Witch-hunting December 8

IN DEFIANCE of a Unionist ban on marches nearly 2,000 people took part in the Civil Rights demonstrations on Saturday at Enniskillen, Ulster. The march was led by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) executive which includes Frank McMannus, Appeal Fund rises to E1,164 8s 9d AGAIN and again, se to all magnificent response Saturday's post €166 giving us only left to raise with one day still to We are confident that will not only complete it today but 80. right over the top.

Taken in conjunction with the most successou mas lazzaar im ost historv this support shows us the tremendous feeling in the working class to fight the Ne must keep it ul however, were also forced whatever an and lei -make it total et! Post your donation to:

Workers Prec Appeal Fund, 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4.

Bill.

MP for Fermanagh and S Tyrone.

They were stopped short of the high street by a thick cordon of the 'Sunday Express'. the RUC (below).

At the centre of town, the Diamond, 300 yards farther on, a Paisleyite mob was gathered chanting church and state hymns.

London branches of the Irish Solidarity Campaign claimed Scrubs' prisoner Pat tence for arms charges. FLEET ST press lords yesterday backed up their legal bid to stop printers striking on December 8 with a witch-hunting attack on its Most Sunday newspapers, strikes, the paper claimed to report the cause of their that government security fright: latest estimates that men have now established that militant extremists are moving over a million workers may around the country from one take part in the stoppage industrial site to another in an attempt to whip up supagainst the Tories' forth- port for the nationwide onecoming Industrial Relations day strike.

Where the 'Express' was vague and menacing - but Stepped-up police activity in completely lacking in anything the unions was reported by that might conceivably be described as hard news—the Under the flimsy and almost 'Sunday Telegraph' got down totally misleading headline to cases. 'Go-anywhere men whip up 'A trousle-haired London shipyard worker who sacked from Ford's Dagenham factory a Communist troublemaker seven years ago threatens to cripple Britain on December 8 in protest against what his party calls the government's "unionbashing" proposals, it said.

Identifying Liaison Committee for the Defence Trade Unions chairman Kevin Halpin as the 'chief organizer of the "action day" strike', the paper went on to produce the ancient nerring by now rather smelly, red that the Institute of Workers' Control -'Halpin is linked with the IWC'-was accused by a pits' union leader earlier this month 'of whipping up strike fever among mineworkers'.

CONTEMPTIBLE Both these attacks are equally contemptible.

As yet, it is neither illegal nor even remarkable if supporters of the December 8 stoppage seek support for it amongst other sections of Supporters of the Liaison Committee, the All Trades Unions Alliance and any other bodies have every right to do SO.

However the 'Express' report attempts to whip up support among the paper's predominantly middle - class readership the Tories taking this right away.

Equally disturbing is its confirmation that the machinery of police-state surveillance is already in operation against the working class.

mething for everyone at the GIANT XMAS BAZAAR Saturday December Corn Exchange Leeds DOORS OPEN AT laddin and But big as it undoubtedly will be, the December 8 stoppage can remain a safety-valve protest unless its main aim is forcing the union leaders to mobilize the entire working-class movement in action to ALL TRADES UNIONS ALLIANCE

Speaker: G. HEALY

(National Secretary of SLL)

ALL TRADES MEETINGS Discuss the proposed draft of the Charter of Basic Rights ACTON: Acton co-op Hall, Acton 8 p.m. Acton High Street.

COVENTRY: Monday Shakespeare. Spon SireeD.™. The SW LONDON: Tuesday, December 8 p.m. Princes Head, Falcon ABERDEEN: Tuesday, December 1 and Tuesday, December 15, 8 p.m. Music Hall.

OXFORD: December 2, 8 p.m. The he small Hall. Blackbird Leys Community Centre. Speaker: J. Healy, National Secretary Socialist Labour League. Chairman: Alan Thornett.

NOTTINGHAM: Thursday Decem7.30 p.m. Roebuck pub. Mansfield Rd.

BRISTOL: Friday, December 4, 8 p.m. ' Old England pub, off Cheltenham Rd.

LATE NEWS NATO 'STABILITY' Further reductions in NATO troop strength could set off a process that could destroy. the whole fabric of stability in Europe, General Andrew Goodpaster, NATO supreme commander, claimed in Washington yesterday.

POST OFFICE 'NEEDS COMMERCIAL METHODS' The post office could keep its charges down and become more profitable, if it applied strictly commercial methods in its organization and posting, concludes a report, 'the postal service, competition or monopoly, published today by the Institute of Economic Affairs (price 9s).

The report goes on to say that the proposed postal increases cannot be justified by international comparisons.

'The percentage increase over the 1966 rate will be larger in the United Kingdom force the resignation of Tory government.

The Communist Party is hostile to this demand.

But growing support for it in the trade unions is forcing the Party to produce something looking just a little bit like it, in order to confuse some sections of workers.

CP industrial organizer Bert Ramelson, writing in Saturday's 'Morning Star', , said that 'the growing support for the December 8 stoppage ... Will demonstrate to General Council and national executives that the workers will respond . to any action they call, including a call for a General Strike, which may well be the only way to kill Carr's Bill'.

This is a completely bogus policy.

It attempts to meet halfway inner-Party criticisms of its Stalinist refusal to fight the TUC and Labour traitors, while at the same time holding out the hope that if workers keep very quiet and stay very obedient their official leaders 'may well' think about doing something.

than in France, Denmark and Sweden. In Federal Germany the rate has remained constant.' WARNING OVER 'POLY' FINANCES Britain's 26 new Polytechnics will be handicapped beyond all reason if any attempt is made to finance them in the same way as the universities, an educationist warns today.

Mr Tyrell Burgess, of the NE London Polytechnic, writing in the educational journal 'Education and Training', says that the universities are increasingly coming to wonder whether the government-financed grants committee principal is still the best way of combining public support with academic freedom.

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