The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 358

boom 'N the light of the poor results for June and the £158,000,000 deficit shown in the first quarter of 1964, the July balance of payments figures announced this week indicate that the British economy is heading for a crisis even before the Octuber election. iblished just before the July figures were announced, the National Institute Economic Review underlined this warning in its main article which anticipates £500,000.000 payment deficit for 1964 as a whole and something like £300,000,000 for next year. owards the end of this year, it says, 'it looks very much as though the government will be faced with the old dilemma. It must either take measures which deal directly with the balance of payments; or it must deflate and face the prospect of another period of stagnation.' The present boom is shown to be fraud got up for the election period.

The 'Economic Review' shows that although the world market as a whole has been expanding, the share held by British exports has declined still further.

Our share in world trade in sharply in the first half of this manufactures dropped year; and the large influx of imports of manufactures on a scale if anything exceeding that of 1960 also makes it seem less likely that British goods are really more competitive now than they were four years ago?

An examination of the economic situation goes back the number one question for the employers: How to control wages?

It is from this angle that the experts discuss slowing down the rate of growth, reducing imports and 'cutting costs'. As "The Guardian' commented on Wednesday: 'In the second half of the year they (the 'Economic Review') expect national output to rise further at an annual rate of four per cent. Exports may still be rising slowly, but imports are likely to go on increasing at least in line with the rise of national output." › the 4 per cent productivity figure, assessed National Economic Development Council, may now be rejected by the Tories and bosses in their attempts to 'cut back'. This will directly affect the working class of this country. le emergence of the economic crisis before October sharply highlights the treachery of those who want to hush up any discussion on the lack of policy on the part of the Wilson leadership. le fight to prepare the labour movement for the new economic situation is life and death struggle for socialist policies.

By Our Political Correspondent N two months time the Labour Party may well be the government. What has happened in the last few days in relation to the balance of payments should now be taken as a grim warning of what this government has to expect.

Uver the past year, overall world trade has increased by 10 per cent. The exports from countries such as Japan, the United States and West Germany have risen by 20 per cent. During that period British export figures have steadily declined, especially to Commonwealth countries. Exports to the dollar-earning countries of Canada and the USA are meeting with sharper competition.

Small profits

In Australia, Britain is fighting for trade with her back to the wall against Japanese rivals. Only in the European markets has there been an improvement in the trading position but under conditions where it is openly admitted that the profit margins have been very small.

The hardest hit in British industry is, of course, engineering. The exports of machinery have only gone up by 1 per cent over the past year, whilst imports of machinery have increased by 30 per cent.

The reason for this disastrous trading position is that the British capitalists have concentrated on selling the wrong products-those which are the least technologically advanced and most easy to make.

Consequently, they have had to endure competition from capitalist countries all over the world, even those who can be characterised as more economically backward than Britain.

Imports increase

On the other hand, imports of machinery have increased because of the feverish attempt of British monopolies to install automated equipment in order to try and belatedly • recover some of the ground that has been lost.

The trouble is that they are trying to carry out automation and pay for it with an export drive for out-of-date goods that are now technologically far behind what is required by foreign competitors.

In the field of automated machinery, the red light is also showing, where British firms such as ICT are losing ground to American firms like IBM. At least some of the automated equipment that is imported is already out of date before it comes into production.

Meanwhile, the massive sums the Tory government pour down the drain in the development of defence weapons for export, aircraft and electronics, have produced practically no real technical benefit for private industry.

It is an open secret since the Ferranti scandal that there has been a fleecing of the Treasury which has brought practically no dividends. Here then is the crisis (Cont. page 4, col. 5) Employment contracts an attack legal advice about the Contracis of Employment Act which, the Engineering Employers' Federation reminded bosses at the week-end, can be used to ignore 'no victimisation' agreements tollowing strikes.

The Act, which came into operation last month, gives workers the right to a written contract of their terms of employment and a maximum tour weeks' notice, depending on length of service.

But it is obvious, and should have been so when it was first introduced in Parliament, that the Act will be used to attack militant workers when they are demanding higher wages and better conditions.

VICTIMISATION

Any worker who strikes without notifying his employer can lose all his rights under the contract, says the Act.

The Federation makes it quite plain in a leaflet to its members that in the event of a strike the worker would have to 'requalify' because he breaks his 'continuity of service'. This obviously means there will be victimisation.

The "Sunday Telegraph' quoted a Federation spokesman as saying: "This is not our action. It is the law of the land and we must do what it says.' Where were Wilson and his Opposition Front Bench colleagues when this law was passed?

The Labour leaders, in fact, line up with the employers who drew up this Act in their attacks on the labour movement. Engineers at the Steel Company of Wales and Independent Television Authority technicians will not forget Wilson's timely 'interventions' to crush strikes at their points of victory. steel

ALTHOUGH the Indian government is desperately trying to solve the country's food crisis it is obvious that Prime Minister Shastri and his cabinet cannot sort out the chaotic economic situation without taking stronger measures than they have previously been willing to take.

Faced with an economic crisis in which millions of Indians are living at starvation level Prime Minister Shastri has naively ordered an 'austerity drive'.

Making his appeal on Independence Day, Shastri urged people not to attend parties and stated that his ministers would not accept lunch or dinner invitations.

Economic chaos

The crisis is not so much an actual shortage of food-the rice crop was very large over 1963-64—it is more a question of the chaotic economic situation existing in the banks and credit firms which has driven up the price of many goods, including food.

The real roots of India's crisis lie in the complete subBy servience of Shastri and his government to Western imperialism. Like Nehru, Shastri may mouth a lot of phrases about being a servant of the people, but he and his government will not introduce socialist measures for fear of offending British and Ameri can governments.

Instead of attempting to plan the economy in a way that would benefit the Indian people, Shastri and others like him rely on western powers to send periodic relief in the way of grain.

No nationalization In addition a conference convened by the Union Food Minister discussed the idea of a state-owned Food Grains Trading Corporation which would set up its own rice mills. No mention was made of the taking over of the existing privately-owned mills or exactly when this corporation would come into existence.

Now the situation in India has reached an extremely explosive state with demonstrations outside Shastri's home and a Ann Gray general strike in Bombay, which is reputed to have the most conservative section of w orkers in the country.

Over the week-end many Indians were arrested after demonstrations against the government's inability to solve the food crisis.

Whilst millions go without food, rich farmers and merchants are able to make large profits out of holding back the food supplies until there is a shortage and then selling at high prices.

The chaos amongst food supplies is such in India that the country has been divided up into food zones and each state within the zone controls the price of grain, with the result that grain can be sold at very high prices amongst the various states within each zone.

Allegiance

First Nehru's and now Shastri's allegiance to the western powers has resulted in a deliberate holding back of the country's economic development and a situation where the shortage of food crisis cannot possibly be solved by the government.

The role of the Communist Party in India's history has been far from militant. This party has played a role of holding back any militant struggles. A communist leader last week complimented the Indian government for 'doing its bit for orderliness' during the Bombay general strike.

This statement was made after two people were killed during previous demonstrations.

As in many other countries the Indian Communist Party merely tags along behind the nationalist government calling for a few reforms and completely failing to take up the real need of the Indian people which is a revolutionary leadership able to mobilize workers against their so-called 'servants'.

The only way that all the black market merchants, the banks and the creditors can be fought is to mobilise the Indian masses around a policy which calls for the nationalization of the rice mills, banks, credit facilities, a complete reform of the monetary system and the antiquated land system.

ply by the Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League to a recent attack by Pierre Frank in the magazine 'World Outlook' on the attitude of the Socialist Labour League Page 22,1964

made to step up sackings of steelworkers, produc tion of steel is soaring. Figures for the second quarter of 1964 show a record 4.2 million tons-15 per cent up on last year.

Allowing for holidays, the July production rate was nearly 20 per cent ahead of 1963. The industry is now working at 88 per cent of its full capacity.

The demand for all kinds of steel, sustained by the present boom in motors and building, also continues to rise. Stocks of steel have increased, but not disproportionately.

This increasingly automated industry is typical of the British economy today. Improved methods of production threaten the jobs of thousands of steel men and the working conditions of many thousands more.

Boom cracking

The present boom, largely based on the consumer durable market, shows distinct signs of cracking up even before the election for which it was designed. The demand for new cars, in particular, is rapidly being overtaken by the assembly lines.

Meanwhile, the British steel monopolies are worried by foreign competition.! The Steel Board has just completed an inquiry into the level of imports, but is not expected to make its findings public.

Imports of steel rose sharply at the time of the Port Talbot strike. Although they have since declined, they are still running at a high level.

The British Iron and Steel Federation claims that foreign firms are 'dumping'-subsidising exports so as to undercut the British manufacturers.

Whether this is so or not, it is clear that the huge increases in productivity, due to automation and new production techniques, will mean bitter conflicts in the world market in the near future.

Despite enormous capital expenditure, the oldest steel industry in the world is unsure of its ability to withstand the onslaught of its younger rivals in such a war.

The battles at Port Talbot and throughout the industry are, therefore, only the prelude to much sharper struggles as the steelmasters try to meet American and German competition by attacking the labour force in Britain.

Vol. 8, No. 358 22, B/OSL FILE Price THE rejection by the national docks delegate port employers to the wage claim, brings the nearer.

By increasing the offer by a miserable 10d. a week, the port employers have thrown down a challenge to the dockers' trade unions. They are clearly prepared now for a showdown with the intention of disciplining or removing the militants as a prelude to the massive reorganisation of the industry which they intend to carry through.

Despite all the hesitation displayed by the dockers' leaders over recent months, they have now been forced to talk in terms of strike action.

In Merseyside last week-end, a mass meeting of 3,000 dockers supported a motion at a meeting called by the Transport and General Workers' Union to take whatever steps are necessary to secure a reasonable increase in wages.

NO ALTERNATIVE Despite the vagueness of the resolution, lay delegates of the TGWU speaking at the meeting stated that they thought a strike was inevitable.

Although many of these speakers expressed their tears at the effects of strike action upon the electoral chances of the Labour Party, they declared that there seemed now to be no alternative to a strike.

At a meeting called the following day by the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers Union Merseyside area committee, dockers pledged their full support for oflicial strike action if it was called by the 'White' (TGWU)

union. They called for the greatest unity throughout ihe by REG conference last week of the latest offer by the probability of a national docks strike a stage industry against the employers.

In this way they effectively answered the recent attacks made on their organisation for the campaign it had waged over recent months to prepare for a struggle over pay.

SHOWDOWN

Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Bill Johnson, area secretary, said: 'We have consistently warned dock workers that the employers were preparing for a showdown. We were right, it seems. But it is no good us leading dockers into a struggle for vague demands. In order to secure the greatest unity and determination, we say we want £15 a week basic minimum wage.' He went on to say: 'We will give our full support to the TGWU providing they fight, but warn them that we are not prepared to sit back and watch them take dockworkers to the top of the hill and then drop them flat.?

Whatever happens now in negotiations the dockers should close their ranks and make adequate preparations for a major struggle against the employers. • See page 4 for Reg Perry's second article on the role of the Conmunist Parey in the aucks.

KHANH:

AMERICA'S IDEAL PUPPET WIll the all backing or American imperausin, Major-General Nguyen Khanh became President of South Vietnam atter a secret ballot.

Khann and the Military Revolutionary Council, who overinrew the neutralist government of Ngo Dina Diem in November 1963, constitute the strong anti-French, antineutralist core that the American government is relying on to continue the offensive against the rebels in South Vietnam.

Since President Johnson is nearing the presidential election period he is reluctant to launch a full-scale war in North Vietnam against the Vietcong.

Khanh and his supporters are ideal from Washington's point of view. They want to crush rebellion in South Vietnam and, at the same time conduct an offensive against North Vietnam.

The American government is doubtless fairly confident that Khanh could not go into North Vietnam alone before the presidential election. The march on North Vietnam would require a strong army-the U.S. army.

However, whilst operating these delaying tactics Khanh and his American supporters face numerous defeats in South Vietnam.

Dockers from the northern ports and London united in the one-day strike called on the same day as the first national delegates conference. A section of the strikers are seem here at a meeting in London with their banners dem anding £15 a week basic wage.

WE DEMANT fIS NOW/ OUR DELEUS TAIN TUr No hope of peace peace in Cyprus T'HE cessation of Turkish air strikes, the return of Turkish and Greek forces to NATO, the lifting of the blockade of the Turkish community on Cyprus and the proclamation of cease-fire have all. raised hopes of a speedy and peaceful settlement of the Turkish problem in Cyprus.

Unfortunately, there will be no peace but only an intermittent lull in which both sides under cries of 'peace' prepare for a new round of fighting.

In all this the UN plays its usual pernicious role of dividing and ruling. The Tories, of course, are exultant. While Greek massacres Turk the British bases in Episkopi and Famagusta remain inviolate and secure.

Now it seems that the Greek government is prepared to concede Turkey a large military air and naval base in the N.E. part of the island. This Turkish demand, if granted, would virtually amount to a form of partition.

to a minority of the party, the LSSP (Revolutionary Section), to continue the fight for the working class.

Previous Newsletter articles have outlined the history of this sell-out and its meaning for the workers of Ceylon and of the world.

Of greatest importance is that the lessons are assimilated into the theory and policies of the Trotskyist movement, the Fourth International.

Split and unite In this connection it is instructive to consider the recent article by Pierre Frank in the journal 'World Outlook' for July 17, 1964. 'World Outlook' is an organ of the self-styled Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International (Paris), on whose behalf Frank attended the recent congress of the LSSP, where the coalition decision was made.

This 'United Secretariat' was set up in 1963 as the result of a 'reunification' between the International Secretariat (IS) and certain individuals of the International Committee, with the support of the leadership of the Socialist Workers farty (JSA).

The International Committee of the Fourth International, supported by the SWP and the IS, led by Michael Pablo, had split in December 1953.

It is important to understand the reason for the split and the unprincipled 'reunification' of 1963 if we are to grasp the implications of Ceylon.

Pablo developed a theory that a third world war between imperialism and the workers' states was inevitable. This clash between the two systems and the 'mass pressure' resulting from it, he thought, would force the Stalinist leaders to fight capitalism everywhere.

These "irreversible' objective trends were so powerful that time would not permit the construction of independent revolutionary Trotskyist parties before capitalist power was broken. Thus, there would be 'centuries' of degenerated workers' states.

Capitulation

Without a long analysis here, we will simply point out that this was rejected by the SWP and the International Committee as a capitulation to bureaucracy.

The Fourth International was founded precisely in opposition to all bureaucracies: only by defeating the bureaucratic leaders could the working class fight to take power and save humanity.

For that, revolutionary parties and the Fourth International were necessary.

Pabloism departed from this fundamental programme and from the basic Marxist theory behind it: that the emancipation OUT NOW-Order your Fourth International (Summer issue) Editorials-Ceylon and British Labour youth Crisis of Post-War Capitalism—Peter Jeffries Through What Stage Are We Passing?-1924 speech Medical and Veterinary Workers Germany 1921: 'The March Action'-Pierre Broué 40 pages. Illus. Price 2/6. Available from: New Park Publicatio overall causes and effects is thus synonymous in this sense with the process of the Political Revolution in the USSR and in the other workers' states.' These ideas and actions are only the logical consequence of Pabloite revisionism.

Ceylon is the most important and instructive of all. More, it marks the end of a whole stage of development of the Fourth International. Fittingly, it came about only one short year after the SWP leaders decided it was time to reenter the Pablo ranks!

Pierre Frank presents a theory of the reasons for the LSSP's degeneration which is rooted in the same method as Pablo. He entitles his article "The Wearing Out [!] of a Revolutionary Leadership'. Like Pablo, he abandons the viewpoint of Marxism.

Revolutionary leaderships are not just the victims of objective processes, but a conscious force struggling to lead the working class to change the world.

The 'wear and tear' on a revolutionary party is the wear and tear of class struggle; it is the responsibility of Marxists to consciously grasp and fight the class struggle. Marxists discuss such questions from the point of view of their responsibilities in leading the working class.

Unprincipled

But Pierre Frank is absolutely principled in his avoidance of is responsibility.

The weakness of political education in the LSSP (which adhered formally to the International Secretariat and the 'Reunification'") was 'well known among the leaders of the Trotskyist movement on an international scale .

there was common concern about this problem ... the split in 1953 did not help, as copy incorporating LABOUR REVIEW Contents include: 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

crisy not to mention the fact that the LSSP's weaknesses persisted and developed within the IS, and not simply alongside 'the split, which 'did not help"!

We shall see that it was the revisionism of the IS itself which hastened and encouraged the betrayal.

It is not a question of the reunification 'not being granted sufficient time, to bring to bear 'united' and 'healthy' efforts. Everything about the unification was politically unhealthy and the participants in it, Frank included, are directly responsible for Perera and the other Ceylon renegades.

This can be proved in chapter and verse.

In his article, Frank says that the United Secretariat 'supported the left-wing tendency' and further that '...

the left wing has been conducting its struggle for the past year in consultation with the United Secretariat. ..?

Lie exposed

This lie is exposed by internal material published for the United Secretariat as recently as May 1964. Their internal bulletin of that date contains a motion on Ceylon submitted by a minority (led by Pablo) in their own ranks and a reply by the United Secretariat. We quote at length.

1. Motion on Ceylon submitted by Anderson (for Pablo's minority):

'... We... (a) censure the non-publication internally or externally, of the letter to the LSSP of the 7th World Congress, and demand its immediate publication, internally and in the next publication of "Quatrième Internationale".

(b) Protest at the alterations made by the Bureau of the United Secretariat in the letter approved by the 7th World Congress, which softens its criticisms of the LSSP Minority, etc., etc."

2. The Reply of the United cretariat, which is very realing, contains the following:

'The United Secretariat...

has not modified in the least the criticisms of the LSSP made by the Seventh World Congress. What it has done is pa pla of the leaner hip the capacity the LSSP to prove responsive to these criticisms. ... The United Secretariat has sought to maintain this loyal and comradely attitude towards efficiently in Ceylon. But here we see, from their own mouths, that they chose to 'give the time needed' ... to Perera!

Let us come to the the argument. No discussion The reply of the United Secretariat continues to say that if it had come out in criticism of the LSSP 'the consequence would be the creation of conditions the precise opposite of those required to consolidate and stabilise the reunification?

Yes! The SWP and the Pabloites insisted on no discussion of differences in order to patch up the unification. Instead of clarification—a fight against revisionism-there was a tacit agreement that everyone would be left alone.

While Perera made his firm course to Mrs. Bandaranaike, the Pabloites continued to bask in the reflected glory of a real mass party' in Ceylon.

Says the statement of the United Secretariat, only weeks before the betrayal:

'a decisive policy of this kind would put in jeopardy, if not destroy, fraternal relations between the United Secretariat and the leadership of the LSSP! (!)

The same United Secretariat, only a few weeks later, was compelled to suspend all 504 members of the LSSP who voted with Perera-a figure many times the entire strength of any section of the United Secretariat!

Left "The end result could be highly injurious to the Fourth International and to the LSSP, including its left-wing which has absolutely no interest to put in question the unity of the party through the creation of undue internal friction and tension from any source? (Our emphasis.)

Here then is the last word!

So much for the 'support' given to the left wing by Pierre Frank and the United Secretariat. What they actually did was to provide the best possible left cover for Perera's capitulation and thus to incapacitate the left.

Their method of covering up differences in order to prevent a false picture of unity prepared the betrayal. They are very explicit and unashamed about this method.

The latest their the great political issues and burning problems of the day.

*Early reunification, in short, has become a necessity for the world Trotskyist movement ... the outstanding leaders of both sides (must) begin the jobs of establishing a new comradely atmosphere and of removing fears which have no real basis in the situation in the world Trotskyist movement today' New splits After this came the Ceylon betrayal! In the same year came the suspension of Pablo himself and his closest followers for 'factionalism'! Just before unification, the Pabloites themselves lost almost their entire Latin American section in a split! New splits are on the way in all the European sections!

The Marxists in the Revolutionary Section of the LSSP are finding a road to the masses and we are confident that along this road they will reject the United Secretariat with its replacement of Marxist principle by policies of adaptation to bureaucracy, the consequence of which has been class treason in Ceylon.

The United Secretariat has written to the LSSP (Revolutionary Section) and called upon all the renegades who supported Perera to reconsider the action and return to the Fourth International.

Pierre Frank's attacks on Gerry Healy and The Newsletter are a shabby attempt to cover up this record of betrayal and deception.

We did not 'demand' that the LSSP left wing abandon the Fourth International.

Comrade Healy suggested to the LSSP (Revolutionary wing) that they should break from the Paris Pabloite centre which misuses the name of the Fourth International and open up discussions with the International Committee of the Fourth International.

The purpose of these discussions would be to organise an international conference where the forces of the International Committee and the Pabloites would be able to present their various opinions in a way that would help to clarify the international movement.

The revolutionaries of the LSSP, we are confident, will find their place in a short time with the Marxists of the International Committee of the Fourth International. poverished and indebted sections of the people Added to the problems is the hronic shortage of prope rrigational facilities in the dr zone and a lack of good drainage in the wet zone.

Since the majority of the population live in the rural areas it is here that unemployment is rife. A recent survey by the Central Bank showed that only 40 per cent of the employed persons in the rural areas of Ceylon had more than 20 full days of work in a month in the various seasons.

PATHETIC RESPONSE Thirty-one per cent of the paddy cultivators had no work and 65 per cent had on the average less than 15 days work per month.

To cure the ills of unemployment at least half a million new jobs must be created in the next year. (This is a conservative estimate.) Dr. Perera's response to this alarming situation is as pathetic as it is reformist. He proposes to create 40,000 new jobs in the state sector leaving the private sector to provide the rest.

This utterly

August 2 Th

HE Newsletter's reporter, G. Healy, secretary of the Socialist Labour League, wrote on his return from Ceylon that the betrayal of the 'Trotskyist' party (Lanka Sama Samaja Party) in that country was now the world number one question for all Trotskyists.

When Trotsky and his comrades founded the Fourth International in 1938, they called the workers to a 'spotless banner', as yet unsullied by class betrayals. Yet now, 26 years later in Ceylon, where Trotskyism was the avowed programme of a party with mass following, such a betrayal has taken place.

Leaders of the LSSP have power in a capitalist coalition government and it has been left of the working class is the task of the working class itself. Pablo saw the working class as a force only to be emancipated by bureaucracies, who became the real instruments of "irreversible' objective forces.

In the years that followed, the theory of inevitable war was dropped, but the essence remained; Pablo and his whole organisation became for years nothing more than an errand boy agency for the nationalist movement in Algeria. Pablo is now an official in Ben Bella's government.

He says in his latest bulletins that: ' "De-Stalinisation" in its was recognised by the IS and the IC; and the reunification undertaken last year was not granted sufficient time to bring new united efforts to bear in a strong healthy way [?] in this situation' (Our emphasis.)

Quite apart from the pathetic evasions of this method, the statement amounts to a pack of lies.

It was not the split of 1953 which perpetuated the political weakness of the LSSP leaders, but the fact that the Party did not break from the revision of the Pabloites!

What disgraceful the Ceylonese section, while frankly acknowledging that its members tend to sympathise politically with the left wing of the LSSP Did the LSSP leadership 'wear out'—or was it helped to betray by 'loyal and comradely' attitudes from the United Secretariat?

'However, the United Secretariat feels that it would be wrong for it as a body representing the movement as a whole (sic) to brush aside the declarations of the majority of the LSSP leadership and refuse to grant them the time needed to prove in action the sincerity of their stand in relation to the United Left Front and the good faith of their assurances.

So! Frank says the United Secretariat was not granted sufficient time to intervene to the Ceylon betrayal magazine 'Fourth International' rejoices in the reunification as ending 'a troublesome division'; it completely conceals the features of this division and says unity has now been reached through negotiation'!

It does not say that the SWP and its friends deliberately carried through the unification in order to avoid a discussion of differences.

The SWP resorted to native American pragmatism to excuse this abandonment of the Marxist method of analysis, preferring familiar issues.

Thus, the statement of the Political Bureau of the SWP, 'For Early Reunification of the World Trotskyist Movement', includes the following:

'We can attract the best layers of this new generation of rebels by our bold programme, our fighting spirit and militant activity, we can only repel them by refusing to close ranks because of differences over the past disputes of little interest to young revolutionists of action, who are primarily concerned about No hope for ¿ million unemployed DR. N. M. Perera, Finance Minister in the Ceylon coalition government kept his promise to present a 'Dukivindina'* budget to the Ceylon parliament and once again showed his solicitude-not for the working class, nor even for the native capitalists but for the big imperialist interests in Ceylon.

This is not really as surprising as it seems because the learned doctor and his not-so-learned friends in the government know that the crisis in Ceylon capitalism can only be overcome by a large dose of foreign aid— administered quickly.

As Perera himself commented in his preamble "The age of miracles is over'.

In order to finance his development plan, involving the investment of 650 million rupees, Dr. Perera has to solicit at least one-third of it (225 million rupees) from foreign sources.

The shortage of foreign exchange is not only serious—it is critical. In the year May 19631964 the total external assets of the country declined from 590.3 million to 370.2 million. During the same period the international reserves the Central Bank fell from 231.3 million to 100.4 million rupees.

As in India, so too in Ceylon, the main source of this neverending drain is an ever-increasing food import bill.

DOMINANT ROLE

There are nine foreign banks in Ceylon with deposits amounting to 500 million rupees, which is equal to 40 per cent of the total banking deposits in the country. The banks in an export economy such as Ceylon's play an important and dominating role.

But rather than expropriate these leeches, the coalition proposes the creation of an ExportImport Banking Corporation in which the government will have 51 per cent of the share capital and the banks 49 per cent.

However, Dr. Perera was unable to answer what he would do if the banks refused to cooperate. Hence his anxiety not to touch imperialist interests in banking, plantations and shipping.

While making a few miserable concessions to white-collar workers in the form of tax reliefs and imposing a purely symbolic wealth tax on the rich, he did nothing to concede any of the 21 demands of the trade unions.

All that the working class got was a vague hint that if the financial situation improves, the implementation of the Wilmot Perera Report on Salaries will be seriously considered with suitable changes.

WAGE INDEX DOWN Nothing more! The Ministe himself was forced to admit that the index of real wages in Ceylon had dropped continuously from 106.9 in 1962 to 104.5 in April 1964. received ise or ulivator despot, The peasant cultivators, too received little or nothing despite the passing of the Paddy Lands Act and a guaranteed price scheme for tenant cultivators.

Paddy Land holdings in Ceylon are extremely fragmented and small. Over 80 per cent of the paddy lands is in holdings of less than one and a half acres.

Almost a million cultivator re engaged in rice productio and they are the most im prospect because many private industries are being forced to close down for lack of raw materials caused by the government's attempts to conserve foreign exchange. The private sector has been declining, in fact.

In the week of the budget alone 1,500 workers lost their jobs as a result of shutdowns.

At the same time Dr. Perera's attempts to evade the question of nationalization of the tea and rubber estates by putting an acreage tax on tea will suceed only in exacerbating the problem of unemployment.

ACREAGE TAX

Many of the small and medium producers of tea, unable to pay the tax, will go to the wall and since the government has made no provisions for taking over these estates, the workers will join the already vast army of unemployed.

How Dr. Perera is going to pay an acreage tax on his 1,000 acre tea estate, which he quiet!v bought when he was in the United Kingdom in 1960, is another matter. This also possibly explains Dr. Perera's aversion to public ownership.

The government's industrial policy was the subject of bitter criticism from the opposition. Dr. Perera's industrial plan is no plan at aill, but a series of departmental estimates compiled by his predecessor.

It does not even have the virtue of originality.

Any real plan of industrialisation must include the nationalization of tea estates. Two-thirds of Ceylon's entire cultivated area is devoted to the cultivation of tea, rubber, coconuts and cocoa.

PROFITS IN LONDON Ninety-four per cent of all export earnings come from these four crops-but most of the profits are remitted to London at present. Most of the tea and some of the rubber estates are operated and owned by Sterling companies.

This is the most profitable sector of the economy and it is from here that much of the capital required to finance industrialisation must come. So long as it remains in foreign, private hands, however, no realistic industrial policy is conceivable.

The coalition government showed its concern for the big foreign tea planters by allowing the resumption of the sale of Ceylon tea at the London Tea Auctions. This is a veiled form of expatriating capital.

Timid proposals for building a capital goods industry have seldom if ever been realised. The Soviet - subsidised factory outside Colombo is the most recent but by no means the most lamentable example of corruption and inefficiency.

The foundation stone for this project was laid in 1962 but no one knows when or whether it will be completed.

The proposal to take over the newspapers in Ceylon will frighten no one except the press lords. Instead of the lies peddled by individual capitalists the people will now have to swallow the racialist rubbish of the coalition government peddled by a government monopoly.

UNP PRAISES SLFP

The feeling of the Ceylonese capitalists was aptly summed up by one of the United National Party spokesmen when he stated that The UNP fully subscribed to the type of capitalism operated by the SLFP' [Sri Lanka Freedom Party]. Whatever Dr. Perera may say about the age of miracles—wonders will never cease!

The feeling of the working class towards Dr. Perera's budget and the plans of the coalition government were best expressed Bala Tampoe, General Secretary of the Ceylon Mercantile Union: 'Dr. Perera can be relied upon by the capitalist classes not to touch their interests and the same goes for the imperialist interests in this country. The budget has nothing in particular to the advantage of the worker?

* Hardship.

LE TTER BRANCH T the five-week-old strike at the Velona mills •WELVE Ceylon trade unions are supporting and, at a mass meeting last Friday (August 14), they demanded that the government take over the tactory immediately.

The unions were: Government Clerical Service Union, tion, Ceylon Workers Congress, Ceylon Trade Union FederaPublic Service Workers' Trade Union Federation, Ceylon Federation of Trade Unions, Democratic Workers Congress, Sri Lanka Jatika Guru Sangamaya, Ceylon Mercantile TIninn ravlan Rank Fmvaun ployees Union, Central Council of Ceylon Trade Unions, Government Technical Officers Trade Union Federation and Public Service League.

At the mass meeting held at the Moratuwa Town Hall and attended by thousands of port and other workers Merril Fernando, MP, said:

'We have carried on this struggle for the last five weeks, in spite of thugs and police baton charges. Until the factory is taken over by the government, we shall continue our fight?

Mr. W. G. Ratnayake of the Ceylon Workers' Congress said the unions had expected a "just settlement' to the strike, but that all hopes had been shattered.

Mr. T. B. Dissanayake of the Government Clerical Service Union said that even those people who did not belong to the trade unions and federations should support the strike.

Appeal Mr. N. Shanmugathasan appealed to the employers to stop the exploitation of poor workers.

'We shall continue our revoluMercantile union port workers provide main support The tremendous support for the workers of the Velona mill came from many sections including the militant dockers of the Mercantile Union, which is led by secretary, Bala Tampoe, a leading member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary).

Johnson

looking for stalemate in Vietnam?

nearer and nearer to Saigon, the United States makes desperate, chancey and blatant attacks on North Vietnam.

On July 27 U.S. planes travelling from Laos attacked the village of Noong De, 12 miles inside the frontier of North Vietnam and on July 30, U.S. warships shelled the North Vietnamese islands of Hon Me and Hon Ngu.

Then, on August 2 and . ame the Bay of Tonkin affai when American battleships and North Vietnamese torpedo boats exchanged shots.

President Johnson finds the war in South Vietnam an embarrassing and costly affair so close to the presidential elections and was hoping to contain it.

But the determination of both the Vietcong and Pathet Lao forces, who have made tremendous advances in both Vietnam and Laos forced the U.S. State and Defence departments earlier this year to leak to the American press a warning that the U.S. might attack North Vietnam.

This was intended as a warning to dissuade the North Vietnamese and Chinese from supporting the Vietcong, but it has gone unheeded and led to what the world's press saw as a very dangerous situation.

Co-existence

Even so, neither Peking nor Moscow-for different reasons— are keen to take up arms against the U.S. over the Bay of Tonkin affair. Khrushchev wants to do disarmament deal with the U.S. and any show of force now would completely contradict his lines of peaceful co-existence.

Mao Tse-tung, on the other hand, has spoken of tactical caution and strategic boldness. A battle in the Tonkin area against the gigantic forces that the U.S. has been mustering in the Pacific, would lead to a defeat for China.

The Americans, it seems, are anxious to create a stalemate situation in the area SO they can go ahead with a conference to find a solution to the problem.

The press in Britain and the United States has enthusiastically taken up this suggestion. But they seem to forget the tremendous feeling among the North and South Vietnamese people—who would not accept a Korean'-type settlementagainst the imperialist aggressors.

The solution to the crisis in South-East Asia is for the U.S to withdraw its troops and the British labour movement should demand this now. World News Round-up

ROGUE

DESCRIBED by Southern Rhodesia's Prime Minister, lan Smith, as a rogue elephant, Sir Roy Welensky, leader of the Rhodesian Federation until it was dissolved, has not forgotten

YOU have done a great service to socialism and the Negro struggle by publishing regularly news on the struggles in the United States of America. Your last issue was good. ›wever, I am a bit worried by some of the arguments of Jack Arnold on the question of organising a Negro party as a means of winning civil rights. agree with the programme outlined by the author but I do not think that such a programme could ever be realised by a purely Negro party. o me the Negro question is a social question not just a racial one. It is an important symptom of the terrible social crisis afflicting American capitalist society.

The Negro question will be solved definitely and irrevocably only when capitalism is overthrown in the United States.

For this, two indispensable preconditions must be satisfied: firstly, the two party system must be broken. by the emergence of a third party representing the working class; secondly, there must be complete unity in struggle of the Negro and white working class.

my opinion these conditions can be secured only in and through the struggle for a labour party based on the trade unions. Of course, it is easy for us in Britain to say these things. The actual struggle for such a party in the States will be much more difficult and complex and it would be presumptuous for me to try to indicate the stages of such a struggle.

Nevertheless, I feel that only such a struggle will answer the attacks of racists and their capitalist backers effectively. A Negro party, in my opinion, would go the way of the Black Muslims and Marcus Garvey's movement. On the other hand a labour party should make provision for representation of organisations representing political and national minorities in its leadership. Otherwise it would alienate Negroes and other groups. nally, may I say this. Many people-too many-are fond of quoting Marx's dictum that 'labour with a white skin cannot be free so long as labour with a black skin is branded'. is time for us to consider the converse of this--namely, that labour with a black skin cannot emancipate itself so long as labour with a white skin remains shackled by capitalist politics. at this the real and major problem that faces the American working class today?

Jones.

SELLING The Newsletter in some pubs around London, the leading article in last week's paper caught the attention of a young paratrooper on leave from Cyprus. Seven of his friends had been killed in fighting against EOKA and he was filled with bitterness.

Then I signed on for 22 years, he told us, 'no one said I would be a sitting target between the Greeks and the Turks. Not that we have anything against the Cypriot people. They are just fighting for their country, as we would if someone came and tried to take over ours. le are shooting each other, so that the bosses in this country can go on having their base there. They don't care how many of us get killed and maimed, so long as their interests are safe.

Labour wins the elections, it won't make any difference, he said. Wilson looks after the same people as the Tories do. Id buy myself out tomorrow if I had the money? He told us that he used to hold the rank of corporal until he was ordered to shoot a little Cypriot girl about 5 years old during an attack on a village. 'She's one of the enemy,' he was told. When he refused, he lost his stripes. 'Conditions in the barracks there are terrible, he told us, 'and when I put in a complaint I was slapped in the guardhouse.' "If they ever try to use us against workers in this country, such as enforcing conscription or breaking strikes, they'll have trouble on their hands. As we left, he shook hands with us. 'If you could come round ›ur barracks in Cyprus, selling that paper and talking to the boys as we're talking now, you would get a lot of support, he said. 'Good luck with your work?

this soldier's views are any indication of the feeling which exists among many British soldiers abroad, the working class will have some very powerful allies in the fight for socialism.

London. tionary struggle until the establishment is nationalized,' he said.

Bala Tampoe, a leading member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary, said there was no meaning to the talk of democratic rights if the strike was allowed to continue. 'We shall destroy capitalism for ever even though "socialist guns" are trained on us, and form a workers' government in the near future,' he said.

Many other union representatives, including L. Ariyawansa (SLJGS), Oriel Gunawardena (CBEU), K. H. R. Fonseka (PSWTUF), and Leslie Fernando (Central Federation of Trade Unions) also spoke.

US AID TSHOMBE AMERICAN imperialism may give financial aid to Tshombe, Prime Minister of the Congo, in his efforts to suppress all those who are now opposing his rule.

Tshombe has, as The Newsletter pointed out some weeks ago, been backed by imperialism in the Congo; now the United States government has sent the first three of a group of bomber planes which have light machine guns, bomb bays and rocket launchers.

Augus 22,

Police have clashed with Negroes in many northern and southern cities in the United States since the flareup in New York's Harlem a month ago.

The frustration felt by coloured people there, despite the Oivil Rights Bill, has been expressed violently and in many forms. But much of the anger is aimed directly at the police.

In the New Jersey cities of Paterson and Elizabeth, Negroes threw bricks, bottles and fire bombs at shops and police. On August 13 there was a running battle between 200 Negroes and police after three police cars were bombarded with bottles and fire crackers. Many Negroes were arrested.

In several Southern states Ku Klux Klan members burned crosses and in Albany, Georgia, police killed a Negro who, according to the local police chief, reported in Monday's 'Daily Telegraph, 'appeared to be drawing a gun on a policeman'.

ARMED

Also on Monday rocks were hurled from rooftops and windows in the Chicago suburb of Dixmoor.

Hundreds of police were called in and, armed with highpowered rifles, they cordoned off an area and charged in.

The mutilated bodies of two more Negroes have been discovered in Mississippi. Charles Moore (20) and Henry Dees (21) had been killed in Clarksdale and their bodies cut in half.

Charles Evers, a field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and brother of the murdered Medgar Evers said that 14 Negroes have recently disappeared, been killed or died mysteriously in Mississippi.

No arrests had been made in nine cases in the Delta area.

'Most of these murders have been committed by local police officers, Evers claimed.

YOUTH FIGHT

As The Newsletter pointed out in a full page devoted to the Negro struggle last week, it is the young teenage Negroes who are taking up the fight for their rights and against police brutality.

In the north this youth is trapped almost from birth in degrading ghettoes where thousands are packed into crumbling, insanitary tenements. They are forced to roam the streets, out of a job, the victims of slumlords and the world's most vicious police force, and, when they take up what could be an organised struggle, they are betrayed by do-gooding, dogcollar wearing 'leaders'. politics.

He hopes to enter the Rhodesian Parliament as leader of a new opposition party (Rhodesia Party) by winning the forthcoming by-election at Arundel. The Rhodesia Party (RP) will embrace, but have a broader base than Sir Edgar Whitehead's Rhodesia National Party (RNP).

Welensky said last week that the policies of the new party would be to obtain independence for Southern Rhodesia through negotiation and remain in the Commonwealth as opposed to Smith's probable course of declaring unilateral independence.

Franchise

Welensky also talked of extending the franchise to older Africans -— previously excluded by an education qualificationpledging the party to restore law and order, ending racial discrimination in public places (hoteliers, publicans, etc., can do what they want), repealing the Land Apportionment Act and creating friendly trade relations with African states to the north.

Though this policy seems in direct opposition to that of Mr. Smith, whose party will probably fight the Arundel by-election on racial and land questions, both parties aim for independence for Southern Rhodesia with white minority rule.

From 'extreme to 'mainstream' extreme to the 'mainstream' of the Republican Party has brought arch-reactionary General Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and even Governor William Scranton (defeated by Goldwater in the ballot for presidential nomination) rallying round him in the forthcoming presidential election campaign.

Completely reversing his platform at the Republican Congress held recently in California, Goldwater, speaking at a 'summit conference' of the Party at Hershey, Pennsylvania last week, rejected support of extremists "both left and right.

'We repudiate character assassins, vigilantes, communists and any group such as the Ku Klux Klan that seeks to impose its views through terror threat of violence,' he said.

Goldwater said he would bring to bear the 'moral influence' of the Presidency to carry out the civil rights laws in a peaceful way. Yet he completely rejected the Bill by not voting for it in the Senate.

HYPOCRISY

And this "peaceful' man, whose change of policy can only be seen as a vote-catching, unifying piece of hypocrisy, lets it drop that he is still for 'the interdiction of supply lines from China to North Vietnam'. People remember only too well that Goldwater advocated the use of low yield atomic weapons in the forests of Vietnam, though he claims it was an impulsive statement now completely robbed of any worth by President Johnson's order to the commander of the Seventh Fleet to 'use all necessary weapons' in South-East Asia.

What was this but an imposition of imperialist "views through terror or threat of violence.

Eisenhower told the press after the conference that Goldwater's complete repudiation of the San Francisco programme were 'clarifications' to clear up some uncertainties in the party.

TOO EXTREME

But it is obvious that Goldwaterism was considered to be too extreme for both the right wing and the Eastern liberal sections of the Republican Party, and people: like Eisenhower, Nixon and others have pressurised Goldwater to present a more general appeal to the electorate, especially those they hope to catch from the 'white backlash'—white reaction against the treatment of the Negro question by the Democrats.

Despite the support of a strong middle class feeling , the pinch of imperialism's crisis, and the massive Southern anti-Negro vote, the Republican leaders also fear the "backlash' of thousands of Negroes swamping the polls.

It must be remembered that it was possibly the real extremists Goldwater now disowns, who murdered three civil rights workers in the south. They were killed while registering Negro voters! Welensky: supports independence within the Commonwealth Whether they allow Africans to participate in or vote for such a government or not-only 13,000 Africans have the vote in comparison with 90,000 whites depends to a greater or lesser degree on where the sympathies of the individual leaders lie.

Shabbily

Welensky, who feels he was treated shabbily by Britain over the Rhodesian Federation affair and still clings to the formal pattern of independence within the Commonwealth, will allow several coloured politicians already in Whitehead's RNP to remain active in the RP.

Smith, on the other hand, has shown a certain amount of sympathy for the reactionary South African regime of Verwoerd. He will take the ultimate step of' declaring independence without Britain's consent if pressed and will set up an all-white government.

This programme has attracted a vast layer of small white farmers who desperately turn to politicians of Smith's reactionary colour in turbulent Africa for fear of losing their property and profits to the Africans.

Immigrants

Realising the potential of this section of the community, Smith has sent a representative to Europe seeking immigrants for Rhodesia to replace some of the 6,500 scared and disgruntled whites who have left the country so far this year.

Whatever happens in the country, under Smith or Welensky, the big business and small white farmer interests of the country will be safeguarded, while the mineral and manufacturing production will continue, as it has done this year, to rise at the expense of the living and working conditions of the Africans.

on August 11 ('The Dockers Big Opportunity') was that dockers HE central theme of the article which appeared in the 'Daily Workel throughout the country are in no condition to fight the port employers because of the continued existence in the northern ports of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers Union ('Blue' Union).

They also claim that the 'debris' created by the struggle of northern dockers in the mid-1950s has not yet been cleared away, despite the painstaking work of the Communist Party members.

One can speculate on the reasons why this article was published on the very day that the employers and trade unions were meeting to reconsider the wage offer. What can be said for certain is that the article declared unambiguously the complete servility of the Communist Party to the bureaucratic leadership of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Once again they join hands with all those who have fought to destroy the voice of the militant northern dockers in the 'Blue' union, since the growth of that union and its fight for recognition in the years 1954 and 1955.

The way it is presented by the 'Daily Worker is that the leaders of the NASD were responsible in those years for provoking an inter-union conflict with only the gains to their union in mind.

What really happened quite different.

In January 1954 (not '55 as stated in the Worker') the executive committee l of the NASD called an official ban on overtime working in the Port of London in protest at the disciplining of dockers who in the past had refused overtime engagements.

They had to conduct this struggle against the employers who declared that overtime was an obligation imposed by the Dock Labour Scheme and against the leadership of the TGWU who advised their members not to support the action of the 'Blue' union.

In August this overtime ban, which had continued solidly for seven months and had won the support of over 30,000 TGWU members was turned into an official strike following an issue of meat handling in London docks. This strike lasted six weeks and went a long way to stopping the victimisation of dockers on the issue of overtime working.

Resigned

In the middle of August while this strike was in progress 4,000 dockers in Hull, dissatisfied with the handling of port problems by the TGWU, resigned from that union and applied to join the 'Blue'.

Their action was the spark which lit the fumes of frustration and bitterness of thousands of members of the TGWU in the ports of Birkenhead, Liverpool, Garston and Manchester.

Within a few weeks 10,000 dockers in these ports applied to join the NASD and were accepted.

This action, known since then as 'the prison break' was the spontaneous explosion of rank and file members of the "White' union after years of struggle against their own leadership. Many had been or were branch officials of the TGWU who had reached an impasse in their attempt to democratise the union's docks section.

AAAAA ARAAAAAA..

Join the Socialist Labour League AS a member of the Socialist Labour League you can fight in the Labour and trade union movements for a real socialist policy. If you would like to join, or to know more about us, fill in the attached form and post it to:

The Socialist Labour League, 186a Clapham High St., London, Name Address ' What happened was not 'an ill-advised decision of the entirely London based Blue union to enter the northern ports' and 'poach TGWU members' as the 'Worker' suggests.

If their fight to join the union of their choice received setbacks and resulted in 'debris' and 'nonunionism on a substantial scale' it was not because the decision of these men was wrong, but because their struggle for democracy on the docks was sabotaged by the combined attacks of the right wing TGWU and TUC leaders, the employers, the national press, and the treachery of the Communist Party.

For years these dockers have had to face not only the constant attacks of the employers but also the savage attacks on militants by the union by expulsions and suspensions. They had stood on the picket lines and seen their union officials condone the use of troops to break their strikes on five occasions by the Labour government. They had seen their union leaders support the arrest of their rank and file leaders, and the attempt to jail them at the Old Bailey in 1951.

Hand-picked

Meanwhile, they had no way of controlling these officials since positions were held through appointments by hand-picked administrators themselves.

From the very start, when the Hull dockers declared their intention of joining, what to them was a more militant and democratic docks union, the NASD, the Communist Party opposed them.

Not only did Harry Pollitt make the statement given by the 'Daily Worker', 'this action can only lead to disaster. What is needed is unity in the fight to democratise the Transport and General Workers' Union', but throughout the fight for recognition of 'Blue' in the out of London ports, the CP members worked tirelessly for the defeat of the strike.

What is particularly shameful about this is that the photograph accompanying the 'Daily Worker' article shows the late Albert Timothy, one of the most respected militant leaders of London dockers since the war addressing a meeting in the Royal Group.

Albert Timothy resigned from the CP after Pollitt's statement and remained a staunch member of the 'Blue' union.

The struggle for recognition and the right of the 'Blue' to service its members in the northern ports began in May 1955. In "Tribune' of December 31, 1954, Vic Marney, a leading CP member of the London Docks Liaison Committee declared: 'Under no circumstances will we be involved in any struggle for the recognition of the 'Blue' union in the northern ports.' ('Tribune' supported the NASD.)

Pressure Throughout the strike the London Liaison Committee opposed the strike, telling dockers to cross the picket lines and constantly putting pressure on the London leadership of the NASD to call off the strike.

At the same time the 'Daily Worker' repeatedly played down the numbers on strike and gave the impression to its readers that the strike was about to be called off at any time.

In the end it was on a motion by a CP member on the executive of the 'Blue' that the strike was called off.

Since that time the CP has supported every action of the TGWU leadership, often in open collaboration with the local port employers to remove 'Blue' union card holders from the register. In 1962 they were almost the only ones to vote in support of such action at a meeting in the Liverpool Stadium.

Throughout the whole of these bitter struggles the CP has repeatedly declared its confidence in the ability to democrațise the docks section of the TGWU. This argument has been dealt with fully in the pamphlet, •Hands off the Blue Union' by William Hunter which contains a much more detailed account of the recognition struggle.

But it is timely now to ask just how far they have succeeded. The rank and file of the TGWU have no more control over their officials than they had 10 years ago. These officials still operate behind the scenes with secret negotiations with the port employers. There is still to this day little or no ronsultation of the members over new agreements made with the employers.

Victimisation

Whenever branches oppose the actions of their officials (e.g., the rejection of the 'new deal' by all 11 branches of the TGWU on Merseyside) local officials still maintain that the branches have no right to take such decisions.

Finally, but not least the victimisation of militants with the co-operation of TGWU officials still continues.

May we be excused for asking why, if more democracy exists, the Black Circular instituted by Deakin in 1948 has not been lifted. Despite all the servility of the CP towards the right-wing bureaucracy, its hopes of lifting this ban two years ago were rudely dashed by the personal intervention of Frank Cousins himself.

This was despite the fact that for months the 'Daily Worker' and the CP in a special pamphlet had withheld all criticism of Cousins and had held back its members from a real fight at Ford in order not to antagonise him.

What then has been the effect of the existence in the northern ports of the NASD?

Agreements

Firstly, it has prevented the TGWU leaders on many occasions from completing the betrayals of the working conditions by secret agreements with the employers. • Secondly, by its very existence, it has strengthened the hand of militants in their fight within the TGWU. Only two months ago 4,000 Hull dockers, under the leadership of NASD members, stopped work and stopped the TGWU from disciplining Bro. Warhurst, himself a member of the CP and leading TGWU militant in the port.

It is perhaps appropriate to recall that in the seamen's strike in 1960 the Merseyside dockers gave tremendous support to the strike, while in London, the Liaison Committee, controlled by the CP, did nothing at all, The struggle to democratise the TGWU can not be won solely on the basis of branch visits.

In its final paragraphs the 'Daily Worker' issues a call which differs in no sense from the one it condemns earlier made by the TGWU.

In effect it calls for unconditional surrender by the 'Blue' union of its members in the northern ports in exchange for a respectable place back in the TGWU.

They will receive their answer from the militant unity established over recent months between rank and file in both unions in the northern ports. One thing can be assured: the fight to establish a leadership on the docks cannot be developed by the Communist Party.

Hardship for workers were sacked last week from Wrights Ropes Ltd., Bordesley, Birmingham, two days after returning from their annual holiday, following a take-over of the firm by the larger group of British Ropes.

Mr. I. H. Daunter, works convenor, descrived as 'scandalous' tne treatment by the irm of its workers, many of woom naa worked at ine tactory 30, 4U and even su years. Wrights Kopes was taken over last December, when the management assured workers that it mignt be necessary to just trim certain aepariments' and that tnere would be a measure of reaundancy but that there would be 'ample compensation'.

'We had no idea the whole lactory would be sautung down wild ine exception of two small departments in Barr Street, the nore departmeni and the small cord and rigging department. Uut of SUU workers only 40 or Su will keep their jobs, Mr. Daunter claimed.

BITTERNESS

He spoke with bitterness of the plignt of some of the older workers, men and women. He said work had been ottered at the group's factories at Sunderland, Gateshead, Bristol and Retford 'provided workers could get áccommodation for themseives', and also at the plant in New Zealand, but workers would have to pay their own passage money.

Compensation terms offered were 12 weeks' basic pay for workers with 30 years' service and over. A case was quoted of one of the dismissed men, aged 65 next April, who would have completed 50 years with the firm next month. His total compensation would be £118 7s., but if he had been allowed to work till he was 65 he would have been entitled to draw a small pension of about £2 weekly.

SCRAP HEAP

Compensation for workers was on a sliding scale, from one week's pay for those with workers ence.

If he understood anything of the nature of the fight for socialism he would be well aware that it is no use appealing to capitalist bosses to behave in a civilised manner towards workers.

Ulster transport works to close transpor By Our Belfa:

A VOTE of no contidence • in the full-time officials of 17 unions was passed by engineering workers in Ulster Transport Authority's Duncrue Street works at a mass meeting in Belfast on August 13.

The state-owned UTA which employs 10,000 men is to be dismantled and the 17 union officials are members of a committee which is preparing the redundancies.

Refusal

The mass meeting followed the refusal of the union officials to admit seven shop stewards, who are demanding a stop to this collaboration, to a meeting of the committee.

UTA workers are particularly incensed at the appointment of a trade union official, Mr. H. Waring, to the post of personnel officer of the UTA.

Waring was N. l Ireland organiser of the National Association of Transport Employees and is a former chairman of the N. Ireland Labour Party.

Pretending

While pretending to be negotiating on behalf of his members who were threatened with sackings, he was able to become the firm's personnel officer.

This is the latest in a long list of manoeuvres by union officials to foil all attempts by the workers to organise a camCorrespondent paign against the redundancies.

When the danger was first seen in 1962, the UTA engineering workers formed an Action Committee and asked the union leaders to extend it to bring in all sections of the workers.

The reply was to accuse them of irresponsibility and threaten disciplinary action if the Action Committee was not disbanded.

This year, sit-ins, demonstrations and strikes by the rank and file have all been condemned by the officials who have accepted the redundancies and are now discussing compensation payments.

Aided

In this they have been aided by the N. Ireland Communist Party who claimed victory for a four-day strike of the UTA engineering workers because the government agreed that there should be no sackings without prior consultations.

Those UTA workers in the Duncrue Street engineering shops who have clashed most sharply with the trade union bureaucrats must fight to build a new leadership and instill the necessary political clarity.

This can only be done by fighting around the demand of 'no redundancies' and linking the struggle with support for a Labour government pledged to maintain the Ulster Transport Authority and a comprehensive transport system. movement about this betrayal, matter what the consequence.

We are, however, fighting for a Labour government pledged to a socialist policy. Our whole organisation will work night and day with Labour workers to elect a Labour government, but we are insisting that this government can only be effective providing it carries out policies which will eliminate monopoly capital and make possible real socialist planning.

Policies

We are insisting that the policy of the Labour government should be to nationalize the major industries and legislate a socialist plan that will be based upon workers control throughout industry, eliminating the capitalist profiteers, by taking over their property. Only then will we be well on our way to avoiding the economic crisis at the end of the year.

It will be a Tory capitalist crisis. Why should the Labour and trade union movement have to be responsible for it?

This is only one of the demands of our programme which we have continuously advocated in The Newsletter. All those, such as Pierre Frank and others, who remain quiet about the treachery of Harold Wilson are, in fact, helping the Tories and, as usual with centrists of this variety, they are disarming the working class precisely at the time when they should be prepared.

The balance of payments crisis has once more revealed the writing on the wall for Labour. The only alternative to socialism is disaster.

up to one year's service. "This is the firm's idea of ample compensation, said Mr. Daunter. 'We are just being thrown on the scrap heap' He told how there had been a complete lack of consultation with the workers on the part of the management. Repeated requests by the shop stewards for discussions on the situation had been rebuffed.

Mr. Daunter said the factory had been visited by 'an individual who, so we understood, was head production manager of the whole British Ropes group'. He had shown 'a complete contempt for the trade union movement'.

The union (the National Union of General and Municipal Workers) has requested a meeting with the management to discuss compensation pay.

PROTEST

Mr. Denis Howell, Labour MP for Small Heath, has protested to the Minister of Labour about the inadequate compensation and loss of pensions. He is reported to be appealing to the management to behave 'in a civilised manner'.

'When we are trying to prevent the trade union movement from getting into the hands of extremists, the handling of this situation is calculated to have the opposite effect,' he declared.

Mr. Howell is reputed to be a member of the Campaign for Democratic Socialism, the organisation which worked so hard to turn the Labour Party away from socialist policies after the 1961 Scarborough conferof a capitalist Britain which the Labour Party wants to govern.

We say without any hesitafion, that Wilson and the right wing are leading the labour movement to disaster. A balance of payments crisis at the end of the year on the scale already talked about by the Tory press would force the Labour leaders to split the movement from top to bottom in a new drive for wage restraint.

The resistance to the recent wage increases of the postmen and to the present demand of the dockers is dictated by the very serious economic crisis which the Tories find themselves in.

A Labour government which undertakes to operate capitalism will be called upon to do the dirty work, something which will discredit and demoralise the labour movement in a way that the Tories could never have hoped for, if they continued as the government.

Attacks

Meanwhile the job seekers and career boys on the so-called left of the Labour Party are constantly attacking the Socialist Labour League because it insists upon warning the labour movement about the coming disaster.

Recently they have been joined by the Pabloites who, through their spokesman, Pierre Frank, lyingly imply that the Socialist Labour League is not fighting for a Labour government.

We are certainly not fighting for the kind of a Labour government that Wilson is going to lead. We will continue to warn the labour

Dispute with Denby's in 10th month NEARLY 30 pouple gather outside William Denby's dyeworks in Bradford every morning at 7.15 a.m. to continue their picket in a 10month-old dispute.

One hundred and twenty of the original 250 who were sacked after going on strike over the operation of a machine during a tea break by a foreman are still out. They operate a shift system for picketing.

Reinforcements

Police are on duty all day with special reinforcements to protect what are believed to be the non-unionists, who have been recruited by Deby's since the lock-out began on October 30 last year.

These workers are transported into the works by van and car provided by the firm. A new road has been constructed which has split the forces of the pickets.

As well as police, Philip Wright, Denby's managing director is reported to still employ his own "private army' of security men with dogs, who patrol the works at night.

Every effort has been made to smash the remarkable solidarity of the sacked dyeworkers.

There have been witch-hunts in the local press, especially vicious attacks in the 'Yorkshire Post', together with articles in Sunday newspapers, such as "The People'-and attacks in parish magazines.

Charges

Coupled with this there have apparently been attempts at intimidation. Also five of the strikers have appeared in court on charges ranging from assault to conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. Out of these five, four were acquitted!

No union drivers deliver to Denby's now and almost all their work has to be delivered and collected by the firm's own transport. In fact, Denby's is Denby security man with a vicious Alsatian guard dog now virtually a 'blacked' shop.

The fight to get Denby's "blacked' was a long one which involved the locked-out workers in some months of struggleparticularly against their own union executive, headed by Leonard Sharpe, general secretary of the National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile Workers.

Increase

In addition, an increase in strike pay to f10 a week for men and f6 a week for women has been wrested from the executive. But these two victories in themselves have rot brought the prospects of winning the strike any closer.

Even the strong rebuff which Sharpe and his EC received at the union conference at the end of May has not brought a solution any nearer.

From the beginning of the dispute, The Newsletter has advocated a policy for victory:

Spread the strike to all commission dye shops!

If this demand had been won in the early stages, then there is no doubt that a resounding victory would have been achieved.

Salute

Throughout the whole of the past ten months, tremendous militancy, devotion and courage have been demonstrated by these workers. For this we salute them.

But this is not enough.

It is necessary for a movement to be built throughout the industry at rank and file level which can carry out the required tasks for victory and pose itself as a serious alternative leadership inside the union.

It is still not too late for this to be done.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper 180 Clapham High Pro Capha Fish rest, London s. WA Published by The Newsletter, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4