British Socialism Part 56

Free State Insurance against sickness and accident, and free and adequate State pensions or provision for aged and disabled workers.

Public a.s.sistance not to entail any forfeiture of political rights.

The legislative enactment of a minimum wage of _30s._ for all workers.

Equal pay for both s.e.xes for the performance of equal work.

_Social._--Abolition of the present workhouse system, and reformed administration of the Poor Law on a basis of national co-operation.

Compulsory construction by public bodies of healthy dwellings for the people; such dwellings to be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone, and not to cover the cost of the land.

The administration of justice and legal advice to be free to all; justice to be administered by judges chosen by the people; appeal in criminal cases; compensation for those innocently accused, condemned, and imprisoned; abolition of imprisonment for contempt of court in relation to non-payment of debt in the case of workers earning less than _2l._ per week; abolition of capital punishment.

_Miscellaneous._--The disestablishment and disendowment of all State Churches.

The abolition of standing armies, and the establishment of national citizen forces. The people to decide on peace and war.

The establishment of international courts of arbitration.

The abolition of courts-martial; all offences against discipline to be transferred to the jurisdiction of civil courts.

INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY

_Const.i.tution and Rules. 1907-8_

_Object._--An Industrial Commonwealth founded upon the Socialisation of Land and Capital.

_Methods._--The education of the community in the principles of Socialism.

The Industrial and Political Organisation of the Workers.

The Independent Representation of Socialist Principles on all elective bodies.

_Programme._--The true object of industry being the production of the requirements of life, the responsibility should rest with the community collectively, therefore:

The land, being the storehouse of all the necessaries of life, should be declared and treated as public property.

The capital necessary for industrial operations should be owned and used collectively.

Work, and wealth resulting therefrom, should be equitably distributed over the population.

As a means to this end, we demand the enactment of the following measures:

1. A maximum of 48 hours working week, with the retention of all existing holidays, and Labour Day, May 1, secured by law.

2. The provision of work to all capable adult applicants at recognised trade union rates, with a statutory minimum of sixpence per hour.

In order to remuneratively employ the applicants, Parish, District, Borough, and County Councils to be invested with powers to:

(_a_) Organise and undertake such industries as they may consider desirable.

(_b_) Compulsorily acquire land; purchase, erect, or manufacture buildings, stock, or other articles for carrying on such industries.

(_c_) Levy rates on the rental values of the district, and borrow money on the security of such rates for any of the above purposes.

3. State pensions for every person over 50 years of age, and adequate provision for all widows, orphans, sick, and disabled workers.

4. Free secular, moral, primary, secondary, and university education, with free maintenance while at school or university.

5. The raising of the age of child labour, with a view to its ultimate extinction.

6. Munic.i.p.alisation and public control of the drink traffic.

7. Munic.i.p.alisation and public control of all Hospitals and Infirmaries.

8. Abolition of indirect taxation and the gradual transference of all public burdens on to unearned incomes with a view to their ultimate extinction.

The Independent Labour Party is in favour of adult suffrage, with full political rights and privileges for women, and the immediate extension of the franchise to women on the same terms as granted to men; also triennial Parliaments and second ballot.

THE LABOUR PARTY

has no official programme. A semi-official programme, contained in a statement of its Secretary, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., will be found on page 425 of this book.

THE FABIAN SOCIETY

_Basis._--The Fabian Society consists of Socialists.

It therefore aims at the reorganisation of Society by the emanc.i.p.ation of Land and Industrial Capital from individual and cla.s.s ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people.

The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in Land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of Rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites.

The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial Capital as can conveniently be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into Capital have mainly enriched the proprietary cla.s.s, the worker being now dependent on that cla.s.s for leave to earn a living.

If these measures be carried out, without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community), Rent and Interest will be added to the reward of labour, the idle cla.s.s now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails.

For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent thereon, including the establishment of equal citizenship for men and women. It seeks to achieve these ends by the general dissemination of knowledge as to the relation between the individual and Society in its economic, ethical, and political aspects.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

_Object._--The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that society as at present const.i.tuted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (_i.e._ land, factories, railways, &c.) by the capitalist or master cla.s.s, and the consequent enslavement of the working cla.s.s, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a cla.s.s struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.