The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 9, 1925, Page 7

re | a “The idea becomes power when it pene- trates the masses.” —Karl Marx. By ROBERT MINOR. “ A FTER all the sacrifices the war éntailed in our fight for free dom,” asks J. F. Darling, director of the London Midland Bank, “is the re- sult to be that Great Britain is now to come under financial, economic and it may be political domination of America?” With these words begins a strug- gle between the British empire and the American empire. And the struggle begins on the very day of the “happy” celebration of the joining in holy financial wedlock of the same two powers. A nice, typical, bourgeois wedding. m The solemnization occurred last week. The wedding bells rang out from the British parliament: Eng- land has adopted the gold standard! Simultaneously the wedding bells (somewhat muffled in crepe) tolled from the bank of England, and loud and joyfully they rang at New York. Practically from now on, and offi- cially beginning with the ist of Janu- ary, 1926, the British government pledges itself again to make good with gold on every piece of paper money in circulation—or in the vaults of American bankers. The export of gold from England will no longer be prohibited. For the first time in ten years—since 1915, when the war eaused England to drop the gold standard and to put an embargo upon the export of gold from that country— England is under the gold standard of exchange. In the war, the sorely harrassed capitalist England made love to the beautiful young heiress, capitalist America. The coy capitalist lady re- sponded—not too well, perhaps—but wisely. The gas burned late in the parlor of Papa Morgan (for is not J. P. Morgan truly the “Father of his country’”?), and many premises were given—and who knows how many kisses? The British young man meant to keep his independence, as most young men do. But the American young lady remembered—and Father Morgan remembered. Years passed. But the promises and kisses were not forgotten. And then came a scene which is not unusual in this bourgeois world. “Father” Morgan got out his shot gun. The young fellow, England, must make good. The shot gun was held to the head of the young man, England. And the wedding came last week—last Tuesday, when England announced the re-adoption of the gold standard. Yes, the young man did “the right thing.” England stood up to the altar and sorrowfully produced the golden wedding ring, while Father Morgan lowered in the background and fingered the trigger. Happy Wedding? HE old men of the international neighborhood smile with toothless lips, and stroke their beards and say, “Now they will live happily ever af- terwards.” Especially Old Man Kautsky, the benevolent oracle of the neighboring_yillage of Germany, will wrinkle his cheeks and say, “Yes, yes, I told you so. Now the thing is done. They will live in domestic bliss for- ever afterward.” But the young husband of the shot gun bride was full of conflicting emo- tions when he slipped the golden ring on the finger of the willing virago: “Gone is my independence .. . gone . . . But these are the days of easy divorces.” Into the shot gun nuptials are brouglg all of the ran- cors, resentments, “complexes” and hatreds—and divergent interests of the past and present, and still more SPECIAL MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT THE DAILY WORKER. MAY 9, 1925. The “Shot-Gun Wedding” at London of the future. We know these affairs. With cynical eyes of experience we Pierce the curtains of the new house- hold. There will be trouble there. The adoption of the gold standard by England at this time is openly called in London—‘a guarantee to America.” Since when is the adop- tion by the biggest of imperialist pow- ers of the money standard which is considered “natural” to all predatory world powers—since when is this a “guarantee” to a riyal imperialist power? In a theoretical “normal” time this would not be so, and the return of England to the gold stand- ard at some time was always consi- dered necessary. But, coming now un- der the existing circumstances, Sir Alfred Mond, high politician of Great Britain, says that it will tie the Brit- ish monetary system to that of Amer- ica and will make the London bank rate subject more than ever before to the mercy of Wall Street, being a rash act “to obtain a purely senti- mental result.” EANWHILE the “dowry” of the American bride is opén inspec- tion of the guests. It consists of $200,000,000 in gold put at the British disposal by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (by the U. S. govern- ment, in effect), and a credit of $100,- 000,000 from J. P. Morgan & Co. This total of $300,000,000 is three times the size of the recent huge loan to France for stabilization of the franc, and is the biggest loan ever made to a foreign government in time of peace. And it is an-addition to about a thousand. millions. of .othen British- debts to. America—already a source of gall and wormwood. Director Darling of the Midland Bank says: “The pre-war gold standard was for- tunately free from political inter- ference. This cannot be said of the Federal Reserve banks, or rather the Federal Reserve Board, which con- trols their policy. The Federal Re: serve Board is practically a political body sitting in Washington. Are we then prepared to tie the pound to what Sir Basil Blackett has called the chariot wheel of the Federal Re- serve?” The dominant finance capital of England decided that it had to be done, and it was done. The doubt, re- luctance and hesitancy of British capitalism, reflecting the differences of interest of the different layers of the bourgeoisie, are ridden over by the big bourgeoisie which finds the step necessary, tho not an unmixed pleasure. Communist International Foresees. VEN before this spectacular step of opening up/the gold market of England to the American bankers, the Communist International had been able to give a keen analysis of the rapproachment between the two An- glo-Saxon empires—a rapprochement which is both an embrace and a death grapple. Zinoviey is quoted as saying in a speech to the session of the en- larged executive committee of the Communist International on March 25: = “The-most important factor in the world political situation is the rela- SECOND SECTION This magazine supple ment will appear every Saturday in The Daily Worker. tionship between England and Amer- ica. The ‘optimists,’ who see every thing rosy in the camp of our enemies and everything black in our own camp, believe that America can put all Europe on rations and dominate it, When doing-this they forget the differ- ences between America and England, they forget that America is playing the European countries off against each other... The rapprochement be- tween England and America is a his- torical fact. Both states have con- servative governments, but neverthe- less profound differences exist. There are differences in the question of world hegemony, for America has be- come a creditor of the world. There are differences in respect to Canada, Australia and Mexico. There are dif- ferences in the oil question, in the question of armaments, with respect to the debts. A fight is being waged for control of raw materials; there are even differences with respect to the Dawes plan. We see an intensi- fication of the differences proceeding parallel with the rapprochement. It suffices to point to Canada, which is being Americanized and is slipping out of England’s hands.” The internal differences within England between the sections of the bourgeoisie and between the bour- geoisie and the proletariat, are a striking factor in this case. The Lon- don Daily News now gives warning that: “The decision to return at once to the gold standard will be sharply cri- ticized-by industrialists; who fear the (Continuéd’ on page 8) THE DECISION NEARS -