The Official Journal of the Socialist League.
EDITORIAL.
The reception, favourable and unfavourable, that has been the lot of the Commonweal and the variegated criticisms that have been forthcoming on the Socialist League serve to show that League and Journal, in the familiar phrase, “meet a want.”
The “want,” we may be pardoned for once again saying, is that of an English paper and of an English organisation which will preach in season and out of season Socialism, pure and simple, without any admixture either of political opportunism or bourgeois sentiment or national Chauvinism. The uncompromising nature of our antagonism to the capitalistic system of to-day is gatherable from the contents of our manifesto and of our journal; whilst as a particular indication of the completeness of that antagonism we may point to the resolution passed by the Provisional Council of the Socialist League in respect to the British crimes in the Soudan.
The League is, as far as we know, the only public body that has, in the very fever of the crisis due to the death of Gordon, denounced the war as in reality one of capitalistic greed. To their honour be it said that some few journals and some one or two men have tried to hush the wild and wicked cry for revenge that has gone up from a country stricken with panic and the lust for blood. But neither these journals nor these men have stripped bare the hideous monster of Capital that underlies all the fine phrases as to heroic deeds of which there is such a surfeit at this hour.
In a special article the subject that is in all men's mouths is dealt with. Every word of that article we endorse. Although we believe that in this we stand almost along amongst English-speaking peoples, although we are sorrowful at the death of our brothers, Arab and British, yet we cannot join in the strained and pitiable cry of a false sentiment over the death of any man who has died in doing all another country, and thus all countries, an irreparable wrong. Few things tell more sadly, more bitterly, of the depths of our ethical degradation, outcome of our capitalistic degradation, than the heroification of Gordon. We recognise the ability of Gordon as a soldier, the purity of his character as a man. But we cannot forget that he was the chief opponent of the rising of an oppressed people, that on the head of the popular leader he set a price, that he promised with the cold-blooded deliberation of a military despatch to sack Berber. That civilisation to-day can find no higher type to worship than this, speaks ill for civilisation. We refuse to name Gordon as a hero. The best he can be called is “unhappy.” An unfortunate product of our terrible system that manufactures criminals at one end of the social scale and patriots at the other.
The necessity of making the position of Socialists clear on the Egyptian business and the number of contributions from foreign Socialists welcoming the formation of our organisation and the foundation of our paper, determine in some measure the character of this second number. Our educational articles are not, as will be seen, forgotten, and in ensuing numbers they will be yet more to the fore.
In connexion with the subject of education, the first attempt of the League in that direction has met with an agreeably surprising success. The lessons in Socialism that have been given up to the present time have been productive of good audiences and good work. The four to be given on the Thursdays in March at South Place Institute at 8:30 p.m., deal respectively with Labour, the Factory Acts, Manufactures, Machinery, from the Socialistic point of view. A series of pamphlets under the general heading “The Socialistic Platform” is in contemplation.
Again we remind our leaders that this paper is under the direction of the whole of the Provisional Council of the Socialist League, whose servants the editor and sub-editor are. That Provisional Council will cease to exist as soon as a general Conference of the League is called. The number of members that have already given in their adhesion and their names warrants us in saying that such a Conference will be summoned in a very short time, and a Council no longer provisional elected.
To those who have our principles in their heads and the cause of the workers at heart, we appeal once again. Join the League, or better still, form branches of it in your various localities, read and circulate our paper, attend our lessons, discuss with your fellows the social question. For there is but one, that, Aaron's-rod fashion, swallows up those of all the magicians.
GORDON AND THE SOUDAN.
About February last year two figures were circling round the office of the Pall Mall Gazette, the one writing articles, the other being interviewed; they were those of the two ex-Governors of the Soudan, Sir Samuel Baker and General Gordon, then just returned from Brussels. About the same time (or a little earlier) Sir Samuel was zealously advocating in the columns of the same journal the improving of the situation provided by the defeat of his brother's Egyptian force at Tokar for the conquest of the Soudan and the establishment of a second East India Company, or syndicate of stock-jobbers, who were to administer East Africa in the interest of commercial enterprise. The ex-Governors were avowed pe⟨rsonal⟩ friends, so much so that of the first two messages sent by Gordon to England on the resumption of communication between Khartoum and the outer world, last autumn, one ⟨sent⟩ to Sir Samuel Baker, the other being to his (Gordon's) s(illegible text). It is hardly, therefore, too much to assume that the two hab(illegible text) of the Pall Mall Gazette office were in close communication ⟨with⟩ each other during the “hero's” stay in London, and frequently interchanged views on the matter with which their public (illegible text) was most intimately associated. The sentiments of Gordon, moreover, were openly known to coincide with those of Ba(illegible text) and the Pall Mall Gazette—at least, in his objection to the abandonment of the Soudan and his desire to see an English Protectorate. Shortly afterwards Gordon left England, professedly to effect the evacuation of the country and the release of the Egyptian garrisons.
Now we submit that the simple circumstance above indicated throw a light on what has follows, by which all who are not wilfully blind must see in this wretched business one of the most odious pieces of politico-commercial “jobbery” to which even this country has given birth. Whatever may have been the intention of the Government—if it had any—one thing is quite clear, to wit, that it was not the intention of Gordon or his friends that the Soudan should be abandoned if he or they could help it.
After the infuriated market-hunters had succeeded in raising the flimsiest and most baseless of cuckoo cries for British intervention, that of the rescue of cut-throats, with whose dangers England politically was as much concerned as with those of Russian garrisons in Central Asia; who were there simply to bolster up the admittedly iniquitous rule of the Pachas, the majority of whom as it has proved were only too willing to accept the easy terms of submission offered them by the Mahdi, and the rest of whom as it has proved were only too willing to accept the easy terms of submission offered them by the Mahdi, and the rest of whom put together would not equal in number by many thousands the lives necessarily lost in a campaign even the shortest;—after having by means of this hypocritical cant procured the dispatch of their right-hand man, Godron, what do we find ensue? Is any serious attempt made to negotiate with the Mahdi on behalf of those precious Bashi-Bazouk garrisons as to the fate of whom the pathetic voice of the lachrymose Jingo had been raised so loud in the land? No; but the “Christian hero,” after making one or two obviously impossible demands on the home authorities, proceeds to fortify himself within the walls of Khartoum, and with the help of the garrison and all the fighting men he can get together, to wage war on the surrounding tribes, whom he had but just previously called his friends.
