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Title: Notes [Apr, 1891] Author: Freedom Press (London) Date: April, 1891 Language: en Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 5, No. 53, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3059, retrieved on April 14, 2020.
THE LONDON ANARCHISTS CELEBRATE EASTER.
There is a good old custom, far older than the introduction of
Christianity of celebrating the spring tide of the year by public
.assemblies and friendly gatherings, an ancient usage still of much
practical importance, for it secures the hard-driven workers of to-day a
moment's breathing space for rest and enjoyment. Two London Anarchist
Groups resolved this year to utilize the opportunity. The Knights of
Liberty, an East End Group of workers, initiated the idea of a
Conference on Easter Sunday, to which all Anarchist Groups, English and
foreign should be invited. The Freedom Group arranged, a social
gathering for Easter Eve. Unfortunately times bay(, been so extra bad
lately that in many country groups there was no one able to afford a
trip to London, the too scanty common funds of the groups being entirely
eaten up by the necessities of local propagandist work: circumstances
which gave 'a sort of monopoly value to comrades who managed to come tip
from Norwich and Leicester, and another proof, if one were needed, of
the unfree condition of the wage-slaves of "free" England.
THE LONDON INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST CONGRESS
A well attended meeting of Anarchists, including members of London and
Provincial English groups, Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen, was HELD on
Easter Sunday at the Autonomie Club. The question of what should be the
action of English Anarchists on the First of May was discussed at
considerable length. The opinion was generally expressed that Anarchists
all over the country ought not to miss the opportunity of making good
Anarchist propaganda on the First as well as on the Third of May, but
should bold public meetings in common with their fellow workers oil the
Continent, and explain to the people the real meaning of the May
Demonstration. It was agreed that a leaflet setting forth the Anarchist
position on the subject should be got out for distribution, and 16s. was
collected towards the expenses of producing the same. It was also agreed
to send a message of greeting and solidarity to the congress to be held
at 'Milan am the 12th of April.
OUR SOCIAL EVENING.-More than a hundred comrades assembled on the
evening of March 28th in the tipper chamber of a City coffee tavern, to
enjoy the pleasure of each other', society, to renew old friendships and
form new ones, to gain inspiration, in an interchange of opinion and in
comradeship, for the work lying before us. A glance round the large
room, with its pleasant little. tea tables, each brightened by the music
of friendly talk, showed Germans and Frenchmen from the Autonomie in
conversation with Englishmen from the provinces, Jewish Comrades from
Berner Street, laughing and talking with members of the Italian group,
the Editor of the Herald of Anarchy in amicable discussion with one of
the Freedom staff, friends from Hammersmith Socialist Society, the
London Socialist League, the Individualist Anarchist League, all
cordially mingling with Anarchist Communists from every group in London.
William Morris, from his Sick room, sent a pencil note, regretting his
enforced absence. R. Burnie, the new editor of the Commonweal, was also
prevented from being present by illness. After tea, Comrades Blackwell,
Kropotkin, and Louise Michel made informal speeches. Kropotkin, in view
of the next day's Conference, said a few impressive words about the
coming 1st 'May. He pointed out that unless the workers all over Europe,
and in Great Britain, were unanimous in their Demonstrations that day,
they would carry no weight with them. The English workers, if they meant
anything, should not wait for the 3rd of May to come out in their
thousands. Sunday demonstrations would not tell the capitalists what
they ought to know, that the workers had a right to take it holiday when
it so pleased them. There was no fear of the Capitalists combining to
make a universal lock out if there was a universal coming out on the 1st
May, because the universal lock-out would be nothing less than the
Social Revolution, Songs were then sung by various friends, including C.
Morton, N. E. Tipping, Mrs. Tochatti, and other members of the
Hammersmith Choir, &e., and a violin solo was given charmingly by
Comrade Marsh. The proceedings were further enlivened by recitations
from Gunderson, Jun., and others. So passed a social evening which, we
hope, will not be the last of its kind.
A SUCCESSFUL CONCERT.
Another very useful and pleasant gathering was the concert arranged by
Comrade, Wess at the Berner Club for the benefit of the Freedom Pamphlet
Fund. Comrade Marsh and other musical friends gave their services. E.
Nesbit (Mrs. Bland) and Marshall Steele recited, and the evening
concluded with a sing-song and dance. In spite of dreadful weather, the
sale of program- cleared L2 16s., a sum which, with the prepaid Orders
sent in by the Autonomie, Knights of Liberty, and other groups, has paid
the cost of Freedom Pamphlet -No. 2, stereos and all, and left us a
small balance towards No. 3.
"THE ROLE OF AN" OFFICIAL."
"(1)To do nothing. (2) To prevent any one else from doing anything. (3)
To invent reasons for (1) and (2). No. 3 involves work and ingenuity,
and it is quite astonishing to see what energy can be employed at times
to secure No. 2." So writes J. S. P. to the Times for March 27 apropos
of Mr. Raikes and the Boy Messengers. We congratulate J.S.P. on his
insight.
A PILL FOR THE STATE SOCIALISTS.
The sight of the Post Office invoking all the machinery of law to crush
the Boy Messengers, because the members of that audacious society have
actually dared to perceive a public need and on their own initiative set
about supplying it, is wholesome medicine for those persons whose
Socialism takes the form of a desire to make all branches of industry
into State monopolies. barring the pitiful salaries of its wage-slaves,
the Post Office has been the stock illustration employed by
argumentative Social Democrats, when they would turn us from the error
of our convictions with regard to the danger of officialism, the
repressive tendencies of red tape, and the need for free individual
initiative in matters economic. Mr. Raikers' object lesson will save us
some expenditure of breath in future. Imagine a country in which every
branch of industry and distribution was under the control of Raikes and
Co., and all voluntary associations to supply public needs sternly
repressed by law, and you will have some idea of the Millennium whither
the path of humanity will be opened by the Fabian blow (when struck).
A HALTING DEFENCE.
Some over-zealous Social Democrats, determined not to be beaten, are
suggesting that Mr. Raikes is a public benefactor after all; for if he
quashes the Boy "Messenger Company and himself employs urchins to run
errands for the public instead, said urchins will be transformed, as
they grow tip, into letter carriers, and so for life be provided for
with the munificence peculiar to the State, whereas the private company
will turn them adrift as mere unskilled laborers. An argument which,
like the proverbial swimming pig, cuts its own throat; for if the Post
Office requires a larger number of letter-carriers than can be supplied
from the boys at present in its employ, and does not increase its staff
of boys by taking over the messenger business, it will be obliged to
engage grown wage-slaves from outside, and among these the messengers
who have outgrown their boyhood will have a fine chance, in consequence
of their knowledge of town and practice in deciphering and tracing out
addresses, unless Mr. Raikes sacrifices superior. fitness to avenge his
dignity, in which extreme case the boys' acquirements will stand them in
good stead in gaining a livelihood by the many distributive agencies to
which the Post Office still deigns to grant the boon of existence. We
defend no company for private exploitation, but an exploiting State
monopoly is even worse, if worse can be.
THE QUEEN r. JACKSON, MAN v. WIFE, SLAVERY v. LIBERTY
The extraordinary decision of the Judges of Appea in the Jackson ease,
has very much upset the minds of orthodox husbands, and bewildered their
still more orthodox spouses. Never was greater back-hander given to law
and authority by law and authority! A woman by the simple expression of
her will sets at naught a form of legal contract, which centuries of use
had made the world regard with superstitious awe, and the highest legal
authorities of the land back her up in a decision, which renders the
word "husband," in its ancient legal sense, -a scorn and a bye-word.
Marriage by legally enforced contract was .some stages removed from the
rapes of Savage tribes; the present refusal of the law to violently
enforce the contract is a significant sign of the growing conviction
that union between men and women should depend solely on free consent.
The man who would compel a woman by brute force to mate with him should
take himself off to those parts of uncivildom, where wooing is still
done by means of a club, and the nuptial knot can be pulled to
strangulation point by the self-appointed lord and master.
THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY LEFT.
Mr. Jackson ran only save himself from lifelong ridicule by imitating
his recalcitrant wife in her defiance of legality, He says his only
compliant now is that he cannot marry anyone else. If he can get any
woman to have him, we should advise him to go through the ceremony and
abide the issues. In that, way he might drive yet another wedge into the
crumbling edifice of legal marriage and render his former partner's
rebellion more fruitful.
IRSEN'S "GHOSTS" SCARE THE PIOUS -JOURNALIST.
It would seem as if the spirit of Anarchy had been very much rife
(hiring the tint quarter of '91. Mr. Grein's opening venture at the
Royalty (for the nonce Independent) Theater, Dean Street, on 'March 13,
was in direct defiance of the Lord Chamberlain, who had refused to
license the playing of Ibsen's 11 Ghosts." But individual will and
subscriptions carried the day, or rather the night, and the play was
splendidly given before a crowded audience. After the performance the
Journalists howled loud and long, and told us that this faithful
portrayal of some sordid features of this sordid age, was an outrage
upon decency, and foreboded the downfall of dramatic art. Few, if any,
of Ibsen's most ardent admirers set up his style or subject-matter as
artistic standards. He himself says he writes -with but one object, "to
make men think," and perhaps the term of "dramatic pamphleteer" is a
more happy expression than the originator of it meant it to be. This,
however, is certain, that there. can be only one kind of human being who
can see immorality or obscenity in an Ibsen play and that kind is the
one we hope will some day have become as extinct as the dodo.
IS OSCAR, TOO, AMONG THE ANARCHISTS?
The February Fortnightly Review contained an Article from the pen of
Oscar Wilde which might well evoke this question. Wherever -Mr. Wilde
studied Socialism, he has succeeded in taking the cream off the various
schools, and he is to be congratulated upon his assimilation of what
must have been to him very strong meat. The neat, incisive sentences are
like so many skillful sword-thrusts. Most of them are dealt for the
liberty of' Art, but, to Mr. Wilde, Art is inseparable from life. He
strikes, too, at the cramps of Law and authority, which hinder our
social progress, and at that still more terrible fetter of the soul,
"Public Opinion." The only Objectionable feature in the essay is the
attempt to read into the teachings of Christ the spirit of our own age.
Whatever Christ taught or meant by his teachings, we may be sure that we
have got on to something further, else were he. and his teachings of
small avail.
FABIAN FUSSES.
Our friends the Fabians have been wonderfully energetic these past few
months. They have split up into independent groups, having found that
their increase of numbers made a harmonious working under a central
executive an impossibility. Still the executive has clung to its
existence, and although in reality a thing "of shreds and patches" whose
authority is but a jest, it continues to distribute work, and has set
the various groups to the congenial task of redrafting old pamphlets.
(The Fabians always drop back on old pamphlets as a last resource.) The
Government superstition is also kept up in the form of group
secretaries, whose duties consist of giving tea-parties to their
respective ,groups and creating local fusses. The society now numbers
several thousands, and the chief secretary, we bear, has struck for
increased pay. In fact, the popularity of the society is not altogether
a thing desired of the. original members. Subscriptions are one thing,
but lecturers "whose worth's unknown" is quite another, and the
executive An, anxiously hunting round for a member who will undertake to
Attend all the lectures of the neophytes, in. mufti And report upon them
to headquarters.