ROUND 1 TO THE TORIES Pay Pause Brings

Smallpox and the Press SMALLPOX is a terrible disease. Epidemics are fortunately rare these days, except in countries where the standard of living has been depressed by imperialist exploitation.

But the disease of racialism is not controllable by the methods of medical science. Its causes are to be found in the contradictions of a decaying society.

The present smallpox scare is being deliberately blown up by the press, radio and TV not because of the dangers to public health but as part of the agitation around the Tory Immigration Bill. The scare and headlines like the one reproduced here are openly welcomed by racialists and certain Tory MPs. The near hysteria of the newspaper reports from Bradford is attributable to the fact that the first signs of the disease were found in Pakistani immigrants.

For two centuries the British ruled the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan is still economically dominated by British capital. The prevalence of diseases of this kind in that part of the Ebening Standard 42,722 MONDAY. 13.1961 • 3л. Hundred more Pakistanis due here tonight and an MP sends plea to Home OfficeSMALLPOX: 'BAN THE IMMIGRANTS' world is a result of the miserable conditions of life to which imperialism condemns the colonial people.

As in the case of Middlesbrough, the national press angles the story so as to play on racialist prejudice as much as possible. Bradford, it should be remembered, is the town where the Locarno Ballroom's colour bar is being fought by the Labour movement.

The fight against the wage pause is the real light in which this campaign should be viewed, for it is now that the Tories need to find every way they can to divide and confuse the working class.

Racialism in every form must be combatted by the Labour and trades union movement by showing how it diverts the attention of workers from the real issue-the fight against capitalism. The unity of the working class, black and white, Jew and gentile, must be achieved in the struggle to rid the world of this putrefying social system.

Vaccination, let us hope, will outbreak under control. Marxist vaccine which can stamp out the social cause. soon bring the smallpox leadership is the political racialist infection and its in Selwyn Lloyd's policy made by 1 that the government has succeeded the white-collar workers to retreat under pounds in real wages.

In a recent speech, Macmillan explained that his anticipated it would have to make temporary retreats to hold the main line of its strategy. This strategy upon the need to cut production costs preparatory to the Common Market early in 1963.

The first stage of the strategy consisted in efforts to frighten the weaker section of wage earners, in particular Civil Servants and teachers, and to hold up any payment of wage increases for a certain period. It is now anticipated that increases will be granted to these workers of somewhere in the region of 2t per cent when the arbitration tribunals recommence operations after March.

In relation to the mass of wage workers, the policy of the government has been to try and engage the TUC around its so-called 'planning' policy talks and mark time for several months.

Suits the Tories

This has also been successful. Whilst the government have been busy depressing wages and saving millions, the TUC has been talking. This arrangement suits the Tories very well. Meanwhile, the Chancellor, through the employers' organizations, refuses any increase to the major unions and holds out the carrot of a slender possibillity that some consideration will also be given-again in the region of 2ț per cent - after next March.

Another and perhaps more significant development, but on a much smaller scale, has been the get-tough attitude of employers, particularly Rootes and, 1, successful. Regardless of the significant breaches he power workers and others, the hard fact remains in depressing wages by raising taxation and forcing conditions which have meant the loss of millions of Cabinet in order is based entering for a short time, pany of Wales.

In the latter case it became clear to the Tories that a major conflict might have been brought forward too quickly had the steel strike continued. This, they felt, threatened to interfere with the talks between themselves and the TUC. So they settled the South Wales strike at the expense of the labourers.

The Rootes strike, however, was fought out to the finish at the cost of millions of pounds. There is a strong rumour that the motor car manufacturers helped to subsidize Rootes in Carron: bitter opposition?

this struggle. Rootes won the strike because the Right-wing leaders of the engineering unions did everything to help them.

On this front also the government has been successful insofar as it made up its mind to encourage the employers to fight.

Macmillan: temporary retreats Admiralty employment will be much less than it is now.

Meanwhile, no one disguises the fact that the promise of the 24 per cent is of a transitional nature. In other words, it is the second stage of carefullylaid preparations by the government to force a real showdown with the unions, which will undoubtedly come when they enter the Common Market.

Prevent the Unions " The victory of Rootes has demonstrated how the unions can be defeated.' " The Financial Times' of January 17 advises the government that, 'If the unions are not prepared to exercise selfrestraint—as they demonstrably are not—the Government must so order the affairs of the country as to prevent them from having a stranglehold on the economy?

There is now a real need to consolidate the struggle of all the workers engaged in wage negotiations. This can only be done through the encouragement of rank-and-file movements similar to the one in the power industry which will bring together not only the workers of a particular industry and union, but all those workers—in particular white-collar workers -who have a fight on with the Tory government.

Resolute Struggle The heart of preparation so far as the trade unions are concerned today lies in the building of such movements. Needless to say they will meet with the bitter opposition of Right-wing leaders such as Carron and Williamson, but that is to be expected.

For the first time since the end of the war, there can be no mistake about the Tory strategy. Only resolute struggle on the part of the rank and file can defeat them.