The Week at a Glance

IRAQ: Security police arrested four men described as leaders of an ‘underground communist cell’ in Sulimaniya, northern Traq. Large numbers of leaflets were seized.

INDIA: Five people were killed when police opened fire on re of about a thousand at Thuyal. a village in southern Madras.

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: Police used teareas to break up a demonstration by telephone workers striking for more pay and arrested twenty-five.

GHANA: Mr. Christopher Shaweross. QC. who last week represented Daily Telegraph correspondent Ian Colvin in the aos Divisional High Court. was banned from re-entering shana, GERMAN FEDERAL REPUBLIC: Dr. Adenauer and the Christian Democrats won a sweeping victory in the elections.

securing almost 15 million votes and an absolute majority of 43 in the new Bundestag.

GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC: East Germans tecently beat up State officials in Sachsen-Anhalt, said a court at Hettstedt. One man was sentenced to two and a half years’ hard labour for beating a local mayor who lost an eye as a result.

POLAND: The trial began in private of three former members of the Polish security service for ‘illegally depriving a number of people of their freedom’ and ‘recommending and allowing other junior officials of the public security to apply physical torture’ towards arrested persons. FINLAND: The director of the Bank of Finland announced a 39 per cent devaluation of the Finnish mark. New rate for the £1 sterling is 896, compared with 676 before devaluation.

USA: Retiring director of the International Co-operation Administration, Hollister, announced that foreign aid funds are no longer to be used to finance profit-making industries financed by foreign governments. “We play .into communist hands when we help to socialize a country,’

said one ICA official. The State Department later contradicted Hollister’s statement, said there was no change in US. aid policy.

Newsletter Pamphlets ~~~ x @ The Lessons of the Covent Garden Defeat 2d.

@® Russian Youth Awakes MAURICE PELTER 2d.

Obtainable from The Newsletter, 180, Clapham High Street, London, 8.W.4.

wwe Automation Demands Real Nationalization .~ PLP OODLE DLS DELILE DI LEI LLL DD DOI LD EPL DL LPL IAL LPL LPP LD IP PLL SP PIL LPL ELL ALA LDL ESDP LLG LTP GR ROOD DDD LS Sy HOSE delegates to the Labour Party annual conference who intend to speak in the discussion on future nationalization policy would do well to give their attention to the National Executive Council's report on automation.

True, this is only an interim report, and a fuller document will be issued later for discussion at the 1958 But the delegates will find here cogent arguments why ‘old-fashioned’ nationalization remains imperative, not simply as a means of resuscitating bankrupt industries or to punish ‘wicked’ capitalists who place private gain before public good, but as an essential first step on the toad to socialism.

UNEMPLOYMENT OR ADVANCE? Automation puts before our industrial society the choice of two roads.

If the ownership and control of the means of production is left in the hands of the capitalist class, the introduction of automatic machinery will mean that many hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions?) of unskilled and semi-skilled machine minders and clerical workers will find themselves unemployed.

The capitalist economists will see realized their most cherished dream of a high reserve army of labour which could be used to drive down the standards of all workers. Capitalism will once again have achieved ‘normalcy’.

Alternatively, effective contro] and direction of the introduction of the new industrial techniques can open up rich fields of human advance.

LEISURE FOR CULTURE. The increased rate of production will make possible a greater amount of leisure in which working men can expand culturally. The sciences and arts will be enriched as never before in human society. But this can only happen if the means of production are firmly in the hands of the whole of society.

During the industrial revolution the Luddites destroyed the new machinery; this was their blind reaction [ PRESS ENTRANCED...

‘She was composed. She was consummately at ease . . . Her clear. sweet voice was wafted over the crowded floor . . .

‘By no means did she read the speech closely. She was constantly glancing around with calm eyes as she went on unhurriedly, pausing between sentences, conscious of dignity and making dignity conscious. A beautiful voice, happily stiil a little girlish. but maturing and enriching.

‘The audience was entranced with her naturalness .. . Mr. Harold Macmillan . . . thanked the Queen for her trouble . . . with a twinkling cye and a smile .. ~ Daily Express, September 13.

... DISILLUSIONED *Mr. Ian Harvey . .. underlined the significance of [Mr. Macmillan’s] words with loud handclaps. These were rather feebly taken up by some of his colleagues . . .

‘Mr. Macmillan rather spoiled his “spontaneous” praise of the Queen by reading his speech from a carefully prepared script written long enough before for some members of the audience to be following him on duplicate copies ..

Daily Herald, September 13, SEPTEMBER 21], PO'Si7.

Ms to forces they did not understand. For them the machine :

was only a threat to their livelihood.

But the Labour movement has come a long way since then. Today it knows that the machine can be an ally in the march to a better civilization and a fuller life— but only if the machine comes under social ownership and control.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. The NEC document asks four questions which it does not attempt to answer.

It wants to know:

How far management is capable of the imaginative enterprise and willingness to invest that are necessary if automation is to be introduced on an adequate scale; Whether management has a sufficiently enlightened approach to the problem of co-operation in industrial relations:

How receptive British workers are to new ideas and how Teady to cultivate new skills: and Can the trade unions adapt their machinery to respond to the new demands that may be made on it?

The answers to these four questions depend almost Ss entirely on the nationalization policy which will emerge Ss at Brighton.

NEXT — WORKERS’ CONTROL. With the decisive sections of industry firmly in the hands of the State. the Labour movement will be able to moye on to the next phase—the discussion of workers’ control over > I management, which will immediately change all existing conceptions of industrial relations. os $ With the change-over from production for profit to ; production for use. the British workers will show that Ss they are not only ready but eager to try out new ideas ° and acquire new skills.

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And in that context the part trade unions will have to play in the new society will also be worked out. George Cunvin bd ;

INDUSTRY LONDON BUSMEN WANT 25s. A WEEK RISE —BUT WILL FRANK COUSINS AGREE?

By Our Industrial Correspondent THE NEXT big test for Frank Cousins is being set for him by the-busmen. The London Road ‘Transport Passenger Committee of the Transport and General Workers’ Union has decided that a claim for a 25s. increase in wages should be submitted to the London Transport Executive.

The General Executive Council of the Union is discussing the claim this week.

Last year the London busmen claimed an_increase of £1 and threatened to strike when the LTE refused this. After private conversations with the employers Cousins reached an agreement on an increase of 7s. 6d. per week, which he only managed to sell to his members by getting it back-dated ten weeks to November 1, 1956.

This sort of cheating soon becomes obvious. however, when it is discovered how little 7s. 6d. will buy these days.

Because Cousins smoothed things over then does not mean that he is going to find it so easy now.

Cousins was then faced with demands from his provincial busmen members. who for a long time have put up with low rates compared with those applying in London.

A strike of nearly 90.000 workers, lasting nearly two weeks, took place in July on the principle of the rate for the job.

It was aimed at ending the differential between the wages of London busmen and those paid to the men working in the provinces. This meant a claim for between 25s, and 30s.

Everybody knows what happened. The Industrial Court, without even hearing a case from the union, awarded 11s. The Government was not yet ready for a real showdown.

At a conference of his members it took Cousins about three hours to convince them to accept the award, and the almost S0-S@ vote which resulted showed what many busmen were thinking.

The London Transport men supported their brothers in the provinces throughoul: many branches made donations to the strike fund, and London busmen refused to work over routes normally covered by provincial workers.

Had the union asked for their active support as a demonstration of their agreement to the principle of the rate for the job. there is no doubt they would not have hesitateu to come out on strike in sympathy.

It is easy for both sections of passenger transport withi the TGWU to sce the anomalies which continue to exist ti their industry.

There is no co-ordinated system of transport in the country On the one hand there is the LTE, serving London and the suburbs. and on the other there are the services owned by the municipalities and those run by private companies.

The busmen know that the only way to give the public the service it needs is to take over the whole industry and plan it on a national basis. > Uniform wages and conditions This would eliminate the differentials now existing hetween ihe two sectors of the industry, and a uniform system of wages and conditions could be introduced.

In fact the National Committee of the TGWU in the Passenger Transport Section has gone on record for ‘the complete public ownership and control of the road passenger industry’. and has asked that the next Labour Government should legislate to this effect.

On the surface it appears that Cousins has the choice ot either supporting the London busmen as a single unit—desnite the still outstanding claim for the provincial men—or refuse to submit the London claim on the basis that this will upset the recent award io the provinces, which decreased the differential.

And it is quite possible that this is the way he will put the question to his General Executive Council this week, especially bearing in mind that of its eleven bus delegates only one represents the LTE workers, and the rest are from ¢ompany or previncial services.

London’s claim quite justified The TGWU is well known for its policy of using one section of the membership against another, and Cousins is quite capable of continuing the method.

But the claim on the part of London is completely justified, especially remembering the measly 7s. 6d. increase of ten months ago.

The right thing for the TGWU to do is to support the claim, and at the same time reopen negotiations on_ behalf of the provincial busmen for the abolition of the London differential.

In this way the whole of the passenger transport workers would be solid and strengthened in the fight to maintain their standard of living. and at the same time a unified wage system could be achieved, Such a clear policy would also lead to a far better understanding of the situation on the part of people outside the industry—whereas it can only lead to real confusion if the London claim is negotiated, then followed once more by 2 claim on behalf of the provinces.