Riding the 'gravy train

IN 1966 Anthony Crosland, the Labour Education Minister, opened a new school in Bradford. For performing this ceremony he received an expensive antique coffee pot from John Poulson, the architect tycoon.

osland and his wife, journalist Susan Barnes, both wrote letters to Poulson thanking him profusely for the gift. Crosland wrote that he was 'most grateful for the coffee pot you so kindly gave me.' = went on: 'You gave us a quite exceptionally beautiful gift and I tremble to think how much it cost. I shall treasure it in memory of a very beautiful building' Within minutes of the revelation of the gift and the letters in Wakefield Bankruptcy Court on Monday, Crosland was telling a quite different story. 'It is common practice for ministers of all governments when Japan goes deeper and deeper into the black war with Tanaka trade balance with the rest of the world JAPAN'S increased last year to nearly $9,000m, ast year to nearly $9,000m, compared with only $7,800m in 1971.

The rise took place despite the Smithsonian agreement of December 1971, which fixed the parity of the yen at 16.88 per cent higher than its previous rate. The Smithsonian revaluation was supposed to cut Japanese exports, particularly to the US.

It has failed, as is clearly demonstrated by the $4,500m increase in exports last year. The total value of Japanese exports was $28,000m in 1972. By contrast, imports increased only $3,300m to $19,000m.

The Japanese surplus is a major factor in the continually widening American trade deficit and the Nixon administration is planning a fresh assault on the trade practices of the Japanese employers.

For the second time in less than a year, William Eberle, the chief US trade negotiator, is due in Tokyo for talks on what the Japanese Foreign Ministry calls 'effective measures for improving bilateral trade patterns'.

He will also give the Japanese an outline of the Trade Bill soon to be introduced in Congress, which American officials are hinting could be damaging to Japan unless the trade surplus is done away with.

Threats

US ambassador Robert Ingersoll returned from consultations in Washington in mid-January to warn the Japanese that serious consequences could follow unless sure signs appeared in two or three months that the huge American deficit was being corrected.

He spoke in veiled terms of protectionist feeling in Congress, hinting broadly that there might be an import surcharge on Japanese goods entering the United States, still Japan's largest market. WHAT WE THINK they visit an establishment open a school or college, to presented with a momento the occasion.

had no recollection of the coffee pot or the occasion, still less Mr Poulson! By Monday night Crosland had become even more adamant about the position.

don't care twopence about the pot and, if this is stirring up trouble somewhere, the trustees can have it. I don't care.

It is of no interest to me in the slightest degree, this damned pot.' But this is no storm in an ordinary coffee pot. It raises some very important points for the working class to take note of. First of all, there is Crosland's bland assertion that accepting £500 coffee pots from building contractors is 'the done thing'.

Everyone does it, he says. It's a custom of Ministers in all governments.

lis shows the extent to which the leadership of the working class in the Labour Party is balance with the rest of President Nixon launched his trade war on his capitalist rivals in 1971 with a 10 per cent surcharge lifted in December following the Smithsonian agreement. The Japanese are now resisting foreign pressure for another revaluation which would help make other countries' goods more competitive.

Similar 'protectionist' warnings have been given to the Tokyo government several times in recent years, and each time the Japanese have promised to take action. Each time, however, the action has failed to produce the desired effect.

The Americans felt they had finally got a firm Japanese commitment when Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka met President Nixon in Hawaii last August. He demanded that Tanaka cut the trade gap by $2,000m at least by March next year.

Tanaka promised to try and achieve this in two or three vears, and meanwhile committed Japan to one-time emergency imports of $1,000m worth of goods from the US in the 1972 fiscal year to narrow the gap. Instead of narrowing, however, it has still widened.

corroded by the capitalist tem.

In the Poulson hearing it has been shown beyond doubt that ministers, MPs, senior civil servants, councillors and trade union officials are all on, what Mr Muir Hunter, QC, calls 'the gravy train'.

There is absolutely no evidence that Crosland accepted the gift for any ulterior motive. But in his easy acceptance of it are the seeds of danger.

At the close of Monday's Wakefield hearing Mr Hunter presented a diagram to the court which showed a series of interconnecting circles and lines.

"This,' he said, 'has been described as the Poulson network.

It is only part of the facts because they cannot be represented on one sheet of paper. 'You and your organization are in the middle and around you are your principal clients. 'The black lines are links established by the evidence. The red lines ending in arrows represent the movement of money— cash, cars, presents, mortgages, holidays and so forth.' Japan's premier Kakuel Tanaka.

The Tokyo Trade Ministry refused to say how big the US deficit will be, but banking sources believe it will be more than $4,000. Tanaka had hoped to at least bring the figure below $3,000m.

Record

Japan has enjoyed an advanThis web of contacts included such personages as Mr Reginald Maudling, the ex-Tory.

Home Secretary; Mr T. Dan Smith, the one time leader of Newcastle Council and first chairman of the Northern Economic Planning Council; Andrew Cunningham, northern organizer of the General and Municipal Workers' Union and a member of the Labour Party's NEC; Mr Albert Roberts, NUM-sponsored MP for Normanton; Mr George Pottinger, permanent secretary at the Scottish Office and close frienc of the Fraser family who own Harrods, plus an assortment of officials from British Rail, the Coal Board, the Ministry of Transport and hospital boards.

Since the hearings began, more than £165,000 has been returned to the Trustees from an enormous variety of anonymous sources.

Crosland is to send back coffee pot.

There can be no doubt : that the court is shortly to be inun• Exports problem capital, more overseas aid and increased government spending

CROSLAND

dated with solid gold cigarette lighters, pearl necklaces, diamond tie pins and cuff links. The turkeys and champagne that were lavished around will, of course, not be recoverable. lis gravy train regime runs to the heart of the capitalist system. It is the capitalist system in all its rottenness which plunders the poor for the aggrandisement of the rich and their hangers-on. ne Poulson revelations, as minimal as they are, will serve to redouble workers' hatred of the ruling class and its agents in their own ranks. means that the task of sweeping away the rottenness and decay of capitalism is on the immediate agenda. This can be taken forward concretely by helping to transform the Socialist Labour League into a revolutionary party in the coming weeks.