The Newsletter, vol. 4 no. 135

LONDON: March 6 Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W.1. 10 am.—S p.m. book LIVERPOOL: March 6 Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street.

10.30 a.m.—4.30 p.m. these = GLASGOW: March 20 Central Halls, Bath Street. 10 a.m. dates = LEEDS: March 27 Leeds Museum. 3.0 p.m. now! ? MANCHESTER: March 27 Registrar’s Office, All Saints. 2.30 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM: April 10 Typographical Hall, Bath Street, Birmingham. Weekly Journal of the Sociaiist Labour League Vol. 4, No 135 Threepence TORY MACMILLAN GET OUT!

Macmillan's whistle-stop tour of Africa is turning out one big flop. In Nigeria students greeted him with 'Mac the butcher, get out.' In Salisbury, Africans boycotted his meeting because it was held in a cinema normally restricted to Europeans.

Highlight of the tour is the public squabbles between Macmillan and Federation boss, Sir Roy Welensky.

The brushes with Welensky arise because of Macmillan's support of the interests of big business as opposed to the needs of Welensky's backers—the white settlers.

Big business dominates

Rhodesia and Nyasaland's economic lives are dominated by the big four companies—Rhodesian Selection Trust, Rhodesian Anglo-American, Imperial Tobacco Company and the British South African Company.

These firms control the copper, coal, lead, zinc mining and tobacco processing industries. They own forests, ranches, citrus estates, merchant banks and newspapers.

Sir Ronald Prain of the Rhodesian Selection Trust previously annoyed white settlers when he spoke in favour of African representation in the Legislature.

This prompted Humphrey Wightwick, a Dominion Party M.P., to warn that 'the sinister hand of big business should be kept out of Rhodesian politics.'

Warning the white settlers of the growth of native opposition Prain said: 'The Europeans deceive themselves if they close their eyes to what is happening in the rest of Africa.'

Compromise with moderates

Anxious to maintain a steady supply of cheap labour, worried lest the Dominion Party's policies lead to a native revolt the big business men would like to reach a compromise with the moderate African leaders. Their aim is to buy off a few 'Uncle Toms' and use them to keep the African masses in line.

These are the men Macmillan supports. His differences with Welensky are tactical. Hence his statement: 'I should like to make it plain that the function of the Monckton Commission is not to destroy the Federation. . . . It is to advise how best the Federation can go forward.'

By our Industrial Correspondent Big business dominates On Tuesday employers and leaders of the ConfederRhodesia and Nyasaland’s economic lives are dominated by Nation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions meet the big four companies—Rhodesian Selection Trust, Rhodesian again to discuss the claim for the 40-hour week and Anglo-American, Imperial Tobacco Company and the British South African Company. a pound per week wage claim.

On two occasions now the employers have turned down the These firms control the copper, coal, lead, zinc mining and unions and offered only a 42 and a half hour week with no tobacco processing industries. They own forests, ranches, concessions on wages. citrus estates, merchant banks and newspapers.

All over Britain engineering workers are becoming more Sir Ronald Prain of the Rhodesian Selection Trust previand more impatient with the employers’ delaying tactics and ously annoyed white settlers when he spoke in favour of Afrithe failure of the union leaders to put before the employers can representation in the Legislature.

La straightforward ultimatum; pay up or else.

Warning the white settlers of the growth of native opposi- John Walls, convenor at the George Ma: factory in Leeds, tion Prain said: ‘The Europeans deceive themselves if they says: ‘We don’t want any compromise. We want the full close their eyes to what is happening in the rest of Africa.’ claim.

‘In Leeds the Shop Stewards’ Quarterly meeting carried a Compromise with moderates resolution saying “negotiations alone will not win the claim.”

‘The resolution called for stronger action and in my opinion Anxious to maintain a steady supply of cheap labour, it is dead right, said Bro. Walls. worried lest the Dominion Party’s policies lead to a native He stresses the need for organizing for a militant struggle revolt the big business men would like to reach a compromise and makes the point: ‘If the full claim is not met, then with the moderate African leaders. Their aim is to buy off Carron should immediately recall the National Committee to a few ‘Uncle Toms’ and use them to keep the African masses get ready for a fight.’ in line.

London engineering workers also echo the sentiments of These are the men Macmillan supports. His differences Bro. Walls. Ken Weller, a shop steward at Standard Telewith Welensky are tactical. Hence his statement: ‘I should phones, notes how leaders like Frank Foulkes, present chairlike to make it plain that the function of the Monckton Comman of the C.S.E.U., was a party to the agreement in the mission is not to destroy the Federation. . .. It is to advise Electricity Supply industry which settled for a 42-hour week. how best the Federation can go forward.’

(Continued overleaf)

186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone Macaulay 7029 SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1960 for the removal of Gaitskell as leader of the party and for a leadership pledged to a socialist policy in opposition to the Douglas Jays, Hugh Gaitskells and Tony Croslands. This is the message of our local Assemblies of Labour which we are asking workers everywhere to support.

Party through the intervention of the late Arthur Deakin, Sir Thomas Williamson, and ex-miners’ leader, Sir Will Lawther. These three pillars of the Rightwing decided in their wisdom that if an office-boy was to replace ex-Major Attlee, then Hugh Gaitskell qualified for the job . Having regarded the Labour Party as nothing more than a rubber-stamp for the Rightwing leaders of the Trade Union Congress, they felt it necessary to appoint a man who had absolutely no connexion with the working class and its struggles. They reasoned that he would be most amenable to their suggestions and thereby more easily kept in line.

The remarkable thing is that so far Mr. Gaitskell has managed to exist in the Labour Party under conditions where he has been able to masquerade as an impartial leader. Now the mask is off. In an interview with Daily Herald cricket correspondent, Charles Bray, following his daily swim in the warm waters of the palmfringed islands of the Caribbean, Hugh blew his top. Asked his attitude to Michael Foot’s ‘Gaitskell must go’ opinions he replied, in his usual impartial style : ‘It would be improper, and undignified for me as leader of the Labour Party to reply to such things.’ And then, as an afterthought (?) ‘particularly from someone incapable of winning his own constituency.’

Well, well, well. Hardly in good taste old chap. After all did not Sir Tom O’Brien lose his seat in Nottingham after he had denounced wildcat strikers in the columns of the Fleet Street dailies? Sir Tom was a member of the last Parliament. Michael Foot was not. So what does our great leader seek to prove by this cheap gibe? Was it not the Tory press that went out of its way to publicize the idea that the ex-Bevanites owed their lack of success at the polls to Left-wing policies? It seems that Mr. Gaitskell takes his arguments from them. This, of course, goes to show that his double-talk at the Blackpool conference should fool no one.

Every sincere socialist in the Labour Party will fight @ Engineers Say (Continued from front page)

‘There is no reason to doubt that Foulkes and the Rightwingers like Carron will settle for a 42-hour week.

‘That’s why it would be wrong to simply leave it to the ‘Unless the employers meet our demands I reckon we should set up campaign committees in all the large factories that can work in conjunction with the district committees to organize for a national strike,’ is Ken’s opinion.

Good time to fight Harry Ratner, a Manchester Amalgamated Engineering a Union shop steward, stresses the favourable situation for a fight on the two claims.

‘This week, Massey Ferguson, the tractor people, granted a 40-hour week but the union leaders agreed to the workers losing their tea-breaks and washing time.

‘Although Massey Ferguson is a non-Federated firm, in my ; opinion the leaders had no right to sign such an agreement

Mr. Hugh Gaitskell became leader of the Labour THE Tories and the employers are busily creating a situation whereby industrial strife seems inevitable. As is usual on such occasions, their spokesmen in Fleet Street are on the look-out for a propaganda scapegoat. Thus The Times Review of Industry in its January, 1960, edition says :

Trouble of some sort on the railways and among the touchy shipyard workers must therefore be regarded as potential threats which call for careful handling in the next few months. The so-called Trotskyists in the Socialist Labour League and elsewhere are ready to fish in these waters, baulked as they seem temporarily to be of chances to stir up more ‘blue’ versus ‘white’ quarrels in the Mersey docks or dreary little stoppages on the notorious South Bank site. Industrial relations in the first part of 1960, promise to be lively and that nice level line which distinguished 1959 so remarkably on the wages index graph will probably revert to its old staircase pattern.’

Let the gentleman who cooked this lie up get one thing straight in his twisted mind : the people responsible for the conditions in the shipyards and on the railways are not the members of the Socialist Labour League, but the employers and their government. If there is trouble in these industries the responsibility will rest on them and them alone.

The policy of the Socialist Labour League is absolutely clear; if working people are forced on strike then they will have the full support of the Socialist Labour League in winning their strike. We are opposed to the employers and their system. About this there is no need for secrecy or scare stories. We think the rule of the millionaires, their puppet politicians and their Fleet Street liars must be ended for all time and replaced by a socialist order of society. We regard every strike as a lesson to those involved of the need to apply their energies to a conscious struggle for socialism. Strikes won and strike lost will supply class lessons which will eventually bring victory in the battle for socialism.

at this stage.

‘They have already demonstrated their willingness to make concessions and they are obviously doing this to try and avoid a showdown.’

Bro. Ratner points out the large profits being made by engineering firms. ‘Last year engineering shares rose by 56 per cent. and in December alone they went up by 14 per cent. Even shipping shares went up by 60 per cent., so obviously the money is there to meet our claims.

‘This is the time to hit the employers. Trade is brisk and we can damage them far more effectively than in a slack period.’

Another London A.E.U. member and a shop steward at H. M. Hobson, George Andrews also emphasises the need to stand firm for the full claim.

‘The employers won’t give anything unless they see we are determined to fight. O.K., then, let’s stop talking about the - claim and tell them bluntly that if they don’t pay up we will have a national strike.’

:

Just over two months ago the Socialist Labour League organized the National Assembly of Labour. There were over 700 delegates, observers and visitors present at the St. Pancras Town Hall on November 15, when a resolution unanimously endorsed a national campaign on the following five points :

1. An end to the manufacture and testing of the H-bomb as well as the destruction of all existing stockpiles of atomic weapons; 2. The strengthening of the fight for the 40-hour week, higher wages, defence of jobs and defence of shop stewards, against rent increases;

3. A fight for the extension of nationalization; 4. A fight against oppression in the colonies and against racialism in Britain;

5. A fight against the bans and proscriptions inside the entire Labour movement and the trade unions.

The Assembly also unanimously decided to convene local assemblies during the spring and a recall assembly in the autumn of 1960.

Events on the industrial and political scene since these decisions were taken, underline their urgency in a manner that could not have been conceived of at the time.

The Blackpool conference at the end of November revealed the deep-going split inside the Labour Party and the trade unions on the question of nationalization. This has now developed to a point at which the Right-wing proposes to drop nationalization and any reference to public ownership from * the Labour Party constitution altogether. The Left, on the other hand, are demanding that Gaitskell should be removed and that the party should advocate more nationalization and resist the attempts of the Croslands and Jays to transform the Party into a mild reflection of the Liberal Party.

Meanwhile, however, the witch-hunts against Marxists in the Labour Party have continued to grow and over 50 people have been expelled from the Norwood and Streatham Parties for refusing to abandon their right to be Marxists in the Labour Party. In other parts of the country such as Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Coventry, industrial militants have also been expelled for similar reasons. Gaitskell goes to the Right and the apparatus of Transport House proceeds te weaken the ranks.

A new tension in industry On the industrial front there is a growing tension between the trade union rank and file and the employers. The struggle for the 40-hour week is unresolved, the cost of living has increased, and demands for higher wages have become more urgent. Even Right-wing trade union leaders such as Carron have been forced to call for substantial wage increases.

The recession of 1958 has given way to an upswing in the economy and a spate of speculation on the Stock Exchange. Share values of light industrial undertakings connected with the export drive have inflated by millions of pounds resulting in enormous profits for the speculators. But wage rates are at a standstill.

Week after week shop stewards have to fight attempts to cut bonus and piece-work earnings, with the result that there is constant friction in large factories, particularly in the motor car industry.

In heavy industry the resistance of the employers is tougher. In the Scottish shipbuilding yards there is a continuous attempt to victimize militants and clamp down on working conditions. The sacking of Ian Clark, a leading shop steward and member of the Socialist Labour League, in John Brown Land Boilers, is a case in point. More than at any time since the end of the war, sections of heavy industry such as coal-mining and shipbuilding are threatened with a slump. The conflict in industry is therefore determined by conditions which reflect both the boom in the export trades and a tendency to slump in heavy industry.

The growth of monopolies and the appearance of the swastika Inside industry itself, ownership and control continue to monopolize into fewer and fewer gigantic industrial concerns. The Tory government has openly intervened in the aircraft industry which is now merging almost entirely under the control of a handful of enormous industrial corporations such as Hawker-Siddeleys.

Take-over bids continue merrily to gobble up new industrial concerns in the electronics industry.

The growth of monopoly is not simply an accumulation of millions of pounds of investment and reserve capital, it is the regroupment of the most reactionary sections of the ruling class into more concentrated strategic industrial and political positions than they have ever occupied in the past. This means that future struggles between capital and labour will be of a sharper nature than anything previously experienced by the British working class. The greater the monopoly the harder it will fight.

It is no accident, therefore, that swastikas have once again appeared on the walls and hoardings of Britain and Western Germany. This tendency towards monopolization goes on all over Western Europe and in the United States. It was the big monopolists of Germany and Italy who financed Hitler and Mussolini to power. It is only natural to suppose that, since so much wealth is controlled by the monopolists today, a slight trickle of this is now falling into the hands of the Fascist gangsters of the future.

There is in fact a direct connexion between the swastikas of West Germany and Notting Hill. Only a few weeks ago the Rt. Hon. Duncan Sandys appeared in ~ photograph with one of the former high functionaries of the Nazi party on a boar hunting expedition in West Germany. This functionary was a leading official in the German Embassy in London before the war and used to parade the strecis with a swastika prominent on his car. The press reported that he and Duncan Sandys have been friends over a long period and were in fact friends before the war. The ghost of the pre-war Cliveden set re-appears on the horizon.

There are people who seek to blame the German working class for the swastika-daubing. They try to convey the impression that the German workers were responsible for the Nazis. To their eternal credit the German youth have given a resounding answer to this pernicious propaganda. In their tens of thousands they have demonstrated on the streets under the slogans of ‘Nazi Raus’ and have shown that they are the real allies of the British working class.

The government of Adenauer is over-loaded with ex-Nazi party members, but that is only part of the picture. The

United States documents centre in Berlin has complete records of the ten million members of the Nazi Party, but they will not make them public. On January 12 these authorities banned all information for the press about former Nazis on the grounds that any information that might be given might embarrass the West German government. Such is the reactionary role of Wall Street imperialism.

The re-appearance of the swastikas is a reflection of the growth of reaction in the capitalist world and not the crazy activities of some mixed-up thugs.

From swastika daubing to witch-hunting There is a connexion between the appearance of the swastikas and the intensified witch-hunt of the Right wing. The aim of the witch-hunters is to destroy democracy in the Labour movement. Reactionary oganizations such as Catholic Action and Moral Rearmament have stepped up their propaganda against militants inside the trade unions in recent months. These gentlemen do not bother whether you are a Trotskyist or a member of the Communist Party. During the South Bank strike when members of the Socialist Labour League were being attacked by the Right wing, the Communist Party were accusing’ us of splitting the rank and file from the leaders. When we attacked the Trades Union Congress for covering up for employers, such as McAlpines, the Communist Party again accused us of the same crime. Yet all this has not stopped members of the Communist Party from being attacked and witch-hunted by these same Rightwing leaders. On the contrary, the Communist Party is now paying the price for their own witch-hunting of the Socialist Labour League. It is the T.U.C. which is now in the vanguard of the Right-wing attack against the Communist Party.

Inside the Labour Party, supporters of the Communist Party fell into the Right-wing trap and voted for the expulsion of members of the Socialist Labour League from the Labour Party. This was the action of Councillor Grimshaw at the Salford Labour Party meeting which expelled Harry Ratner as a member of the Socialist Labour League. Councillor Grimshaw wrote in the Daily Worker about lifting bans and -proscriptions and then proceeded to expel a comrade on the grounds that he was a member of the Socialist Labour League. Every serious member of the Communist and Labour Parties will realize that this is playing the game of the Right and weakening the Left. The fight against bans and proscriptions demands unity in action between all Left forces in the Labour Party and the trade unions which will refuse to endorse, and will fight against expulsion of any militant because he has differences with the Right-wing.

By weakening the Labour movement through expulsions, the witch-hunter supplements the foul work of the anti-semitic swastika dauber.

The local Assemblies of Labour will have as their main task the mobilisation of the Labour movement against antisemitism and racialism and the fight against all bans and proscriptions inside the Labour movement Labour must go on the offensive The situation has greatly changed since our National “sembly on November 15. The slight economic recovery ' <ucouraged workers to go forward into struggle for less hours and more wages. This is a time for leadership. Workers are ready for action, but the old leaders of the trade union movement will not lead. Railwaymen are showing magnificent enterprise in the struggle for more wages by a nation-wide campaign for a 24-hour stoppage unless they are granted their just demands, but their leaders, such as Sidney Greene act as a drag upon their initiative.

The offer of the engineering employers of a 424-hour week demonstrates that the 40 hours can be won if the leaders of the engineering unions would lead a struggle.’ Here again Carron and company instead of providing leadership witchhunt members of the Communist Party like George Caborn, whose only crime was to attempt to call a conference to implement the 40-hour week policy of his union.

Building workers in London and Manchester have told their leaders that they will not be content with a miserable handout when their wage claim comes before the employers. They want a substantial increase—or else.

There is an offensive spirit abroad in the ranks of labour and never before have Marxists had such an opportunity to provide leadership which will meet with great response. We believe that this can be done through the organization of rank-and-file committees embracing workers of different unions employed in large-scale industries. These committees can mobilize the maximum support to force the employers to concede to their demands on hours and wages. We believe that they would also provide a powerful rejuvenating force inside the trade union movement; that they are part of the trade union movement and in no way can they be conceived of as something separate from it.

These committees would provide an opportunity for new leaders to come forward and their struggles would encourage the application of socialist policies. Once the rank and file begins to organize in such committees then their emergence in politics is almost instantaneous, in this epoch of the Tory government and large-scale monopolization.

The local Assemblies of Labour will discuss and plan ways and means whereby (a) every job connected with the struggle for wages and hours would immediately form its own campaign committee, drawing the workers into action and explaining the problems posed by the struggle. and (b) how they would be linked together as rank-and-file comittees to form a real foundation from which an industrial and political offensive can be based.

For unity between the Left-wing in the trade unions with the Left-wing of the Labour. Party Mr. Gaitskell, Tony Crosland and Douglas Jay are determined to destroy the Labour Party as a socialist party, that is what is meant by their struggle to remove reference to public ownership from the constitution and ditch all nationalization policies. Tribune and Victory for Socialism have begun a fight for the removal of Mr. Gaitskell as leader of the party. The Local Assemblies of Labour whilst supporting this struggle will consider ways and means to win the approval of the Labour- Party for a real socialist policy.

We believe that the struggle in industry must be made part of the struggle for socialist policies inside the Labour Party. It will be a serious mistake if industrial workers do not see the connection between their economic problems and _ the policy crisis of the Labour Party.

The Socialist Labour League is part of the Labour movement. We stand for the right of Marxists to organize inside the Labour Party. All those Left-wingers who deny this right are, in fact, surrendering to the Right-wing. There are people who call for a more humane (sic) policy for expulsions. These well-meaning people are just begging the question. Have not the Marxists of the Socialist Labour League just as much right to organize in the Labour Party as the Tony Croslands and the Fabian Society? ‘That is the issue and not one of minor constitutional changes. The fight for lifting the proscription on the Socialist Labour League and the ban on The Newsletter must be the cornerstone of all Left-wing policies inside the Labour Party.

The Socialist Labour League maintains that the struggle in industry will form the background of the crisis inside_ the Labour Party. All active trade unionists must see to it that their demands are adequately expressed in local constituency Labour Parties. As soon as they embark upon local industrial struggles they must also seek ways and means to mobilize local Labour Parties and draw Labour Party members into action behind them.

This is the only way the Right-wing of the Labour Party can really be defeated. Rank-and-file organizations in industry must become powerhouses of socialist ideas for changing the policies of the Labour Party. .

The local Assemblies will seek out ways and means to

strengthen existing socialist organizations such as Victory for Socialism inside the Labour Party.

They will provide a rallying ground for the real Leftwing of the Labour Party, by drawing together people who are involved in all types of progressive struggle, from the fight against anti-Semitism and for Nuclear Disarmament, to the struggle for hours and wages in the factories. All roads lead to the coming showdown inside the Labour Party, in the fight for a socialist policy that is the thread which will firmly bind our local Assemblies.

This is a time not only of great opportunity but also one of { INDUSTRY A 40-HOUR WEEK WITH A DANGEROUS SNAG Under a new agreement, Massey Ferguson, the Canadian tractor firm, will cut hours to 40 and raise pay for 14,000 of its British workers. The fly in the ointment is that the unions concerned, The Transport and General Workers’ Union and the Amalgamated Engineering Union, have agreed to dispense with teabreaks and washing time. Moreover they pledge ‘cooperation in maintaining production and improving efficiency.’

This is the latest in a number of agreements with sections of the employers in the more profitable sections of industry. Just recently I.C.I. agreed to a reduction in the working week and similar increases in pay. : , Agreements like these fit in perfectly with the employers’ strategy. When sections of industry are booming, with profits at a record level and with a real scarcity of labour, particularly in the Midlands, the employers are in no position to withstand an all-out offensive by the working class for shorter hours and higher wages.

Agreements with snag Agreements like these not only safeguard the employers’ profits and make the workers pay for their own increases, they also work another miracle. At a time when the employers in certain industries are most vulnerable to a drive to improve conditions, they secure a speed-up in the labour force. The strength of the workers’ bargaining power can be gauged by the fact that the employers are coming to the unions with such proposals.

Another consideration must be that if the employer can secure an agreement now in boom conditions that makes his workers keep at it without tea-breaks and up to the whistle then what will he want when unemployment grows? It is true that now the workers will have their tea while they work, but everyone knows that the meaning of a tea-break is not simply that tea is drunk but also the break in the pressure on the workers for production.

Abolishing tea-breaks can mean, as it has done in the United States, that the shorter hours become an even greater and more killing burden than the old 44-hours.

Such agreements assist the employers in the other sections of the engineering industry. They lay the basis for the ‘ettlement of an agreement with strings for the 3 million engineering workers.

Such agreements have nothing to do with the original demands for increased wages and shorter hours made by the rank and file of the T.G.W.U. and A.E.U. These demands were tabled on the grounds that they could be paid for out of the employers’ profits and not the increased sweat of the working class.

Both Carron and Cousins are on record as favouring cooperation with the employers in improving efficiency and increasing production. Indeed, Carron, as chairman of the British Productivity Council, does not spare himself in seeking ways and means of getting his members to work harder. serious danger. Just as the working class can win important concessions and take big steps forward along the road to a socialist Britain, so the employers can retaliate if we fail in our struggle. De Gaulle’s France must be a constant warning to British’ Labour.

It is impossible therefore to tolerate Right-wing policies any longer. The struggle is speeding-up. Hesitations today will mean defeats for us tomorrow. We call upon all workers everywhere to support the local Assemblies of Labour. Come and help in working out local programmes of action to defeat the employers and rout the Tory government.

Just recently, however, at the wage negotiations with the engineering employers, he had to say that the effort was largely to one side, the employers making no effort to imprcve wages and conditions as a result.

The real interest of the rank and file was voiced last Sunday at Birmingham. There at a meeting called by the Birmingham. district committee of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, demands were made for action on the wage claim which included a call for a total stoppage if the claim is again refused on January 26.

HENDON BUSMEN FORGE SOLIDARITY LINK By our Industrial Correspondent A resolution calling upon the Central Bus Committee to instruct all garages and depots in the London area to work to rule on February 1 in support of the 24-hour token stoppage of London railmen was adopted unanimously by Hendon bus garage branch of the Transport and General Workers’ Union at their meeting last Wednesday. The members also refused to work any emergency schedules for February 1 which would assist in weakening the effectiveness of the underground strike.

They felt that a situation similar to the London bus strike of 1958, when the bulk of passengers were transported underground, so assisting the London Transport Executive to maintain its position of refusing a realistic wage increase for the busmen, must not be allowed to repeat itself against the tailmen.

This shows that the need for unity and solidarity is becoming more and more apparent to workers engaged in struggle for higher wages and shorter hours, and that the employers’ offensive must be met with a common stand of all those who lose equally if this solidarity is forgotten.

A despicable attempt to make the death of a miner the excuse to inflict pay cuts on his workmates resulted in the whole Brodsworth pit coming out on strike. The management had only agreed to pay four miners standing by at the scene of the accident a shift payment of 37s. against the usual average of 60s.

So incensed were the men that they decided to leaflet other pits in the area to appeal for support against th Scrooges of the National Coal Board. But Alwyn Machen, Yorkshire president of the National Union of Mineworkers, stopped the distribution of leaflets and secured a return to work ‘to allow negotiations to proceed.’

Brodsworth miners are confident, however, that their show of strength will make the management back down.

PPPPPPS SSS SSSI ISS SLD IDL DIP IPP SII ID PDL PP DLL IID LNG LABOUR REVIEW MEETING Sunday, January 31, at 3.0 p.m.

STORK HOTEL, LIVERPOOL

Speaker: Cliff Slaughter (Joint Editor, Labour Review)

Whenever the working class enters a period of crisis ROOM AT THE BOTTOM by Harry Goldthorpe.

(Sunbeam Press, Bradford. 1s. 6d.)

‘Only recently we saw bread and circuses in Bradford. Scores of police closing the streets and holding

there is a renewed demand for Marxist theory popularly explained. And what poor stuff the official Labour and Communist Party leaders pass off on working people! What help can we expect from_theories which lead to successive defeats in General Elections and to chaos at the top of the Labour Party, or to the Khrushchev speech and the Hungarian massacres? That kind of ‘theory’ will not satisfy the new generations of militants.

Marx and Lenin in their time did not despise the task of popularly explaining the theory which helps the workers to struggle against capitalism. To them, and to us, theory is the political capital of the working class, and both of these new pamphlets are by recognised authorities.

In ‘What Is Marxist Theory For?’ Alasdair MacIntyre begins ‘At the centre of Marxism is the belief that theory which does not issue in action is mere talk; and action which is not guided by theory is in the end always condemned to failure. How does Marxist theory guide Marxist action?’

He shows why men have no control over their own lives in capitalism. All human values hang on the victory of the working class over the forces in society which fight to maintain the control of the capitalists over the vast means of production yet man’s command over nature now makes possible an end to exploitation, competition and conflict and their outcome in poverty, unemployment and war.

In ‘Introduction to Economics,’ Tom Kemp explains why Capitalism is a regime of crisis. It rests upon unpaid labour extracted from the working-class and can expand only as long as the conditions permit thé products of this unpaid labour to be sold and converted into new means of production. That it expands the productive forces of society at certain periods only lays up greater difficulties for the future.

‘What Is Marxist Theory For?’ by Alasdair MacIntyre, price 3d., post free Sd.

‘Introduction to Economics’, by Tom Kemp, price 6d., post free 8d.

Both from New Park Publications Limited, 186 Clapham -High Street, London, S.W.4. up traffic to let the circus parade go through the city up to Peel Park. Elephants, camels, monkeys, llamas, horses and even pretty girls nearly undressed in their circus tights. I’m not against this, mind. It’s a nice treat for the kiddies, even the grown-up ones. But it was a different story when the ragged-arse unemployed tried to parade and demonstrate. Then we got things like the Battle of Norfolk Street...

Since publication ‘Room at the Bottom’ has sold about 3,000 copies. Harry Goldthorpe, the author, and stalwart of the old Bradford Unemployed Association, has sold most of these standing on the kerb side. Why? Because he has produced 48 pages of high-explosive material too hot for the respectable book -trade to handle. Its lesson is the opposite of that of ‘Room at the Top’ produced by his fellow townsman, John Braine!

Describing his experiences in the period between the two wars, Goldthorpe lays bare the humiliation and heartbreak brought to Bradford by the dole, the means test and the bailiffs. Made of stern stuff he refused always to go on the defensive owing in part perhaps to his boxing and weightlifting prowess as a youth. Told on one occasion to ‘shut up’ in the Labour Exchange he replied ‘I’m not shutting up, old pal. I’ve had no breakfast, and all the shops are full of food.’ The police removed him from the premises and the Labour Exchange official was helped up from the floor.

The police and the unemployed Of the local Unemployed Movement (membership 3,000) it is stated ‘we did not agree to keep quiet and starve in a land of plenty; that was probably our greatest crime.’ Naturally, no such Movement could fail to attract the attention of the police, and the author’s constant clashes with authority are vividly and humorously set forth. . . . ‘A few of us were arrested and in court we had to listen to some fantastic stories by the police about what these terrible, half-starved people had done. It was the first time that I had ever stood in a court and listened to police witnesses lying like the devil, on oath, in an attempt to convict those who were guilty of the -crime of being hungry.’

FRANK SWEENEY

By our Society Correspondent In this age of ‘pampered’ housewives, who have nothing more to do than work an eight and a half hour day, bring up the kids, manage the house and feed the old man, reflect on the sad plight of Lady Reynolds.

This poor dear who is married to Sir Jeffery Reynolds, one-time boss of India’s State railways, is having servant problems. She complains that servants ‘have disappeared as a race.’

Being a knowledgeable female, she recognises that her difficulties arise because of those ‘selfish’ colonial people who insist on having freedom. Denouncing the granting of India’s independence she says: ‘Frankly, I don’t like life without a subject race.’

Well might Lady Reynolds worry. Look what is happening even here in Britain. Everywhere the impudent lower orders are intruding into domains hitherto considered the sacred preserves of the ‘top-people’.

Mixing with the princes, princesses, dukes and all the other non-producers at last week’s Mountbatten wedding was that hoary-handed son of toil, Clem Attlee. Wearing a top-hat, that looked suspiciously on the large side, Labour’s former leader set off from Waterloo Station for Broadlands. Anxious that our ‘Socialist?’ peer should do as well as the next man I was sorry to see Attlee did not drive there in his own car, chauffered by Lady Attlee.

Fortunately for Lady Reynolds some of our ‘betters’ are still prepared to defend the old traditions. Oxford and Cambridge Universities are fighting back.

John Walker-Smith—the hyphen shows he is one of ‘ours’— is reviving the Oxford Carlton Club after four years inactivity. Walker-Smith, son .of the Tory’s Minister of Health, announces ‘we will drink port at our meetings.’

Quite correctly, this jolly young Englishman asks: ‘What else does one drink?’

No return At Cambridge, in the Union debating chamber, blue-blooded undergraduates defended the monarchy against the proposi_ tion: ‘That provision for the Royal Family is excessive and ought to be decreased! ’

Mr. L. G. Pine, editor of Burke’s Peerage, demanded Prince Philip be sent on a tour of South America. Now there is a suggestion I could subscribe to, particularly if he is given a one-way ticket!

-The Cambridge brand of royalists are no narrow nationalists. The University Royalists have invited Archduke Otto von Hapsburg to London to speak on ‘Monarchy in the Atomic Age.’ A wonderful title This Austrian pretender was tossed out of‘ his own country in 1919. Otto must. however, be disturbed at what he surely will consider a piece of royal ‘scabbing.’ As he flies to England, Edward, the Duke of Kent, spends his time skiing at Lermoos in Austria which to say the least appears to be letting the side. down.

Myself, I don’t think little Otto has got any chance of ac‘quiring the Austrian throne. The von Hapsburgs, Peter of Yugoslavia, and all the other royal refugees seem to me to be chronically unemployed. Perhaps Lady Reynolds should try a few of them if she is short of footmen or butlers, no one else needs their services.

$t Pancras Tenants in Action A victory for the St. Pancras tenants will urge other tenants

After voting to evict Borough Council rent-strikers, Tory members of the St. Pancras Council housing committee tossed their dignity to one side and scarpered away from the council chambers as fast as they could 6 Outside the Town Hall hundreds of members of the St. O.

Pancras United Borough Tenants’ Association had picketed the meeting carrying slogans and chanting: ‘Not a penny on the rents.’

Councillor Tony Prior, chairman of the committee, almost clocked even-time in his desperate efforts to escape the tenants. One Tory councillor craftily slipped into a nearby pub to avoid the demonstrators.

His surreptitious move was noticed however and an irate tenant tossed a full glass of beer over him. ‘“That’s one free beer I don’t object to him having’, caustically remarked a worker leaning against the bar.

Despite the threatened eviction the tenants are still standing firm. For the third week running most tenants are refusing to pay the new increases which in some cases amount to £2 6s. 3d. per week.

On Saturday hundreds of tenants and delegates from trade union branches packed the Clarence Hall to discuss solidarity with the rent strike.

Eu Strike action The Conference agreed that evictions must be met by mass pickets and one-day token stoppages. Labour councillors at the conference appeared to be very lukewarm to this suggestion and proposed that a day’s pay be given to the Central Committee to continue the campaign.

Speakers pointed out the limitation of confining the struggle to the council chamber, particularly as Labour is in a minority. Loud applause greeted. one speaker’s statement that: ‘The Tory council must be made to expect a situation of turbulence and the most effective method would be a one-day strike.’

A resolution was carried calling for a select committee to be formed, consisting of political parties, trade unions and tenants’ organizations. This to act as basis for any negotiations with the council and to implement policy for any future All assistance to St. Pancras A further conference will take place on February 6, again in the Clarence Hall. It is obvious that every possible support must be given to the St. Pancras tenants and every tirade unionist and socialist should support that conference.

The tremendous fighting spirit shown by the tenants is an inspiration to the Labour movement. By their stand they are defying the attempt of the local Tories to implement government housing policy. Their fight is being waged on behalf of every single council tenant in the country.

A victory for the Tories in St. Pancras will be the green light for every Tory borough council to increase rents. Furthermore it will mean that the tame and timid gentry who control councils, allegedly on behalf of Labour, will obediently follow suit. to fight back against rent increases and make it more difficult for Right-wing Labour controlled councils to foist increases on their tenants.

Mass pickets to meet the evictions. Industrial action in support of the tenants. Let London Labour work now to ensure St. Pancras tenants beat the Tories.

Chairman of Lambeth Council Tenants’ Association The tenacity of the St. Pancras tenants noted by Alf Hardy is’ most encouraging. The Newsletter is of course quite right in supporting workers who refuse to accept what is in effect a cut in wages—imposed by the Tory Council on behalf of the Tory government and employers. But a word of warning is, I think, in order. A rent strike can only defeat the Tory council if there is mass support from a large section of the local Labour and trade union movement and a section of the London movement. Mass support—including industrial action if evictions occur.

At the conference of political and trade union branches convened by the tenants’ leadership on Saturday, January 18, ideas of this description were put forward but it appears they were not voted on and accepted.

According to the report in the Daily Worker the following suggestions were expressed :

1. Workers in local factories and depots should be organSized in support of the tenants . . . (especially) in corporation depots and in firms owned by Tory councillors.

2.. In the event of attempted evictions trade unionists should rally round the tenants.

3. Trade union branches should send deputations to the council and should warn them that any evictions will be met by industrial action.

A planned drive Unless there is an immediate drive along these lines, which also. aims to win the support of the local Labour Parties for this type of action, all the courage in the world will not prevent the splendid struggle in St. Pancras becoming a fiasco— or even worse—an adventure with a series of evictions resulting in demoralization.

If this policy is put into operation there is every chance of dealing a body blow to the Tories. But if this policy is attempted and there is still a lack of response then it is the duty of the tenants’ leadership to know how to retreat in good order, too—in order to fight again in the future.

A heavy responsibility falls on the leadership at St. Pancras. A serious defeat in St. Pancras culminating in evictions would have repercussions in every other area where rent increases ar contemplated—repercussions of the worst kind.

I think there can be victory in St. Pancras, but only if the tenants are made to realise the urgency for an intensive campaign in the factories, rail stations, building sites, trade union branches and Labour Parties, without neglecting the London Labour movement as a whole.

Time is short.

Talking of his visit to France in the near future, Khrushchev ‘told the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet that ‘a liking for France, for the French people . . . has developed historically in our country.’ Experienced readers of this column will not be surprised to learn that this reminds me of something—something which illustrates the insincere and artificial character of such official affections.

When French imperialism headed the anti-Soviet forces in Europe, nothing was to be heard of this Russian historical liking for France. Instead, we had the following from Stalin, in an interview with Emil Ludwig in December, 1931: ‘But if we are going to speak of our liking for a particular nation, or rather, for the majority of its citizens, then of course we must not fail to mention our liking for the Germans. Our liking for the Americans cannot be compared to that!’

Ludwig asked Stalin: ‘Why precisely the German nation?’ In the original version of the interview, as published in pamphlet form in 1932, Stalin replied : ‘I simply mention it as a fact.’ As given in Stalin’s collected works, published after the second world war (English edition, Volume 13, 1955), the reply reads, however : ‘If only for the reason that it gave the world such men as Marx and Engels. It suffices to state the fact as such.’

(I understand, by the way, that the editor of the English — version of Stalin’s collected works was Clemens Dutt, brother of the more famous ‘Raji’. This is the same C. P. Dutt who wrote in the Communist Review of February, 1935, criticizing some edition of one of Marx’s writings: ‘We shall always be vigilant to see that distortions are not allowed to appear.’)

The reverse side of ‘historically-formed likings’ was seen in the series of treason trials held in Moscow between 1930 and 1938. At each of these the accused ‘confessed’ to having criminal dealings exclusively and over long periods with those powers which at the time of the trial happened to be on bad terms with Stalin. First France was the chief villain, then Germany. Only in 1938, after Eden’s resigntaion had damped Stalin’s hopes of an Anglo-Soviet alliance, did prisoners start confessing to plots, going back many years of course, with British agents (including such improbable figures as the Labour Lord Alexander). Never at any stage did Mussolini’s Italy figure in the confessions, though one might have supposed that ‘Fascist beasts’ would have had a natural leaning toward that state: as Trotsky remarked at the time, these unfortunate men might plan attempts on Stalin’s life, but never on Litvinov’s diplomacy. American imperialism was a conspicuous absentee from the ‘confessions’, too, though in 1948-53 the Soviet people were to be told that this power had been foremost in plotting against their State since its earliest days.

Orwell fans will recall the story of relations between Animal Farm and its neighbours, Foxwood and Pinchfield, and how this story was repeatedly revised by ‘Napoleon’ to fit in with the current requirements of his diplomacy.

I.R.LS. Doesn’t Love Us Most of our readers have heard, I expect, of I.R.I.S. (Industrial Research and Information Service), the nosey-Parker, Red-hunting organization which works for the employers and the trade union bureaucrats. In the latest issue of the IR.LS. bulletin William. McLaine has a bash at my article for Labour Review on ‘Some Past Rank-and-File Movements’, which has been offprinted as a shilling pamphlet.

What he dislikes most about this little study of why and how rank-and-file movements have arisen in the trade unions since the early days of this century is the attention given to the ‘de-classing’ of trade union officials as a-factor in this connexion. One would think from McLaine’s rage over this that it is something only a thoroughly dirty-minded Trotskyist could think up. Yet (as, indeed, is shown in the articlePublished by The Newsletter, 186 Clapham High St., London, SW4 Registered at the GPO as a newspaper pamphlet) it used to be a commonplace among _ industrial militants—in the days when McLaine himself moved in those circles.

William McLaine was a leading light of the Scottish Labour College in 1919-20, in the days of his great near-namesake John Maclean. He was secretary of the Workers’ International Relief in 1921-23. So late as the publication of the ‘Labour Who’s Who’ for 1927 he was giving his ‘Clubs and Societies’ as ‘A.E.U., C.P.G.B., L.P., L-CS.’ Let me illustrate my point about the commonplaceness in the 1920’s of the idea which McLaine now seems to find so unheard-of, by means of yet more quotations from a couple of pamphlets which I’m sure he did his best to push around the movement in the days before he became a renegade.

The first is from ‘Direct Action’, written for the Scottish Workers’ Committees in 1919 by J. R. Campbell and W. Gallagher : ‘The experience of the Russian and German revolutions has revealed the sordidly reactionary position of the bulk of the trade union leaders. Having attained to a measure of security, comfort and power under capitalism, they were not prepared to lead the workers in a struggle in which they as leaders would have to face risks. In the hour of crisis they revealed themselves as being more capitalist in outlook than the capitalists themselves.. The trade union movement, in fact, by creating conditions which remove those it chooses as leaders from a working-class environment, and by placing its destinies in the hands of these men, is actually raising barriers to the emancipation of the working class.’

The second is from ‘Consolation and Control: The Policy of the Engineering and Shipbuilding Section of the National Workers’ Committee Movement’? (McLaine was himself, of course, an engineer), published in Glasgow by the National Workers’ Committee in 1921: ‘The working class in their generosity raise the permanent official to an economic level which opens out to him the possibility of living in a new social environment. The official is a human being. He reacts to his environment like everyone else. .. . Gradually the influence of the new environment makes itself felt. The official gets conservative, or, as the capitalist press describes it, he becomes sane. . . . There is no way of preventing this from happening in the case of any official except the cutting down of salaries to nearer a working-class level, plus an allowance for educational facilities in the way of books, etc.’

In my humble opinion. the fact that McLaine has for' gotten an idea, in the course of his own social ascent (?), does not render it a new one when he stumbles upon it again in 1960.

Right-winger’s Old Rope

What riles me most about Tony Crosland and friends is the air they assume of being so very up-to-date and original with their line that left-wing policies are out because the workers are better off than in the 1930’s. They recall earlier propagandists to the same effect—in the 1930’s. Their line has whiskers on it.

Ernest Hunter, political correspondent of the Daily Herald, contributed an ‘Open Letter to a Youth Socialist’ to the New Nation, organ of the Labour League of Youth, for February, 1936. He was worried by the left-wing tendencies of his young friend, who had even said that the best elements in the movement ought to get together on the basis of Marxism, to fight for power with a militant socialist programme.

What was the knock-down argument Hunter used to sober _up this revolutionary firebrand? ‘One would think,’ he wrote, ‘to hear the way some of you young socialists speak, that the social condition of the people in this country is going from bad to worse instead of getting better and better. Read what the conditions in the East End were when Jack London wrote his “People of the Abyss”! If Jack London were alive now and went back: to that dreadful place he visited over thirty years ago, he would find a different world.’

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