POVERTY THAT CRIPPLES AND KILLS

BY A SPECIAL CORRESP( 'We believe from our experience of the children with rickets referred to the unit, and who came from differ. ent schools and backgrounds, that rickets will be found in all schools to a greater or less degree. A report on conditions during the Industrial Revolution? A description of the 1930s?

The sentence quoted above comes from the report of a study carried out by four prominent doctors and scientists in the Birmingham area published in the British Medical Journal on February 10, 1973.

Out of 569 schoolchildren studied, aged 14-17 years, 233 showed signs of rickets when blood tests were taken, and in about 4 per cent the disease had progressed so far that X-ray examinations showed abnormalities of bone structure developing in the wrist, ankle and pelvic regions.

In addition to the 569 included in the study, a number of other children had also been referred to the medical unit because the bone distortions had become so obvious as to be noticeable without special tests.

Rickets, the dreaded disease of past generations, which produces undersized, weakened men and women with twisted pelvises and bent legs, is with us again. Caused by inadequate diets, particularly a shortage of vitamin D during crucial stages of growth, especially in the early "teens, it shows in stark human terms just what the Tory attacks on workers' living standards means. • There is nothing abstract about the fight to defend the basic rights which the working class has won in past battles. Victory or defeat will be mirrored in the bodies and lives of millions of men, women and children.

The unemployment and poverty of the early part of the century not only brought desperation and misery, they also brought disease and death.

The Ministry of National Service, reporting on over foods? 2 million men examined for military service in 1917 and 1918, acknowledged that, out of every nine men of military age, three were 'perfectly fit and healthy; two were upon a definitely infirm plane of health and . strength . . . three could almost [in view of their age] be described with justice as physical wrecks; and the remaining man as a chronic invalid with a precarious hold on life'.

Rickets and tuberculosis were rife. Infant and maternal mortality were high. The death rate faithfully reflected the living conditions of the working class.

The official figures at the height of the depression in 1937, ranged from 73-90 deaths per 1,000 in peaceful, middleand upper-class areas such as Bournemouth, Exeter, Oxford and • Cambridge, to 106 in working-class Birmingham, 113 in Bermondsey (south London), 128 in Manchester, 134 in Rhondda, 135 in Burnley and 138 in Wigan.

More people died of tuberculosis in the high unemployment areas of Durham, Northumberland and South Wales than anywhere else in the country. New-born babies died at the rate of 47 per 1,000 in comparatively well-ofi southeast England, 59 in the Midlands, 63 in Wales, 72 in Durham, and a terrible 114 in Jarrow.

The Pilgrim Trust, in an inquiry carried out in 19281934, found that the death rate amongst women in childbirth По старівутая and posort ickets, the dreaded disease o was 19.8 per cent areas with a lot of ment than in more districts.

For one thing, apart from the exhausting grind and despair of trying to make ends meet on the dole, and the unhygienic conditions of slum housing, few women could afford proper food. Doctors were prescribing a healthy diet of milk, cheese, butter, eggs, liver, fresh fruit and vegetables during pregnancy, but how many women whose men were out of work could afford even the 4s a week required for two pints of milk a day, let alone all the other necessary With the supreme cynicism of middle-class do-gooders, the National Birthday Trust Fund carried out an experiment in 1935-1937. One group of 10,384 pregnant women were given special food at a cost of 13s 4d a week each. Another group of 18,854 women were just left to bear their babies as best they could on what they could afford.

The Fund found that the maternal mortality rate in the first group was 1.63 per 1,000 births. In the second group it was 6.15—nearly 1,200 women —who died, the vast majority because they could not buy sufficient food to keep them alive in pregnancy.

The establishment of the welfare state after World War II was no accident. Nor was it a generous gift from a conscious-striken ruling class.

It was the result of an enormous upsurge of working-class militancy and a firm determination never again to be subjected to the terrible, dark days of the past. The working class swept the Labour government to power demanding great changes. The employers, weakened by the war and terrified by the spectre of revolution which was stalking throughout Europe, reluctantly conceded.

The undersized, undernourished men and women reared in the 1920s and 1930s watched the new generations of post-war children grow up tall, strong and straight on the orange juice, cod liver oil, of the 1930s brought past generations, has higher in milk and school welfare state. It became the proud boast prosperous that one of the finest achievements of the 1945 Labour government was that everyone had the right to live as full, healthy and long a life as possible, regardless of their personal income.

But if the Tories were forced to accept the introduction of the welfare state in the 1940s, they have never ceased to hate it. They fought to limit the scope of the National Health Service and the Labour government, afraid of an all-out challenge to the capitalist class, agreed not to nationalize the highly-profitable drug industry and to retain the use of private practices and private hospital beds.

The Tories are today exploiting these loopholes to the limit in order to undermine ANNOUNCING...

mannes Leon Trotsky TEN BROKENY WRITANGS OF WRITINGS OF TROTSKY 180T5K0 Six volumes of Trotsky's writings during the years 1933-1940 £8.00 including postage Please tick those you require. Amount enclosed £ Name Addres asperation and misery, disea eappeared amongst schoolchi Complete form and post to:

New Park Publications. 186a Clanham High Street. London SW4 7UG the hea Spurr develop talist CI back t working of strug targets welfare tolerate in whic their ri attentio tribute Amoi present the pa: deprive milk an school Ministr distribu oil, a p D. to children ›opnvies lo uc cnilaren. to undermine At tr At the same time, rocketing e (1838-9)

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pidlycapiclaw L the prime s the annot lation im as edical : conprofits ›f the t was )n to f free ›st of ed the I-liver tamin young on prices and rents and frozen wages ensure that, once again, families are finding it impossible to provide varied and healthy diets for their children.

As the Birmingham report shows, the incidence of rickets among schoolchildren is becoming a major problem.

When the first 133' children with rickets came to their notice, the doctors started special vitamin D treatment. Within a short while improvements were shown, although some children took as long as six months before they were back to normal.

'Non-specific symptoms of lassitude, muscle weakness, aches and pains ; the report lieved by therapy, states, 'often in a sufficiently striking manner to be commented on by their teachers.' However, as the writers point out: 'The unexpected size of the problem compelled the follow-up to be limited. Thus only 133 ... were treated, being those that were seen earliest in the survev. Those → тт =3° AVUV seen later were not followedup or treated.' Behind the cold figures is the human suffering — 100 underweight children, their growth stunted, plagued with *lassitude, muscle weakness, aches and pains' who are receiving no treatment at all. And thousands more who have never even been diagnosed. Although some of the symptoms will clear up as the children reach adulthood, the twisted bones and lack of growth will be with them for life.

By robbing workers and their families of their right to a decent living standard and welfare benefits, the Tories are condemning thousands of people to disablement and an early death, just as surely as the gangster who maims and kills his victims.

By refusing to mobilize the working class to defend their rights and bring down the Tory government, the Labour and trade union leaders play the part of accomplices to the crime.

But the working class fighting back. In spite of sabotage of its leaders, it will not : allow itself to be driven back to the conditions of the past without an enormous Trotsky-a documentary Francis Wyndham and David King £1.65 including postage - 349

ПС BISUUII MIILLIU Edward Heath on his way to the 'Fanfare for Europe' Banquet. Above left: Por verty in Britain-soaring food prices put proper nutrition out of reach of millions of youngsters. The biscuit manufacturers, for example, mal ke record profits—and still put their prices up. AND ALEX MITCHELL The United Biscuit company this week announced record profits for the third year running and celebrated by asking for another round of price increases. blatant examples of deliberate Tory discrimination against the working class.

While wage increases are kept down to the pittance decreed by government, the big monopolists like UB all contribute to the incredible rise in food prices now tearing away at a rate of 28 per cent a year.

UB's shareholders rake in such fabulous wealth because the company holds a monopoly position in the industry -the firm claims more than half the £200m biscuit market in Britain and, with the other giant, Associated Biscuit Manufacturers, (Huntley and Palmer, Jacobs, and Peak Frean) controls well over two-thirds of biscuit output.

The ability to increase prices simply to maximize proproved packaging and got away from the round Englishstyle packs.' There is no disguising motive in this statement. UB was raising prices, exploiting its commanding position in the market to rake in more revenue.

The UB group was an amalgam of family firms with a rather lazy attitude to marketing and making money. But recent years have seen a drive group for £4m. One of the first moves after the take-over was a decision to close the South Shields plant, threatening several hundred workers with the dole in this area of high unemployment.

At the same time UB teamed up with the other confectionery giant J. Lyons to buy 50 per cent of Fox's Biscuits. The only big company standing in the way of total monopoly now is Assoworker gets just over £1,000 a year-this is less than managing director, Hector Laing, gets each week. In 1971, for example, Laing personally received £68,000 in dividends in addition to his salary (£12,000 plus) and was also trustee of trusts which received £302,000.

Other benefactors of UB include Lord Craigton who netted £13,000 a year as chairman in 1971. Craigton is Britain's big food monopolies enjoy the closest relations with the Tory government. Under the Phase Two laws these multi-million pound corporations have special privileges which don't extend to wage-earners.

Under the new laws, workers are forbidden wage increases other than the fl plus 4 per . cent laid down by Heath. If trade unions or their members fight for a decent ham, cakes and biscuits.

In other words, the 'freeze' on prices is a complete and utter Tory fraud. The code on prices has been blasted asunder by the profit-hungry food conglomerates.

The Tories have no intention of injuring their relaCOMPANY United Biscuits (record profit of £21m last year) tionship with the monopolies. They rely heavily on them for financial support. In this table, prepared by the Labour Research Department, we see that every single major food group is a substantial contributor to the Tory Party.

Out of a total of more than RECIPIENT British United Industrialists £63,000, £37,000 went to BUl, which is a fund-raising body for the Tory Party. The president of Tate & Tyle, Sir lan Lyle, is also president of the right-wing organization, Aims of Industry, and one of his directors, Mr M. D. Oliphant, is on the council of the Economic League.

AMOUNT While the Tories and their backers in the food industry £5,000 are accumulating record pro-