The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 369

For a 1965 General Election

Thumbs up

for Callaghar in the City THE Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. James Callaghan, drove to the Mansion House atter the Queen's speech for a Lord Mayor's dinner. Present at this junket were all the leading bankers, and businessmen from the City of London-in a word, the most powerful capitalists in the land.

After the dinner was over and these well-fed gentlemen rested the lower portion of their bellies on the banquetting tables, Callaghan had the following syrupy words to say to them:

'Let me make it quite clear that we recognise yoUr contribution to the national economy, and we recognise that you need to earn your living.

It is not our job to make it more difficult for you to do so.

But you 1n your turn will recognise that your interests must be harmonised with the needs of the nation as a whole.

If you have criticisms to make of our actions, come and tell us! Watchell Isten to Won you have to say with an ope.

mind and see if we can meet your difficulties. If we cannot do this it will not be because of prejudice against you.

I have no doubt tha in the City ot londor and in the world ot business which it is a part we shall and many allles in our oblective modern and ye lnvite your co-operation 1n fairer, a more productive and a more progressive sociely.

There is nothing substantiaily diHerent what Callaghan saidfrom his Tory predecessor would have said, except that Callaghan talking or the eve of a budge speech which he will make next Tuesday.

City are reconciled to the that order to tie working o own to loudles.

agreements in eginning to make Thev look upon Mr. Callaghan. not as a socialist who challenges their position or power but as an accomplice wno is nelping them to continue to own the means or proaucuon ana the working class as tnel latners and Hithough Mr. formally a member of the Labour Party he is regarded as one of their servants doing a useful job of work. He is, in fact, advising them as to how they must behave if they are to make their industries more productive at the expense of the wages and conditions of the working class, because may well be that Callaghan will have something unpleasant in store for the labour movement which he will reveal when he delivers his budget speech, next Tuesday.

Callaghan thinks the Britain he lives in is a country without classes. ( Britain for the Marxists and Socialists is a country with two classes.' Callaghan believes that capitalism has a future. The Marxists believe that capitalism has no future and are therefore in favour of the working class taking power out of the hands of the capitalists.

The Callaghan road is, in fact, the road of Ramsay McDonald and all those traitors who sold out whatever principles they had to the political agencies of the City of London. We are pretty certain that the activities of Callaghan and his friends in the coming months will prove uS right. B Wilson's outburst during the debate on the EFORE some fake left chokes himself cheering Queen's speech, just think soberly about what it all means.

The 'Daily Worker' of Wednesday, November 4, says:

"There will be general welcome for Mr. Wilson's refusal to ibe intimidated by Tory bluster into abandoning progressive measures in his Government's programme.' Is this really all that is involved?

"The Times', , also of Wednesday, November 4, describes the Queen's speech as a 'useful programme, which with one provocative exception, establishes a sensible order of priorities'. The die-hard Tory "Telegraph' describes the proposals and says that 'higher pensions and other social security benefits are certainly desirable and undeniably popular.

Here we have the unusual spectacle of an agreement on Wilson's speech, ranging from the 'Daily Worker' to the big businessman's paper, "The Times', and the Tory 'Daily Telegraph'.

Changed tune

Even on steel nationalization there are unmistakeable signs that the Tories and the City of London are changing their tune.

The 'Daily Telegraph', again of November 4 had this to say about steel and the crown lands commission:

'As a piece of parliamentary strategy the decision to go all out for steel nationalization straight away probably makes sense. Mr. Wilson's chances of passing this pointless measure now are as great as they are ever likely to be. The hope must be that he will at least make a clean job of it simply by issuing iron and steel stock to shareholders and that he will not involve the industry in a long nightmare of Socialist reconstruction. The same considerations apply to the equally controversial Crown Lands Commission. Wise men are on record as saying that the Commission is bound to reduce the supply of new building land.

If Labour insists on setting it up just the same then perhaps it is as well that it should be done sooner rather than later.' Agreement It remains for the 'Financial Times' to supply the clue to the apparent agreement between right and left over Wilson's programme.

"There is a sense, indeed. in which Mr. Wilson can justly claim that his position is strong. Neither opposition party is anxious for an early General Election, the Conservatives, until they have settled their leadership problem, the Liberals, until they have rebuilt their reserves.' It is precisely for these reasons that it would be a great mistake to shout too soon over Wilson's attack on the Tory victor at Smethwick. This may only serve • to draw people's attention away from the real issues. At best, apart from steel nationalization, Labour's programme of reforms are very small in comparison to the tasks facing the British working-class movement.

Nobody will disagree with the Prime Minister when he describes the Tory MP of Smethwick as a "political leper. Unfortunately, the numbers of such lepers are on the increase and the stark fact has to be faced that it is right-wing Labour's support for the Immigration Bill that is substantially responsible for this.

The notorious Gordon Walker, whose inhuman handling of the Seretse Khama affair is still remembered by the labour movement, was not an ideal candidate to fight the Tory in Smethwick.

No cure Racialism cannot be cured by parliamentary legislation making it illegal. In the main it effects the poor white population who live in slums and overcrowded conditions into which pour thousands of poor immigrants. Bad housing goes hand in glove with racialist propaganda.

But how can Wilson cure the housing problem when there is an admitted shortage of bricks due to the domination of the industry by the great monopolies. Without nationalization of the building and supply industries there is no effective answer to the racialists.

The pledge in the Queen's speech to restore rent controls contained no reference to the restorauoà of security of tenure which is, of course, extremely vital for poor, working-class tenants, both coloured and white.

In their election Manifesto, the Labour Party declared that nowhere is planning more Cont. p. 4; col. 7 We could support Labour' says Grimond nationalization and a few reservations on the Rent Act, the Liberal Party finds no points of disagreement with Wilson's programme. Jo Grimond made this clear when addressing_the Liberal Council last Sunday.

There appears to be an area in which we should find it possible to give our support,' he said. In this 'connection I might mention legal reform, the social services and-if the Labour Party will tackle it— the whole question of industrial relations and restrictive practices.' Frank Byers, chairman of the Liberal Party's election committee, told the meeting: I believe we are on the threshhold of a major political Will Devlin enquiry propose 'decasualisation'? Devlin enquiry THE announcement by the Ministery nabe, dockerunter, setting up a committee of enquiry into the dockers' pay dispute under the chairmanship of Lord Devlin should be an ominous warning to all dockers that more is at stake than the simple issue of wages.

The enquiry is not simply advance in which the forces of progress will re-group in the interests of the nation.' Grimond was guarded in his reference to the proposals for a Lib-Lab pact, put forward by Labour MPs. Woodrow Wyatt and Desmond Donnelly. He is obviously watching to see which way the wind blows this particular kite. his impertinent anti-socialist intervention in the labour movement, should be firmly stepped on by trades unionists and Labour Party members. Otherwise, this effort to drag the movement still further to the right will be supported by other sections of the Labour leadership, especially in the event of a crisis breaking out in top layers of the Labour Party. smokescreen behind which the Transport and General Workers' Union leaders and the Labour government intend to betray the dockers' wage struggle.

The Labour government, faced as they are by a serious economic crisis, are desperately trying Gunter: must be warned his plans will be opposed to avoid a dock strike. The enquiry will give them, they hope, a breathing space.

But the port employers have never treated the wage claim as something separate from their plans for reorganising the whole docks industry. At every stage of negotiation they have tried to bargain an increase of wages for changes in the working of the Dock Labour Scheme.

DETERMINED

It is now quite clear that the port employers are determined to press forward with their plans for the 'decasualisatien' of the industry. This is what is behind the appointment of Lord Devlin.

It was the same Lord Devlin who headed a committee of enquiry into the workings of the dock workers (Regulation of Employment Scheme) in 1955 under the instructions of the then Tory Minister of Labour, Sir Walter Monckton.

In the report published in 1956, Lord Devlin came out strongly in favour of the need to decasualise the industry. His opposition to the employers' proposals to abolish dual control by placing the management of the Boards solely in the hands of the employers has today a significant ring.

ALARM

Many of his recommendations were the cause of serious opposition by dockers in late 1959, when attempts were made to implement them.

Looked at in today's circumstances, his statements will be viewed by all dockers with alarm.

During the past three years the trade unions under the lead of Frank Cousins have come out openly in favour of decasualisation and the reorganisation of the industry.

So-called 'decasualisation' schemes have be drawn up in the ports of London, Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow with the complete co-operation of the TGWU leaders. Only the vigilance of dockers in these ports have halted their implementation.

At the heart of these schemes the main proposals have been to increase efficiSpecial report from Beg Perry ency on the docks, by achieving mobility of labour, flexi.

bility in manning scales, increased mechanisation with no resistance to redundancy, the working of night shifts and the abolition of overtime payments.

The reorganisation of the docks industry along these lines has now become a priority not only for the port employers but also, and more particularly, for the British capitalist class. With the intensified competition for world markets, the reduction of transportation costs and the speedier turn round of ships can be achieved only at the expense of the dock worker.

U.S. EXAMPLE

Dockers in British ports well know what happened in the ports on the west coas! of America through similar reorganisation schemes.

An agreement reached between Harry Bridges for the West Coast Longshoremen and the employers bartered increased wages in exchange for accepting mechanisation, mobility labour and a reduction in manning scales.

Within 12 months the labour force had been reduced from 24,000 to 12,000 and the average working week during 1962 was 17 hours per docker. The remainder of the labour force were thrown on the dole.

This is what lies behind the Devlin committee of enquiry.

It is an open secret that the committee of enquiry will be studying a document from the employers running into 32 pages with detailed proposals for the reorganisation of the docks scheme. These vary very liftle from the terms of the 'new deal' which were rejected by Merseyside dockers last March, and in London in 1962.

CENTRE OF STRUGGLE At the same time indications are that the employers are prepared to improve the offer on wages providing the unions can promise co-operation enforcing these plans through against the opposition of the dockers. They are now more confident that the Labour government will give them the assistance they require.

It is essential that dockers are not distracted now into believing that the 'new deal' is off the agenda. The appointment of Devlin, ably assisted by Mr. S. G. Ford, who assisted Robens in the closure of pits, with the resultant sacking of some 100,000 miners, has placed the fight against the employers 'decasualisation' schemes back into the centre of the struggle on the docks.

Dockers must warn Gunter and the TGWU leaders that any such plans will be opposed. Decasualisation must be fought as a national issue, uniting all ports. Above all the demand must be pressed for the nationalization of the port transport industry.

Only under nationalization can security for dockers be won.

Some of the delegates who travelled from all over Britain to Manchester for the conference DETERMINED that apprentices will no longer be used as cheap labour by the employers, young workers from Scotland, Northern Ireland, the West of England, Leeds and other Yorkshire towns, Liverpool, the Midlands and London met in Manchester last week-end to plan a national stoppage next year if their claims are not met.

The 300 delegates voted fo accept a resolution which called for 60 per cent of the skilled rate at 15, 90 per cent at 20, a 35-hour week, four weeks' annual paid holiday and full trade union negotiating rights.

Chairman of the Manchester Direct Action Committee, Mike Hughes, called on all the apprentices to go back to their factories and fight to organise 100 per cent trade unionism.

He called on all shop stewards and trade union branches and district committees to support the apprentices demands for better wages and conditions Condemning the calling of unomicial strike for apprenuces on November 2, by the National Apprentices Wages and Condi Campaign Committee, said very few people knew about the stoppage and it had not been organised properly.

'Our fight is to win the support of the adult workers first of all,' he concluded.

JUt bush, a member of the Amalamated Engineering Union Junior Workers' Committee attempted to persuade the meeting Editorial THE wages and working conditions of apprentices are a scandal in the trade union moveof the grate all ts sure as Sir war to improve their condition t should be cear to all trad unionists that if the apprentice are to win the concessions • Which rigntiully are entitled to this can onlv be done ov torging maximum unity between themselves and and unionists.

The purpose of the Manchester conterence was to plan a serious campaign to wil support for nanonal stoppage in march 1ms, nowever, ard not suit toe stalinists wno wantea al all cost that the November would be a success.

However, when delegates asked which areas had promised to come out, he was unable to answer and he and two of his supporters left the meeting before waiting to hear what apprentices from other parts of the country had to say.

Many young workers from various factories pledged their support for the national strike planned for March 29, 1965. comment to get something going at the expense of the apprentices. So they took advantage of the frustration existing in the North-west and called a strike on November 2. The strike was an adventure from beginning to end.

In Liverpool they were joined by two Pabloites, who have already been so resoundingly defeated in the Young Socialists. This has now led to a serious situation where a split in the apprentices movement threatens to weaken the struggle.

All apprentices would be well advised to give full support to the Direct Action Committees now being formed in all the districts so they can gain the strength necessary to win the struggle for their rightful demands.

WILSON's governLArockwak, declared November 1964

ment has taken the first of its steps to attempt to stabilise British capitalism in its crisis. A large range of important goods will go up 3s. in the f. Callaghan himself says this will mean an increase in the cost of living.

At the same time strikes are condemned by Wilson and workers are told they must accept wage restraint. Firms who make goods for export will receive a cash rebate on their production in addition to other concessions.

Callaghan, Chancellor of the Exchequer, revealed a balance of payments deficit for the year 1964 of £800 million. When asked in a BBC interview if he would borrow from abroad, he said this would certainly be necessary, because the crisis was much worse than 1961. Callaghan: cost of living will rise The loan would have to be made soon, and he refused to estimate its size. The loan will have to be paid for, just as the planned 'mechanisation of British industry must be paid for. This is the meaning of the 'restraint' and 'sacrifices' which Wilson will demand from the working class.

In taking this course, and refusing to use Parliamentarv power as part of a mobilisation of the whole working class to take over the factories and financial institutions from the employers, the Labour government in fact carries out the tasks of the capitalist class.

Take wealth

Socialists must campaign among workers to 'make the Tories pay for the crisis', and the only way is to take the wealth out of their hands.

Wilson and his right-wing friends stand in the way of such a solution. The whole reason for the existence of our movement, the revolationary Marxist organisation of the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter, is to fight for a new working-class leadership which will drive out Wilson and the agents of capitalism.

We, therefore, are completely opposed to those self-styled Marxists whose primary occupation is to apologise for the reformists and traitors of the Labour leadership.

The editors of World Outlook', , a 'press service', published in Paris, are of this breed. They are the spokesmen of the so-called 'Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International' - the same people who presided over the degeneration of the Ceylon Trotskyist party to the point where its majority leaders joined a capitalist government earlier this year.

'World Outlook', on October 16, under the title of 'On the Eve of the British Election, had this to say:

"A Labour victory offers the most fertile possibilities for forming a left wing standing squarely on the programme of revolutionary socialism. It offers the best possibilities, moreover, for forming a left wing on the top rungs of the ladder leading to power.' Here is the essence of the revisionist polities of today. Everything is staked on the progress made by the Labour leadership, or sections of the bureaucracy and nothing on the struggle of the workers to defeat these false leaders.

If 'World Outlook's statement means anything, it means that the occupation of official positions within the the bourgeois state will provide the possibility of influencing the increasingly powerful occupants of these positions.

Indeed, the policies of 'World Outlook' supporters in this country, the 'Pabloites' do consist of applying 'pressure' and persuasion to the professed left-wingers of "Tribune' and the trade union machine.

Just in order that no one should be left in doubt, T. J. Peters returned to the subject of the Labour government in the October 23 issue of 'World Outlook'.

'Different'

Not content with the prospect of building a left wing in the future, he assures us that ... this is a left social-democratic government. different in degree from the last Labour government'.

As Wilson announces a policy which is purely an attempt to manage capitalism and which hardly conceals the real aim of big business to cut real wages considerably, our Pabloites commend him as a 'left social demo crat?! Thus it follows that you must call upon the workers to give general support to the government.

In order to get to that point, Peters tries to prove that Wilson's government is a reflection of the pressure of the working class for socialism and ignores the necessary struggle against him as an agent of capitalism. He says Wilson came to power because of an 'internal working class trend' associated with reaffirmation of Clause 4.

The fact is, of course, that Wilson and his colleagues produced programmes which reject Clause 4. They are explicitly and openly for a capitalist society with stricter state intervention.

It is nonsense and deception to say, as Peters does, that the Wilson government is 'committed to the socialist principle of nationalization'. They have just witch-hunted mercilessly the Young Socialists movement which does fight consistently for socialism. Let Peters recall Marx's dictum that we test men by what they do.

Peters speaks of the working class's trend to the left as powertul countervailing force. But this strength of the workers will be a 'force' only insofar as it has conscious leadership, opposed to its official leaders.

Peters compliments the Tories on the clever tactic of appointing the aristocratic Home as leader to succeed Macmillan. In this way, he says, they appealed to the backwardness of their middle-class supporters and prevented a rout at the polls.

Hush up

But Home's appointment followed a raging crisis in the Tory party and the Macmillan cabinet. Given an ounce of leadership by Wilson and his friends, the Tories would have been toppled and smashed A determined campaign of opposition at any time since then would have broken them. Wilson helped to hush up the Profumo scandal and the Tories were let off the hook.

It is typical that Peters blames this on the cunning of the ruling class and avoids all mention of the responsibility of Wilson and the official Labour leaders.

What does Peters envisage and what does he propose fo the working class? He says the Labour government has no points of support except the power of the organised workers.

But is it this power which makes Wilson give guarantees to ICI directors and big insurance companies? Is it the power of the organised workers which gives Wilson the line of wage restraint to stabilise capitalism?

Peters chooses to ignore the fact that leading capitalist spokesmen like "The Econo mist' recommended a Labour vote. Monopoly capitalism is prepared to use a Labour government to discipline the workers.

Wilson's campaign to break the Young Socialists, and to harness the traditional so-called left in the Labour Party to government posts — these are measures which show Wilson's basic strength is derived from monopoly capitalism and not the workers.

Inevitably, Peters places the aphasis on support for the ift socialist democrat' Ison:

"The left wing of the Labour movement has as its main task to stiffen the resistance (?) of the government to the expected assault of the ruling class, the mobilization of the workers behind every (?) progressive stand taken by the government, the participation of the workers in mass action against any attempts at a solution at their expense.' What is the class character of the Wilson government? According to Peters, it is a government of the workers which must be supported insofar as it resists capitalist attacks.

According to us it is a capitalist government in a Labour disguise. With Wilson in charge of leadership, it will carry out capitalist policies against the working class. Not to prepare the workers for this fight is a betrayal. Iome: His appointment tactic'.

Because he cannot pose these class issues, Peters ends in a flurry of generalizations which could have been written by a Liberal, so far away are they from Marxism, from revolutionary politics.

Trotskyists must begin, in all political questions today. from the need of the working class to resolve its crisis of leadership.

View

Peters and his friends start, not from this historical task off the working class, but from the point of view of the national framework of bou: geois politics, e.g., The inquest into the 13 years of Tory plunder of the wealth of the nation is the demand of the hour:

to open the books and let the country know how it came to pass..? (My emphasis-C.S.)

No comment is necessary on the general lines of this sentence, but one particular aspect of it is very important. The phrase 'open the books' is intended to refer to the traditional demands of the Founding Programme of the Fourth International.

wilbath agony o the a6ks 4th. Interuational New This is the basic programmatic document of the world movement founded by Leon Trotsky and his comrades. By 1938 the revolutionary Marxists had found it necessary to lay the foundations of the Fourth International in order to restore working-class leadership after the defeats prepared by the Stalinist bureaucracy in control of the Third (Communist) International. The defeat of the German Revolution in 1923, of the British General Strike in 1926, and of the Chinese Revolution in 1927, followed by Hitler's victory over the German working class in 1933, finally ruled out the perspective of transforming the Communist International by internal opposition.

Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High St., S.W.4.

In that historic document (The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International®), the slogan 'open the books' was part of a series of demands behind which the workers would mobilize for their own power under a Marxist leadership, against all opportunists and reform.

ists. Peters here plays the same game as N. M.

Perera and the other traitors in Ceylon: he dresses up the betrayal with the language of Trotskyism.

We in the Socialist Labour League will have none of this. The advance to socialism is only through struggle against the capitalist class and against their agents in the labour movement.

Opportunities

Where Peters concludes: "The left wing of the Labour Party faces a great test and great opportunities', , we should be clear that he really means that since Wilson, according to him, is a left social-democrat together with his government, then he is suggesting that it is they who are on test, who must take their opportunities.

In fact they are tested stooges of the boss class and the opportunities they grasp are in the interests of their own time-serving bureaucracy. not those of the working class There will be a left wing of great power in the Labour Party built out of the struggles of the industrial workers and the reaction of the Labour Party rank and file members to the critical problems of British imperialism, for which Wilson has only capitalist solutions.

The essential question is to provide a Marxist leadership with real roots in the working class, in the first place among the young workers, behind whom the left wing can organise to take workers' power.

Collapse

Without that it will meet the same collapse as every previous left wing in the Labour Party.

The building of a real socialist leadership and the strengthening of the left wing is inseparable from the construction of the revolutionary party. No amorphous left wing, no matter how left its programme and leadership is, can act as a substitute for the party.

But this task can only be accomplished by rejecting the opportunism of Peters and the Pabloites as well as all tendencies which accommodate themselves to sectarianism.

The Socialist Labour League will fight and support the struggle for every reform in the interests of the working class carried out by the Deur fronte wonder class, but this in no way means that we support the right-wing leadership, who will utilise the struggle for reforms to avoid expropriation of the monopolies.

For the Socialist Labour League to fight for reforms inseparable from the struggle for nationalization of the basic industries as the only effective step towards effective planning. 60 pages, Price 1/- from Brockway declared that he was leaving polibetrayal by to

tics. This announcement came after his defeat by a Tory in the General Election, the swing in his constituency, unlike the rest of the country, going against Labour.

Brockway's exit, caused by his failure to take up the question of racialism as part of the class struggle in an area which contains many immigrant workers, resembles the rest of his political career, in which a total absence of theory has consistently led to vacillation and defeats.

Brockway, the 'hope' of the Left in the nineteen-thirties, became the man who supported Singman Rhee and the United Nations in Korea and the man who wanted to broadcast to the Mau Mau in Kenya to lay down their arms-for the best of motives, of course.

(Ironically, he was unable to carry out this latter act, as the white settlers refused to allow him to broadcast, on the grounds that he was a 'Red'.)

How could so much promise lead to this? The answer is not hard to find. Such is the fate of all centrists. If they do not consciously fight to build a working-class party, then they either become the first mangled victims of the attacks of the ruling class, or the apologists for that violence, when others receive it. • Brockway chose the latter position.

CONFLICT OF CLASSES Marx's great contribution to the working class was to unearth the moving forces of society, to show how it developed through the clash of opposed classes in conflict. It is essentially a theory of motion. Everything is in motion, everything is changing. The only thing that is constant is the conflict that produces the change.

Those who are to fight for the advancement of mankind must analyse all events and bring to light the opposing forces that they contain in order to be able to strengthen one _ of those forces- the working class.

Brockway was never able to do this. He never understood what Marxism is, and consequently never examined anything from a class point of view.

The result of this lack of class consciousness was that he lived through the Russian Revolution, two world wars, countless colonial wars, the destruction of the Bolshevik Party, the Korean war, the betrayals of the 1929 Labour government • • . and one could go on, and learnt nothing.

Consequently, the man who hated capitalism and Violence became the cover behind which the capitalists and the bureaucracy carried out some of their most monstrous acts. An examination of his career will make this plain.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Lenin appealed to the workers of the world to break with their old leaders of the Second International.

There could be no compromise with these traitors who, in 1914, had sided with their own ruling classes rather than with the workers of other countries, and who had urged the workers to go and die in their millions 'to make the world safe for democracy' (or, in other words, profits).

CLASS CHOICE

It was a clear class choice. When the leaders of the Second International had had to choose between shooting down workers and shooting down their rulers, they had chosen to shoot down workers, and were to do so again in Germany in 1919.

In 1920, the Independent Labour Party, of which Brockway was a member, sent a delegation to the Soviet Union to discuss affiliation to the Third International. On their return, they advised against this.

Brockway agreed with the decision, 'because, as a pacifist, I rejected the view that socialism could be established only by civil war On the other hand, he was not too happy about the Second International either, "because they showed no sign of having fundamentally changed their view' (which was not surprising, considering that the imperialist super-profits, on which the Labour aristocracy is based, ntinued to flow in but, of is, Brockway says nothing. It simply a question of 'views').

The suspense was unbearable. So Brockway hit upon the 'solution'. Disliking both the Second and the Third Internationals, he proposed to bring them together in a single body!

He shows the same approach in his analysis of imperialist war ('How to end war', , 1925). War, he says, is produced by imperialist rivalries and he goes on to describe the exploitation of the colonial areas, and the struggle of the imperialists to dominate them.

But what is his conclusion at the end of all this? An uncompromising fight against imperialism, the source of war?

DISARMAMENT

No, he calls for 'an international conference, representative of all the governments of the world'— the very governments that he has just been denouncing for their imperialist greed.

At this conference, he proposes, "the British government (the oldest imperialist government) would announce its readiness to disarm completely. if the other nations would do so too? Why didn't anyone think of it before?

The events of the General Strike of 1926 took him by surprise. Having been unable to make any analysis of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy he was 'completely unable MacDonald: weak opposition facilitated his betrayal o believe (his) ears, when the lews of the sell-out came hrough.

'My first reaction was that the TUC General Council had become either demoralised or corrupted.' 'Had become' But hadn't they been for decades?

What had Brockway learnt from the First World War and the creation of the Third International? Nothing. (see 'Inside the Left', pp. 193ft.)

In his memoirs, he disposes of the Mond-Turner agreement that followed the defeat of the workers in 1926, and that laid the basis for the humiliation of the working class until our day, in one single sentence-and not a word of analysis.

IN OPPOSITION 'The TUC began conversations with the British Federation of Industries with the object of facilitating collaboration: they were known as the Mond-Turner Talks, named after Sir Alfred Mond and Mr. Ben Turner' (Ibid., p. 194)

1929 found him in Parliament as an Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament. The ILP was the only opposi.. tion to MacDonald in Parliament. And this explains just how his betrayal was so easy and so complete.

Brockway and the ober Independent Labour Party members (140 of them in Parliament) confined their attack to 'protests' inside the House of Commons.

Brockway's first attack was over government policy in India. He aimed to put a resolution demanding the release of all political prisoners in India, but allowed himself to be dissuaded by the Labour leadership.

However, the arrest of 60,000 Indians in 1930 was too much even for Brockway. He was 'shocked' ..t the action. Of course, he was. Devoid of theory, how could he understand the connection between the Labour bureaucracy and imperialist super-profits, of which India was such a rich source?

His approach to the Indian question merely led him to propose plans, later to be implemented by the Attlee government of 1945, to consolidate capitalism there, and consequently to consolidate the Labour bureaucracy in England.

INVESTMENT ADVICE One quotation, from among many, should suffice to show the fibre of the opposition to MacDonald in 1930.

'If for a moment I may give a friendly word of advice to those who have capital invested in India, I would say this: The real danger to British investments in India lies not in a political revolution, but in a social revulution. Every day that the satisfaction of India's political claims is postponed increases the likelihood of a cataclysmic social revolution in India, involving the repudiation of Government loans and the confiscation of property'.

("The Indian Crisis'. , 1930)

This quotation comes from a book in which he describes the appalling conditions of the Indian workers and peasants, the slums where 20 and more workers share one room, the wages of plantation workers of 67d. a day, quotes a trade union report that 'the tea gardens of Assam are virtually slave plantations, , shows how life expectancy in India has dropped from 30.75 years in 1881, to 23.5 years in 1930 ... and one could go on ad nauseam.

Notwithstanding all his experience of the General Strike, it was not until 1930 that Brockway suddenly discovered that 'the deterioration of the Labour government had gone so far that it had merely become The General Strike: Brockway couldn't believe his ears.

ites praise November 964

rkas ing of ice' onto the of itic eed he the lleted ent the lan of his ave led.

of nce ken ush and the age : to ays has ept sed lich tees inthe sed son to Slaughter Peters chooses to ignore the fact that leading capitalist spokesmen like "The Econo mist' recommended a Labour vote. Monopoly capitalism is prepared to use a Labour government to discipline the workers.

Wilson's campaign to break the Young Socialists, and to harness the traditional so-called left in the Labour Party to government posts — these are measures which show Wilson's basic strength is derived from monopoly capitalism and not the workers.

Inevitably, Peters places the aphasis on support for the ift socialist democrat' filson:

"The left wing of the Labour movement has as its main task to stiffen the resistance (?) of the government to the expected assault of the ruling class, the mobilization of the workers behind every (?) progressive stand taken by the government, the participation of the workers in mass action against any attempts at a solution at their expense.' What is the class character of the Wilson government? According to Peters, it is a government of the workers which must be supported insofar as it resists capitalist attacks.

According to us it is a capitalist government in a Labour disguise. With Wilson in charge of leadership, it will carry out capitalist policies against the working class. Not to prepare the workers for this fight is a betrayal. Tome: His appointment tactic'.

Because he cannot pose these class issues, Peters ends in a flurry of generalizations which could have been written by a Liberal, so far away are they from Marxism, from revolutionary politics.

Trotskyists must begin, in all political questions today: trom the need of the working class to resolve its orisis of leadership.

View

Peters and his friends start, not from this historical task off the working class, but from the point of view of the national framework of bou:

geois politics, e.g., "The inquest into the 13 years of Tory plunder of the wealth of the nation is the demand of the hour:

to open the books and let the country know how it came to pass... (My emphasis-C.S.)

No comment is necessary on the general lines of this sentence, but one particular aspect of it is very important.

The phrase 'open the books' is intended to refer to the traditional demands of the Founding Programme of the Fourth International.

Theideath agonywon capitalism the tasks of the utin In that historic document (The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International®), the slogan 'open the books' was part of a series of demands behind which the workers would mobilize for their own power under a Marxist leadership, against all opportunists and reformists. Peters here plays the same game as N. M.

Perera and the other traitors in Ceylon: he dresses up the betrayal with the language of Trotskyism.

We in the Socialist Labour League will have none of this. The advance to socialism is only through struggle against the capitalist class and against their agents in the labour movement.

Opportunities

Where Peters concludes: 'The left wing of the Labour Party faces a great test and great opportunities', , we should be clear that he really means that since Wilson, according to him, is a left social-democrat together with his government, then he is suggesting that it is they who are on test, who must take their opportunities.

In fact they are tested stooges of the boss class and the opportunities they grasp are in the interests of their own time-serving bureaucracy. not those of the working class There will be a left wing of great power in the Labour Party built out of the struggles of the industrial workers and the reaction of the Labour Party rank and file members to the critical problems of British imperialism, for which Wilson has only capitalist solutions.

The essential question is to provide a Marxist leadership with real roots in the working class, in the first place among the young workers, behind whom the left wing can organise to take workers' power.

Collapse

Without that it will meet the same collapse as every previous left wing in the Labour Party.

The building of a real socialist leadership , and the strengthening of the left wing is inseparable from the construction of the revolutionary party. No amorphous left wing, no matter how left it programme and leadership is can act as a substitute for the party.

But this task can only be accomplished by rejecting the opportunism of Peters and the Pabloites as well as all tendencies which accommodate themselves to sectarianism.

The Socialist Labour League will fight and support the struggle for every reform in the interests of the working class carried out by the Labour government under pressure from the working class, but this in no way means that we support the right-wing leadership, who will utilise the struggle for reforms to avoid expropriation of the monopolies.

For the Socialist Labour League to fight for reforms inseparable from the ste ble to naustes in the maustries only effective step towards effective planning. 60 pages, Price 1/- from that he was leaving politics. This announcement came after his defeat by a Tory in the General Election, the swing in his constituency, unlike the rest of the country, going against Labour.

Brockway's exit, caused by his failure to take up the question of racialism as part of the class struggle in an area which contains many immigrant workers, resembles the rest of his political career, in which a total absence of theory has consistently led to vacillation and defeats.

Brockway, the 'hope' of the Left in the nineteen-thirties, became the man who supported Singman Rhee and the United Nations in Korea and the man who wanted to broadcast to the Mau Mau in Kenya to lay down their arms-for the best of motives, of course.

(Ironically, he was unable to carry out this latter act, as the white settlers refused to allow him to broadcast, on the grounds that he was a 'Red".)

How could so much promise lead to this? The answer is not hard to find. Such is the fate of all centrists. If they do not consciously fight to build a working-olass party, then they either become the first mangled victims of the attacks of the ruling class, or the apologists for that violence, when others receive it. Brockway chose the latter position.

CONFLICT OF CLASSES Marx's great contribution to the working class was to unearth the moving forces of society, to show how it developed through the clash of opposed classes in conflict. It is essentially a theory of motion. Everything is in motion, everything is changing. The only thing that is constant is the conflict that produces the change.

Those who are to fight for the advancement of mankind must analyse all events and bring to light the opposing forces that they contain in order to be able to strengthen one _ of those forces— the working class.

Brockway was never able to do this. He never understood what Marxism is, and consequently never examined anything : from a class point of view.

The result of this lack of class consciousness was that he lived through the Russian Revolution, two world wars, countless colonial wars, the destruction of the Bolshevik Party, the Korean • war, the betrayals of the 1929 Labour government • • • and one could go on, and learnt nothing.

Consequently, the man who hated capitalism and violence became the cover behind which the capitalists and the bureaucracy carried out some of their most monstrous acts. An examination of his career will make this plain.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Lenin appealed to the workers of the world to break with their old leaders of the Second International.

There could be • no compromise with these traitors who, in 1914, had sided with their own ruling classes rather than with the workers of other countries, and who had urged the workers to go and die in their millions 'to make the world safe for democracy' (or, in other words, profits).

CLASS CHOICE

It was a clear class choice.

When the leaders of the Second International had had to choose between shooting down workers and shooting down their rulers, they had chosen to shoot down workers, and were to do so again in Germany in 1919.

In 1920, the Independent Labour Party, of which Brockway was a member, sent a delegation to the Soviet Union to discuss affiliation to the Third International. On their return, they advised against this.

Brockway agreed with the decision, 'because, as a pacifist, I rejected the view that socialism could be established only by civil war.

On the other hand, he was not too happy about the Second International either, "because they showed no sign of having fundamentally changed their view' (which was not surprising, considering that the imperialist super-profits, on which the Labour aristocracy is based, ntinued to flow in but, of is, Brockway says nothing. It simply a question of 'views').

The suspense was -bearable. So Brockway hit upon the 'solution'. Disliking both the Second and the Third Internationals, he proposed to bring them together in a single body!

He shows the same approach in his analysis of imperialist war ('How to end war', , 1925). War, he says, is produced by imperialist rivalries and he goes on to describe the exploitation of the colonial areas, and the struggle of the imperialists to dominate them.

But what is his conclusion at the end of all this? An uncompromising fight against imperialism, the source of war?

DISARMAMENT

No, he calls for 'an international conference, representative of all the governments of the world'- the very governments that he has just been denouncing for their imperialist greed.

At this conference, he proposes, "the British government (the oldest imperialist government) would announce its readiness to disarm completely. if the other nations would do so too.' Why didn't anyone think of it before?

The events of the General Strike of 1926 took him by surprise. Having been unable to make any analysis of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy he was 'completely unable MacDonald: weak opposition facilitated his betrayal o believe (his) ears', when the lews of the sell-out came hrough.

'My first reaction was that the TUC General Council had become either demoralised or corrupted.' 'Had become. But hadn't they been for decades?

What had Brockway learnt from the First World War and the creation of the Third International? Nothing. (see 'Inside the Left, pp. 193ff.)

In his memoirs, he disposes of the Mond-Turner agreement that followed the defeat of the workers in 1926, and that laid the basis for the humiliation of the working class until our day, in one single sentence-and not a word of analysis.

IN OPPOSITION "The TUC began conversations with the British Federation of Industries with the object of facilitating collaboration: they were known as the Mond-Turner Talks, named after Sir Alfred Mond and Mr. Ben Turner.' (Ibid., p. 194)

1929 found him in Parliament as an Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament.

The ILP was the only opposi tion to MacDonald in Parliament. And this explains just how his betrayal was so easy and so complete.

Brockway and the other Independent Labour Party members (140 of them in Parliament) confined their attack to 'protests' inside the House of Commons.

Brockway's first attack was over government policy in India. He aimed to put a resolution demanding the release of all political prisoners in India, but allowed himself to be dissuaded by the Labour leadership.

However, the arrest of 60,000 Indians in 1930 was too much even for Brockway. He was 'shocked' t the action. Of course, he was. Devoid of theory, how could he understand the connection between the Labour bureaucracy and imperialist super-profits, of which India was such a rich source?

His approach to the Indian question merely led him to propose plans, later to be implemented by the Attlee government of 1945, to consolidate capitalism there, and consequently to consolidate the Labour bureaucracy in England.

INVESTMENT ADVICE One quotation, from among many, should suffice to show the fibre of the opposition to MacDonald in 1930.

'If for a moment I may give a friendly word of advice to those who have capital invested in India, I would say this: The real danger to British investments in India lies not in a political revolution, but in a social revulution. Every day that the satisfaction of India's political claims is postponed increases the likelihood of a cataclysmic social revolution in India, involving the repudiation of Government loans and the confiscation of property.

('The Indian Crisis, 1930)

This quotation comes from a book in which he describes the appalling conditions of the Indian workers and peasants, the slums where 20 and more workers share one room, the wages of plantation workers of 6zd. a day, quotes a trade union report that 'the tea gardens of Assam are virtually slave plantations, shows how life expectancy in India has dropped from 30.75 years in 1881, to 23.5 years in 1930 ... and one could go on ad nauseam.

Notwithstanding all his experience of the General Strike, it was not until 1930 that Brockway suddenly discovered that 'the deterioration of the Labour government had gone so far that it had merely become The General Strike: Brockway couldn't believe his ears. an instrument for doing disagreeable work for the capitalists'. (Ibid., p. 215)

The fight over the wage cuts, and the refusal to give dole money to hundreds of thousands of workers in Britain was conducted in the same way. Let us listen to Brockway himself:

•. ... the employers were demanding reductions in wages. ... The wage rates of the State workers were the first to go. The ILP protested' And that was it.

And what a protest it was. Earth-shattering in its militancy. This was Brockway's answer to the railway employers who wanted to reduce the wages of railwaymen to 38s. per week.

"To. the railway directors our reply should be definite and clear—a demand for their dismissal. The four boards of 91 directors, acting in the interests of the shareholders, must be replaced by a company board acting in the interests of the nation and of the workers.' ('Hands off the Railwaymens' Wages, 1931)

It is no wonder that Brockay writes:

'As things turned out, when the General Election of 1931 came, the ILP candidates were identified in the public mind with the failure of the government, and we suffered in the debacle scarcely less than our colleagues.' LEARNED NOTHING Even this experience taught the Independent Labour Pauty nothing. Instead of waging a struggle against the Labour Party leadership on questions of policy, instead of using the defeat of MacDonald and tne harsh measures that followed to expose the right wing, the ILP chose this moment to leave the Labour Party.

They did not even leave over policy, but over a disagreement with the standing orders of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which forbade MIPs to vote against decisions of the leadership.

The decision to leave was wrong, in that it was really running away from the fight. The way in which it was done made it completely meaningless to the British working class.

Once again, Brockway'•

repudiation of Marxism had led him to strengthen those forces that he claimed to fight. Not ' understanding the Labour bureaucracy and their role in the working class parties of the metropolitan countries, he was completely unable fight them and simply watched their greatest betrayal as a helpless bystander.

The disaffiliation, in fact, led the Independent Labour Party being virtually dominated by another bureaucracy, that of Stalin's Third International. Already there existed within the ILP a strong pro-Stalinist pressure group called the Revolutionary Policy Committee, led by Jack Gaster and C. K. Cullen.

It is not surprising that the Revolutionary Policy Committee was the strongest advocate in the Independent Labour Party for leaving the Labour Party, and, at the 1932 conference, led the demand, that was adopted that ILP members should also be forced to resign individual membership too.

This was entirely in accordance with the line of the Comintern which, at that time, was saying that the Labour parties of the world were 'social fascist.

Also in accordance with this line. was the Revolutionary Policy Committee's policy, adopted by the Independent Labour Party, for the formation of soviets in Britain. Not surprisingly, this did not meet with much success.

(Next week: Hobnobbing with the Stalinists.)

November O Cil Be remembered, will be remembered by posterity as the blackest day in the history of Ceylon's Thus it is clear that Ceylon's citizenship lawsunique in the world because they are based on the principle of descent and not birth-were framed entirely to exclude the Indian working class and deprive it of Three

L Brockway declared AST week, Fenner betrayal by CTOBER 29, 1964, will be remembered by posterity as the blackest day in the history of Ceylon's working class. For on that fateful Thursday, the Prime Ministers of India and Ceylon conspired to deal a mortal blow to the trade union and labour movement in Ceylon by agreeing to the repatriation of 525,000 Indian residents to India in the next 15 years and another 150,000 in the years following — the remaining 300,000 Indians are to be given Ceylon citizenship (when and how it is not stated).

Mrs. Bandaranaike, Ceylun's prime minister, has thus achieved another unique distinction: she is not only the first woman prime ministershe is also the first head of state, since Hitler, to "solve' the problem of a national minority by virtually deporting them.

Sordid

That, after all, is the most charitable construction any observer can place on this reactionary and sordid agreement.

The Indian Tamil minority in Ceylon is not any ordinary minority.

It has been and still is a minority which by its labour and skill has played an immensely important role in building the economy of Ceylon.

The entire tea industry is dependent on its labour. Paradoxically, its political weight in the island is in inverse relation to its economic role.

Perera: One of the pioneers of Ceylon trade unionism.

It has been, and still is, the most discriminated against, the most persecuted, the most uppressed and exploited. At the same time, it must be stated that these Indian workers have occupied an honoured place in the forefront of Ceylon's trade union movement.

Connive

By their audacity, resourcefulness, courage and discipline, they have put to shame all their traducers and set a worthy example to their Sinhalese brothers. Suffice it to state here that of the 19 martyrs of the trade union movement killed by the state over a number of years, six have been Indian Tamils.

Paradoxically, too, it was people like Dr. N. M Perera, Colvin R. de Silva and Philip Gunawardene who pioneered the organisation of these workers into militant unions and who today connive with Mrs. Bandaranaike in 'repatriating' these same workers with their families to a country which is in the throes of a food crisis (see Newsletter, October 24, 1964), and which has no hope of absorbing them.

So long as Ceylon and India were under British rule, the 'Indian Question' did not arise since there were no specific ond legall India India treate Un of econ provi to t work to ait other the I petty mone Th only uner conc as it 'Indi At "Indi to hi at tl the who and by f heigl TI to i Indi: even Indi: Briti men restr Indi:

the emp once islar. ever tion: to t wor affli coin mer and nati gov.

of whi labo imp the par.

the enti

an instrument for doing disagreeable work for the capitalists'. (Ibid., p. 215)

The fight over the wage cuts, and the refusal to give dole money to hundreds of thousands of workers in Britain was conducted in the same way. Let us listen to Brockway himself:

•.. the employers were demanding reductions in wages. ... The wage rates of the State workers were the first to go. The ILP protested.' And that was it.

And what a protest it was. Earth-shattering in its militancy. This was Brockway's answer to the railway employers who wanted to reduce the wages of railwaymen to 38s. per week.

'To the railway directors our reply should be definite and clear—a demand for their dismissal. The four boards of 91 directors, acting in the interests of the shareholders, must be replaced by a company board acting in the interests of the nation and of the workers.' ('Hands off the Railwaymens' Wages', 1931)

It is no wonder that Brockay writes:

'As things turned out, when the General Election of 1931 came, the ILP candidates were identified in the public mind with the failure of the government, and we suffered in the debacle scarcely less than our colleagues.' LEARNED NOTHING Even this experience taught the Independent Labour Pauty nothing. Instead of waging a struggle against the Labour Party leadership on questions of policy, instead of using the defeat of MacDonald and tne harsh measures that followed to expose the right wing, the ILP chose this moment to leave the Labour Party.

They did not even leave over policy, but over a disagreement with the standing orders of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which forbade MPs to vote against decisions of the leadership.

The decision to leave was wrong, in that it was really running away from the fight. The way in which it was done made it completely meaningless to the British working class.

Once again, Brockway':

repudiation of Marxism had led him to strengthen thost forces that he claimed to fight. Not ' understanding the Labour bureaucracy and their role in the working class parties of the metropolitan countries, he was completely unable to fight them and simply watched their greatest betrayal as a helpless bystander.

The disaffiliation, in fact, led the Independent Labour Party being virtually dominated by another bureaucracy, that of Stalin's Third International. Already there existed within the ILP a strong pro-Stalinist pressure group called the Revolutionary Policy Committee, led by Jack Gaster and C. K. Cullen.

not surprising that the Revolutionary Policy Committee was the strongest advocate in the Independent Labour Party for leaving the Labour Party, and, at the 1932 conference, led the demand, that was adopted ILP members should also be forced to resign individual membership too.

This was entirely in accordof the Comintern which, at that time, was saying that the Labour parties of the world were 'social fascist'.

Also in accordance with this line. was the Revolutionary Policy Committee's policy, adopted by the Independent Labour Party, for the formation of soviets in Britain. Not surprisingly, this did not meet with much success.

(Next week: Hobnobbing with the Stalinists.) working class. For on that fateful Thursday, the Prime Ministers of India and Ceylon conspired to deal a mortal blow to the trade union and labour movement in Ceylon by agreeing to the repatriation of 525,000 Indian residents to India in the next 15 years and another 150,000 in the years following —the remaining 300,000 Indians are to be given Ceylon citizenship (when and how it is not stated).

Mrs. Bandaranaike, Ceylun's prime minister, has thus achieved another unique distinction: she is not only the first woman prime minister she is also the first head of state, since Hitler, to "solve' the problem of a national minority by virtually deporting them.

Sordid

That, after all, is the most charitable construction any observer can place on this reactionary and sordid agreement.

The Indian Tamil minority in Ceylon is not any ordinary minority.

It has been and still is a minority which by its labour and skill has played an immensely important role in building the economy of Ceylon.

The entire tea industry is dependent on its labour. Paradoxically, its political weight in the island is in inverse relation to its economic role.

Perera: One of the pioneers of Ceylon trade unionism.

It has been, and still is, the most discriminated against, the most persecuted, the most uppressed and exploited. At the same time, it must be stated that these Indian workers have occupied an honoured place in the forefront of Ceylon's trade union movement.

Connive

By their audacity, resourcefulness, courage and discipline, they have put to shame all their traducers and set a worthy example to their Sinhalese brothers. Suffice it to state here that of the 19 martyrs of the trade union movement killed by the state over a number of years, six have been Indian Tamils.

Paradoxically, too, it was people like Dr. N. M Perera, Colvin R. de Silva and Philip Gunawardene who pioneered the organisation of these workers into militant unions and who today connive with Mrs.

Bandaranaike in 'repatriating' these same workers with their families to a country which is in the throes of a food crisis (see Newsletter, October 24, 1964), and which has no hope of absorbing them.

So long as Ceylon and India were under British rule, the 'Indian Question' did not arise since there were no specific ond triumph for racialism and hreat to the working class S. Thondaman, secretary of the Ceylon Workers' Congress speaking some of the island's Tamil-speaking legally recognised categories of Indian and Ceylon citizenship. Indians and Ceylonese were treated as British citizens.

Under the boom conditions of the twenties Ceylon's economy was able not only to provide continuous employment to the Indian Tamil estate workers, but she was also able to absorb a sizeable amount of other Indian emigrants such as the Malayalis from Kerala and petty traders and even some moneylenders from Baluchistan.

Racialism

The depression, however, not only raised the spectre of mass unemployment but with it, the concomitant evil of racialism or as it was popularly known-the 'Indian Question' At that time, though the 'Indian Question' was confined to hate campaigns aimed mainly at the moneylending Chettiars, the Indian trader-cum-usurer, who ruined many a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois Ceylonese by foreclosing mortgages in the height of the depression.

There was little or no attempt to restrict the movement of Indian Tamil estate labourers even at the height of the antiIndian campaign. It was the British-dominated Indian government that for reasons of its own, restricted the emigration of Indians in 1938.

After the Second World War. the twin spectres of chronić unemployment and landlessness once more began to stalk the island. Unemployment, however, did not affect the plantations, but was restricted mainly to the urban and rural areas. Thus, it was the indigenous workers who were the must afflicted.

'Indian vote'

The growth of unemployment coincided with Ceylon's attainment of so-called 'independence' and the coming to power of a native bourgeois landlord government elected on the basis of universal adult franchise which included the Indian Tamil labourer.

The 'Indian vote' played an important role in determining composition of the new parliament. Nearly one-fifth of the seats were won as a result of the 'Indian vote'-they were entirely left-wing MPs.

The government of the time was quick to sense the danger from the well000000 03 VUVe Indian plantation workers.

organised cohesive bloc of Indian voters, most of whom owed allegiance to the Ceylon Indian Congress -at that time the Ceylon branch of the Indian National Congress.

Tinselled oratory This was a unique organisation which combined the functions of a trade union and political party. It later split into the Ceylon Workers' Congress, and a smaller group called the Democratic Workers' Congress.

On. July I last year the Unified Secretariat of : the Fourth -Int rational wrote from the -Pabloite centre in Paris to Leslien Goonewar!

dene, Secretary of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, saying: 'We recogrise there is nothing wrong in the principle OF negotiations between India and Ceylon on the subject' [the citizenship trights 01 Tamil workers) T i The resent agreement is a result of the revisionist policies of the Unified Secretariat who have once again betrayed workers in Ceylon. Once again mem-i bers of the United Secretariat stand exposed and conedemned as traitors to the working class.

It still remains the largest trade union in the island.

Colvin R. de Silva — who today tries to decorate with the tinsel of his oratory the black deeds of the coalition-had this to say about the Indian question as recently as 1962:

In its political and franchise aspect, the "Indian"

Question was to Mr. D. S.

Senanayake [the prime minister at the time] and his colleagues a class question.

The enfranchised Indian was in the main an enfranchised worker who, at least in the trade union field was in daily conflict with his employer.

Both his vote and his representative were therefore potentially anti-capitalist and in relation to parliament and the U.N.P. [United National Party] as the recognised political party of the capitalist class, inevitably "oppositionISt' • This was demonstrated to the full when the Ceylon Indian Congress M.P.s aligned themselves with the Left parties in the first Parliament and took their seats in the Opposition when the U.N.P. formed its first Government.

'Mr. D. S. Senanayake had another grouse. Despite all claims to the contrary, Mr. D. S. Senanayake was basically a racialist, that is to say, a Sinhalese politician who was concerned with the political dominance of the Sinhalese race in Ceylon. He saw in the position of the "Indians" in Ceylon's electoral system a threat to this domipance. He awaited his opportunity to remove the threat - and took it with both hands when it came. ('Young Socialist', Ceylon, Vol. 2, No. 1)

Notorious Bill The first legal blow at the Indians came in the form of the Citizenship Act of 1948. According to this notorious Bill citizenship in section 4 and 5 was defined in the following terms:

'(1) Subject to the other provisions of this Part, person born in Ceylon before the appointed date shall have the status of a citizen by descent if— (a) his father was born in Ceylon, or (b) his paternal grandfather and paternal great grandfather were born in Ceylon.

(2) Subject to the other provisions of this Part, a person born outside Ceylon before the appointed date shall have the status of citizen of Ceylon by descent if— (a) his father and paternal grandfather were born in Ceylon or (b) his paternal grandfather and paternal great grandfather were born in Ceylon.

(5) (i) Subject to the other provisions of this Part, a person born in Ceylon on or after the appointed date shall have the status of a citizen of Ceylon by descent if at the time of his birth his father is a citizen of Ceylon.

(ii) • Subject to the other provisions of this Part, a person born outside Ceylon on or after the appointed date shall have the status of citizen of Ceylon by descent if at the time of his birth his father is a citizen of Ceylon and if, within one year from the date of birth, or within such further period as the Minister may for good cause allow, the birth registered in the prescribed manner...

the economic and political benefits which accrue from citizenship.

The second consecutive blow came in the form of the 'Indian and Pakistan Residents (Citizenship) Act' No. 3 of 1949. This Act effectively and immediately excluded the vast majority of resident Indians from acquiring citizenship by registration—a formality provided for in the original Citizenship Act, 'Stateless' The final blow came with the Act No. 8 of 1949 also proposed by Mr. D. S. Senanayake, which stipulated that 'no person shall be qualified to have his name entered or retained in any register of electors in any year if such person is not a citizen of Ceylon' The creation of one million odd 'stateless' people led inexorably to the intervention, or, it not, the involvement of the Indian government.

The 'Indian Question' became a kind of political football kicked hither and thither between Delhi and Colombo.

The earlier capitalist governments led by the United National Party drew the liné on the question of citizenship and franchise. It needed a Sri Lanka Freedom Party government to probe the knife of antiIndianism deeper into the wound created by the preceding regimes by attacking or threatening to attack the very livelihood of the Indian workers.

This campaign be it noted has been combined with a wave of chauvinism on the language question directed against the indigenous Tamils in the north and east of Ceylon.

Previous UNP governments represented the large landed interests, merchants, transport contractors, bus owners and such. Susceptible MPs The present regime draws its strength from elsewhere-from the rich peasantry, small businessmen, the more conservative layers of the working class and the Kandyan aristocracy of which Mrs. Bandaranaike is an outstanding representative.

Mrs. Bandaranaike: representative of the Kandyan aristocracy.

This aristocracy - a remnant of Ceylon's feudal and colonial heritage, has its roots mainly in the areas which are today accupied by plantations worked by Indian labour. The villages in these-the Kandyan-—areas are rapidly dying out and consequently many SinhaleseKandyan peasants are either unemployed or under-employed.

The MPs from these regions are extremely susceptible to the pressure of the land hungry peasant and unemployed labourer—-the Indian workers on the other hand, being disfranchised and stateless, cannot influence their MPs.

Clamour

In this context, it is rot difficult to understand why the clamour for the expulsion of the Indian labourers and their replacement by Kandyan Sinhalese should grow louder, particularly when a Kandyan Sinhalese is the head of the government!

The pressure of this very articulate lobby crystallized itself finally into a Bill which was presented in May 1962called the 'Employment of Ceylonese on Estates Bill'. The Bill, according to our knowledge, never became law because Parliament was prorogued. The essence of this Bill was the gradual and systematic substitution of Ceylonese for Indians on the estates.

Rather than antagonise the entire trade union and Indian working class movement, Mrs. Bandaranaike had probably decided to shelve this piece of reactionary legislation in anticipation of the agreement with Shastri.

This Bill raised a number of issues which until then had lain dormant.: They would probably not be discussed today but the new India-Ceylon agreement has raised them again-and more sharply than before.

The most important of these concerns the right of employment of the Indian workers in the plantations. The majority —if not all-are resident on the estates and live in glorified cattle-sheds called 'coolie-lines'. The majority of' Sinhalese workers on the other hand live outside the estates in villages. Many of the latter are part-time workers on the estates.

The resident Indian labourers after decades of struggle and sacrifice have achieved a singular and unique concession from the British tea companies that is the envy of workers elsewhere. It is simply this: every child of a resident worker is automatically taken on the Check Roll when he or she reaches 14 years of age. This means that he or she is legally entitled to 24 days of work per month.

This right is enjoyed exclusively by resident labourers and is a source of friction between the Indian resident and the non-resident Sinhalese. The racialists, of course, have been quick to utilise this conflict.

The proposed repatriation of Indian resident workers will undermine this right totally and Will enable the employers who have a bigger labour force than their acreage warrants to start systematic retrenchment.

Since industrial law in Ceylon does not compel an employer to fill a vacancy we can rest assured that this agreement will not benefit the job-hungry Sinhalese labourer but the profit-hungry Sterling companies who own most of the tea plantations.

Thus the meaning of the agreement is palpably clear: It penalises the Indian worker in order to satisfy the British imperialist employer.

Mrs. Bandaranaike is playing with dynamite. She -and her Lanka Sama Samaja Party cronies—are taking on the most militant and best organised sections of the working class in south-east Asia.

Not even the combined might of Ceylon's armed forces will succeed in dislodging these doubly oppressed helots from their remote fastnesses in the Kandyan hills. Nothing will persuade them to surrender the only right they now possess—-the right to a job.

Finally, we should remind Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, chief exponent of government policy of his own words in relation to Sri Lanka Freedom Party policy on the 'Indian Question':

'No country can contemplate such a process with equanimity. It is simply inhuman. No civilised people can tolerate it.' Solution nd also the solution he adcated then and abandons nOW 'What the country requires is a planned programme of bold measures systematically diracted towards rapid economic development. The industrialisation of the country is the only means of developing the economy rapidly.

Such industrialisation will require a tremendous new labour force which will have to be drawn precisely from the rural or Village population. ... Let it be added that stateless labour itself must reject the calls and programmes of their own racialists in respect of this question.

Far from withdrawing into new racial seclusion, they must link themselves directly, integrally and organically with the progressive forces in Ceylon with a view to conducting a common fight for a common end.' ('Young Socialist', Ceylon, Vol. 2, No. 1)

The struggle of the Indian workers is the concern of every Ceylonese worker. They must not be betrayed, nor left to fight alone.

-1EіSE1Л)

THE announcement by the Coal Board that the one mine in the Birmingham area is to close next March, has caused deep resentment among its 550 miners.

As usual the reason given by the NCB is that the mine has become uneconomic to work. This time due to continual faults in the coal seams.

But only 18 months ago nearly 70 miners and their wives and families were recruited, especially from the Durham area (where more 'uneconomic' pits were closing), and told to come here with the prospect of a lifetime's work at Hamstead colliery!

The Coal Board is quite brutally frank about the closure. They say that £3,000,000 has been spent on development from 1947 but "today the price of coal is all-important in competition with other fuels'.

Therefore, although there is still at least 43,000,000 tons of coal at Hamstead, it must close.

Profit-the same as in any private capitalist combine— is the be-all and end-all of the Coal Board's operations.

The lives of the miners do not enter into their calculations.

OFFER

The Coal Board is offering displaced miners jobs (for how long?) in collieries that will involve travelling anything from 10 to 20 miles.

As one miner put it: 'Who wants to leave at 4.45 a.m. every morning to get to a pit when right now we live in houses on top of this pit?' A pit committee member explained that two months ago they confronted the management with rumours of closure and these were strenuously denied.

He said: "The union here doesn't agree that the pit cannot be worked in spite of faults in the seams. We were boring through to a new coal face only four days ago.

'We are 450 yards away but have been stopped. We are having our union mining engineer Keith Andrews come investigate the coal position.' Local MP, Maurice Foley, expressed shock at the Coal Board's decision and the men told him at a union meeting on action against a foreman.

fight is taking place. this period courageous

Sunday that they expect him to do something to stop the closure.

A whole number of these miners have worked here 20 or more years and many of them are in their late fifties.

One miner from Scotland said: 'How will I get a job at 57 years of age?' LIFETIME Mr. Lockey, 40-year-old face worker from the north, said: 'We were given an undertaking that there was a lifetime of work for us at Hamstead. - We chose Hamstead because of the guaranteed work period of 40 years."

More union meetings are scheduled. But it is obvious that if the Hamstead miners are to stand any chance whatsoever of stopping this closure they will need the support of miners throughout the Midlands.

A campaign must be started to force the Labour government to come out on the side of the miners.

Are Mr.' Wilson's "modernisation' schemes going to mean more and more sackings with people, if they're 'lucky', moving from town to town every two years, like these Durham miners?

Hamstead miners should not rely merely on the verdict of a mining engineer-they must rely on their and other workers' solidarity to stop this closure.

Publiahed by •The Nowslettor. 1864 Clashem Hisi Stroet. London. S.W.4 ON Monday South Wales miners demonstrated their militant opposition to the National Coal Board's threats of redundancy and closures with a call for strike action to prevent two pits in the area closing down.

The demand came from over 50 delegates from 19 lodges in the area, who said they were prepared to fight the proposed closure of Rhigos and Glyncastle collieries.

A deputation met the union's area executive, who are to 'consider' the recommendation. The strike call will come up for discussion at the National Union of Miners South Wales area conference on Thursday.

Behind this demand is the rising discontent and militancy of the miners in the area, who face increased speed-up with the continual threat of redundancy hanging over them.

According to the National Coal Board, the two pits are closing because of a manpower shortage. However, the delegates' spokesman claimed that, 'the shortage has only come about because the Board have unsettled workers at the collieries by circulating rumours of closure even though the pits have plenty of coal left' In fact this is part of the NCB's policy of running the coal industry on capitalist lines, by concentrating production in a few highly mechanised pits.

The Stalinist leadership of the South Wales area has taken no action to conduct a fight against these policies. During recent struggles they have been concerned to check the militancy of the rank-and-file, with the result that to many miners the union leadership is nothing but a department of the NCB. SCOTTISH NEWSPAPER TAKE-OVER BID Lush profits from advertising in background standing only for its reactionary views and parochial outlook. Some of the most vicious attacks have been launched on workers during strikes, in its pages.

Currently the Glasgow press has been turning its attention to what it calls the "lawless' youth.

Brushing aside all considerations of the most appalling slum housing in Britain and chronic youth unemployment, the press has one solution—'a salutary dose of national service' in the opinion of the 'Evening Times' would recommend itself to the Wilson government.

INCREASED PROFITS The press lords of Scotland have just concluded their own bit of disorderly conduct in a scramble to grab for increased profits. The takeover bids of the firm of George Outram and Company Ltd. has ended with a victory for Hugh Fraser of Scottish Universal Investments.

At stake was control of two Each one of the strikers is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union and each one is determined to join in this united fight against the management of R. Woolf and Co. Ltd., of Southall, to defend their rights, conditions and the union. The vast majority of strikers are Indians.

This struggle gives a lie to all those in the labour movement who say that immigrant workers will take the worst jobs at lower rates of pay.

The strike began on Wednesday, October 28, after a worker in the millshop was suspended by the management. The man, who cannot speak English, was asked his clock number by the foreman. He attempted to explain by using signs. The foreman claimed he was being violent and reported him.

Locked out

Following the suspension the millshop stopped work and when the nightshift arrived, they were locked out.

The management, the workers claimed, threatened to close all departments if the men stayed out. They then offered to transfer the man to another department.

But the strikers remained firm and the whole factory struck.

TGWU officials have met the management, but there is still deadlock.

Last Saturday these same officials advised the men to return, but the suggestion was received with hoots of derision.

Woolfs, a family business, is reputed to make a profit of £85,000 a year. It supplies tyres to Ford, Vauxhall and Rootes.

It employs nearly 500 people, mostly immigrant Indians, many of whom cannot read or speak English. There are about 25 white workers, apart from supervisory grades, and several of these have joined the strike.

Membership

The union was formed in the factory about a year ago. Since the strike, membership has reached nearly 100 per cent.

Before the union was formed, many of the workers claim, there was a certain amount of bribery practised in order to obtain certain jobs in certain departments.

From BOB daily papers and weekly journals.

The rival who has bit the dust is Lord Thomson of Fleet, controller of the 'Edinburgh Scotsman' and a large network of newspapers throughout the world. In the background are lush profits from television and other advertising revenue.

SUPERIOR VALUE

Commenting on the resulting victory for Fraser, the 'Glasgow Herald', which is produced by Outrams along with the 'Glasgow Evening Times', stated that:

'Despite the superior cash value of Lord Thomson's offer the majority of Outram shareholders preferred to accept Sir Hugh Fraser's offer, which ensures that "The Glasgow Herald' and its associated newspapers will remain entirely under Scottish control.

The "Sunday Telegraph' pointed out last week to an enquiring shareholder in Outrams, the takeover by Fraser will only reap financial benefit if one of the present two evening papers in Glasgow ceases to appear.

Immediately after the union was formed and a wage increase from 4s. 9fd. to 5s. an hour awarded, this alleged practice ceased.

Because of the low wages and conditions of work, there is a large turnover of workers. Before the union was formed many men were paid off on Saturdays and others employed on Mondays.

But through the union, many of the Indian workers are forming themselves into a strong, militant unit.

This, say their leaders, is why the management have taken the workers on in the present struggle. They want to suppress the union, said one shop steward.

Many of the rank and file feel that a new manager, believed to have been brought from Ford at a salary of £4,000 a year a month ago, has been employed to help in this.

Drive

Certainly the drive by Ford for higher productivity through automation and speed-up in their factories necessitates attacking strong unionism-the sacking of the 17 shop stewards two years ago was the beginning of this assault.

And, where possible, to produce reasonably priced cars at higher profits, parts and components (most of which are made at other factories), must be kept at competitive prices.

At present the Indian workers on strike are firm and have large sums of money to back them up. (The Indian Workers' Association has donated f400 to their strike fund.)

But they should be wary of the TGWU officials who talk of 'going back' and a possible compromise.

They should stand firm. A blow at Woolfs is a blow at British bosses and British capitalism and a blow on behalf of all workers-white and coloured.

If Woolf succeeds in breaking the union, he can then reduce wages, and all employers in the area will be strengthened and encouraged to do likewise.

Engineering workers, busmen, and all workers must assist these strikers by joining them on the picket line and by sending donations to the Convenor: N. S. Hundal, 59 Orchard Avenue, Southall, Middx.

This is what is likely to happen.

One of Fraser's weapons during the takeover scramble was that his offer had the barking of the Beaverbrook Press. There is no doubt but that one of Glasgow's evening papers is now doomed.

Several hundred jobs will be wiped out so that a financial tycoon can make more money.

The 'Glasgow Evening Times' hatred of the youth will extend to depriving a further number of badly needed trained jobs DEMONSTRATION Two, years ago an issue arose at a leading store in Glasgow where students found that obtaining vacation jobs at Xmas were dependent on the colour of their skin.

A massive demonstration was staged by the students and Young Socialists against the colour bar at the store, which was one of the Universal group owned by Fraser.

Thus we find that Outrams is now controlled by Fraser, who allows a colour bar at one of the stores in the group owned by him-it is clear what kind of Tory line Outrams is going to continue within the future.

shift picket outside Woolts government after all?

This was the comment on the Labour government's economic policy in last week's 'Economist'.

Any thoughtful worker asking himself the question: Which class do the policies of the Labour government assist, can only come to one answer-the employing class.

Big business spokesmen, their economists and editorial writers have been stressing that the only way to meet the economic crisis of British capitalism is by what they are pleased to call an "incomes policy'. two other nelas or economic policy where action is really and urgently needed. The first of fields -made vital now if Britain is ever to escape TrOM protectonisin allu yel avoid devalutaion - is incomes policy.

'Here the lack of initiative on Monday was a great disappointment.' The Labour government is setting the stage for grappling with working-class wages.

ENQUIRY

Through setting up an enquiry on the docks (assisted by rightwing trade union leaders, in turn assisted by the Communist Party) they hope to disperse the militant feelings of the dockers and avoid a major struggle which would open up a whole wages battle front immediately.

In the meantime the government has consultations with the employers' organisations and the Trades Union Congress as to the best way to bring out a wages plan.

The Executive of the Amalgamated Engineering Union is discussing a document proposing that the political levy should not be collected from members of organisations opposed to the policies of the Labour Party.

These members will not be allowed to speak and vote on political matters. Carron and the right wing are preparing to put these propositions through the AEU Rules Revision Conference next April.

With a Labour government,

Tanker

drivers return to work TANKER drivers from the Shellmex and BP depots at Cakemore and Oldbury, who have been on strike for a month went back to work at the beginning of this week so that negotiations could take place.

One hundred and seventy men walked out because of alleged lack of communications. Only a week ago they voted to go back to work and then reversed the decision when they found that the management had asked contractors to come into clear work which had accumulated during the strike.

No objection The role of the union leaders in this strike has been one of co-operating with the management in trying to get the men back to work. In fact, the management stated last week that a union spokesman from the branch committee had said there would be no objection to the introduction of contractors' vehicles.

A statement like this is certainly not in the interests of the rank and file members of the union, since bringing in labour during a strike is encouraging blacklegging.

Many industrial issue can be made to fall within this proposal. It is a blatant attempt to gag opposition to the Government's anti-working-class policies.

Bans in the Electrical Trades Union, the vicious sentence on Dave Finch-who was debarred for life from holding positions in the union-are now followed by the statement of Cannon, the President of the union at Southport, last Monday.

INCOMES

He pledged support to the government for a 'planned inAS a protest againsed the new winter schedules which will start on November 18, busmen at Southall have decided to stage unofficial strikes every Saturday from November 21.

The Southall bus crews started the overtime ban over a pay dispute last autumn which finally involved most of the London Transport and finally affected 1,000 buses a day.

Those busmen who work at the Central London garages have been asked not to operate routes which may overlap the Southall routes.

The men claim that the winter schedules would mean a loss in week-end overtime and therefore a reduction in pay. They also maintain that the plan is not following the line of the Phelps-Brown report on London buses.

OBJECTIONS

Union leaders are to meet the chiefs of the London Transport to put forward the men's objections to the winter schedules Delegates representing more than 30,000 Central London busmen voted last week on whether or not there should be a full-scale stoppage. The call was defeated only by a narrow majority.

Instead they decided to have talks with London Transport and if they did not get satisfaction they would demand discussions with Tom Fraser, Minister of Transport.

London busmen have good reason to be angry about the winter schedules. London Transport have tried to push through a policy which would mean that 500 buses would be cut on Saturdays and 375 on Sundays.

For the bus crews this means loss in pay and busmen have never been renowned for their high wages.

• They want a wage freeze and mobility of labour. @ They want to break down old traditions and customs among the working class which prevent speed up. comes policy, and 'wage restraint'.

The gags, proscriptions and bans are meant to behead opposition leadership, which will continue to fight in the

• They want to break up agreements which prevent them from using labour in any way they want. • They want to preserve their profit system and that means meeting foreign competition by cutting into labour costs and ruthlessly pushing up the proluctivity of labour "The government,' said "The Economist' in its article, 'should press forward determinedly in interests of the working class.

As Wilson pushes through his wage freeze policy we can expect these attacks by the bureaucrats to increase.

They won't succeed, no more than they have succeeded against the Young Socialists. They will not succeed because the workers have no way out but to struggle against the wage freezing and reorganisation of industry in the interests of the monopolies. urgently needed than in our transport system, but the Queen's speech did not call for the re-nationalization of road haulage which is an essentia) part of any planning system for transport.

Whilst the labour movement will give every support to the government in carry.

ing out even the most minor reforms, it must be said that unless these are immediately linked to :

fuller socialist programme involving nationalization of all the basic industries then Wilson is leading the Labour Party along the road to inevitable defeat.

This is the main lesson from the failure of the 1945 Labour government. It was defeated in 1951 largely because of Lord Morrison of Lambeth's "consolidation' policy adopted by the Party at its Scarborough conference in 1948.

Labour must now plan for a 1965 election which will, by bringing up such a programme, recognise that this is the only way to consolidate any reforms that are gained in the immediate future. Become a regular subscriber to IN the fight for socialism, The Newsletter is playing a vital role. Do you get it regularly? Don't leave it to the chance encounter, fill in this form and send it to:

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