The time presently arrived for the return of Comrade Bunting and myself to South Africa, but here again I found the shipping company desired to know if one had any convictions in the South Africa Courts of Justice. I had a list of my convictions supplied me by the police of Cape Town, which I had to put down or be liable for perjury. The shipping company then promptly told me that they would not book me a passage. My argument that I was domiciled and even a property owner there was of no avail.

This suggested to me another visit to South Africa House. There I saw the same secretary of the High Commissioner, who promptly informed me that this time he could do nothing for me. He was able, he said, to force the shipping company to take me, or interpret the opinions of the immigration authorities when I arrived in Cape Town, as the law said they had a right to reject anyone who had once been convicted in their courts.

Therefore I was in difficulty and again approached the shipping company preparing pitiful arguments of my predicament. They said:' "If we give you a passage to Cape Town and the immigration authorities there refuse you a landing, which they have a right to do, we shall have the pleasure of bringing you back to England at our own expense. We will do this," they continued, "if you are prepared to pay us your return fare now with your single fare, and if they do allow you to land we will return the money to you at our offices in Cape Town".

This I did, not only then, but also again when I returned from England the last time in 1931. I found also that was not all they wanted of me. They also made me sign a declaration that I would not make a public speech on the voyage out. We came out on a ship bound for Australia, on which there were many young emigrants to that country and, of course, some Australians. The usual sports, mock trials and concerts were organised for the amusement of the passengers.

Such, however, is never sufficient, especially for young Australians. They wanted something a little more exciting. The usual gossip had, of course, gone round on the nature of the mission or" Comrade Bunting and myself to Russia. I was sitting at the writing table one day in the lounge when a crowd of about thirty people swarmed round me waving a Union Jack, and demanded that I sing "God Save the King." As that is the antithesis of my Socialist beliefs I immediately refused even to sing anything by intimidation.

Their threats became more deliberate, but I still stood my ground. I stood up then and started to address them and replied to their main' interjections and cat-calls. Then they sang "God Save the King" them­selves. Bunting then squeezed in and, with his legal training and Oxonian accent, helped considerably in my defence. This unrehearsed concert lasted the whole afternoon, until they saw their purpose was hopeless. Their threats then became weaker and they gradually dwindled away.

However, though they were gone, we were not forgotten. A committee of them was afterwards formed to decide what penalty we should suffer as a consequence. Owing to Bunting defending me he was, of course, a fellow culprit and was included. A doctor on board had recently been "frog-marched" by them and given a douching in a bath, because a cat on board had scratched his child and he had thrown it overboard (which deserved a reprimand anyway). So the suggestion was made in the committee that we suffer the same penalty. In the meantime the captain sent for me and expressed an apology for the conduct of the passengers. I had, he said, loyally kept my word that I would not make a public speech on the boat during the voyage, "But," he added, partly to excuse them, "a crowd of young people with three good meals a day and nothing to do must up to some mischief.

The committee, however, continued to sit, but a business man in the East London area of the Cape Province, with whom Bunting and I had many interesting conversations, made it his business to get on that committee also, and his continual opposition, being an older and well-educated man, induced them to defer action for some period, and we were now nearing Cape Town. A couple of days before landing he told us that the committee had decided we were to suffer the penalty the night before the ship docked, as they thought then to see no more of us and in the turmoil of landing everybody would forget all about it. Bunting seemed more concerned about his wife than himself, as she had been suffering from a nervous breakdown and he having recently nursed her back to nearly normal. Therefore he decided that we should again interview the captain. It was reported that the ship would lie in Table Bay all night as she would be too late to be docked. The captain again was sympathetic enough, but he said it a crowd took action he did net want to make a police force of the crew as it might have an ugly ending. Therefore he said he would make arrangements with the dock authorities to take us ashore that evening from the Bay by boat. We thanked him and withdrew. But to our surprise and that of everybody else on board, except perhaps the captain and his advisers, in spite of the lateness of the hour we slipped into the clocks that same evening.

The next problem was whether the emigration authorities would allow me to land. Many had their doubts, but I was always confident. My many good friends, some in high offices, had always won me of my difficulties. The first official of the Emigration Department said: "Oh! You're Harrison-- we'll see about you later," which almost made my optimism vanish. Another senior official subsequently arrived without even examining my papers, told me I could go ashore.

Well, the Cape Town Communists gave us a great reception where, for the first and only time in my life, I was received with musical honours. As I had not carried out their purpose of delegating me to the Russian Congress it was left to Comrade Bunting although he was the delegate from Johannesburg and not Cape Town.

Following the 1922 strike and its drastic consequences there was of course a commission of enquiry set up by the Government, and its conclusions seemed remarkable. It was supplied with evidence and one wondered where some of it came from. It found a letter somewhere which had been written by W. H. Andrews to a fellow Communists while the strike was in progress. The Cape Times, in a leading article following the sitting of commission, quoted it as follows: W. H. Andrews, for instance, one of the Communists leaders, wrote to a fellow - Communist in January, 'You remark that it would be a catastrophe if this strike is lost. My private opinion is that it will be inevitably lost. It is just as impossible for the white workers of South Africa permanently to keep the Natives out of any form of industry they are capable of undertaking as it was for the handicraftsmen of the early days of the Capitalist system to stop the introduction of labour-saving machinery. It will only he when by bitter experience white men find out the hopelessness of their Colour bar that will be possible to talk reason to them. This, as the commission trenchantly remarks, is the private view of the man who is doing his utmost

publicly to encourage a strike caused, it is stated, by the determination of the Chamber of Mines to attack the sacred principle of the Colour bar. By his own admission. Mr. Andrew is convicted of encouraging a hopeless struggle fought on a principle he entirely disapproves of." And it continued: 'The Andrews, the Harrisons, the Tom Manns-all the accredited agents of Moscow-are fully prepared to use as their dupes either the white working man or the Coloured man and the Native, if by so doing the baboonery of Bolshevism can be advanced. This should be understood and remembered," etc., etc.

In another leading article dated October 26th, 1922, headed "The Law of the Boot," it says: "Before this law the nominal leaders of Labour tremble and bow down. Colonel Creswell does not dare raise his voice against it. Mr. Boydell goes to Johannesburg and mounts a platform and delivers himself of ecstatic eulogies upon the 'splendid commando system,' and even harmless and kindly members of the local Labour Party, such as Mr. Snow and Mr. Pearce, are mobilised to pay visits to Johannesburg and patter blessings over the lusty plant of violence. Even the intrepid Mr. Waterson is dragooned against his better judgment-as he has avowed repeatedly-into becoming a sponsor of a republican resolution at a frenzied meeting in the Johannesburg Town Hall. Puppets, all of them; puppets whom their masters allow to hold the stage in the interval between the outbreaks of violence. And their masters? The Bolsheviks of Moscow, working through their South African comrades, Mr. Andrews and Mr. Kentridge of Johannesburg; Mr. Harrison of Cape Town; Mr. Sam Barlin of the Free State; and others of their kidney. These are the men who pull the strings to which the nominal leaders of Labour in South Africa respond with mechanical gestures on public platforms; and the law to which these nominal leaders yield a terrorised obedience is the law of the boot. It is the law of tyranny. Individual free thought in politics it would stamp out by the breaking up of public meetings. The object of those who claim the right to administer it is to bring about 'The World War'-when the whole earth will be soaked with one colour and over all will eventually wave in triumph the emblem of the working class emancipation."

The cutting I have of that leading article in the Cape Times of the date I have mentioned is torn off here, hut there is sufficient to show their fears in 1922 of what the Cape Times of that day thought would happen under an extended Russian system and the "great" powers some of us were credited with as "agents of Moscow." Now we sit back and shudder at the manner in which the whole earth was being soaked with blood as the result of the administration of the Capitalist system.

It was the "Puritans" of that system also who, in their Press and from the platforms, so often told us that our policy was one that would break up the homes and the sanctity of married life. The has shown us more than any how -well our accusers have done themselves; by their deeds and not by their words we know them.

We held the next Communist Party Conference in Johannesburg in December 1924. Comrade D. L. Dryburgh. W. Green and myself attended as delegates from Cape Town . Crawford, my one-time co-worker in the Socialist movement, died in Johannesburg on the day of our train journey to that conference. Therefore ended a career of great activity. Owing to the variety in character of these activities, he of course, clashed with those holding more fixed opinions, but I have already given my reason as to why he stepped revolutionary platform to the more reformist wing, owing to the fact that Johannesburg, being a distinctly working-class constituency naturally more concerned about its immediate gains than any I scheme one may expound that may or may not mean their emancipation in their lifetime. I think I know as much about Crawford as most of his critics, and I can only say that all I did with him do was with the best of intentions.

Some proof of what I have said about Crawford transpired at the conference we were attending. Comrade D. L. Dryburgh, as usual, presided and it was soon made evident that things in the interest and progress of the movement were not going too well secretary, thought he was "wasting his time" and, unlike decided to return to his trade rather than seek office unions or Labour Party, to which I always contend he rightly belongs. Obviously the three years' work of the Communist Party in Johannesburg had not added further capable men to their ranks. We spoke at their outdoor meeting from the City Hall steps, which induced Andrews to say, "You have heard our fellow delegates from other parts of the Union, therefore you will agree now that the movement is not all Bunting and Andrews and Bunting". (Loud laughter.)

At that time there was what was called a Paleo Zion movement, or a working-class party of the Jewish community. They invited me to their hall, as they had attended our conference and wanted special representation on the executive. I opposed this, as I have done all sectional attempts to get into the Socialist or Communist movements. They did not invite me to their meeting to say that, but I made use of the occasion to do so, instead of patting their backs as fellow revolutionaries. I said that we had a similar organisation in Cape Town known as the Jewish Socialist Society, from which we had been trying for many years to sift out the Socialistic from the Jewish and we had. I also hoped Johannesburg would soon be successfully. I suppose it was hardly polite of me, but they were even less polite in their replies, and my retort again was that I had come to Johannesburg as a Socialist propagandist, and I was merely carrying out my purpose.

While Green and I were exploring the town next day I met again Mrs. Kuper by accident as I did in Berlin, this time driving a luxurious car in which she took us up to her palatial residence to lunch, and a most comfortable tour round the pleasant sights of the town afterwards.

Following this conference thing began to shape differently. There was again a tendency to specialise on the Natives, whom we began to get into our ranks. The Communist slogan "Back to the Masses" induced many to try and form Native trade unions, and of course show the orthodox trade unions how to do their work, and the Labour Party how to be more revolutionary. With all these side issues and the twenty-one supposed points of the Third International. I began to wonder our purpose as a propaganda force for Socialism was the means all these things had to that end. I therefore, either by force of habit or conviction offered such criticism to anything that did not show mans towards Socialism as the following will show:

April 13 1923

"AN OPEN LETTER"

"We publish the following letter at the request of Comrade W. H. Harrison with some reluctance, as it cuts clean across the general policy and tactics of the Communist International as laid down at the World Congresses of 1921 and 1922, and is not based on the experience of the last few years nor the facts of the labour movement to-day. No further controversy on this subject will be printed in The International. Action, not debate, is the need of the moment:

"To the Members of the Cape Town Branch.

Dear Comrades. -The question of a united front in the interest of our propaganda, and for which a letter in support of certain tactics for us to adopt was submitted by Comrade Bunting at our last branch meeting, and which also was favourably received by many members of the Party-we, representing the dissentients of such a policy, wish to present our case in similar form.

"In the first place, we want to say that we as members of the Third International wish the movement to be whole hearted in the interests of a solidified front. We have no desire to create anything in the form of a split nor to treat such discussion with sarcasm or ridicule. But believing as we as we do that our point of view by historical facts of Left Wing Communism, dating almost the inception of the revolutionary movement, we feel justified in standing our ground against any associating ourselves in any way with anything in the way of palliating the present system.

"Yet when our comrades at the conference said: 'We must reserve all our energies for propaganda in favour of the Revolution', Comrade Zinoviev hopes that the workers will reject such childishness,' and adds, 'We are opposed to reformism, but we are not opposed to anything that may improve the lot of the working class.' How our comrade differentiates those two statements those who agree with him will perhaps explain.

''Comrade Bunting, too, in trying to prove how supported reforms in the past, says we have opposed war, supported strikes, carried on free speech campaigns the Government for the Bullhoek attack.' Truly, as Comrade Bunting says, we 'opposed' them all, we asked for nothing nor compromised with anybody, the absolute negation of such brutal tactics and a demand for the right of free speech to say so.

"Comrade Bunting then goes on to say: "When the Russian soldiers and peasants in 1917 demanded. "Peace and Bread, did Lenin and Trotsky say, "Pish, tush, a mere reformist demand?" No, they said: "Peace and Comrade Bunting says, 'they have both.' Yes, after the revolution, which WAS, of course, in 1917. Prior to that they were repeatedly told there was neither peace nor bread for them from the Kerensky 'Government, any more than there will be in South Africa from a Smuts Government. Hence we are using Lenin's own arguments. "Comrade Bunting also quotes the ten-hour day in England as lacing approved by the original Communist Manifesto. But both Marx and Engels, in their preface to the new edition of1872, says that 'This programme has in some detail become antiquated'. In a further translation published in 1909 the translators say: 'These few passages have been frequently used by reactionists and reformists to mislead the unwary worker.'

'A Native of this country is quoted as being 'a prominent and faithful member of the Industrial Workers of Africa,' who, Comrade Bunting says, 'has caught the spirit of the Comintern' because he was heard to say, 'Take an interest in our sufferings, and then and not before we shall listen to what you have to say.' In our opinion a Salvation Army officer might equally satisfy such sentiments. In fact, we are told that this same Native gentleman sought the same form of relief from Mr. Jagger's political platform, hardly though, we think, in the 'spirit of the Comintern.'

"Our members must be to the last man 'unspotted from the world'. Yet Lenin, advising on such 'purity' tactics in his Left Communism, says that we should 'support the Labour Party at the same way that the rope supports the man who hangs himself; and in that same booklet he goes on to say: It is enough to say, as do the German and British Left Communists, that we acknowledge only one straight road, and that we admit manoeuvres, co-operation and compromises.'

Bunting says, too: 'It was noticeable at the Congress one party after another would say, "Yes, the United Front, etc., is all very well for other parties, but not for us. . . ." Each thought his own country exceptional but all the rest normal, and the result was that the Congress turned them all down and exempted nobody.' Proof is very clear here that the Congress was represented from many countries by the non-reformist parties, who it seems were 'turned down' by the greater Russian influence. (This is untrue; the great majority of the delegates were non-Russian. -Ed.) [I said "influence" not majority. --W.H.H.]

Even back to the Blanquist Communards of France in 1874, -they wrote 'We are Communists because we wish to obtain our aims directly without stopping at intermediary stations, without any compromises, which only postpone the day of victory and the prolong the period of slavery. Yet with all these abounding schools in the past and present ages holding the same view of revolutionary propaganda, and which the Bolsheviks prior to the revolution in 1917 adopted themselves, they have to-day, because compromise has become a necessity to meet their difficulties which have arisen through abnormal circumstances, asked us to cast aside our old revolutionary faith and tactics and compromise with Capitalism. "But what inconsistency! For, to quote Lenin's Left Wing Communism again, which is published to show the necessity for compromise and the supposed 'infantile disorder' of the Left: revolutionaries, he says: 'As far as I can judge Communists (anti-parliamentarians) and the Communists generally of Germany, the first have the advantage over the second they are better agitators amongst the masses. ... I have repeatedly observed something analogous in the history of the Bolsheviks Party. For instance, in 1907-8 the Left Bolsheviks had upon certain occasions and in many places better success among the masses than we had. . . . When revolutionary recollections are fresh it is most easy to approach the masses with the tactics of mere negation'.

"Lloyd-George, too, is known as a clever scrutiniser, and even he told the House of Commons that the street corner revolutionaries were the people who were making it possible for a revolution in England to-day. Comrade Bunting, on the other hand sarcastic vein, 'It should be our privilege, NOT to stand on a Cape Town dunghill and crow that we know better'-these compromising tactics including, according to Lenin, the signing Versailles Treaty-'but to march,' he says, 'in solidarity win the world victory we all desiderate.'

"Comrade Bunting also twits so'" 'business exigencies' to be actually biased against it, so much so that they are even heard to say, 'Don't go with the masses will drag you in the gutter.' That passage, we think, conveys an unfair interpretation. We are not, on the contrary, afraid because of our business exigencies' to get down to the masses, but because we have no desire to tamper with their sordid conditions by the only possible emancipator, the Revolution. To establish a programme on wages basis is to recognize it is payment rather than repudiating it as a pittance of the larger profit of unpaid labour retained. Neither is it suggestive of such good results as those we have employed. All concessions hitherto offered the workers are not because the Capitalists fear those who demand them, but because like Bismarck of Germany when he gave abounding the workers in his efforts to frustrate the advance movement Lassalle, who was out for a Socialist Republic-it was because he feared, as all Capitalists fear, not petty demands, but the Revolution.

W. H. HARRISON

The next Communist Party Conference, in 1926, was held in Cape Town and was poorly represented. Bunting, the only man of any Not from Johannesburg, had already been informed of my dissensions, and his first words were, "You appear to have been harassing the party." With all Bunting's abilities and his multitudinous activities in the Communist Party, he was never a Socialist in the philosophical sense of the term. He came from the Labour Party on the war question and, for Bohemian reasons, took up the Native question in the Communist Party and presumed to criticise everything, as he would say, "of a bourgeois character," and would peep behind the door for all the spies before he made his speech.

However, that conference, held in our spacious hall in Long Street, in line with what is now the Provincial Council Building, gave me a proper trial, and I was expelled for six months. What Bunting meant by me "harassing the party" was because in Johannesburg they had heard of our local dissensions-with the establishment of the Third International-was what they called the twenty-one points, a long list of questions for our political guidance; as foreign as Russia itself to our former tactics. I did not give them much attention and naturally often stumbled over them, which many of our more loyal members to party discipline took rather seriously. Two of our very prominent members, especially S. Buirski and Henry Pereira, made special efforts to take notes and place them before the meeting, which subsequently established admitted guilt amongst many of the others. This induced Buirski to propose and carry a resolution that Pereira replace me as secretary, and the 1926 Conference, following that, with the aid of many Johannesburg members, as I have indicated, expelled me for six months.

In the meantime Buirski and Pereira vanished, not only to Johannesburg, but from the Communist Party. We hear little of Buirski since, and Pereira afterwards became the private secretary of the Minister of Labour, the Hon. W. B. Madeley, whom I hope the corrected, as he did me, in the policy of the twenty-one points, if he hasn't forgotten them himself.

However, to unharness me for six months in those days was almost impossible. Religious enthusiasm cannot he killed in a day, so I thought I would try my luck in the Labour Party-as they had a Socialist objective I should not be sacrificing any principle. The tactics also of both the Labour Party and Communists appear very similar, but my former reputation was found to be an obstacle. In reply to my applica­tion I was asked to appear before a committee with Dr. Forsyth as chairman, who gave me somewhat of a curtain lecture as to my future activities, which implied that such must not be an imitation of my former activities. I thanked them for their pious guidance and withdrew. However, before the six months were up the Communist Party invited me back again to take over the books as secretary, which position I held until I went to Europe again in 1929.

In 1927, the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, they, in keeping with their proletarian outlook, asked us of South would send two delegates representing the Native community. This we did. One, La Guma, a Cape Native, was already casually associated with us and another, Gumede, from Natal, were sent. They met in Russia many other delegates from what they called "the suppressed nations of the world.'' I believe this move was initiated by the Anti Imperialist League in Berlin. However, it seems a committee of them was formed to draw up slogans for propaganda purposes for the country was worded: An independent South African Republic as a stage towards a workers' and peasants' republic with full safeguards and equal rights foe all national minorities."

They are ridiculous suggestions for propaganda slogans in South Africa. It is said, too, they were endorsed by the Comintern. I quite believe that, too. Bunting, negrophilist that he was, opposed it. It was said that he and E. R. Roux, who I believe were present at the next Russian Congress, were not allowed a hearing opposition to it. The Cape Town Communist Party rejected it, but a few negrophilists in Johannesburg at the time accepted it, and as that was considered the headquarters of the party we had to fall line to some extent in action, but not in spirit.

Bunting had evidently called at the Communist Party offices in England, as when I called there in 1929 Harry Pollitt, in reply to remarks about it, said: "It's no use you and Bunting knocking your heads together about it. The Comintern have endorsed it and I can do nothing." Hence the Russian dictatorship of the proletariat to which also South Africa must abide. However, Bunting and his colleagues in Johannesburg put some life in the Native movement according to the slogan, and a paper was published in the different Bantu languages called Umsebenzi (The Worker).

In Johannesburg they had virgin soil and Natives had never known a white man in any other capacity than as master, who even kept him off the footpaths and made him walk in the road. He had a pass or ticket on him like a convict, which he must show on demand, hence these promised saviours from all these restrictions and impositions were royally received, and I heard that they even named one location the "Bunting Location." Of course this meant that the Communists were ostracised by everybody else, except the few who on educational grounds had passed that stage of antipathy.

The party conference came round again in 1928 in Johannesburg, and they, in keeping with their then big Native following, wanted also a Native to represent Cape Town. As secretary I interviewed a Cape Native, who was then, as he still is, associated with the Communist Party of Cape Town. It was John Gomas, who, with myself, persuaded his employer to release him for the period of the conference. I therefore purchased our two tickets for one compartment, in which I also found, to meet the full complement of a travelling coach, were four information at the ticket office as to whom my fellow passenger was. We stepped cut again on the platform to say good-bye to our various friends, and on our return to the compartment when the train started we found it empty of everything but ourselves.

The other four had interviewed the conductor and demanded to be moved from the presence of a Coloured passenger. Quite a roomy advantage we thought, rather than "the more the merrier," as the proverb goes. The Hon. Thomas Boydell, then a Minister, was going upon the same train, and invited me up to his own secluded compartment for a meal on the way. So I had my journey on that divided between the company of a Minister in one compartment and passenger in another.

On arrival Johannesburg we found the Communist Party, instead of painting everything red, had painted so to speak, everything black. Gomas stayed with Bunting because they wouldn't have him at the hotel. Everything was methodically arranged and the conference was held in a suitable area to allow the Natives admission and inter­preters in no less than three Native languages to translate our speeches. Whether they were capable of translating a Socialist's extended vocabulary I don't know. Andrews, on that occasion, walked in as a casual visitor, and I remember he expressed to me appreciation at the extent of the gathering. Why he wasn't one of us he did not say. However, we were hospitably entertained, not only in hotel accommodation but also with our meals, and these in the Bantu area, with brawny Bantu wives as cooks, who laid it all out on tables set up for the occasion. Bunting played the Bohemian somewhat further by inviting all the Bantu men and their Umfasi (women) to his suburban residence to tea-a strange spectacle on a Johannesburg suburban lawn. What Bunting's wealthy neighbours thought we did not know, nor for that matter did we care. We took it all and did all according to the conference agenda-fraternising was general and we were all happy about it. It was all very satisfactory for people who believe in that form of propaganda as a means to the end. I do not. When I say that, it docs not imply that I believe or adopt racial prejudices or Colour discrimination. Socialism is for all people. We have no right to specialise on, or show interest in, or prejudices or Colour discrimination. Socialism is for all people. We have no right to specialise on, or show interest in, or prejudice against, any section of the community. Therefore to take up the Native of a Native republic is no concern of the Socialist.

I have said in a previous page that Bunting, The following is a statement he once wrote: "Not till we free the Native can we hope to free the white." Subject that analysis. The Native cannot be "free" under the lore we must change the system. Who runs the present system? Meaning not those who do the most work, or those who know the science of industry and its managements. It is not a Coloured problem, but an economic problem. I do not remember ever speaking or addressing them as Coloured or Native people. Those who call "the Coloured question" deal with their general grievances. They are many, we know, but it is not the business to deal with them. It comforts some people I subject class of people. It makes them feel a superior class themselves. Sometimes such people have interjected at our meetings: What about the Coloured question?" And what about red nose-that is coloured were not there to deal with the pigment hitherto puzzled medical science, but to deal with a system that is the cause of Coloured and racial prejudices and general exploitation.

During the sitting of that conference Bunting was nominated by the party to contest a Native constituency in tin myself for the Cape Flats area that embraced the Natives. As I had made arrangements to proceed later withdrew from the contest before nomination day, allowing them to find a substitute. Douglas Wolton was nominated in my place. It was he and his wife (nee Mollie- Jelicowitz), whom he married when they were both in the movement in Cape Town, who afterwards in Johannesburg helped to strengthen the Native movement, as we found that conference, Mollie became a very good platform speaker. I well remember her initial effort. It was when I was a candidate for the Provincial Council of the Cape Province. There was then a Native Mission in Searle Street. Cape Town and we were allowed to address them. Mollie on that occasion made her first speech as my chairman; on her asking for the vote of the meeting on the motion of confidence all hands went up unanimously. Then someone said to me: "Dr. Abdurahman, your opponent, was here last night-they also voted unanimously for him." However, Wolton found there was nothing unanimous in his constituency for Communism, as he only polled ninety-three votes. Bunting made a better show in Tembuland and polled several hundred.

I took the East Coast route for England in 1929 because of the many port calls and different countries I should visit. Arriving at Durban I found were delayed there for two days. I was on the top of a tram car going through to town, when to my surprise I saw Bunting on the pavement below. He had come to Durban, he said to purchase to tour the constituency. We then went to find Councillor Pettersen, since, I note, elected to the Provincial Council. He, in his usual good-natured way, lavishly entertained us, and gave Bunting all the details he wanted.

I found Durban a very comfortable and beautiful place during my short stay, during which I also looked up my old Comrade Norrie, for many years the soap-box orator in the Gardens of Durban, as we were in Adderley Street, Cape Town. Norrie, I found, was suffering from the same disease as myself. His vocal powers now failed him. As my voyage on that occasion has little to do with the purpose of this book relate many incidents concerning it, only perhaps to say that I began to plainly see that East is East and West is West. Whatever scientific industry and social education may do within the next decade to place the groundwork of Socialism on a scientific basis in the Western world, they have a long way to go in the East to approach anything that character. In all the centuries of the tribal life of the African Natives they 'haven't got much farther than an assegai or reed hut. Any further developments they have made are by the Western word influences.

We called at Genoa in Italy and here I expected, owing to the supposed terrors of the Fascist system, to be restricted in my movements, and I quite expected also to be asked sufficient questions about my political history to prevent me landing at all, if not to be put in chains while the boat was in dock. Nothing of the sort; not a question was asked. We all went ashore and where we liked until the boat was ready to start.

my visit to Marseilles, in France, the seat of many revolutions, did not impress me. It is the port of visitation from their African colonies. I asked a fellow passenger what he thought of the town; he said: "It is occupied by the scum of the earth." A hurried conclusion, I thought.

My arrival this time in England was without incident, as I was not on any mission in the interest of the party. I went to the party offices several times at 16, King Street, in London, and also attended a meeting at the famous Tower Hill Stump, at which Tom, Mann, Harry Pollitt, Wal Hannington and others spoke. Tom, with Mrs. Mann, again visited me at my country home, so I was kept well acquainted with all the happenings of the movement.

I also assisted Percy Collick to some extent in his election campaign in that area, including presiding at his meetings. Collick at that time was also making efforts to reach Russia, which he said he was doing through the trade union movement, and that he was waiting information from them. I arranged to go with him as a tourist, but nothing came of his effort while I was there.

I found Dave Kendall still active in the English Labour Party. He, with the Hon. Thomas Boydell, who was in England on his way to the International Labour Conference at Geneva as South African delegation, came down by car from London to visit me. There were three of the Kendall family in the Labour movement of South Africa.

In 1931 came the General Election in England, which many people thought, while the National Coalition Government in power, would put everything and everybody in proper working order. However, I decided to return to my adopted land, South Africa. A review of my opinion about England at that time went to Forward, Johannesburg, in April 1930. I republish here:

"EVOLUTION AND THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY

"CHANGED CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND

"S.A. SOCIALISTS IMPRESSIONS

-AFTER THIRTY YEARS

" Changed Almost Beyond Belief

"After thirty years' absence I have again established myself as a resident in what Blatchford describe as 'Merrie England,' during which time the evolutionary progress of this country is more noticeable than if I had moved with in them in the developments of what are now to me strange and conspicuous. There are in this process both scenes of advancement and depreciation, But amidst all the intricacies of industrialism there is one thing which happily surpasses all progress in the material world, namely, the new psychological outlook of the common people, who have almost within the last decade struck a mighty blow at the class barriers and semi-feudalism formerly so conspicuous in the village life of England.

"What was once an event to see the Lord of the Manor pass through the village and condescend to talk to a commoner, has come a common practice even to romping and dancing in the village hall, now a necessary structure for social and educational purpose in most of the villages of England. Recently, amongst these rompers in fancy dress' was that one-time very dignified parish church parson. The chant "Christians awake to salute the happy morn," has at last some meaning.

"Who Won the War?

"This slackening of the class barrier is not only social but the Great War has played the prominent part. All unearned incomes such as rents and interest are now taxed 20 per cent. by the Government to help pay for that destructive period between 1914-1918, hence many of the nobility are driven to bankruptcy and compelled to leave their country castles and mansions, of there is now an abundant market offered at prices that would not to-day build the coachhouse and stables on the same estate. The increasing number of such labour owing to the variety of industrial occupations, and the facility to travel now from the country to such places where labour is in demand. To-day there are isolated villages that have not their regular bus traffic and the modern tarred motor track. The old village taverns with their conspicuous and curious signs are now converted into modernised hotels and tea gardens, while various 'Aunt Sally' petrol supplies adorn the roadside for the convenience of the ever-increasing middle-class traffic, and who reside in villas and bungalows with garage attached, dotted all over the country. This aspect of travel and the mixing of the middle class with the village community has brought the villagers not only increased wealth and education, but an imitation by them of their manners and dress, hence the poor are no longer with us, or so conspicuous as in the mining districts or congested areas of industry. Such then is the change in the social life of the community. Industry, as the system implies, is becoming more mechanical, naturally the increased productivity of the machines creates a supply beyond the demand and unemploy­ment accordingly. Especially is this prevalent in the shipping and engineering departments, where such is supplied by Germany as reparation in kind, also where English firms have given l orders for rolling stock to increase their profits, the German being the lowest tenders in the competitive market.

"France again is exhausting every available labour commodity to rebuild the areas of war devastation, and also shirking by every political means her obligation for her share of the destruction, hence the irony of conquest from the British worker's point of view.

Machine versus Mini

"But for the varied supply, and by the greater circulation of money, which means an increasing demand of the great mechanical production of goods either useful or ornamental both in soft and hardware material; a deadlock in industry must eventuate. The method of distribution has also made a revolutionary change. Piled in stock formation all along the counters at given prices from 6d. currency at Woolworth's any household commodity can be purchased, sometimes of amazing quality, hut generally of shoddy production, all proving the increasing effectivity of the machine, of speeding up, with the wages of the producer brought to a minimum. On the other hand, provisions, especially in the meat and fruit markets, are 100 per cent. above South Africa, and here even the co-operative movement, now absorbing something about one third of England's consumers, cannot make any reductions. The explanation is obvious, the golden cornfields are now con­spicuous by their absence, farms being cut up to sell in plots and used merely for dairy or poultry purposes. It is thought better to assist our future farming generation to Australia or Canada rather than develop the land to produce stock or grain to supply the community. The farmer's excuse is that labour as farm hands is now dear and scarce. His migration to the war zone has given him a wider outlook, while his progeny with the new educational and travel development chooses a more remunerative or congenial employment.

"The same conditions have created the difficulty of obtaining female servants. Only recently I noted an advertisement for one which after offering many concessions, made the suggestion that the advertiser had two grown-up sons, worded to imply that a little romance might break the monotony of domestic drudgery.

"Such then have been the rapid social changes, the most important and glaring aspect of the approaching social revolution.

"Change in Labour Outlook

"The recent political change from Toryism to Labour is now almost international, but here, as on the Continent, emphatically orthodox pandering to all the traditional functions of medieval times, resenting any Left-wing attempt to make drastic changes. With all the abounding political abilities of J. H. Thomas, he is evidently incapable of analysing the economic aspect of unemployment, hence his failure, he having the temerity to assume that business gentle­men would meet in a philanthropic way to employ labour and overstock the already plentiful commodities. Trunk roads are some­thing of a pick and shovel alternative, but Snowden's feverish desire to show an efficient budget must be considered before any wails of the unemployed. The dole which totalled, according to Labour Minister Bondfield, £44,400,000 last year, we may suppose is a more "useful" way of expenditure. This and the advice given "Jimmie" Thomas during his week-end with His Majesty at Sandringham, who with his flunkeys and family ought to know all about unemployment, more especially the dole, has produced no real solution to deal with either of these aspects of it. In short, the virus of Capitalist exploitation is still untouched, sucking the vitals of the producing classes. MacDonald and Snowden, now finding their position incompatible with, in fact as Privy Councillors in absolute opposition to, the Marxian thesis of a new social order, have cunningly resigned their membership of the I.L.P. in which they were, in their less successful years, such shining lights. Hence history again repeats itself, and places them in a position to justify the contempt of the advance movement.

"Liberals and Tories are splitting their ranks, each section endeavouring to coin a popular phrase or stunt as the last straw instead of what ought to be more obvious to them, namely, com­bining their forces in a last solidified attempt to combat the social revolution.

"Surrey, England, 26/3/30."

"WILFRID H. HARRISON.

The former difficulty of getting a single passage to Cape Town again confronted me. The shipping company would give me a passage if I would pay my return fare, to save them the "pleasure" of bringing me back to my native country, if the immigration authorities would not allow me to land. That is when one feels it nice to be a moderate Capitalist, so, as before, I was able to do that and have it refunded to me in Cape Town.