JNF-The-Working-Class-Struggle-of-Half-a-Century

That impressive English story told of the hardships suffered by
the British working class during earlier periods and the misery they endured.
It told of deplorable conditions under which women and young
children in particular had to work, of the great political disabilities of
the day, of how workers developed the socialist idea as the remedy for
the national evils that had befallen their country. Of this idea, John Parker,
the English author of Labour Marches On said, Put shortly, Socialism
means the ownership or control of the main resources of the
community. This carries with it some form of democratic Government,
of equal opportunity and of certain essential equal rights and duties for
all citizens, irrespective of sex, race or creed. In other words, Socialists
believe that political equality alone is not enough but needs supplementing
by a large measure of economic equality if a happy community
is to be created.
Throwing more light on the subject, the author continued, Socialist
ideas have been put forward at various periods throughout British
history from the time of John Bull during the Peasants’ Revolt
(1381) to that of the Levellers at the time of the Puritan Revolution
(1617). The father of modern British Socialism however, was Robert
Owen (1771-1856), the successful cotton manufacturer whose fertile
brain so widely influenced factory welfare, and the education and care
of children and community planning. Few men did more to stimulate
the growth of the trade union movement and spread the ideas which
made possible the founding of the co-operative movement It was in
England, the author added, that the German refugee, Karl Marx, wrote
his major works, basing his political theories upon the economic conditions
that existed there at the time.
The socialist idea was not really put on the map in England until
the foundation of the Fabian Society in 1884. The author pointed out
an important point, Shaw and the Webbs, the Fabian leaders, however
always realized at the back of their minds that really fundamental
changes could not be made save through a party which wholeheartedly
accepted socialist ideas.
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