SILENCE IS GOLDEN

Priests who found that life in the ministry was a little too much to stomach have received a rude shock. Many holy men in France decided to get out of the church and make their way in the wide outdoors. The bishops were sceptical of the move and they have been proved right.

After a year outside the church the bishops have been flooded with requests from priests who want to return to the flock.

'After a year in the world, commented one Catholic paper, 'many have once again returned to their priestly duties enriched by the break and with a deepened understanding of their ministerial role.' Women's Lib in Chile from TORY PRESS If one thing brings out all the class venom of the employers, it is a political strike by print workers.

At one moment, the newspaper bosses are happily turning off millions of copies, which universally picture trade unionists as a band of cut-throat thieves.

Nothing would seem capable of disturbing the mechanism. The propaganda machine which spits out bourgeois maxims each day looks well oiled.

Yet this week-when the engineers walked out —saw the sixth political strike by printworkers in London since the Tory government came to power in June 1970.

On all these occasions hundreds of thousandssometimes millions—of workers have staged strikes against the Industrial Relations Act, for the freeing of the Pentonville Five, or in defence of the engineers' union.

Each time the newspaper bosses, the tew tamilies who control the industry, have been unable to print a single word against the strikers. Their mouths have been silenced.

It is a measure of the maturity of the political situation that printworkers have broken through the myth of the 'freedom of the Press' so beloved of Tory ideologies. It has been rightly seen as the freedom to pillory the working class when the occasion demanded.

Only one week before the 1970 General Election, the printers gave the Tories a taste of what was to come when they staged a national strike in support of a pay claim.

Leaders of all major AS YOUR political parties condemned the strikers for interfering in the 'normal democratic processes'.

When the Tories were elected, they lost no time in setting their plans to 'change the course of history, as Heath put it. The Industrial Relations Bill was quickly published.

Just as rapidly the first strikes against the Tory government were launched. On December 8, 1970, well over 500,000 workers struck in protest against the Bill.

'Go-anywhere men whip up strikes,' screamed the 'Sunday Express' just before the stopThe High Court awarded the employers an injunction against SOGAT (Division A).

Well, the printworkers weren't 'go-anywhere' men. In fact, they never went into work at all and Fleet Street presses fell silent on December 8.

Of course, the Beaverbrookowned London 'Evening Standard' was hit twice. During the powermen's work-to-rule the same month, that notorious anti-trade union cartoonist, Jak, chose to depict the powermen as heartless murderers.

Printworkers immediately held up production of this provocatively reactionary cartoon. And only when they were allowed to print a statement alongside, explaining their objections to Jak's effort, did the presses roll.

The 'Observer' found the whole thing 'ominous' and wrote: "The freedom of the Press consists in the freedom to publish despite anybody's objections' Well, they were quite free, but just unable to carry their concepts into practice.

The introduction of Robert 'Securicor' Carr's Industrial Relations Bill into the House of Commons was met with a further unofficial one-day strike on January 12, 1971. Many editions of the Tory Press were lost as printers staged walkouts and meetings all over the country.

In under two months the newspapers were hit by another wave of political strikes. This time the engineers organized their two one-day, official strikes against the anti-union Bill on March 1 and March 18.

They were the biggest poliBUY A BOOK FOR XMAS LEON TROTSHY Leon Tratsky URTINGS D Writings of 52852-38 (1938-9)

WRITINGS OF WRITINGS OF TEOP LEON TROTSKY: TROTEKY Six volumes of Trotsky's writings during £8.00 includes postage Please tick those Name Address Completi Complete torm and post to: New Par vou require.

ons, 30/5672 EXPRES # NATSOPA FiEttes on rieet street. the second occasion well over 2 million workers-since the 1926 General Strike. On March 1, 1,000 Fleet Street engineers stopped.

And on March 18, the Newspaper Publishers' Association's attempts to get dispensation from the strike was turned down by the executive council of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers.

By this time the newspaper magnates were losing their cool a little and threatening sackings all round if political stoppages continued to hit the 'To be bullied or cajoled into destructive, wildcat and often sterile protest is the prerogative of mindless sheep,' Hugh Cudlipp, chairman of International Publishing Corporation, told a conference of circulation executives.

Over a year passed before the longest stoppage to date took place. Only hours after the dockers were jailed by the National Industrial Relations Court on July 21, printworkers throughout Fleet Street were locked in chapel meetings.

On the Saturday, outside Pentonville, there were many rumours that the presses were to stop the same evening. But no one was quite sure. Then the 'Sunday Mirror' printers suddenly arrived at the prison gate, led by the NATSOPA banner. The newspapers had indeed stopped.

The nationals did not publish in the main until Friday morning, despite the fact that the dockers were released on the Wednesday evening. There was much talk about lock-outs, but the employers once more lost their nerve when the crunch came.

Then this week the engineers in Fleeț Street struck again in response to the call from their executive council to defend their union against the Industrial Relations Act and against the fines imposed by Sir John Donaldson's court.

History of Russian Revolution —special gift pack of three volumes £1.70 includes postage Amount enclosed f :01 LI MIRROR MIRROR UNTY IS STRENGIHI "The Times' , that bastion British capitalism, upholder all that is right and proper our society, felt it had devote its second editorial the engineers' strike.

The Press owners have reason to be concerned. The strikes by Fleet Street workers reflect the crisis of the British capitalist system. With the Tory government deciding to rule by word of mouth and by letter, taking away basic rights at a stroke, the working class has been pushed forward into a political fight.

Never before have there been in such a concentrated period so many stoppages of the Tory propaganda machine. In fact, to see the last such period the lie apparatus was put out of action, you have to return to the last major political strike... 1926.

On May 2, 1926, while Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was negotiating with the TUC on the question of the miners' pay, Rothermere's 'Daily Mail' was preparing a scurrilous editorial on the unions.

It was to have been an attack accusing the unions of threatening a General Strike in support of the miners.

It accused the TUC of organizing a revolutionary movement' not to be 'tolerated by any civilized government'. It called on all 'lawabiding men and women to hold themselves at the service of King and country' When the machine operators, members of NATSOPA, read the text they decided to 'hold themselves at the service of the trade union movement and went on strike, refusing to print the editorial.

Some on the Mail staff telephoned the Cabinet and the talks with the TUC were broken off immediately on the pretext of the 'Daily Mail' stoppage. Hours later the Trotsky-a documentary by Francis Wyndham and David King £1.65 includes