Socialism -- Great Britain; Unemployed -- Great Britain; Working class -- Great Britain
An equally non-Socialist view was put forth by one of the most
respected Socialists in Parliament when he advocated the immediate
construction of light railways all over the country in order that when
labour was brought back to the land the products could be carried
economically to market, implying that the “products” were to be sold,
thus competing in the market with those of other producers, lowering
prices, and altogether ignoring the great Socialist principle of
“production for use.” In the discussion of this question it has been
totally overlooked that by a proper organisation of the labour of
the permanently or temporarily unemployed, as well as of all those
whose employment does not supply them with the means of a thoroughly
sufficient and healthy existence, all the necessaries and comforts of
life can be produced in our own country, just as they were produced
down to a few centuries ago. I will now proceed to the exposition of
the whole subject.
In order that those who have not read the Labour Party’s Unemployed
Workmen Bill may understand why it could not have succeeded, a short
statement of its essential provisions may here be given.
The first clause provides that the “Local Unemployment Authority”
under this Bill shall be the council of every borough or district of
over 20,000 inhabitants, and for the rest of the county the “County
Council.” Clause 3 declares that “it shall be the duty of the Local
Unemployment Authority to provide work for him” (any workman registered
as unemployed) in connection with one or other of the “schemes”
hereinafter provided, “or otherwise,” or failing the provision of work,
“to provide maintenance, should necessity exist, for that person and
for those depending on that person.”
This is the essential part of the clause, with a condition that the
wages are to be “not lower than those that are standard to the work in
the locality.” Then there is to be a Central Unemployment Committee
to “frame schemes,” and generally look after the Local Unemployment
Committees, which are to be established by every local authority,
and are also to “frame schemes”; and the “schemes” of the four or
five hundred local authorities are all to be submitted to the Local
Government Board for revisal or approval. Nowhere is any guide given
to the essential principles which should underlie these hundreds of
schemes, and we can easily imagine the delay, the confusion, the cost,
and the almost certain failure of “schemes” initiated in so haphazard a
manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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