The ISSN 0014-1690

Ethical RecordVol. 95 No. 6

Editorial

THE SHADOWY EDGE

WHILE MOST PEOPLE IN BRITAIN ARE

enjoying a higher standard of livingthan they have ever known before, asignificant minority is experiencingvery grim conditions indeed. Thisminority includes the homeless whobeg on the streets, and the inmates ofmany of our prisons. The dailyencounter with people, young and old,who have nowhere to live • and noincome, plus the recent protest riots atStrangeways and several other prisons,are reminders that our society still hasareas of gross neglect and insensitivity.It may not be going too far to say thatthese areas, though still small,approach comparison with the poor.r.parts of Europe, and even some ThirdWorld countries.

That such a comparison would havebeen inconceivable 15 or 20 years agoindicates the inequity and instabilitywhich have crept into our society inrecent times despite the general rise inliving standards.

Taking pauperism 'first, this is nowat a level not seen since the immediatepost-war period, or even the pre-waryears. The three main causes of•it seemto be a drastic worsening of the long-standing housing problem in our bigcities, the continuing factor of unem-

JUNE 1990

ployment and, cruCially, changes insocial security regulations. which nowprevent some people from receivingbenefits they were previously eligiblefor.

Pauperism should be totally unaccep-table in a society with our traditionof welfare provision. The socialsecurity system should be able to pro-vide sorriething for everyone who. hasno ineome. Also, more effort needs tobe made to create accommodation; forexample, local councils could•allocatesome of their many empty properties,and housing associations could showmore initiative:

As regards prison conditions, thechief problems appear to be over-crOwding plus inadequate facilities.outlets and staffing. The courts sendtoo many people to prison (a higherpercentage, for example, of youngpeople than• any other country inWesteen Europe); and too many of theprisons themselves are antiquated antiill-equipped. The fact that inmates areoften kept in their cells for 23 out of24 hours a day is .jtist one of manyfeatures of prison life which oursociety should not •tolerate. It's smallwonder that the experience of prisonhas a hardening and embittering effecton so many, and•that so many go on.to re-offend.

CONTENTSPageComing to Conway Hall ,

,22

A Second Revolution—Russia Ends One-Party Rule—KEN HENDERSON 3

Christopher Caudwell and the Crisis in Modern Physics—HENIAN

FRANKEL 8

What is Meant by "The Rule of Law"—H. J. BLACKHAM . 17

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society

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Most leading criminologists acknow-ledge that the majority of offenders areessentially victims of social circum-stance, and are therefore amenable toreform. This suggests two main coursesof action: the quality of prison lifemust be substantially improved, and,More important still, a larger numberof non-custodial ways of dealing withoffenders must be found. Here, organi-sations such as Radical Alternative to

Prisons (RAP) play a key role. Theseorganisations are not as widely known,or as widely heeded, as they might be.

The pauper and the prisoner areexamples of people who find them-selves at the shadowy edge of affluentsociety. Whatever their personal errorsor failings, they should not be peopleon whom the mainstream turns itsback. British society, 45 years after thecreation of a comprehensive welfaresystem, should not have a shadowyedge.

savt

The Ethical Record is posted free to members. The annual charge to Subscribers

is £6. Matter for publication should reach the Editor, Tom Rubens, Conway Hall,25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL (071-831 7723) no later than the first ofthe month for publication in the following month's issue.

2 Ethical Record, June 1990

A SECOND REVOLUTION-RUSSIA ENDS ONE-PARTY RULE

Talk on USSR to SPES on February 2, 1990'

by KEN HENDERSON

ORIGINALLY I WAS SCHEDULED TO TALK TO YOU LAST WEEK on "Russia, Old and.;New" based on my limited visits to the Soviet Union—mainly confined to theEuropean part from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea and the impressions of whatordinary people, in recent years much more free to speak their minds, had toldme and my wife. However, the momentous events of the last week (virtually asecond, if so far comparatively bloodless, revolution) are so momentous that"old" has become last week and "new" next week—or next June or at latest theend of this year depending how smoothly or not things turn out.

I therefore start by posing a question. Is the Soviet Communist Party, for over70 years the self-appointed keeper of the true faith and ruler of the USSR, to beswept aside by the very people it claims or purports to lead? MICHAEL

GORBACHEV says no—what he is building is a stronger, more successful and stillsocialist society. His opponents say he is toppling the whole structure of theCommunist system. Certainly it is the end of Soviet Communism as we haveknown it during all or most of our lifetimes.

After an unusually extended, three days stormy meeting of the Central Com-mittee of the Soviet Communist Party—President Gorbachev (also General Secre-tary—a post it is rumoured he may give up if he becomes an executive Presidenton USA lines) has persuaded his colleagues to back the creation of a powerfuland directly-elected executive presidency of the Soviet State. This would pushthe Politburo (hitherto the all-powerful inner cabinet of the party) to the side-lines, responsible only for internal party matters—much like the leadership ofpolitical parties in this country.

Before I go any further about the "new", a few words about the "old".Listening to the TV, broadcasts and reading the newspapers this week I find itdifficult to follow precisely what has happened when they refer to the "Polit-buro" and the "Central Committee", or to the Supreme Soviet, the Congress ofDeputies and the Parliament—indiscriminately, and sometimes as if they were thesame thing. I think therefore it would be helpful to summarise what is theexisting system and how it arose.

Most of you will be familiar with the origins of Marxism-Leninism. theruling ideology of the USSR, and until recently all other socialist states. Basicallyit cOmprises a philosophical method known as dialectical materialism, a theoryof historical development, a critique of the political economy of capitalism anda theory of the development of socialism and communism.

Thus we have a set of doctrines laying down laws of; social development, anaction programme developed from this and modifications in thc light of changingpolitical realities. MARX saw socialism RS the dictatorship of the proletariat toproduce a classless, harmonious and self-governing society.

LENIN drew in the agrarian side to produce an alliance of the proletariat andthe peasants. STALIN emphasised much more authoritarian features to produce amonolithic ruling dogmatism which threw out egalitarianism. KIIRUSCHCHEy

started to shift this back towards what was called an all-people's state, reducingcentralised bureaucratic control, but progress on these lines slowed down underhis successors and even reversed back again towards management by the partymachine, ie, the Patty alone embodied the interests of the working class andthus the whole of Soviet society.,Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and began

Ethical Record, June 1990 3

to swing the pendulum back again towards more mass 'participation in therunning of the state.

Thus the constitution has been modified several times in the past, but, sinceStalin, not long enough to have any real effect in practice before ideology swungback again. Now Gorbachev, after five years of similar slow progress, has madea huge and decisive push towards democracy and accountability to the peopleand away from the centrist obligation of all lower bodies to obey the directivesof the next higher one and the strict subordination of the minority to themajority.

This is a recognition that the communist doctrine of distribution of the fruitsof labour according to need (as distinct from the socialist doctrine of "from eachaccording to his ability; to each according to his work") assumes an abundanceof material wealth and devotion to the common weal which the communistsystem has obviously not produced.

The Communist Party, though large in absolute numbers, has only about5 per cent of the total population and under 10 per cent of adults are members.Nevertheless almost all political posts are held by party members and to a lesserdegree all positions of responsibility or influence in the economy, education andthe media. This naturally means that to get on one needs to be a member, whichensures that the better educated and the higher his social position, the morelikely a person is to be a member. Similarly, three times more men than womenjoin the party, and a much higher proportion in the urban areas than thecountryside.

The Power Structure of the Party, and (until this week's decisions are effective,the Government), is the same at all levels, from the All-Union right down tothe District. At the top is the Bureau (at the top level known as the Politburo).Under this is the Secretariat, then the Administrative Departments and then theCentral Committee. Theoretically at the very top is the Party Congress but itis only elected and meets once every five years to produce major policypronouncements. •

The next Supreme Congress (of Soviets) will be in June following the All-UnionCentral Committee meeting last week. (The Central Committee normally meetsonly twice a year, usually for one or two days only—this time exceptionallyextended to three.)

In practice the most powerful body is the Politburo, which meets once ortwice a week, like our Cabinet meetings, and consists of 14 full members andeight non-voting members, normally elected by the Central Committee but infact by collective co-option fie, the Central Committee is only called upon toratify changes already. agreed by the existing members). Overall charge of theParty apparatus is in the hands of the Secretary of the Central Committee: atthe All-Union Level, the Secretary-General (currently Mr Gorbachev) is auto-matically on the Politburo and, with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers (ifdifferent), the most important member.

The Secretariat is a smaller body of 10 of whom five are on the Politburo,and like the Politburo itself is chaired by the Secretary-General. The Depart-ments are like our Ministries, headed by Ministers. The Central Committeeconsists of about 500 members, including regional party secretaries, and is nomin-ally elected by Party Congress, .but again this means approving a list preparedin advance by the party leadership. However, though for the most part acceptingthe guidance of the Politburo and Secretariat, it is theoretically superior to themand can be effective when there is a leadership crisis, as we saw last week.

The Supreme Soviet or Parliament of the Soviet Union has until the -recentchanges been a weak body. It is charged with the appointment of the Chairmanof the Council of (IOW Ministers who then "recommends" to them the Ministers.

4 Ethical Record; June '1990

Even the Chairman is recommended to them by the Politburo and in fact changesof Ministers are effected by the Presidium between the Supreme Soviet's infre-quent and short meetings. The Presidium consists of a Chairman, or Presidentnow, and 37 members "elected" by the Supreme Soviet in much the same way.So though constitutionally the Supreme ,Soviet is all powerful, in practice thereal power lies with a self-perpetuating Presidium and the Council of Ministersand it is within these bodies that the real power struggle goes on. The Secretary-General and the President are not necessarily the same. (BREZHNEV was PartySecretary-General, and thus a member of the Presidium long before he becameChairman) though Gorbachev has held both posts.

Under the system newly proposed last week, the President will be elected bythe Supreme-Soviet for a fixed ferm and will nominate his own cabinet, whichwilt have full powers. This would be very similar to the political system inFrance or the USA, or somewhere between the two since the Prime Minister willbe retained, as in France, but with much reduced powers, possibly withering awayuntil there. is an almost exact parallel with the American system. Also, the Com-munist Party would be subject to competition from other parties. These stepswill end the CP's monopoly rule, guaranteed under the present Constitution.

Together with the creation, of a freely elected Parliament (Congress of People'sDeputies), already set up, they effectively abolish the party's Central Committeeand are certainly the most historic changes in Soviet Government since theRevolution, returning to the various levels of Soviets, or local councils—ie thegrassroots—the powers that had been assumed by the Central Committee. Atthe same time the strengthening and concentration of power in the hands of thePresident's office should lessen the troublesome meddling by the party apparatusat all levels.

These proposals have yet to be approved by the new Parliament who may beallowed to modify them. They have also to be put to the Party Congress to beheld in June. However the Central Committee will no longer screen the delegateswho Will be freely elected by party branches. This timing also means that themultiparty system will not be in place for the forthcoming elections of theParliaments of the 15 Republics and of local councils.

The vital Article Six, which gave the Communist Party the leading role, has notbeen abolished but modified to make the role of the Party "to participate in therunning of the country and to nominate candidates alongside other politicaland social movements". It can no longer claim any special position but wouldaim to be the leading political party. Other parties in opposition to the CP willbe allowed and the CP wiffi have to attempt to retain power through a realisticability to secure prestige in competition with other political forces.

The Central Committee' will be allowed to give financial support and otherassistance to loyalists in, say, the Baltic States. I ;don't know what funds itcontrols apart from membership fees.

.0ne important change' which did no go through was to abolish the ownershipof all land by the state. This was largely because of the forceful arguments(supported by many others whO regard private property as an anathema) ofMR LIGACHEV, the leading opponent of perestroika .(at least Mr Gorbachev'sversion of it) who is still there with the backing of the party apparatus althoughhe is no longer number two in the Politburo. This may not be such a bad thing—as Nick Hyman said two weeks ago—Gorbachev needs him as a balancing actagain Mrt YELYSIN, rather as HAROLD WILSON balanced DENNIS HEALEY Offagainst TONY BENS.

It will be interesting to see how much support he continues to get fromdelegates at the forthcoming 28th Party Congress. Certainly there is no chanceof a reversal on the lines of the old guard in China (—and as news of these

Ethical Record, June 1990 5

changes in the Soviet Union filter through the strict censorship in China—including jamming of foreign broadcasts—the old guard too are going to have aharder time clinging on to power). In a sense Gorbachev did not lead the waybut was pushed along by the power of the people, avoiding, as in the EasternEuropean countries, the Communist Party being swept from power by a populacefed up with the declining standards of living and continuing economic difficulties.

The big question in the USSR now is—is it enough and can it be made tOwork. The question is urgent with so many changes taking place in the worldtoday, not only in Eastern Europe. A Pandora's box has been opened and whocan say what will come out of it. Hopefully Gorbachev will remain in powerbut we have yet to see how the new apparatus will work in practice. Will theSoviet voters behave differently from those in Eastern Europe, where very fewvote Communist when given a free choice. Or •will the Party go the way ofEastern Europe—breaking up into factions—and Thence to oblivion?

What has happened in the USSR is an example of people power almost equalto that of the 1917 Revolution, but this time peacefully. Let us hope that thiswill continue to be peaceful. Unfortunately there is the spectre of virtual civilwar in the outlying republics, especially in the south west and possibly the Balticstates, as there was following the 1917 revolution. Although the Soviet republicsare to be given the right to withdraw from the Union, it is to be hoped that thehotheads there will give the new federal set-up a chance and the new regime timeto prove its credibility.

It must be appreciated that what has happened in Eastern Europe becamepossible only because, under perestroika and glaznost, there was no fear of theSoviet Union intervening to maintain the old Stalinist regimes. Similarly theSoviet republics now know that, so long as they do not precipitately upset theapple cart, they too will be free to go their own *way, if that is what freelyelected Republican Soviets wish.

If they try to go too fast they may strengthen the hands of those who say"look what perestroika means—the end of the Union". Fortunately Boris Yeltsinseems fairly satisfied and is prepared to give the new regime a chance so that theredoes not seem to be a possibility of the Communist party splitting three Ways.

Mr Gorbachev must now tackle the problems of shortages of, and long queuesfor, food, clothes, cars, even toilet paper, soap, washing powder and detergents,aspirins, cotton wool, cosmetics; the non-availability of new furniture exceptshoddy or secondhand pieces; the fall in the purchasing power of the rouble:corruption; black markets; special privileges for the apparatniks which shieldthem from the plight of the common people; and the dismantling of thenomenklatura system. It is said that you are unlikely to live long enough to reachyour turn in the waiting list for cars unless you are young. No wonder there arecrowds rushing into the new MacDonalds even though the prices are sky higheven by our standards. And all this will have to be done without the draconianpowers of yesterday and in the full glare of a free press and television.

The new powers of the President and his Cabinet will be needed to take whatwill often be unpopular decisions, especially if they have to distance themselvesfrom the Party. Over the last five years Mr Gorbachev has shown great skill inmoving the centre of the party gradually to the left.

Can he continue this or even speed it up or will he have to break with theParty if things continue to move slowly on the economic front?' He has aprecedent, as he remarked himself, from one of the most decisive moments inthe history of the old Bolshevik Party. In the days immediately following hisarrival at the Finland Station in the spring of 1917,-Lenin made a famous state-ment to the joint meeting of the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, throwingoverboard an orthodoxy that had previously .governed the strategy and tactics .

6 Ethical Record, June 1990'

of Russian Bolshevism throughout Its history. •At the time .of the. Februarykevolution, tho entire leadership of the Party (Lenin was still in exile andTROTSKY still outside • the , Party) backed' the idea of what was called the"Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry" and gave critical.support to the Provisional Governm. ent. If that view had prevailed there •wouldhave been no October Revolution and it was Trotsky and later Lenin—whobacked his ideas and welcomed him into the party—who argued that theFebruary "democratic" revolution should grow into the October "socialist"Revolution. What Lenin said was: "In these days, Many things, in fact every-thing, will depend on how effectively we Will,succeed in using the advantages andpossibilities of the socialist system . . . in bringing the out of date social patternsand methods of work abreast of the changed conditions".

In today's conditions what Gorbachev is saying is that the chief ideologicalproblem is the development of the econorny: in fact, going back to Lenin's NewEconomic Policy, which was thrown overboard in the 1930's when the Mainaim became the abolition of market forms within the Soviet Economy. ProgresswaS measured by this yardstick .only—irrespective to what was happening to theEconomy as a whole. The latest changes are not' a throwback to out-of-dateideas, or using Lenin as some, sort of ikon, but •putting selective parts of Leninand Trotsky's ideas forward in a• fresh and invigorating way. As a matter of factTrotsky's ideas are still unknown to all but a very select 'few in the USSR, sothey seem quite fresh anyway. They inClude • re-introdUcing market exchanges,reviving genuine co-operatives; returning- agricUlture to virtually family farming,,etc.

Not hll Trotsky's ideas are being broughi out again, especially 'one which' didreceive acceptance, i.e., that the Soviet Union is lthcked 'in an "irreconcilablestruggle with the capitalist world, a view that is still held by many in thecapitalist world itself. Gorbachev' seems to be accepting the fact that the USSRexists in a world dominated hy capitalism._ .

To sumniarise. For the first time in kussian history a "Tzar" is trying togovern by consent, rather than .by force.. One advantage, he. has• is that :he- nowhas a Much more educated. citizenship than any of his 'predecessori.' But he stillhas to overcome the mediocre.•and , corrupted. apparatus that has grown upinside the party bureaucracy. Some idea of the way things are going to go maybe indicated in the results of the March local and ,regional elections—will thelocal party bosses •be removed from theif privileged positions? This 'is the lastchance they will have to hang ori. --If they do not, next .time round will be toolate—glasnost will have gone too far to be halted and Gorbachev will be toostrongly 'entrenched to be removed. NO one else has a credible alternativeprogramme but he could be forced to resign by the appalling task facing him.

V 6 ' . •• lewpoints .

, . .. ... . . •

. .. .

' STUART Morrie's talk on. RALPH Fok,_ as summarized in the. April . issue of -The Ethical- Record, is really, incredible. Indeed, sinte- my YCL days in the,1940s, .I , do not recall having, read such gems of Stalinist ibetoric aS "thecommunists ..... leading the progressive ,forces; posed a real threat to thebourgeoisie . . .7 . . . . ., .. ., . . . , ., .

Stylistic comments apart, however, I notice that Mr MOfiro, does not refer toVox's reactions to the many acts of violent repreSsiiiii. carried out by the govern-ments of LENIN and STALIN. Fox, like many. MarxiSt intellectuals of that time.seems to have beeo completely blind to the suppression of all opposition. and ,

Ethical, Record, ,lune 1990 7 ,

to the murder and imprisonment not only of "class enemies", but also ofmembers of the social revolutionary, Menshevik and anarchist movements—not to mention the many millions of ordinary people who died as the result ofthe paranoia and grotesque inefficiency of the "workers' paradise". That the"social democrats and other opportunists" jibbed at working with such "anti-fascists" is not very surprising.

"When the war came," observes Mr Munro, "it was the Soviet Union thatrescued Europe." Nonsense! When the war came in 1939 the Soviet Union,despite its rulers' rantings against fascism, did nothing except to occupy halfof Poland with the accord of the HITLER regime and invade Latvia, Esthoniaand Lithuania. It was only when attacked by the Germans that it entered thewar.

As for the USA and USSR "taking up the mantle of Hitler", perhaps MrMonro could enlighten us by explaining just what he means by such a statement.

Yours sincerely,S. E. PARKER, London W2

I HAVE JUST FINISHED reading the April issue. I was very excited by MARTINGREEN'S article "Towards a Republic". I have long felt that until radical thoughtin this country addresses the problem of the Monarchy and the House of Lordsit will get nowhere, as it is based on a fundamentally dishonest premise. Thehereditary principle is in complete contradiction to the most basic democracy.Now may well be the time for the launch of a campaign to get Republicanismon the agenda of those interested in social change in this country.

JULIAN Ross, Newport, Gwent

CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL AND THE CRISIS IN MODERN PHYSICS

by HYMAN FRANKEL

A talk given to the South Place Ethical Society on 8th April 1990

I. FIRST, LET ME SAY A LITTLE ABOUT CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL and his work.Born CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN SPRIGG into a Catholic family, he left school at15 to work as a cub reporter on a leading Yorkshire paper, of which his fatherwas literary editor. He soon turned his hand to writing thrillers, as well as beinginterested in mechanical subjects, especially aeronautics. He also wrote poetry.His exceptionally active mind and wide-ranging interests brought him to Marxismand he moved to London, joined the Communist Party in the early 'thirties andrented rooms in Poplar, where he became the Party branch secretary, under-taking all the routine duties, like selling the Daily Worker in Chrisp Streetmarket. During the day he studied and wrote, devoting his evenings either toParty work or to relaxation, including time with his girl-friend. His seriouswork he wrote under the name, Christopher Caudwell. When the Spanish CivilWar broke out and the call came for volunteers to join in the fight againstFRANCO, Sprigg,. without consulting anyone, was one of the first to go fromBritain. Shortly after he had gone, his brother, THEODORE, called on HARRYPot.t.Irr, then general secretary of the Party, with the manuscript of Christopher'sbook, Illusion and Reality. Realising that it was the work of an exceptionallygifted individual. Pollitt immediately despatched a telegram to the Spanish High

8 Ethical Record, June 1990.

Command requesting Sprigg's return to England. The telegram arrived the dayafter Caudwell had died from a bullet while defending the Jarama front. He wasthen twenty-nine.

Caudwell was a DA VINCI character and his intellectual interests ranged frompoetry to science. He was also mechanically minded and invented a universalgear which excited some attention in the technical press. His poetry was veryfluent, intellectual, highly competent and often beautiful. His serious writings,which were all published after his death, included Illusion and Reality, a studyof the sources of poetry; essay collected under the title, Studies in a Dying

Culture, including brilliant examinations of leading contemporary figures suchaS LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, BERNARD SHAW and H. G. WELLS and a further set ofstudies of various subjects, including religion, history and psychology. But heseemed to have thought most highly of his book, The Crisis in Physics, whichhe left unfinished on going off to Spain. After the Second World War, some-thing of a Caudwell cult developed; and the Marxist philosopher, MAURICE

CORNFORTH, was commissioned by the Communist Party Executive to producea critique and he did, in fact, expose many weaknesses, chiefly in Illusion and

Reality.

The Crisis in Physics has suffered a somewhat different fate. Edited by HYMAN

Levy, then professor of mathematics at Imperial College, it was reviewed byJ. B. S. HALDANE, the great biologist and polymath, who wrote:

. . it will be a quarry of ideas for philosophers for generations tocome".

While, in his dust-cover remarks, Levy himself wrote:

"In placing the modern crisis in physics in its social setting he succeedsat the same time in pointing the direction for its solution. His analysiscuts far below the level at which such matters are usually discussedin scientific and philosophical circles. The effect of this remarkablebook is shattering."

It seems The Bodley Head had to be pushed to publish it in 1938: and, despitethose two extraordinary eulogies, it was not taken up and, as far as I know.has been neglected ever since.2. Physics, including cosmology (study of the cosmos) is, as you are all aware.the most advanced and the most complex of all the sciences. Its subject stretchesfrom the ultramicroscopic structure of matter to the nature of the Universeitself. Its methods are practical and theoretical. The practical include observa-tion of the heavens by means of optical and radio telescopes; while the theoreticalinvolve the simplest as well as the most abstruse mathematical me:hod. someof which even baffle the student. There is no limit to the resourcefulness andastonishing intellectual feats of the theoreticians, some of which I shall mentionlater.

.Now, although the physicists, at least those who have contributed outstandinglyto the subject, live comparatively sheltered and isolated lives, there is nowwidespread recognition, brought about, partly by a new breed of socioloRists andhistorians of science, who are themselves influenced by Marxism. that they (thephysicists) are also influenced by the society in which they live. This has alwaysbeen, ever since MARX wrote, almost a commonplace in Marxist thought.Caudwell's unique contribution was to apply this to the abstruse subject ofphysics, which had not been done since the work in the last quarter of the lastcentury by Engels, Marx's friend and collaborator, and a little by LENIN in 1908.

Caudwell argued .(and I must warn you that his book is very difficult) thatcapitalist society, within which modern physics has made its most revolutionaryadvances, was based on the outlook which ADAM Storni made explicit in his

Ethical Record, June 1990 9

classic of laisser-faire economics, The Wealth of Nations. Smith explained thatevery capitalist pursued his own objective of maximising his own wealth, thathe judged all transactions on a purely quantitative profit-or-loss basis and thatsomehow all those individual aims were brought together by a "hidden hand",so that the outcome was a harmonious whole.

At the height of the great mercantile epoch, the great SIR ISAAC NEWTON laiddown the mechanical principles that, for the next two centuries, bound thewhole science of physics, except for a couple of areas I shall speak about later.Newton's three laws of motion, plus his gravitational formula, could, whenapplied, predict almost all the movements of heavenly and earthly bodies. Putsimply, they stated that

all bodies remain at rest or move in straight lines at uniform speed, unlessa force is imposed on them.

when bodies collide, action and reaction are equal and opposite.

gravitation acts so as to bring bodies together and its action is instan-taneous and mysterious.

So, in a universe following those principles, bodies are at rest or moveuniformly in straight lines; events take place when they meet; all are broughttogether in a universally harmonious whole, to the glory of God. As you cansee, this corresponds precisely to Adam Smith's picture. That was Caudwell'sfirst conclusion.

3. In contrast, Caudwell tried to depict the Universe from the standpoint of aMarxist, a dialectical materialist. A dialectical materialist believes in the existenceof a real world outside anyone observing it; it is infinite in time and space, isfull of actiivity and contradiction, and knowledge about it can never beexhausted—that is to say, no picture of it is ever final. We can only know aboutit by interacting with it, probing ever more deeply and trying to explain whatwe have found. In that sense, all knowledge is relative; but it is also true insofaras our theories are checked in practice. So Newton's laws were true untilEinstein came along and produced more accurate ones, in which Newton's werea special case applicable at relatively low speeds. Physics also abstracts from theworld, which is constituted of many levels; and, as ENGELS stressed more thana century ago, it is the physicist's error, which he called "metaphysics", tofreeze physical categories into absolutes. This was also the case with EINSTEIN.

Einstein's first great achievement was, in fact, to discover that all physicalknowledge was relative. This he did in 1905, when he put forward his SpecialTheory of Relativity. Newton believed in absolutes—and absolute space, inwhich all bodies moved, an absolute or mathematical time, which was the samefor everyone everywhere, and absolute motion, even though he recognised that,in some ways, time and motion could also be relative, for example, a perscnwalking along a train corridor at, say, 4 m.p.h. will seem to another waiting onthe platform to be moving much faster. Of course, other scientists were botheredby this discrepancy; but it was, finally, Einstein, then only 25, who broughteverything together and declared that all time, motion, distance and even masswere relative, depending on the movement of the observer, although thedifferences only became substantial at speeds near that of light. There was oneabsolute motion, however, that of light in a vacuum. All else was relative. Spaceand time were no longer separate, but combined in a new concept, space-time;and it, too, Einstein declared, was a new absolute.

Einstein was by no means satisfied with his destruction of the foundationsof Newton's mechanics. His iheory only dealt with uniform motion, steadymotion; and he hadn't included gravity. He perceived that gravity was securelylinked with non-uniform, changing, accelerated motion. We all experience apull as the train we are travelling in rounds a bend or starts away from the

10 Ethical Record, June 1990

platform or accelerates along a straight stretch of track. So acceleration andforce are connected. Graphically, accelerated motion is shown as a curvewhereas uniform motion appears as a straight line. It occurred to Einstein thatgravitation might be related to curvature. But curva;ure of what? Well, curvatu:eof space. And that means geometry.

Fortunately, he was able to draw on a geometry of curved space which haddeveloped during the xixth century. You will all recall Pythagoras's Theorem,which is part of Euclid's geometry of flat figures that you all learned at school,that, in any right-angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse is equal to thesum of the squares on the other two sides. For any other triangle, especially onewith curved sides and curved surface, the formula has to be considerablyextended; and Pythagoras's Theorem does not apply. Using this non-Euclideangeometry and a mathematical method known as the tensor calculus, Einsteinproduced a new gravitational equation and the conclusion that the force ofgravity was merely a manifestation of space curvature induced by the presenceof matter. Space was curved without matter, but so very slightly as to be virtuallyundetectable. The presence of matter curved it much more within its region.so that, for example, the planets move in their orbits round the Sun; not becausethere is a force, but because the Sun curves the space, requiring the planets tofollow those paths. This is similar to the fact that, in order to get from Londonto Leipzig, which are roughly on the same latitude, ideally you would followa curved path along that line. Such paths, defined as paths of least action, arecalled geodesics and Einstein concluded that, unless some additional influenceacted on them, all bodies in free motion followed their geodesics. This is theessence of the General Theory of Relativity put forward in 1915 which, a fewyears later, was strikingly confirmed by astronomical observations.

When applied to the whole Universe, Einstein was faced with the sameproblem that had worried Newton..This was, that gravitational attrac:ion wouldsteadily draw all cosmic matter together, so that it would be surrounded byempty space. But all the astronomical evidence was against it, pointing to afairly even distribution of matter throughout the cosmos. The solution thatEinstein came up with was that, relative to the speed of light, matter in theUniverse moved slowly and that the Universe itself was not infinite, as Newtonand others had thought, but like the surface of a sphere, finite yet without aboundary.

•So the Einstein picture of the Universe is as follows. Bodies move indepen-

dently along paths of least action (geodesics) or, over time, along what are calledtheir "world lines", in an absolute space-time. Events occur when they meet. Asuper-being can observe all that goes on, by using light-signals with zero action;and the whole Universe, no longer infinite, is stable. Obviously, this is a remark:-able idealisation of the real world, a pre-World War I version of Newton's. Noradded Caudwell, does it correspond to the real world, which is interconnectedand full of motion and change. It is, he wrote, a "bourgeois" version of the realworld.

4. Einstein's picture of a stable Universe was shattered, significantly, by thediscovery some US .astronomers made, that the galaxies were moving apart, thefurther away the faster their motion, so that the Universe was apparentlyexpanding, rather like a balloon being blown up. From this sensaticnal discovery,theoreticians argued that the Universe must have exploded from a point a longtime ago. At first; the figure of about 2000 million years ago was put forward,but it was much too low. Currently, the estimate is about 18,000 million years;and it is continuing to expand linearly (uniformly).

Two major difficulties face the cosmologists. The first is the problem ofcreation. If the Universe exploded from a point, how or from where did it get

Ethical Record, June 1990 II

the colossal energy input? Do they have to postulate a God? Secondly, is theUniverse going to continue to expand (Eddington called it a nightmare) or willit reach a certain size and then contract again, ultimately to a point? The answer,they claim, depends on the amount of matter in the Universe—which has ledthem to investigate its nature and quantity. An extension of the theory leads tothe notion, favourable to religious cosmologists, that, after the collapse, thecycle will start all over again with another Big Bang and so go on and on. Butfinally, the evidence for expansion can be interpreted in •other ways. However,the cosmological establishment refuse to accept any explanation other than theone they wish to believe, despite opposition from a number of eminent men inthe field, particularly, until his death in 1955, the one whose theory they use—Einstein.

This explosion from a point and current expansion is equated with the evolu-tion of the Universe. Brilliant theoreticians, using knowledge gained from studyof high-energy physics, have even traced its history back to within seconds ofthe Big Bang. But the mystery of its origin remains, although a current favouriteexplanation is that it was of the nature of a quantum fluctuation.

And this brings us to Caudwell's second strand of criticism. The capitalistsystem, unlike previous systems which produced mainly for consumption by theproducers, is basically a system of production for exchange, that is to say,commodity production. In order to carry out exchange most conveniently, allvalues are reduced to the same measures—generalised labour and money, thecommon denominator. Both are, of course, quantitative measures. So thecapitalist's way of thinking, his ideology, if you like, is fundamentally quantita-tive: he measures everything in terms of money. Qualities are regarded assubjective, not really relevant to a description of the objective world. Everythingis considered in the light of profit and loss. The system creates two separateworlds—exchange-values, quantitative, calculable, and objective and use-values,qualitative, non-calculable, subjective, personal. The former is ruled by exactlaws, the latter is unpredictable.

This division is paralleled in physics and philosophy, which is largely deter-mined by physics. The physicist has to work with precison. So he steadily discardssubjective sense-data, like colour, sound and feeling, which vary from person toperson, and replaces them by data which can be measured exactly, like mass,wave-length and so on. Parallel to this, philosophers puzzle how to relate one lotto the other. They, too, are faced with two worlds—that of subjective sense-dataand the other of precise, objective. qualityless measurements—two closed worlds—that of subjective sense-data and the other of precise objective, qualitylessmeasurements—two closed worlds. as Caudwell called them.

And this relates to the cosmological problem. Einstein and the cosmologistsafter him reduce the world to pure quantity, because they cannot help thinkingin that mode. So they produce models of the Universe without sounds, sense brfeeling, purely of quantity, because physics works in that way; and, in so far as

they make predictions which are tested and found to be correct, they are right.But when they assert that these models are the whole Universe, they merelyreflect in different ways the way in which they see the world. Now, the capitalistworld after World War Two has seen rapid economic expansion and change andcomputerisation, rising out of the ashes of war. The contemporary cosmologicaloutlook is of models of the Universe expanding rapidly from practically nothing,order mysteriously arising from disorder, without quality, unchanging, 'headingno one knows whither.

Of course, not all follow the cosmological establishment. A,significant numberof Marxists and near-Marxists reject Big Bang and expansion assumptions; buttheir views are rarely given in the- media.'What Caudwell wrote over fifty yearsago applied today. We live in one dialectical world in constant change, in which

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subject and object are inseparably united. By splitting this one infinite andinfinitely complex world into two, reality is distorted and the two worlds thatemerge are closed, unrelated and, therefore, unreal.

The second major division of modem physics is quantum theory, even morebaffling to the average intelligent but non-scientific person, than cosmology.Here appear the ultimate contradictions. Matter is both wave and particle,continuous and discontinuous, made up of extraordinary units that appear anddisappear and everything is random and unpredictable, conceivable not as models,as in cosmology, but only in terms of the most complex mathematical symbolism.

Quantum or particle physics arose from the deeper and deeper investigationof the nature of matter. Newton thought matter was composed of hard, impene-trable and permanently enduring atoms. That was roughly the picture until thepresent century. Towards the end of the last century, the unit of electricity,called the electron, was discovered and, a few years before the First World War,RUTHERFORD at Cambridge put forward a model of the atom •s consisting of amassive, central nucleus surrounded by electrons whizzing round, just like aminiature solar system. Like the planets and Sun in their system, the nucleusand electrons were tiny, so that the atom was mostly space.

Again, at the beginning of the present century, a German physicist namedPLANCK, investigating a radiation problem, came up with the proposition, whichhorrified him, that all emitted radiation was given off in tiny packets, which hecalled quanta. It horrified him because, although Newton believed the samething, all theory and experiment pointed conclusively to radiation (light, electro-magnetism) consisting of continuous waves. To Planck's further consternation,the young Einstein proceeded to show that, not only was radiation emittedin quanta, but that ii was absorbed in the same manner. Thus was born thequantum theory.

Once physicists acclimatised themselves to the revolutionary idea, otherbrilliant theoreticiani rapidly applied the notion in all sorts of ways. In particular,the atom was seen. in the following way. The electrons whizzed round the nucleus,jumping from one orbit to another at incredible speeds. Only the jumps couldbe registered, because they involved the emission or absorption of light. Theorbits themselves were invisible. Further, since such emission or absorptionaltered the position of energy (and, therefore, speed) of the electron, it wasimpossible to say precisely where the particle was and its momenum at the sametime. Heisenberg, who discovered it, called it the Principle of Inexactitude,but it came to be known as the Principle of Indeterminacy. Additionally,material particles could behave as waves, just as light could be either waveformor quanta. Nothing about matter was now certain.

Another important advance was made by SCHRESDINGER, when he produceda wave equation for material particles. Given initial data, the physicist couldpredict the probability that a particle could be in one or other of a number ofpossible states. Schodinger claimed that •this restored determinism to physics andphilosophy; but most disagreed, arguing that, while the equation did give precise,quantitative results, they were only of probabilities or chances. Classical orpre-quantum physics, although including a lot about probability, was all basedon the belief that science could produce results to any degree of accuracy. Sothe old deterministic world-view crumbled and was replaced by a philosophy, ofindeterminism that fully corresponded with the prevailing gloom throughout theWestern Avorld after the Great Slump of 1929, when it was mingled withmysticism and used to justify the status quo and even political reaciion.

Alt atomic 'and sub-atomic investigations showed particles, .whether electronslocked in atoms or those being Used, for example, by Rutherford, to "smash"atoms, moved Mdredibly fast, often at speeds approaching light. This meant

EtIdeal Accord, June 1990 13

that the Schrfidinger wave equation had to be made relativistic. This was accom-plished most elegantly by DIRAC, a young Cambridge mathematician; but notmuch was done with it until after World War Two when, as a result of theexpanding production of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, the wholeresearch establishment grew enormously. The atomic bomb is based on thebreakdown of uranium atoms; but the hydrogen bomb and thermonuclearenergy involve the release of energy when hydrogen is built up into helium. Thelatter brings into effect forces capable of smashing the nuclei themselves andtransforming their constituents. Particle research, using colossal machines, nowdominates physics and most of it is military.

Modern particle research is concerned with the interaction of very largenumbers of particles. It has demolished Newton's belief that atoms or atomicparticles were permanent and indestructible. Dirac introduced symbols for thecreation and annihilation of particles. He also proposed (following an earlierdiscovery by Einstein and others) that there was no such thing as absolutelyempty space, because a vacuum contained a residual or "zero-point" energy.With some qualification, Dirac's picture of the physical world was one full ofactivity, of energy transforming into matter and back again. Now this is adialectical picture, confirming the claim made first by the great German philos-opher, HEGEL, and repeated by Engels, that the Universe is matter in motionand that matter cannot exist without motion, nor motion without matter.

Does that mean that, after Dirac, all particle physicists became Marxists? It istrue that, in 1908, Lenin, aware of the new theories of Relativity and the newlydiscovered quantum theory, wrote that physics was struggling towards dialectics;but he added that it would not solve its problems unless physicists adopted amaterialist standpoint. Caudwell, who died before the tremendous post-1945theoretical and experimental expansion, argued likewise. Unfortunately, althoughsome physicists have become Marxists of different tendencies, there has been arather strong move, abetted by some cosmologists, towards oriental mysticism.Here I must talk briefly about the controversy around Bell's Theorem.

7. Einstein opposed the view, called the Copenhagen interpretation, that thequantum theory explained all that could be known about the world of the atom.Being a determinist himself, he argued that science could not have a surefoundation if that was only the calculation of chances. So he thought up thefollowing experiment.

Suppose an atom ejected two identical particles, one going to the left, theother to the right; and suppose there was an instrument which recorded thespeed (or momentum) at a certain instant of the particle going to the left. Nowaccording to the quantum theory, prior to measurement, only the probabilitiesof a particle having a range of momenta can be known. But, since the emittedparticles are identical, as soon as the speed (momentum) of the left one is known.that of the right is also known. But this contradicts quantum.theory. Therefore.Einstein concluded, quantum theory is inadequate and not final. This argumentwas put forward in 1935.

There was not much debate then, because the reply given then by NIELS BOHR,

the leading defender of the Copenhagen interpretation, and the theory's practicalsuccess, seemed more than adequate. The problem resurfaced after the war,when a number of physicists began to revive Einstein's argument. Chief among .these was DAVID BOHM, an American who, hounded by the MACCARTHY red-baiting committee, found refuge finally here at Birkbeck College. Bohmproposed a version of Einstein's thought experiment which could be put to thetest; and another physicist, JOHN BELL, gave it a simple mathematical form.This declared that,• if the chances of the right-hand particle producing or notproducing the same measurement as that of the. left were added up, the result

14 Ethical Record, June 1990

should not exceed a certain figure. Numerous experiments were carried out,mainly in France, showing that, in fact, that figure was breached and wasnearer that theoretically predicted by quantum theory. So the quantum theorywas confirmed. But—and this was the startling conclusion, only if somehow a"message" or communication took place between the two particles at a speedfaster than light, which physicists generally could not accept.

It was the Bell controversy that provided the mystics with their opportunity.The world, in their view, is a buzz of energy; energy is non-material; therefore,the world is both contradictory (particles and waves and so forth) and spiritual;and this accords with the Taoist (Chinese mystical) view of reality. Taoismpreaches adaptation to, not action to change, the world, which is the opposiiteof the dialectical-materialist philosophy. Its message is that the world is whatit is because it has to be so. It is very persuasive to those who find the worldtoday a mass of hopeless contradictions impossible to understand. The mostpopular of these expositions, Capra's The Tao of Physics, has run to at leastten printings.

8. I want, finally, to say a little about thermodynamics, or the science'of heat.This arose directly out of the invention and development of the steam enginein the earlier part of the nineteenth century. The principle of the steam engineis relatively simple. Steam is generated in a boiler; the steam pressure operatesa moving part and work is done, usually by pushing a piston. The steam thencondenses and the water returns to the boiler. You can see, then, that this isreally a fairly steady state, because the engine keeps doing the same thing andthe only changes are the heat input and work output. Political economistsconcerned with jus:ifying industrial capitalism quickly transferred this imageto the social and economic system which, they then argued, despite everything,was stable and could go on for ever.

Theoreticians extracted three laws (later four) of thermodynamics or heatmotion. The first states that, in a closed system, the total energy of all kinds isconstant. In a. steam engine some of the, heat energy is changed to work; whichis mechanical energy, but the total remains the same, excluding other losses.The second law is the most controversial and was put into three importantforms. The first states that heat cannot pass from a colder to a hotter bodywithout external intervention—which makes sense, because commonsense andexperience tell us that, if a warmer and a colder body are in contact, the heatwill go from the first to the second, not the other way abou:. The great nine-teenth-century scientist, BOLTZMANN, expressed this in the form of the motionof something more abstract than heat. He said that, in a closed system (that is,no external intervention) there was something which could not decreasequantitatively: this something he called "entropy".

The next step is to distinguish between "reversible" and "irreversible" systems.A reversible system is one which can be turned back unchanged to its startingpoint, like the old sandtimer. In that case, the system's entropy remains thesame. But, in fact, all natural processes are of the second kind—they areirreversible. If, for example, you come back tomorrow to the same seat youare presently sitting on, the situation will not be exactly the same, because aday has gone by and you and the world will be a day older. In all such cases,the entropy has increased and some energy has been lost, given up, dissipatedinto the atmosphere. The dissipation of energy indicates, therefore, an "arrowof time". Since this is happening everywhere all the time, the physicist WILLIAMTHOMPSON, later LORI) KELVIN, argued, towards the end of the last century,that eventually the whole Universe would die a "heat death": Thus the "arrowof time" point to inevitable doom.

Ethical Record, June 1990 15

At the beginning of his chapter on thermodynamics, Caudwell wrote that heregarded an understanding of the law of entropy as crucial to an understandingof the whole of physics; and what he explained in that chapter does; I think.justify his statement.

Two elements of thermodynamics and a related subject, statistical mechanics,are crucial. One is that, except for an important recent development, thermo-dynamics is about closed and steady or nearly-steady systems. But the Universeis really neither. To argue that it is a closed system means you know it fromthe outside, which is impossible. (Incidentally, that is another argument againstEinstein's finite Universe.) The second element is one we have met before—quantification. To develop the science of heat, all the gases or liquids of thesystem must be regarded as composed of like units—atoms or molecules allalike; and all the calculations and results as merely the shuffling of these units.This gives the theory great generality and great power in tackling diverseproblems; but it excludes all the different layers or levels of real existence.Except for strictly thermodynamic aspects it ignores the different natures of thechemical elements; it ignores living matter, which is not thermodynamicallyclosed, but open, building its food intake into more living matter; and it ignoresthe evolution of the human mind, which can work on—or, better still, with,Nature to our mutual benefit.

This was part of the Marxist answer given not only by Caudwell, but byHaldane, NEEDHAM (author of the monumental history of science in China),BERNAL and others. Interestingly, within the last few years, a great and rapidlymushrooming interest has developed in the thermodynamics of unstable systemswhich, seemingly chaotic, suddenly, of their own accord, take on orderly forms.This is because all sorts of developments of this kind have recently become ofgreat concern, such as hurricanes, stock market crashes and revolutions. Theleading scientist in this field, the Belgian, PRIGOGINE, writes of the dialectics andcontradictions in Nature and society almost as a •Marxist, but careful not to callhimself one. Thermodynamics, then, challenges the timelessness of the rest ofphysics. It shows that the quantification, which is at the heart of modernphysics, makes it a powerful but only partial understanding of the infinite andinfinitely complex Universe in which we find ourselves and which we mustapproach with the greatest respect if humanity is to survive.

LOCAL HUMANIST GROUPS AND EVENTSHavering and DistrictSaturday June 2—Our 30th Annversary Celebration-6 p.m. Members and ex-

members heartily welcome. Contact Jean Condon, Hornchurch 73597 forfurther details.

*Tuesday June 5—Public Meeting. "Responsibilities of Humanist Parents"—Talk by John and Glinnette Woods.

*Tuesday July 2—Public Meeting—Bring a news item that interests you andspeak about it.

Tuesday August 6—Public Meeting. Report of the British Humanist AssociationAnnual Conference by Eugene Levine and Julia Pelling.

Meetings on the FIRST TUESDAY of the month are held in the HAROLDWOOD SOCIAL CENTRE.

The Centre is at the junction of Gubbins Lane and Squirrels Heath Road.within 100 yards of Harold Wood Station, and easily accessible by bus numbers246, 247 and 296. There is a large, free car park.

All meetings are from 8.00 to 10.00 p.m. (other than June 2). Visitors arealways welcome. Admission Free.

16 Ethical Record, June 1990

For further information please contact:Jean Condon, .10 Helen Road, Hornchurch RMI I 2EW. Tel: 04024 73597.Joan Baker, 14 Glamis Drive, Hornchurch RMI1 3RT. Tel: 04024 58925.

SuttonWednesday December I2—"How to Mislead with Language." Bob Melbourne,

our Vice-Chairman, whose work has involved the problems of languageacquisition, language in education, and language and social identity. To beheld at Friends House, Cedar Road, Sutton at 8 p.m.

Other Local GroupsReproduced from Humanist News March 1990EALING HUMANIST GROUP : Arthur Atkinson 081-573 1235. Meet last

Thursday each month, Drayton Court Hotel, 2 The Avenue, West Ealing,at 8p.m.

HAMPSTEAD HUMANIST SOCIETY: Secretary Nigel Barnes, 10 StevensonHouse, Boundary Road NW8 OHP. Meetings at Oriel Hall, Oriel PlaceNW3.

HARROW HUMANISTS: Secretary Rosemary Bennett, 081-863 2977. Treas-urer Don Liversedge, 081-861 1730. Meeiings at H.A.V.S. Lodge, PinnerRoad, 8 p.m.

LEWISHAM HUMANIST GROUP: Dennis tobell, 99 Ravensboutne ParkSE6 4YA; 081-690 2325; Meets 8 p.m. last Thursday of teach month atUnitarian Meeting House, 4.1 Bromley Road, Catford 5E6. Mar 29—"AnIrish Writer in Catford" (Desmond Hogan). Apr 26—"Marxism and Glas-nost" (Terry Liddle). May 31—"Cosmic Weather" (Tony Milne).

MUSWELL HILL HUMANIST GROUP: Secretary Pauline Hewett, 40Chandos Road N2 9AP; 081-883 8251.

British Humenist Association Annual Conference 1990This year's 'theme: "A world fit for humans—Humanist concern over the

vanishing natural world". From Friday July 20 to Sunday, July 22 at theUniversity of Technology in Loughborough. Bookings to the B.H.A., 13 Princeof Wales Terrace. London W8 5PG (071-937 2341).

WHAT IS MEANT BY "THE RULE OF LAW"Summary of a Lecture on April 22, 1990

by H. J. BLACKHAM

"THE RULE OF LAW". IS THOUGHT OF AS A GOOD THING. But the Rule of Law as aninstrument of government, imposing the ruler's will, is thought of as a bad thing.Therefore, the "Rule of Law", as a good thing, implies equality before the law,a uniform law applied to all, including the ruler. L.2.%4 is will, command. It isalso idea and ideal, impersonal justice; therefore, not arbitrary will, but willinformed by and in conformity with justice, and enforcing justice. BUt what isjustice? The notion of "equity" in legal practice is complementary to the statedlaw, and a safeguard against injury in an exceptional case. "Justice", "equity"."the Law of Nature" are abstract ideas and ideals. Positive law is the law ofnation States. They have constitutional or fundamental law to establish how validlaws are made, to institute procedures and powers for this purpose, and toensure that they are applied as intended. Thus in England the chief constitutionalfunction of the judiciary is to ensure that administration conforms with law.

Ethical 'Record, June 1990 17

The supremacy of the will of the people as expressed by their representativesin Parliament rests upon the rule of law enforced by the courts. -

These four math principles of the Rtile of Law are easily-stated and explained—equality, •equity, democracy, and a watch against ultra vires. (deviation fromthe law in its application). What this. means in practice is more complicated.Before coming to where we stand now in this practice, it is helpful to look backover the way we have come in our constitutional history since the crisis thatprecipitated civil war between the Crown and Parliament.

The third parliament of Cutes I adopted' against arbitrary imprison-ment, taxation without parliamentary consent, and other such grievances. SIREDWARp COKE, one of the most valiant and learned defenders of the Rule ofLaw in Its history, proposed that the Commons should ask the Lords to join themin a Petition of Right. In his response, Charles merely affirmed the formula.thaCthe king willed "that right be done according to the laws and customs ofthe realm, and that the statutes be put in execution". The long Story of hisequivocations, evasions, and shifts to maintain the Crown's claim to rule byprerogative: was 'cut off, if not cut short, by the civil wars •and his eventualexecution.'CROMWELL was at shifts, in contention with factions, to find a, work-able hy-cameral parliament. As ProtectOr, he was a restored monarch in all butname. What he failed to do, William achieved in.the "Glorious Revolution" of1688, after an actual restoration of the dynasty had precipitated a new constitu-tional crisis, with the Roman Catholicism and intrigues with the French of therestoted Stuarts. The Declaration of Rights enacted in 1689 was not an abstract"progressive" or radical motion, like so many later ones. It 'was simply arehearsal of established constitutional rights: "An Act declareing the Rights andLiberties of the. Subject and Settleing the Succession of. the Crowne". It wasintended as a guarantee of a Pratestant succession and of government by Parlia-ment constituted by the two Houses of Lordi and Commons. The king was leftwith nominal executive power and the tight of veto. This triparti:e balance ofpowers, legislative and executive, was the unwritten British constitution till theParliament Act -of 1911, when ASQUITH'S Liberal government, frustrated by theLords, who blocked the measures passed by the Commons, succeeded in reducingthe power of the Lords merely to delay, giving unchallengeable legislativesupremacy to the Commons. , • T. . .

The Jacobite risings are a reminder of how near the country was to a renewalof civil war at that time. The Whigs were virtually the authors and supportersof the Revolution, the Tories were Jacobites. By the time restoration of theStuarts had becoine a manifestly lost cause, and the Hanoverian dynasty wasdomesticated, the Tories were fully reconciled to the new order and supportiveof it. There was no party government; rather, government by' the "Friends ofMR Pm" or the "Friends of MR Fox", and star players on one side or theother might be "bought" in one way or another, like players in a football League.The French Revolution, when, fear of . the Jacobins followed fear of theJacobites, followed by involvement in the long struggle against Napoleon,suspended constitutional issues till after 1815. The dominant question was Parlia-mentary Reform, the logic of making election 'to the Commons truly representa-tive, no longer manipulated by ownership and patronage. ,Macaulay wM able tosay that the people did not have enough power to make the laws, but they didhave enough to impede their execution. He probably had ,in mind the law ofcriminal libel. Government had treated criticism in speech or print as seditious—the form in force then of the "One-Party-State" doctrine. When a case was.brought against a disaffected subject, the judge determined whether the matterwas libellous or not; the jury merely determined the fact of authorship, and the.like. Fox had managed to -get through Parliament a Libel Act in 1792 which -gave the jury the-right .to determine whether a matter was libellous or not. The

18 Ethical Record, lune 1990 ,

Lord Chancellor called this "confusion and destruction of the law of England".Juries were refusing to convict. Fox's Act made the people, through the courts,"the true guardians of the liberty of the press".

The Glorious Revolution had established constitutional principles, but at thebeginning of the xixth century all remained to be done in refining and definingconstitutional procedures and powers, to make effective the Rule of Law. Churchand State were regarded by the Tories as indivisible. Local government was inthe hands of the parish clergy, .JPs and Quarter Sessions; and in elections theclergy were government agents. It has been said that the Reformed Parliamentsof 1833-67 gave Great Britain a new constitution, a new social order, and a newlife. The transformation can be specified under five heads. (1) A uniformexclusive State became pluriform and open. (2) Responsibility from the bottomup in an hierarchical authoritarian order became responsibility from the topdown. (3) What was deemed a Providential order with divine sanction becamea convention, a human device for the convenient management of secular affairs.(4) Sentiments of allegiance and due reverence were supplanted by good faith,fellow-feeling, and public spirit. (5) Virtual representation in terms of categoriesof citizens was replaced by the vote of individual citizens.

Four man institutions made this transformation possible: elected councils togovern boroughs and counties; a professional civil service recruited at the centreby open competition; government Departments to take over from ad hoc Boardsadministration of statutes enacted by Parliament; a party system of politics, toorganize constituencies and compete for power in office. The idea of democracywas anathema to most, a legacy of Jacobinism—the "luny Left". It came aboutin practice, in the attempts to reconcile particular conflicts of interest. Afterthe Reform Act of 1832, interests formed pressure groups to obtain parliamentaryrepresentation. The most general and persistent formed political parties. Ingeneral at first there were conservatives united in resis'ance to changes advocatedby reformers, radicals, and liberals. Then repeal of the Corn Laws became anational divisive issue when Cobden and Bright formed the powerful Anti-CornLaw League. Peel, converted by their argument, left the Tories and carried theAct of repeal. Before his death Peel said : "My object for some years past hasbeen to lay the foundations of a great party which, existing in the House ofCommons and deriving its strength from the popular will, should der-Jen theshock between the two antagonistic branches of the legislature"; i.e., betweenLords .and Commons. A prominent Peelite. LORD ABERDEEN, with great patienceand skill in protracted negotiations, formed a coalition government of Peelitesand liberal Whigs, in which GLADSTONE was Chancellor of the Exchequer. It wasrated the best government since the Reform Act, and was brought to an end bythe Crimean War. Gladstone would have drifted back to the Tories, who hadcome over to Free Trade, but Aberdeen impressed on him that the fusion ofthe traditions of Peelites and Whig-Radicals must endure; and he remained toform and lead the xixth century Liberal Party which made the running inpolitics till the outbreak of the first World War.

At this point, the making of laws is solely in the sovereign hands of the Houseof Commons, to whom the Executive, vested in the Cabinet; is accountable.MAITLAND, the constitutional historian, could say as early as 1887: "We arebecoming a much governed nation, governed by all manner of councils andboards and officers, central and local, high and low, exercising the powers whichhave been committed to them by modern Statutes". That is a comprehensivestatement, but how much more it is true today. One generation later, anotherlegal historian wrote : "The traditional theory of the English constitution is thatthe legislative sovereignty of Parliament is unique and without competitor, andthat the Rule of Law ensures a single and uniform administration of. justice forall persons and all causes. This view cannot be said to accord with present fac's

Ethical Record, lune 1990 19

and tendencies". The tendency referred to was that under pressure of legislation,and this was before the second World War, it had become common to give toMinisters the right to make Rules and Orders which would have the sameauthority as an Act of Parliament. Strictly this could be justified only in so faras the Orders made by a Department were made in order to give effect to anAct, but if the Department was left to be judge in its own cause both at firstinstance and on appeal, there was no remedy against ultra vires. When alsothe Departments exercised a strong centralizing influence over local administra-tion, the tendency referred to was that the functions and powers of the executivewere growing without check.

Since the War, this situation has become greatly complicated by the social andadministrative content of the great bulk of Parliamentary legislation. Insteadof simply legislating regulations of one kind or another, Parliament now initiatessocial policies and provisions by enacting laws. Laws are necessarily drafted ingeneral terms, and a law would remain a dead letter unless powers were delegatedto the Department concerned to make the Rules and Orders required to carryit out. The dangerous tendency is for delegation to become relegation. Ministersand their Departments are in effect left to make the law they administer.Several Acts have been passed to bring subordinate Rules and Orders UnderParliamentary supervision and contro:, including the Statutory Instrument Actof 1946, an attempt to make it systematic and comprehensive. In 1951 therewere sub-enactments at the rate of nearly 3,000 Statutory InEruments a year.

The English lawgiver today is Parliament only in theory or last resort. Theexecutive creates much of the law it administers, and creates agencies for itsexecution. The courts provide a remedy for legitimate grievances againstadministration of the law. A declared social policy may be frustrated by the lackof financial or personnel resources to implement it. When recently an applica-tion to the court secured an injunction requiring the government to pay anallowance which had been disallowed because the local social fund was exhaffi_ted,the government, with a parliamentary majority at command, merely amendedthe law to enable them to do what they wanted to do. Apart from an example ofdemocratic tyranny, the case exposed the uncertainties frequent in current legisla-tion because of the rush of business, the technicality of social legislation all tend-ing to enlarge the area of Ministerial discretion; so that the Minister is morefrequently at home in his Department than in the House, and is apt to take thecreative scope he enjoys in his office more seriously than his answerability tothe legislature. The courts are only exceptionally available to individuals. More-over, social legislation is technically of a kind not suitable for adjudication inthe traditions of the courts. Therefore, all major social legislation has includedthe provision of special tribimals to adjudicate on grievances of individuals. Atfirst, induErial and social tribunals were rather rough and ready, improvisedfor the job, hut they have been remodelled to eonform with judicial recluire-ments: they have to give reasons for their decisions; chair persons have to belegally qualified; their independence must be safeguarded; and appeal againsttheir decisions is provided by a body with the professional standing of judges.The borrowed modern device of an Ombudsman to look into irregularities ofadministration has moved from a. general charatder to specialists for -differentsections of administration. Equity, which allows "reasonableness" to temperthe application of general laws to particular cases, has been brought under.rules.

One tendency of the attempt to maintain public control over bureaucracy inthe social services is to strengthen the central authority. There are fifty-four lawsaffecting local authorities, limiting or defining their powers. Recent legislationopens the alternative of. taking schools and hospitals out of the State administra-tion by their users. Financial control of local authorities by grants in aid is along established discipline, which has been reinforced by introducing as criteria

20 Ethical Record, June 1990

the standards and practices of business management. The NHS is run by arevival of ad hoc Boards. Very recently, SIR JOHN HARVEY-JONES, formerlychairman of ICI, was called in by the Shropshire Health Authority to advise ontheir difficulties, having the longest waiting lists in the country, and heavilyoverspent. They were resorting to the *closure of twelvC cottage hospitals. Therewas danger of chaos and anarchy because of the Health Authority's hesitancyand tendency to be overwhelmed by a babel of opinion, protest, and advice.Sir John, after a thorough probing, came up with a managerial view: anintelligible comprehensive plan designed to deliver the health care due withinacknowledged constraints; the involvement of all concerned, staff and public,in the plan; a competent middle-management, motivated and skilled enough tosee the plan through and effect delivery. Because of escalating costs, this kindof managerial approach is a required supplement to public legal control.

Democracy and the Rule of Law are generally thought of as equivalents.Majority rule is merely government by device, and is often unjust. In Ulster,IAN PAISLEY complains that MRS THATCHER is undemocratic; she will not let theUnionist majority rule. The situation has come about because the Protestantmajority discriminated against the Catholic minority, and ostensibly on theground that it was disloyal, and wanted union with the Republic. Unless anduntil the majority safeguard the interests of the minority in the Province, thereis no solution. Discrimination is almost endemic to democracy where there is asubstantial majority, or small minorities, of ten of different ethnic origin. Wiithoutcntrenched rights, democracy can hardly deliver justice. There is no legal barto flagrantly unjust legislation by a sovereign British Parliament. That is oneof the reasons why a Bill of Rights, or ratification of the European Conventionon Human Rights, is overdue to help safeguard the Rule of Law. More import-antly, it is due for the protection of individuals in their exposure to thediscretionary powers of bureaucrats in a Welfare State.

There is a perpetual tendency for those who administer the law to substitutein some measure their own will for that of Parliament. This tends to becomeinstitutionalized when a bureaucracy codifies practices to maintain its owninterests to the detriment of the interests of the clients it serves. This is likel,vto be marginal, but definite and injurious. There is also the sociology of law,which examines the influences that shape the behaviour of its agents. A crudeexample is the Marxist claim of inevitable class bias. A more refined instanceis the remoteness of the life experience of a High Court judge from that of thenersons and the juries that come before him; though this tends to be less andless true of younger members of the judiciary. Of more concern is the liabilityof the police as agents of the law to indulge ideas and wills of their own. Thishas been manifest in South Africa, and has recently become too patent here tobe overlooked. More than one grave miscarriage of justice has been exposed.Hitherto, the safeguard against this has been relied on in methods of recruit-ment and training and corporate discinline in the categories of law-enforcingagencies. Again, this needs to be supplemented by expficit rights embodied inI egislation.

Enough has been said to show that the Rule of Law can never be established,save in certain fundamental elementary principles and provisions. Otherwls2. ithas constantly to be striven for on several fronts. The multiplication of rules.and even the legislation of rights, will not suffice unless they are matched withthe good-faith, public spirit, and zeal required to make them work. And thishas to be renewed generation by generation. 0

Ethical Record, June 19901 1

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYThe Humanist Centre, Conway Hall

25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL. Telephone: 071-831 7723/242 8032

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

COMING TO CONWAY HALL HUMANIST CENTRE

Sunday (morning) Lecture (Free—collection)

(Afternoon) Forums and Socials (Free)

South Place Sunday(evening) Concerts(tickets f2.00)*

All the Society's Meetings, Forums, Socials and Classes

are held in the Library (unless otherwise indicated)

Concerts are held in the Main Hall

Sunday June 3at II am Lecture: BARBARA SMOKER : Impressions of Indian Society (held

.jointly with the National Secular Society). Barbara Smoker whorecently visited India and spoke to different Humanist organisa-tions, shares her insights into the politico-religious-economiccontradictions of the country.

at 3 pm Forum: S. E. PARKER : The Myth of Morality. This Talk bythe Editor of The Egoist, whose recent Lecture on NIETZCHE andSTIRNER attracted many Humanists to a fresh spectrum of thought,replaces the earlier advertised Forum.

Sunday June 10at II am

at 3 pm

Lecture: HENRY STEPHENS: Human Rights in Burma. HenryStephens, who heads the Burma co-ordinating group of AmnestyInternational,- looks at a country emerging from the experienceof military despotism. This illustrated talk must give rise toreflection on what we mean by a transition to democracy.

Forum: PROFESSOR RAMESH RAJ KUNWAR : What is Happeningin Nepal? Professor Kunwar from the University of Katmandu,explains the move away from an absolutist monarchy in whatis sometimes perceived still as a Shangra-la, but is actually muchmore anachronistic than paradisical for most Nepalese. -

Sunday June 17at 11 am Lecture: HARRY STOPES-ROE : Indian Atheism and British

Humanism. Harry Stopes-Roe, an Appointed Lecturer of theSociety, has recently returned from India and is especiallyimpressed by the achievements of the GORA family. He believesthat their commitment to social action has lessons for Britishhumanists.

22 Ethical Record, lune 1990

Sunday June 17 continued

at 3 pm Forum: Doc ROWE and ROSEMARY DIXON: The Work of theLondon History Workshop (illustrated talk). The London History

Workshop is a project that has not gone under, despite hugeeconomic pressures. It is both a people's archive, and a scholarly

project with implications for our sense of the past in contem-porary Britain.

Sunday June 24

at 11 am • Lecture: IAN CHRISTIE: The Films of Michael Powell. IanChristie of the British Film Institute shares his deep knowledge

and enthusiasm for a film-maker who died this year and isremembered above all for Red Shoes, Colonel Blimp and The

Matter of Life and Death.

at 3 pm Forum: Michael Powell—video tape material

Sunday July 1

at 11 am Lecture: STAFF COLTMAN : My Friend George Orwell. StaffColtman who drove an ambulance with George Orwell alongsidethe POUM in 'Civil War Spain recalls his friendship with thepamphleteer, novelist and radical and looks at the context of

their commitment to Spain over half a century ago.

at 3 pm Forum: NICOLAS WALTER—Was Tolstoy a Rationalist? Nicolas

times interest in a Tolstoyan active citizenship and sense of Walter, an Appointed Lecturer of the Society, and with a life-

community, considers Tolstoys beliefs in terms of 1th and our

time.

-:24./arnaleijaam...V-51'..2A•gw•SIV.422,••••;e3tvt241SlirrISASI/n2CaaSer-€12

'CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE 1990

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 at 7 p.m.

ALEX COMFORT—SCIENCE & RELIGION

Further details in July/August Issue

This will be a Lecture of permanent value to all enquiring men and

women, to stand with the 1988 Lecture, A. J. Ayer's The Meaning of Life and the 1989 Lecture Christopher Hill's History and The Present

(texts available still at £1.50 each)

Please tell your friends about the 1990 Lecture, and it is hoped that Alex Comfort win also answer questions

kr414., CMCOOT-Meien,Crrn-r: - CY,

* Tickets, season tickets and information: from Honorary Concerts Committee Trearurer:Miriam Elton, Toad Hall. Copperkins Lane, Amersham, Bucks HP6 5QF. Telephone:0494 726106.

-•-

Ethical Record, June 1990 23

South Place Ethical SocietyRegistered Charity No. 251396

FOUNDED in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aim is the studyand dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, and the cultivationof a rational way of life.

We invite to membership all those who reject supernatural creeds and findthemselves in sympathy with our views.

At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds ofcultural activities, including discussions; lectures, concerts and socials.

A comprehensive reference and lending library is available, and all Membersand Associates receive the Society's journal, The Ethical Record ten times ayear.

The Sunday Evening Chamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 have achievedinternational renown.

Memorial and Funeral Services are available to members.Membership is by £1 enrolment fee and an annual Subscription.Minimum subscriptions are : Members, £6 p.a.; Life Members, £84 (Life

membership is available only to members of at least one year's standing). It is ofhelp to the Society's officers if members pay their subscriptions by Banker's Order,and it is of further financial benefit to the Society if Deeds of Covenant areentered into.

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM

To THE HONORARY REGISTRAR, SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

CONWAY HALL HUMANIST CENTRE

RED LION SQUARE, LONDON WCIR 4RL

The Society's objects (as interpreted by its General Committee in the lightof a 1980 Court ruling) are

the study and dissemination of ethical principles; andthe cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, andthe advancement of education in fields relevant to these objectst

Being in sympathy with the above, I desire to become a Member. I willaccept the rules of the Society and will pay an annual subscription of £ (minimum £6 plus £1 enrolment).

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Please send me details of payments by Banker's Order/Covenants.tFormally, the objects of the Society are the study and dissemination ofethical principles and the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment.

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