Ju

Justice

Justice, a weekly paper, ran from 1884 to 1925 was founded by HM Hyndman as the organ of the Social Democratic Federation. Harry Quelch (1858-1913) was its editor from 1892 until 1908. It was opposed to British Imperialism in the South African War (1899-1902). It grew from 8 to 12 pages in 1906 and continued as the paper of the British Socialist party when the SDF changed its name in 1912 but remained under Hyndman’s control when the majority of the BSP split from him in 1916 because in the first World War Hyndman took a pro-war line which the majority could not stomach. It shrank back to an 8 pager and became the journal of the minority, the National Socialist Party, until in 1920 the NSP changed its name to the SDF. The period of its greatest importance was undoubtedly the dozen years before the First World War. It argued for what might be considered a rather formal Marxism and opposed what it regarded the softness of the Independent Labour Party. It tended to take a more anti-clerical atheistical line than the ILP, more analogous to Socialism on the Continent and was always very conscious of its international links. In it can be found translated articles by Kautsky, Liebknecht and other protagonists of the early 20th century debates within German Social Democracy together with reports of International Conferences of the Second International.

See index to articles from Justice.