Dick Etheridge praises Feather

CEYLON the past year in Ceylon.

ing the Fourth International.

The necessity for an international perspective was firmly accepted by the conference, which saw its work in Ceylon as an integral part of the world struggle by the forces of the International Committee to rebuild the Fourth International as the centralized international leadership of the working class.

The youth conference hammered out perspectives for expanding its activities mass youth morement aba mass vouth movement adle to provide the forces for building the Ceylonese secat the supportThe fruits of Pabloism are seen in this liquidation of a promising revolutionary cadre which gathered round the LSSP(R) after the majority of the LSSP entered Mrs Bandaranaike's capitalist coalition government in 1964.

The assimilation of the lessons from this degeneration due to Pabloism was at the heart of all the work of the RCY.

The development of the Trotskyist forces in Ceylon is a sign that the upsurge of the international class struggle is laying the basis for building sections of the Fourth International in the colonial and semi-colonial countries to establish proletarian leaderDelegi resoli We complain of distortion Dear Sir, I wish to correct the factual inaccuracies and damaging insinuations made against the November 9 issue (Trotting Up The Workers', page 44).

Any mystery about the source of funds for the your own manufacture. The money was collected from members and supporters - of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists and readers of "The Newsletter'.

The fund was collected in a series of stages, the vast bulk of it at public meetings. The first stage, up to May 30, 1968, brought in €3,000. The fund collection was then halted while £1,000 was collected to send to our comrades in France.

The second stage, in which £12,000 was collected, culminated in a public meeting at Camden Town Hall on November 10, 1968, at which the collection brought the fund to over £14,000.

A further £1,000 was collected over the days follow123,00г. bringing the total to The next stage, which brought the fund to £25,216 188, was climaxed by a meeting in the Porchester Hall, London, at which £2,404 15s. was raised to complete & total of over 225,000. rumours about the source of the money.

Thousands of people who attended the rallies witnessed the money being collected. The entire campaign for the reported in "The Newsletter', forerunner of the Workers Press.

It is clear that an attempt is being made in collusion with members of the Communist Party-who dare not come out openly with their slanders—to discredit Trotskyism by means of vile insinuation.

The anonymous Communist Party members who are 'hinting darkly' that the money behind the paper comes from 'American millionaire Trotskylsts' must know this is a It is a lie in the worst tradition of Stalinist slanders against Trotskyism.

20-m On a par with your retailing of this unfounded Stalinist gossip—all of which could have been checked and found to be baseless-is your repetition of personal attacks on the Socialist Labour League leadership.

Your cheap gibes about "non-eates are guys ped open expression of liberal hostility, racialism, and hatred of Marxism.

You seem to be intent on proving you can stoop as low as the Stalinists in attacking Trotskyism and its press.

But you only prove you are politically as bankrupt as they are.

Even worse is your attempt to represent the Workers Press as 'anti-Soviet'. we surely have a right to expect even "The Observer to check its facts and assertions before retailing the latest Communist Party lies and gossip about our paper.

John Spencer, Assistant Editor.

Dear Mr Spencer, Thank you for your letter. I've discussed it with Pendennis: we can't find in his piece on the Workers Press the factual inaccuracies and damaging insinuations you mention. You seem to assign to Pendennis responsibility for remarks and opinions which he was simply reporting, correctly, as having been made by "resentful Communists'.

We thought this piece would provide some possibly useful publicity for paper as well produced aud MR DICK ETHERIDGE, Communist Party executive member, convenor of the Austin motor factory at Longbridge, Birmingham, and AEF delegate at the TUC, is perhaps best known for his private tea-time chat with Prime Minister Wilson during the car-workers' lobby of the Labour Party conference in 1966.

On that occasion, he announced that Wilson would do something for the car workers, and painted up his chat with which could without difficulty have been checked and found to be false.

If the publication of unsubstantiated, unfavourable and untrue • rumours is not damaging, then what is?

It is hard to see how the publication of your article "Trotting Up The Workers'— even the headline is snide and derogatory-could provide any 'possibly useful publicity' for the Workers Press.

On the other hand it seems perfectly • calculated to give the maximum • publicity to anonymous Stalinist liars.

In addition, the entire tone of the article, with references to our organization as 'anti-Soviet' and a 'splinter group', to our editor as 'nonwhite', , and to our National Secretary as 'an Irish tough guy' and 'a political skinhead' aimed to denigrate the Socialist • Labour League, its leadership and its daily paper.

There is absolutely no foundation in fact for your claim that some of the money from your Stalinist informants' mythical 'American millionaire Trotskyists' 'may find its way to Clapham'.

As I pointed out in detail in my, previous letter, the money for the daily paper was collected in the course of a public campaign, the vast bulk of it at public meetings.

This being the case, it is a highly damaging insinuation to imply that some of it may come from 'American millionaires' of whatever political Wilson as a major victory.

Three years later, Etheridge is still following out the same opportunist line, this time providing a cover for the manoeuvrings which took place at the TUC Congress in October.

This month's issue of the AEF journal features his article on this year's Congress, which, Etheridge writes, was 'victory all the way' for the AEF.

The TUC Congress, it will be remembered, set the seal on the class-collaboration policies worked out by the Croydon conference of trade union executives in June.

NO COMMENT The article, of course, makes no comment on the rotten character of the compromise arrived at during that meeting, where it was decided that the TUC would police the unions against unofficial strikers.

Etheridge instead states 'We unanimously elected a new general secretary, Bro. Vic Feather, and there was a teeling of confidence at the meeting that with a new secretary and new policies, the TUC was a force that no government could afford to ignore.

The AEF, says Etheridge, 'played an honourable and positive role' in this.

WARNING

Etheridge's open admission of support for the 'new policies' of the TUC and for general secretary Feather should be a warning to all car workers.

The Communist Party, which Etheridge represents, is more with Wilson and the TUC against the working class.

No real defence of the unions can be expected from those who support Feather and the TUC's strike-breaking agreement with Wilson.

There is little doubt that he is speaking on behalf of Gollan, Ramelson and company. defends By a Workers Prese corresooncen MR HUGH SCANLON, president of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundryworkers, speaking at a Warwick University meeting Thursday night, said: "The antagonism between capital and labour is irreconcilable. However in the [Second World] war the unions voluntarily harnessed themselves to the state and had a no-strike pledge im order to fight fascism. This was right. I broke more strikes then than I ever made in that period.' Following this clear, open admission, Scanlon vigorously defended his role in helping to vote in the TUC plan of action on strikes against union members who criticized him. "The unions voluntarily gave this power to the TUC. It was either the TUC plan or penal legislation,' he said. Dismissing the fact that a general strike would bave stopped those penal laws and the TUC sell-out Scanlon said : "I'm not going to be a general without an army, even though 250,000 workers struck unofficially on May Scanion finished up by pleadfor new procedures in engineering and company agreements with shop stewards having full. responsibility for these and for carrying them out.

STRIKERS IY PRESS ATTACKS aid of the local newspapers and TV, has been conducting a campaign against the strikers, deliberately distorting their demands.

The men are claiming parity with the Bristol area, which would involve a 4s. an hour Some of the lower paid workers go home with as little as £9 10s for 40 hours work. Operators take home a basic £12 plus bonus which • does not average more than 30s a week for 40 hours.

Across the board

D. Ferguson, chairman of Centrax committee stated:

"The strike is for this substantial interim wage increase right across the board. strikers are not prepared to accept or discuss any productivity deal until these increases have been paid.' He went on to point out that the claim that workers were earning £19 10s per week, as reported in the local press, was an 'absolutely ludicrous and fictitious figure - wage slips in our possession can confirm that their claim is a deliberate lie.

The tactics of the Centrax bosses make it clear that they will not yield without a fight.

They have resorted to every means at their disposal to isolate and break the strike.

Workers allege executives have been working machines and company cars have been used to convey material. individual Letters have beel offering' sent to as one worker put it, 'a miserable increase of wages tied to productivity deals'.

The workers reacted angrily to this underhanded deal by burning the letters at the factory gates.

The usual spate of venomous bourgeois insults were directed against the strikers by the press and television.

Extend greetings

Dave Ferguson, on behalf of the strike committee stated that they would like to extend their greetings to the Workers Press for its support of the strike.

I see the Workers Press as he one paper fighting on behalf of the working class, he said.

The workers on strike at these three factories see this fight as a crucial one — one which they have to win.

'We believe we are in the vanguard to eradicate low wages in the West,' commented one picket.