MIA > Archive > M. Philips Price
From International Press Correspondence, Vol. II No. 12, 14 February 1922, pp. 81–82.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2019). 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.
Up to the Cannes conference Lloyd George had succeeded in very considerably strengthening his position and that of the ruling classes of England in international affairs, he had made peace with Ireland, averted a struggle for naval supremacy with America and had the prospects of curbing French militarism on the continent of Europe by bringing in German capitalism, newly arisen out of the ashes of the German Revolution, into an international finance consortium for the exploitation of Central Europe and Russia. But the fall of M. Briand and the rise to power of M. Poincaré again has put a spoke in his plans. The systematic attempts now made by the French government to sabotage the Genoa Conference, aided by the Northcliffe press in England, and the continued tendency of America to avoid direct participation in European affairs, in order that it may more effectively exert pressure on the capitalist governments to pay it their war debts, has weakened Lloyd George’s position once more and brought his government before another crisis.
But if the international position of the British ruling classes has not improved during the last month, its internal position is becoming exceedingly critical. It is up against two problems, which appear, for the moment at least, to be quite insoluble. The first is the catastrophic state of the Imperial finances (a huge but as yet unknown deficit is expected in the next Budget). The second is an unprecedented revolutionary wave in Egypt and India, – these two bulwarks of British Imperialism in the East. In order to deal with the situation Lloyd George’s government is obliged to use all the arts of trickery and make-believe.
Let us take the first problem. How is Lloyd George trying to grapple with his financial difficulties. The condition of trade shows no signs of improvement. The figures for export and import for December of last year were the lowest recorded. The number of unemployed shows no signs of abatement. The revenue from indirect taxation, customs and excise are decreasing and America is pressing for the payment of interest and sinking fund on its debt There is therefore only one thing for Lloyd George to do and that is drastically to cut down state expenditure. The Northcliffe press has been clever enough to understand the position and in the hopes of gaining popularity with the petty bourgeoisie has been running a big “economy campaign” for several months past. The government has appointed a special committee under the presidency of the Canadian financier, Sir Auckland Geddes, to report on the possibility of reducing the national expenditure by 175 million pounds sterling. 75 millions has already been cut down by dissolving certain State departments and reducing the staff of others but there remains 100 million more to cut off, if the budget is to be balanced. So far as is known, the committee has only succeeded in drawing up a plan for reducing expenditure by 75 millions, leaving millions still to be cut down. Of these 73 millions it is proposed to find 45 millions by reducing the expenditure on the Army, Navy and the Air Services. Here one may see the importance of the Washington Conference from the point of view of the financial stability of the British Empire. At the cost of having to bow to the dictatorship of President Harding, accept his battleship ratio and abandon the alliance with Japan, Lloyd George obtains the possibility of saving a considerable sum of money. As all the clear-sighted labor elements in England saw from the first, the Washington Conference was merely a device to save world capitalism from bankruptcy.
But in addition to the reduction on armaments the Geddes Committee foresees a reduction of 38 millions on various departments connected with the social welfare of the wide masses. Thus it is proposed to cut down 18 millions on education and to force school teachers to accept lower salaries and to increase the number of pupils in each class. The dismissal of large numbers of school teachers will also have to take place, if these plans are carried out. Pensions for war-invalids and the expenses of the Ministry of Health are to be reduced by some 5 millions. Thus Lloyd George hopes to be spared the disgrace of coming before the English electors as the man whose government bankrupted England, by reducing expenditure on armaments and imposing the rest of the burden on the laboring masses by lowering the standard of living and depriving them of those small advantages which they have hitherto been able to acquire under capitalist society. In the first case he will receive the support of the petty bourgeoisie, who are tired of armaments and war, and in the second place he will be able to appeal to them as the man who practiced economy. Here, of course, he may wreck his government. Already there is great opposition aroused by his economy plan among the great spending departments, particularly the Army, Navy ana Air Services, whose case is being championed by Winston Churchill. The latter person realises that unless the rulers of England have sufficient aeroplanes and poison gas bombs to throw on the villages of Indians and Egyptians, even the glories of the British Empire, like the glories of Ivan the Terrible, will fade away. Also the mere fact that Lloyd George, in the days of his radicalism, agitated for and achieved considerable social reforms, all of which are now to be thrown on the scrapheap, in order to prevent the necessity of taxing the landlords and the industry magnates, is likely to increase his unpopularity in wide circles of the population.
Once more he is at wits’ end to find some popular cry, with which he can divert popular attention from understanding the true state of England. He still hopes that Genoa will provide one of these diversions and that it may also help to solve some of the problems, with which he is confronted. To ally himself with Herr Rathenau and Herr Stinnes and together to harness the Russian Revolution and the technique of German industry to an international finance consortium – that is still a very attractive project, but one which is no less dangerous to the proletariat of Central and Eastern Europe than the policy of open brigandage, pursued by M. Poincaré. And this is really at the bottom of all the so-called “Liberal” tendencies of English politics today. As the Conference of the Liberal Party in Manchester last month showed, the “Free Liberal” opponents of Lloyd George, in spite of all their oratory and invective, had nothing positive to propose as an alternative to the policy, now pursued by the left wing of the Coalition, which Lloyd George now intends to call the “National Liberal Party”. In spite of Lord Grey’s criticism on foreign policy, everyone knows that it was he who was responsible for bringing England into the war on the basis of a secret treaty with France. In spite of Mr. Asquith’s attacks on Lloyd George for the period of terror in his Irish policy last year, everyone knows that it was he who murdered the Irish revolutionaries at Easter 1916 and that he is the man, who has the blood of James Connolly on his conscience. Thus all the fights that are now going on in England between Lloyd George’s National Liberals and Asquith’s Free Liberals, between the Northcliffe press and Lloyd George and between the Conservative “Die-Hards” and the Coalition are nothing else than sham fights between various elements of the British ruling classes. The some extent they are based on personal animosities, but to the greatest extent they are staged in order to mislead the masses into the idea that, if Lloyd George’s Coalition goes, something more progressive will take its place. The real nature of these conflicts may be seen by the difference of opinion, which has arisen over the question of the reform of the House of Lords. The Conservative “Die-Hards” do not want a General Election, until the House of Lords has been reformed in such a way as to give it back its old privileges, to stop all revolutionary legislation, which may be passed by the House of Commons. Lloyd George on the other hand would fight the danger of a Labor government getting into power in England, by finding a good electioneering cry to throw dust in the eyes of the British proletariat and to prevent it from realising the true state of affairs.
As regards the second problem before the Coalition – the question of India and Egypt – it is very difficult to say anything positive. No reliable information has come from these countries for some weeks. The censorship has stopped the publication of telegraphic despatches from Bombay to the Daily Herald, because “their publication is considered undesirable by the authorities.” All that is known is that India is in a state of rebellion against British rule. The pacifist Ghandi [sic!] has now complete control over the Nationalist movement and is organising a gigantic general strike, which includes the non-payment of taxes. The British authorities are considering whether to arrest and deport him and meanwhile have filled the prisons of India with thousands of revolutionaries whom they are treating with their accustomed barbarity. Meanwhile a pleasant young gentleman, called the Prince of Wales, is led like a prize ox round the towns of India and is duly photographed, receiving the homage of intimidated Indians, announcing their loyalty to England at the rate of 5 rupees a day, and the photographs are produced by the Northcliffe and other boulevard press as proof of the loyalty of India to the British Empire. Thus the Genoa Conference and the “storm in the tea-cup” over the Reform of the House of Lords are thus convenient excuses for covering up the financial situation of the British Empire at home and the rising tide of revolution in its Asiatic dependencies.
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