The New Freewoman: No. 12, Vol. 1, December 1st 1913.
by Dora Marsden
"The conclusion reached by the trade union leaders today is that Larkin has now completely surrendered himself into the hands of the intellectuals of the 'Daily Herald.'-'Central News.'" As the "Herald," presumably, is not disposed to quarrel with the "leaders'" conclusion, and publishes the item without comment, we can accept it as correct, and congratulate ourselves. The "Herald" being the paper with a soul to save, it has been our self appointed task to address to it the chastening word which leads to salvation. If therefore the "Herald" carries Mr. Larkin in its pocket our words of admonition will reach him along the usual route. For the time has come to speak to Mr. Larkin words of admonition, having read his many speeches delivered in England since the time when the politicians came to the conclusion that released from gaol he would do no harm-not enough, at least, to counter balance the annoyance of an election lost on the count of sheer romantic sentiment. The determining character, to us, of Mr. Larkin's addresses is the fact that they, following in the tradition of the "Herald" rebels, successfully confuse two mutually negating gospels. In the pages of the "Herald" the confusion did little positive harm, though it foiled the efforts of the understanding to get forrader. On the lips of a born "orator" however the harm effected is likely to be considerable. What will be effected is this: the revolting energy which is rare enough to require husbanding will work itself into a blind alley, and be spent in driving at obstacles which are off the path of its true destination. The energy will be spent: nothing will be gained: spirits will tire: reaction set in: and there will be the same old verdict-another "abortive revolution." What is wrong is-confusion. Let the "Herald" clear out that. Is there no English element on the "Herald" strong enough to put the lasso round the neck of its imported and no doubt highly admirable enthusiasts-Larkin and Haywood-while it teaches them how to make haste slowly? that it has no taste for a revolution? that, if convictions be not strong enough for an insurrection, it would be far better to hand the situation over into the hands of certain hitherto despised gentry-the Macdonalds, Shackletons, Hendersons, Snowden's and what not?
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All the confusion of which Mr. Larkin's speeches are an embodiment is the inevitable result of a propaganda which attempts to commandeer the good will arising out of two tendencies now becoming more and more patently divergent, but both seeking to encompass a wider distribution of material benefit. It is the result of the "sinking of differences" school, whose graduates are the present-day rebels." It may be as well to define "a rebel." A rebel is a Londoner who is a personal acquaintance of one or all of the pamphleteers of the Fabian Society, who retains, doubtless, his membership of that society, what time he applauds at "Daily Herald" meetings with passionate gusto. He is a person who first makes sure the kingdom of respectability and then trusts that it is safe to add thereto the riskinesses of something called "freedom." Intellectually bond, he can afford to be emotionally free, that is, being in his deepest instincts a very limpet on the rock of conventionality and settled tradition, he can afford to be very free in the use of words-a good sort, but with brain asleep. Asked to give an account of himself, he would-the fun of the "freedom" business apart-speak in the terms of a state socialist. He is, in fact, a Webbite ashamed of the Webbs. We speak of the sort of "inner group of the rank and file" rebel such as we have known. We need not however keep to the rank and file: the crowd that claps and applauds. We might refer to the "Daily Herald" writers themselves, who are about equal to those of the "New Age," who of a certainty were never startlingly original; better-mannered because less ill natured and with honester mental complexions: greater chance therefore of them acknowledging their deficiencies and attempting to meet them: as they do in fact from issue to issue. It is, none the less, their lack of clarity which makes the muddle-headedness of their crowd of "rebel" followers possible.
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One of the latest attempts of socialist thought has been to make out that the industrial question pivotted on the "wage system." The attempt however was cancelled out in absurdity when the empowering virtue of the theory was proclaimed to reside in a distinction between "wages" and "pay"-some great moral distinction. Well, to be sure, there is nothing more certain than that if the alteration of "wages" into "pay" would bring peace into the industrial world, the Murphys and Devonports would be pleased to make the change tomorrow. The thing is that "industrial unrest" is not in the main an affair turning about material necessities. If it were, state-socialism or guild-socialism could cure it. As it is, their attempted application rouses more temper than the goad of poverty itself, and it is precisely this temper-which vitalises the agitation. Persons speaking under the stress of it are eagerly listened to, even when what they say is nonsense. It is, for instance, temper which makes the appeal for information as to facts concerning "actual strikers' families" seem an impertinence. A Mr. McCurdy, M.P., writes to Mr. Larkin,
"Give us examples . . . showing their wages and work and their weekly budget. How do their wages compare with the cost of living in Dublin ? Tell us in pounds, shillings and pence what your Union has done to raise wages for the workers during its existence. Let us know something about the employers engaged in the dispute, give us the names of the firms, and tell us, if possible, what profits they make, and what dividends they distribute, and in each case the rate of wages paid. They (the public) must be taken into the homes of the workers and the counting-house of the employers, there to see the facts for themselves and to judge as between man and master the rights and wrongs of this terrible dispute."
If Mr. Larkin retorted as he felt it would probably be with a
"Go to! 'Rights and wrongs' between 'master and man' forsooth! Owner and owned! Take the public into your home! Tell them how your budget compares with the cost of living in London at the present time! You the judges? We are sole judges."
That is, we imagine, as he would like to retort, but it is scarcely how he can. The strikers have, in fact, put their case up for judgment in another court when they appealed to "public opinion." It is the socialistic appeal which is made to public opinion-the servile attitude, submissive, inferior, ready to be taught and willing to be judged. The appeal to public opinion is in itself a throwing up of hands, an expression of defeat, whereas, if they themselves did the bold deed successfully, they would by the very act have shut up the mouth of public opinion. If they supplied themselves: served their own necessities like masters, showed their might, very swiftly public opinion would concede their right. That is why this dispute should be settled in Dublin. The appeal in England for funds is a surrender. Mr. Larkin says he need not thank those who have supplied a little money: that so to do was their simple duty. It is nothing of the sort. The only duty which exists in this situation is the duty of each starving man to himself-to do himself well. How he is to do it is his problem: and Mr. Larkin's particularly. There is food in Dublin; though the strikers, one reads, would prefer to keep it out! A mightily daft notion surely. Do they not need it? This starving is a deadly absurdity. Until the Larkins can vouch for the existence of a conviction that it is the head and crown of sinning to starve during a strike, it would be well for them to use their influence to keep the men with their noses to the grindstone. The argument should run like this:-Granted it is an infernally bad thing to starve, are we strong enough to strike and not to be forced to starve-and without inviting those nosey, would-be judges, into our houses, comparing our budgets with the cost of living, pronouncing on the rights and wrongs of the case as between master and man?
Put like that, the question would automatically ground the combatants on to their true basis, that of trial by strength: not a sham fight, with an audience, and intolerable martyrdoms. As it is the "poor" are so misled by "sympathy" as actually to forget their role: that this quarrel is theirs and not another's. One might note, in illustration, Mr. William D. Haywood's retort anent a suggestion put forward by Mr. Bernard Shaw, that the people should arm themselves against the police. "Let Bernard Shaw do the shooting himself," said Mr. Haywood: an idiotic remark. It is not Mr. Shaw's quarrel, he merely gives his opinion for what it is worth. The present state of affairs appears to do very well indeed by Mr. Shaw. We forget the number of thousands per annum which Rumour says Mr. Shaw gets from his books: it is large enough to sound fabulous. Why should he fight policemen? They treat him with no end of respect. It is as great a mistake to assume too much goodwill as it is to rely on a vicarious responsibility. If goodwill is there it is there by grace and not of necessity. The poor are treading on honey-combed ground when they assume that successful writers will espouse their quarrel as their own. Things do so well by them as they are. The poor see to that. Writers-successful ones-have nothing whereat to grumble. They toil not, neither do they spin-aught save yarns and theories for their own amusement. Yet they know all will be well with them. "Scribble in peace, the mugs will provide." If there is a cream on the milk, the poor will leave it for them. If it is all skim, their jugs will be filled first; if the quantity is limited, what there is will be shared by them with the rich while the poor will pass a self-denying ordinance to leave what there is to their betters. Verily, verily, they tempt human nature. Why should Mr. Shaw do the shooting? We ask you, Mr. Haywood!
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This is the truth and those with lung enough should declare it: the only message to the poor is "It is your move, gentlemen: the play is waiting." The most that the "intellectual" or "aristocrat" can do is to look over their shoulder at the hand they hold and perhaps prompt the game. His friendly suggestions will be worth all the more if he has moved round the table and knows the hands of the opponents. It isn't the game to be sure: but it is war. But prompting or no prompting it is the poor who, at the finish, perforce must play the card.
As we pointed out above, the appeal to "public opinion" and for public support quenches the possibility of maintaining an egoistic temper- the gentlemanly temper in this dispute. "Public opinion" has nothing to say to "temper," except that it is a nuisance, a disturber of the peace which should swiftly be suppressed. Ordinarily temper has a contempt and disregard for public opinion: hence to come upon it, cap in hand, a suppliant, would be a unique opportunity for public opinion to get its own back. Hence, one must suppose, the explanation of Mr. Larkin's mixed gospel. Appealing to "public opinion," he must appeal on grounds which public opinion recognises: the "wrongness" of excessive poverty, excessive oppression by masters of men. Hence the piling up of the agony, the exhibition of wounds-possibly their exaggeration. One gives the rebel orators credit for only making such public exhibitions of the poor's weakness under compulsion of circumstance. Were it otherwise it would be exceedingly ominous. It is, in any case, detestable. Consider the incident about which the outcry has been made as to its accuracy: the strike girl, who for next to nothing was imprisoned in a reformatory, in which were "fallen" women. One is not worried as to whether or no it is true. What gives the nasty turn is the telling of it. Such things do not happen to people of quality, for the simple reason that they would promptly be avenged. Try to imagine Mr. Lloyd George working up his sloppiest audience with a similar legend about a female relation of "my friend and fellow-worker, Mr. Asquith." If, in the first place, it could within the limits of the possible he imagined true Mr. George would not mention it: it is a thing to be hushed up: and if he did his audience would not thank him-it would hiss him from the platform: nor would Mr. Asquith-the reflection upon his own capacity would be too great; nor could it happen-simply because Mr. Asquith is a person of power not to be harmed lightly. The credit that such a thing could not happen is to Mr. Asquith, and-and this is the point-the deep discredit of such a thing happening, as Mr. Larkin said happened, falls not so much on those who caused it, as on those who suffered it. Responsibility and pride are the first attributes of men of power destined to remain free men.
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The simple over-credulous faith of the the "poor" in the reality of a goodwill which they imagine exists to an extent which justifies them in an expectation that others in happier circumstances will of necessity espouse their quarrels as their own, finds its counterpart in their belief in the actuality of abstract qualities: in justice and right. They believe that they have been treated wrongly: therefore Right is on their side. ; that they have been treated unjustly: therefore Justice fights for them, and will one day appear in power to succour them and rehabilitate her slighted altars. If only they could obliterate their entire conception of justice, their "just" dues would in swift sequence be rapidly enhanced. If they could only realise that to be treated "justly" is to be treated in strict accordance with their respective powers, and that to be treated otherwise is mercy, pity, personal affection, or the fastidious restraint exercised because dealing with a recognised inferior! The "poor" have been treated as they could be: therefore justly, and there exists no "Justice" over and above to whom they can make appeal to readjust the reckoning. To think there is, is an added disability: to know there is not, puts the emphasis where it should be: on one's relative possession of power- power to live and get. Someone said-a voice from the "Herald" probably- "All that the Dublin strikers want is a little freedom . . . and the right to"--this or that, combine perhaps. If that is all the Dublin striker thinks he wants he would do better to get back to his job. One hoped he was after something more easily convertible into use: some property of his own to use, abuse, and defend. Not stuff like freedom and right. These follow on power and property as the thunder-clap follows the lightning.
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It is indeed time that the ambitions of the labouring world were lifted out of the ranks of a "Cause," into that of clear definition of specific ends. There has been more than enough of "Causes which go marching on" leaving the hapless Causite as thin and unbegirt with possessions as before. If it is higher wages they want, or "pay" if it pleases them so to call it, with security of tenure, favourableness of conditions and so on, let them state it plainly to themselves. Let them accept themselves frankly in roles where they are the "men" and where others are the masters. (Whether these latter are private capitalists, or state officials, or guild servants does not matter: it all works out to the same in the end: they are the masters). Once they have decided on what they want, they will get it. There will be divergence of method, political, syndicalist and other, of which the relative merits will be revealed in the working; experience will prove them, and there need be but little bitterness among the workers themselves in the process. There are men who more or less honestly-once the personal equation has been allowed for in most cases-hold varying opinions as to the comparative length of the different routes which lead to the same destination; to wit, happy and comfortable "men" employed by reasonable and humane "masters." The bitterness arises out of the resentment of those who resent being the employed servants of masters, no matter on what terms or under the guise of any euphemism whatsoever. It arises out of the resentment of the egoists who feel that whatever their relative personal worth may be it is too high to allow of their remaining servants of any "masters" whatsoever, and feeling thus they try to insinuate the entire "distress movement" on to the same level. A little frankness from the would-be freemen's standpoint would in our opinion do everything that is required for the removal of the bitterness of misunderstanding. The socialists are able and ready to state their case: the Webbs have really done their work very well. The labour "leaders" and reformers need only repeat their lesson as taught them.
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It is worth while, from time to time, to examine the mood of irritation which ordinarily is sufficient to banish below the horizon of the mind consideration of persons such as Mr. Philip Snowden, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and other "leaders" who give themselves voice in that treacherous sounding sheet the "Daily Citizen." Ordinarily, one thinks of them as dead dogs with an ill odour-and dismisses them. When faced however with a personality like that of Mr. Larkin, they come to mind again. It dawns upon one with something of the freshness of revelation that they are too simple for treachery. They do not understand the content of the temper they are offending: therefore they do not understand their offence. It is when the "Rebels" state the case, and one sees how even they slur over the main issue with rhetoric, that one realises that a temper so dimly understood as to be only half-articulate on the lips of its advance guard is probably wholly uncomprehended by the main body. Relieved of the excitement of suspecting "treachery" one becomes easily capable of commanding the patience which can hear their case through, the case for the well-stabled, well-fed, domesticated animal, i.e., the working man. And having heard it through, one arrives at the conclusion that if the working man does not object to it there exist no grounds for objection. If the wild, untameable spirit is not there-talking will not put it there. The very uttermost limit to which suggestion can go is that it may unaware be lying there, buried, stuffed-up with the stagnations of long disuse. That is the possibility which orators, and far better because far more responsible, journalists can make trial of. But to attempt to force self-ownership and the self responsibility which is part and parcel of it-upon men whose timid hearts are crying for a master and safety, is to build for disaster. It cannot be accomplished. Inevitably, the spirits of the unwillingly free will sag downwards to their true level-to shelter and protection, and it is the instinctive desire to slur over the knowledge of this fact which impels the exponents of insurrection to use contradictions at their need, the argument of the well-managed domesticated animal and that of the free self empowering man. It is a mistake: frankness is better. Numbers are nothing, and the sooner the differentiation is made the better. "Public opinion" will be with the one, but genius, every embodiment of the human spirit raised to the level of self consciousness will automatically trend to the other.
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The hatred of a "master," the desire for the self determining of one's own activity, is the first thing of which a man becomes acutely aware once the separateness of his personality is clearly reflected in his consciousness. It reveals itself in restiveness under the badge of servitude even when easy. It will willingly exchange ease for strain; it appears indeed to bring its own "keep" with it, in a tightening of the spiritual fibre which braces it to meet the responsibility it entails. How much there may be of it in the labour revolt no one has yet dared to put to the test: but it is certain that it is its wild lure which can shed a magic even over the deadly sordidness of a strike-area, which all the well-laid schemes for housing and feeding the domesticated beast of burden will never give a hint of. And it is true that to assist this spirit to breathe forth is as though one should create life in a man. To accomplish it is the one thing worthwhile, worth chiselling one's words and distilling one's soul for. To ennerve an arm, to slip scales from eyes, to pour out the acid which dissolves stupidity and lets life flow freer, that is worthwhile and trouble.
How much of this quickened new life there is behind the poor man's rebellion one does not know; but one does know that there is in the sheer revulsion from discomfort enough rage, vehemence and misery to lay the situation open to the operation of the most confused of impulses. The work of incalculable value which may possibly be done by clear brains and precise tongues is to turn a revolution into an insurrection--to turn a mob led hither and thither by the noise and confused emotion of rhetoricians, into the self-conscious individualised rising in strength of men who mean to be free and who realise what it is which will empower them, and what is only a false light. One might suggest that to every orator there should be chained a humorist, who should speak in immediate succession: a commentary on his partner's rhetoric. Huge "rallies" should be treated flippantly: as representing "the courage of a crowd"- the stuff they make revolutions of: of no use to persons who have more serious business. In a revolution, leaders exploit some pre-existing misery, or mere malaise, or some confused enthusiasm. They intoxicate "followers" to the end that the recalcitrant energy of revolt be invested in some "Cause"- any old tag ending in " ity " or " dom " will serve- of which " Cause " the " leader " then becomes a symbol. Did Mr. Larkin tell his Manchester audience that he was a symbol ? Watch your captive, Oh "Herald"! the "Cause" and the "Symbol" together mount up in authority-two more masters for the much-mastered followers. Then something more or less sanguinary happens, after which the old authoritarian furniture is readjusted and re-upholstered; then the impulse tires and behold "Reaction," they will say. Reaction indeed as much as the "movement" was progress-so much and no more. The "followers" have become bored, or they are dead and their children are not amused any more with that game. The old old swing between enthusiasm for words and boredom with words-revolution.
An insurrection is a different matter. In it, each individual man is the chief actor in the drama. What he wants is the goal to which the whole "movement" moves. The movement, in fact, to him represents nothing more than a chance alliance with men whose own aims are sufficiently similar to his own to make them profitable companions. An insurrection is a demand for definite things for the individual man: who himself is competent to judge whether these are conceded or no. In an insurrection a man thrusts out his own arm to empower himself. He is himself the creator, the executor, and judge of the action. The motive for acting comes out of himself and his needs: the results of his action accrue to himself. One well might hope, if faintly, that history has already recorded the last of the revolutions and that the great insurrection is now dawning-the influx of life.
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We must now be placed among the true prophets. Our surmise that the British aristocrats could not to a man be pulpy from fatty degeneration: that there must be one here and there with enough fastidious sensitiveness to be moved by the helplessness of the poor not merely to exploit it, but to detest it to the degree of trying to remove it, has proved true. If there is Sir Edward Carson in Belfast, there is Captain White in Dublin and Sir Francis Vane in Mike End. These latters' efforts may appear infinitesimally small: but once they are understood, their influence on temper will be infinitely great. What profit can a labouring man feel in voicing any desire to be his own master when he sees himself as the unarmed unit at the apex of a triangle which broadens out to its base in serried rows of armed men, each with his rifle, bludgeon and lash raised threateningly at him ? As the mildest-mannered policeman would tell him, to do so would be "asking for it." That an unarmed populace under a government possessing an armed force is in a condition of slavery, is a fact which shouts. To be free is to have the power to treat on equal terms. The citizen army is the first step in the direction of making these equal. A people will be in the position to say whether they want to be free, when every able-bodied man and woman has been enrolled.