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The Workers' Political Programme.
To be obtained also from the Secretary, at the Fabian Society's Office, 276, Strand, London, W.C.
1891.
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Preface.
"One Man One Vote" (this then meaning only the abolition of plural votes).
"Free Land" (this meaning only power to buy and sell land as an ordinary commodity).
"Disestablishment of the Church in Scotland and Wales." "Reform of Local Government."
The party newspapers, with customary servility to their leaders, expressed satisfaction and delight at this paltry and inconsistent manifesto. Lord Randolph Churchill instantly capped it by offering the same programme on behalf of "Tory Democracy," with the addition of (1) Departmental Economy, (2) Free Schools, and (3) Compulsory Employers' Liability. The Fabian Society thereupon issued a pamphlet entitled "The True Radical Programme," in which it attacked the official leaders of the Liberal party for offering to the Radical working classes an old-fashioned, middle-class, Whig programme; and roundly accused them of disaffection to the cause of the people. It accused them, for instance, of "loud-mouthed denunciation of Coercion in Ireland, and silent approval of Coercion in England;" and it flatly questioned the sincerity of the cry, "Remember Mitchelstown," with which Mr. Gladstone was then rallying the Liberal forces.
This was in October, 1887.
In November, 1887, the Government, through their Chief Commissioner of Police, Sir Charles Warren, forbade, by proclamation, a political meeting in Trafalgar Square, under a certain Act of Parliament (23 Vic, cap. 47). The Radicals of London examined this Act, and found that it gave the Chief Commissioner no such power as he claimed. They marched in unarmed procession to the Square, and were dispersed by the police with a violence which earned for that day (13th Nov., 1887) the name of "Bloody Sunday."
Not a single Liberal member of Parliament went to the Square with the Radicals; and Mr. Gladstone hastened to pay compliments to "our admirable police." Nothing was done by the Liberal leaders to countenance the Socialist member of Parliament (Cunninghame Graham) and the Socialist working man (John Burns) who had been arrested for insisting on their right to speak in the Square, and who were sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment in January, 1888. They were not indicted under the Act cited above. The Government had withdrawn that false pretence when compelled to sustain the illegal proclamation in the courts by argument, instead of in the streets by force.
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After Trafalgar Square, Socialists had no further difficulty in persuading the London Radicals that the Liberal leaders were hardly less disaffected towards the English working class than their Tory rivals. Within three months a powerful daily newspaper, The Star, was founded, under the editorship of Mr. T. P. O'Connor, the well-known organizer of the Parnellite party. He at once found that the Liberals could only regain the support of the London workers by substituting for the Nottingham programme an advanced Radical programme on the lines indicated in the Fabian tract. By advocating this the paper achieved a great political success; and the Liberal official ring became thoroughly frightened, the more so as the Tory Government "dished" the chief item in their programme by introducing, in March, 1888, the Local Government Act, which established much more democratic County Councils than the Liberal party had ever dared to commit itself to. The tone of the London Liberal and Radical Union steadily became more and more like that of the Metropolitan Radical Federation. In November, 1888, the Liberal party confessed the meanness of its Nottingham proceedings of the previous year by passing a series of comparatively revolutionary resolutions in favor of Public Payment of Returning Officers' Expenses at Parliamentary Elections, Free Education, and Taxation of Ground Rents and Mining Royalties. But Payment of the Returning Officer is of little use without Payment of Members; and as the Council of the National Liberal Federation refused to entertain a Radical amendment introducing this reform, the Radicals perceived that the new resolutions were a mere sop thrown to them, and were in no way dictated by sincere Radical principles. Consequently the Radical agitation, especially in London, went on with undiminished vigour; and the London School Board elections in Nov., 1888, were contested on more advanced lines than had ever been ventured upon before, with the result that the greatest number of votes in East London was secured by Mrs. Annie Besant, who was in favor, not only of abolition of alt fees ("Free Education"), but of the provision of free meals for the children in Board Schools. At the first County Council election, in January, 1889, John Burns, the Trafalgar Square prisoner, was returned by 3,071 votes at the head of the poll for Battersea; and the success of the other Progressive candidates in London was the more remarkable, as the term was only applied to those who had returned favourable answers to a searching list of questions drawn up on frankly Social-Democratic lines. The new School Board, and later the County Council, at once proceeded to consider the question of the wages paid by its contractors to their workmen; and resolved only to employ fair houses." Such a thing had never been heard of in a public body before; and it would not have been heard of then had the Radicals tamely submitted to the middle-class dictation of the Liberals.
No sooner had Parliament risen that year than the Liberal leaders began in all directions to make speeches on "Social Reform." They were mostly bad speeches, shewing that the speakers did not understand working-class politics; but they showed how the wind was blowing. Many of the Metropolitan Liberal and Radical Associations,
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led by South St. Paneras, passed a strong series of resolutions improving on the Birmingham programme. In December, 1889, the annual Liberal Conference was held at Manchester; and this time, instead of refusing to consider Payment of Members, they not only put forward Mr. Stansfeld to propose a resolution in its favor, but actually had the impudence to declare, through him (after opposing it ever since 1832) that it is "a necessary part of the Liberal programme." But when a Radical amendment in favor of an Eight Hours Bill was proposed, the old Liberal hostility to Radicalism broke out again; and they refused to allow the amendment even to be put to the Conference. The London workers answered this renewed attempt to ignore them by turning out, a quarter of a million strong, on the 4th May, 1890, to demonstrate in Hyde Park in favor of the Eight Hours Day. Next year, if the Radicals continue to threaten the Liberals instead of blindly cheering for them, they will swallow the Eight Hours Bill as they have had to swallow Payment of Members.
One small result of this change in politics has been to revive the demand for the Fabian Tract "The True Radical Programme." Some of it, however, is by this time a stale pennyworth. In response to the demand, the rest of it is now reprinted with such comments as are necessary, and with the additions for which the time is ripe. A summary of the present "official" Liberal Programme is appended, with questions and information for the use of Radicals who desire to employ their political influence in the most effective manner.
It is unnecessary now to give much attention to the programmes with which Lord Randolph Churchill still from time to time trumps the Liberal cards. For Lord Randolph Churchill can only carry his proposals into law by the support of the Tory Party, which declines to listen to them.
It is easy to see that a Tory cannot be a true Radical. But what people are not used to yet is the more important, because half-hidden truth, that the Tory party is now a Whig party, and that those Liberals who are only Whigs (whether they are Home Rulers or not) are just as bad as the so-called Tories. The Radical party will never do any good until it drives all the mere Liberals out after Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen, and fills their places with genuine representatives of the workers. It will do so the moment it is in a position to choose its own leaders; and it can attain that position by adopting and carrying out the Workers' Political Programme.
The Workers' Political Programme.*
We Want Adult Suffrage, Parliamentary and Municipal.
Why? If you don't know why, you are no true Radical. The Women must have a voice in the making of the laws, because the women work under the laws; pay for the laws; and have to submit to the laws. And the paupers must vote because, since, if the laws were just there need be no paupers, the paupers have the first right to a voice in altering the unjust laws by which they are the greatest sufferers. As to the incorrigible idlers, they are mostly rich people who have not one but several votes apiece already. Remember that in the language of politics, people who have no votes are roughs, scum, dregs, mob, riff-raff, and residuum; but people who have votes are "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen," "Independent Electors," "Men of England," or "Friends and Fellow Citizens." We want all Adults to be "Fellow Citizens." One-Man-one-Vote, registration reform, polling on the same day throughout the kingdom at general elections, and payment of the Returning Officer out of public funds, though they make up the total of the proposed Liberal measure, will be only minor business details in the true Workers' Franchise Bill.
Payment of Members and of Election Expenses.
Why pay Members? Simply because there must be genuine workers inside Parliament to uphold the interests of the workers outside; and they cannot live on air whilst they are doing this. Working-class members cannot now afford to go into Parliament because their constituents cannot afford to keep them there, having barely enough to live on themselves. Even if members were paid so much per day, as they are in France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal, the United States, Canada, Newfoundland, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, New Zealand, &c., the expenses of standing for Parliament at present are enough by themselves to keep poor men (i.e., working men) from even thinking of it. A candidate has usually to guarantee the rent of an office, and the salaries of one or two clerks some years before the election, to work up the register and defend against the objections lodged in the interest of the other side. When the election comes off, he has to pay for the printing of his election address, its insertion in the newspapers, and its distribution at the houses of the voters. He has to pay for the halls in which he holds meetings, and for the printing and posting of bills to make these meetings known. He has to pay his share of the expenses of the Returning Officer, which may amount to several hundred pounds, and even then, he has to pay in addition the cost of notifying to each
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elector the places of polling. Few men will venture to face a parliamentary candidature, even when they can depend on a good deal of voluntary help, unless they can afford to spend a thousand pounds on it. If we had adult suffrage ten times over, working men could not get into Parliament if they still had to bear these monstrous expenses for doing the work of the public. Nothing but Parliaments of rich men can come out of such a system. At present there are five adult male wage-workers to every one gentleman in the country; but in Parliament the proportion is fifty-five gentlemen to one working-class representative—a pretty result of the Liberal and Tory Reform Bills which gave working men the vote without abolishing, as Radicals demanded, those pecuniary barriers to the House of Commons which have practically the effect of a heavy property qualification. That House is now full of men who live upon Rent and Interest. The less of the national produce goes in Wages, the more is left for Rent and Interest. That means that the House of Commons is full of men with a direct pecuniary interest in keeping wages as low and workmen as submissive as possible. In future, we must fill Parliament and the Local Governing Bodies with men who know what it is to work for wages; and they must have enough to live suitably upon whilst discharging their public duties. The registers should be made up at short intervals by public officers responsible under penalties for the omission of any duly qualified voter. All necessary expenses of election should be defrayed from public funds; and any attempt on the part of a candidate to supplement these by private expenditure should be deemed a corrupt practice. And in order that the paid members may be called to account for their work at short intervals, there must be no seven-year sinecures. No Payment of Members without Shorter Parliaments.
Second Ballot.
In France and Germany, no member is elected unless he polls a clear majority of all the votes cast in the election. In England, if the progressive vote is split by two candidates (say a Radical and a Liberal), the Tory may get in, even when the majority is progressive. The fear of this prevents the advanced Radicals from trying their strength at elections. For example, in a constituency of 2,000, a Tory minority of 800 could bring their candidate in if the Progressives split their vote and polled 500 for a moderate Liberal and 700 for an advanced Radical. But if there were a "Second Ballot," the Radical, being obviously the choice of the party, would stand whilst the Liberal withdrew. The Radical would then poll 1,200 votes, and beat the Tory. This is what happens in France, where Opportunists, Radicals, and Socialists all run candidates, and in every case at the Second Ballot the united Democratic vote is given to the highest candidate amongst the three parties. This, the only genuine Democratic method of voting, would not only set the vanguard of the Radical party free to put up a candidate without fear of letting in the Tory, but it would put a stop to the game of the bogus "labor candidate" taking Tory money to split the Liberal vote.
Taxation of Unearned Incomes.
Besides Perpetual Pensions, which the Radicals have already driven out of existence, four hundred and fifty million pounds sterling, or more than a third of the annual income of the nation produced by the annual toil of the workers, is consumed, not by them, but by landlords and shareholders who do not, as such, perform a single stroke of work for the nation in return. Two hundre'd millions of this is rent : the other two hundred and fifty is called interest. This is the estimate made in the interest of the idle classes themselves; and therefore it is well under the mark. It does not include employers' profits, or the large incomes derived by educated or "highly connected" men from employments which are practically closed to the working class. In order to recover this large sum for the whole community, and at the same time free ourselves from the Customs duties which now fall upon our scanty wages through the dearness of the taxed goods we buy, we want to have it taken for public use by such means as a Land Tax (Taxation of Ground Values), largely increased Death Duties, and a progressive Income-tax upon unearned incomes. How high do we want to tax them? Twenty shillings in the pound—i.e., Complete Nationalization of all unearned incomes—will satisfy us. But we will take an instalment to begin.
Municipalization of Land and Local Industries.
It is useless to tax unearned incomes or nationalize rent as long as you have no place to put the money except the treasury of a central government that can do little with it except spend it in gunpowder and international mischief. The Imperial Parliament cannot deal with local industrial difficulties or with the pressing question of the unemployed in bad times. At present, no Municipal Authority can engage in the organization of industry, even for the supply of gas and water, without a special Act of Parliament. We want the Town and County Councils, elected by adult suffrage, and backed with the capital derived from the taxation of unearned incomes, and with compulsory powers of acquiring the necessary land upon payment of a reasonable consideration to the present holders, to be empowered to engage in all branches of industry in the fullest competition with private industrial enterpnse. We want to drop the old political cant of pretending that the tyranny that keeps the London tram-slave away from his home for seventeen hours a day, seven days in the week, is the tyranny of Priest or Jung, or House of Lords, or anything but what it really is—viz., the tyranny of the Board of Directors, elected by the votes of private shareholders, whose only care is to get the biggest dividend that can be sweated out of their employés by long hours and low wages want to recognize that until these employés and their like are transferred from the employment of private capitalists to that of the Town or County Council, which they and their fellow workers control through their votes, their claims as men can never meet with adequate consideration. Local Self-Government can be but a
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mockery to the poorer workers until it means the democratic control and administration not merely of a park or a sewer, but of the shops and factories in which the worker has to earn his living. Therefore, we want to overthrow that infamous system of Protection to Private Enterprise by Prohibition of Public Enterprise, which has hitherto prevented the people from using their political organizations as industrial organizations, and thereby escaping in The Only Possible Peaceful Way from the slavery of private employment to the freedom of democratic co-operation. We want to substitute free and honorable municipal employment for charity, and to put a stop to the national wickedness of deliberately making our workhouses prisons, and our prisons hells, lest the wretched laborer should try to get into them as being preferable to the sweater's den, or the nail and chain forge. And we want to Restore the land and industrial capital of the country to the workers of the country, and so realize the dream of the Socialist on sound economic principles, by gradual, peaceful, and constitutional means.
Provision of Education at Public Cost.
We want a national system of education, Secular, Compulsory, and Technical, at the public cost, for all classes alike. But it is not enough to provide "free' schools, and "free" books, and "free" teachers for the children of our present population. We must feed them before their brains will work properly. We want to begin with one good meal a day for all children at Board Schools; and, if that is not sufficient, as much more as they need. The future welfare of the State depends on the health and education of its future citizens; and, since our system leaves the parents individually too poor to look after them properly, the parents collectively, i.e., The State, must.
Nationalization of Canals and Railways.
Whatever hampers the traffic of the Nation hampers its Comerce, and so diminishes its prosperity. Nothing hampers traffic more than a system of railways and canals, broken up into separate sections, in the hands of separate bodies of shareholders, caring for nothing but the bigness of their dividends- They consider that the railways were made for the shareholders. We consider that the railways, equally with our public highways, were made for the nation, particularly as they were made originally, and are daily renewed at they wear out, not by the shareholders, but by wage-workers and salaried engineers, such wages and salaries being produced by other wage-workers, and intercepted by the shareholders as rent or interest before being passed on—less what the interceptors consume themselves—as wages paid out of capital. We want these interceptors paid off, and the railway and canal system assimilated to the postal system.
Eight Hours Day.
We want the working day for wage-workers in all government and municipal offices and places of employment and in all monopolies to be limited to Eight Hours by statute. We want an Hours of
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Labor Bill which will enable labor organizations to obtain, by government intervention, relief from excessive hours of toil as soon as a majority of them desire it, without resorting to the barbarous and dangerous expedient of a strike, with all its attendant tumult its stoppage of work, its expense, its privations, its waste of savings' dismantling of homes, and its black harvest of ill-feeling between employer and employed, striker and blackleg. Experience shews that whilst the present competitive-individualist system lasts, such Acts are necessary to prevent employers from inhumanly abusing their powers, and workers from working overtime with no permanent benefit to themselves. As soon as the people are free enough to feel them as a restriction of their own liberty, they will be free enough to repeal them without opposition as obsolete statutes. But at present the hours of labor imposed on the more helpless classes of wage-workers are literally murderous, and must be restricted by law.
Parish Councils.
We want Parish Councils for the sake of the Agricultural Laborer, to whom the County Councils are of no use. At present, with his eleven shillings a week, and his enforced servility to the parson and to the farmer or squire, who have four-fold power over him as his employer, his landlord, his poor-law guardian, and his magistrate, he keeps down the standard of comfort for unskilled labor to the lowest point. In a recent London strike, the employers defeated the men by sending to the country for a body of agricultural labourers to take their places; and one of these poor blacklegs, on being remonstrated with by a "picket," said "You can go where I came from and have my one and sixpence a day if you like." This shews how important it is for the town workers to help the country workers to better their position, so that they may no longer be tempted to crowd into the towns and lower wages by competing for work there. The first thing to do to help them is to establish a democratic council in each parish to administer the public schools and the public provision for the aged, the sick, and the orphans; with compulsory powers to acquire land for allotments and for building cottages on; and with power also to engage in co-operative farming, so as to enable the laborer to get his living and his homestead by working for a public body controlled by his vote and those of his fellow workers. He would find this a good deal pleasanter than living in a sty and touching his hat at every turn to the men who profit by his starvation and squalor.
Home Rule.
Home Rule is not a distinctively Radical measure : it is a Nation alist measure. For instance, Mr. Parnell and Mr. Davitt are both Nationalists; but in an Irish Parliament, Mr. Parnell will lead the middle-class Whig party against Mr. Davitt, who is a working-class Eadical. The principle of Eadicalism is Equality of Rights, economic as well as political, so as to secure as far as possible equality of opportunity. The principle of Nationalism is the determination which every people bearing a distinctly marked national character shews, sooner
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or later, to govern itself in its own way, and to throw off the government of a different nation. Whether such government be good or bad, it becomes hated because it is foreign and unsympathetic; and in the end it can only be maintained by the suspension of Radical Democracy and the introduction of Tory Coercion. The Italians would not be governed by the Austrians, nor the Greeks by the Turks. Poland hates the rule of Russia; and Ireland protests against the rule of England, demanding to be federated with her as an equal and not chained to her as a subject. Thorough-going Radicals have never denied this claim. Their advocacy of it is not, like that of the Gladstonian Liberals, the effect of a four-year-old conversion; for the demand for "Repeal of the Union" was seconded in 1841 by the English Radicals. Of late years "Unionism" has become mainly a pretext for postponing English social reforms and for accustoming the public to the most dangerous infringements of the rights of free speech, public meeting, and the liberty of the press. This in itself is sufficient reason for getting rid of it, even for those who attach no importance to the principle of Nationalism.
The above programme is sufficient for the present to fill the hands of the True Workers' Party—the New Radical Party—in a word, the Practical Socialist Party. It consists of measures bearing directly and immediately on the health and prosperity of the mass of the nation. It goes in true Radical fashion to the root of that great evil of class monopoly of Land and Capital of which the House of Lords, the sinecurists, the pensioners, the corruption of the Church, the clase bias of our Courts of Justice, the neglect and cruelty in our Workhouses and Prisons, the sloth, selfishness, and evil example of the Idle Rich, and the drunkenness and degradation of the ignorant and overworked Laborer, are all merely the branches. Middle-class politicians may continue issuing programmes as if these things did not exist or did not matter; but the test of the true Worker-Politician is his determination to place them first in the list of evils to be eradicated.
How to Set to Work.
How this Workers' Political Programme can be carried through Parliament is shewn by the political history of the last four years, alluded to in the preface. Acts of Parliament cannot be passed into law without securing the support of Members of Parliament, and (such is the management of legislation) practically not even then unless the Ministry of the day adopts them. Therefore the "Workers' Political Programme" must be forced upon every candidate for Parliament, and driven down the throat of every Cabinet Minister.
No amount of popular desire for this Programme will command Parliamentary and Ministerial support until the popular will reaches the Government through the recognized political channels. The agricultural laborer has for generations groaned under local tyranny, for want of sufficient knowledge to make his political power felt.
Electors at present use their right of voting by ballot once in every four or five years; but two-thirds of the adult population are not
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even electors. Every person can, however, exercise powerful influence by taking part in the local political associations, by forming special committees to promote particular reforms, and by "heckling" Parliamentary candidates and members. Every ward meeting, every council meeting, every executive meeting of every political association or club ought to pass resolutions declaring its own political demands. These resolutions should be sent to the Secretary of the National Liberal Federation, 42, Parliament Street (and if relating to London, also to the Secretary, London Liberal and Eadical Union, Suffolk House, Laurence Pountney Lane, E.C.), as well as to the newspapers and the local M.P. and candidate. Every working men's club ought to appoint a committee to draw up the political programme desired by its members. But perhaps the most effective means of impressing Parliament would be by the full discharge of the duty of "heckling" and the constant use of the following
Radical Questions
for Parliamentary candidates.
Persons seeking votes naturally prefer to set forth only such of their opinions as are likely to escape disapproval or controversy. On all really "burning" questions, except the party cry of the moment, candidates are apt to be either silent or purposely vague and ambiguous. Thus, a capitalist manufacturer will very likely be eloquent on Home Bule; but he will dodge, if he can, the subject of a Graduated Income Tax or the Eight Hours Bill. Many election addresses nowadays might be signed by "Mr. Facing-Both-Ways.' A candidate who talks about "Reform of the Land Laws" may mean either "Land Nationalization" or its opposite, "Peasant Proprietorship," or perhaps only "Abolition of Primogeniture and Entail"; whilst "The Better Housing of the Poor" may stand either for the real remedy (Municipal Dwellings) or merely some scheme of 5 per cent, private philanthropy.
It is the duty of earnest electors to get at the truth by probing the candidate's mind with carefully framed questions. These can best be asked at the semi-private meeting at which the candidate usually is selected. They should be mercilessly pressed, and clear answers insisted upon.
Practically, however, the bulk of the electors can only ratify or reject at public meetings the choice already made by the Executive Committee of the local political association. The questions on sucn occasions should be clearly written on slips of paper and sent up the Chairman. Questions may also usefully be addressed to the candidate by post (stamp for reply being enclosed). It would useful if the candidate's answers were reported to the organizations (if any) which are working for the particular reform referred to.
Questions for Parliamentary Candidates.
[it is assumed that the official Liberal Programme of "reforms urgently needed," and "questions ripe for settlement," as declared at Manchester by the Conference of the National Liberal Federation in December, 1889, may be taken as the least that a Radical can accept from any candidate. Conservatives may equally be questioned on this programme whenever they profess—as they usually do—to be more eager for Social Reform than their rivals.]
| The Official Liberal Programme. | Questions. |
|---|---|
| I. Justice to Ireland. 1. The establishment of an Irish legislative body for the management of exclusively Irish affairs. 2. Condemnation of any scheme of Land Purchase in Ireland which would entail a risk of burdening the British taxpayers for the benefit of Irish landlords. Note.—This is apparently a frank enough repudiation of Mr. Gladstone's Land Purchase Scheme of 1886. As Mr. Henry George says, "Don't buy the landlords out; don't kick them out; but Tax them out." But Mr. John Morley and others have since referred to the matter in more evasive terms, and may again bring forward proposals to settle the Irish Land Question, not on the sound Radical lines of helping an Irish Parliament to secure the land to be held by the State inalienably for the whole Irish nation, but to buy out the present landlords for a set of new ones called peasant proprietors. This would merely re-establish the old mischief on a broader basis, and though the Irish may have a right to do it for themselves if they like, for us to do it for them would be the worse kind of reactionary legislation. Hence, ask all candidates for a clear answer on this point. II. Electoral Reform.- 1. The amendment of the Registration Laws for Parliamentary and other elections by the appointment of responsible Registration Officers; by reducing the qualifica- |
I. 2. Will you oppose any attempted settlement of the Irish Land Question which does not leave the matter to be settled by an Irish Parliament? Will you oppose any scheme, by whatsoever Government it may be brought forward, for buying out Irish or other landlords with the view of creating a new class of landowners under the name of "peasant proprietors" or "occupying owners"? II. 1. Will you strive to obtain genuine "Manhood Suffrage:" that is, such an alteration of the Registration Laws as will aim at giving every man a vote, subjectpage 14  |
| tion to a minimum period of residence without restriction to any particular house; and by such other means as will secure that every qualified person shall be enabled to exercise his electoral rights. Note.—What is meant by a "qualified person"? At present one-third even of the adult men are not qualified to vote. 2. The basing of the Franchise solely on the principle of "one man one vote." 3. The public provision of the necessary cost of Parliamentary elections. Note.—If elections cease to involve expense to candidates, these will be multiplied, and "Second Ballot" will be required to ensure representation of the majority. The London Liberal and Radical Union, in November, 1889, in vain urged this reform on the National Liberal Federation. 4. The "recognition of the principle" of the payment of Members of Parliament by the State. Note.—This is mere shuffling. Liberal M.P.'s know that an effective measure would mean the dismissal of many of the present capitalist members. Insist on a plain statement as to it. 5. The holding of elections for all constituencies on the same day. 6. The w mending or ending "of the House of Lords. Note.—This is purposely vague, as some Liberals desire to strengthen the Upper House by reform, which would enable it to be an even more effective check to the popular demands than at present. Thank God we hare a House of Lords, and not a cunningly devised and powerful Senate, forming an impregnable citadel for the so-called "Rights of Property"! 7. The shortening of the legal term of Parliaments. |
only to the requirements absolutely necessary for making up a Register? Will you support the grant of the Franchise to women on the same terms as to men? 2. Do you by "one man one vote" mean "every man a vote"? 3. Will you, in order to prevent a solid minority outvoting a divided majority, press for the introduction of the "Second Ballot" at Parliamentary elections? 4. Will you press for the direct payment of all Members of Parliament by the State? 6. Will you vote against the continuance of any hereditary legislators whatsoever?page 15  |
| III. Financial Reform. 1. The equitable re-adjustment of the incidence of local and imperial taxation. Note.—Ambiguous in the extreme. No one can say what this means. If you really want Financial Reform vou must ask for specific measures. He-member that incomes derived from the mere ownership of land and capital usually pay at present a much smaller proportion in taxes than incomes derived from labor; and that nearly all members of Parliament benefit pecuniarily by this unfair system. 2. The completion of the policy of a "Free Breakfast Table" by the abolition of the duties on all necessary foods. Note.—Liberals have professed themselves in favour of this for a whole generation, but have never yet found opportunity to carry it out ! 3. The equalization of the Death Duties as between real and personal property. Note.—But the Death Duties ought also to be much increased on the larger estates, Mr. Goschen introduced the principle of graduation in 1889. As regards the need for a Metropolitan Death Duty, to secure to the London County Council some of "London's Unearned Increment" now accruing to the (J round Landlords, see Facts for Londoners (Fabian Tract No. 8). 4. The taxation of land values, ground rents and mining royalties. Note.—Consult on this subject Fabian Tract No. 7, Capital and Land. But even Mr. John Morley has expressed the view that the State should own the minerals. 5. The just apportionment, as between owner and occupier, of all rates and local charges. Notes.—Nothing is said as to the method of dealing with existing con- |
III. 1. Will you press at the first opportunity for the graduation and differentiation of the Income Tax, so as to press more heavily on large and unearned incomes than on small and earned ones? Will you resist any further grants in aid of local rates from national funds? Are you in favour of the special taxation as well as rating of Town Ground Rents and Values? 2. Will you, on the first Budget, press for the total abolition of the duties on tea, cocoa, and coffee, by means of the substitution for them of a direct Tax on Land Values, without necessarily a-waiting the existence of a surplus? 3. Will you press for an increase of the Death Duties, graduated so as to fall more heavily on all large inheritances? Will you support a special Death Duty for Municipal purposes on the "unearned increment" of urban land values? 4. Will you press for the Reassessment of the Land Tax on the full yearly value of the land to-day, instead of (as at present) on the value which it bad in 1692? Will you urge the nationalization of mining rents and mining royalties? 5. Will you press for the fair division of the exisiting local rates between owner and occupier, any agreement to the contrary notwithstanding?page 16  |
| tracts. "When the Income Tax was imposed (in 1842) the amount placed upon the landlord was made payable by him any agreement to the contrary notwithstanding. "Without such a clause, the tenants would have had to pay the tax on the landlord's income. This arrangement is the most practical form of the Taxation of Grouna Rents. Unoccupied land (even if merely "held for a rise") escapes at present all rates and taxes. IV. Land Reform. 1. The amendment of the system of the tenure and transfer of land. 2. The securing to tenants of compensation for all their improvements. 3. "Leasehold Enfranchisement" (!) 4. The facilitation and further public provision of allotments and small holdings. 5. Extension and simplification of powers for compulsory taking of land by local authorities. |
Will you support the proposal of the London County Council for the separate assessment of Land Values apart from House Values? Will you press for giving prompt legislative effect to the recommendation of the Eoyal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes that vacant land should be assessed to local rates as if yielding an income of 4 per cent. on its selling value? IV. 1. Will you support measures enabling the community to appropriate for public purposes, as far as this is practicable, the "unearned increment" of Land Value? 3. Will you resist any attempt to create a new statutory class of freeholders under the guise of "Enfranchised Leaseholders"? Will you vote against the Leaseholders' Enfranchisement Bill? 4. Will you press for the grant of ample compulsory powers to all local authorities (including Parish Councils) to acquire land to be let out—not sold—in allotments and small tenancies? Will you strenuously resist any attempt to create additional landowners (under the guise of peasant proprietors) at the public expense or by public guarantee? 5. Will you urge the retention by all public authorities of all land now owned by them, so as to secure to the public the future "unearned increment"? Will you resist the sale of any public lands (including Crown lands, charity property or Church glebes), or the extinction of the public rights over commons?page 17  |
| 6. The reform of the system of compensation to owners of property used for public purposes. Note.—The subject of Land Reform is one on which much evasion is practised by candidates. Many of them are still wedded to the obsolete ideal of Peasant Proprietorship. "Reform of the Land Laws" is the phrase most com-monlv used to conceal their views. It will be noted that "Leasehold Enfranchisement" still stultifies the official Liberal programme, though it has been omitted from that of the London Liberal Members and candidates. The only sound reform which could possibly come under the head of "Leasehold Enfranchisement" would be a measure enabling tenants of Leaseholds to obtain compensation for improvements. In cases where the tenant is a democratic representative body, power to enfranchise the leasehold would of course be unobjectionable. V. Social Reforms. 1. The extension of full municipal powers to the London County Council and all representative governing bodies. 2. The development and completion of Local Government by the creation of District and Parish Councils. Note.—It is important to lay stress on Parish Councils. Nothing else will be of use to the agricultural laborer. Parishes too small for separate Councils can be grouped with their neighbors. |
V. 1. Will you press for a measure conferring upon the London and other County Councils the full control over the local police? Will you vote in favor of allowing the London County Council to permit and regulate meetings in Trafalgar Square? Will you grant to the Town and County Co'uncils full powers to directly undertake provision for the supply of water, gas, and tramways, and such other public services as it may be called upon by its constituents to enter upon? 2. Will you resist any attempt to impose any pecuniary or rating qualification for membership of the Parish or District Councils? Will you oppose any attempt to form the Parish and District Councils otherwise than entirely by direct election.page 18  |
| 3. The extension of the Factory Acts. Note.—Does this vague phrase mean anything? "Extension" to what or to whom? All candidates should be strongly pressed to explain their meaning on this point. No Bill for the Extension of the Factory Acts has yet been introduced or described by any of the Liberal leaders. Note.—See Fabian Tract No. 9, An Eight Hours Bill, in the form of Amendment of the Factory Acts, an price 1d. 4. The popular control of the Liquor Traffic. 5. The adequate public provision of Dwellings and Lodgings for the Working Classes. Note.—Insist on a definite statement as to the building and maintenance of artizans' dwellings by the elected local authorities themselves—not by any "philanthropic" company or speculative builder. 6. The provision of 'Free Education, of Continuation, Intermediate and Technical Schools. Note.—Besides the so-called "voluntary" schools for elementary education, the secondary schools sadly need public organization and control. |
3. Will you vote for the Eight Hours Bill for Miners? Will you insist on "an Eight Hours Day" for all public servants? Will you insist that, where the direct employment of labor by public authorities is not possible only "fair houses" should be em' ployed, and sub-contracting prohibited or strictly regulated? Will you press for the legal limitation of the hours of work of Eailway Servants? Will you support a measure enabling local authorities to limit, if thought fit, the maximum hours of work on tramways and other local monopolies? Will you press for the special extension and development of the Factory Acts necessary to mitigate "sweating" in London? Will you support such an "Eight Hours Bill" as that drafted by the Fabian Society? 5. Are you in favor of the grant of full powers to enable local authorities (both urban and rural) themselves to build and maintain dwellings, to be let at "fair rents"? 6. Will you support the provision from public funds, and the management by elected public authorities, of Continuation, Secondary and Technical Schools?page 19  |
| The whole of the existing colleges for training teachers are denominational, and managed in sectarian interests, although virtuallv supported from public fundi. No college exists in which a non-Christian teacher can obtain training without conforming to a religion in which he does not believe. Note.—Over 43,000 children go to school in London without adequate breakfast. (See Report of Committee of London School Board, 1889.) 7. The application of tithes in Wales to national purposes. 8. Disestablishment in Scotland and Wales. 9. The promotion of International Arbitration. Note.—Nothing is yet stated in the official Liberal programme as to any reform of the Poor Law; but Mr. John Morley has given this as one of the prominent desires of the Liberal party bee his Eighty Club speech, Nov. 17th, 1889. |
Will you press for the establishment of training colleges for teachers, free from any religious test, and exclusively under public control? Do you agree that free meals must, without delay, be provided out of public funds for all destitute children not otherwise adequately fed?. Will you urge the provision from public funds of ample scholarships, so as to make au effective "ladder to the University" for all? Will you press for a reform of the Poor Law, so as to remove all stigma of dishonor from the public provision for persons destitute through no fault of their own? Will you press for a system of honorable pensions for the aged, instead of the workhouse? Will you press for the removal of the rating qualification for Poor Law Guardians and the regulation of Guardian elections, under the system of "one man one vote" by ballot? Will you support the creation of a single "Poor Law Council" for London (with local committees), and the equalization of the London Poor Rate? |
Fabian Society.
The Fabian Society consists of Socialists. A statement of its Principles, Bules, Conditions of Membership, etc., can be obtained from the Secretary, at 276, Strand, London, W.C. Also the following publications :—
"Fabian Essays in Socialism."
A full exposition of modern English Socialism in its latest and matarest phase. Library Edition, 6s.; or, direct from the Secretary far Cask, 4/6 (postage 4½d.)
Cheap Edition, Paper cover (published by Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, London), 1s.; ditto, plain cloth, 2s. At all booksellers, or post free from the Secretary for 1s. and 2s. respectively.
Fabian Tracts.
No. 1.—Why are the Many Poor? 75th thousand. Price 6 for 1d.; 1s. per 100.
No. 5.—Facts for Socialists. A survey of the distribution of income and the condition of classes in England, gathered from official returns, and from the works of economists and statisticians. 25th thousand. 16 pp., 1d.; or 9d. per doz.
No. 7.—Capital and Land. A similar survey of the distribution of property, with a criticism of the distinction sometimes set up between Land and Capital as instruments of production. 10th thousand. 16 pp., 1d.; or 9d. per doz.
No. 8.—Facts for Londoners. An exhaustive collection of statistical and other information relating to the County and City of London, with suggestions for Municipal Reform on Socialist principles. 5th thousand. 56 pp., 6d.; or 4/6 per doz.
No. 9.—An Eight Hours Bill. Full notes explain the Trade Option clause and precedents on which the Bill is founded. A list of literature dealing with the hours of labor is appended. 20th thousand. 16 pp., 1d.; or 9d. per doz.
No. 10.—Figures for Londoners (a short abstract of No. 8). 20th thousand. 4 pp., 6 for 1d.; 1s. per 100.
No. 11.—The workers' Political Programme fully explains the politics of to-day from the working class point of view, and gives questions to put to Parliamentary candidates. 20th thousand. 20 pp., 1d.; or 9d. per doz.
No. 12.—Practicable Land Nationalization. A brief statement of practical proposals for immediate reform 20th thousand. 4 pp., 6 for 1d.; or 1s. per 100
No. 13.—What Socialism Is. A short exposition of the aim of Socialists. 30th thousand. 4 pp., 6 for 1d.; or 1s. per 100.
No. 14.—The New Reform Bill. A draft Act of Parliament providing for Adult Suffrage, Payment of Members and their election expenses, Second Ballot, and a thorough system of Registration. 15th thousand. 20 pp. 1d.; or 9d. per doz.
No. 15.—English Progress towards Social Democracy. The evolution of English Society, with explanation of Socialism. 10th thous. 16 pp., 1d.; 9d. doz.
No. 16.—A Plea for an Eight Hours Bill. A brief answer to objec-tors. 50th thousand. 4 pp.. 6 for 1d.; 1s. per 100.
No. 17.—Reform of the Poor Law. Facts as to pauperism, with proposals for pensions for the aged, and other Socialist reforms. 20 pp., 1d.; 9d. per doz.
No. 18.—Facts for Bristol. On the same lines as Tract No. 8. 10 pp.. 1d. each; or 9d. per doz.
No. 19.—What the Farm Laborer wants. 4 ppb. 6 for 1d.; 1/-per 100.
No. 20.—Questions for Poor Law Guardians. 4 pp., 6 for 1d.; or 1/- per 100.
No. 21.—Questions for London Vestrymen. 4 pp., 6 for 1d.; or 1s. pet 100.
No. 22.—The Truth about Leasehold Enfranchisement, gives reasons why Socialists oppose the proposal. 4 pp., 6 for 1d.; or 1s. per 100.
No. 23.—The Case for an Eight Hours Bill. 16 pp., 1d. each; 9d. a dozen.
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The Lecture List, containing the names of ninety lecturers, who offer their services gratuitously, may be obtained on application to the Secretary. Upwards of 1400 lectures were delivered by members during the year ended in March, 1891.
* Numerous details of the Programme receive further notice in Questions which follow this general statement.