The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 386

Vol. 9, No.

Saturday, March 13, 1965 The giant awakening • Ine days Laboul government secils unnaralle ed wnen one compares it with previous reformist governments.

Even lame left in the parlamentary Labour Party are forced • ınto what nothis more opposion te than mildest Let too soon.

1 ns is nolnmg more lan bedragg ed swallow in comparison the olan!

wakening which is on th vay from within the workin class.

If the little men jumping nutner and unluner. unen ll ls because they tear the wrath things to come The lockheads o the middle class long decided ignore the working class. They believe that all that is necessarv Is a lew SyrUD, articles in the cabitaist press which talk about price inas if they apply to some robots of an automated world.

They are about to learn that the working class, recaraiess of the traitors who ead ll.

will not stand idly by and their old folk driven into 1 gravevaras belause mey have not enougn to live on In every union there are now will morencu. Year ith will not have tainly not be vear which Brown is Ded aratan ikes on Intent, but the working class are golng lo nave unell say. What hannened in Ene car trade in the Midlands 1s in ca mid for no protest Far Irom the class struggle being a thing of the past, it Is, In tact, verv much the music of the future.

Young Socialists are now Young Socialists are opelauilg. Small nion der tnev strike fear into heart ot the cericai numbues of 'Tribune' and the pard hirelings of Fleet Street. They hate youth because it is they who are going to build the revolutionary party. These gene mention w very well the ot the Socialist Labour League relation to the Young Socialists. We have always beer their rent to nent the ricat Ve stood by them when the wing leadership.

were slandered and attacker by the fake left in the Labour Party.

we are noading firmly by their side now.

The Morecambe Conferen as not just a conference.

was revolutionary parts will proudly carry aloft the banner of the world socialist revolution - the rOUITI International.

The Socialist Labour League appeals all adult trade Labour Party embers to join in suppo f the Young Socialist annea to everv voung Dersor who reads "he News etter and who is not a member of the Young Socialists to joir them without delay.

March 13, and pensioners who are the hardest hit.

The Labour government asks the boat'.

Wilson has already made it clear that harder work without increased wages, and an increase in unemployment are to be demanded from the workers.

Wilson and Brown have held back the pensioners' miserable 12s. 6d. increase so that it is now worth only 7s. 6d.; the pensioners have gone through the winter under worse conditions than under the Tories. And yet the Labour government spends more than ever on so-called defence.

In Vietnam, Wilson supports the American bombings which protect the corrupt Saigon regime. In nearby Malaysia, British troops are reinforced for the same job.

Not socialist Wilson vies with the Tories for the honour of being the most determined operator of the Tory Immigration Act. Sir Alec Douglas-Home said on Tuesday that Mr. Wilson's statement on immigration was 'very fair and sensible'.

This is not a Socialist government, its policies are the policies of the employers and the bankers, both at home and abroad.

While the Tories sit and wait, Wilson prepares for a big Labour defeat at the next election, which he intends to call very soon.

Tory spokesmen say every day that Wilson carries out just the policies they would have carried out but they prefer to let so-called Labour men do the dirty work. They hope to embitter and divide the working class, as at Leyton, and return the Tories even stronger, with a solid layer of extreme right-wingers, racialists and even fascists among them.

The Tories hope for another 1931 when Ramsay MacDonald attacked the workers, split the labour movement, went to the country and assured a crushing Tory victory.

But 1965 is not 1931. The workers are not oppressed by a defeat like 1926, they are not divided by the mass unemployment of the 1930s. They are fighting and will fight every inch of the way, but this fight must have political expression.

Mac Donalds The Wilson leadership is a whole government of MacDonalds; they must be called to order and removed before any more Labour votes are lost.

While Wilson has witch-hunted and expelled the Young Socialists on the left, Woodrow Wyatt, Donnelly and the right have risen up to blackmail Labour.

The Young Socialists are right to call for an emergency Labour Party Conference now, before the Budget, before Wilson goes to the country in a General Election. The working class is losing ground every day through the policies of Wilson, Brown and Callaghan.

A Labour government tolerated by the Tories and suphem not to 'rock Statement by the Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League 9/3/1965 ported by the cannot bring working class.

What good will a Labour Party Conference do? It will pronounce on Wilson and his Cabinet; the trade unionists, youlli, pensioners and rank-and-file Labour Party members will carry socialist policies, and bring forward a new leadership to replace Wilson and the right wing.

Such a conference would give strength and support to every struggle against the employers.

Wilson's defence

Certainly without this, the Tories are sure of victory in the next election because of the increased cost of living resulting from Wilson's policies, so it is no use saying, 'Don't rock the boat'.

Will Wilson and his government defend their policies at such a conference? Why shouldn't they?

If Wilson proposes to risk the Labour Party's future by going to a General Election, how is it that he dare not put forward his position at a conference of the labour movement itself?

The powerful British working-class movement united behind a socialist programme could smash the bankers and employers in a very short time and finish with the Tories for good. This is the alternative to Wilson's capitulation.

All workers should ral'y behind the Morecambe Young (Cont. p. 4, col. 7) B/OSL FILE A Spanish policeman swings his truncheon at the head of capitalist press gains to the BURGESS Hill and District Labour Party, Sussex, have passed a resolution calling for an emergency Labour Party Conference before the next Budget, in order to allow the rank and file of the labour movement to determine their answer to the capitalist crisis. It is one of the first Labour Parties to do so The resolution, passed on March 3 at the best attended local Labour Party meeting for many years, with only two votes against, added that resolutions from such Price The Young Socialists and Donald Soper HERBERT MORRISON LSSP (revo THIS WEEK utionary) Spain, Moscow, United State!

SUPPORTS EMERGENCY IT is not surprising that the not surprising that the By JOHN CRAWFORD Unsucc Tory press mourned the passing of Herbert Morrison. He made an important contribution to the fight to keep the labour movement safe for the employers and for careerism.

Many of the obituaries described Morrison as a 'realist'.

This means that he pragmatically adapted the working-class movement to the needs and institutions of capital.

Morrison, from the 20s to the 60s, was an enemy of the Left.

From the proscription of the Communist Party to the fight against the Bevanites, he was an enthusiastic witch-hunter of anyone who challenged opportunist politics, however slightly.

He constantly sought the highest of high office, not always with success. He first became one of His Majesty's Ministers under MacDonald in 1930 when he was in charge of transport.

Supported dole cut

Like Shinwell, Morrison was a fervent MacDonaldite. Despite all the stories he spread later, he is known to have backed MacDonald's action on the Cabinet vote to accept the 10 per cent cut in the dole, demanded by the CONFERENCE CALL an emergency conference 'shall be binding on the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Transport House and the Constituency Party will receive a copy of the resolution.

The meeting also passed unanimously a resolution deploring Labour Party support for United States action against North Vietnam. It called on the whole labour movement to assist the Vietnamese people to move forward to peace and socialism. Minister Morrison: later Lord of Lambeth American banks.

He even wavered when invited to join MacDonald's 'National' coalition with the Tories and the Liberals.

When Lansbury was evicted from the leadership in 1935, Morrison hoped to be his successor, but Attlee got the job.

It was 1940 before Morrison finally joined a coalition government, this time under Churchill.

After a spell as Minister of Supply, he became Home Secretary and Minister for Home Security. In this capacity, he banned the 'Daily Worker' and Cockburn's "The Week', and threatened the Daily Mirror' with a similar fate.

When Labour came to power in 1945, and again in 1947, he backed abortive attempts to get rid of Attlee, but he never rose higher than Deputy Premier.

He opposed steel nationalization and, in discussion with the steel masters, cooked up an alternative scheme for "control' of the industry. Morrison sits on Attlee's left along with the 1945 Cabinet Unsuccessful in this" effort, he successfully opposed all further nationalization measures, being undertaken by the Labour government, pressing instead for 'consolidation' of previous actions.

He warned of the dangers of frightening the 'floating voters' with socialism.

His term at the Foreign Office in 1951 was marked by his opposition to Persian nationalization of the oil industry.

Morrison had to be restrained from despatching troops to Abadan. • He, more than Attlee, led the attack on Bevan and the left of the Labour Party after the Tory victory of 1951.

In 1955, on the eve of the general election, he was prepared to split the party by expelling Bevan. Earlier, he had been pushed off the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, when the Bevanites took every seat in the Constituency Party section.

He was restored, only by a change in the constitution, making the deputy leader automatically a leader.

Hopes blighted

In 1956, Attlee was forced to retire from the leadership. But Morrison's hopes were once more blighted.

The big unions (and the 'Daily Mirror') backed Gaitskell. Even many London MPs, who had been part of the Morrison Empire, turned against him.

He finished his years as a Lord and film censor.

Herbert Morrison used the workers' movement to climb to the top (or almost the top) of the political institutions of capitalist society.

From these heights, he held back the power of organised labour from harming the interests of capital.

Fortunately, his successors are less capable of doing the same job.

THE baton of authority and repression swings at a demonstrator in Spain in the picture on the left. In the last week there have been similar These incidents, which have hit the headlines, are not just separate 'riots' in different parts of the world, but expressions of militancy and discontent against world imperialism as it affects different countries. scenes in Moscow and the United States.

Demonstrations and the intense hatred of the Franco regime has been building up for many years in Spain. It has come to a head in demonstrations by workers and students throughout the country demanding free trade unions, free association, a dinge wage "scale and a minimum wage of 200 pesetas (£l 2s.) for eight hours' work.

In Barcelona on February 23, despite large crowds of police, more than 3,000 workers crossed the police barricades and demonstrated outside the headquarters of the Franco trade unions and attempted to present a petition signed by 10,000 workers and students.

ARRESTS

In Berenguer Square, the police viciously attacked the demonstrators, who were able to reform several times, and several arrests were made.

People were arrested on the night of February 20-21, and nine young workers from the Workers' Trade Union Alliance were held for distributing leaflets inviting people to the February 23 march.

Others have been arrested in Cornella, Terrassa and Saradell. A number of workers and intellectuals, among them lawyer Francisco Casares, are in hiding.

The arrested men are being ill-treated and beaten in the police headquarters. Some are to (Cont. p. 4, col. 1)

A 24 - YEAR - OLD man appeared in a West London court on Thursday charged with attempting to murder 17-year-old Roy Smith, who was attacked when leaving a Young Socialists dance Barlby Road, Notting Hill on February 13.

LABOUR MOVEMENT DEMONSTRATE:

AGAINST RACIALISM London Young Socialists, trade onionists and Labour Party members will demonstrate through Paddington and Kensington on Saturday against racialism and fascism. They will protest at the action of the Labour government encouraging racialists and fascists by strengthening the Tory Immigration Act.

The Demonstration will begin at 3 p.m. at St. Stephen's Gardens, Paddington, W.2.

A public meeting will be held at the Isaac Newton School at 4.30 p.m. and a dance in the same school will begin at

March 13, 196

tions and therefore no parsons.

What upsets Soper is that the thousand Young Socialists gathered at Morecambe have begun to do just that. They have taken up the cudgels to fight for their class interests and they are ignoring the Donald Sopers of this world.

Pale pink socialist priests of Soper's type are basically no different from any others; his message is only another version of the teaching which comes from all churcher; as Sean O'Casey summed it up, 'Keep quiet and you can hear the angels singing The most important thing about Soper's article in "Tribune' is that along with that paper he has now openly joined in the official attack on the Young Socialists.

'Answer'

Before the conference, "Tribune's editor, Richard Clements, exploded viciously, calling the Young Socialists 'rats' and "chickens, thus giving 'left-wing' backing to the nightly press statements of Len Williams and the Transport House bureaucracy against the YS.

Soper has now let out his real position, after all the "Tribune' talk of a 'genuine left' line against Transport House.

He says that the rebels must be answered at the supposed official conference of the Young Socialists later this year, ard goes on: 'Nothing less than such a careful appraisal of their case, and the proper answer to it, Will ensure success for the official line'.

Note that! Success for the official line; that is, the line of Len Williams and Transport House.

ceeding from such absolutes but from certain principles, learned from the long struggle of the working class to win power from the capitalists.

It is these principles which frighten Soper, it is these principles which he wants to compromise.

He even has the brazenness to call in Lenin and Trotsky on his side, quoting their compromises of the early days of the Soviet Republic, especially the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918, which ceded large tracts of Soviet territory to the German imperialists.

This is the height of sophistry - the Methodists and "Tribune' will not need a Jesuit order so long as they • have Soper. Lenin and the Bolshevik leaders compromised in order to preserve workers' power, which had been won in a revolution in October 1917.

In signing the Brest-Litovsk Treaty they sought only a breathing space during which, as Lenin put it, 'The German workers will come to our aid.

Lenin and Trotsky were right. By the end of 1918, the Kaiser's government collapsed and the German workers formed their own Soviets. They were beaten and butchered by the German Labour leaders of the Socialist International, fitting ancestors of the Wilson government now supported by Soper.

Soper, says that then, as now, compromises were necessary in order to 'save the patient's life'.

But just who is the patient in Britain today? On Soper's own admission, capitalist poliare being carried out against the working class, by the Labour government. And Soper calls for tactics which will save the life, not of the pensioners and others of the based on the monstrous 'purge' trials in Moscow in the 1930s. Everyone who is not politically blind and deaf knows that these trials are now admitted to have been based on torture and forced confessions.

The Trotskyists who were executed and assassinated, including Trotsky himself, and those who survived in continued opposition to Stalin, were in fact the continuators of the Bolshevism of Lenin.

Wicked'

Stalin had to lie about them and then attempt to exterminate them in order to preserve the privileges of a bureaucratic ruling caste which put compromises with imperialism before the world socialist revolution. On all questions Soper finds himself squarely on the side of reaction.

Soper is determined to keep Young Socialists free from sin, and, all other arguments having already being let down is really quite wicked'. Here we are again!

When you have finally lost the youth movement to those horrible extremists who insist on fighting for socialism; when you have no argument and no forces left to deal with them; when Transport House itself has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds and ends up with nothing, what remains to be done except to call in the priest and pronounce the Young Socialists agents of the devil? It is really quite wicked' to say that the Labour government has let down the working class.

Soper ends up by saying th = Labour Par ty must be THE international weakness of British capitalism laid bare in the latest issue of the 'Economic Review' of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. It is clear from this analysis that no solution to the balance of payments crisis is in sight.

At the end of January 1965 the gold and foreign exchange reserves were down to f821 million and this included the sum of £357 million drawn from the International Monetary Fund which must eventually be re-paid.

PRECARIOUS POSITION In addition, the still precarious position of the pound sterling was undermined by drawing to an unknown extent on the £1,000 million credit from the foreign banks.

Any further loss of confidence in sterling must produce a crisis even more serious than that in the latter part of last year. With the reserves at this low level, and heavy borrowing from outside agencies already entered into, a slashing of imports, which would make large-scale unemployment inevitable, might follow such a renewed run on the pound.

Even on the best assumptions for the future of British capitalism, a tremendous increase in exports or reduction in imports, or some of both, will be necessary in the next few years.

The 'Economic Review' states that at least some f400-f450 million will have to be re-paid in Ву TOM KEMP the next three to six years. In principle, if further borrowing is to be avoided, this can only be done by drastic changes Britain's relation to the world market.

The Institute's forecast for 1965 and the first part of 1966 holds out little hope for improvement. On favourable assumptions, the overall deficit will be around £225 million this year, rising to an annual rate in the region of £350 million in the first half of 1966, 'with no reason to think that the second half of the year would be much better than the first'.

Not much room there to build up the gold and foreign exchange reserves to a 'safe' level or to re-pay what has already been borrowed to prevent a collapse of the pound.

That is where the dilemma of capitalist policy-makers begins.

HIGH EXPENDITURE Yet, as the 'Economic Review' points out, the balance of payments includes such items as £300 million per annum for investment by British capitalists overseas and £500 million for overseas military expenditure.

At least half of the overseas investment is in noh-sterling countries, mostly in oil. Continued investment of this kind is part of Britain's imperialist relationship to the world market. Likewise, the huge bill for overseas military expenditure is incurred in protecting imperialist interests in various parts of the world.

The 'Economic Review', which is 'non-political', cannot say much about these items. Nor does the Labour government have much to say, because it fully accepts the need for this expenditure.

In fact, this burden can only be got rid of as a result of a determined onslaught against capitalism in alliance with the colonial victims of imperialism. Wilson and company have no intention of making such a break.

CLEAR CONFLICT

That leaves only one way to approach the crisis-by reducing home demand, that is, real wages. The conflict between the interests of the bankers and monopolists and those of the working class is thus made clear.

The 'Economic Review' estimates that taxation is needed to reduce internal demand by another £200 million in 1965. It does not say, though the inference is clear, that this is necessary to enable British capitalism to go on investing overseas and protecting its investments against revolution.

But the authors are unhappy. To cut demand at home does not necessarily produce exports-nor, indeed, does it produce the markets in which those exports can be sold. It might strengthen the pound, but at the price of 'freezing resources', i.e., causing an all-round depression with unemployment.

There is at present no solution for British capitalism which can maintain the value of sterling and make possible a continued. increase in national output sufficient to prevent Britain falling still further behind her industrial rivals. 'Literaturnaya Gazeta' in its editions of January 19, 21 and 23, 1965, in which Chakovsky complacently lingers over his replies to questions and criticism put to him, he makes no mention of this development on the question of Brodsky.

Doubtless he was too frightened of drawing on to himself the scorn of his readers.

IRAQI

STUDENT JAILEDBY LETTER TWO-YEAR jail sentence has been passed in Iraq on an Iraqi student, at the moment studying electrical engineering at Leeds University. He was not told about the trial or the charges and was notified of the sentence by letter, which demands that he refund his grant.

The student, in his second year at Leeds, has been in Britain for tour years. During this time he has received a grant of about €3,000 from the Iraqi government.

Officials at the Iraqi Embassy have not been able to throw any light on the trial or the charges.

There are between 1,200 and 2,000 Iraqi students in Britain— many have fought against reaction and oppression in their own country-but this is the first time a student has been attacked in this way.

In Iraq itself there are approximately 10,000 political prisoners —people who have dared to speak out against the ruling clique.

Students are calling on the labour movement to support the student in his struggles by sending letters to: Cultural Attache, 22 Queens Gate, London, S.W.7, to demand the restoration of his scholarship and the ending of all such action against Iragi students in Britain.,

ojsnaem /N December 1964, the Coalition government of the • reformist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and Mrs. Bandaranaike's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) fell when 13 members of the government, led by Minister of Lands, C. P. de Silva, crossed the floor of the House of Representatives and voted against the controversial governmentsponsored Bill to take over the Press and establish a capitalist government monopoly over all media of information and The capitalist alliance comprising the Federal Party (a Tamil communalist party), a group around C. P. de Silva and the United National Party is led by Mr. Dudley Senanayake, head of the United National Party and Prime Minister of Ceylon in 1952-53.

The working-class opposition is led by the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary)-a group which broke from the LSSP (Reformist), when the latter decided, at its 1964 Congress, to enter into a coalition with the SLFP and save capitalism in The LSSP (Revolutionary) has from time to time been supported by the pro-Chinese Communist Party of Ceylon, but since the defeat of the coalition, this party, in keeping with the diplomatic manoeuvres of the Chinese bureaucracy, has come out in support of the coalition government of the LSSP (Reformist)

On this fundamental issue, there is no difference between the Moscow-orientated Communist Party and its pro-Peking cousin.

The other working class organisations which have supported the LSSP (Revolutionary) on many issues particularly on the trade union front-are the Ceylon Workers' Congress and the DemoNeither of these organisations is able to play any active part in the forthcoming general election, even though they have a combined membership of almost 400,000 Indian Estate workers.

These organisations are excluded from the political life of the country because the Indian working class is completely disfranchised by the reactionary citizenship laws passed by a previous United National Party government, and upheld by the present regime.

The LSSP (Revolutionary) is contesting four seats in the general election this month. Amongst those standing are Edmund Samarakoddy, secretary of the LSSP (Revolutionary) and Bala Tampoe, general secretary of the Ceylon Mercantile Union.

Although the LSSP (Revolutionary) is affiliated to the centristrevisionist Unified Secretariat in Paris, its programme revealed in this Manifesto is diametrically opposed to that of the Unified Secretariat whose representative in Ceylon, Osmund Jayaratne, recently quit the LSSP (Revolutionary) to join the coalition ranks.

The LSSP (Revolutionary) has a hard struggle ahead in the BAKAS March general election. It has to combat the forces of Buddhist clericalism, Sinhalese chauvinism and the terrible confusion created by the desertion of the treacherous leaders of the LSSP to the Nevertheless, we are confident that the LSSP (Revolutionary) will successfully accomplish the tasks which face it in the general election, and will do so despite the treacherous silence and lack of support of the revisionist Unified Secretariat. Ma ch & VOTHESVNNS VANVA propaganda.

The opposition to the Coalition capitalist, the other working class. Ceylon.

and the SLFP.

cratic Workers' Congress. coalition.

The text of the LSSP (R) election manifesto is as follows:

(1) The Capitalist.

In the forthcoming parliamentary elections two combinations of parties are seeking to obtain a majority to form a government in Parliament. One combination is led by the UNP and the other by the SLFP. Three of the parties known as Left Parties — the LSSP (Reformists), CP (Moscow), and the CP (Peking) are calling for the re-election of an SLFPLSSP Coalition government. The SLFP-LSSP combination and their supporters seek to argue that what is required is an anti-UNP Front to defeat capitalist reaction. Thus the choice before the voting masses as represented by these two groups appears as either a UNPled government or SLFP-led government. While the capitalist class will be protected by ather group, the workers, peasants and the toiling people can find no salvation through consisted of two groups, either one or other of capitalist combinations.

(2) Record of UNP Rule.

The UNP is a party of the capitalist class. During the nine years of their rule they were able to bring prosperity to a small section of the already rich and well-to-do people in the country. The UNP governments were in alliance with British imperialism and protected their interests in Ceylon and the UNP continued to maintain Ceylon as a source of raw material for manufacturing countries. Under the UNP, the workers and wage-earners were badly underpaid. Unemployment was a big problem and the cost of living was very high. The peasants in the rural areas remained landless or land hungry. The UNP used the police and military against the workers, peasants and the toilers. The UNP government became hated by the people and at the elections in 1956 they were routed. The oppression of the toiling people under the UNP rule flowed inevitably from their sustaining capitalism in a stagnant economy in conditions of the decline and decay of world capitalism. There is even now adequate proof that such oppression will only be more intensified with the continued maintenance of capitalist rule, whichever capitalist party is in power.

(3) Bandaranaike Governments also Capitalist and Pro-Imperialist.

The Bandaranaike-led SLFP governments that replaced the UNP government in 1956 assumed a colouration of People's governments as certain reforms were introduced by them. The chaos that prevailed in the Passenger Transport Service required the nationalization of this service. This was not intended as an anti-capitalist measure but as a means of realising a more efficient functioning of the capitalist economy. For similar reasons the Colombo Port was nationalized. The take-over of the insurance business and import and distribution of cil were not measures that flowed from an anti-capitalist policy but were measures intended to bring badly-needed revenue for the government. Far from fighting imperialism the SLFP supports and protects British imperialist interests in Ceylon and maintains their alliance with British imperialism.

Under the SLFP rule, British imperialism continues to dominate Ceylon's economy both in respect of the ownership of Tea and Rubber estates as well as in respect of the determination of the terms of trade. Whether led by the UNP or SLFP, Ceylon's capitalist class continues to function as a junior partner of the firm of British imperialism and company. Furthermore, Ceylon's dependence on military power of British imperialism • is evidenced by the fact that it is the British Navy that commands the seas round Ceylon and that it is the British Air Force that maintains military aircraft to command the skies over and around Ceylon.

(4) Conditions of the People.

Whilst the capitalist class was helped to amass wealth under the SLFP, the workers, peasants and the middle classes remain more exploited than before and are suffering more than ever before.

(a) Rural Masses:" The peasants continue to suffer from acute landlessness. Although a Paddy Lands Act is in operation thousands of tenant cultivators remain ousted from the paddy land they have cultivated. Rich paddy landowners continue to harass tenant cultivators. Cultivators of other crops on high land remain poverty-stricken more than ever before. The so-called Land Development Schemes of the government have only divided the land into uneconomic units leading to the inevitable impoverishment of the peasants in these schemes. Housing conditions in the rural areas are worse than ever before. Despite the Co-operative novement essential commodities are difficult to obtain and rural indebtedness remain as before. The boasts of the SLFP government of their service to the peasants have been proved 1o be empty of content by the serious plight of the peasants whose conditions are worse than ever before.

(b) Urban and Agricultural Workers: Since 1957 the government has operated a wage freeze policy in the context of an unprecedented rise in the cost of living. Many categories of workers including estate workers have not been granted even the Rs. 17.50 [about 25s.] which government workers and other private employees won in struggle. Severe exploitation of wage earners continues with the knowedge and approval of the SLFP government. Many employers refuse to recognise trade unions and do not permit the formation of trade unions. Efforts of workers at unionisation have employers supported by the government. In the result thousands of workers do not enjoy trade union rights. The SLFP governments have used the police and military to break strikes. Hundreds of workers have been injured and several shot and killed by police and military action.

(c) Middle Classes: The urban middle classes have suffered severely under SLFP rule. Unemployment, high costs of living, high rents and harassment at the hands of landlords remain as before. The difficulties of this section of the middle class continued to be on the increase.

(5) Unemployment and Cost of Living.

After nine years of the SLFP rule over a half a million persons are admittedly unemployed and another million remain underemployed. The problem of the educated youth who are unemployed is ever increasing.

Acute scarcity and even nonavailability of essential commodities with a flourishing black market in such commodities has been the case for several years. The lack of price control for a large number of essential commodities and the failure in effectively enforcing existing price control of commodities has contributed to a situation in which the cost of living continues to rise.

Locally manufactured or assembled commodities are invariably sold at prices much higher than the original imported article. The local capibeen met with repression by talists are allowed to ruthlessly exploit the consumer with impunity.

(6) Bribery and Corruption.

Favouritism, nepotism and all forms of corruption have increased and remain widespread.

(7) Problems of the minorities and the unity of the nation.

Relations between the Tamil speaking people and the Sinhalese remain ruptured. Discrimination and harrassment of the Tamil minority and other linguistic minorities have increased. Both bourgeois parties, the UNP and the SLFP, vie with each other to practice discrimination against these minorities. Over seven lakhs [700,000] of plantation wor kers and others of Indian origin remain in a so-called stateless condition, without voting and other human rights. The Indo-Ceylon agreement provides no solution to this problem but only serves to aggravate race-relations.

On the pretext of giving the 'proper place' to Buddhism other religious minorities are being discriminated against. The unity of the nation that is urgent and vital for harnessing the human and material sources for economic development does not exist.

(8) Content of SLFP policies.

The Bandaranaike policies of the SLFP are now clearly seen as policies to help a new section of the capitalists-the manufacturers, industrialists and new businessmen. Most of the so-called manufacturers are in reality Ceylonese businessmen operating with or in partnership with foreign capital in the assembling of parts or finishing of products previously imported. Foreign capital operates freely in the Ceylon Market, and in fact with special protection.

This pro-capitalist policy of the SLFP is sought to be concealed under a so-called Ceylonisation policy. Under this policy not only the Ceylonese capitalists but also foreign capitalist companies registered as Ceylonese firms in partnership with Ceylonese capitalists are given concessions, protection, and assistance in varied forms.

(9) Coalition did not change capitalist class character of SLFP Government.

The entry of the LSSP Reformists into the SLFP government to form a Coalition government has been on the theory that the SLFP is the party of the progressives as against the UNP a party of the reactionaries, and that socialism could be gradually introduced by these progressives with the co-operation of the reformist leaders. This so-called theory is a familiar trick.

The LSSP (Reformists) have abandoned all perspectives of achieving socialism. Entry into a capitalist government is a more effective form of class-collaboration which reformist working-class leaders resort to from time to time when they have decided to betray the working-class movement and the struggle for revolutionary rom pg poa socialism.

For several decades now the Stalinists have pursued similar policies which have resulted in calamity to the socialist movement. The six months of SLFPLSSP (Reformist) coalition have proved that the former bourgeois policies of the SLFP remain intact. The so-called 14-point programme of this coalition was only a fig-leaf to hide the class-collaboration. by the LSSP (Reformists).

(10) Working class oriented.

By entering the SLFP government the ISSP (Reformists) and their friends the Stalinists disoriented the working class. The struggle for the winning of the 21 demands was sabotaged by the reformist leaders. The unprecedented unity of the working class in preparation for the winning of these demands was disrupted by these reformists.

Far from • mobilising the workers and peasants in an anti-capitalist direction (which alone can be described as progressive) the workers and peasants have in fact been prevented from forging a left alternative to the two capitalist camps-the UNP and SLFP. The workers and the toilers are divided, disorientated and left without any real prospects of the advancement of their class interests as against those of the exploiter. This situation is to the advantage of capitalist reaction.

In the result Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike continued to follow her capitalist policies without fear. The anti-strike policies of the government remain unchanged. Police action against legitimate strikes continues as before. Ruthless exploitation of wage earners also continues. T8 conceal their failures this government resorts to Buddhist clericalism and Sinhalese chauvinism without any restraint. Anti-Tamilism and anti-Indianism are the issues they prominently raise in this situation.

Conscious of their bankruptcy in the solution of the urgent economic problems, the SLFP-LSSP Coalition also continues to maintain the links that bind Ceylon to British imperialism. They have proved that imperialist interests will be protected by this Coalition. Thus it is a myth that the SLFP-LSSP combination is progressive in relation to the imperialists, the minorities and the working class. In these respects they are as reactionary as is the UNP.

(11) Two-party system.

The existence of two bourgeois parties competing with each other for parliamentary power is a known feature of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. The two-party system by which one party of the bourgeoisie in Parliament is replaced by the alternative party of the bourgeoisie through elections was precisely what was intended by the Soulbury Constitution to perpetuate capitalist class rule in Ceylon. Through the UNP and SLFP this situation now exists in Ceylon. The interests of the workers, peasants and the toilers generally can only be served by a different type of institution from the present bourgeois Parliament. Such an institution must be based upon the direct representation of the workers, peasants and toilers through their own class organisations. The government created by such an assembly will be a workers' and peasants' government.

(12) Tasks of the toilers.

Thus a UNP-led government or a SLFP-led government must necessarily be capitalist, and capitalist oppression will continue to remain in either eventuality. Workers, peasants and the middle classes will remain under capitalist oppression whether it is a UNP-led or SLFP-led government. The independent mobilisation of the working class supported by the poor peasants and radical sections of the petty-bourgeoisie is the only guarantee for the protection of the interests of the toiling people. To serve this end it is imperative to forge a United Front of working class parties and organisations in the perspective of an anti-capitalist struggle.

If such a United Front was a reality the workers, peasants and toilers could have won a strong position within bourgeoisie Parliament to pursue the anti-capitalist struggle. But such an anti-capitalist Front been yet achieved. It is all the more necessary to send to Parliament even a small number of representatives of the workers, peasants and toilers to defend their interests against the capitalist class and against whatever government that will serve the capitalist class in the next Parliament.

It is in this perspective that the LSSP (R) calls upon the workers, peasants and toiling people to vote for and return to Parliament the representatives of the party which alone stand categorically opposed to all capitalist governments.

The LSSP (R) remains the only genuine voice of the workers, peasants and toilers and all other oppressed sections of the people.

To carry forward the anticapitalist struggle within Parliament and outside, the LSSP (R) places the following programme before the toiling people.

(1) The abrogation of the Soulbury Constitution, and the framing of a new Constitution by democratically elected representatives of workers, peasants and toilers.

(2) Immediate withdrawal of Ceylon from the British imperialist dominated Commonvealth.

Three (3) Guarantee of democratic liberties of the people including (a) freedom of speech, Press. assembly and association; (b) full trade union rights to all employees and political rights to employees of government or government corporations and enterprises.

(4) No discrimination in the field of education, employment or grant of any state aid or licence or in any other sphere against linguistic and religious minor mes ane no intererence and more specifically the fram With their democratic ing of legislation to make Tamil also an official language Ceylon which status has al. ready been accorded to the Sinhala language.

(5) The grant of full citizenship rights to plantation workers and to all such persons who are now referred to as stateless persons and who are desirous of obtaining Ceylon citizenship. All persons in the category of stateless who desire to leave Ceylon to be offered all facilities to do so.

(6) The confiscation of all large estates of tea, rubber, CoConut and „ cocoa WITHO compensation. All confiscated estates to be under the management and control of workers' councils.

(7) Nationalization banks.

(8) Confiscation of all large industrial and commercial and enterprise collated estion. All suc councils.

(9) Freezing of all foreign assets and prohibiting of the export of dividends (10) Immediate unfreezing of wages—a sliding scale of wages in relation to the cost of living to all wage earners receiving less than Rs. 500 per month [about 38s.].

(11) The right of work or maintenance.

(12) No retrenchment with. out alternative employment and adequate compensation for past services.

(13) Freedom of entry into estates and grant of tenancs rights to all employees who are granted housing in estates.

(em) Contis ation of pray ery lence or intimidation against the workers.

(15) Opening of books of all employers to workers' inspection.

(16) The expropriation of al inds suitable for house build ing and the establishment of schemes under control tw pue Compensation to only 10 owners of such lands in the lower income groups.

(17) Taking-over of all tenements and the management of such tenements by Tenants' Committees.

(81) Nationalization of all large paddy land holdings and allocation of cultivator rights to peasants' committees.

(19) (a) All landless peasants to be granted Crown lands with full rights of ownership. Where Crown land is available suitable private land be expropriated without compensation, for distribution among landless peasants. Compensation to be paid only in the case of owners of land in the lower income groups.

(b) All squatters of Crown land or private land belonging to capitalist big land owners be granted full rights of ownership of land already occupied by them.

All prosecutions at present pending in the courts of law against squatters be withdrawn.

State sponsored cooperative farms for development of animal husbandry and other livestock farming.

(21) State-sponsored reorganisation of and rationalisation of Cottage industries on Co-operative production basis (22) All co-operative distributing centres to be under the direct management of consumers served by such centres (43) Workers' control and management in government enterprises and corporations.

P a ge 3, 1965

Methodists are hypocrites. But when a professional Methodist preacher is also a weekly contributor to 'Tribune' what else can be expected but 'British' hypocrisy of the most nauseating kind?

Such is the character of the politics of the Reverend Donald Soper, who was chosen last week to devote his regular column to the Morecambe Conference of the Young Socialists.

Mr. Soper is one of those men with their collars back to front who profit from the British middle class superstition that parsons have something worth saying on every conceivable subject.

He has been getting down from his pulpit and interfering in the labour movement in the classical style of all Godbotherers for many a long year.

Tame heretic

Anyone who has been around in politics has had to come up against his tiresome insistence on being considered a forthright and outspoken preacher, a sort of tame heretic, a sickly and sanctimonious version of the court jester.

Space in The Newsletter is too valuable for a full description of his antics in the last 30 years. We must, however, say something in reply to his comments on the Young Socialists Conference.* Naturally, his living as a parson depends on his discouraging anybody who really builds up a revolutionary working-class movement which will change society, and enable the working class to build a socialist system where man will control his own life.

When that happens, the conditions which produce belief in God will disappear; men will believe in their own ability to control their own destiny. There will be no chapel collecand In the face of the real grow the YS, Soper the rel cks his heels and stands fir with the right wing!

It is all very well to voice criticism on all manner of questions, but when it comes to an actual alternative leadership, a real threat, then Soper takes his rightful place as a good parson . . . in defence of the establishment.

It occasions no surprise, therefore, that Soper goes on in his article to defend the Labour government's capitalist policies.

Speaking in the style of a true man of the church, he says: The fundamental starting point is that a Labour government is committed to compromise whether it likes it or not.' He admits that they are carrying out Tory policy in both domestic and foreign fields, and says: 'What is more, this "mixture" will go on for a long time yet. The childish clamour for "absolutes" is as silly in the ranks of left-wingers as in the country houses of Moral Rearmament.' Soper is really caught! The only justification and defence for the existence of all his religious cant and humbug is surely the idea that there are some moral rules ('absolutes') which apply to human conduct and are higher than the historical circumstances created by man's own labour and by the class struggle.

Compromise

The Young Socialists are, of course, not pro- working class ... • but ot the Labour government!

The YS conference was right! The Labour Party Conference must be called nowand must decide socialist policies.

It is on the question of the old age pensioners that Soper best shows his true colours.

Religion battens on misery and despair, and presumably Soper is interested in keeping the job going. He says that the postponement of old age pensions benefits was apparently an actuarial requirement'.

Actuaries are people who work out death statistics for insurance companies to make sure that those particular parasites do not charge too little for their premiums.

Apologist

Why doesn't this mealy-mouthed preacher tell us how many pensioners died this winter who need not have done?

Why doesn't this apologist for the banks tell his readers just how much the 12s. 6d. increase will be worth when the pensioners get it?

It is time Soper was called his right name—a humbug and a hypocrite, who plays his own special part in defending the right wing. He wants to exclude Trotskyists from the labour movement and says that they are agents provocateurs.

In this he joins in with the worst witch-hunters and professional liars in the history of social-democracy and Stalinism.

All the rubbish about Trotskyists being enemy agents was left-wing movement and that every Young Socialist is needed to keep the movement going.

But hold on a moment! He has already told us that the success of the 'official line' in the YS must be assured. That official line has been to close down branches and Federations of the YS and to expel hundreds of members.

Which road?

Either Soper is ignorant of these things, in which case he ought to keep his mouth shut (but that would be asking too much from him)—or else he is "forgetting to remember'. • Perhaps this is what is meant by 'sins of omission'?

Let the YS make their minds up if they are Trotskyists or democratic socialists, says Soper. Soper is helping them to do just that.

The 'democratic' socialists of the official line at Transport House, helped all along by "Tribune', have managed to expel from the Labour Party five out of six of the Majority of the National Committee of Young Socialists elected at the Brighton Conference (organised by the official Labour Party) in 1964.

Such are the paths of democratic socialism. The Young Socialists have chosen the road of struggle, the road of calling things by their right names.

The Trotskyists in the Socialist Labour League will help them along that road. The Reverend Soper will not succeed in diverting them.

March 14, 1964, the young Jewish Soviet poet, Josef Brodsky, was sentenced to five years' 'corrective labour' for social parasitism. On March 22 he was taken to somewhere near Archangel, close to the Arctic circle, with people sentenced under common law, robbers and criminals.

Since then he has been made to do 'honest work', as the 'writer' Alexander Chakovsky, chief editor of 'Literaturnaya Gazeta', put it—he is shifting carts of manure!

Western journalists were put into the picture about the affair thanks to a report made by a group of Leningrad writers who were sent to the West.

The clamour arising from this scandalous sentence forced the so-called 'Soviet' government to announce his release on two occasions, the first time in July 1964 and the second in October 1964, but on both occasions the government was lying.

The campaign in the West about Brodsky was organised by people who have nothing to say about the massacres carried out daily by the soldiers of American imperialism in the Congo or in South Vietnam.

But the fact that the bourgeoisie uses Brodsky as fodder for an anti-communist campaign should in no way prevent us from denouncing the scandalous fate meted out by the bureaucratic regime to a young poet whose only crimes were to be a Jew, to have a nervous complaint and obviously to be feeling out of joint with the society in which he was living.

Foreignness When the same feeling of foreignness to the world led Yessenin to commit suicide, Trotsky, far from spitting on the poet, wrote one of his finest pages:

'It would seem that Yessenin never felt himself to be of this world. This is not said in order to praise him, for it is this incompatibility wirh the world that has caused us to lose Yessenin, nor in order to reproach him: who would think to blame the great lyric poet whom we were unable to keep with us? ... The poet is dead! Long live poetry! A child of men, without defence, has fallen into the abyss.

But the bureaucrat E. Voyevodin, secretary of the comJean Simon mission of the Leningrad writers' union responsible for examining the work of young writers, constructed his evidence against Brodsky (whom, on his own admission, he did not know) around this motif, accompanied by the traditional slanders:

'These poems fall into three themes: the first is that of feeling foreign to the world, the second is pornography, the third is his aversion towards his native country?

In this one small point we have an indication of what differentiates the USSR of the 1920s trit he Brod of toda Brodsky completely lays bare the morality of the bureaucracy-the judge and the attorney attempted to show that Brodsky was a parasite because he was not earning enough money through his work!

Parasitism It was at such a point that a witness for the defence reminded the judge (who was quite astonished) that 'the law in respect of which Brodsky has to justify himself was directed against those who worked too little and not against those who earned an inadequate wage'.

The accusation of parasitism' takes on a 'particularly grotesque aspect in that paradise for parasites where dozens of hired writers, members of the writers' union, receive a monthly wage, a flat and authors' rights, and are sent abroad to produce, from time to time, some pitiful work praising such and such a victory of government policy!

During the course of the trial the judge moreover explained that intellectual work was not real work.

To a reply by Brodsky: I was working. I was writing poems, the judge answered 'that did not prevent you from doing proper work'.

Brodsky: "The building of communism does not consist solely of standing at a work bench or working in a field. It is also an intellectual task Judge: 'Leave these pompous words aside.' Pompous? These so correct words? We understand that at the end of the trial the party employees who made up the bulk of the audience shouted out: 'All writers are parasites •.. they must be chased out of Leningrad. ..?

Was not the prosecutor moreover allowed to refer to those who had defended Brodsky as 'rogues, parasites, lice and insects'? Among these animals are the poet Anna Akhmatova, the poet Samuel Marshak (Lenin prizewinner), the great composer Dmitri Shostakovich, the writer Kornei Chukovsky.

The whole of the trial reeked of police provocation against the intellectuals.

Professor Etkind, the judge, suddenly said with rancour to a defence witness: 'Have you had any trouble in your work or in your private life?' And without losing countenance the witness replied: 'No, but there were two days when I didn't go to the institute. Perhaps something happened there...?

The trial was provoked by attacks on Brodsky by a volunteer policeman (druzhinik) Lerner, former captain in the security service, who persecuted Brodsky, wrote an article against him in the Leningrad evening paper, an article with anti-semitic streaks (he enumerated with great pleasure the names of the members of 'Brodsky's gang': Schweigolts, Geikman, Leonid Aronson), and manoeuvred with the secretary of the Leningrad Writers' Union, Alexander Prokoviev, to get him to demand that Brodsky be brought before the tribunals, which he did.

Prokoviev ousted It has, by the way, been announced that one month ago the Leningrad writers ousted Prokovier from his position as secretary. Evidently the terror that the trial of Brodsky was meant to have spread amongst them has not had much effect.

A young poet who has done nothing against the Soviet regime, whose only crime was to feel foreign to the bureaucratic world in which he lived and to be a Jew, is doing five years' hard labour to expiate this 'crime'.

On his recent trip to the USA, A. Chakovsky explained in New York that Brodsky belonged to the 'scum of society', that he was a literary 'nonentity' and that the 'honest work' he was now being made to do would be beneficial to him.

But in the long account of his journey published by

A TOTAL of 5,500 men i oe laid angry engineers walked out on Scotland, factory of the Pressed Steel dismissal of 327 men.

The strike started last Friday and, at a meeting on Monday, shop stewards of the Amalgamated Engineering Union decided they would not recommend a return to work at a mass meeting of the strikers on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in the face of this solidarity by the engineering workers, Jack Service, an official of the West Scotland AEU, is reported to have said he is going to probe' the causes of the strike.

Service claims there has been a breach of agreement. No attempt was made, he said, to seek conference with the management.

Such suggestions are ludicrous. Three hundred and twenty-seven men who have lost their jobs are not worried about polite conferences with the management. At the moment they face unemployment.

PROFITS Some weeks ago shop stewards pointed out that some of the firm's profits should be spent in keeping the 350 men employed. A demand was made for work-sharing.

The management advised its workers that prospects in the area were 'quite promising', even though there had been redundancies in the area.

Service stated that the workers should return to work, but at a time when the employers, particularly in the motor industry, are striving for more speed-ups, workers have every right to defend their conditions. off this week after 700 strike at the Linwood. Company, following the

appear before the Tribunal of Public Order, and several well known Catalan lawyers have agreed to defend them.

The Workers' Trade Union Alliance co-ordinating committee calls on all trade unionists i to send telegrams to the Civil Governor of Barcelona and to Mr. Muñoz Grandes (Franco's probable successor) protesting against the penalties inflicted on the workers.

In Britain, the National Confederation of Labour of Spain in Exile is making an appeal for money to finance the defence of the workers.

A correspondent in Madrid reports that the demands for freedom of association have been revitalised in Madrid among students, who have also been brutally beaten by the police in demonstrations.

SOLIDARITY

There have been no reports of the demonstrations in the Spanish Press, but students in Barcelona, Bilbao and Zaragoza have expressed their solidarity with the Madrid students.

In Moscow last Friday, Red Army troops were brought out for the first time since the Revolution to deal with demonstrators outside the American Embassy, •who defended themselves in hand-to-hand fights with Moscow police.

The demonstrators, mostly Asians and Africans, had marched hundreds strong along Tchaikovsky Avenue singing the Internationale.

They brushed aside police guards, called by U.S. officials forewarned about the demonstration, clambered over an improvised barracade of snow ploughs and carried out their assault of ink bottles, stones and catapulted ball-bearings on the walls and windows of the

IN spite of the decision in - London of the provincial busmen's leaders to suspend unofficial strikes pending a court of enquiry's investigation into their pay and conditions claim, all but five of the Midland 'Red' company's 34 garages came out on strike last Saturday for the eighth weekend in succession.

Banbury and Sandacre (Leicester), two of the garages working, were among the last to join in the weekly strikes. At Hereford, where the crews gave early support in solidarity with the Black Country garages, busmen said they worked last Saturday in order to minimise hardship to people living in remote rural areas.

Solid In Birmingham and the Black Country, Saturday's strike was solid.

Bus workers are quite right to maintain their solidarity and meetings of the co-ordinating committees between garages. In the event of the union leaders using the court of enquiry as a pretext, first for delaying official strike action, and then, for agreeing to an unsatisfactory settlement, busmen • must have the means of making a prompt and united rejection of any form of sell-out.

Embassy, while protesting verbally at U.S. action in Vietnam.

This was not, as is usual, an organised demonstration, but a spontaneous, angry and militant affair, after which Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko apologised most profusely to Foy Kohler, the American Ambassador. Gromyko has been slow to make similar apologies to Peking about the treatment of the studentdemonstrators.

TRUNCHEONS

Selma, Alabama, USA, was also the scene of swinging truncheons on Monday when the racist Governor of Alabama, George Wallace ordered in State police to crush a 'right to vote' march by Negroes.

Such demonstrations by Negroes are part of the whole struggle against discrimination, low-paid jobs, slum housing and police violence.

But, once again, the religious rogues have intervened to head off any real struggle.

On Tuesday, Dr. Martin Luther King compromised with State authorities when he led marchers back to a church in Selma after meeting a 100-strong cordon of State police on the outskirts.

TO THE FORE In Spain, Moscow and the United States youth are to the fore in these struggles, like the youth of the Vietcong in Southeast Asia, and Britain's own Young Socialists, whose struggle reached such heights at Morecambe two weeks ago.

The enthusiasm and energy of this youth must become harnessed, politicalised and moulded into revolutionary forces to end imperialism on a world scale.

Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU). r.o. • Los 0102 The claim was, of course, put in 12 months before the package deal was signed.

Nevertheless, the BMC

bosses are clearly afraid that to concede the claim would endanger the comfortable arrangement of the "package deal' and start what they call a *leap-frogging' movement in the giant Austin factory.

Complex

Maintenance mates said that their duties have become more complex than before, requiring a higher degree of skill. They receive £7 10s. less than the skilled maintenance workers, and this they regarded as too wide a differential.

They had rejected the BMC's offer to submit the dispute to arbitration. On Monday they decided unanimously to continue the strike.

It is clear that union leaders were working hard to contain the strike. There was talk of an appeal to the Ministry of Labour to 'assist in a settlement.

This, in the light of the government's drive to get a wage-freeze agreement, would hardly have been likely to result in the maintenance mates winning anything like the increase they were demanding.

In addition to nearly 17,000 laid off at Longbridge, factories affected included Fisher and Ludlow's, Nuffield Metal Products, Tractor and Transmissions, SU Carburettors, Morris Commercial Cars, Joseph Lucas and a number of smaller haulage and supplier firms (all in Birmingham), as well as BMC factories at Coventry,

HREE hundred maintenance workers at the Birmingham factory of the British Motor Corporation, who came out on strike for an increase of £2 in their pay, will go back to work on Monday.

This strike, which eventually involved 40,000 men in the motor industry, was of tremendous importance for the engineering workers since the men walked out in complete defiance of the infamous three-year package deal signed by their union leaders and the employers.

The package deal will tie engineering workers down to what is, in fact, a wage freeze policy. This struggle put up by the maintenance men is a measure of the hostility that engineering workers have towards the deal.

Union officials, who have held back throughout the strike, announced that the men's claim for a f2 increase was, in fact, being withdrawn. The management were to review day workers' pay in June instead of October.

This is a complete betrayal of the strikers' demands. At the rate at which the cost of living is now rising a pay increase later in the year would almost be cancelled out.

By the beginning of this week about 30,000 workers had been laid off as a result of the official strike of 300 maintenance mates at the Austin factory at Longbridge, Birmingham.

Demanding

These workers were demanding a pay increase of just over f2 to bring their wages up to 80 per cent of the skilled maintenance man's rate.

They had been waiting 15 months while the claim went through all the stages of the long, drawn-out 'procedure', which last month ended in. deadlock.

Three unions were involved in the strike - the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Electrical Trades Union and the Heating and Domestic Engineers' Union.

A clamp-down on all statements to reporters by shop stewards and strikers had made it difficult to find out what was going on, apart from the statements by union officials.

After Monday morning's meeting at Longbridge Mr. S. Cresswell, district secretary of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, and Councillor N. Cook, AEU organiser, both insisted that the strike 'had nothing whatever to do with the package deal'. Oxford and Abingdon.

By last week-end it was estimated that the BMC had lost between £7 million and £8 million by the stoppage.

Thousands of workers laid off in Birmingham registered to claim unemployment benefit. "Test cases' were to be heard by a corps of Ministry of Labour officials, to decide whether any of the claims could be allowed. Boycott Churchill fund -miners' call MINERS in Lancashire claim that the Churchill memorial fund has become an operation for getting support for the Tories. They are trying to get a national boycott of it.

Two thousand men at the Mosley Common colliery, near Manchester, are voicing their opinions to Labour Parties and trades councils.

They described the appeal as a 'mendacious, cadging orgy with the sole object of winning support for the Tories'. declared official Newsletter Reporter SIX unions have now recognised the strike of maintenance men and inspectors employed by British United Airways at Gatwick airport, Sussex.

They are the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians, the Transport and General Workers' Union, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the National Union of Vehicle Builders, the Electrical Trades Union and the Sheet Metal Workers' Union.

The strike began a week ago, after the company had announced its intention to sack maintenance staff and offer them re-employment with a subsidiary company.

Officials of the union are reported to feel confident that the workers will win their case. Picket lines man the gates, but it is claimed that there are between 40 and 50 blacklegs.

Petrol tank drivers have refused to pass the picket line and oxygen workers decided not to deliver to the company.

STOPPED

Fifteen electricians and apprentices on a building project at Gatwick airport stopped work to support the strikers' demonstration through nearby Crawley New Town.

Workers engaged on production of components for BUA planes have been asked to black work. Workers at Doughty Rotors have made a stop on propellors.

Clive Jenkins, General Secretary of the Association at

(NE hundred and twenty thousand tenants of corporation flats and houses in Glasgow face the prospect of stunning rent increases next September.

For the past two years there has been increasing pressure from the Tory minority on the Glasgow council to review and increase rents. The Tory government instructed local councils in Sootland to carry out a rents review and to increase rents by stages to a given proportion of the gross annual value of the property.

Because Glasgow did not increase rents to 85 per cent and then 90 per cent of the gross annual value, part of the government's equalisation grant has been withdrawn.

Glasgow rents have recently been the subject of discussion ir Parliament. On February 24 Mr. Thomas Galbraith, Tory MP ior Hillhead hold send said the government should send in com take over the city's housing.

Dr. Mahon, Under-Secretary of State for Scotland replied that such action was not necessary as he was Corporation would act in a reaso aban mag er umstanceance They did. With a Labour government in power, the council yielded to Tory pressure and, on March 1, a special sub-committee, appointed to review rents, met to consider reports from the city chamberlain and city factor.

The housing deficit to be met from rates on 1965-66 will rise to £5.25 million and will continue to rise by £500,000 every year reaching £7.3 million in 1969.

The city chamberlain's report states that if rents were doublec the housing deficit would be reduced de cit, reits wo Id hipe out the deficit to be increased by 134 per cent.

HARDSHIP

With rates now at 26s. 9d. in the f, any increase in rent would mean severe hardship for many families. More old age pensioners will be driven to seek national assistance. Moreover, any increases imposed by the council will give real comfort to landlords of private property, who will not hesitate to follow the council's example.

Glasgow council sees no solution to the problem. It has been suggested that the government should take over the city's housing, debts and all, and the council should merely act as paid factors for the government.

Such proposals solve nothing. The tenants will still have to pay increased rents, whether the council or the government control the property.

Tenants anticipate that the increases will be steep. Some of them feel they should be getting money back instead of paying more.

In a new block of flats in the Gorbals, tenants paying approximately f8 a month in rent and rates are complaining of cracked and damp walls.

One tenant showed a Newsletter reporter a bedroom in her newly-built house, occupied for only 18 months.

The room is unusable because damp has affected the whole of the upper half of one wall and the area surrounding the window.

Curtains, which rotted with the damp, have had to be replaced. Furniture is covered with a white film. A pair of boys' boots inside a wardrobe were covered with green mould.

'Why should I pay more rent for this?' the tenant asked.

Further along the block another tenant was completely frustrated. 'We came out of the old Gorbals, but the new is no better— we complain about the damp but nobody bothers.' Last Friday, 60 people attended a meeting of the Cranhill Ward Labour Party, called at very short notice, to raise the question of rents and other housing prableme with Mr. Hugh D. Brown, Labour MP for Provan.

An old age pensioner won the support of the meeting when he referred to the fact that the MPs had backdated their own salaries but not the pensions increase. He said the govérnment had agreed to the 12s. 6d. increase in pensions, but, turning to the local councillor on the platform, he said: "They are now going to take it away from us by increasing rents'.

There are 84,000 families on the waiting list for houses in Glasgow. It is hoped to complete 5,000 new houses this year.

But the more houses that are built, the greater the deficit grows.

NO SCIENCE For all the talk about science, the government applies no science to the housing problem.

Chaos reigns and local authorities are held to ransom in the form of high interest rates on loans required to finance their housing projects.

Workers must pay more rent to stuff the money bags of the financiers and maintain the profits of the building contractors.

A halt must be called to this situation. Local Labour Parties, trade unions, tenants and Young Socialists, must organise a big campaign to stop the rent increases.

Demand the nationalization of the monopolies, the building industry and the finance houses: Demand that the Labour government act in the interests of the workers to stop rents rising. Such a campaign must begin now -September will be too late. 100 per cent increase in Glasgow OAP's THE most mean and cheese-paring proposal was made to Glasgow Corporation this week.

The transport sub-committee say they will have to increase fares to meet the recent pay award to municipal busmen and a drop in revenue.

Included in the proposals for increased fares is a suggestion that the Id. concessionary fare for old age pensioners should be increased to 2d.

A penny increase doesn't sound much, but for the old age pensioners it is a 100 per cent increase and means that their excursions by bus will

Transport and General Workers' Union have failed to call out the rest of the workers at the Rockware factory, Greenford, Middlesex, in support ot 165 men who have been involved in a dispute with the firm for over a week.

The men, many of them immigrant workers from India, Cyprus, Pakistan, Indonesia, Jamaica, Ireland and Mauritius, have received support from the Southall Indian Workers' Association, shop stewards at Woolf's Rubber Company, shop stewards at British Eagle Airways and the local Young Socialists.

CARDS

According to the Rockware Employees' Action Committee 165 men received their cards following dispute which occurred on the night shift.

A meeting of 200 workers from the factory carried a resolution demanding that the 160 men should be reinstated and that solidarity support should be won from other factories.

In spite of attempts by the union officials to break the men's solidarity white and immigrant workers expressed strong determination to fight the dispute through.

of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians said that calls had gone out to British United Airways workers in Italy, Germany and Africa, to support the strike.

Workers at Gatwick airport should see the importance of a demand for the nationalization of the whole of the aircraft industry.

Only • by completely nationalized industry can they ensure that every aircraft worker receives the correct rate of pay.

Scottish buses halted FOR the third successive week there was an almost complete stoppage of bus services operated by Scottish Omnibus Group in Central, Western, South-west Scotland, the Lothians and the Borders, last Saturday.

In spite of appeals from union officials and press reports that normal working was likely to be resumed following the announcement that the Minister of Labour was setting up a committee of enquiry, drivers, conductors and conductresses held meetings on Friday and decided to continue the Saturday strikes.

have to be ally.

The corporation expects to gain £90,000 extra revenue a year by increasing the Id. concessionary fare. To take this money from the pittance paid to pensioners is a thorougly despicable act, which must be challenged.

Resolutions should pour into the city council from trade union branches and all other sections of the labour movement protesting against this proposal.

Stop bleeding the old age pensioners!

Demand that the pensions increase be backdated and further increased to meet rising prices. immediate Labour Party Can- Socialists Conference for ference.

The Tories were defeated in October. But Wilson carries on Tory policy against those who put him in.

The Newsletter and the Socialist Labour League say it is the business of the working class to say what policies and what leadership should come from the Labour government.

It is time to stop Wilson, as he makes his way to hand over to the Tories. Let the labour movement denounce him and his government and open up publicly the fight for socialist policies and attacks on the employers instead of the workers. ( Stop the Tory come-back now. This can only be done by opposing Wilson and his Cabinet.

NO MORE FREEDOM FOR THE EMPLOYERS AND PROPERTY OWNERS TO PUT PRICES UP!

FREEZE ALL RENTS AND RATES IMMEDIATELY! CANCEL ALL INCREASES IN FARES! SPECIAL CONCES.

SIONS TO PENSIONERS! RAISE THE PENSIONS.... INCREASE TO €I TO COVER THE INCREASED COST OF LIVING, AND BACKDATE TO NOVEMBER 1, 1964!

NATIONALIZE UNDER WORKERS' CONTROL THE BANKS, STEEL, CHEMICALS, ENGINEERING, BUILDING AND BUILDING SUPPLIES!

WITHDRAW ALL TROOPS FROM SOUTH-EAST ASIA! BREAK THE ALLIANCE WITH THE U.S. IMPERIALISTS REPEAL THE TORY IMMIGRATION ACT!

AN EMERGENCY CONFERENCE OF THE LABOUR PARTY NOW TO THROW OUT WILSON AND FIGHT FOR THESE SOCIALIST POLICIES!