On the 22nd March, 1928, the Manchester Guardian, commenting on a speech by Saklatvala in the Commons the day before, printed the following:- "No contribution to the Debate had such a stirring effect as Mr Saklatvala's, and for some hours afterwards the enquiry was everywhere made when two persons met within the walls of Parliament, 'Did you hear Saklatvala?'" The speech to which they referred was Saklatvala's definition of Socialism and is, therefore, of some importance in explaining to the reader his political aims.
Under "ORDERS OF THE DAY" "PERILS OF SOCIALISM" Sir Harry Brittain is quoted in Hansard in the following terms: "I beg to move,
'That this House, recognising the grave dissentions which exist amongst leaders of the Socialist party and within the Party itself on vital issues of public policy, consider that the formation of a Socialist Government would be a source of danger to the nation.'
To which, early in the Debate, Saklatvala replied thus:
"Mr SAKLATVALA: I would ask the House to be patient only a short time, in order to permit me to place my point of view, which I believe to be the only point of view, for any genuine form of Socialism. The rt hon Gentleman the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr W.Graham) rightly charged the hon Member for Acton (Sir Harry Brittain), the Mover of the Motion, with not defining Socialism, and with not making clear what it was that he was attacking. The Mover did refer to the fact that, in one of the responsible Labour publications, he found the production of about forty different definitions of Socialism. Misunderstanding has been created by the rt hon Member for Central Edinburgh by the instances which he gave of some activities of industries which are under so-called public or municipal control, as if they could be a substitute for Socialism. Socialism and Capitalism are two entirely antagonistic forms. It is possible for Capitalism to extend and expand ownership from one individual to several individuals, as in the case of limited liability companies. It is equally possible to extend that ownership, that partnership, to the ciizens of a whole borough, town or city, as the case may be, in owning something through a municipal Council. It may be equally possible, without at all disturbing the capitalist character of society, and without coming near Socialism, to extend the ownership of any particular enterprise to all the citizens of a country or a nation. The instances given of the way in which the Post Office is run were ..[here there was an interruption by James Maxton] ...
MR SAKLATVALA: I beg the House not to be misled into thinking that the ownership of the Postal Service, or a system of tramlines or transport, or the Broadcasting Corporation has any real bearing on genuine Socialism. It is merely an enlargement of the number of shareholders. Let me take, for illustration, the Post Office. It is the height of absurdity to say that the Post Office system, within a capitalist country and a capitalist form of society, is a socialist organisation. It is nothing of the sort.
MR W. THORNE: Is it private enterprise?
MR SAKLATVALA: It is private enterprise as it is; it is not a socialist organisation in any shape or form. The only difference is that the shareholders are all the citizens of the nation, but it is a capitalist form and system. When the Post Office wants to erect buildings, it goes to a profiteering contractor. That is not Socialism. If it wants mail vans, it again goes to private profiteers. If it wants pillar boxes,it goes to another private company. If the Post Office wants postage stamps, it goes to a private company and buys the paper and gives a printing contract. There is no Socialism about a Post Office in a capitalist country. There is certainly the compensation that the shareholders are so expanded that everybody within the State stands to lose or gain by its losses or profits. That is the difference, but that is not Socialism. The poor postmen working in the Post Office are no better off than working for a private corporation or company. It is entirely wrong and misleading to say that this is a form of Socialism. This is where we differ in the Communist movement from the so-called Socialist movement, which looks at these forms of capitalism as socialism. Though they have a Socialist form, they have a capitalist soul. The poor postmen have no voice in the control of the Post Office. Instead of a board of directors appointed by shareholders, it has a board appointed by the State.
There may be a little difference between private enterprise owned by a few individuals in a nation, and an enterprise owned by all the individuals in a nation, but it is misleading to say that that private ownership by all the persons in the State makes it a Socialist organisation. It is far from being a Socialist organisation. I read last Sunday an article which the Mover of the Motion did not mention, though he was very copious in his references to literature. The article was in the Sunday Graphic and it was by the rt hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition,who launched a severe attack on communism and communist methods, and tried to speak of Socialism in terms of capitalism, or in terms that would confuse everybody and lead to no clear issue at all. What was the gist of that article? What is the real problem before the country between Socialism and Capitalism? It is not merely the question of extending the field to a larger number of shareholders; it is a question of overthrowing the system of private ownership and introducing public ownership. It would become criminal for an individual to own land or houses or places of industry. Such a society would be quite a different society. If such a society were introduced, it is futile and absurd to argue that the whole of the social structure of the nation would quietly remain what it was and that the relationship of man to man within the State would continue to be what it was. It is deceptive even to put forward such a proposition, and again I suggest, especially to my comrades within the Labour movement who aspire to be socialists generally , to take the example of the Post Office or the Broadcasting Corporation or of the municipal tramways; the capitalist state of society has not been altered by merely widening the ownership. The position of the workers within these industries is absolutely the position of workers who are under the dictation of somebody not appointed by themselves. It is the Capitalist system.
The rt hon Gentleman, Member for Central Edinburgh, gave many points for serious thought with regard to trustification, but there again I want my socialist comrades to understand that competition by itself has never been the object of Capitalism. The object of capitalism has been the increase of the profits of the individuals in industry. Competition has been used as a means to achieve that object. For example, somebody for a time is making a profit in a particular industry; another individual or corporation enters into competion not for the benefit of the consumers, not out of a sportsmanlike spirit to oblige the world by producing a cheaper article, but to make a higher profit. Competition in itself has never been the object of capitalism and individual ownership. It is a means that is used at certain times only. When the opposite takes place, when unregulated and uncontrolled competition endangers the profits of a particular corporation or several corporations or individuals, quite justifiably and without any inconsistency, the capitalist controllers of these industries combine to get rid of that instrument of competion in order to secure the ultimate motive, namely, the safeguarding of their profits. The mere abolition of the element of competition is not the victory of Socialism at all. It is still another power at the disposal of private capitalism, either to use that competition or to submerge that competition, to reach the main objective, namely, the increaseof the individual's profits. From those points of view, I submit, that within this capitalist country there never has been an experiment in Socialism at all, and to people who have a right conception of Socialism it is a mistaken notion to imagine for a moment that Socialism can be introduced alongside Capitalism, side by side, and gradually, and so on and so on. Such a thing would never happen; such a thing cannot happen. The rt hon Gentleman the Member for Central Edinburgh gave us an example drawn from the coal industry to which I would specially direct the attention of genuine Socialists, not only here but all over the country. Is it really satisfying to the socialist conscience to say that the coal industry of this country ought to be so pooled together and controlled to secure for it a certain trade in coal in somebody else's country, doing this by measures and tactics which will create unemployment amongst the coal miners of Poland, Germany, Belgium or elsewhere? Such a proceeding would not be Socialism, but merely nationalisation. To put under State control a particular national industry, with the same object as the capitalist owned and controlled industries, does not bring us any nearer the attainment of Socialism.
If we were to apply the real principles of Socialism to the coal mines,the first consideration would be to secure the control of the miners themselves over their own industry. The first consideration of the miners who took charge of the British coal industry would be the welfare of the miners in the coal industry in Poland, in Belgium, in Japan, in India, in Africa, and elsewhere, and the first Socialist step would not be to pool the British coal but to pool the world's coal, and arrive at such a position that all miners in all parts of the world would be employed and all the coal produced by them would be of some use to all the nations of the world. The nationalisation of the coal industry in one country does not take us nearer to Socialism but may even strengthen the Capitalist atmosphere and the Capitalist structure of society, in which this sort of nationalisation is practiced.
To come back to the argument used by the rt hon. Leader of the Opposition in last Sunday's 'Sunday Graphic' in his futile attack upon communism. What does the rt hon Leader of the Opposition mean to say? I have no hesitation in saying that he is not in a position to say what he wants to say - [Hon. Member: Why?] Because he has to attack the Communist Party, because he has got to attack the one country which has achieved Socialism, and has also to keep up the appearance of preaching Socialism.
MR THORNE: Which country is that?
Mr LAMB: Will the hon Member say which country has achieved Socialism?
MR SAKLATVALA: If you have patience you will have the whole story. We as a nation, and all other nations, are concerned not merely with the theory of Socialism but with the practice of Socialism; we are concerned not with expressions of pious hopes of what Socialism will do and what public ownership will lead to but as practical politicians we are in duty bound to say how it is to come about. The rt hon Leader ofthe Opposition says in that notorious article in the Sunday Graphic that it will come by the democratic will of the majority of the people, by learning lessons in Socialism. That is exactly the charge of the Communist Party against the Leader of the Opposition, that instead of educating the electorate, instead of telling them to adhere to Socialism, year after year he and his Party are receding from and going against Socialism. There was a time when the Labour Party and the Communist Party had not such divergencies and differences of opinion.
MR MONTAGUE: When was that?
MR SAKLATVALA: You will get the full story by and by. [Interruption] I am putting this without any passion or personality. There is no doubt that that divergence between the Communists and the Socialist groups, though Communism and Socialism are identical -
MR THORNE: Not on your life!
MR SAKLATVALA: My comrade here says 'Not on your life!' but I think the recently published Labour Encyclopaedia will show that it is so. There is no difference between Communism and Socialism -take any ordinary dictionary and see. There is certainly an ever-growing difference and divergence between the Communist Party in Great Britain and the Socialist Party. I admit it quite candidly, and I do not suggest for a moment that in that ever-growing difference we are always the faultless party - we may be committing our errors and our own individual faults. But the general picture is this, that since the Revolution in Russia the Communist Party are standing firm by one and the same programme. We are not adding anything to that, and the divergence does not occur because we want something more year after year, but because the Socialist party want less and less Socialism year after year. At one time the Labour Party of this country were agreeable to forming the Council of British Workers and Soldiers. At that time the Communists were agreeable to that proposition, and there was no difference of opinion between the two. Today the fault is that the Communist Party still demand that this country should be placed under the control of the Council of Workers and Soldiers, and the Labour Party does not want what it once wanted. The Council of Action was established by the Labour Party in this country. There was no divergence between the Communist Party and the Labour Party on that subject in those days. There is divergence today. Today, the Communist Party says that during the Chinese Expedition, during the Simon Commission, during the hundred-and-one struggles of the workers, there ought to have been Councils of Action all over the country amongst the working-class organisations [Laughter] My Labour friends laugh at it. They did not laugh at it in 1921. And today they want to go away from the only method - the only method - which will introduce Socialism, and then allow the people to imagine that Socialism is to come in some unknown and mysterious way.
There is the question of the War Debts. There was a time when I, as a member of the Independent Labour Party,had learned my lesson,within the Independent Labour Party, that the whole of the War Debt of this country is blood money, it is the result of undue profiteering during the War, which every Communist and Socialist should repudiate. When that was the cry of the Labour Party, the Communists and the Labour Party stood together - nearer than today. The Labour Party receded from that position, through the exigencies of Parliamentary vote catching, and brought it down to disallowing half the debt instead of the whole of it. Then they came to the Capital Levy. They found the Communist Party would be dissatisfied with it, but the divergence occurred not because the Communist Party said, 'Your Capital Levy of a half is not sufficient, make it three quarters,' but because the Labour Party withdrew from the Capital Levy. Today our objection is that when the country is appealed to, democratic support is sought not for Socialism, but for subterfuges and substitutes for Socialism. The Surtax! I know it is rather a sore point. I have been bred and brought up in a capitalist business life myself, and I know the surtax is never going to be a reality. If you impose the surtax today, I vouch for it that at least one firm have got their plans ready in the City of London to have dummy shareholders in Buenos Aires, Calcutta and Hong Kong in whose names large numbers of shares will stand, and there will not be many capitalist mugs who will allow all the shares to stand in their own name. [interruption] It is so. We do not quarrel with the rt hon Mamber for Aberavon (Mr Ramsay macDonald) when he is seriously appealing to democratic methods but we quarrel with him because he is depriving the working class of the opportunity of learning Socialism and voting for Socialism. He is making it criminal now to have anything in the programme - anything that is genuine Socialism. That is why, in the Amendment which I had hoped to move, but which I am not permitted to move, I point out that apart from the impracticability of the surtax, there is no Socialism in the surtax. * (See footnote at the end of Chapter 19). 'I will take two shillings in the pound out of your unearned profit, and I will then permit you to make twenty shillings of unearned profit.' It is worse than the gambling business in which the Government have become shareholders. The Government will become shareholders in the unearned income of people who do not work and who exploit the working class, living as parasites upon them. The Labour Party says, 'I will square my conscience if you give me two shillings out of every twenty shillings and I will call it Socialism.'
Then comes the living wage. We would certainly agree that the living wage would be a great battle-cry within a capitalist organisation inside a capitalist society, but it would only be useful to Socialism if it were used as a battle-cry leading up to an industrial revolution in the end. [interruption] Certainly, I quite agree with the hon Member for Bridgeton (Mr Maxton.) I do not for a moment blame him. He believes that, he says that and he means it. The living wage is not Socialism. How can a living wage be produced within a capitalist society? A living wage within a capitalist society cannot be produced as long as there is international competition. Lancashire cannot afford to pay £4 a week to spinners when capitalists can erect cotton factories in Shaghai and get people to work for 6d or 8d (2�p or 3p) a day of 10 hours. In such cases protection is no good at all. The people who sent out a Chinese expedition to Shanghai took away every protection from the Lancashire workers, and now, no protection is possible. At the jute mills in Dundee the workers are not earning half a living wage, but how can you help that happening when the same fraternity of financiers are erecting jute mills in Calcutta, and paying miserably low wages to their workers? If you wish to establish a permanent living wage, it can only be done by applying similar conditions of labour all over the world, and that cannot be achieved by Great Britain nationalising her cotton and jute industries. Supposing you nationalise the jute industry in this country and it was not nationalised in Calcutta?
MR MAXTON: The hon Member knows I am interested in this point. Will he tell me whether it is not the case that in Russia Mr Stalin does believe that a Socialist country can maintain itself and its conditions inside a capitalist world?
MR SAKLATVALA: Not as the hon Member puts it. The people of Russia want jute bags and how are you going to safeguard the living wage in the jute trade under your present system? All you can do is to shut down the jute mills whether they are nationalised or not. The only way in which the human interest can be safeguarded is by a complete understanding and adoption of a uniform standard and hours of labour. We want to establish a uniform standard and hours for workers in America, Germany, Italy, Spain and all the other countries. It is obvious that in any real genuine Socialist system what is required is the control of the workers in the industry so that an understanding may be arrived at with the workers of the same industry in other countries. It is no use trying to evade that issue. The beginning of Socialism is not possible without a Socialist revolution. It is all very well to say that the capitalist world may exist and a Socialist state may exist and flourish within that world, but we are not concerned with that.
MR MAXTON: I was merely putting the point that that was the view of Mr Stalin, who, when dealing with the present administration of Russia, said that a Socialist State can maintain itself in a capitalist world.
MR SAKLATVALA: The word I quarrel about is 'maintain' instead of struggle. His point is that a Socialist State under those conditions cannot maintain itself at the full height of its prosperity. The point raised is whether militarism is to play its full part in attacking the neighbouring industrial countries, especially Poland and Germany, and that seemed to some to be an absolutely unavoidable condition of the existence of a Socialist Russia. The point is, can the Soviet Union accomplish its objective without those military expeditions, and find sufficient elements at their disposal to maintain the struggle in apite of the attacks of surrounding capitalist countries. ... Mr Stalin's argument is that, deplorable as the industrial development of Russia is at the present time, the needs and requirements of the people of Russia make them dependent upon other countries for manufactured articles which cannot be supplied in Russia, and owing to the backwardness and the apathy of the working classes in other countries that have not yet developed as far as a Socialist revolution. The teachings of Zinovieff and Trotski try to prove the necessity of attacking Poland and Germany in order to incorporate the neighbouring countries in the Soviet Republic. There is still a sufficient modicum of industrial activity within the Soviet Republic which could be built upon by some sort of compromise with the capitalist countries and machinery could be adopted to keep up the Socialist struggle until Socialism is properly understood as something that can be introduced only through a Socialist revolution, and no humbug. It is no use trying to deceive ourselves on that point.
The workers of Great Britain should realise that God has not created man to be ruled dictatorially and autocratically by another man. Through self-determination and mutual consent we should elect somebody to rule who is not a Socialist boss, but a helper and adviser. If that is our essential belief, how can the people of this country believe that God has created the British Labour Party to rule the Indians and the Africans in the way that they are being ruled? The leaders of the Labour movement say to the Indians and the Chinese, 'We are ruling you; we are sending Commissions to your countries because you are less experienced and we are more experienced, and we want to be kind to you and tell you how you should live your lives. That is exactly what the capitalist bosses are saying to the workers in this country. They say to them, 'We are more experienced in directing industry than you are, and we keep an Army and a Navy and an Airforce to protect you because you are less experienced than we are. Socialism believes that that sort of incapacity is not inherent in human nature. How can the Labour Party say that they are preaching Socialism and collecting the majority of voices in favour of Socialism when they are pursuing such a policy as I have described? The Labour Party supports expeditions to China, the colonies and the Gold Coast; in fact, one member of the Labour Party has gone to visit one of those countries. How can those things go on? [An Hon. Member:'Come over to this side!'] An Hon member opposite invites me to come over to the other side of the House, but, if I took him seriously, I am sure he would be sorry for it. The hon Member who invites me should read the first few lines of my Amendment.
Mr THORNE: I invite you to read the last line as well.
MR SAKLATVALA: I believe in Socialism because in my view all the devices adopted in the development of industrial life through individual ownership and capitalist control have ceased to produce any good for the workers. It has caused such degradation of human life and character within capitalist countries, and it is still more degrading and crushing as far as human life is concerned in the countries which have been conquered for the benefit of the capitalists. For those reasons, I do not believe in Tory politics, because there is no genuine Socialism at the back of Conservatism. Capitalism and individual control only create misery and do more harm than good. We hear alot of people talking about their hard earned wealth and savings, but what does it all mean? The capitalist society today is unjust. Consider the case of an honest man doing well,educating his children in a first-class institution and maintaining his wife in a luxurious manner. That man gets run over by a motor car and becomes incapacitated. Under the state of society, that man would be forced immediately to sell up his home and withdraw his children from the University, and his family is crushed once and for all. That form of society is so unjust and cruel that I understand the justification of that man having savings in the bank, so that when he meets with an accident, there is enough in his bank to enable his family to go on.
I will give another illustration. Take the case of an acknowledged criminal. Your present state of society says, 'We punish him because he is dangerous to society', and you lock him up in a prison; but you take care that 3 times a day he is fed, you take care that once a week he is medically examined, you take care that he has open-air exercise once or twice a day, you take care of many things, realising your liability to human life, even though it be that of an acknowledged criminal. And yet you disown any responsibility and liability to the innocent wife and children of the same man and throw them on the scrap heap to starve - you are no longer responsible for the women and children who have not been criminals and have committed no fault. In these circumstances, that wife and those children would certainly be happier if, out of the stolen property, some provision were set aside for them.
We have seen that there have been some rich criminals lately, and when they have gone into prison, their wives and children have never had to go to the Board of Guardians, or be locked up in workhouses; they were amply provided for. I wish that every burglar would steal, and first amply provide for his wife. But I urge this House and the country to realise that the very first principle of Socialism, the very first principle of a Communist State, the essential and fundamental principle, is that the State first assumes full liability and responsibility for the honourable and comfortable maintenance of all men, women and children as long as they honestly carry out their task; and, as long as society as a whole relieves the burden of these accidental catastrophies to individuals, that State is morally justified in denying the right of private ownership and private savings, which are no longer needed and for which there is no moral justification. Therefore, I take it that, if Socialism, genuine and bona fide, is ever to be introduced, it can only be introduced with the immediate deprivation of the right of any individual to possess or own private land, private house, places of industry, and, above all, human labour.
That being so, we know what will happen. It is our nature to struggle against that. We do not give up our own parliamentary position so easily, we do not give up our little individual advantages which we create around us, and we are not under the delusion that a large, powerful, resourceful, well-organised class of capitalists, with its agents in all parts of the world, is going to say, 'From tomorrow morning we deliver up our possessions.' I do not say that that is imppossible, but it is very unlikely. It is not the Communist mind, it is not the Communist mentality, it is not the Socialist creed, but it is the individual capitalist greed that makes a revolution inevitable. On that account we say without any delusion, that those who demand Socialism, if they are true to their convictions, must first demand it it by making it unlawful for any man to possess any private property. If they sincerely mean to make that unlawful, then they must be prepared to back up their legislative effort by a Socialist revolution. And that is not all. [Hon. Members: Time!] I apologise to the House for the length of time I am taking in a short debate, but I just want to make one important point. It is no use imagining that we shall suddenly have tomorrow morning a state of society in which there will be no private ownership, and that all industries will be nationalised, and in which the social structure will yet remain the same, so that a clerk will walk into an office and take his cap off as his master passes by and hide round the corner. We cannot for a moment imagine that the policy of private ownership and of power in the hands of one individual to say, 'You obey me, or I starve you and your wife and children,' will remain; and with that power gone, it is a complete delusion on the part of anyone to say that society will still remain as it is, because we shall have destroyed individual ownership through the ballot-box, and there is not the slightest doubt that there is going to be a complete revolution from that moment in the relationship of man towards man.
" You may consider that the Russians were mad in re-organising their Army and turning it into a Red Army instead of a capitalist Army; but the Red Army, its construction, its principles and its formation, the equal rights of the soldiers to political votes, their right to select their own officers and to dismiss their own officers, the right to pay their own officers, [interruption] - you do not want me on your side now? - the right to pay their own officers the same wages as are paid to the ordinary man who risks his life, all these things are absolutely unavoidable consequences of establishing Socialism, and it is no use for a Socialist Party to say that, because we are going to alter the world through the ballot-box, therefore there is no need for the workers to be prepared for a Socialist revolution, there will not be a complete reversal of the present discipline of the Army, and it will not be followed by a complete destruction of what you call the British Empire. Of course it means the destruction of the British Empire. Of course, in all the Colonies, and in India and China, with the assistance of the workers, there will be the formation of the workers' organisations in those countries; there will be the overthrow of the zamindars, the landlords, the mandarins, the mine-owners, and all of that class in those countries. There is not the slightest doubt that, if you mean to pursue Socialism, you have to pursue it by the first step of declaring capitalism and individual ownership to be illegal.
"The second step will be the inevitable Socialist revolution, not because a revolution is dear to the heart of the Communist or the Socialist, but because it is inevitable in the final struggle of those who possess individual property. There is not the slightest doubt that there will be a complete reversal of what you call law, order and discipline. Within offices, within factories, within the Army, within the police, within the Navy, within the Colonies and the relation of this country to the Colonies and the conquered countries, everywhere the workers will organise themselves into their own organisation, the peasants will organise themselves into their own organisation, and they will not only say, 'This is possessed by the nation and the Post Master General is ruling us,', but the postmen and the miners and the railwaymen will say: 'We have no Post Master General except the one that we appoint, and, if he goes on delivering obnoxious speeches, and recommends private enterprise in the Post Office, we will dismiss him within 24 hours.'
That is the system, that is the control, that is Socialism. Whether the Labour leaders forsee that such a thing will scare away the voters or not, we say that the teachings and lessons of the Labour Party were responsible for what happened in Russia, and that the events of 1917 in Russia would have been impossible but for the great fraternal backing and support which the British working class organisation gave to their suffering comrades from 1902 right up to 1917. The Russian Revolution would have been impossible but for that, and we say, similarly, that no pact, no contract, no wishy-washy phraseology in Parliament, is going to keep the workers of Britain in this perpetual slavery. The example and progress of the Socialist movement in Russia and the neighbouring countries -
MR MACLAREN: And in Battersea!
MR SAKLATVALA: And in Battersea, in spite of the Labour Party's attempt now to drive Battersea out of existence -" (the Labour Party had recently selected an official Labour Candidate to stand against Saklatvala in the next General Election) "- Those very examples will create a genuine Socialist movement and a genuine Socialist revolution in this country."
Later in the Debate, Lady Astor proclaimed, "We have had, I think, a most interesting and instructive afternoon. It has been interesting because we have had two very brilliant speeches from entirely different points of view. The hon Member for North Battersea (Mr Saklatvala) has a beautiful theory, but it is based on universal understanding and universal love. I ask the hon Member, does he think that I could get up in Soviet Russia and make a speech such as he has made in the House of Commons today? Universal understanding! Why, I would not be allowed to land, let alone to speak."
To which Saklatvala gallantly replied, "I will guarantee the safe transport of the hon. Lady to Russia, and also her safe and sound return from Russia, if she will repeat there what she says tonight."
What a sensational tour of Russia might have ensued if the honourable Lady had taken up the offer of the honourable Member for Battersea North! Had it been celebrated in verse, it could well have vied in popularity with the saga of the Owl and the Pussy Cat.
*Footnote to Ch. 20.
The following is the proposed Amendmentto Sir Harry Brittain's Resolution, prepared by Saklatvala, but not moved on account of its being ruled out of order. It should be noted that, in accordance with custom, amendments must only contain commas or semi-colons for punctuation; hence the apparently involved manner of its presentation. "Omit all words after 'House' and insert: 'Considering that the private ownership of land, industries and means of producing wealth engenders the struggle of competitor against competitor,of nation against nation, of class against class, thus leading to powerful commercial trusts within nations, fierce class struggles and the enslavement of foreign and colonial peoples by imperialist conquests, has failed and must fail to secure and maintain a full standard of living for the workers, to foster their mental and physical development and to secure international peace, this House, whilst condemning the capitalist system as responsible for the aforementioned circumstances, at the same time sees that the Labour Party is rapidly deserting the workers' struggle for social emancipation and is adopting policies on finance, unemployment, imperial and foreign affairs, such as the Surtax, living wage, nationalisation by purchase, imposition of British conditions for the rule of India, Ireland, Egypt, China and Africa, makes necessary the perpetuation and strengthening of the capitalist system united with the militarist supremacy of the capitalists of Great Britain; and this House declares thyat the achievement of the social emancipation of the working class, the producers of the wealth of society, can only be secured alonfg the lines of bona fide socialism, and urges the subversion of the capitalist system through the inevitable social revolution establishing the dictatorship of the working class during the process of transference of all land, houses and industrial undertakings frpm private ownership to the working-class State, and, during the period of bringing about the necessary and consequential changes in the judicial, military and administrative machinery, and in securing the independence of all those countries now under British subjugation."