The Newsletter, vol. 6 no. 260

EDITORIAL Brown and Mirror •GE BRowN, deputy •u-i of the Parliamentary Labour Party and most active of witch-hunters against the Left, has admitted, following a 'leak' by the Beaverbrook press, that he has been industrial adviser to the Daily Mirror-and on its pay roll— for the last nine years. Ispicious people may think it ignificant that in those nine years the Daily Mirror has moved steadily towards the right, becoming more and more hostile to the struggle of workers for better wages and conditions. It is strongly pro-Common Market and in a recent survey of the Six frequently commented upon the 'blot' on their economies caused by unofficial strikes. now becomes clear why the Mirror boss, Mr. CEcIL KING, consulted Mr. Brown, together with Mr. HUGH GAITSKELL, during his moves to take-over Odhams Press. Mr. Brown could advise Mr. King on the attitude of both the Labour leadership and the unions concerned in the take-over. But by far the most interesting example of Mr. Brown's 'double-life' concerns the 1958 official bus strike.

Mr. Brown is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union and is sponsored by them as a member of parliament. The TGWU led the strike. Mr. Brown's first duty should have been to have given the busmen his unqualified support and to have fought with his considerable influence to help them win. The pages of the Daily Mirror would have made a splendid platform for such a fight. But the Mirror, of which Mr. Brown is industrial adviser, opposed the bus strike. The immediate reaction to this shameful admission, which spotlights the hypocrisy and behind-the-scenes deals with the enemies of the Labour movement, has come from several bus sections of the TGWU who are pressing for the union to remove their sponsorship from Mr. Brown as their MP. le campaign must go further than this. The whole Labour movement must press through their unions and, particularly, at the Labour Party conference, for a rank-and-file inquiry to be held into the activities of the leadership. is well-known that a top official of the TUC has a similar position to Mr. Brown's. How many others are secretly being paid large sums by the employing class to sell out the workers by whom they are elected (sometimes) and paid to lead? ley must be weeded out.

Ridley Road, Dalston: Mosley and supporters defeated by The Fascists and "Free Speech' AST week's Tribune carried a statement from Michael Foot entitled ' Fighting British Fascism'. Foot is worried that democratic liberties may suffer if the fascists are not allowed to hold their meetings. 'For let everyone consider what would develop if it were accepted that the right of people to speak and demonstrate in this country should be settled by fights and physical violence of one kind or another, he says.

In a letter in The Guardian of August 7, Ralph Schoenman of the Committee of 100 calls for free speech for Mosley and Jordan. 'I believe,' he wrote, 'that individual freedom is dependent upon a willingness to tolerate the ideas of those whom we depise.' The point of view of Foot and Schoenman is not only wrong but dangerously wrong. They talk as though fascism were a set of political ideas to be discussed.

But the filth peddled by the fascists cannot be treated like this. It represents an attempt to employ all the irrationalism, prejudice and fear engendered in a rotting capitalist system to mobilise a mass movement with which to smash the organisations of the working class.

IMMIGRATION ACT Anti-semitism, racialism, nationalist mysticism-every piece of ideological refuse is brought in. The aim of the fascists is to prevent people with social problems like housing and unemployment from seeing that their solution lies in the overthrow of capitalism, and turns them instead against the Labour movement.

The present outbreak of fascist meetings is a preparation for the critical times ahead for British capital. Aided by the introduction of the Immigration Act, the various fascist groups compete for big business support and get ready for times of sharpening class tensions.

Right-wing sections of the Tory Party will want to keep the fascists alive for use at some later date. It is ludicrous to imagine that the ruling class or its state machine can be relied upon to stop the growth of a THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1962 East End workers POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT fascist movement.

Today, these groups may look numerically insignificant. But, as Notting Hill, Middlesbrough and Dudley have shown, reactionary propaganda could get support in a period when the official Labour leadership is in retreat. The ' Liberal ' vote represents a reservoir of middle class unrest, which could turn sharply to the right. By opposing the adoption of socialist policies, Gaitskell and Brown weaken the Labour Party and accelerate the drift of the middle class and unorganised workers towards fascism. However much they may mouth phrases about 'racial tolerance' ' they objectively aid the fascists.

The instinctive reaction of working people in many parts of the country has been very encouraging. Young people, in particular, have acted promptly to stop the fascists from holding their meetings and pouring out their filth.

SOCIALIST POLICY

But this type of action is not enough. A positive campaign against racialism and fascism is needed. The Left must fight back with a socialist policy.

At the time of the Notting Hill disturbances, the Socialist Labour League proposed the setting up of defence squads, organised by the Labour movement, to protect the lives and property of immigrants against fascist violence. Today, there is a need for united anti-fascist committees to be established to organise such work.

Democratic rights have been won as a result of long and bitter struggles by the working class. They can only be maintained today through the power of the Vol. 6, No. 260 redundancy must be answered by demand for nationalization Market, thousands of workers are to become unemployed on the railways, in the mines and the aircraft and missile industries. A new stage in the Tory offensive against the working class is about to begin.

This is directed chiefly towards streamlining the nationalised industries which, since the end of the war, have provided cheap transport and fuel for the monopoly industries. As part of the preparation of these industries for competing in the Common Market, the railways are to be reorganised in a way that will give better service to industry but without the slightest consideration for the public who use them. Only those coal mines which in the main serve industry are to be kept open.

The Tory monopolists are not concerned about the suffering of those who will become unemployed. Their main concern is to keep Britain safe for the profit-makers.

Profits before people should be the Tory slogan-and they must be protected at all costs.

Conspiracy

Millions of pounds have been poured into the aircraft industry during the period of the Cold War without the slightest advantage to the working class. Expensive prototypes for military transport have been abandoned overnight and the skilled workmen who so diligently constructed them are put out of work.

Almost the entire British aircraft industry has been nothing more than a conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers of tens of millions of pounds. But this is chicken-feed compared with the expenditure on the missile industries. The industrial town of Stevenage is on the way to becoming a distressed area because the Blue Water rocket project is to be abandoned.

Everywhere wealth is wasted and skilled labour which produces wealth is to be thrown on the scrapheap.

Touching faith

This is capitalism with a vengeance. Now along come the reformist right-wing Labour leaders and similar parrots in the Communist Party with their plea that new industries should be launched to absorb the unemployed. What a touching SEP BOARD faith in the capitalist system these gentlemen have! They must really believe that the great monopolies have the interests of the working class at heart.

In reality, the monopolists will greet the threat of unemployment as an opportunity to cut wages and weaken the trade unions. Here and there employers may start small-scale industries in the distressed areas, but only if they are offered cheap labour which will enable them to make a quick turnover in profit.

The Tories and the rightwing reformists have, in fact, worked together to create the present situation where the capitalists constantly misuse the nation's wealth in their own selfish interest.

Organized Destitution Lord Robens, formerly Gaitskell's right-hand man in the Labour Party, refuses to publish the price per ton for coal which is supplied to industry because this is far less than that paid by the private consumer.

Dr. Beeching, late of Imperial Chemical Industries, gets £24,000 a year to organise destitution amongst railwaymen and their families.

Fat government contracts are doled out to the aircraft and missile industries with no check whatsoever as to how the money is being spent.

Nationalize

THE NEWSLETTER says: entry into the Common Market and the threat of unemployment cannot be answered except through a policy which calls for the nationalisation of all the basic industries freed from the domination of the Tory monopolists and under the control of the workers who are employed in them. There is no other solution.

the Fascists * negotiations have groune Hr Common I Market to a temporary halt after some of the toughest bargaining between 'allies' in recent diplomatic history. The nature and temper of the discussions should blow away any pretence that it is an idealistic project for the good of humanity. It is devised to overcome the contradiction between the productive forces and the historic national state frontiers and to enable European capitalism to continue on its present upward curve. It is an outcome of the betrayal of the working class leaderships after the last war, which has given the ruling class time and opportunity to salvage their system and refurbish it to face the world challenge before it.

The state frontiers have become irrelevant for the monopolies which dominate European economic life. The masters of big capital want freedom to invest where they please and use the cheapest labour available.

Scope is required to hold back the working class, thus keeping down wage costs through internationally coordinated policies. At the same time, economic integration is politically and strategically important as part of the Cold War.

Achievement of such objects is by no means easy. The contradictions between the states which have already joined together in the European Common Market have not been overcome. A major recession has yet to be faced. Outside it are the neutrals and the European Free Trade Area states headed by Britain.

The interests of British capitalism at first seemed to lie in keeping clear of an organisation which it could not dominate and from page Labour movement. 'Free speech' is not an abstract ideal, but a concrete weapon to be used by the workers against capitalism.

As Michael Foot himself has pointed out, the forms of parliamentary rule become more and more empty. Power is increasidley Road: policeman deals wi anti-fascist which might not last long. But the continued growth of the Common Market countries, while the British economy has stagnated amidst difficulties of various kinds, has changed the nature of the problem. Not only does British industry face exclusion from a large and growing market, but the challenge from European rivals threatens to become devastatingly severe.

Not being able to break the racket, the main sections of the British ruling class decided a year or so ago that a bid for entry must be made.

But on what terms? Lagging British industrial growth reduced bargaining nower. On the other hand, inside the Six were Belgium and Holland, partial economic dependencies of Britain, as well as Germany which had lucrative trade connections with Britain.

The question was whether Britain could win concessions which would enable her to continue to retain some of the advantages derived from preferential trade with 'Commonwealth' countries. As it stood, Britain's entry looked like confronting Dominion producers with a tariff wall which would mean loss of markets and lower prices. Similar problems had faced all the protected agricultures of the member countries and settlement by compromise had already involved much hard bargaining.

Clearly for Britain, Commoningly taken over by the monopolies in whose board rooms the real decisions are made.

The fight against fascism cannot be a mere debate against the ideas put forward by the fascists. It is inseparable from the battle against the capitalist society which spawns them.

The Left today must build a united movement based on socialist programme. To answer the lies about immigrants taking homes and jobs from the trueborn Englishmen, we need to show how the housing shortage develops and why jobs are getting scarcer.

This implies a fight for the nationalisation of the land, the basic industries, the banks and • The reference in last week's news item about the merger of three Fascist organisations to the relationship between these people and certain elements in the Tory Party reminded me of a little known fact about Henry Brooke, the Minister for Housing. (Now Home Secretary-Editor.)

Between 1936 and 1939, while he was deputy director of the Conservative Research Department, Brooke was also wealth agriculture and the distribution and marketing of Commonwealth produce, represents a heavy investment which the government cannot lightly allow to be depreciated. Some sections of British capital, most closely involved, have, of course, been resolutely hostile to entry. In this matter mountains of twaddle about historical ties have been churned up.

If the members of the Common Market were consis tent they would accept a big rer luction in their own agriculture and become more dependent on the Heath: high stakes in Brussels lower cost products available from Commonwealth countries. The argument about free trade or the advantages of international specialisation are hastily forgotten however, when important material interests are involved.

Neither the German nor the French governments can sacrifice their peasantry to economic efficiency because the political consequences would be too daninsurance companies. It must be linked with a united struggle for higher wages, and against redundancy into which all workers would be drawn. The nature of imperialism must be explained and the demand for the withdrawal of British troops from colonial countries fought for.

United action for such a policy could get a big response. Young Socialists, YCLers and YCNDers have an important part to play in fighting racialist tendencies amongst young people. Trade unionists, members of the Labour and Communist parties, and CNDers should join with the Socialist Labour League in organising a campaign.

This is the way in which fascism can be stopped—not by calling for the Tories to do the job, nor by bleating about free speech for Mosley.

chairman of « Truth" Publishing Company. This fact he does not see fit to mention in his entry in " Who's Who".

The reason may be that the weekly magazine "Truth", founded in 1877 by the radical Henry Labouchere to expose scandals without fear or favour, possessed in the 1930s the reputation of specialising in a rather significant way in those scandals with which persons with Jewish names appeared to be BUT PRESENT ora try Market negotiations gerous. Hence compromises between themselves and hard bargaining with Britain.

In fact, capitalism is not able to transcend the old national boundaries. It is not able to plan economically within its own sphere. It cannot overcome its contradictions, but only alter their form.

At every stage, too, economic and political considerations inter-mingle. The rivalry between Germany and France is only muffled because of common interests in bargaining with the United States and Britain. The Six could easily blow apart and might not resist a major political or economic crisis. Besides, the Six are not Europe, not even Western Europe. Only the continued economic expansion prevents the real lines of cleavage being revealed Everyone who can read the economic signs knows that intensified struggle for markets is the order of the day. To maintain profits new and drastic measures will be needed. The different national governments, as representatives of the capitalist class, are jockeying for position.

In this the American government continues to play a major role. It knows that Western capitalism, which it saved from collapse after the war, must be kept together. It favours something like the Common Market, but does not want to create in FASCISTS ROUTED IN SOUTH LONDON FOR SOME time now the streets and walls around Clapham have been daubed with fascist insignia and slogans. Coloured workers have had their front doors daubed with paint, and bricks and milk bottles have been thrown through their windows. The racialists have done these things with impunity-not a single one has been arrested. The protests of Labour councillors have gone unheeded.

Then three weeks ago, the National Union of Fascists turned up unannounced on a Saturday afternoon to peddle their racialist filth, armed with a loud-hailer and a Union Jack. Members of the SLL began to chant anti-fascist slogans and soon a crowd of 150-200 people gathered. When connected..

Careful people who like to know the sources of statements like this may like to note that Mr. Brooke's association with "Truth" was mentioned in a letter by Horace B. Samuel to " Time and Tide" for November 22, 1941, and this was reproduced in Claud Cockburn's newsletter "The Week" for January 21, 1943.?

BRIAN PEARCE in The Newsletter, 19.3.60 HEIR OWN ALTERNATIVE Europe a major, independent rival which protects itself by high tariffs from American competition. It thus offers tariff reductions and juggles with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to prevent discriminatory trade policies.

The French attempt to destroy the special relationship existing between the USA and Britain is particularly troublesome. As this is intended to establish Europe, naturally led by France, as an independent nuclear force it runs directly contrary to present US strategy.

In such a situation it is no wonder that, on hard bargaining is the the day. The stakes are 1: poker faces, hypocrisy, blackmail and all the atmosphere of a big business deal have thus characterised the Brussels talks between Edward Heath and the representatives of the Six. Their suspension will no doubt strengthen the opponents of entry in Britain. On the other hand, the voices of those urging entry have become more strident, with even a note of panic.

It should be borne in mind that for the British government it is not only a question of entering the Common Market, but of getting the terms and the position inside it which will enable it to be transformed in line with the interests of British capitalism. In this, no doubt, Britain will have guarded US backing. Altogether it looks as though a formula will be found to accommodate Britain, and thus transfer the struggle into the councils of the Common Market itself.

The Common Market must be appraised as an instrument to preserve capitalism. But it must be opposed for the right reasons, recognising that socialists cannot take sides in a controversy between different sections of the capitalist class but must present their own alternative clearly and consistently.

the crowd became threatening towards the fascists' speaker, two squad cars appeared and the meeting broke up with jeers and boos from the crowd. One fascist received a black eye.

The next Saturday the fascists re-appeared with formidable police reinforcements, but the SLI members and the local youth, undaunted by the sea of 'blue' around them, howled down the fascist speakers, who left soon after with a police escort.

On the third Saturday the SLL organised its own meeting, and its speakers outlined the programme and policy of the League for fighting fascism and solving the unemployment and housing problems in Britain. The speakers sharply criticised those like Michael Foot who refused to fight the fascists in case the fascists fought back and explained why the League was opposed to reliance on Tory legislation as an antidote for fascism.

The meeting concluded with an appeal to coloured and white trade unionists, CP and Labour Party members to form broad-based, anti-fascist committees in every London borough to combat racialism and discrimination in housing and employment.

A surprising feature of the meeting was the presence of a group of young fascists, who came to heckle but instead listened intently and then stayed to discuss with League members. Many of them had never heard the revolutionary socialist answer to the housing crisis before.

'Never forget that all you are is a piece of meat, like in a personality of both man and both man and woman. Page Th

the danger who had incubation and of Por Pneum‹ killed half those days By Our Science Correspondent By Our \HE death from pneumonic plague of Mr. G. A. Bacon of the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton in Wiltshire, stimulated the capitalist press and the BBC talk of 'danger'. But the danger that they spoke of was of the possible spread of this terrible disease to others been in contact with Mr. Bacon. Now that the period is safely past, all mention of pneumonic plague ton has been dropped. ›nic plague-the Black Death the population of Europe in the bacillus bred on of the middle agesthe 14th century. In rats, whose fleas carried it to man. Today it is not the rats and their fleas which threaten mankind, but the capitalist rulers of this society, who organise at Porton the production of the plague bacillus and even more deadly germs in order to defend their profits and privileges.

Porton is one of Rritain's " THAT 1A most modern-designed and lavishly equipped laboratories; it is also one of the most carefully guarded establishments in the world.

There are in fact two separate establishments at Porton. One is concerned with chemical warfare — mainly with poison gases.

The second field of work, in bacterial genetics, is the development of newer and more deadly germs against which man has no defence.

TINY MINORITY

Vaccines against these new types of diseases are also being developed, but there are so many of them that it is obviously impracticable to vaccinate more than a tiny minority of the population against all possible forms of germ warfare. At the moment only the scientists at Porton have been so treated!

In recent interviews with the press, the director of Porton has stressed the peaceful side to the work carried out there, such as work on the smallpox vaccines which were put to good use during the recent outbreaks of the disease.

However, if the work were really so devoted to genuinely beneficial medical research, we are obviously entitled to ask why Porton is so carefully hidden behind the veil of the Official Secrets Act and why the microbiological unit, at least, is governed by the Ministry of Defence and not by the Ministry of Health! butcher's shop-that's what a publicity chief told me words of Kim Novak, discussing Hollywood in the light of Marilyn Monroe's suicide on August 5. Her remark goes to the root of the tragedy of Marilyn. Like Brigitte Bardot in France, she experienced terrible unhappiness and frustration, even to the extent of attempts at suicide, despite having been boosted as everything that our capitalist civilisation demands of a 'successful' woman. The success was responsible for the extremeness of the tension and for the death. In making Marilyn successful, capitalism killed her.

Film-making is big business, very big business; all its values are ruled by the box-office, by pure cash considerations. Art in the cinema is confined to a small number of courageous innovators outside the main centres of the industry.

This commercial enterprise accepts and exaggerates in its own special way all the false values of our profit-ridden society. The characters and abilities of men and women are split up into pieces to be bought and sold.

So far as women are concerned, capitalist society has always regarded them as reproducers of the human race and objects of desire, desire conceived in a brutal, crude way, separated out from the human CRITICISM levelled at the Tory government by Gaitskell and Company is aimed at its inefficiency in carrying out its 'incomes policy' rather than the policy itself.

'It was the merit of Mr. Lloyd, writes the Financial Times 'as even Mr. Gaitskell acknowledged in last week's debate, to realise and stress the need for a workable incomes policy if our economic growth is to be increased.' This type of outlook is extremely dangerous for the Labour movement and it is reflected in many of the motions tabled for discussion at the Trades Union Congress at Blackpool in September.

The ETU's proposal, for instance, calls on the General Council to examine 'the whole of the implications of this new period of industrial relations' , whilst the AUBTW instructs it 'to conduct an examination into the possibility of voluntary co-ordination between unions in attaining a wages structure based on the principle of equity of all workers'.

The Chemical Workers state in their motion that a national incomes policy 'must not merely be a device to restrict wage earnings but must be a positive plan to eradicate the anomalies and injustices of the current wage and profits scramble' The acceptance of any 'incomes policy' whilst capitalism exists Sex and its symbols become disembodied articles for sale on the market. The prostitute sells her body to the highest bidder. On the cinema screen and the magazine cover, beautiful women prostitute themselves to these same values. Men, too, are degraded by these values, become unable to enter into truly human relationships with women, seeking instead relationships of domination and conquest.

The association between sex and violence, sex and filth, sex and evil-all these are part of the degradation of humanity by the rule of capital.

Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and others were thrown like everyone else into this cesspool, but their degradation was flaunted every day before the world thousand times larger than life. Their pathetic protests-that no one considered them as human beings, as personalities, but only as 'pieces of meat, like in a butcher's shop'-are an unconscious expression of the revolt of humanity against capitalist oppression.

Socialists should be steeled in anger at this destruction of humanity, and also by the hypocrisy of the capitalist press as it fastens on the 'news'" value of Marilyn Monroe's life and death, weeping crocodile tears while trumpeting forth the same values which killed her.

Marilyn Monroe's death hit the headlines, but every day countless women of the working classes experience miseries of hardship, oppression and frustration. A scientific study of the physical and mental health of women in our society is beyond the scope of the existing medical and scientific establishment: it would reveal a ghastly picture of post-natal illnesses, abortions, and anxiety neuroses with all their attendant physical results. The significance of City Slants means that the workers' share of the national cake is pegged indefinitely. Irrespective of whether or not productivity increases, this is not a socialist policy.

Even where there is dividend 'restraint', co-operation by the union leadership in any sort of national wages plan would represent a betrayal of the real interests of the working class.

When Macmillan talks about profits and dividends being supervised as part of the 'quid pro quo' Hollow promises EffFfffffff of the machinations of the National Incomes Commission, these are just empty promises.

At a time when stock exchange dealings are at a new low, big business would never accept further restrictions on profits. They will point out that profits have declined by some 3 per cent over the past year. 'Earnings' which represent what is left after income tax and depreciation, have declined by as much as 10 per cent in the same period.

In fact, the pressure On the Marilyn Monroe's fate is that she died so tragically even though she had been raised to the pinnacle of commercialised 'success'.

Socialists cannot accept the values of capitalism in any question of human relations. As the decay of imperialism throws up the stench of fascism, racialism and the return of the Black Death in germ-warfare research, so it eats away at all the gains of human culture, whose only defender remains the working class movement.

When the Communist Party's Daily Worker writes, in its news story on Marilyn Monroe's death, about the curvaceous star (37423-36) ... it disgraces the name of communism and the working class. By writing in this way it accepts 100 per cent the 'piece of meat' type of values; it shows yet again that Stalinism long ago lost all claim to speak for socialism.

But along with degradation and decay, capitalism inevitably creates the forces of its own destruction, the forces of the working class who will overthrow it. Among these forces are the women of the working class all over the world, who will make an enormous contribution, undreamed of until now, to the socialist revolution.

As the revolutionary movement is built from the working men and women, new, truly human relations between the sexes will be forged on a mass scale for the first time in history.

by colin chance government by big business to 'stabilise' wages arises not out of concern at Britain's low productivity, but out of concern at their declining profits. The National Incomes Commission has been set up precisely to control wage costs in the interests of the ruling class.

The government's whole financial policy has been orientated not towards increasing production but towards increasing profits. The cold facts of the world economic situation have, of course, shown that whatever the government does, the decline in profits tends to sharpen.

But the unions should not be concerned about how to 'make capitalism work by calling for a national incomes policy. If the Tories can be sure of controlled wages they will endeavour to realise Professor Paish's forecast of a 40 per cent increase in ordinary dividends between 1961 and 1966.

When resolutions are debated at September's TUC conference, let the rank and file remember Professor Paish's addition to this statement. To ensure a rise of 40 per cent in dividends over the next five years means that 'there must be no excess demand for labour' And we all know what that means.

THE Soviet Union has achieved a remarkable and brilliant technological and scientific feat in launching, orbiting and safely retrieving the two latest cosmonauts.

le achievement is yet further testimony to the superior capabilities of a nationalised, planned economy which, despite the bungling of the Stalinist bureaucracy, is now far in advance of the United States in the 'space race'. spite of the vast effort, the hysteria and the expenditure of great sums of money, the US is now several years behind the Soviet Union and it is extremely unlikely that it will be able to catch up. le flights of Popovitch and Nicolayev clearly pave the way for the building of a space station and an early flight to the moon.

It the 'space race and the duplication of research in the USSR and the USA underlines the necessity for international planning and socialism. With the threat of world imperialism removed, the pressing economic troubles of the Soviet Union could be removed together with the need to channel vast sums on arms expenditure.

Imperialism is a block to the exploration of space-and the ending of the miseries on this planet.

The new issue of Labour Review is devoted to the fight against revision of Marxism. Tom Kemp analyses the theories of those who say the USSR is not a workers' state; James Baker looks at the development of Alasdair MacIntyre; and Cliff Slaughter contributes a second article about Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks.

Price 2/- (plus 6d. postage).

From: New Park Publications, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. Summer

HE way in which the policies of the right-wing leaders of the ETU weaken their union is clearly demonstrated by their activities in the strike of electricians now going on at the Kincardine power station site. The electricians on strike are employed by two of the main contractors on the site, T. W. Broadbent of Huddersfield and AEI Ltd. The dispute is over the demand of the electricians for 'site pay'.

This is an enhanced rate paid to tradesmen and other workers which raises their earnings to 7s. Od.-7s. 9d. per hour. On the Kincardine site all other trades have been receiving this payment but it has been refused to the electricians.

Under the leadership of the local ETU branches the workers on the site have set out to put this matter right. But both the EC officials of the ETU and also the Scottish full-time officials opposed the strike.

The strikers claim that the offer of an increased payment reported to the men by the ETU official from Dundee was less than that actually offers id by the employers. This they say was only found out later by the shop stewards. When they decided to accept an offer of 7d. per nour on the rate, they were L-... 11. - -ad- 11. informed by the employers that 40 of their number would not be re-employed. This figure was later amended to 33 and the employer flatly refused to discuss the employment of these men. Their employment cards were sent to them by post.

SPECIAL BUSES

Fresh labour was then sent to the site under the instructions of the ETU executive; with the help of the local ETU officials men were brought in from Glasgow and Huddersfield. Some of the men were flown to Scotland for work at the site and were conveyed by special buses which were escorted by the police.

A statement issued by strike committee says:

'Our experience in this dispute clearly shows that Bros.

Byrne, Chapple, Blairford, Tuck, Michie and Sim support the employers through scab labour against 100 honest, militant trade unionists. The same scabs who are taking the financial benefits and better conditions our brothers struggled for 11 weeks to achieve. It is said "whoever pays the piper calls the tune", the employers now demand their "pound of flesh" for helping to put their friends in power on the Executive Council for our once militantly led union. The developments during this strike have spotlighted the real GUILTY MEN IN OUR UNION. The membership will have the last word and in due course pronounce judgement by voting out these people in our leadership' In an attempt to get the facts of the dispute before their union leaders, representatives of the strike committee travelled to London to interview their executive committee and to try and see Mr. J. T. Byrne, the General Secretary. The three shop stewards were met by Mr. Chapple. He indicated that he had no time to discuss with the men's representatives and he was, in any case, late for his lunch.

DISCIPLINED

He is reported to have said: • Before you put your case 1 should notify you that Mr. Long of the AEI has notified me that the "nigger in the woodpile" is named Snedden and should be disciplined.

• This strike will not be endorsed by the EC. You have been out for seven weeks. If the EC does not support you then you will be forced through economic circumstances to return. Alternatively, if you continue to press us the EC could make it official and send you back to work on their terms. I have to go to lunch.' This ended the interview which lasted five minutes.

Most of the electricians come from Falkirk and Stirling branches of the ETU. They know that they have a tough job in fighting the combined strength of the employers and the officials of their own union.

The men at Kincardine are determined to fight back and they are appealing to all members of the ETU to protest at the action of the Executive in attempting to break the strike. • Financial support should be sent to: M. Gillespie, Treasurer, 96 Kingseat Avenue, Grangemouth, Scotland.

tadustrial EARLY 5,000 workers from Glasgow's two railway workshops, Cowlairs and St. Rollox, stopped work early last Wednesday in protest against threatened rail cuts and redundancy, and marched the three miles to St. Andrew's Halls where a mass meeting was held. Deputations from other railway depots and from engineering shops and pits throughout the west of Scotland attended the meeting, as well as the chairman and secretary of Glasgow Trades Council. The meeting was supported by the Scottish TUC.

The speakers, however, who included Archie Kirkwood of the NUR executive, 'shadow' Minister of Power, Tom Fraser, Labour MPs Judith Hart and Bruce Millan, Scottish miners' vice-president Mick McGahey, and Glasgow city treasurer, Dick Buchanan, showed that they had no intention of giving real leadership in this struggle.

Absolutely no programme for a fight against the Tories and their hatchet-man Beeching was put forward by any of the speakers, who contented themselves with urging more meetings of this nature and tired platitudes about the damage being done to 'Scotland's economy.

Communist Party member McGahey did state that only the force of a united working class can defeat the Tories, and that what was needed was determination, leadership, and policy. He went on, however, to show what he meant by these words by proudly stating that the Scottish miners' executive had made the call for a 'convention of the Scottish people', to build national unity and protect Scotland.

The main lesson of this meeting is that without a programme for struggle, the working class will be defeated in the coming period.

Railwaymen must demand:

no sackings; an end to compensation payments (the money thus saved to be used for financing transfers without loss of pay); and modernisation to be controlled by the railway unions.

With this programme, and similar demands for other industries, a united movement can be built which will throw out the Tories and their agents in the Labour movement.

In general, I do not altogether agree with the political line of The Newsletter since it appears to me to have those very defects which were criticised by Lenin in his ' Left Wing Communism'.

However, I applaud your courageous defence of Foulkes and your outspoken attack upon his enemies-who are the enemies of real trade unionism.

In the course of your analysis of the situation in the ETU, I note you have repeated certain observations you made earlier concerning Mr. Cannon. I quote: 'Les Cannon resigned from the Communist Party over Hungary . . : I think the time has come for it to be known that Mr. Cannon did not resign on this issue, but upon quite another which was, and is, consistent with his development since that time.

Had you been aware of this, you might not have written, as you have, that 'as soon as it became known that Mr. Cannon was going fast to the Right, our movement broke completely from him'. Mr. Cannon was moving to the Right even before he contacted your movement. How he deceived some of your people you know better than I-though perhaps my own experience was sadder than most.

I think anyway that the fungary myth should be laid to rest pending the day when Mr. Cannon produces the letter of resignation from the CP which he invited me to sign along with himsell. A similar quietus should be given to the tale that Mr. Chapple lost support merely because he was a critic. He was what he is.

I write this not in anger, nor to score debating points, but because I hate to see people deceived or to deceive themselves.

London, W.5 We are pleased to publish this letter from Jack Hendy, a former executive council member of the Electrical Trades Union.

We advise him to re-read Lenin's ' Left Wing Communism' and write a further letter or article explaining to our readers how we are guilty of the mistakes which Lenin criticises in that important pamphlet. We believe he is mistaken when he claims that we are guilty of making them.

Mr. Leslie Cannon of the ETU for many years enjoyed the full support of the late Harry Pollitt, secretary of the Communist Party. We agree with Mr. Hendy that he and other members of the Communist Party were in a much better position to judge the evolution of Cannon. If he had political information then that Cannon was moving to the Right, he should have published it in order to justify the hostility of his party towards Cannon. We would certainly have appreciated such a disclosure.

At the moment there are a number of full-time officials who were members of the Communist Party when Jack Hendy was on the executive of the ETU, but who are at present busy resigning from that party. We urge Jack Hendy to speak out now about these people before they start to repeat the Cannon experience.

miners Newsletter Reporter S mechanisation in Britain's - coal mines spreads, the job of the miner becomes even more dangerous. This is made clear in the report for 1961 of the Chief Inspector of Mines, issued last week. ne reason is that with the use of more power loading machines (more than 50 per cent of coal is now power loaded) roof supports have to be set further apart. Roof falls thus become more frequent.

Ithough the number of men killed in the pits in 1961 was lower than the previous year -235 compared with 317the fall in the number of manshifts worked must be borne in mind. The number of deaths per 100,000 manshifts only fell from 0.22 to 0.18. rious injuries hardly changed, at 1.11 per 100,000 manshifts. And 1961 was a year without a major colliery disaster, unlike the three previous years. gures, for both fatal accidents and serious injuries, show that a power-loaded coal face is about 50 per cent more dangerous than one where hand loading still operates. lus, as the coal industry employs more up-to-date methods and equipment, fewer miners are needed, and the pit-man's work becomes more hazardous.

Subscription 7s. for Newsletter Reporter WILLESDEN CND branch is writing to all sections of the Trade Union and Labour movement in the area asking for support for a campaign protesting against the sentence on Des Lock.

Lock, a former bus conductor and delegate for Willesden Garage TGWU was sent to prison for 15 months for statements he was alleged to have made at a private meeting called by the Committee of 100. The evidence that he incited the people at the meeting to take part in a sit-down demonstration was given by a Special Branch detective who had got into the meeting by pretending to be a supporter.

A letter has been sent to Frank Cousins calling on him to associate himself with the campaign. Financial assistance is also requested.

At present in Wormwood Scrubs, Des Lock is considering an appeal. This Paper is your Paper is Weapon Department, The 186a Clapham London, S.W.4. 12 issues, or £l 8s. per year Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter, 186л Clapham High Street, London. S.W.4 180 Clapham High Street. London. S.W.i Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU),