AN OPEN LETTER TO THE TU

Normanton Town Club Sunday, Sept. 4, 10.30 a.m.

Speakers:

Norman Harding Socialist Labour League Fred Appleyard Normanton Tenants' Association Dave Ashby nat. chairman Young Socialists Oppose the rent rebate scheme Oppose the wage freeze and unemployment House of Commons Comrade, August 24, 1966 Irial by Daily Telegraph' The secretary of my constituency has just drawn my attention to a piece about me on the front of the "Newsletter', . August 13, concerning my action on the government's Prices and Incomes Bill.

I am finding my new life as an MP exacting enough-plus a family bereavement-without having to put up with people like you.

Your story is, as you probably now know, inaccurate. Perhaps you would be kind enough to publish this in the same prominent place that you put your original.

1: should also be glad to recewe a back copy wherein you applaud my unconditional support of the seamen's strike.

The fact and content of your August 13 issue is a display of left-wing disorder. What is sad is that my local lads of the SLL are being made to be a laughingstock.

Yours sincerely, Sid Bidwell.

OUR 1 Comrade, The article you complain about in the Newsletter' of August 13 was in our opinion fair comment. In relation to your attitude towards the Prices and Incomes Bill', the paragraphs of which you complain are as follows:

It is reported in the 'Daily Telegraph', Thursday, August 11, that Mr. Sidney Bidwell, Member of Parliament for Southall, voted with the government on the Prices and Incomes Bill...

TE what the "Daily Telegraph"

Political Correspondent reports about Mr. Bidwell voting for the Bill in Parliament is true, there is no further need for us to comment about the role of this MP who is described as a Labour "left". It speaks for itself?

Of course, we will publish your letter. We are pleased that you object to the "Telegraph' report, although your letter does not specifically state what your actions were in relation to the Bill. Did you, for example, abstain like the rest of the 'left' MPs? And it you did, was that a correct decision?

It seems a long time ago since you were a leading member of the London Trotskyist movement. At that time you fought for Marxist principles, especially during the Second World War.

You were entirely and correctly opposed to all forms of 'abstentionist neutralism' so far as the class struggle was concerned. As a railway worker you saw the struggle from the standpoint of the lowest-paid workers and you were utterly opposed to all those fakers, especially the parliamentary ones, who tried to play an in between game between the working class and the employers.

Remember 1944, when the Churchill war-time coalition government of Tories and Labour traitors introduced Regulation IAA which tied the trade union more closely in the field of industrial disputes to the capitalist state? You weren't neutral then. You, together with the Trotskyists, roundly denounced the renegade Labour MPs who voted for such a measure.

How can you 'abstain' and be "neutral' on the Prices and Incomes Bill today when amongst those who are being hardest hit are RHODESIA The Wilson, Watson, IE I ntroduction of the Constitutional Amendment Bill hodesia's parliament and the breaking off of informal A letter from precisely the railwaymen lower-paid workers?

Well then, why did you not vote against the Bill and call upon the labour movement to oppose Wilson and Company who have betrayed the working class and tied the unions to the capitalist state far more firmly than ever Churchili and the Tories were able to do in war-time?

How can any socialist justify a position of 'neutral abstention' in such a situation?

And how, may we ask, did you manage to become an MP in the first place?

Everyone knows that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a socialist candidate to pass through the selection committee at Transport House. Yet you did it even when some of your politically closest colleagues, such as John Palmer, were rejected.

Surely you must have been regarded by the right wing as a 'safe man'-someone who! had, like your old friend Jock Haston, sown his 'political wild oats' when he was young but had now become 'sensible'.

Perhaps you would explain another matter, that is centred around the question of racialism.

Is it true that you support the government's Immigration Bill? Did you make concessions to the racialists during your parliamen. tary election campaign? Is it true that you were expelled from your association with the lony. Chit state capitalist group, International Socialism, because of this?

The Southall branch of the SLL has nothing : to fear from your activities, or your opinions.

Like the Socialist Labour League as a whole it bases its activity on the principles of Marxism and the Transitional Progranume of the Fourth International.

This is what you used to do. It is not us who have changed but you.

Take another political look at yourself Bidwell-perhaps, after all, it is you who is a laughing stock. You are on trial not before the 'Daily Telegraph', many of whose Tory policies Wilson supports, but before the working class, coloured and white.

-Editor.

hundred years.

Wright farce class.

MICHAEL BANDA talks with the British government has exposed for the umpteenth time the hypocrisy and dissimulation of the Wilson-Watson-Wright cabal.

If Wilson thought that by re- desire socialism. placing Bottomley with Bowden he was going to. ingratiate himself with N. Jan Smith, he has learnt differently.

Every concession only helps to whet Smith's insatiable appetite for power. Immediately after defeat the fascist menace. the Javelin jet squadrons were withdrawn from Zambia, Lardner Burke, the Rhodesian regime's attorney general, boasted about shooting boat loads of 'terrorists' on the Zambesi.

RUTHLESS MEASURES Hitler.

Not satisfied with the powers bestowed on him by the emergency regulations, Smith wants to introduce even more ruthless measures under the provisions of the Constitutional Amendment Bill. Hitler?

Most important of these is the power of preventive detention and the creation of African tribal Westminster. courts.

What happens now?

Kenneth Kaunda, the blowhard, and Sir Albert Margai, the Labour Government. silk-suited one from Sierra Leone, have made demagogic attacks on Wilson and Rhodesia, but, like all bourgeois-nationalists, do not propose any action which might embarrass Wilson seriously.

Wilson, predictably, issued a statement that the talks had only Labour governmentafter What comes been adjourned and that pressure would be exerted on South Africa to enforce sanctions against Rhodesia!

Sanctions have hurt Rhodesia's economy, but have failed in their primary objective.

Rhodesia's imports have fallen leaders. by 30 per cent, and her nonseasonal exports have dropped 17 per cent this year-inclusive of her tobacco export falls, Rhodesia for 14 years, we went through has lost approximately f45 million in foreign exchange in a year.

SOUTH AFRICAN AID Business activity has dropped by between 12 per cent and 15 per cent and must lead to unemployment soon.

If Rhodesia's economy has re- credited they will still own and mained buoyant, despite severe financial shortages, it is mainly because South Africa, in her own Britain. interests, has helped considerably.

The logic of this is that Rhodesia's economy is becoming more and more integrated with that of South Africa.

Whether Smith will permit this is another matter.

A decision on Rhodesia cannot be postponed much longer now.

If Wilson's Fabian policy does ism from its present crisis not work, then it is quite probable that the United Nations will inherited unemployment from step in.

Whether Wilson, Smith, or the United Nations win-the Africans creates it. will be the losers.

The only alternative to another Congo is the armed overthrow of Smith by the African workers and peasants. Prices and Incomes Bill.