It would then appear that Great Britain having signed the Treaty is determined by the voice of a new Parliament to cancel the Treaty. I agree with the hon Member there was a great deal which was undesirable in the way in which the Treaty was brought about. But whether those methods were desirable or undesirable we cannot now possibly go back upon the Treaty which was signed or fail to carry out to the letter the terms and the obligations into which we entered. The speech to which we have just listened, a very eloquent speech, ought to have been delivered not here but in the Dail. ........"
Saklatvala fought as strenuously for freedom for the Irish people as he did for the people of his own land, India. To him it was one and the same fight against imperialism. The fact that Ireland lay so close to the shores of Britain made it, in his view, no less a victim of imperialistic agrandisement. (Is it not strange that the Isle of Man, closer to the mainland, should have its own Parliament while a United Ireland could not enjoy the same right?) Apart from his strong personal views, he had given an undertaking to the Irish constituents in Battersea to do all in his power to further the granting of self-determination to the people of the whole of a United Ireland; and he was not a man to break a pledge once given.
GENERAL ELECTION, 1922
North Battersea Division.
VOTE FOR SAKLATVALA THE LABOUR CANDIDATE. Polling Day
Wednesday, November 15th
8 a.m. to 9. p.m.
ELECTORS OF NORTH BATTERSEA,
I DO know where I am, though Mr Bonar Law does not. After our folly in the 1918 Election you ALL do know where you are today and where you want to be!
Our gullibility in December, 1918, has shut down workshops to a million and a half honest British Workers, with degrading cuts in wages to four million others. Our Tory-Liberal Rulers have devastated three fourths of Europe, and have antagonised practically the whole of Asia, and wonder why we are workless.
If elected, I pledge myself to the fullest extent to support the well-known programme of the Labour Party. To meet the changing positions which will arise, I promise to present myself to my Labour electors, about once a month, to ascertain their wishes on all fresh issues.
The spirit of the Labour Programme may be summarised as under:-
1) A Levy on massed fortunes exceeding £5,000, for the specific purpose of unloading the weight of National Debt. Mr Bonar Law said, to a deputation in the House, on November 14th, 1917, "My own feeling is that it would be better, both for the wealthy classes and the country, to have this Levy on Capital, and reduce the burden of the National Debt; that is my own feeling." TAXATION, FOOD PRICES,and HOUSE RENTS, can NEVER be LOWERED OTHERWISE.
2) A more just distribution of the INCOME TAX, relieving the Middle-Class wage-earner, and abolition of TAXES ON FOOD and the necessaries of life.
3) Prompt NATIONALISATION of such Industries, to begin with, where grievous harm by private ownership has already been proved. This would lead to re-organisation of all Industries and International Commerce, and ABOLISH UNEMPLOYMENT and periodical Reduction of Wages.
4) An immediate transformation of the Imperial relations of England with Ireland, Egypt, and India, and an equitable and honest inter-relationship with all the peoples of the world through a UNIVERSAL INTERNATIONAL MACHINERY, in place of the present conglomeration of armed nations.
5) Immediately to provide for the long-neglected social and intellectual needs of the people, in the shape of STATE HOUSING, the highest possible type of STATE EDUCATION, and ample financial provision for Aged People, Mothers, Widows, Orphans, Ex-Service victims, and Locked-out Workers.
6) To strengthen the House of Commons, elected on an ADULT SUFFRAGE for Women and Men, and to strengthen the Working-Class Organisations, as effective weapons of defence of mass rights. At present the two Houses of Parliament are used as convenient tools against the people by Political and Financial cliques, and the Organisations of the Working Classes, really representing the majority of the population, are continually defrauded and defied. THE TRADE UNION CONGRESS OF 1869 STARTED WITH A DEMAND FOR DIRECT INDUSTRIAL REPRESENTATION, WHICH IS YET TO COME.
Do not listen to the cry of "Wolf, Wolf," against the Capital Levy. Large Banking Accounts in the name of wealthy persons or Corporations, built on the strength of the War Debt, really represent unscrupulous profiteering out of the Nation's need during the War. On this Debt the Nation is called upon to pay £340,000,000 yearly. We are asked to saddle posterity with this unbearable burden, not because we gave them any New Houses, Schools or Hospitals, but because our Rulers, from 1914-1922 unscrupulously allowed a few Contractors and Merchants to use the War as a grand opportunity and medium for making exorbitant profits. This SURELY is not an honourable deed. Such National Loans are starving industries, and while the Unemployed Workers receive NO WAGES, the INTEREST on War Loans of the rich continues. We are all paying this £340,000,000, or £8 per head, man, woman and child in the shape of High Taxes and High Prices for Food, Clothing, Rents, Railway Travelling, Postages, etc. The Labour Party is determined to alter this.
What is this talk of driving away Capital from the Country? Selfish rich people refuse to share the burden of the Nation in proportion to their surplus wealth, are threatening to take their Capital abroad, and are blaming the Labour Party for their action! This attitude justifies the claim of Labour to place all Capital under National Control, so that it may not be permitted by the Nation to go abroad, to the detriment of workers at home, in search of Cheap Labour and bigger Dividends in other parts of the world. In the 2 years, 1920-1921, for instance, £280,000,000 were invested in new concerns in India out of the huge war fortunes made in the British Empire, against the highest figure of £12,000,000 in any pre-war year. The individual British owners of Capital in the jute industry have opened 76 jute mills in India (of which 98% are under British control), in order to earn 100% to 400% dividends out of the toil of the enslaved cheap Indian Labour (paid 14/- to 38/- per month, [70 new pence to £1-80 new pence per month] ), and they shut down the jute mills in Dundee. Similar instances of British Capitalist rivalry against home industries can be quoted from authentic records. Capital under individual control of British Magnates, is going out to South America, to India, to China, to Africa, and even to Spitzbergen, in search of HIGHER PROFITS and LOWER STANDARDS OF LABOUR.
Those who talk of confiscation of the Rich Man's Property by the Labour Party are the very persons who, by enforcing unemployment, have driven millions of Workers to the Pawnshop, and, in consequence, had all their past savings confiscated.
We are not concerned with the catch-cries of the Liberals or the Tories, either in or out of the Coalition. During Strikes, Lock-outs, Unemployment, Wage-cuts, the Workers of Britain have found not the slightest difference between Liberal and Tory Employers. From 1906 to 1914 the Liberals were in power, and after completely and wickedly mismanaging our International Affairs by secret intrigues and through commercial rivalries, they told us in August, 1914, that they had created a condition which, in their own words, MADE WAR INEVITABLE. Human beings were led to destroy human life on a larger scale than the wild beasts of the forest are ever known to have done.
Then, in 1918, the Tories, assisted by the Liberals, promised us Universal peace. They pitched this country twice on the battle-front, once, against Russia, and then against Turkey, without the slightest regard for the constitutional voice of the People, till LABOUR rose equal to the occasion, and twice declared that the wishes of the masses to stop the war should prevail, and LABOUR'S VOICE DID PREVAIL
They gave to Ireland a peace perched on bayonets; they practised towards the Egyptians a deception of the most flagrant type; they gave to India the massacres of Amritsar, the Moplas, and the Sikhs, and have locked up thousands of innocent men and women in British gaols.
The freedom of these countries becomes necessary in the interests of the Working Classes of Great Britain, who have to depend in the future upon the raw materials and food stuffs from these countries, which can only be obtained by a free and friendly interchange, without the interference of Imperial Militarism.
They talk of the CLASS WAR at home, and they charge Labour with a desire to foment Class War. While artificial Classes exist it is beyond human power to stop Class War, and we have today, as we always had, the perpetual Class War in out midst. The victorious few are compelling the many millions to live in indescribable slums, on insufficient or unhealthy food, to be ill-clad, when we all know the needs of the human body. LABOUR IS OUT TO STOP THIS CLASS WAR, by the effective method of eradicating this Class distinction.
If we demand full Trade Union maintenance for the innocent unemployed, there is an outcry of "Bolshevism." All high State Officials, as Lord Chancellors, Privy Councillors, Cabinet Ministers, and also Directors of private Companies, are not paid by the time clock. They serve Society whenever they are called upon to do so, and they do what they please with their whole time whenever they are not required by the Society to give any services, yet all the while they get their full maintenance wages. The selfish society that devised Dividend Equalisation Funds are now revolting against any system of Wage Equalisation Funds which could support the unemployed. The root cause of many social evils of the unfortunate girls and juvenile offenders is economic environment, and rarely moral depravity.
The outcry against the Labour Programme to relieve the lower middle-class earner from his Income Tax on unlivable incomes of £250 a year is discreditable. The wage-earner's machinery for earning his salary is his body and his mind, and why should he not be permitted to maintain that in proper order before he begins to pay his Taxes, as the rich man is allowed to deduct his maintenance charges on industries?
Beware of arguments used against Nationalisation as carried out by bureaucratic officials, who are of the class pledged to prove its failure, and who treat Nationalisation as an opportunity to favour Contractors and Profiteers.
A genuine NON-CAPITALIST SCHEME OF NATIONALISATION will give full benefits to workers and consumers.
May I be permitted to intrude upon your attention with a little personal note? You will, of course, be told I am a foreigner. The Liberal Party selected the first Indian M.P., the Conservative Party selected another one, and recently, the House of Lords received in their midst the first Indian Peer.* Will it be wrong if the Labour Party, which is the Party of International Brotherhood, tries to do the same? My heart has never been foreign to the Labour Movement of this country, and there is not a part of Scotland, England, Wales, or Ireland, where there is a live Labour Movement, where I have not gone during the last ten years to give my free services to the Local Co-operative Branches, Trade Union Meetings, Labour Parties, Independent Labour Parties, or Communist Parties, as one of their own Members. .
In spite of desperate and ludicrous efforts on the part of Liberals and Tories alike to split the Working Class Movement into hostile fragments, THE LABOUR PARTY IS TODAY THE ONLY PARTY IN GREAT BRITAIN THAT STANDS SOLIDLY TOGETHER. The scare-cry of "Communist," which is sure to be raised by eleventh-hour leaflets, will fortunately not frighten the Electors of North Battersea, as your two faithful servants on the London County Council, some half-a-dozen members of your Borough Council, and your retiring Mayor, have not proved themselves false to you,and have recently secured re-election as a token of your confidence.
During my strenuous work in the Labour Movement, I have always remembered one thing, that I have to fight for and to work for, the Working Classes, as through them alone I see a chance for a truly humane world. It is my turn today to ask for your support, and it will be your turn after giving me that support on the 15th November to command my further services.
Yours very cordially, SHAPURJI SAKLATVALA.
455, Battersea Park Road, S.W.11.
* (Satyendra Prassano First Baron Sinha took his seat in the Upper House in February 1919 as the Under-Secretary of State for India.)
MR SAKLATVALA'S LAST WORD
To the Electors of North Battersea.
Will you have further Wars, and International Hatreds, or International Fraternity and Peace and Progress at Home?
From 1906 to 1914 Liberals were in power and had every facility at their disposal.
They did not make universal friendships - their policy made War inevitable. They did not restore the Land to the People. They did not give freedom to Ireland. They did not administer justice in India (Lord Morley deported without trial nine honourable citizens against whom nothing has been proved). They did not give Educational facilities to the Children of the Poor as existed for the Children of the Rich. They pretended to safeguard Trade Unionism, but used the legislative machinery and the Forces against the Workers as freely as the Tories do.
Their Candidate wants Profits and Royalties to remain, which means reduced Wages and Salaries.
The Liberals today take credit for wishy-washy reforms, old age pensions, insurance, etc. These measures, more showy than useful, were the work of Mr Lloyd George, whom the Liberals now expose in his true colours, just as he exposes their impotency and hypocrisy.
The Liberal Candidate for North Battersea claims that the Industries of Britain have been built up by Capitalists, and he says, "Heaven help us if the wash-outs get hold of them!" Workers of Britain, with your superior workmanship YOU have built up British Industries, and when you take control of them periodical stoppages will cease, unemployment disappear, and British Industries generally become stronger.
Then there is the tricky argument: "Ah!" say the Liberals, "We do not mind the Labour Party MANAGING them - we dread the Communists and Socialists seizing them." The following is the official text of the objects of the British Labour Party:- "To secure for the producers by hand and brain the full fruits of their industry ... upon the basis of COMMON OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION ... " The following is the simple definition of the word "Communism", as given in the Concise English Dictionary by Charles Annandale. M.A., LL.D. :-"Communism - The system or theory which upholds the absorption of all proprietary rights in a COMMON INTEREST: the doctrine of a community of property." The Liberals and the Conservatives do not like to see a community of property. They flourish on a community living in slums, on high rents, and on low wages, for the benefit of landlords, profiteers, and royalty owners (see Mr Albu's Address).
Mr Hogbin comes to you on behalf of the National Liberal Association, with an avowal to support Mr Lloyd George. It is rather a rash guess on the part of my friend to suppose that North Battersea wants to support Mr Lloyd George, whose dishonourable methods have ruined this country and shocked the whole world. When Conservatives inside and outside Parliament openly denounce a Liberal-Tory combination, to say the least it is a political imposture for candidates here and there to pretend that they represent two quarrelling factions. Self-help alone will save the People! We do not want benefactors and charity-mongers, and M.P.'s who are Masters of the People. We want Servants of the People who do not claim superiority for their brains, or profits and royalties for their few select brethren.
Voters for North Battersea! Come along now and Vote for the Representative of the People's Labour Party,
S.SAKLATVALA.
Wm Louis Coltman, Election Agent.