During the years of my absence I found a complete change in the tactics of the Communist Party. I handed over the books of the party when leaving for England in 1929, having been secretary-less a few months-since the conversion from the old S.D.F. in 1921, in which I was also secretary for a similar period. However, in spite of such a record of service, I was given a form by John Gomas, who said he was then the local secretary, on which I was to describe many details of my personal life and occupation, which were, I was informed, approved of by what they called the "District Committee," which, it appeared, was the only body allowed to know anything about the business proceedings of the party. The weekly business meeting, at which all the cards were put on the table, was no more.

Finding no scope for my activities inside the party I attended the various meetings of the different Left-wing groups, and often joined in the discussion, always interpreting the Socialist point of view. However, my sort of Socialism did not appear to be the same as that of that invisible District Committee, whom I had never seen, but who thought it their duty to send me a typewritten piece of paper, handed to me by the same local secretary, saying I had given expression to views contrary to the policy of the party, and therefore was to consider myself expelled from it.

These are the people who proclaim so loudly about democratic principles, hence it is rather remarkable they do not apply those same principles to their own organisation. Every culprit in democratic countries is allowed a trial, and even counsel to defend him, but not in the "democratic" Communist Party.

I found they had already expelled Joe Pick. In Johannesburg that same year, there was also a dramatic sweeping out of all those who had made the movement in that area. These included Andrews, Bunting, E. S. Sacks and C. B. Tyler. The latter has since died, after putting in his life work for the cause. Bunting called on me at the Cape soon afterwards. His fortune was spent in the party, which reduced him to applying his musical abilities to some orchestra, in whose interest lie was sent to Cape Town. He died soon after, some said with a broken heart.

Communist Party conference held at Cape Town, July 1921

The numerical strength of the Native following obviously swelled the heads of a few, who were able, by inner circle influence, to cut off the heads of those who might excel them as the guiding officials of the prospective Native Republic of their anticipations. But alas! Native psychology is not capable of visualising Utopian schemes that may in the dim future mean his emancipation.

The pass law, the poll tax and the compound system were still some of his many grievances, and naturally he thought if the Communists could do so much in the future why not relieve him of such burdens now. Metaphorically speaking, the virgin soil they tapped was hardly capable of one crop of productive fruit. The Natives became sceptical and gradually dwindled away.

Wolton and his wife returned to Cape Town to try their luck here. The ninety-three votes as my substitute, was not a very encouraging start. Subsequently Wolton was indicted for some political offence, for which he was given three months' imprisonment, and nobody appeared interested enough to get him released, and I believe he did the full term full term. Wolton left for England soon afterwards and I have heard nothing about him since.

However, such reverses do not mean that the Communists have abandoned work amongst the Native community. Though damped in the Transvaal, they are very active in Cape Town, and even solicited the support of a weekly radical paper here known as The Guardian. They also, to show themselves definitely Native pro­pagandists, have a full-time aboriginal Native as general secretary. Evidently they believe in Bunting's method: "Not until we free the Native can we hope to free the white"-rather than change the social and economic system that will free them both.

Under present circumstances; Coloured and white people in South Africa are like the proverbial oil and water, very difficult to mix. The Communists Party, having at last discovered that Johannesburg is more of a place for hot air than anything of an advanced character in the revolutionary movement, have decided to move their headquarters to the mother city of the Socialist movement.

Andrews' Left-wing tendencies in the trade union movement did not appear to fit in there either, so he has also domiciled himself in Cape Town, after forty years a labour champion in the North. Though an expelled' number of the Communist Party, efforts were soon made here to again get him to accept membership, which they succeeded in doing in 1938.

Whatever the Communists thought the trade unions and Labour Party lacked in recognition of Andrews' long services, they evidently tried to make amends here. A qualified sculptor was found to create a bust of him sponsored by a "Bust Fund," and later a sparkling young journalist wrote his biography, sponsored again by a " Biography Fund," so he ought to be like the hero of the novelist's story-"happy ever after."

Andrews, of course, is in his element there, as he believes in educating the masses against the classes on the basis of the class war. I, on the contrary, believe that the intellectuals from all classes will eventually show themselves a sufficient force to change the present social and economic system, without a class or civil war. In fact, Capitalism and the landed aristocracy in England to-day are being sold out, and some of the working class have reached their financial level and educational qualifications.

The only redeeming feature about these gigantic world wars is that it makes these conditions possible. The class barrier is decreasing daily, and the class war is being diplomatically talked out. In the major industries the workers are now the masters, but they lack the intelli­gence to see that the masters still control the wage system and the ownership of industry, and that while under such control the law of supply and demand allows the owners to multiply their own interest and profits by the exploitation of their employees.

The modern Communist methods of propaganda appear to be the improvement of the wage system rather than the abolition of it. Yet again, rather than do this, they often irritate those who are endeavouring to do so through the agencies of the trade union machinery. Proof of this is shown by the fact that most of the trade unionists resent their inclusion into their discussion, and have continually resented affiliation. The Communists also show, as I have already indicated, equal antipathy to the Social Democrats, but of course that is only to be expected, because they are not Socialists in the propaganda sense of the term, neither are they democratic in their tactics.

The psychology of the human race was never mere ready to accept a rational fundamental change in cur social and economic system than now, if only a force could arise to show them a formula suitable and applicable to the whole community. The formula or manifesto must have an objective purpose only, and must cut out all ways and means of reforming or improving the Capitalist machinery, but rather show ways and means by an educational process of making the complete change from private to social ownership of all the means of production and distribution, with an effort to harmonise rather than antagonise all factors of opposition.

It is an intelligent purpose, which can only be handled by intellectuals. The world is full of people with brains, but even the most brainy people lack intelligence. Proof of this was shown by General Smuts, the man credited with the brains to excel his fellow students at the universities and his fellow politicians in South Africa. Yet he had not intelligence to see, as John X. Merriman told him, the futility and absurdity of his deportation stunt in 1914. The old Socialist propagandists often used the phrase: "We want people who are thinkers, more than people with most brains".

The Press, of course, is a great influence in moulding public opinion, in fact the current daily Press now claims to reflect it, and obviously does at the moment on the war. Some of the editorial staff may have Socialist opinions, but they dare not interpret their report to convey such meaning. I remember Senator Edmund ("Oom") Powell, who was also editor of the Cape Argus, a very kind old gentle-man while holding that position he gave a lecture on Socialism and declared himself "more or less a Socialist" and in sympathy with the Socialist movement.

This induced a deputation from the S.D.F. to visit him and ask if he was prepared to give a few articles on the question or, further, would he give us a lecture from our platform. "Oh, dear, no!" said Mr. Powell. I cannot really say any more. Many public men, and even the Governor-General have been pulling my leg about it". Others wrote letters to the Press, making contradictory comparisons of Mr. Powell's former opinion, even his favouring the withdrawing of the Constitution-I believe suggested by Dr. Smartt following the Boer War if the opposition, then representing the Boer element, should gain power.

They also accused him of popularising a definition or description of Socialism, very different to the real thing, in an effort to cut the wind out of the sails of the real movement. Altogether the Hon. Edmund Powell's experiment as a Socialist propagandist gave him for a period a very uncomfortable time. However, it gave the question of Socialism a little publicity, and also gave us many more mouthfuls to show our respectable associations, and also to sift it down to proper interpretations. Alas! "Oom" Powell, also Maitland Park, editor of the Cape Times, our other publicity agent, like most good people died young in comparison with twentieth-century periods of senile decay.

The powers of authority in those days were more fidgety about the spread of Socialism than they appear to be to-day, or perhaps it is because Socialism as a propaganda force has ceased to spread anywhere -much as there is a necessity for it.

I met Levinson, the only 1904 S.D.F. comrade left in Cape Town. He said: "There is so much scope and reason for Socialist propaganda to-day that if I had the physical powers of my youth I would start the Adderley Street meetings again." I expressed having feelings.

It may sound strange for me to say that if we did again start Socialists propaganda it would not be the Marxian class war type. Yet there are few people, especially amongst those who call themselves. Communists, who know of any other type that conveys the philosophy of Socialism. If we delve a little into Socialist history that will explain it.

In the early days of the Socialist movement, in the forties of the last century, one group was as distinct as the other. In fact there was always a struggle at the international conferences between the one group represented by Marx and the other by the Russian Bakunin as to which should dictate action for the ensuing year. Marx's fear of Bakunin gaining control led him in 1872 to hold the congress at the where he knew Bakunin was forbidden to come. Marx afterwards transferred the General Council of the First International to New York, and this was the beginning of the end. It only survived one more congress at Geneva in 1873 and then quietly faded out.

Michael Bakunin; 1814-76, born at Torshok, Russia, held the highest aristocracy; his father an owner of serfs. He entered the army as an artillery officer, and the horrors he saw under despotic Russian rule made him resign and join the revolutionary movement. He was a fiery, forceful personality, and did not approve of the Marxian tactics when he joined the First International. Both he and Marx in those days described themselves as Communists. Their differences in the organisation of industry and the libertarian possibilities of human life divided them and established the two distinct groups as Anarchists and Communists.

Bakunin was not a great writer. His chief work was God and the State, which he said was only a fragment of his thoughts. The two groups of Anarchists were distinct in America. Emma Goldman, a communist Anarchist, edited a paper there called Mother Earth, and Ben R. Tucker, the Philosophical Anarchist, a paper called Liberty. However, that is by the way and is only to show a little of Anarchist history; also to show that by the fact of making it impossible to allow Bakunin to attend the congress at the Hague in 1872, and by the Marxian section expelling his following at that congress, left it impotent as a force, and, as history records, it died out.

Why I relate this to explain that in the early days of the Socialist movement in South Africa those two groups were also distinct here. Yet we worked without serious conflict and each was allowed to express its differences of opinion. The word Anarchy conveys assassinations to some people and produces a smile from others who have vague conceptions of its meaning. It is the antithesis of monarchy one-man government-an (no) archy (government).

Of the two distinct schools of Anarchy, the Anarchist Communist was represented by Kropotkin, and the Individual or Philosophical Anarchist was originated by Proudon, of France. Bakunin, of Russia, called himself a "Collectivist" Anarchist-how he differentiates from the Communist I don't know. Both are identical in principle, but differ widely in tactics.

The Communist Anarchist would, if possible, like the modern Communist, overthrow the present system by force, as they say it is maintained force. The Philosophical Anarchist will not participate in any form physical force, as it implies the violation of reason and he creed. They believe only in the evolutionary and educational process. They believe in perfecting themselves rather than impossible imperfections on others. By aiming at perfection in all their deeds to set an example. They believe in the Spencerian doctrine, "That every man should do as he wills, providing he infringes not on the will of others." That government of man by men is an infringement on individual liberty. That every man could be sufficiently cultured to become a law unto himself. That when economic circumstances are so framed to prevent exploitation the social liberty of the individual can only be made possible by the 'abolition of all authority over man's actions.

The state control of industry or even the Soviet system implies so many controllers and so many workers. Their liberties are limited- though such a system may suit a backward country like Russia, a more libertarian system must be applied to the more Western world. We must evolve voluntary associations in our mutual aims for scientific innovation and the production of the beautiful and to enlarge our social liberties. Such, then, are the basic principles of Philosophical Anarchy. To quote the Encyclopedia of Social Reform, edited by W. D. P. Bliss: "Their motto being 'Liberty,' not the daughter, but the mother of order. They start from the philosophy of individual sovereignty and apply it to the problems of social science with relentless logic.' This does not mean that they allow greater freedom criminal but greater freedom for the non-criminal. I should separate book to elaborate their various theories in relation to human life I will only speak here about those of us who were associated with it South Africa .

The Anarchist Communists were of Russian and Continental origin and activity. The Philosophical Anarchists were mainly American. After the death of Proudon in 1865 they ran the paper Liberty, edited by Ben Tucker. Cape Town's prominent members were Levinson, Straus, Hahne, Ahrens and others, including myself, all of European origin. Hahne moved to Johannesburg, where he became a hotel proprietor and died there, leaving some of his mony for propaganda work for the cause. Straus was once a French officer and was called up during the 1914 war. He took a contingent of French soldiers to France and we heard his head was blown off on his first appearance at the battle front. Straus was an artist in many capacities useful man at our social entertainments, a lecturer on any topic and a Don Juan amongst our lady comrades. People who are exceptionally versatile or who display excessive genius are often gifted with curious and peculiar weaknesses- Straus was one.

Generally we were all known as Socialists. Fundamentally there is no difference in any of the movements named Socialism, Anarchism and/or Communism; it is merely a question of tactics. The consum­mate ideals of Socialism cannot be defined. Thomas Kirkup, one of the greatest Socialist historians, said: "Socialism is rather a process than a finality to a higher older of social and intellectual life."

In England until recently the Anarchist movement had a fairly strong following. When I was there in 1911 I linked up with a group with offices in Euston, London, of which at that time Prince Kropotkin was a member. They published a weekly periodical called Freedom, with pamphlets by Kropotkin Malatesta, Eliase Reclue, the eminent French geographer, and the Russian Larroff. They may be regarded as perhaps the greatest exponents of Anarchism, all of which were amongst the world's greatest scholars, and all of whom were the products of the last century. I know of none of the present generation. One may now ask why a movement with such great scholars as exponents and such ideal conditions as their prophecy should have died out. If we look round the world to-day and see the results, which they also prophesied, of the chaos and brutalities of the Capitalist system which has drifted us into a world of dictators and totalitarian states- which also the masses of all shades of opinion have blindly followed-we need not ask further questions. When this age of lunacy has run its course Anarchy and every libertarian creed will again revive, and the forward march will be more rapid than the decline, hastened by the horror of a system more brutal and indifferent to human rights and human life than any other system of preceding history.

I met Edward carpenter, the English poet and Philosophical Anarchist, when I was in England in 1922; he was then living near my home in Guildford, Surrey. He was an uncle of Miss Hyatt, of the Pretoria Socialist Society, and I met him with a letter of introduction from her. On his shelf, full of his literature, was a booklet I had read before, written after the Great World War of 1914. It was headed "Never Again!" I was stupid enough once to think so myself. Carpenter died in 1929; therefore he never witnessed the brutal repetition.

Yet I believe now if someone would write another book so headed they would tell the truth. If there is to be a change then I believe in the educational evolutionary change, and that a combined intelligence is, like the proverbial pen, mightier than the sword. Seeing that might has been considered right in all ages of the past, it is little wonder Marx in his day thought the war machinery inevitable for the purpose. I know it has long been assumed by the class war Socialists and Communalists that Capitalism will fight to retain its position to the lasts ditch, and they assume street barricades and civil turmoil in the final march to the Guildhall with the red flag unfurled and the chief heroic revolutionary proclaiming the Social Revolution. It all sounds very gallant and of course the traditional way of establishing the law of conquest. But are we to continue the barbarities of our ancestors? Are we who have railed against the horror and brutalities of war for generations now to employ the same machinery?

The peculiar part about it is that the Socialists, and especially the Communists, who continually prate about the class war and assume the final conflict, make no effort to train themselves for such a purpose, but rather are they a school of non-athletic bookworms, of both whose tongues get more exercise than their limbs. Even their platform vocabulary is a continuity of pious philanthropy, rather than the language of a fighting force for the social revolution.

The early Marxians, especially in Russia, did show the fighting spirit, as also did Lassalle of Germany, sufficiently to frighten the powerful Bismarck to hurriedly submit legislative alternatives to appease their demands. Yet there is no record that Lassalle intended to arm his forces, but he was training their intelligence, and that, when set on a purpose, is more powerful than all the guns. Again I plead, let there be peace in our tactics and purpose. We are not, let us boast, as other administrators, we are the emblems and personifications of our creed. When I speak of our intellectual and peaceful purpose I do so as the representative of the Philosophical Socialists. I cannot speak for the Communists. They are a totalitarian organisation who cannot initiate their own tactics themselves. They are, or they were until recently, subject to the dictation of the Russian Comintern.

To appease their allies during this war Russia has now agreed to cut the international propaganda out. If that is so it has not induced them to change their tactics. I have defended and admired Russia since the days of the social revolution in that country, but not when they started sending us slogans and delegating to us leaders as Socialist propagandists who knew very little about it themselves, who induced many of the loyal comrades to adopt what they called the "New Party Line," subsequently gaining control of the executive authority by that method and expelling the former leaders to make their own position safe. There was one section, back in the twenties, who accomplished the expulsions to their satisfaction, then finding themselves useless without them, discreetly left South Africa, and I don't think much, if anything, has been heard of them since.

The party line on the Native Republic of South Africa was the cause of the whole trouble, nevertheless the Communist Party in South Africa to-day employ the same tactics, specialising on the Native community. I would like to give them the opportunity of establishing a Native Republic, with the 8,000,000 Natives as members of the Communist Party. What would the party do with them? Or what would the Natives (if they grasped the Communist ideology about our existing system and the unjust exploitation of their labour) do with them? Any change of our social and industrial system, however revolu­tionary, would and must mean, if we want any system of order in the process, that the Natives must remain to a large extent for the time being, and for another generation or more, just where they are. The same will apply to the illiterate white community. They are incapable of knowing anything of the science of industry or a cultured form of social life or any form of administration. They will fit in the cogs of the evolutionary wheel in the line of social and economic progress, just where they are suited to serve. It is very courageous and kind of the Communists to take up their many grievances. Many of them I know sacrifice a lot of their time and a lot of their money for that purpose, but again I repeat that is not the purpose of the Socialist. The purpose of a Socialist is to preach Socialism and also to preach it to those who are capable of understanding what it means.