'Dumping' protests as trade war hots up

JAPANESE big is under heavy pressure to curb its exports as Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka prepares for his summit meeting with President Nixon in lulu this week.

A procession of American envoys demanding trade concessions from Tokyo have prepared the way for the meeting between the two leaders, which is expected to centre on US demands for Japan to accept 'emergency imports' of US goods.

Willam Eberle, the Us chief trade negotiator, has warned that protectionist measures will be WESTERN Communist Parties which criticized the recent purge trials in Czechoslovakia were accused of falling for 'the old Goebbels propaganda' by Party chief Gustav Husak at the weekend.

isak denied that any of the 46 opponents of the Soviet occupation imprisoned in the trials were tried for the views they held in 1968 or 1969 or the posts they held at that time.

'e have declared on hundreds of occasions that not a single hair will be disturbed on the heads of those who respect the laws of the state, but we also stressed on all available occasions that we will not tolerate any disruption of the socialist state,' he said in Bratislava.

Referring to the muted criticisms voiced by the Italian, French and British CPs, Husak said: 'Unfortunately the bourgeois anti-communist campaign against socialist Czechoslovakia was also assisted by certain representatives of progressive forces in the West, surprisingly indifferent to objective information about Czechoslovakia. •We do not conceal that we are sorry about it... The position I have mentioned cannot be helpful to our common class position,' he said.

He said these 'progressive forces' had added their voices to 'the slanders against Czechoslovakia' though 'the recent bourgeois campaign against our country abounded in obvious lies and fabrication which were fully in tune with the old Goebbels propaganda...' British Steel may invest in apartheid THE British Steel Corporation, which recently announced 10,000 redundancies at its factories in this country, is planning to establish a vast new plant in South Africa.

Planned in conjunction with the German firms August Thyssen and Kloeckner, the factory has already been discussed in detail with Iscor, the South African Iron and Steel Corporation.

The chosen site is on the coast 75 miles north of Cape Town, at Saldanha. The likely cost of the taken both in America an 1 in Europe unless Japan takes ‹ irastic steps to abolish its 1 rade surplus.

The planned 'emergency imports', which Japan does not really want, would bring the surplus below $3,000m. But this is unlikely to satisfy American demands.

In addition they will do nothing to stem the rising tide of protests from the Common Market countries against Japanese 'dumping' of electronic products.

Last week the British manufacturers joined a chorus of protest from Germany and the Benelux countries against the rapid growth of Japan's exports in competition with their own products.

The chauvinist agitation against these imports is beginning to penetrate into the columns of the press, where there are now articles calling for protection against the 'yellow peril'.

All this is reminiscent of the trade war of the 1930s, and with their usual lack of principle the Husak's speech indicates the extreme crisis of the Czechoslovak Stalinists, who cannot tolerate even the mildest criticism of their repressions.

also demonstrates clearly the criminal character of the Communist Parties' silence about Husak the past purges and repressions in both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

The Moscow Trials of the 1930s and the Slansky frame-up of 1952 prepared the way for the current purge Czechoslovakia. The British Communist Party leaders fully supported these Stalinist crimes.

le Czechoslovak leaders' hysterical response to their mild criticism of the present trials shows just how important the British CP's support was to the Stalinists in carrying out their crimes of the past. project to the BSC is estimated ạt £500m.

Producing up to 15 million tons of semi-finished steel products a year, the South Alrican factory would be a substitute for planned new investment in Britain to replace plants now scheduled for closure.

In particular it would mean the end of plans for a new factory in Scotland, an area of high unemployment.

The South African plant would operate with cheap African labour working under the regime's repressive apartheid laws.

These ban trade unions and outlaw strikes. For Thyssen's, of reformist trade union leaders intervening on the side of their 'own' exploiters.

This is evident from the tone of several resolutions on TUC agenda for this year's congress.

The National Union of Footwear, Leather and Allied Trades, for example, calls openly on the Tories to institute a quota protection system to curb imports of manufactured goods such • as footwear, clothing and electrical components.

There are similar resolutions on the agenda from the electricians and the tailoring and garment workers.

These resolutions will doubtless be grist to the Tory mill at a time when Edward Heath is planning to visit Tokyo to put his own trading demands to the Tanaka government.

Trade unionists must resist this nationalist propaganda, which is aimed at turning British workers against their brothers in other countries.

Unless this is fought the British capitalists will use such chauvinist sentiment as another excuse for cutting wages and worsening conditions at home.

Mass trial of Turkish teachers THE prosecutor has demanded jail sentences of up to 20 years in a trial of 144 teachers before military court in Ankara, Turkey.

The teachers are accused of the Turkish Teachers belongine Union, described in the indictment as an underground organization aimed at overthrowing the constitution.

They are also charged with circulating communist propaganda and attempting to promote class struggle.

Among the accused is prominent novelist Fair Baykurt, president of the union.

The prosecution has demanded 20 years for him and the same term for Dursun Akcam, the union's vice-president, also a noted writer, and 28 others.

The union was banned shortly after he Milkey in pril ast seized year.

The prosecutor also demanded 16 years' jail for 104 of the defendants and five to 16 years for the rest. He asked for six of the 144 to be acquitted.

CORRECTION

In Friday's Workers Press we quoted Ginger Pearce, EPTU branch president and a Southampton Trades Council delegate, about the financial situation at the Vosper Thornycroft shipyard. He was quoted as saying the yard had flem worth of orders. This should have read £130m worth of course, this will be no new experience. Much of the company's wealth was accumulated by the use of slave labour under Hitler.

The BSC's plans are a further indication of what the Common Market will mean for the British working class. The plans for this enormous investment must have the backing of the Tory government, which will be expected to put up much of the money.

Not only will this bolster the racialist South African recime it will also mean capital being stripped from Britain for the purposes of exploiting cheap labour overseas while the dole queues lengthen at home. MEMBERS of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists picketed the Cameo cinema, Edinburgh, on Saturday at the first public screening of Joseph Losey's new film "The Assassination of Trotsky'.

The film, which goes on general release in October, being shown in conjunction with the Edinburgh Festival.

Losey attended Saturday's premiere and became somewhat agitated by the leaflets, which were enthusiastically taken and read by the cinema-goers.

Before the screening began he told the audience that whoever wrote the leaflet hadn't seen the film. This is untrue.

Reviewers from Workers Press were present at a special EMI press preview in London three weeks ago. It was then decided that a picket should be staged at the festival to expose the Stalinist-inspired distortions and inaccuracies of Losey. appear special It has Worke Roy B SCRIALIST LABCUR T LEAGUE LOSEY S FILM!

DISTORTION OF HISTORY The leaflet, entitled "The Second Assassination of Trotsky', demonstrates how Losey has consciously or otherwise sought to demean Trotsky's lifelong struggle on behalf of the international proletariat.

The film ignores his fight to build the Fourth International and; incredibly, tries to suggest that the assassın is not a GPU agent but simply some sort of adventurist psychopath.

Losey told the audience he was prepared to discuss the film with his critics after the showing. But when the film ended an announcement was made that he had to return to London on urgent business.

review of the film will in Workers Press as a feature later this week. been specially written for 's Press by film • director ttersby.