Or, best of all, I should like to see the Unions, the Independent Labour Party, and the great and growing body of unorganised and unattached Socialists formed into one grand Socialist Party.
But I do not want to ask too much.
Meanwhile, I ask you, as a reader of this book, not to sit down in despair with the feeling that the workers will not move, but to try to move them. Be you _one_, John Smith. Be you the first. Then you shall surely win a few, and each of those few shall win a few, and so are multitudes composed.
Let us make a long story short. I have here given you, as briefly and as plainly as I can, the best advice of which I am capable, after a dozen years' study and experience of Labour politics and economics and the lives of working men and women.
If you approve of this little book I shall be glad if you will recommend it to your friends.
You will find Labour matters treated of every week in the _Clarion_, which is a penny paper, published every Friday, and obtainable at 72 Fleet Street, London, E.C., and of all newsagents.
Heaven, friend John Smith, helps those who help themselves; but Heaven also helps those who try to help their fellow-creatures.
If you are shrewd and strong and skilful, think a little and work a little for the millions of your own class who are ignorant and weak and friendless. If you have a wife and children whom you love, remember the many poor and wretched women and children who are robbed of love, of leisure, of sunshine and sweet air, of knowledge and of hope, in the pent and dismal districts of our big, misgoverned towns. If you as a Briton are proud of your country and your race, if you as a man have any pride of manhood, or as a worker have any pride of class, come over to us and help in the just and wise policy of winning Britain for the British, manhood for _all_ men, womanhood for _all_ women, and love to-day and hope to-morrow for the children whom Christ loved, but who by many Christians have unhappily been forgotten.
That it may please thee to succour, help, and comfort _all_ that are in danger, necessity, and tribulation.
That it may please thee to defend, and provide for, the fatherless children, and widows, and _all_ that are desolate and oppressed.
That it may please thee to have mercy upon _all_ men.
I end as I began, by quoting those beautiful words from the Litany. If we would realise the prayer they utter, we must turn to _Socialism_; if we would win defence for the fatherless children and the widows, succour, help, and comfort for _all_ that are in danger, necessity, or tribulation, and mercy for _all_ men, we must win Britain for the British.
Without the workers we cannot win, with the workers we cannot fail. Will you be one to help us--_now_?
WHAT TO READ
The following books and pamphlets treat more fully the various subjects dealt with in _Britain for the British_.
TO-DAY'S WORK. G. Haw. Clarion Press, 72 Fleet Street. 2s. 6d.
DOES MUNICIPAL MANAGEMENT PAY? By R. B. Suthers. 6d. Clarion Press, 72 Fleet Street.
LAND NATIONALISATION. A. R. Wallace. 1s. London, Swan Sonnenschein.
FIVE PRECURSORS OF HENRY GEORGE. By J. Morrison Davidson. 1s. _Labour Leader_ Office, 53 Fleet Street, E.C.
DISMAL ENGLAND. By R. Blatchford. Clarion Press, 72 Fleet Street, E.C.
1s.
THE WHITE SLAVES OF ENGLAND. By R. Sherard. London, James Bowden. 1s.
NO ROOM TO LIVE. By G. Haw. 2s. 6d.
FIELDS, FACTORIES, AND WORKSHOPS. By Prince Kropotkin. 1s. _Clarion_ Office, 72 Fleet Street, E.C.
THE FABIAN TRACTS, especially No. 5, No. 12, and Nos. 30-37. One penny each. Fabian Society, 3 Clement's Inn, Strand, or _Clarion_ Office, 72 Fleet Street, E.C.
OUR FOOD SUPPLY IN TIME OF WAR. By Captain Stewart L. Murray. 6d.
_Clarion_ Office, 72 Fleet Street, E.C.
THE CLARION. A newspaper for Socialists and Working Men. One penny weekly. Office, 72 Fleet Street, E.C.
The _Clarion_ can be ordered of all newsagents
APPENDIX.
The American workingman will not find it very hard to see that the lesson of "Britain for the British" applies with even greater force to the conditions in his own country.
American railroads, mines, and factories exploit, cripple and kill American laborers on an even larger scale than the British ones. We have even less laws for the protection of the workers and their children and what we have are not so well enforced.
No one will deny the ability of America to feed herself. She feeds the world to-day save that some American workers and their families are rather poorly fed. The great problem with American capitalists is how to get rid of the wealth produced and given to them by American laborers.
Where Liberal and Conservative parties are mentioned every American reader will find himself unconsciously substituting Democratic and Republican.
It will do the average American good to "see himself as others see him"
and to know that manhood suffrage, freedom from established Church and Republican institutions do not prevent his becoming an economic slave and living in a slum.
But we fear that some American readers will be shrewd enough to call attention to the fact that municipal ownership has not abolished, or to any great extent improved the slums of London, Glasgow and Birmingham.
It is certain some of the thousands of German laborers who are living in America would be quick to point out that although Bismark has nationalized the railroads and telegraphs of Germany this has not altered the fact of the exploitation of German workingmen. Worst of all, it would be hard to explain to the multitude of Russian exiles now living in America that they would have been better off had they remained at home, because the Czar has made more industries government property than belong to any other nation in the world.
Even native Americans would find it somewhat hard to understand how matters would be improved by transferring the ownership of the coal mines, for example, from a Hanna-controlled corporation to a Hanna-directed government. There would be one or two different links in the chain of connection uniting Hanna to the mines and the miners but they would be as well forged and as capable of holding the laborer in slavery as the present ones.
Happily the chapter on "Why the old Parties will not do" gives us a clue to the way out. While the government is controlled by capitalist parties government ownership of industries does little more than simplify the process of reorganization to be performed when a real labor party shall gain control. The victory of such a party will for the first time mean that government-owned industries will be owned and controlled by all the workers (who will also be all the people, since idlers will have disappeared).
American workers are fortunate in that there is a political party already in the field which exactly meets the ideal described in the last three chapters. The Socialist Party is a trade-union party, a labor party and the political expression of all the workers in America who have become intelligent enough to understand their own self-interest.
Those who feel that they wish to lend a hand in securing the triumph of the ideas set forth in "Britain for the British" should at once join that party and work for its success.
A. M. SIMONS.
BOOKS BY ROBERT BLATCHFORD
("NUNQUAM.")