We herald the dawn of the Socialist Commonwealth

 Exploitation and the plunder of a property-less class through the wages system is the very essence of the present system, and will accompany it to the end. The key to mankind's splendid future is POLITICAL POWER. When the workers understand their present wage-slavery and the plundering of their class by the capitalist system, they will see also, if they study socialism, that in freeing themselves from the bondage of capitalism they will set the whole world free. They will then TRUST THEMSELVES to do so. Organising on the economic field, in factory, workshop, and. every sphere of toil, they will fit themselves for controlling wealth-production for society's needs and benefit. Organising, above all, on the political field for the capture and control of political power, they will, in obtaining it, hold the key to freedom in their hand, and will use it for the paramount purpose of establishing the Socialist Commonwealth.

 

There is an element of uncertainty about the growth of the socialist movement. Not even the Socialist Party can tell how far the minds of the workers are turned to receive the principles of
socialism, or how many, already understanding them, are only waiting a popular movement basis on socialism. The number of members to-day may be small but it is the soundness of the principles, and the ease with which they can be understood, and the growing realisation by the workers that their accustomed methods achieve nothing, that keeps the Socialist Party going.

The master class and their lackeys never weary in their campaign of extolling the "virtues" of capitalism. The aim of the Socialist Party is to tear away this the veil of illusion and see capitalism in all its hideous deformity, and use our knowledge to bring to our way of thinking the men and women of the working class, without whose assistance our ultimate object is unattainable. We must show that capitalism has outlasted its usefulness; must emphasise and criticise the evils which are now the inevitable consequence of its continuance; we must point out that capitalism as a social force has played its part and that the time is ripe for the next stage in the evolution of society to be born.

Many people, while sympathetic to the idea of socialism, hesitate to join up with the Socialist Party because they are unable to visualise what conditions of life, other than the material, will obtain when the old system of Capitalism has passed and the new system of Socialism has taken its place. Many people consider, for instance, that under a system where the necessities and comforts of life are assured to everyone, society will lapse into a state of apathy and lethargy. They cannot understand that, where people work for use and not for profit, the better the work done by the individual, the greater the benefit bestowed upon the society of which the better worker is a unit. The workers under the socialist society will work for themselves as a collective body and not, as now, for a comparatively few social parasites, who by reason of their class position as capitalists as against the workers' position as wage-slaves, hold in their hands the power of dealing with the very lives of the majority of the community, not as they will, but as the fluctuations of economic circumstance may force them to.

 

One word more to those who, although themselves members of the working class, have such a poor opinion of the potentialities of their fellows. Why not change your tactics? Why not employ the powers you possess in helping to found a state of affairs wherein the members of the working class—your own class— shall have a chance of showing what they can do? Understand socialism. Organise for socialism. Propagate socialism. Work for socialism. Do not worry so much about the future. The future, you may be assured, will be quite safe in the hands of an intelligent democracy. We ask for the co-operation of all who accept the principles of socialism, so that when the inevitable disintegration of capitalism takes place, we, the workers as a whole, shall be ready, equipped for any emergency, to enter into the new world to be won.

 
 Fellow worker, have you ever thought what your support of capitalist society means to you and your class? It means a life of toil and poverty, and at the end of the journey, when you are no longer useful as a profit-producing machine, vegetating in a care-home  stares you in the face. The fact that in society to-day there exists underfed children and hungry mothers is part of the indictment against capitalism. The cause of poverty in the midst of plenty is to be found in the private ownership of the means of life. Social ownership can alone effect the change. And this the Socialist Party stands for. Look around you and you will see signs that there is an antagonism of interest between the two sections in the community— a class war—which can only be terminated by the abolition of classes in and through the institution of the Socialist Commonwealth. Socialism is not an end in itself, but the means to a fuller and more richly endowed way of life. The spirit of harmony can only come with socialism, when the means of wealth-production are socially owned and controlled for the use and benefit of all.