Manchester, Dec. 18.
The cause of Communism has re ceived a great fillip in Great Britain as a result of the election to Parliament of Messrs. Saklatvala and Walton Newbold. Both of these gentlemen are avowed Com-; munists although the Parsee is counted as a member of the Labour Party, while the Labour Whips have been refused to Newbold. The attitude of the Party leaders appears to be that Newbold is an Englishman and ought to know better, while Saklatvala being only a benighted heathen can be excused.
The very fact of the Bolsheviks having properly elected representatives in Parliament has served to create in the minds of the masses a new and more respectful attitude towards them. With its genius for propaganda the Communist Party in Great Britain has taken full advantage of the new opportunities this gives them. Articles defining the Parties' attitude to all sorts of subjects have lately appeared in all kinds of papers under the signature of Walton Newbold, and have been printed'by editors to gratify their readers' curiosity about the new member. They are all thinly veiled propaganda, and are probably composed at the Communist Headquarters in King St. Covent Garden. London.
Great "Communist Rallies," are also being held in the large industrial centres. The largest halls are engaged and easily filled with "Comrades," sympathizers, and the curious, all of whom appear willingly to pay sixpence or a shilling for their seats. These meetings are addressed by the two Communist M. P.'s, one or two of the, clever Communist journalists like Paul of the "Communist Review," and Clydeside rebels such as W. Gallagher. There has also been a new influx of cheap Communist literature into those workshops where the workers have been badly hit by wage reductions.
This printed propaganda is cheap, plausible, well-printed, and to the point. Just as a debased currency drives out a better it seems to have entirely taken the place of the old I.L.P. Pamphlets that did so much to pave the way for the existing Labour Party. With the disappearance of the old socialist tract there has also gone the old fierce street corner socialist orator. He has "arrived" now and is tame and respectable. The man of to-day on the orange box is a different fellow and to a great extent his methods are different also The red-tied orator of yesterday believed that if only the worker would listen and believe, then the Socialist Commonwealth could be born almost at once. He denounced the system.of Capitalism in general, and painted glowing pictures of an; imminent day when all injustices would be remedied and all tears wiped away. The Communist propagandist has adroitly marked the popularity of the cheap scurrilous press which lives by pretended exposure of scandals of all kinds, social, political, parliamentary, and personal. Fie docs not denounce Mr. Asquith or Mr. Lloyd George as oppressors of the poor. He aims to show through laboriously gathered lists of shareholders in companies, and_ investigations into personal friendships and intermarriages that the conspicuous politicians are all the willing or helpless tools of great financiers and financial corporations. His avowed aim is to produce the impression in the mind of the working man that he is being "had," and that every non-Communist party is corrupt and fattening itself at the expense of the honest worker.
As the average man has already, through "John Bull," and the cheaper Sunday: papers, a predilec tion for beliqying that there is dirty work going dri all around him, this campaign has considerable success. When thrown out by Communist speakers or printed in Communist tracts the innuendoes appear just to steer clear of the actually libellous, but when they get to the streets or the workshops they have usually acquired form and substance, and someone is ready to prove the existence of a corrupt motive behind every action of the Government.
Another feature of Communist orators is their insistence on the fact that they are "Students of History." They usually use this phrase to emphasize their assertion that never in the history of mankind have the classes who held power in a State relinquished it through the appeals, reasoning, or logic, of "the classes beneath them. They are emphatic that it has only been done {and can only be done by bloodshed and force and have no hesitation in boldly saying so.
It is characteristic of the new creed that its success becomes more marked in proportion to the misery and destitution. of those to whom it is offered. In those industries where the workers are still relatively well paid, such as the printing trade, it has very few adherents. There is a much greater proportion among the engineers, and the mining unions are honeycombed with active Comnftinists. Coming down to the unemployed it must be confessed that the Communist Party has practically ousted Labour and is responsible for all the "hunger marching" and other agitations that have forced this evil once more into the public eye. The unemployed who have been marching from all parts of the kingdom to London are undoubtedly genuine seekers for work and deserving of sympathy, but their leaders in every industrial centre are without exception Communists.
The great difficulty Communist agitators in England are faced with is that while their policy is to make _the present system unworkable and destroy it, which can be easiest done by increasing existing misery and destitution, they have at the same time to press for drastic ameliorative measures or their teachings will not be listened to, It is no good explaining to a hungry man that it will be better for him in the long run to be-hungrier, and to be unemployed that Utopia will be here all the quicker if he is fired out of his job. The British are a practical people and the Party that can convince them of its ability to give bread to the hungry and homes to the homeless is the one that will get support. Knowing this the Communist agitators support all kinds of palliatives that are at variance with the anti-reformist doctrines of the Great Panjandrims of the movement at Moscow. They are careful, however, to keep these heresies out of their printed pro-bagandas.
For propagandists so adroit in other ways nothing appears so surprising to a close observer as their tactical error of backing the Republicans in Treland'and making a feature of that support in their English publications. The cowardly and fanatical murderers who are now opposing the Free State are nowhere held in such deep contempt as among the English and Scotch working classes.. Why this wholehearted Communist support should be given to the so-called Republicans it is. difficult to say, for no body of men seem to have less International leanings or make such a fetish of the superiority of their own country. Tt is perhaps only another phase of the policy of maintaining chaotic conditions in every non-Communist country in the hope of profiting from the resultant disorder.
Despite their wearisome iteration of scorn and contempt for Parliament it is easy to see that the English members of the Party are onormously bucked up with their success in getting two members in. This shows itself in some curious ways not the least humorous of which is the publication in serial form in "The Communist" of those speeches Mr. Newbold prepares for infliction on his hapless fellow members but which they escape through his inability to "catch the Speaker's eye." It says something for the determination and endurance of the subscribers to that wrongheaded oe Sia despite this terrible malate culation is still well ction its cir ion is sti Gen. Hsu's March on Kuangtung Gen. Tsu Chung-chih left -Foo-Peking, Feb. 3.
chow yesterday, following his Rusngaune. are marching towards Preparatory to Ad-.
ital Sah Chen-ping resuming the Civil Governorship of. Fukien, two Chinese -men-of-war have come up the bridge.—Reuter.
Pexina, Feb. 3.—Prince Nayinto, Pacification Commissioner for Outer Mongolia, has left for Paotingfa to consult General Tsao Kun with regard to the restoration of Outer Mong lia.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.