The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 398

R sidering still tighter restrictions on immi EPORTS indicate that the government from Commonwealth countries.

This new retreat by Wilson will strengthen every and every enemy of Labour. It is part of the capitulation of the Labour leadership to Tory policy.

Since the 1962 Immigration Act was passed, would-be immigrants have been divided into three groups: Group A have a job to go to, Group B are skilled and professional workers, and Group C are unskilled.

The waiting list for Group C has been closed for some months. The proposals are now to cut down even more on the two other groups.

Minister of Labour, Ray Gunter, and Home Secretary, Sir Frank Soskice, are two members of the Cabinet who are reported to be particulary pressing for restrictions to be made more stringent. In the debate on this question earlier in the year, Soskice went so far as to agree with a Tory suggestion that some immigrants might be sent back.

Hostility

Everyone knows that the Immigration Act was introduced by the Tories as a racialist measure directed against coloured workers. Its object was to stir up hostility between white and coloured workers to split the labour movement.

Even Hugh Gaitskell led an opposition in Parliament to the Act. Wilson has not only reversed this policy, but now goes even further than the Tories envisaged in 1962.

The excuse first given for continuing the Act was that the government was going to ask Commonwealth governments to restrict immigration at its source. Lord Mountbatten has been touring India, Pakistan and the West Indies to try and obtain such an agreement, but without any success.

Racialism will be used increasingly by the employers as the economic crisis gets worse.

The economic policies of the Wilson administration make the housing situation worse and prepare the way for unemployment later this year. The fascists and other racialist groups inside and outside the Tory Party will take advantage of this situation.

Divert action

Already the events at Rowley Regis, just two miles from Smethwick, where the tenants' association has attempted to 'buy out' a Jamaican householder, show that racialists are far from being daunted by the cowardly and ineffectual legislation on racialist discrimination of the Wilson government, which refuses to carry out any socialist policies.

They will try to divert any real action by the working class against the employers and against capitalism by blaming shortages of jobs and houses on a handful of coloured workers.

The poison of racialism must not be allowed to affect the fighting power of the working-class movement. A CORRECTION The Editor wishes to point out that in the May Day disturhances in Colombo reported in The Newsletter (May 22, No.

396 'Death Agony of Lanka Sama Samaja Party') the worker who was killed was a Sinhalese supporter of the coalition and not a Tamil as was stated in the article. This incident was unconnected with other acts against Tamil workers.

racialist general real battle must be waged against the Tory policies of the so-called Labour government.

The campaign for the re-call of the Labour Party conference in order to throw out the Wilson leadership must be stepped up. Every backing must be given to the building of the Young Socialists as a movement which can unite young workers, white and coloured, in a real struggle against the employers and their racialist agents.

An 'illegal immigrant' is arrested under the 1962 Tory Act. Under Labour, restrictions will be harsher.

A GrOST-that is the term used by 'Evening Standard' correspondent Sam White for the man he met in Moscow last week. This man was a well-known British Communist, Len Wincott, one of leaders of the Invergordon Mutiny who was discharged from the British Navy.

Like many other British and European Communists, he took Soviet nationality in the 1930s to work for the Communist International. In 1940 he was imprisoned by the Stalinist regime following the great purges.

After Khrushchev's revelations about Stalin, Communist Party members in Britain enquired from their leaders about the fate of Wincott. All that transpired was a letter in the 'Daily Worker', purported to be from Wincott, suggesting that the enquirers should concern themselves with imperialist atrocities rather than with his case.

Sam White reports that Wincott served ten years in a forced labour camp in Siberia.

Gollan and the leaders of the Communist Party in this country, following in Pollitt's footsteps, have remained shamefully silent.

According to White, Wincott, now 58 and a sick man, 'hopes •.. the British party, in recognition of his past services and sufferings, may reward him with a holiday at home. Gollan and Co. do nothing because of the rotten subservience of their record.

At the annual meeting of the 'Daily Worker' Co-operative Society, David Ainley reported that the paper was kept out of the red only by several very generous bequests.

Let the British Communist Party leaders take from these wealthy 'sympathisers' and from the Eastern European official agencies who provide them with equally 'generous advertising revenue, enough to provide Len Wincott with the holiday in Britain that he wants.

By ONE hundred young shopworkers from Foyle's bookshop in London again this week. They returned to work after their They returned to work aiter their first strike against the victimisation of their union collector, 22-year-old Marius Webb, with a ment undertaking to negotiate a new wages scale with Distributive and Allied Workers.

Less than 24 hours after — they returned to work, the management, it is alleged, denied they had ever intended to negotiate with the union, and the strike was on again.

The strikers are demanding a fl2 minimum wage at 21 for men and women, with f13 10s. for those in the packing department, where no commission is paid.

Christina Foyle, managing director of the store, is reported to have said that she will have no direct wage negotiations with the union, but will pay Wages Council rates negotiated on a national scale.

Support for the strike is beginning to take Foyle's mail, which runs into 50,000 items every day, has been blacked Mount Pleasant sorting office, and the Union of Post Office Workers branch there is demanding the removal of an inspector who collected a vanload of mail on Wednesday morning.

If he is not removed from the job, the branch committee will recommend strike action at Mount Pleasant.

Recognition

Drivers from the publishers supplying Foyle's are recognising the picket line and only one or two lorries from non-union firms outside London are delivering.

The printing unions have issued a statement to all chapels declaring support for the strike and urging them to give financial support and to "black' work for Foyle's.

British Road Services and British Railways workers, too, have declared Foyle's "black'.

All this has strengthened the strikers and they are determined to stay out until they have a new wage agreement signed by the management, and they are satisfied that there will be no victimisation when they return.

Financial support is being canvassed all over London. Parties of strikers have visited the docks, markets, newspapers and big warehouses. On building sites, collections are being taken and meetings of support held.

Cont. page 4, SLOWLY yet relentlessly, the war to liberate South Vietnam from imperialism and its puppets goes on.

The latest news from the battlefront around Quang Ngai city in South Central Vietnam, where three elite South Vietnamese battalions were nearly wiped out by a superior force of regular Vietcong troops, proves that the strategic initiative has passed definitely to the side of the Communists.

The fact that they were able to inflict severe losses on the puppet troops, despite heavy and incessant U.S. aerial bombardment, shows the absolute tactical and strategical superiority of the Vietcong command over the counter-revolutionary armies.

CORRECT THEORY

This latest victory provides ample confirmation of the correctness of the theory of 'protracted war' which combines the strategy of protracted interiorline defence with a tactical plan of exterior-line, quick decision attacks in campaigns and battles.

Furthermore, it also demonstrates the necessity and indespensability of combining, in the stage of the strategic offensive, mobile warfare undertaken by regular armed formations on an extensive fluid • front together with ruthless guerrilla war waged in the 'rear' of the enemy.

The co-ordination and combination of these forms of war is inexorably changing the relationship of forces on the Vietnam battlefront and is forcing the U.S. warmongers to escalate the war:

by bombing st strike against gned statement eir union, the on official strike r the victim sation from the m nageUnion of Shop,

Dy spending vast amounts of money (another 700 million dollars 'emergency' appropriation) on propping up the puppet regime (or regimes) in the South;

and-more ominously-by expanding on a bigger scale the ground forces in the south.

Thus, apart from plans to increase the southern puppet army to 160,000 men, President Johnson has promised a "blank cheque' to the U.S. military forces.

'BLANK CHEQUE'

What this blank cheque' means is indicated by Hanson Baldwin - well-known military commentator for the 'New York Times'.

In a recent issue of this paper, he wrote that the latest strategical plan of the U.S. high command-the 'ink blot strategy' —would involve the re-conquering and occupation of almost the whole of the South Vietnam hinterland and that this occupation would require approximately 500,000 troops!

What is more, it would require many years of further fighting.

Already plans are afoot to send another combat division to Vietnam, thus increasing the U.S. presence from 40,000 to 60,000 men.

The U.S. government proposes to spend billions of dollars on an armada of fast sea and air transporters to be ready by the early 1970s. Also in the pipeline are plans for the mandatory extension of Navy enlistment, conscription into the Navy, increase of the Marine Corps, and a limited call-up of reservists.

Shortage of personnel is not felt at present in the Air Force, but even this branch of the armed forces will soon be suffering from a similar complaint.

Although the U.S. military authorities have put a strict censorship on air losses, Baldwin estimates from official figures that the loss rate for fighter-bomber sorties in Vietnam is twice as great as the rate for World War 11.

in greater than assumed because the cost of a fighter-bomber is over two million dollars, and the cost of training a jet pilot is immeasurably greater than that of a prop-plane pilot.

Thus, Johnson's war will mean not only increased suffering, tragedy and horror for the Vietnamese people, but increased burdens for the American people and the militarisation of American working-class youth.

Truly, Mr. Johnson is riding a tiger in Vietnam - and like most people who try to ride tigers, must surely end up inside it. It has not as yet removed the existing leadership only because it has expected further improvement in wages and conditions. 9 During the discussion on this resolution a number of young members of the Socialist Labour League will speak about the present position of the Young Socialists. Emphasis will be laid on the need to develop the organisation as a mass organisation of youth during the coming period.

The conference will discuss plans for a daily paper. Delegates will decide on how best to raise the necessary amount of money during the next two 'years.

A full report of the conference discussion will appear in the next issue of The Newsletter.

No. Moves for stricter control of Commonwealth immigrants Wilson aids racialists B/OST FILE HOYLE'S Marius Webb, the 22-year-old union collector involved in the first strike, joins pickets outside Foyles in Price 6d.

OFFICIAL the second strike. WAGE KREASE THIS WEEK Brown and King attack printers' wages-see back page SGORS Labour League will be held in London on June 5, 6, and 7. This conference will mark a considerable step forward for the League. Over the past year its membership has steadily grown under conditions where the membership of other organisations in the labour movement has declined.

The League was the only organisation which supported the Young socialists wholeheartedly in their fight against the right-wing leadership of Wilson and Transport House.

It maintains the closest collaboration with the Young Socialists, firmly believing that they will provide the forces for a new revolutionary party.

The conference will examine the position in the international labour movement, especially in relation to the struggle against Pabloite revisionism and the role which the Socialist Labour League has to play in the coming year.

The League fully supports the forthcoming congress of the International Committee of the Fourth International, which will be held early in 1966. Delegates will hear a report on the main resolution to be presented to that congress by Cliff Slaughter.

This is to be followed by an all-day discussion on the development of the revolutionary movement in Britain. This will be opened by G. Healy, the National Secretary of the Socialist Labour League, who will emphasise the favourable possibilities which now exist for transforming the Socialist Labour League into the mass revolutionary party.

A resolution entitled 'Perspectives for Building the Revolutionary Party in Britain' will be published in The Newsletter immediately after it has been discussed at the conference.

The opening paragraphs of this resolution say:

BY MICHAEL BA ND Capitalism has survived two world wars and a whole series of revolutionary class struggles only because of the services rendered by the Social-Democratic and Stalinist leaderships. During the last 50 years, however, the persistence an outworn economic system has only deepened the contradictions between productive forces and capitalist production relations. Automation and atomic energy produce the latest and most powerful explosive charge for the class struggle to overthrow capitalism. The revolutionary party which must now be built by the Socialist Labour League, a decisive step forward in the construction of the Fourth International, must be based on the scientific understanding of this crisis. The work of the party in all fronts must be grasped as a conscious struggle to see ourselves as part of this crisis, the crucial part of it: revolutionary consciousness, pressed in the building of parties, is the instrument of the working class, thrown into greater struggles as a result of the ferment of automation, against capitalist oppression and destruction, and against the servants of capitalism in the labour movement, from the right-wing Social-Democrats and Stalinists to the so-called "Trotskyist' Pabloite revisionists.

In Britain the impact of the crisis on an old and debilitated imperialist power provides us with an especially urgent and favourable situation. The ruling class cannot maintain its position at the head of an imperialist country without attempting to discipline the working class and taking back concessions made in the past. Its involvement as a world power and its falling behind in the race for automation preclude any other solution for it. But the working class, although still dominated by reformist leadership and ideologies which grew up in the period of imperialist domination, is powerfully organised. In two decades of full employment, it has built up a strong resistance to any attempt to lower its standards or impose new forms of discipline.

A letter from a soldier to a memter of the Chicago Area Dear -I don't know if you remember me but I never forgot you. I'm — —'s oldest boy. I'm in Vietnam and every day I pray for only two things-to be out of this hell and back home or to be killed before I might have to kill someone.

So far everything you wrote in your bulletin is, true about Vietnam, but we want you to write about a few things none of the papers are writing.

The going here is pretty rough and all the dirty fighting isn't on one side. A week ago our platoon leader brought in three prisoners. I was part of the group that brought them in. They set up a questioning station and someone from Intelligence was doing the questioning. This was the first time I saw anything like this and found out that we use dirty methods too.

This guy from Intelligence had all three lined up. One was a woman. He stripped her down to the waist and stripped the two men all the way. He had a little gadget I thought was a walkietalkie or something. He stuck one end of this wire to the lady's chest and it was a kind of electric shock because she got a real bad burn. From what she Women Peace, whose bulletin he had received. was screaming my buddy and I could figure she didn't know anything.

Then they took this same wire and tried it on the lady's husband and brother but on their lower parts. 1 grabbed the damn thing and stuck it to the backass of the guy from Intelligence.

Ever since that day I've been sick to my stomach and haven't been out on patrol or anything. My Sgt. tells me I'm suffering from battle fatigue and might get sent home.

No one from our group wants to bring any suspects in for questioning. We don't know what to do. Some of the Viets are good friends to us. Some we know play both sides but we don't want anybody tortured and killed. One of the guys from another platoon said he saw this happen before a few times and once the guy was killed by it.

Anyhow tell your Women for Peace we are with them. We wish we could send you a couple of those electrical gadgets to use on the powers that sent and keep us here. This must end soon or a lot of us will go nuts. We'll try to do our part to try to keep down the war if you keep up your part back home to end it.

Page Iwo JANY electrical workers in Britain have not yet recognised the gross betrayal which Fifteen of the 25 motions on incomes policy were in favour of the Glasgow East resolution, and many speakers rose to criticise the executive council motion and George June 5

delegates — voted in both sections of the Electrical Trades Union Conference to strengthen firstly the bureaucratic clique around president Leslie Cannon, and secondly the right wing of the Labour Party.

But never was a conference so unrepresentative of those people who will have to face the consequences.

Disillusion

On the relatively isolated island in the Palace Ballroom, Cannon was king to the exTory election agent delegate, the foreman delegate, the self-employed delegate, and many other elderly delegates who had never been seen near a conference or shop floor before.

As stated in the report in last week's Newsletter of the rules revision section of the conference, the small number of Communist Party and centrist delegates soon became completely disillusioned and bowled over by Cannon's apparent control of the proceedings because they had no voice from the rostrum.

On even the most minute points of order these so-called left delegates meekly stood down from the rostrum when ordered to do so by Cannon, who, on several occasions, conveniently switched off their microphone while booming down his more powerful throat microphone.

There were rumblings of discontent and hatred against the platform however during some sessions and, had there been any genuine left speakers, the platform could have been defeated.

This was apparent even during the later stages of the conference when incomes policy was being debated.

Pattern

Minister for Economic Affairs, George Brown, who had made a theatrical and timely appearance at the union reception the night before, sat on the platform during the whole debate after delivering his speech, to give the right wing extra authority with which to carry through their wage freeze resolution.

The right-wing servants of capitalism in the Labour government paid a great deal of attention to this conference. If, as in fact happened, Cannon had his way, then the pattern for the streamlining and further bureaucratisation of many other unions would be set.

It would also prepare the way for further attacks on the wages and working conditions of the millions of workers whom Brown wants to subject to 'the policy for productivity, prices and incomes which has now been nationally agreed by the government, the Trades Union Congress and the main employers' organisations' Disciples Cannon and company had their way. As obedient disciples of the American James Carey, secretary of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and a leading right-wing member of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organisations), the platform carried—with narrow majorities-—revisions to union rules.

They set up a full-time, paid executive council; a new branch structure of industrial, rather than area sections, which will be administered by full-time, paid secretaries; larger, therefore fewer branches; annual area industrial conferences of shop stewards to replace the present area committees, and increased subscriptions which will more than cover the increased benefits promised.

There was little discussion on these items, and even then opposition speakers argued in the same terms as the executive council, never in real class terms. Appeals limited There was absolutely no discussion on perhaps the most important section of the rules revision-that of rule 39a (appeals).

Cannon simply took a vote which tied the hands of branches. They can no longer appeal against any executive council decision, only refer back the EC report every two years!

Branches cannot call special meetings without the permisison of the EC, and members can appeal only against expulsion, not against any other disciplinary measures. Grates This revision also means that branches cannot appeal against the recent decision of the Executive Council to support the Wilson government in its backing of Johnson's policy in South-east Asia. afternoon be devoted to emergency resolutions, but Cannon insisted on closing conference at mid-day.

The same contempt for the position of members was expressed in the main discussion of the policy section of the conference when Frank Chapple, assistant general secretary, and great friend of James Carey, moved the resolution on incomes policy.

He reminded conference that the 1963 conference had stated that the union would never stand for the wages of ETU members being frozen or restrained, then proceeded to back George Brown to the hilt in calling for the trade union movement to become 'active participants' not 'passive bystanders' in a drive for higher productivity to raise standards as a whole.

Alec Osborne of Glasgow East, who moved the opposition motion, said the executive council's statement was wishy-washy and did not say that the executive council was prepared to struggle for higher wages. The incomes policy was in the interests of the employers, not the working class, he said.

Cannon: obedient disciple

the Stalinists handed the union on a plate to the right wing and the wage freezers in the Wilson government.

During a comparatively quiet Communist League of Youth are Japan against the Vietnam

Obviously incensed by this move, several delegates put forward an emergency resolution calling for a show of solidarity with the working class of Vietnam and Dominica and for the withdrawal of U.S. and British troops from Southeast Asia. This never came before conference.

Delegates asked PRESIDENT JOHNSON has big worries at home in addition to his critical problems of policy in South Vietnam and the Caribbean.

Public attention has been focussed recently on the radical revival among students and university teachers, sparked off especially by the Vietnam war and Civil Rights movement.

Underneath all this there is building up a great powderkeg in the shape of a rapid rise of youth unemployment.

The recently published mid-April figures show that the jobless rate for the whole American work force went up from 4.7 per cent to 4.9 per cent.

UNEXPECTED INCREASE Among men between 20 and 24 years old, there was a leap from 6.3 per cent to 7.1 per cent, a totally unexpected increase. But most marked of all was the increase in unemployment among those aged between 14 and 19: from 13.9 per cent in March the figure rose in one month to 15.2 per cent, or almost one in sit of the whole teenage population. Add to this the fact that the official figures ignore large numbers of unemployed persons not registered as seeking work.

These figures are the key President Johnson's special peal to employers recently.

: asked thousands of em1964 The second of Three

took place at their union's conference in Douglas, Isle of Man, last week. This was the consummation of an earlier betrayal by stalinists and centrists in the organisation.

The select few-the 600 Millions of teenage jobless in USA ployers to help the nation by taking on at least one trainee worker for every 100 •employees when the next batch of school-leavers comes on the scene in the next few weeks. Some two million schoolleavers and graduates will swell the ranks of this great army of teenage unemployed.

JOHNSON'S FEAR

Johnson fears like the plague the impact of this potentially revolutionary force in American politics, of which the militant struggle of the Negro youth has already given a foretaste in Birmingham, Alabama, in Harlem, and elsewhere.

The problem is especially serious among Negro youth. "The Times' New York correspondent recently reported the statement of Mr. Reynolds J. Nowell, vice-president of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States:

"Among Negroes, he noted, the percentage of teenage unemployment was double that of the population as a whole, and among Negro giris still greater.

One in three non-white teenage girls in the labour force is unemployed, he noted. In general, one in every four persons unemployed is a teenager and just a little under one-half Brown, who remained unabashed on the platform, but the executive council motion was carried overwhelmingly, according to Cannon, who refused a card vote.

To repeat last week's Newsletter: the rank and file is now bound to a highly bureaucratised union machine, and the real crime of this betrayal of the rank and file is the way Degeneration period in the class struggle, the Communist Party of Great Britain was able to take over this union. But through the degeneration of the Party internationally and through the opportunistic and revisionist policies of its union and Party leaders in Britain, the whole of the left in the ETU was laid open to attack in the courts by the right wing, who followed their successful action with a ruthless witch-hunt.

This is what killed the militancy of the majority of members of the ETU and completely knocked the stuffing out of this year's 'left' delegates.

Now, as the class war intensifies under a Labour government struggling to save the pound and capitalism for the bosses and the Tories, the right wing are in power and are able to deliver a crushing tactical defeat on the militants.

Not invincible For many years rank-and-file ETU members have sympathised with and supported the policies of the Socialist Labour League. Along with the Young Socialists, the League is putting up a struggle against the betrayals of the Wilson government and trade union bureaucrats over rising prices and the wage freeze.

In other parts of the country workers are making inroads into Brown's incomes policy showing that Cannon's rule, though tough, is not invincible.

We call upon Electrical Trades Union members and all trade unionists to join us in the fight for socialist policies now, to build an alternative leadership for the working class to Cannon, Wilson and all the right-wing friends of the Tories and the bosses.

of all teenagers in the work force have never held a fulltime job' It is not difficult to imagine the social chaos and bitterness which must characterise the Negro working-class areas in the cities of this most advanced industrial country in the world.

This is the underlying secret of the enormous growth in militancy of the Negro movement, and the rush of its 'liberal' leaders to arrive at agreement with Johnson and the Democrats.

Here we have overwhelming evidence of what Marxists mean by 'the epoch of imperialist decay' when they characterise modern capitalism. Half a generation faces the prospect of no permanent opportunity to work, even as slaves of capital.

CAPITALIST PROBLEM A large proportion of these may never work. By 1970, instead of the present figure of 13 million Americans aged between 20 and 24, there will be 17 million. And this will include millions who have never held down a job!

Capitalism can find no solution to this problem. Not even the supporters of the system can hold out much hope. The fact is that this rise in unemployment, speciHE Vietnam war is arous- ing the hatred of workers all over the world. Predictably, the most intense reaction has come from the West Coast of America, where 15,000 students, workers and professional people gathered at the campus of the University of California for a 34-hour teach-in and protest against the U.S.-directed war in Vietnam.

Prominently placed on the speakers' platform were three empty chairs reserved for the three professors representing the viewpoint of the State Department who funked and absented themselves.

Dangerous ideas

All the speakers attacked U.S. policy in Vietnam and Dominica. Referring to the absence of the pro-Johnson intellectuals, the organisers of the meeting said that these three refused to participate because, amongst other things, the teach-in will spread some dangerous ideas to the masses of the people', and because 'the protest movement against the war is successful: and spreading".

I. F. Stone, a left-wing radical, well known for his exposé of the U.S. role in the Korean war, was warmly applauded when he identified himself with the students' protest and said that the U.S. ¡was in Vietnam because it wanted to dominate the world and that the main object of Johnson, McNamara and Rusk was not democratic government in Vietnam, but a military base.

The only positive and organisational proposal came from Staughton Lynd, Yale professor and director of the Mississippi Freedom Schools. He called for the recognition of the Caamaño regime in ally marked among teenagers, is a problem of capitalist "prosperity and not of business crisis.

GROWTH RATE UP

A slump or even a mud recession in the U.S. would raise the problem to gigantic proportions. Reynolds . Nowell also observed:

'This failure to provide employment for so many of the new entrants to our labour force is especially significant, since the economy has been expanding at a good 5.6 per cent annual rate for four years, and a distuls to come bly will be In other words, at a time when U.S. capitalism is producing more, and expanding its wealth at a rate higher than ever before, when the value of holdings on the U.S. stock exchange is higher than ever in history, unemployment is on the increase, and capitalism can offer not even the prospect of a minimum human existence to a large proportion of its youth.

Automation, even though so far it affects only a small sector of industry, is the reason for this new phase of capitalist contradictions.

Millions of workers without industrial skills, and this includes millions of youth, by Mike Banda Dominica, scathingly denounced the pro-Johnson intellectuals (... annihilation in a Brooks Brothers suit is still murder') and called for massive civil disobedience to make Johnson resign.

'We cannot wait until the next presidential election—we must vote with our feet, he concluded.

Civil disobedience by itself will not stop Johnson's war. It is only through organised political and industrial action of the working class that the Japanese Trotskyist youth on march against Vietnamese war war can be halted. The first political step towards such a movement would be to break decisively with the Democratic Party and firm support for a labour party.

Need for clarity

Amongst those who also spoke were Paul Potter, Isaac Deutscher and Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, who, paradoxically, supports U.s. intervention in Dominica but is opposed to a similar policy being pursued in Vietnam. The fact that he was applauded on Vietnam and not challenged about Dominica shows the need for clarity and leadership in the anti-war movement now developing in the United States. especially Negroes, are dispensed with as expensive machines and computers eliminate millions of jobs.

And yet capitalists will continue to press forward with automation to the best of their ability; so the problem will get worse instead of better.

Workers in more backward sectors of industry will be no better off, since they are always likely to find their source of employment wiped off the map altogether by the rich giants of finance and industry. This is an international problem which is sharpening the class struggle all over the world.

FEW CONCESSIONS

There is one other very significant aspect of the present phase of the problem in the USA. Socialists have for many years worked for the establishment of a mass workers' political party in the U.S., but the trade union bosses, who work with the capitalist parties, have retained control of the movement, and the wealth of U.S. capitalism has given leeway for certain concessions as a result of militant trade union struggles.

But the present problems can only be solved politically, The movement of protest is not confined to the West Coast though. In Columbia and Cornell Universities on the East Coast, hundreds of students demonstrated against the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps as part of the campaign against the Vietnam war. Many of the students involved in the demonstration were either censured or reprimanded by the Universities' administrations.

The biggest individual blow against the Johnson regime, however, was struck by Lewis Mumford, the doyen of America bourgeois intellectuals and president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

At the Academy's annual awards ceremony in New York on May 19, Mumford shocked his audience by indicting in ringing terms U.S. policy in Vietnam as a 'moral outrage'.

'We have a special duty,' he said, to speak out openly in protest on " every occasion when human beings are threatened by arbitrary power: not only as with the oppressed in Alabama and Mississippi, but the peoples of both North and South Vietnam who must now confront our government's cold-blooded blackmail and calculated violence...• Japanese mission From America to Japan.

On May 12, at a council meeting of Sohyo, the General Council of the Japanese Trade Unions, a decision was adopted to commence a nationwide movement against the war in Vietnam and to express solidarity with the Vietnamese revolution by collecting material aid and by sending a fraternal mission to North Vietnam.

Trotskyist youth and students of the Internationalist Communist League of Youth have played a prominent part in demonstrations in Japan against the Vietnam war. by a fight for socialist ownership and planning of industry. This is brought home by the bankruptcy of the reformist policies of the unions.

In a few cases, unions have reached agreements with employers about redundancy and restrictions on new hiring, in order to protect their own members who are already working.

AUTOMATION'S IMPACT While this might preserve the existing jobs for a certain time (and even that depends on the by no means certain continuance of the boom), it actually helps to increase the problem for the working class as a class, raising the whole problem of the unity of the employed and the unemployed, a point upon which Trotskyists have always insisted.

The same report by "The Times' New York correspondent highlights one aspect of this contradiction:

*The impact of automation falls most heavily on new entrants into the labour force because of restrictive union hiring rules and the practice of attrition, or the displacement of workers eliminated by new methods and machines solely by

Development in Flanders - the Bell Telephone Company in Antwerp.

Election, reported in •HE Belgian General last week's Newsletter, marked a strong swing away from the reformist government parties towards the extremist nationalist parties on the one hand and towards the Communist Party on the other.

This is the first clear political expression of the crisis which has been building up in Belgian capitalism.

The crisis is the result of the introduction of automation into the Belgian economy, creating an entirely new working class in Flanders and transforming the economic structure of the older industrial area of Wallonia.

Class tension

Such a transformation of the economy in capitalist conditions has given rise to very great class tension. This has been masked to a certain extent by the very favourable conditions has given rise to very produced by the European boom and the high demand for steel.

But two points must be made about this immediately. First, the new sharpening of the relations between the classes has only been masked Unesper senes yeuses, mer no ve de venge, a grenang ou InemnInment nuenes. like this one in Chicago. are growing to fantastic nronortions. death or retirement. In because human labour is just some industries this has a 'value' which is reduced meant a virtual halt to all every time a technical imnew hiring' provement is made. If the And franthane needs of human life are greater Ana lurtner:

'Some economists argue that each time the minimum wage is raised, or its coverage extended, thousands of people are denied job opportunities. This, they say, results because minimum wage rates, plus the cost of fringe benefits amounting to 25 per cent of payroll costs, exceed the value of low-skill jobs.' This is the bitter truth! Capitalism, a system of exploitation, can only destroy the working class as it pays for technological devel opment, to a certain extent, and not completely, as many of the Belgian 'Socialist Left' maintain.

This point of view can only be maintained if one looks at Liège, or at the other traditional industrial centres-and even then, the appearance that all is as it has always been conceals some powerful movements below the surface. It falls to the ground if one looks at the new industrial centres in Flanders.

Sharp conflicts There, the extremely militant strikes by the Ford workers in Genk and by the nuclear power workers, were foretastes of the extremely sharp class conflicts which are building up.

The second point that must be made is that Marxists must not be content with simply commenting on present surtace phenomena, as if their role in the class struggle were simply to keep a log book of working-class actions.

On the contrary, the Marxists must examine the development of capitalism, study the forces which give rise to contradictions, anticipate class struggles in order to intervene in them, and transform working - class action from an unconscious revolt into a conscious struggle for power.

Automation not only makes the present contradictions in capitalism more acute, reducing the working class to an even more animal-like existtively new trend which drives ence, it introduces a qualitathe capitalist class towards the elimination of vast numbers of the working class! than this weekly value, SO much the worse for the human life concerned!

CAPITALIST MIRROR Clearly then, the reform measures worked out by the trade union leaders to keep the peace with capitalism are doomed. They even help to produce those basic contradictions which force the class struggle forward to the overthrow of the profit system altogether.

What is happening in America is the mirror for capitalist development. All re### Develop It is, in fact, the scientific language of socialism, creating a situation in which workers could be released from factory work, and could develop scientific knowledge and the struggle of man against nature to an extent to which we cannot even conceive at present.

But this cannot be contained within capitalism. It must give rise to enormous tensions between the classes.

This is what has been occurring in Belgium-as elsewhere in the capitalist world.

But just as the introduction Marxists will gain nothing by manoeuvring with men like the late André Renard.

of automation gives rise to a new situation, so it is clear that the old patterns of development in the working class will not be followed today.

The need for increasing the rate of exploitation to accumulate sufficient capital for automation prevents the capitalist class from granting the concessions that gave rise to the Labour aristocracy and the Labour bureaucracies, notably in Belgium and in Britain.

Thus, there is no basis at all for the belief that the workers will move gradually from voting for conservative parties formists will be powerless before these contradictions, which are reflected in each country through special historical traditions and weaknesses.

Britain's Labour government is only the most obvious example. But here the process has gone further, with Wilson, Brown and the others serving directly the bankers and industrialists in attacking the working class even to get automation off the ground.

The political struggle which has already begun against them will therefore gain rapidly in tempo and intensity in the coming year or two, and is part of the same struggles of the workers of America and the whole world. (like the Social-Christian party which has a mass vote from Catholic workers), to voting for reformist parties, to voting for centrist parties, finally to arrive at revolutionary positions.

This conception is an arid, sterile, mechanical view of the development of human consciousness at the best of times, but is clearly quite ridiculous when the added factor of automation is taken into account.

In the same way, in present circumstances, one cannot talk of workers who support reformism as being 'more advanced' than those workers who vote Catholic.

Both of these votes, in fact, reflect the lag between the consciousness of the working class and the new conditions to which automation has given rise.

It is not a question of gradual movement to support of more and more 'progressive' parties, but of building an alternative leadership in the course of the workers' own struggles, which arise from automation and the employers' attacks. This implies a special emphasis on the building of a working-class youth movement.

Build party

But the preparation for this must be begun at once, with the building in the working class of a revolutionary Marxist party, which will be able to lead the working class to power.

This cannot be done by playing around at building centrist parties, with the intention of transforming them at a later date.

Both the Flemish and the Walloon workers are in the position to make the leap to revolutionary consciousness— their present political beliefs notwithstanding. If anything, the situation in Flanders is more ripe than in Wallonia, as the investment in new industry has been far greater in that part of the country.

Backwardness Without the construction of a revolutionary Marxist party in Belgium, the road is open to rightwing demagogues, whose pseudo-radical demands have the aim of tying the workers to big business.

This is most strikingly illustrated in the development of the Socialist Left' in Belgium. The attempts to build a centrist party have led workers, but of the backwardness of the 'Socialist Left' in not turning from the centrist policies it carried out inside the Belgian Socialist Party, to building the revolutionary Marxist party that the working class now urgently needs.

The split from the Socialist Party will be meaningless if full advantage is not taken of the freedom of action that the removal of the direct restraint of the bureaucracy has given.

No alternatives The turn to building the revolutionary party in Belgium is now a matter of great urgency. The 1965 elections are a grave warning.

The Communist Party and Liberal Party vote is also a warning.

Neither party can offer any solutions to the workers and middle class who turned to them.

If there is no revolutionary alternative posed, where can these people turn next but to the 'Volksunie' and to whatever organisation Perin and his friends will have created by then?

This party must be built by carying out an independent struggle in the working class, and especially amongst the youth. It will not be built by manoeuvring with bureaucrats or by merely gathering a following amongst certain conservative workers.

Go to workers This kind of work, like the relationship with Renard in the past, and with Jacques Yerna at present, can gain the Marxist Party nothing and can only discredit it in the eyes of the workers. The party must go straight to the workers themselves, and not be fooled by their bureaucratic representatives.

Unly it work of this kind is carried out, if a struggle is undertaken amongst the working-class youth to change it and to form from amongst it the cadres for a revolutionary party, can the working class avoid catastrophe in Belgium.

We call upon the 'Socialist Left' in Belgium to declare for the International Committee of the Fourth International, and to carry out this struggle along with the Socialist Labour League. support

to:

(1) Nothing whatsoever in in Flanders, while the rightwing nationalist "Volksunie' more than doubled its vote and now has 12 MPs (four of them in Antwerp).

(2) Very little support in Wallonia despite the alliance with the Communist Party at a time when there was a swing towards it, whilst Perin in Liège and the 'Walloon Front' in Charleroi both gained a seat.

(3) One seat in Brussels, almost by chance, whilst the 'French-speaking Democratic Front' romped home with three MPs.

This is the result not of the backwardness of the Flemish or Walloon take-ov, TIN miners in Bolivia, South America, are winning their heroic battle against U.S.-backed forces of the military junta, who are attempting to take over the rich mines.

On May 16 the miners began broadcasting from their own radio station. The first messages were that U.S. imperialism wanted to make Bolivia a second Dominica.

The military junta of General René Barrientos, on behalf of the Americans, began attacking the unions and the gains made in the 1952 revolution.

Present fighting began when Juan Lechin Oquendo, secreir bid tary general of the miners' union, the country's largest labour organisation, was exiled to Paraguay.

But ever since the overthrow of Paz Estenssoro last November things have been simmering.

He weakened under the U.S. drive for control of the tin, which forms 90 per cent of Bolivia's exports, and agreed to make the mines more efficient and profitable in return for U.S. and German aid.

His drive for profit and accompanying repressions led to his downfall. René Barrientos continues the Paz Estenssoro legacy.

REVEALING charges have leen made in a confidential circular to 46,000 members of the National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants (NATSOPA) this week against a member of the Labour government and a newspaper monoSigned by the general secretary, Richard Briginshaw, the circular, which followed an executive council meeting, alleges that Cecil King, owner of a chain of national newspapers, intervened on behalf of George Brown, Minister for Economic may discipline Fo Newsletter Correspondent polist.

Affairs, to persuade print employers not to agree to a negotiated settlement of a pay claim. ought not to have received more than 24 per cent as they were already being paid too much'. Swear-word miners

Peter Arnold's reports on the Election the steel By ANN HOW far can the Stalinist leadership go along the road of betrayal?

Not much further it seems. By their recent actions, the French Communist • Party leaders have fairly and squarely aligned themselves with capitalism.

In the same week that Frachon, a French Communist trade union leader, made his first visit to President de Gaulle since 1958, Francois Billoux, also a leading member of the Party, made some very revealing statements in the 'France Nouvelle', central voice of the organisation.

Following the overtures made by de Gaulle to the Soviet Union, the announcement of the withdrawal of the French government from the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation, and attacks made on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the French government receives unqualified support from the Stalinists.

Initiative

Billoux writes: 'Under the pretext that we are the unconquerable adversaries of personal power, ought we to shake our heads when the Chief of State takes initiative which has a positive value?

'Why should we not receive favourably the declarations of de Gaulle indicating that there is no justification of the war which is spreading in the affairs of any State, or for the refusal to allow any State to cultivate peaceful relations with any other?

'Why should we not receive with favour de Gaulle's disapproval of the war which is spreading through Asia?' This same leadership, which is now prepared to play bedfellow to French capitalism and its government, paved the way for vicious attacks on student Trotskyists during a May Day demonstration in France.

De Gaulle's only intention is to stabilise French capitalism. His attacks on the North GRAY Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the withdrawal from the South East Asia Treaty Organisation are not done for the sake of shining moral principles, but to prepare French capitalism for an onslaught on the world markets in the face of stiff international competition.

'The Guardian' editorial on Saturday, May 29, made the position of French Stalinists perfectly clear: ... on foreign policy-with the exception of the French nuclear forceGaullists and Communists think alike?

'Progressive'

Billoux, Frachon and company have finally come home to roost. They are prepared to support the nationalism of de Gaulle, at the expense of building a working - class leadership.

No doubt the French Communist Party leaders think that de Gaulle shows 'progressive tendencies' when he makes approaches to the Soviet Union and should, therefore, be above criticism.

But de Gaulle is only 'progressive' for capitalism and the drive for profit-the Stalinist leadership in France, it would appear, have chosen to follow him in that drive.

"The Guardian' editorial sums it up: 'de Gaulle can give them a new picture of French greatness? (Our emphasis.)

'Since the Communist Party has always been staunchly nationalistic it can have nothing but praise for this revival of French independence.' But »"The Guardian' suggests that the Communist Party may in the forthcoming presidential elections put forward their own candidate since they have to choose between de Gaulle and the 'socialist' candidate Gaston Defferre.

This seems an unlikely contingency. It is more probable they will support Defferre, but this would make no difference to the overall backing of de Gaulle's foreign policy.

TTEMPTS are being made by the Peruvian government to extradite Argentinian revolutionary Hugo Bressano (known under his pen name as Nahuel Moreno) for alleged participation in revolutionary activities in Peru in 1962. le Peru authorities allege that Bressano had a hand in helping the movement around peasant leader Hugo Blanco in the Cuzco region. They also allege that Bressano was involved in a bank raid organised by a Peruvian guerrilla in Lima in 1962.

None of the Peruvian defendants involved in these same cases, among them Hugo Blanco, have been brought to trial. It is felt that the support for these men, who are still in jail, is so great that the authorities dare not try them. (At the time of Blanco's arrest, the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter carried out an intensive campaign for his release.)

The Treaty of Montevideo rules out extradition for political 'crimes, but the Peruvian authorities are still pressing ahead for extradition. In the lower court the judge upheld Bressano's defence under the Treaty. But more recently, the federal appeals court has reversed this decision. le defence appealed further to the Argentine Supreme Court, but their decision is not yet known.

successful action by the Peruvian government would set a dangerous precedent in Latin America. It would lay open other revolutionaries like Bressano, a leading figure in the movement around the socialist weekly 'Palabra Obrero' in Bueno Aires, open to extradition by any reactionary regimes, who could then leave the political 'criminals' to rot in jail along with those other fighters of the 1962 struggle in Peru.

THE strike of 800 immigrant workers at the Courtaulds factory in Preston has struck fear into the hearts of the employers and their scribes in the national press.

The strikers are mainly Indian, Pakistani and West Indian, working in the tyrecord spinning department at the Red Scar works. The dispute began on Monday, May 24, when the 'A' group workers were instructed to work 1½ machines instead of the one machine previously worked.

The 'A' group workers staged a sit-down strike and were quickly joined by men in other departments.

Courtaulds declare that their action was in accordance with an agreement reached with the Transport and General Workers' Union for an insulting 3d. per hour wage increase.

The strikers emphatically insist that they were never consulted about this agreement.

The branch secretary and the shop steward were present at a meeting on April 26 when 400 men voted unanimously not to accept any proposals for working 1½ machines per man.

Deal a blow

The strike is clearly a strike of workers against speed-up. It deals a blow at all those employers who seek to use coloured workers as cheap labour on the dirtiest and most dangerous types of work.

Above all it gives a clear answer to all those racialists who seek to separate workers with a coloured skin from the rest of the working class.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the employing class should fear the repercussions of this strike.

In an attempt to stop the strike spreading and winning NCB tenants form association "THE Coal Board is not a social welfare association, said a Coal Board official to a meeting of angry tenants from the miners' estate in Widnes, Lancashire last Tuesday night.

There was a barrage of questions and sharp comments from miners and their wives, whose rents are being increased by amounts varying between 11s. and 14s. 6d. a week, at the xeeting called by The Newsletter.

In answer to questions as to why tenants had been suddenly informed of the rise in a curt letter, the Coal Board officials declared several times that the mining area officials had been given the schedules in advance.

They said the rise was in accordance with an agreement between the National Coal Board and the union in 1952.

Tenants left the officials in no doubt about their feelings. After the Coal Board officials went the meeting discussed future action and formed a tenants' committee.

This will link up with other estates and appeal for support from miners at the local pits, where the tenants work.

A demonstration was planned for the Lancashire miners' gala on June 12. the support of white workers, the press last week-end launched a filthy campaign by declaring this a 'race strike'.

A story was pumped into the Sunday papers that the Preston strikers were to break away from the TGWU and form a coloured workers' union.

The press were assisted in this by the disgraceful statement of the shop steward that the strike was a racial issue.

The strike committee told The Newsletter reporter that this was a distortion which they emphatically denounced.

They are bitter about the treachery of the TGWU. These workers flocked into the union during the past year and they are still determined to fight it out within the TGWU.

Apology

They have written to shop steward demanding apology.

Their letter says:

'The Action Committee of Courtaulds workers, representing A, B, C and D groups, have noticed with regret the deplorable and calumnious statement published in your name in the *Lancashire Evening Post' calling our legitimate strike as "racial.

'We declare that the statement is nothing but an attempt, and even a flagrant one, sidetrack the main issue, which makes nonsense of so-called justice and fair play for which the trade union movement is supposed to exist.

'The committee demand an unqualified apology in public within three days from receipt of the letter and failing that would advise its members to cease membership of the so-called Transport and General Workers' Union.' The committee explained that this letter was written in the heat of the moment. They do feel angry with the union. But they are still confident that their action can defeat Courtaulds and as a result they intend to re-elect their own shop stewards and fight for changes in the union branch.

Refused

At a stormy meeting on Tuesday the strikers refused to accept the advise of W. Heywood, regional group secretary of the TGWU, to return to work on the agreement of 1½ machines to allow negotiations to begin.

Certainly the organisation and conduct of the strike is on a very high level. The freshness with which these workers have organised could teach many lessons to trade unionists in other industries.

Messages of support and donations should be urgently sent to 'Courtaulds Action Committee, 4 Sergeant Street, Preston, Lancashire.

LATE NEWS: The strike committee denies reports in the press that violence has been used in the strike. This is another attempt, say the committee, to stop other workers giving support to the strike.

Smethwick factory segregation have segregated entrances and toilet facilities for immigrant and white workers..

Reports allege that separate entrances, washing facilities, drying rooms, lockers and lavatories are to be labelled 'European' 'or 'Indian'.

This factory, which is to employ about 500 workers, is now being built by the Midland Motor Cylinder Company, a subsidiary of the Birmid Group.

Smethwick's Tory-dominated council is reported to have approved the plans, and the local organiser of the union chiefly involved, the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers, has so far raised no opposition.

Protests have come from inmigrant workers' associations, which have announced their intention of "taking the matter to the Labour government.

This new move towards segregation follows a familiar pattern. Assertions that 'this is no colour bar' are followed by others that everything is in fact being done in the interests of the immigrant workers.

Tory MP for Smethwick, Peter Griffiths, thinks the firm "is to be congratulated'.

Such a move towards factory apartheid should be fought vigorously by the trade union movement. Pressed Steel - Emerson plan in given shop stewards on April 13 to withdraw all support for the operation of the Emerson bonus plan at the Pressed Steel factory, Linwood, attempts are being made by the management to get the stewards to continue with the plan in a revised form.

At a meeting held with the shop stewards, Dr. Gray, the industrial consultant employed by Emerson Consultants Ltd., who were the originators of the plan, said that 'everyone has his own ideas of what went wrong' under the original plan.

What went wrong for the workers at Linwood was that through the bonus scheme they allege they lost at least f2 per week in wages.

For the management what went wrong was that they were Claims are made that Brown 'intervened' by telephoning B. I. Bartlett, chairman of the employers' labour negotiating committee, telling him he should not have agreed to a negotiated settlement on the print workers' pay claim.

He is reported to have been 'disappointed that a deadlock position had not been created'.

An agreement, which could give 120,000 print workers employed in general printing and on provincial papers an immediate rise of 10s. a week, and another 12s. next January, is now being balloted on by nine unions.

Six shillings is a cost of living bonus. The actual wage increase is 3} per cent. With the allowance for the cost of living this increase is brought up to 54 per cent.

Brown is reported to have claimed that with pay and holiday proposals already pres on read hand agreed betore the prices and will receive double the level of 3} per cent allowed under the policy.

Increase

However, Brown himself, along with other members of Parliament, voted for a large increase for all MPs last year.

It has also been reported in the press that those who sit on the Incomes Board to consider wages, receive wages far above those of the printing workers —the most notable example is Bob Willis of the National Graphical Association who now receives £6,500 a year.

The statement by NATSOPA alleges that when the employers' representative had indicated that the settlement had followed the general line of policy as set out in the White Paper, the Minister (Brown) had replied that the printers unable, despite the co-operation of a number of leading stewards, to fool the Pressed Steel men for long.

The management have announced that they will prepare a new version of Emerson for the shop stewards' approval. Some small amendments can be expected which will split up the factory into 'regions' for earning bonus which may be paid weekly or fortnightly. Its effect will remain the same.

Experiences of the Pressed Steel workers during the operation of the Emerson Plan should finally explode the myths, fondly held by the right wing of the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the leaders of the Communist Party, that if only enough factories were directed into Scofland then unemployment would cease to threaten and wages would improve.

By April this year the bonus pool was £100,000 in deficit and only 5td. in the pound bonus was paid. The firm had also slashed the percentage by which it calculated the bonus ratios from 49 per cent to 35 per cent.

The circular continues: 'The executive council at their meeting this week had to decide whether they should withhold this information and these allegations, or whether they should circulate the factual matters that had been before them to the membership' The Department of Economic Affairs has remained silent on the allegations.

But it is a well-known fact that Brown, with the connivance of employers throughout the country, is desperately trying to hold wages down. At all costs he wants to avoid any precedent on a wages struggle being set in a section of industry.

Afraid

The busmen have been offered a 7 per cent increase; there can be little doubt that Brown is afraid any more such settlements will give workers in other sections of industry confidence to press forward with claims.

The disclosures of an alleged Brown-King pact reveal just how far the Labour government is prepared to go in support of big business.

Brown is one-time industrial adviser to the 'Daily Mirror' (one of the papers owned by Cecil King)—a post he relinquished before the General Election. He was working for the paper at the time of the vicious attack on an effective work-to-rule by busmen.

Could it be that the services rendered by Brown on the 'Daily Mirror are now being repaid by Cecil King? The trade union movement must demand an answer and call for a halt to the continuous support the Labour leaders give to capitalism.

new form?

Scottish Correspondent This ratio is the basis for fixing the amount put down for monthly labour costs. The factory therefore made a bonus under the Emerson Plan, if the actual labour costs during that month showed a less figure.

The firm had therefore lopped 14 per cent off what it calculated as the wages and salaries for the factory over a period of 18 months. Workers on the car body track claim that as a result they have dropped as much as f12 per month in wages.

A labour pool was created into which all workers who became redundant were put. They were then to either take any job which was offered them, taking also the lowered rate of pay where this applied, or the sack.

A points scheme operated, which permitted men with senior rating under points based on service, time-keeping, etc., to claim any job from men with a lower points rating.

It was this scheme which caused the strikes which have gone on in the factory since January and which caused at one stage the summonsing, by the COLLIERY under-officials in South Wales have ended their one time, following the setting up of a Ministry of Labour inquiry into 'discipline' which could lead to a big attack on the workers in this industry.

The inquiry demand has been repeated insistently by the area secretary of the officials union (the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers), Mr. E. White.

The men have themselves made it quite clear that there is far more involved in this strike than the mere issue of the 'swearing incident' at Deep Duffryn Colliery, : Mountain Ash, which sparked it off.

Their criticisms of the National Coal Board have been that, while demanding that they should maintain more effective *discipline', it has not given them On Saturday, Mr. White dec- Foyles sufficient support.

lared that this strike was 'the last chance' to end the 'anarchy and indiscipline' that he claims reigns in the South Wales' coalfield.

REJECTED

It was on Saturday that the National Union of Mineworkers South Wales area executive rejected a 'peace plan' put forward by Lord Robens himself.

This plan is reported to have included the restoration of the deputy to the training area of the mine where the original incident occurred, and from which he was removed after an NCB inquiry.

But while rejecting this, the men accepted in principle the letter previously sent to the two unions by the NCB calling for an inquiry.

This acceptance of the inquiry call has since been repeated by the NUM area secretary, Dai Francis.

Even if it is nominally limited to the Deep Duffryn incident, it will be used as the basis for a drive to force greater disciplinary management, of half the police force in the district to arrest workers who defied the firm's lock-out.

Profits for 1964 reached record high at £6,188,000 as compared with £1,450,000 in 1963. (Pressed Steel workers should note, as they tot up their tax deductions, that these profits were tax free in both years.) Shareholders received a total dividend of 35 per cent, plus a bonus of one 5s. share issued for each share held.

Now there are more opportunities for profit-making by Pressed Steel with the new contract from the Chrysler controlled French firm of Simca.

The management have now suggested an immediate bonus of between 3 per cent to 10 per cent (it is as vague as that), backdated to May 24. The fact is that this is likely to be at least fl below what was being earned 18 months ago.

This time there must be no time lost in bringing to the whole factory all the details of any scheme which is being thought up.

Full factory meetings must be held to discuss all the management's proposals and alternative plans drawn up. The factory must be united for an all-out struggle to regain the ground it has lost in wage levels. Newsletter Correspondent control of miners by the Coal Board and to attack the rank and file in the NUM.

This paves the way for increased speed-up and output per miner, which can only lead to unemployment and further neglect of safety precautions.

The attitude of the NUM leadership is in line with their general acceptance of the capitalist policies of the Coal Board.

It was exemplified by area president Whitehead's statement at a special coalfield conference that 'for six years' he had fought to prevent 'a mass stoppage in this coalfield'.

None of the young workers involved in the strike have ever taken action before. Their militant action is showing the way for all the miserably-paid shopworkers in London.

Their determination is not matched by the officials. Callinan, London Divisional Officer of USDAW, assured the press on Monday that the union didn't want to hurt Foyles, and that they wanted a speedy conclusion to the strike.

No proper reports to the strikers are being made and no financial statement has yet been given of the support received.

General Secretary, Alfred Allen, was to have travelled to London on Wednesday to take part in the negotiations, but he did not turn up.

But the management at Foyle's has so far refused to budge an inch and a plan put forward by the union on Tuesday was completely rejected.

In the weeks since the union conference April, union officials have found recruitment almost impossible and in London many officials have had to spend their full time trying to win back to the union the hundreds of members who resigned after the rejection of the wages' resolution.

To do this they have promised that they will stand firm for the full £1 wage application rently before the employers.

Shopworkers in all trades are watching the performance of the union closely, and this, combined with the determination and fight of the young strikers at Foyle's, is making it difficult for the union to make a direct sell-out.

The militant action of these 100 young strikers, from all over Europe as well as from London, is showing the way hundreds of thousands of workers who are living at subsistence They must have the full support of all trade unionists. We urge all Newsletter readers to give as generously as possible. Money and resolutions of support should be sent to Mr. M. Webb, Secretary Foyles Strike Committee, Dilke House, Malet Street, London, W.C.1.

Published by Newsletter, 186A Clapham High Street, London. S.W.4