The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 383

RECENT air strikes by United States' aircrait were a • desperate act against a force on the verge or victory. It was also an act against what is 'part of the biggest change ever to take place in world history, said Cliff Slaughter at a Socialist Labour League meet- — ing on Vietnam in London last week-end.

Many people, he said, had been shaken by the turn of events in Vietnam. In the South Johnson had now stationed 24,000 U.S. troops, costing a million dollars a day, to prevent the country "being overrun'.

These troops were not in South Vietnam to prevent it from being overrun by anybody, Their presence was part of a world position-two million U.S. troops are stationed throughout Western Europe and South-East Asia.

This was a bigger question than South Vietnam. It is part of the biggest change ever to take place in world history,' said Slaughter.

Since the beginning of the century capitalism had been a world system. It had arrived at the point where it had nowhere to expand except by re-dividing the world -between the spitalist powers.

REVOLUTION

The revolution in Russia, Eastern Europe and China yad taken large areas from capitalism.

'This revolution continues,' said Slaughter. People throughout the world were involved in wars and civil wars to liberate themselves.

"The two and a half million U.S. troops with weapons that can destroy the population of the world twice over are there to preserve imperialism when 't is threatened,' he added.

The struggle by the working class in Britain and the United States was the same struggle as that carried out by the Vietcong, Vietminh and • all those forces struggling against capitalism all over the world.

The Labour government had been asked to take a stand against the American offensive in Vietnam, but Michael Stewart, the Foreign Secretary, said the United States was not breaking the terms of the Geneva Agreement of 1954, which divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, since they were not a party to that agreement.

AGREEMENT

Johnson had decided two months ago. on the air attacks, said Slaughter. Wilson was there at the time and had come back to the Labour Party conference at Brighton to say he had agreement with Johnson.

I don't know whether Wilson was consulted about this decision, but he does back Johnson and he did get agreement on his policy "east of Suez", Slaughter added.

The reason that the bureau### RACIALISM USED TO SPLIT WORKERS THE present Labour government is a most reactionary government, Gerry Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League told an audience of 70 trade unionists, students and Young Socialists in Glasgow last Sunday.

He said that everything was being done to create racialism in the present situation and this was designed to split the working class.

The Labour government had the support of the Tories on the question of stricter immigration control.

Racialism was developed as the weapon of reaction, he said, because the working class was becoming increasingly class conscious as a result of the present economic crisis.

At the trade union conferences this Easter there would probably be a massive movement for wages and the ruling class were afraid of this.

"The Labour government is not pursuing socialist policies. They could have brought the Tory government down over the Profumo crisis. Instead the Tories were allowed to rig a crisis and Labour allowed them 10 months from the Profumo case to present this crisis.' Devaluation Now a new problem has its roots in France. General de Gaulle wanted to return to the gold standard and the danger was that the pound and the dollar would then be devalued, which would present a catastrophic crisis for capitalism.

On the question of the aircraft workers, he said that the Labour Party leadership could clear the confusion. All that it had to do was to open the books of the aircraft companies.

Instead, the reactionary rightwing leadership had split the aircraft workers, hit at the old age pensioners, lost the seat to the Tories in Leyton and paved the way for the return of the Tories.

That was why, Healy stated, it was not correct for workers to abstain in the elections.

Workers had to be brought out on demonstrations to unite in action. The fight against the right wing was not just a question of resolutions or simply casting a vote, but encouraging the Young Socialists to help build the adult movement.

So far the Socialist Labour League was the only organisation to do that.

BARLBY

ROAD WIG AMBUSH SCENE (right) 1. School where dance was held. 2. Some attackers probably waited here. 3. Point of attack : at junction (seen left).

crats in the Soviet Union were giving aid to North Vietnam was only that, with their policy of peaceful co-existence, they would have a stronger bargaining position at the conference table. This had been their position at Geneva, he said.

The cost to the working class through this kind of policy was very clear-11 years of war and the danger of a full-scale conflict with even more deadly weapons.

The fact that world Stalinism held back the struggle against the social democrats, meant they stood against the real struggle to support the Vietnam people.

There was no defence of Vietnam except by demanding the withdrawal of the imperialists.

Slaughter said the labour movement must campaign against a settlement of the fate of the Vietnamese people through secret diplomacy by the big powers. DESPITE all his reaffirmations, Wilson is looking for ways to dodge the only public ownership measure left in Labour's programme-the renationalization of steel.

While the steel barons step up their press campaign against nationalization, Woodrow Wyatt and Desmond Donnelly pursue their fight for Lib-Lab unity, and declare their intention to vote with the Tories and Liberals if the Steel Bill is pushed to a division. .

Other Labour MPs, Fred Bellenger and George Strauss, are expected to abstain. (Strauss was the minister in the 1950 Labour government responsible for carrying through a form of steel nationalization which allowed the steel monopolists, after being handsomely compensated, to pick and choose which plants they wanted to buy back when they were de-nationalized.)

The Steel Bill, in muted form, may be published after some delay. Wilson could then allow it to be further emasculated in the committee stage.

The steel masters would not necessarily be averse to some state intervention in the industry. This could be used by them to assist in the huge expenditures involved in keeping up to date with international developments in steel manufacture, controlling the workers and so safeguarding their enormous profits.

But if, as seems likely, employment develops in a CRAWFORD months, the outright nationalization of the industry is vital to the working class.

By sliding closer and closer to an eflective coalition, Wilson betrays 12,000,000 Labour voters and paves the way for the return of the Tories.

On pensions, on economic policy and now on steel, the Labour leaders have thrown overboard even the meagre programme on which they were elected. In the Far East they show their adherence to the NATO imperialist alliance.

In this week's Defence White Paper they declare the continuation of the H-bomb policies of Macmillan and Home. This even slaps those 'lefts' in the face who helped Wilson to power and have since covered up for him.

Malaysian fighting makes scription a possibility.

Meanwhile, prices continue to rise and George Brown does the employers' work by getting a wage - freeze agreement under way.

This administration is threatening the whole future of the labour movement.

The working-class movement is strong enough to force Wilson to act on his election pledges on steel as on pensions. But this strength must be organised. The Young Socialists in their campaign to backdate the pensions increase have shown the way.

This is the only way to stop the Labour leaders from destroying the Labour government and breaking the unity of workers. Party and Young Socialists, closing down the South Paddington Labour Party, and prattling in Parliament about illegal immigrants', the fascists confidently make a brazen attack on the labour movement's strongest section.

The following day Dave Greenberg, one of the expelled North Kensington Young Socialists. received three anonymous telephone calls saying, 'You'll get what we gave the wogs.' The attack was a political attack, not just on coloured Young Socialists in North Kensington, but on the whole labour movement of the area and the country— it could happen any time, anywhere.

These acts will be aimed at e only people fighting for a lution to the vast problems cing the working class under (Cont. p. 4, col. 3)

Page E have much to

SAVAGE, premeditated Young Socialists in a lonely road last Saturday ended with one hospital with severe head injuries.

All this week doctors have been fighting to 17-year-old Roy Smith following an emergency at the Whittington hospital, Archway. had just left a Young Socialists Schoolboy Young Socialists face alley were amant in Barlby Road by a gang of about 20 armed fascists. In the attack Roy was hit over the head with a pick. He and another boy were taken to hospital. Others received minor cuts and bruises.

Young Socialists are planning a mass rally and demonstration against the attack. Their main demand will be: 'Clear the fascists off the streets'.

One of the injured seven told The Newsletter that the man who hit Roy had a weapon 'with points on both ends'. Emerson Moore, a tall 16-year-old, told how he, Roy and another boy were walking ahead of their mates. They were about 20 yards away from the school, where the dance had just ended, when three men overtook them. One asked for a light for his cigarette.

'I didn't hear what they said properly, but before we could answer one shouted "lead" another took out an iron bar and hit fue across my shoulder. / saw the bloke who hit Roy. He was quite old,' he said.

Austin Rollins (18) told our reporter that other men joined the first three attackers. They were all aged between 20 and 40.

'Six rushed round from a dark corner and others joined in from behind. We were caught in the middle.

'One of my friends went to help Roy and he was hit with a bottle. I tried to get the bottle and it hit a shop window Then, the attackers ran off leaving Roy lying on the ground bleeding badly from a head wound, and the others battered and shaken.

What was the reason for this rutal and bloody attack on : roup of immigrant youths and the sadistic beating down of a small, intelligent, well-liked 17year-old?

'Quiet bloke'

As one of his friends commented: 'He was a quiet bloke. He would not trouble people for spite.' And why should he? In what can be a rough and tumble existence for immigrant and white youth in schools under the capitalist system, Roy is surviving. He is a fighter.

Pupils and teachers at the North Paddington Comprehensive School hold him in high esteem.

Two days after the brutal attack, he was to have taken his mock General Certificate of Education examinations in Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Technical Drawing and other subjects.

This is quite some achievement for someone who has lived in Blood stains the pavement where Roy Smith fell injured (No. 3 in picture above) Britain for only seven years after being brought up in the West Indies.

At their home in Portnall Road, Maida Hill, his distressed parents asked frustratedly why should their only son be attacked.

Like many young inimigrants Roy had recently been attracted to the Young Socialists who have fought strenuously over the years for unity of white and coloured youth in the struggle for their socialist policies.

Young Socialists, to the anger of local fascists and racialists, have carried out successful campaigns in supporting strikes like that at the Woolf Rubber factory in Southall, which employs many

Police

protection for Greenwood Anthony Greenwood, one-time head of the Ban the Bomb movement and pacifist, and now Minister for Colonial Affairs, has had to have police and troop protection while touring Brifish Guiana, where Dr. Cheddi Jagan, former Prime Minister, is claiming a 'fiddling' of the constitution and demanding new elections. The protection given to Greenwood reflects the position of the Mabour government carrying out Tory policies. street Indian workers.

Earlier last Saturday Roy and his friends had joined in a march along the Portobello Road and Ladbroke Grove in North Kensington demanding 'Increase Pensions Now, 'Down with police violence', 'Landlords out', and 'Racialists out'.

In this area where the Notting Hill riots and still unsolved murder of immigrant Kelso Cochrane occurred, this show of solidarity and unity by white and coloured youth clearly angered the racialists and fascists.

In the evening they were out in force patrolling the road outside the dance in cars.

One girl member of the Young Socialists was asked by one of One hundred resolutions on ne hundred resolutions on agend. YS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHT FOR Newsletter Reporter WITH an agenda of 100 resolutions, the Young Socialists forward to their fifth annual conference at Morecambe February 27 and 28 for a week-end which promises to be immense importance for the labour movement.

Organised by the National Committee 1 Majority this conference takes place at a time when the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party betrays the 0I000 OUr the men: 'Has there been any trouble with the wogs in there yet?' Later five men, aged between 21 and 28, entered the dance, looked around and marched out again in single file. All but one, who had a black sweater and leather coat, wore white shirts and black ties.

The attack occured about half an hour later.

It was a planned and brutal ambush by fascists who, encouraged by the weak stand taken by Wilson's government on the question of immigration and racialism, are once again appearing on the streets in Britain.

Spurred on by the action of Labour Party bureaucrats in expelling three leading members of the North Kensington Labour YOUTH working class to the monopolists on every front.

The Young Socialists have continuously opposed the right-wing policies of Wilson and company and in a four-year history of socialist campaigns on unemployment, low wages, and backdating the old age pensioners' increase, this forthcoming conference marks the highlight of the socialist youth movement.

Contrast the packed agenda of this Morecambe conference with the last-minute efforts of Transport House officials to call a rally in the same place a few months later, and a national conference later in the year.

The resolutions put forward by branches refiect the deep consideration young people up and down the country are giving to the formulation of socialist policies which will lead the working class in struggle.

Prominent in the list are resolutions on racialism and immigration. CoVeNTRY HILLFIELDS Young Socialists say: "The employing class will attempt to divide the working class on the basis of race, by laying the blame for unemployment, bad housing and other problems which face working-class people upon the shoulders of coloured immigrants' NATIONALIZATION REIGATE Young Socialists call for the repeal of the Tory Immigration Act, the nationalization of all the basic industries, and call on the Young Socialists to recruit immigrant workers.

Many branches condemn police violence against youth, recognising that the police force is used by the employers to regiment young people throughout the world.

Demanding that the old age pensioners' increase be backdated to November 1, 1964, a number of resolutions condemn the Labour government for its capitulation . to the pressure from foreign banks.

Support is given in many resolutions to the fight of the Manchester Direct Action Committee and apprentices throughout the country, in their struggle for higher wages and a shorter working week.

As well as opposing the reintroduction of conscription, some resolutions call for the (Cont. p. 4, col.

British Alexander Defence Committee DEMONSTRATE YOUR POSITION TO APARTHI South Africa House Friday, February 26, 5.30 р.m. to 7 p.m. followed by PUBLIC MEETING cent developments in Soi Ifrica and the Alexander Appeal Unity Hall, N.U.R., Euston Road, 7.45 p.m.

the German working class in 1933. After the world slump of 1929, the slump that brought the MacDonald government to its knees, the dominant section of the German monopolies, headed by the coal and steel barons, made plans to liquidate the entire working-class movement in Germany.

They took this step alter much hesitation, having already experimented with social democratic coalitions and short periods of semi-military dictatorship.

Neither had proved workable for the employers — a social-democratic government required concessions to the working class which the employers could not give, while military dictatorship on the lines of the Kapp putsch of March 1920 lacked any popular support and drove the masses further to the left.

Filled bill

The German bosses had to set in motion their own mass movement of a reactionary, nationalist character which, while making vague promises about social justice, would be used against the organisations of the working class.

The Nazi party, its leader jailed in 1924 after a premature attempt to seize power in Bavaria, filled the bill. Its social demagogy and violent antisemitism concealed the class aims of its backers and won 13,765,781 votes at the elections of July 1932.

Only four • years before, in May 1928, it had scraped a miserable 810,127 votes and was the laughing stock of the German political scene.

The anti-semitism, anti-communism and nationalism of the Nazis, of little value in times of relative prosperity, was used during the crisis of German

THE measures taken by the Labour government to resolve the problems of British capitalism have so far had little effect. That is the message of the latest trade figures for January.

Exports have failed to revive, the import surcharge has not had the desired effect on checking imports sufficiently to close the trade gap and the 7 per cent Bank Rate has failed to pull back to London the funds which poured out during the autumn.

The balance of payments crisis thus asserts itself with growing force, restricting every action of a gavernment unable to move outside the limits set by the City of London and the big foreign banks.

It now seems certain that the April budget will bring measures to cut demand in the home market, reduce earnings and raise profits. Notions of a 4 per cent rate of growth, or the maintenance of full employment will have to go overboard.

The goal of maintaining the world position of sterling, which the Labour government has accepted at the behest of the City financiers, in fact makes more difficult for British industry to adapt itself to hold its place in world markets.

As a writer in the current *Times Literary Supplement' puts it: "The time for the breathing space that a devaluation might have given has now passed and there seems no alternative to fairly steady stagnation and decline.' De Gaulle chooses the moment of British capitalism's deepest crisis since 1931 to chime in with a call for a return to the gold standard. The Bank of France has continued to change dollar reserves for gold.

This French attack on the present world monetary system has met with a solid wall of opposition in Britain and the United States. But why has the challenge been made at this time, and what does it signify? gold standard Before 1914 the City of London dominated world finance and trade, despite the growth of powerful industrial rivals to British capitalism. The pound sterling was convertible into gold at a fixed rate and all the major currencies were linked with gold.

The gold standard, at this time, was really a sterling standard, since the pound was by far the principal currency used in international financial transactions. London was the great creditor, and its financial institutions waxed rich.

Under the gold standard each country had to adhere to 'the rules of the game'. If it lost gold, owing to a balance of payments deficit, it had to raise interest rates and reduce the supply of credit to business through the operations of the central bank.

This encouraged its exports, discouraged imports and brought about movements of funds which tended to re-establish equilibrium. This was brought about through the market, not by state intervention. In fact, under the full gold standard, internal economic policy was not controlled by the government at all.

That was not so bad as long as capitalism was expanding on a world scale.

After 1914, however, the system became subject to shocks and crises which made it impossible to restore the gold standard in its pre-1914 form. Sterling had lost its former position; the dollar emerged as a serious rival and New York became the main source of new loans.

Monetary stability was temporarily restored on the basis of the gold exchange standard. The main currencies were still valued in terms of gold, which remained the ultimate means of settling international payments, but each national currency was now managed by its central bank.

It was now possible, therefore, for internal policy, to a certain extent, to be disengaged from the foreign payments position.

In short, the internal note issue was no longer linked to gold; - by TOM KEMP — the gold reserves in the central bank were used to underpin the external value of the currency only.

Under this system sterling and the dollar assumed the role of 'key currencies', used alternatively with gold.

Countries without much gold could thus back their national monetary unit with sterling or dollar balances.

The International The idea was to ensure the predominance of the dollar and the pound while restoring some measure of stability to the world's currencies.

At the same time, it was seen that owing to the war and the great disparity between the economic strength of the USA, and the lack of gold or foreign exchange on the part of most other countries, something would have to be done to inject some new purchasing power into the capitalist world market.

This was the origin of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

The IMF re-established and underwrote the gold exchange standard. The gold value of the dollar remained as it had been before the war; other currencies were aligned with the dollar and thus with gold. Only limited changes in these exchange rates were permitted without prior consultation with the Fund.

At the same time, the Fund, and the Bank, could pump a certain amount of fresh purchasing power into those countries which had exhausted their credit and had balance of payments difficulties.

In the immediate post-war years the dollar assumed a dominating role in world economic relations based on the fact that only the USA could supply the commodities and purchasing power required by countries whose economies had been disrupted by the war.

A large proportion of the world's gold stock was drained away to Fort Knox before, during and after the war.

The U.S., to support world capitalism, made loans and, when it was clear that her creditors could not borrow any more with any prospects of being able to repay, made gifts such as Marshall Aid.

This was the ransom paid to stave off the revolutionary threat in Europe and elsewhere.

Changes in the 1950s In the 1950s, however, things began to change. Britain recovered a large part of her world financial position through the role of sterling, with the approval of the U.S.

The industries of Germany, France and other continental countries were rebuilt and modernised with the direct help of, or under the umbrella of, big dollar inflows.

Dollars had also to be found to finance the Korean War, the U.S. puppet regimesFormosa, South Korea, South Vietnamand to extend 'aid' to various underdeveloped countries to prevent them from becoming lost to world capitalism.

Massive spending overseas was also called for to supply the huge military and naval forces extended out across the world: a further price which had to be paid to prevent revolution.

Finally, faced with the pressure on profit rates at home and growing competition abroad, U.S. business set out to buy a bigger stake in industry in the other capitalist countries.

The resulting outflow of dollars has shown itself in what in the early 1950s would have seemed impossible: a U.S. balance of payments problem. In the last decade the Fort Knox gold stocks have declined by 40 per cent.

At the same time, European industries have grown considerably in output and efficiency. Countries like Germany and France now have strong balances of payments.

Moreover, they have greatly improved their position relative to Great Britain, with whom the United States government continues to retain a special association.

It is still concerned, for example, to bolster up sterling as a key currency. All the more, in fact, as other countries now have more dollars than they need-and might seek to change them for gold.

If there was a flight from sterling into dollars, not only would sections of foreign trade be paralysed, but the next step would be a demand for gold for dollars.

All this takes places with gold still at its pre-1949 dollar price. The gold producers (South Africa, in particular) and the holders of large gold stocks other than the USA tended to favour a revaluation of gold.

In the meantime, however, as part of the gold exchange standard, dollars and gold have become virtually interchangeable and the actual output of dollars is decided by the U.S. government.

Some countries usé dollarbacking to inflate their own currency circulations. At the same time, the dollars paid out to keep up U.S. military establishments, or to buy up Europpean industries, also seem to contain an inflationary element.

In short, these dollars are overvalued because their gold price is maintained by the IMF, i.e., an institution under American influence, if not control.

'What has happened as a result of this seems to be that the dollar stranglehold on the pound has increased because of the continued balance of payments crisis in Britain.

On the other hand, the countries of the European Common Market, whose economic strength has been growing relatively both to Britain and to the U.S., no longer accept a position in which their currencies have to take second place to the dollar and even the pound.

The main protagonists of the return to gold so far have been General de Gaulle and his advisors, especially M. Jacques Rueff.

This can be see, firstly, as an attack on the International Monetary Fund which is the basis for the present overvaluation, in terms of gold, of the dollar. As long as the dollar has this premium, according to Rueff,- the international purchasing power of other countries will be limited and it may not be possible to (Cont. p. 4, col. 6)

summer, and now the bus workers, become capital offences under a fascist dictatorship. And there is a great similarity between the retreats of German social democracy before Hitler and the anti-working class and racialist measures introduced by the Labour government over the last three months.

In each case, where the Labour government retreats before the Tories, where it supports the bankers against the old age pensioners, the violence of the police against the youth, it prepares not only another 1931 but a 1933.

The Young Socialists know that the biggest blow struck against the racialists in Southall was by the immigrant and British workers at the Woolff rubber factory in defence of their trade union rights.

Override racialism

Their strike, successful after two weeks in the face of bitter opposition from union officials and Stalinists as well as the racialists, was worth a hundred speeches or laws against race hatred.

This victory proved that in struggles against the employers, class consciousness can override racial feelings, however deeply ingrained.

After Leyton, more and more adult members of the Labour Party and trade unions, who, out of class solidarity, were willing to 'give Wilson a chance' against the Tories, will see that the only way to hit back at the Tories and their racialist allies is to fight for socialist policies and leadership inside the Labour Party.

In this fight, they will receive tremendous inspiration from the example of the Young Socialists, who, in their campaign to backdate the old age pensions, have given new vigour to older layers of workers who for many years have become reconciled to the right-wing dictating terms in the Labour Party.

Given this leadership, the working class can be united against its enemies both within the movement and outside it, and so prevent the disaster suffered by the German workers in 1933.

capitalism to break down all conceptions of belonging to an exploited class, this being replaced by the idea that Germans were an exploited race, and that therefore worker and employer should unite against both the internal enemy, Jewish Bolshevism, and the external enemy, international Jewish finance.

Like the Labour right wing, the German social democrats stood full square, as they proved in 1914, for the defence of private property, even though their party's programme was formally Marxist.

Unwilling and unable to fight fascism, the German social democrats and trade union leaders made plans to preserve their bureaucracies under a fascist regime.

Rather than stand with the working class and fight the fascist menace, the social-democratic leaders prepared to sell out the workers in order to save for themselves their widely spread privi leges and wealth.

Revolution feared

The staff of the German labour bureaucracy was three times as large as that of Krupp's huge enterprise, numbering over 300,000 in all. It published over 200 periodicals, two-thirds of which were daily papers.

All this, and a lot more, the leading social democrats stood to lose if the employers decided to bring in the Nazis. And fearing revolution more than fascism, the bureaucracy in Germany began negotiations of ta bour Nader the Nazi region.

As if there could be more than one position!

The existence of social democracy, whether in power or opposition, means that the working class maintains a degree of organisational independence from the employers and the state.

When the ruling class decides, as it did in Germany and Italy, and is now considering in Britain, to end this organisational independence, the fascists are used to wipe out the whole workers' movement that has been built up over a century or more of class struggle.

The fascists sweep away not only the most class-conscious workers - this has sometimes been the role of social-democratic regimes-they murder and imprison even the most craven of right-wingers — even those who seek to do a deal with the fascists at the expense of the workers.

But no deal is possible with fascism. It aims not only at the elimination of the revolutionary party of the working class, but at the very existence of the proletariat other than function as a source of profit he employer.

Social democracy cannot exist when all forms of class organisation are denied to the workers. So it would be a great mistake, if, out of hatred for the right wing and its betrayals, workers were to fail to distinguish between Gunter and Brown with all their plans for a wage freeze and state unions, and fascism, which is implacably hostile to any form of labour organisation —even of the GunterBrown type.

This sectarian error was utilised to fantastic lengths by Stalin in his fight against the right opposition of Bukharin in the Comintern after 1928. After the wild swing to the left during the forced collectivisation of the peasantry in the Soviet Union, which Bukharin opposed, Stalin equated fascism and social democracy.

In Germany, because they both upheld the capitalist system, fascism and social democracy were said to be not antipodes but twins.

Even more extreme Communist Party members were encouraged to direct all their abuse not only at the fascists but at social democratic workers, alliances being made with the Nazis for this purpose.

Thus both Stalinist and social democratic wings of the German labour movement came together to hand over the working class, bound hand and foot, to the Nazis. Perhaps the two most humiliating documents of the

Under the pressure of the world economic depression of the 1930s, the international monetary system plunged into chaos. Exchange rates fluctuated as each country sought to gain trade at the expense of its rivals.

Any idea that the internal position should be subject to gold movements became unacceptable. Exchange controls and trade regulations were adopted. This tended to depress the total volume of trade and prevented the recovery from the depression being more than partial.

In the closing stages of the Second World War a meeting was held at 'a place called Bretton Woods to consider the post-war monetary set-up, under the auspices of the United States and Great Britain.

February 20, investment, involving

disaster that overtook to the racialists and fascists at Leyton wick is closely related to the disaster took the German working class in 1 social democrats who had supported eventually jailed or murdered (left). today youth are uniting coloured workers (right) to answer the racialists and the betrayals the Labour by Labour government to face up and Smethwhich over933. Then, Hitler were In Britain and white and fascists lead young socialicte labour movement were published at that time.

One, by the German trade unions, celebrated the victory of the Nazis and called for May Day collaboration:

'We certainly need 1ot strike our colours in order to recognise that victory of National Socialism, though won in struggle against a party which we used to consider as the embodiment of the idea of socialism (the S.P.D.) is our victory as well because, today, the socialist task is put to the whole Nation.' [My emphasis-—R.B.] Bureaucratic paralysis The Comintern bulletin 'Rundschau' provides the other example of this bureaucratic paralysis that gripped the German working class. A week after the complete triumph of the Nazis, 'Rundschau' bragged on April 1:

'The momentary calm after the victory of fascism is only a passing phenomenon. The rise of the revolutionary tide in Germany will inevitably continue. The resistance of the masses against fascism will inevitably increase. The open dictatorship of fascism destroys all democratic illusions, frees the masses from the influence of the social democratic party and thus accelerates the speed of Germany's march towards the proletarian revolution.' Both Stalin, the ultra-left, and Leiber, the ultra-right trade union leader, accepted as inevitable the victory of fascism.

Stalin, safe in the Kremlin, had to wait until 1941 to admire at first hand his own handiwork, but Leiber, despite all his belly crawling before the Nazis, despite his own 'declaration of intent', finished up in a Nazi gaol.

All the organisations of the German working class were closed down. Trade union buildings were occupied on May 2 and declared Nazi property In their place, state trade unions, the Labour Front, run by employers and fascist stooges, supervised the increased exploitation of the working class.

According to Nazi figures, accidents at work increased from 827,000 in 1932 to 1,766,800 in 1937, while hours worked went up in the same period by 15 per cent. Wages fell by 3 per cent even with the increased hours worked while food prices rose by 194 per cent.

Strike offence

To force similar conditions upon the British working class, the employers will have to break down all organi resistance by the working class. Actions such as the postmen's in the

the very rapid introducBELGIUM tion of automation IS radically transforming the Belgian economy.

The old industries, like coal mining and textiles, are being swept away to be replaced by the assembly lines of the automobile industry, chemicals and oil. The small factories, employing highly-skilled craftsmen are giving way to giant automated steelworks and engineering firms.

The process of monopolisation has speeded up so that the Belgian economy is now virtually the fief of one giant finance company, the Société Générale.

company controls the Union Minière, the Forminière, the BCK railway and the cotton industry in the Congo. It controls the shipping lines that have a monopoly of the Congo trade, the shipyards which repair and build these ships and the industries that process the metals Changing brought to Belgium in them.

In Belgium itself it controls 14 banks and finance companies, four insurance companies, 13 coal mines, five steelworks, including the three largest in the country, 13 engineering works (including the giant ACEC electrical engineering works and the FN arms face of factory) as well as a considerable number of chemical, oil, glass, civil engineering, cement, textile, paper, sugar and other industries.

The annual report of this company is, in faot, a report on the Belgian economy. The one which it issued barely two weeks ago industry is entirely devoted to automation, the effects it will have on the Belgian and the measures which must be taken to speed up the process.

It calls for greater monopolisation, necessary to take advantage of the latest industrial techniques, and greater co-operation between those giant monopolies already in existence; (what parts of the Belgian economy are not last December, the Belgian Socialist Party controlled by the Société Générale, are controlled by four proscribed the two left-wing papers Links' and 'La or five other giant trusts like Solvay, Brufina and the Banque Gauche' as well as the semi-nationalist syndicalist Lambert). •Mouvement Populaire Wallon', which describes itself as It also calls upon the government for more direct co-opera'neither a party nor a trade union'. The 'Links' group in tion between the state and private Flanders and the Mouvement Populaire Wallon quickly industry.

It warns that despite the enorterms with the party bureaucracy while the 'La came to mous expansion that has taken place since 1959, profits have Gauche' group in Brussels and Wallonia struck out to not expanded and that far closer cap a new party. co-operation is needed if the process is to continue, especially Newsletter intends to evaluate the importance of the as competition from Germany, France and Italy increases as the in a series of articles, beginning this week with an Common Market barriers are ination of the development of lowered. examination of the development of Belgian economy. Capitalism Next week, we will deal with recent developments in the working-class movement, and the role of centrism in that The miner (centre), once the basis of Belgian industry is at the end of the road. The steel industry has been automated (top) and firms like Bell Telephone, Antwerp, move to the fore. In the Congo, automation (above) and the brutality of the mercenaries ensure the continued flow to Belgian capitalism of the profits The Congo: mercenaries burn a village The army and the missionaries in the Congo, the priests in Flanders, and the labour bureaucracies in Wallonia maintained the rule of Belgian capital.

High wages of the Walloon workers rested on the brutality in the Congo and the ignorance of Flanders, and in their turn prevented the Walloon workers from freeing themselves from capitalist exploitation.

Profits From the Congo The regime in the Congo particularly brutal.

Large concerns there operated on a basis of forced labour, the tribes having to surrender mer for certain periods. These unfortunates were subjected to such intensive exploitation the mines and and plantations that by 1919, years after Belgian occupation, and only 13 years after industry started there in a big way, a special commission estimated that the sion os the Congo had fallen lay one-half.

Skilled labour was imported from Europe, the Africans being reserved for sweated jobs, until the railway strike of 1920, when the white railway workers formed a trade union. The strike was won, but the workers concerned were soon despatched back to Europe, and "African workers taken on to do mole skilled work.

After this, the most repressive measures were used against any attempt by the workers to organise. Trade unions were not recognised by the employers in the Congo until 1959, just one rear before 'independence' Strikes were put down with the utmost ruthlessness.

• Decembe 1941, When the iners of the Union Minière : Lubumbashi struck for higher wages, the 'force publique' intervened, killing 60 of them. When the dockers at Matadi struck four years later, a similar intervention was made, and seven strikers were killed.

The trade union bureaucracy in tungsten, cadmium, germanium, radium and other rare metals so important to modern electrical, electronic and nuclear industries.

Transformation of Flanders The Congo continues to play an important role in Belgian capitalism, supplying cheaply the materials for the new automated industries. The spectacular rise in productivity in Congo (over 100 per cent in the tin industry, 89 per cent in copper) are the pre-conditions for similar processes in Belgium.

Except for the ports of Ghent and Antwerp, which depended on raw materials from the Congo, there was no appreciable development of industry in Flanders.

Whilst Wallonia has the oldest working class on the continent, and a long history of struggle, Flanders remained essentially a peasant area, with low wages and strongly the grips of Catholic church. The lack of traditional raw materials in the area (except for the Limburg coalfield, which supplied Liège) made it unfavourable for traditional capitalist development.

But it is precisely these advantages which make it so attractive to capitalists today. Cheap labour with no experience of struggle, controlled by the church, seems ideally suited to the production lines of Ford and General Motors.

In tact, the transtormation of Flanders is spectacular. Modern faotories are springing up everywhere, rapidly reversing the old situation in which the south was the industrialised area.

The port of Antwerp, which prospered after 1945, because it had not been destroyed during the war and was thus able to capture much of Hamburg and Rotterdam's trade, is now being modernised.

An entirely new section, almost as big as the existing installation, already the second biggest port on the continent, is being constructed, stretching right up to the Dutch border.

When complete, it will be the Wamdre closed while the modern equipment was still being installed!)

The material was then sold back to the original manufacturer, who, naturally, would only take the 'second-hand' goods at rock bottom prices.

Fortunately, the government intervened here again to compensate the company for this grievous loss! 60 billion francs were paid out in these subsidies.

For the miners, the picture was quite different. Money wages in the Borinage dropped by 9 per cent between 1957 and 1961.

When the mines closed, many of the foreign workers simply moved back to their home countries.

Of the native Borins, ( many moved out of the area altogether. Of those who stayed, 4,200 commute to work every day across the border to France and 5,000 to Brussels and Charleroi and even to the new industries in Flanders..

This can add up to six hours travelling time onto the working day of these commuters.

The Borinage today is a series of villages, old and decaying, completely deserted by day. Wasmes, for example, once prosperous mining village of some 13,000 inhabitants, now has 80 per cent of its male population pensioners.

New industry is moving into the area, with the same characteristics as 'directed' industry in this country.

Only 3,000 jobs are provided by the new firms, which use all the latest techniques, and wages in them are low-under 30 francs an hour (whereas a miner would earn more than twice this amount).

Recently a new firm in Ghlin advertised 10 jobs-and received 70 applications.

These firms, mostly light industry and mostly American capital, like the Weyerhaeuser cardboard box factory, the Verlica bottle factory, the Bell telephone, and Warner Bros. underwear, do not attract the former miners.

They mostly employ women, and the former petty-bourgeoisie of the area, the cafe owners, grocers and others, ruined since the miners moved out.

For those who remain in the mines throughout Belgium, exploitation has increased greatly. The total number of miners has dropned from 105,588 in 1958 to 64,400 in 1963. But production per kilos to 1,820 kilos in the shift risen from same period.

The mines in the Centre have suffered the same fate as those in the Borinage, as has the traditional industry of the region: the manufacture of railway rolling stock.

In 1945, the traditional markets for this industry, in Eastern Europe, were lost, but the effect was not immediately felt, as the entire railway system of Western Europe needed re-stocking. pattern is similar. Production rises, whilst the total number of workers is falling.

Because the re-equipment of Belgian industry has coincided with the continued boom in Europe, it has not been accompanied by any major unemployment.

But those who take this to mean that it has not involved any suffering by the workers and that 'neo-capitalism' has solved the problems which obsessed nineteenth century socialists, are closing their eyes to reality.

So far, the boom has prevented any of the underlying tendencies from manifesting themselves. But once the boom ends, the changes that have been quantitatively building up over the past few years will appear as a full qualitative change in the relation between the classes in Belgium.

Those ex-miners who commute to France, Holland and Germany for work will be the first declared redundant when the industries in these countries contract.

Similarly, those workers who are employed, and who continue to find employment in those small and medium-size firms which exist, despite technological backwardness, thanks to the high prices that accompany the boom, will also soon find their way to the dole queues. . And there is every likelihood that these firms will not reopen after the depression.

The Assault on Wages At the same time, the employers are rapidly creating a stratum of 'under-workers', composed of women, youth and foreigners.

These workers, hired either at lower wages or with no security of tenure or, in the case of youth and foreign workers, no political rights, are part of an offensive to break the organised, militant working class of Wallonia and transform them into docile material suitable for assembly line production.

Belgium is the oldest capitalist country on Continental Europe and its industry was centred on the coalfields in the south in the regions of the Borinage, the Centre, Charleroi and Liège.

The high quality anthracite mined in this area quickly attracted to it steel and engineering industries. Liège and Charleroi developed into major industrial towns. This area remained until very recently the only really industrialised part of the country.

Flanders, with the exception of Antwerp and Ghent, remained rural and backward. What coal there was in Limburg, East Flanders, did not give rise to any major industry, but went to supply the blast furnaces of Liège.

The superficial division of Belgium into Flemish-speaking North and the French-speaking South, with Brussels as the administrative capital, obscured the real division of the country into the heavily industrialised south and the agricultural and Catholic north.

It is precisely this division that is being swept away by the new industries created in Belgium today, industries that are not based upon coal and steel, but upon electronics and modern production methods. in that By far the greater part of the movement. The week after, we will examine role of new investment is taking place in randers The reasons for this La Gauche' in the conflict. are not difficult to find.

Industry grew up in the south at a period when capitalism was developing. The working class there has a long history organised struggle — the Belgian Socialist Party antedates the British Labour Party by a considerable period.

The struggles of the workers in this area have forced the capitalists to grant some real conLUCE cessions, at least as far as wages are concerned. Liège, for 00O000.: 0000 example, boasts some of the 000 070 highest wages in Europe.

The ruling class were able to grant these concessions to the organised workers in the south on the basis of the super profits drawn from the Congo.

These concessions, in their turn, enabled the ruling class to control the labour movement to some extent, through the bureaucracies in the Belgian Socialist Party and in the trade unions, which it needs for its own modernisation. which also rested on the proceeds of the super-exploitation in the Congo. Belgium tolerated these conditions in the Congo.

All white unions were formed in the Congo during the war, but these often took the side of the employers against the black workers.

After the war, the Socialist *Fédération Gênérale du Travail de Belgique' (FGTB) set up the FGTB-Congo, but this aimed to set up separate unions for African and European workers. was not until 1956 that the FGTB even declared its intention to create "mixed' unions.

In 1958 the T2110 of wages between black and white workers was 33: 1, and the average wage of a black industrial worker was 908 francs per month (about £6 10s.). The wages of agricultural workers were even lower.

These methods enabled companies like the Union Minière, the Forminière, the вСК railway, Unilever and others to make enormous profits. The Union Minière, which is a combination most modern port in Europe. Bill has just been voted through Parliament to construct a canal linking Antwerp to the Rhine.

The shipyards have already been modernised, being fitted out with ultra-modern cranes, capable of lifting entire sections of prefabricated ship into place, electronic devices for programmed plate cutting, entirely welded shipbuilding and so on.

In Ghent, the most modern steelworks in Europe, Sidmar, is under construction. Built on the banks of the ship canal, it will have a port inside the works and will have every latest device in steel making from the very beginning.

Even the mines in Limburg have undergone intensive modernisation, making them competiwith the most modern German coal mines.

of the Coal There was work not only for the firms in the Centre, but also for the modern factory built by the Société Générale, *Brugeoise et Nivelles'. This period ended in the fifties, and by 1956, there were only 1,500 jobs left in the industry in the Centre.

Some medium-sized works, like Boël and Gilson, still remain, but modernisation has been limited by the size of the plants, and workers in the area fear that these firms will not survive another depression.

Here, too, assembly line factories have moved in to take advantage of the suppression of jobs and Rover, Moskvitch and Skoda cars are assembled at Seneffe. Another rolling stock works has been converted produce half-track, anti-riot vehicles for the police.

About 9,000 workers are estimated to commute from this area to other parts of Belgium and to France every day.

Flanders: Bell Telephone Co., Antwerp The run-down of manpower in the large plants that were automated, for example, hit hardest at the youth and at the older workers as well as at the militant trade unionists.

In Cockerill-Ougrée in Liège, no actual sackings as such took place. But older workers were retired, forcibly, five years prematurely.

The company boasted of the pension received during those five years as being 'far higher than the normal retirement pension given by the state'. This is perhaps true. But it was also far lower than the wages those workers would have received had they remained in employment.

The run-down has also been accompanied by an offensive by the employers against 'the rigidity' of the 45-hour week-with constant attempts to impose

of Belgian, British and American capital made between 2.5 .and 4.5 billion francs profit per year It stretched over an area bigger than Belgium and Luxemburg combined.

Whilst the Congo was directly under Belgian rule, the Belgian government had theoretical control over these big firms through the Comité Spécial du Katanga (CSK).

In fact, it did not exercise any control, merely allowing the firms a free hand.

With the rioting that led up to independence in 1960, and the likelihood that Lumumba would use the CSK, which was to revert to the Congolese government on independence, against Belgian interests, the Belgian government dissolved the CSK on June 27, 1960, three days before "independence'.

This was the first move in the struggle to retain the vast wealth of the Congo by Belgian capital.

murder of Lumumba, the secession of Katanga, the intervention of the United Nations, and finally the installation of Tshombe as prime minister were continuations of this.

Profits of the Union Minière continue to flow into Belgium. There has been some drop, but the company's reports see this as a temporary phenomenon, produced by the "disorder' rather than a long-term trend.

Heavy investment in automation in the Congo, combined with repression mercenaries against the Congolese ensure the continuation of the profits and the flow of cheap copper, cobalt, In Wallonia, the same process gives rise to very different superficial eflects. Instead of new industries springing up everywhere, there are dying villages, closing mines and factories and the fear of coming unemployment.

The Borinage coal mining area was the first and hardest hit. After the defeat of the 1959 strike against the closures, nothing held back the capitalists.

In the one year 1959-60 20,000 jobs were eliminated in the mines. Over 30,000 have been eliminated to date in the Borinage alone. Only three pits are left in the area and they are scheduled to close before long.

In the Centre there were 18,700 miners in 1956, but only 4,600 last year. Last month it was announced that 8,000 jobs were being suppressed in the Liège area through pit closures, and the process goes on.

The pit closures are the centre of a vast speculative racket, with the giant trusts playing a big part.

Just before the closures were put into effect, intensive modernisation suddenly began to take place. The company owning the mine bought expensive equipment, at inflated prices with a government subsidy, from firms which, though on paper independent, are in fact owned by the same company.

The mine was then closed and inflated compensation payed for the now "ultra-modern' mine. (This could reach ridiculous proportions: in 1960 the pit at In Charleroi and Liège, the closure of the mines and of the small old-fashioned factories has gone hand in hand with the enormous development of the big firms in these towns, especially of the big fivethe three steelworks of Cockerill-Ougrée (Liège), Esperance-Longdoz (Liège), and La Providence (Charleroi), the FN arms factory (Liège) and the ACEC electrical engineering firm (Charleroi).

Investment in the steel firms has been enormous. CockerillOugrée have just completed an investment programme of 12 billion francs.

New automated blast furnaces have been installed, as well as continuous process plant, new processes using pure oxygen are being experimented with, and by mid-1965 the firm will open a new mill using the LD process which will be the largest and the most modern to date.

Production has risen continuously and manpower has dropped from 21,000 in 1948 to 15,000 this year.

Mechanisation has not been confined to the sheds-one man now prepares the wage packets for the entire firm. The same processes have been taking place in the other two big firms.

When taken in conjunction with the construction of Sidmar, this represents a formidable change in the steel industry.

In ACEC and the FN excessive overtime working.

Just as in the Antwerp shipyards, the building of entirely welded ships has led to welders working shifts of 16 hours and more at a stretch, the same process is true in the 'agglomeration' shops in CockerillOugrée.

Shift work is almost universal throughout Belgian industry, oven for women, although they do not have to work the night shift.

The youth were affected by the great contraction of new • jobs offered by the firm. Many have to go to find work in small firms —yet these are the very firms that are being forced out of business by automation of the big ones.

The youth are used for the most intensive work that accompanies the introduction of new processes. In the FN tactory, young girls earn about five shillings an hour working five machines at the same time.

In the Bell telephone factory in Antwerp, cutting machines which make one cut every two seconds are operated by one youth, where previously two skilled men operated a machine that made one cut a minute.

Greater 'flexibility' is gained by the metal factories in Liège by the use of women workers. Not only are their wages much lower than men's wages, but they can also be hired and fired much more easily.

In the Cuivre et Zinc works, women workers do heavy work, straightening defective tubes for

DOCKERS throughout the Merseyside ports stopped work on Wednesday this week to February 20,1965

CLOTHING workers have just been awarded meagre pay increase of twopence an hour for women and twopence threefarthings for men.

Whilst clothing workers welcomed the reduction of the working week from 42 hours to 41 hours they recognise that the pay for a straight 41-hour week is inadequate and that overtime nas to ne worked so mær coev can take a reasonable wage nome.

This time the pattern of the wage increase has changed. the past the executive board have called district meetinos of the members so that the memhers can auscuss Teconmended increase and then vote tor or against the acceptance of the increase.

LOUS time the meeting in Leeds was called, after some members were told bey ming delay, ane al begning charman lal execuuve board representative would make a statement and then there would be questions and discussion but that no vote would take place.

The excuse given was that the executive board had already members' behalf. accentee unt lucrease onl LOe unIs. the meeting was told, was done in order to save time.

OPPOSED

During the discussion speaker after speaker opposed ine recommended increase. Many Donted ouT nan ONC again less had been accepted for the women than for the men. This they said was against union principles.

The chairman accepted resolution from the floor thai depricated the action of the execuuve board in accepung Ine increase over the heads of the memoers.

It insisted that in the future such decisions shold ne taker by the members.

It was pointed out that ine executive board's excuse of time saving was rubbish.

Later in the meeting supporters oi the execuuve starter to boo and catcall at a speake who was supporting the resolution.

The chairman, instead of calling them eeting to order, used ine disturbance as an excuse forc losing the meeting even nouon demands inat fne vote be taken were made. join a demonstration of protest whilst an appeal against the suspension of 12 men was being heard.

The gang of 12 were given seven days' suspension some weeks ago after refusing to accept Saturday overtime.

They have appealed against the suspension which amounts to a fine of over f20 or more.

A resolution was passed by 3,000 dockers calling for a demonstration to be held on the day of the appeal and calling for a campaign to get the support of every docker on the Merseyside.

The resolution warned the employers that if the suspension continued, a call would be made for a complete ban on week-end working.

This fight against compulsory overtime is not a new one for the dockers. Over ten years ago they fought a national strike for one month over the question.

Part of the recommendation then agreed upon betore the men resumed work was: 'that should any docker be penalised for refusing to work overtime, then further national action would be taken ...

Since 1954 no London dockers have been suspended but in Liverpool dockers are still fighting over this issue.

Agreement

On Merseyside there is an agreement that dockers under the threat of suspension should work two hours' overtime from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Thursday inclusive.

They are allowed to knock off at 5 p.m. on Friday.

If the ship on which the dockers are working is due to sail, then they are forced to work on after the 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. period—if necessary until 11 p.m. not only Monday to Thursday but Friday as well.

Under this agreement dockers can work as many as 60 hours a week-there is no 40-hour week for them.

Last August at the national ports liaison committee held in Hull, London dockers are reported to have expressed surprise at the fact that northern dockers are still suspended for refusing overtime.

At that time it is claimed that they declared that the whole of London would take action if any docker was suspended for such a reason.

In such struggles the northern dockers are well aware that they will not be left on their own to fight on this issue.

It could well be that if the present attack by the employers on the northern doekers continues, what has already been fought for and established in London might have to be fought for again bosses like the foreign girls because they work so much harder.

in the out-of-London ports.

When some of the so-called 'dockers' saviours' visit Liverpool with their frequent speeches they should be asked: 'Why is it that such agreements are not national? Why is it they seek to carve up the dockers with the present employers' plans for decasualisation? Why cannot there be a national applied scheme with national rates of pay?' Dockers throughout the country must unite on these issues.

little more than three shillings per hour. If they are under 21. they earn a mere two Shillings work, Álso when a contrac is com- whenever there nieted. sacker until the next contract begins.

Some women in this factory are unemployed for two months out ot everv pattern is the same in the FN, where large-scale sackings follow the completion of each jet engine.

As these workers Inen rewr to being housewives, they de not appear on the statisuls. and ever yolc b science is clear In Brussels, some of the new operalcu woneu. women are taken on as tem pont to v orners fired with thich means notice. they do not benefit from the automatent works nei to lo they have any pensions rights.

A women only becomes 'perma nent atter nve years temporary work!

The foreign workers are used in une samme way. Although they are otten paid the same wages a dult Belgian workers ,they too enable greater 'flexibility Thev have virtually no rights in Belgium. Their passports, many cases, are removed by thuir employers to prevent them from nao edd vca ce wages (this is particularly true of the Turks employed in the mines)

Unaccustomed inaustrial work. they co not nave the same raditions as the Belgian workers In the FN the girls say that 'th In times of contraction, they can simply be sent home. Once again the unemployment statistics are preserved.

Whilst they remain, they are subjected to the harshest conditions. In the mines many of these workers are forced to live in huts on the mine premises themselves.

Their lack of political rights, the language barrier, and the inactivity of the bureaucracies regarding the problems of these workers, and the constant threat of deportation make these workers 'easy meat' for the employers. -It is the conditions of the young workers and the foreign workers that are setting the pattern for modern Belgian industry. These are the norms that the employers will attempt to spread to the rest of industry when they can.

In the case of public transport, they have already gained some successes.

Belgium in 1965 is very different from what it was even as little as five years ago.

The division of the country into an industrial and a primarily rural area no longer holds.

The rapid development of Flanders and Brussels and the creation of enormous potential unemployment and super-exploitation in Wallonia has given rise to an entirely new political situation exemplified on the one hand by the creation of the Movement Populaire Wallon in Wallonia and on the other, by the strikes in the Ford factory in Genk and in the Antwerp shipyards.

To understand these new developments in the light of the new industrial pattern, it is necessary to examine the working class movement in the different regions of the country.

crisis-ridden capitalism.

And what of the police? Where were they last Saturday?

At every large function organised by Young Socialists in London in the past few months police have been out in force— with dogs and black Marias in several cases.

But last Saturday not one was in sight all evening, and it took them some time to reach the scene.

This force, which protects the bosses, Tories and their property, will not defend the working class. As The Newsletter and Socialist Labour League said at the time of the Notting Hill disturbances, workers must form their own defence squads to defeat the fascists.

On Monday a meeting of the local Federation of Young Socialists decided to call a protest meeting for Saturday and organise a rally, demonstration and dance for March.

They will also begin a collec tion for Roy to have a holiday when he recovers.

The Newsletter calls on all Young Socialists, trade unionists and Labour Party members to give their full support to this campaign.

FIGHT FOR SOCIALIST POLICIES AGAINST RACIALISM CLEAR THE FASCISTS OFF THE STREETS DEFEND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

withdrawal of the Labour government from NATO and any other military alliances.

BULWELL Young Socialists demand that immediate steps be taken to stop Rachmanism and improve the housing conditions suffered by thousands of workers.

Immediate repeal of the 1957 Tory Rent Act, introduction of rent control, nationalization of building land and building industries and the banks, are the demands of GorBALs YS.

Thanking the youth paper 'Keep Left' for its support 'for the whole working-class youth and especially the Young Socialists'. KIRKDALE Young Socialists, along with a number of other branches, call for the paper to be made the official paper of the Young Socialists movement.

Other resolutions included on the agenda are on, building the Young Socialists, wage restraint and nationalization, end to partition in Ireland, the Labour government, dockers, public schools, facilities for youth, and the mines.

IN protest against the suspension of a chargehand, 200 men on the Marples Ridgeway, Grosvenor .Bridge site in London walked out on strike last week.

The ganger had stood out against a threat that anyone attending a labourers' meeting to elect a steward would be sacked.

After a mass meeting addressed by union organisers, the men decided to go back to work, but to ban all overtime and work a strict 40-hour week until the ganger was reinstated.

He is now suspended on basic pay pending a disputes panel. Newsletter Industrial Reporter The contract is on British Railways' bridge over the Thames. Watermen, members of the Watermen, Lightermen, Tugboatmen and Bargemen's Union are employed to patrol under the bridge for safety purposes.

But the decision to ban all overtime is reported to have meant a shortage of manning on the safety boats.

The night shift on the bridge were sent home on one occasion because they refused to work without a safety boat.

Workers are now demanding payment for that shift but the management has so far refused.

Drive out SINCE Mrs. Jackson of Loscoe (see picture of village above) refused to pay rent until repairs were done to her home, a man has come and put a couple of slates on a few roofs.

The family told The Newsletter that he was not on any roof for more than ten minutes.

The pavements are now littered with slates again after last week-end's wind.

Another youngster, the 4-yearold son of Marie Smith in Albion Street, is in hospital with pneumonia.

In the back bedroom, half the ceiling is down.

Marie Smith and her three children sleep in the front bedroom. Her son had always been the healthiest one of the family, but his bed always got wet when it rained.

Marie, 6-year-old and the baby share a little under the window, which been broken for weeks.

They are unable to repair it themselves because, after paying for coal, rent and diet, they have £4 7s. to live on. The landlord has done nothing.

The council have promised them a re-let house. Four have recently been handed out, but not to them.

The ceiling below their bedroom is coming down from the damp in two places. Bernadette is in and out of hospital, and Marie has chronic bronchitis and chronic asthma.

Loscoe housing is destroying the health of its people. But the landlord does token repairs and re-lets the houses as fast as they become vacant. Featherstone housing committee promised to stop this. So far they have done nothing. refused to travel into Barnsley, on routes affected by striking busmen.

1,500 drivers and conductors of the West Riding Automobile Company stopped work and affected Wakefield, Castleford, Featherstone, Selby, Pontefract, Goole, Barnsley, Sheffield, Doncaster and Bradford, plus many small villages.

One small private company, Larratt Pepper and Sons I td. attempted to run services into Barnsley from Thurnscoe but the first bus to call at Barnsley bus station had to be given police protection, and the company withdrew the service.

Tyneside busmen express discontent TYNESIDE busmen employad by private companies stopped work for 24 hours last Saturday in support of their demand for more pay.

A few days before, a meeting decided by a small majority against taking action.

Discontent at wages and conditions, however, burst through the barniers put up by what one busman called the 'pacifists' on the committee.

A meeting of busmen at the South Shields depot of the 'Northern Company' decided on a one-day stoppage.

The following day, busmen at the North Shields depot of the Tynemouth Company agreed to join the strike. Six busmen voted against the one-day strike but this was because some of them wanted to go further.

it Wallsend, 70 busmen employea 'by the Tyneside Company agreed unanimously to join and later in the day busmen at the Northern Company depot in Gateshead supported the strike.

So far, the employers have refused to increase their offer of 8s. 6d. increase.

Rank and file busmen are thoroughly fed up with the delaying tactics of their employers and union leaders.

There is a meeting of the National Council of the industry on Wednesday.

There will be depot meetings in the following days and only a substantial increase by the employers will stop further action. of the Joint Depots Committee had € € fffffffffffffffffI Sterling lucrative businesses, precipitating a crisis here which would leave 1931 far behind.

Conference WORKERS employed by private bus companies last Saturday launched the biggest one-day stoppage so far in the present struggle in Yorkshire.

Big towns that were hit included Leeds, Halifax, Dewsbury, Castleford, Wakefield, Hull, Bradford and Goole.

The bus companies concerned were The West Riding Automobile Company (Wakefield), The Yorkshire Woollen District Transport Company (Dewsbury), the Yorkshire Traction Company (Barnsley), Hebble Motor Services, Halifax County Motors, Burrows : & Sons, Wombwell; South Yorkshire Motors, Pontefract, and East Yorkshire Motor Services Ltd.

COMPLETE

In Halifax there was a complete stoppage of the Hebble Services to Bradford, Leeds, Rochdale and Burnley and at Bradford only half the Hebble morning shift turned up for work.

For the second week running 1,000 workers employed by the Yorkshire Woollen District Transport Company struck in Dewsbury. None of the company's 276 buses and coaches left the depots at Heckmondwike, Liversedge or Savile Town.

Osset and Horbury were cut off by the strike of workers employed by the Yorkshire Woollen Company and the West Riding Automobile Company.

Bradford Corporation busmen

Newsletter Reporter (NASD) by the four major companies in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire to a halt. The busmen were demanding a speed-up in their pay claim negotiations which have taken an interminable time. • Trent Motor Traction Co. Ltd. No services were operated by any of the garages at Ashbourne, Alfreton, Belper, Maby Hucknall, Loughborough, field and Shipley and Nottingham. 340 buses were idle. • Mansfield & District Trac. tion Co. Ltd. All 120 buses were in the garage. The previous evening four drivers were in the garage to take out, on overtime, dance specials. They could not get through the picket line and the management called in the police. The pickets were told to be peaceful, but by the ome they had finished arguing it was too late for the specials to go out. • East Midland Motor Services Ltd. Depots at Mansfield, Shirebrooke, Worksop, Clowne, Retford and Chesterfield were out leaving 200 buses idle. • Midland General Omnibus Co. Ltd. All doors were shut. 240 buses affected.

NOT ASKED Nearly 2,500 busmen took part in the stoppage. The only major company operating was Barton Transport, which has only 25 per cent trade union organisation.

A Barton driver at Mansfield claimed that they had not been asked to support the strike.

In the future, attempts must be made to organise and get the support of these busmen.

Crews of the East Midlands and Mansfield Traction are in the National Union of Railwaymen whilst others are in the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Many busmen insist that all crews should be in one union otherwise garages are split.

At Nottingham a Trent conductor said: 'It is a success as far as we are concerned.' Another conductor stated: "This is not the end of it, if we get no satisfaction at the Wednesday meeting of the Joint Industrial Council, there's no telling what we will do.

'We get up at 4 in the morning when we are on earlies and when we are on lates we don't get home till one o'clock in the morning. We work Saturdays and Sundays.

'All we get is fll 4s. per week."

He said that many passengers were sympathetic but a lot of them did not realise just what awkward hours busmen worked for such a small wage. 'We don't want them to think we are out to upset them but it is the only way we can fight the employers and show our solidarity"

A driver of the Nottingham City Transport gave a letter of support to Trent pickets at the Nottingham depot.

It said: 'We fully support the Trent men and consider that it is necessary for all provincial and municipal busmen to prepare and fight struggles together' . . . that ..he l5s offered to municipal busmen was worth nothing since the Arbitration Tribunal had only granted it because the cost of living had gone up 10/6 a week?

BACKDATED

It is now clear that all busmen must demand an increase of no less than f2 per week backdated to when negotiations first began.

Only with the unity of provincial and municipal busmen can they hope to win.

Throughout the country busmen have shown that they can and will fight. But in isolation they can only get demoralised.

The rules of the TGWU, of course, foster this isolation by stating, for example, that branches can only send correspondence to other branches demanding inter-depot committees through the Regional Trade Groups.

All rank and file busmen must demand in their union branches that co-ordinating committees with delegates from all garages and all companies and municipalities in the Midlands be set up.

prevent a general depression on the scale of the 1930s.

He therefore advocates the return to a full gold standard, which will impose on the participating countries the obseryance of rigid rules, especially the need to deflate internal prices and incomes to correct a balance of payments deficit.

Such an argument appeals only to the financially strong countries like France or Germany which have ample reserves of foreign exchange.

Britain and the U.S. can be expected to fight tooth-and-nail against the Rueff scheme, since they have much to gain from the present international monetary system.

To restore the full gold standard would render difficult, if not impossible, the continued take-over of European business by U.S. capital. It would make the pound a second-rate currency and, if grass would not actually grow in the streets of the City of London, the bottom would fall out of some very U.S. capitalism is now in the fifth year of a boom which, for all the existence of some five million unemployed in the U.S. has meant a rare harvest for business.

Yet this expansion takes place against a general backcloth of great uncertainty.

The French offensive is tainly most unwelcome at this time, as unwelcome as the sterling crisis.

What it seems likely to lead to, in the immediate period, is a closer monetary arrangement between the members of the European Common Market which will hit both at the USA and Britain and make the economic future for hoth more uncertain than it already is.

But time is creeping up on the European economies too.

The forces of expansion which produced the economic 'miracles' are on the wane. The butter quarrels over monetary policy are symptoms of a deepgoing instability in world capitalism.