Decimal price rise will slash

THE OPENING of the £1,250,000 propaganda whitewash campaign for decimal currency is little more than a Tory confidence trick. Petrol rise rounded up' SHELL and BP petrol costs 2d The trend is clear for all to • gallon more from today- see. the third rise this year!... A company spokesman sadd "it would be prudent to expect The do Therease so more rises!' The Shell and BP move covers all grades of petrol, An increase in the price of fuel ass oil, burning oils and sure indication mot ial don Total kesmen usually quick eating into the value of wages. follow a competitor's price rise Last summer most garages -said the situation would be added Id to a gallon and considered and a statement repeated this only last month. made later. 1 There can be no doubt that D-Day - Monday, February 15, 1971—will be the signal for general price rises, coupled with an all-out effort by employers to 'round down' hourly wage rates.

As expected, the Tories, and the Wilson government before them, have done all in their power to keep the working class ignorant about the real nature of their The employers have received a continuous stream of material from the Decimal Currency Board to prepare them for changeover and to encourage them to take advantage of these measures to accelerate rationalization and productivity schemes.

'Soft soap'

For millions of workers who are already facing the increasing onslaught on their living standards there is to be six weeks of propaganda 'soft soap' to convince them that all is well.

Nothing is further from the truth.

There is an ominous absence of all but a passing mention in the DCB's lavish campaign material of the two vital issues of prices and wages.

Yesterday's newspaper reports on Tuesday's DCB DCB chairman Lord Fiske washes hands press conference maintain this silence.

Only 'The Guardian' even suggested that 'there are fears that the move will be exploited to mark up prices unduly'.

The Tory plan is clear.

The government is throwing aside even the thinnest façade of keeping a watch on prices.

While DCB chairman Lord Fiske washes his hands of the whole affair, the Tories are closing down both the Prices and Incomes Board and the Consumer Council.

In other words, the monopolists are to be given their head and the working class is to be subjected to an attack on their wage packets, by way of steep price rises.

Yet there has been not Free Burgos 16!

Black Spanish trade! - YS YOUNG Socialists were joined by Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish exiles on Tuesday night when they braved snow, sleet and slush to march on the Spanish embassy in London demanding the release of the 16 Basque revolutionaries held in Burgos jail.

Headed by the Socialist Labour Léague banner demanding the release of the icians in Spain had become Burgos 16 and no recognition intolerable. of the Franco regime, demon- "The oppression we have to Strators on the march to the embassy shouted demands for social, he said. the freeing of the 16 and the blacking of Spanish trade.

As the march swung into order to use violent revoluBelgrave Square, marchers tionary means to fight Franco. sang "The Internationale' as they joined pickets who have Repression maintained a continuous vigil outside the embassy since the Exceptionally harsh repressentences were announced. sion from the fascists had folDespite the bad weather chief Meliton Manzanas, whose 200 people attended a meeting execution by ETA had been in the Conway Hall which greeted with joy throughout launched the march on the the Basque country. embassy. "These six death sentences The meeting, fixed at a few are the culmination of this hour's notice, heard Young repression,' he told the meetSocialists' national secretary ing. The trial was illegal, the John Simmance, Workers' defendants were tortured, Press editor Mike Banda and handcuffed throughout the Inaki Behotegi, representing trial and their ears plugged ETA (the Basque nationalist so they could not take part in organization). the proceedings.

Determination sparked a general strike all John Simmance emphasized people have shown us what the revolutionary determina- they think about this trial, tion of the six young revolu- Behotegi said. tionaries condemned to death in Burgos. • PAGE FOUR COL. 6 Their courageous statement from jail voiced the determination of Spanish youth and youth all over the world to fight to the end against impérialism, he said.

'These death sentences are part of the world oftensive of ımperialism against the rights of the working class,' he said.

He recalled the cases of Angela Davis, threatened with the gas chamber in California, the imprisonment of Geismar in France, and the execution of Tran van Dong in Vietnam.

Stressing the need to fight the Tory government in cipal Workers. Britain, he said that Heath's election victory in June had strengthened Franco.

'Our task in Britain is to fight to force the Tory government to resign. This is the best assistance we can render the Spanish workers.' Inakj Behotegi pointed out that since Franco's victory in Press yesterday. the Civil War, the position of national minorities like Basques, Catalans and Gal### FINAL TOTAL WE FINISHED up with almost £174 over the target. Never before has there been such a tremendous campaign for our monthly f1,250 fund.

This is the best answer we can give to all those like Ramelson of the Communist Party who tried to slander the Each month the response to our appeals gets better. This makes us even more determined to continue to speak out and tell the truth to the working class. It is the only way, politically to prepare hundreds of thousands workers for the class battles In two days time, we are aiming to complete our special fund the wrapping machine. We need every donation that can be raised. Send yours as soon as possible to:

186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. resolution admitting 'wrong'. mittee will not go.

murky episode, which has shaken the AEF on both sides of the Pennines, and they will certainly not attempt to discipline district secretary and mambar in eating the leading Party his part in pay-off.

issues of principle in foliod, Alliance lost no time in sup. orting Devey's expose events a Satchelor's-with our repor of December 24—for the same reason.

sed by Come members sympathizer indicates that it is they who action to cover what has bed retreats in the citys industrial accepted a £3,000 cash pay-off.

At their latest meeting on Tuesday, the Sheffield district committee of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundryworkers passed a one man voted against the "mistakes were made and that whitewash resolution-and he was not a Party member.

Devey settlement was Feeling in the Sheffield Communist Party is that their But beyond this the com- 'dirty linen should not washed in public', and the They want to bury this least said the better, hence the tight-lipped silence from those members who played a leading role in the Devey Yet despite all the recriminations and counterrecriminations, the facts of the case are a clear and damning indictment of all the Because of the important forces involved.

In October, Terry Devey, then a leading CP member and a convenor at Batchelor's Foods, Sheffield, was fired for holding a meeting with outside contractors which extended into working hours.

An official seven-week strike for his reinstatement began and factories in the Sheffield area were levied to support the Batchelor's men.

After weeks of deadlock AEF district secretary George Caborn made an approach to the Leeds office of the Department of Employment to conciliate in the dispute.

This was early in the week At Tuesday's meeting, only beginnhin Seven days, a pro:

Posed settlement had been worked out between the

in the Pilkington dispute, had it been in existence. "They would have been up there helping out, said the spokesman.

He thought that the Pilkington experience had been one of the factors influencing the union hierarchy to set up the team.

This will operate under the jurisdiction of national officer David Basnett, and its members will have the status of regular union Besides warning that this team could become mere policemen for the union leaders, the St Helens rank-and-file committee fear G&MWU officials may be trying to 'work a flanker' on their fight for reinstatement.

The committee has said they are prepared to resume their G&MWU membership if the union will fight their case.

But in informal contacts with the committee's solicitor, officials have implied that this decision will rest with the union's six St Helens branches, and that these may be reluctant to come to terms.

Committee chairman Gerry Caughey stressed yesterday that it is still vital for pressure to be kept up on union executives to demand that the. G&MWU win the sacked men's jobs back.