BIRMINGHAM TENANTS MEET

RENTS Two hundred Birmingham municipal tenants attended a meeting held at the Town Hall to protest at the rent increases being imposed by the Right-wing Labour Council.

Rent increases are scheduled for 73,800 houses, ranging from a few shillings to 12s. a week, with the threat by the Council that each year there will be further increases in rent.

The meeting, which was organized by the Birmingham Tenants’ Association, was chaired by S. Goldberg. On the platform were representatives of the St. Pancras Tenants’ Association. Lacking were any of the original seven Labour Councillors who defied the Right Wing Labour Whip by voting against the Rent Scheme in open Council.

The St. Pancras spokesmen urged that after January 4, when the first part of the rent increases become due in Birmingham, all tenants should refuse to pay the increases.

Jessie Eden, spokeswoman for the Birmingham Tenants’ Association, urged lobbying of councillors, deputation to the Minister, pressure by M.P.’s to make the Government change its financial policy regarding council housing, and called for big industrialists to pay their full rates.

By Alf Hardy tions. For us this means all sections of the left uniting together, irrespective of their other differences, against witch-hunting. We consider it the duty of all members of the Socialist Labour League to fight against the ‘black’ circulars imposed by certain union executives on members of the Communist Party. A responsibility that is incumbent upon the Communist Party leaders is to ensure that their party and their members, oppose with equal vigour the bans and proscriptions imposed upon the Socialist Labour League.

We have many criticisms of the Communist Party and we have no intentions of dropping such criticisms in order to achieve a fake unity. It is our opinion, however, that by uniting together on issues where we have agreement and by discussing in an objective and comradely manner those issues which divide us we jointly can make a contribution to strengthening the fight against British capitalism.

Need for a programme It would in our opinion have been better if the Daily Worker Conference had been called to discuss a_ specific resolution such as we had before us at the National Assembly of Labour held last November. Unity in our submission is based on agreement on specific points, not on general goodwill. Nevertheless if the Conference is run in such a way as to permit a genuine discussion and a free interchange of opinions where arguments and ideas are assessed on their merits and not dismissed with suitable swear-words such as ‘Trotskyist disrupters’ or ‘Fascist beasts’ it can serve a useful purpose.