FOR WIVES AND FAMILIES

Following their nine-day strike, thousands of Liverpool dockers with earnings of less than a pound were turned away empty-handed from the offices of the National Assistance Board on Thursday of last week.

They were told by the management that a loan had been made available (‘generously’ the Tory press later implied) by the National Dock Labour Board.

The dockers saw this ‘generous’ loan as another classical piece of skullduggery to intimidate workers, based on the hope that their incurring debt would act as a deterrent to militant action by them in the future.

Dock-gate meetings were held at the north end of Liverpool docks, where the feeling was high.

A telegram was sent to Bootle Labour MP Simon Mahon, asking him to intervene.

On Friday, Simon Mahon addressed a meeting in Nelson Street. His intervention proved to be of little assistance, but he did admit it was ‘morally wrong for any worker to mortgage his future wage packet.’

At the Canada dock, however, the arrival of that outstanding parliamentarian, Mrs. Bessie Braddock, created quite a sensation.

From her there was no expression of sympathy for the men whatsoever. She upbraided them over her microphone. She called them fools, asked them to be ‘British’ and declared they were being led by a gang of ‘Communists’.

To end her tirade, she said one of the members of the strike committee had drawn £37 that week.

Hundreds of angry dockers approached her limousine uttering adjectives not to be heard by a lady.

‘Tm going. [Tm going’, she cried, and with a total disregard to the men in front of her car she pressed the accelerator and shot quickly away.

One old militant docker (perhaps thinking of the Japanese students and workers) declared that a few thousand men outside the offices of the Assistance Board would have got more successful results.

The common opinion was that there should be no return to work in the future if this form of victimization was imposed. send delegates to the conference. Although circulars have only just appeared in the trade union and Labour Party local organizations, the response to this call has been immediate. This expresses the strong rank-and-file feeling against the Right wing’s attempt to strangle socialism within the Labour Party. Four constituency Labour Parties, one ward party, AEU branches, and the Birmingham and Coventry Victory for Socialism groups have already elected delegates. Birmingham VFS decided to send a letter to Aston CLP giving it full backing. In addition members passed a resolution supporting the London VFS Executive in its demand for Gaitskell to go.

Clause Four is not something abstract in the Midlands. The continued struggles within the motor industry, omens of fiercer mass struggles in the future, because of the