TORY STRATEGY

The Tories fident as hands. In Credit system in grave Journalist tried in secret by Rhodesian regime IE MORE the trade union leaders grovel and retreat, the more arrogant and aggressive the Tory government becomes. Last weekend, premier Edward Heath held talks at Chequers with Conservative Party chiefs including Lord Carrington (chairman), James Prior (deputy chairman) and senior officials from Central Office. lis was not a 'routine' meeting, as the Press hand-out claimed, but a top-level discussion on Tory election strategy, including preparations for a possible snap election under conditions where the working class is left confused and divided by its leaders.

become more and more these leaders play the last few days: • The ASLEF leaders have bowed British Railways lock-out threat called off the locomen's action. • The General and Municipal Workers' Union, after weeks of militant action by its members in the gas industry, has imposed a ballot on accepting a pay offer within the government's state pay law limits of fl a week plus 4 per cent. With 'dirty floats' against the dollar WITH ALMOST all currencies floating either separately or together against the United States dollar there is now. grave danger of a collapse of international credit.

This could centre on the Euro - currency market which has mushroomed over the last 15 years from a size of $1,000m to almost 100 times as much.

This market is the source of the bulk of the funds required for the continued conduct of international commerce and its operations have been upset by the disruption of currency relations.

THE trial of Peter Niesewand, a Rhodesian journalist accused of contravening the Smith regime's Official Secrets Act, began yesterday - behind closed doors.

Defence counsel made an unsuccessful last-minute effort to persuade magistrate J. E. I. Hamilton to amend an earlier order that the trial be held in camera.

Journalists representing local and international organizations were cleared from the court.

WIFE EJECTED

Also ejected were the 28-yearold journalist's pregnant wife, Nonie, and his sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Warden.

Precisely what. Mr. Niesewand is alleged to have done is not known, but Mr. Brendan Treacy, Director of Public Prosecutions, told a court hearing earlier this month that he was charged under a section of the Act concerning the publication of information 'calculated to be, or which might be, useful - directly or indirectly-to any enemy'.

The accused man faces danger of collapse And the hospital workers have been left isolated and exposed to the danger of defeat, just as the Post Office workers were in 1971. lis means that under cover of whining appeals to the government to relax its pay laws in favour of the hospital workers, the union leaders are in reality pressurizing the entire working class into accepting Phase Two of those laws. gures issued yesterday from the London School of Economics prove that under Phase Iwo. wage increases will fall rapidly behind rises in the cost of living for thousands of families. Large sections of the trade unions' membership will be driven into impoverishment. con- lis is what the Tories want to see. They their are standing firm on their state pay laws and no extra money will be forthcoming for any section of the working class unless this government is defeated and and brought down. 1 the contrary, the government and its agencies are consciously staging provocations against workers with the deliberate intention of preparing a General Strike on the terms most favourable to them. et TUC general secretary It was the decision of Euro-dollar holders to move into what they consider safer currencies, notably yen and marks, that forced the closure of the exchanges on March 2.

Two weeks of international haggling have resulted in agreement to float all the major currencies against the dollar. Sterling, the yen and the Italian lira will float_ alone, but six of the nine ECC currencies will float together.

Now the crisis is thrown back into the Euro-dollar market, which is showing all the signs of building-up towards a crash.

BY OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT alternative charges under the 1970 Act. The first provides for a penalty of up to 25 years' imprisonment without the option of a fine, and the second for a maximum fine of $20,000 (about £11,000) or up to 20 years' imprisonment, or both.

Outside the court, Mrs.

Niesewand said the conditions of her husband's confinement were much more stringent in Salisbury than they had been in Gwelo jail where he was first held after being detained under Rhodesia's A • REPRESENTATIVE of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has said that the killing of three western diplomats in Khartoum this month 'had nothing to do with the Palestine Liberation Organization or other Palestinian groups'. Mr. Gamal Sourani, PLO's representative in Cairo, said on arrival in Khartoum that the attack on the Saudi Arabian Embassy, during which the diplomats were killed, was carried out by individuals working on their own. Sourani is in Khartoum on behalf of the Arab League for talks with Sudanese government leaders.

Victor Feather The float will affect this market particularly • because it is here the the big multinational firms raise their funds.

This market is completely beyond the control of the various national governments and what is more it has "lender of last resort"S standing behind the banks that take part in it.

A 'lender of last resort' is someone who will step in to prevent a collapse in the event of a firm being unable to cover its short-term debts.

Many firms on the dollar market have borrowing short-term Eurobeen and Emergency Regulations last February 20.

She said he was in a small cell with a tiny barbed wire enclosed quadrangle for exercise. He had to do his own laundry and apart from the warders and a total of one hour visiting time a week, he had no contact with anybody else.

Mr. Niesewand is the second journalist to be tried under the Official Secrets Act since Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. Spanish police step up repression SPANISH police have arrested 15 members of the Basque nationalist army, ETA, in the Northern province of Guipuzcoa.

They also claim to have shot leading ETA activist, Eustaquio Mendizabal, near a road-block in Zumarraga.

Immediately, the Civil Guard began a wide struggle for Mendizabal who is accused of participating in the kidnapping of industrialist Felipe Huarte. pleads with Heath for an independent public inquiry' into hospital workers' pay. Their industrial action, according to him, was not launched in order to defeat the government and win their £4 claim, but merely "to draw attention to the merits of their case'. le Tories have nothing but contempt for such requests. Secretary of State for the Social Services Sir Keith Joseph, has made it clear that the only 'inquiry' he will accept is consideration by the government's corporatist-style state Pay Board. it Mr Bernard Dix, national officer for the National Union of Public Employees, says the union is 'well satisfied' with the help given by the TUC. And the Communist Party's 'Morning Star' yesterday carried Feather's appeal under the head. line 'Backing Grows for Hospital le truth is that while there is enormous support among the working class for these low-paid men and women, the TUC has given them no help or backing whatsoever. And this increases the Tories' determination to force a showdown. They aim to isolate groups of workers like the ancillary workers or the gasmen and impose Phase Two of lending the proceeds for long periods, exposing themselves to this danger.

One failure could have widespread repercussion because of the close links between banks in the Eurocurrency markets.

A new type of bank called the 'multi-national consortium bank' has sprung up to deal with Eurocurrency requirements.

The large number of these banks and the close links between them could • well spread the effects of a single failure throughout the banking world, above all in the United States where the leading banks are deeply involved in the Eurocurrency market.

Conspiracy:

Not guilty FOUR AFRICANS and two whites pleaded not guilty in Pretoria yesterday on charges of conspiring to incite violent revolution in South Africa. The six are alleged to have planned to bring arms, ammunition and explosives secretly into the country as well as to train guerrillas. The conspiracy is alleged to have had its origins in the Soviet Union, Britain and Somalia as well as South Africa. The accused, charged under the Terrorism Act, are Alexandre Moumbaris (34), a naturalized Australian born Egypt of Greek-French parentage, Dublin-born John William Hosey (23), Theophilus Cholo (45), and Gardener Sijaka (30), both of the Transkei, Justice Mpanza (34) and Petrus Mtembu (37), both of Natal.

Whilst those youth who have followed the policies of Mao in the Basque movement are imprisoned and persecuted, the fascist newspapers and politicians have been congratulating themselves on the diplomatic relations established between Peking and Madrid.

Don Fernando Herrero Tejedor, chief prosecutor in the Supreme Court, stated: In questions of international relations, realism is always necessary. I support rewhites. They demanded:

• No new investment.

African workers. their state pay laws on them. lis would not only throw back the working class, it would also swing sections of the middle class-who could be won for the unions by a real fight-firmly behind Heath and create the conditions for a Tory victory in a snap election. The Tories would then claim a mandate for an intensification of their ruthless attack on workers' living standards and basic rights.

I those reformists, CP Stalinists and revisionists who refuse to raise the question of a political leadership to bring down the Tory government now expose the working class to grave dangers. Isolated, piece-meal actions and futile one-day protest strikes merely dissipate workers' energies and help the Tories. le Conservative government can be defeated-but only by a struggle to make the union leaders call a General Strike to create the political and industrial conditions for forcing the Tories to resign. This involves the construction of a revolutionary leadership.

We urge all those in struggle against the Tories to join with us in the historic task of transforming the Socialist Labour League into the revolutionary party.

lations with maintein ine provided we syalim: of our own political Don Antonio Garcia-Trevijano Forte, a lawyer, was especially delighted: I think it's very good, I am in favour of understanding and good relations with all countries because that is good for peace and world expansion' Forte has been invited to Peking to be decorated by Prince Norodom Sihanouk with the Royal Khmer Order.