John Maclean, Justice June 1909

A Piece of Class Injustice

Source: Justice, 26 June 1909, p. 10;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

About a month ago a worker named McEwan, in the Thornliebank Printfield, belonging to the Calico/Combine, was dismissed without a character for failing to work late through physical exhaustion and illness, although he had worked late the day previous. He entered into a heated discussion with the under-manager, Wylie, who took his umbrella to him. The workman seized this and broke it over the other fellow. He then attacked him with a penknife and tore his jacket before he could escape behind some bales of cloth. The labourer was, of course, arrested. As the village is owned by the Combine the other workers were afraid to move, so one or two hinted that we might do something for McEwan. We held a meeting at which we claimed our intention to raise a fund to defend the man and assist his wife and three infants. Poverty-stricken though they were, these people gave us £8 in small donations. We did all we could for McEwan, but he got six months, though no fault could be found with his previous life. This sentence came a few minutes after one where a wretched creature, with eight former convictions, got forty days for stabbing his wife in the face. Peculiarly enough, at our meeting before the trial I told the people the judge would look at McEwan’s action from a different standpoint from that of an ordinary stabbing incident, as it partook of the class nature, and events transpired as I suggested. The poor man may suffer, but we have seen to it that the workers on the south side of Glasgow have mentally benefited by this fresh instance of brutal class vindictiveness. We have obtained 10s. per week from the Eastwood Parish Council for the wife, and we are giving her a like sum. This is better than the 17s. per week of 56 hours her husband got. Meantime, our lawyer and the comrades are doing their best to get the sentence reduced. In this they are being assisted by the Glasgow Trades Council. We request Scottish branches to write their M.P.’s, drawing their attention to the incident and requesting their assistance in getting McEwan off. Their refusal to act will assist the branches against delinquent M.P.’s and their parties. This is the class war in operation, although on a minor key.

The incident was the natural outcome of the increasing stringency applied by the Combine, as by other trusts, and the comparative helplessness of unorganised labourers. Were these wage-slaves organised, such a primitive method of retaliation might (we cannot say would) be avoided. We have taken steps to get them into a labourers’ union. But a local union, or one not embodying those working under the combine in Lancashire and other parts, would obviously be impotent. What can be done to weld all the trust’s slaves into one union containing others in different branches of industry?

That question I would like answered by some competent reader of “Justice,” and one likely to help to realise the object we have in view. Despite all the pessimism of disappointed trade unionists, I feel convinced that trade organisation is as requisite as Socialist organisation since it enables the markers to wage the class conflict on a higher plane and prepares the way for the higher Socialist organisation. It is on these grounds I make the appeal, and hope that a ready response will be forthcoming.

J. MACLEAN

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John Maclean, Justice May 1908

Education in Scotland

Source: Justice, 23 May 1908, p. 6;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

So apathetic have the middle-class in Scotland become so far as social progress is concerned – and that, of course, can be accounted for by the fact that they are the dominant class and have all their interests well attended to – that even the vaunted superiority of Scotland in educational affairs is probably a thing of the past. Incited by the the desire to rise supreme in commerce and industry other countries have directed themselves with marvellous energy to the perfecting of the education of their young whilst all the time we in Scotland have been resting on the achievements of our fathers.

However, our Liberal leaders have awakened from their lethargy, and through Mr. Sinclair have produced an Education Bill. Last year the Bill was mysteriously dropped, this year it has been surprisingly resurrected. No mention was made of it in the King’s Speech, and no educational organisation knows why it has been so suddenly revived. After innumerable attempts this Bill will certainly be passed, through the dauntless courage and assiduity of our Scottish Liberals. And there shall be a revolution in Auld Scotia’s education. For does not Mr. Sinclair’s Bill tell us that “accommodation, apparatus, equipment, and service for the preparation and supply of meals to pupils attending schools within their district be provided; that crippled or defective children shall be conveyed to school; that school boards may provide books, etc., to pupils, where they deem it necessary; that medical men may examine the children to find out whether their parents are neglecting them and ought to be imprisoned, so as to take from the said parents their independence to neglect them; that school boards may frame bye-laws compelling young lads and lasses after work hours to attend continuation classes till they reach the age of 17; that school boards may dismiss teachers in an arbitrary manner, and may give others microscopic pensions, if these, naturally, have not been revolutionary Socialists; and that voters after this shall have only one vote. These, with certain petty financial details, are the vast issues that have taken our professors, educational experts and politicians so many years to screw up their courage to the sticking point to face. Their sleepless nights, their multitudinous cares for the welfare of the children of the poor are almost past – the Bill is going to become an Act. Maybe!

Unfortunately for our middle-class plundering saints and sages, the workers have awakened and are demanding an Education Bill. On May Sunday, despite the sobs and dripping drizzle of our weeping weather, the largest assembly of workers ever met on such an occasion passed, amidst other resolutions, the following:-

“That this meeting calls upon the Liberal Government to introduce and pass this year (1908) an Education Bill for Scotland, embodying, amongst others, the following important points (a) secular education; (b) free maintenance of all school children; (c) free books; (d) extension of the age limit to 16 years; (e) maintenance scholarships for all attending secondary schools, technical colleges and universities; (f) free medical examination of all, with free treatment of such as require medical aid; (g) the establishment of homes in the country and at the coast for the benefit of school children; (h) all educational expenditure to be borne by the State.”

This or a similar resolution will be passed at public meetings from end to end of Scotland. But that’s not all. A petition has been drawn up by the May-Day Committee, and books for signature are going to be sent to Socialist and trade union organisations everywhere in the country, so that our smug, self-complacent bourgeoisie may recognise that we of the working-class demand the nation’s best education for our children. Never before was a better opportunity afforded by the masters to show the absolute necessity for free maintenance. All winter unemployment and broken time prevailed over Scotland; wages have been falling and will fall; and now innumerable engineers are virtually locked out to prevent them, I presume, giving aid to the locked-out woodworkers. The children will be pinched through no fault and no desire of their parents. Free Maintenance is the only shield of the young, and the only practical measure that can enable school life to be extended. Let all comrades in Scotland, with united frontal attack, prevent the passing of Sinclair’s despicable Bill by the steadfast clamour for a workers’ Bill along the lines – sketched in the above resolution. But, by all means, let us present a formidable petition – the first, remember, that has been presented by the wage-slaves of the land of Burns. We can make history without going to Parliament ourselves.

J. MACLEAN

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John Maclean, Justice September 1908

An Affair of Outposts

Source: Justice, 19 September 1908, p. 8;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

On its formation a few years ago the Calico Combine bought up Thornliebank Print Works from Mr. Crum. Since then it has been speeding-up the employees and putting them on short time. Thus many labourers, for two years at least, have scarcely earned 10s per week on an average. As you know, the watering of capital and the juggling with finance have made it impossible for ordinary shareholders to get interest to any extent. Speeding-up and dismissals have been the consequence.

Last summer our Pollokshaws Branch was instrumental in starting a good open-air propaganda there. Of course we dealt with local conditions and showed the workers how they were completely in the hands of the company because they lived in company houses and burned company gas. We foretold them of further speeding-up and hustling, but warned them not to blame their managers and “gaffers” as these had simply to carry out the dictates of the directors. Our case was soon proved by the sudden dismissal of the manager on a day or two’s notice. This event again permitted us to give counsel to the masses who, ere our arrival, had felt enraged against the bosses and growled forth imprecations and threats.

We pointed out to the breaking of machinery as a folly parallel to their own and tried to let them see that only the social ownership at land and capital could eliminate the conditions they felt aggrieved at.

This year our work was so successful that we seized the opportunity of forming a branch on the visit of the “Clarion” Van. This maddened the Orangemen, who are fairly numerous in the village.

On Friday last a shot was fired from a Lee-Metford gun at one of the undermanagers. Consternation has since reigned in the village, because all know this incident is the direct outcome of the cruel speeding-up of late. The Orangemen, who have seized the opportunity of blaming our “inflammatory speeches” have threatened to rush us on the next occasion we visit the village. These wild barbarians from Ulster are so stupid that they fail to see they are playing the game we would have them play. They fancy we can be handled as the Irish can. These are exactly the occasions when a Socialist’s knowledge of economics and politics enables him to gain a victory out of a seeming set-back. The incident is of value, as it illustrates vividly the “growing pains” of capitalism.

J. MACLEAN

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John Maclean, Justice December 1908

Great Britain and Germany

Source: Justice, 5 December 1908, p. 5;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

DEAR COMRADE, -

The Kaiser interview (second edition), and the article by Herron in the November “Social-Democrat,” seem to lead to opposite conclusions. The interview goes to prove that Germany is preparing for a blow at Britain: Herron concludes that international finance, controlling the Great Powers, would never permit of such an attack.

I stated the Herron argument some time ago in “Justice,” and I still feel convinced it is a sound one. Nobody in our movement would for a moment deny that productive capitalists in Germany wish to cripple Britain. But would they be able to raise the necessary finance? That is a question that only the great money-lenders could answer. These apart, I believe Hyndman might be induced to tackle the question, as the highest authority.

However, granting that the Germans could get the finance, would they get the trade in case of the rout of Britain? To my mind this is as thorny a question as the previous one.

We all know how the Yankees pushed their trade in South Africa during the Boer. War. Their Panama Canal will soon be in use, and this will enable them to trade more freely in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. Japan will also gain by the opening of the same canal. Even leaving the rise a native capitalism in India (after the expulsion of Britain) and China out of consideration, the flow of the world’s surplus capital into these countries during a European conflict would, together with the opening of the Panama, make the Pacific the centre of commercial gravity. With or, without war, there are numerous signs of this actually happening within next decade.

This possibility must soon have a sobering effect on Germany and Britain, and I will not be surprised to see a Pan-Anglo-Saxon Political Trust to corner the world’s, trade or at least, prevent the Asiatic races predominating.

No doubt, far-seeing economists and politicians in Germany are fully aware of this and will do their best to avert the disappointments even of a successful war.

J. MACLEAN

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John Maclean, Justice December 1910

The ‘Maximum’^[1]

Source: Letter, Justice, 17 December 1910, p. 10;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

DEAR COMRADE, – My “crude” handling of the Marxian theory of value was due to space limitation – the same cause which makes some of comrade Bax’s writings sketchy – and also a desire to be clear through the elimination of non-essential adjustments – non-essential in the sense that their absence in no way vitiates the truths sought.

In studying the laws of motion, we keep out friction till its consideration is necessary; in studying capitalism we proceed from commodities to surplus-value in general, and then to the distribution of surplus-value.

The price modifications that result from variations in the organic composition as capital, temporary operations of the law of supply and demand, etc., in no way affect the general conclusion that prices are determined by the value of goods and gold, and not by wages. Therefore, it was needless of me to drag these in. I can allay friend Bax’s fears by pointing out that my students get a better training in prices than most students in the country.

Bax attributes increase in prices, so far as gold comes in, to increase of sources – to increased supply. So say capitalist economists; not so Marxists. South African gold is being obtained in less time than previous outputs; hence, lower cost, larger profits, greater influx of capital, bigger supply. In South Africa, in 1898, it took 25s 1/2d to crush a ton of ore and extract gold; in 1908 the cost fell to 17s. 6d., and, in some cases, to 12s. 6d. New mines could then be opened. Reduced value thus leads to greater supply and increased prices.

Now as to the law of “Maximum.” When I wrote my letter I was aware of its application during the French Revolution, under highly abnormal circumstances we all must admit. The Government of the Revolution issued inconvertible notes, called assignats, to run its show in spite of lack of hard cash. Over issue led to a £4 note at last exchanging for 3d. and even less. Prices naturally rose tremendously. Add to this the extra rise of prices in Paris due to the revolution. The result was that factories all over France closed down, in spite of tariffs imposed to exclude foreign imports; unemployment and starvation prevailed, particularly in Paris. Naturally, the Mountain, representing the workers, forced from the Government the Law of Maximum to compel a reduction in the price of bread and, afterwards, other necessaries. Nicholson, in his “Money and Monetary Problems,” points out that the Law failed to make assignats exchange at their face value and prices fall to their normal. Even admitting that whilst the revolutionists were in power it worked effectively, we know that the reaction swept it away. Sufficient has been written, however, to show the exceptional circumstances that brought forth the “Maximum.”

But all that Mr. Bax claims for the “Maximum” does not prove its applicability under normal conditions over a country. I maintain it would be less effective than total prohibition. This, however is not a point worth labouring, as revolutionary substitutes for the “Maximum” are to hand.

The reaction against capitalism in Britain has brought into existence the working-class co-operative movement. Comrade Bax should know that the petty trader to-day does not benefit by high prices, as he is being rapidly cut out by multiple stores and co-operation. The Progress Co-operative Society in Glasgow sells goods at a price that eliminates dividend, though not its five per cent. on capital, and yet its prices are frequently no lower than those charged by the large city shops. Retail prices, then, do not bring enormous profits. Wholesale prices have recently risen all round, and we know that wholesalers and producers are more and more dictating retail prices.

However, should a crisis in prices arise, it would be the business of us Social-Democrats in the co-operative movement to urge the abolition of dividend, the reduction of interest, and ultimately the reduction of prices. At the same time, we would urge municipal bakeries, stores, etc. Comrade Bax may thus see that I am not obsessed by petty bourgeois ideas, nor yet out of touch with working-class reality, as he undoubtedly is.

The great obstacle we Social-Democrats have to meet in co-operative circles is the notion that profits are made by the consumer, This generalisation naturally proceeds from the limited superficial outlook imposed by co-operative business details on minds untrained in economics. The only way we can get ordinary co-operators to understand the class struggle is by focussing on their minds on the boycott and the coming tremendous tussle between the Trusts and Co-operation, the capitalists and the workers; and then show that they as producers, and not consumers, create profit.

From in my experience in the co-operative movement, I maintain that it would be utopian folly to further deepen an existing fallacy by urging a maximum when we have the better expedient, supported by universal experience under normal conditions, of urging an extension of co-operation, municipalisation, nationalisation and inter-nationalisation as opportunity arises.

I deny the logical necessity of a maximum for prices as a corollary to the minimum for wages. We would be just as entitled to attempt to stem the use of new time-saving agencies in factories while enforcing hours reduction. Such a course would be against the evolution of production, and we therefore refuse to adopt it. We rather advocate the further reduction of hours as by thus pursuing the class war we are more rapidly hastening capitalism to its end and developing an intelligent class class-consciousness in the minds of the workers. So with wages. If prices rise we should get the workers to force up wages, whilst at the same time getting them to use the expedients already indicated.

J. MACLEAN

1. See letter from Bax 3.12.2010 http://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1910/12/maximum-3-12.htm to which this is a reply. And Bax’s reply to this letter on 31 December 1910 http://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1910/12/maximum-31-12.htm

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John Maclean, Justice February 1910

The Socialist Vote

Source: Justice, 12 February 1910, p. 8;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

DEAR COMRADE, – Since the formation of our Pollokshaws Branch, about three years ago, we have not only carried on active propagation of our general principles and formed new branches, but we have given the lead on all questions of local interest to the masses, as well as having participated in every election. If we had no candidate we always issued a manifesto, supplemented by public meetings, to advise the voter which candidate to reject. Whilst we have all along considered it unwise to ask the people to support a candidate, as that would imply agreement with him, still we have reckoned that it was no breach of our party’s policy to exhort the workers to defeat a man who had proved himself openly opposed to the workers’ interests. On every occasion we have been able to crush the candidate condemned by us. This has been such an effective weapon in our hands that not only have we increasingly gained the confidence of the people, but also, through fear, have forced the opposition to move slowly in our direction.

Encouraged by our success in local elections, we thought it expedient to experiment with the General Election by adopting similar tactics, although not with the unanimous consent of the branch. We issued a four-paged leaflet explaining our general position and our attitude towards the larger election issues, and concluding by a request to our supporters to vote down Sir Robert Laidlaw (Liberal). Our reason for so doing was based on the attitude of the Liberals towards us. Before we read any such suggestion in “Justice” we adopted the position that we would vote Liberal if the Liberals gave our men a clear fight with the Conservatives.

The Liberals had in public called for the unity of all progressive bodies. We had no illusions as to what this meant, but unfortunately, most workers are easily duped by such plausible suggestions, and for the education of these we had to take the Liberals at their word. The fact that the Liberals opposed all our candidates – and we laid special emphasis on North Aberdeen, Northampton, and Burnley – enabled us to come before the public and effectively expose this election dodge of our cunning opponents.

As we had the balance of power in East Renfrewshire we were able not only to expose but likewise to defeat the Liberals. No one knowing the situation can deny that this claim is most effectively substantiated by the fact that East Renfrewshire is one of the few Unionist victories in Scotland.

Such, an accomplishment in itself is small, but I consider it involves momentous issues for the S.D.P. The supreme issue for us at the election was not programme, but party, and this we made the basis of our action. Had all branches in constituencies where we had no candidates openly opposed both Labour and Liberal candidates alike, on the ground that they oppose the growth of our party, although they claim to be the real friends of the workers, then a lesson of exceptional historic importance would have been taught them, because we have the power to sway from side to side a huge part of the electorate.

As it was, we nullified our influence nationally in consequence of some voting Liberal, others Conservative, whilst probably most refrained from the use of their vote, or spoiled their paper. Had a special conference been convened, or had the E.C. given a definitely clear lead, then there might have been the possibility of united action. If we are going to become a political party worthy of support by our class and of fear by the plunderers, then we must act as a party and not as a loose conglomeration of jarring elements. This is certainly a question that ought to be thrashed out at our Annual Conference, where trivialities and personalities have loomed large in the past, to the exclusion of immediate lines of national action. The probability of an election in the immediate future should undoubtedly give piquancy to a discussion on the broad lines of our next election policy and on the machinery that should be devised to find and give expression to the views of the party on the policy to be adopted when election time returns.

This does not exclude advocacy of a minimum programme adapted to the occasion, but simply reduces it to a secondary position. Social-Democracy can only come through the efforts of an organisation having that as its goal, and in a capitalist society that organisation must find expression as a political party. It consequently follows that the growth of our party must demand our highest immediate consideration, and for its development we must do what under other circumstances we would despise.

Whilst I have always reckoned that the payment of election expenses and of members of Parliament is the political reform we ought to make a national fight for over a protracted period, yet I maintain that if by the threat of national opposition we could force the Liberals to give us a straight fight with the Conservatives at Burnley and elsewhere we would do more for the growth of our party than by success in the above.

Of course, the best solution to the whole unsatisfactory position, is the initiation of proportional representation, agitation for which from now till the next General Election would be most wise. Till it has become a reality, however, I insist that the course suggested by me is worthy of the party’s consideration. – Yours, etc.,

J. MACLEAN.

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John Maclean, Justice November 1910

Wages and Prices

Source: Letter, Justice, 12 November 1910, p. 10;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

DEAR COMRADE, – H.W. Hobart, in refuting G.B. Shaw’s argument that an increase of wages would, in the end, stop destitution, falls back on the fallacy that wages determine prices – a fallacy long since exposed by Marx in his “Value, Price, and Profit.”

So long as surplus value is wrung out of the workers by the operation of the perfectly natural laws of capitalist production, just so long will the equally natural social consequences of unemployment and destitution continue to appear, unless adequate Parliamentary arrangements be devised to afford opportunities of work for the rejected of capitalist employers.

But no matter how high wages may be, surplus value – as rent, interest, and dividend – must still pour into the coffers of the plundering few, and, therefore, chronic unemployment, periodically accentuated by crises, must persist. This is the Marxist reply to Shaw.

On the assumptions of Hobart, the real wages of the workers never for any considerable time vary because prices are regulated by wages. If wages rise, prices rise; and vice versa.

During the last fourteen or fifteen years prices have been almost steadily rising, whereas wages, though fluctuating, have rather, on the whole, tended downwards. And had we the absence of trade unions wages would markedly fall without at all affecting the upward movement of prices. The reverse of this we see in the increasing wages of German comrades organised into unions unaccompanied by price increases greater than obtain in other fully-evolved capitalist countries.

Wages simply being the specific name for the price of labour-power, it must be theoretically apparent that a price cannot regulate prices in general. The above illustrations bear witness. The recent revolt against trust prices in America, and the dramatic strike of the railway workers for increased wages to balance increased cost of living, demonstrate that the masses had become conscious that their real wages – the mass of goods that money wages can purchase – had gone down.

I am one of those who believe that we ought to have a law of minimum for wages, but ever increasing with every increase in prices, though never decreasing with price diminution; and a law of maximum for hours, ever falling with increased productivity. Tom Mann does right to insist on this as work for the organised workers after they have organised industrially by fusion of unions already existing and the absorption of those as yet unorganised. But the supplementary effort of Parliamentary representatives I hold to be necessary, and here it that a real Labour Party could fight the class war effectively in the “Temple of Time-servers.”

So far as a maximum for prices is concerned, I imagine the proposal is utopian. Prices are, under perfect free competition and uniform composition of capital, determined by the exchange of gold for other articles in proportion to the time necessary, to produce them socially. Thus ten hours of gold will normally exchange for ten hours of any other product. This gold converted into coin constitutes the price of all products finished in the same time.

If competition ceases with the rise of rings, combines, and trusts, it naturally follows that the articles they produce will sell at enhanced prices. That actually has been happening within the last decade al least, and is one of the factors making for increase in the prices of certain articles.

If gold can be found abundantly in rich easily accessible seams, or if by the application of improved mechanical and chemical agencies it can more easily be produced, then its value declines, and prices generally rise, This is quite natural, and is operating today; and laws to limit prices would be just as silly as laws to end trusts. An agitation for the limitation of prices would imply that we favour the point of view opposed to Marxism, that profits are the result of fleecing the consumer. No doubt profits are increased by the sale of adulterated goods, but normally profits are not made out of the consumer. Such a fight would blur over the class issue entirely, and would thus be tactically as bad as it would be economically.

It might be suggested that if a law of maximum in prices is bad, so also is it bad in relation to hours, and so also is the law of minimum false in relation to wages. But an increase in wages and a shortening of hours all round would in no way violate the operation of the natural laws of capitalism although it might result in the reduction of surplus value temporarily, and thus give an impulse to better methods of production and to trustification. An agitation for this purpose would bring to the surface the fact that the producer creates profit, and would thus enable us to raise to eminence the fight of the workers against the capitalists.

As prices are rising in our country whilst the capitalists are using every cunning agency, such as profit-sharing to speed up the workers, as well as every form of cruel “sabotage” to cow and quell them, it surely is time our organisation made a concerted and well-planned attempt to get the trade unions to fuse and fight with Social-Demo-cratic arguments, and, through the unions, to force the poor Labour Party to do something, just for once, on behalf of the men who pay them, for a reduction of hours and the establishment of a minimum wage. Efforts are being made, I know, but systematic effort is the only road to success.

J. MACLEAN

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John Maclean, Justice November 1910

Wages and Prices

Source: Letter, Justice, 26 November 1910, p. 10;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

DEAR COMRADE, – I regret misunderstanding comrade Hobart, but perhaps my letter has done good in so far as it is likely that others may have come to the same conclusion as myself, and they, like myself, have now their minds set at ease.

While we are at it, however, let me say that I doubt whether Marx, if alive to-day, would maintain that a general rise in the prices of necessaries and a consequent influx of capital from luxuries would follow an increase in wages, such as unions might by force procure or a Government by coaxing concede. Half a century ago the workers were robbed to less extent than they are to-day; capital was lines abundant and less of it was idle; there was a smaller variety of necessary commodities to choose from; there were no rings, trusts and monopolies. This change of circumstances would consequently alter the results of increased wages and demand by the workers.

New capital and new workers would be almost unnecessary, and hardly any appreciable effect on prices generally, apart from the changes at present in force, would ensue. This, of course, I throw out as a tentative conclusion without any desire to dogmatise.

As the General Election is upon us, however, it would be foolish to raise new theoretical issues. We must all lend ourselves to the task of forcing Social Democracy to the front.

Let us not only gather cash for Hyndman and others, but let our Executive issue a leaflet with our attitude on the current issues raised by Liberals, Conservatives and Labourists, and a minimum programme of practical application today; and let it call on the workers to vote against the Liberals, the wolves in sheep’s clothing. Did we everywhere question all speakers of all parties, hold open-air and indoor meetings of our own, and burn the class-war attitude into the minds of the people, we would make more real progress than we are doing to-day.

A branch that cannot pay for 10,000 such leaflets at 2s. 6d. a thousand for distribution at this juncture should shut up shop altogether.

Now is our opportunity to gather up all threads of our years’ work and concentrate it simultaneously in a rousing propaganda such as the country has never had before. The capitalists are buying up every scratch speaker possible. Why, then, should we not put up every possible sail, use every ounce of our energy, to educate the masses and terrify the classes? For nothing do the plunderers fear more than a raging Social-Democratic propaganda.

Let us show MacDonald and his crew that the revolutionists are more numerous; more fiery, more eloquent and more influential in swaying the people than he or his Liberal masters imagine.

The recent and present and coming mighty battles between Capital and Labour show the temper of the people, and show that our time has come. Let America inspire us to battle for the right with cannons doubly charged.

J. MACLEAN.

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