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No. 34 JULY 1955 SIXPENCE "FORUMOCIALIST DISCUSSION JOURNALTOWARDS BETTER UNDERSTANDING

Capltal-the GreatestBarrierOne of the difficulties in replying to F.Evans is that he writes on matters socialand economic in a form of blank verse, amedium suitable for Macbeth but not forMarx. This leads at times to such ob-scurity of style that one feels there wouldhave been no appreciable loss in com-municability if he had written withinvisible ink.Whether he considers his FORUM con-tribution his magnum opus we do notknow, but from what one gathers it is hisfinal word on the evolution and outcomeof capitalist society ~ although finality isa strange word in the vocabulary of aphilosopher of evolution.In my last article I tried to show thatcapitalism is a system of organizedscarcity rather than organized abundance.I propose to present some more reasonswhy it has not achieved in the past, and Ithink will not achieve in the future, amaximization of wealth resources anduninhibited technical development.

In the first place, I see no evidence toshow there is some economic mechanismwhich imperceptibly, remorselessly, pain-lessly generates ever-rising living standardsto the point where sheer superfluity of pro-ducts renders capitalism superfluous, andin effect reduces all human problems totechnical ones. In spite of electronics,atomics, etc., wealth will never be pro-duced like water except, as I said before,when the particular form of wealth iswater.While Professor Robbin's definition ofeconomics as "a relationship between endsand scarce means which have alternativeuses" may be off the beam, it is more inline with economic reality than the 1955technical views of F. Evans. In substance,Evans's ideas have more in common withMajor Douglas than they have with Marx.Douglas had his a + b theorem, Evanshas his c + v one.To begin at the beginning, it can besaid that in the period of handicraft anddomestic industry the law of value directly.regulated the products of the market, andonly at a later and more advanced stage ofcapitalism was the law of value modifiedinto" the price of production." This washailed by anti-Marxist writers as the proofof the great contradiction in Marx's theoryof value, as he classically formulated it. It

was, of course, a contradiction, but a con-tradiction integral in all scientific andanalytical method, denoting merelydifferent stages of abstraction.As long as the instruments of labourwere but a fraction of the total expenses ofproduction the resulting products werefairly evenly distributed in accordancewith the amount of socially necessarylabour embodied in them. The replace-ment of the instruments of labour throughwear and tear made depreciation a negli-gible factor. Even where the instrumentsof production were on a larger scalebecause of the nature of the. industry orundertaking, they were generally the pro-perry- of the manor or locality, andso the expenses of constant capital wereevenly distributed among the variousproducers.But with the rise of large-scale, power-motivated industry, plant and tool equip-ment becomes a costly item in proportionto the current expenses of production.Capitalists who own costly plant can onlyview with considerable apprehension anyinnovation or new technical processwhich threatens to make their plant obso-lete or obsolescent. In short, it would in-volve them in considerable loss in thewriting-off of capital values. It is fairlyobvious, then, that capitalists whereverthey can will seek to prevent this fromhappening. The capitalists are not andcannot be prepared to undergo an immedi-ate private loss for some future socialgain. Capitalism isn't that sort of asystem.Because capitalism works towards con-scioussocial ends ~ but on the basis ofprofit margins ~ the expansion of newproductive methods is restricted withincertain limits. To quote Marx to theeffect that capitalism is compelled to con-. stantly revolutionize the means of pro-duction is not the same as saying thatthere is an ever-extending and continuousprocess of new capital replacing oldcapitaL As Marx pointed out, such isthe self-contradictory nature of capitalismthat "the real barrier of capitalist pro-duction is capital itself."Another complicating factor is that aninvention or new technical process doesnot always ensure that the increasedproductivity margin will be sufficient to

make its use worthwhile. Generallyspeaking new productive methods onlyyield their technical advantages if theyare installed on a sufficiently large scaleand can be run at something near theirfull capacity. Even this is a simplifiedassumption, because it leaves out theprevailing condition of the market. Thedegree of technical development of otherproductive units, the level of profit antici-pation, the state of trade generally, etc.Again, large-scale technical innovationcannot be undertaken by the small unitsof production but only by those largeenough to have sufficient capital reserves.If, however, the large units of productiondecide to invest in new equipment, whilethey may become technically superior totheir rivals they are at the same timehelping to make obsolecent and finallyobsolete their own older plant capacity.They thus become virtually competitorswith themselves. Whether big under-takings will embark on what may well bea risky investment will depend on whetherthe anticipated profit-yield is sufficient tocompensate for the anticipated loss in thewriting-off of capital values in respect oftheir old plant.Technical development in capitalismcannot be reduced to a c + v formula, ora priori assumptions. It is the capitalistmode of production with its profit motiv-ation that provides the momentum oftechnical development. The productivedynamics of capitalism can be sought onlyin a study of its mechanics. They cannotbe intelligently discovered in the light ofsome abstract law of universal progress.The Marxist standpoint is that capitalism

IN THIS ISSUEHINTS ON PUBLIC SPEAKING.The first of three articles .MARXISM AND LITERATURE.Poetry, accumulation and spivs,THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.Comments from America.CUTTINGS .Pieces from the papers.A SOCIALIST'S LIFETIME.The opinions expressed in FORUM are those

of the contributors, and are not to be takenas the Socialist Party's official views.

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la / . IS peculiar to its own development.this it follows that the law of motionpitalist society can only be discoveredempirical observation and enquiryupon an analysis of capitalismwever, Evans's theory of socialtion with its utilitarianism - theest happiness of the greatest numbernd its Spencerian overtones, must besubject of a further article if it is todequately treated. I will say here onlyeven Evans must realize it is the diff-of the laws of capitalist societythose of other societies which enableo distinguish between one historicalh and another.return to the subject: Evans's theorye progressive technical developmentcapitalism requires for its supportassumptions which cannot validlyade about it. In the first place, as Iout in the last article, capitalismnever been able to make a full utiliza-of its wealth and technical resources.ould only have done so under con-ons which have never prevailed in these of its development - that is, fullpermanent employment and unlimitedrets. That full employment and un-d markets are indispensible con-ns for continuously expandingnical progress can easily be' shown.ntinuous technical progress couldthe constant and ever-acceleratingcement of old capital by new capitalthe continuous expansion of thetries which produce the means ofoduction and things subsidiary to them.would mean that more and more ofpower of society would be required tothe new productive equipment andit. There would be no net displace-of workers because any redundancyed by the introduction of newerhods would be absorbed in theing of the greater mass of plantcity which was continuously beingght into production. There would, ofse, be no long-term massive unem-ment, because that can only ariseone section or sections of industry-expands in relation to the rest, whichs of course that technical develop-has been only partial and distorted.er, such a state of affairs bringsa technical decline. It is prettyous that large-scale unemploymentld not arise with such an overall ex-ding technical development - in fact,r-power would operate permanentlysellers' market.short, Evans's c + v formula asks uselieve that capitalism gainfully max-es the available labour-force for theose - at least in part - of securingall the highest material comfort. Thus,he profit motive of capitalism mustadded this other motive. I do notest fora moment that Evans has suchiewpoint, but the assumptions he hase about the workings of capitalism

require for their fulfilment the conditionsI have enumerated.In spite of the constant introduction ofnew capital, the employers would stillhave to operate the old and less efficientplant at something near capacity. It istrue, of course, that under such conditionsof full technical development some of theold plant might go out even before its use-fullife was anything like exhausted, owingto there being insufficient workers to manit. It being pretty obvious that employerswould use as much as possible of theavailable labour force on the new andmore productive plant in order to reapgreater surplus value. Nevertheless, theproducts would have to 'be' priced highenough to make it profitable to retainthe older, less efficient plant. This pre-supposes levels of consumption able toab-sorb goods at this marginal price in ever-greater amounts, which means an absoluteor .unlimited market. It is fairly certain,however, that under such a consumptionstimulus, new capital would before longbecome obsolescent and old capitalobsolete. Under such conditions thescrap-iron business would become amajor industry.The capitalists would have a vested aswell as an invested interest in the intro-duction of new plant, as it wouldenormously increase the mass and rate ofprofit .by increasing the productivity oflabour-power.The only fly in the ointment of thisproductive elysium is that profits wouldtend to rise faster than wages and so re-verse the process of growing equality be-tween the classes. It may be that thecapitalists would decide to spend moreand more on luxury goods and thus bringabout a shift, not only in employment, butin unemployment too. If the workers, inview of their favourable position, wereable to demand more wages or lowerprices, then the employers would have totighten their belts by forgoing certainitems of luxury - and invest in more newplant to restore the Status Quo.These, then, are some of the assump-tions which would have to be made if thefull utilization of productive resourceswere carried out. It is safe enough to saythat capitalism has never operated inthis manner in the past and one wouldhave to produce some pretty heftyevidence to show that it will do so in thefuture.Indeed, the technical progress of Britishcapitalism has, over the decades, been farfrom exhilarating. The Oxford EconomicPapers calculated that before the wardepreciation worked out to something like12 per head annually. They definedepreciation as a function of the amountof capital and the rate at which it iswritten down. They show also that therehas been no spectacular rise or pro-gressively cumulative growth in deprecia-tion, which is an index of the rate oftechnical progress.

According to Colin Clarke, the biggestexpansion of British industry (that is,relatively) took place during the last fewdecades of the nineteenth century. Now,whatever Evans may say about the futureof capitalism, his assertions have beenbased on the progressive technicaldevelopment of capitalism since theadvent of the era of relative surplus value(round about the 1850s). We are askedto believe that in this respect capitalismhas faithfully discharged its duties inrespect of the law of progress. My ownview is that F. Evans has not substantiatedhis claim, or even attempted to do so. Isit to be assumed that he considers silenceto be his most effective retort?There has been a great deal of nonsensetalked by technocrats and people whoregard themselves as social engineers asto the marvellous increase in productionbrought about by machinery. The workof Dr. Rostas, among others, on produc-tivity should serve as a corrective to suchpeople. To recapitulate what I said at theopening, firstly technical innovation gener-ally speaking must be carried out on alarge scale to be profitable. Secondly themarginal factor must be sufficient to com-pensate for the writing-down of capitalvalues. It is this realistic approach thatthe investor always makes in his decisionsabout investment.As I have also pointed out in thearticles on crises, in the boom period ofcapitalism the nature of capital invest-ment is such as to bring about, behind thebacks of the investors, the raising of costsagainst themselves in a manner that cutsinto profit margins. It can also be pointedout again that in any period of businessactivity wage levels not only rise at thebeginning of the process but continue torise, and this has an important effect oncapital accumulation - hence technicaldevelopment. In short, capitalism is nota social Meccano set which can bearranged and re-arranged in any arbitrarymanner, but an integral and interlockingwhole which must either be accepted orrejected.Capitalists, of course, are not interestedin technical development per se. Indeed,the expansion of plant capacity and tech-nical innovation is against their currentinterests at times. A whole history ofmonopolistic and price-fixing practicesbears witness to that. Just as the economichistory of modern capitalism in respect ofsurplus plant shows that for long periodscapitalism has not too little technicalresource, but too much for profitablecapital expansion. 'While men makehistory - including capitalists, of course- there is a whole series of impersonaldeterminants to influence their behaviour.But even a series of determinantsdoesn't add up to a Greek drama or "adestiny rough-hewn which shapes ourends," or provide us with a deus exmachina disguisd as the law of socialprogress. And even when Evans assures

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us that we must achieve self-consciousnessof a process whose direction and momen-tum is given, it is really a Hegelian after-thought. That is why I think Evans, inhis wish to reassure us (and himself) of thenecessity and desirability of Socialism,has invented a mechanism which is tanta-mount to a belief that the stars in theircourses fight for us. I may add that in afurther article I want to deal with themetaphysical and self-contradictoryassumptions of his theory of SOCIalevolution.I am a little astonished by it all, how-ever. I find it hard to reconcile with thefact that for many years, on and off,Evans and I were in double harness intutorial classes on economics. I can onlyconclude we weren't teaching the sameeconomics - and so a fraternal adieuuntil next time. E.W."I can confirm as Minister of Fuel andPower that, as a consequence of the nat-ionalisation of the gas industry, profit-

sharing schemes for 50,000 employeescame to an end. Some of these schemesdated back to 1889, thus nearly seventyyears of industrial progress were sweptaside.The basis of nationalisation is non-profitmaking state ownership. Since there areno profits, there cannot possibly be anyprofit sharing." - Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd.

Manchester Guardian, 20/5/55.* * *Mr. David Low spoke about some ofthe cartoonist's difficulties with the currentpolitical scene, when he addressed theManchester Luncheon Club at the Free

Trade Hall, Manchester, yesterday. Anuninspiring sameness about the parti.esand political ideas-that was the chieftrouble, he said.Manchester Guardian, 21/5/55.* * *The question raised by Mr. Tuck waswhether the majority of the tenants weremembers of the working class. "Fiftyyears ago that phrase-working class-waswell understood," Lord Justice Denningsaid. "It applied to people who workedby hand, whether on railways or in mines,and who earned wages which were lessthan those of the rest of the community.

Nowadays the phrase is inexplicable."Manchester Guardian, 24/6/55.Contributions to this feature are invited.CORRECTIONS

In last month's "Marxism and Liter-a ture" article, "Chinese poetry for threecenturies" should have read "Chinesepoetry for thirty centuries." At the endof "The Work of Lewis Mumford","he cannot conclude with saying thatTechnics and Civilisation is a good book"should have been "he cannot conclude.without saying, &c." It makes all thedifference.

CuttingsThe California Legislature has recog-nized television as a " necessity" in givingfinal passage to a Bill which would pre-vent creditors in a bankruptcy action fromplacing an attachment on the family tele-vision set. The Observer, 29/5/55.

*Ways in which freedom of the Press canbe imperilled are outlined in a report tobe presented to the annual meeting of theCommonwealth Press Union ... "Pres-sure is sometimes exercised by withholdingofficial advertizing; by denying infor-mation to critical' newspapers whilefavouring others; by claiming doubtfulbreaches of privilege; by subsidizing newsagencies; by discriminatory rationing ofnewsprint; by promoting internationalPress conventions; by organizing strikesby puppet trade unions; by insisting uponrevelation of the source of informationthat is politically embarrassing; by with-drawal of registration for newspaper pos-tage; by restriction of reporting facilitiesto journalists on a police register."The Observer, 5/6(55.

* * *

Editorial

Taking the Whitsun holidays and a fareincrease into consideration, LondonTransport had calculated that it wouldreceive about 3 millions during the firstweek of the railway strike. In fact itsreceipts were 3,139,000. The busesearned an extra 99,000 and the Under-ground railways 40,000.Manchester Guardian, 18/6/55.* * *

With two more issues, FORUM willhave completed three years of publication:and, as they say on the election platforms,this is no time for complacency. Indeed,far from it. Readers who follow theExecutive Committee reports will havegleaned something of the seriousness ofthe position. Here it is.FORUM loses, and has lost for sometime, 7 each month; that is, 84 a yearIn itself, that is grave. The specialseriousness, however, is that FORUM hasbeen pledged from the beginning to beself-supporting and not be subsidized fromthe Socialist Party's funds.Various answers to the difficulty havebeen suggested: duplicating FORUM,making it smaller, running a special fund.We have - temporarily, at any rate -withdrawn the "Outline" cartoons toeffect a small saving. The fact remainsthat, unless our income rises considerably,FORUM will become either smaller ordearer.The present committee - Harry Waite,Ted Wilmott, Albert Ivimey and BobCoster - took over four months agoknowing how things stood; knowing, forexample, that a large section of the Partyhad come to regard FORUM as aliability. With good reason too. We wereconfident that we could make it a paperfor the Party to value and be proud of.WE STILL ARE.We believe there is scope for FORUMas a medium for Socialist education, in-formation and instructive discussion. Theneed for it is strengthened by the lack ofany economics or other classes at the

present time. Those are the lines on whichwe have worked so far. Some membershave told us FORUM has improved;others perhaps are reserving theiropinions. This issue contains an experi-enced speaker's contribution on publicspeaking; next month we shall have anarticle reviewing Labour Party theories inthe light of McNair's new book onMaxton; shortly we hope to publish acontribution on Imperialism.We do not want FORUM to becomedearer, because in our view it is alreadydear at sixpence for eight pages. We havestated our aims. What we need is thebacking of every member to restore thesales to what they should be. We askeveryone who reads this to do what hecan.

Contributions to "Forum" should beaddressed to the Internal Party JournalCommittee) at Head Office. If they cannotbe typed, articles should be written in inkon one side of the paper only, and con-tributors are asked to give their addressesand the names of their Branches. Con-tributors intending series of articles shouldgive an indication of the scope of their series,not send merely a first article.14 7

The International Labour Conference ishaving difficulty in starting its proper workin committees because of the credentialsproblem raised by the majority of employ-ers.M. Pierre Waline, the spokesman forthe employers from non-communist coun-tries, said ... that his group had decidedon this occasion not to lodge a formalchallenge to the "credentials" of theCommunist employers since the questionof who are genuine employers' and work-ers' delegates was now being consideredbv a fact-finding committee set up forthis purpose.Manchester Guardian, 3/6/55.* * *An air-to-air missile with an atomicwarhead was exploded si x miles above theNevada proving-grounds this morning ...The ioint announcement said that it wascapable of destroying an entire formationof aircraft within a radius of at least halfa mile. Manchester Guardian. 7/4/55.

* * *Thunderfiashes, the fireworks whichmake a big bang, are to be banned afterNovember 5.Manchester Guardian, 23/6/55.

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~IARXISM and LITERATURE: 3

n modern story-writing, characteriza-I is all-important: the popularity of~ writers stands in direct ratio to thegalleries which they produce. Theer of it has changed a good deal.eteenth-century writers began withg descriptions of their people, so thereuld be no mistaking the good and the; the modern idiom is to have char-er unfold in action, dialogue and intro-ction. Whichever way it comes, therers have to "live." People want- ow about people.iterary historians usually treat this asthing in the development of the art ofring, over looking that art is a productsocial life-and, as Plekhanov remarks,o understand in what manner art re-life, one must understand the mech-of the latter." Character came tofore in literature at the same time ashanging mode of production threwphasis on the individual's .importance,a Kautsky put it : "With commodityoduction, when goods are produced byte producers independently of eacher, happiness and pleasure, and theditions necessary thereto, become aate matter." (Ethics and the Material-Conception of History).hat is how things began to be inoffrey Chaucer's time; that is why theterbury Tales were about people, notrely happenings. "It is," says Nevillhill about the Prologue to the Tales,e concise portrait of an entire nation"an over-statement, but it will do tow the point. The tales are part of theure of the tellers: the ripe insight ofgenial, gap-toothed Wife of Bath,red-necked Miller's uproarious earth-S, and so on. For similarly broad,n characterization you have to go backGaius Petronius of Rome - that is, toearlier time when there was com-dity production.his is not a history of writers. It is atory of literature as part of society -ou like, as part of the relations of pro-tion. The author of the Canterburylived from 1340 to 1400. In thosety years there was a great agriculturalression, caused by the export of grainEastern Germany and spread allr western Europe - the earliest slump.e Company of the Staple was grantedmonopoly of trade in wool, wrestlingh the' Italian and Hansard traders fortrol of the European market. And in53 French artillery annihilated an armyBnglishbowmenm Gascony, bringing

down the final curtain on the age ofchivalry.Consider those facts, and considerChaucer further beside some of his con-temporaries. In the Italian city-statesthere were Boccaccio and Dante. Theone, writing his hundred {ales of adulteryto entertain the ladies of a ruling classwhich had become a leisured class; theother painting mediaeval popular theologyas clearly as Michelangelo and as terri-fyingly as the Inquisition, consigning hispolitical enemies to hell and idealizing thechastity of Beatrice while he knocked outfour children by his earthly wife. Dante,in fact, comes nearer than any writer todisplaying the mind of the CatholicMiddle Ages. . It is worth quoting inentirety G. A. Borgese's incisive statementof what the Divine Comedy is all about:" As conservative as his cosmology -the Platonic Aristotelian - Ptolemaicpocket-size universe, geocentric, cus-tom-made ad usum delphini, for theuse of man, rotating its numbered andconcentric heavens around his un-budging home-in his ancestral geogra-phy - the earth admittedly a globe, butinhabited on our hemisphere only, withno denizens at the antipodes except fora South Sea island, his own visionarydiscovery, where the disembodied soulsof pardonable sinners climb for years orcenturies of torments through theterraces of Purgatory to the plateauwhich was Adam's paradise, thence tosoar to God's; as inherited as his penalcode, spelled out in retaliatory retribu-tions, are his ethics and economics, hischronology and history, all, root andbranch, his systematic philosophy. Vicesand virtues are tabulated in a symmetrycombining Aristotle and Aquinas,classicism and catechism. Pride (whichwe call primacy), envy (which we callcompetition), avarice (which we call theprofit motive), are the three spark-plugsof hell fire. Production is for use, notgain; cursed is the florin (which we calldollar); acquisitiveness is subversive-ness,"One other name from this period needsto be considered: William Langland,author of The Vision of Piers Plowman.Put Langland beside Chaucer, and youhave a view of the actual state of therelations of production in England a littlebefore 1400. Langland was a countryman(he wrote in .west midland dialect), achurchman, a man of moderate substancein the feudal scheme of. things. He wrote

" In every historical epoch, the prevail-ing mode of economic production andexchange, and the social organizationnecessarily following from it, form thebasis upon which is built up, and fromwhich alone can be explained, thepolitical and intellectual history of thatepoch." MARX.

fervently of the decay of mediaeval life,pleading for the rural poor and com-plaining of abuses of every kind. In hisshort life came the Black Death, thePeasants' Revolt, and the denial of Catho-lic teaching by Wycliffe and his followers.Because Langland belonged to it, helamented the passing of an epoch.Chaucer, the diplomat and the Port ofLondon official, belonged to the world justbeginning, the world of trade and indi-vidualism. Their lives coincided, theywrote with similar skill: what wasdifferent was their social consciousness.It is possible, with a little time and aglossary, to read The Canterbury Talesand Piers Plowman as they were written(though there is no reason why anybodybut the very scholarly should not preferpresent-day versions). The Englishlanguage had evolved into something nottoo much different from ours - the evolu-tionary force being the gradual formationof capitalism's political unit, the nation-state. Bear in mind that printing was notyet invented: these poems were read aloudto small or large gatherings and afterwardscopied out by scribes. The reading-aloudwas responsible more than anything elsefor their episodic construction and theirstyle: they had to be clear, and they hadto be polite to their hearers, too.This was the age of ballads, too, con-veying, as A. R. Myers says in England inthe Late Middle Ages, "the disorder andlack of just governance in the land, thepopular hatred of oppressive sherriffs andwealthy prelates, the general respect forthe noble rank and also for the risingyeomen class, the faith that the king willdo justice and set all right." Ballads weremeans of communication when news waseagerly sought, passed on in simplejingling verse and shaped according tolocal or national feeling for a hero or anevent. Thus, Robin Hood went the roundsin Chaucer's day, and. every happeningfrom a battle to a crowning had a ballad.Another fourteenth-century by-productwas the religious verse-carols and hymns,composed to order as wealthy merchantsbegan the series of innumerable foun-dations of chapels and schools for theglory of God and the accumulation ofcapital.And what about prose? It was there:Malory used it for the last and most fluentof the King Arthur epics. It was graduallyincreasing in volume as travel, stimulatedby trade, and theology, stimulated by re-sistance to the Church ownership of land,

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and science, stimulated by everythingwhich was happening, began to be writtenup afresh. In Italy, it was the mediumof Castiglione's The Courtier and Machi-avelli's The Prince, the former omittingand the latter expounding, as Ford MadoxFord says, "that the tranquil and beau-tiful life was supported on the dagger ofthe assassin and the culverins and morgen-sterns of mercenaries"; and BenvenutoCellini's Autobiography, which, as wasrecently remarked to this writer, explainsthe city-states better than do mosthistorians.So, passing over the mediocrities andthe minor phenomena of the fifteenthcentury, one inevitably comes to the cele-brated Elizabethan age: the beginning -spectacular, as beginnings often are - ofthe modern era. Consider it as stretchingfrom a little after 1500 to a little before1700: that will go farther towards includ-ing all that went into making it what itwas, and free it from the fatuousassociation with a particular monarch. Itis necessary to disburden oneself of otherillusions too. The sixteenth century wasnot an era of universal prosperity andgold-paved streets; it was, in fact, the ageof beggars - the abject forebears of the.industrial working class, about whom thiswriter delivered himself in the SocialistStandard in November, 1953, and does notpropose to recapitulate 'now. Nor is ittrue that every mother's son clamouredfor adventure on the high seas: thecolonial ships had to be filled largely withconvicts and bums and made up fromthe gaols of France.What is true is that trading and indus-trial fortunes came quickly. The schoolwhere this writer received part of his edu-cation was founded, like innumerableothers, by a London merchant who hadmade his fortune by 1527. Apart fromthese minor monuments to accumulation,the southern countryside became dottedwith comfortable, red-brick-and-gablehouses (graceful enough to be still copiedin piecrust in modern suburbia). The firstdeep mines were sunk, the first clothingfactories set up, the battIe with Spain forthe precious metals and the trade routeswas fought and won . . . and, since themany streams of sixteenth-century liter-ature have here to be intercepted at somepoint, the parallels of England and Spainprovide as good as any.Spanish literature shone as brightly, hadas many glittering exponents, as that ofEngland in this age of commercial andcultural gold. The likenesses, indeed, areso startling as to refute by themselvesthose who deny the relationship of art andeconomic life. Thus, there was the suddenrapid growth of the theatre. Not of thedrama, for that had gone on all throughthe Middle Ages, in churches and market-places, on village greens and inn-yards:the theatre, its rise establishing almost thefinal separation of artist from people -where the paid writer and the paid per-

former showed their specialized skillacross the barrier now marked with foot-lights. In Seville and Toledo and London,people flocked to this new phenomenon;while London produced Shakespeare,Spain produced Lope de Vega, and theadoration of each still goes on. "Spainhad stage stars almost as numerous asthose of the cinema today; the number ofher theatres at about the date when thetheatres were suppressed in England wasgiven as three hundred, and before thefirst half of the century had passed,scenery and stage devices had therereached a stage that was not to be attainedby the rest of Europe for a couple ofhundred years or so" (The March ofLiterature.Again, there was the picaresque story.Beginning in Spain, named after the pic-aro, the likeable spiv who was its hero, itwas the reading public's prime favourite inElizabethan England. Greatest of all thepicaresque writers was Quevedo, to whomhalf the low stories told in Spain are stillattributed (those who have. never read TheGreat Rogue have missed something.The ragged, workless hordes who infestedall western Europe, products of its econ-omic development, provided amplematerial. Some begged, some stole, somestarved, some became spivs ; or, "spiv"being a nineteenth-century word, "coney-catchers-' - coney was Elizabethan for arabbit or greenhorn. There were RobertGreene, who wrote a whole series aboutconey-catchers; John Awdely, who wroteThe Fraternity of Vagabonds; ThomasHarman, author of Caveat for CommonCursitors; ever so many more, beginningthe long line of those who have foundjournalistic capital in the figure who,perhaps more than any other, symbolizesworking-class disillusionment.Again, there were the first novels -works of "feigned history" aimed atpleasing people with leisure to spare. InSpain, there was Quevedo, and a littlelater there was Cervantes. In England,two attempts were made. One, ThomasNash's The Unfortunate Traveller, was alonger picaresque story; the other, JohnLyly's Euphues, was the very first attemptin this genre. Euphues is a display of" fine writing" : flashy and extravagant inits language, weighed down with gargan-tuan florid sentences and fantasticbotanical similes, creating doubt that withall those words the author will say any-thing in the end. It was popular for per-haps fifteen years before it went the wayit deserved, leaving behind the word" euphuism " or "euphemism" as asynonym for long-windedness. And thathappened in Spain, too; they have theword "gongorism" for just the samething, deriving it from a writer named.Gongora who flourished, in his way, atnearly the same time.It is possible to trace various streamsIII English literature and. watch their

(Continued on pag~ 152)

HINTS onPUBLIC SPEAKINGIt is hoped that these notes will helpthose members who desire to speak forthe Party - and, maybe, inspire some totry.No originality is claimed: most of thenotes have been taken from the variousworks on the subject and adapted to Party

needs. They of necessity mainly deal withindoor speaking, although it is hoped laterto give some hints on outdoor work. Thewriter proposes also to suggest some waysof improving the use of the voice, by anexamination of the instrument which pro-duces it.The method of preparing notes will beworth studying by those who are speakers,as well as by those who would be. Forthe most part, however, these will be hints.I am presuming readers who are preparedto use them; maybe I am too presump-tuous, but let us hope not.KNOW YOUR SUBJECT.This advice may seem so obvious as tobe scarcely worth the giving. I am, how-ever, writing from personal experience,and am not going to neglect the importantbecause its statement may amount to atruism.At least half of the bad speaking onehears is due to violation of this funda-mental principle. One may say it is theunforgivable sin for a Party speaker not toknow the Party case and how to apply it !The man who is full of his subject sel-dom exhibits nervousness and seldomfails to grip his audience. Because heknows he cannot be pulled up over

inaccuracies arising from ignorance of hisSUbject, the well-informed speaker is fullof self-confidence. And the fact does notescape the audience, who listen with therespect due to the expert.TH~ INSPIRED SPEAKERThe speaker who is saturated with hissubject is, as a rule, prepared to speakvery largely extemporaneously, and it isalways an excellent thing for a speaker toget away from a prepared and set form ofwords, Not infrequently one sees a goodspeaker, well versed in his subject, thrustaway his notes and carryon extempore.He is fired with his subject and away hegoes, carrying his audience with him.Not so the ill-informed speaker, treatinga subject with which he is but superficiallyacquainted. Laboriously he recalls thefew points he has got together for theoccasion - unblushingly he deals in irrele-vancies, dragging in feeble anecdoteswhich usually have nothing to do with thecase.TALK ONLY ON WHAT YOU KNOWIt is of paramount importance for thenewcomer to public speaking to choose asubject on which he or she is exception-ally well informed. Nothing like the samedifficulty will be experienced in finding thewords with which to clothe your thoughts149

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YOU have real knowledge of your sub-If you haven't that real knowledgen have no right to inflict your remarksn an audience. You may - and must_ prepared to answer questions.~.Ien who in the ordinary way are pain-v tonzue-tied become positively fluentvou a~t them on the subject of their' " If - or""their hobbies. They know theirthat is why. So" know the Party

s.~ .. is the first golden rule.EP TO THE POINT.Thi second fundamental of forceful

_!. Ii speaking is also "obvious." But- small a proportion of speakers reallyto the point!Discursiveness is the bane of manyerwise good speakers. The fault in-~blv arises from lack of mental discip-e. -It is often the best-informedeakers who are most guilty of it. Theya wealth of ideas, but fail to dis-iminate between what is relevant andis not. They have no mental plan,d allow themselves to digress and wan-r farther and farther from the point, alllime consuming valuable minutes. Itnot unusual for such speakers to leavesaid many important things for the sim-reason that they have squanderedeir time in digressive excursion awayrn the point. .It is the ever-present necessity of avoid-irrelevancies, which clog the flow of!!ument and tend to introduce confusingl;ments, that makes it imperative to worka carefully prepared plan. The methodpreparing notes that will be advocateda further article should be found veryseful in this connection. If one has afinite journey clearly mapped out,uching all essentials, one is not in any-ins like the same degree likely to-ander where one has no immediate

But in speaking, what is said is said,d irrelevancies uttered have taken timeeded for what is relevant and important.oreover, a speaker who is continuallya ing his main theme to follow non-SSential lines of argument will findfficulty in holding the attention of hisdience, and almost certainly fail to beW TO CHECK IRRELEVANCY.The same procedure can be followed inercoming a tendency to indulge in

relevancies in speaking, as for remedyinge fault in writing. The secret lies inear thinking beforehand, and the surestd to clear thinking is the method of note-king to be described later.The speaker who has contracted thesease of irrelevance, or who wishes tooid contracting it, should compile histes with scrupulous care, afterwardsmpressing them into the smallest com-s of words that is compatible withntinuity and logicality of presentation.It is best at first to speak direct fromese notes which, in spite of the com-ression referred to, are certain to be

much fuller than a good speaker's notesshould be. But if they are set out, refer-ence to them should not be made obviousby the time taken to find the next point.As experience is gained and confidence isin process of being established, the notescan become briefer and fewer.However, the reduction of notes shouldbe attended by no diminution of the newlyacquired ability to stick rigidly to thepoint. If it is, then it is dangerous to con-tinue doing with fewer and fewer notes -for the time being, at any rate.KNOWWHEN TO STOP.Excellent advice in small compass.Carlyle said: "There is an endless merit ina man knowing when to have done."Many speakers deliver' a . good address,and then spoil everything by not knowingwhen to stop. They go on repeating, andsometimes contradicting, themselves, tailoff dismallv,~it down - ten or fifteenminutes after they should have done.Every speech worthy of the name hashad hard work put into its preparation.If the ideas have been logically arranged,they have been worked up to a carefullyconceived climax. Perhaps when thatpoint is reached the speaker has got wellinto his stride and feels he has hisaudience with him. He gives way to thetemptation to "carryon." But becausehis carefully worked-up climax has beenreached and passed, whatever followsmust be in the nature of an anti-climax,and the interest roused in the audiencecannot be sustained. The speaker hasgone up like a rocket and is now comingdown like a damp squib.The quick curtain-finish your speechon a high note. Work up to it all the timeyou are speaking, reach it, strike it hardand sit down. The" quick curtain" to ashort story is wonderfully effective. Havea quick curtain to your speech.-TALK TO mE MAN AT THE BACK.The mumbling, word-swallowing spea-ker can never be called effective. I knowof nothing more depressing than thespeaker who pitches his voice in a sort ofminor key and confines his remarks to thefirst two rows. Don't talk to the water-bottle or to your notes. Hold up yourhead and talk to the Man at the Back.Remember always that you interest onlythat part of the audience which can hearyou. If some of the audience is fidgetingit is a sure sign that they can't hear you.And an audience which is half inter-ested, half fidgety and recalcitrant, is avery difficult one to keep in order.I hope to say something later aboutclearness of diction. R. AMBRIDGE.These nares will be continued in future issueso f FORUM.

NEXT MONTH:A Review of

"James Maxton-The Beloved Rebel"andA Reply to "The Colour Question"

CorrespondenceA SOCIALIST~S

LIFETIMEDear Comrades,Mother and I wish to offer our sincerethanks for the fine tribute paid to Fatherby Harry Young in June's Socialist Stan-

dard and for the sympathy shown towardsus and my sisters in our sad loss.In the years he was more intimatelyconnected with the party he was, ofcourse, still known as Glucksberg.Although he actually dropped this namein favour of our present one to help sellthe cakes he baked opposite the FascistH.Q. in Bethnal Green, he liked in lateryears to joke that it was changed so thatthere was no chance of our being confusedwith the Greek royal family!Mention of the Fascists bririgs to mindmany anecdotes about his erstwhile neigh-bours. He, as well as they, frequented the

same little Italian "caff" and so, unlikeother people of his background, wouldvigorously counter their squalid philoso-phy with Socialist reason and humanity.The result, if not conversion, was that hecame to be the only Jew in the area notto be molested in any way by them. Totheir remark that "you're different, it'sthe others," he would plead with them notto let him remain alone with savages suchas they when their gas chambers werebrought into operation.At this time he had recently seen bothPilsudskian and Hitlerian Fascism inaction. Having worked day and night

almost to the point of nervous breakdown,Mother sacrificed her own much-neededpleasures to enable him to achieve hislife-long ambition. It was to visit thescene of his birth; that mysterious placewhose sufferings had impelled his Parentsand hundreds of thousands like them toseek a better, freer life in the West, andyet the memory of which, as it becameblurred over the years, was almosthallowed. My Grandmother alwaysspoke of " the Heim " in bated breath.On the other bank of the Vistula, awayfrom the noble palaces that had oncereverberated to the sound of Chopin, he

found his poverty-stricken relatives. They,not unlike some party members who usedto confuse clean fingernails with "Capi-talist riches," regarded him as the richSaviour from the gold-paved streets ofLondon. When he saw a benign andbearded Jewish patriarch repeatedly put-ting up the shutters of his crumbling shopwithout making the slightest protest asyoung hooligans just as repeatedly knock-ed them down, Father was incensed. Hiscousin had to plead with him to move onand take no notice lest he should provokea pogram. More poverty and morerelations were to be found in Lodz, centre

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of Poland's textile industry. A promisingviolinist cousin too, unable to study at theConservatoire as the Jewish quota hadbeen filled. And Bundists, with whom,with the Yiddish language in common, hecould discuss their non-Zionism and theirclaim that the solution of the Jewish prob-lem was inseparable from the solution ofall others thrown up by Capitalism; aviewpoint so close to our own but severelyhandicapped by their adherence to Social-democratic reformist ideas . Of the fewwho were later to escape Nazi exterm-illation by escaping to Russia, manysuffered the fate of the early Bolsheviks.Father's warmest memories of thisjourney were of his days in Vienna.Before going, various members had sug-gested he look up a very dear Comrade,silent for some time past. He carried withhim this Comrade's last known address.He was not at this address but would beat another, said the occupant. He was notthere either but the fishmonger was sure toknow. He didn't but the newspaper boydid. Mustering his best German, Fatherknocked at the door of one of Vienna'spioneer Council-flats and asked, "Wohntheir Herr R.?" " Why, I know you fromthe Herald League days," was the answerof R's wife who years before.had taught atthe Finsbury Socialist Sunday School.Discreetly concealed under the bed werepiles of Socialist classics and currentpamphlets. Here was an oasis in theCentral-European desert from which weappeared as a large organization.In later years he was to do moreambassadorial work for the Party. At thebeginning of the War he had joined a firmof frozen-egg importers from China

whence many of the eggs for industrial usewere formerly obtained. Then Shanghaiwas occupied by the Japanese and theMinistry of Food had to seek alternativesources of supply. It was decided thatArgentina was most suitable for develop-ments on these lines and he was sent thereto build a dehydration plant. Withelementary schooling only and FinsburyPark as his University this was a formid-able task. By dint of Herculean effortsof studying production methods, refriger-ation theory, drying processes and ofcourse Spanish, he not only built the mostmodern factory of its kind but became anacknowledged authority in this field,being embarrasingly referred to as "Dr.Grant" when visiting McGill University,Montreal.To be on the River Plate was to sufferfrom all the corruption one associates withsuch places and to live in a summer clim-ate akin to a Turkish bath. Those yearslay heavily upon him and were the root-cause of his subsequent ill health. He wasalso unhappy at being far away from thefamily, an institution that he always feltwas underrated in Party circles.For all that the name Grant waschosen by sticking the proverbial pin ina telephone directory, he was made anhonorary member of the Buenos AiresBurns -Society on his own merits. Heloved poetry and would often recite tome Swinburne's Hertha, Shelley's Prom-etheus Unbound and poems of that calibreand he loved music too.As far as I know, he never spoke fromthe Party platform or even felt able towrite in the manner required for theStandard, masterly writer though he was.

His contribution to the ultimate Socialismwas of a less tangible kind. With hisvery wide experience of men and places hewas brilliantly capable, as Harry Youngsuggests, to interpret events and trends.By his personal generosity to individualSocialists who needed a helping hand hemust have enabled several to stand ontheir feet again and get back to partywork.Towards the end he needed a climatesuch as he had known in his youth inSouth Africa. But Malan was hardly likelyto welcome him, even though it wasGeneral Smuts, then a Colonel, who sen-tenced him to three months' hard labourfor" advocating insurrection." By this wasmeant he was involved in a curious situ-ation where white workers, fired by theevents in Russia, made a futile attempt toset up a "White Workers' Republic."Father's contribution to the "insurrec-tion" was to state the classic Party casefrom the steps of Johannesburg City Hall.The Police were unappreciative of the

subleties of outlook amongst workers andhe suffered the common fate. This wasthe period when mass "Mass-meetings"of Cape Town workers were called to pro-test at the Authorities' refusal to allowMoses Baritz to set foot ashore.The untimeliness of his death is evengreater than was suggested in the obituary,since he was only just 54 and not 55 asstated. I here disregard the passport ageof 53 which resulted from Grandfather'sdetermination that no son of his wouldparticipate in the First World War.Cordially yours,EDWARD S. GRANT.St. Pancras..,The Socialist Movement ~~

This article was received as an openleiter to the authors of "The Socialist_"lorement : ARe-examination". Wehave not published criticisms of that articlebecause the authors are not in a position,0 reply. We make this exception becausell'e think that special interest may attach10 an American viewpoint.-EDITORS.The great thought that has gone intothis article is obvious, but it seems to methat you have lost sight of the general pan-orama of modern capitalism because ofyour enthusiasms for the incipient social-ism you observe taking place. You havebecome so beguiled by the alluring treesthat you don't see the putrifying forest.Here's how I observe these sameincipient socialism developments: If youwant to see evidence that socialism ispractical and possible today, see whatmodern capitalism is compelled to do inorder to function. With all the " socialist"a pects of highly developed capitalism, ithas not and cannot do away with the priv-ate property aspects of its inherent relat-ionships. The very transformation of cap-italist private property forms from owners..ntimately and directly associated with

products and their production, into thegigantic private property forms of today,which are more or less typified by varyingaspects of state capitalism and absenteeownership describes the process satisfact-orily enough. Especially note that stateownership as well as cartels, monopolies,huge corporations and other highly social-ised appearances of ownership are butfactors of a system in which the proceedsof that society (surplus value, in the lastinstance) belong to the "eaters" of surplusvalue. What I would emphasize from theobservations of incipient socialism that youstress is that here is evidence that men aresocial beings and can co-operate in theircommon interests. Even in capitalism,observe how human beings can function.More particularly, we see increasing dem-onstrations that the highly developed tech-nologies, the tremendous productive pro-cesses, the shrunken globe, the oresent dayproblems of management needs, efficientproduction, bring into being introductionsof vast social measures. Most imnortant,we see the conclusive proof, as it were,.th~t the change from capitalism into soc-ialism is a relatively simple matter, rather

than requiring intricate, complex involvedmeasures. In fact, haven't we alwaysmaintained that if mankind were confront-ed with the problems of production, suchas inability to satisfy the needs of man-kind, the conditions would not be ripe forsocialism. The evolutionary changes lay-ing the groundwork for socialism havetaken place within capitalism.IDENTIFICATION "WITH"There are two key words in your articlethat illustrate my criticism of your state-ment At the close of Section I, you say,". . . we can make people SEE that thisis the general and significant direction ofsocial change." I could wholeheartedlyagree with this view, i.e., the identificationof incipient socialist developments takingplace today. However, quite a differentattitude is presented in the concludingparagraph of your joint statement. Thereyou urge "identifying WITH society's in-cipient socialism." Ifwords have meaning,it appears to me that you actually propose,in essence, that we participate in the ad-ministration of capitalism. To identifyWITH can only mean, in my book, be-coming associated with these measures in151

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