Wm. Paul

Politics

British Honours

(January 1923)


From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 9, 23 January 1923, p. 69.
Also from International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 3, 26 January 1923, p. 39.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2021). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.


A great deal of needless fuss has been created in political circles in Britain, by the report of a special Commission recently appointed by the government to enquire into the scandal regarding the sale of honours. This Commission’s report is the usual bourgeois whitewash which is generally applied from time to time to the democratic institutions of capitalism. One of the members of the Commission was Mr. Arthur Henderson, a distinguished luminary of the Second International and the foremost leader of the British Labor Party. He presented a minority report in which he sei forth his viewpoint in opposition to that of the majority of the Commission. But even his minority statement does not differ, in essence, from that presented by the out and out upholders of capitalism.

Capitalism, being based on the production and exchange of commodities, moulds its various social institutions in its own image. Even its conception of honour is regulated by the mercantile standard. Every sane and honest student of modern politics is aware that the bourgeoisie only grants honours to those who serve the propertied interests. In order to cover up the hypocrisy of their method of granting honours the cunning capitalists, now and then, confer a distinction upon an artist or a man of letters. But in Britain the traffic in honours reached such a stage of scandal that something had to be done in the matter. Even some of the most reactionary organs of the Press, in denouncing the honours scandal, were able to quote what were considered the market prices for Knighthoods and Peerages.

In democratic Britain the usual method of obtaining an honour is to pay over a sum of money to the secret funds of one of the bourgeois political organizations. These funds are utilized to fight the Communists and Socialists and to demonstrate to the masses that capitalism means social equality. It has been estimated by anti-socialists, like Belloc and Chesterton, that the purchase of a Peerage – which carries with it a seat in the House of Lords – confers legislative power upon the buyer equal to that of almost thirty thousand citizens. Regarding this aspect of the sale of honours, which has a most important influence upon the class struggle, Mr. Arthur Henderson said nothing.

It was of course very difficult for Mr. Arthur Henderson to expose the hypocrisy of the granting of honours under a capitalist slate. This gentleman, like many more of his colleagues in the British labor Party, has himself received an honour from the bourgeoisie. He was made a member of the King’s Privy Council and is, therefore, a “Right Honourable Gentleman”. Some time ago when Mr. J.H. Thomas – who also is a “Right Honourable Gentleman” and a prominent Amsterdammer – used the legal machinery of Capitalism to force the Communists into the law-courts he declared, under cross-examination, that the Privy Council was one of the few honours in Britain that could not be purchased for money. This is perfectly true. A seat on the Privy Council can only be won by a record of splendid service devoted to the propertied interests. In this connection it may be worth our while to pay attention to one or two facts.

One of the most critical periods in the history of the British capitalist class was between 1914 and 1918; it was also a most critical period for the working class. The safety of British capitalism during those years depended, to a very great extent, upon the attitude taken up by the prominent trade union leaders – particulary in the mining and iron and transport industries. What do we find? That the Labor leaders in the iron industries Messrs. Arthur Henderson, George Barnes W. Bowerman and John Hodge – were elected to the Privy Council during 1915–1916. During this period the government made desperate efforts to crush the miners. It was just at this time that important miners’ leaders, like Messrs, Wm. Bruce, T. Richards and Wm. Adamson, became Privy Councillors. All during the war the Amsterdam leaders of the engineers and miners officially took their stand with the imperialist British Government against their own trade union members. All the great strikes conducted by the miners in South Wales; and by the engineers on the Clyde, at Liverpool, Sheffield, etc., were carried on by unofficial committees and in opposition to the very leaders who became Privy Councillors. When trouble began with the railwaymen in 1917 it was the turn of Mr. J.H. Thomas to be transferred into a “Right Honourable Gentleman”. The dates, and the nature of the unions which these Amsterdam leaders controlled in Britain, speak eloquently as to the why and the wherefore they were chosen to receive such important honours from the hands of the most cunning ruling class in the world.

These facts further explain why it was difficult for the Right Honourable Arthur Henderson to denounce the shameless system of granting honours under capitalism. They also explain why the official leaders, who opposed the struggling masses during the war, are now within His Majesty’s Privy Council: and why the unofficial leaders who fought for the workers, and who were imprisoned and deported, are now carrying on the struggle from within the ranks of the Communist Party of Great Britain.


Last updated on 9 August 2021